You are certainly correct; one theory is cosmological, and the other biological. They do not "go hand-in-hand," as I stated. I was being sloppy; I apologize.
They are *presented* hand-in-hand; and, more importantly (for this discussion), creationists argue against them as if they go hand-in-hand.
I was married to a creationist for a few years; I'm a bit touchy on this subject. (I was a physics undergrad at the time; resulted in some interesting conversations, as in the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times" interesting.)
This is serioulsy bold, and slanderous statement of this guy to make, and I'm wondering who's going to be the first to open a can of lawsuit ass on SCO.
His statement was neither libel nor slander. It was a twisting of the truth into something that, while still true, misrepresents intention.
The FSF (and others) believe that progress is made through openness, just as Darl (and his other brother Darl) says. But, they are not trying to "undermine" all copyright and patents-- just those relating to information. And, "undermine" is a loaded word. Rather, the FSF appears to be trying to modify the current system into something that does not allow the hoarding of information.
Me, I see that most of the really hard scientific progress was done in the open, when people were free to use ideas and concepts without threat of litigation. So, I agree with the FSF.
1. Go to store. Find the software you want, or are told you want. 2. Stand in line to purchase software. 3. Pay $429.99 for office suite 4. Drive home 5. Unpack software. Break fingernail on impenetrable plastic carton. Curse. Wrap finger in Curious George band-aid. 6. Insert CD. Watch the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring while the virus scanner checks the CD. 7. When the setup program autoruns, click through licenses and questions both stupid and unintelligible. When the setup program asks for the keycode, look around your workspace. After 5 minutes of frantic searching, realize you through it away with the fingernail-hating packaging. Dig through garbage; find license under old coffee grounds. 8. While the program installing, watch the extended edition of The Two Towers. 9. Run the program for the first time. Dig through settings and configuration to figure out how to TURN OFF THAT DAMNED PAPERCLIP! 10. Done.
Of course, this is for an old version of MS-Office. The newer version is much simpler; since Clippy is no longer included, step 9 is not necessary.
Confusing language is the tool of every good businessman, like it or not.
For certain confusing definitions of "good," certainly. If "good" means (as I use it, when applied to people), "The world is a better place because of their existence," then no good businessman confuses language for profit.
But by that definition, there "good" and "businessman" should not be used in a sentence, unless it's, "The only good businessman is a jailed businessman."
There are many free filesystems. At issue isn't the filesystems per se; it's the embedded nature of most FAT-based media.
Microsoft is beginning to move into the field of embedded devices. This isn't just for the X-Box; as they have targeted cell phones, cameras, and other embedded devices with MS-Windows XP Embedded, they are trying to push their own operating system into an area in which they had very little prior market penetration.
This could be a blow to other systems, as it suddenly makes things like compact flash more difficult to use with existing systems. The manufacturers picked the lowest common denominator for universal media: FAT. Since MS has a stranglehold on the desktop, this is both the natural choice, and the best market choice. Microsoft, in promulgating FAT as a "standard," has contributed to this. It's like MS had a big bowl of candy, and said, "Sure, take some! We're all friends here," and is now (after quite some time, and after almost everyone has dipped from the candy bowl) trying to extract money for the candy.
Okay, that's a silly, frivolous analogy; the reality is much worse, as now these embedded systems manufacturers rely on the FAT system for their own products, their own revenue stream.
However, near as I can tell, this isn't what's happening. Although they mentioned their patents at the end, I believe that was simply (as someone else stated) sabre rattling, an exploitation of the dark, vile haze that surrounds everything related to "Intellectual Property" (a phrase that is detestible in its own right, and implies exploitation, greed and selfishness at the expense of others). I believe they simply see a market for their own FAT code; might as well make some money off that stagnant and aging "IP."
The command line must be disabled by default, and the only way to get it is to install an unspported rpm, with a huge disclaimer in bold red text saying explicitly that they can destroy their system, and the user must sign a disclaimer and have to enter in a 50 character activation code to confirm that they want to use such dangerous software.
Don't like the command line, huh?
There's nothing wrong with the command line. If the user is not logged in as root, the most they can do is fuck up their own home directory. Now, I'm not saying you should have a shell in the top level of a menu; but you should have shell access somewhere in the system menu, or by selecting "run" and run gnome-terminal (or rxvt or what-have-you).
I do agree with the heart of your anti-command-line comment, though: the user should never *have* to use the shell.
It depends on what you accept as "evidence." For instance, the major reason some people oppose the Big Bang theory is because it goes hand-in-hand with evolution, and necessitates a univers billions of years old. Since this "goes against the Bible," both the Big Bang and Evolution are considered false.
If this is your evidence, then yes, you are cuckoo.
However, if you have compelling, or even rational, evidence to the contrary, please let us know.
This crap is moderated "Informative?" There's nothing informative here at all.
Micheal Moore might be a little fringe, but that doesn't make his statements or ideals less true. Look at Tesla; he was quite insane, and yet had great insight into electricity.
Now.
There is no conspiracy; it's just that all Republicans (and all Democrats) are self-serving, greedy, lieing sons-of-bitches. Why else would they make great campaign promises of reduced government, greater civil liberties, and a return to constitutional values, and instead deliver lies (Bush lied to go to war, presenting faked documents as "proof" that Iraq was dangerous), a reduction in civil liberties, bloated government spending, and tax breaks for the rich?
(Not that Clinton did much better. We're pretty much fucked no matter who we vote for.)
These things are not fanatic ravings. They are documented facts. The conclusions you draw may be your own. Me, I choose to believe Bush has turned our government into a threat worse than Saddam Hussein ever was.
He did make some concrete predictions about 2004/2005; I'm waiting to see if anything really happens.
I'm a complete doubter; the pictures were obviously faked (the black hole warps the laser, but not the smoke that allows the laser to be seen? Yeah, right), and though the story was interesting, it was a bit too Heinlein for my taste.
Plus, there just wasn't enough remorse about the nuking of the major American cities. No matter how much you dislike a bunch of people, his calousness seemed rather... inhuman.
But, if there a civil war starts in 2004, I'm gonna start believing.
Exchange? Hardly: you have Lotus Notes, which is much more flexible and powerful, and much more secure. SQL2k? Oracle blows it away, as does IBM's DB/2, both in capability and speed.
Your comments about.NET are spot-on, though, as are your thoughts about desktop Linux and brand-name recognition. Without a significant Linux desktop presence, Microsoft will use the desktop to eliminate the server competition.
I agree; confusing the issue with a lot of choices is just as bad as removing the choices altogether.
As I said, it's a balancing act.
But, I disagree that Unix power users are the least efficient. I can do things within Unix much faster than my MS-Windows friends from their "user-friendly" GUI.
And, worse yet, the recent versions of MS-Windows *hide* once-visible options. The interface is *different* almost every time I access it! That makes me less efficient even than too many options, as I have to look for the proper selection every time I want to use it!
The problem is intrinsic to the medium, and is often more a matter of training and personal preference than any really objective "usability." Some studies have been conducted that indicate certain methods and approaches are better than others; but mostly, predictiblity helps more than reducing the number of choices.
But I will argue that until we reach a point where computers are unobtrusive, there is nothing "natural" about them.
The keyboard, mouse, and video screen are not "natural." There is no easy interface that makes it natural, either. MS-Windows seems easy to a lot of people because it is what they are used to.
ANYthing that stands between a user and the power of the computer is a "dumbing down." That is what most geeks refer to when talking about the MS-Windows interface.
Until computers are able to interact with humans using a human interface (speech, AI to grok information, and user agents to make intelligent responses to that speech), there will be something unnatural about human/computer interaction.
Until then, we will be making compromises between power and "ease-of-use." The question becomes, how much power are you willing to sacrifice?
Called "Stuff I've Seen,' the research technology allows a user, from one place, to search and retrieve information from across applications, the Web and file types. Researchers also are working on contextualized search so that searches for relevant information take place automatically as a user is working on a document or creating an e-mail.
If we need database products, we need object oriented databases, heirarchical databases, things that are in relatively short supply, where what is out there is limited in usefulness, so ancient it won't compile, or too hideous to contemplate.
It's hard to create a decent object-oriented database when the word "object" isn't formally defined. "Object-oriented" is merely a programming model. Database management systems require a lot more rigor than that.
And although it might fall into the "too hideous to contemplate" category, you should check out gt.m as a heirarchical DBMS. It's available on sourceforge. It's a MUMPS implementation; for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a heirarchical database system and programming language all rolled into one. It is used in financial institutions and hospitals alike.
In fact, there is a freely-available medical records/hospital management system that is more robust and complete than commercial products costing millions of dollars: VistA, put out by the US Veterans Administration. It is available via the freedom of information act.
There is a project to get VistA running on gt.m: WorldVistA.
But, I think you miss the point of Rekall: it is the RAD tool for existing DBMSs to which you refer. It is quite nice, from all accounts.
Also, for an interesting project that is more industrial in nature, check out Gnu Enterprise, an Oracle-forms like environment that also makes use of existing database management systems.
There's a lot going on, a lot of it both useful and interesting.
The Mac is often not a choice at all; neither are Linux or the BSDs.
Most software is produced for one platform: MS-Windows. I'm finding it difficult to manage one of our database systems (Cache, from Intersystems) without a PC on my desk, as their management software comes in the form of an MS-Windows app.
Microsoft has the power to drive the direction of other software companies. It is the only company in the world with that kind of clout. They can run almost any other sofware business *out* of business. In this sense, they *are* a "mono-" meaning one. They are the *only* one.
I don't trust anything the government says, as it tends to be in the pocket of big business. But, any time the government finds against big business, I sit up and listen.
And how long are you going to ignore the question? Your misdirection still ignores that a lot of superior software is written for free, by people who merely love to write software.
How come only Microsoft can be violating anti-trust when adding additional functionality to an OS?
Because only Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop software.
MS has every right to produce any software which adds value to the OS.
Not exactly. Microsoft has the right to produce software; but tieing one product to a monopoly product for the sake of running a competitor out of business is a violation of US anti-trust law.
MS is bigger but that is not a crime.
No; but abusing that size is a crime.
Consider this: is it fair that Microsoft has simply to "integrate" a software product into the OS to run a competitor out of business? Especially one that has a fairly large market share in one area?
That is essentially what they are trying to do. They were successful running Netscape out of business (although I admit that Netscape had a hand in that, as they kept releasing more and more terrible software, but at the time Microsoft passed them in browser numbers, Netscape still produced a better browser).
I guarantee that if MS bundled MS-Money into the OS, Quicken would be a dead product within a year. Same with (insert your favorite non-MS app here).
Microsoft carries greater power than any other software company on earth; therefore, they must wield that power more softly. That is why they do not have the freedoms of most other software companies.
There's a lot more about this particular topic; I suggest exploring it further, as it is extremely fascinating. It is difficult to find good, balanced material concerning the power vested in major corporations, but it is well worth searching out.
Has this ever happened? I have *never* heard of an accounting software company, or even Microsoft, being sued for buggy or bad software, even when data has been destroyed.
Never.
The accounting software we use is not guaranteed, and we use a big small one. (Banner, from SCT.) I don't even think SAP is guaranteed to work.
Most contracts have words to the effect of, "If there is a problem with the program, we will do our best to help you recover lost data, etc, as long as your contract is up-to-date."
The GNU Public License, the BSD License, and just about every variation and incarnation of open source licenses states very clearly that the software is not guaranteed or warranteed in any ways.
And this is a great business opportunity for anyone at all, not just the producers of the software. You can form a company that will support and warrant the software. That's essentially what Red Hat and Suse and IBM does. It's a great business model, as it reduces the barrier to entry.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. I believe he used to be biased, but honest; now he's just another self-serving lieing son-of-a-bitch, like the rest of them.
You are certainly correct; one theory is cosmological, and the other biological. They do not "go hand-in-hand," as I stated. I was being sloppy; I apologize.
They are *presented* hand-in-hand; and, more importantly (for this discussion), creationists argue against them as if they go hand-in-hand.
I was married to a creationist for a few years; I'm a bit touchy on this subject. (I was a physics undergrad at the time; resulted in some interesting conversations, as in the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times" interesting.)
This is serioulsy bold, and slanderous statement of this guy to make, and I'm wondering who's going to be the first to open a can of lawsuit ass on SCO.
His statement was neither libel nor slander. It was a twisting of the truth into something that, while still true, misrepresents intention.
The FSF (and others) believe that progress is made through openness, just as Darl (and his other brother Darl) says. But, they are not trying to "undermine" all copyright and patents-- just those relating to information. And, "undermine" is a loaded word. Rather, the FSF appears to be trying to modify the current system into something that does not allow the hoarding of information.
Me, I see that most of the really hard scientific progress was done in the open, when people were free to use ideas and concepts without threat of litigation. So, I agree with the FSF.
But, YMMV, of course.
What kind of psychedelics are you on, man?
HOWTO install software on MS-Windows
1. Go to store. Find the software you want, or are told you want.
2. Stand in line to purchase software.
3. Pay $429.99 for office suite
4. Drive home
5. Unpack software. Break fingernail on impenetrable plastic carton. Curse. Wrap finger in Curious George band-aid.
6. Insert CD. Watch the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring while the virus scanner checks the CD.
7. When the setup program autoruns, click through licenses and questions both stupid and unintelligible. When the setup program asks for the keycode, look around your workspace. After 5 minutes of frantic searching, realize you through it away with the fingernail-hating packaging. Dig through garbage; find license under old coffee grounds.
8. While the program installing, watch the extended edition of The Two Towers.
9. Run the program for the first time. Dig through settings and configuration to figure out how to TURN OFF THAT DAMNED PAPERCLIP!
10. Done.
Of course, this is for an old version of MS-Office. The newer version is much simpler; since Clippy is no longer included, step 9 is not necessary.
HOWTO install program under Linux (Debian):
1. apt-get install openoffice.org
Confusing language is the tool of every good businessman, like it or not.
For certain confusing definitions of "good," certainly. If "good" means (as I use it, when applied to people), "The world is a better place because of their existence," then no good businessman confuses language for profit.
But by that definition, there "good" and "businessman" should not be used in a sentence, unless it's, "The only good businessman is a jailed businessman."
There are many free filesystems. At issue isn't the filesystems per se; it's the embedded nature of most FAT-based media.
Microsoft is beginning to move into the field of embedded devices. This isn't just for the X-Box; as they have targeted cell phones, cameras, and other embedded devices with MS-Windows XP Embedded, they are trying to push their own operating system into an area in which they had very little prior market penetration.
This could be a blow to other systems, as it suddenly makes things like compact flash more difficult to use with existing systems. The manufacturers picked the lowest common denominator for universal media: FAT. Since MS has a stranglehold on the desktop, this is both the natural choice, and the best market choice. Microsoft, in promulgating FAT as a "standard," has contributed to this. It's like MS had a big bowl of candy, and said, "Sure, take some! We're all friends here," and is now (after quite some time, and after almost everyone has dipped from the candy bowl) trying to extract money for the candy.
Okay, that's a silly, frivolous analogy; the reality is much worse, as now these embedded systems manufacturers rely on the FAT system for their own products, their own revenue stream.
However, near as I can tell, this isn't what's happening. Although they mentioned their patents at the end, I believe that was simply (as someone else stated) sabre rattling, an exploitation of the dark, vile haze that surrounds everything related to "Intellectual Property" (a phrase that is detestible in its own right, and implies exploitation, greed and selfishness at the expense of others). I believe they simply see a market for their own FAT code; might as well make some money off that stagnant and aging "IP."
At least, that's my opinion. I could be wrong.
The command line must be disabled by default, and the only way to get it is to install an unspported rpm, with a huge disclaimer in bold red text saying explicitly that they can destroy their system, and the user must sign a disclaimer and have to enter in a 50 character activation code to confirm that they want to use such dangerous software.
Don't like the command line, huh?
There's nothing wrong with the command line. If the user is not logged in as root, the most they can do is fuck up their own home directory. Now, I'm not saying you should have a shell in the top level of a menu; but you should have shell access somewhere in the system menu, or by selecting "run" and run gnome-terminal (or rxvt or what-have-you).
I do agree with the heart of your anti-command-line comment, though: the user should never *have* to use the shell.
It depends on what you accept as "evidence." For instance, the major reason some people oppose the Big Bang theory is because it goes hand-in-hand with evolution, and necessitates a univers billions of years old. Since this "goes against the Bible," both the Big Bang and Evolution are considered false.
If this is your evidence, then yes, you are cuckoo.
However, if you have compelling, or even rational, evidence to the contrary, please let us know.
Don't forget Terry Gilliam, Kevin Smith (uneven, but always good, IMNSHO), and the Coen Brothers.
There are others, but there's not enough coffee in the world to wake me up.
This crap is moderated "Informative?" There's nothing informative here at all.
Micheal Moore might be a little fringe, but that doesn't make his statements or ideals less true. Look at Tesla; he was quite insane, and yet had great insight into electricity.
Now.
There is no conspiracy; it's just that all Republicans (and all Democrats) are self-serving, greedy, lieing sons-of-bitches. Why else would they make great campaign promises of reduced government, greater civil liberties, and a return to constitutional values, and instead deliver lies (Bush lied to go to war, presenting faked documents as "proof" that Iraq was dangerous), a reduction in civil liberties, bloated government spending, and tax breaks for the rich?
(Not that Clinton did much better. We're pretty much fucked no matter who we vote for.)
These things are not fanatic ravings. They are documented facts. The conclusions you draw may be your own. Me, I choose to believe Bush has turned our government into a threat worse than Saddam Hussein ever was.
He did make some concrete predictions about 2004/2005; I'm waiting to see if anything really happens.
I'm a complete doubter; the pictures were obviously faked (the black hole warps the laser, but not the smoke that allows the laser to be seen? Yeah, right), and though the story was interesting, it was a bit too Heinlein for my taste.
Plus, there just wasn't enough remorse about the nuking of the major American cities. No matter how much you dislike a bunch of people, his calousness seemed rather... inhuman.
But, if there a civil war starts in 2004, I'm gonna start believing.
Exchange? Hardly: you have Lotus Notes, which is much more flexible and powerful, and much more secure. SQL2k? Oracle blows it away, as does IBM's DB/2, both in capability and speed.
.NET are spot-on, though, as are your thoughts about desktop Linux and brand-name recognition. Without a significant Linux desktop presence, Microsoft will use the desktop to eliminate the server competition.
Your comments about
I agree; confusing the issue with a lot of choices is just as bad as removing the choices altogether.
As I said, it's a balancing act.
But, I disagree that Unix power users are the least efficient. I can do things within Unix much faster than my MS-Windows friends from their "user-friendly" GUI.
And, worse yet, the recent versions of MS-Windows *hide* once-visible options. The interface is *different* almost every time I access it! That makes me less efficient even than too many options, as I have to look for the proper selection every time I want to use it!
The problem is intrinsic to the medium, and is often more a matter of training and personal preference than any really objective "usability." Some studies have been conducted that indicate certain methods and approaches are better than others; but mostly, predictiblity helps more than reducing the number of choices.
But I will argue that until we reach a point where computers are unobtrusive, there is nothing "natural" about them.
The keyboard, mouse, and video screen are not "natural." There is no easy interface that makes it natural, either. MS-Windows seems easy to a lot of people because it is what they are used to.
ANYthing that stands between a user and the power of the computer is a "dumbing down." That is what most geeks refer to when talking about the MS-Windows interface.
Until computers are able to interact with humans using a human interface (speech, AI to grok information, and user agents to make intelligent responses to that speech), there will be something unnatural about human/computer interaction.
Until then, we will be making compromises between power and "ease-of-use." The question becomes, how much power are you willing to sacrifice?
Called "Stuff I've Seen,' the research technology allows a user, from one place, to search and retrieve information from across applications, the Web and file types. Researchers also are working on contextualized search so that searches for relevant information take place automatically as a user is working on a document or creating an e-mail.
Doesn't this sound like Dashboard?
Ah, the sweet smell of innovation. It smells like... well, like the rotting flesh of last year's fresh project.
If we need database products, we need object oriented databases, heirarchical databases, things that are in relatively short supply, where what is out there is limited in usefulness, so ancient it won't compile, or too hideous to contemplate.
It's hard to create a decent object-oriented database when the word "object" isn't formally defined. "Object-oriented" is merely a programming model. Database management systems require a lot more rigor than that.
And although it might fall into the "too hideous to contemplate" category, you should check out gt.m as a heirarchical DBMS. It's available on sourceforge. It's a MUMPS implementation; for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a heirarchical database system and programming language all rolled into one. It is used in financial institutions and hospitals alike.
In fact, there is a freely-available medical records/hospital management system that is more robust and complete than commercial products costing millions of dollars: VistA, put out by the US Veterans Administration. It is available via the freedom of information act.
There is a project to get VistA running on gt.m: WorldVistA.
But, I think you miss the point of Rekall: it is the RAD tool for existing DBMSs to which you refer. It is quite nice, from all accounts.
Also, for an interesting project that is more industrial in nature, check out Gnu Enterprise, an Oracle-forms like environment that also makes use of existing database management systems.
There's a lot going on, a lot of it both useful and interesting.
The Mac is often not a choice at all; neither are Linux or the BSDs.
Most software is produced for one platform: MS-Windows. I'm finding it difficult to manage one of our database systems (Cache, from Intersystems) without a PC on my desk, as their management software comes in the form of an MS-Windows app.
Microsoft has the power to drive the direction of other software companies. It is the only company in the world with that kind of clout. They can run almost any other sofware business *out* of business. In this sense, they *are* a "mono-" meaning one. They are the *only* one.
I don't trust anything the government says, as it tends to be in the pocket of big business. But, any time the government finds against big business, I sit up and listen.
A lot of open source software is crap.
And how long are you going to ignore the question? Your misdirection still ignores that a lot of superior software is written for free, by people who merely love to write software.
Most of them got there by working hard and maintaining a tight-fisted budget.
.com stupidity created a lot of millionaires, it seems a lot of them got their by duping others into making them millionaires.
Considering the
Seems a lot of people get rich through ruthless manipulation of other people.
(note that I don't call them a monopolist, as they aren't)
Yes, they are.
How come only Microsoft can be violating anti-trust when adding additional functionality to an OS?
Because only Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop software.
MS has every right to produce any software which adds value to the OS.
Not exactly. Microsoft has the right to produce software; but tieing one product to a monopoly product for the sake of running a competitor out of business is a violation of US anti-trust law.
MS is bigger but that is not a crime.
No; but abusing that size is a crime.
Consider this: is it fair that Microsoft has simply to "integrate" a software product into the OS to run a competitor out of business? Especially one that has a fairly large market share in one area?
That is essentially what they are trying to do. They were successful running Netscape out of business (although I admit that Netscape had a hand in that, as they kept releasing more and more terrible software, but at the time Microsoft passed them in browser numbers, Netscape still produced a better browser).
I guarantee that if MS bundled MS-Money into the OS, Quicken would be a dead product within a year. Same with (insert your favorite non-MS app here).
Microsoft carries greater power than any other software company on earth; therefore, they must wield that power more softly. That is why they do not have the freedoms of most other software companies.
There's a lot more about this particular topic; I suggest exploring it further, as it is extremely fascinating. It is difficult to find good, balanced material concerning the power vested in major corporations, but it is well worth searching out.
....but all can be sued if something bad happens.
Has this ever happened? I have *never* heard of an accounting software company, or even Microsoft, being sued for buggy or bad software, even when data has been destroyed.
Never.
The accounting software we use is not guaranteed, and we use a big small one. (Banner, from SCT.) I don't even think SAP is guaranteed to work.
Most contracts have words to the effect of, "If there is a problem with the program, we will do our best to help you recover lost data, etc, as long as your contract is up-to-date."
The GNU Public License, the BSD License, and just about every variation and incarnation of open source licenses states very clearly that the software is not guaranteed or warranteed in any ways.
And this is a great business opportunity for anyone at all, not just the producers of the software. You can form a company that will support and warrant the software. That's essentially what Red Hat and Suse and IBM does. It's a great business model, as it reduces the barrier to entry.
Is that why Unix geeks don't shave?
We don't shave so that when the revolution comes, we can easilly distinguish the bearded freedom-fighters from the clean-shaven Microsoft Terrorists.
Like I said, nothing worrisome, companies do this all the time.
That in itself is worrisome.
I believe that falls under the "public safety" thing I talked about.