The description for this article asked how long it would be before the professor who invented the software to grade papers was replaced by his own software.
This made me think of a comment a salty old history teacher in my highschool made one day. He told the class that all college professors do is tell you what books to read.
I thought he was being silly when he made the comment, but when I got to college his comment came back to haunt me.
Many big name professors are like that. They strut into a lecture hall, talk a bit, give you page numbers to read and leave. You give your tests and papers to a TA.
Maybe many of these professors could be replaced. The university could buy reading lists from contractors and use the aforementioned professor's software.
Hell, maybe even the universities could be replaced by something cheaper.
Instead of building universities blogs could be put up instead. A student would pay his/her tuition which would allow him/her to login and view the reading list for the class. A link would be available for him/her to upload his/her papers which would be instantly grated.
A forum would exist, perhaps with a paid moderator knowledgeable on the subject to be available for discussions.
Moving to a BSD(unix) based system breathed new life into the MAC with a world of software possibilities and its ability to place nice with other systems.
MAC has proven that unix can be used for a friendly and powerful desk top system. In a way it also proven that it is very hard to make it as a third party alternative sandwiched in between the Nix * Windows world.
This reincarnation of BeOS sounds interesting enough for me to buy a copy, but I wonder about its potential to survive in niche that is similar to one that MAC decided was not a good place to be.
Maybe the 2 keys this time around is that it is starting off in Europe away from Bill Gates' home market and that microsoft may be distracted with linux as a challenger to the point of not trying to crush this new version of beOS
"BeOS was a lighweight but full-fledged operating system designed from the ground up to be a desktop OS with strong multimedia capabilities. Its claim to fame was the real-time response of its graphical interface, even on low-powered hardware. Its minimalistic approach made it easy to use even for beginners. Its database-like BFS file system with indexed attributes made file searches a breeze. All of this in a system that could boot in 10 to 15 seconds on most hardware, and that was as stable as a rock."
AND
"... and a new non-destructive partition manager for easy installation of Zeta on machines that already have Windows or other OS installed. Zeta 1.0 will also come with numerous development tools, including Python 2.4 with a working Bethon (Python modules for Zeta), GNU bash 3.0, GNU coreutils (5.2.1), OpenSSH, and Bash autocomplete with Zeta-specific completion templates."
AND
"yellowTAB bundles many applications with Zeta, including an office suite called Gobe Productive that includes word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, and presentation applications; the Firefox Web browser; an instant messaging client for AIM (clients for MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, and Jabber are available separately); a CD burner and DVD player; numerous games; a PDF viewer and writer (you can create PDF files from any Zeta application that can print); a scanning front end; several emulators (BeBochs, DosBox, BeUAE, and others); and development tools. Zeta also benefits from the fact that most of the third-party BeOS applications found on Bebits.com can run on it as-is."
That last part is particularly interesting. It comes with an amiga emulator, a dos emulatior, and "bochs" which supposedly can run another operating system and that operating systems software within it.
If all of that works...I know a big "if"...there shouldn't any shortage of software.
[blockquote] Ideally in a situation like this you don't have to provide your own tea. Use the tea of the oppressor, but remember if its going anywhere near the Hudson you'll probably want to refrain from drinking the harbor-brewed tea. [/blockquote]
If it is the Hudson River no one may be able to tell that he dumped anything in it
Several people have mentioned that the one advantage GNOME has over the QT is licensing.
If businesses want to develop a commercial product with the QT they have to pay a fee.
Is it paying a fee at all the problem or just that the fee set by trolltech is too high?
If trolltech lowered the fee for using the QT in commercial development would more commercial development be done using the QT and would trolltech make more money?
How ironic, seeing that Gnome tries to be the simplest and easiest to use full-featured desktop on Linux. I guess easy to use doesn't mean easy to package.
It is what they say they try to do.
In reality most open source developers, especially free(dom) software developers focus most of their energy on the backend, grudgingly ( if at all ) focusing on the front end and usability.
The prevalent attitude is that the end users are cry babies if they don't like the interface.
Ironically, after such projects get negative reviews or get left behind for better choices usually some developer will embarrass himself by making a vitriolic posting chastising the user community for not wanting to use his baby.
I think the reverse of many opinions here. I think this validates biodiversity in linux, because there is another competing choice to turn to in this situation. Having competition forces improvements to be made where none might have been. I wouldn't have enjoyed using linux as much as I have if GNOME were it. Who likes microsoft's take it or leave it attitude?
It could be a good thing if this KDE centric trend continues. Instead of competing with each other linux desktop developers can combine their resources into competing with microsoft instead.
The only good things GNOME has over KDE ( correct me if the situation has changed ) is the licensing , the look, some much better apps, and the ability to script the gui library.
The focus in the linux community should be on giving the KDE these attributes.
Many people can write code, fewer people can write good code.
The many who do not write good code also produce obfuscated code without even trying. This is particularly true with large projects, done by groups, over time, and with limited oversight.
Another interesting contest would be to see how fast different people could figure out such code.
This will be the second round in the new browser wars. It will be very interesting to see what happens.
In a way it is like the tortoise and hare.
The hare( firefox ), has the advantages of being able to get new end user desired features to market very fast and not being tied to the operating system ( albeit, that is not something non IT end users seem to care about much ).
The tortoise, IE, lately, seems to have wait for the next release of Windoze to "catch up". However IE has the tremendous advantages of coming with Windoze which comes with most end user PCs. As all regular slashdotters know, most people will just use what is on their computer instead of downloading something else.
IE also has the advantage of a huge amount of programming muscle on the payroll at Microsoft( not mention managers to manage hissy fits among the development staff ) and they can just sit back and let firefox do their market research for them. They can see which features work for firefox in terms of popularity and copy them into IE for the next release cycle
It will be interesting to see if IE 7 puts IE back up past 90% market share.
Modern pictures, with modern special effects techniques do not have the same look as the 33 Kong.
Modern pictures no longer do something(s) that pictures from the 30s do so they don't have that same interesting look that made the original KK interesting........and a classic
It will be interesting to see what Jackson does with King Kong.
The 1976 with Jessica Lange that had the much more high powered special effects didn't do that much for the movie.
For me, part of the fun of the 1933 version was the otherworldy effect from the goofy, long extinct effects techniques from the 30's.
I found the online format nicer then other news sites and a LOT nicer then dealing with a newspaper.
Then I read the articles on slashdot about Google having a built in political bias as to which sources show up on google news and Google censoring itself on their Chinese site at the request of the government of the PRC.
I also noticed that with American news outlets that South America does not exist and other countries only exist when they have direct dealings with the US ( and sometimes not even then )
I decided that I wanted real news, online news, and news from a more trustworthy source. Goodbye google news.
Most people around the world already know about this, but for my fellow Americans who are also disgusted with American news sources I invite you to check out the BBC news site.
It is free, convenient, online, thorough, and they actually know English grammar which is not always the case for the American sources that end up on Google news:
Slashdot Mirror
If I was this guy I would send BEST Buy a fruit basket and a "thank you" card.
The winnings from the court case against them will provide him with an early retirement
The description for this article asked how long it would be before the professor who invented the software to grade papers was replaced by his own software. This made me think of a comment a salty old history teacher in my highschool made one day. He told the class that all college professors do is tell you what books to read. I thought he was being silly when he made the comment, but when I got to college his comment came back to haunt me. Many big name professors are like that. They strut into a lecture hall, talk a bit, give you page numbers to read and leave. You give your tests and papers to a TA. Maybe many of these professors could be replaced. The university could buy reading lists from contractors and use the aforementioned professor's software. Hell, maybe even the universities could be replaced by something cheaper. Instead of building universities blogs could be put up instead. A student would pay his/her tuition which would allow him/her to login and view the reading list for the class. A link would be available for him/her to upload his/her papers which would be instantly grated. A forum would exist, perhaps with a paid moderator knowledgeable on the subject to be available for discussions.
It is tax season in the US.
H&R Block outsources much of its tax prep.
Same deal. The work is being done, with your personal information, a hemisphere away, by people who are not bound by our laws.
What is the Cherry OS?
This makes the guys associated with the Klingon Language Institute look like hard nosed realists
What about MACUX?
Moving to a BSD(unix) based system breathed new life into the MAC with a world of software possibilities and its ability to place nice with other systems. MAC has proven that unix can be used for a friendly and powerful desk top system. In a way it also proven that it is very hard to make it as a third party alternative sandwiched in between the Nix * Windows world. This reincarnation of BeOS sounds interesting enough for me to buy a copy, but I wonder about its potential to survive in niche that is similar to one that MAC decided was not a good place to be. Maybe the 2 keys this time around is that it is starting off in Europe away from Bill Gates' home market and that microsoft may be distracted with linux as a challenger to the point of not trying to crush this new version of beOS
If all of that works...I know a big "if"...there shouldn't any shortage of software.
I was the first person to reply to this thread when it was posted yesterday, yet I lost 3 points for it being redundant.
If they can't fix it, wouldn't be safer ( and more interesting ) just to push it out into space?
[blockquote]
Ideally in a situation like this you don't have to provide your own tea. Use the tea of the oppressor, but remember if its going anywhere near the Hudson you'll probably want to refrain from drinking the harbor-brewed tea.
[/blockquote]
If it is the Hudson River no one may be able to tell that he dumped anything in it
Several people have mentioned that the one advantage GNOME has over the QT is licensing.
If businesses want to develop a commercial product with the QT they have to pay a fee.
Is it paying a fee at all the problem or just that the fee set by trolltech is too high?
If trolltech lowered the fee for using the QT in commercial development would more commercial development be done using the QT and would trolltech make more money?
" Spock! ... I have to study"
"Dammit Jim! It is just a mid term"
It is what they say they try to do.
In reality most open source developers, especially free(dom) software developers focus most of their energy on the backend, grudgingly ( if at all ) focusing on the front end and usability.
The prevalent attitude is that the end users are cry babies if they don't like the interface.
Ironically, after such projects get negative reviews or get left behind for better choices usually some developer will embarrass himself by making a vitriolic posting chastising the user community for not wanting to use his baby.
I think the reverse of many opinions here. I think this validates biodiversity in linux, because there is another competing choice to turn to in this situation. Having competition forces improvements to be made where none might have been. I wouldn't have enjoyed using linux as much as I have if GNOME were it. Who likes microsoft's take it or leave it attitude?
It could be a good thing if this KDE centric trend continues. Instead of competing with each other linux desktop developers can combine their resources into competing with microsoft instead.
The only good things GNOME has over KDE ( correct me if the situation has changed ) is the licensing , the look, some much better apps, and the ability to script the gui library.
The focus in the linux community should be on giving the KDE these attributes.
Awesome story.
I really hope someone doesn't post a follow up with a url to an urban legend site.
Many people can write code, fewer people can write good code.
The many who do not write good code also produce obfuscated code without even trying. This is particularly true with large projects, done by groups, over time, and with limited oversight.
Another interesting contest would be to see how fast different people could figure out such code.
More like 3 days with the gentoo crowd.
<insert obligatory joke about when kde 3.4 will make it into Debian stable >
This will be the second round in the new browser wars. It will be very interesting to see what happens.
In a way it is like the tortoise and hare.
The hare( firefox ), has the advantages of being able to get new end user desired features to market very fast and not being tied to the operating system ( albeit, that is not something non IT end users seem to care about much ).
The tortoise, IE, lately, seems to have wait for the next release of Windoze to "catch up". However IE has the tremendous advantages of coming with Windoze which comes with most end user PCs. As all regular slashdotters know, most people will just use what is on their computer instead of downloading something else.
IE also has the advantage of a huge amount of programming muscle on the payroll at Microsoft( not mention managers to manage hissy fits among the development staff ) and they can just sit back and let firefox do their market research for them. They can see which features work for firefox in terms of popularity and copy them into IE for the next release cycle
It will be interesting to see if IE 7 puts IE back up past 90% market share.
Modern pictures, with modern special effects techniques do not have the same look as the 33 Kong. Modern pictures no longer do something(s) that pictures from the 30s do so they don't have that same interesting look that made the original KK interesting........and a classic
It will be interesting to see what Jackson does with King Kong. The 1976 with Jessica Lange that had the much more high powered special effects didn't do that much for the movie. For me, part of the fun of the 1933 version was the otherworldy effect from the goofy, long extinct effects techniques from the 30's.
I found the online format nicer then other news sites and a LOT nicer then dealing with a newspaper.
Then I read the articles on slashdot about Google having a built in political bias as to which sources show up on google news and Google censoring itself on their Chinese site at the request of the government of the PRC.
I also noticed that with American news outlets that South America does not exist and other countries only exist when they have direct dealings with the US ( and sometimes not even then )
I decided that I wanted real news, online news, and news from a more trustworthy source. Goodbye google news.
Most people around the world already know about this, but for my fellow Americans who are also disgusted with American news sources I invite you to check out the BBC news site.
It is free, convenient, online, thorough, and they actually know English grammar which is not always the case for the American sources that end up on Google news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Did NASA outsource to India?
( there go my karma points )
I've had experiences like that with other OS projects/sites.
I always got a good belly laugh when shortly after the developer posts a plea for financial support on his site.
To their credit, I have filed a lot of bug reports with Mozilla and I was always treated very well.
1. Is this new version faster on bootup?
2. Do the fonts look nice, out of the box, on linux?
Free bios !?
Free Martha!