But who gets to decide whether or not that person poses "enough" of a danger. Presumably the justice system in your country decided to let him go. That may not have been the right decision, but who should decide if not the courts?
Now, given that this guy isn't living in prison, he has to live and work somewhere. If he becomes an outcast unable to rent an apartment and unable to find work, what chance does he have of becoming a productive member of society? You're forcing him to steal to survive.
I believe IBM's JFS for Linux effort was based on the JFS implementation for OS/2.
Personally, I think it's too bad that IBM didn't create an OS/2 personality for Linux, more or less the same way that Apple created a MacOS personality for BSD. Not much point in it now, but a few years ago it might have made a big impact.
I think IBM suffered a huge blow to it's confidence in the 90's when it lost the operating system war to MS, and lost market share to everybody else. It's only been in the last few years that they've felt strong enough to do anything even remotely daring.
Dunno, my experience is a lot different, and I've seen both large Unix and large Windows environments.
Without any fancy tools, administering a large number of Unixy boxes is easy, whereas administering a large number of Windows boxes is hellish.
With fancy tools (which are available for both environments - see Tivoli) you can set things up so that operators can do just about anything as long as nothing breaks. When things go wrong you end up having to revert to the standard admin. tools anyway. Unix is fixable, Windows a nightmare.
My first job was in an imagine lab. There was a fair bit of debate about whether techniques used to enhance images were in fact a good idea.
The fact is that there's only a certain amount of data. The image has a given resolution and generally it's density information only - a single number per point, not an RGB tuple.
There is a tendency for people to want the computer to interpret the data by adding colour or interpoloting data points that aren't really there.
The problem is that the the brain is in fact very good at doing this on it's own, whereas computers can only apply simplistic algorithms that might obscur real information.
I think Doctor Who tried this once. Tried to confuse an intelligent computer with the statement "The next thing I say is the truth, but the last thing I said was a lie."
Indeed, part of the reason the series is so successful is that Harry is just a regular boy. If he were really something special, then he would be much harder to relate to.
Being an ordinary kid who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances makes his story much more compelling. Children can relate to Harry and even imagine that they too might be Wizards and Witches.
"All things being equal" it should be cheaper to maintain. Most of the wear and tear for a conventional car comes from the frequent starts and stops in city traffic. In a hybrid car, the power boost needed to accellerate would come from the battery, not the combustion engine, resulting in less wear and longer life.
Of course, all things aren't equal. Current automobiles benefit from well understood and readily available technology. Parts are available from multiple sources and there are lots of people who know how to install them. It will take time for the hybrids to reach the same point.
I don't know what would have happened in the alternate universe that's the subject of this thread, but in our reality MS had little to do with the popularity of the Internet. It was Netscape all the way.
MS believed for a long time that they could create their own network along the same lines as AOL, but since MSN would be bundled with the OS, it would become absolutely dominent. If the Microsoft vision had come true, the Internet as we know it would enjoy the same popularity today as Linux does on the desktop.
Gates even said once that he couldn't understand why anybody would use HTML rather than just serializing Windows API calls.
Once it become clear that the Internet would be the "one true network" Microsoft finally woke up and crushed Netscape.
As it should, but I think (hope) that Google is more sophisticated than that. It will go up for queries like "google law suit", not for anything SearchKing cares about.
The problem is that Dell can't produce a Linux box. They can't afford to damage their relationship with Microsoft. Sun has no relationship with Microsoft.
Also, I doubt that Dell gets much better prices from Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers than Sun could. The market is unbelievably competitive and there just isn't that much room for deal-making.
Every empire crumbles eventually. Apache 1.x will decline and dissappear some day, just because, once you're at the top, there's no place to go but down.
With Apache 2.0 there's a good chance that the next dominent web server will be from the same family.
Unlike commercial companies, however, there's nothing compelling Apache 1.3.x users from moving before they're ready. I'm sure there will still be bug fixes on the 1.3.x tree for as long as there are a significant number of users.
The question is 1) how many geeks are there, 2) how many Mac users are there.
Of people I know well enough to know their computer preference, one uses both a Mac + Linux, while about a dozen use Linux but not Macs. Many also use Windows, but we're not comparing Windows usage.
Obviously this isn't typical - it reflects my geographic location and my career - but it demonstrates that personal perception means very little. A graphic artist is likely to think that Apple has 50% of the desktop market.
You probably wouldn't be the target for this. Many offices use only an office suit, browser, and e-mail on the majority of desktops. You can leave the handful of users who have greater needs running Windows (at least short-term).
RedHat has played this perfectly. They've let others develop desktop until the combination of mature technology and market demand is in their favour. Now they move in and use their considerable name recognition to clean up.
"God" is a proper name for the Allmighty. If you're referring to a divine being that isn't eqivalent to the Supreme Universal All (which is always capitalized, even in pronouns), the proper grammatical use is "a god" or "-some other name for god-"
These rules aren't absolute. "God" is frequently used as a metaphor, as Einstein used it. The fact that it's commonly used and understood this way makes it correct.
Scientists are not in the business of redefining language; they're in the business of keeping it the same to ensure the continuance of knowledge.
It's not about science, it's about language. Languages are created and changed by those who speak them.
Students in any field of study (not just science) define certain words narrowly for use within their trade. I suppose it's possible that theologians might share your definition of "God", but that doesn't limit how Einstein, as a physicist, uses the word.
I suspect it's because the history of evolution has an interesting plot. There's a compelling story to be told.
This isn't unique. The development of the transistor was an event of imense importance, but you see far more being written about the Enigma machine. Was the Enigma machine more important? No, just sexier.
"Bhrama" is pretty specific. If you're Christian then I think (not 100% sure) Yahwe or Jehova might be the "specific" name for your God. I'm not sure about "Allah".
"God" is a very general term, used by all sorts of people to mean very different things. You may not like it, but language is a living thing and you and your religious group have very little influence over this.
If you want a word that applies only to your specific concept of God, then you need to make up your own. And even that doesn't guarantee that your new word won't be co-opted at some later point by people who feel it means something else.
RedHat is the one Linux distro. company that isn't likely to go under. They're essentially break-even now, and the future looks good.
It's quite possible that we'll end up with RedHat as the only big commercial distro. There would still be Debian, various hardware vendors, and perhaps a few small niche distros.
Linux is good for the hardware vendors precisely because nobody owns it. They can contribute to it's development without feeling that they're working on a competitor's product - it belongs to everybody.
It's also not clear anymore that proprietary Unix is better technically. Unix is still better in some ways, but Linux has clear advantages in the embedded space, and has incredible cross-platform support. Even AIX won't run on all of IBM's hardware, but Linux will. The few remaining advantages of Unix are quickly disappearing.
So no, this doesn't look anything like the.com bubble. Well, if you're taking a stock market perspective then yes, Linux companies were caught up in the hype. But from a technical perspective, Linux is delivering better than anybody could have imagined.
In fact I've never heard that, and I've administered Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, SCO OpenServer, and UnixWare. OpenServer was absolutely the worst Unix I've ever had the misfortune to use. UnixWare was tolerable, but still not up to the standards set by the others. Linux doesn't have all the high-end features, but it's just nicer to use.
I think there was a window where SCO could have produced their own Linux distro and kept their user base, but they missed their chance. Legacy SCO will be around for a while, but new projects are going to Linux - mostly RedHat.
Netware is dying, but NDS is still the best way to manage large numbers of servers that I've ever seen. That's why I think NDS for Linux, with the ability to configure everything through the NDS tree, would be a killer product.
SCO sells its Unix line to Caldera because they know that Linux is killing Unix on Intel. Then Caldera, finding it can't compete in the Linux market, decides to emphasize Unix on Intel? What's the point of giving up one failing business model for another?
Caldera needs to find itself a nice niche. Given it's links to Novell, a Linux distro with tightly integrated NDS would make a great product. Climbing into the sinking SCO ship is a stupid idea.
If you combine two adjacent pixels on a 12 bit display, you have levels from 0-30 for each colour channel. That's 31 levels per colour. 31^3 = 29791 unique colours for two pixel dithering.
That's still not the right number, but they must be thinking along those lines somehow.
But who gets to decide whether or not that person poses "enough" of a danger. Presumably the justice system in your country decided to let him go. That may not have been the right decision, but who should decide if not the courts?
Now, given that this guy isn't living in prison, he has to live and work somewhere. If he becomes an outcast unable to rent an apartment and unable to find work, what chance does he have of becoming a productive member of society? You're forcing him to steal to survive.
Ever read/see Les Miserables?
I believe IBM's JFS for Linux effort was based on the JFS implementation for OS/2.
Personally, I think it's too bad that IBM didn't create an OS/2 personality for Linux, more or less the same way that Apple created a MacOS personality for BSD. Not much point in it now, but a few years ago it might have made a big impact.
I think IBM suffered a huge blow to it's confidence in the 90's when it lost the operating system war to MS, and lost market share to everybody else. It's only been in the last few years that they've felt strong enough to do anything even remotely daring.
Dunno, my experience is a lot different, and I've seen both large Unix and large Windows environments.
Without any fancy tools, administering a large number of Unixy boxes is easy, whereas administering a large number of Windows boxes is hellish.
With fancy tools (which are available for both environments - see Tivoli) you can set things up so that operators can do just about anything as long as nothing breaks. When things go wrong you end up having to revert to the standard admin. tools anyway. Unix is fixable, Windows a nightmare.
Slightly offtopic, but similar...
My first job was in an imagine lab. There was a fair bit of debate about whether techniques used to enhance images were in fact a good idea.
The fact is that there's only a certain amount of data. The image has a given resolution and generally it's density information only - a single number per point, not an RGB tuple.
There is a tendency for people to want the computer to interpret the data by adding colour or interpoloting data points that aren't really there.
The problem is that the the brain is in fact very good at doing this on it's own, whereas computers can only apply simplistic algorithms that might obscur real information.
I think Doctor Who tried this once. Tried to confuse an intelligent computer with the statement "The next thing I say is the truth, but the last thing I said was a lie."
Don't think it worked.
Indeed, part of the reason the series is so successful is that Harry is just a regular boy. If he were really something special, then he would be much harder to relate to.
Being an ordinary kid who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances makes his story much more compelling. Children can relate to Harry and even imagine that they too might be Wizards and Witches.
"All things being equal" it should be cheaper to maintain. Most of the wear and tear for a conventional car comes from the frequent starts and stops in city traffic. In a hybrid car, the power boost needed to accellerate would come from the battery, not the combustion engine, resulting in less wear and longer life.
Of course, all things aren't equal. Current automobiles benefit from well understood and readily available technology. Parts are available from multiple sources and there are lots of people who know how to install them. It will take time for the hybrids to reach the same point.
It's only available for Windows (although it might work in Wine I suppose), so you still have to pay Microsoft for the operating system.
I'm quite serious, but I can't find the exact quote anywhere - a quick googling doesn't show anything.
It was an off-the-cuff remark and I doubt there was ever any serious plan to do that, but you never know.
I don't know what would have happened in the alternate universe that's the subject of this thread, but in our reality MS had little to do with the popularity of the Internet. It was Netscape all the way.
MS believed for a long time that they could create their own network along the same lines as AOL, but since MSN would be bundled with the OS, it would become absolutely dominent. If the Microsoft vision had come true, the Internet as we know it would enjoy the same popularity today as Linux does on the desktop.
Gates even said once that he couldn't understand why anybody would use HTML rather than just serializing Windows API calls.
Once it become clear that the Internet would be the "one true network" Microsoft finally woke up and crushed Netscape.
As it should, but I think (hope) that Google is more sophisticated than that. It will go up for queries like "google law suit", not for anything SearchKing cares about.
The problem is that Dell can't produce a Linux box. They can't afford to damage their relationship with Microsoft. Sun has no relationship with Microsoft.
Also, I doubt that Dell gets much better prices from Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers than Sun could. The market is unbelievably competitive and there just isn't that much room for deal-making.
What makes the article interesting is the fact that the purchaces are realistic. You can in fact buy all of the items listed.
It also gives you an idea of how much a billion dollars really is.
I also find it hard to imagine how anybody could really "warrant/earn" that much money. But that's more of a philosophical question.
Every empire crumbles eventually. Apache 1.x will decline and dissappear some day, just because, once you're at the top, there's no place to go but down.
With Apache 2.0 there's a good chance that the next dominent web server will be from the same family.
Unlike commercial companies, however, there's nothing compelling Apache 1.3.x users from moving before they're ready. I'm sure there will still be bug fixes on the 1.3.x tree for as long as there are a significant number of users.
The question is 1) how many geeks are there, 2) how many Mac users are there.
Of people I know well enough to know their computer preference, one uses both a Mac + Linux, while about a dozen use Linux but not Macs. Many also use Windows, but we're not comparing Windows usage.
Obviously this isn't typical - it reflects my geographic location and my career - but it demonstrates that personal perception means very little. A graphic artist is likely to think that Apple has 50% of the desktop market.
You probably wouldn't be the target for this. Many offices use only an office suit, browser, and e-mail on the majority of desktops. You can leave the handful of users who have greater needs running Windows (at least short-term).
RedHat has played this perfectly. They've let others develop desktop until the combination of mature technology and market demand is in their favour. Now they move in and use their considerable name recognition to clean up.
These rules aren't absolute. "God" is frequently used as a metaphor, as Einstein used it. The fact that it's commonly used and understood this way makes it correct.
It's not about science, it's about language. Languages are created and changed by those who speak them.
Students in any field of study (not just science) define certain words narrowly for use within their trade. I suppose it's possible that theologians might share your definition of "God", but that doesn't limit how Einstein, as a physicist, uses the word.
I suspect it's because the history of evolution has an interesting plot. There's a compelling story to be told.
This isn't unique. The development of the transistor was an event of imense importance, but you see far more being written about the Enigma machine. Was the Enigma machine more important? No, just sexier.
"Bhrama" is pretty specific. If you're Christian then I think (not 100% sure) Yahwe or Jehova might be the "specific" name for your God. I'm not sure about "Allah".
"God" is a very general term, used by all sorts of people to mean very different things. You may not like it, but language is a living thing and you and your religious group have very little influence over this.
If you want a word that applies only to your specific concept of God, then you need to make up your own. And even that doesn't guarantee that your new word won't be co-opted at some later point by people who feel it means something else.
RedHat is the one Linux distro. company that isn't likely to go under. They're essentially break-even now, and the future looks good.
It's quite possible that we'll end up with RedHat as the only big commercial distro. There would still be Debian, various hardware vendors, and perhaps a few small niche distros.
Linux is good for the hardware vendors precisely because nobody owns it. They can contribute to it's development without feeling that they're working on a competitor's product - it belongs to everybody.
It's also not clear anymore that proprietary Unix is better technically. Unix is still better in some ways, but Linux has clear advantages in the embedded space, and has incredible cross-platform support. Even AIX won't run on all of IBM's hardware, but Linux will. The few remaining advantages of Unix are quickly disappearing.
So no, this doesn't look anything like the .com bubble. Well, if you're taking a stock market perspective then yes, Linux companies were caught up in the hype. But from a technical perspective, Linux is delivering better than anybody could have imagined.
In fact I've never heard that, and I've administered Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, SCO OpenServer, and UnixWare. OpenServer was absolutely the worst Unix I've ever had the misfortune to use. UnixWare was tolerable, but still not up to the standards set by the others. Linux doesn't have all the high-end features, but it's just nicer to use.
I think there was a window where SCO could have produced their own Linux distro and kept their user base, but they missed their chance. Legacy SCO will be around for a while, but new projects are going to Linux - mostly RedHat.
Netware is dying, but NDS is still the best way to manage large numbers of servers that I've ever seen. That's why I think NDS for Linux, with the ability to configure everything through the NDS tree, would be a killer product.
In fact, the text WP used to be highly cross platform. Multiple Unixes, at least.
I don't think there'd be much of a market for this, though. What do you want it for?
SCO sells its Unix line to Caldera because they know that Linux is killing Unix on Intel. Then Caldera, finding it can't compete in the Linux market, decides to emphasize Unix on Intel? What's the point of giving up one failing business model for another?
Caldera needs to find itself a nice niche. Given it's links to Novell, a Linux distro with tightly integrated NDS would make a great product. Climbing into the sinking SCO ship is a stupid idea.
If you combine two adjacent pixels on a 12 bit display, you have levels from 0-30 for each colour channel. That's 31 levels per colour. 31^3 = 29791 unique colours for two pixel dithering.
That's still not the right number, but they must be thinking along those lines somehow.