I'm sure you've missed my central point: There is no way to keep an open hole while drilling with laser. If you collect 30 m of rock chips in the bottom of 500 m of borehole, you have't made progress; at some point, you have to clear the rock cuttings. When you have to trip out a drill bit to clear rock cuttings, your drill speed drops to less than my old fashioned, tricone bit.
Blowing air to the clear the drill cuttings at the depths needed to hit oil in production areas around the world (1000 - 2000 m) doesn't work. There are always leaks in the formation that can't be sealed. People who have used mud for drilling can estimate the weight of mud nessary to close leaks and can move by the poor seal.
I didn't say laser drilling would be *BAD* technology; just an inappropriate application for oil drilling. And drilling in contaminated areas is a good idea for the reason I gave.
Innovative != cheap. Oil companies always go for cheap.
We've been discussing using laser ablation techniques for drilling at the USDOE Hanford Site since I arrived here in 1991. The advantages of using a laser over air or mud rotary drilling techniques in highly contaminated source areas makes a lot of sense. The downside is that you have difficulty in keeping the hole open while you advance the laser 'drill'. As has been pointed out, mud (or more precisely, bentonite) is used to carry rock fragments away from the bit face and maintain a constant flow of debris moving up the borehole. With laser ablation, the borehole would be kept open using tubular steel (carbon steel) casing; the casing moving just a couple of feet behind the lasar drill.
Another potential advantage that has been discussed in using laser drilling techniques is the "analysis on the run" that could be conducted while drilling. Because laser vaporizes the formation, and anything it contains (i.e., hazardous contaminants), this drill could be used in front of a gas chromatograph/mass spectroscopy apparatus to analyze the stream of drill waste as the laser advances.
This technique is probably only useful for shallow, high risk drilling operations. The cost of deploying this machine, not to mention maintaining it, are so far off the scale for oil drilling that it is rediculous. No oil company will spend the kind of money it would take to run this drill when conventional drilling techniques have become more cost-efficient, and more precise in directing the borehole.
Well, no the RIAA wouldn't be shutting up if Napster was increasing CD sales. The issue isn't about CD revenues at all, per se, but about control.
The RIAA has failed miserably to produce their own online music distribution service, so they attack the only one that was producing results. If they thought they couldn't make money on Napster via pay-per-download, then why are they proposing their own version of the same service?
The fact is, they want Napster down because it isn't OWNED by them.
In short, they view Napster as a *competitive* threat, not an IP threat. They could always license the recordings for sale on Napster, but then they couldn't hold Napster to their *price targets* (look for CY2000 articles where RIAA members agreed to discontinue predatory pricing via advertising kick-backs).
The RIAA will kill Napster, then quietly buy the Napster code, and then reintroduce the service in their own image.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me that some people would miss the point of this research. The issue is ideed cleaning up radiation, but the focus for researchers has been cleaning existing radioactive contamination.
I guess it is easy to be glib when you are unaffected by this level of contamination. Unlike yourself, however, I live 23 km from these high-level tank farms.
People, you claim, do not have a right to their property if they choose to give it away. The only appropriate use of property is for the greater good, you say, and in this case, for the greater good of corporate society (which is somehow different than the social society you diametrically oppose in your antitrust litigation).
He's setting Allchin up....
Open source is a misuse of property, according to your observations, and takes innovation that should benefit the good of the corporate community and destroys it, depriving poor corporations of their right to monopolize them. Only by preventing selfish programmers from carelessly giving their innovations away without going through a corporate party can this community property be protected.
OH! He SLAMS his head into the turnbuckle!...
Only government action, you state, can protect helpless corporations from this destructive action, such as mandatory programmer licenses, outlawing of open source and free software (unless it says Internet Explorer on it and comes from Microsoft), and minimum pricing standards to require a fee for all software.
He take 'em to the mat!.....
With all this said, please help me understand your demands are any different from any other redistributionist thief's views. Help me determine why I should defend your rights any further, instead of regarding you as yet another parasite.
He just gouged Allchin's eye with his thumb! That's going to leave a mark!
Have you considered the damage that M$ can do to open source with this type of discussion?
As I read this article, there are 349 replies. Just think of the reaction that type of mail flood would get in Seattle. The flood itself would be newsworthy.
Write the editorial board of the Seattle Times and the P-I. Tell them how disgusted you are with Allchin's remarks! The number of letters WILL get a response. And Allchin WILL get wind how of his transgression is being received.
As an environmental consultant who worked in the late '80s investigating property transfers, I regularly stopped at the local country courthouse to review property records. On one occasion, I was in southern Idaho and during my review I saw literally hundreds of loyalty oaths recorded on microfilm in the archive. Although the people who swore these oaths were not force at gun point to do so, their community would have seen their refusal as equivalent to treason.
I would have agreed with half of what you wrote here until you started attacking geeks who *may* have a beef with MS for making a closed shop out of what some of us rightfully regard as a scientific discipline.
The idea that anyone who disagrees with MS's business practices because they are anti-capitalist or elitist should replace the computer theme in this rant with biology, physics or geology.
I don't fault Gates et al. for making huge sums of money. I fault MS for making any innovation in the field of computer science the life-long propriety of one company.
Science, in its current form, is only a few hundred years old. If the current trend in capitalizing every scientific discovery holds, there will be no area of science that will advance beyond the corporate boardroom.
I can't get excited about a company who will change their privacy policy after-the-fact to create a revenue stream at my expense.
They didn't ask me for my buy-in, and now Amazon is selling my name and purchasing habits to anyone in their third-party scheme. I now get spam from Amazon's corporate buddy list.
I have no interest in Amazon or their latest attempt to become profitable.
As for the concept of tip jars, I'd like to see more companies (or web operators) put limits on how their information is used and make it binding on THEM to let you know *ahead of time* how that information will be used - in short, an opt-in program that has some force of law.
Economic theory is a scientific explanation for how commerce functions. It is tied to several variables, not just value.
However, as has been pointed out already, the universe is a closed system. The theories that underpin the current economic system can be rendered moot by the political dynamics that support it. Prior to the Enlightenment, no economic theory would support capitalism because every item within a specific political boundary belonged to the monarchy.
The law of supply and demand is superceded by the laws of conservation of mass and energy. All value created in the capitalist model collapses when Sol expands to Red Giant; nothing will survive it, so value is irrelevant.
The people who incorrectly apply a conservation of mass and energy arguement to economics and conclude that capitalism is a zero-sum game are correct in the long view. Nothing is more important than survival since that is all nature requires from humans. The luxuries that are produced under a capitalist system by the theoretical concept of value do not account for the finite supply of energy and resources that this planet offers.
The timeline for how long these resources may last will fluctuate based on the technological adaptations we produce to extend, or deplete, their reserves.
Capitalism is just another survival strategy that humans have developed to enhance the chance for the strong to reproduce. Ultimately, the whole process is a zero-sum game because survival is the basis for existance. Altrusitic endeavors to spread the resources out in a fair and equatable fashion only benefit the strong; there may be an intrinsic value to the feeling one gets in charity. In the end, the resources will eventually run dry and natural selection will again favor those who's strength, speed, and intellect are superior to those who cannot adapt to change.
The fossil record is replete with examples of the failed experiments of biological evolution. It remains to be seen whether humans possess the intellectual capacity to look beyond the last quarterly report and see themselves as part of 3 million years of hominid evolution.
Capitalism, in its present fashion, works best to lift all boats with rise, and spread, of wealth. Whether that will remain true is an open question. In the end, life itself is a zero-sum game that pits your intellect against that of your neighbor.
"The proposed group would just make sure the really important servers are difficult to exploit"
I guess that depends on your definition of "really important".
Hmm..... Let's try this scenario:
I run my e-biz and depend on BIND for nameserving. It is attacked and my customer records are compromised. I could have received an update IF I had paid for the priviledge of being a member. But my business is now ruined because the notices of expolits were kept to an exclusive list of 'insiders' who had advance knowledge.
Sounds like M$ extortion to me.
If you ask me to define what a *really* important server is, I would say 'Mine!'. Should I have to pay to get exploit information? I don't think so.
"As for the money issue, not much i can say thats capitalism for you, linux doesn't offer all that windows can for your kids."
I can see now that you don't understand either capitalism or Linux.
I can get everything my kids need under Linux except legacy Windows gaming. With the release of this library, it is possible that even that handicap disappears.
And the first rule of capitalism is capital preservation. That means not purchasing those things that are considered unnecessary.
Buying a PC just to get a game console is a poor example of capitalism.
All technical discussion on OGL/DX aside (which, I'll admit, you've made a strong case in favor of DX), I find Windows harder to administer because it is not easily controlled on the install level.
I can, for instance, use the Linux Terminal Server Project's programs to easily install and run diskless clients that eliminate the need for my kids to install their own games. Also, my kids have very little patience during the install process and will arbitrarily overwrite existing library files even when prompted to select the best choices (a six-year-old is not a good sysop!).
As for going out and dumping more money on ME just to get games to run better is a non-starter. I am not going out to buy an OS that is marginally better than the one that proceeded it just to get recovery features.
And my kids have never seen an atari 2600 nor are they likely to see a Dreamcast. My world is not awash in money for every "latest and greatest" toy. They are more than likely ahead of the curve just by having their own computer in their room (albiet Pentium One generation machines).
Wine is not an emulator (I know, this is redundant).
I will certainly run DirectX games under Linux for the reasons I've already stated. But to say that serious gaming enthusiasts don't exist in the Linux world is a stretch. I know that you haven't said this directly, but the implied meaning to your doubts regarding giving up Windows to run games is telling.
Give me a library to run Win-legacy games under Linux and I'll dump Windows tomorrow.
I've been waiting a long time to get this feature on Linux.
For those of you who have kids who get software for Christmas, you'll share my enthusiasm for this move forward. Nearly all of the latest software, educational and shoot-'em-ups, have been written with DirectX.
I understand the concern of those who would like to see everything written under OpenGL. The lack of use may see the library fall by the wayside, regardless of its superiority in providing a platform independent outlet. But I'm looking at this as a father who has to administer three Winboxes that are being operated by children ages 13 and under. The workload in keeping these systems up and running is amazing.
If this works as advertised, then I am dumping Win9x from my kid's computers and installing Linux. Since I can use permissions to delegate who gets to install and operate games, my task as home sysop becomes much simpler.
Until the game shops start using OpenGL, any help in using DirectX under Linux is manna from heaven.
Slashdot Mirror
If you really believed this, why did you release your project as open source?
GNU/Hurd is not an "open source" venture as I understand RMS to define it.
Linux was around before the commercial distros. If there is a need for an alternative OS to MSFT, Linux will have a future.
Blowing air to the clear the drill cuttings at the depths needed to hit oil in production areas around the world (1000 - 2000 m) doesn't work. There are always leaks in the formation that can't be sealed. People who have used mud for drilling can estimate the weight of mud nessary to close leaks and can move by the poor seal.
I didn't say laser drilling would be *BAD* technology; just an inappropriate application for oil drilling. And drilling in contaminated areas is a good idea for the reason I gave.
Innovative != cheap. Oil companies always go for cheap.
Another potential advantage that has been discussed in using laser drilling techniques is the "analysis on the run" that could be conducted while drilling. Because laser vaporizes the formation, and anything it contains (i.e., hazardous contaminants), this drill could be used in front of a gas chromatograph/mass spectroscopy apparatus to analyze the stream of drill waste as the laser advances.
This technique is probably only useful for shallow, high risk drilling operations. The cost of deploying this machine, not to mention maintaining it, are so far off the scale for oil drilling that it is rediculous. No oil company will spend the kind of money it would take to run this drill when conventional drilling techniques have become more cost-efficient, and more precise in directing the borehole.
The RIAA has failed miserably to produce their own online music distribution service, so they attack the only one that was producing results. If they thought they couldn't make money on Napster via pay-per-download, then why are they proposing their own version of the same service?
The fact is, they want Napster down because it isn't OWNED by them.
In short, they view Napster as a *competitive* threat, not an IP threat. They could always license the recordings for sale on Napster, but then they couldn't hold Napster to their *price targets* (look for CY2000 articles where RIAA members agreed to discontinue predatory pricing via advertising kick-backs).
The RIAA will kill Napster, then quietly buy the Napster code, and then reintroduce the service in their own image.
The Hanford Site hosts 177 underground high-level radioactive storage tanks with approximately 53 million gallons of radioactive waste containing 190 million curies of radioactivity.
I guess it is easy to be glib when you are unaffected by this level of contamination. Unlike yourself, however, I live 23 km from these high-level tank farms.
He's setting Allchin up....
Open source is a misuse of property, according to your observations, and takes innovation that should benefit the good of the corporate community and destroys it, depriving poor corporations of their right to monopolize them. Only by preventing selfish programmers from carelessly giving their innovations away without going through a corporate party can this community property be protected.
OH! He SLAMS his head into the turnbuckle!...
Only government action, you state, can protect helpless corporations from this destructive action, such as mandatory programmer licenses, outlawing of open source and free software (unless it says Internet Explorer on it and comes from Microsoft), and minimum pricing standards to require a fee for all software.
He take 'em to the mat!.....
With all this said, please help me understand your demands are any different from any other redistributionist thief's views. Help me determine why I should defend your rights any further, instead of regarding you as yet another parasite.
He just gouged Allchin's eye with his thumb! That's going to leave a mark!
As I read this article, there are 349 replies. Just think of the reaction that type of mail flood would get in Seattle. The flood itself would be newsworthy.
Write the editorial board of the Seattle Times and the P-I. Tell them how disgusted you are with Allchin's remarks! The number of letters WILL get a response. And Allchin WILL get wind how of his transgression is being received.
Use the /. effect to your advantage!
If the open-source community doesn't strike back for their rights, they won't have ANY rights at all.
As an environmental consultant who worked in the late '80s investigating property transfers, I regularly stopped at the local country courthouse to review property records. On one occasion, I was in southern Idaho and during my review I saw literally hundreds of loyalty oaths recorded on microfilm in the archive. Although the people who swore these oaths were not force at gun point to do so, their community would have seen their refusal as equivalent to treason.
Allchin's statement is a sad day for liberty.
He should be shamed for this outrage.
Imagine what the world would be like if Galileo or Newton had closed taken their discoveries along the M$ path.
How different the world would be if Newton had said: "I see further than others because I'm standing on a taller stack of law books".
Allchin should have is Ph.D. revoked.
The idea that anyone who disagrees with MS's business practices because they are anti-capitalist or elitist should replace the computer theme in this rant with biology, physics or geology.
I don't fault Gates et al. for making huge sums of money. I fault MS for making any innovation in the field of computer science the life-long propriety of one company.
Science, in its current form, is only a few hundred years old. If the current trend in capitalizing every scientific discovery holds, there will be no area of science that will advance beyond the corporate boardroom.
Where did Bill get the $50k to buy his reverse-engineered copy of CPM (became DOS 1.0)?
His Dad is/was a prominent attorney in Seattle.
Draw your own conclusions, but don't claim that Bill is the ol' pull-'em-up-by-the-bootstraps entrepeneur.
> Parasites.
> Microsoft's shareholders (owners) probably have a great perception of Microsoft. That's the only perception that matters.
I would guess that scroove has a problem with representative democracy, no?
This is the most piercing analysis of MS I've read yet. Mod this article up.
Heh... I'll be 40 this month.
This is true for certain professions. Once the hiring manager sees you are older, you get higher consideration than if you a nipper.
They didn't ask me for my buy-in, and now Amazon is selling my name and purchasing habits to anyone in their third-party scheme. I now get spam from Amazon's corporate buddy list.
I have no interest in Amazon or their latest attempt to become profitable.
As for the concept of tip jars, I'd like to see more companies (or web operators) put limits on how their information is used and make it binding on THEM to let you know *ahead of time* how that information will be used - in short, an opt-in program that has some force of law.
However, as has been pointed out already, the universe is a closed system. The theories that underpin the current economic system can be rendered moot by the political dynamics that support it. Prior to the Enlightenment, no economic theory would support capitalism because every item within a specific political boundary belonged to the monarchy.
The law of supply and demand is superceded by the laws of conservation of mass and energy. All value created in the capitalist model collapses when Sol expands to Red Giant; nothing will survive it, so value is irrelevant.
The people who incorrectly apply a conservation of mass and energy arguement to economics and conclude that capitalism is a zero-sum game are correct in the long view. Nothing is more important than survival since that is all nature requires from humans. The luxuries that are produced under a capitalist system by the theoretical concept of value do not account for the finite supply of energy and resources that this planet offers.
The timeline for how long these resources may last will fluctuate based on the technological adaptations we produce to extend, or deplete, their reserves.
Capitalism is just another survival strategy that humans have developed to enhance the chance for the strong to reproduce. Ultimately, the whole process is a zero-sum game because survival is the basis for existance. Altrusitic endeavors to spread the resources out in a fair and equatable fashion only benefit the strong; there may be an intrinsic value to the feeling one gets in charity. In the end, the resources will eventually run dry and natural selection will again favor those who's strength, speed, and intellect are superior to those who cannot adapt to change.
The fossil record is replete with examples of the failed experiments of biological evolution. It remains to be seen whether humans possess the intellectual capacity to look beyond the last quarterly report and see themselves as part of 3 million years of hominid evolution.
Capitalism, in its present fashion, works best to lift all boats with rise, and spread, of wealth. Whether that will remain true is an open question. In the end, life itself is a zero-sum game that pits your intellect against that of your neighbor.
I guess that depends on your definition of "really important".
Hmm..... Let's try this scenario:
I run my e-biz and depend on BIND for nameserving. It is attacked and my customer records are compromised. I could have received an update IF I had paid for the priviledge of being a member. But my business is now ruined because the notices of expolits were kept to an exclusive list of 'insiders' who had advance knowledge.
Sounds like M$ extortion to me.
If you ask me to define what a *really* important server is, I would say 'Mine!'. Should I have to pay to get exploit information? I don't think so.
I can see now that you don't understand either capitalism or Linux.
I can get everything my kids need under Linux except legacy Windows gaming. With the release of this library, it is possible that even that handicap disappears.
And the first rule of capitalism is capital preservation. That means not purchasing those things that are considered unnecessary.
Buying a PC just to get a game console is a poor example of capitalism.
No thanks. I already have enough of those around the house.
I can't believe the number of replies that I have received that recommend purchasing no less than 4 Windows licenses to run legacy games.
Not exactly an economical strategy, is it?
I can, for instance, use the Linux Terminal Server Project's programs to easily install and run diskless clients that eliminate the need for my kids to install their own games. Also, my kids have very little patience during the install process and will arbitrarily overwrite existing library files even when prompted to select the best choices (a six-year-old is not a good sysop!).
As for going out and dumping more money on ME just to get games to run better is a non-starter. I am not going out to buy an OS that is marginally better than the one that proceeded it just to get recovery features.
And my kids have never seen an atari 2600 nor are they likely to see a Dreamcast. My world is not awash in money for every "latest and greatest" toy. They are more than likely ahead of the curve just by having their own computer in their room (albiet Pentium One generation machines).
I will certainly run DirectX games under Linux for the reasons I've already stated. But to say that serious gaming enthusiasts don't exist in the Linux world is a stretch. I know that you haven't said this directly, but the implied meaning to your doubts regarding giving up Windows to run games is telling.
Give me a library to run Win-legacy games under Linux and I'll dump Windows tomorrow.
For those of you who have kids who get software for Christmas, you'll share my enthusiasm for this move forward. Nearly all of the latest software, educational and shoot-'em-ups, have been written with DirectX.
I understand the concern of those who would like to see everything written under OpenGL. The lack of use may see the library fall by the wayside, regardless of its superiority in providing a platform independent outlet. But I'm looking at this as a father who has to administer three Winboxes that are being operated by children ages 13 and under. The workload in keeping these systems up and running is amazing.
If this works as advertised, then I am dumping Win9x from my kid's computers and installing Linux. Since I can use permissions to delegate who gets to install and operate games, my task as home sysop becomes much simpler.
Until the game shops start using OpenGL, any help in using DirectX under Linux is manna from heaven.