Yeah, good point. A centimeter is pretty big. I was basing this on a chart which showed that you needed a microscope to make out detail somewhere between a centimeter and 1/10th of a centimeter.
So, really, that should be most people can't make out much detail smaller than 1/10th of a centimeter and the transistors we're talking about are 50,000 times smaller...
It seems clear to me that Moore's Law does hold no matter what - in a way. When the size continues to decrease exponentially... smaller and smaller, to the point where we can't even see what we're making by the naked eye, it's not that further improvement becomes impossible, but simply that the process changes, or the technology.
We're talking about 0.02 microns here. Most people can't make out any detail smaller than a centimeter. 0.02 microns would be 500,000 times smaller than what can be seen with the unaided eye!
I really don't understand your reasoning. Are you saying that we are motivated to improve our technology all the time? What does this have to do with Moore's Law and specific predictions about how fast our technology improves?
If anything, I think that Moore's Law might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We just don't have that great a motivation to improve processor technology these days. We have processor technology that is beyond the dreams of engineers 30 years ago. For the most part, we have reached a point where most of the needs of applications of massively powerful computing are currently realized in today's machines.
Sure, faster is better, but does faster translate to big development dollars to outdo Moore's Law when researchers and developers are constantly trying to develop software and systems to keep up with the huge gains that were seeing with Moore's Law? In this scenario, Moore's Law is how fast machines improve because Moore said as much and that's what drives the designers to improve, keeping up with and staying ahead of Moore's Law. The designers don't want to be in the group that finally failed to live up to the expectations of the industry, but there's also no particular motivation to get ahead of Moore's Law's predictions either.
Take the above with a grain of salt. It's just conjecture, of course.
But, as the article points out, they crackers were trying to break through a firewall. So, there could have been VLANs connected at some point by a firewall.
Face it, if you have a secure control network, you'll really really also want some access to that network from the less-secure office network. Otherwise, generating reports and stuff on operations requires people running tapes around. There's also a strong motivation to get email in and out of a secure network.
They should have also had better security in place for their office network. My guess is that they had rooted the unsecure machine and were putting together some executables to spoof the users into giving up the firewall access. If the control system firewall used secure key cards, this would make things more difficult, but not impossible.
Running a private network for the secure systems isn't difficult. Making it completely isolated from other networks is difficult for political reasons. There's just such a temptation to allow some kinds of access through. With proper security, you should be able to pull it off.
I'm sure the "Open Group" changing their license didn't help matters at all, but that happened over a year after Broadway had been released. I think you are late with your birthdate of LBX, also. I thought it game along in X11R6.3 in 1996 with RX.
I worked for a company that was investigating Broadway back when it first came out for our X application, but interest in Broadway just fizzled.
My guess is that at that time everybody wanted Java apps or native apps.
Really, RX/LBX were never very impressive over slow links, so you either had X and enough bandwidth to support the app, or you didn't and then you didn't want RX/LBX anyway. There's your chicken/egg scenario.
You may have heard of RX under it's more common name, Broadway.
Under any other name, it's still not used at all...
Hummingbird, IIRC, used to run a broadway.com (or was it.org?) web site, but both of those are run by, you guessed it, Broadway (you know, like NY Theatre) organizations now.
I don't know why Broadway wasn't more popular. It's really a mystery to me. It's sad, but I think it has to mean that there just weren't any compelling X applications that could beat out the native Windows or Java apps on the Web desktop.
I had heard a brief report on Australian history on National Public Radio awhile back where an Australian was saying that Australians don't much like to talk about their roots and that it's referred to as "the stain".
Did a quick web search and I just found this, which may be related to the Radio show I'd heard (this is PBS, which is TV, not NPR, but they often share content).
I'm sorry if I drew too much of a conclusion from my very limited understanding of a complex issue. Didn't mean to offend.
However, it would be a barrier to the defendant from being able to travel to/do business in Australia. ISTR that Australia is pretty anal about letting people with any kind of conviction (even one in a foreign country) into the country, which is ironic considering its colonial roots...
Actually, I believe it's explained by their colonial roots.
They are trying desparately to clean up their reputation.
This has forced users to smack their forehead twice to activate the tap. Feedback suggests that voice activation is the only way to go.
HAHA - leave it to us techies to design a cool but nearly unusable interface every time...
Isn't it fitting that the designer will be hitting his forehead every time he tries to use it. Just as if he's saying "Doh! I can't clap and hold my beer mug at the same time! What was I thinking."
Hey, if they go voice activated, this will have the added advantage of serving as a regulating bartender. You have to be able to speak to get more beer.
First off, the advise about exercise and lifestyle changes are the best. I've found that just getting up and taking a stretch every 1/2 to 1 hour helps a _lot_ (you know, just like they tell you to?).
I've had lower back pain for years that has been reduced a lot - I feel - by taking Glucocamine and Chondroitin. I started taking it for my bad knees and noticed that the episodes of bad back pain have been nearly eliminated. My knees are a lot better too.
It takes 6-10 weeks of taking it before you start to get benefit, though.
But, do the exercise and stretching too, those are what will really help.
Somehow, it doesn't bother me much that what passes for common wisdom here is that Usenet is effectively already dead. I don't read much about sporks or petrified women on Usenet.
Re:Things RMS didn't forsee in 1984
on
GPL FAQ
·
· Score: 2
I've always thought that dating Unix back to "the 60s", like you often hear, is ridiculous.
As you can read here, they were just designing Unix in the Summer of 1969. The first programs were written using an Assembler on a GECOS system in 1970. C didn't exist, even as a concept, until 1972. Pipes came along in 1972, also. Unix was fairly unrecognizable until 1972-1974 or so.
Dating Unix "back to the 1960s" is like dating heavier-than-air flight to Michaelangelo.
But, you're right, the issue is should Stallman have anticipated this problem in the early 80's. And the answer is a resounding yes.
Multics had Shared libraries in the mid 60s. The DEC operating system that Stallman first developed Emacs on (TOPS-10) had them in the mid 70s. They were already old-hat by the 80's, regardless of when you first learned of them.
Re:Things RMS didn't forsee in 1984
on
GPL FAQ
·
· Score: 1
When the GPL was being written, nobody was using DLLs or object brokers and "linking" was much more straightforward than it is today.
Object brokers may not have been in use yet, but shared libraries (DLLs) predate Unix by quite a few years.
Well, this article suggests that he has an "adequate command of Spanish", but you shouldn't believe everything you read, I guess...
In review of the Web, I find that it is a misperception that he's bilingual. His brother Jeb is, but George W. may not be.
I do recall recently when a reporter (was it on his trip to Mexico?) asked a question in Spanish and George W. answered it. The question might have been "How are you today Mr. President?" though...
I'm getting tired off all this knee-jerk Bush bashing that goes on around here.
Bush may trip up in public speaking a lot, but the man isn't an idiot. He's a Harvard MBA, a pilot and he's bilingual. In addition, political experts, like Clinton, are saying that the man really connects on a personal level and that it's a mistake to underestimate him.
But then, CmdrTaco can probably write Perl code and chew gum at the same time, so I guess that qualifies him to judge.
Besides, Clinton was the best friend big business ever had... Witness the HUGE consolidation in Petrochemicals that occurred during the Clinton administration. If the Oil Companies are actually gouging now, you can blame the merger of Exxon/Mobil, BP/Amoco and the marketing/refining organizations of Shell/Texaco. This all happened during Clinton's watch.
Lastly, only the Government could force me to wear a chip. If we are to be enslaved, it won't be the mega-corps that dictate it. It might be a collaboration between the mega-corps and Government that dictates it, but I don't see any reason whatsoever to believe that Bush is any more likely to usher this in than a Democrat (see above).
Windows 2000 is good software, but it hasn't been a very good investment for Microsoft...
This is scary. Microsoft, largely in response to the threat of Linux and *BSD (IMHO), finally made a Windows that's quite stable and performs reasonably well. Sure, they took their time in fielding it, but it is much higher quality than their previous offerings.
What leason will be learned by MS Managers and other MBA types in the software industry?
Field a good, well engineered product and the marketplace ignores you. Field something that's completely new (Win95 vs. Win3.1, NT 4 vs. WinNT 3.5), but that's poorly engineered and rake in the profits.
I can see why Microsoft is going the subscription route... How else are they going to get paid for making good software?
They are doing this to snipe at Oracle. The number one database for SAP systems (I believe, used to be anyway...) is Oracle and Oracle competes with SAP with their own App suite.
This makes SAP feel very very uncomfortable.
Releasing a high quality (?don't really know, but that's the impression that SAP would like to make, I'm sure) DB as Open Source attacks Oracle's stated commitment to Open Source - by comparison - and puts something out there to compete with Oracle on the cheap-end, which is becoming more important all the time with the New Economy collapse.
They were busy ignoring the big Oil Mergers, Mobil/Exxon, BP/Amoco, Most of Shell US/Texaco (most people don't even know about this one). Those constitute the three biggest Energy mergers of all time and they all happened in the last 3-4 years.
They were carefully looking the other way as Daimler bought up Chrysler and Ford and GM greatly expanded their International manufacturing assets.
They were nowhere to be seen as unprecedented consolidation occurred in Rail/Transportation, Food Distribution, Agribusiness, Pharmaceuticals and just about every other business you can imagine.
This all wouldn't have been possible had a Republican been President, the media would never have stood still for it. On the other hand, maybe the media has been silent because their corporate masters wanted to take advantage of the merger frenzy.
People need to wake up to just how profoundly Clinton has sold out this country. Not just the Chinese and Marc Rich benefitted...
The IT scrubs can get Linux into production here and there in the under-the-nose fashion, but nobody is going to stop paying MS site licence fees until someone on top makes the big decision. This can happen if there's sufficent pressure to reduce costs.
You can pretty much forget about CIOs, for the most part, being convinced that Linux will save them lots of money. There just isn't the money floating around to drive the schmoozing and the magazine articles that convinces them of anything.
What'll happen is this. There'll be one of those brain-dead-we-can't-trust-middle-management-to-spe nd-any-money-at-all-because-they-are-all-a-bunch-o f-idiots, edicts like "All IT hardware procurement is frozen. No purchases except for replacement of critical systems is approved until further notice or the signature of 2 executive Vice Presidents. No exceptions." Someone will notice that John's department is deploying good infrastructure still with excessed hardware and Linux while Jerry's department is just whining all the time. John gets put in charge of Jerry's department and the amount of Linux in the organization doubles and a bandwagon starts which the CIO jumps on board.
If the RedHat salesman comes calling with numbers in hand, they will listen.
The RedHat salesman? The guy who comes into Megacorp and tells them that they only have to buy one $49.95 copy and install it on every one of their 50,000 servers. Right.
For good or bad, this Free Software is a different business model. There certainly won't be much room for software sales types and other middlemen.
If Megacorp is to be sold on Linux, it won't be salesmen who do it. Maybe a RedHat salesamn will come through with an attractive Enterprise Support and Training deal, I dunno.
What might do it is when people install Linux behind the back of the IT departments, like you say happened with Novell. If people start to get lots of work done with File and Print services based on Samba with excessed hardware lying around, then maybe those CIOs will notice that they really don't need to buy licenses for this anymore.
Will there be mandatory code 'sweeps' to make sure all GPL'd code is available to others outside the company that developed it?
Sheesh, the M$ FUD is getting more subtle all the time, isn't it?
The answer to your question is no. There will be no such sweeps. Why? Because no organization, certainly not the FSF, has the right to demand that you divulge internal records or allow their access to your equipment like Microsoft gains when you "sign" one of their licensing agreements.
Pretty much compliance with GPL and other licenses will depend on informants, which BTW is probably the primary way that the SPA finds out about corporations cheating on licensing agreements now.
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So, really, that should be most people can't make out much detail smaller than 1/10th of a centimeter and the transistors we're talking about are 50,000 times smaller...
We're talking about 0.02 microns here. Most people can't make out any detail smaller than a centimeter. 0.02 microns would be 500,000 times smaller than what can be seen with the unaided eye!
I really don't understand your reasoning. Are you saying that we are motivated to improve our technology all the time? What does this have to do with Moore's Law and specific predictions about how fast our technology improves?
If anything, I think that Moore's Law might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We just don't have that great a motivation to improve processor technology these days. We have processor technology that is beyond the dreams of engineers 30 years ago. For the most part, we have reached a point where most of the needs of applications of massively powerful computing are currently realized in today's machines.
Sure, faster is better, but does faster translate to big development dollars to outdo Moore's Law when researchers and developers are constantly trying to develop software and systems to keep up with the huge gains that were seeing with Moore's Law? In this scenario, Moore's Law is how fast machines improve because Moore said as much and that's what drives the designers to improve, keeping up with and staying ahead of Moore's Law. The designers don't want to be in the group that finally failed to live up to the expectations of the industry, but there's also no particular motivation to get ahead of Moore's Law's predictions either.
Take the above with a grain of salt. It's just conjecture, of course.
But, as the article points out, they crackers were trying to break through a firewall. So, there could have been VLANs connected at some point by a firewall.
Face it, if you have a secure control network, you'll really really also want some access to that network from the less-secure office network. Otherwise, generating reports and stuff on operations requires people running tapes around. There's also a strong motivation to get email in and out of a secure network.
They should have also had better security in place for their office network. My guess is that they had rooted the unsecure machine and were putting together some executables to spoof the users into giving up the firewall access. If the control system firewall used secure key cards, this would make things more difficult, but not impossible.
Running a private network for the secure systems isn't difficult. Making it completely isolated from other networks is difficult for political reasons. There's just such a temptation to allow some kinds of access through. With proper security, you should be able to pull it off.
I worked for a company that was investigating Broadway back when it first came out for our X application, but interest in Broadway just fizzled.
My guess is that at that time everybody wanted Java apps or native apps.
Really, RX/LBX were never very impressive over slow links, so you either had X and enough bandwidth to support the app, or you didn't and then you didn't want RX/LBX anyway. There's your chicken/egg scenario.
It doesn't appear that the site has been updated since 1997, though. All the pages seem to be copyright 1997.
Under any other name, it's still not used at all...
Hummingbird, IIRC, used to run a broadway.com (or was it .org?) web site, but both of those are run by, you guessed it, Broadway (you know, like NY Theatre) organizations now.
I don't know why Broadway wasn't more popular. It's really a mystery to me. It's sad, but I think it has to mean that there just weren't any compelling X applications that could beat out the native Windows or Java apps on the Web desktop.
I had heard a brief report on Australian history on National Public Radio awhile back where an Australian was saying that Australians don't much like to talk about their roots and that it's referred to as "the stain".
Did a quick web search and I just found this, which may be related to the Radio show I'd heard (this is PBS, which is TV, not NPR, but they often share content).
I'm sorry if I drew too much of a conclusion from my very limited understanding of a complex issue. Didn't mean to offend.
Actually, I believe it's explained by their colonial roots.
They are trying desparately to clean up their reputation.
HAHA - leave it to us techies to design a cool but nearly unusable interface every time...
Isn't it fitting that the designer will be hitting his forehead every time he tries to use it. Just as if he's saying "Doh! I can't clap and hold my beer mug at the same time! What was I thinking."
Hey, if they go voice activated, this will have the added advantage of serving as a regulating bartender. You have to be able to speak to get more beer.
If you're so smart, come up with a better health device and collect $1 million.
slashdotted.
You mean, first he gets DDoS'd by a bunch of script kiddies using IRC bots, then he gets...
DDoS'd by a bunch of script kiddies using web browsers.
I've had lower back pain for years that has been reduced a lot - I feel - by taking Glucocamine and Chondroitin. I started taking it for my bad knees and noticed that the episodes of bad back pain have been nearly eliminated. My knees are a lot better too.
It takes 6-10 weeks of taking it before you start to get benefit, though.
But, do the exercise and stretching too, those are what will really help.
Usenet did fine before deja.com, it'll do fine after google.com is gone.
Somehow, I don't think it's a problem that some ISPs don't allow newsgroup access.
As long as you can find people like Dennis Ritchie,John R. Mashey(actually, he seems to have abandoned Usenet in January, but his Farewell is there...),John McCarthy,Bjarne Stroustroup and Larry Wall posting frequently, I'll keep reading.
Somehow, it doesn't bother me much that what passes for common wisdom here is that Usenet is effectively already dead. I don't read much about sporks or petrified women on Usenet.
As you can read here, they were just designing Unix in the Summer of 1969. The first programs were written using an Assembler on a GECOS system in 1970. C didn't exist, even as a concept, until 1972. Pipes came along in 1972, also. Unix was fairly unrecognizable until 1972-1974 or so.
Dating Unix "back to the 1960s" is like dating heavier-than-air flight to Michaelangelo.
But, you're right, the issue is should Stallman have anticipated this problem in the early 80's. And the answer is a resounding yes.
Multics had Shared libraries in the mid 60s. The DEC operating system that Stallman first developed Emacs on (TOPS-10) had them in the mid 70s. They were already old-hat by the 80's, regardless of when you first learned of them.
Object brokers may not have been in use yet, but shared libraries (DLLs) predate Unix by quite a few years.
In review of the Web, I find that it is a misperception that he's bilingual. His brother Jeb is, but George W. may not be.
I do recall recently when a reporter (was it on his trip to Mexico?) asked a question in Spanish and George W. answered it. The question might have been "How are you today Mr. President?" though...
Bush may trip up in public speaking a lot, but the man isn't an idiot. He's a Harvard MBA, a pilot and he's bilingual. In addition, political experts, like Clinton, are saying that the man really connects on a personal level and that it's a mistake to underestimate him.
But then, CmdrTaco can probably write Perl code and chew gum at the same time, so I guess that qualifies him to judge.
Besides, Clinton was the best friend big business ever had... Witness the HUGE consolidation in Petrochemicals that occurred during the Clinton administration. If the Oil Companies are actually gouging now, you can blame the merger of Exxon/Mobil, BP/Amoco and the marketing/refining organizations of Shell/Texaco. This all happened during Clinton's watch.
Lastly, only the Government could force me to wear a chip. If we are to be enslaved, it won't be the mega-corps that dictate it. It might be a collaboration between the mega-corps and Government that dictates it, but I don't see any reason whatsoever to believe that Bush is any more likely to usher this in than a Democrat (see above).
I'm glad you said next to no use.
Seems like these would work better than tires in swampy grassland, as long as the water didn't get too deep.
This is scary. Microsoft, largely in response to the threat of Linux and *BSD (IMHO), finally made a Windows that's quite stable and performs reasonably well. Sure, they took their time in fielding it, but it is much higher quality than their previous offerings.
What leason will be learned by MS Managers and other MBA types in the software industry?
Field a good, well engineered product and the marketplace ignores you. Field something that's completely new (Win95 vs. Win3.1, NT 4 vs. WinNT 3.5), but that's poorly engineered and rake in the profits.
I can see why Microsoft is going the subscription route... How else are they going to get paid for making good software?
---
This makes SAP feel very very uncomfortable.
Releasing a high quality (?don't really know, but that's the impression that SAP would like to make, I'm sure) DB as Open Source attacks Oracle's stated commitment to Open Source - by comparison - and puts something out there to compete with Oracle on the cheap-end, which is becoming more important all the time with the New Economy collapse.
---
The FTC?
They were busy ignoring the big Oil Mergers, Mobil/Exxon, BP/Amoco, Most of Shell US/Texaco (most people don't even know about this one). Those constitute the three biggest Energy mergers of all time and they all happened in the last 3-4 years.
They were carefully looking the other way as Daimler bought up Chrysler and Ford and GM greatly expanded their International manufacturing assets.
They were nowhere to be seen as unprecedented consolidation occurred in Rail/Transportation, Food Distribution, Agribusiness, Pharmaceuticals and just about every other business you can imagine.
This all wouldn't have been possible had a Republican been President, the media would never have stood still for it. On the other hand, maybe the media has been silent because their corporate masters wanted to take advantage of the merger frenzy.
People need to wake up to just how profoundly Clinton has sold out this country. Not just the Chinese and Marc Rich benefitted...
---
Oh yeah? It doesn't run on IBM mainframes, on OS/400, on OS/2, on Compaq Tru64 UNIX, or on Compaq OpenVMS.
All of the above run Java. I think all but one of the runs Perl (OS/400?). Most of those support Python and TCL.
It doesn't run on HP MPe/ix, nor on the popular PalmOS.
With such a small footprint, you'd think porting of the REBOL/core would be easy to these environments.
---
You can pretty much forget about CIOs, for the most part, being convinced that Linux will save them lots of money. There just isn't the money floating around to drive the schmoozing and the magazine articles that convinces them of anything.
What'll happen is this. There'll be one of those brain-dead-we-can't-trust-middle-management-to-spe nd-any-money-at-all-because-they-are-all-a-bunch-o f-idiots, edicts like "All IT hardware procurement is frozen. No purchases except for replacement of critical systems is approved until further notice or the signature of 2 executive Vice Presidents. No exceptions." Someone will notice that John's department is deploying good infrastructure still with excessed hardware and Linux while Jerry's department is just whining all the time. John gets put in charge of Jerry's department and the amount of Linux in the organization doubles and a bandwagon starts which the CIO jumps on board.
It won't come from the top down, that's for sure.
---
The RedHat salesman? The guy who comes into Megacorp and tells them that they only have to buy one $49.95 copy and install it on every one of their 50,000 servers. Right.
For good or bad, this Free Software is a different business model. There certainly won't be much room for software sales types and other middlemen.
If Megacorp is to be sold on Linux, it won't be salesmen who do it. Maybe a RedHat salesamn will come through with an attractive Enterprise Support and Training deal, I dunno.
What might do it is when people install Linux behind the back of the IT departments, like you say happened with Novell. If people start to get lots of work done with File and Print services based on Samba with excessed hardware lying around, then maybe those CIOs will notice that they really don't need to buy licenses for this anymore.
---
Sheesh, the M$ FUD is getting more subtle all the time, isn't it?
The answer to your question is no. There will be no such sweeps. Why? Because no organization, certainly not the FSF, has the right to demand that you divulge internal records or allow their access to your equipment like Microsoft gains when you "sign" one of their licensing agreements.
Pretty much compliance with GPL and other licenses will depend on informants, which BTW is probably the primary way that the SPA finds out about corporations cheating on licensing agreements now.
---