Despite the amount of confusing clocks you might have, a benevolent dictator of time becomes handy: Temps Atomique International (french) abbreviated: TAI. For us mere mortals who use time for civil needs, another timescale is dissiminated, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is derived from TAI, but synchronized using leap seconds to UT1, which is based on actual rotations of the earth with respect to the mean sun.
International Atomic Time (TAI, from the French name ) is a high-precision atomic time standard that tracks proper time on Earth's geoid. It is the principal realisation of Terrestrial Time. As of 2007 TAI is exactly 33 seconds ahead of UTC: 10 seconds' initial difference at the start of 1972, plus 23 leap seconds in UTC since 1972. TAI in this form was synchronised with Universal Time at the beginning of 1958, and the two have drifted apart ever since.
Accurate time is very important for computer systems/networks. The best way to keep track of time is to install a local timeserver which synchronizes against a reliable public timeserver like pool.ntp.org. The local time server can be used to synchronize other computers you might have.
Actually very young kids don't treat animals so much different than toys. I have seen a kid trying to use a guineepig as a little toy car. It's also no wonder kids grab the tails of cats, they would do the same with their stuffed whinnie the pooh bear. At a young age they mixup animals a lot calling a horse sheep etc. So it's not that difficult to imagine mixing up pets and robots (toys).
It's not that simple. It's more about the split between people who adore free software as in freedom and those who don't. People who like their freedom have high hopes. If one role model of a software package or company chooses to go a little more closed, all high hopes for a more free future are in veign. And especially developers who do something for free will be disappointed if they have contributed something less to their ideals. They have put their soul to contribute to free software. You may have a different opinion than richard stallman, However you cannot be a realist and not see how much value the FSF makes in providing free software for ditributions eho deliver GNU/Linux. High trees cath large winds.
If a very succesful product chooses to even close a little this leads to disappointment. The opposite also counts. If a typically vendor lockin company chooses to open up, it will some favour, but not high hopes. I favour free software above closed source software because I like the idea that free software has more continuity than closed source software. I dislike to be the prey of dome propriety business strategy. I like every byte of freedom I can get. Ik like to be able to develop stuff which everyone can use and improve. I dislike role models who lose their "religion"
The Times reports that Japanese consumers have been 'abandoning television' in order to play with Nintendo's Wii Secret reliable sources say that Nintendo will start to sell TV sets as well...
Eidos certainly thinks so; Kotaku notes that they've signed up with the same company featured in this study
Doesn't look much like a scientific objective perspective. But anyway I never heard anyone talk about commercials that didn't affect people. The annoying ads might as well sell beter.
Sure, in-game advertisements can be annoying, but as the price of game development grows and the game-playing audience expands, the practice just makes more and more sense for everybody involved
Come on, as if the games business is not profitable enough? This is not a decent customer oriented way to sell games. It is just yet another way to make more money. And like all ads they start small, and while becoming more profitable they will become more dominant and make the game experience suffer. If these games were available as free (as in free beer) adware maybe it would it would be justified. I hate to pay money for a game with ads, that's my small voice about these practices. I am interested in different opinions from other gamers.
cruftness = people * time is a reasonable approximation, I can confirm the same kind of stories.
Even if the operating system and the projects software would be trustworthy, the consultants would probably %$^& the customers database too. Hurray for corporate politics.
A developer will most nlikely to use math if he:
* has to develop filters for audio
* has to develop compilers for instruction optimalisation
* has to develop Mathworks
* has to develop software for Iter
* has to use formal verification
* etc
But a lot of applied computer science doesn't need math nor science. If you're a researcher you most probably can not do much without math. Boring item.
Ofcourse there is enough room for open source projects to compete with closed source. It depends all who is developing for what kind of user to fit some purpose.
A software product satisfies some need for some target users. This is a very different motivation comparing with business driven development and thus leads to different kind of software and innovations. Because the most of the developers of open source software products have only as targetgroup: themselves. These developer-users have at some point a piece of software that is uniquely fitted for their own purposes. It might too technical to the not-developer-user to find interest in such software. But at that stage the unique fit for purpose is the idea, and for those users there it might be the case no other closed source software has this unique fit. So for them its better. The unique value might be just that it's free as in freedom or it's free as in beer. Community service might be just perfect for these types of users.
And when these projects attract more developers it attracts more not-developer-users. The more recognized a project comes the more diverse the user base becomes. At some point not-developer-user interests become more relevant.
Closed source software is not always a perfect fit for some specific purpose. Some small niches might not even be profitable enough for companies. And for these small niches there might be some open source products which have no closed source competitor.
The author that placed the article maybe has no interest or awareness of such small niches.
A lot of open source projects take longer to mature than for example linux. And a lot of effort is put in starting development of products of which no open source counter part is available, so that you have at least something to use in linux so you don't have to boot Windows or use/pay for closed source products. In some cases the developer does it only for the challenge itself.
I think it there are still so many general purpose programs to be made for which no open source program is available. And there are so many existing open source projects to evolve to the level of a mature closed source competitor. I think that after most needs are covered, there is more need for really new software programs which have no closed source counterparts.
Closed source market isn't so innovative either. A lot of products first start as some recycled and enriched idea, this goes for closed or open source software packages. There are some software pieces which are earlier in picking up ideas. The Vista 3D look, was later to market than some open source projects. As long as people make first software for themselves the innovation will be much more in the features or unique software to developers.
For the real desktop user, linux will become more and more attractive over time. And than maybe we will see software for the more not-developer-user which he might recognize as a unique product for which no closed source counter part exists. And it might take ten years more before it gets noticed by the not-developer-public.
Everyone could have their hobby or job out of boredom.
Life without challende is boring. Different people feel prefer different challenges. If you have something you're skilled in then you have enough creativity to make anything to put your mind on. Lots off spare minutes is enough to achieve great things. And great may not be great for other people, but if it's great four yourself then it is just that.
But the fun part of open software is that it's easy to share and modify. This is also a social thing. It's nice to be part of a bigger whole. I think most open source programers think software fun, useful and meaningful. As a programmer I think software means all those things and life without it would be as boring as being a child without having a toy.
Exactly. How is security defined in the design of windows? How was security defined in Unix systems? And that's just the secure by design part. Just as important the security of defaults setting: how secure are the default settings of windows and how is that with Unix (just to pick one flavor of unix: OpenBsd)? How fast is a security bug fixed and does the fix have it desired effect?
Making stuff is easy. Making software which is performing, secure and usable is something completely different. There's too much shallow talk and little action. How much time programmers have to think or do something about security? How many programmers like to fix bugs all the time?
Sendmail had a bug (a security flaw ) for 7 years. That bug had been misused by crackers for a long time. After those 7 years the bug had been officially found. Would you call that security?
Unless you have proven mathematically that all has no bugs, security doesn't exist. Maybe you might feel secure, that is subjective. Security is like privacy, it doesn't exist in the real world.
If he doesn't want to suffer s suffered from 'an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress' over postings, then he is a bit of a slow learner. He should stayed away from politics in the first place.
I wonder if the Green Party doesn't call him back soon. His actions will not be in favour of the Green Party. He will be told by his own people very soon that he acts as a Don Quichot fighting windmills.
People cannot be moved away from networking and sharing ideas or information. The users of the net have brought down political parties and whole industries.
If there wouldn't be any use for such a machine it wouldn't mean Apple or users will find a use for it. Other comapnies (microsoft ed) may still doing their thing like reinventing wheels and have a platforms that runs the majority of software and the majority of us of course all follow. In the mean time Apple may have some apps in the pipeline which would benefit from multicore machines without us even knowing it. Or maybe it's their way to make themselves more attractive to the business user world (bootcamp + windows/unix + multicore machine is an ideal business server at least). It doesn't matter what Apple does, as long as it innovates. As a traditionally windows user I have shifted more and more to other uses and other platforms (unix, linux, osx). Apple becomes more and more a well known brand even to those who only have Ipods.
Companies as Apple and Google might be much like an underdog, but that won't say that they can't put the world upside down. We have seen what those companies are capable of now and they have to prove themselves more than other companies (such as Microsoft, IBM, Sun, etc). Apple and google are creative and able to attract brightminded people who think different. Microsoft is so much of a monopolist, and a huge company that if they knew how to think different they will probablt find themselves unable to deliver. I don't expect this machine, nor the mac mini might be a killer like the ipod, but as long as they are running on the cutting edge (Iphone, Ipod, OSX) kudo's to them.
It's always so easy to say others haven't got the real market share or software platform. But time is the greatest of innovators, whithout thinking differently new evils will emerge. The new evil might be apple or a yet unknown company, but all empires fall. All empires have so much to lose.
The people who you might interview can always later become: 1) your boss 2) your most strategic client
If you treat them without some dignity (like not responding), but the candidate didn't match the profile/team/company culture.
To provide / aquire clarity about expectations is a powerful neccesity for doing business, with anyone. If eihter side of the conversation lacks this, the other is doomed anyway.
I hope we don't see the same censorship issues with books, like we have already seen with the normal web and China. History books, fiction books, etc. Would Google change our stories?
Of course such a room is very interesting for information visualisation. I think the next best thing is to hardwire a computer to our brain so we don't need a room for so much resolution. And this also would benefit better use of augmented reality
I went to ISAR in 2000, in those days even SGI's weren't getting close to get all the computing force AR typically needs. I wonder how AR is now developing. AR is maybe more interesting for interaction designers to make virtual interfaces for objects from the real world. I have experience many AR applications on ISAR and it gave me a deep impression which VR never has given me. People who find AR interesting (the next really big thing) should follow this link
PS: if someone wants to prove me the VR experience of this thing I might say "hmm.. maybe that's an interesting offer"
What I fail to understand is why there is no real academic debate and instead there is some flamewar going on between Andy and Linus, which seems to be some kind of ego problem of Andy (he got all the explosives in place, which Linus could't refuse to ignite). For me the original post on usenet was a lot of talk about something, but too much competing ego's and no constructive debate. Most of the constructive replies where I think from other people and not so from Linus or Andy.
For that sake, I think Linus did quite well making a thing like a linux kernel as a student, especially because he made his code free (eventually). I don't see the reason for Andy to start a flamewar. At least he gave credits to Linus to start discussing Linus kernel.
But I often get annoyed by Linus unnuanced in-your-face mentality (binary attitude). However I have much to thank him for. If he wasn't there I probably had to join the Hurd project to get some GPL Microkernel to eat up my resources, led by another in-your-face guy.
OK let me rephrase. Programs should always be performing tasks as they are designed to do. So that is no object of discussion. But I also tried to bring something else across which I hope does contribute to focus the discussion on topic. This discussion is related to micro and monolithic kernels. Which bring me back to the discussion: there are so many criteria of how a microkernel could be better or a monolithic kernel would be better, the article is I hope more relevant to the criteria being used in the discussion.
But it is sure nice to read people try to prove correctness of software made for nuclear reactors, using microkernels. I guess proving the linux kernel being correct would be a very hard thing to do pragmatically, especially if you don't strip that kernel down to 10k lines of code.
Soooo, something are usefull if they are at least correct and the program should be designed well to do what you want it to do. I agree it's becomes particulary handy when a program can respond to a meltdown effectively. But when it's not proven correct, then you also don't have any guarantee it will function reliable, which is also a kind of usefulness criteria for a nuclear reactor.
Programs which take care of very critical tasks let us say, firing a nuke, should: 1 should be described and clearly with painstaking detail 2 have a wise and smart president 3 have a nonambigeous usable user-interface (especially if 2 happens to be false. maybe a geographic quiz will do) 4 be proven mathematically correct
Yes. But the question was where we do wanted 3d for on the web and how did we think of th web those days. Don't forget there was a dot com bubble. Most user don't acre about technologies. They generally want to do stuff. So if 3D is neccesary for a user to perform a certain task users may want to use it.
I was saying for years the web is just a medium, one which is a little similar to your local harddisk. Now with the fast computers of today we could maybe run a web based office application (or maybe even an entire suite). We see some simple web games. Because of all the extra technologies apps from the web (browser, activeX, plugins, etc) programs will generally run slower than a normal desk app. Maybe the performance is comparable of that of an old computer.
The latter is maybe also an explanation that not only little office like applications will eveolve to microsoft office like office suites, it may also mean that simple games will evolve to realistisc 3D games. And we can also question 3D on the Desktop for other reasons than designing and gaming.
As far as I am concerned you maybe expect to run almost every application you use in your average user life to run on the web in the future. Maybe even running a complete os on the web is a way for microsoft and its hardware allies to keep people buying faster hardware.
I have set the my preferences not to include Scuttle Monkeys reviews.. I slowly get the feeling slashdot is not the place for real nerds, since they would not care about such superficial story. Maybe it's time to wait and see if some better alternative to slashdot emerges. If that happens, slashdot has lost me as a user/submitter.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine 4 to 6 ton dinosaur on arctic ice...
Despite the amount of confusing clocks you might have, a benevolent dictator of time becomes handy: Temps Atomique International (french) abbreviated: TAI. For us mere mortals who use time for civil needs, another timescale is dissiminated, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is derived from TAI, but synchronized using leap seconds to UT1, which is based on actual rotations of the earth with respect to the mean sun.
International Atomic Time (TAI, from the French name ) is a high-precision atomic time standard that tracks proper time on Earth's geoid. It is the principal realisation of Terrestrial Time. As of 2007 TAI is exactly 33 seconds ahead of UTC: 10 seconds' initial difference at the start of 1972, plus 23 leap seconds in UTC since 1972. TAI in this form was synchronised with Universal Time at the beginning of 1958, and the two have drifted apart ever since.
Accurate time is very important for computer systems/networks. The best way to keep track of time is to install a local timeserver which synchronizes against a reliable public timeserver like pool.ntp.org. The local time server can be used to synchronize other computers you might have.
Actually very young kids don't treat animals so much different than toys. I have seen a kid trying to use a guineepig as a little toy car. It's also no wonder kids grab the tails of cats, they would do the same with their stuffed whinnie the pooh bear. At a young age they mixup animals a lot calling a horse sheep etc. So it's not that difficult to imagine mixing up pets and robots (toys).
Hu Jintao is to definately be included in the next version of Civilisation.
It's not that simple. It's more about the split between people who adore free software as in freedom and those who don't. People who like their freedom have high hopes. If one role model of a software package or company chooses to go a little more closed, all high hopes for a more free future are in veign. And especially developers who do something for free will be disappointed if they have contributed something less to their ideals. They have put their soul to contribute to free software. You may have a different opinion than richard stallman, However you cannot be a realist and not see how much value the FSF makes in providing free software for ditributions eho deliver GNU/Linux. High trees cath large winds.
If a very succesful product chooses to even close a little this leads to disappointment. The opposite also counts. If a typically vendor lockin company chooses to open up, it will some favour, but not high hopes. I favour free software above closed source software because I like the idea that free software has more continuity than closed source software. I dislike to be the prey of dome propriety business strategy. I like every byte of freedom I can get. Ik like to be able to develop stuff which everyone can use and improve. I dislike role models who lose their "religion"
The Times reports that Japanese consumers have been 'abandoning television' in order to play with Nintendo's Wii
Secret reliable sources say that Nintendo will start to sell TV sets as well...
Eidos certainly thinks so; Kotaku notes that they've signed up with the same company featured in this study
Doesn't look much like a scientific objective perspective. But anyway I never heard anyone talk about commercials that didn't affect people. The annoying ads might as well sell beter.
Sure, in-game advertisements can be annoying, but as the price of game development grows and the game-playing audience expands, the practice just makes more and more sense for everybody involved
Come on, as if the games business is not profitable enough? This is not a decent customer oriented way to sell games. It is just yet another way to make more money. And like all ads they start small, and while becoming more profitable they will become more dominant and make the game experience suffer. If these games were available as free (as in free beer) adware maybe it would it would be justified. I hate to pay money for a game with ads, that's my small voice about these practices. I am interested in different opinions from other gamers.
cruftness = people * time is a reasonable approximation, I can confirm the same kind of stories. Even if the operating system and the projects software would be trustworthy, the consultants would probably %$^& the customers database too. Hurray for corporate politics.
A developer will most nlikely to use math if he: * has to develop filters for audio * has to develop compilers for instruction optimalisation * has to develop Mathworks * has to develop software for Iter * has to use formal verification * etc But a lot of applied computer science doesn't need math nor science. If you're a researcher you most probably can not do much without math. Boring item.
I have made my point
A software product satisfies some need for some target users. This is a very different motivation comparing with business driven development and thus leads to different kind of software and innovations. Because the most of the developers of open source software products have only as targetgroup: themselves. These developer-users have at some point a piece of software that is uniquely fitted for their own purposes. It might too technical to the not-developer-user to find interest in such software. But at that stage the unique fit for purpose is the idea, and for those users there it might be the case no other closed source software has this unique fit. So for them its better. The unique value might be just that it's free as in freedom or it's free as in beer. Community service might be just perfect for these types of users.
And when these projects attract more developers it attracts more not-developer-users. The more recognized a project comes the more diverse the user base becomes. At some point not-developer-user interests become more relevant.
Closed source software is not always a perfect fit for some specific purpose. Some small niches might not even be profitable enough for companies. And for these small niches there might be some open source products which have no closed source competitor. The author that placed the article maybe has no interest or awareness of such small niches.
A lot of open source projects take longer to mature than for example linux. And a lot of effort is put in starting development of products of which no open source counter part is available, so that you have at least something to use in linux so you don't have to boot Windows or use/pay for closed source products. In some cases the developer does it only for the challenge itself.
I think it there are still so many general purpose programs to be made for which no open source program is available. And there are so many existing open source projects to evolve to the level of a mature closed source competitor. I think that after most needs are covered, there is more need for really new software programs which have no closed source counterparts.
Closed source market isn't so innovative either. A lot of products first start as some recycled and enriched idea, this goes for closed or open source software packages. There are some software pieces which are earlier in picking up ideas. The Vista 3D look, was later to market than some open source projects. As long as people make first software for themselves the innovation will be much more in the features or unique software to developers.
For the real desktop user, linux will become more and more attractive over time. And than maybe we will see software for the more not-developer-user which he might recognize as a unique product for which no closed source counter part exists. And it might take ten years more before it gets noticed by the not-developer-public.
Everyone could have their hobby or job out of boredom. Life without challende is boring. Different people feel prefer different challenges. If you have something you're skilled in then you have enough creativity to make anything to put your mind on. Lots off spare minutes is enough to achieve great things. And great may not be great for other people, but if it's great four yourself then it is just that. But the fun part of open software is that it's easy to share and modify. This is also a social thing. It's nice to be part of a bigger whole. I think most open source programers think software fun, useful and meaningful. As a programmer I think software means all those things and life without it would be as boring as being a child without having a toy.
Exactly. How is security defined in the design of windows? How was security defined in Unix systems? And that's just the secure by design part. Just as important the security of defaults setting: how secure are the default settings of windows and how is that with Unix (just to pick one flavor of unix: OpenBsd)? How fast is a security bug fixed and does the fix have it desired effect? Making stuff is easy. Making software which is performing, secure and usable is something completely different. There's too much shallow talk and little action. How much time programmers have to think or do something about security? How many programmers like to fix bugs all the time? Sendmail had a bug (a security flaw ) for 7 years. That bug had been misused by crackers for a long time. After those 7 years the bug had been officially found. Would you call that security? Unless you have proven mathematically that all has no bugs, security doesn't exist. Maybe you might feel secure, that is subjective. Security is like privacy, it doesn't exist in the real world.
If he doesn't want to suffer s suffered from 'an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress' over postings, then he is a bit of a slow learner. He should stayed away from politics in the first place. I wonder if the Green Party doesn't call him back soon. His actions will not be in favour of the Green Party. He will be told by his own people very soon that he acts as a Don Quichot fighting windmills. People cannot be moved away from networking and sharing ideas or information. The users of the net have brought down political parties and whole industries.
If there wouldn't be any use for such a machine it wouldn't mean Apple or users will find a use for it. Other comapnies (microsoft ed) may still doing their thing like reinventing wheels and have a platforms that runs the majority of software and the majority of us of course all follow. In the mean time Apple may have some apps in the pipeline which would benefit from multicore machines without us even knowing it. Or maybe it's their way to make themselves more attractive to the business user world (bootcamp + windows/unix + multicore machine is an ideal business server at least). It doesn't matter what Apple does, as long as it innovates. As a traditionally windows user I have shifted more and more to other uses and other platforms (unix, linux, osx). Apple becomes more and more a well known brand even to those who only have Ipods.
Companies as Apple and Google might be much like an underdog, but that won't say that they can't put the world upside down. We have seen what those companies are capable of now and they have to prove themselves more than other companies (such as Microsoft, IBM, Sun, etc). Apple and google are creative and able to attract brightminded people who think different. Microsoft is so much of a monopolist, and a huge company that if they knew how to think different they will probablt find themselves unable to deliver. I don't expect this machine, nor the mac mini might be a killer like the ipod, but as long as they are running on the cutting edge (Iphone, Ipod, OSX) kudo's to them.
It's always so easy to say others haven't got the real market share or software platform. But time is the greatest of innovators, whithout thinking differently new evils will emerge. The new evil might be apple or a yet unknown company, but all empires fall. All empires have so much to lose.
The people who you might interview can always later become:
1) your boss
2) your most strategic client
If you treat them without some dignity (like not responding), but the candidate didn't match the profile/team/company culture.
To provide / aquire clarity about expectations is a powerful neccesity for doing business, with anyone. If eihter side of the conversation lacks this, the other is doomed anyway.
Making friends will be always more productive.
Let's hope those people in the poorer nations don't discover ebay to soon. They might sell their OLPC...
The first thing to set their foot on the market is to buy SGI.
I hope we don't see the same censorship issues with books, like we have already seen with the normal web and China. History books, fiction books, etc. Would Google change our stories?
Rewrite of the century.
Of course such a room is very interesting for information visualisation. I think the next best thing is to hardwire a computer to our brain so we don't need a room for so much resolution. And this also would benefit better use of augmented reality
I went to ISAR in 2000, in those days even SGI's weren't getting close to get all the computing force AR typically needs. I wonder how AR is now developing. AR is maybe more interesting for interaction designers to make virtual interfaces for objects from the real world. I have experience many AR applications on ISAR and it gave me a deep impression which VR never has given me. People who find AR interesting (the next really big thing) should follow this link
PS: if someone wants to prove me the VR experience of this thing I might say "hmm.. maybe that's an interesting offer"
What I fail to understand is why there is no real academic debate and instead there is some flamewar going on between Andy and Linus, which seems to be some kind of ego problem of Andy (he got all the explosives in place, which Linus could't refuse to ignite). For me the original post on usenet was a lot of talk about something, but too much competing ego's and no constructive debate. Most of the constructive replies where I think from other people and not so from Linus or Andy. For that sake, I think Linus did quite well making a thing like a linux kernel as a student, especially because he made his code free (eventually). I don't see the reason for Andy to start a flamewar. At least he gave credits to Linus to start discussing Linus kernel. But I often get annoyed by Linus unnuanced in-your-face mentality (binary attitude). However I have much to thank him for. If he wasn't there I probably had to join the Hurd project to get some GPL Microkernel to eat up my resources, led by another in-your-face guy.
OK let me rephrase. Programs should always be performing tasks as they are designed to do. So that is no object of discussion. But I also tried to bring something else across which I hope does contribute to focus the discussion on topic. This discussion is related to micro and monolithic kernels. Which bring me back to the discussion: there are so many criteria of how a microkernel could be better or a monolithic kernel would be better, the article is I hope more relevant to the criteria being used in the discussion. But it is sure nice to read people try to prove correctness of software made for nuclear reactors, using microkernels. I guess proving the linux kernel being correct would be a very hard thing to do pragmatically, especially if you don't strip that kernel down to 10k lines of code.
Soooo, something are usefull if they are at least correct and the program should be designed well to do what you want it to do. I agree it's becomes particulary handy when a program can respond to a meltdown effectively. But when it's not proven correct, then you also don't have any guarantee it will function reliable, which is also a kind of usefulness criteria for a nuclear reactor.
Programs which take care of very critical tasks let us say, firing a nuke, should:
1 should be described and clearly with painstaking detail
2 have a wise and smart president
3 have a nonambigeous usable user-interface (especially if 2 happens to be false. maybe a geographic quiz will do)
4 be proven mathematically correct
Wouldn't that be useful?
Yes. But the question was where we do wanted 3d for on the web and how did we think of th web those days. Don't forget there was a dot com bubble. Most user don't acre about technologies. They generally want to do stuff. So if 3D is neccesary for a user to perform a certain task users may want to use it. I was saying for years the web is just a medium, one which is a little similar to your local harddisk. Now with the fast computers of today we could maybe run a web based office application (or maybe even an entire suite). We see some simple web games. Because of all the extra technologies apps from the web (browser, activeX, plugins, etc) programs will generally run slower than a normal desk app. Maybe the performance is comparable of that of an old computer. The latter is maybe also an explanation that not only little office like applications will eveolve to microsoft office like office suites, it may also mean that simple games will evolve to realistisc 3D games. And we can also question 3D on the Desktop for other reasons than designing and gaming. As far as I am concerned you maybe expect to run almost every application you use in your average user life to run on the web in the future. Maybe even running a complete os on the web is a way for microsoft and its hardware allies to keep people buying faster hardware.
I have set the my preferences not to include Scuttle Monkeys reviews.. I slowly get the feeling slashdot is not the place for real nerds, since they would not care about such superficial story. Maybe it's time to wait and see if some better alternative to slashdot emerges. If that happens, slashdot has lost me as a user/submitter.