Well, I read it here first. Apparently Hemos overlooked the fact that Bruce Perens posted his actions already in the comments of the first Slashdot article on this.
Jon Katz wonders why we do know who invented stuff, but not who built the first computer.
This is because the invention of the computer was by a lot of different people, all working on different aspects (a lot started before electricity was there). These guys were just the people who applied what others before them had figured out.
He also mentions the first people on the moon. But that is mostly the personal achievement. Question: Who was the first person to get any kind of (unmanned) junk launched on the moon. Oh shame, nobody knows......
Turing was also involved with computer-inventions at the same time, but everybody knows him. So it's not like we know nothing of the computers origins (Von Neumann also).
I've read that phones can be listened to even when on the hook but I'm just crazy
No, you're not necessarily crazy. The way I remember it here in the Netherlands a group of criminal defense lawyers complained about a year ago. In a lot of their cases a phone tap was authorized against (suspected) criminals, after which the police reports mentioned that the phone was accidentally off the hook while criminals were chatting (not on the phone mind you, just in the room) about their endeavours.
The lawyers thought, 'hey our phones are never off the hook, why are our clients so clumsy!'.
So some independent institute (not Mindcraft) did some tests and as it turns out for a lot of phonenetworks in the Netherlands, when you put a high frequency directly on the twisted pair line, you can listen in even when the phone is on the hook....
I just read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/udi.html and do not agree with it. Richard Stallman points out just two uses of UDI:
People could run free GPL-covered Linux drivers with Windows systems.
People could run non-free Windows drivers on GNU/Linux systems. However, I see much more options:
People could run free GPL-covered Windows drivers with Linux systems. (There is Windows GPL development as well you know).
People could free GPL-covered drivers on GNU/Hurd systems. (as I mentioned earlier, would it not be great if the Hurd has wide hardware support).
People could free GPL-covered drivers on GNU/FreeBSD systems (If I look at another article of today, they probably wouldn't want to, so....)
People could free BSD licensed drivers on GNU/Linux systems
free drivers on Mac, free drivers on (God help us) OS/2, so people can keep using their old junk. etc. etc. Of course, there will be a lot of binary only drivers. But as long as the UDI framework is open, I don't really care. If Eric Raymond is right (he might be), Open Source versions of some of the same drivers will kick the binary-only versions' butt!
When I read the SlashDot announcement and browsed the webpages I was really enthausiastic.
When I browse the first comments I apparently have to limit my happiness, damn!
I always thought having portable (even if binary) drivers would be great, as it would help out 'starting' OSes (okay, so the Hurd kernel isn't exactly starting) as well as obscure ones to easily get wide hardware support. It would allow for more varied OSes to emerge. I just hope the idea doesn't get killed over this bad implementation or whatever.
I love X as a platform. I'll bet that most of the negative posts on this article will treat X as an interface, which it simply isn't. You can have any kind of interface on top of X, including the Windows GUI by the way (WinCenter).
I do not agree with the article however, mostly because of the too positive comments of speed. X is slow:
Slower than other remote display protocols, especially ICA (which has HUGE disadvantages of its own, but is a lot zippier).
Slower than direct access to the video hardware, which is a huge problem for games.
Unlike the author who only seem to be concerned with mindless raving, the developers of XFree86 are addressing these concerns.
By all means, create competitors for X. Competition is good, and I'm sure X will massacre anything it meets on its path!
Re:No X -- we need a media-savvy, compositing GUI
on
Is X The Future?
·
· Score: 1
A *pretty* easy-to-configure GUI (X is NOT easy to configure) is the single most important thing Linux needs to get to the desktop.
That's true. I still do not get why there is not just a simple VESA-server that uses all Vesa 1.2 resolutions on my card. Stupid Windows doesn't have this either, by the way, all stupid different drivers.
Just imagine the glee people will have when they can run Unix and have it be a better "graphics platform" than the Mac! A better "video platform" then the Mac or the Amiga!
SGI/IRIX rules in these area's. They use X.
The GUI should also support anti-aliased Type1, Truetype and OpenType fonts.
X, X, X. The idea of starting extra font servers and just plugging them in (xfstt) rules.
And be remotely viewable -- using the VNC protocol to remote-view an entire desktop (or just a single app! - -try that, windows!) would be appropriate.
I saw a presentation of this at a conference some time ago. Two observations:
This is not some garage project of some small university, this is a HUUUGE project with many big companies and lots of funds. By far the biggest project in the translation field.
Their trick is to take a very small domain, in this case just the reservation of rooms at hotels. You clear out a lot of problems if you can at least expect one meaning for one word ('bank' is unlikely to mean riverbank in such conversations, to use a popular linguist example).
I do not remember quite what it was, but I do think they did something with accents in the speech synthesis.
Their basic premisse is that Look at all the ways you use radio transmissions (...) On earth, we've already decided on the most efficient method! ( seti)
Excuse me, we have decided? Dinosaurs roamed the earth 65 million years ago, and we have used radio transmissions now for only slightly more than a hundred years. What if we find something better than radio signals in say a hundred, a thousand, or even a hundred thousand years.
These people have zero respect for time. These people are not scientists.
Slashdot Mirror
If he is me then yes.
article 1
article 2
So I suppose this reaffirms my beliefs that the SlashDot writers (especially Katz) do not read the comments.
This is because the invention of the computer was by a lot of different people, all working on different aspects (a lot started before electricity was there). These guys were just the people who applied what others before them had figured out.
He also mentions the first people on the moon. But that is mostly the personal achievement.
Question: Who was the first person to get any kind of (unmanned) junk launched on the moon. Oh shame, nobody knows......
Turing was also involved with computer-inventions at the same time, but everybody knows him. So it's not like we know nothing of the computers origins (Von Neumann also).
but I'm just crazy
No, you're not necessarily crazy.
The way I remember it here in the Netherlands a group of criminal defense lawyers complained about a year ago. In a lot of their cases a phone tap was authorized against (suspected) criminals, after which the police reports mentioned that the phone was accidentally off the hook while criminals were chatting (not on the phone mind you, just in the room) about their endeavours.
The lawyers thought, 'hey our phones are never off the hook, why are our clients so clumsy!'.
So some independent institute (not Mindcraft) did some tests and as it turns out for a lot of phonenetworks in the Netherlands, when you put a high frequency directly on the twisted pair line, you can listen in even when the phone is on the hook....
People could run free GPL-covered Linux drivers with Windows systems.
People could run non-free Windows drivers on GNU/Linux systems. However, I see much more options:
People could run free GPL-covered Windows drivers with Linux systems. (There is Windows GPL development as well you know).
People could free GPL-covered drivers on GNU/Hurd systems. (as I mentioned earlier, would it not be great if the Hurd has wide hardware support).
People could free GPL-covered drivers on GNU/FreeBSD systems (If I look at another article of today, they probably wouldn't want to, so....)
People could free BSD licensed drivers on GNU/Linux systems
free drivers on Mac, free drivers on (God help us) OS/2, so people can keep using their old junk. etc. etc. Of course, there will be a lot of binary only drivers. But as long as the UDI framework is open, I don't really care. If Eric Raymond is right (he might be), Open Source versions of some of the same drivers will kick the binary-only versions' butt!
I tripped over the same line as you did.
So when can we expect a 'truly free' reimplementation of gcc, or does FreeBSD already use a different C-compiler?
When I read the SlashDot announcement and browsed the webpages I was really enthausiastic.
When I browse the first comments I apparently have to limit my happiness, damn!
I always thought having portable (even if binary) drivers would be great, as it would help out 'starting' OSes (okay, so the Hurd kernel isn't exactly starting) as well as obscure ones to easily get wide hardware support.
It would allow for more varied OSes to emerge. I just hope the idea doesn't get killed over this bad implementation or whatever.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Perhaps we can highlight the article by making a long thread under it.
I do not agree with the article however, mostly because of the too positive comments of speed. X is slow:
- Slower than other remote display protocols, especially ICA (which has HUGE disadvantages of its own, but is a lot zippier).
- Slower than direct access to the video hardware, which is a huge problem for games.
Unlike the author who only seem to be concerned with mindless raving, the developers of XFree86 are addressing these concerns.By all means, create competitors for X. Competition is good, and I'm sure X will massacre anything it meets on its path!
That's true. I still do not get why there is not just a simple VESA-server that uses all Vesa 1.2 resolutions on my card. Stupid Windows doesn't have this either, by the way, all stupid different drivers.
Just imagine the glee people will have when they can run Unix and have it be a better "graphics platform" than the Mac! A better "video platform" then the Mac or the Amiga!
SGI/IRIX rules in these area's. They use X.
The GUI should also support anti-aliased Type1, Truetype and OpenType fonts.
X, X, X. The idea of starting extra font servers and just plugging them in (xfstt) rules.
And be remotely viewable -- using the VNC protocol to remote-view an entire desktop (or just a single app! - -try that, windows!) would be appropriate.
X
Thanks for that tip.
But, I could only find a cli-client for NT,
not for win'95. Or is there one?
--Sander.
I saw a presentation of this at a conference some time ago. Two observations:
I do not remember quite what it was, but I do think they did something with accents in the speech synthesis.
--Sander.
I'll take that bet...
Their basic premisse is that Look at all the ways you use radio transmissions (...) On earth, we've already decided on the most efficient method! ( seti)
Excuse me, we have decided? Dinosaurs roamed the earth 65 million years ago, and we have used radio transmissions now for only slightly more than a hundred years. What if we find something better than radio signals in say a hundred, a thousand, or even a hundred thousand years.
These people have zero respect for time. These people are not scientists.
I was just wondering whether there are quicktime
or MPEG movies or whatever somewhere of the
dog walking about?
--Sander.
Yep, I guess he was in 'Future Crew'
Also made Scream Tracker
Unless Sami Tammilehto is a common name of course...