If we want Sun to play nice, and support the FLOSS community better, then we have to ask them or pressure them to do so. We can't use legal pressure , as long as Sun obeys the letter of the GPL, they're fine and we can't touch them.
So what kind of pressure can we apply? Well, for a start, we can review what they're doing...
Indeed. I'm currently playing an 11th level bard in a 3Ed game. With miserable (10) STR, and no combat related feats, I'm doing far, far less damage than than the fighter types. Don't have the AC to stand up to most of the critters we're facing these days either. Some of 'em have +20 to hit, so 60 HP aren't going to last long there.
They talk in the splat book (Song and Silence) about the bard being the 2nd best fighter in a small group, the 2nd best mage, etc. But really, there's no comparison. At this level, I'm not much better a fighter than the mage. And I can't bring down the boom like the cleric and mages do either.
Mostly just a 2nd class spellcaster these days.
Not that the high diplomacy, sense motive, etc. don't come in handy here and there. I also cast a lot of party support spells like GMW. We've got this archer with an insane to-hit bonus. When he's got +3 magic arrows, his damage goes from "serious" to "damn vicious".
Maybe next time I'll play Gristle, a dwarven fighter who is all STR and CON. Or I'll try Ginsu, a fighter/ranger (or fighter/thief). TWF, ITWF, Ambi, weap spec with dual shortswords... stabby stabby time. After all the combat feats are acquired, maybe switch to thief for juicy backstab bonuses.
So who here HASN'T etched a circuit board (analog, digital, no matter)?
I sure haven't. Built a few by hand, but mostly we send 'em out. Easier and quicker that way, especially to get them populated.
I can solder leads down to 0.5mm or so, but it requires no caffine for the previous few days. And it takes a long time, cause I don't have one of those fancy schmancy IC rework stations.
But to be slightly on-topic, working with random LCDs w/o manufacturer support is a pain. There's a bazillion different IC driver chips out there. Need docos and a lot of quiet time to read them.
The original question-asker would be better off if he can re-use the original units intact. Better use of his time to write some DOS code for an old laptop than try to interface a controller to an LCD. Also, it is too easy to screw up, let out the magic smoke, and then you're done.
Not quite. Big chips almost never work right the first time. Minor design changes are always required.
Indeed. Or big changes. There were several serious issues with the Intel PXA 250 in its initial versions, for example. The PXA 255 is mostly the 250 with all the bug fixes. I know I'm oversimplifying a bit here, but still, it wasn't very good initially. Just check the ARM Linux mailing list for discussion of that.
Gordon D. Pusch wrote in sci.space.tech: "Hypersonic travel combines
all the disadvantages of airplanes with all the disadvantages of rocket
flight and all the disadvantages of re-entry --- continuously."
Even if their records show that you bought that item recently, how can the computer tell whether it's the one you bought or a new one? They're not going to have a unique id for every sock ever sold.
Actually, they are going to have unique numbers. So they will know if your girlfriend buys your boxer shorts.
They aren't doing this with UPC codes, because it would take too much space. But with RFID, it is nearly as easy to store 256 bits as it is 20.
Yup, 10% of all retail good sold in stores are sold through WalMart. 10%. That's huge. They can make you (as a supplier), but then they'll probably break you later on.
It probably didn't help that I'm using the old term.
There should be a link at the bottom of each article called 'Discuss this page'.
I think this in general is the biggest issue currently facing Wikipedia. It is easy to wander around inside (which is a good thing) and then quickly find bad or badly developed articles.
I don't know what we can do about that until we have giant flying brains to scan in all human knowledge into a database.:-)
Well, what we would have prefered you to do is at least mention that the article needs fixing in the Talk page. That's what they are there for. There's also a meta-article about articles which need work.
Well, if you're worried about Wikipedia's knowledge disappearing (and you have a lot of bandwidth), then you can always download a Dump of the Database.
If Bomis collapses and dies tomorrow (not likely given the business they're in), I'm sure the Wikipedians will find another sponsor before too long. Maybe Ibiblilo.
We use older versions of MediaWiki at work. I picked it because it was (at the time) the most powerful wiki software available. I have not doubt it still is the most powerful, though TWiki has a lot of applications built on top of it.
At any rate, I like MediaWiki's markup much better than most any other wiki's. I absolutely despise CamelCase. YMMV.
Like you said, its is not just the initial installation, but the support contracts afterwards.
When the consulting company installs Windows at a customer, the customer ends up sending a large chunk of change off to MS, not just for initial licenses, but also for support.
When the consulting company installs Linux, they've got a good chance at a bigger share of those support contract dollars. Sure, the customer may contract directly with Redhat, SuSE or whoever, but they're as likely to contract with the consultants, because they are the ones who really understand the installation.
Windows is really kinda stupid for consulting companies. MS is always shoving themselves in the limelight in front of the customer. Worse yet, as soon as MS sees someone else making money on something, they're likely to move in and take over your market. Unless you're in a tiny niche, you've got to be constantly looking over your shoulder at your "partner" MS, as you never know when they've decided you've become too sucessful.
It doesn't matter who actually invented the first powered airplane.
My GF (who is also an engineer) says: "If you didn't write it down, then it didn't happen."
Meaning that if there isn't proper documentation on what you've been working on, then your work is useless. I think that's as true today as it was 100 years ago. You can be the most brilliant hacker, and develop an O(n) sorting algorithm. But if you don't document it somehow, it might as well not exist.
The undisputed fact is that the Wright brothers were the first to invent an airplane, and document the invention. So they invented the airplane. Period.
Hell, I've wanted to go to the moon ever since I was able to think. Isn't that enough reason?
And then there's the whole survival of humanity issue if there happens to be a massive ecological disaster on Earth, World War III, etc.
Hopefully, we'd have self-sustaining space colonies before the technological singularity, but I doubt we'll have the luxury. Bah, I guess we're only going to have one shot at that. Cross your fingers!
"There are redundancies to ensure the accuracy and the security of the vote," said David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold who criticized Rubin's study as not being conducted in a real-world setting. "We meet the needs of our customers."
Excuse me, but I, as a member of the voting public am one of your customers. And you're not meeting my needs, which include the assurance that my vote has been recorded to match my intentions.
The voting machine companies are either being stupid, lazy, or are part of a grand conspiracy. (I favor the first two). If there was a system that met our security concerns, we'd sing its praises to anyone who would listen.
It is not really clear to me why Smalley is so hung up on liquide-phase chemistry.
No one is saying mechanosynthesis is going to be easy. There's going to be a lot, lot, lot of grunt work to figure out what reactions are possible, which are reliable, and which of those are actually useful.
But there's an awful lot of cleverness out there, and I'm sure we'll be able to figure out enough useful building blocks. We may end up always using liquid-phase chemistry to build precursor molecules, but I'm convinced that mechanosynthesis will allow the construction of arbitrary molecules and objects.
Yeah, here's the thing. Let's suppose the Microsoft Trolls are correct, that the TCO for Linux is higher than Windows.
Well, for a country like Brasil, is that really a problem? Suppose they would normally spend X on software licenses, and another X for local support. Even if they're spending 3X for local support of FOSS software, most/all that money is going back into the local economy.
So that money is spent locally, and taxed locally, etc. Why pay Redmond to develop its software industry, when you could develop your own instead? FOSS sounds like a winner to me.
Get used to it, now that Linux is seen as an ecconmic reality, SCO's wild pot-shots will only be the first of many.
The hope here is that if SCO gets slapped down hard enough, that will cause anyone else to think twice about trying such a stunt again.
The open source community's headache here will be the fact that most businesses don't handle all of those pot-shots in the public eye....
Well, the most dangerous avenue of attack is patents. We as a community need to think more about forming groups who can help anyone faced with patent infringement claims find prior art. Fighting patents is so expensive, even if you've already got all the evidence you need to overturn a one.
I oppose this as well for privacy reasons. There is one basic privacy tenant in ballot voting that would need to be upheld by any electronic voting system: plausible deniability.
Well, you could make it a voluntary system. You call up people, and just ask them if they will reveal to you how they voted. Some will be concerned about their privacy, and some won't.
But your system should work fine.
What I can't understand is that it would be relatively straight-forward to have a good audit trail for the voting process, but the manufacturers are so, so, so resistant to the idea.
Unless they really do want the capability to tamper with the votes later.:-(
Heh. The biggest investor in dollars is Vulcan Ventures, owned by Paul G. Allen. Yup, the same one who co-founded Microsoft.
How intersting is that. I wonder how many others (Janus, Rose Glen, Citadel, Putnam and more) are also involved with Microsoft.
This is, in my opinion, incontrovertable proof that Microsoft is gunning for Linux (and IBM) any way it can.
Congratulations boys and girls! We've hit the big time!
BT isn't dead, but the hype has finally died
on
Is Bluetooth Dead?
·
· Score: 1
There will be some more interesting BT devices coming out in the next year. I'm working on some of them.
However, some of the original applications envisioned for BT haven't panned out. Boo hoo.
It's a handy protocol for some types of short-range wireless, where something like 802.11 would be too heavy-weight. There is definitely a niche for it.
And as far as 802.15.3a goes... I personally witnessed the flame fest on the IEEE mailing list, I really don't think it was travel restrictions that prevented the group from coming to a consensus. Ultra-wide band in general shows a lot of promise, but it'll be a couple years before we've got stable products available to consumers.
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If we want Sun to play nice, and support the FLOSS community better, then we have to ask them or pressure them to do so. We can't use legal pressure , as long as Sun obeys the letter of the GPL, they're fine and we can't touch them.
So what kind of pressure can we apply? Well, for a start, we can review what they're doing...
And that's just what PJ is talking about.
Indeed. I'm currently playing an 11th level bard in a 3Ed game. With miserable (10) STR, and no combat related feats, I'm doing far, far less damage than than the fighter types. Don't have the AC to stand up to most of the critters we're facing these days either. Some of 'em have +20 to hit, so 60 HP aren't going to last long there.
They talk in the splat book (Song and Silence) about the bard being the 2nd best fighter in a small group, the 2nd best mage, etc. But really, there's no comparison. At this level, I'm not much better a fighter than the mage. And I can't bring down the boom like the cleric and mages do either.
Mostly just a 2nd class spellcaster these days. Not that the high diplomacy, sense motive, etc. don't come in handy here and there. I also cast a lot of party support spells like GMW. We've got this archer with an insane to-hit bonus. When he's got +3 magic arrows, his damage goes from "serious" to "damn vicious".
Maybe next time I'll play Gristle, a dwarven fighter who is all STR and CON. Or I'll try Ginsu, a fighter/ranger (or fighter/thief). TWF, ITWF, Ambi, weap spec with dual shortswords... stabby stabby time. After all the combat feats are acquired, maybe switch to thief for juicy backstab bonuses.
Or just go full sorc or wiz. Dunno.
Feh. Lot of time with old (4-5 years) battery packs, you're lucky to get half an hour out of them.
If it's running a crit network function, plug it into a real UPS. Save yourself some trouble that way.
So who here HASN'T etched a circuit board (analog, digital, no matter)?
I sure haven't. Built a few by hand, but mostly we send 'em out. Easier and quicker that way, especially to get them populated.
I can solder leads down to 0.5mm or so, but it requires no caffine for the previous few days. And it takes a long time, cause I don't have one of those fancy schmancy IC rework stations.
But to be slightly on-topic, working with random LCDs w/o manufacturer support is a pain. There's a bazillion different IC driver chips out there. Need docos and a lot of quiet time to read them.
The original question-asker would be better off if he can re-use the original units intact. Better use of his time to write some DOS code for an old laptop than try to interface a controller to an LCD. Also, it is too easy to screw up, let out the magic smoke, and then you're done.
Not quite. Big chips almost never work right the first time. Minor design changes are always required.
Indeed. Or big changes. There were several serious issues with the Intel PXA 250 in its initial versions, for example. The PXA 255 is mostly the 250 with all the bug fixes. I know I'm oversimplifying a bit here, but still, it wasn't very good initially. Just check the ARM Linux mailing list for discussion of that.
Gordon D. Pusch wrote in sci.space.tech: "Hypersonic travel combines all the disadvantages of airplanes with all the disadvantages of rocket flight and all the disadvantages of re-entry --- continuously."
Even if their records show that you bought that item recently, how can the computer tell whether it's the one you bought or a new one? They're not going to have a unique id for every sock ever sold.
Actually, they are going to have unique numbers. So they will know if your girlfriend buys your boxer shorts.
They aren't doing this with UPC codes, because it would take too much space. But with RFID, it is nearly as easy to store 256 bits as it is 20.
Yup, 10% of all retail good sold in stores are sold through WalMart. 10%. That's huge. They can make you (as a supplier), but then they'll probably break you later on.
It probably didn't help that I'm using the old term.
There should be a link at the bottom of each article called 'Discuss this page'.
I think this in general is the biggest issue currently facing Wikipedia. It is easy to wander around inside (which is a good thing) and then quickly find bad or badly developed articles.
I don't know what we can do about that until we have giant flying brains to scan in all human knowledge into a database. :-)
Well, what we would have prefered you to do is at least mention that the article needs fixing in the Talk page. That's what they are there for. There's also a meta-article about articles which need work.
Well, if you're worried about Wikipedia's knowledge disappearing (and you have a lot of bandwidth), then you can always download a Dump of the Database.
If Bomis collapses and dies tomorrow (not likely given the business they're in), I'm sure the Wikipedians will find another sponsor before too long. Maybe Ibiblilo.
We use older versions of MediaWiki at work. I picked it because it was (at the time) the most powerful wiki software available. I have not doubt it still is the most powerful, though TWiki has a lot of applications built on top of it.
At any rate, I like MediaWiki's markup much better than most any other wiki's. I absolutely despise CamelCase. YMMV.
Like you said, its is not just the initial installation, but the support contracts afterwards.
When the consulting company installs Windows at a customer, the customer ends up sending a large chunk of change off to MS, not just for initial licenses, but also for support.
When the consulting company installs Linux, they've got a good chance at a bigger share of those support contract dollars. Sure, the customer may contract directly with Redhat, SuSE or whoever, but they're as likely to contract with the consultants, because they are the ones who really understand the installation.
Windows is really kinda stupid for consulting companies. MS is always shoving themselves in the limelight in front of the customer. Worse yet, as soon as MS sees someone else making money on something, they're likely to move in and take over your market. Unless you're in a tiny niche, you've got to be constantly looking over your shoulder at your "partner" MS, as you never know when they've decided you've become too sucessful.
Sheesh, what kind of life is that?
It doesn't matter who actually invented the first powered airplane.
My GF (who is also an engineer) says: "If you didn't write it down, then it didn't happen."
Meaning that if there isn't proper documentation on what you've been working on, then your work is useless. I think that's as true today as it was 100 years ago. You can be the most brilliant hacker, and develop an O(n) sorting algorithm. But if you don't document it somehow, it might as well not exist.
The undisputed fact is that the Wright brothers were the first to invent an airplane, and document the invention. So they invented the airplane. Period.
Bah. I've seen the original Shaolin Soccer, and it was hilarious. Please, do we really need Hollywood editors to "fix" it for American release?
I think you left out sex in microgravity. :-)
Hell, I've wanted to go to the moon ever since I was able to think. Isn't that enough reason?
And then there's the whole survival of humanity issue if there happens to be a massive ecological disaster on Earth, World War III, etc.
Hopefully, we'd have self-sustaining space colonies before the technological singularity, but I doubt we'll have the luxury. Bah, I guess we're only going to have one shot at that. Cross your fingers!
"There are redundancies to ensure the accuracy and the security of the vote," said David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold who criticized Rubin's study as not being conducted in a real-world setting. "We meet the needs of our customers."
Excuse me, but I, as a member of the voting public am one of your customers. And you're not meeting my needs, which include the assurance that my vote has been recorded to match my intentions.
The voting machine companies are either being stupid, lazy, or are part of a grand conspiracy. (I favor the first two). If there was a system that met our security concerns, we'd sing its praises to anyone who would listen.
It is not really clear to me why Smalley is so hung up on liquide-phase chemistry.
No one is saying mechanosynthesis is going to be easy. There's going to be a lot, lot, lot of grunt work to figure out what reactions are possible, which are reliable, and which of those are actually useful.
But there's an awful lot of cleverness out there, and I'm sure we'll be able to figure out enough useful building blocks. We may end up always using liquid-phase chemistry to build precursor molecules, but I'm convinced that mechanosynthesis will allow the construction of arbitrary molecules and objects.
Yeah, here's the thing. Let's suppose the Microsoft Trolls are correct, that the TCO for Linux is higher than Windows.
Well, for a country like Brasil, is that really a problem? Suppose they would normally spend X on software licenses, and another X for local support. Even if they're spending 3X for local support of FOSS software, most/all that money is going back into the local economy.
So that money is spent locally, and taxed locally, etc. Why pay Redmond to develop its software industry, when you could develop your own instead? FOSS sounds like a winner to me.
$200 operating system for my microwave?
Well, actually, more like $5 USD. There's various price levels, depending on features you want (like IE).
Still, that's $15 USD (at least) to the end product's price. Which is a lot for something like a $50 USD LAN/WAN router.
Get used to it, now that Linux is seen as an ecconmic reality, SCO's wild pot-shots will only be the first of many.
The hope here is that if SCO gets slapped down hard enough, that will cause anyone else to think twice about trying such a stunt again.
The open source community's headache here will be the fact that most businesses don't handle all of those pot-shots in the public eye....
Well, the most dangerous avenue of attack is patents. We as a community need to think more about forming groups who can help anyone faced with patent infringement claims find prior art. Fighting patents is so expensive, even if you've already got all the evidence you need to overturn a one.
That's what worries me more than the next fiaSCO.
However, wrt the GPL, we're talking about a contract.
I thought the GPL was a grant of rights, not a contract.
I oppose this as well for privacy reasons. There is one basic privacy tenant in ballot voting that would need to be upheld by any electronic voting system: plausible deniability.
Well, you could make it a voluntary system. You call up people, and just ask them if they will reveal to you how they voted. Some will be concerned about their privacy, and some won't.
But your system should work fine.
What I can't understand is that it would be relatively straight-forward to have a good audit trail for the voting process, but the manufacturers are so, so, so resistant to the idea.
Unless they really do want the capability to tamper with the votes later. :-(
Heh. The biggest investor in dollars is Vulcan Ventures, owned by Paul G. Allen. Yup, the same one who co-founded Microsoft.
How intersting is that. I wonder how many others (Janus, Rose Glen, Citadel, Putnam and more) are also involved with Microsoft.
This is, in my opinion, incontrovertable proof that Microsoft is gunning for Linux (and IBM) any way it can.
Congratulations boys and girls! We've hit the big time!
There will be some more interesting BT devices coming out in the next year. I'm working on some of them.
However, some of the original applications envisioned for BT haven't panned out. Boo hoo.
It's a handy protocol for some types of short-range wireless, where something like 802.11 would be too heavy-weight. There is definitely a niche for it.
And as far as 802.15.3a goes... I personally witnessed the flame fest on the IEEE mailing list, I really don't think it was travel restrictions that prevented the group from coming to a consensus. Ultra-wide band in general shows a lot of promise, but it'll be a couple years before we've got stable products available to consumers.