I agree that electic cars seem pretty far fetched, but not so much because of the energy use, but rather because of batteries. They don't work well, they aren't very reliable, they aren't efficient, and they are horrible for the environment.
Sure, carbon dioxide isn't good for the environment. Nitrogen oxide isn't good. Hydrocarbons aren't good. But none of those is anywhere as bad as the lead and other heavy metals used in batteries. If you have a car filled with batteries, there is going to be leakage, and the batteries have to be created and recycled often, and these processes aren't great for the environment either. The emissions from electric cars are small, but particularly potent.
Electrical power has great potential, but not with conventional batteries. And I haven't heard anything at all hopeful in the way of nonconventional batteries -- perhaps, in an indirect way, hydrogen power could qualify (hydrogen being created with electricity, then being used to power vehicles).
My own preference, though, is Personal Rapid Transit -- i.e, small, automated, elevated rail cars, powered off the rail.
I think a lot of the emphasis on electrical cars is because the auto industry doesn't want things to change much. Electric cars are unlikely to be economical or effective anytime soon -- all current examples are heavily subsidized -- and even if they do, the basic economics are largely like current cars. Innovative public transit is a much better solution. Buses suck, will always suck, and are no solution at all. Subways have potential in some areas, but most development has been car-based so they won't work everywhere. --
"non-free" stuff is stuff that we are allowed to distribute, but does
not fall under our Free Software Guidelines.
Just a note:
Some of the stuff in non-free is less free than others. For instance, I believe the Aladdin version of Ghostscript (gs-aladdin) is not legal to put on a CD that you sell. Stuff like this is why non-free doesn't show up on CDs generally (though I imagine there's only a handful of packages that have this problem). --
King is, to put it bluntly, a publisher's bitch. He is one of those 'silver bullet' writers who can shit on a piece of paper and sell a million copies of it. And you know how he managed that? By sticking to a well-defined, rigid, and marketable formula. In short, he's producing the literary equivalent of hamburgers because he knows he'll sell them.
You make it sound like hamburgers are bad. I like hamburgers, and I'm very annoyed when I order a hamburger and get something on wheat bread with sprouts -- I know it's good for me, but I ordered a hamburger.
King doesn't write great fiction. It does follow a formula, like most traditional stories and most of the rest of fiction. People like it. They don't become Better People through it. Sorry.
I mean, I can appreciate difficult literature. But I enjoy traditional literature with traditional formulas more -- and so do most people. Not everyone likes King's formula, but a lot of sci-fi and almost all fantasy is from a formula.
King writes to a formula and he does it pretty well. He doesn't jerk people around. He gives them their hamburger. --
I don't think static typing is very mathematical anyway. Most higher math deals with things in terms of properties, not types.
I don't know where you're getting this from, but it's really not true. If you've ever seen the rules for the static semantics of a language written down and the proofs of safety that accompany them, I don't see how you can not consider this math. The isomorphisms between logic, set theory, and types are well known, as well... care to elaborate?
I wasn't saying that static typing can't be expressed mathematically, but that mathematical expression is not well done with static typing.
I'm thinking of vector spaces and abstract algebra, where you have operations in a space. Something like * (times) can have an analog in a number of different spaces (i.e., different types). The implementation of * is dependant on the types involved, but the concept of * is abstract from the types.
Of course, some languages make "ab"+"cd" = "abcd", which messes things up. Addition and concatenation aren't really the same thing. But that's just bad language design.
Languages with dynamic typing can do really neat things -- creating a string buffer that simulates a file, a sorted collection that has (mostly) the same interface as an unsorted collection, etc. --
...I've found that most of my debugging needs are solved by:
Typechecker (~97%)
I have yet to see a difficult bug that is caught by a typechecker. Sure, typos, incorrect order of arguments, etc. These are the easy bugs, the ones that take little time to deal with in any system. The difficult bugs are ones where the program works, but works incorrectly. These are the time-suckers.
Fine-grained inspection of the system (objects and execution state) are what make for a good debugging system. gdb is okay -- certainly better than print statements and Deep Thought. Squeak still has the most pleasant and helpful debugger I've used -- in part because it was never an afterthought, being a language not created by mathematicians with fantasies of Correctness.
I don't think static typing is very mathematical anyway. Most higher math deals with things in terms of properties, not types. The analog in CS is methods. If something implements mathematical operations then it's a number, what the object actually is isn't terribly important. --
I think with the limitation of a 2D display with less than 100 dpi, we have approached the limit of what can reasonable be done with a modern GUI.
I don't see why. My vision is somewhat stereoscopic, but otherwise 2D. A high resolution monitor is pretty close to the resolution of my vision (unless I get real close). Monitors are pretty good conveyors of information.
Input devices (voice, etc) probably have a lot of room to grow. But the physical device of delivering information -- the monitor and sound card -- are pretty much maxed out. Thiner, cheaper, etc., doesn't make the information any better. --
I agree with this, but I think it's also important not to take it to far. Things that falsely mimic the real world are not helpful. My computer "desktop" is really only vaguely like an actual desktop. To extend the metaphor into drawers and what-not would be stupid -- drawers happen to be useful physical ways to keep objects, but they are lousy ways to keep data.
Many of the things around us are not particularly intuitive. If you really think about the interfaced involved with driving a car, it's very non-intuitive. You press things with your foot to stop and go. You twist something to change direction, but that change is dependant on speed, direction, and how much you've already turned the wheel. It's awful. But, with some practice, nearly everyone is able to figure it out.
What we should do with computers is to create a simple set of fundamental ideas which combine in powerful ways. These are the abstractions which people can use to do things they've never done before successfuly and without training. Files, or more generally objects, are probably one good abstraction. Currently the domain name/server abstraction is useful, but may be replaced. There are more of these -- perhaps with by defining a minimal set we can find a better interface.
I can manipulate files much more flexibly than I can manipulate my CD collection. Hell, every time I get a new CD I have to rearrange everything because my CD holders are a little tight on space. It's a mess. Computers can do better. We shouldn't cripple them by holding them to physical/metaphorical limitations. --
If you do not have the resources to teach interested children computer skills on a useful XT, then I'm afraid all the computing resources in the world are not going to help you.
How does knowledge of arcane hardware and operating systems form a prerequisite for teaching successfully using computers? Many teachers haven't been using computers in any serious way for more than a few years -- certainly few of them have been using computers since XT days. Considering the cost of a new computer, it would be a horrible waste of (human) resources to try to get XT's working and get the teachers using them successfully.
In third world countries, the situation is different. But not in the US. I'm not talking about teaching computer science. I'm talking about functional computers that you can use for word processing, a bit of programming (I think Logo is good for teaching math, but assembly is not relevant to children, and is hardly relevant to programmers), and the Internet. Word processing is possible, but annoying on old computers -- particularly trying to deal with the printing situation. (these details matter!) Logo can work on anything. The Internet (and all the benefits to a lab that networking brings) is not functional on older computers -- anything less than Windows 95, MacOS 7 or 8 (I'm not too knowlegable there) or Un*x is not worth trying to connect to the Internet.
Computers are tools with which a teacher can do good things -- but they are only helpful, not an end in themselves. The teacher should continue to concentrate on the students, not the computers. --
This is an example of something that happens to everything new in education.
Someone comes up with a new idea or a new tool -- outcome-based education, computers, open schooling... It becomes very popular, and there is pressure for schools to do something with it. So schools implement this new idea without really caring, without having any skill in it, and with only a small amount of practical information on how to make it work.
Surprise, surprise... it doesn't work well. The kids aren't learning. Maybe it's even harmful to them. But usually it's a waste of time, and the idea is becomes a reflection of the true values of the school system.
We can find, looking at computer education, that the values of the school system are to keep kids busy and occupied, and to help them pass tests. But it's hard to blame the school too much -- even if they really did want to do the right thing, it would still be hard. They still wouldn't have the personel. There still wouldn't be enough material for teachers to work with.
Perhaps computers are being pushed into schools somewhat prematurely. Or, at least the expectations are too high. Computers can't teach children, and they won't be able to anytime soon. But paper can't teach children either, but we aren't condemning the use of paper in schools.
That said, I think the idea of keeping computers from children until the 7th grade is a bad, highly reactionary idea. I also think keeping kids from reading until they are in third grade is a bad idea. More ideas and more stimulation can't be a bad thing. If computers are keeping children from ideas and stimulation that they really need to have, then that's a problem. But it's not computers' fault, it's the people who are defining the priorities for the children. --
how much does it cost to get large coporations to donate their old XT's and apples to your school? (hint: they're dying to use this as a tax writeoff).
Would that it weren't so, but those XT's are pretty damn useless in an educational setting. Oh, sure, if you have someone who knows how to work with them and it willing to put a ton of time into getting them set up, then sure, XT's might be slightly better than trash. But not much. 386's are worth more, but not much. 486's are passable if you can't do better. And it's not because the computers don't have fast hardware, but because used computers aren't a good investment of time.
In an institutional setting maintenance is really important. Working with discarded and eclectic equipment is painful and time-wasting. Educational organizations don't have lots of skilled people who can spend lots of time dealing with these things. They have a small numbers of people with usually very limited computer knowledged.
Some of the things schools have latched onto only make things more difficult. Using CDs in a lab is a bad idea. Using MacOS or Windows 95/98 with a lab can be quite difficult (RevRDist is great, but few schools seem to know about it). Having everyone with their personal floppy disk isn't great either. The technology is very flashy with absolutely no substance, and as a result computers aren't functional. And these are new computers, at that.
OpenClassroom (a Linux distribution aimed at education) could help a lot of this -- Un*x is much more appropriate for a situation with shared computers even at very young ages. But schools don't even really use more conventional tools that exist. --
There are specific laws in many countries regarding cutting communications to third-countries or
isolated communities, so we are not as worried about cutting service on microwave/fiber links as you
are.
Isn't this exactly what was done to Yugoslavia? (initial slashdot article, followup) The whole situation in Yugoslavia seemed to show how meaningless international law really is if the international powers-that-be want to do something.
Really, international law can't mean much of anything. Law without enforcement isn't really law. And the enforcement of law means an overriding authority with the ability to apply force. This does not exist -- and if it did exist, we'd have merely achieved a world-spanning nation-state. The only international force at the moment is political, not legal, and the UN is only a forum for this political interaction. The UN doesn't hold any real power itself. And at the base of international politics is always war (though it may be under different names).
I hate to seem pessimistic -- I really hope HavenCo makes it -- but if the UK (by itself, or as a proxy for the US) really cares to stop something in Sealand, it will do so. Probably under a pretext, but with the pathetic state of the media even a dumb pretext seems to be enough. Sure, you and I will know that it's bull, but I already know how much lying crap the US government lays out and the government don't seem too worried about me. Aid to Colombia is to fight drugs? Ha. Kosovo was to save Kosovars? Sure. Contras were freedom fighters? Right. Terrorism is a big threat in the US? I'm so scared.
I hope Ryan has read The Prince to get practical advice on the international politics that HavenCo desires to enter. Best of luck. --
The problem with PHP is that you start with a lot of HTML and a little code, which makes PHP seem perfect, but over time you wind up with lots of code that isn't organized at all because it's embedded in all your HTML pages, which makes the code very hard to maintain.
Perl, of course, has the opposite problem. You start with a simple database app with very little formatting, which makes a mod_perl script perfect for the job, but over time you start to add bells and whistles to the user interface until you again wind up with your code and HTML totally interspersed, which again makes maintenance very difficult.
I realize now that the design encouraged by Zope helps this. You can put most of your logic in External Methods -- Python files, which return Python objects -- and put the display logic in DTML (which is analogous to PHP, embedding Python in HTML).
You really need to have scripting on both sides (backend and display). The reason we define such a thing as "backend" is exactly so that we can reuse code. The display needs scripting, because reusable code doesn't output objects ready for display, because (by definition) ready for display is defined by the display.
I hadn't really thought about this duality much before, but now that I have I think I'll be more careful about how I make these distinctions. --
Giving warranties is a good thing, except when I have to do it.
I know you were mostly just noting irony, but...
Free software works on the premise that the author loses nothing by allowing more people to access their software, i.e., possession of software is non-exclusive. If there's a warranty then it does cost the author to distribute the software, because each user is a potential liability. --
What you've listed are the vices of XFree86, not X11 per se. In other words, you could find an X server implementation and/or X library implementation that would solve those problems you listed.
Maybe so, but I doubt it. X is, IMHO, engineered wrong. The X Server is run as root, even though only a portion of it needs this permission. As a result, highly complex parts of X have the ability to take down the computer (or the console, which is often the same thing).
Also, hardware support is at way too high a level. Something like GGI/KGI is a much better system. With that sort of seperation, one set of people could debug the hardware support, while another set of people could debug the graphics server (X) support.
X11R6 has been X11R6 for a long time. So why can't they do it right? Why can't XFree simply figure it out, get to a completely solid foundation, and then start adding more features? I think it's because of the hardware -- it muddies the waters. It also hurts anyone who wants to make an alternative to X, or (imagine) write a completely new version of X. --
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though, and I have a critical eye. Do other people feel the same way? That this is kludgy? Or does this have the potential to be the new aesthetic?
There's a few places where things don't render quite right, and those don't look that good. But that's just technical, and that will no doubt change.
Otherwise I don't really see what you're talking about. The images are all fairly clean, and for the most part they leave behind the faux-3D, which I think has gotten rather old and makes for funny shapes, where rectangular shapes are more usable. Screens are all 2D, why should the icons deny it? Also, 2D icons are easier to modify programatically, adding text, changing colors, etc.
I actually like the button proportions -- I still find icon/text buttons to be very bulky, but these screenshots show a more compact proportion than usual. --
I might be opposed to this patent because it stifles innovations and freedom. Some honorable souls are doing just that, but I think ends are more important than means and I think this patent is all good.
If this brings harm to the ability of advertisers to discover new ways to coerce the masses, so be it. Nothing comes for free, and every advertisement is paid for with a bit of our minds. "But we don't have to pay attention to advertisements" you say -- if that were true then advertisements wouldn't exist. We have to pay attention to the world around us, and you can't decide not to look at something until after you've looked at it. Free speach is fine and well, but I don't have to like other people's speach, and non-law based opposition to speach is essential. Especially when it's not even individuals speaking, but corporations -- who aren't individuals and shouldn't have the same rights that individuals have.
Self: a little outdated now but there are still some interesting ideas in it (many of them were used to develop Java). You can find it somewhere on sun's website.
SELF wasn't really a big new paradigm, though. It worked on a few interesting ideas: dynamic compilation (which became Java's JIT), prototype-based OO, and a new widget system (Morphic, which lives on in Squeak).
I think prototypes are an interesting alternative to classes for OO programming, and it's something that hasn't been very seriously pursued since then. It's a purification of OO in some ways, as too is SELF's insistence that all access to instance variables be through method calls.
Alan Kay, who coined "object oriented", said before that he really named it incorrectly, because he felt message passing was a more interesting and powerful concept. I think SELF moved more in that direction. --
There are other remedies, including NOT RELEASING THE CODE ANYMORE.
Of course, if the copyright holder is okay with this then this is an option. However, if you release the binary in violation of the GPL, you have infringed on the author's copyright and they have the right to get compensation and redress in court. Discontinuing the release of the code could be seen as a good faith effort to correct an unintential mistake. But it doesn't really correct past illegal actions.
If you've released a binary to anyone that includes GPL code, but have not released the complete source (under the GPL) to the same person, you've violated the license and the law (if the GPL stands up in a court...). You can't take the binary back to correct it. You can't make a new binary without the GPLed code to correct it.
There's two types of math with much different goals. Arithmetic and some simple problem solving (like learning to balance a checkbook) is one. These are the things people need to be functional in the world. Calculators don't make this unnecessary, though they make certain parts of it unnecessary. I never use long division and neither does anybody else. And a lot of programs aren't teaching it anymore.
Eventually, maybe this stuff won't be very necessary. When there is ubiquitous and omnipresent computing ability (chips in our heads?) and if we feel we can always trust these, then complicated arithmetic will be unnecessary. But kids spend a lot of time learning 5+3, and when you become an adult you need to be able to figure out simple math like that without an interruption in thought. These things that must be learned are mostly "math facts" - the basic bits of math that we must learn to solve without reducing them, i.e., you can't be very functional if you figure 6+3 by using your hands, but you must simply Know that 6+3=9.
Many (most?) kids don't really get much else than that. They are introduced to other things, but the introduction is poor and their attention is difficult to maintain on something that requires hard thought.
For instance, I say 6+3=9, but really people think "6 and 3 make 9". The deeper notion that 6+3=9 implies that 9-3=6. If you really understand this, answering 4x+2=10 is pretty easy (though is still requires a certain gestalt to achieve the specific value of x from the infinitite possibilities). But equality, timeless and hopelessly nonimperitive, is a very difficult concept. C's x=x+1 is far easier, though from a mathematical perspective is looks terribly confused.
Really, all these hard bits of math are philosophy, not skills, and certainly not science. There's not a lot of philosophy until college (and even most of that is dumb, but I won't digress). That's probably not the way it should be... and that the most inaccesible bit of philosophy -- math -- is the most emphasized is perhaps a bit peculiar. A question like "can killing be justified" is something you can relate to life. But when you really start thinking about probability, say, and the fact that there's a 50% chance that a coin will flip heads before you flip it, but that chance becomes 100% one way or the other after you've finished... it's awfully abstract.
So people say math is about teaching abstraction, and maybe it is. Being able to resolve the infinitude of possibilities into one solution.
So I think good math education is about exploring the intuitive (gestalt/right-brained) solution of problems, abstract (numerical, symbolic) and concrete ("real world"). Ironically, the most successful math students are rigorous and left-brained, because teachers like this and give problems that can be solved this way -- even though real problems that people actualy want to solve are seldom so easily solved. (this bias is by no means isolated to math, though) --
While scripting arguably makes life easier for power users, it is pretty much useless for novice users. Shells, emacs and vi are nice if you
already know what you're doing.
I haven't scripted in the GIMP yet, but I've used other peoples' scripts with much success and enjoyment. Anyone can, no matter how uneducated or uninterested in scripting and programming.
It's a matter of making it easy to extend a program. When it's easy to share those extensions, you make the program better and easier and allow it to evolve. --
No, a closed source driver is not better than nothing.
Tell that to the large number of people waiting for drivers that aren't forthcoming, who don't have the skills to write the driver themselves.
Anyone who expects to run Linux on their computer should really buy hardware with Linux in mind. For those who are using existing hardware, I don't think UDI would offer any benefit. It is unlikely that hardware manufactures are going to provide support for old hardware via UDI, because there's little economic benefit -- they've already sold their product, support or no support, so there's no reason put extra effort forth (unless you want to keep your good name, but that seems to mean little to most hardware manufactures).
Hardware support for Linux is pretty good right now. While not everything is supported, a little of everything is supported. If you want a nice graphics card, you can get one -- not any graphics card, but you don't need any graphics card, just a single one that works well.
UDI would keep even many good companies from releasing their specs, because they wouldn't have to do so to provide support. It would hurt Linux and its bretheren.
UDI drivers would (finally) separate out policy decisions and leave them in the kernel, where they belong. More improvements could be made to the kernel's driver code, because the API remains unchanged and drivers need not be recoded for architectural changes.
That's not the way things work. The ideal of providing the perfect abstraction is a nice, but unattainable, ideal. Innovation very often is a matter of changing the boundaries of abstraction. And Linux is great because there is that freedom to innovate. That freedom is one that is used a lot in the development of the kernel, and is part of what keeps the Linux kernel from getting too unwieldy.
There will be a UDI 1.1 or 2.0 or something. Even if the people behind UDI are quite intelligent and thoughtful, they aren't oracles, they can't see into the future, they can't predict what the demands on future APIs will be.
Open Source drivers don't need to predict the future, because they can change. If other Unices want to get the hardware support that Linux has, they can GPL their kernels and make their kernel APIs compatible with Linux's, and then they are set. This isn't wholely unreasonable. And if they don't, well, tough luck for them.
If Linux wants to get better hardware support, UDI offers almost nothing. Is someone going to make a UDI driver but not a Linux driver, because UDI has a 10% larger share? No. Are they going to make one for UDI because it's binary-only? Sure, but that's not what Linux needs.
UDI represents the best hope for "fringe" operating systems (e.g. HURD) to get comprehensive driver support.
I think it's highly unlikely the HURD people want anything to do with UDI. Don't support it for their benefit.
Troll Tech only gets rights to Qt derivatives (in the sense of copyright law), not to extensions.
I don't see the distinction. The relavent clause is this (from the QPL):
3. You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as patches. The following restrictions apply to modifications:
a. Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the Software.
b. When modifications to the Software are released under this license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer.
It is, altogether, a rather short license. It doesn't seem to make any definition of "modified Software" or derivative work. I would thus assume that anything that used a portion of QPLed code would fall under this clause, and that would include many forms of extensions (though again, extension is not well defined either).
This also clearly means that the initial developer has the right to distribute your free modifications under their proprietary license ("right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer."). This is a confusing notion, as each piece of the software has an initial developer, so I don't know why Troll Tech takes precedence...
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, carbon dioxide isn't good for the environment. Nitrogen oxide isn't good. Hydrocarbons aren't good. But none of those is anywhere as bad as the lead and other heavy metals used in batteries. If you have a car filled with batteries, there is going to be leakage, and the batteries have to be created and recycled often, and these processes aren't great for the environment either. The emissions from electric cars are small, but particularly potent.
Electrical power has great potential, but not with conventional batteries. And I haven't heard anything at all hopeful in the way of nonconventional batteries -- perhaps, in an indirect way, hydrogen power could qualify (hydrogen being created with electricity, then being used to power vehicles).
My own preference, though, is Personal Rapid Transit -- i.e, small, automated, elevated rail cars, powered off the rail.
I think a lot of the emphasis on electrical cars is because the auto industry doesn't want things to change much. Electric cars are unlikely to be economical or effective anytime soon -- all current examples are heavily subsidized -- and even if they do, the basic economics are largely like current cars. Innovative public transit is a much better solution. Buses suck, will always suck, and are no solution at all. Subways have potential in some areas, but most development has been car-based so they won't work everywhere.
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Some of the stuff in non-free is less free than others. For instance, I believe the Aladdin version of Ghostscript (gs-aladdin) is not legal to put on a CD that you sell. Stuff like this is why non-free doesn't show up on CDs generally (though I imagine there's only a handful of packages that have this problem).
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King doesn't write great fiction. It does follow a formula, like most traditional stories and most of the rest of fiction. People like it. They don't become Better People through it. Sorry.
I mean, I can appreciate difficult literature. But I enjoy traditional literature with traditional formulas more -- and so do most people. Not everyone likes King's formula, but a lot of sci-fi and almost all fantasy is from a formula.
King writes to a formula and he does it pretty well. He doesn't jerk people around. He gives them their hamburger.
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I'm thinking of vector spaces and abstract algebra, where you have operations in a space. Something like * (times) can have an analog in a number of different spaces (i.e., different types). The implementation of * is dependant on the types involved, but the concept of * is abstract from the types.
Of course, some languages make "ab"+"cd" = "abcd", which messes things up. Addition and concatenation aren't really the same thing. But that's just bad language design.
Languages with dynamic typing can do really neat things -- creating a string buffer that simulates a file, a sorted collection that has (mostly) the same interface as an unsorted collection, etc.
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Fine-grained inspection of the system (objects and execution state) are what make for a good debugging system. gdb is okay -- certainly better than print statements and Deep Thought. Squeak still has the most pleasant and helpful debugger I've used -- in part because it was never an afterthought, being a language not created by mathematicians with fantasies of Correctness.
I don't think static typing is very mathematical anyway. Most higher math deals with things in terms of properties, not types. The analog in CS is methods. If something implements mathematical operations then it's a number, what the object actually is isn't terribly important.
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Input devices (voice, etc) probably have a lot of room to grow. But the physical device of delivering information -- the monitor and sound card -- are pretty much maxed out. Thiner, cheaper, etc., doesn't make the information any better.
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Many of the things around us are not particularly intuitive. If you really think about the interfaced involved with driving a car, it's very non-intuitive. You press things with your foot to stop and go. You twist something to change direction, but that change is dependant on speed, direction, and how much you've already turned the wheel. It's awful. But, with some practice, nearly everyone is able to figure it out.
What we should do with computers is to create a simple set of fundamental ideas which combine in powerful ways. These are the abstractions which people can use to do things they've never done before successfuly and without training. Files, or more generally objects, are probably one good abstraction. Currently the domain name/server abstraction is useful, but may be replaced. There are more of these -- perhaps with by defining a minimal set we can find a better interface.
I can manipulate files much more flexibly than I can manipulate my CD collection. Hell, every time I get a new CD I have to rearrange everything because my CD holders are a little tight on space. It's a mess. Computers can do better. We shouldn't cripple them by holding them to physical/metaphorical limitations.
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In third world countries, the situation is different. But not in the US. I'm not talking about teaching computer science. I'm talking about functional computers that you can use for word processing, a bit of programming (I think Logo is good for teaching math, but assembly is not relevant to children, and is hardly relevant to programmers), and the Internet. Word processing is possible, but annoying on old computers -- particularly trying to deal with the printing situation. (these details matter!) Logo can work on anything. The Internet (and all the benefits to a lab that networking brings) is not functional on older computers -- anything less than Windows 95, MacOS 7 or 8 (I'm not too knowlegable there) or Un*x is not worth trying to connect to the Internet.
Computers are tools with which a teacher can do good things -- but they are only helpful, not an end in themselves. The teacher should continue to concentrate on the students, not the computers.
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Someone comes up with a new idea or a new tool -- outcome-based education, computers, open schooling... It becomes very popular, and there is pressure for schools to do something with it. So schools implement this new idea without really caring, without having any skill in it, and with only a small amount of practical information on how to make it work.
Surprise, surprise... it doesn't work well. The kids aren't learning. Maybe it's even harmful to them. But usually it's a waste of time, and the idea is becomes a reflection of the true values of the school system.
We can find, looking at computer education, that the values of the school system are to keep kids busy and occupied, and to help them pass tests. But it's hard to blame the school too much -- even if they really did want to do the right thing, it would still be hard. They still wouldn't have the personel. There still wouldn't be enough material for teachers to work with.
Perhaps computers are being pushed into schools somewhat prematurely. Or, at least the expectations are too high. Computers can't teach children, and they won't be able to anytime soon. But paper can't teach children either, but we aren't condemning the use of paper in schools.
That said, I think the idea of keeping computers from children until the 7th grade is a bad, highly reactionary idea. I also think keeping kids from reading until they are in third grade is a bad idea. More ideas and more stimulation can't be a bad thing. If computers are keeping children from ideas and stimulation that they really need to have, then that's a problem. But it's not computers' fault, it's the people who are defining the priorities for the children.
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In an institutional setting maintenance is really important. Working with discarded and eclectic equipment is painful and time-wasting. Educational organizations don't have lots of skilled people who can spend lots of time dealing with these things. They have a small numbers of people with usually very limited computer knowledged.
Some of the things schools have latched onto only make things more difficult. Using CDs in a lab is a bad idea. Using MacOS or Windows 95/98 with a lab can be quite difficult (RevRDist is great, but few schools seem to know about it). Having everyone with their personal floppy disk isn't great either. The technology is very flashy with absolutely no substance, and as a result computers aren't functional. And these are new computers, at that.
OpenClassroom (a Linux distribution aimed at education) could help a lot of this -- Un*x is much more appropriate for a situation with shared computers even at very young ages. But schools don't even really use more conventional tools that exist.
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Really, international law can't mean much of anything. Law without enforcement isn't really law. And the enforcement of law means an overriding authority with the ability to apply force. This does not exist -- and if it did exist, we'd have merely achieved a world-spanning nation-state. The only international force at the moment is political, not legal, and the UN is only a forum for this political interaction. The UN doesn't hold any real power itself. And at the base of international politics is always war (though it may be under different names).
I hate to seem pessimistic -- I really hope HavenCo makes it -- but if the UK (by itself, or as a proxy for the US) really cares to stop something in Sealand, it will do so. Probably under a pretext, but with the pathetic state of the media even a dumb pretext seems to be enough. Sure, you and I will know that it's bull, but I already know how much lying crap the US government lays out and the government don't seem too worried about me. Aid to Colombia is to fight drugs? Ha. Kosovo was to save Kosovars? Sure. Contras were freedom fighters? Right. Terrorism is a big threat in the US? I'm so scared.
I hope Ryan has read The Prince to get practical advice on the international politics that HavenCo desires to enter. Best of luck.
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You really need to have scripting on both sides (backend and display). The reason we define such a thing as "backend" is exactly so that we can reuse code. The display needs scripting, because reusable code doesn't output objects ready for display, because (by definition) ready for display is defined by the display.
I hadn't really thought about this duality much before, but now that I have I think I'll be more careful about how I make these distinctions.
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Whatever danger you perceive, I (and tuffy, I think) just don't see it. Your speculation will have to be a little more concrete.
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Free software works on the premise that the author loses nothing by allowing more people to access their software, i.e., possession of software is non-exclusive. If there's a warranty then it does cost the author to distribute the software, because each user is a potential liability.
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Also, hardware support is at way too high a level. Something like GGI/KGI is a much better system. With that sort of seperation, one set of people could debug the hardware support, while another set of people could debug the graphics server (X) support.
X11R6 has been X11R6 for a long time. So why can't they do it right? Why can't XFree simply figure it out, get to a completely solid foundation, and then start adding more features? I think it's because of the hardware -- it muddies the waters. It also hurts anyone who wants to make an alternative to X, or (imagine) write a completely new version of X.
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Otherwise I don't really see what you're talking about. The images are all fairly clean, and for the most part they leave behind the faux-3D, which I think has gotten rather old and makes for funny shapes, where rectangular shapes are more usable. Screens are all 2D, why should the icons deny it? Also, 2D icons are easier to modify programatically, adding text, changing colors, etc.
I actually like the button proportions -- I still find icon/text buttons to be very bulky, but these screenshots show a more compact proportion than usual.
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If this brings harm to the ability of advertisers to discover new ways to coerce the masses, so be it. Nothing comes for free, and every advertisement is paid for with a bit of our minds. "But we don't have to pay attention to advertisements" you say -- if that were true then advertisements wouldn't exist. We have to pay attention to the world around us, and you can't decide not to look at something until after you've looked at it. Free speach is fine and well, but I don't have to like other people's speach, and non-law based opposition to speach is essential. Especially when it's not even individuals speaking, but corporations -- who aren't individuals and shouldn't have the same rights that individuals have.
Of course, there's always junkbuster.
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SELF wasn't really a big new paradigm, though. It worked on a few interesting ideas: dynamic compilation (which became Java's JIT), prototype-based OO, and a new widget system (Morphic, which lives on in Squeak).
I think prototypes are an interesting alternative to classes for OO programming, and it's something that hasn't been very seriously pursued since then. It's a purification of OO in some ways, as too is SELF's insistence that all access to instance variables be through method calls.
Alan Kay, who coined "object oriented", said before that he really named it incorrectly, because he felt message passing was a more interesting and powerful concept. I think SELF moved more in that direction.
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If you've released a binary to anyone that includes GPL code, but have not released the complete source (under the GPL) to the same person, you've violated the license and the law (if the GPL stands up in a court...). You can't take the binary back to correct it. You can't make a new binary without the GPLed code to correct it.
But of course, IANAL.
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Eventually, maybe this stuff won't be very necessary. When there is ubiquitous and omnipresent computing ability (chips in our heads?) and if we feel we can always trust these, then complicated arithmetic will be unnecessary. But kids spend a lot of time learning 5+3, and when you become an adult you need to be able to figure out simple math like that without an interruption in thought. These things that must be learned are mostly "math facts" - the basic bits of math that we must learn to solve without reducing them, i.e., you can't be very functional if you figure 6+3 by using your hands, but you must simply Know that 6+3=9.
Many (most?) kids don't really get much else than that. They are introduced to other things, but the introduction is poor and their attention is difficult to maintain on something that requires hard thought.
For instance, I say 6+3=9, but really people think "6 and 3 make 9". The deeper notion that 6+3=9 implies that 9-3=6. If you really understand this, answering 4x+2=10 is pretty easy (though is still requires a certain gestalt to achieve the specific value of x from the infinitite possibilities). But equality, timeless and hopelessly nonimperitive, is a very difficult concept. C's x=x+1 is far easier, though from a mathematical perspective is looks terribly confused.
Really, all these hard bits of math are philosophy, not skills, and certainly not science. There's not a lot of philosophy until college (and even most of that is dumb, but I won't digress). That's probably not the way it should be... and that the most inaccesible bit of philosophy -- math -- is the most emphasized is perhaps a bit peculiar. A question like "can killing be justified" is something you can relate to life. But when you really start thinking about probability, say, and the fact that there's a 50% chance that a coin will flip heads before you flip it, but that chance becomes 100% one way or the other after you've finished... it's awfully abstract.
So people say math is about teaching abstraction, and maybe it is. Being able to resolve the infinitude of possibilities into one solution.
So I think good math education is about exploring the intuitive (gestalt/right-brained) solution of problems, abstract (numerical, symbolic) and concrete ("real world"). Ironically, the most successful math students are rigorous and left-brained, because teachers like this and give problems that can be solved this way -- even though real problems that people actualy want to solve are seldom so easily solved. (this bias is by no means isolated to math, though)
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It's a matter of making it easy to extend a program. When it's easy to share those extensions, you make the program better and easier and allow it to evolve.
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What I wonder is, what operating systems do B1-ready systems run at the present?
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Hardware support for Linux is pretty good right now. While not everything is supported, a little of everything is supported. If you want a nice graphics card, you can get one -- not any graphics card, but you don't need any graphics card, just a single one that works well.
UDI would keep even many good companies from releasing their specs, because they wouldn't have to do so to provide support. It would hurt Linux and its bretheren.
That's not the way things work. The ideal of providing the perfect abstraction is a nice, but unattainable, ideal. Innovation very often is a matter of changing the boundaries of abstraction. And Linux is great because there is that freedom to innovate. That freedom is one that is used a lot in the development of the kernel, and is part of what keeps the Linux kernel from getting too unwieldy.There will be a UDI 1.1 or 2.0 or something. Even if the people behind UDI are quite intelligent and thoughtful, they aren't oracles, they can't see into the future, they can't predict what the demands on future APIs will be.
Open Source drivers don't need to predict the future, because they can change. If other Unices want to get the hardware support that Linux has, they can GPL their kernels and make their kernel APIs compatible with Linux's, and then they are set. This isn't wholely unreasonable. And if they don't, well, tough luck for them.
If Linux wants to get better hardware support, UDI offers almost nothing. Is someone going to make a UDI driver but not a Linux driver, because UDI has a 10% larger share? No. Are they going to make one for UDI because it's binary-only? Sure, but that's not what Linux needs.
I think it's highly unlikely the HURD people want anything to do with UDI. Don't support it for their benefit.Check out compgeeks.
3. You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as patches. The following restrictions apply to modifications:
It is, altogether, a rather short license. It doesn't seem to make any definition of "modified Software" or derivative work. I would thus assume that anything that used a portion of QPLed code would fall under this clause, and that would include many forms of extensions (though again, extension is not well defined either).This also clearly means that the initial developer has the right to distribute your free modifications under their proprietary license ("right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer."). This is a confusing notion, as each piece of the software has an initial developer, so I don't know why Troll Tech takes precedence...