I can not help think that the software mods that are being discussed are similar to the way people customise their cars. It shows signs of appreciation for the object, skill, time invested, etc. That said, I used to work in the automotive industry (FEA, specifically). One of the things that really irked the older/traditional engineers was the fact that people with a limited understanding of the automobile- as an integrated system- would make changes to some fairly significant changes.
This brings me to the MacOS/Aqua/Win9x and customisation discussion. Should the work that is being discussed here be considered customisation (such as those cars with the modified headers, nitrous, and bored-out engines sans chassis modification) or improvements to the design as a whole (a systematic investigation and group of improvements into the aspects of a designed system)?
Many people have mentioned that the customisability of UNIX is one of the reasons that it is a bit frightening to novices. Now that the customisation is available at the UI level, should we worry that the UI may become another space that is frightening to users? I realize that novices would be hard pressed to compile some of the early code releases that we are seeing, but there will come a day when the installation is easy enough. And at that point, does most of the original design work of the original engineers go out the window?
Is there any chance that development/popularization of HURD will act as a brain drain from Linux development? Or, is the current popularity of Linux hampering the development of HURD?
I realize that the two are fundamentally different OSes. However, I am not sure how many people are trained and skilled enough to work on low level programming projects such as HURD. So my question is simple and can be reduced to: how many open source OSes can the planet support?
I would stress the fact that you should ensure you have the proper work visas for the country in which you wish to work. From what I am to understand, obtaining permission to work in the EU as a foreigner is very similar to the US's H1B process (meaning: long and involved).
If you can get a transfer from your curent company to an EU branch, you can work for a short period of time without having to worry about all the work visa legalities (obviously a short term solution). The logic is that one is travelling overseas on a long business trip using a "tourist" visa.
If you are not single and are open to some vaguely questionable moral/ethical actions, you could always try to marry a member of the EU and get permission to work by association...
It is interesting that yesterday's post
regarding the long lasting Pioneer 6 spacecraft appears so close to today's post regarding the Iridium satellite. I realize that the objective for the two objects were different, but the end results are much different.
The juxtaposition raises a few questions in my mind, most immediately, how much faith should we place in the reliability of our spacecraft? Or, more generally, has there been a change in the quality surrounding spacecraft over the past 20 years?
I am not talking about single event errors (explosions, failed mars probes), but instead thinking about how Iridium could have spent so much money and then not provided any real benefit to the creators. (I am assume and believe that most would consider the Pioneer missions successful to all parties involved in it.)
I believe that the "very idea" of Google is actually different that you are stating. As I am to understand, Google originally rated search results based upon the number of other pages that lined to a given URL. The click throughts that were displayed were not part of the equasion.
Many search engines count click throughs and modify the individual URL's result weight based on the number of click throughs. This is a well known algorithm, but is not, as far as I understood, part of Google's original system.
I am not sure that it matters for items of low value, but if a network is to be highly valuable, does it not also need to provide some level of versioning? It seems that access is part of a larger more complex problem.
As information is distributed, there is the opportunity for errors (or active manipulation) to change the meaning or value of the document.
(The book Darwin's Dangerous Game touches on some of these issues and is the seed that is fueling my comment)
I was told by a more seasoned database expert in our company:
Before they tout MySQL as an industrial strength database, they might want to address the concurrent user limitation. One of the lessons I learned was that the concurrent user limit was low. That system was ported to Oracle.
Can anyone with more experience comment on the verity of this?
The poster mentions SHH+POP but not IMAP. Are there any inherent dangers in using IMAP? I am also assuming that SSH can be used in conjunction with a secure connection of some sort like SSH.
I ask as there are several DIY posts for setting up a POP server.
The article also mentions that there are people who are working on usability from a third-party standpoint. I think that getting a set of guidelines for the various GUI's is a good idea, something similar to the guidelines for the MacOS and WinNT.
I mention this because I am part of LUIGUI ( www.luigui.org), a group mentioned in the article. We are trying to collect people who are interested in studying/coding for a wide range of users. I am interested to hear if others are willing/interested in creating a set of defaults or guidelines for the various Linux UI's.
Slashdot Mirror
The real question is how people can sell a service/product that is so inherently flawed that it requires this much support...
This brings me to the MacOS/Aqua/Win9x and customisation discussion. Should the work that is being discussed here be considered customisation (such as those cars with the modified headers, nitrous, and bored-out engines sans chassis modification) or improvements to the design as a whole (a systematic investigation and group of improvements into the aspects of a designed system)?
Many people have mentioned that the customisability of UNIX is one of the reasons that it is a bit frightening to novices. Now that the customisation is available at the UI level, should we worry that the UI may become another space that is frightening to users? I realize that novices would be hard pressed to compile some of the early code releases that we are seeing, but there will come a day when the installation is easy enough. And at that point, does most of the original design work of the original engineers go out the window?
I realize that the two are fundamentally different OSes. However, I am not sure how many people are trained and skilled enough to work on low level programming projects such as HURD. So my question is simple and can be reduced to: how many open source OSes can the planet support?
If you can get a transfer from your curent company to an EU branch, you can work for a short period of time without having to worry about all the work visa legalities (obviously a short term solution). The logic is that one is travelling overseas on a long business trip using a "tourist" visa.
If you are not single and are open to some vaguely questionable moral/ethical actions, you could always try to marry a member of the EU and get permission to work by association...
The juxtaposition raises a few questions in my mind, most immediately, how much faith should we place in the reliability of our spacecraft? Or, more generally, has there been a change in the quality surrounding spacecraft over the past 20 years?
I am not talking about single event errors (explosions, failed mars probes), but instead thinking about how Iridium could have spent so much money and then not provided any real benefit to the creators. (I am assume and believe that most would consider the Pioneer missions successful to all parties involved in it.)
Many search engines count click throughs and modify the individual URL's result weight based on the number of click throughs. This is a well known algorithm, but is not, as far as I understood, part of Google's original system.
More accurate and objective information at:
- http://www.google.com/technology/index.html
- http://searchenginewatch.com/
I am not sure that it matters for items of low value, but if a network is to be highly valuable, does it not also need to provide some level of versioning? It seems that access is part of a larger more complex problem.
As information is distributed, there is the opportunity for errors (or active manipulation) to change the meaning or value of the document.
(The book Darwin's Dangerous Game touches on some of these issues and is the seed that is fueling my comment)
I ask as there are several DIY posts for setting up a POP server.
The article also mentions that there are people who are working on usability from a third-party standpoint. I think that getting a set of guidelines for the various GUI's is a good idea, something similar to the guidelines for the MacOS and WinNT.
I mention this because I am part of LUIGUI ( www.luigui.org), a group mentioned in the article. We are trying to collect people who are interested in studying/coding for a wide range of users. I am interested to hear if others are willing/interested in creating a set of defaults or guidelines for the various Linux UI's.