If IBM axes AIX for Linux, then it would just repeat the very same mistake it did with the PC. Unitarism may be bad for business in terms of short-term expenses. But in long term it is rewardable to have a few R&D teams instead of one big huge team. Let us note that Linux benefitted a lot from AIX on the part of jfs and lvm. Weird to know if these things would evolve so well in a monolithic environment.
AIX may be hard to understand. Much harder then Linux. But this system works much better than Linux or even Solaris in cases when one needs higher security, good file management and automatised work round the clock. Here we have two AIX systems serving as Web servers. For the three years they worked we never had serious problems with them. Practically they only suffer minor upgrades and are practically carrying the same system they came with. No matter the time, these machines keep performing high in this OS. And we keep sticking on it no matter that there is a more modern variant of Linux for these machines.
There are only a few but significant minus with AIX. One is the terrible lack of support and documentation. Well, IBM may not feel this critical but when one compares the situation with Linux, BSD or even Solaris, then AIX is seriously loosing. The second problem is the way the system costs. It's a Hell of money if one considers that even version upgrades cost good money. And finally is the fact that AIX is not so well integrated on the community as its brothers. The system may be excelent but it is hard to use popular open source tools on it.
This has been seen for quite some time. It seems that Stallman is loosing a view of reality. Yes, it's Linux. And so what? It could be GNU for ever and ever and never become the system we know today. And people choose names for simplicity, reference and popularity. No one says "The United States of America" when referring to that piece of land in North America. It's either the "States", "USA", "US" or simply America. Some are more and less correct but no one is running here and crying for purities.
What Stallman is doing is dogmatising the soul of Free Softwares, Open Sources, Public Domains and everything that created the powerful, free and prosperous community of developers we have today. What he may get from this is the fact that GPL may turn into a void manifest of dubious ideals. If we are going to push the sense of things to the extremes, then they will loose every possible meaning. That's what will happen to GPL if we are going to fight for "purisms", "ideal worlds" and "bright futures".
If we are going to stick to words, instead of the conceptions of freedoms and rights on this imperfect world, then we will get the same fate of Communism.
Well if we go in dogamtisms then let's name Linux in Stallman's full sense: GNU's not Unix/Linux. It simply sounds stupid.
And what if this is the result of a gap? Well, two-three years ago we would see people running mixed environments and Linux was barely desktop ready. Today there are already thousands of users who use exclusively and solely Linux, BSD and even other *NIX flavours as purely desktop systems. Interesting to note that today the only reason many acquaintances give as a reason to keep Windows, is the number of games that still lives in this OS. But this is not a reason to say "OpenGL suxx". The fact is that many game producers have a vary long DOS/Windows tradition and it is hard and risky to change lines. Let's note Loki's problems and the state of world economy for this...
However, in *NIX, a small game boom is happening. You may look at freshmeat and note that there is a steadly rising of several computer games during this Summer. Truly they cannot be compared with Windows games but, still, they are a markup of changing times. Windows games also started with some quite silly puzzles, card games and small shot'em-ups. Meanwhile, some of these games are made under OpenGl and don't look quite bad. And while some have a Windows port, the core of development is clearly made under the *NIX base.
It seems to me that this is due to the fact that the critical segment of developers, with "mixed interests", has already changed lines and, now,we are seeing Linux/*NIX detaching from its M$ roots. Meanwhile, under Windows, there is a concentration of "purists" who barely need of any OpenGLs or Mesas for work. So, it seems that we are only seeing the appearence of a developer gap.
Which games prevent development? All video games? Impossible. There are no clear references to the type of game these kids played.
Computer game stimulates only vision and movement... That depends on the type of game and its goals. Even super-violent Quake3, in its team variants, demands a very high level of coordination and calculation. Well, if you don't come just shooting right and left. However, one should note that there are really dumb games around with a very "mechanical" nature.
The world doesn't stop just on one Nintendo game.
I have seen the behaviour patterns of hundreds of Doom/Quake gamers from 12 to 40 years. The best way to drop stress is to have a kick'ass round at the end of the day. You get home like an angel...
What are the real pattern behaviours of people before/after they played this Nintendo game? What social reactions happen? Is there a control group who didn't play this game at all? Or played other similar/different game? What if I restrict the playing of this game for some N period of time, how behaviour changes?
The way the article is written tends me to see it as a genuine story because it is a mirror image of hundreds of such similar stories.
The article shows something very familiar that can be seen among many enforcement and security services around the world. No it is not computer "ignorance". It is using your badge and position to show how important you are and to get some extra premium for "excellent service". You live in some peripherial corner of some megapolis or in some lost land of techocivilization. And you get a case near the edge of the law. So a little bit of grease and things slip to the place where you become sound and famous. And maybe you get a chance to quit this greasy and smoky neighborhood and get a seat in some shiny office at 30th floor.
Here we can see that FBI officers are as human as their colleagues in other places of the world...
A:This month Apache did have lost a big share on the Web. But that's not the first time it happened and it is frequent to see it recover steadly the lost track.
B: Why the author did not note that M$ does also suffers of this? In Mars or April BigSoft did also lost a large share of Web servers. And it also recovered.
C: Web apps? Does anyone gets the idea of what is this and what will lead to? I don't wanna say that Web apps are Bad Thing (TM). But I believe there is a lot of whoopla about this. Too much indeed. Some people also predicted the dead of Unix because of the lack of "normal" GUIs and that now we would all look the Web through Internet Explorer.
D: There is a crisis going on. Has anybody noted it? And it is natural that things will slow down. And this seems to concern volunteer work doesn't it? Well people need to care to eat...
E: M$=The World in 20 years? Two years ago I would agree. Now, I'm sure that even if they get near it, then they will blow it up. They made too much air in these XPs.NETs and SOAPs. And the technology is not offering nothing real, killerapp and blow your enemy. So only hot air may help it bloat. However baloons tend to blow. Well, it's bad anyway but it's better than preaching All Mighty Gates for the rest of your life.
First to Win2K "fans" here. Some people blow up here when/. FUDs M$. Yes, it may suxxx sometimes. But frequently you give a good reason to bash you... The question is about Linux and not what sucks. So stick on it ok?
Second. From the 4-5 distros we use here, Mandrake is surely the most universal and easier. However, I would seriously warn people to avoid sticking their ideas and works over one distro. Madrake is a good desktop system (I personally use it for nearly 2 years). Also it can give a basis for an average server, but not more. If you are in need of serious server deployment then better to loose a bit of your nerves and look at RedHat. But don't stop here. When you get acquainted with it, better to check up old good Slackware and the monstruous Debian. These two is what I would call the Heavy Gear of serious server deployment. Slackware is older but more "complete". Debian is complex but flexible when you know the ends of the web.
Apart of Mandrake there has been some serious publicity about Connectiva. It looks like a good distro for beginners also. Unfortunately I haven't checked it. There is also SuSe but I would call it a distro for advanced desktop users. At least, this is the impression I got from our 3 SuSe users and their lives on it.
Even I have seen traces of water flows in Mars in places much more near the equator:
http://cydonia.ksu.ru
And I am one among many... And not only in water. Take a trip to NW Hellas and look at the traces left by the "wind devils". No the problem is not on these atmospheric phenomena but on what they denude and how this soil seems to "recover".
First I would note you that there is a big difference between our common and relatively correct understanding of what a scientist should be and what is transpers from our/. commentator. I also do my bit of Science, truly not in the US, and I know how some science is made. It is made exactly the way you consider as wrong. Yes, scientists give a theory as given and go up making policy recommendations. Because some dodos in the Parliaments, US Congress included, cannot distinguish kilos from pounds and planets from apples. So it is better to talk about flying saucers and "humanoid faces", so one gets something from the very meager budget on Science.
Recently I got the hand on documents about how people tried to fight back some parliament members, in a very well known developped country, from cutting a science project. Sincerly I was horrorized by the citations. Scientists trying to become idiots, burocrats trying to become intelligent...
On what concerns mars dust. It it flies out and falls on Earth. But the cause is not impacts. The major cause are the dynamics of Mars sandstorms. They are huge, gigantic and some of that dust does manage to reach escape velocity. However some still question its impact on Earth, specially when considering the Solar wind and some other stuff.
Btw soon there should be one such storm... Usually they happen when Earth is quite near to Mars.
...
Episode 324 - Is Mars alive? YES!
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Episode 456 - Mars IS DEATH!
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Episode 789 - Maybe Mars HAD life...
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Episode 1034 - No there are no chances for life in Mars...
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Episode 1345 - There could be life in Mars...
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Episode 2345 - Aliens! Saucers! BigMacs in Mars!
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Episode 3456 - Mars was/is and will be death
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Episode 4569 - Remake of episode 789...
This IS Mars. People this is not a joke. That how Mars has been seen for the last 400 years, since people started to seriously speculate about life in other planets. And nothing in the last scientific achievements has given a determined and final evidence that Mars is either dead or alive. Personally I tend mostly to the fact that this planet is still damn alive, even after all those shake-ups one may detect on its geology.There is evidence that certain formations could have been "build" by ancient organisms. One of them is exactly the ill-famous "Face" and the new fresh pictures even add some support to it. Besides there is a weird system of "black strikes/spots/marks" all over Mars, which strongly suggest that some organisms may still be playing a major role in Mars.
Some of you may counter with the fact that Viking didn't show any signs of organics. People, I specially studied some memories of persons who worked at that project and I have enough evidence of two facts:
the author of one of the biologic tests counsciously undermined the project, and tried to destroy some work made by some other people. He also tried in 1967 to revoke the demand for spacecraft sterilization;
the ill-famous Gas spectrometer experiment is questionable because the instrument was not only flawed in design but also the produced results cannot fit even the most pessimistic calculations.Besides the story of its development shows tons of questions
Besides of this. I cannot find, till now, the wholly promised results on Carbon presence from the rocks tested under Sojourner's mission. Till now, the promise "results will be published after calibration" still hang in the remains of the old Pathfinder's site. It passed nearly 4 years since then. I tried to search sites, science sites, news sites, NASA sites and till now Carbon is missing on Pathfinder's mission. Anyway it is still a result. As "to silence means to cooperate..."
Theo notes there that "software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia."
What Theo does not show what BSD should be. It shows the very nature of software. And BSD recognizes this very nature as a principle of use. Unfortunately many people attempt to overcome a natural fact by putting licences and restrictions. Much like the "bridge taxes" that were so common on the Middle Ages. Taxes were not only made on bridges built by the owner, but also on ancient roman bridges, bridges built by the community or third parties. Frequently taxes rose to absurd levels, which lead to clashes and even small wars. Something very similar can be seen in todays software.
Meanwhile there is a danger that Theo might have got too far. First because Australia surely will further see OpenBSD as a national menace. Second because Theo seems to live in California and there seems to exist a very weird rule there that considers even sugestions of using atomics as a terrorist threat... So time for Bush to switch out his NMD plans in exchenge for the new BSD (Berckley Software Defense) program... Considering the fact that BSD is red and has a small devil playing around with a fork, it will be absolutely easy for the conservative minds at Washington to readapt to the new threat:
"The Reds are coming!"
"The Red Evil menace"
"It's the devil in cheap... o damn... sheep clothes. Anyway it's in cheap clothes also..."
Lots of Eurasian nations have common traces with what we consider "typical" European characteristics. And barely they are based in a later mix. In fact I found references of old ancient mongol tribes having blonde hair and blue eyes. Besides, Chingiz Khan was red-bearded.
On what concerns Aryans. As far as I could get from several sources, including the Rig-Veda, we europeans are their enemies. There is a very high probability that the large majority of us are descendants of those that were cursed several times in old texts.
I studied a little bit of mongol and some funny things about us and the Siberians.And this gave me the idea that we europeans didn go to China. We came from China. In hordes. And these hordes do not include indo-europeans per se. It includes a whole group of eurasians: indo-europeans, turkics and finno-hugurians. The history of Europe is an history of a people, for which the mongols are still linguistically very close, which broke away some 9000 years ago. Since then, they have been roaming the west for several times. The origin of this nation is somewhere between Manchuria/Mongolia, and ending in the Altai-Sayan moutainous ridges.
The basis for that is much shorter than the "thin atmosphere" tale may explain. Besides I would remind you that today's thin atmosphere carries clear isotopic signs of not being the original one that Mars could carry in its early times.
This "burn in your minds" ain't new. It's been around here for the last 30 years. Yes, it's cool to state such things. But the fact is, that projects are dropped out, funds are cut and certain politicians even applaud some over-volunteered move from NASA to nail us on Earth.
Mars in 2020? Under the current political mood it would be impossible. Under the current administrative terms NASA rules it is not only impossible but also no less fantastic than a Heinlein's novel.
Today is 14 of May 2001. So we are twenty years from Goldin's dream. Today ISS flies with technologies that Russia created some 20 years ago. USA & Russia flies ships that were projected 30 years ago and have been flying for nearly 20 years. Today most rockets work on ideas that are as old as our fathers. And the large majority of engines preserve the same designs of 30 years ago. Apart from this, we have several interplanetary probes that work on designs projected on the 70s and most of the probes sent to Mars failed.
And today we scrapped nearly all interplanetary projects, except Mars. We also nailed into the coffin tens of projects to modernise and develope the present fleet of ships. The most flagrant, the desmise of the new Space Shuttle design (truly, the US Air Force took patronage of it but they are also not living their best days)
This is the status of our Space Conquer, exactly 40 years after Gagarin... Mars-2020? Give me a break.
As someone who had been directly studying some features, I would note a few things:
Geometries? Yes, there are geometries. There are lots of them. But I would stop far from claiming artificialities on them. They can be the cause of very natural phenomena, having enormous dimensions. Such things are, for example, very large impacts that produce a "rombic wallpaper" pattern for hundreds of even thousands of kilometers.
Mars has tons of water. The Hell with what NASA claims as they have shown no worser in lies as in facts. Yes, this water is far less than what we have on Earth but it still manages to create small underground lakes and ponds in such places like South Arabia Terra. In the past it covered all Northern Hemisphere and even such higher landscapes like Arabia Terra.
Mars suffered of some weird phenomena that wiped out most of its surface water in very short time. Near Mons Olympus and in some highlands on Acydalia, there are clear traces of megafloods that nearly caved a good piece of Mars crust. In geological terms people name these things scablands, as for a similar landscape in Washington State of the same name.
There is a very high chance that some biology existed in Mars. And some features are very suggestive that some of it survived and exists nowadays in Mars. Note that I believe on NASA results as much as I believe that the Face of Mars was built by an alien mind. In fact the study of several documents and the tragedy of Professor Wolf Vishniac lead me to conclude that there were people on Viking Project that falsified results and produced a scientific analysis with a very biased weight. In fact, there were people inside the project, like Professor Horowitz, who were not only aggressively opposed to the prospects of life in Mars, but also tried to undermine the work of some members of the team, and specially the work of Vishniac.
If there were lill green men on Mars, than 99% of their world will be impossible to be seen as this world was completely washed out.
The Face of Mars is probably the product of a living being but one as much as dumb as our trees, corals or liquens.
There is a goemetry on Cydonia. But it is hard to determine its nature. The most probable is the pure result of physical forces of natural or near natural origin. Anyway the probability of terraformation cannot be put fully aside.
The most terryfying in Mars are not "formations" or "geometries" or even "faces". The most scaring are craters. For nearly 5 years I have been studying them and came into one conclusion. In Mars craters are far from being interpreted only as a natural phenomena. In some places their distribution correlates with landscape formations that are completely independent in origin. There is even one hill that possesses a ring of more than 10 craters sorrounding nearly 90% of its cliffs. Much like if someone pointed straightly to the sides of this hill. Curiously they are nearly equal in diameter for a large part of the hill.
NASA lies. Yes it lies. But not only. It also shuts down the voices of those who dissent. Or helps to shut them down. Why? No its not an alien conspiracy. Just some people claiming for "Good Science" love to be "more popists than the Pope himself". And maybe some governmental short-mindness and underground politics is also in place.
But RIAA and similar organisations do a lot to show that if you don't buy their CDs then you are a marginal, an outlaw, a freak, a antisocial abortion. Come on! You know how millions of kids are poisoned by MTVs and radio stations to buy another major singer or run for another major hit. And tell me, under these hunts after mp3.com and similars, which somehow supported independent artists, what are the remaining alternatives? Everyone needs society and society demands that you go for Manchester United, Barcelona or Chicago Bulls. Noooo, of course you are free to choose. But are these things really a choice? After I saw two member meetings at a major european club I just stopped seeing soccer at all. It is too disgusting. And that makes me an alien...
There is a big difference between having a financial Evil Empire controlling you and a philosophic-nearly-religious like Microsoft trying to show you what you need. Yes, IBM could have taken a big grip on the market. But we know that it was not M$ that saved the world but the mistake of IBM to produce its first PC with a nearly "open" license: OSA. M$ only went after the Taiwanese and Compaq as it was its only way to make money. Anyway they always tried to control this market and the first blow was to stop the production of DOS for non-Intel machines. Did you know that Yamaha produced quite good PCs on Z80? They worked under MS-DOS and even 4 years ago I saw some of these machines still working. Some hackers started their career on them. They had a much better video and sound capabilities rather than the classical Intel PC. However M$ decided to create the Wintel dominion...
Stop playing the "good citizen" game ok? You perfectly know that we are dealing with companies who are far from being ethical. Your argumentation even shows this. You mention "overpricing". Now Mr. "Good citizen" please tell me who they overprice? The all-abstract miserable consumer? No, they overprice what I, you and Tim buy. And you perfectly know that they do not overprice for the cents but over the dollars. And this income usually does not go to artists pockets but to those of their "protectors": record companies and agents.
Frankly your comment is the typical face of that mirror that RIAA and alikes try to put on the consumer. Yeah, well CDs are overpriced but it is bad to pirate them. So RIAA and Co. can rob me and other consumers by the millions of dollars, but I should go to jail to for making an unauthorised copy costing a few dollars... XXI century Charles Dickens somewhere?
Spaniards also claimed that gold can be only of their own, but pirates should be hanged... If England had accepted such rule of the game, then the USA would be speaking spanish today. And it would have been name EUA.
I can assure that M$ motto "take over the world" was already visible in the beginning of 1987. I know this because I had a very close friend working on some OS/2, PS/2 stuff back then in IBM. And in June or July 1987 IBM got a big kick from M$ that showed their true intentions. Anyway, even after tons of people warned that M$ should be kicked out of the train, IBM bosses kept the belief that, after that harsh episode, it would still be possible to work with them... The result is plainly visible.
So we have some consolation. Even the Emperor wasn't able to see Dart Vader climbing to power...
That's exactly what the policies of M$ lead to. And that exactly what many M$ opponents point to. What is todays third party software on Windows. a good piece of it is patches, turnarounds, features that Windows lacks of. Small brickets that for some reason M$ "forgets" allways to put on its unique "distro". The most popular are the the tons of antivirus programs that "save the day" of millions of users.
People ask why bundlemaniac M$ does not introduce them in some new version and makes user lives easier as it always claim. Some denote that they always cost "almost nothing". Others note that without this stuff Windows always looks much more "pristine" and "clean". Anyway thay are today the base of waht has become software on M$ platform - small pebbles to please the savages...
It's curious that news come when some extremist comments on GPL are published at freshmeat:
"Use of Open Source Software Should Be Restricted"
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/257/
Information should be Free... but what if it's used to take away the freedom of others? The GPL places technical restrictions on the use of the software it protects. Bjorn Gohla believes it should also place political restrictions on it.
So it seems that extremism is todays sign of the equation... For both sides.
Frankly I doubt that courts, government decisions and competition will now do any good to stop M$. That had to be done two years ago. Now it's too late. The sense on how M$ runs forward looks much the same as some people in brown/black uniforms back in the 30s. And people will only react in two ways. Either they accept this new "plague" or they will reject it fully and completely.
Again two champs are formed in a battlefield. Again the future is to be decided between two extremes with the same common denominator - militantism.
Curiosly, again the federal government of The United States of America takes a "wait and see" position. Waiting for the electronic Pearl Harbour?
Finally a long last programmer's dream is fulfilled. Finally there is a comp on which one can fry eggs.
For nearly 20 years people often dreamed, after long hours of hard work, about eating some snack right on the workplace. This dream was frequently remarked by the claiming that the "comp is so hot that one can fry some bacon with eggs". However the real temperatures where still well below the desired values. It was hard even to boil water and only a few brave overclockers could manage to achieve this. So one had always to rise his a.. to get some hot food.
So, a new BIG, HUGE and FAT HOLE in ISS is published... Patch ready... So patch fast if you love IIS so much. However it seems that today the large majority of sysadmins don't read bugtraqs. Anyway this is sure for the very large majority of Windows users. The history of this system has shown that there is a chronical and traditional carelessness for security, starting on m$ and ending on the user himself.
So soon there will be news on how another Pentagon server was screwed up, on how another major corp had his finances washed up and how another major pop-website with tons of kitch and whoolaprizes is "temporarly unavailable".
And who should be blamed for this? The script kiddies like in that 98 scandal with Solaris at Pentagon? The hackers that show how buggy and crappy is a piece of software (here m$ doesn't matter)? The OpenSource, GPL, freeware communities for being much more liberal in these matters? Or the commies for once again digging another hideous conspiration against the US, the Free World and my backyard?
Well a curious case when SF starts to become reality... Many people considered the Matrix as a serious portrait of a surrealistic view of the World. Well, at least a small piece of it, remarks that the film does show something about this world...
Slashdot Mirror
And while we keep waiting to see some toothless astronauts, the brainless bureaucrates keep us tight to earth...
If IBM axes AIX for Linux, then it would just repeat the very same mistake it did with the PC. Unitarism may be bad for business in terms of short-term expenses. But in long term it is rewardable to have a few R&D teams instead of one big huge team. Let us note that Linux benefitted a lot from AIX on the part of jfs and lvm. Weird to know if these things would evolve so well in a monolithic environment.
AIX may be hard to understand. Much harder then Linux. But this system works much better than Linux or even Solaris in cases when one needs higher security, good file management and automatised work round the clock. Here we have two AIX systems serving as Web servers. For the three years they worked we never had serious problems with them. Practically they only suffer minor upgrades and are practically carrying the same system they came with. No matter the time, these machines keep performing high in this OS. And we keep sticking on it no matter that there is a more modern variant of Linux for these machines.
There are only a few but significant minus with AIX. One is the terrible lack of support and documentation. Well, IBM may not feel this critical but when one compares the situation with Linux, BSD or even Solaris, then AIX is seriously loosing. The second problem is the way the system costs. It's a Hell of money if one considers that even version upgrades cost good money. And finally is the fact that AIX is not so well integrated on the community as its brothers. The system may be excelent but it is hard to use popular open source tools on it.
This has been seen for quite some time. It seems that Stallman is loosing a view of reality. Yes, it's Linux. And so what? It could be GNU for ever and ever and never become the system we know today. And people choose names for simplicity, reference and popularity. No one says "The United States of America" when referring to that piece of land in North America. It's either the "States", "USA", "US" or simply America. Some are more and less correct but no one is running here and crying for purities.
What Stallman is doing is dogmatising the soul of Free Softwares, Open Sources, Public Domains and everything that created the powerful, free and prosperous community of developers we have today. What he may get from this is the fact that GPL may turn into a void manifest of dubious ideals. If we are going to push the sense of things to the extremes, then they will loose every possible meaning. That's what will happen to GPL if we are going to fight for "purisms", "ideal worlds" and "bright futures".
If we are going to stick to words, instead of the conceptions of freedoms and rights on this imperfect world, then we will get the same fate of Communism.
Well if we go in dogamtisms then let's name Linux in Stallman's full sense: GNU's not Unix/Linux. It simply sounds stupid.
And what if this is the result of a gap? Well, two-three years ago we would see people running mixed environments and Linux was barely desktop ready. Today there are already thousands of users who use exclusively and solely Linux, BSD and even other *NIX flavours as purely desktop systems. Interesting to note that today the only reason many acquaintances give as a reason to keep Windows, is the number of games that still lives in this OS. But this is not a reason to say "OpenGL suxx". The fact is that many game producers have a vary long DOS/Windows tradition and it is hard and risky to change lines. Let's note Loki's problems and the state of world economy for this...
However, in *NIX, a small game boom is happening. You may look at freshmeat and note that there is a steadly rising of several computer games during this Summer. Truly they cannot be compared with Windows games but, still, they are a markup of changing times. Windows games also started with some quite silly puzzles, card games and small shot'em-ups. Meanwhile, some of these games are made under OpenGl and don't look quite bad. And while some have a Windows port, the core of development is clearly made under the *NIX base.
It seems to me that this is due to the fact that the critical segment of developers, with "mixed interests", has already changed lines and, now,we are seeing Linux/*NIX detaching from its M$ roots. Meanwhile, under Windows, there is a concentration of "purists" who barely need of any OpenGLs or Mesas for work. So, it seems that we are only seeing the appearence of a developer gap.
Which games prevent development? All video games? Impossible. There are no clear references to the type of game these kids played.
Computer game stimulates only vision and movement... That depends on the type of game and its goals. Even super-violent Quake3, in its team variants, demands a very high level of coordination and calculation. Well, if you don't come just shooting right and left. However, one should note that there are really dumb games around with a very "mechanical" nature.
The world doesn't stop just on one Nintendo game.
I have seen the behaviour patterns of hundreds of Doom/Quake gamers from 12 to 40 years. The best way to drop stress is to have a kick'ass round at the end of the day. You get home like an angel...
What are the real pattern behaviours of people before/after they played this Nintendo game? What social reactions happen? Is there a control group who didn't play this game at all? Or played other similar/different game? What if I restrict the playing of this game for some N period of time, how behaviour changes?
The way the article is written tends me to see it as a genuine story because it is a mirror image of hundreds of such similar stories.
The article shows something very familiar that can be seen among many enforcement and security services around the world. No it is not computer "ignorance". It is using your badge and position to show how important you are and to get some extra premium for "excellent service". You live in some peripherial corner of some megapolis or in some lost land of techocivilization. And you get a case near the edge of the law. So a little bit of grease and things slip to the place where you become sound and famous. And maybe you get a chance to quit this greasy and smoky neighborhood and get a seat in some shiny office at 30th floor.
Here we can see that FBI officers are as human as their colleagues in other places of the world...
A:This month Apache did have lost a big share on the Web. But that's not the first time it happened and it is frequent to see it recover steadly the lost track.
.NETs and SOAPs. And the technology is not offering nothing real, killerapp and blow your enemy. So only hot air may help it bloat. However baloons tend to blow. Well, it's bad anyway but it's better than preaching All Mighty Gates for the rest of your life.
B: Why the author did not note that M$ does also suffers of this? In Mars or April BigSoft did also lost a large share of Web servers. And it also recovered.
C: Web apps? Does anyone gets the idea of what is this and what will lead to? I don't wanna say that Web apps are Bad Thing (TM). But I believe there is a lot of whoopla about this. Too much indeed. Some people also predicted the dead of Unix because of the lack of "normal" GUIs and that now we would all look the Web through Internet Explorer.
D: There is a crisis going on. Has anybody noted it? And it is natural that things will slow down. And this seems to concern volunteer work doesn't it? Well people need to care to eat...
E: M$=The World in 20 years? Two years ago I would agree. Now, I'm sure that even if they get near it, then they will blow it up. They made too much air in these XPs
First to Win2K "fans" here. Some people blow up here when /. FUDs M$. Yes, it may suxxx sometimes. But frequently you give a good reason to bash you... The question is about Linux and not what sucks. So stick on it ok?
Second. From the 4-5 distros we use here, Mandrake is surely the most universal and easier. However, I would seriously warn people to avoid sticking their ideas and works over one distro. Madrake is a good desktop system (I personally use it for nearly 2 years). Also it can give a basis for an average server, but not more. If you are in need of serious server deployment then better to loose a bit of your nerves and look at RedHat. But don't stop here. When you get acquainted with it, better to check up old good Slackware and the monstruous Debian. These two is what I would call the Heavy Gear of serious server deployment. Slackware is older but more "complete". Debian is complex but flexible when you know the ends of the web.
Apart of Mandrake there has been some serious publicity about Connectiva. It looks like a good distro for beginners also. Unfortunately I haven't checked it. There is also SuSe but I would call it a distro for advanced desktop users. At least, this is the impression I got from our 3 SuSe users and their lives on it.
Even I have seen traces of water flows in Mars in places much more near the equator:
http://cydonia.ksu.ru
And I am one among many... And not only in water. Take a trip to NW Hellas and look at the traces left by the "wind devils". No the problem is not on these atmospheric phenomena but on what they denude and how this soil seems to "recover".
First I would note you that there is a big difference between our common and relatively correct understanding of what a scientist should be and what is transpers from our /. commentator. I also do my bit of Science, truly not in the US, and I know how some science is made. It is made exactly the way you consider as wrong. Yes, scientists give a theory as given and go up making policy recommendations. Because some dodos in the Parliaments, US Congress included, cannot distinguish kilos from pounds and planets from apples. So it is better to talk about flying saucers and "humanoid faces", so one gets something from the very meager budget on Science.
Recently I got the hand on documents about how people tried to fight back some parliament members, in a very well known developped country, from cutting a science project. Sincerly I was horrorized by the citations. Scientists trying to become idiots, burocrats trying to become intelligent...
On what concerns mars dust. It it flies out and falls on Earth. But the cause is not impacts. The major cause are the dynamics of Mars sandstorms. They are huge, gigantic and some of that dust does manage to reach escape velocity. However some still question its impact on Earth, specially when considering the Solar wind and some other stuff.
Btw soon there should be one such storm... Usually they happen when Earth is quite near to Mars.
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Episode 324 - Is Mars alive? YES!
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Episode 456 - Mars IS DEATH!
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Episode 789 - Maybe Mars HAD life...
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Episode 1034 - No there are no chances for life in Mars...
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Episode 1345 - There could be life in Mars...
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Episode 2345 - Aliens! Saucers! BigMacs in Mars!
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Episode 3456 - Mars was/is and will be death
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Episode 4569 - Remake of episode 789...
This IS Mars. People this is not a joke. That how Mars has been seen for the last 400 years, since people started to seriously speculate about life in other planets. And nothing in the last scientific achievements has given a determined and final evidence that Mars is either dead or alive. Personally I tend mostly to the fact that this planet is still damn alive, even after all those shake-ups one may detect on its geology.There is evidence that certain formations could have been "build" by ancient organisms. One of them is exactly the ill-famous "Face" and the new fresh pictures even add some support to it. Besides there is a weird system of "black strikes/spots/marks" all over Mars, which strongly suggest that some organisms may still be playing a major role in Mars.
Some of you may counter with the fact that Viking didn't show any signs of organics. People, I specially studied some memories of persons who worked at that project and I have enough evidence of two facts:
the author of one of the biologic tests counsciously undermined the project, and tried to destroy some work made by some other people. He also tried in 1967 to revoke the demand for spacecraft sterilization;
the ill-famous Gas spectrometer experiment is questionable because the instrument was not only flawed in design but also the produced results cannot fit even the most pessimistic calculations.Besides the story of its development shows tons of questions
Besides of this. I cannot find, till now, the wholly promised results on Carbon presence from the rocks tested under Sojourner's mission. Till now, the promise "results will be published after calibration" still hang in the remains of the old Pathfinder's site. It passed nearly 4 years since then. I tried to search sites, science sites, news sites, NASA sites and till now Carbon is missing on Pathfinder's mission. Anyway it is still a result. As "to silence means to cooperate..."
Theo notes there that "software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia."
What Theo does not show what BSD should be. It shows the very nature of software. And BSD recognizes this very nature as a principle of use. Unfortunately many people attempt to overcome a natural fact by putting licences and restrictions. Much like the "bridge taxes" that were so common on the Middle Ages. Taxes were not only made on bridges built by the owner, but also on ancient roman bridges, bridges built by the community or third parties. Frequently taxes rose to absurd levels, which lead to clashes and even small wars. Something very similar can be seen in todays software.
Meanwhile there is a danger that Theo might have got too far. First because Australia surely will further see OpenBSD as a national menace. Second because Theo seems to live in California and there seems to exist a very weird rule there that considers even sugestions of using atomics as a terrorist threat... So time for Bush to switch out his NMD plans in exchenge for the new BSD (Berckley Software Defense) program... Considering the fact that BSD is red and has a small devil playing around with a fork, it will be absolutely easy for the conservative minds at Washington to readapt to the new threat:
"The Reds are coming!"
"The Red Evil menace"
"It's the devil in cheap... o damn... sheep clothes. Anyway it's in cheap clothes also..."
Lots of Eurasian nations have common traces with what we consider "typical" European characteristics. And barely they are based in a later mix. In fact I found references of old ancient mongol tribes having blonde hair and blue eyes. Besides, Chingiz Khan was red-bearded.
On what concerns Aryans. As far as I could get from several sources, including the Rig-Veda, we europeans are their enemies. There is a very high probability that the large majority of us are descendants of those that were cursed several times in old texts.
I studied a little bit of mongol and some funny things about us and the Siberians.And this gave me the idea that we europeans didn go to China. We came from China. In hordes. And these hordes do not include indo-europeans per se. It includes a whole group of eurasians: indo-europeans, turkics and finno-hugurians. The history of Europe is an history of a people, for which the mongols are still linguistically very close, which broke away some 9000 years ago. Since then, they have been roaming the west for several times. The origin of this nation is somewhere between Manchuria/Mongolia, and ending in the Altai-Sayan moutainous ridges.
The basis for that is much shorter than the "thin atmosphere" tale may explain. Besides I would remind you that today's thin atmosphere carries clear isotopic signs of not being the original one that Mars could carry in its early times.
This "burn in your minds" ain't new. It's been around here for the last 30 years. Yes, it's cool to state such things. But the fact is, that projects are dropped out, funds are cut and certain politicians even applaud some over-volunteered move from NASA to nail us on Earth.
Mars in 2020? Under the current political mood it would be impossible. Under the current administrative terms NASA rules it is not only impossible but also no less fantastic than a Heinlein's novel.
Today is 14 of May 2001. So we are twenty years from Goldin's dream. Today ISS flies with technologies that Russia created some 20 years ago. USA & Russia flies ships that were projected 30 years ago and have been flying for nearly 20 years. Today most rockets work on ideas that are as old as our fathers. And the large majority of engines preserve the same designs of 30 years ago. Apart from this, we have several interplanetary probes that work on designs projected on the 70s and most of the probes sent to Mars failed.
And today we scrapped nearly all interplanetary projects, except Mars. We also nailed into the coffin tens of projects to modernise and develope the present fleet of ships. The most flagrant, the desmise of the new Space Shuttle design (truly, the US Air Force took patronage of it but they are also not living their best days)
This is the status of our Space Conquer, exactly 40 years after Gagarin... Mars-2020? Give me a break.
As someone who had been directly studying some features, I would note a few things:
Geometries? Yes, there are geometries. There are lots of them. But I would stop far from claiming artificialities on them. They can be the cause of very natural phenomena, having enormous dimensions. Such things are, for example, very large impacts that produce a "rombic wallpaper" pattern for hundreds of even thousands of kilometers.
Mars has tons of water. The Hell with what NASA claims as they have shown no worser in lies as in facts. Yes, this water is far less than what we have on Earth but it still manages to create small underground lakes and ponds in such places like South Arabia Terra. In the past it covered all Northern Hemisphere and even such higher landscapes like Arabia Terra.
Mars suffered of some weird phenomena that wiped out most of its surface water in very short time. Near Mons Olympus and in some highlands on Acydalia, there are clear traces of megafloods that nearly caved a good piece of Mars crust. In geological terms people name these things scablands, as for a similar landscape in Washington State of the same name.
There is a very high chance that some biology existed in Mars. And some features are very suggestive that some of it survived and exists nowadays in Mars. Note that I believe on NASA results as much as I believe that the Face of Mars was built by an alien mind. In fact the study of several documents and the tragedy of Professor Wolf Vishniac lead me to conclude that there were people on Viking Project that falsified results and produced a scientific analysis with a very biased weight. In fact, there were people inside the project, like Professor Horowitz, who were not only aggressively opposed to the prospects of life in Mars, but also tried to undermine the work of some members of the team, and specially the work of Vishniac.
If there were lill green men on Mars, than 99% of their world will be impossible to be seen as this world was completely washed out.
The Face of Mars is probably the product of a living being but one as much as dumb as our trees, corals or liquens.
There is a goemetry on Cydonia. But it is hard to determine its nature. The most probable is the pure result of physical forces of natural or near natural origin. Anyway the probability of terraformation cannot be put fully aside.
The most terryfying in Mars are not "formations" or "geometries" or even "faces". The most scaring are craters. For nearly 5 years I have been studying them and came into one conclusion. In Mars craters are far from being interpreted only as a natural phenomena. In some places their distribution correlates with landscape formations that are completely independent in origin. There is even one hill that possesses a ring of more than 10 craters sorrounding nearly 90% of its cliffs. Much like if someone pointed straightly to the sides of this hill. Curiously they are nearly equal in diameter for a large part of the hill.
NASA lies. Yes it lies. But not only. It also shuts down the voices of those who dissent. Or helps to shut them down. Why? No its not an alien conspiracy. Just some people claiming for "Good Science" love to be "more popists than the Pope himself". And maybe some governmental short-mindness and underground politics is also in place.
But RIAA and similar organisations do a lot to show that if you don't buy their CDs then you are a marginal, an outlaw, a freak, a antisocial abortion. Come on! You know how millions of kids are poisoned by MTVs and radio stations to buy another major singer or run for another major hit. And tell me, under these hunts after mp3.com and similars, which somehow supported independent artists, what are the remaining alternatives? Everyone needs society and society demands that you go for Manchester United, Barcelona or Chicago Bulls. Noooo, of course you are free to choose. But are these things really a choice? After I saw two member meetings at a major european club I just stopped seeing soccer at all. It is too disgusting. And that makes me an alien...
There is a big difference between having a financial Evil Empire controlling you and a philosophic-nearly-religious like Microsoft trying to show you what you need. Yes, IBM could have taken a big grip on the market. But we know that it was not M$ that saved the world but the mistake of IBM to produce its first PC with a nearly "open" license: OSA. M$ only went after the Taiwanese and Compaq as it was its only way to make money. Anyway they always tried to control this market and the first blow was to stop the production of DOS for non-Intel machines. Did you know that Yamaha produced quite good PCs on Z80? They worked under MS-DOS and even 4 years ago I saw some of these machines still working. Some hackers started their career on them. They had a much better video and sound capabilities rather than the classical Intel PC. However M$ decided to create the Wintel dominion...
Stop playing the "good citizen" game ok? You perfectly know that we are dealing with companies who are far from being ethical. Your argumentation even shows this. You mention "overpricing". Now Mr. "Good citizen" please tell me who they overprice? The all-abstract miserable consumer? No, they overprice what I, you and Tim buy. And you perfectly know that they do not overprice for the cents but over the dollars. And this income usually does not go to artists pockets but to those of their "protectors": record companies and agents.
Frankly your comment is the typical face of that mirror that RIAA and alikes try to put on the consumer. Yeah, well CDs are overpriced but it is bad to pirate them. So RIAA and Co. can rob me and other consumers by the millions of dollars, but I should go to jail to for making an unauthorised copy costing a few dollars... XXI century Charles Dickens somewhere?
Spaniards also claimed that gold can be only of their own, but pirates should be hanged... If England had accepted such rule of the game, then the USA would be speaking spanish today. And it would have been name EUA.
I can assure that M$ motto "take over the world" was already visible in the beginning of 1987. I know this because I had a very close friend working on some OS/2, PS/2 stuff back then in IBM. And in June or July 1987 IBM got a big kick from M$ that showed their true intentions. Anyway, even after tons of people warned that M$ should be kicked out of the train, IBM bosses kept the belief that, after that harsh episode, it would still be possible to work with them... The result is plainly visible.
So we have some consolation. Even the Emperor wasn't able to see Dart Vader climbing to power...
That's exactly what the policies of M$ lead to. And that exactly what many M$ opponents point to. What is todays third party software on Windows. a good piece of it is patches, turnarounds, features that Windows lacks of. Small brickets that for some reason M$ "forgets" allways to put on its unique "distro". The most popular are the the tons of antivirus programs that "save the day" of millions of users.
People ask why bundlemaniac M$ does not introduce them in some new version and makes user lives easier as it always claim. Some denote that they always cost "almost nothing". Others note that without this stuff Windows always looks much more "pristine" and "clean". Anyway thay are today the base of waht has become software on M$ platform - small pebbles to please the savages...
It's curious that news come when some extremist comments on GPL are published at freshmeat:
"Use of Open Source Software Should Be Restricted"
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/257/
Information should be Free... but what if it's used to take away the freedom of others? The GPL places technical restrictions on the use of the software it protects. Bjorn Gohla believes it should also place political restrictions on it.
So it seems that extremism is todays sign of the equation... For both sides.
Frankly I doubt that courts, government decisions and competition will now do any good to stop M$. That had to be done two years ago. Now it's too late. The sense on how M$ runs forward looks much the same as some people in brown/black uniforms back in the 30s. And people will only react in two ways. Either they accept this new "plague" or they will reject it fully and completely.
Again two champs are formed in a battlefield. Again the future is to be decided between two extremes with the same common denominator - militantism.
Curiosly, again the federal government of The United States of America takes a "wait and see" position. Waiting for the electronic Pearl Harbour?
Finally a long last programmer's dream is fulfilled. Finally there is a comp on which one can fry eggs.
For nearly 20 years people often dreamed, after long hours of hard work, about eating some snack right on the workplace. This dream was frequently remarked by the claiming that the "comp is so hot that one can fry some bacon with eggs". However the real temperatures where still well below the desired values. It was hard even to boil water and only a few brave overclockers could manage to achieve this. So one had always to rise his a.. to get some hot food.
Today that dream is reality...
So, a new BIG, HUGE and FAT HOLE in ISS is published... Patch ready... So patch fast if you love IIS so much. However it seems that today the large majority of sysadmins don't read bugtraqs. Anyway this is sure for the very large majority of Windows users. The history of this system has shown that there is a chronical and traditional carelessness for security, starting on m$ and ending on the user himself.
So soon there will be news on how another Pentagon server was screwed up, on how another major corp had his finances washed up and how another major pop-website with tons of kitch and whoolaprizes is "temporarly unavailable".
And who should be blamed for this? The script kiddies like in that 98 scandal with Solaris at Pentagon? The hackers that show how buggy and crappy is a piece of software (here m$ doesn't matter)? The OpenSource, GPL, freeware communities for being much more liberal in these matters? Or the commies for once again digging another hideous conspiration against the US, the Free World and my backyard?
Well a curious case when SF starts to become reality... Many people considered the Matrix as a serious portrait of a surrealistic view of the World. Well, at least a small piece of it, remarks that the film does show something about this world...
This may be only the beginning... So beware.