Ok so this comment started out as a reply, but turned into something else when I noticed that the article does not actually say anything about religous leaders, or asking there opinion. It states the following "The idea is currently the subject of an ethical review "
So it's a question of Ethics, not Religion. Some may argue that the two are intertwined. For all we know they submitted it to a panel of their scientific peers.
It seems more likely that they recognize that what they are trying to do effects the future of all humanity: "...the scientists involved say no attempt will be made to proceed with the daring experiment until there has been a full and public debate." and respect the fact that maybe it should be humanity's decision, not thiers.
The article states that there may be some debate on the subject that has religous overtones: "The prospect of "scientists playing God", as some will undoubtedly see it, is bound to provoke some fierce arguments. "
But all that says is someone somewhere might do some bible thumping.
note that the majority of humanity is religous, therefore if the decision is made by humanity, it may end up being decided on religous grounds.
Where does it say in any religious text, "Thouh shalt not create life in a laboratory!"
Very interesting. I wonder. The first commandment is "I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other God before Me." (or something similar, it probably gets lost in the translation =) )
So, if you are a scientist "playing god" (which if I remember correctly is the problem religously), but still think of the God as your God, then you are abiding by God's commandment, yes? no?
So if you do create life, and pass the first commandment onto your little bacterium by etching them with an electron microscope onto tiny grantie flakes, is the commandment transitive? a=>b, b=>c therefore, a=>c?
I'm really not surprised about the opening day so far. Red Hat was the first big deal like this, and all the people who missed out on that one are trying to jump in on this one.
But anyways, althought this situation is a good one that makes a lot of people happy, is still needs a least a little ribbing... So onto the Fake News:
Austin (Reuters) - As part of the ever increasing wave of Linux IPO's to hit wall street this year, linux hardware maker Joe Smarty announced a filing with the SEC to take his company "Joe's Appliance Shack and Pager Hut" public. The company will trade as JSHK.
"We're very confident about the stability of our business and our future product success." States Joe. "For example, take a look at our Linux Toaster. It makes 8 perfect pieces of toast a minute, our competitors can only get 4 pieces using WinCE. We made 20 G's off that baby this year alone."
When assistant manager Steven "Lord Gorth" Ackerman was asked what the new money would be used for, he had this reply: "well, we're looking to expand. Buy a bigger building, hire some new people. The toaster was great, it makes damn good toast, but the market place is so broad! And so much of it is just not being addressed at this time. With another 10, 20 or 5000 coders we could be making refrigerators that double as Quake servers!!! I'd want that. Wouldn't you want that? Everyone needs one of those. Not to mention what we could do with coffee makers..."
There has been some worry however that the hype surrounding IPOs would inflate the market capital of Joe's Appliance Shack hundreds, even millions, of times above the worth of what is still essentially a toaster company.
Joe has no problem sharing his future company strategy with worried investors. "Don't worry," says Joe, "Once we hit a market cap of 3 Billion, we'll buy AOL. Maybe Disney."
I understand your points. This is a difficult subject to explain appropriately...
My fear is this. People in our society have a wide wide range of skills, capabilities, intellects, and physical builds. Our society is based upon this.
I am also working on the assumption that there is a convergence point beyond which the human brain and body cannot go. This is why there isn't anyone with an IQ of 600, and no one will run a 30 second mile within our lifetimes.
What happens when suddenly within two or three generations, that range is greatly diminished? Say that an IQ of 170 was considered "dumb", but 175 was average, and 180 was brilliant?
If the human race were to slowly evolve in such a manner that these ranges diminished (I believe that there is evidence that this is occuring), then society would slowly change apropriately.
But if suddenly everyone was as brilliant as Einstein, I think there would be some serious problems. I think society would seriously break down. Currently, not everyone can be a rocket scientist for example. But what happens if everyone could? Why would they bother doing a distasteful job? Out of duty to society? (we're talking millions of people here) At gunpoint?
I am all for the evolution of the human mind, body, and race as a whole. But this is something that takes eons, not a generation.
The problem is, our society is based on the fact that not everybody is attractive and intelligent. I really dislike saying this by the way...
To quote the Judge in Caddyshack "The world needs ditch diggers too."
Is some gorgeous person with an IQ of 165 going to dig a ditch? What about collectying the garbage? Fight a war? What do you do then, assign everyone a job at birth? Hold a lottery? There'd be a riot. Even gorgeous people look bad when they have broken noses.
I fully support every parents' right and desire to have healthy, happy, beautiful children. But sometimes it just doesn't happen.
To use the genome to remove pain and suffering is wonderful. Everyone has a right to be healthy. Otherwise we might as well just stop all medical research and turn all the hospitals into faith healing centers.
To use it to change your children cosmetically before birth, when you don't even know how they will turn out, is selfish.
Due to the press response when Back Orifice came out (frenzy?), everyone who has enough knowledge/need/desire/basic interest to pick up a copy of Dr Dobbs has heard about Back Orifice, and recognize it as a security problem. On the other hand, most people have not heard of SMS, and if they have, do not consider it a security risk.
In my opinion it was just an author choosing a well known example for his article. By doing this he made the article that much easier to understanhd by the common reader.
(BTW, the issue of dobbs in question is rather good. Especially the article about Elliptic Curve Cryptography. It made my brain hurt a little, but thats the breaks.)
(Before I go into this, I use XEmacs (win32 port at work) and love the command line)
There is an ever increasing number of businesses that depend on java for their e-business/enterprise applications. As computer speeds increase, and the core java tech gets better, the old standby argument of "Java is slow" is moot.
My point is, in my opinion, there is no way that microsoft can kill Java anymore. Java is here to stay. If mocrosoft is really dumping java, there will be a rush by other companies to fill the void with tools and software, so that they can get a slice of the java $$ pie.
Maybe java does not fit in with Microsoft's core technologies road map, or if you're paranoid you might say that they realized that they "lost" and are jumping on XML becuase it's the next great thing. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion.
Microsoft has always been about COM and DCOM (which really aren't that bad, except for the whole cross-platform thing). According to the article, apparently XML gives them the ability to execute COM objects remotely. The objects themselves may not be cross-platform, but the interface to them is or will be. Everyone benefits.
(Hopefully this means I won't hear anyone complaining about microsofts java changes. I agree that it was a bad thing for them to do, but the story was getting old after the 4th year of hearing it...)
So this is kind of long, but i'm trying to get a lot of background information accross... The subject sums up my point pretty well.
years and years ago when I was an undergrad at CMU, I did software design for wearable computers. To the best of my knowledge wearables started out as darpa/NSF funded University research projects, with the main two centers being CMU EDRC and MIT Media Lab. Having worked at one and seen lectures by the other, the MIT boys seem to be driven by how much oompf you can put into a box and the effects of living with/in one on life, and the CMU boys are driven by industrial mission specific design. Both are valid and necessary areas of research.
I am not an expert in the field, nor do I claim to be. I do, however, have more experience with it than 99% of the population.
The key job of the wearable computer is, and always will be information access.
Will someone find a way to run quake 5 on one? Probably. But that is a secondary or tertiary concern.
The largest problem facing the wearable is the physical user interface. Everyone seems to be tossing faster hardware and more software against the usability problem, and I feel this is the incorrect approach. The OS really does not matter at all.
In my opinion the correct process should be: Industrial Design and then GUI.
I am completely unimpressed with IBM wearable. Why? I saw essentially the same interface on the Vu-Man 1 at CMU in 1993.
One of the best designs that I have seen was the Vuman-2r and 3 (which I coded for), which involved three buttons spaced around a large dial. The idea was you used the buttons to select, and the dial to scroll through information and select options to further direct your search. The dial was big, designed so that it could still be used if you were wearing work gloves and the wearble was *inside* the side cargo pocket found on miltary fatigues. The ID guys came up with the design, the software guys were left out of the process becuase they couldn't think outside the box.
The software was then designed around these capabilities. And it worked. form design, interface and software were designed from the ground up for the specific tasks and environment where the wearable would excell.
According to a work aquantance of mine, comdex the info kiosks were apparently run by people with wearables. He is convinced that he could have found information faster in a book, than by asking the wearable info centers.
Voice recognition seems to be the holy grail of wearable interfaces, but people seem to spend more time on it than on the industrial design of the box. A good physical interface will always be faster and cheaper than voice recognition. If it were not, then why do we still have hot keys so many years after the mouse was debuted?
IBM has a commerical out with a guy sitting in a public square in europe trading stocks and navigating through excel using voice recognition. Apparently he does quite well in the market that day. I wish I could have been sitting next to him so I could hear exactly what his personal private business was.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
The Linux emulator makes sense. Check out their VM/ESA web page.
But on running linux as the base OS...
I remember interviewing with some OS/390 guys a while back... One of the interviewers worked in the OS messaging/IPC group. If I remember correctly, they had a very large number of people (around 100?) that did nothing but work on messaging and IPC.
The point is, OS/390 is a very very complex system for very very complex hardware. ja?
And the rumors expect to have linux ported to bare metal relatively soon? How many people would that have taken? How many years?
Here's a abbreviated list of S/390 G5/G6 Features:
Capacity Upgrade on Demand Open Systems Adapter 2 (OSA-2) OSA Express Express GbE Dual cryptographic coprocessors FICON channel 100MB/sec full-duplex S/390 architecture Clustered systems Parallel Sysplex clustering technology Sysplex Timer® Integrated Coupling Migration Facility (ICMF) Coupling Facility Control Code Coupling links (HiPerLinks) Internal Coupling (IC) Channel Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex Integrated Cluster Bus (ICB) Internal Coupling Facility (ICF) Shared ICFs and CPs Dynamic ICF Expansion Transparent ICF Sparing Dynamic CF Dispatching Enhanced Parallel Sysplex Clock Functions VM/ESA Virtual Parallel Sysplex
To the best of my knowledge, most of this stuff is outside the scope of the linux source tree. We're talking a large amount of work here to make linux take a moderate advantage of the underlying hardware. If they've done it, more power to them. But is just seems to be rumors to me.
And what about all the OS/390 software, is that being ported to linux also? How long will that take? Or will you only be able to run Domino on it? I guess that my point here is that there seems to be a large amount of good S/390 specific enterprise software out there. To run linux as the base OS would negate the advantages and capabilities of this software.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Hands up everyone out there who lets their email provider know what books they buy from Amazon.
Maybe they just go to their little database (where they record all their sales). Remember that this company is not jsut an email provider, but is *also* a rare book dealer. Their ISP clients are also their rare books clients.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Not that I have ever done anything like this ever. But I think it would happen like this...
Unless you're on crack there is a table of some sort set up for all your equipment and the cables run along it somehow. No-one should be touching your cables, much less dancing on them. The real worry should be if the cable will be given a sharp tug in the wrong direction, not it's transmission quality. You give the RCA a quick yank and you can break/crack the connection solder within your mixer or soundcard. To damage a cable requires cutting it or bending it so sharply as to crack/cut the metal wire within the sheath.
Standard 1/8th to RCA work perfectly fine. They should be treated as well as you treat the rest of your equipment. But they're still cheap. Always carry a spare.
As for laptop sound cards, good, cheap, 16bit DACs have been standard for years. If you can find 20 or 24 bit DAC, even better.
Cueing is a serious issue. Linux can support multiple sound devices. I do not know if other OS's do. Worse comes to worse you use two laptops connection to a mixer. Cueing by default.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So I understand the whole "wait for the linux version" deal.
Apparently there's some way to buy the windows version and get a freebie ticket for the linux version when it is released. So I assume that when this happened in the past (has it?), all the linux people bought the windows version and then "upgraded" when the linux version became available.
Here's my question. If gaming companies are looking for evidence of Linux interest, why are they just looking at sales? Do not the download volumes of linux binaries also matter?
Why can't they say "well, uh there were 153,893 windows versions bought, and then 53,000 people turned in their coupons for the linux version... So we sold 100,893 windows versions."
Or am I missing something?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I must sya that this is the first time of have heard of a service like this, even though there are apparently others (XNOT).
So does this mean that in the future we'll see a lot more of the following: ?
New Mozilla Milestone Release Posted by Roblimo on 03:94 AM November 18th 2019 from the about-time-they-got-around-to-it dept.
Mozilla Milestone 1,256 is out. Go for it! Get it from Sourceforge
(Note: I in no way mean to insult Rob or mozilla. It's just the example I pulled off/. when I wrote this. I like Mozilla. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Similar to, but not quite the same as a quick shot of whiskey. No, mozilla is not on sourceforge.)
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I usually don't believe in this whole "Linux is God" aspect that some members of the Linux community follow, but he does have some pretty good things to say usually (apparently he's a pretty bright kid =) ). So...
Ok boyos. here is what, in my opinion, is the best part of the article:
Torvalds steadfastly maintains the challenge and excitement of producing a operating system--not competition with Microsoft--is what motivates Linux developers. But he couldn't resist a few jabs at the software giant. ... "People see Linux as anti-Microsoft. In the press it looks that way," Torvalds said. "But to me and all the developers I know, it's not me vs. Microsoft." It's a matter of a fun programming project, he said.
There it is in black and white. Some of the most hardcore Linux developers do it becuase they love it. It's a challenge. A problem to be solved. It's fun. The thrill of the chase if you will. And a little bit of pride. It's not the great apocalyptic david and goliath battle some make it out to be. It's about making the best system that they can.
Is competition necessary? Sure. If nothing else it shows places where improvement is needed. Case in point:
"While I was upset about Mindcraft for awhile, I took it as a more positive thing after I got past the personal injury to my pride," Torvalds said. "We just delved into it and fixed it. We took this benchmark as a way of saying, 'Yes, Linux is not the best at everything.' We fixed the area, and as a result, Linux is doing extremely well on those kind of benchmarks."
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
No really. I'm being honest here. Ad's are ever increasingly using computer graphics for one purpose or another, and begining to do really complex scenes with it. And ad agencies are all over New York.
From all I understand, getting into the big time movie houses requires a lot. Joining a smaller group, and doing well with something like tv ads, should allow you to advance into other genres a few years down the road. People watch tv everyday. Imagine walking into an interview and having your future boss say, "you did that? wow."
Maybe ad agency's don't do the work themselves, but sub contract. So find out who they subcontract too, and apply.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
there should still be the option of using a gui interface though. Linux development should get to the point where it is impossible for someone to argue "yeah, well NT has this little dialog box when I right click and Linux doesn't..." If you don't like an option, or don't need it, don't install it. =) "You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
If the book were nothing but a pure regurgitation (kiddies: SAT word for the day), then there could be some issue.
But if take the knowledge that you learned, mull over it, and express "the content of a lecture in his or her own way" as you pointed out, then there should not be any problem.
What about the fact that a number of professors get their lectures from a textbook to begin with? Does not the same concept apply?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I am really starting to believe that linux is not for everybody, nor should it be. Let me clarify.
(keep in mind that this is really only half an idea at this point...)
The users of Linux feel that it is the best solution for our needs. To maintain this status, we will continue to develop the environment so that it will be a better solution in the future.
It's a matter of pride. Do this for Us. If in the process we make the system easier for other ourselves and people to use, so be it.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I think the really interesting point is not that Microsoft and Radio Shack are teaming up and Microsoft will now be everywhere. It is this:
"...found a home connectivity partner, offering not just services but innovative technologies as well.... And customers gain end-to-end connectivity solutions from Microsoft and RadioShack -- brands Americans trust to make technology accessible and understandable."
Where else in the country is there a place to go specifically for "home connectivity"? I know my house is connected, but I did that myself from hacking together DSS, Cable Modem and a nifty little p90 linux gateway. But what do you do when you're joe schmoe, and don't have the knowledge to do it yourself?
Now the average guy may have somewhere to go to get it all in one package. Sprint, Microsoft, RCA, etc... One stop shopping for all the hardware and software to wire your home. All run by a simple Microsoft interface.
This may actually be a good thing. Something my mother could do. What's easier to understand? This: 1) install linux 2) configure network scripts to run dhcpcd 3) Setup dhcpd sever on eth1 4) ipchains -q/z ^4 198.162.1.1:24;=) 5) debug terminal 6) and the list goes on...
or this: 1) push power 2) push start button. 3) Something bad happens, repeat.
Us dorks might have Architecture issues with the system, but the average guy just wants it to work.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I liked most of the questions, except for the last one. I get the point behind the question, I just think a better example could have been used...
As I read the question all I could think of was this: 1) for the cost to develop and build each of those boxes, how much FOOD could have been air dropped in its place? 2) So the soldiers come in, beat you senseless, take your food, and yet leave you with a capability to connect to the internet? Unless the magic little box is truely wireless with its own nuclear battery, and web server you're outta luck. And wouldn't it just suck if the oppresive goverment could track its broadcasts?
Look, I'm a practical person. The situation described in the question is highly impractical.
Could someone please come up with a better way of phrasing the question?
Maybe something like, "once again you see soldiers beating up the guy accross the street from you and taking his food... You have the ability to connect the web, how can you get the word out? (Bonus: do so without the opressive dictatorship deciding to beat you senseless too)" Same point, more believeable situation.
In the mean time go to The Hunger Site where by using the power of the current web, you can get food donated to starving kids around the world.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
1) reading the documentation 2) reading the docs written by other headbangers 3) taking notes while headbanging (experience) 4) headbanging in groups with knowledable help nearby (College level ECE lab courses)
An ECE degree helps, but a lot of knowledge can be learned from just the textbooks. GO to a good ECE schools web page, find a class that seems interesting and read the text for that class. Although you would miss out on the Lab projects...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Slashdot Mirror
Ok so this comment started out as a reply, but turned into something else when I noticed that the article does not actually say anything about religous leaders, or asking there opinion. It states the following "The idea is currently the subject of an ethical review "
So it's a question of Ethics, not Religion. Some may argue that the two are intertwined. For all we know they submitted it to a panel of their scientific peers.
It seems more likely that they recognize that what they are trying to do effects the future of all humanity:
"...the scientists involved say no
attempt will be made to proceed with the daring
experiment until there has been a full and public
debate."
and respect the fact that maybe it should be humanity's decision, not thiers.
The article states that there may be some debate on the subject that has religous overtones:
"The prospect of "scientists playing God", as
some will undoubtedly see it, is bound to
provoke some fierce arguments. "
But all that says is someone somewhere might do some bible thumping.
note that the majority of humanity is religous, therefore if the decision is made by humanity, it may end up being decided on religous grounds.
Where does it say in any religious text, "Thouh shalt not create life in a laboratory!"
Very interesting. I wonder. The first commandment is "I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other God before Me." (or something similar, it probably gets lost in the translation =) )
So, if you are a scientist "playing god" (which if I remember correctly is the problem religously), but still think of the God as your God, then you are abiding by God's commandment, yes? no?
So if you do create life, and pass the first commandment onto your little bacterium by etching them with an electron microscope onto tiny grantie flakes, is the commandment transitive? a=>b, b=>c therefore, a=>c?
Hmmmm....
I'm really not surprised about the opening day so far. Red Hat was the first big deal like this, and all the people who missed out on that one are trying to jump in on this one.
But anyways, althought this situation is a good one that makes a lot of people happy, is still needs a least a little ribbing... So onto the Fake News:
Austin (Reuters) - As part of the ever increasing wave of Linux IPO's to hit wall street this year, linux hardware maker Joe Smarty announced a filing with the SEC to take his company "Joe's Appliance Shack and Pager Hut" public. The company will trade as JSHK.
"We're very confident about the stability of our business and our future product success." States Joe. "For example, take a look at our Linux Toaster. It makes 8 perfect pieces of toast a minute, our competitors can only get 4 pieces using WinCE. We made 20 G's off that baby this year alone."
When assistant manager Steven "Lord Gorth" Ackerman was asked what the new money would be used for, he had this reply: "well, we're looking to expand. Buy a bigger building, hire some new people. The toaster was great, it makes damn good toast, but the market place is so broad! And so much of it is just not being addressed at this time. With another 10, 20 or 5000 coders we could be making refrigerators that double as Quake servers!!! I'd want that. Wouldn't you want that? Everyone needs one of those. Not to mention what we could do with coffee makers..."
There has been some worry however that the hype surrounding IPOs would inflate the market capital of Joe's Appliance Shack hundreds, even millions, of times above the worth of what is still essentially a toaster company.
Joe has no problem sharing his future company strategy with worried investors. "Don't worry," says Joe, "Once we hit a market cap of 3 Billion, we'll buy AOL. Maybe Disney."
I understand your points. This is a difficult subject to explain appropriately...
My fear is this. People in our society have a wide wide range of skills, capabilities, intellects, and physical builds. Our society is based upon this.
I am also working on the assumption that there is a convergence point beyond which the human brain and body cannot go. This is why there isn't anyone with an IQ of 600, and no one will run a 30 second mile within our lifetimes.
What happens when suddenly within two or three generations, that range is greatly diminished? Say that an IQ of 170 was considered "dumb", but 175 was average, and 180 was brilliant?
If the human race were to slowly evolve in such a manner that these ranges diminished (I believe that there is evidence that this is occuring), then society would slowly change apropriately.
But if suddenly everyone was as brilliant as Einstein, I think there would be some serious problems. I think society would seriously break down. Currently, not everyone can be a rocket scientist for example. But what happens if everyone could? Why would they bother doing a distasteful job? Out of duty to society? (we're talking millions of people here) At gunpoint?
I am all for the evolution of the human mind, body, and race as a whole. But this is something that takes eons, not a generation.
The problem is, our society is based on the fact that not everybody is attractive and intelligent.
I really dislike saying this by the way...
To quote the Judge in Caddyshack "The world needs ditch diggers too."
Is some gorgeous person with an IQ of 165 going to dig a ditch? What about collectying the garbage? Fight a war? What do you do then, assign everyone a job at birth? Hold a lottery? There'd be a riot. Even gorgeous people look bad when they have broken noses.
I fully support every parents' right and desire to have healthy, happy, beautiful children. But sometimes it just doesn't happen.
To use the genome to remove pain and suffering is wonderful. Everyone has a right to be healthy. Otherwise we might as well just stop all medical research and turn all the hospitals into faith healing centers.
To use it to change your children cosmetically before birth, when you don't even know how they will turn out, is selfish.
Due to the press response when Back Orifice came out (frenzy?), everyone who has enough knowledge/need/desire/basic interest to pick up a copy of Dr Dobbs has heard about Back Orifice, and recognize it as a security problem. On the other hand, most people have not heard of SMS, and if they have, do not consider it a security risk.
In my opinion it was just an author choosing a well known example for his article. By doing this he made the article that much easier to understanhd by the common reader.
(BTW, the issue of dobbs in question is rather good. Especially the article about Elliptic Curve Cryptography. It made my brain hurt a little, but thats the breaks.)
(Before I go into this, I use XEmacs (win32 port at work) and love the command line)
There is an ever increasing number of businesses that depend on java for their e-business/enterprise applications. As computer speeds increase, and the core java tech gets better, the old standby argument of "Java is slow" is moot.
My point is, in my opinion, there is no way that microsoft can kill Java anymore. Java is here to stay. If mocrosoft is really dumping java, there will be a rush by other companies to fill the void with tools and software, so that they can get a slice of the java $$ pie.
Maybe java does not fit in with Microsoft's core technologies road map, or if you're paranoid you might say that they realized that they "lost" and are jumping on XML becuase it's the next great thing. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion.
Microsoft has always been about COM and DCOM (which really aren't that bad, except for the whole cross-platform thing). According to the article, apparently XML gives them the ability to execute COM objects remotely. The objects themselves may not be cross-platform, but the interface to them is or will be. Everyone benefits.
(Hopefully this means I won't hear anyone complaining about microsofts java changes. I agree that it was a bad thing for them to do, but the story was getting old after the 4th year of hearing it...)
So this is kind of long, but i'm trying to get a lot of background information accross... The subject sums up my point pretty well.
years and years ago when I was an undergrad at CMU, I did software design for wearable computers.
To the best of my knowledge wearables started out as darpa/NSF funded University research projects, with the main two centers being CMU EDRC and MIT Media Lab. Having worked at one and seen lectures by the other, the MIT boys seem to be driven by how much oompf you can put into a box and the effects of living with/in one on life, and the CMU boys are driven by industrial mission specific design. Both are valid and necessary areas of research.
I am not an expert in the field, nor do I claim to be. I do, however, have more experience with it than 99% of the population.
The key job of the wearable computer is, and always will be information access.
Will someone find a way to run quake 5 on one? Probably. But that is a secondary or tertiary concern.
The largest problem facing the wearable is the physical user interface. Everyone seems to be tossing faster hardware and more software against the usability problem, and I feel this is the incorrect approach. The OS really does not matter at all.
In my opinion the correct process should be: Industrial Design and then GUI.
I am completely unimpressed with IBM wearable. Why? I saw essentially the same interface on the Vu-Man 1 at CMU in 1993.
One of the best designs that I have seen was the Vuman-2r and 3 (which I coded for), which involved three buttons spaced around a large dial. The idea was you used the buttons to select, and the dial to scroll through information and select options to further direct your search. The dial was big, designed so that it could still be used if you were wearing work gloves and the wearble was *inside* the side cargo pocket found on miltary fatigues. The ID guys came up with the design, the software guys were left out of the process becuase they couldn't think outside the box.
The software was then designed around these capabilities. And it worked. form design, interface and software were designed from the ground up for the specific tasks and environment where the wearable would excell.
According to a work aquantance of mine, comdex the info kiosks were apparently run by people with wearables. He is convinced that he could have found information faster in a book, than by asking the wearable info centers.
Voice recognition seems to be the holy grail of wearable interfaces, but people seem to spend more time on it than on the industrial design of the box. A good physical interface will always be faster and cheaper than voice recognition. If it were not, then why do we still have hot keys so many years after the mouse was debuted?
IBM has a commerical out with a guy sitting in a public square in europe trading stocks and navigating through excel using voice recognition. Apparently he does quite well in the market that day. I wish I could have been sitting next to him so I could hear exactly what his personal private business was.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
The Linux emulator makes sense. Check out their VM/ESA web page.
But on running linux as the base OS...
I remember interviewing with some OS/390 guys a while back... One of the interviewers worked in the OS messaging/IPC group. If I remember correctly, they had a very large number of people (around 100?) that did nothing but work on messaging and IPC.
The point is, OS/390 is a very very complex system for very very complex hardware. ja?
And the rumors expect to have linux ported to bare metal relatively soon? How many people would that have taken? How many years?
Here's a abbreviated list of S/390 G5/G6 Features:
Capacity Upgrade on Demand
Open Systems Adapter 2 (OSA-2)
OSA Express Express GbE
Dual cryptographic coprocessors
FICON channel 100MB/sec full-duplex
S/390 architecture
Clustered systems
Parallel Sysplex clustering technology
Sysplex Timer®
Integrated Coupling Migration Facility (ICMF)
Coupling Facility Control Code
Coupling links (HiPerLinks)
Internal Coupling (IC) Channel
Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex
Integrated Cluster Bus (ICB)
Internal Coupling Facility (ICF)
Shared ICFs and CPs
Dynamic ICF Expansion
Transparent ICF Sparing
Dynamic CF Dispatching
Enhanced Parallel Sysplex Clock Functions
VM/ESA Virtual Parallel Sysplex
To the best of my knowledge, most of this stuff is outside the scope of the linux source tree. We're talking a large amount of work here to make linux take a moderate advantage of the underlying hardware. If they've done it, more power to them. But is just seems to be rumors to me.
And what about all the OS/390 software, is that being ported to linux also? How long will that take? Or will you only be able to run Domino on it? I guess that my point here is that there seems to be a large amount of good S/390 specific enterprise software out there. To run linux as the base OS would negate the advantages and capabilities of this software.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Hands up everyone out there who lets their email provider know what books they buy from
Amazon.
Maybe they just go to their little database (where they record all their sales). Remember that this company is not jsut an email provider, but is *also* a rare book dealer. Their ISP clients are also their rare books clients.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
TerminatorX
I'm having compile issues with it, but most people get it to work.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Not that I have ever done anything like this ever. But I think it would happen like this...
Unless you're on crack there is a table of some sort set up for all your equipment and the cables run along it somehow. No-one should be touching your cables, much less dancing on them. The real worry should be if the cable will be given a sharp tug in the wrong direction, not it's transmission quality. You give the RCA a quick yank and you can break/crack the connection solder within your mixer or soundcard. To damage a cable requires cutting it or bending it so sharply as to crack/cut the metal wire within the sheath.
Standard 1/8th to RCA work perfectly fine. They should be treated as well as you treat the rest of your equipment. But they're still cheap. Always carry a spare.
As for laptop sound cards, good, cheap, 16bit DACs have been standard for years. If you can find 20 or 24 bit DAC, even better.
Cueing is a serious issue. Linux can support multiple sound devices. I do not know if other OS's do. Worse comes to worse you use two laptops connection to a mixer. Cueing by default.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So I understand the whole "wait for the linux version" deal.
Apparently there's some way to buy the windows version and get a freebie ticket for the linux version when it is released. So I assume that when this happened in the past (has it?), all the linux people bought the windows version and then "upgraded" when the linux version became available.
Here's my question. If gaming companies are looking for evidence of Linux interest, why are they just looking at sales? Do not the download volumes of linux binaries also matter?
Why can't they say "well, uh there were 153,893 windows versions bought, and then 53,000 people turned in their coupons for the linux version... So we sold 100,893 windows versions."
Or am I missing something?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I must sya that this is the first time of have heard of a service like this, even though there are apparently others (XNOT).
/. when I wrote this. I like Mozilla. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Similar to, but not quite the same as a quick shot of whiskey. No, mozilla is not on sourceforge.)
So does this mean that in the future we'll see a lot more of the following: ?
New Mozilla Milestone Release
Posted by Roblimo on 03:94 AM November 18th 2019
from the about-time-they-got-around-to-it dept.
Mozilla Milestone 1,256 is out. Go for it! Get it from Sourceforge
(Note: I in no way mean to insult Rob or mozilla. It's just the example I pulled off
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I usually don't believe in this whole "Linux is God" aspect that some members of the Linux community follow, but he does have some pretty good things to say usually (apparently he's a pretty bright kid =) ). So...
Ok boyos. here is what, in my opinion, is the best part of the article:
Torvalds steadfastly maintains the challenge and excitement
of producing a operating system--not competition with
Microsoft--is what motivates Linux developers. But he
couldn't resist a few jabs at the software giant.
...
"People see Linux as anti-Microsoft. In the press it looks that
way," Torvalds said. "But to me and all the developers I
know, it's not me vs. Microsoft." It's a matter of a fun
programming project, he said.
There it is in black and white. Some of the most hardcore Linux developers do it becuase they love it. It's a challenge. A problem to be solved. It's fun. The thrill of the chase if you will. And a little bit of pride. It's not the great apocalyptic david and goliath battle some make it out to be. It's about making the best system that they can.
Is competition necessary? Sure. If nothing else it shows places where improvement is needed. Case in point:
"While I was upset about Mindcraft for awhile, I took it as a
more positive thing after I got past the personal injury to my
pride," Torvalds said. "We just delved into it and fixed it.
We took this benchmark as a way of saying, 'Yes, Linux is
not the best at everything.' We fixed the area, and as a
result, Linux is doing extremely well on those kind of
benchmarks."
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
No really. I'm being honest here. Ad's are ever increasingly using computer graphics for one purpose or another, and begining to do really complex scenes with it. And ad agencies are all over New York.
From all I understand, getting into the big time movie houses requires a lot. Joining a smaller group, and doing well with something like tv ads, should allow you to advance into other genres a few years down the road. People watch tv everyday. Imagine walking into an interview and having your future boss say, "you did that? wow."
Maybe ad agency's don't do the work themselves, but sub contract. So find out who they subcontract too, and apply.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
there should still be the option of using a gui interface though. Linux development should get to the point where it is impossible for someone to argue "yeah, well NT has this little dialog box when I right click and Linux doesn't..." If you don't like an option, or don't need it, don't install it. =)
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I do not believe that is the same thing...
If the book were nothing but a pure regurgitation (kiddies: SAT word for the day), then there could be some issue.
But if take the knowledge that you learned, mull over it, and express "the content of a lecture in his or her own way" as you pointed out, then there should not be any problem.
What about the fact that a number of professors get their lectures from a textbook to begin with? Does not the same concept apply?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I agree!
I am really starting to believe that linux is not for everybody, nor should it be. Let me clarify.
(keep in mind that this is really only half an idea at this point...)
The users of Linux feel that it is the best solution for our needs. To maintain this status, we will continue to develop the environment so that it will be a better solution in the future.
It's a matter of pride. Do this for Us. If in the process we make the system easier for other ourselves and people to use, so be it.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
That should read:
3) If something bad happens then repeat.
I do not mean to imply that something bad *would* happen each time the box was turned on. =)
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I think the really interesting point is not that Microsoft and Radio Shack are teaming up and Microsoft will now be everywhere. It is this:
... And customers gain end-to-end connectivity solutions from Microsoft and RadioShack -- brands Americans trust to make technology accessible and understandable."
/z ^4 198.162.1.1:24;=)
"...found a home connectivity partner, offering not just services but innovative technologies as well.
Where else in the country is there a place to go specifically for "home connectivity"? I know my house is connected, but I did that myself from hacking together DSS, Cable Modem and a nifty little p90 linux gateway. But what do you do when you're joe schmoe, and don't have the knowledge to do it yourself?
Now the average guy may have somewhere to go to get it all in one package. Sprint, Microsoft, RCA, etc... One stop shopping for all the hardware and software to wire your home. All run by a simple Microsoft interface.
This may actually be a good thing. Something my mother could do. What's easier to understand? This:
1) install linux
2) configure network scripts to run dhcpcd
3) Setup dhcpd sever on eth1
4) ipchains -q
5) debug terminal
6) and the list goes on...
or this:
1) push power
2) push start button.
3) Something bad happens, repeat.
Us dorks might have Architecture issues with the system, but the average guy just wants it to work.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
as might I...
I liked most of the questions, except for the last one. I get the point behind the question, I just think a better example could have been used...
As I read the question all I could think of was this:
1) for the cost to develop and build each of those boxes, how much FOOD could have been air dropped in its place?
2) So the soldiers come in, beat you senseless, take your food, and yet leave you with a capability to connect to the internet? Unless the magic little box is truely wireless with its own nuclear battery, and web server you're outta luck. And wouldn't it just suck if the oppresive goverment could track its broadcasts?
Look, I'm a practical person. The situation described in the question is highly impractical.
Could someone please come up with a better way of phrasing the question?
Maybe something like, "once again you see soldiers beating up the guy accross the street from you and taking his food... You have the ability to connect the web, how can you get the word out? (Bonus: do so without the opressive dictatorship deciding to beat you senseless too)" Same point, more believeable situation.
In the mean time go to The Hunger Site where by using the power of the current web, you can get food donated to starving kids around the world.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
the brown is nice, but the split pea/squash/puke green has got to go...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
1) reading the documentation
2) reading the docs written by other headbangers
3) taking notes while headbanging (experience)
4) headbanging in groups with knowledable help nearby (College level ECE lab courses)
An ECE degree helps, but a lot of knowledge can be learned from just the textbooks. GO to a good ECE schools web page, find a class that seems interesting and read the text for that class. Although you would miss out on the Lab projects...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
All valid comments/points. It really just comes down to a matter of preference.
Maybe they just need to hire more people.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein