Microsoft needs a real punch in their face before they will realize that they have taken the computer industry hostage through the 90's. If/When they adopt Open Source, just MAYBE they'll be lovable. But Microsoft will have to do like IBM, begin sharing more freely with the computer using community. Without nasty plans of conquering the world. You'd think people would have learned after WW1 and WW2, but some have just shifted the war to the business arena.
I wouldn't depend on B&N to fight the battle for us. It would be nice, but they are probably reluctant to fight the patent itself. Rather the defence would involve differences in implementation. The worst result for us would be a settlement.
Guess who'd be paying for an "Amazon-One-Click E-Commerce Tax" in the end?
This is not my idea and I have no specific details for supporting it. But from what I have heard speculated at different places, the "junk-regions" of the DNA could house a chemical history of previous generations for each individual. Don't take my word for it though, it's just a thought to the mind-provoking 'junk DNA'.
You forget that Microsoft must be free to innovate. So if they want it to sound like their gadgets get their power, ie. charge or energy-source, from Windows, they must be free to reinvent the english language for the benefit of the unenlightened consumer.
You talk from fear-based logic. Every huge success in business is based on bold actions.
For the past 10 years unprofessional marketing has proven superior in winning a consumer base. Just hype your product, announce releases prematurely, invade public boards with anonymous infiltrators, support computer magazine reporters with products and money, fake scandals, spread FUD, etc.. etc. It's a loong story, and you've probably heard it all before.
With these tactics, you may get an edge over competitors. Even those with superior products. You generate a contagious wave of people willing to buy your products. The problem is just that not every business in the industry has been willing to go to such lows as some companies have. In fact, due to their high profile, they couldn't afford such a thing! These companies has been suffering under the general ignorance of the public.
Luckily for these high profile companies, low tactics always backfires someday. People are waking up recognizing themselves as victims. Ultimately they will retake responsibility, not letting business giants rule their lives anymore.
The future of computing lie in increased openness, collaboration, interoperability, quality and providing services. Because this is what consumers will want. Also, types of applications that has proven their worth will be cheaper as it is with every established technology. Maybe even gratis in many circumstances, certainly in Open Source projects.
If you still wonder why giving out free downloads, think of it as an investment in the future. The future for companies will not be delivering products, but leading the development. As it should have been from the start.
I haven't coded for Direct3D or OpenGL myself. But from what I hear from dozens of colleagues and friends who have, OpenGL is a superior industry standard. The game community with its consumers would be best served to turn away from Microsoft in this matter. As Microsoft's only goal is to dominate the market, at all costs. And it's just too bad they're much better at marketing and buying, than they are at programming. And lying to their customers.
From my perspective, companies like IBM and SGI are great examples to the rest of the computer industry. They have rock-solid integrity and are willing to follow the winds of change in the industry. These are the companies that are going to prevail in the long run.
If I were an ET, I sure as hell wouldn't give the human race access to all those things. First we need to learn to coexist peacefully and happily. We can't fix our problems by just fixing the symptoms, ie lack.
This is the old Blame Game we people are so eager to participate in. The goal of the game is to find a scapegoat as remote from ourselves as we can possibly get. The number of scapegoats should be as few as possible too, just to reduce the complexity to get to a crystal clear "solution".
Remember, Blame is just a human construct, an illusion of the intellectual mind. Just as the conception of "wrongness". It's an ongoing effort to judge Cause and Effect, always changing with the political, religious and common beliefs. Alas, the solution seems always to be amputating unwanted elements as a misguided effort to improve our lives. Utilizing violence to redeem the faults of our society and how we live it as individuals. When do you think this simple strategy will finally have removed all the "bad elements"?
Next thing, they'll probably lock up Software Developers in prisons. Oh, wait, that's done already. Dang!
It all depends on the compiler. Most compilers push and pop all registers to/from the stack when executing inline assembler code. So you get a HUGE performance hit if you don't do most of the looping inside the assembler code.
I remember Watcom C++, a Windows/DOS compiler, supporting pure inline assembly by providing them as inline functions. Thus instead of using an inline C++ function, you could write an inline assembly function, callable by C. The programmer was also responsible himself to save and restore the proper state of registers. So nothing was lost, everything was gained. Although, you had to know what you were doing.
Despite Watcom C++ being superior in all areas, it was still beaten by MS Visual C++ in "fair and square" marketing.
Yes, it is true the Roman number system lacks the number 0. It is also true that we begin counting _items_ from 1.
But from a mathematical standpoint, 0 is the obvious startingpoint when you are dealing with length. Thus viewing time as a dimension and projecting it into one of our 3 dimensions, leaves you with a timespan with a set length. Look at a ruler. You'll find yourself measuring the length by starting at 0. This is the mathematically sane way to go about it. Why make it complicated, just because we "didn't have 0 before"? Mathematically, we should start at 0 anyways. It isn't like there didn't exist anything before year 1 you know.
You may say year 1 is the first year of our history, big deal. That doesn't mean the rest of us are morons, idiots or obtuse. It just means you feel you need to pick on others to make yourself superior, which is really pitiful. You are probably one of those who'll look up the word 'obtuse' in one or more dictionaries, and point out why I shouldn't have used that word in that context. You are probably one of those who fails to see the obvious, and endlessly debates it. You could never be wrong could you?
Moderate me down all you like, but why put up yet another story about how Microsoft is going to be sued in the future? This is the third such article I read here on/. And it's all a waste of bandwidth and an attempt at forcing us to go with the media flow. Just because everyone else now shouts "FOUL!" at Microsoft, doesn't mean we suddenly have to be running along with them.
Why not just wait until the lawsuit has been made?
The type of business magazines like "PC Magazine", "Computer World" and "Byte" has always been compromised by their advertisers. Not in terms of products, but their perspective on the computer world. Why do you think everyone wanted MS Windows in the first place? From computer magazine of course. They never ran any stories about UNIX, Mac or any other superior system on the block. Now, if they were to perish, to me, that would only mean one less channel of advertising [you pay for] in this world.
I think the main point of the article was about the function of the GPL preventing people from copying a GPLed work and releasing the modified work under their own license. This does not prevent forking. Rather, it makes it possible to reemerge, or letting the public favour the most popular project if the other is stagnating.
I'm not living in the illusion Linux can never fork. It probably will, if/when it gets popular enough in the business world. But the article basically said this is nothing much to fear, because of the GPL. Quite the opposite of FUD IMHO.
For the GPL to be tested in court and enforced remains to be seen. But I doubt any respectable company out there will try to exploit any holes in the GPL. It's bad for business in the long run to become unpopular in the public, and a huge risk of losing large parts of the income in future lawsuits.
You're probably right that the facts are wrong, certainly over-simplified. They usually are in our history books too. Just remember there are many ways to view a situation, in the present as well as in the future.
I think the main point of the article was about the function of the GPL preventing people from copying a GPLed work and releasing the modified work under their own license. This does not prevent forking. Rather, it makes it possible to reemerge, or letting the public favour the most popular project if the other is stagnating. I'm not living in the illusion Linux can never fork. It probably will, if/when it gets popular enough in the business world. But the article basically said this is nothing much to fear, because of the GPL. Quite the opposite of FUD IMHO. For the GPL to be tested in court and enforced remains to be seen. But I doubt any respectable company out there will try to exploit any holes in the GPL. It's bad for business in the long run to become unpopular in the public, and a huge risk of losing large parts of the income in future lawsuits. You're probably right that the facts are wrong, certainly over-simplified. They usually are in our history books too. Just remember there are many ways to view a situation, in the present as well as in the future. - Steeltoe
Sun's only interest regarding Java is in money revenue from their own OS, servers and future thin-client model it seems. Pretty pathetic when you think that Java is supposed to be cross-platform. They refuse to make it Open Source, and to cooperate with grass-root initiatives.
But someone[tm] did a port of the various versions of JDK and JRE for Linux, including v1.2:
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html
Hopefully this will compile under BSD with no- or little modification. According to OpenBSD-homepages, BSD is very compatible with Linux. But I have honestly never tried BSD myself, so I cannot know to what extent.
I would've written this in HTML if only/a had worked.
I think the moderation is fair, although he makes a good argument. Flamebait means that we'd just be discussing off-topic details back and forth. It would be an argument for argument's sake, and happen everytime such a topic is raised. It's too controversial, hot, hung up in definitions and perspectives, too black and white. Remember, a 0 doesn't necessarily mean the post was _bad_..
Myself, I find it silly to discuss wether Linux is virusproof or not, in the manner it is usually done on public boards. Nothing is by definition. But that doesn't mean Linux isn't *MUCH* more secure than any MS Windows version regarding viruses. There are lots of obvious reasons for this, including extreme hate for Windows from potential virus-writers. Linux is also a bit more vulnerable to _effective_ viruses than Windows, due to lack of anti-virus software. But as long as no viruses are detected, noones complaining. In their post, however, some Linux-fans are indeed too confident in their favourite OS.
About the perl script, a good idea, but not all Linux machines got perl. A meta-shell script may be better, but the real problem lie in how to spread this thing. First generation offspring would infect the very few who downloaded it from your site. That's fine, a good virus will spread anyways, possibly destroying the host after a long incubation time. But Linux lacks efficient ways for distributing the offspring viruses, without resorting to security holes. I really doubt you could make a really effective virus. The diversity of Linux and unix is just too great, and responsible users don't/shouldn't run as root very much.
The reason I prefer KDE is that I can very quickly redesign and configure my desktop through a "standard" GUI interface. This is how I am used to do it, although we used WindowMaker in school, there's only so many HOWTO's you think is fun to read. I have no need to make my desktop very "fancy" by compiling my own animated menus or the like. Especially not specifying geometry on all my programs.
The key here is to respect the view of others in this matter. If you want to edit text-files, please continue to do so. There will always be room for you, even though KDE and Gnome are more popular alternatives these days. They are big and ugly compared to more minimalistic WMs.
To put down Gnome a bit, I find it too buggy, too much CPU and memory intensitive, to enjoy using it. KDE is IMHO faster, cleaner and easier to use. Of course this may change as Gnome develops some more.
If we were all the same, all conforming to the established expert opinions, we would be far behind our current step of evolution. In fact the greatest leaps in history have been made by people who dared combat the stagnant dogmas of society. Dared search for another truths about our lives.
Quick evolution/development means you have to allow alot of flaws in the process. For example you need mutation of DNA to create a new unique branch not possible to make by just combining DNA-strings. But in nature, mutations usually represent a weakness, or disability for the individual. You seldom strike lucky, and most often the "good" genetic changes does not pass down to the next generation. However, sudden events or changes could mean a previously _perceived_ flaw, to become an advantage.
Understanding this, it becomes clear that everyone who cries "HOAX!" and ridicules alternative ways of thinking do an disservice to both themselves and others. For how can a closed mind learn things if it doesn't open up to all possibilities. It is just another way of limiting ourselves, and our capabilities.
It goes beyond that too. By judging others negatively, we show disrespect, ignorance and fear. It is completely natural and human, but we need to acknowledge our own feelings more. Learn why we do what we do, and break those mind patterns that are blocking the road ahead. Stop hiding everything under the carpet.
I don't know wether this skull is human or not. I just try to respect the views that everybody has on the matter, while doing a little reflection on my own. This last indisium are just one of many thousands indicating that alien has in fact visited us in the past (as "Gods"). Please, before judging and flaming now, read some books from Erich von Danicken or similar and get some background material. I'm not saying any of it are hard evidences for existance of aliens. What I'm saying is that they strongly indicate it, if you look at them from an open perspective. Science does not have all the answers yet. Many things in the world remains unexplained, or we have too easy and quick solutions for it. Just think, how much of older science was blatantly wrong, or "creative". How do we look at older science today. How do you think future humans will look at OUR science?
You just can't find something without looking for it. The greatest disservice we do to ourselves is ignoring strong clues. And only seeking for solution fitting our _current_ world-view. I bet if someone who didn't wonder got hold of the skull, it would be thrown away as garbage long ago. We should be thankful inquiring minds out there actually works on this on behalf of humanity.
This is typical 3-year-old talk. By proper upbringing, a child learns that it can't always have what it wants. We are all living in the same world, and we're sharing the same problems. Be reassured that whatever pains you feel, there are millions who share it with you.
Mozilla is an Open Source project, and was created from the start to be one. Which means the main part of the fun, is actually participating in the team. In some extreme cases, the final product is just a biproduct of the efforts. This means that people uses more time to design, code, redesign, recode and test. Just because they feel like making the best they can - to top their own and others' records. Just like in sports.
To read hundreds of comments about Mozilla being too unstable and we-need-a-workable-system-NOW!-mentality, STRONGLY reminds me of childishness. Good qualities in humans that relates to other human beings:
1) be respectful, patient, understanding and forgiving 2) don't take anything for granted 3) don't be disappointed 4) be thankful for what you get, both the good and the bad lessons
Of course you can rant and shout out your rage and frustration. But please don't do it at people actually working towards a solution.
It's very much like shooting yourself in the foot.
I have the same problem. The way Linux manages virtual memory and disk cache _by default_ doesn't scale well with common desktop use. Not to put down linux developers who knows exactly what's going on, but having such management too dynamical, lacking some intelligence, can severely hurt performance in some cases. That's my experience after all.
Technically I'd say there are a few solutions to the problem:
Dumb: 1) Set the size of disk cache statical. This is the easiest solution, but requires manual tuning of the system.
Intelligent: 2) Persistantly register the usage of files, how much they are being used when they first are being used/run, % of CPU, etc. The disk cache and VM can then operate better by sorting processes, memory areas and files by certain priority criterias. This can then be used to set a more averagely needed disk cache size, and to completely skip files you usually access once in a blue moon.
The more choices we have, the better chance of a perfect fit.
The real dangers of Y2k isn't the actual bug itself. But the fears and paranoia of people. As long as everyone remains calm, I believe we can find sane and peaceful solutions to every problem that may arise. Like sharing food and warmth with people who accidentally need it. This is an important aspect of any civilization. In fact I believe that it wouldn't be so bad if something really bad happened. We would learn a tremendous lot from such an experience, compared to our modern way of living. Where we seem to not care about our neighbours, or anything but ourself. With the convinience of modern life, we have detached from the notion that we are dependent on each other for survival. And that we live in this world together. - Steeltoe
The PATH variable is used to find executables to be run. Why the hell is this used as path to DLLs too?
You claim it to be simple, yet use nearly 2 pages of HTML to describe the process to find a DLL. And it doesn't even cover incompatible versions of DLLs, which is a PAIN in NT.
And you people blaming the apps for all these problems are just plain wrong. If Microsoft had provided a decent Installer, simple methods of finding DLLs+other components and a structured way of storing them, the clueless application makers of NT would have done the right thing. Do you really expect every company out there to make their own installer?
Why do applications clutter their DLLs all over the SYSTEM directory? Is this the application makers fault too? Do you really expect every individual company to do the right thing, the same thing and stay compatible. Not following the leader's example?
You conviniently left out the hassles of OCXes and other things which must be installed into the registry. (Another chapter all by itself)
How can anybody in their right mind defend the DLL "system"?
And I'm NOT saying the Linux system for libraries is perfect, it's just better handled by competent developers and semi-standard methods. It could always be made better, especially with restrictions and structure regulations from the system. Or just an agreement of standards among Linux distributions. It's incredible how little developers fuck up the system when they have the right tools for the job.
Tim O'Reilly is very insightful in his article, clearly and boldly describing what we don't want to hear. The once-geekly Internet, has become a booming bussiness for the mainstream public. This we know, but many has failed to see the implications.
Let's face the facts. Hobby-programming for the OSS has always been for the satisfaction of the programmer, not the general user. If this weren't true, projects like Gnome and KDE would have started years ago. You would be hard-pressed to find a geek that wants to satisfy clueless users. Just look at the man-pages in Linux, they're not exactly made for novices. There are no examples, and more thoroughly explanations couldn't hurt. Luckily, someone in the community is always willing to contribute HOWTOs, FAQs and other documents instead of having to help out everybody "in person"! But that is a feature, not the obvious intent of the original creators.
I believe the main direction of the OSS is one of pioneering and experimenting on new technical grounds. This is a rather broad direction, which unfortunately doesn't benefit the consumers right away. It is irrelevant to say that the OSS community lacks a direction as a whole. Since within it, there are many projects that do have a more concrete direction.
Businesses often boast to have long-term plans and directions. If you are going to make a company for example, you have to publicly state a "vision" for your company in the registration papers. But most successful businesses don't stick to their plans when trends are changing. In the worst case, older products are rendered obsolete and unsupported. Or perhaps even worse, smaller companies that suddenly shut down, with the owners starting a new company doing more lucrative business. It should be clear now to everyone that the main goal of commercial businesses is to make people pay you money. Everything else is secondary. If you can make just this goal work, you're a success (by Western standards). But to make money, they have to please consumers, and usually pile up a garbage-bin of features to satisfy them. Unlike OSS.
Admit it. We have always lagged behind the business regarding the general consumer for very obvious reasons! The OSS and business have been on two different playing fields the whole time!
With the emerging of new successful "Open Source" companies, the whole ballgame is taking on a different shape. Some are just distributing and packaging what you can get other ways almost for free. While others will build proprietary software ontop of Open Source technology, like Caldera with CDE. Yet others will offer installations, training and support. There are endless possibilities. But the new trend isn't using Open Source technologies, the new trend is actually recognizing it! In that way, we have won, and it's time for celebration!
But Tim paints us a different picture: Companies will exploit Open Source and make their own proprietary business standards on top of them! Especially when WWW becomes the platform for most future applications.
This is right in the backyard of big companies who want to create web-portals with endless possibilities (for making money). What Ubergeek wants to make a credit-card registration, validator and pay-system in his spare time? So this battle is clearly lost, unless we can get businesses to really understand the human benefits of Open Source. Not just monetary value of staying ahead of competitors. But this requires a fundamental change in our society as a whole, and ourself.
So I think the battle is both won and lost concerning the future Open Source. As long as capitalism and the human mind works as it works today, we're going to be stuck with closed-source and properietary de-facto standards from the industry for a long time. Just in a higher level of electronic service than before.
But don't take me as a pessimist. As industry recognizes their use of Open Source, they will value and support the OSS community. This should also have a positive effect on the people working in businesses: To witness that the concept really works, and is a more fun way of doing things.
Someday I think the people claiming closed competiton to be the most effective way of developing, will have to eat their words.
About the Turing test. There are many myths and legends about it. People claim certain knowledge of the test, but don't think them out and see what's wrong. Common sense applies more here, than any university degree.
One claim is that the Turing test is the only way we got to determine if a computer program is intelligent or not. This is derived out of the notion that we think we can recognize intelligence when we see it. But the test says nothing of common error probability (many humans have actually failed the test for being an AI), and the capabilities of the judges. If you read some of the transcripts from the past official Turing tests you'll be horrified how quick some judges are to judge, and what simple questions they ask. Many of them appear to be bored with it all. This also applies to the human candidates. Some of these faults in the past can be blamed on poorly written programs, that couldn't compete in any way. The past Turing tests actually had limited discussion topics, so that the programs could be programmed for a specific discussion topic. But think of a super-program (that is not super by today's standards) among those. It could actually pass in the tired and disappointed athmosphere four years ago. To quote from "Tomas Covenant The Unbeliever": Any test is just as good as the tester himself.
About Humans. In our arrogance we say that we are intelligent, and everything else is not. We are amazed and dazzled by pets who performs instant rescue operations in fires and drowning accidents. For how can animals be intelligent? We don't measure intelligence, we blatantly state that things around us that ain't human is not intelligent. By unconciously applying our own version of the Turing test to everything around us. Of course, many of us do regard animals as intelligent, to a lesser degree, but most humans think of intelligence as a binary state.
About Intelligence. But it can be measured. It's not an ON/OFF switch for us to decide it's state. Heck, we don't really have a clear-cut definition of intelligence even today! Other than that faulty "It's not human-like" negativity test, and IQ tests which is only a test to separate "dumb" people from the rest.
And there isn't just One Kind of Intelligence (to Rule them all). You have social-, technical-, langual-, mathematical-, logical-, motoric-, coordinatic- and many, many more intelligences. There exists no test that tests it all, and no tests are very accurate. Many people who are considered "dumb" really excell (how the hell is this bloody word spelled?;) in some more obscure areas. So we don't have a clue what it's all about!! Really. We just like to simplify things to the bone. And make ourselves look better than the crowd.
My definition of an intelligent system, is an open-minded and positive test. Wether I can measure it or not a system is intelligent to a certain degree if it contains information and processes this information within itself. It MAY receive input data, and it MAY emit output data, but that is only essential to my perspective of knowledge (not beliefs). The type of data-storage medium is not essential. Neither is the medium processing the data. The essential is that information is being altered inside the system, and fed back in a feed-back loop. Thus, the system has a way of "viewing itself" (definition of a reflective system).
The internal processes can involve operations like copy, addition, inverse, etc. These would be atomic functions. While multiplications, subtraction, divisions and exchanges would only be optimizations, since they always could be expressed by a set of atomic operations. But the data doesn't have to be numbers, and the atomic functions would be different for neural networks, images, symbols or even colours for instance.
To complicate things even more, processes could run in parallell internally in the system. In real life, nevral networks in our brains all process in parallell to a certain degree. (Ie. I'm sure there are semi-synchronisation methods between parts of the brain, even though they might be complex or chaotic)
In information theory, you can express any information in binary numbers (00101011). This simplifies things, but you'll need a non-ambigous specification to convert data both ways. Some types of data could perhaps be more effectively processed than strings of binary data (ie. linked-lists, images, chinese symbols), simplified in complex structures of binary strings.
Input and output data in a feedback-loop would permit the system to develop with its surroundings. To what extent is unknown. Ie, how much intelligence and knowledge would the two systems contribute to each other? Limitations would be imposed by information storage sizes, lack of atomic functions, dead-end loops, etc. Especially lack of creativity (a random function) would be a dramatic limitation to the extent of intelligence and knowledge possible to be learned and taught. Read-only areas in the system's data or process-storage would be another severe limitation.
Systems lacking a trait that exists in another system could interface with that other system in a symbiosis, to use the resources found there. This is in the extreme case the basic principle of an artificial neural network. Where everything is shared holographically in the structure of the neurons' connections (and each connections weights).
On the difference between intelligence, knowledge and their respective levels. The usual pit-trap is to not distinguish intelligence and knowledge. I prefer to define level of knowledge as the amount of non-redundant information a system can internally access within a given time/number of cycles. While level of intelligence to be complexity of a given task to be solved within a given time/number of cycles.
These levels are next to impossible to measure very accurately in real life, but of course you have imperfect methods. Just not count on them for anything else than what they are. One type of method is to measure intelligence from the output of the system, in light of the input data or not. You can also test intelligence by scanning the actual code and data the system consists of, if you are able to "X-ray" it. You will have to be able to determine how intelligent the algorithm is. Of course, in real life, the observation will always affect the state of a running system (Real life is ALWAYS On, darn;). In computer programs it will ne unaffected unless the technitian trips over a wire or something.
These definitions leaves one thing hanging if you're calculating in real-time: processing cycles per time unit (e.g. 450 MHz). I don't consider a system processing large amounts of data (a supercomputer) to be more intelligent, by the definition above and "common" reason. But you would have to multiply this speed with the intelligence level to get the total intelligence-effect (ie some of what Turing and IQ tests are really testing).
I know this is all hard and difficult to understand and think over. The definition is very impractical too. But it's a much better place to start, than just saying "I don't see the intelligence in this" when you haven't even decided for yourself what intelligence really is! That simply shows alot of ignorance. Besides it's the modern way to go. Most AI programmers building neural network live by it. (Sadly I'm not:(
The definition doesn't exclude anything physical the right to be intelligent. We human beings consists of thrillions of living cells. They in turn consist of billions of atoms and molecules. Which again turns out to consist of even smaller "particles" of less physical nature (see the religion of modern science [not a book, it's for real!;] ). All these particles (or more correctly multi-dimensional waves), are processing internal data and interacting with their surroundings. Therefore, everything physical can be considered to exhibit a certain degree of intelligence!!
I think this ALSO applies in cases where we are not able to detect the output data or the non-human intelligence in it. Science is too eager to test for negativity and simplify things, thus many creative theories are crushed by the latest dogmas. (Scientific people think they know better than everybody else just because they use fancy language to make themselves misunderstood.)
Now if you've grasped the ideas I've expressed here, you'll know that the Turing test is a bogus test. Both in the computer lab as well as in real life.
- Steeltoe (really tired of hearing those people say Turing test is all we got)
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft needs a real punch in their face before they will realize that they have taken the computer industry hostage through the 90's. If/When they adopt Open Source, just MAYBE they'll be lovable. But Microsoft will have to do like IBM, begin sharing more freely with the computer using community. Without nasty plans of conquering the world. You'd think people would have learned after WW1 and WW2, but some have just shifted the war to the business arena.
- Steeltoe
I wouldn't depend on B&N to fight the battle for us. It would be nice, but they are probably reluctant to fight the patent itself. Rather the defence would involve differences in implementation. The worst result for us would be a settlement.
Guess who'd be paying for an "Amazon-One-Click E-Commerce Tax" in the end?
- Steeltoe
This is not my idea and I have no specific details for supporting it. But from what I have heard speculated at different places, the "junk-regions" of the DNA could house a chemical history of previous generations for each individual. Don't take my word for it though, it's just a thought to the mind-provoking 'junk DNA'.
- Steeltoe
You forget that Microsoft must be free to innovate. So if they want it to sound like their gadgets get their power, ie. charge or energy-source, from Windows, they must be free to reinvent the english language for the benefit of the unenlightened consumer.
- Steeltoe
You talk from fear-based logic. Every huge success in business is based on bold actions.
For the past 10 years unprofessional marketing has proven superior in winning a consumer base. Just hype your product, announce releases prematurely, invade public boards with anonymous infiltrators, support computer magazine reporters with products and money, fake scandals, spread FUD, etc.. etc. It's a loong story, and you've probably heard it all before.
With these tactics, you may get an edge over competitors. Even those with superior products. You generate a contagious wave of people willing to buy your products. The problem is just that not every business in the industry has been willing to go to such lows as some companies have. In fact, due to their high profile, they couldn't afford such a thing! These companies has been suffering under the general ignorance of the public.
Luckily for these high profile companies, low tactics always backfires someday. People are waking up recognizing themselves as victims. Ultimately they will retake responsibility, not letting business giants rule their lives anymore.
The future of computing lie in increased openness, collaboration, interoperability, quality and providing services. Because this is what consumers will want. Also, types of applications that has proven their worth will be cheaper as it is with every established technology. Maybe even gratis in many circumstances, certainly in Open Source projects.
If you still wonder why giving out free downloads, think of it as an investment in the future. The future for companies will not be delivering products, but leading the development. As it should have been from the start.
- Steeltoe
I haven't coded for Direct3D or OpenGL myself. But from what I hear from dozens of colleagues and friends who have, OpenGL is a superior industry standard. The game community with its consumers would be best served to turn away from Microsoft in this matter. As Microsoft's only goal is to dominate the market, at all costs. And it's just too bad they're much better at marketing and buying, than they are at programming. And lying to their customers.
From my perspective, companies like IBM and SGI are great examples to the rest of the computer industry. They have rock-solid integrity and are willing to follow the winds of change in the industry. These are the companies that are going to prevail in the long run.
Good job!
- Steeltoe
If I were an ET, I sure as hell wouldn't give the human race access to all those things. First we need to learn to coexist peacefully and happily. We can't fix our problems by just fixing the symptoms, ie lack.
- Steeltoe
This is the old Blame Game we people are so eager to participate in. The goal of the game is to find a scapegoat as remote from ourselves as we can possibly get. The number of scapegoats should be as few as possible too, just to reduce the complexity to get to a crystal clear "solution".
Remember, Blame is just a human construct, an illusion of the intellectual mind. Just as the conception of "wrongness". It's an ongoing effort to judge Cause and Effect, always changing with the political, religious and common beliefs. Alas, the solution seems always to be amputating unwanted elements as a misguided effort to improve our lives. Utilizing violence to redeem the faults of our society and how we live it as individuals. When do you think this simple strategy will finally have removed all the "bad elements"?
Next thing, they'll probably lock up Software Developers in prisons. Oh, wait, that's done already. Dang!
Fear is prison.
- Steeltoe
It all depends on the compiler. Most compilers push and pop all registers to/from the stack when executing inline assembler code. So you get a HUGE performance hit if you don't do most of the looping inside the assembler code.
I remember Watcom C++, a Windows/DOS compiler, supporting pure inline assembly by providing them as inline functions. Thus instead of using an inline C++ function, you could write an inline assembly function, callable by C. The programmer was also responsible himself to save and restore the proper state of registers. So nothing was lost, everything was gained. Although, you had to know what you were doing.
Despite Watcom C++ being superior in all areas, it was still beaten by MS Visual C++ in "fair and square" marketing.
- Steeltoe
Just let Microsoft do their thing for a couple of decades, and most of these things on this list will probably come true... - Steeltoe d;-)
Yes, it is true the Roman number system lacks the number 0. It is also true that we begin counting _items_ from 1.
But from a mathematical standpoint, 0 is the obvious startingpoint when you are dealing with length. Thus viewing time as a dimension and projecting it into one of our 3 dimensions, leaves you with a timespan with a set length. Look at a ruler. You'll find yourself measuring the length by starting at 0. This is the mathematically sane way to go about it. Why make it complicated, just because we "didn't have 0 before"? Mathematically, we should start at 0 anyways. It isn't like there didn't exist anything before year 1 you know.
You may say year 1 is the first year of our history, big deal. That doesn't mean the rest of us are morons, idiots or obtuse. It just means you feel you need to pick on others to make yourself superior, which is really pitiful. You are probably one of those who'll look up the word 'obtuse' in one or more dictionaries, and point out why I shouldn't have used that word in that context. You are probably one of those who fails to see the obvious, and endlessly debates it. You could never be wrong could you?
It was a funny note though.
- Steeltoe
Moderate me down all you like, but why put up yet another story about how Microsoft is going to be sued in the future? This is the third such article I read here on /. And it's all a waste of bandwidth and an attempt at forcing us to go with the media flow. Just because everyone else now shouts "FOUL!" at Microsoft, doesn't mean we suddenly have to be running along with them.
Why not just wait until the lawsuit has been made?
- Steeltoe
The type of business magazines like "PC Magazine", "Computer World" and "Byte" has always been compromised by their advertisers. Not in terms of products, but their perspective on the computer world. Why do you think everyone wanted MS Windows in the first place? From computer magazine of course. They never ran any stories about UNIX, Mac or any other superior system on the block. Now, if they were to perish, to me, that would only mean one less channel of advertising [you pay for] in this world.
- Steeltoe
I think the main point of the article was about the function of the GPL preventing people from copying a GPLed work and releasing the modified work under their own license. This does not prevent forking. Rather, it makes it possible to reemerge, or letting the public favour the most popular project if the other is stagnating.
I'm not living in the illusion Linux can never fork. It probably will, if/when it gets popular enough in the business world. But the article basically said this is nothing much to fear, because of the GPL. Quite the opposite of FUD IMHO.
For the GPL to be tested in court and enforced remains to be seen. But I doubt any respectable company out there will try to exploit any holes in the GPL. It's bad for business in the long run to become unpopular in the public, and a huge risk of losing large parts of the income in future lawsuits.
You're probably right that the facts are wrong, certainly over-simplified. They usually are in our history books too. Just remember there are many ways to view a situation, in the present as well as in the future.
- Steeltoe
I think the main point of the article was about the function of the GPL preventing people from copying a GPLed work and releasing the modified work under their own license. This does not prevent forking. Rather, it makes it possible to reemerge, or letting the public favour the most popular project if the other is stagnating. I'm not living in the illusion Linux can never fork. It probably will, if/when it gets popular enough in the business world. But the article basically said this is nothing much to fear, because of the GPL. Quite the opposite of FUD IMHO. For the GPL to be tested in court and enforced remains to be seen. But I doubt any respectable company out there will try to exploit any holes in the GPL. It's bad for business in the long run to become unpopular in the public, and a huge risk of losing large parts of the income in future lawsuits. You're probably right that the facts are wrong, certainly over-simplified. They usually are in our history books too. Just remember there are many ways to view a situation, in the present as well as in the future. - Steeltoe
Sun's only interest regarding Java is in money revenue from their own OS, servers and future thin-client model it seems. Pretty pathetic when you think that Java is supposed to be cross-platform. They refuse to make it Open Source, and to cooperate with grass-root initiatives.
/a had worked.
But someone[tm] did a port of the various versions of JDK and JRE for Linux, including v1.2:
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html
Hopefully this will compile under BSD with no- or little modification. According to OpenBSD-homepages, BSD is very compatible with Linux. But I have honestly never tried BSD myself, so I cannot know to what extent.
I would've written this in HTML if only
- Steeltoe
I think the moderation is fair, although he makes a good argument. Flamebait means that we'd just be discussing off-topic details back and forth. It would be an argument for argument's sake, and happen everytime such a topic is raised. It's too controversial, hot, hung up in definitions and perspectives, too black and white. Remember, a 0 doesn't necessarily mean the post was _bad_..
Myself, I find it silly to discuss wether Linux is virusproof or not, in the manner it is usually done on public boards. Nothing is by definition. But that doesn't mean Linux isn't *MUCH* more secure than any MS Windows version regarding viruses. There are lots of obvious reasons for this, including extreme hate for Windows from potential virus-writers. Linux is also a bit more vulnerable to _effective_ viruses than Windows, due to lack of anti-virus software. But as long as no viruses are detected, noones complaining. In their post, however, some Linux-fans are indeed too confident in their favourite OS.
About the perl script, a good idea, but not all Linux machines got perl. A meta-shell script may be better, but the real problem lie in how to spread this thing. First generation offspring would infect the very few who downloaded it from your site. That's fine, a good virus will spread anyways, possibly destroying the host after a long incubation time. But Linux lacks efficient ways for distributing the offspring viruses, without resorting to security holes. I really doubt you could make a really effective virus. The diversity of Linux and unix is just too great, and responsible users don't/shouldn't run as root very much.
- Steeltoe
The reason I prefer KDE is that I can very quickly redesign and configure my desktop through a "standard" GUI interface. This is how I am used to do it, although we used WindowMaker in school, there's only so many HOWTO's you think is fun to read. I have no need to make my desktop very "fancy" by compiling my own animated menus or the like. Especially not specifying geometry on all my programs.
The key here is to respect the view of others in this matter. If you want to edit text-files, please continue to do so. There will always be room for you, even though KDE and Gnome are more popular alternatives these days. They are big and ugly compared to more minimalistic WMs.
To put down Gnome a bit, I find it too buggy, too much CPU and memory intensitive, to enjoy using it. KDE is IMHO faster, cleaner and easier to use. Of course this may change as Gnome develops some more.
- Steeltoe
If we were all the same, all conforming to the established expert opinions, we would be far behind our current step of evolution. In fact the greatest leaps in history have been made by people who dared combat the stagnant dogmas of society. Dared search for another truths about our lives.
Quick evolution/development means you have to allow alot of flaws in the process. For example you need mutation of DNA to create a new unique branch not possible to make by just combining DNA-strings. But in nature, mutations usually represent a weakness, or disability for the individual. You seldom strike lucky, and most often the "good" genetic changes does not pass down to the next generation. However, sudden events or changes could mean a previously _perceived_ flaw, to become an advantage.
Understanding this, it becomes clear that everyone who cries "HOAX!" and ridicules alternative ways of thinking do an disservice to both themselves and others. For how can a closed mind learn things if it doesn't open up to all possibilities. It is just another way of limiting ourselves, and our capabilities.
It goes beyond that too. By judging others negatively, we show disrespect, ignorance and fear. It is completely natural and human, but we need to acknowledge our own feelings more. Learn why we do what we do, and break those mind patterns that are blocking the road ahead. Stop hiding everything under the carpet.
I don't know wether this skull is human or not. I just try to respect the views that everybody has on the matter, while doing a little reflection on my own. This last indisium are just one of many thousands indicating that alien has in fact visited us in the past (as "Gods"). Please, before judging and flaming now, read some books from Erich von Danicken or similar and get some background material. I'm not saying any of it are hard evidences for existance of aliens. What I'm saying is that they strongly indicate it, if you look at them from an open perspective. Science does not have all the answers yet. Many things in the world remains unexplained, or we have too easy and quick solutions for it. Just think, how much of older science was blatantly wrong, or "creative". How do we look at older science today. How do you think future humans will look at OUR science?
You just can't find something without looking for it. The greatest disservice we do to ourselves is ignoring strong clues. And only seeking for solution fitting our _current_ world-view. I bet if someone who didn't wonder got hold of the skull, it would be thrown away as garbage long ago. We should be thankful inquiring minds out there actually works on this on behalf of humanity.
- Steeltoe
This is typical 3-year-old talk. By proper upbringing, a child learns that it can't always have what it wants. We are all living in the same world, and we're sharing the same problems. Be reassured that whatever pains you feel, there are millions who share it with you.
Mozilla is an Open Source project, and was created from the start to be one. Which means the main part of the fun, is actually participating in the team. In some extreme cases, the final product is just a biproduct of the efforts. This means that people uses more time to design, code, redesign, recode and test. Just because they feel like making the best they can - to top their own and others' records. Just like in sports.
To read hundreds of comments about Mozilla being too unstable and we-need-a-workable-system-NOW!-mentality, STRONGLY reminds me of childishness. Good qualities in humans that relates to other human beings:
1) be respectful, patient, understanding and forgiving
2) don't take anything for granted
3) don't be disappointed
4) be thankful for what you get, both the good and the bad lessons
Of course you can rant and shout out your rage and frustration. But please don't do it at people actually working towards a solution.
It's very much like shooting yourself in the foot.
- Steeltoe
I have the same problem. The way Linux manages virtual memory and disk cache _by default_ doesn't scale well with common desktop use. Not to put down linux developers who knows exactly what's going on, but having such management too dynamical, lacking some intelligence, can severely hurt performance in some cases. That's my experience after all.
Technically I'd say there are a few solutions to the problem:
Dumb:
1) Set the size of disk cache statical. This is the easiest solution, but requires manual tuning of the system.
Intelligent:
2) Persistantly register the usage of files, how much they are being used when they first are being used/run, % of CPU, etc. The disk cache and VM can then operate better by sorting processes, memory areas and files by certain priority criterias. This can then be used to set a more averagely needed disk cache size, and to completely skip files you usually access once in a blue moon.
The more choices we have, the better chance of a perfect fit.
- Steeltoe
The real dangers of Y2k isn't the actual bug itself. But the fears and paranoia of people. As long as everyone remains calm, I believe we can find sane and peaceful solutions to every problem that may arise. Like sharing food and warmth with people who accidentally need it. This is an important aspect of any civilization. In fact I believe that it wouldn't be so bad if something really bad happened. We would learn a tremendous lot from such an experience, compared to our modern way of living. Where we seem to not care about our neighbours, or anything but ourself. With the convinience of modern life, we have detached from the notion that we are dependent on each other for survival. And that we live in this world together. - Steeltoe
The PATH variable is used to find executables to be run. Why the hell is this used as path to DLLs too?
You claim it to be simple, yet use nearly 2 pages of HTML to describe the process to find a DLL. And it doesn't even cover incompatible versions of DLLs, which is a PAIN in NT.
And you people blaming the apps for all these problems are just plain wrong. If Microsoft had provided a decent Installer, simple methods of finding DLLs+other components and a structured way of storing them, the clueless application makers of NT would have done the right thing. Do you really expect every company out there to make their own installer?
Why do applications clutter their DLLs all over the SYSTEM directory? Is this the application makers fault too? Do you really expect every individual company to do the right thing, the same thing and stay compatible. Not following the leader's example?
You conviniently left out the hassles of OCXes and other things which must be installed into the registry. (Another chapter all by itself)
How can anybody in their right mind defend the DLL "system"?
And I'm NOT saying the Linux system for libraries is perfect, it's just better handled by competent developers and semi-standard methods. It could always be made better, especially with restrictions and structure regulations from the system. Or just an agreement of standards among Linux distributions. It's incredible how little developers fuck up the system when they have the right tools for the job.
- Steeltoe
Let's face the facts. Hobby-programming for the OSS has always been for the satisfaction of the programmer, not the general user. If this weren't true, projects like Gnome and KDE would have started years ago. You would be hard-pressed to find a geek that wants to satisfy clueless users. Just look at the man-pages in Linux, they're not exactly made for novices. There are no examples, and more thoroughly explanations couldn't hurt. Luckily, someone in the community is always willing to contribute HOWTOs, FAQs and other documents instead of having to help out everybody "in person"! But that is a feature, not the obvious intent of the original creators.
I believe the main direction of the OSS is one of pioneering and experimenting on new technical grounds. This is a rather broad direction, which unfortunately doesn't benefit the consumers right away. It is irrelevant to say that the OSS community lacks a direction as a whole. Since within it, there are many projects that do have a more concrete direction.
Businesses often boast to have long-term plans and directions. If you are going to make a company for example, you have to publicly state a "vision" for your company in the registration papers. But most successful businesses don't stick to their plans when trends are changing. In the worst case, older products are rendered obsolete and unsupported. Or perhaps even worse, smaller companies that suddenly shut down, with the owners starting a new company doing more lucrative business. It should be clear now to everyone that the main goal of commercial businesses is to make people pay you money. Everything else is secondary. If you can make just this goal work, you're a success (by Western standards). But to make money, they have to please consumers, and usually pile up a garbage-bin of features to satisfy them. Unlike OSS.
Admit it. We have always lagged behind the business regarding the general consumer for very obvious reasons! The OSS and business have been on two different playing fields the whole time!
With the emerging of new successful "Open Source" companies, the whole ballgame is taking on a different shape. Some are just distributing and packaging what you can get other ways almost for free. While others will build proprietary software ontop of Open Source technology, like Caldera with CDE. Yet others will offer installations, training and support. There are endless possibilities. But the new trend isn't using Open Source technologies, the new trend is actually recognizing it! In that way, we have won, and it's time for celebration!
But Tim paints us a different picture: Companies will exploit Open Source and make their own proprietary business standards on top of them! Especially when WWW becomes the platform for most future applications.
This is right in the backyard of big companies who want to create web-portals with endless possibilities (for making money). What Ubergeek wants to make a credit-card registration, validator and pay-system in his spare time? So this battle is clearly lost, unless we can get businesses to really understand the human benefits of Open Source. Not just monetary value of staying ahead of competitors. But this requires a fundamental change in our society as a whole, and ourself.
So I think the battle is both won and lost concerning the future Open Source. As long as capitalism and the human mind works as it works today, we're going to be stuck with closed-source and properietary de-facto standards from the industry for a long time. Just in a higher level of electronic service than before.
But don't take me as a pessimist. As industry recognizes their use of Open Source, they will value and support the OSS community. This should also have a positive effect on the people working in businesses: To witness that the concept really works, and is a more fun way of doing things.
Someday I think the people claiming closed competiton to be the most effective way of developing, will have to eat their words.
_Steeltoe
About the Turing test. There are many myths and legends about it. People claim certain knowledge of the test, but don't think them out and see what's wrong. Common sense applies more here, than any university degree.
;) in some more obscure areas. So we don't have a clue what it's all about!! Really. We just like to simplify things to the bone. And make ourselves look better than the crowd.
;). In computer programs it will ne unaffected unless the technitian trips over a wire or something.
:(
;] ). All these particles (or more correctly multi-dimensional waves), are processing internal data and interacting with their surroundings. Therefore, everything physical can be considered to exhibit a certain degree of intelligence!!
;)
One claim is that the Turing test is the only way we got to determine if a computer program is intelligent or not. This is derived out of the notion that we think we can recognize intelligence when we see it. But the test says nothing of common error probability (many humans have actually failed the test for being an AI), and the capabilities of the judges. If you read some of the transcripts from the past official Turing tests you'll be horrified how quick some judges are to judge, and what simple questions they ask. Many of them appear to be bored with it all. This also applies to the human candidates. Some of these faults in the past can be blamed on poorly written programs, that couldn't compete in any way. The past Turing tests actually had limited discussion topics, so that the programs could be programmed for a specific discussion topic. But think of a super-program (that is not super by today's standards) among those. It could actually pass in the tired and disappointed athmosphere four years ago. To quote from "Tomas Covenant The Unbeliever": Any test is just as good as the tester himself.
About Humans. In our arrogance we say that we are intelligent, and everything else is not. We are amazed and dazzled by pets who performs instant rescue operations in fires and drowning accidents. For how can animals be intelligent? We don't measure intelligence, we blatantly state that things around us that ain't human is not intelligent. By unconciously applying our own version of the Turing test to everything around us. Of course, many of us do regard animals as intelligent, to a lesser degree, but most humans think of intelligence as a binary state.
About Intelligence. But it can be measured. It's not an ON/OFF switch for us to decide it's state. Heck, we don't really have a clear-cut definition of intelligence even today! Other than that faulty "It's not human-like" negativity test, and IQ tests which is only a test to separate "dumb" people from the rest.
And there isn't just One Kind of Intelligence (to Rule them all). You have social-, technical-, langual-, mathematical-, logical-, motoric-, coordinatic- and many, many more intelligences. There exists no test that tests it all, and no tests are very accurate. Many people who are considered "dumb" really excell (how the hell is this bloody word spelled?
My definition of an intelligent system, is an open-minded and positive test. Wether I can measure it or not a system is intelligent to a certain degree if it contains information and processes this information within itself. It MAY receive input data, and it MAY emit output data, but that is only essential to my perspective of knowledge (not beliefs). The type of data-storage medium is not essential. Neither is the medium processing the data. The essential is that information is being altered inside the system, and fed back in a feed-back loop. Thus, the system has a way of "viewing itself" (definition of a reflective system).
The internal processes can involve operations like copy, addition, inverse, etc. These would be atomic functions. While multiplications, subtraction, divisions and exchanges would only be optimizations, since they always could be expressed by a set of atomic operations. But the data doesn't have to be numbers, and the atomic functions would be different for neural networks, images, symbols or even colours for instance.
To complicate things even more, processes could run in parallell internally in the system. In real life, nevral networks in our brains all process in parallell to a certain degree. (Ie. I'm sure there are semi-synchronisation methods between parts of the brain, even though they might be complex or chaotic)
In information theory, you can express any information in binary numbers (00101011). This simplifies things, but you'll need a non-ambigous specification to convert data both ways. Some types of data could perhaps be more effectively processed than strings of binary data (ie. linked-lists, images, chinese symbols), simplified in complex structures of binary strings.
Input and output data in a feedback-loop would permit the system to develop with its surroundings. To what extent is unknown. Ie, how much intelligence and knowledge would the two systems contribute to each other? Limitations would be imposed by information storage sizes, lack of atomic functions, dead-end loops, etc. Especially lack of creativity (a random function) would be a dramatic limitation to the extent of intelligence and knowledge possible to be learned and taught. Read-only areas in the system's data or process-storage would be another severe limitation.
Systems lacking a trait that exists in another system could interface with that other system in a symbiosis, to use the resources found there. This is in the extreme case the basic principle of an artificial neural network. Where everything is shared holographically in the structure of the neurons' connections (and each connections weights).
On the difference between intelligence, knowledge and their respective levels. The usual pit-trap is to not distinguish intelligence and knowledge. I prefer to define level of knowledge as the amount of non-redundant information a system can internally access within a given time/number of cycles. While level of intelligence to be complexity of a given task to be solved within a given time/number of cycles.
These levels are next to impossible to measure very accurately in real life, but of course you have imperfect methods. Just not count on them for anything else than what they are. One type of method is to measure intelligence from the output of the system, in light of the input data or not. You can also test intelligence by scanning the actual code and data the system consists of, if you are able to "X-ray" it. You will have to be able to determine how intelligent the algorithm is. Of course, in real life, the observation will always affect the state of a running system (Real life is ALWAYS On, darn
These definitions leaves one thing hanging if you're calculating in real-time: processing cycles per time unit (e.g. 450 MHz). I don't consider a system processing large amounts of data (a supercomputer) to be more intelligent, by the definition above and "common" reason. But you would have to multiply this speed with the intelligence level to get the total intelligence-effect (ie some of what Turing and IQ tests are really testing).
I know this is all hard and difficult to understand and think over. The definition is very impractical too. But it's a much better place to start, than just saying "I don't see the intelligence in this" when you haven't even decided for yourself what intelligence really is! That simply shows alot of ignorance. Besides it's the modern way to go. Most AI programmers building neural network live by it. (Sadly I'm not
The definition doesn't exclude anything physical the right to be intelligent. We human beings consists of thrillions of living cells. They in turn consist of billions of atoms and molecules. Which again turns out to consist of even smaller "particles" of less physical nature (see the religion of modern science [not a book, it's for real!
I think this ALSO applies in cases where we are not able to detect the output data or the non-human intelligence in it. Science is too eager to test for negativity and simplify things, thus many creative theories are crushed by the latest dogmas. (Scientific people think they know better than everybody else just because they use fancy language to make themselves misunderstood.)
Now if you've grasped the ideas I've expressed here, you'll know that the Turing test is a bogus test. Both in the computer lab as well as in real life.
- Steeltoe (really tired of hearing those people say Turing test is all we got)
PS: Gee, this edit-window is tiny!