Thing is, that part of the contract is not valid in many countries. As one example, in Sweden it is expressly allowable to break encryption or other mechanisms whose primary purpose is to limit the use of the media by its owner. So there, at least, this tool would _not_ break that contract.
Imagine having a PDA as a combination calendar/text repository/alarm/notebook. You keep it with you pretty much all day, every day. This means it is all but inevitable that you (and it) will get caught out in a rainshower at some point; that soone or later it _will_ slip out of your jacket pocket to fall to the ground (perhaps into a puddle, perhaps onto dusty gravel); at some point or other, you _will_ bump into something (maybe getting jostled against a door frame in a crowd), hitting the PDA.
I ask, who does _not_ need a ruggedized PDA?
That said, the price seems, well, silly. I just got a GPS, and it manages to be shock-proof, water-proof (something vaguely overkill like being able to be submerged for half an hour) and dust-proof, with a fairly large screen, and with both power and data connectors (and, of course, with most of the normal PDA-like hardware like CPU, memory and so on), all for around $180.
Come on - even assuming that _all_ of those $180 goes for the weather-proofing any PDA being built the same would still be a _far_ cry from 1200 freaking pounds.
so yah doing somethign for the greater good of the human race is a good Idea.
So, if this development is creating more "good" in the form of a new, prosperous Indian middle class than it is creating out of work American workers, then it really is a good idea, right?
Again, why is "outside of the country" the critical variable?
Why not "outside of your town", or "outside of your circle of aqcuaintances"? Or, indeed, given the terms of your post, "outside of your extended family"? You are aware that you are, by extension, advocating nepotism?
I've been playing with one, and the hardware is quite nice. The Qtopia environment, however, leaves quite a bit to be desired. I ended up getting a Yopy instead.
I agree. Absolutely. My reaction was toward the parent poster (and other posts) that seemed to categorically say that any kind of data retention, in any context, using a spreadsheet is wrong ("evil" seems a common way to express it). I just can't see how that is the case (and neither can you or a lot of other people, apperantly).
No, as I already wrote, I do not want to use a whole dedicated app just for this. There are several reasons for that:
First, any dedicated app will reflect its author's view on what data to collect and what use to make of it. It is highly unlikely their view will match mine.
Second, I will end up with dozens of specialized applications for various kinds of simple databases/lists/stuff. If they are too simple, they will not actually do what I want them to. If they are configurable and open-ended, I need to learn how to configure and adapt each and every one of them. With a spreadsheet, I learn how it works _once_.
Third, and embarrassingly, I will forget I used a specialized application at all. When I want to take a look at or add to the data a couple of weeks later, I will no longer remember what application I used, or indeed that I ever used a special application for it. Frustration ensues. This has happened a number of times as I have tried to use some kind of one-shot application.
No, if using a spreadsheet is evil, then what we need is not specialized solutions, but a pretty spreadsheet-like, flexible database app - same kind of UI, but geared towards flexible grids of information rather than mathematical expressions.
This is not intended as a flame or anything, but then what do you recommend?
I use Gnumeric for (among other things) a list of movies I have (about 80-100 rows). The fields are Movie name, category, and who (if anybody) has borrowed it at the moment.
Another spreadsheet "database" I have is an expanding table of the time taken for me to bicycle to work every morning; it is sort of fun (and motivating) to plot the long-time trend. The flexibility of the spreadsheet also allows me to experiment with various ways of displaying the data.
So, for the first application, I could use a simple text file. That would of course not really improve on using the spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet has better UI for editing single fields, compared to a text editor. Using a "real" SQL database, on the other hand, would be horrendous overkill for something this small, as would using some dedicated application just for tracking stuff like this.
For the second one, the choices are even fewer; if i can't plot the data, it's not usable at all. So, no text files, and no generic SQL interface.
So, _what_ should I use to keep track of these lists (and plot and mangle the data, in the case of my travel times)? I haven't found any other tool that comes close, but I am certainly open for suggestions.
Doesn't that say something about the income strategy?
* Right now, we have a system that depends on people watching brief commercials between shows and in breaks during the shows. The networks do not get money for people watching the shows, but only for the interstitials.
* The reason is that the advertisers (customers) are only interested in paying for people watching their commercials. They could not care less if anyone ever sees the actual show; in fact, ideally there would be no show (with the damaging potential of "wardrobe malfunctions" and whatnot).
* The commodity that is sold to the customers (advertisers) is a viewing public - in fact, specific demographical segments thereof. The public, however, by and large do not want the advertisements. They are there for the show (which is the bait) and ads are an annoyance.
So, we have paying customers that want people to see the ads, a demographic that does not like the ads (and has no moral or legal reason to watch them), and tv networks that try to bring the public and the ads together anyway, since that is how they get paid.
Up until now, this has all worked because of a piece of polite fiction: that "television is on" = "people are actually watching". This has never accounted for people using the time for bathroom breaks, getting more snacks or coffee, ar simply turning away and talking with each other about the show rather than watching the ads. This has been tolerated by the advertisers because, well, what do you do? We do not have more accurate ways of measuring this. Except now we do, and we are discovering that people really _do_ avoid advertisements, and quite successfully too. Understandably, advertisers are balking - they are not being delivered what they were promised, after all.
The problem is is not the viewing public, it is the model. You can't make people watch commercials they do not want to see. And there is no one simple solution. A good guess is that between better (= more depressing) data collection methods and a shift toward online entertainment, you will se fewer shows, they will be lower budget, and you will have more in-show product placement. Get ready for a lot more "reality tv" and a lot less "Stargate", in other words.
No, "one whiff" and you're certainly not blind. Methanol is only dangerous if ingested, and even then, small amounts will not cause any permanent damage. And while flammable, it is no more so than ethanol, which is allowed in airplanes by the bottle.
Good example, both of the problem and the not-so-glorious solution.
In FC1 at least (thought RH9 did too), it is automagically detected and mounted (if it is a data CD), played (if it is audio), or brings up the CD-burning view of Nautilus (if the CD is unwritten).
Similarily, installing a TrueType font now can be done by dragging it to the font settings window, byt dragging it to the Font view of Nautilus, or by moving it to your./fonts directory. Next step is to have this happen whenever you double-click on a zip file containing font data, but this does not happen yet (at least partially because of the need to peek inside the.zip).
And that's just it. We are moving forward, bit by bit, but there are a _lot_ of "bits" to move forward by. There is no magic bullet, no secret sauce, no Deus ex Machina to cut through the Gordian knot (to mix metaphors rather horribly). It is a long, hard slog, identifying, then going through literally thousands of use-cases and fix them, one by one - and preferably without introducing consistencies or problems somewhere else.
A project like Gnome does put a _lot_ of effort into this, but there is so very much to do, that it still seems to move forward very slowly.
It is Sun's problem. People are using other tools than Java today, making it increasingly irrelevant on this platform. Those who are clamoring for opening Java do so because they want to save>/i> the platform, not kill it.
Someone who doesn't know enough to install the JDK on their computer on their own from a package that is already included in their distro (just not in the 'free' section) probably wouldn't be able to develop in it. If you like java, you can install it, you can use it.
But, as a developer, I would be very wary of using something that requires my potential users to download and install a Java runtime just for my application. That will likely ensure that most potential users remain potential.
"they" are almost every distro out there. And "they" do not include Java for pretty good, license-related reasons.
And no, this is Sun:s problem, not the distributions. A good deal of people that would have been using Java for their applications are instead happily using Python, Perl, C/C++ or, rarely but increasingly often,even Mono/C# for their development. Those people were Sun's to loose, and they did.
Right now we have the situation that even Sun is doing all their GNOME contributions in C/C++, as Java is not acceptable as part of the core desktop at this time (neither is Mono/C#, of course - no need to start a flamewar here). In fact, we will likely see Python (and maybe Perl) accepted as core technologies for the desktop (for both GNOME and KDE) long before we see Java - and by then, it may be too late for Java no matter what happens. Of course, that is a problem for Sun (and for dedicated Java developers), not for the distros or for the general user/developer population.
(vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software.
That, for instance, does not sound like a term that any distro would be particularily happy with (or, in the case of a community effort like Debian, even possible).
Because many distros will not ship non-free software by default. This greatly limits the usefulness of Java as a general development language for Linux applications. They are shooting themselves in the foot on this one.
Except that the career path has been eroding. The number of full-time faculty positions (to say nothing of tenured positions) have been declining, so people spend more and more time in post-doc limbo. Getting your degree is not the difficult part of the career - getting an actual full-time position is.
However, from personal experience I can tell that there is often a huge difference between what "a scientist" has found out (and recorded in a paper) and what a journalist will actually write about it.
The sad thing is, as a rule the journalist really _wants_ to write an honest, representative piece. The scientist _wants_ to represent their findings as well as possible. But, because of tight deadlines, communication mistakes, misunderstandings and so on, we end up with writeups that bring tears to the scientists, abuse for the reporters, ad bad-will from everybody in the process towards everybody else.
Slashdot Mirror
Thing is, that part of the contract is not valid in many countries. As one example, in Sweden it is expressly allowable to break encryption or other mechanisms whose primary purpose is to limit the use of the media by its owner. So there, at least, this tool would _not_ break that contract.
Hey, if that means you will stop paying for a huge army, then I (and most of the rest of the world) is all for your tax breaks!
And I have to decide whether you are serious?
Imagine having a PDA as a combination calendar/text repository/alarm/notebook. You keep it with you pretty much all day, every day. This means it is all but inevitable that you (and it) will get caught out in a rainshower at some point; that soone or later it _will_ slip out of your jacket pocket to fall to the ground (perhaps into a puddle, perhaps onto dusty gravel); at some point or other, you _will_ bump into something (maybe getting jostled against a door frame in a crowd), hitting the PDA.
I ask, who does _not_ need a ruggedized PDA?
That said, the price seems, well, silly. I just got a GPS, and it manages to be shock-proof, water-proof (something vaguely overkill like being able to be submerged for half an hour) and dust-proof, with a fairly large screen, and with both power and data connectors (and, of course, with most of the normal PDA-like hardware like CPU, memory and so on), all for around $180.
Come on - even assuming that _all_ of those $180 goes for the weather-proofing any PDA being built the same would still be a _far_ cry from 1200 freaking pounds.
Again, how is this immoral?
By the same token, no European country or consumer should buy any American product.
so yah doing somethign for the greater good of the human race is a good Idea.
So, if this development is creating more "good" in the form of a new, prosperous Indian middle class than it is creating out of work American workers, then it really is a good idea, right?
The parent to my post implicates that it is immoral, and my post is an answer to that.
But why draw the line along national borders?
And, more poignantly, this saying seems to chime very well with the actions of company owners, don't you think?
Again, why is "outside of the country" the critical variable?
Why not "outside of your town", or "outside of your circle of aqcuaintances"? Or, indeed, given the terms of your post, "outside of your extended family"? You are aware that you are, by extension, advocating nepotism?
And why, exactly, is hiring people in other countries immoral?
I've been playing with one, and the hardware is quite nice. The Qtopia environment, however, leaves quite a bit to be desired. I ended up getting a Yopy instead.
I agree. Absolutely. My reaction was toward the parent poster (and other posts) that seemed to categorically say that any kind of data retention, in any context, using a spreadsheet is wrong ("evil" seems a common way to express it). I just can't see how that is the case (and neither can you or a lot of other people, apperantly).
Um, why do you want to fit it on a single sheet of paper? It's like saying "I tried to fit the book on a single sheet of paper and it's unreadable".
No, as I already wrote, I do not want to use a whole dedicated app just for this. There are several reasons for that:
First, any dedicated app will reflect its author's view on what data to collect and what use to make of it. It is highly unlikely their view will match mine.
Second, I will end up with dozens of specialized applications for various kinds of simple databases/lists/stuff. If they are too simple, they will not actually do what I want them to. If they are configurable and open-ended, I need to learn how to configure and adapt each and every one of them. With a spreadsheet, I learn how it works _once_.
Third, and embarrassingly, I will forget I used a specialized application at all. When I want to take a look at or add to the data a couple of weeks later, I will no longer remember what application I used, or indeed that I ever used a special application for it. Frustration ensues. This has happened a number of times as I have tried to use some kind of one-shot application.
No, if using a spreadsheet is evil, then what we need is not specialized solutions, but a pretty spreadsheet-like, flexible database app - same kind of UI, but geared towards flexible grids of information rather than mathematical expressions.
This is not intended as a flame or anything, but then what do you recommend?
I use Gnumeric for (among other things) a list of movies I have (about 80-100 rows). The fields are Movie name, category, and who (if anybody) has borrowed it at the moment.
Another spreadsheet "database" I have is an expanding table of the time taken for me to bicycle to work every morning; it is sort of fun (and motivating) to plot the long-time trend. The flexibility of the spreadsheet also allows me to experiment with various ways of displaying the data.
So, for the first application, I could use a simple text file. That would of course not really improve on using the spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet has better UI for editing single fields, compared to a text editor. Using a "real" SQL database, on the other hand, would be horrendous overkill for something this small, as would using some dedicated application just for tracking stuff like this.
For the second one, the choices are even fewer; if i can't plot the data, it's not usable at all. So, no text files, and no generic SQL interface.
So, _what_ should I use to keep track of these lists (and plot and mangle the data, in the case of my travel times)? I haven't found any other tool that comes close, but I am certainly open for suggestions.
Doesn't that say something about the income strategy?
* Right now, we have a system that depends on people watching brief commercials between shows and in breaks during the shows. The networks do not get money for people watching the shows, but only for the interstitials.
* The reason is that the advertisers (customers) are only interested in paying for people watching their commercials. They could not care less if anyone ever sees the actual show; in fact, ideally there would be no show (with the damaging potential of "wardrobe malfunctions" and whatnot).
* The commodity that is sold to the customers (advertisers) is a viewing public - in fact, specific demographical segments thereof. The public, however, by and large do not want the advertisements. They are there for the show (which is the bait) and ads are an annoyance.
So, we have paying customers that want people to see the ads, a demographic that does not like the ads (and has no moral or legal reason to watch them), and tv networks that try to bring the public and the ads together anyway, since that is how they get paid.
Up until now, this has all worked because of a piece of polite fiction: that "television is on" = "people are actually watching". This has never accounted for people using the time for bathroom breaks, getting more snacks or coffee, ar simply turning away and talking with each other about the show rather than watching the ads. This has been tolerated by the advertisers because, well, what do you do? We do not have more accurate ways of measuring this. Except now we do, and we are discovering that people really _do_ avoid advertisements, and quite successfully too. Understandably, advertisers are balking - they are not being delivered what they were promised, after all.
The problem is is not the viewing public, it is the model. You can't make people watch commercials they do not want to see. And there is no one simple solution. A good guess is that between better (= more depressing) data collection methods and a shift toward online entertainment, you will se fewer shows, they will be lower budget, and you will have more in-show product placement. Get ready for a lot more "reality tv" and a lot less "Stargate", in other words.
No, "one whiff" and you're certainly not blind. Methanol is only dangerous if ingested, and even then, small amounts will not cause any permanent damage. And while flammable, it is no more so than ethanol, which is allowed in airplanes by the bottle.
Good example, both of the problem and the not-so-glorious solution.
./fonts directory. Next step is to have this happen whenever you double-click on a zip file containing font data, but this does not happen yet (at least partially because of the need to peek inside the .zip).
In FC1 at least (thought RH9 did too), it is automagically detected and mounted (if it is a data CD), played (if it is audio), or brings up the CD-burning view of Nautilus (if the CD is unwritten).
Similarily, installing a TrueType font now can be done by dragging it to the font settings window, byt dragging it to the Font view of Nautilus, or by moving it to your
And that's just it. We are moving forward, bit by bit, but there are a _lot_ of "bits" to move forward by. There is no magic bullet, no secret sauce, no Deus ex Machina to cut through the Gordian knot (to mix metaphors rather horribly). It is a long, hard slog, identifying, then going through literally thousands of use-cases and fix them, one by one - and preferably without introducing consistencies or problems somewhere else.
A project like Gnome does put a _lot_ of effort into this, but there is so very much to do, that it still seems to move forward very slowly.
It is Sun's problem. People are using other tools than Java today, making it increasingly irrelevant on this platform. Those who are clamoring for opening Java do so because they want to save>/i> the platform, not kill it.
Someone who doesn't know enough to install the JDK on their computer on their own from a package that is already included in their distro (just not in the 'free' section) probably wouldn't be able to develop in it. If you like java, you can install it, you can use it.
But, as a developer, I would be very wary of using something that requires my potential users to download and install a Java runtime just for my application. That will likely ensure that most potential users remain potential.
"they" are almost every distro out there. And "they" do not include Java for pretty good, license-related reasons.
And no, this is Sun:s problem, not the distributions. A good deal of people that would have been using Java for their applications are instead happily using Python, Perl, C/C++ or, rarely but increasingly often,even Mono/C# for their development. Those people were Sun's to loose, and they did.
Right now we have the situation that even Sun is doing all their GNOME contributions in C/C++, as Java is not acceptable as part of the core desktop at this time (neither is Mono/C#, of course - no need to start a flamewar here). In fact, we will likely see Python (and maybe Perl) accepted as core technologies for the desktop (for both GNOME and KDE) long before we see Java - and by then, it may be too late for Java no matter what happens. Of course, that is a problem for Sun (and for dedicated Java developers), not for the distros or for the general user/developer population.
(vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software.
That, for instance, does not sound like a term that any distro would be particularily happy with (or, in the case of a community effort like Debian, even possible).
Why would you need an open source Java?
Because many distros will not ship non-free software by default. This greatly limits the usefulness of Java as a general development language for Linux applications. They are shooting themselves in the foot on this one.
Except that the career path has been eroding. The number of full-time faculty positions (to say nothing of tenured positions) have been declining, so people spend more and more time in post-doc limbo. Getting your degree is not the difficult part of the career - getting an actual full-time position is.
Hm. Ok, this kind of "statistics" is of course just fo fun, and have very little relevance. That said:
"java" - 60 million hits
but
"java -coffee -island" - 9.3 million hits
Still quite a lot, but not as huge as the first search made it out to be.
Good points.
However, from personal experience I can tell that there is often a huge difference between what "a scientist" has found out (and recorded in a paper) and what a journalist will actually write about it.
The sad thing is, as a rule the journalist really _wants_ to write an honest, representative piece. The scientist _wants_ to represent their findings as well as possible. But, because of tight deadlines, communication mistakes, misunderstandings and so on, we end up with writeups that bring tears to the scientists, abuse for the reporters, ad bad-will from everybody in the process towards everybody else.
Um, the Perl bindings are pretty complete and very up to date (the current prerelease stuff covers GTK2.4, for example).