Seriously, there have been hundreds of first-class programs that lost out to Microsoft not because they were bad but because people couldn't run them. Because they weren't installed. Because they cost too much money.
When people wake up to find that all the programs they use are free and they all run better on *nix, then they will feel comfortable enough to let the neighborhood geek/BigBucks computer company set them up with a libre OS.
MS is betting they can prevent this dream from occuring by locking down MSWindows before OSS gains public mindshare. They've proven for nearly 20 years that elite minorities (the fruit co, the star co,...) can be kept in their place. Compatibility is a new ball game. Being the overpriced player is a position they've always reserved for their competition.
Korea has had those speed cameras on a few major roads for some time now (e.g. the road to Incheon airport). Last year when I was over there, the cars would suddenly slow down at odd spots in the road. They would then accelerate like mad a quarter mile later.
I asked what this was about; they said "you learn where the cameras are".
Speed cameras == STUPID IDEA.
Unless you think burning more gas and causing accidents due to erratic driving are good ideas.
I've been thinking similar thoughts for years, but never cared to write my own esoteric programming dialect. Somebody else already has.
For those who never studied it, Latin is a beautiful language for expressing temporal relationships. It has an unusually crisp flavor that seems to desire order and strict logic. There were good reasons why it was the technical language of choice for several centuries.
As an observor on the sidelines, here's a few points that sometimes cause issues.
- Expect a rough transition. Releasing your app to the community is like hiring a bunch of new developers but not giving them any management. If they like what you have, they will work with it; if they don't, they might re-implement things or openly disagree with your existing design. Get as much relevant information online as possible so others can make informed design decisions.
- Provide direction, but be flexible. One benefit of OSS is that others can suggest fixes that may directly contradict your current view of the problem. By carefully accepting some of these changes, your software will become better.
- Don't expect the OSS community to do all the work. Several major bloopers have come from companies saying, "fine; we're open-sourcing it; let them do the work". This is the road to stagnation. The community will support things that are useful to them; don't assume that your alpha-OSS release will generate immediate support. A small OSS community is excellent for porting existing software to new systems; they are generally slow for actual development work.
- Keep providing support. During the initial transition, you will probably have more work than normal as people flock to your project asking questions. Then only those who like what they see will stay. At a minimum, your company should host an email list and an anonymous CVS or Subversion server.
- Advertise the transition to your users. Make sure your customers understand that they can now customize things in-house. Make OSS a "value-added" feature. Encourage them to return their improvements back to the community.
- Make a good testing framework available. Most of your end-users will only have access to the hardware they actually use. Your current Q/A process probably tests against a range of hardware. As such, you own a range of test machines. Network these to a test framework that can validate community changes as they are submitted. Maintain a "stable", in-house tested branch and an "unstable", bleeding-edge branch.
Why force a hardware standard to place redundant data, when the same effect could be achieved in software?
Basically treat the disk as if it had multiple partitions, each physically scattered across its surface. Then do simple redundant copying or a RAID-style redundant striping scheme.
No need for that to be a hardware standard; just software. If done right, such a scheme might even be transparent to normal reading software. Software that didn't know about the redundant data simply wouldn't even see it, or it might appear in separate subfolders.
If evolution is a process requiring billions of years to occur and such exquisitely balanced conditions that life has never been created from raw materials in the lab, wouldn't finding life on other planets make evolution EVEN MORE improbable?
Evolution seems to imply that each occurance of life is an independent event. If p(1)=10^-100 (boosted to 1 since life is observed), then p(2)=10^-200 (boosted to 10^-100)... Having a Creator boosts the probabilities to p(1)=1 (observed), p(2)=?? who knows? No reason not to create again. The Bible gives you places full of plants, animals, angels, cherubim, leviathon; just not people on any other planets.
Both creationism and intelligent design (aka aliens/other almost-godlike-but-not-quite-gods) should get major PR boosts over evolution if life is found on other planets.
I first heard this reasoning ~8 years ago. Take it or leave it.
PS. 93% of the statistics used on/. are created as needed to meet the demand.
The right to a perfect credit rating? No; more like the right to no credit rating, which is almost just as bad. I'm guessing the credit companies would respond to such requests by having all your accounts frozen in the process.
They could always add a status bit to the effect of "customer requested data removal" *after* your request was completed. Actually, that's almost more evil.
Yes consumer-grade equipment should work fairly normally *inside* the shielded ISS, but nobody in his right mind would trust the stuff for actual flight control systems.
Its the difference between "aww shucks, there's a speck on my picture" and "retro-rockets failed to fire!"
The guy who make the decision for nVidia to keep the code closed stopped by campus last semester. A bunch of us *nix people were talking to him. The reasons he cited for closing the code had nothing to do with licensing issues and everything to do with "if its so easy for others to develop this stuff, why are other major companies having trouble with Linux support."
In other words, writing drivers isn't in nVidia's business model, but selling a product with drivers is in ATi's business model. ATi and others seem to be having trouble releasing good GL drivers for Windows, not to mention Linux. Therefore nVidia feels it is a competitive edge to keep their apparently superior programming techniques under wraps.
After a while, I regretfully started to believe him.
What uses are there for two-legged robots? - Insight into bipedal walking will assist physical therapy and improve prosthetics. - Two-legged robots can better integrate into the human environment.
Wheels tend to roll over important things and get stuck on stairs. 4 and 6-legged robots of any height are too wide to fit in most human spaces. If there feet are closer together, then they will fall over too easily.
It is only by developing an actively balancing dynamic control that machines can truly interact in the human environment. Fancy 2-wheeled systems like the Segway have trouble because they can't lift a leg forward to catch a fall - legs are what's needed. In short, humans are more versatile at navigating terrain than anything else; and it is because we have two legs.
Yes, the toy robots that Japanese companies are hyping today are just that - hyped toys. However, there is reason to hope that useful robots can be made in the coming decades.
Is when MS Media Player (or even Windows) automatically "upgrades" your MP3's for you. Unless you had good backups, all your MP3's are now DRM enabled.
Nobody here is against taking risks per se, but we are against taking stupid risks.
Things we are against: - speeding through red lights - placing people in dangerous situations without adequate safety precautions - publicity stunts which risk human life
Things we are not against: - experimental aircraft with real design goals and safety considerations - medical tests which may lead to breakthroughs - other dangerous stuff where the risks have been mitigated and the results look promising
Nobody's suggesting that Marie Curie (who handled radioactive elements with no significant shielding) deserves a Darwin award. While what she did was dangerous, the risks were not understood at her time.
Darwin awards are for people who do dangerous things for stupid reasons. The status of hero/saint/explorer is reserved for people who successfully achieve great things, regardless of how dangerous their achievement was.
I don't see any hypocrisy here. Just a poor understanding on your part.
Slashdot Mirror
well said.
If they can't run these awesome programs at home?
...) can be kept in their place. Compatibility is a new ball game. Being the overpriced player is a position they've always reserved for their competition.
Seriously, there have been hundreds of first-class programs that lost out to Microsoft not because they were bad but because people couldn't run them. Because they weren't installed. Because they cost too much money.
When people wake up to find that all the programs they use are free and they all run better on *nix, then they will feel comfortable enough to let the neighborhood geek/BigBucks computer company set them up with a libre OS.
MS is betting they can prevent this dream from occuring by locking down MSWindows before OSS gains public mindshare. They've proven for nearly 20 years that elite minorities (the fruit co, the star co,
Korea has had those speed cameras on a few major roads for some time now (e.g. the road to Incheon airport). Last year when I was over there, the cars would suddenly slow down at odd spots in the road. They would then accelerate like mad a quarter mile later.
I asked what this was about; they said "you learn where the cameras are".
Speed cameras == STUPID IDEA.
Unless you think burning more gas and causing accidents due to erratic driving are good ideas.
and am not impressed by your comment. Did it add anything to the discussion?
I've been thinking similar thoughts for years, but never cared to write my own esoteric programming dialect. Somebody else already has.
For those who never studied it, Latin is a beautiful language for expressing temporal relationships. It has an unusually crisp flavor that seems to desire order and strict logic. There were good reasons why it was the technical language of choice for several centuries.
Thanks for the link.
As an observor on the sidelines, here's a few points that sometimes cause issues.
- Expect a rough transition.
Releasing your app to the community is like hiring a bunch of new developers but not giving them any management. If they like what you have, they will work with it; if they don't, they might re-implement things or openly disagree with your existing design. Get as much relevant information online as possible so others can make informed design decisions.
- Provide direction, but be flexible.
One benefit of OSS is that others can suggest fixes that may directly contradict your current view of the problem. By carefully accepting some of these changes, your software will become better.
- Don't expect the OSS community to do all the work.
Several major bloopers have come from companies saying, "fine; we're open-sourcing it; let them do the work". This is the road to stagnation. The community will support things that are useful to them; don't assume that your alpha-OSS release will generate immediate support. A small OSS community is excellent for porting existing software to new systems; they are generally slow for actual development work.
- Keep providing support.
During the initial transition, you will probably have more work than normal as people flock to your project asking questions. Then only those who like what they see will stay. At a minimum, your company should host an email list and an anonymous CVS or Subversion server.
- Advertise the transition to your users.
Make sure your customers understand that they can now customize things in-house. Make OSS a "value-added" feature. Encourage them to return their improvements back to the community.
- Make a good testing framework available.
Most of your end-users will only have access to the hardware they actually use. Your current Q/A process probably tests against a range of hardware. As such, you own a range of test machines. Network these to a test framework that can validate community changes as they are submitted. Maintain a "stable", in-house tested branch and an "unstable", bleeding-edge branch.
Why force a hardware standard to place redundant data, when the same effect could be achieved in software?
Basically treat the disk as if it had multiple partitions, each physically scattered across its surface. Then do simple redundant copying or a RAID-style redundant striping scheme.
No need for that to be a hardware standard; just software. If done right, such a scheme might even be transparent to normal reading software. Software that didn't know about the redundant data simply wouldn't even see it, or it might appear in separate subfolders.
If evolution is a process requiring billions of years to occur and such exquisitely balanced conditions that life has never been created from raw materials in the lab, wouldn't finding life on other planets make evolution EVEN MORE improbable?
/. are created as needed to meet the demand.
Evolution seems to imply that each occurance of life is an independent event. If p(1)=10^-100 (boosted to 1 since life is observed), then p(2)=10^-200 (boosted to 10^-100)... Having a Creator boosts the probabilities to p(1)=1 (observed), p(2)=?? who knows? No reason not to create again. The Bible gives you places full of plants, animals, angels, cherubim, leviathon; just not people on any other planets.
Both creationism and intelligent design (aka aliens/other almost-godlike-but-not-quite-gods) should get major PR boosts over evolution if life is found on other planets.
I first heard this reasoning ~8 years ago. Take it or leave it.
PS. 93% of the statistics used on
Get the pictures and facts straight from the source.o logy/creating_sensors.htm
http://www.smartholograms.com/site/sections/techn
The right to a perfect credit rating? No; more like the right to no credit rating, which is almost just as bad. I'm guessing the credit companies would respond to such requests by having all your accounts frozen in the process.
They could always add a status bit to the effect of "customer requested data removal" *after* your request was completed. Actually, that's almost more evil.
I think he just hates major corporations "pumping" the market.
Exec: Dell can get that 10% cheaper than their competitor. Buy Dell.
(a week passes while paperwork is filled)
Tech: Placing the order... Doh!@#% Dell cost us 10% more than their competitor.
FWIW, [n/t] meant there was "no text". Silly /.
Yes consumer-grade equipment should work fairly normally *inside* the shielded ISS, but nobody in his right mind would trust the stuff for actual flight control systems.
Its the difference between "aww shucks, there's a speck on my picture" and "retro-rockets failed to fire!"
Rumor has it, patches to support this exploit in Lynx will be available by the end of the week. ;)
but you can still sell the car w/o a license... ;)
The guy who make the decision for nVidia to keep the code closed stopped by campus last semester. A bunch of us *nix people were talking to him. The reasons he cited for closing the code had nothing to do with licensing issues and everything to do with "if its so easy for others to develop this stuff, why are other major companies having trouble with Linux support."
In other words, writing drivers isn't in nVidia's business model, but selling a product with drivers is in ATi's business model. ATi and others seem to be having trouble releasing good GL drivers for Windows, not to mention Linux. Therefore nVidia feels it is a competitive edge to keep their apparently superior programming techniques under wraps.
After a while, I regretfully started to believe him.
http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTE.html
I used to use pico like you until I found SciTE.
Lightweight, instant loading with solid syntax features and other goodies. Available on win or nix.
http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTE.html
However, their default "global configuration" file needs some tweaking before things are to my taste...
carries penalties of up to $2,500 and 1 year in prison if convicted in Illinois...
Your idea is brilliant and fits neatly into the scheme of US trade laws, with a perfect parallel between patents and trade secrets.
Copyrighted music ~= patented technology
DRM'd music ~= trade secret
Let the labels pick which they want; they can't have both.
1.) Do the Google search
/. hordes.
2.) Click on the "Dissatisfied?" link
3.) Complain to Google about all the spammers.
Only you can stamp out spammers.
Show Google the power of the
I'll bite; this is my research area.
What uses are there for two-legged robots?
- Insight into bipedal walking will assist physical therapy and improve prosthetics.
- Two-legged robots can better integrate into the human environment.
Wheels tend to roll over important things and get stuck on stairs. 4 and 6-legged robots of any height are too wide to fit in most human spaces. If there feet are closer together, then they will fall over too easily.
It is only by developing an actively balancing dynamic control that machines can truly interact in the human environment. Fancy 2-wheeled systems like the Segway have trouble because they can't lift a leg forward to catch a fall - legs are what's needed. In short, humans are more versatile at navigating terrain than anything else; and it is because we have two legs.
Yes, the toy robots that Japanese companies are hyping today are just that - hyped toys. However, there is reason to hope that useful robots can be made in the coming decades.
Is when MS Media Player (or even Windows) automatically "upgrades" your MP3's for you. Unless you had good backups, all your MP3's are now DRM enabled.
My roommate and I each spend $22/month ($44/month total) for broadband access. And you're saying another $20/month for a better Google is worthwhile?
$5/month is pushing the limit. Most users would balk at even $2/month simply because of the hassle and risks of more spam/credit card theft.
Nobody here is against taking risks per se, but we are against taking stupid risks.
Things we are against:
- speeding through red lights
- placing people in dangerous situations without adequate safety precautions
- publicity stunts which risk human life
Things we are not against:
- experimental aircraft with real design goals and safety considerations
- medical tests which may lead to breakthroughs
- other dangerous stuff where the risks have been mitigated and the results look promising
Nobody's suggesting that Marie Curie (who handled radioactive elements with no significant shielding) deserves a Darwin award. While what she did was dangerous, the risks were not understood at her time.
Darwin awards are for people who do dangerous things for stupid reasons. The status of hero/saint/explorer is reserved for people who successfully achieve great things, regardless of how dangerous their achievement was.
I don't see any hypocrisy here. Just a poor understanding on your part.