Yesterday : Ruby is crap because its too new and we have other languages that do the same thing...
Today : Smalltalk is crap because its too old, and we have other languages that do the same...
Morale of this? : 90% of Slashdot has the mindset "The way I do it is best. Anyone else doing it a different way is an ignorant asshole."
Pax,
White Rabbit
+++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Re:Ruby CGI module's HTML generation methods
on
Programming Ruby
·
· Score: 2
Rubyu sucks (IMHO). I just don't care about its closeness to Smalltalk - that was last decade's
problem. What I care about this week are document handling tools and this LISP-like serial
concatenation model of document creation just doesn't cut it.
Someone having a problem understanding the difference between a programming language and a library?
So how come registering a.co.uk costs so much more than registering a.com?
Don't know where you get that idea from..co.uk's are much cheaper.
All I have to pay is 5.78 UKP for a two year.co.uk registration. A.com will cost three times that.
As a Scottish girl used to the pleasures of my native Glasgow, I was very dissappointed in the variety of cuisine, nightlife and people here in Bangor, Maine when I first arrived. It seems that the melting pot is producing a terrible monoculture here in America!
This box looks a bit expensive for what it is. If you have a half-decent sound card, there are software alternatives ( e.g. Koblo's synths ). The bulk of these run on Mac OS.
Probably not. There are more softsynths for Windows than the Mac, I'd say. There are probably at least thirty or more free VST softsynths.
Does anyone know of any software synths for Linux?
Have a look at this site. Its a mirror, but the original gets swamped
Why don't they emulate it in software ? My guess is it would run fine on any decent 486.
Because it has analogue components. To make it sound exactly right, you'd have model it, rather than merely emulate it. That takes a hell of a lot more processing power.
Disclaimer : I can't be arsed reading Jon Katz anymore.
This is how Jon Katz should be writing, and what he should be writing about. Global implications of technology, the internet and privacy, and not just American libertarian concerns. Writing about the real-world, instead of trying to force himself into the graces of a given subculture he doesnt really understand. Writing about real issues, not trying to mangle the back-story for a fifteen-year-old role-playing game into some kind of metaphor about the alienation of geeks.
Real writing, about real issues.
Suggested sig, use it now, get the campaign rolling...
Fire Jon Katz. Hire Neal Stephenson
Pax,
White Rabbit
+++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Died at WorldCon Glasgow; NO books in print.
on
The Shockwave Rider
·
· Score: 2
IMHO Brunner was one of the most significant SF writers actually covering societal change. The Sheep Look Up, and Stand on Zanzibar are masterpieces, and far more relevent than most SF written since. Cyberpunk owes him a great deal. And yet, when Brunner died, at the WorldCon conventionin Glasgow, Scotland, I understand that not a single novel of his was in print. Shameful, especially when you consider some of the pap that gets pushed onto SF bookshelves these days.
And firewire? And a ZIP drive? See - it isn't that much of a difference.
Hmmm, dont see Zip drives listed on the Apple site as part of the spec. Mind you I forgot a SCSI interface. So yeah, I guess it is closer than that.
But I did spec a good sound card and a much better graphics card.
Maybe its closer than I estimated then, although I still say dropping the processors about 12% (to 800Mhz) in speeds saves you about 300 quid in itself. Depends how you rate the 500Mhz G4 really.
All I'm asking is for you to compare like with like.
Well, I'm not exactly the comparison is between a 1Ghz Intel versus a 500 G4. I'd rate the G4 around about an 800Mhz PIII, but I could be wrong. Now Dabs dont have 1Ghz PIII prices that I could find, but I guess a 933 is close enough, yeah? Or are you going to quibble over 70Mhz, maybe, even although the 500 G4 isnt exactly a brand-new chip.
Deluxe Kbd and Mouse & & & & 50 approx
DVD ROM & & & & 85
Gigabit ethernet & & & & 195
(Dual) 64Mb ATI Rage Pro card & & & & 85
40Gb UDMA 66 Hard Drive & & & & 150
Total is a shade under 2100 before VAT. Thats at least 300 cheaper before VAT. Plus I can shop around. Plus, I think 850Mhz PIIIs are faster than 500Mhz G4's so I can drop a bit on the processors. Plus its a better graphics card (Twin ATI Rage Pro versus one) and better sound. And I have the -option- to forget 200 quid worth of gigabit ethernet, since neither my home nor work networks support it, if I choose.
Dont get me wrong. I like Macs. Just dont like the prices, and the replace-as-upgrade syndrom.
Thats what they said about the Celeron. However I have two on my system, on an Abit BP6 motherboard. According to rumour, the VP6 will supposedly be able to do the same for the Cel-2, and since its also by Abit, I believe that it just might. Plus there's a new version of the Powerleap slotket (Neo 370? I forget) which looks like it'll enable Cel-2's to be SMP'd.
The dual 450 (which
doesn't have the DVD-RAM, half the memory and no gigabit ethernet) is a much more palatable 1600 pounds or so.
Where? At Dabs (typical, cheaper-than-most Mac dealer), the Dual 450 is 1600 plus VAT (at 17.5 percent, dont forget), for a 128Mb Model. The dual-500 is 2400 plus VAT, (Thats nearly 3000 altogether, BTW) for a 256Mb model.
Give me a URL, right now, for someone in the UK shipping Dual-500 Macs with 1Gb of memory for that price. Even Apple dont list the dual-500 as shipping with 1Gb of RAM, you been doing magic mushies?
Powerlogix' dual-G4 press-release was in February. As of today, the card still isnt listed on their website as a shipping product. Even if it was available, it would still be a daughterboard upgrade, and the early motherboard would still be a performance issue. Plus, the dual-350 card was listed at 1200 bucks. That would be around 800 UKP; The dual-400 G4 card was listed at 1600 bucks. Call that at least 1200 UKP.
Even if it weren't vapourware, no thanks. Like I say, I dont like the hefty price premium that goes with Macs.
Here in the UK, a dual-500Mhz G4 costs around 2400 pounds of our dodgy UK money. In comparison to a dual-Intel system (say dual 800 PIII's, around 1400-1600 UKP max??). Meanwhile, I cant just pull the motherboard out of my blue'n'white G3 and replace it with a dual G4-capable one. The best I can do is a single-G4 daughterboard, and compromised performance on that because of the older motherboard.
Its one hell of a price premium on a shiny box and a fancy front end, especially if you wind up not actually using OSX anyways. Plus peripherals cost more, high-end consumer graphics boards for the Mac are impossible to find, and less likely to be supported. So even although I think they're dead pretty, and high on Cool Points, I'll pass.
Next revision of my system is an Abit VP6 (when it comes out) and twin Celeron II's running as fast as I can get them to go. I'll save about 2 grand.
Ive seen a few comments already about Win4Lin being unlike VMWare because its not a Virtual Machine. If people would care to read the whitepaper, then think before they post their little replies they'd find out that
It IS a virtual machine
It requires a copy of 95 or 98 to run Windows apps
It has its own BIOS
It provides a virtual hardware profile
In other words, its pretty damn similar to the way VMWare is set up.
Win4Lin is not like Vmware!
Vmware is its own little virtual computer, you can install windows on it....Win4Lin is like Wine, you can run singular applications like word or Excel, or IE
From the whitepaper: Win4Lin delivers Windows application support by providing a virtual machine environment to execute native Windows
95/98. Because Windows is actually running on the system, application support is very comprehensive. Most applications
will simply install and perform as expected
I was under the impression 1.6 required the recompilation of third party extensions anyway. Although I suppose thats not truly 'breakng' them (although isn't there an explicitly-deprecated syntax thats no longer supported?)
Genuine technical query : If Win4Lin is only an emulator, why does it need a genuine copy of Windows? Why does it only provide a subset of the actual physical hardware, the way VMWare does? In other words, why isnt it the 'Win4Lin Virtual PC' on Trelo's "how it works diagram" actually a virtual machine.
Im sure this will get the usual share of cliched responses, but lets' forget that for the moment. The interesting thing here is what the 'big boys' consider is needed for a commercially viable desktop-oriented Linux, why they're doing it, and what they're prepared to do about it.
You might not think you need a fancy GUI, especially if it looks like Windows, but there are an awful lot of consumers out there who just wantr to click on buttons, not memorise a new and unique argument set for every action they want to undertake. Hence an elegant GUI is a Good Thing for a certain group of users. A unified GUI is a Good Thing for developers, and thus commercial interests. A unified GUI with the features that simplify cross-porting of established software (ie drag and drop, unified colour printing, clipboarding, all that sorta stuff) that's a Good Thing for those developers tired of doing it all again from scratch. Whether KDE or Gnome is better is moot. For the desktop, those features can be incredibly useful, even if you can get along without them
Very little of Linux, per se, is desktop oriented. That means whatever solutions are developed, are probably pretty much cross-platform. For the other Unix vendors, even those competing against Linux for share, that makes assisting in the development of the solution also a Good Thing. If you're paranoid that Sun might hijack it, thats dumb. Gnome is still GPL'd, so they can't. But if they use it as a stepping stone toeards features they want, then that benefits us in the long term, if only to spur KDE to compete.
Whatever happens, this is a Good Thing. Don't let the zealots and bigots persuade you otherwise. Any expansion or improvement of the available feature set is a good thing, because Open Source is a Darwinian process. If its cruft, it'll fall by the wayside. And it doesnt matter if Sun et.c have selfish motives; the process is one they can only partake in; they can't, ultimately, control it.
Do we need another office suite? Maybe not, but is it a problem if we get one? At the end of the day, its all down to choice, and more available choices is never a bad thing. At least we do get the choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Today : Smalltalk is crap because its too old, and we have other languages that do the same...
Morale of this? : 90% of Slashdot has the mindset "The way I do it is best. Anyone else doing it a different way is an ignorant asshole."
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Someone having a problem understanding the difference between a programming language and a library?
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Nae decent curries then?
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Probably not. There are more softsynths for Windows than the Mac, I'd say. There are probably at least thirty or more free VST softsynths.
Does anyone know of any software synths for Linux?
Have a look at this site. Its a mirror, but the original gets swamped
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Disclaimer : I can't be arsed reading Jon Katz anymore.
This is how Jon Katz should be writing, and what he should be writing about. Global implications of technology, the internet and privacy, and not just American libertarian concerns. Writing about the real-world, instead of trying to force himself into the graces of a given subculture he doesnt really understand. Writing about real issues, not trying to mangle the back-story for a fifteen-year-old role-playing game into some kind of metaphor about the alienation of geeks.
Real writing, about real issues.
Suggested sig, use it now, get the campaign rolling...
Fire Jon Katz. Hire Neal Stephenson
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
IMHO Brunner was one of the most significant SF writers actually covering societal change. The Sheep Look Up, and Stand on Zanzibar are masterpieces, and far more relevent than most SF written since. Cyberpunk owes him a great deal. And yet, when Brunner died, at the WorldCon conventionin Glasgow, Scotland, I understand that not a single novel of his was in print. Shameful, especially when you consider some of the pap that gets pushed onto SF bookshelves these days.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
And firewire? And a ZIP drive? See - it isn't that much of a difference.
Hmmm, dont see Zip drives listed on the Apple site as part of the spec. Mind you I forgot a SCSI interface. So yeah, I guess it is closer than that.
But I did spec a good sound card and a much better graphics card.
Maybe its closer than I estimated then, although I still say dropping the processors about 12% (to 800Mhz) in speeds saves you about 300 quid in itself. Depends how you rate the 500Mhz G4 really.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
All I'm asking is for you to compare like with like.
Well, I'm not exactly the comparison is between a 1Ghz Intel versus a 500 G4. I'd rate the G4 around about an 800Mhz PIII, but I could be wrong. Now Dabs dont have 1Ghz PIII prices that I could find, but I guess a 933 is close enough, yeah? Or are you going to quibble over 70Mhz, maybe, even although the 500 G4 isnt exactly a brand-new chip.
All prices are Dabs.
- Dual Intel Motherboard & & & & 125
- Two 933 PIII's & & & & 380 each
- 256 Mb 133 RAM & & & & 230
- DVD RAM & & & & 300
- SB Live soundcard & & & & 40
- 300W Tower case & & & & 75
- Deluxe Kbd and Mouse & & & & 50 approx
- DVD ROM & & & & 85
- Gigabit ethernet & & & & 195
- (Dual) 64Mb ATI Rage Pro card & & & & 85
- 40Gb UDMA 66 Hard Drive & & & & 150
Total is a shade under 2100 before VAT. Thats at least 300 cheaper before VAT. Plus I can shop around. Plus, I think 850Mhz PIIIs are faster than 500Mhz G4's so I can drop a bit on the processors. Plus its a better graphics card (Twin ATI Rage Pro versus one) and better sound. And I have the -option- to forget 200 quid worth of gigabit ethernet, since neither my home nor work networks support it, if I choose.Dont get me wrong. I like Macs. Just dont like the prices, and the replace-as-upgrade syndrom.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Thats what they said about the Celeron. However I have two on my system, on an Abit BP6 motherboard. According to rumour, the VP6 will supposedly be able to do the same for the Cel-2, and since its also by Abit, I believe that it just might. Plus there's a new version of the Powerleap slotket (Neo 370? I forget) which looks like it'll enable Cel-2's to be SMP'd.
Information courtesy of BP6.COM
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
The dual 450 (which doesn't have the DVD-RAM, half the memory and no gigabit ethernet) is a much more palatable 1600 pounds or so.
Where? At Dabs (typical, cheaper-than-most Mac dealer), the Dual 450 is 1600 plus VAT (at 17.5 percent, dont forget), for a 128Mb Model. The dual-500 is 2400 plus VAT, (Thats nearly 3000 altogether, BTW) for a 256Mb model.
Give me a URL, right now, for someone in the UK shipping Dual-500 Macs with 1Gb of memory for that price. Even Apple dont list the dual-500 as shipping with 1Gb of RAM, you been doing magic mushies?
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Powerlogix' dual-G4 press-release was in February. As of today, the card still isnt listed on their website as a shipping product. Even if it was available, it would still be a daughterboard upgrade, and the early motherboard would still be a performance issue. Plus, the dual-350 card was listed at 1200 bucks. That would be around 800 UKP; The dual-400 G4 card was listed at 1600 bucks. Call that at least 1200 UKP.
Even if it weren't vapourware, no thanks. Like I say, I dont like the hefty price premium that goes with Macs.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Here in the UK, a dual-500Mhz G4 costs around 2400 pounds of our dodgy UK money. In comparison to a dual-Intel system (say dual 800 PIII's, around 1400-1600 UKP max??). Meanwhile, I cant just pull the motherboard out of my blue'n'white G3 and replace it with a dual G4-capable one. The best I can do is a single-G4 daughterboard, and compromised performance on that because of the older motherboard.
Its one hell of a price premium on a shiny box and a fancy front end, especially if you wind up not actually using OSX anyways. Plus peripherals cost more, high-end consumer graphics boards for the Mac are impossible to find, and less likely to be supported. So even although I think they're dead pretty, and high on Cool Points, I'll pass.
Next revision of my system is an Abit VP6 (when it comes out) and twin Celeron II's running as fast as I can get them to go. I'll save about 2 grand.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Ive seen a few comments already about Win4Lin being unlike VMWare because its not a Virtual Machine. If people would care to read the whitepaper, then think before they post their little replies they'd find out that
It IS a virtual machine
It requires a copy of 95 or 98 to run Windows apps
It has its own BIOS
It provides a virtual hardware profile
In other words, its pretty damn similar to the way VMWare is set up.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Win4Lin is not like Vmware! Vmware is its own little virtual computer, you can install windows on it....Win4Lin is like Wine, you can run singular applications like word or Excel, or IE
From the whitepaper: Win4Lin delivers Windows application support by providing a virtual machine environment to execute native Windows 95/98. Because Windows is actually running on the system, application support is very comprehensive. Most applications will simply install and perform as expected
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
I was under the impression 1.6 required the recompilation of third party extensions anyway. Although I suppose thats not truly 'breakng' them (although isn't there an explicitly-deprecated syntax thats no longer supported?)
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Genuine technical query : If Win4Lin is only an emulator, why does it need a genuine copy of Windows? Why does it only provide a subset of the actual physical hardware, the way VMWare does? In other words, why isnt it the 'Win4Lin Virtual PC' on Trelo's "how it works diagram" actually a virtual machine.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Oi! Stop that.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++
Im sure this will get the usual share of cliched responses, but lets' forget that for the moment. The interesting thing here is what the 'big boys' consider is needed for a commercially viable desktop-oriented Linux, why they're doing it, and what they're prepared to do about it.
You might not think you need a fancy GUI, especially if it looks like Windows, but there are an awful lot of consumers out there who just wantr to click on buttons, not memorise a new and unique argument set for every action they want to undertake. Hence an elegant GUI is a Good Thing for a certain group of users. A unified GUI is a Good Thing for developers, and thus commercial interests. A unified GUI with the features that simplify cross-porting of established software (ie drag and drop, unified colour printing, clipboarding, all that sorta stuff) that's a Good Thing for those developers tired of doing it all again from scratch. Whether KDE or Gnome is better is moot. For the desktop, those features can be incredibly useful, even if you can get along without them
Very little of Linux, per se, is desktop oriented. That means whatever solutions are developed, are probably pretty much cross-platform. For the other Unix vendors, even those competing against Linux for share, that makes assisting in the development of the solution also a Good Thing. If you're paranoid that Sun might hijack it, thats dumb. Gnome is still GPL'd, so they can't. But if they use it as a stepping stone toeards features they want, then that benefits us in the long term, if only to spur KDE to compete.
Whatever happens, this is a Good Thing. Don't let the zealots and bigots persuade you otherwise. Any expansion or improvement of the available feature set is a good thing, because Open Source is a Darwinian process. If its cruft, it'll fall by the wayside. And it doesnt matter if Sun et.c have selfish motives; the process is one they can only partake in; they can't, ultimately, control it.
Do we need another office suite? Maybe not, but is it a problem if we get one? At the end of the day, its all down to choice, and more available choices is never a bad thing. At least we do get the choice.
Pax,
White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++