For those that don't get the reference to "the SCO, the" in German, it comes from Episode 9F22 "Cape Feare" of the Simpsons.
Sideshow Bob is applying for parole claiming that he wouldn't pose a danger to Bart:
Lawyer: "Don't you have a tattoo that says 'die, Bart, die' on your chest?" Sideshow Bob: "No! That's German. It means 'the Bart, the'". Parole Officer 1: "No one who speaks German could be an evil man!" Parole Officer 2: "Parole granted!"
Millions of home owners all over the world were dealt cease and decist orders for the habitation of their homes.
Apparently the likeness of bricks to legos clearly infringed on shape copyrights currently heald by Lego corp.
Aluminum siding prices have skyrocketed, and raw lumber prices have increased 5-fold. This economic activity is predicted to boost the markets, which have been weighed down by tech stocks recently.
This past December I had a disc herniation repaired in my back, at the tender age of 22. While my doctors and I aren't actually sure of what caused it, the after affects have been plentiful, mainly being back concious.
Sitting is quite possibly the worst thing you can do to your back. After surgery, I was unable to sit for 6 weeks. I could only stand or lay down, because sitting ran the risk of reinjury.
Sitting puts outward pressure on your spine, down in your lower back. This can lead to back pain, or pain running down you legs due to nerve root irritation.
Now that I'm getting better, I have several things that I do to ensure that I am comfortable while sitting, and you can all do the same.
First. Getting up every hour can make a huge difference. Stand up for 3-5 minutes. Walk around, and stretch.
Second, if you don't have an obus-forme chair, or variant, invest in a lombar roll. It's about 20 bucks up here in Canada, so maybe $13 USD. A physiotherapist or doctor could point you towards a location that sells them. You place the lombar roll in the small of your back while sitting. This maintains the curvature of your spine, in a healthier manner. Note: these can sometimes take some getting used to, but for me, the difference has been incredible.
Third. Posture! Your mom tormented you for years at the dinner table, and we should all have listened!:)... Sitting up straight, elbows near 90 degrees to your body, and feet flat on the floor.
Forth. Specialized excercises. Any tricep excercises you perform while standing up straight have the added benefit of strengthening the muscles in your lower back. My physiotherapist has me doing several back excercises on a 3 foot diameter rubber ball. While it's difficult to describe them, the ball adds an element of instability that stimulates and strengthens the muscles in my back. A strong torso has helped me prevent back pain.
I hope these help a bit. The best way to avoid injury and pain in your back is to be very concious about what you put your back through every day.
. While this would be neat, it was the actual Hitchhikers Guide that Ford Prefect carried that had the words "Don't Panic".
It might be cute to walk around with one of those on towel day as well, though:)...
Background on Syngenta and their Work
on
Rice Genome Mapped
·
· Score: 1
I doubt anyone (or very few) have heard of Syngenta, but I worked for their former named company so here's the scoop.
They were just incorporated on Jan 1, 2001, as the result of the merger of 2 Novartis divisions and Zeneca. Novartis/Sengenta is an agriculture company (not really biochem) that specialize in herbicides and seed treatments for farmers.
I'm wondering if this is a workup towards a "resistance gene", like the one that Monsanto inserted into a strain of corn to resist their Roundup herbicide.
Novartis has dozens of herbicide products covering everything from wheat, corn, fruits and vegetables, turf, and flowers. All those plants and all those products make for some funky gene splicing.
Believe it or not, given the recent Linux/GNU explosion over the last few years, RMS and his new found fame still find time to visit some lower key places.
I go the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and it is the Computer Science nerve centre (yes, that's "re" up here in Igloo-land) of Canada, and one of the major schools in North America. But RMS didn't come here, he went to the small affiliated College across the creek to speak, literally.
There couldn't have been more than 150 people in the medium-sized room that he spoke in, and I don't imagine the College had a lot of offer him.
That being said, I'm not sure how the school got in touch with him, but it shows that you don't need to pack several thousand people in a metropolitan convention center to get some big names to speak to you.
A lot of these guys will jump at the opportunity to make their message heard in person. It might have something to do with altruistic motives, as opposed to corporate ones.
Although the link is just corporate propoganda, there were two things that stuck out for me.
The permanent members of the ARB are 3Dlabs, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and SGI.
What vested interest in OpenGL could M$ possibly have except from leading it in a direction that benefits DirectX.
And second...
The board currently includes representatives from 3D Labs, ATI, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, nVIDIA, Microsoft, SGI and Sun Microsystems.
So doesn't this show that 3dfx is more concerned about not being left out, or losing mind share among important decision makers?
Seeing 3dfx get seriously on board with OpenGL is great. The shotty OpenGL support at the time of Quake 3 Test is what drove me to nVIDIA. I hope this is the start of a stronger 3dfx that can better compete in the market place
Look! Competitor A is working on something
similar to one of our products. Ok, let's dive
into our toy chest of software patents.
Hmmm... this looks good! "A method by which
oxygen and other air-bourne particles travels
across internal human organ organs at which
point essential molecules are distributed to
cellular material for consumption."
Call up the CEO of Competitor A and claim they
violated our patents for breathing. They actively
and knowingly used our intellectual property for
every single developer on that competing product.
Inform them that we expect 50% royalties on
every sold unit, or we'll sue them.
This whole paranoid patenting of anything and
everything to use against competitors just in
case they try something on us is getting out
of hand. When did patents become a tool for
corporate battle in both offence and defence,
instead of the legit benefit of those that put
effort into creating something meaningful.
I might have even seen it on Slashdot, I'm not sure. I just remember it because I thought it was a cool article, and it took me about 2 hours to read through.
I didn't submit it, maybe someone else beat you to it.
What is preventing the Linux development gurus from compiling different memory algorithms or Big Iron neccessities into the kernel depending on what architecture #define's have been made?
I can see how Linus and the crew don't want megs and megs of source code that is specific to certain architectures, and that as much of that code should be consolidated as possible, but is there *so* much code that has to be changed in so many aspects of the OS that it requires maintaining a completely separate tree?
Also, if a Big Iron fork does take place, will the public support a corporate driven project, or will we look to Linus, Alan, and the bunch to maintain that tree as well. How much access do those guys have to Big Iron anyway? Not much I guess.
This isn't a smug post, it's just a legit query. I'm not up to speed on many of the quirks involved in OS kernel development;)...
It starts by covering the history of the SPARC architecture, and what their naming conventions mean (eg. what is the difference between a US I, a US II, and a US III). It then looks at the design decisions that were made for the US3, which included previous UltraSparc binary compatibility, reducing load latency, pipelining, branch prediction, and scalability. The dicussion of all these topics are rather technical.
The article is long, and the techno-babble may scare off some, but if you have any knowledge of basic CPU operation, particularly of RISC cores, or if you are just curious about some of the quirks related to designing a CPU, you'll eat that article up.
"The core of Mac OS X is the only mainstream operating system following an open source model," said Philip Schiller, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The new Darwin 1.0 posting includes some of the most advanced operating system technology available, and it's open to our customers and developers so that we may collaborate on the future of the Mac OS."
While its nice to see Apple helping the open source movement, I'm a little weary of their belief that Linux is not a mainstream operating system.
Sure, the Mac OS has been around for a lot longer, but 17%+ of the server market share that Linux holds doesn't make it qualify as a mainstream OS?
At last I checked, Apple only had ~5% of the desktop share, and their server share is non-existent. What does Apple have that makes their OS mainstream, that Linux doesn't?
Geeks are put in a difficult position with these issues. Look at it this way.
How many polititions making these laws do you think have even a fraction of the Internet/tech related knowledge that you and I do? -- Probably none.
Okay, now how many Geeks do we have in places of politcal power? -- A minimal amount.
Now, how many people that you drag off the street can tell you, what all of DMCA, UCITA, Echelon, DeCSS, and maybe even RIAA and MPAA, mean? -- A handful at best.
Seeing a correllation?
Polititions don't make policy on their own. They rely on lobbyists, the public, and designated "experts" to guide them.
So if polititions don't have the knowledge to make decent decisions on their own, and they must rely on outside sources for information, and the public doesn't know what's going on, can we be surprised at some of the braindead laws we've seen be put in place?
That's why it's important to get meaningful and accurate information disseminated through the proper communication channels so that we get people in government making laws that are well balanced and proper.
It all boils down to making your voices heard and not relying on someone else to do it for you.
Caldera takes the plunge and makes $70M in a day. Way to go. It's amusing with the certain "cookie cutter Linux IPO pattern" that we're seeing develop.
Company X provides Linux services. Company X lost between 2 and 20 million dollars last year. Yet when company X goes public, their stock soars.
Unfortunately for Caldera, they are doomed to follow the pattern of Linux companies before them, by having their stock fall to sane and earthly levels.
I'm sure that the future is bright for our favourite players in the Linux game, it just takes time. But corporate America attitudes sure do make me smile in these cases. I'm looking forward to the time when Linux companies have strong stock prices based on their corporate performance, and not the 5 magic letters that they associate themselves with.
Maybe these Linux companies should strive to see who can turn a profit first, instead of who can gobble up the most market share and start-up's:)
A lot of people are going to say "We don't want corporations polluting Linux".
A few more are going to say "Most corporations publically support Linux for the lip service and popularity factor".
And some more will say "Most Linux-friendly corporations haven't delivered on promises".
IBM is a good example of a rather old-school tech company that sees promise in the direction of the youngster of Linux, and wants to help where it can.
But take note, even heavyweights like IBM can't make the scene change overnight, and we should make sure that they know the community support their inititives, and that we are patient.
The intermingling of IBM in the open source/Linux movement is, in my opinion, proof that Linux isn't a fad, and has real potential. At least to a number of PHB's that sometimes lack an open mind. The direction of the entire company has changed from a PC maker, to mostly that of a consulting firm. Isn't it flattering that Linux plays a big part in that $80B/year puzzle?
A lot of people are going to go on the offensive here, and contest the validity or neccessity of Linux certification, but stop and think for a second.
Companies like Red Hat are helping give Linux credibility in the general IT workplace. Most advanced Linux users don't need, nor will they want to be certified. But if an IT shop wants it for their employees, and demands it before they adopt Linux for their systems, shouldn't we cator to that desire for the sake of the movement?
Red Hat has stepped on a few toes in the advanced Linux community. Raster left RHAD because he didn't want to develop enlightenment to the point that it was simply a Windows interface clone, running on X. But RH had good reason. Why? Because the average user has been using Windows for years, and they aren't going to start from scratch.
RH is trying a bridge a large gap, and we can't go and complain everytime they do something that we don't like. RH is a business, and they are running it like one. I'm not a Red Hat user, but I can appreciate what they are trying. Cut them some slack.
The key here, is for Red Hat to accept and acknowledge the criticism given at this conference, and act accordingly to improve their service to the very people that are going to result in RH making money. In the end, it will benefit us all.
Many thanks to the XFree team for coming one step closer to a major milestone.
The thing to look for now is 3D chip OEMs following through on their promises to make DRI drivers available.
NVidia's GLX implementation wasn't much good to me, and I wish I had kept my Voodoo2 lying around when I replaced my video card over the summer. X4 w/ DRI is the first step for me in finally going Linux full time.
The companies we all support with our hard earned bucks must support us with their commitments, and alternative OS drivers. (Sorry to refer to Linux in this respect. I sure don't view Linux as an alternative, but many people have yet to clue in. Any PHB's listening?)
Make your voices heard, and make sure that companies don't merely capitalize on promises without following through. Patience and mutual understanding are important virtues for anyone involved in a movement to promote awareness. Remember that as we all work together to make Linux better than ever, and add this piece to the puzzle.
Slashdot Mirror
For those that don't get the reference to "the SCO, the" in German, it comes from Episode 9F22 "Cape Feare" of the Simpsons.
Sideshow Bob is applying for parole claiming that he wouldn't pose a danger to Bart:
Lawyer: "Don't you have a tattoo that says 'die, Bart, die' on your chest?"
Sideshow Bob: "No! That's German. It means 'the Bart, the'".
Parole Officer 1: "No one who speaks German could be an evil man!"
Parole Officer 2: "Parole granted!"
Let the SCO jokes begin! This kind of story is a god-send for /. hecklers.
Millions of home owners all over the world were dealt cease and decist orders for the habitation of their homes.
Apparently the likeness of bricks to legos clearly infringed on shape copyrights currently heald by Lego corp.
Aluminum siding prices have skyrocketed, and raw lumber prices have increased 5-fold. This economic activity is predicted to boost the markets, which have been weighed down by tech stocks recently.
This past December I had a disc herniation repaired in my back, at the tender age of 22. While my doctors and I aren't actually sure of what caused it, the after affects have been plentiful, mainly being back concious.
:) ... Sitting up straight, elbows near 90 degrees to your body, and feet flat on the floor.
Sitting is quite possibly the worst thing you can do to your back. After surgery, I was unable to sit for 6 weeks. I could only stand or lay down, because sitting ran the risk of reinjury.
Sitting puts outward pressure on your spine, down in your lower back. This can lead to back pain, or pain running down you legs due to nerve root irritation.
Now that I'm getting better, I have several things that I do to ensure that I am comfortable while sitting, and you can all do the same.
First. Getting up every hour can make a huge difference. Stand up for 3-5 minutes. Walk around, and stretch.
Second, if you don't have an obus-forme chair, or variant, invest in a lombar roll. It's about 20 bucks up here in Canada, so maybe $13 USD. A physiotherapist or doctor could point you towards a location that sells them. You place the lombar roll in the small of your back while sitting. This maintains the curvature of your spine, in a healthier manner. Note: these can sometimes take some getting used to, but for me, the difference has been incredible.
Third. Posture! Your mom tormented you for years at the dinner table, and we should all have listened!
Forth. Specialized excercises. Any tricep excercises you perform while standing up straight have the added benefit of strengthening the muscles in your lower back. My physiotherapist has me doing several back excercises on a 3 foot diameter rubber ball. While it's difficult to describe them, the ball adds an element of instability that stimulates and strengthens the muscles in my back. A strong torso has helped me prevent back pain.
I hope these help a bit. The best way to avoid injury and pain in your back is to be very concious about what you put your back through every day.
. While this would be neat, it was the actual Hitchhikers Guide that Ford Prefect carried that had the words "Don't Panic".
:) ...
It might be cute to walk around with one of those on towel day as well, though
I doubt anyone (or very few) have heard of Syngenta, but I worked for their former named company so here's the scoop.
They were just incorporated on Jan 1, 2001, as the result of the merger of 2 Novartis divisions and Zeneca. Novartis/Sengenta is an agriculture company (not really biochem) that specialize in herbicides and seed treatments for farmers.
I'm wondering if this is a workup towards a "resistance gene", like the one that Monsanto inserted into a strain of corn to resist their Roundup herbicide.
Novartis has dozens of herbicide products covering everything from wheat, corn, fruits and vegetables, turf, and flowers. All those plants and all those products make for some funky gene splicing.
According to this article, Microsoft has joined the foray of Porn identifying software *grin*. Though it's in a slightly different context.
Check it out here, http://www.maximumlinux.com/content/news/2000/11/1 5/11786.
Believe it or not, given the recent Linux/GNU explosion over the last few years, RMS and his new found fame still find time to visit some lower key places.
I go the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and it is the Computer Science nerve centre (yes, that's "re" up here in Igloo-land) of Canada, and one of the major schools in North America. But RMS didn't come here, he went to the small affiliated College across the creek to speak, literally.
There couldn't have been more than 150 people in the medium-sized room that he spoke in, and I don't imagine the College had a lot of offer him.
That being said, I'm not sure how the school got in touch with him, but it shows that you don't need to pack several thousand people in a metropolitan convention center to get some big names to speak to you.
A lot of these guys will jump at the opportunity to make their message heard in person. It might have something to do with altruistic motives, as opposed to corporate ones.
Although the link is just corporate propoganda, there were two things that stuck out for me.
The permanent members of the ARB are 3Dlabs, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and SGI.
What vested interest in OpenGL could M$ possibly have except from leading it in a direction that benefits DirectX.
And second...The board currently includes representatives from 3D Labs, ATI, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, nVIDIA, Microsoft, SGI and Sun Microsystems.
So doesn't this show that 3dfx is more concerned about not being left out, or losing mind share among important decision makers?
Seeing 3dfx get seriously on board with OpenGL is great. The shotty OpenGL support at the time of Quake 3 Test is what drove me to nVIDIA. I hope this is the start of a stronger 3dfx that can better compete in the market place
This is a recurring trend I'm noticing.
... this looks good! "A method by which
oxygen and other air-bourne particles travels
across internal human organ organs at which
point essential molecules are distributed to
cellular material for consumption."
Look! Competitor A is working on something similar to one of our products. Ok, let's dive into our toy chest of software patents.
Hmmm
Call up the CEO of Competitor A and claim they violated our patents for breathing. They actively and knowingly used our intellectual property for every single developer on that competing product.
Inform them that we expect 50% royalties on every sold unit, or we'll sue them.
This whole paranoid patenting of anything and everything to use against competitors just in case they try something on us is getting out of hand. When did patents become a tool for corporate battle in both offence and defence, instead of the legit benefit of those that put effort into creating something meaningful.
The Ace's hardware one?
I might have even seen it on Slashdot, I'm not sure. I just remember it because I thought it was a cool article, and it took me about 2 hours to read through.
I didn't submit it, maybe someone else beat you to it.
What is preventing the Linux development gurus from compiling different memory algorithms or Big Iron neccessities into the kernel depending on what architecture #define's have been made?
;) ...
I can see how Linus and the crew don't want megs and megs of source code that is specific to certain architectures, and that as much of that code should be consolidated as possible, but is there *so* much code that has to be changed in so many aspects of the OS that it requires maintaining a completely separate tree?
Also, if a Big Iron fork does take place, will the public support a corporate driven project, or will we look to Linus, Alan, and the bunch to maintain that tree as well. How much access do those guys have to Big Iron anyway? Not much I guess.
This isn't a smug post, it's just a legit query. I'm not up to speed on many of the quirks involved in OS kernel development
Back in February, Ace's Hardware had a really great in-depth article on the UltraSparc series.
It starts by covering the history of the SPARC architecture, and what their naming conventions mean (eg. what is the difference between a US I, a US II, and a US III). It then looks at the design decisions that were made for the US3, which included previous UltraSparc binary compatibility, reducing load latency, pipelining, branch prediction, and scalability. The dicussion of all these topics are rather technical.
The article is long, and the techno-babble may scare off some, but if you have any knowledge of basic CPU operation, particularly of RISC cores, or if you are just curious about some of the quirks related to designing a CPU, you'll eat that article up.
From the press release:
"The core of Mac OS X is the only mainstream operating system following an open source model," said Philip Schiller, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The new Darwin 1.0 posting includes some of the most advanced operating system technology available, and it's open to our customers and developers so that we may collaborate on the future of the Mac OS."
While its nice to see Apple helping the open source movement, I'm a little weary of their belief that Linux is not a mainstream operating system.
Sure, the Mac OS has been around for a lot longer, but 17%+ of the server market share that Linux holds doesn't make it qualify as a mainstream OS?
At last I checked, Apple only had ~5% of the desktop share, and their server share is non-existent. What does Apple have that makes their OS mainstream, that Linux doesn't?
---------------------------
Geeks are put in a difficult position with these issues. Look at it this way.
How many polititions making these laws do you think have even a fraction of the Internet/tech related knowledge that you and I do? -- Probably none.
Okay, now how many Geeks do we have in places of politcal power? -- A minimal amount.
Now, how many people that you drag off the street can tell you, what all of DMCA, UCITA, Echelon, DeCSS, and maybe even RIAA and MPAA, mean? -- A handful at best.
Seeing a correllation?
Polititions don't make policy on their own. They rely on lobbyists, the public, and designated "experts" to guide them.
So if polititions don't have the knowledge to make decent decisions on their own, and they must rely on outside sources for information, and the public doesn't know what's going on, can we be surprised at some of the braindead laws we've seen be put in place?
That's why it's important to get meaningful and accurate information disseminated through the proper communication channels so that we get people in government making laws that are well balanced and proper.
It all boils down to making your voices heard and not relying on someone else to do it for you.
---------------------
I'm running Potato myself, and did an apt-get dist-upgrade on the weekend.
:)
The result?
111 package updates
At the rate the debian folks are messing with things, we'll see the addition of a stable-frozen tree before 2.2 is officially released. *grin*
-----------------------------
Caldera takes the plunge and makes $70M in a day. Way to go. It's amusing with the certain "cookie cutter Linux IPO pattern" that we're seeing develop.
:)
Company X provides Linux services. Company X lost between 2 and 20 million dollars last year. Yet when company X goes public, their stock soars.
Unfortunately for Caldera, they are doomed to follow the pattern of Linux companies before them, by having their stock fall to sane and earthly levels.
I'm sure that the future is bright for our favourite players in the Linux game, it just takes time. But corporate America attitudes sure do make me smile in these cases. I'm looking forward to the time when Linux companies have strong stock prices based on their corporate performance, and not the 5 magic letters that they associate themselves with.
Maybe these Linux companies should strive to see who can turn a profit first, instead of who can gobble up the most market share and start-up's
---------------------------------
A lot of people are going to say "We don't want corporations polluting Linux".
A few more are going to say "Most corporations publically support Linux for the lip service and popularity factor".
And some more will say "Most Linux-friendly corporations haven't delivered on promises".
IBM is a good example of a rather old-school tech company that sees promise in the direction of the youngster of Linux, and wants to help where it can.
But take note, even heavyweights like IBM can't make the scene change overnight, and we should make sure that they know the community support their inititives, and that we are patient.
The intermingling of IBM in the open source/Linux movement is, in my opinion, proof that Linux isn't a fad, and has real potential. At least to a number of PHB's that sometimes lack an open mind. The direction of the entire company has changed from a PC maker, to mostly that of a consulting firm. Isn't it flattering that Linux plays a big part in that $80B/year puzzle?
---------
A lot of people are going to go on the offensive here, and contest the validity or neccessity of Linux certification, but stop and think for a second.
Companies like Red Hat are helping give Linux credibility in the general IT workplace. Most advanced Linux users don't need, nor will they want to be certified. But if an IT shop wants it for their employees, and demands it before they adopt Linux for their systems, shouldn't we cator to that desire for the sake of the movement?
Red Hat has stepped on a few toes in the advanced Linux community. Raster left RHAD because he didn't want to develop enlightenment to the point that it was simply a Windows interface clone, running on X. But RH had good reason. Why? Because the average user has been using Windows for years, and they aren't going to start from scratch.
RH is trying a bridge a large gap, and we can't go and complain everytime they do something that we don't like. RH is a business, and they are running it like one. I'm not a Red Hat user, but I can appreciate what they are trying. Cut them some slack.
The key here, is for Red Hat to accept and acknowledge the criticism given at this conference, and act accordingly to improve their service to the very people that are going to result in RH making money. In the end, it will benefit us all.
Many thanks to the XFree team for coming one step closer to a major milestone.
The thing to look for now is 3D chip OEMs following through on their promises to make DRI drivers available.
NVidia's GLX implementation wasn't much good to me, and I wish I had kept my Voodoo2 lying around when I replaced my video card over the summer. X4 w/ DRI is the first step for me in finally going Linux full time.
The companies we all support with our hard earned bucks must support us with their commitments, and alternative OS drivers. (Sorry to refer to Linux in this respect. I sure don't view Linux as an alternative, but many people have yet to clue in. Any PHB's listening?)
Make your voices heard, and make sure that companies don't merely capitalize on promises without following through. Patience and mutual understanding are important virtues for anyone involved in a movement to promote awareness. Remember that as we all work together to make Linux better than ever, and add this piece to the puzzle.