And who can forget the Ashton-Tate PR guy who stated for the press that DBase IV would be out "Real soon now". Didn't come out for another 18 months. Unwittingly coined a classic description of vapourware. In fact I gotta feeling that debacle was also one of the first instances of the term "vapourware". Basic lesson , don't trust them... even if its in writing.
Re:Mac nuts Vs Linux nuts
on
Penguin2Apple
·
· Score: 2
When you say that the opensource presence in OS X is "zip... nada... nothing", you are ignoring the fact that the core of OS X is Darwin, and Darwin is, in fact, Open Source. [apple.com]
Um. No if you look at what I said: "But we only have the source for the core don't we ?". I do realise that. I'm not a kernel hacker, rather I like looking at how some of the apps and window managers are written.
"Take a look some time?" Yeah, sure. But not if I have to buy a special computer to do it. I'd prefer to test drive it first, but I can't do that if I don't have a Mac. Perhaps as it becomes more popular I'll get my hands on one.
Pete
Mac nuts Vs Linux nuts
on
Penguin2Apple
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Boy is this topic going to waste a lot of good electrons. I am a Linux user and Win2k user, just for the record.
Everyone knows that Mac zealots are even worse than Linux zealots... which is saying a lot. So this topic you just know is going to generate more heat than light. Nothing is going to be actually resolved... just a lot of mud-slinging.
I haven't used OSX. But being based on BSD (Darwin) I'm sure its a fine core. And it has a nice Window Man^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H GUI. Yeah it has Office and IE (good browser, but honestly I'm really starting to prefer Konq / Moz). But we only have the source for the core don't we ? Well lemme see. Why did I go from Windows to Linux ? It was because it was MORE FUN! Thats it. So why is Linux more fun... because I have the source of everything Window Managers, Utilities, apps every-bloody-thing. But with OSX, zip... nada... nothing. Doesn't sound very interesting. Talking of Window Managers (which I can switch between) in Linux, with OSX do I just get Aqua and more Aqua or can I do the equivalent of switching between Window Managers ? And do I have the source so I can see how they do it ?
I'm sure I'd really like a Mac if I had one. But for how long. Windows 2000 became boring after a few days. How long for OSX ? Sure 95% (or more) of users would disagree with me. That's fine. However, I suspect the future of Linux is that the market will evolve into 2 kinds of desktop OS. One, for the masses (who just want to use it for apps). And one for real power users. Linux fits the latter and will continue happily in that direction (as does Win2K in a sense). Apple if it has any sense will target the first as does MSFT with XP.
A lot of the posts here are really funny. I mean just look at the past... and I don't mean distant past. Things are lost! It actually takes some effort to preserve things. Our current culture is actually working very hard to prevent things being preserved. I bet in 100 years time all the code for Linux will be intact but not one song of Britney Spears... well sometimes entropy can be your friend! The point being the only reason we have ancient manuscripts is because people used either papyrus (in Egypt) or velum.. they didn't use modern acidic paper. Velum lasts easily for centuries, but our modern paper wont last 50 years... take a look at the old 50s pulp mags in a second hand bookstore or whatever.. if you can find them they brown and crumble very easily.
Now advanced technology that prevents copying is guaranteed to make that artist^H^H^H^H^H^H author obsolete in a very short period of time. The RIAA is dooming most artists to total obscurity in a few years. And the current technologies mean that a savvy encyclopedist would put the data in reproducible format... maybe ASCII or its kin XML or TeX or something or just plain printed on something durable. Not on the latest buzzword overloaded piece of obsolescing-at-lightspeed piece of hardware/software.
If we had a war where we lost our chip factories etc. And DVD, CD ROM etc players became temporarily rare it would ALL be lost. It would be like burning the Library of Alexandria all over again.
Books can be decoded if you know how to read. With DVDs you need a high tech industry (assuming you have DeCSS). Therefore, DVDs are only good as beer coasters if you are rebuilding after a war.
For example, the Earth was larger but due to a rare collision the Moon was split off.
There is some merit in this view.
However, it is not certain that tides were needed for the formation of life. Hydrothermal vents are a much more likely site for the origin of life, and unless you're on a world like Europa don't have much to do with tides. And don't forget the conquest of the land happened independently by insects, plants and amphibians. Can't be that hard now can it?
The moon does assist in producing some interesting rhythms and aiding nocturnal animals. But I don't see why there can't be local replacements for these or even if they are needed.
Another thing to remember all these planet surveys are sensitive to planets that strongly perturbe the star. That is, BIG planets close in... or big planets in higly elliptic orbits etc. Not really conducive to finding earth like planets. Don't forget that the number of stars within a given distance of the Earth is about proportional to the cube of the distance (ignoring clusters etc) so within 100 light years there are 125 times as many stars are there within 20 light years (very approximately of course). So of all these thousands of nearby stars they have found 60 - 100 extreme systems. It proves that planets exist for sure, but we'll have to wait for the next generation of star searchers with optical searches for planets using spacebourne multiple telescope systems or whatever they're called.
Recently American Scientist" had an article on possible niches for organisms on Europa. The magazine article is worth reading. Very interesting. It is pretty easy to do the calculation that shows how deep the oceans are on Europa. You can even get an idea of the ice thickness from the heat diffusion for snow, though maybe I fluked that one. Anyway, Europa is the next moon out from Io which is pretty tormented by tidal stress. The surface of Europa is amazingly flat... like the ice isn't very thick blah blah.. you get the picture.
People have been theorising about this for about 20 years, Clarke didn't invent the "life on Europa" thing he was just astute enough to see a winning theory. I remember at the time I was surprised so few supported it... it seemed a very likely possibility. Then when hydrothermal vents were discovered it didn't take long for people to put the two ideas together.
Actually, the likely pressure at the bottom of the ocean on Europa is likely to be similar to that at the deepest parts of the Earth's oceans. But no-one knows. Can't wait for a probe to do some searching... even just the ice on the surface near the cracks should have heaps of biological stuff if there is life there. Also, its probably the easiest place we could colonise. I mean the temp is over 0 C and the upper layers should be ok for scuba... and a few subs... hmmmmmmmmm
Studies, via simulation, in Nature as I recall after the Gulf War showed that it was actually pretty close to a global weather event. It would need to have burnt for 50% longer I think.
Frozen Earth ? Well don't worry eventually the Ice Age will return as it does after 10,000 years of warmth (we are now at the 12,000 year mark).
The Jupiter Effect? Maybe you are too young to remember or just plain didn't read the book. The reason Gribbin wrote the book was simple. He read two studies: 1) planetary alignments were positively correlated with sunspot activity; 2) sunspot activity was positively correlated to earthquake activity on Earth. He wrote a letter to Nature. Response ? Zip. Seeing as how a major alignment was due soon and the San Andreas fault had not slipped in quite a while he was a bit concerned so he wrote a book. In response to the book studies were done and flaws found in the initial studies. If he hadn't written the book the flaws would probably not have been found.
Now if YOU had noticed this link and no one listened and you knew it might involve millions of lives what would you do ?
Ok. So if you had a complex system such as human society interacting with global climate , ecosystems etc. What do you think the chances are that the results would come out all positive ? (considering how many species we've made extinct).
Right. Maybe we've done some good, maybe we've done some bad (or a lota bad) and maybe what we did didn't count for much. Then how come all of Lomberg's analysis shows only good. Gimme a break its gotta be bullshit.
And anyway what does a political scientist know about GCMs and climatology ? Yeah sure an outsider can sometimes give a unique and incisive insight... but not over EVERY discipline.. he hasn't invented new statistics. Something stinks here!
Heh heh. You do realise that everything you know about computers will be mostly obsolete in about 5 years and totally obsolete in 10. That's the way it is. All your friends who started at 13 are just going to have to learn it all over again. That's why many developers give up and go into management... can't handle the constant change (that orta get some negative comments and moderation).
Teaching computers to kids is total bullshit.
I was on a school policy committee to determine IT policy and I tried to point out to the really gung ho IT teacher that computers are only useful as tools AFTER the skill is learnt (eg drawing or writing). You can't use computers and expect it to accelerate creativity, it can only be a tool. My comments fell on deaf (and dumb) ears.
Many critics openly commented later that the Adademy fucked up badly by not giving the Best Picture award to "2001". It was a massive embarassment over the next few years that it hadn't won. When you think that polls showed it some years later as one of the four best movies ever made(with Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and i forget the other).
Will FoTR get it ? Dunno the competition is pretty good. Much as I love^H^H^H^Hlike Tolkien it doesn't reach the dizzying heights of drama that other movies may. OTOH, "Return of the King" should be very interesting in 2003, since it has some nice emotional scenes. Especially if they include the tale of Aragorn and Arwen (appendix A) as has been reported.
Lets see TowerJ has been out since when ? 1999. Having tried my hand at this I have some reservations. The project I was on... a large dinosaur of a thing which will remain nameless had 12,000 classes which TowerJ turned into C files which were then compiled by GCC. Resulted in 50 megabyte executables on a Sun. Didn't really solve the problem which wasn't really about speed but throughput. The solution was a better design using servlets and Java Webserver... result DRAMATICALLY faster without any need for native compilation.
Mind you I noticed in the IBM article that the memory footprint was much smaller. That might be nice.
Metals are a "sea of electrons" right ? Basic stuff. When a photon hits it these electrons are responsible for reflecting the particle. And you get basic "skin effect" penetration inverse exponential. It aint possible except in very thin layers. Like gold that can be beaten so thin as to be transparent.
If you get transparent aluminium it'll just be a dielectric not a metal.
Tears of joy... now I can officially forget Visually Impaired C++ from my resume... after all Borland is portable. Well maybe not... kids still gotta eat.
I used C++ Builder on a contract recently... absolutely wunderful fellas (and fella-ettes). So easy to do things. Not perfect but pretty damn good.
Underground its likely to be quite hot enough and wet enough in some places on Mars. The important thing about these bacteria is that they metabolise hydrogen and CO2 and nothing else. They are independent of any other living creatures or sunlight, they could be dropped into a similar habitat on Mars and survive quite well.
... from World War II is the best way to describe it. I have seen at some time those old nazi movies in a documentary and even if I couldn't understand the words the mood was obvious. Starship Troopers was exactly the same. Once you realise the all the symbols... the fact that the Military Intelligence guy is wearing a version of an SS uniform, the flag is angular like a swastika, and the grey uniforms so like German army.... and then think of all your friends thinking its "entertaining" and "rousing" etc... it is just soooooo creepy.
A much better movie than people think. Not much relation to the book but pretty good just the same. And didn't you like the end where the recruiter's voice says "and you just know they will win"... gees where've I heard that before.
John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider" predicts a network of linked computers available from any point which talented users can use to change identities etc by sending programs to do their bidding... even cleaning up their old identities with "tapeworms"... from which we now get the term "worm".
Remarkably prescient vision. Though not in a vacuum of course.
Oh crap. Americans are such nice people... why'd they have to go an screw things up this badly... oh yeah that's right politicians. Keep on forgetting my own country doesn't have a monopoly on fuckwit politicians.
If you're going to compare the US to any place then I reckon the it really compares to Imperial Rome. The senators there got very rich helping their mates... owning vast estates. It was all about money. The only thing they feared was the mob.. so you provide mass entertainment as a distraction. People watch even grisly murder if its entertaining... maybe we'll even see the web broadcast execution of Linux users.. via Windows Media Player of course...
Its worth $20. And I dont see why they shouldn't be rewarded. We Linux users get it pretty easy.. great OS, free (speech + beer), lots of fun.. and it'll boost linux's standing... eventually a totally free competitor will arise but as I said why not reward them in the meantime ?
This is probably related to the fact that bone is piezo-electric. Which means that it has to be asymmetrical stress on the bone to induce the result. So being in fluid wont work.. You'd probably need a good contact with the mat.. or a weak artificial gravity.
Slashdot Mirror
And who can forget the Ashton-Tate PR guy who stated for the press that DBase IV would be out "Real soon now". Didn't come out for another 18 months. Unwittingly coined a classic description of vapourware. In fact I gotta feeling that debacle was also one of the first instances of the term "vapourware". ... even if its in writing.
Basic lesson , don't trust them
When you say that the opensource presence in OS X is "zip ... nada ... nothing", you are ignoring the fact that the core of OS X is Darwin, and Darwin is, in fact, Open Source. [apple.com]
Um. No if you look at what I said: "But we only have the source for the core don't we ?". I do realise that. I'm not a kernel hacker, rather I like looking at how some of the apps and window managers are written.
"Take a look some time?" Yeah, sure. But not if I have to buy a special computer to do it. I'd prefer to test drive it first, but I can't do that if I don't have a Mac. Perhaps as it becomes more popular I'll get my hands on one.
Pete
Boy is this topic going to waste a lot of good electrons. I am a Linux user and Win2k user, just for the record.
... which is saying a lot. So this topic you just know is going to generate more heat than light. Nothing is going to be actually resolved ... just a lot of mud-slinging.
... because I have the source of everything Window Managers, Utilities, apps every-bloody-thing. But with OSX, zip ... nada ... nothing. Doesn't sound very interesting. Talking of Window Managers (which I can switch between) in Linux, with OSX do I just get Aqua and more Aqua or can I do the equivalent of switching between Window Managers ? And do I have the source so I can see how they do it ?
Everyone knows that Mac zealots are even worse than Linux zealots
I haven't used OSX. But being based on BSD (Darwin) I'm sure its a fine core. And it has a nice Window Man^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H GUI. Yeah it has Office and IE (good browser, but honestly I'm really starting to prefer Konq / Moz). But we only have the source for the core don't we ? Well lemme see. Why did I go from Windows to Linux ? It was because it was MORE FUN! Thats it. So why is Linux more fun
I'm sure I'd really like a Mac if I had one. But for how long. Windows 2000 became boring after a few days. How long for OSX ? Sure 95% (or more) of users would disagree with me. That's fine. However, I suspect the future of Linux is that the market will evolve into 2 kinds of desktop OS. One, for the masses (who just want to use it for apps). And one for real power users. Linux fits the latter and will continue happily in that direction (as does Win2K in a sense). Apple if it has any sense will target the first as does MSFT with XP.
A lot of the posts here are really funny. I mean just look at the past ... and I don't mean distant past. Things are lost! It actually takes some effort to preserve things. Our current culture is actually working very hard to prevent things being preserved. I bet in 100 years time all the code for Linux will be intact but not one song of Britney Spears ... well sometimes entropy can be your friend! The point being the only reason we have ancient manuscripts is because people used either papyrus (in Egypt) or velum .. they didn't use modern acidic paper. Velum lasts easily for centuries, but our modern paper wont last 50 years ... take a look at the old 50s pulp mags in a second hand bookstore or whatever .. if you can find them they brown and crumble very easily.
Now advanced technology that prevents copying is guaranteed to make that artist^H^H^H^H^H^H author obsolete in a very short period of time. The RIAA is dooming most artists to total obscurity in a few years. And the current technologies mean that a savvy encyclopedist would put the data in reproducible format ... maybe ASCII or its kin XML or TeX or something or just plain printed on something durable. Not on the latest buzzword overloaded piece of obsolescing-at-lightspeed piece of hardware/software.
If we had a war where we lost our chip factories etc. And DVD, CD ROM etc players became temporarily rare it would ALL be lost. It would be like burning the Library of Alexandria all over again.
Books can be decoded if you know how to read. With DVDs you need a high tech industry (assuming you have DeCSS). Therefore, DVDs are only good as beer coasters if you are rebuilding after a war.
Pete
For example, the Earth was larger but due to a rare collision the Moon was split off.
There is some merit in this view.
However, it is not certain that tides were needed for the formation of life. Hydrothermal vents are a much more likely site for the origin of life, and unless you're on a world like Europa don't have much to do with tides. And don't forget the conquest of the land happened independently by insects, plants and amphibians. Can't be that hard now can it?
The moon does assist in producing some interesting rhythms and aiding nocturnal animals. But I don't see why there can't be local replacements for these or even if they are needed.
Another thing to remember all these planet surveys are sensitive to planets that strongly perturbe the star. That is, BIG planets close in ... or big planets in higly elliptic orbits etc. Not really conducive to finding earth like planets. Don't forget that the number of stars within a given distance of the Earth is about proportional to the cube of the distance (ignoring clusters etc) so within 100 light years there are 125 times as many stars are there within 20 light years (very approximately of course). So of all these thousands of nearby stars they have found 60 - 100 extreme systems. It proves that planets exist for sure, but we'll have to wait for the next generation of star searchers with optical searches for planets using spacebourne multiple telescope systems or whatever they're called.
Pete
Recently American Scientist" had an article on possible niches for organisms on Europa. The magazine article is worth reading. Very interesting. It is pretty easy to do the calculation that shows how deep the oceans are on Europa. You can even get an idea of the ice thickness from the heat diffusion for snow, though maybe I fluked that one. Anyway, Europa is the next moon out from Io which is pretty tormented by tidal stress. The surface of Europa is amazingly flat ... like the ice isn't very thick blah blah .. you get the picture.
People have been theorising about this for about 20 years, Clarke didn't invent the "life on Europa" thing he was just astute enough to see a winning theory. I remember at the time I was surprised so few supported it ... it seemed a very likely possibility. Then when hydrothermal vents were discovered it didn't take long for people to put the two ideas together.
Actually, the likely pressure at the bottom of the ocean on Europa is likely to be similar to that at the deepest parts of the Earth's oceans. But no-one knows. Can't wait for a probe to do some searching ... even just the ice on the surface near the cracks should have heaps of biological stuff if there is life there. Also, its probably the easiest place we could colonise. I mean the temp is over 0 C and the upper layers should be ok for scuba ... and a few subs ... hmmmmmmmmm
Pete
Studies, via simulation, in Nature as I recall after the Gulf War showed that it was actually pretty close to a global weather event. It would need to have burnt for 50% longer I think.
Frozen Earth ? Well don't worry eventually the Ice Age will return as it does after 10,000 years of warmth (we are now at the 12,000 year mark).
The Jupiter Effect? Maybe you are too young to remember or just plain didn't read the book. The reason Gribbin wrote the book was simple. He read two studies: 1) planetary alignments were positively correlated with sunspot activity; 2) sunspot activity was positively correlated to earthquake activity on Earth. He wrote a letter to Nature. Response ? Zip. Seeing as how a major alignment was due soon and the San Andreas fault had not slipped in quite a while he was a bit concerned so he wrote a book. In response to the book studies were done and flaws found in the initial studies. If he hadn't written the book the flaws would probably not have been found.
Now if YOU had noticed this link and no one listened and you knew it might involve millions of lives what would you do ?
Ok. So if you had a complex system such as human society interacting with global climate , ecosystems etc. What do you think the chances are that the results would come out all positive ? (considering how many species we've made extinct).
Right. Maybe we've done some good, maybe we've done some bad (or a lota bad) and maybe what we did didn't count for much. Then how come all of Lomberg's analysis shows only good. Gimme a break its gotta be bullshit.
And anyway what does a political scientist know about GCMs and climatology ? Yeah sure an outsider can sometimes give a unique and incisive insight
It also helps reduce the incidence of those mutations if the victim is sterile. B-)
That is so amazing, I didn't know.
.... oooh I wonder what sunglasses made of blue sapphire would be like ?
What are the advantages over toughened glass ?
Heh heh. You do realise that everything you know about computers will be mostly obsolete in about 5 years and totally obsolete in 10. That's the way it is. All your friends who started at 13 are just going to have to learn it all over again. That's why many developers give up and go into management ... can't handle the constant change (that orta get some negative comments and moderation).
Teaching computers to kids is total bullshit.
I was on a school policy committee to determine IT policy and I tried to point out to the really gung ho IT teacher that computers are only useful as tools AFTER the skill is learnt (eg drawing or writing). You can't use computers and expect it to accelerate creativity, it can only be a tool. My comments fell on deaf (and dumb) ears.
Many critics openly commented later that the Adademy fucked up badly by not giving the Best Picture award to "2001". It was a massive embarassment over the next few years that it hadn't won. When you think that polls showed it some years later as one of the four best movies ever made(with Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and i forget the other).
Will FoTR get it ? Dunno the competition is pretty good. Much as I love^H^H^H^Hlike Tolkien it doesn't reach the dizzying heights of drama that other movies may. OTOH, "Return of the King" should be very interesting in 2003, since it has some nice emotional scenes. Especially if they include the tale of Aragorn and Arwen (appendix A) as has been reported.
I find it refreshingly recursive that the top of the 40 at Daypop right now is The Google Programming Contest. :)
Lets see TowerJ has been out since when ? 1999. Having tried my hand at this I have some reservations. The project I was on ... a large dinosaur of a thing which will remain nameless had 12,000 classes which TowerJ turned into C files which were then compiled by GCC. Resulted in 50 megabyte executables on a Sun. Didn't really solve the problem which wasn't really about speed but throughput. The solution was a better design using servlets and Java Webserver ... result DRAMATICALLY faster without any need for native compilation.
Mind you I noticed in the IBM article that the memory footprint was much smaller. That might be nice.
Can't happen.
Metals are a "sea of electrons" right ? Basic stuff. When a photon hits it these electrons are responsible for reflecting the particle. And you get basic "skin effect" penetration inverse exponential. It aint possible except in very thin layers. Like gold that can be beaten so thin as to be transparent.
If you get transparent aluminium it'll just be a dielectric not a metal.
Geeeees!
... now I can officially forget Visually Impaired C++ from my resume ... after all Borland is portable. Well maybe not ... kids still gotta eat.
... absolutely wunderful fellas (and fella-ettes). So easy to do things. Not perfect but pretty damn good.
Tears of joy
I used C++ Builder on a contract recently
Underground its likely to be quite hot enough and wet enough in some places on Mars. The important thing about these bacteria is that they metabolise hydrogen and CO2 and nothing else. They are independent of any other living creatures or sunlight, they could be dropped into a similar habitat on Mars and survive quite well.
Never have moderator access when I want it.
Point 3 seems particularly important.
... from World War II is the best way to describe it. I have seen at some time those old nazi movies in a documentary and even if I couldn't understand the words the mood was obvious. Starship Troopers was exactly the same. Once you realise the all the symbols ... the fact that the Military Intelligence guy is wearing a version of an SS uniform, the flag is angular like a swastika, and the grey uniforms so like German army. ... and then think of all your friends thinking its "entertaining" and "rousing" etc ... it is just soooooo creepy.
... gees where've I heard that before.
A much better movie than people think. Not much relation to the book but pretty good just the same. And didn't you like the end where the recruiter's voice says "and you just know they will win"
Peter
... Lindows, Winamp, ... hey MS can sue IETF for using the word "windowing" in their protocols.
As always MS presents a good case for the "Might is right" school of thought.
Or the positively ancient Dick Tracy wrist phone/TV.
John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider" predicts a network of linked computers available from any point which talented users can use to change identities etc by sending programs to do their bidding ... even cleaning up their old identities with "tapeworms" ... from which we now get the term "worm".
Remarkably prescient vision. Though not in a vacuum of course.
Oh crap. Americans are such nice people ... why'd they have to go an screw things up this badly ... oh yeah that's right politicians. Keep on forgetting my own country doesn't have a monopoly on fuckwit politicians.
... owning vast estates. It was all about money. The only thing they feared was the mob .. so you provide mass entertainment as a distraction. People watch even grisly murder if its entertaining ... maybe we'll even see the web broadcast execution of Linux users .. via Windows Media Player of course...
If you're going to compare the US to any place then I reckon the it really compares to Imperial Rome. The senators there got very rich helping their mates
Its worth $20. And I dont see why they shouldn't be rewarded. We Linux users get it pretty easy .. great OS, free (speech + beer), lots of fun .. and it'll boost linux's standing ... eventually a totally free competitor will arise but as I said why not reward them in the meantime ?
This is probably related to the fact that bone is piezo-electric. Which means that it has to be asymmetrical stress on the bone to induce the result. So being in fluid wont work .. You'd probably need a good contact with the mat .. or a weak artificial gravity.