I'm running SuSE 7.3 and have bought their distros since 6.1.
I really like the way that SuSE comes with so many applications that you can install. With large disks, there's little reason to be without any of the many open source applications out there.
Yes, once in a while you can see the European origins of this distribution, like in the A4 bias for default paper sizes, but generally they're pretty good about providing "en" language users a good interface.
Everybody's doing basically the same thing, and the performance is within 10% of the next guy.
And in spades, too!
It cracks me up to see some of the "comparisons" in some of the print publications which show glossy colored bar graphs that end up within about 2% of each other.
So much of modern PCs are really the same in terms of performance. The PC mags are for computer buying like Car & Driver are for car buying - sexy performance tests and "the experience", but little in the way of real life "going to the grocery store" durability.
What they can't or won't show are statistics on driver fragility, what percentage have to get returned for warranty work, etc. I guess that doesn't sell computers (or advertisers).
It currently costs $10,000 to get 1 lb of material into orbit. How much would it take to get it to the moon? One hell of a lot.
You're right, but as others point out, the big project would rely on an in situ photovoltaic panel factory on the lunar surface instead of transporting the panels.
Nevertheless, I think it would be a good start to have a demonstration project, transporting and setting up earth-made panels on the moon just to see if we can beam some power back here.
At the very least, it would get people thinking about the project and its problems and get it in the public eye, which is essential to get funding in a representative democracy.
Just focussing people's minds on the problems is a good way to start solving them.
If we dismiss this idea out-of-hand as too expensive and impractical, it is pretty well doomed to remain too expensive
and impractical.
Everyone knows that the average computer buyer just wants a bare-bones platform on which they can roll their own browser, media player, photo editor, etc.
Your sarcasm is correctly targeted when you're talking about the average consumer computer buyer.
But many large company IT departments prefer to have control over the exact suite of applications they roll out to their users and which they will be obligated to support.
Crime and violence are the result of failed government policies.
Hmmm. Some of the time, maybe. But I think a "functioning society" is not absolutely correlated with government policies.
There are plenty of examples of societies with lousy governmental policies and, yet, some fine, upstanding good citizens.
Likewise, there are places with progressive, enlightened governmental policies where, nevertheless, criminals can be found.
I think the roots of crime and violence grow much deeper into culture as a whole. It would be convenient if government policies were so effective, but my observation is that they are only roughly correlated with society's behavior.
Well, a lot of it was under friendly questioning from his own lawyer.
I'm looking forward to the cross examination by the States' attorneys.
It should be quite entertaining. Although, I don't hold out hope for sound bites quite as colorful those gems in earlier trials where we got to hear about "pissing on Java" and "cutting off Netscape's air supply".
A joke I used to make long ago with another co-worker was how easily we could be distracted into sinking loads of time and energy into doing "Meta Work"
Instead of doing the job, we'd see where if we just put in a little bit more infrastructure, we'd be 10 times more productive doing the actual work.
The Meta Work paid off, when the time came to the real work, it had to be done at the last minute in a real hurry, since we'd been squandering all that time doing the MetaWork.
>>Are you going to financially back a lawsuit if one is filed?
>Someone ought to.
This has come up before, I'm sure of it.
While I agree that linking out with an extra layer of indirection to chillingeffects shows less balls than either showing the anti CoS links or showing the cached contents of the anti CoS links, I can see where the mere threat of the costs of the legal battle are enough to cast a chill on Google's management.
I thought there has been legislation, at least proposed, in various states that is intended to combat such legal tactics.
Essentially, if someone uses suits that turn out to be dismissed as frivolous as a way of encumbering you with legal bills to the point where your behavior effectively becomes constrained to their wishes, then you have an additional legal recourse.
But you can tell IANAL, and I don't know which states, if any, have statutes like this, nor do I know how far you have to go before you get to take advantage of them. I doubt they apply to the problem of intimidating DMCA letters, though.
I've been looking to find good video cards for high resolution flat panel monitors but want them to be driven digitally instead of with an analog signal (even one sneaking in through the analog connectors in the DVI-I connector).
But really high resolution displays have been made useless for many graphics cards that only support resolutions up to 1280x1024 or 1600x1200.
I had hoped that the recent nVidia chipsets would have some good TMDS hardware.
One of the reasons I find Slashdot so interesting is the mix of viewpoints you find here.
The primary draw is technology, but the people bring in diverse viewpoints on other matters, ranging through "Megadittoes, Rush!" to "Down with the IMF!"
While I don't always agree with what I read here, and while many others probably disagree with what I have to say, we share an interest in new technology and have at least some capacity to assimilate new ideas, and even an interest in seeing new ideas.
How it is that Bill Gates is able to convey messages with so much DoubleSpeak in them, using soft bunny fluffy terms like "ecosystem" and "fostering innovation" while running a behemoth that bulldozes over innovation coming anywhere but from Microsoft, I figured I let you in on the secret.
He never finishes coherent sentences. His speech is riddled with hyphens, discontinuities that make it possible to say such things.
[According to Hard Drive, he refers to this manner of speaking as "high bandwidth" and actually "converses" with Steve Ballmer using this language.]
I doubt the court will be so enamored of it, though.
Funny, the way that the 3rd world is leading the charge in this particular area of new technology: VoIP.
It reminds of what was going on back in the early 1990s, when cell phone markets in India and other countries were booming, largely because cell phones provided so much more reliable service than the creating infrastructure of their land line telephone system.
I've heard that the cell phone business in many African countries is still lucrative, screwy government policies notwithstanding.
To cut energy consumption, Banias automatically shuts off its different subcomponents when not in use. Although it's designed for notebooks, the chip will also appear in thin "blade" servers.
That was my thought, too, when I heard about a chip that had a notebook-motivated balance between performance and power consumption.
That it would find some acceptance in the server room, where power dissipation issues loom large.
And then I thought: why stop there?
Why not use these in the next generation desktops, too? So that people won't need those noisy fans and big honkin power supplies? Most people are just running email, Word and a browser.
I mean, as anyone looked seriously at the huge gap that exists between how much of the desktop CPU power is actually needed versus how much is available if the processor runs flat out?
If there were some multimedia hardware implementations in these things, I doubt there would be much need for anyone to go out and buy a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 or whatever McKinley/Madison.
Those minority applications that really need CPU power should just use a rack of these things.
I commented several months ago about this but couldn't find it using the search engine, so I'll just repeat, roughly, what I said earlier.
Privacy advocates and advocates of Content Use Restriction (DRM) have a shared goal.
You, the liberty loving individual, don't want big bad governments and corporations using data about you without your permission. You want control over that data.
Purveyors of digitized content don't want tiny bad people "pirates" using their data without their permission. They want control over that data.
A rock-solid data tagging and protection system, (you know, the impractical kind) would provide a means to meet not only the needs of individuals seeking ownership and protection of their own data from duplication, but would simultaneously provide similar technology to media distributors seeking ownershop and protection of their data from duplication.
When I first realized this I was kind of taken aback, because, like many here, I've always place a higher value on the protection of my data than on the protection of someone else's data. That same disconnect will continue to confuse many advocates on both sides of the issue.
My own view is pragmatic: if it were easily possible to protect data this way, fine. But it's not. Once it's out there, it's beyond your control, just as for millenia, your spoken and written words have been able to disseminate beyond your control.
Benchmarking is the key. And, it pays to do it every few years or so, as compilers and hardware and software platforms evolve.
While not related directly to your I/O question, a colleague found that earlier benchmarks we had done for floating point intensive calculations which showed FORTRAN beating C++ by about a factor of two were outdated. Current tests show them comparable in speed (as long as you're not too careless with your C++).
I think I/O in C++ can be reasonably fast for most purposes, but again, as long as your careful about how you do it.
Right, now I remember there used to be some A/UX for the Apple back in the 1980s.
Then, too, even earlier, there used to be Xenix for the PC by MS.
Mebbe Redmond should come up with it's own 2nd generation UNIX?
Then, every major OS could be a UNIX variant and easier to cross port.
Also, MS would have a chance to prove it can compete on a level playing field. They have talented staff, probably many with UNIX experience. Let them loose instead of having them tend the spaghetti of Windows and Office!
Ignoring for the moment all of the justifiable outrage about invasions of privacy, etc. I got to wondering:
How much information and profiling can you do with Spyware?
It seems that with microphones and webcams it should be possible to assemble quite a profile on a household.
Even the easy stuff, like checking the audio to see if Joe Consumer has his TV tuned into OurAdvertiser's station, when they change the channels, whether they answer that SpamPhoneCall, what time of day people take a dump, etc.
You could find out more about a person's life than they themselves could consciously remember.
Not entrapment... unless its a phat car... with the doors unlocked... the keys in... the engine running... and a wad of benjamins hanging out of the glove compartment.
A car like that would be less vulnerable to theft.
Most any streetwise person would accurately presume said vehicle belongs to a drug dealer.
Drug dealers punish foes with a lot less mercy than virtually any cop.
Q.E.D.
P.S. By the same token, a DrugDealerCar is not what you want to take back and forth on your next holiday vacation in Tijuana. Not unless you enjoy waiting in line for long searches.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm running SuSE 7.3 and have bought their distros since 6.1.
I really like the way that SuSE comes with so many applications that you can install. With large disks, there's little reason to be without any of the many open source applications out there.
Yes, once in a while you can see the European origins of this distribution, like in the A4 bias for default paper sizes, but generally they're pretty good about providing "en" language users a good interface.
Everybody's doing basically the same thing, and the performance is within 10% of the next guy.
And in spades, too!
It cracks me up to see some of the "comparisons" in some of the print publications which show glossy colored bar graphs that end up within about 2% of each other.
So much of modern PCs are really the same in terms of performance. The PC mags are for computer buying like Car & Driver are for car buying - sexy performance tests and "the experience", but little in the way of real life "going to the grocery store" durability.
What they can't or won't show are statistics on driver fragility, what percentage have to get returned for warranty work, etc. I guess that doesn't sell computers (or advertisers).
It currently costs $10,000 to get 1 lb of material into orbit. How much would it take to get it to the moon? One hell of a lot.
You're right, but as others point out, the big project would rely on an in situ photovoltaic panel factory on the lunar surface instead of transporting the panels.
Nevertheless, I think it would be a good start to have a demonstration project, transporting and setting up earth-made panels on the moon just to see if we can beam some power back here.
At the very least, it would get people thinking about the project and its problems and get it in the public eye, which is essential to get funding in a representative democracy.
Just focussing people's minds on the problems is a good way to start solving them.
If we dismiss this idea out-of-hand as too expensive and impractical, it is pretty well doomed to remain too expensive and impractical.
Everyone knows that the average computer buyer just wants a bare-bones platform on which they can roll their own browser, media player, photo editor, etc.
Your sarcasm is correctly targeted when you're talking about the average consumer computer buyer.
But many large company IT departments prefer to have control over the exact suite of applications they roll out to their users and which they will be obligated to support.
Crime and violence are the result of failed government policies.
Hmmm. Some of the time, maybe. But I think a "functioning society" is not absolutely correlated with government policies.
There are plenty of examples of societies with lousy governmental policies and, yet, some fine, upstanding good citizens.
Likewise, there are places with progressive, enlightened governmental policies where, nevertheless, criminals can be found.
I think the roots of crime and violence grow much deeper into culture as a whole. It would be convenient if government policies were so effective, but my observation is that they are only roughly correlated with society's behavior.
VNC wasn't supposed to be remote control software in the beginning. It was supposed to be the foundation of a thin-client computing environment.
I swear, some of the best innovations are not carefully planned in advance, but spring forth from where you least expect them.
Well, a lot of it was under friendly questioning from his own lawyer.
I'm looking forward to the cross examination by the States' attorneys.
It should be quite entertaining. Although, I don't hold out hope for sound bites quite as colorful those gems in earlier trials where we got to hear about "pissing on Java" and "cutting off Netscape's air supply".
A joke I used to make long ago with another co-worker was how easily we could be distracted into sinking loads of time and energy into doing "Meta Work"
Instead of doing the job, we'd see where if we just put in a little bit more infrastructure, we'd be 10 times more productive doing the actual work.
The Meta Work paid off, when the time came to the real work, it had to be done at the last minute in a real hurry, since we'd been squandering all that time doing the MetaWork.
>>Are you going to financially back a lawsuit if one is filed?
>Someone ought to.
This has come up before, I'm sure of it.
While I agree that linking out with an extra layer of indirection to chillingeffects shows less balls than either showing the anti CoS links or showing the cached contents of the anti CoS links, I can see where the mere threat of the costs of the legal battle are enough to cast a chill on Google's management.
I thought there has been legislation, at least proposed, in various states that is intended to combat such legal tactics.
Essentially, if someone uses suits that turn out to be dismissed as frivolous as a way of encumbering you with legal bills to the point where your behavior effectively becomes constrained to their wishes, then you have an additional legal recourse.
But you can tell IANAL, and I don't know which states, if any, have statutes like this, nor do I know how far you have to go before you get to take advantage of them. I doubt they apply to the problem of intimidating DMCA letters, though.
I've been looking to find good video cards for high resolution flat panel monitors but want them to be driven digitally instead of with an analog signal (even one sneaking in through the analog connectors in the DVI-I connector).
But really high resolution displays have been made useless for many graphics cards that only support resolutions up to 1280x1024 or 1600x1200.
I had hoped that the recent nVidia chipsets would have some good TMDS hardware.
Do they?
I go to Salon, Slashdot,
One of the reasons I find Slashdot so interesting is the mix of viewpoints you find here.
The primary draw is technology, but the people bring in diverse viewpoints on other matters, ranging through "Megadittoes, Rush!" to "Down with the IMF!"
While I don't always agree with what I read here, and while many others probably disagree with what I have to say, we share an interest in new technology and have at least some capacity to assimilate new ideas, and even an interest in seeing new ideas.
How it is that Bill Gates is able to convey messages with so much DoubleSpeak in them, using soft bunny fluffy terms like "ecosystem" and "fostering innovation" while running a behemoth that bulldozes over innovation coming anywhere but from Microsoft, I figured I let you in on the secret.
He never finishes coherent sentences. His speech is riddled with hyphens, discontinuities that make it possible to say such things.
[According to Hard Drive, he refers to this manner of speaking as "high bandwidth" and actually "converses" with Steve Ballmer using this language.]
I doubt the court will be so enamored of it, though.
second, it is hard to get fired, unless youre a complete dumbass,
Great for dumbasses, not so great if you've been promoted to be in charge of a department full of dumbasses.
You're right. I stand corrected.
It was Linda Harrison, not Raquel Welch, that was in the original Planet of the Apes.
Funny, the way that the 3rd world is leading the charge in this particular area of new technology: VoIP.
It reminds of what was going on back in the early 1990s, when cell phone markets in India and other countries were booming, largely because cell phones provided so much more reliable service than the creating infrastructure of their land line telephone system.
I've heard that the cell phone business in many African countries is still lucrative, screwy government policies notwithstanding.
To cut energy consumption, Banias automatically shuts off its different subcomponents when not in use. Although it's designed for notebooks, the chip will also appear in thin "blade" servers.
That was my thought, too, when I heard about a chip that had a notebook-motivated balance between performance and power consumption.
That it would find some acceptance in the server room, where power dissipation issues loom large.
And then I thought: why stop there?
Why not use these in the next generation desktops, too? So that people won't need those noisy fans and big honkin power supplies? Most people are just running email, Word and a browser.
I mean, as anyone looked seriously at the huge gap that exists between how much of the desktop CPU power is actually needed versus how much is available if the processor runs flat out?
If there were some multimedia hardware implementations in these things, I doubt there would be much need for anyone to go out and buy a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 or whatever McKinley/Madison.
Those minority applications that really need CPU power should just use a rack of these things.
So, really, a Rachel Welch lookalike in a skimpy fur bikini may have actually fled a rampaging T-Rex."
Uh-huh.
I beg to differ.
When I saw Planet of the Apes for the first time and saw Raquel Welch in her fur bikini my first thought was NOT
rather I thought her DNA was spectacularly different from that of myself and most people I knew, and in very important ways.Holling's move makes more sense than you realize.
I commented several months ago about this but couldn't find it using the search engine, so I'll just repeat, roughly, what I said earlier.
Privacy advocates and advocates of Content Use Restriction (DRM) have a shared goal.
You, the liberty loving individual, don't want big bad governments and corporations using data about you without your permission. You want control over that data.
Purveyors of digitized content don't want tiny bad people "pirates" using their data without their permission. They want control over that data.
A rock-solid data tagging and protection system, (you know, the impractical kind) would provide a means to meet not only the needs of individuals seeking ownership and protection of their own data from duplication, but would simultaneously provide similar technology to media distributors seeking ownershop and protection of their data from duplication.
When I first realized this I was kind of taken aback, because, like many here, I've always place a higher value on the protection of my data than on the protection of someone else's data. That same disconnect will continue to confuse many advocates on both sides of the issue.
My own view is pragmatic: if it were easily possible to protect data this way, fine. But it's not. Once it's out there, it's beyond your control, just as for millenia, your spoken and written words have been able to disseminate beyond your control.
Right on.
Benchmarking is the key. And, it pays to do it every few years or so, as compilers and hardware and software platforms evolve.
While not related directly to your I/O question, a colleague found that earlier benchmarks we had done for floating point intensive calculations which showed FORTRAN beating C++ by about a factor of two were outdated. Current tests show them comparable in speed (as long as you're not too careless with your C++).
I think I/O in C++ can be reasonably fast for most purposes, but again, as long as your careful about how you do it.
By all means, benchmark!
If you're wearing all black then it's Okey Dokey to button up that top button on your shirt!
But be warned - wearing short pants that expose hairy calves is still considered gauche!
My privacy is right here, close at hand, safely put away in
~/.mozilla/default/3i7x8mr8.slt/cookies.txt
Right, now I remember there used to be some A/UX for the Apple back in the 1980s.
Then, too, even earlier, there used to be Xenix for the PC by MS.
Mebbe Redmond should come up with it's own 2nd generation UNIX?
Then, every major OS could be a UNIX variant and easier to cross port.
Also, MS would have a chance to prove it can compete on a level playing field. They have talented staff, probably many with UNIX experience. Let them loose instead of having them tend the spaghetti of Windows and Office!
Ignoring for the moment all of the justifiable outrage about invasions of privacy, etc. I got to wondering:
It seems that with microphones and webcams it should be possible to assemble quite a profile on a household.Even the easy stuff, like checking the audio to see if Joe Consumer has his TV tuned into OurAdvertiser's station, when they change the channels, whether they answer that SpamPhoneCall, what time of day people take a dump, etc.
You could find out more about a person's life than they themselves could consciously remember.
Not entrapment... unless its a phat car... with the doors unlocked... the keys in... the engine running... and a wad of benjamins hanging out of the glove compartment.
A car like that would be less vulnerable to theft.
Most any streetwise person would accurately presume said vehicle belongs to a drug dealer.
Drug dealers punish foes with a lot less mercy than virtually any cop.
Q.E.D.
P.S. By the same token, a DrugDealerCar is not what you want to take back and forth on your next holiday vacation in Tijuana. Not unless you enjoy waiting in line for long searches.