With MacOSX arriving as a desktop Unix (more or less) backed by a known, (sometimes) respected name, do you consider Apple to be a serious competitor, the same as Microsoft? Would Red Hat ever consider a PPC release to try and steer people away from MacOSX? Or, instead, do you think Apple will remain largely a niche player, but one that adds weight to the all-purpose viability of Unix?
Re:Thank you VERY fucking much, IBM
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Easy. A company so large is very compartmentalized. The guys in charge of hardware may not care about Linux. I mean, really, do you think the cash register division cares about Linux?
Its sad, really, because for every person at IBM that "gets it" theres so many more that don't, and probably never will, because all the evangelism in the world won't change that.
Based on some of the negative comments, I guess I take something entirely different from this Extreme Programming thing. I must preface this by saying I have not read every XP book ever, but they are lying around our office and so I've leafed through them...
I don't understand why people take it as a literal thing: you needn't follow their cookbook example of pair programming or whatever. Look at the methodologies, look at what's wrong in your workplace, and adapt. If it works, good. It would seem to me that there's less chance of things getting worse.
Which leads me to my second point: it never appeared to me that XP was aimed at the Apache Foundation, or the KDE team, or other large, distributed, open source/free software projects. *I* always thought that it was aimed at the larger development houses: the mainstays of development. If a free software project likes XP, fine, great, but its aimed more at a large company than a group of people who are on the same page to begin with.
My last point is that a lot of it seems aimed at managers, not necessarily the pointy-haired kind, rather the ones who were probably programmers at one point and got pushed into management. It gives them a means to make change - a manager, higher up the org chart and with pointy hair, is more likely to give in to this stuff if its in a book, its got a happy buzzword-laced presentation, its very slick looking and promises to make things better. The guys in the trenches will adapt, anyway, so better to have some change than have the Dilbert mindset propogated for another generation.
While I do understand the implications of MS's move to own all our bases, the license everyone is so upset about specifically states, "personal and non-commerical use only". So, at worst, doesn't that mean MS will know I'm going to Cancun, my girlfriend's name is Sarah, and we aren't renting a car?
I guess my major disconnect here is I can't imagine anyone in their right mind trusting their company to an open service like this. It baffles me.
My girlfriend and I both have Dell Inspiron 5000's. Both came pre-equipped with W2k. I nuked it and loaded up Mandrake 7.2.
Once, while playing Hoyle's Card Games, she bumped the CDROM eject button. It ejected. The game hung. The OS hung. She had to reboot (hold down the power button, etc).
Once, while hurriedly opening and closing Word documents, her mouse pointer disappeared. Gone. Poof! OK, fine; "Hit alt-f4, honey, and close Word down." No dice. Hmmm. "Hit the Windows key, honey, see if it comes up." Came up blank. Hmm. "Ctrl-alt-delete?" Now she was pissed at *me*, like I was causing all this. We eventually got it to reboot.
Another time she suspended, and it woke up, started to come back to life, and then just froze.
Mine runs like a dream. I note that XFree86 4.0.2 seems to really detest suspend mode, but that's no real bother for me most of time.
W2k is more stable than NT4, but its not perfect. In fact, its just starting to get usable, and I fear that all this new crap will hurt more than help.
Once upon a time, there was an old joke: "Windows 95 is MacOS '84". Seems like they once again grabbed MacOS features:
1. The login dialog with all users listed. I sure hope that in a large network, it'll just show the logon name box.
2. The big-ass icons. OSX, anyone?
3. Big, bright, lots of pretty colors. Granted, this isn't a Mac thing per se, but Macs (IMHO) have always been more colorful, ahead of the rather drab PC world.
I'm glad MS finally realized that their interface, while common and consistent, isn't the best. Still, I can't help but think they're just ripping off what has come before them and "innovating" it. YMMV.
Exactly; in fact, on a larger network, I could have my test boxen connect to their service, and then see what it wants to do before I use my own script to do it.
$9.95 is considerably less than I charge for one hour's time. Pretending that downloads of files over either their network service or plain ol' FTP, then a single weekly invocation of this program is far, far, far cheaper than having me do the work by hand.
I would never *personally* use this, as I prefer to do things "my way" but you can bet in a minute I would reccomend this to clients. If there's a problem, they're going to have to call me anyway, but why bother if it works? I set up a cron job and let it be.
I say, good for Red Hat. Let's give this a fair shake.
There isn't anything *but* Microsoft software, if you think about it; with 95+% of the desktop market, even if it isn't made in Redmond, its written for their products.
Besides, that German company may very well be SuSE...
One time, a long time ago, Robert Heinlen (a first rate author) dared L. Ron Hubbard (a 7th -12th rate author) to start a religion. Hubbard, a certifiable wacko, decided it was a great idea.
So, rather than work off the Messianic principles of religion (some human who is the spawn/creation of/voice of God) created a "scientific" system, wherein you hook yourself up to a machine designed to "audit" your feelings and thoughts and "soul". Note that I built one of these in my 5th grade science class, its a simple resistence meter. I am told the device is a battery, a meter, and a couple wires attached to what looks like a coffee can.
Anyway, Hubbard patterned the organization after the Navy, where he served (some say dishonorably) in WWII. His naval record is a consistent source of material that his entire life is one big falsification.
The real meat of Scientology is that you try to make yourself a better person based on this "auditing" deal. There's lots of little twists, turns, and details I have purposefully omitted, but thats the appeal. There's no one telling you you can't eat meat on Fridays, there's no strict moral code. Its very popular in Hollywood, as it reflects a certain "new age" vibe.
The REAL interesting part is how Hubbard, as a crappy sci-fi author, wrote an interesting backstory for his religion. Turns out, the reason you feel bad sometimes (mentally, although bad thoughts lead to bad physical condition) is because... well.. I never get this part right, because its just dumb. Something about a Galactic Civil War, and all these alien people being imprisioned in a volcano on Earth (when it was just forming) and then having atom bombs (not thermonuclear weapons, mind you - we're talking Fat Man and Little Boy here, and these were aliens which could do FTL and lord knows what else) dropped on them. Their spirits came to become Man, or something like that, and the auditing process is supposed to release them.
Look at http://www.xenu.net for more info.
Most people believe it is a cult; there is copius evidence to support that claim.
There's a difference, namely aggressor and defender. I'm not intent on killing ANYONE until they come at me first, but if they start the fight, I'll damn well finish it. If someone is willing it drive a truck full of explosives into a barracks, and I want to drop him before he has the chance, I am not a fanatic, I'm defending myself and my fellow Marines.
We were, of course, taught to shoot for center-of-mass when dealing with "conventional" targets, of course; its the only way to ever hope to hit anything.
I have actually been in a gun fight. I fired 4 rounds from a Glock 23 (.40 S&W) at a range in excess of 20 yards - might as well have been a light-year with a weapon like the 23, designed for concealed carry. I aimed for center-of-mass, and did 2 double taps. Needless to say, I missed all 4 rounds. I qualified expert in all aspects of weapons training available to me while in the Marines, and I consistently practice with my firearms of choice.
The context of the class was the kind of material this article was talking about, crowd control and security. The basic idea was how to deal with crowds and things like that, when it got bad enough to need an actual weapon.
To quote from P1500-44C, "The United States Marine Battle Skills Training/Essential Subjects Handbook" (don't know if there's an online ref), section 20-13:
"3. Attempt to disable subject by applying deadly force. NOTE(s): If you cannot fire with sufficient accuract to disable, then make certain you kill. Such circumstances will not preclude the use of a firearm provided such use otherwise authorized by these procedures or by other competent authority."
NAVMC 2691A, U.S. Marine Corps Interior Guard Manual
we were taught one thing: kill. I fondly remember one moment that, to me, crystallized the entire process of indoctrination.
It was a class on basic security procedures. It was boot camp. They were explaining the official policy on shooting to kill: how you were supposed to shoot to wound in this circumstance and that circumstance. There was a pause, and the Drill Instructor teaching the class, uttered in his gruff voice: "When aiming to wound, the head is an exceptional target".
No one nodded (we're recruits, we got in enough trouble as it was), but the meaning was clear: this isn't summer camp. Military law and procedures are often written by joint committees of military and civilian "officials", but the facts of life were clear: kill you target or risk your life and the lives of your fellow Marines. Making someone "run away" is hard if they're on psychotropics, or they're fanatics pledged to kill you. You don't fuck around. The guy on the Zodiac may have a pistol, or may have a briefcase nuke. You drop him, end of story.
I will, of course, be considered a fanatical jarhead - that's what happens when Marines express views.
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE
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You're right. Mr. Flynn is a troll trying to be both. My apologies.
Re:Online Journals are asking for TROUBLE
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Online Journals
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Not since Signal 11 or Shoeboy has there been a more vociferous troll. I wonder, are you going to make a grand a mark on/. lore?
Some people write these things for all the reasons people have already mentioned (lame, weird, etc). Others do it for good reasons: I do it because I like writing, and the more I write, even if its just "how my day went" or "why I hate Taco Bell", the more likely I'll get something good out of it. The Muse comes not during preparation, but during construction.
Although its offtopic... its Kzinti, the "ratcats".
And, don't forget: In "Madness Has Its Place", the ones re-arming humanity (with lasers used to launch slowboats, powered by the Sun) were crazies who went off their meds, not "misfits".
So.. its running Linux. can you access the guts of the device? recompile the kernel? mount its flash file system to your desktop?
One thing I wonder about is how it'll sync; will Sharp include a Linux desktop sync program? I can just imagine the uproar if it doesn't include the ability out-of-the-box to connect to existing Linux boxes...
Beowulf cluster of these things, yadda yadda yadda.
I'm about ready to post a message akin to JWZ's high profile departure from Mozilla, but from a users perspective. I snatched Mozilla before it was posted on slashdot, put it on Linux (Mandrake 7.2 and a Celeron 466) and Windows (98SE with a PIII/500).
It's still got so many bugs. The text entry widget is broken. It kills Windows dead (real hard, I know). Changing the skin kills the menus (File and Edit works, everything after View doesn't). It crashed getting my POP email. On and on and on.
Did I get a bad build (build ID 2001021503)? Is my machine misconfigured? What the hell is going on?
I don't want to make this sound like a troll or flamebait. Its really not, in my mind. Its the plaintive wail of someone who has spent the past year or so trying to tell his co-workers, friends, and random people on the street to support this project, "It'll get better soon, honest". It is better now, to be sure. It hasn't crashed in the last 8 minutes or so its been running on this machine. Joy. It hasn't finished rendering the submit page, and for that matter it never seems to finish (looking at the stdout in the xterm above for the past few pages I've loaded).
Will 1.0 actually work? Is the emperor wearing clothes?
Not to mention: one time I printed out a bunch of documentation on some obscure configuration setting, which included copious info on "what to do when your computer won't boot". Someone saw my stack of dead-tree dox, and in before you can say "Digital DNA", they chucked it and wrote me a nasty email about dead trees and things of that nature.
You can probably infer what happened. I needed the docs, they were on the computer that wouldn't boot, along with the bookmarks and pointers to said data.
Netscape on Unix supports some basic emacs keybindings in textarea, and I heard a while ago of a GTK widget which would embed the basics of the vi editor. Anyone know what happened to that?
I was counting down the days for this; had my bosses mostly sold on the idea. Now they'll see it's realeased and ask me to get a copy. Then I'll have to tell them its a grand, or more, for the "full" edition.
Its not that I don't mind paying. But a grand? It better write my code for me.
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With MacOSX arriving as a desktop Unix (more or less) backed by a known, (sometimes) respected name, do you consider Apple to be a serious competitor, the same as Microsoft? Would Red Hat ever consider a PPC release to try and steer people away from MacOSX? Or, instead, do you think Apple will remain largely a niche player, but one that adds weight to the all-purpose viability of Unix?
Easy. A company so large is very compartmentalized. The guys in charge of hardware may not care about Linux. I mean, really, do you think the cash register division cares about Linux?
Its sad, really, because for every person at IBM that "gets it" theres so many more that don't, and probably never will, because all the evangelism in the world won't change that.
Based on some of the negative comments, I guess I take something entirely different from this Extreme Programming thing. I must preface this by saying I have not read every XP book ever, but they are lying around our office and so I've leafed through them...
I don't understand why people take it as a literal thing: you needn't follow their cookbook example of pair programming or whatever. Look at the methodologies, look at what's wrong in your workplace, and adapt. If it works, good. It would seem to me that there's less chance of things getting worse.
Which leads me to my second point: it never appeared to me that XP was aimed at the Apache Foundation, or the KDE team, or other large, distributed, open source/free software projects. *I* always thought that it was aimed at the larger development houses: the mainstays of development. If a free software project likes XP, fine, great, but its aimed more at a large company than a group of people who are on the same page to begin with.
My last point is that a lot of it seems aimed at managers, not necessarily the pointy-haired kind, rather the ones who were probably programmers at one point and got pushed into management. It gives them a means to make change - a manager, higher up the org chart and with pointy hair, is more likely to give in to this stuff if its in a book, its got a happy buzzword-laced presentation, its very slick looking and promises to make things better. The guys in the trenches will adapt, anyway, so better to have some change than have the Dilbert mindset propogated for another generation.
While I do understand the implications of MS's move to own all our bases, the license everyone is so upset about specifically states, "personal and non-commerical use only". So, at worst, doesn't that mean MS will know I'm going to Cancun, my girlfriend's name is Sarah, and we aren't renting a car?
I guess my major disconnect here is I can't imagine anyone in their right mind trusting their company to an open service like this. It baffles me.
OK, fine, I'll bite.
My girlfriend and I both have Dell Inspiron 5000's. Both came pre-equipped with W2k. I nuked it and loaded up Mandrake 7.2.
Once, while playing Hoyle's Card Games, she bumped the CDROM eject button. It ejected. The game hung. The OS hung. She had to reboot (hold down the power button, etc).
Once, while hurriedly opening and closing Word documents, her mouse pointer disappeared. Gone. Poof! OK, fine; "Hit alt-f4, honey, and close Word down." No dice. Hmmm. "Hit the Windows key, honey, see if it comes up." Came up blank. Hmm. "Ctrl-alt-delete?" Now she was pissed at *me*, like I was causing all this. We eventually got it to reboot.
Another time she suspended, and it woke up, started to come back to life, and then just froze.
Mine runs like a dream. I note that XFree86 4.0.2 seems to really detest suspend mode, but that's no real bother for me most of time.
W2k is more stable than NT4, but its not perfect. In fact, its just starting to get usable, and I fear that all this new crap will hurt more than help.
Once upon a time, there was an old joke: "Windows 95 is MacOS '84". Seems like they once again grabbed MacOS features:
1. The login dialog with all users listed. I sure hope that in a large network, it'll just show the logon name box.
2. The big-ass icons. OSX, anyone?
3. Big, bright, lots of pretty colors. Granted, this isn't a Mac thing per se, but Macs (IMHO) have always been more colorful, ahead of the rather drab PC world.
I'm glad MS finally realized that their interface, while common and consistent, isn't the best. Still, I can't help but think they're just ripping off what has come before them and "innovating" it. YMMV.
Exactly; in fact, on a larger network, I could have my test boxen connect to their service, and then see what it wants to do before I use my own script to do it.
$9.95 is considerably less than I charge for one hour's time. Pretending that downloads of files over either their network service or plain ol' FTP, then a single weekly invocation of this program is far, far, far cheaper than having me do the work by hand.
I would never *personally* use this, as I prefer to do things "my way" but you can bet in a minute I would reccomend this to clients. If there's a problem, they're going to have to call me anyway, but why bother if it works? I set up a cron job and let it be.
I say, good for Red Hat. Let's give this a fair shake.
There isn't anything *but* Microsoft software, if you think about it; with 95+% of the desktop market, even if it isn't made in Redmond, its written for their products.
Besides, that German company may very well be SuSE...
And they say Doom made kids kill. I can just see this little but being used on the news as how warped the internet is...
Many thanks for the pointer; I just debunked a couple my dad sent me this morning, you'd think I'd have learned...
One time, a long time ago, Robert Heinlen (a first rate author) dared L. Ron Hubbard (a 7th -12th rate author) to start a religion. Hubbard, a certifiable wacko, decided it was a great idea.
So, rather than work off the Messianic principles of religion (some human who is the spawn/creation of/voice of God) created a "scientific" system, wherein you hook yourself up to a machine designed to "audit" your feelings and thoughts and "soul". Note that I built one of these in my 5th grade science class, its a simple resistence meter. I am told the device is a battery, a meter, and a couple wires attached to what looks like a coffee can.
Anyway, Hubbard patterned the organization after the Navy, where he served (some say dishonorably) in WWII. His naval record is a consistent source of material that his entire life is one big falsification.
The real meat of Scientology is that you try to make yourself a better person based on this "auditing" deal. There's lots of little twists, turns, and details I have purposefully omitted, but thats the appeal. There's no one telling you you can't eat meat on Fridays, there's no strict moral code. Its very popular in Hollywood, as it reflects a certain "new age" vibe.
The REAL interesting part is how Hubbard, as a crappy sci-fi author, wrote an interesting backstory for his religion. Turns out, the reason you feel bad sometimes (mentally, although bad thoughts lead to bad physical condition) is because... well.. I never get this part right, because its just dumb. Something about a Galactic Civil War, and all these alien people being imprisioned in a volcano on Earth (when it was just forming) and then having atom bombs (not thermonuclear weapons, mind you - we're talking Fat Man and Little Boy here, and these were aliens which could do FTL and lord knows what else) dropped on them. Their spirits came to become Man, or something like that, and the auditing process is supposed to release them.
Look at http://www.xenu.net for more info.
Most people believe it is a cult; there is copius evidence to support that claim.
Is that an obtuse Polish joke?
There's a difference, namely aggressor and defender. I'm not intent on killing ANYONE until they come at me first, but if they start the fight, I'll damn well finish it. If someone is willing it drive a truck full of explosives into a barracks, and I want to drop him before he has the chance, I am not a fanatic, I'm defending myself and my fellow Marines.
It was 1990.
We were, of course, taught to shoot for center-of-mass when dealing with "conventional" targets, of course; its the only way to ever hope to hit anything.
I have actually been in a gun fight. I fired 4 rounds from a Glock 23 (.40 S&W) at a range in excess of 20 yards - might as well have been a light-year with a weapon like the 23, designed for concealed carry. I aimed for center-of-mass, and did 2 double taps. Needless to say, I missed all 4 rounds. I qualified expert in all aspects of weapons training available to me while in the Marines, and I consistently practice with my firearms of choice.
The context of the class was the kind of material this article was talking about, crowd control and security. The basic idea was how to deal with crowds and things like that, when it got bad enough to need an actual weapon.
To quote from P1500-44C, "The United States Marine Battle Skills Training/Essential Subjects Handbook" (don't know if there's an online ref), section 20-13:
"3. Attempt to disable subject by applying deadly force. NOTE(s): If you cannot fire with sufficient accuract to disable, then make certain you kill. Such circumstances will not preclude the use of a firearm provided such use otherwise authorized by these procedures or by other competent authority."
NAVMC 2691A, U.S. Marine Corps Interior Guard Manual
Hope that helps.
we were taught one thing: kill. I fondly remember one moment that, to me, crystallized the entire process of indoctrination.
It was a class on basic security procedures. It was boot camp. They were explaining the official policy on shooting to kill: how you were supposed to shoot to wound in this circumstance and that circumstance. There was a pause, and the Drill Instructor teaching the class, uttered in his gruff voice: "When aiming to wound, the head is an exceptional target".
No one nodded (we're recruits, we got in enough trouble as it was), but the meaning was clear: this isn't summer camp. Military law and procedures are often written by joint committees of military and civilian "officials", but the facts of life were clear: kill you target or risk your life and the lives of your fellow Marines. Making someone "run away" is hard if they're on psychotropics, or they're fanatics pledged to kill you. You don't fuck around. The guy on the Zodiac may have a pistol, or may have a briefcase nuke. You drop him, end of story.
I will, of course, be considered a fanatical jarhead - that's what happens when Marines express views.
You're right. Mr. Flynn is a troll trying to be both. My apologies.
Not since Signal 11 or Shoeboy has there been a more vociferous troll. I wonder, are you going to make a grand a mark on /. lore?
Some people write these things for all the reasons people have already mentioned (lame, weird, etc). Others do it for good reasons: I do it because I like writing, and the more I write, even if its just "how my day went" or "why I hate Taco Bell", the more likely I'll get something good out of it. The Muse comes not during preparation, but during construction.
So there.
Although its offtopic... its Kzinti, the "ratcats".
And, don't forget: In "Madness Has Its Place", the ones re-arming humanity (with lasers used to launch slowboats, powered by the Sun) were crazies who went off their meds, not "misfits".
So.. its running Linux. can you access the guts of the device? recompile the kernel? mount its flash file system to your desktop?
One thing I wonder about is how it'll sync; will Sharp include a Linux desktop sync program? I can just imagine the uproar if it doesn't include the ability out-of-the-box to connect to existing Linux boxes...
Beowulf cluster of these things, yadda yadda yadda.
I'm about ready to post a message akin to JWZ's high profile departure from Mozilla, but from a users perspective. I snatched Mozilla before it was posted on slashdot, put it on Linux (Mandrake 7.2 and a Celeron 466) and Windows (98SE with a PIII/500).
It's still got so many bugs. The text entry widget is broken. It kills Windows dead (real hard, I know). Changing the skin kills the menus (File and Edit works, everything after View doesn't). It crashed getting my POP email. On and on and on.
Did I get a bad build (build ID 2001021503)? Is my machine misconfigured? What the hell is going on?
I don't want to make this sound like a troll or flamebait. Its really not, in my mind. Its the plaintive wail of someone who has spent the past year or so trying to tell his co-workers, friends, and random people on the street to support this project, "It'll get better soon, honest". It is better now, to be sure. It hasn't crashed in the last 8 minutes or so its been running on this machine. Joy. It hasn't finished rendering the submit page, and for that matter it never seems to finish (looking at the stdout in the xterm above for the past few pages I've loaded).
Will 1.0 actually work? Is the emperor wearing clothes?
Not to mention: one time I printed out a bunch of documentation on some obscure configuration setting, which included copious info on "what to do when your computer won't boot". Someone saw my stack of dead-tree dox, and in before you can say "Digital DNA", they chucked it and wrote me a nasty email about dead trees and things of that nature.
You can probably infer what happened. I needed the docs, they were on the computer that wouldn't boot, along with the bookmarks and pointers to said data.
True story.
OK, fine, click the close button to make the window go away.
Now have Granny install new software, and see what happens, and you'll get the point if the whole argument.
Netscape on Unix supports some basic emacs keybindings in textarea, and I heard a while ago of a GTK widget which would embed the basics of the vi editor. Anyone know what happened to that?
I was counting down the days for this; had my bosses mostly sold on the idea. Now they'll see it's realeased and ask me to get a copy. Then I'll have to tell them its a grand, or more, for the "full" edition.
Its not that I don't mind paying. But a grand? It better write my code for me.