Actually it is a short story and I wrote it quite a while ago. Since that time I have revised the future history the stories are set in quite a bit and would need to rewrite it from scratch if I was to re-submit. (I got two rejections and stopped sending it out.)
Lots of reasons: To scratch a personal itch, because it is cool, because someone else wanted it and paid them for their time, because they got a grant, because they could, just because...
I have been writing SF stories set in a future where nanotechnology is preceded by a manufacturing technology similar to these kinds of solid output printers. However my 'Omnifacture' (as the thing is called in the stories) uses a mix of technologies instead of taking a single 'printing' approach. These include micro-machines, laser sintered metals and vapor/plasma deposition.
Although imaginary, the Omnifacture in my stories could possibly work in real life because it is based on current technologies. All it would require is someone to build the first one and then write the software -- after that an Omnifacture is capable of building more Omnifactures... (The first story I have written involving Omnifactures is titled 'Pyramid Scheme'.)
The interesting thing is that I posit (and use in my stories) a social backlash against such technology as people fear losing jobs and big companies fear losing control of their IP. The end result (in the stories) is that the Omnifacture becomes a black-market item and most countries pass laws against unregistered manufactured robotics of any kind.
True... I did check to see if they used a separate cd drive for the OS and it appears not. Although that would make sense. Put the OS cd drive inside the box where your users can't get at it and remove the cd or insert there own.
You could use this system in combination with a small print/fileserver though. That would work well for computer labs or Internet cafes.
Well, first I check/. and see if there is anything interesting. Then I surf around and check the various blogs and newsites I read. After that I check/. again and maybe post a comment to an interesting article.
If, while I am surfing around, I find something cool I post a link to it to me/. journal (which everyone should read, cuz it is full of wierd bullshit). Then I surf some more. That is how I get my w........
127 comments at this point, and a quick search showed that not one mentioned Mono! This is very surprising being as, like Wine and Samba, Mono is a project with the specific purpose of cloning an existinng Microsoft technology and making it available on other platforms. And Mono is an even greater threat than the others in the sense that Wine and Samba are Linux only while the Mono project's long term goal is to port to just about everything.
There has been a concern for some time that Mono may be on shaky ground IP-wise. Certainly MS opened the C# and IL specifications by giving it to a valid standards body (ECMA), but they did not include all (or even the majority) of the.Net libraries in the open spec. Considering that MS hold patents on some of this technology this makes it a risky situation because even a 'clean-room' clone like Mono or DotGNU Portable.NET can infringe patents, leaving them open even if no copyrights are infringed. The real problem is that, like Java, the true power of.Net lies not in the languages but in the libraries.
This is of great concern to me because of a descision I made last winter which was based, at least partly, on the existance and viability of Mono. Up to this point MS has made no moves against Mono, even providing them some back-door help upon occaision. Perhaps they are just using Mono as another nail in Java's coffin and will turn on Miguel de Icaza the minute he is of no more use to them.
However I find it difficult to believe that someone as smart as Miguel would allow himself to be used as a pawn. (Leaving me hope that he has covered his bases on this.) In the meantime the whole SCO thing can influence IP rights in two directions: In one we get a future where IP rights are king and anyone can take you down for the smallest mis-use or percieved mis-use. in the other way we get a future where IP rights are tempered with a little reality.
In my opinion one of those paths leads to doom. In the meantime, I might want to start re-thinking my plans...
I'm biased of course, but Seattle is an excellent place for Geekiness. The Boeing Aerospace museum is a great (and inexpensive) place to start. If you are into music you want to go to the Experience Project. There are many other free or cheap museums and attractions. Plus you will find wired (and wifi) coffee shops everywhere.
In the suburbs there are many more interesting things, including a giant software corporation you might have heard about.
Then there is the countryside. If you into hiking at all, or even just willing to drive a little, there are hundreds of places with amazing scenery within a two hour drive of Seattle. Between mountains, seaside and forests of giant cedars the area has it all. Plus you can take a $50 guided whitewater trip and scare the piss out of yourself (well worth it).
Finally there is me and others like myself: Finding a free place to crash on a couch for a few days in Seattle is never hard if you are into Science Fiction (Fandom there is entrenched and welcoming).
Appreciate the effort and am hoping the company lawyers don't quash it out of hand.
I might add that I have long been a Corel fan and much prefer it to that 'other' commercial graphics option. Except that the animation facilities for Corel paint suck...
Developers should care very much about the market, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that the people who's job it is to do that may not have enough knowledge breadth to also understand the technical aspects, and how they are affected by market-based descisions. If you want your voice to be heard in these discussions you have to make certain you are talking in a language they understand.
Of course if you are content to let marketeers and product managers design your product and build your feature list, and then set your schedule without reference to the technical realities, you might think differently. You might also be working for Microsoft...
Hell I even wrote about listening to Bob Forward (Dr. Forward to you, heh heh) tell me the story of how he found a kilt-making company in Scotland that still had old-fashioned weaving machines which could be modified to create the tethers. In fact I went so far as to link to a eulogy I wrote about Bob when he died. It was a great post! It had everything!
But then/. ate it when I clicked 'Preview' and the back-button gave me an empty form. It was time to go to work so I said screw it; I can write it again when I come home. Yeah right. Like I would still want to post it after somebody else gets a dumber version on the/. front page!
My first subject line was 'Cool', but then I changed it. Why? Well, I have been interested in Plan 9 for a long time. I especially like the services-based architecture. In many ways it is a project with an awful lot of potential. But...
Problem 1: What is it good for? Right now Plan 9 has no compelling applications and a dearth of the applications most people use daily. This might be fixed soon as people port things like OpenOffice to it, but don't hold your breath.
Problem 2: It is a research tool, and may never be more than that. Chances are, any truly compelling features in Plan 9 will soon find their way into Linux and even MS Windows.
Problem 3: Overcoming the installed base. It took Linux nearly ten years to achieve name recognition, and it still is running a distant third on the desktop. What does Plan 9 offer that would make me, or you, want to spend time installing and learning it? Especially considerint Problem 2 and Problem 1.
Problem 4: Wrong direction. In my opinion the real important projects right now are ones that are removing the distinctions between OSs. Cross platform tools like Python, Chandler, Mono and Mozilla. Using standards-based DHTML as the UI. Why add another platform to the mix when the real goal is to become platform agnostic?
It all sums up to the same issues that squeak smalltalk has: Everything about it is great, but no-one uses it for anything real.
Of course all these problems I describe are based on my opinions, needs and preferences. Your mileage may vary. But I be most people's won't...
They can post their own response to the Internet just as easily as anyone else. It isn't like the Net makes it hard...
This is the kind of thing about the European 'way' that gets me; all the crap they do that seems to level the playing field, while the real power remains concentrated in a very small number of people. No wonder the American Jacksonians and Jeffersonians give them fits!
I am a contractor and yes I do get paid for overtime. Yes I do get more variety in my work. Yes I don't have to take crap from the boss if I really don't want to. Yes I am often hired specifically for my skills and therefore get some respect for them.
The downside? I have worked for nearly a year away from my home in Seattle because there is no contracting work available there, and hundreds of qualified applicants for every full-time job. Health Insurance if far more expensive for me. I am not paid for holidays and the closest I come to vacation is the period between assignments that I must often spend frantically looking for the next contract.
Plus contractors always get the worst desk / cubes / equipment because they are not part of the headcount (which determines space, equipment and office furniture allocations). I have literally worked at a table in a hallway before.
I have been on both sides of the fence and you know what? Freelancing and/or working through a pimp is better in one respect: We know the customer is going to dump us sooner or later. While you full-timers labor under the mistaken belief you actually have job security...
You are absolutely correct, except on one point: It is already community property/open source.
So anyone that doesn't like what ESR is doing is free to fork it, now or from an earlier version. My guess is that the loudest complainers are the ones least likely to follow through on that option.
"Officer, I wasn't speeding. I was driving in a manner consistant with the road, conditions and the huge motor in my car!"
"It was creative accounting sir! Not an attempt to 'cook the books'."
"We are only writing software with the features our users want. This isn't code bloat, and I never made that remark about 640k being enough for anyone!"
That could be a difficult task - the free software crowd, by definition, prefers not to pay for such things. It's an interesting contradiction, really...
Someone seems clueless on the difference between 'free as in beer' and 'free as in speach'.
Tablet PCs are cool and just about everyone who plays with one wants one. Then they look at the price and decide to get a laptop with more memory and a faster processor for less...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually it is a short story and I wrote it quite a while ago. Since that time I have revised the future history the stories are set in quite a bit and would need to rewrite it from scratch if I was to re-submit. (I got two rejections and stopped sending it out.)
Even if I did do the rewrite I think I am OK...
and why would people continue to invent things?
Lots of reasons: To scratch a personal itch, because it is cool, because someone else wanted it and paid them for their time, because they got a grant, because they could, just because...
I have been writing SF stories set in a future where nanotechnology is preceded by a manufacturing technology similar to these kinds of solid output printers. However my 'Omnifacture' (as the thing is called in the stories) uses a mix of technologies instead of taking a single 'printing' approach. These include micro-machines, laser sintered metals and vapor/plasma deposition.
Although imaginary, the Omnifacture in my stories could possibly work in real life because it is based on current technologies. All it would require is someone to build the first one and then write the software -- after that an Omnifacture is capable of building more Omnifactures... (The first story I have written involving Omnifactures is titled 'Pyramid Scheme'.)
The interesting thing is that I posit (and use in my stories) a social backlash against such technology as people fear losing jobs and big companies fear losing control of their IP. The end result (in the stories) is that the Omnifacture becomes a black-market item and most countries pass laws against unregistered manufactured robotics of any kind.
So, SF or soon to come reality?
True... I did check to see if they used a separate cd drive for the OS and it appears not. Although that would make sense. Put the OS cd drive inside the box where your users can't get at it and remove the cd or insert there own.
You could use this system in combination with a small print/fileserver though. That would work well for computer labs or Internet cafes.
It comes with a floppy and an external cd (I didn't check if the external cd was w or r/w thought).
So, FTFL (Follow the Freaking Links) first next time.
Well, first I check /. and see if there is anything interesting. Then I surf around and check the various blogs and newsites I read. After that I check /. again and maybe post a comment to an interesting article.
/. journal (which everyone should read, cuz it is full of wierd bullshit). Then I surf some more. That is how I get my w........
If, while I am surfing around, I find something cool I post a link to it to me
Never mind.
127 comments at this point, and a quick search showed that not one mentioned Mono! This is very surprising being as, like Wine and Samba, Mono is a project with the specific purpose of cloning an existinng Microsoft technology and making it available on other platforms. And Mono is an even greater threat than the others in the sense that Wine and Samba are Linux only while the Mono project's long term goal is to port to just about everything.
.Net libraries in the open spec. Considering that MS hold patents on some of this technology this makes it a risky situation because even a 'clean-room' clone like Mono or DotGNU Portable.NET can infringe patents, leaving them open even if no copyrights are infringed. The real problem is that, like Java, the true power of .Net lies not in the languages but in the libraries.
There has been a concern for some time that Mono may be on shaky ground IP-wise. Certainly MS opened the C# and IL specifications by giving it to a valid standards body (ECMA), but they did not include all (or even the majority) of the
This is of great concern to me because of a descision I made last winter which was based, at least partly, on the existance and viability of Mono. Up to this point MS has made no moves against Mono, even providing them some back-door help upon occaision. Perhaps they are just using Mono as another nail in Java's coffin and will turn on Miguel de Icaza the minute he is of no more use to them.
However I find it difficult to believe that someone as smart as Miguel would allow himself to be used as a pawn. (Leaving me hope that he has covered his bases on this.) In the meantime the whole SCO thing can influence IP rights in two directions: In one we get a future where IP rights are king and anyone can take you down for the smallest mis-use or percieved mis-use. in the other way we get a future where IP rights are tempered with a little reality.
In my opinion one of those paths leads to doom. In the meantime, I might want to start re-thinking my plans...
I'm biased of course, but Seattle is an excellent place for Geekiness. The Boeing Aerospace museum is a great (and inexpensive) place to start. If you are into music you want to go to the Experience Project. There are many other free or cheap museums and attractions. Plus you will find wired (and wifi) coffee shops everywhere.
In the suburbs there are many more interesting things, including a giant software corporation you might have heard about.
Then there is the countryside. If you into hiking at all, or even just willing to drive a little, there are hundreds of places with amazing scenery within a two hour drive of Seattle. Between mountains, seaside and forests of giant cedars the area has it all. Plus you can take a $50 guided whitewater trip and scare the piss out of yourself (well worth it).
Finally there is me and others like myself: Finding a free place to crash on a couch for a few days in Seattle is never hard if you are into Science Fiction (Fandom there is entrenched and welcoming).
Appreciate the effort and am hoping the company lawyers don't quash it out of hand.
I might add that I have long been a Corel fan and much prefer it to that 'other' commercial graphics option. Except that the animation facilities for Corel paint suck...
There is no way I am going to 'read and understand' all that legal language. I would rather create my own competing specification than do that.
So, either release it under a license I can understand (one consisting of ten or less paragraphs) or forget it!
Easy-peasy guy:
* Rich text enabled text areas with built-in spell checking (halfway there)
* Full support for SGML (nearly halfway there)
Want more?
I got a diagonal Buzzword-Bingo on CTO, TCO, BSD and ASP. What did I win?
Bullcrap!
Developers should care very much about the market, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that the people who's job it is to do that may not have enough knowledge breadth to also understand the technical aspects, and how they are affected by market-based descisions. If you want your voice to be heard in these discussions you have to make certain you are talking in a language they understand.
Of course if you are content to let marketeers and product managers design your product and build your feature list, and then set your schedule without reference to the technical realities, you might think differently. You might also be working for Microsoft...
This morning I was typing in a long post on my /. journal (which I use as a blog) about the Hoytether article at space.com. It had lots of great stuff, with links to physicist and Hard Science Fiction writer Dr. Robert L. Forward (who introducted me to the tether concept) and to Tether's Unlimited (the company that Robert Hoyt and Robert Forward started to commercialize it).
/. ate it when I clicked 'Preview' and the back-button gave me an empty form. It was time to go to work so I said screw it; I can write it again when I come home. Yeah right. Like I would still want to post it after somebody else gets a dumber version on the /. front page!
Hell I even wrote about listening to Bob Forward (Dr. Forward to you, heh heh) tell me the story of how he found a kilt-making company in Scotland that still had old-fashioned weaving machines which could be modified to create the tethers. In fact I went so far as to link to a eulogy I wrote about Bob when he died. It was a great post! It had everything!
But then
It's like I was never meant to blog it...
This book was already reviewed for /. here. Yeesh, can't anyone be troubled to do a quick search before posting?
For what its worth, I owned a copy of the first edition and liked it so much I bought a copy of the second edition before the review mentiond above.
My first subject line was 'Cool', but then I changed it. Why? Well, I have been interested in Plan 9 for a long time. I especially like the services-based architecture. In many ways it is a project with an awful lot of potential. But...
Problem 1: What is it good for? Right now Plan 9 has no compelling applications and a dearth of the applications most people use daily. This might be fixed soon as people port things like OpenOffice to it, but don't hold your breath.
Problem 2: It is a research tool, and may never be more than that. Chances are, any truly compelling features in Plan 9 will soon find their way into Linux and even MS Windows.
Problem 3: Overcoming the installed base. It took Linux nearly ten years to achieve name recognition, and it still is running a distant third on the desktop. What does Plan 9 offer that would make me, or you, want to spend time installing and learning it? Especially considerint Problem 2 and Problem 1.
Problem 4: Wrong direction. In my opinion the real important projects right now are ones that are removing the distinctions between OSs. Cross platform tools like Python, Chandler, Mono and Mozilla. Using standards-based DHTML as the UI. Why add another platform to the mix when the real goal is to become platform agnostic?
It all sums up to the same issues that squeak smalltalk has: Everything about it is great, but no-one uses it for anything real.
Of course all these problems I describe are based on my opinions, needs and preferences. Your mileage may vary. But I be most people's won't...
They can post their own response to the Internet just as easily as anyone else. It isn't like the Net makes it hard...
This is the kind of thing about the European 'way' that gets me; all the crap they do that seems to level the playing field, while the real power remains concentrated in a very small number of people. No wonder the American Jacksonians and Jeffersonians give them fits!
I am a contractor and yes I do get paid for overtime. Yes I do get more variety in my work. Yes I don't have to take crap from the boss if I really don't want to. Yes I am often hired specifically for my skills and therefore get some respect for them.
The downside? I have worked for nearly a year away from my home in Seattle because there is no contracting work available there, and hundreds of qualified applicants for every full-time job. Health Insurance if far more expensive for me. I am not paid for holidays and the closest I come to vacation is the period between assignments that I must often spend frantically looking for the next contract.
Plus contractors always get the worst desk / cubes / equipment because they are not part of the headcount (which determines space, equipment and office furniture allocations). I have literally worked at a table in a hallway before.
I have been on both sides of the fence and you know what? Freelancing and/or working through a pimp is better in one respect: We know the customer is going to dump us sooner or later. While you full-timers labor under the mistaken belief you actually have job security...
You are absolutely correct, except on one point: It is already community property/open source.
So anyone that doesn't like what ESR is doing is free to fork it, now or from an earlier version. My guess is that the loudest complainers are the ones least likely to follow through on that option.
How many of these can we do?
"Officer, I wasn't speeding. I was driving in a manner consistant with the road, conditions and the huge motor in my car!"
"It was creative accounting sir! Not an attempt to 'cook the books'."
"We are only writing software with the features our users want. This isn't code bloat, and I never made that remark about 640k being enough for anyone!"
More?
Tablet PCs are cool and just about everyone who plays with one wants one. Then they look at the price and decide to get a laptop with more memory and a faster processor for less...
Moderate the parent comment [-1 Clueless]...
Does this mean Microsoft got shafted by SCO on their license? Whatta boomerang that would be...
Not exactly. Gentoo compiles everything so it takes longer.