> Movies are a different animal than music and > it seems reasonable to protect them.
Without strong copyright, you wouldn't have the same blockbuster movie and music industries. But neither would you have them hammering radio, print and television with their campaigns. As a result of a change to weak copyright, other things would fill the vacuume. Sure - the decline of the church led to a decline in several fantastic forms art. But other culture has more than filled the gap, and that hasn't been a direct result of the growth of copyright if these artists are are any guide.
Re:In the hope someone important at Sun reads this
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Sun-isms Debunked
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Your situation is a little different to my usage: I've always been a user on other people's solaris systems and not had sufficient access to install things. I've tried unpacking.pkg files and hacking them but haven't had any success and that's a far-from-trivial solution.
There are a lot of powerusers users in that situation: developers, deployment guys, etc who do not have sysadmin privileges. They never meet the sysadmins and fear the red tape involved in trying to get said admins to do anything.
Also, as though it's not hard enough to find vim in a standard Solaris environment, try finding emacs!:) (fine for me, I don't like it anyway:) )
On vim, there are a few more distinct advantages I like it for: - Being able to highlight with 'v'. This is nice when reading log files with long lines because you can scroll down and follow it (it's also useful for plenty of other things:) ) - Syntax highlighting. This wouldn't mean much to you as a solaris admin (although.. it might for large shell scripts and the like?), but it's significant for me when I'm writing code. I've actually had jobs where I've had to ssh into a solaris box in another city and develop the code in that environment. Solaris terminal definitions are often unhelpful when trying to get highlighting working. - being able to have many files open at once and rapidly switch forwards *and backwarsd* between them with:bn^M and:bp^M. vi isn't so great on this, I don't think going to previous file (eg: opposite of 'n') is even available - if you want the two advantages you've identified without any of the vim settings, create a file ~/.vimrc and put...:set compatible.. in it, save, exit and fire up again.
I'm not thrilled by the defaults in vim (OT: particularly in the debian tree, where the maintainer defaults it in all sorts of braindead ways), but I have a.vimrc file I carry around with me (ahdore.com/~craig/geek.html, it's in the page source, you'll need to add endings for lines containing ':' with ctrl+v, ctrl+m (newline))
Could it be that the reason you dislike the defaults is because the package maintainer has set it up with stupid, intrusive defaults? If so, that's an issue Sun should investigate. Get rid of intrusive defaults, package maintainers!!
Also, just in terms of what Sun should consider, keep in mind that vim is the #1 text editor amongst linux geeks, and it's shipped with mac os x, and betwen them they make up the vast majority of people who run unix at home.
Your reply was interesting.
In the hope someone important at Sun reads this
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Sun-isms Debunked
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· Score: 4, Interesting
There are several tools I consider to be very important to me when I'm using a remote environment. These include gnu/screen, less and (most importantly) vim.
I've done development work and sysadmin work on Sun boxes and on linux boxes. I have consistently found that linux boxes come set up in a way that is well-fitted to my usage, whereas operating under remote Solaris environments is a struggle (this comes from having worked on it as developer or user in three separate and very different organisations). In all cases I have had a struggle to get these three key tools installed in environments (and at times lost) where it's been perfectly obvious to anyone with a clue that they are important. (picture several-megabyte log files where the most advanced pager is more and the only editor is vi, which breaks in ugly ways with even moderately sized files and which can't read more than a certain number of characters per line)
The admins at these companies have even at times given me excuses against these tools such as "that's not compatible with our security policy", yet the same environments they have perl installed!! While I realise that that's not Sun's fault directly, linux admins are more open to the idea of using these tools. Thus, when I've been a Sun user I've been unhappy with the experience, and when I'm a linux user I tend to like the experience.
Just in case anyone's tempted to write my opinions off as those only of an utterly naive linux user who couldn't get by in a slightly-unusual world: I do know a bit about the Solaris environment - I'm familiar with ksh, use set -o vi, and am fluent with vi.
I'm under the impression that once upon a time Sun was at the cutting edge of trying to improve the environment - competing against other unix providers to put killer tools in that made it stand out as excellent. Now I realise there were downsides to this (unix wars mentality, etc) - but there was something in that. These were the days when somebody would write/find a great new tool and just ship it.
This unix geek see his linux experiences as the bar against which everything else is measured and I suspect many people are in my shoes because that's what we grow up with. It's possible my experiences have just been an unlucky coincidence, but unlikely.
Guys - you need to win me back by doing things to ensure the Sun user environments I get exposed to are up to scratch.
Here's what I'd recommend to Sun by way of improving the situation: - move to the version of 'more' derived from the 'less' codebase (if you don't already use that) and ship both by standard in the operating system (if you don't already - can't justify looking this up right atm) - terminal definitions need to standardise so that vim and less work 'out of the box', *including syntax highlighting in vim!!* - I'd recommend that people who go to Solaris courses, education programs or read the official books get exposure to the tools that developers love to use so they don't get paranoid at the prospect of exposing them to users - make sure your evangelists match the target audience. In the two experiences I've had of Sun marketing people, they have not been from a cultural background to allow them to appreciate the difficulties I'm describing here. They'd rather talk about Sun One, or Java or current buzzwords, and they look a lot more comfortable talking about them with managers than developers. If you're serious about evangelising to developers you're going to have to do it properly - distribute some sort of security policy for high-level secure environments that validates versions of significant tools that are important to users. eg: maybe you could have a program of forking vim every now and then and having a 'Sun-endorsed' version. - get ahead of the rest by distributing a pager that's specifically designed to make it easy to bounce around huge log files without loading the whole thing into RAM (there may be something like this already - I don't know of it)
I heard from someone a long time ago that a team had done some work into seeing what might have happened if the transistor hadn't been invented when it was. They wanted to get an idea of how far you could take vacuum technology in today's environment. I know of no more details than this.
If anyone can fill in the details please do because my searching on google hasn't turned up anything like it. (I'm at a loss what to search for apart from the question in the subject line)
> I'm interested in starting a pro-nuclear > (and desalination an overhauled road and > rail system)
Too broad. You'd be better off joining a major party and trying to get your ideas to carry there.
> I just wish the Liberals would get their > shit together and take a stance.
Well, the Liberals botched the issue under Olsen when last in government (but this just made Olsen even more unpopular in the party). Still - now is the ideal time to join the sa liberal party if you have ideas about ways it should work differently and if you want it to renew. While there is talent around and Kerin is the most broadly liked leader the party has had in a generation, it's clear that there are a number of decidedly average state members who intend to hang around being useless until the end of time if they can get away with it. It will another take two seriously bad election results before the generally conservative preselection colleges think about clearing out the ranks and moving on.
Having said that, it's a lot of work to make yourself heard and I'd rather put my energy into my career and interests than put myself into a campaign. The cost of me having that attitude is that I have to accept that when a complete loser gets up over a decent candidate by a small margin it's a consequence of my inaction.
If you're passionate about it and happy to remain focussed for two or three years you can make a difference - far more than you'd ever achieve trying to start a new party.
Another platform I've been thinking about is a 'Just Green' platform. The platform would be that as a senate force, you'd be happy to negotiate on whatever the government wanted by way of tax systems, budgets, whatever, so long as you got significant environmental wins that wouldn't otherwise have happened.
The current green party is interested in having a comprehensive political platform and can't do this, despite attempts by Brown himself to edge down that path about two years ago.
Although unconventional, a pro-nuclear platform would fit right in to this 'Just Green' party model. And it could be done on a shoe-string budget. Just head up to Whyalla, start doorknocking, and wait for incredulous journalists to start calling in.
> political party and a letters > to the editor campaign.
There's always a bit of (uncoordinated) common-sense on the letters page of the austraian when nuclear issues flare up.
It may be unfortunate these comments are happening now and not a few months ago, becaues I have some ideas about ways you could use independent candidates to make a real difference in south australia in the coming federal election, and I would have likde to discuss these with you. It's a bit late now though, I think the polls close tomorrow.
Australia only has one reactor at the moment, and it's not a breeder reactor.
Talk of getting into nuclear weapons during the Menzies era was immature and they didn't really have delivery worked out. It would have been pointless for us to have gotten into bombs.
As for Yarralinga, if there are better sites they should use them.
> Whyalla right? Adelaide will love it when one > of the ships importing waste starts to leak > waste into St Vincents gulf.
To clarify: the medium and low-level dumping issues - that was to be transported by road and so shipping accidents would not have been an issue.
As far as a proposal for a high-level nuclear waste dump, I'm sure Adelaide wouldn't be thrilled about an event such as this. But put this in context.
A guaranteed reduction to zero of carbon emissions as a result of coal-power stations puts the prospect of an occasional leak in a new light. Such an improvement would have huge public health benefits, obvious environmental benefits from the decline of noxious stuff in the air, and it would help us meet carbon emission responsibilities globally.
And we could use the increased revenue to fund better schools and hospitals, producing a better society, etc, etc, contributing to improved science and technology, etc, etc
- C
Australia missing its mark
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China Goes Nuclear
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I'm disappointed Australia can't get elbow-deep into nuclear technology. We've got the best disposal sites, high-yield uranium sites and the second worst rate of greenhous emissions per-capita behind the USA. We could have centres of excellence in nuclear technology in universities around the country, turn Whyalla into a boom-town by importing and disposing nuclear waste, build energy plants in the middle of the desert and export green-house-friendly energy around Asia. Yet every time anything 'nuclear' comes up people have a hysteric response against it.
For more than a decade, the federal government have been unable to create low or medium-sized respositories for nuclear waste anywhere in the country. Every time the issue comes up opposition parties (including of course so-called green parties) hammer it for all its worth from the most superficial angles imaginable. Even the South Australian Liberal government got in on the act a few years ago, chanting "Not in *our* back yard" despite the middle of the Australian desert being no closer to Adelaide than high-level nuclear stores in France are to Prague.
So instead we have low-level nuclear waste scattered in sites all around the metropolitan area of several cities, which leads to situations like that of us having substantial waste stores sitting in the bottom of the university of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital, both of them right next to a river. This inconsistency is one of many that shows up scum political forces who harvest stupid people's irrational fears about nuclear issues.
If Australian green politicians were genuinely passionate about our global environmental responsponsibilities they'd be comfortable with the idea of Australia as a major player in nuclear power and as a site for waste disposal.
The above opinions guarantee I would have no hope of ever making it in politics.:)
I wrote down a list of this stuff just the other day after seeing the proliferation of \. articles in the topic:) I currently own a Sony Clie NV80 which is good but a bit expensive for what it is. Having said that, I'm kicking myself for not getting the top model when I bought it now (the one with the laptop form factor) because it's very handy.
There's two categories I'd consider. The semi-PC would need to have: - option for a full-size usb keyboard - something unixish or Beish - wireless networking - non wireless networking - option to plug in a decent monitor - audio
The PDA would need: - support for ogg vorbis (my Sony is ridiculously picky over music - won't even play some MP3s I created myself). - support for encrypted passwords - easy synching with linux (Sony doesn't do this either) - some sort of keyboard entry
> I thought about that, but then what about Germany. > Remember when they were two countries? Their > economy did drop but it bounced back considerably. > What are they? Number 3 or 4 economy of the world?
(I don't have specific facts or figures to back up what I'm going to say, but I'd considered the German example as well and thought I'd indicate why I didn't mention it)
West German citizens effectively lost their pensions thanks to the merger. (I know a German girl who talks about being lied to by Kohl and other people named after species of cabbage) West Germans was made significantly poorer by the move, and the differences between the two nations was far less than it is now between North and South Korea. North Korea is a really sick country. West Germany was a comparatively more powerful economy than South Korea currently is.
I have no idea of populations. I suspect the ratio is about the same between the two examples (in favour of the parliamentary dictatorships over the commos).
Two areas where West Germany was helped by the merge (and which might work for Korea as well) were (1) increased stability as a result of lessened security risks and (2) new markets opened up by liberalisation. The markets opened up to SK would be smaller than became available to west germany, however.
> The only way RMS contradicts capitalism is that > he refuses to admit the crude monetisation of > so-called 'intellectual property'.
I remain unconvinced that so-called 'intellecutal property' is a natural requirement of capitalism.
I believe I'm a capitalist but agree with Stallman's assertion that ideas are not property.
If you define capitalism as "an economic system based on private ownership of capital" then those things often referred to as 'intellectual property' are not a requirement.
If you define capitalism (as I tend to) as "An economic system based upon the leveraging of wealth to accrue more wealth." then so-called 'intellectual property' is certainly not a requirement.
Stallman has convinced me that 'intellectual property' is an arbitrary concoction. Our world has been weaned into it so slowly that most people have missed what a joke it is, but it is misguided.
-- People who like to sledge capitalism because they've seen it as one of the great evils like to tie capitalism and patents and other things in together, in much the same way that they can be prone towards blaming all evil on the world upon the United States. However, I don't think it's a valid link. Such linking certainly does't contribute towards meaningful debate - it just leads towards label wars and alienates people who like capitalist philosophy *and* winding back of out-of-control legislatures and patent offices.
(I mention the last section in agreemet with the direction of the parent post, not in an attempt to put words in the mouth of its author)
Re:Have to be careful here with music tastes
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IT's Musical Habits
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· Score: 1
> Would a fan of opera actually spend his or her time going to the store to buy a Megadeth album?
Hell no - an opera fan would expect the government to cough up for their purchase and delivery costs.:)
I can't see the South Koreans loving the prospect of seeing their economy crumple to dust when they have to start providing for twenty two million new citizens with no first-world-economy skills.
> It would solve most of the problems currently > posed by North Korea, including the nuclear one.
There are plenty of problems with the notion of a unification of the two Koreas. This is why the South and the US are prepared to throw money at them to keep doing what they're doing and let the South continue on in stability, so longer as the north don't threaten that region's stability with a nuclear threat.
> Personally I don't mind the anthem at all. It > never fails to give me goosebumps. But I'm one of > those people who finds meaning in the principle of > the act, not the semantics of how it's done, so I > might be in a minority there.
Maybe you are, but I think that goosebumps even if only because of 'principle of the act' is valid.
> Face it, the majority of America is a > fertile farming paridise,
This is not true. If it were, why would they need tarrifs to protect their goods? Dependancy on welfare contradicts my ideas of paradise.
> our production can't > compare to theirs,
This is untrue. Australia is a leader in farming efficiency.
> why would they want to buy > our agricultural goods?
Because it would allow them to save the money they use propping up their inefficient, welfare-dependant farming sector. This in turn would free up money for the US to focus on doing what they do best. Both countries would gain under the rule of comparative advantage.
These are the arguments that the US uses *against more protectionist countries* to get those other countries to lower their protectionism. And they're valid arguments in that context. But the US are hypocrits because they don't follow their own rules. Bush and Clinton are both dirty protectionists.
> We could get better > money continuing selling to Japan, China, > the middle east and Europe (when they have > BSE/CJD).
Bizarre new-world-order conspiracy theories aside, if that were the case the government wouldn't give a damn about getting the US to lower their farming tarrifs. But for some strange reason our farmers don't like the idea that opponents who cheat. American taxpayers and consumers shouldn't either. The US farming lobby rips everyone off.
> Implying the star spangled banner doesn't suck?? > Sure I hate our anthem (not to bad for a cover I > guess...) but SSB makes it sound good.
Hmm. I don't think it's too bad. It is tough for people with a tight vocal range, but being the sort of thing you sing at volume it might actually be good to go so high because it encourages belting.
> No offense to anyone, I am speaking musically, > not symbolically.
Well I think several factors can contribute to the success or failure of an anthem: - it needs to be stirring - the historical context of it as an indication of national identity - the words and their meaning - it needs to scale from unaccompanied school kids to symphony orchestras and be valid for use at sport ceremonies and soldier's funerals.
I think the US anthem has factors that make it weak. But I don't think it does *suck*. Look at the opening of the US nat anthem:
"O SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? " These are beautiful words (apart from gleaming which never sits *quite* right), and I think it would be stirring to be an American and sing or hear this. Picture an American flag slowly rising in days after S11 to a sorry trumpet piping this out. That's stirring stuff - surely?
Now picture an *Australian* flag rising in rain after Bali with the anthem being played. The flag itself is fine and beautiful. But the anthem... it's turns it into a comic scene. The music is so much more *wrong* than any slight caused by the word gleaming has to the US National Anthem. To accuse to US nat anthem of sucking is to risk underplaying just how bad ours is.
Let us examine the words: "Australians all let us rejoice"
^- *lots* of imagination spent on this.*
"For we are young and free"
^- Clearly, this is a tactfully worded jab at our adolescence - a significant proportion of the country are so *absolutely insecure* about our national identity that they never miss an opportunity to beat their drum. Mum! Dad! I'm grown up now - look - I'm painting my room black!
"With golden soil and wealth for toil"
^- Awkward, and the wealth for toil never sits right: weeeeallltth fortoil
"Our land is *girt* by sea"
^- WTF?
(The rest is similarly poor)
The Marseillaise is not a fantastic tune, but it is stirring for its message and history. It is a great anthem.
God Save the Queen has words that might or might not mean something to people singing it. Not to demaean HRH, but I suspect that not every British citizen is an avowed monarchist:) However, the wording is more than made up for by the stirring tune. The music of gstq is stirring in its own right, and this is added to when you think that the same thing you hear was being used as long ago as the 1800s to honour things like the battle of Trafalgar. GSTQ is a great anthem.
Australia's is a disaster. And none of the other contenders were/are that special either. I think if that Australia is going to have an inappropriate anthem it should make a decent effort of it. We should make a feature of the inappropriatness. We should use Sarah Hopkin's _Past Life Melodies_.
Imagine _Past Life Melodies_ at the rugby. Damn! Even the fans of the other teams would get involved. (Weeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooouuuuuurrrrrr rrrrrrrr). The song is even respecftul of the idea of a national spirit and aboriginal legacy without beign wanky about it. (It could be described as wanky - yes - but not in *that way*). It's *perfect*! If you haven't heard it, you *really really* need to download a copy to appreciate what I'm going and on on about. Sit through the opening weirdness and make sure you get to the climax weirdness.
* Originally it was Australian Men which is sexist and wouldn't work, but having "Australians" causes a dypthong (sp?) which is undesirable as well. Australiannnn-zall. Although valid, this is a bit petty and hence starred.
It's a tradeoff for other concessions. Australians get agricultural deliverables as a result of this.
Don't get me wrong - I am staunchly opposed to a FTA that incorporates any of the brainless concessions on Sonny Bonno, patent law and copyright definitions. But the FTA is not *pure* evil, although it is poorly-conceived and will be bad for Australia's medium and long-term economic interest if implemented.
It shouldn't be necessary but unfortunately the so called leaders of the free world are a bunch of protectionist arseholes and our farmers don't want to have compete against their tarrifs. The government's naive policy flows from this motivation.
A poster in another thread noted: > Thanks to the free trade agreement, Australia is now likely to get DMCA-like laws.
Australia already *has* [stupid] DMCA-like laws. However, under this agreement they would be expanded and (more seriously), entrenched in a foreign treaty. This means that if it gets introduced we'll have an extra level of lockin to them even when the fogies in parliament have moved on.
As a call-out to geeks, the best thing you can do if you're pissed off about these things is to join EFA and to join a major political party. Too many geeks whine endlessly about how little their government does right, yet never get involved in a meaningful way. If you're pissed off about this stuff don't be a whining loser, go and meet some humans and see how it works.
You'll see that bad decisions almost always have more to do with incompetence than conspiracy. Particularly in Australia which is largely free of corruption, back-room donation skills, that sort of thing.
I'm using linux atm:) Xandros business. I've been considering going back to Windows. Admittedly, whenever I'm in Windows I spend *all* of my time in either (1)firefox, (2)thunderbird or (3)putty sessions to linux consoles that are remote or running under vmware on the same box.
The Windows UI is still significantly better than linux in ways that should be easy to copy but which linux has not yet mastered. These are my niggles: - Windows_Key + r, and then being able to launch things easily from this ('putty -load {profile}'). Xandros almost has this, but at the moment it requires you to either hack the X config by hand or else have the keyboard applet running. I don't want a US flag displayed on my desktop permanently so that one's out. (I have hacked X though so this one isn't a consideration) - Having multiple monitors is trivial under Windows. I've been unable to get it to work under linux. Different graphics cards - Rage XL onboard and a Nvidia 5200 clone. - For some reason the windows widgets feel more responsive than linux. Maybe only by a fraction but it's enough to be discernible to me. This even affects software like firefox. Firefox feels a lot faster under Windows. Swing feels a lot faster under Windows too. The mouse feels less responsive too. - Putty launches a lot more quickly than konsole - Fonts are still better under Windows - Windows_Key + E brings up explorer which is a rapid and excellent way to move around the filesystem. Linux doesn't have a good in-spirit substitute at the moment. - General presentation of every linux I've had contact with is still poor compared to windows or be. Icons are ugly, UI is annoying, applications don't come with their own icons. Icons don't line up on the desktop in a well-spaced way or align to grid.
Linux has come a long way: - Can get my modem to work under linux with ease, can't get it to run under windows (lost the driver disk - that's the end of that) - Alt+Tab works properly in kde (and maybe in gnome - don't know) and is swift enough these days - Doesn't look half so bad as it used to and fonts are improved.
Still, linux has big advantages over windows in several fields: - Workspaces!! God the lack of worspaces in Windows is a pain. - No need to install vmware and a distro in it to have a viable development environment. This gives you a speed advantage. I wouldn't be able to stand windows were it not for things like cygwin and linux under vmware. - I do upgrades via crontab and never think about it. Security is a hassle in Windows, although usually more so when you have to fix a family member's pre-ruined box. - When you don't know much about Windows you have a perfect excuse not to get caught with shit responsibilites for family members who have stuffed up their workstations. - Heaps of mundane activities are made easy that are unfeasible for people with time constraints working under linux.
> less is a standard part of solaris, please > don't blame boneheaded decisions made by > your companies staff on Sun.
Thank you for correcting me on this point. Let me take this opportunity to lay more scorn on the feet of those who make boneheaded decisions and thereby make my life more difficult for no good reason.
(I understand that at least some versions of more are entirely a product of the less source code - some implementations of more have been deprecated and the more binary is generated from the less source!)
> If you want them installed - try and > demonstrate the extra productivity these > tools would give you.
Aha - surprisingly enough I have tried this for some six months now but unfortunately a brick wall is just that.
If you want the system management utilities and development tools they must be installed afterward.
I wonder when Sun are going to get their act together and start fixing the basic toolchains available on their environments. We work on Sun slices at work, and we're prevented from having access to all sorts of basic tools we need.
Now I can understand wanting to restrict access to compilers, scripting languages, etc.
But perl *is* available on the environment, yet the halfwits who set policy in our server sections prevent us from having access to tools like less (yes, we have to use more, tail and head forall of our gigabyte-log-scanning needs because the version of vi on these environments won't read long lines or too-long files); vim (sigh) or (perhaps less controversally) lsof.
And the reason?
These are disallowed for 'security reasons'.
This is the second place I've worked at where my team has been limited like this. When are Sun going to get a clue and learn to install the basic tools geeks need to be happy?
I've sent an email to you through your webpage, but in case you don't get it: are you able to site a reference for this assertion? It would really help me if you could.
Slashdot Mirror
You caaan't stop progress!!
> Movies are a different animal than music and
> it seems reasonable to protect them.
Without strong copyright, you wouldn't have the same blockbuster movie and music industries. But neither would you have them hammering radio, print and television with their campaigns. As a result of a change to weak copyright, other things would fill the vacuume. Sure - the decline of the church led to a decline in several fantastic forms art. But other culture has more than filled the gap, and that hasn't been a direct result of the growth of copyright if these artists are are any guide.
Your situation is a little different to my usage: I've always been a user on other people's solaris systems and not had sufficient access to install things. I've tried unpacking .pkg files and hacking them but haven't had any success and that's a far-from-trivial solution.
:) (fine for me, I don't like it anyway :) )
:) ) :bn^M and :bp^M. vi isn't so great on this, I don't think going to previous file (eg: opposite of 'n') is even available :set compatible .. in it, save, exit and fire up again.
.vimrc file I carry around with me (ahdore.com/~craig/geek.html, it's in the page source, you'll need to add endings for lines containing ':' with ctrl+v, ctrl+m (newline))
There are a lot of powerusers users in that situation: developers, deployment guys, etc who do not have sysadmin privileges. They never meet the sysadmins and fear the red tape involved in trying to get said admins to do anything.
Also, as though it's not hard enough to find vim in a standard Solaris environment, try finding emacs!
On vim, there are a few more distinct advantages I like it for:
- Being able to highlight with 'v'. This is nice when reading log files with long lines because you can scroll down and follow it (it's also useful for plenty of other things
- Syntax highlighting. This wouldn't mean much to you as a solaris admin (although.. it might for large shell scripts and the like?), but it's significant for me when I'm writing code. I've actually had jobs where I've had to ssh into a solaris box in another city and develop the code in that environment. Solaris terminal definitions are often unhelpful when trying to get highlighting working.
- being able to have many files open at once and rapidly switch forwards *and backwarsd* between them with
- if you want the two advantages you've identified without any of the vim settings, create a file ~/.vimrc and put...
I'm not thrilled by the defaults in vim (OT: particularly in the debian tree, where the maintainer defaults it in all sorts of braindead ways), but I have a
Could it be that the reason you dislike the defaults is because the package maintainer has set it up with stupid, intrusive defaults? If so, that's an issue Sun should investigate. Get rid of intrusive defaults, package maintainers!!
Also, just in terms of what Sun should consider, keep in mind that vim is the #1 text editor amongst linux geeks, and it's shipped with mac os x, and betwen them they make up the vast majority of people who run unix at home.
Your reply was interesting.
There are several tools I consider to be very important to me when I'm using a remote environment. These include gnu/screen, less and (most importantly) vim.
I've done development work and sysadmin work on Sun boxes and on linux boxes. I have consistently found that linux boxes come set up in a way that is well-fitted to my usage, whereas operating under remote Solaris environments is a struggle (this comes from having worked on it as developer or user in three separate and very different organisations). In all cases I have had a struggle to get these three key tools installed in environments (and at times lost) where it's been perfectly obvious to anyone with a clue that they are important. (picture several-megabyte log files where the most advanced pager is more and the only editor is vi, which breaks in ugly ways with even moderately sized files and which can't read more than a certain number of characters per line)
The admins at these companies have even at times given me excuses against these tools such as "that's not compatible with our security policy", yet the same environments they have perl installed!! While I realise that that's not Sun's fault directly, linux admins are more open to the idea of using these tools. Thus, when I've been a Sun user I've been unhappy with the experience, and when I'm a linux user I tend to like the experience.
Just in case anyone's tempted to write my opinions off as those only of an utterly naive linux user who couldn't get by in a slightly-unusual world: I do know a bit about the Solaris environment - I'm familiar with ksh, use set -o vi, and am fluent with vi.
I'm under the impression that once upon a time Sun was at the cutting edge of trying to improve the environment - competing against other unix providers to put killer tools in that made it stand out as excellent. Now I realise there were downsides to this (unix wars mentality, etc) - but there was something in that. These were the days when somebody would write/find a great new tool and just ship it.
This unix geek see his linux experiences as the bar against which everything else is measured and I suspect many people are in my shoes because that's what we grow up with. It's possible my experiences have just been an unlucky coincidence, but unlikely.
Guys - you need to win me back by doing things to ensure the Sun user environments I get exposed to are up to scratch.
Here's what I'd recommend to Sun by way of improving the situation:
- move to the version of 'more' derived from the 'less' codebase (if you don't already use that) and ship both by standard in the operating system (if you don't already - can't justify looking this up right atm)
- terminal definitions need to standardise so that vim and less work 'out of the box', *including syntax highlighting in vim!!*
- I'd recommend that people who go to Solaris courses, education programs or read the official books get exposure to the tools that developers love to use so they don't get paranoid at the prospect of exposing them to users
- make sure your evangelists match the target audience. In the two experiences I've had of Sun marketing people, they have not been from a cultural background to allow them to appreciate the difficulties I'm describing here. They'd rather talk about Sun One, or Java or current buzzwords, and they look a lot more comfortable talking about them with managers than developers. If you're serious about evangelising to developers you're going to have to do it properly
- distribute some sort of security policy for high-level secure environments that validates versions of significant tools that are important to users. eg: maybe you could have a program of forking vim every now and then and having a 'Sun-endorsed' version.
- get ahead of the rest by distributing a pager that's specifically designed to make it easy to bounce around huge log files without loading the whole thing into RAM (there may be something like this already - I don't know of it)
I heard from someone a long time ago that a team had done some work into seeing what might have happened if the transistor hadn't been invented when it was. They wanted to get an idea of how far you could take vacuum technology in today's environment. I know of no more details than this.
If anyone can fill in the details please do because my searching on google hasn't turned up anything like it. (I'm at a loss what to search for apart from the question in the subject line)
> I'm interested in starting a pro-nuclear
> (and desalination an overhauled road and
> rail system)
Too broad. You'd be better off joining a major party and trying to get your ideas to carry there.
> I just wish the Liberals would get their
> shit together and take a stance.
Well, the Liberals botched the issue under Olsen when last in government (but this just made Olsen even more unpopular in the party). Still - now is the ideal time to join the sa liberal party if you have ideas about ways it should work differently and if you want it to renew. While there is talent around and Kerin is the most broadly liked leader the party has had in a generation, it's clear that there are a number of decidedly average state members who intend to hang around being useless until the end of time if they can get away with it. It will another take two seriously bad election results before the generally conservative preselection colleges think about clearing out the ranks and moving on.
Having said that, it's a lot of work to make yourself heard and I'd rather put my energy into my career and interests than put myself into a campaign. The cost of me having that attitude is that I have to accept that when a complete loser gets up over a decent candidate by a small margin it's a consequence of my inaction.
If you're passionate about it and happy to remain focussed for two or three years you can make a difference - far more than you'd ever achieve trying to start a new party.
Another platform I've been thinking about is a 'Just Green' platform. The platform would be that as a senate force, you'd be happy to negotiate on whatever the government wanted by way of tax systems, budgets, whatever, so long as you got significant environmental wins that wouldn't otherwise have happened.
The current green party is interested in having a comprehensive political platform and can't do this, despite attempts by Brown himself to edge down that path about two years ago.
Although unconventional, a pro-nuclear platform would fit right in to this 'Just Green' party model. And it could be done on a shoe-string budget. Just head up to Whyalla, start doorknocking, and wait for incredulous journalists to start calling in.
> political party and a letters
> to the editor campaign.
There's always a bit of (uncoordinated) common-sense on the letters page of the austraian when nuclear issues flare up.
It may be unfortunate these comments are happening now and not a few months ago, becaues I have some ideas about ways you could use independent candidates to make a real difference in south australia in the coming federal election, and I would have likde to discuss these with you. It's a bit late now though, I think the polls close tomorrow.
- C
Australia only has one reactor at the moment, and it's not a breeder reactor.
Talk of getting into nuclear weapons during the Menzies era was immature and they didn't really have delivery worked out. It would have been pointless for us to have gotten into bombs.
As for Yarralinga, if there are better sites they should use them.
> Whyalla right? Adelaide will love it when one
> of the ships importing waste starts to leak
> waste into St Vincents gulf.
To clarify: the medium and low-level dumping issues - that was to be transported by road and so shipping accidents would not have been an issue.
As far as a proposal for a high-level nuclear waste dump, I'm sure Adelaide wouldn't be thrilled about an event such as this. But put this in context.
A guaranteed reduction to zero of carbon emissions as a result of coal-power stations puts the prospect of an occasional leak in a new light. Such an improvement would have huge public health benefits, obvious environmental benefits from the decline of noxious stuff in the air, and it would help us meet carbon emission responsibilities globally.
And we could use the increased revenue to fund better schools and hospitals, producing a better society, etc, etc, contributing to improved science and technology, etc, etc
- C
I'm disappointed Australia can't get elbow-deep into nuclear technology. We've got the best disposal sites, high-yield uranium sites and the second worst rate of greenhous emissions per-capita behind the USA. We could have centres of excellence in nuclear technology in universities around the country, turn Whyalla into a boom-town by importing and disposing nuclear waste, build energy plants in the middle of the desert and export green-house-friendly energy around Asia. Yet every time anything 'nuclear' comes up people have a hysteric response against it.
:)
For more than a decade, the federal government have been unable to create low or medium-sized respositories for nuclear waste anywhere in the country. Every time the issue comes up opposition parties (including of course so-called green parties) hammer it for all its worth from the most superficial angles imaginable. Even the South Australian Liberal government got in on the act a few years ago, chanting "Not in *our* back yard" despite the middle of the Australian desert being no closer to Adelaide than high-level nuclear stores in France are to Prague.
So instead we have low-level nuclear waste scattered in sites all around the metropolitan area of several cities, which leads to situations like that of us having substantial waste stores sitting in the bottom of the university of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital, both of them right next to a river. This inconsistency is one of many that shows up scum political forces who harvest stupid people's irrational fears about nuclear issues.
If Australian green politicians were genuinely passionate about our global environmental responsponsibilities they'd be comfortable with the idea of Australia as a major player in nuclear power and as a site for waste disposal.
The above opinions guarantee I would have no hope of ever making it in politics.
I wrote down a list of this stuff just the other day after seeing the proliferation of \. articles in the topic :) I currently own a Sony Clie NV80 which is good but a bit expensive for what it is. Having said that, I'm kicking myself for not getting the top model when I bought it now (the one with the laptop form factor) because it's very handy.
There's two categories I'd consider. The semi-PC would need to have:
- option for a full-size usb keyboard
- something unixish or Beish
- wireless networking
- non wireless networking
- option to plug in a decent monitor
- audio
The PDA would need:
- support for ogg vorbis (my Sony is ridiculously picky over music - won't even play some MP3s I created myself).
- support for encrypted passwords
- easy synching with linux (Sony doesn't do this either)
- some sort of keyboard entry
You might not get your PATH kept if you run as this user suggests. Here's my cygwin.bat file:
/c c:\cygwin\bin\bash --login -i
--
@echo off
C:
chdir C:\cygwin\bin
rem bash --login -i
rem c:\cygwin\bin\rxvt -geometry 80x60 -e cmd
c:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -sl 500 -geometry 80x46 -fn courier -bg white -sr -e bash --rcfile H:\.bashrc
> I thought about that, but then what about Germany.
> Remember when they were two countries? Their
> economy did drop but it bounced back considerably.
> What are they? Number 3 or 4 economy of the world?
(I don't have specific facts or figures to back up what I'm going to say, but I'd considered the German example as well and thought I'd indicate why I didn't mention it)
West German citizens effectively lost their pensions thanks to the merger. (I know a German girl who talks about being lied to by Kohl and other people named after species of cabbage) West Germans was made significantly poorer by the move, and the differences between the two nations was far less than it is now between North and South Korea. North Korea is a really sick country. West Germany was a comparatively more powerful economy than South Korea currently is.
I have no idea of populations. I suspect the ratio is about the same between the two examples (in favour of the parliamentary dictatorships over the commos).
Two areas where West Germany was helped by the merge (and which might work for Korea as well) were (1) increased stability as a result of lessened security risks and (2) new markets opened up by liberalisation. The markets opened up to SK would be smaller than became available to west germany, however.
- C
> The only way RMS contradicts capitalism is that
> he refuses to admit the crude monetisation of
> so-called 'intellectual property'.
I remain unconvinced that so-called 'intellecutal property' is a natural requirement of capitalism.
I believe I'm a capitalist but agree with Stallman's assertion that ideas are not property.
If you define capitalism as "an economic system based on private ownership of capital" then those things often referred to as 'intellectual property' are not a requirement.
If you define capitalism (as I tend to) as "An economic system based upon the leveraging of wealth to accrue more wealth." then so-called 'intellectual property' is certainly not a requirement.
Stallman has convinced me that 'intellectual property' is an arbitrary concoction. Our world has been weaned into it so slowly that most people have missed what a joke it is, but it is misguided.
--
People who like to sledge capitalism because they've seen it as one of the great evils like to tie capitalism and patents and other things in together, in much the same way that they can be prone towards blaming all evil on the world upon the United States. However, I don't think it's a valid link. Such linking certainly does't contribute towards meaningful debate - it just leads towards label wars and alienates people who like capitalist philosophy *and* winding back of out-of-control legislatures and patent offices.
(I mention the last section in agreemet with the direction of the parent post, not in an attempt to put words in the mouth of its author)
> Would a fan of opera actually spend his or her time going to the store to buy a Megadeth album?
:)
Hell no - an opera fan would expect the government to cough up for their purchase and delivery costs.
I can't see the South Koreans loving the prospect of seeing their economy crumple to dust when they have to start providing for twenty two million new citizens with no first-world-economy skills.
> It would solve most of the problems currently
> posed by North Korea, including the nuclear one.
There are plenty of problems with the notion of a unification of the two Koreas. This is why the South and the US are prepared to throw money at them to keep doing what they're doing and let the South continue on in stability, so longer as the north don't threaten that region's stability with a nuclear threat.
> Personally I don't mind the anthem at all. It
> never fails to give me goosebumps. But I'm one of
> those people who finds meaning in the principle of
> the act, not the semantics of how it's done, so I
> might be in a minority there.
Maybe you are, but I think that goosebumps even if only because of 'principle of the act' is valid.
- C
> Face it, the majority of America is a
> fertile farming paridise,
This is not true. If it were, why would they need tarrifs to protect their goods? Dependancy on welfare contradicts my ideas of paradise.
> our production can't
> compare to theirs,
This is untrue. Australia is a leader in farming efficiency.
> why would they want to buy
> our agricultural goods?
Because it would allow them to save the money they use propping up their inefficient, welfare-dependant farming sector. This in turn would free up money for the US to focus on doing what they do best. Both countries would gain under the rule of comparative advantage.
These are the arguments that the US uses *against more protectionist countries* to get those other countries to lower their protectionism. And they're valid arguments in that context. But the US are hypocrits because they don't follow their own rules. Bush and Clinton are both dirty protectionists.
> We could get better
> money continuing selling to Japan, China,
> the middle east and Europe (when they have
> BSE/CJD).
Bizarre new-world-order conspiracy theories aside, if that were the case the government wouldn't give a damn about getting the US to lower their farming tarrifs. But for some strange reason our farmers don't like the idea that opponents who cheat. American taxpayers and consumers shouldn't either. The US farming lobby rips everyone off.
> Implying the star spangled banner doesn't suck??
:) However, the wording is more than made up for by the stirring tune. The music of gstq is stirring in its own right, and this is added to when you think that the same thing you hear was being used as long ago as the 1800s to honour things like the battle of Trafalgar. GSTQ is a great anthem.
r rrrrrrrr). The song is even respecftul of the idea of a national spirit and aboriginal legacy without beign wanky about it. (It could be described as wanky - yes - but not in *that way*). It's *perfect*! If you haven't heard it, you *really really* need to download a copy to appreciate what I'm going and on on about. Sit through the opening weirdness and make sure you get to the climax weirdness.
> Sure I hate our anthem (not to bad for a cover I
> guess...) but SSB makes it sound good.
Hmm. I don't think it's too bad. It is tough for people with a tight vocal range, but being the sort of thing you sing at volume it might actually be good to go so high because it encourages belting.
> No offense to anyone, I am speaking musically,
> not symbolically.
Well I think several factors can contribute to the success or failure of an anthem:
- it needs to be stirring
- the historical context of it as an indication of national identity
- the words and their meaning
- it needs to scale from unaccompanied school kids to symphony orchestras and be valid for use at sport ceremonies and soldier's funerals.
I think the US anthem has factors that make it weak. But I don't think it does *suck*. Look at the opening of the US nat anthem:
"O SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? "
These are beautiful words (apart from gleaming which never sits *quite* right), and I think it would be stirring to be an American and sing or hear this. Picture an American flag slowly rising in days after S11 to a sorry trumpet piping this out. That's stirring stuff - surely?
Now picture an *Australian* flag rising in rain after Bali with the anthem being played. The flag itself is fine and beautiful. But the anthem... it's turns it into a comic scene. The music is so much more *wrong* than any slight caused by the word gleaming has to the US National Anthem. To accuse to US nat anthem of sucking is to risk underplaying just how bad ours is.
Let us examine the words:
"Australians all let us rejoice"
^- *lots* of imagination spent on this.*
"For we are young and free"
^- Clearly, this is a tactfully worded jab at our adolescence - a significant proportion of the country are so *absolutely insecure* about our national identity that they never miss an opportunity to beat their drum. Mum! Dad! I'm grown up now - look - I'm painting my room black!
"With golden soil and wealth for toil"
^- Awkward, and the wealth for toil never sits right: weeeeallltth fortoil
"Our land is *girt* by sea"
^- WTF?
(The rest is similarly poor)
The Marseillaise is not a fantastic tune, but it is stirring for its message and history. It is a great anthem.
God Save the Queen has words that might or might not mean something to people singing it. Not to demaean HRH, but I suspect that not every British citizen is an avowed monarchist
Australia's is a disaster. And none of the other contenders were/are that special either. I think if that Australia is going to have an inappropriate anthem it should make a decent effort of it. We should make a feature of the inappropriatness. We should use Sarah Hopkin's _Past Life Melodies_.
Imagine _Past Life Melodies_ at the rugby. Damn! Even the fans of the other teams would get involved. (Weeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooouuuuuurrrrr
* Originally it was Australian Men which is sexist and wouldn't work, but having "Australians" causes a dypthong (sp?) which is undesirable as well. Australiannnn-zall. Although valid, this is a bit petty and hence starred.
> Most of the economic analysis done
> seems to suggest that the benefits
> to Australia will be minimal.
Do you have any citations for this?
> Just another step closer.
This could be cool. We'd get to vote in presidential elections then, and our national anthem wouldn't suck. Shame about the spelling.
> So why is it going ahead regardless?
It's a tradeoff for other concessions. Australians get agricultural deliverables as a result of this.
Don't get me wrong - I am staunchly opposed to a FTA that incorporates any of the brainless concessions on Sonny Bonno, patent law and copyright definitions. But the FTA is not *pure* evil, although it is poorly-conceived and will be bad for Australia's medium and long-term economic interest if implemented.
It shouldn't be necessary but unfortunately the so called leaders of the free world are a bunch of protectionist arseholes and our farmers don't want to have compete against their tarrifs. The government's naive policy flows from this motivation.
A poster in another thread noted:
> Thanks to the free trade agreement, Australia is now likely to get DMCA-like laws.
Australia already *has* [stupid] DMCA-like laws. However, under this agreement they would be expanded and (more seriously), entrenched in a foreign treaty. This means that if it gets introduced we'll have an extra level of lockin to them even when the fogies in parliament have moved on.
As a call-out to geeks, the best thing you can do if you're pissed off about these things is to join EFA and to join a major political party. Too many geeks whine endlessly about how little their government does right, yet never get involved in a meaningful way. If you're pissed off about this stuff don't be a whining loser, go and meet some humans and see how it works.
You'll see that bad decisions almost always have more to do with incompetence than conspiracy. Particularly in Australia which is largely free of corruption, back-room donation skills, that sort of thing.
> What keeps you off of Linux?
:) Xandros business. I've been considering going back to Windows. Admittedly, whenever I'm in Windows I spend *all* of my time in either (1)firefox, (2)thunderbird or (3)putty sessions to linux consoles that are remote or running under vmware on the same box.
I'm using linux atm
The Windows UI is still significantly better than linux in ways that should be easy to copy but which linux has not yet mastered. These are my niggles:
- Windows_Key + r, and then being able to launch things easily from this ('putty -load {profile}'). Xandros almost has this, but at the moment it requires you to either hack the X config by hand or else have the keyboard applet running. I don't want a US flag displayed on my desktop permanently so that one's out. (I have hacked X though so this one isn't a consideration)
- Having multiple monitors is trivial under Windows. I've been unable to get it to work under linux. Different graphics cards - Rage XL onboard and a Nvidia 5200 clone.
- For some reason the windows widgets feel more responsive than linux. Maybe only by a fraction but it's enough to be discernible to me. This even affects software like firefox. Firefox feels a lot faster under Windows. Swing feels a lot faster under Windows too. The mouse feels less responsive too.
- Putty launches a lot more quickly than konsole
- Fonts are still better under Windows
- Windows_Key + E brings up explorer which is a rapid and excellent way to move around the filesystem. Linux doesn't have a good in-spirit substitute at the moment.
- General presentation of every linux I've had contact with is still poor compared to windows or be. Icons are ugly, UI is annoying, applications don't come with their own icons. Icons don't line up on the desktop in a well-spaced way or align to grid.
Linux has come a long way:
- Can get my modem to work under linux with ease, can't get it to run under windows (lost the driver disk - that's the end of that)
- Alt+Tab works properly in kde (and maybe in gnome - don't know) and is swift enough these days
- Doesn't look half so bad as it used to and fonts are improved.
Still, linux has big advantages over windows in several fields:
- Workspaces!! God the lack of worspaces in Windows is a pain.
- No need to install vmware and a distro in it to have a viable development environment. This gives you a speed advantage. I wouldn't be able to stand windows were it not for things like cygwin and linux under vmware.
- I do upgrades via crontab and never think about it. Security is a hassle in Windows, although usually more so when you have to fix a family member's pre-ruined box.
- When you don't know much about Windows you have a perfect excuse not to get caught with shit responsibilites for family members who have stuffed up their workstations.
- Heaps of mundane activities are made easy that are unfeasible for people with time constraints working under linux.
> less is a standard part of solaris, please
> don't blame boneheaded decisions made by
> your companies staff on Sun.
Thank you for correcting me on this point. Let me take this opportunity to lay more scorn on the feet of those who make boneheaded decisions and thereby make my life more difficult for no good reason.
(I understand that at least some versions of more are entirely a product of the less source code - some implementations of more have been deprecated and the more binary is generated from the less source!)
> If you want them installed - try and
> demonstrate the extra productivity these
> tools would give you.
Aha - surprisingly enough I have tried this for some six months now but unfortunately a brick wall is just that.
If you want the system management utilities and development tools they must be installed afterward.
I wonder when Sun are going to get their act together and start fixing the basic toolchains available on their environments. We work on Sun slices at work, and we're prevented from having access to all sorts of basic tools we need.
Now I can understand wanting to restrict access to compilers, scripting languages, etc.
But perl *is* available on the environment, yet the halfwits who set policy in our server sections prevent us from having access to tools like less (yes, we have to use more, tail and head forall of our gigabyte-log-scanning needs because the version of vi on these environments won't read long lines or too-long files); vim (sigh) or (perhaps less controversally) lsof.
And the reason?
These are disallowed for 'security reasons'.
This is the second place I've worked at where my team has been limited like this. When are Sun going to get a clue and learn to install the basic tools geeks need to be happy?
Until they do - avoid Sun.
I've sent an email to you through your webpage, but in case you don't get it: are you able to site a reference for this assertion? It would really help me if you could.