Compositing doesn't take a lot of power, despite how Linux has struggled with it. I mean, come on, at worst it's two triangles per window, with textures and alpha-blending. Maybe an extra four tris with colour and an alpha map for shadow. My 2001 ibook could do it in OS X, and that was running a Rage Mobility M3. I think it's 16MB.
And isn't too difficult to get it to do some of the lowest-common-denominator simple tasks that everybody wants, like single sign-on, roaming profiles, and a few policy restrictions.
You call that lowest common denominator, but setting it all up on Linux is horrible. Doable, yes, but horrible. You say that Active Directory isn't easy unless your time is worthless because of tasks that come later, but Linux doesn't even get to the starting blocks easily.
You mentioned SQL SELECTs elsewhere. Full-text search isn't like a SELECT. It's more like what what happens when you google something: many documents are searched in a split second, and complex queries can be done, like documents containing a phrase, but not this one, or documents that mention X with Y within a few sentences of that, or documents that mention X and Y, but not Z. Yes, SQL lets you do that, but not for text, except in very inefficient ways.
From what I've seen of it (which is very little), Lucene lets you, as a programmer, index data using your own field names. So, say you're indexing word documents and HTML documents. You can extract most of the text and index it as "maincontent", but seperately extract the author, title and subtitle, indexing those individually. This lets you query attributes, like: "space nasa and not genre:sci-fi". Full text search also does ranking based on the occurences of different words you query by, etc. Presumably Lucene would let you specify which fields/attributes are included in a search, and which ones have the highest scores in search results, for instance.
Yeah, I don't get where $5m USD went on that either. I didn't think it was THAT big a problem. But maybe it is. Personally, I'm holding out for a decent Triple API, which hopefully make all but the indexer of this obsolete.
I'm no fan of webapps. I hate any browser scripting, except as optional additional client-side form validation. More importantly, I think this whole trend towards webapps is crazy. In these days of cross-platform GUIs that have been developed for years to support a well-recognised, fully featured widget set, OpenGL rendering, etc., it's crazy to think we have a bunch of new developers doing all the same stuff over again, making the same mistakes. It took decades to develop and standardise those GUI layers the first time around. We made tons of small iterative improvements, like adding accessibility keys, customisable toolbars, click-to-sort in headers, double-click to edit, file dialogs, etc. It'll be at least another five years before the web has similar widget sets, let alone standardisation and full compatibility with other tools like screenreaders and debugging and all.
That said, I think it's worth recognising here that the web already IS the lowest common denominator -- originally, it's just a way to distribute a page across platforms, without even so much as page layout info. Essentially, it was one step beyond dialing into a BBS and asking for pages on your ANSI terminal.
contacting the publisher to say "Either it works or I don't buy any more"
I think that would have pretty much zero effect. Maybe even negative effect, if some manager type takes a dislike to how you phrase it and gets his back up.
To really, surely change a company's attitude, you need at least a class-action lawsuit for backpay on damages, involving a visible chunk of their customers (ie, visible on the pie chart at the board meeting). Here in the UK, I don't even think class-action suits exist sadly.
The thing that people often forget is that teaching itself is a serious talent/skill. Just as often, as a twit teacher, you'll find the knowledgeable people who can't communicate an idea if their lives depended upon it.
I call bullshit.
Yes, there are techniques that can make teachers into better teachers. Yes, there are some people who are incapable of teaching, or even people who would do damage to students when trying to teach. But the average human being has evolved over millions of years to educate their own children, and the children of their community just fine, at least on a subject they know. Which brings to...
To REALLY teach any subject properly, what you need is mastery of that subject. You know... as in schoolmaster, headmaster, etc. Just about everyone who has mastered their subject has encountered many people along the way who've been astounded by their skill, and had plenty of opportunities to think about each aspect of their skill, how it relates to other aspects, and how to explain that to lay people in some way that makes sense. The simple fact that they learnt it all, and probably enjoyed it all, having true passion for the subject, helps a lot.
Know... does knowing a lot about the art of "pure" teaching qualify you to teach a subject the way such a master is qualified? Certainly not. If anything, you're only qualified to help those masters to teach better, by helping them learn the techniques you know.
Back when your ISP was the most likely provider of your email, and it was always POP3 or IMAP, it was common for your ISP to provide your imap and pop3 login details as important information with your connection, right along side the number to dial, and the dialup login details.
On the other hand, webmail providers have not been at all clear that you can even use a mail client, much less how.
I blame the webmail providers for deliberately trying to lock people into their slow, technologically inferior, advert-laden webpages.
What on Earth is surprising, or even interesting, about showing that putting a game controller in a person's hand doesn't thwart this method of learning?
Well, these days, common sense or self-evident truths (as in, "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal...") seem to be unacceptable to most people, so you end up with stupid studies convincing stupid science-bound people of things that more well-rounded people know, and not only know, but feel and connect with at the core of their being.
Which is all we ever have, since nothing is certain, and science does not prove, but only theorises and disproves.
It's been a popular subject for novelists, playwrights, myths, etc,
Perhaps you need to ask WHY this has been such a popular subject.
because we all _like_ to believe that everyone is the same, and the scary criminals out there can be turned good by just appealing to their humanity.
Because, contrary to what you suggest here, history has shown that people like to demonise others; to pretend we're all different, that we could not possibly act the way that other person has acted, and that we are therefore justified in taking away their rights, enslaving them, gassing them, or locking them up. Kind of like you're doing right now, sadly. In fact, I could argue that your attitude to other human beings is downright psychopathic too:
a psychological gratification in criminal, sexual, or aggressive impulses
There's certainly an aggression and hostility in your attitude towards so-called criminals.
and the inability to learn from past mistakes.
Can't even acknowledge that the prisons are filling up, more crime is being commited than ever before, that your hate only generates more hate, etc.
KDE was adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a 'user' release, but was solely for third party developers to actually get involved and start porting, and to make a difference. A pure developer preview. KDE 4.1 was stabilizing third party apps and the platform. KDE 4.2 is the first user-centric general use release for 4.x. It's not their fault that apparently many users and distributors didn't listen or care.
Of COURSE it's their fault. They were FORCED to explain that time and time again because they deliberately chose version numbers that say the exact opposite.
Besides, IMHO, 4.0 wasn't fit for developers either. Even in 4.2, they're STILL calling some of the APIs experimental.
Yes, because they did away with the well-established themeable, accelerated, accessible, translatable, Qt GUI Widgets, and based made up a new "plasmoid" system that's almost entirely incompatible with all that. It's pretty, but most of the features have been sacrificed for that, and it'll take AGES to get those features on a parallel, if they ever can.
The kernel is far from completely consistent; it's patched and selectively built on almost every distro. If anything, libc, bash, and the gnu core utils and toolchain are the main consistencies.
But this is a silly thing to argue about, since we're obviously not going to agree. Let's agree to disagree:)
Point me to the clause in the GPL where it says if I or my software benefits from your software being used in conjunction with mine I have to prefix your name to the resulting project?
Point me to the planet on which that's relevant to the issue at hand.
We're talking about "GNU/Linux" vs. "Linux". "Linux", as defined by its creator, is an operating system kernel. By definition, using that name refers to an operating system kernel, not to ANY "project" including GNU.
GNU, on the other hand, is a project to create a Unix replacement. It would be a functional unix environment, except for the lack of a kernel. By definition, "GNU" refers to this, not a distro project, and not a kernel.
Put the two together, and you get a distro (albeit a minimal one). Therefore, the logical thing to do is combine the names. The only reason to disregard this logic (a reason which I think is perfectly valid, you should know) is that "Linux" is more pronounceable and user-friendly than "GNU/Linux".
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Yeah, I hate it when they do that. I mean, most other companies CAN tell you some product features.
Compositing doesn't take a lot of power, despite how Linux has struggled with it. I mean, come on, at worst it's two triangles per window, with textures and alpha-blending. Maybe an extra four tris with colour and an alpha map for shadow. My 2001 ibook could do it in OS X, and that was running a Rage Mobility M3. I think it's 16MB.
You call that lowest common denominator, but setting it all up on Linux is horrible. Doable, yes, but horrible. You say that Active Directory isn't easy unless your time is worthless because of tasks that come later, but Linux doesn't even get to the starting blocks easily.
You mentioned SQL SELECTs elsewhere. Full-text search isn't like a SELECT. It's more like what what happens when you google something: many documents are searched in a split second, and complex queries can be done, like documents containing a phrase, but not this one, or documents that mention X with Y within a few sentences of that, or documents that mention X and Y, but not Z. Yes, SQL lets you do that, but not for text, except in very inefficient ways.
From what I've seen of it (which is very little), Lucene lets you, as a programmer, index data using your own field names. So, say you're indexing word documents and HTML documents. You can extract most of the text and index it as "maincontent", but seperately extract the author, title and subtitle, indexing those individually. This lets you query attributes, like: "space nasa and not genre:sci-fi". Full text search also does ranking based on the occurences of different words you query by, etc. Presumably Lucene would let you specify which fields/attributes are included in a search, and which ones have the highest scores in search results, for instance.
Yeah, I don't get where $5m USD went on that either. I didn't think it was THAT big a problem. But maybe it is. Personally, I'm holding out for a decent Triple API, which hopefully make all but the indexer of this obsolete.
I'm no fan of webapps. I hate any browser scripting, except as optional additional client-side form validation. More importantly, I think this whole trend towards webapps is crazy. In these days of cross-platform GUIs that have been developed for years to support a well-recognised, fully featured widget set, OpenGL rendering, etc., it's crazy to think we have a bunch of new developers doing all the same stuff over again, making the same mistakes. It took decades to develop and standardise those GUI layers the first time around. We made tons of small iterative improvements, like adding accessibility keys, customisable toolbars, click-to-sort in headers, double-click to edit, file dialogs, etc. It'll be at least another five years before the web has similar widget sets, let alone standardisation and full compatibility with other tools like screenreaders and debugging and all.
That said, I think it's worth recognising here that the web already IS the lowest common denominator -- originally, it's just a way to distribute a page across platforms, without even so much as page layout info. Essentially, it was one step beyond dialing into a BBS and asking for pages on your ANSI terminal.
Then the situation would be:
Sounds good to me.
I think that would have pretty much zero effect. Maybe even negative effect, if some manager type takes a dislike to how you phrase it and gets his back up.
To really, surely change a company's attitude, you need at least a class-action lawsuit for backpay on damages, involving a visible chunk of their customers (ie, visible on the pie chart at the board meeting). Here in the UK, I don't even think class-action suits exist sadly.
They have that now? The power to make black holes in a lab, AND turn them into zombie black holes? Wow.
I'm fascinated by your new zombie scientist cult, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I call bullshit.
Yes, there are techniques that can make teachers into better teachers. Yes, there are some people who are incapable of teaching, or even people who would do damage to students when trying to teach. But the average human being has evolved over millions of years to educate their own children, and the children of their community just fine, at least on a subject they know. Which brings to...
To REALLY teach any subject properly, what you need is mastery of that subject. You know... as in schoolmaster, headmaster, etc. Just about everyone who has mastered their subject has encountered many people along the way who've been astounded by their skill, and had plenty of opportunities to think about each aspect of their skill, how it relates to other aspects, and how to explain that to lay people in some way that makes sense. The simple fact that they learnt it all, and probably enjoyed it all, having true passion for the subject, helps a lot.
Know... does knowing a lot about the art of "pure" teaching qualify you to teach a subject the way such a master is qualified? Certainly not. If anything, you're only qualified to help those masters to teach better, by helping them learn the techniques you know.
I've seen most of the others attempted myself, but this sounds particularly funny:
Can you elaborate on that?
Back when your ISP was the most likely provider of your email, and it was always POP3 or IMAP, it was common for your ISP to provide your imap and pop3 login details as important information with your connection, right along side the number to dial, and the dialup login details.
On the other hand, webmail providers have not been at all clear that you can even use a mail client, much less how.
I blame the webmail providers for deliberately trying to lock people into their slow, technologically inferior, advert-laden webpages.
Well, these days, common sense or self-evident truths (as in, "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal...") seem to be unacceptable to most people, so you end up with stupid studies convincing stupid science-bound people of things that more well-rounded people know, and not only know, but feel and connect with at the core of their being.
Which is all we ever have, since nothing is certain, and science does not prove, but only theorises and disproves.
Perhaps you need to ask WHY this has been such a popular subject.
Because, contrary to what you suggest here, history has shown that people like to demonise others; to pretend we're all different, that we could not possibly act the way that other person has acted, and that we are therefore justified in taking away their rights, enslaving them, gassing them, or locking them up. Kind of like you're doing right now, sadly. In fact, I could argue that your attitude to other human beings is downright psychopathic too:
There's certainly an aggression and hostility in your attitude towards so-called criminals.
Can't even acknowledge that the prisons are filling up, more crime is being commited than ever before, that your hate only generates more hate, etc.
I know which side I'd rather be on.
Put it this way: if you know any country singers who need a topic for a depressing song...
Remember what you did yesterday? In how much detail?
Lossy is the future.
Don't be ridiculous. It's the same thing to anyone who's not being pedantic. Or maybe it's not, like a .0 release is beta release in KDE-world.
You should check out Gnu/KDE/Xorg/Gnome/emacs/perl/rxvt/Fluxbox/Firefox/Java/Linux
Of COURSE it's their fault. They were FORCED to explain that time and time again because they deliberately chose version numbers that say the exact opposite.
Besides, IMHO, 4.0 wasn't fit for developers either. Even in 4.2, they're STILL calling some of the APIs experimental.
Yes, because they did away with the well-established themeable, accelerated, accessible, translatable, Qt GUI Widgets, and based made up a new "plasmoid" system that's almost entirely incompatible with all that. It's pretty, but most of the features have been sacrificed for that, and it'll take AGES to get those features on a parallel, if they ever can.
That would be United States [Encrypted] Dollars.
The kernel is far from completely consistent; it's patched and selectively built on almost every distro. If anything, libc, bash, and the gnu core utils and toolchain are the main consistencies.
But this is a silly thing to argue about, since we're obviously not going to agree. Let's agree to disagree :)
Yes, in the pyrotechnic sense of the term.
Well, that, and the incident caused pain and suffering to a LOT more people.
Point me to the planet on which that's relevant to the issue at hand.
We're talking about "GNU/Linux" vs. "Linux". "Linux", as defined by its creator, is an operating system kernel. By definition, using that name refers to an operating system kernel, not to ANY "project" including GNU.
GNU, on the other hand, is a project to create a Unix replacement. It would be a functional unix environment, except for the lack of a kernel. By definition, "GNU" refers to this, not a distro project, and not a kernel.
Put the two together, and you get a distro (albeit a minimal one). Therefore, the logical thing to do is combine the names. The only reason to disregard this logic (a reason which I think is perfectly valid, you should know) is that "Linux" is more pronounceable and user-friendly than "GNU/Linux".
Which is yet another reason why assembly is better left to a compiler these days.