A: DNA is one of the very few molecules that can be used as a code carrier. The other is RNA but it is less reliable.
B: Some proteins may be considered also as code carriers but there are some serious doubts on how reliable they can be.
C: There are several hypotesis considering other combinations but they demand other termodynamic conditions, far from those on Earth. One of these hypotesis concerns a more Titan-like environment with a hint on a silicon based life. However, if a living being from such world would fall into ours, he would be momentarly desintegrated.
D: Your question is good and bad. Good because it asks if we may not find something else. Bad because it's too Earth bound. DNA is not a "Earth property" it is an Universal property. Specially if we consider that there are clouds and clouds of the DNA's basic construction blocks floating in Cosmos. However we should not search only for DNA like beings. With a good level of craftsmanship it is possible to create "the other silicon beings" (apart of Tiatan-like ones) much similar to what we see on computers. This is no SF. But it is a hint on artificiality...
No, as far as I know there are traces of bacteria found in places like Greenland with no less than 3,4 billion years old. And there seems to exist indirect evidence that bacteria lived already 3,8 billion years old. Nuclear cells seem to have existed at no less than 2,5-3 billion years ago, and it seems these are traces of algaes. Meanwhile at 1 million years ago there seems to already exist a very large community of animals, plants in morphologies that today are equaled to SF nightmares. These groups were all gone by the end of Archaic, when probably 99% of species were slandered by a possible cosmic impact or something else.
The morphologies of Archaic beings are so weird that it would be possible to say that they are quite alien to us. Or maybe WE are the aliens?
Not inconsistent. There is a difference between what a program does and the front end of it. For example a program plays mp3's. Buttons, windows, menus and pictures are the front end. But the main function of the program is to play music.
If take a VERY GOOD LOOK at Gnome than you will see that there's a big difference here. In quality most programs are better to KDE's. On interface, just take a very good look at the debug dumps...
So don't talk me here that I'm fudding. I'm stating things I see and not crying "M$ RULEZ EVERYONE ELSE SUUUUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!"
And probably this is what makes Gnome/Gtk generally better than KDE ones. However I keep noting. Gnome's interface IS A FRANKENSTEIN. And it is those same average users are saying. Those same Windows which KDE wanna take over. I have thousands of them here and I asked them what do they think about the interfaces. And they said KDE & WindowMaker are good. And Gnome got even worse than BlackBox. So why Gnome&RMS fans FUD so acidly here?
Ok lay me down! Flamebait! Unberrated! Troll! Neanderthal! Go Fish! There is something else more than stupid half-brained soft wars. Remember that Linux, in its hearth, has NOTHING to do with Gnome/KDE. And that there is also: WindowMaker, BlackBox, AfterStep, ICEwm and many others. And whoever comes here demonstrating his intelligence by FUDding his neighbor, he is a M$ lawyer...
I am not pro-KDE. I am stating what I saw from my observations. And my observations say that more than 60% of users choose KDE as main interface. However only 10-20 persons among 4500 choose Gnome. Meanwhile most people use programs based on Gnome/Gtk, more than KDE ones. Anyway, here, the difference is not os big, probably 60 to 30. But one fact remains nearly EVERYONE doesn't like Gnome as an interface.
One thing is blasting a piece of surface to grab some minerals, the other to dig a hole to hide in.
Do you think that closed mining is more proper to use on the Moon? I don't think so. First due to the nature of the rock, second because there is no need to dig it when you may use a pair of nukes to fragment rock, third because this world does not have atmosphere and low gravity. On such environment, dust takes longer to settle down and spreads much larger. Besides fragments of rocks will be flying upon, more frequently, than this would happen on Earth.
And why to spend so much work if nukes can be reliably used there? Note that, due to several reasons, they can be used in a fraction of power needed on Earth. Second they can only be used effectively on subsoil. Third radiation would not be so widespread due to the lack of gaseous or liquid components on Moon surface.
So closed mining would be not only less economical but also more dangerous.
However open mining is also not without dangers. In a near time some places can get heavy on dust that gets harder and harder to settle.
With a well developed system of transport. mining the Moon would be more expensive than in asteroids. Mostly it is due to the fact the nearly lack of atmosphere. While asteroids lack atmosphere, they do not call so many meteoroids and micometeorites to their surfaces. Besides, they are not so prone to call powerful plasma storms. Moon does not have an atmosphere in full, however it possesses a layer of sodium constantly dropping out of its surface. In certain conditions this sub-atmosphere could be an hazard for such things like electronics.
Besides, in cases when a powerful sun storm comes up, it would be easier to take cover on the other side of an asteroid. On the Moon there will be the need to dig up bunkers and this may not be so simple on the basaltic surface of this planet.
It's a great move. As it allows software to keep its development dynamics. And it will allow to have several properietary forms on binaries and sources. With a system of patents this would lead objectively to a stall in some critical points of development.
Of course this will not satisfy those who see a copyright claim not enough for protection. And this does not mean only corporations and cash-hungry egoistic personalities. This means small developers that want to get some money from an hard and original work.
I'm a anti-patent partisan. But I believe that anyone has the right to distribute his work under the conditions that fit most his interests. And it is pretty clear that stamping "My Copyright #### - All rights reserved" is not enough for protection. So how to get out of this?
Patent protection is a nonsense in software and even most hardware systems. However the software product is something real and which allows to evaluate the cases when someone grabs unlawfully its code. Besides software has a property that other Works of Art don't possess. It can be reproduced with a 99% accurancy. So why not to create a Software Depositary where people who wished to protect their works, would keep an copy of their original work? In cases of plagiates, theft, piracy, this would help a lot in litigation processes. Besides it would not hamper development. If someone makes a parallel discovery then he also gets the right to give life to it.
One interesting point. Such institution would not need to see the original code to process registration. Microsoft could well bring all Windows source code in a sealed box and claim it when it wanted to sue someone. However if such things would be there then this institution should have a building stronger than Cheyenne Mountain.
I would say one may suffer.
To add some fire to the discussion. Once I heard about one guy, in St. Peterburg if I'm not mistaken, who suffered from acute form of insomny. You know what he did to pass the sleepless nights? Read the Big Soviet Encyclopedia (there is also the Small SE). Up to the level he could cite any page from it in any way and form. Yes, this may not be exactly the memory process related to learning (this is more "photo" memory) but still it is indirectly related to it.
*FUD start*Such thing reminds me of some M$ ideas on concentrating everything all around the world in one bucket. Somehow this resulted in the.NET idea. So now we are up to the Universe...*FUD end*
Well, anyway the idea is not so bad at all. But I don't see how to realise it without making some radical changes in the system. First we have to deal with communication channels. For such volumes like astronomical databases they are highly unreliable. We are not going to run pentabytes on them but surely there will be gigabytes going back and forth. Let's note. A Mars raw image from PDS weighs sometimes up to 20 Megabytes. Processing such images leads sometimes to data volumes 10-30 times bigger. On some cases it is possible to apply JPEG to compress these images. But sometimes it is highly undesirable to do it. So we get something weighing 100-200 Megs. On a 100Mb network, that will take a few minutes to pass from station to station. Now imagine a widespread, worldwide network working such way.
On one side we have archives all spread over the world. On the other side this rises a community of astronomers also working all over. It will be a big challenge to achieve such thing. And a big financial adventure. Maybe dumb burrocritters will think that data will be cheaper if it keeps rotting in a magnetic tape.
What am I doing is denying a result that I don't like because the experiment is fully biased.
The experiment presents people with a rythm that, in any case, disturbs their biological clocks. Wether you sleep 1, 2 or 12 hours a day, you do it at night or in broad daylight. Now the average mass tends to sleep 8 hours a day at night. So what do we have here? You disturb ALL people and try to gather statistics. On the counter part of the experiment the average mass gets its time of due sleep. And you CONCLUDE that people should sleep those 8 hours a day. Isn't there an assymetry on results?
Sorry but in my case ALL people do not have the usual sleep hours. I would not you that such things like the 25 hour bioclock, and other more weird rythms are well observed here. There are some who carry even a 32 hour clock.
A more correct study would be to carry also an experiment with INTTERRUPTED sleep. You give people after a 2 days run, only 2 or four hours of sleep. And on those who went to sleep at regular time, to also interrupt their sleep the same way.
This is simple and does not draws conclusions nearly impossible.
And before getting stupid flamebait try to weight your words. As you said you DON'T know what I do. But the fact that I work 4 days in a row does not mean you're smarter. Maybe the contrary is much more true. And what concerns reading the articles, do read them before posting. But I also have some knowledge about bioclocks (NOT newspaper biorythms) and things like work in Cosmos and my own work. And my conclusion is that the article is pure crapped bias.
The article is pure junk. The described experiment looks much like an amateur doctor trying to check his own stereotypes on how people should live instead of a real scientific analysis, where time frames vary, people are set into several working scenarios and different rythms of work/sleep are set.
Right now I'm in the second day at work. Slept 4 hours. And feel ok except that is a bit cold (temperatures drastically dropped here). Probably I'll remain in the place for one or two days more. Having sleeping cycles of half-four hours between worktimes of 4-15 hours. I didn't forget anything I should do, what I read yesterday or what I did and should do.
And for nearly 10 years I have never seen such things as the crap written in these news...
The only moment when memory does really start to suffer is when you get three-four days without taking a nap and you worked like hell. And, after sleeping, I don't see that I really forgot about anything noticeable. I even remember some details I usually wouldn't note in a normal rythm.
I had rythms on sleeping 2 hours on full 20 hour worktimes for more than a week. The limit of sleepless I reached - 5 days. I also slept two days in a row. And don't see where this guy is making the point.
One thing I'm sure. Each person has his clock. A bioclock that says "you can stay N hours awake, but after that sleep X hours". That's a steel rule. However this clock ranges from people sleeping 3-4 hours to others taking 12-13 hour snaps. These last ones are not lazy. Their rythms demand such long hours of sleep.
Some others, like me, have nearly irregular sleep clocks. One thing I know is that if the brain says "time for a good snap" then better to do it. Besides I and two guys here are typical night owls. I only feel my good working rythm at night, while in the morning or evening I feel sleepy quite frequently. Even if I slept the whole night. Day before yesterday I did so. Came to work and also slept the whole morning. And the next night was a run down to 6 in the morning...
Besides, there are people that suffer a rythm very similar to "Napoleon's syndrome". They can only sleep in very short moments and do not have a fixed sleeping rythm at all.
In front of this, the article is tantalizing for its nonsense...
In this light I would say: ok, use Windows. But don't mess with Linux anymore. Because Linux is not a Windows substitute. It is ANOTHER system. And whatever the media cries about thiis, it is THEIR problem. Specially some/. people.
Linux is not Win^2, or Anti-Win, or Win(-1) or anything else. It is "crunch-Win" when M$ whistleblowers try to overcome its territory. However, on the rest it is a quite peaceful system that lives along with Solaris, BSD and other *NIX cousins.
2,5 years I scrapped the last piece of Windows I had. And till now I haven't seen that I'm loosing something on M$ stuff, except games. But I can live without them. You may not live on Linux the same way I can't live on Windows. As far as no one touches each other's "domain of use" we may peacefully live. Unfortunately Redmond's horde cannot live too long without another OS war.
"All three" aren't learning from each other -- both are learning from Windows. There's only one UI that has any real R&D and UI testing dollars behind it, and it dowesn't have a footprint or K as an icon."
First I should mention that while the menu feature is a typical Windows borrowing, many others are not. Second don't forget to mention some "testing dollars" to Xerox, Apple and even some less known Hewlett-Packard that helped the creation of the Win9x interface. And to end, don't forget a less reffered X that had the menu system quite before Windows had it... If you don't believe than go grab any old Unix from the beginning of the 90's.
NICs, vague tools, and configuration files... Ok let's make a point. If you go to the Army no one tells you that rifles will shoot automatically to where you point, right? If you have some initiate experience on Linux and take intervals of a year to "restudy" it, then wait that the rifle will shoot the same way as before. Linux is not a "AI automatic rifle system". IT IS NOT. Wanna go shoot? Pick the damn RTFM and dig on it as if you are doing 50Km marches a day.
If you did that, then you would know how to launch your damn driver in 2-5 minutes without rebooting the machine and kick KDE into Hell. And a simple wget would be enough to grab the packages you needed. And you wouldn't be whinning about "desktop experience" but kicking the graphic desktop up to the extremes without that "Start" button crap...
If the certifying authority is not bound to one entity then everything is ok! Yes, let's not forget that users should keep the right to revoke Whistler's control. However if this means one house - Verisign that is Bad Move. First because the house is private. Second because it is commercial. Third because it is only one.
Not having a state or non-governemntal institution here is potential step for trouble as we don't have a counterweight for possible abuses.
Being commercial means that you buy and sell things. And some people may think it would be a good thing to sell some stuff on the side. Or Verisign may go bankrupt and we get some cold shower over the whole system. Or it can be bought by M$ and farewell independence...
It is only one house. In case of financial crisis, takeovers, corruptions, theft and earthquakes in their basement, we will have trouble.
Some good years ago there was an accident with an Airbus where the pilot felt that the airplane was flying too low. So he maneuvered to try to get some additional airlift. However the computer considered that the angle the airplane was going pushed its stability. So it nullified all pilot commands and returned everything in place.
"These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation."
For those who call RMS a "damn b*** commie agent".
You're WRONG!
He is an anti-communist! Worse he is DAMN ANTI-COMMUNIST!!!!
What is written here is almost a citation of what communists named the evil of capitalism ideology: Thomas Malthus. Even some capitalists named thsi guy a "damn reactionary b***".
Well, so long for the theories that RMS "came from the cold"...
"What will happen then, is complete speculation. If Microsoft continue to dumb down their $80 version of windows, I can see a growing market in replacement shells for windows"
Less probable that this will happen. For the pro's, a more ideal desktop system is the one that sticks with windows manipulation, performance and less with such things like "Start menu". An example of this is WindowMaker. On Windows there is its twin-brother: LightStep. I don't know its present status, but for nearly a year I witnessed a long and painful path of evolution, where LightStep tried to overcome the all-embedded-in-one world of Windows. I saw how betas balanced on stability, performance and features. I saw the headaches developers had on working NT and 98. It seemed that LightStep would be doomed to be an eternal beta. Sometime ago i noted that the project is still alive. But it seems that is not so popular as before and still fights its beta status. After nearly 3 or 4 years.
So you may imagine what will happen to replacement shells. Besides there is also a problem they may force users to stick into traditional desktop. M$ is removing most chances, if not all, to use a command line terminal. Without it, it will be pretty hard to see other desktops in Windows, as they should be quite complete to fit on a cascade of dialog windows and other diagnostic stuff. Without a clear information about the backstages of the system it will be very hard to make beta
tests of such soft.
Windows vs. KDE vs. Gnome. Always the same song. And sincerly, do you really care about it? I prefer to have analysis where 80% is about the quality/crap of the system itself and only 20% about comparing things against each other. Yes, because the author then wouldn't forget that exist:
WindowMaker
AfterStep
IceWm
XFce
BlackBox
And several other wm's with a more or less level of features, completeness, stability and many things more. As a pro I prefer the WindowMaker/AfterStep interface. Sincerly it is irritating for me to have a piece of crap on the bottom ALWAYS telling me what I have in my computer. Well, it's my comp, I installed it, I know what's inside. So why I need this "start" menu??? I launch a termnial and get EVERY program I need. Besides I don't need the oversuperfluous amount of features that either Gnome or KDE give. I need my programs to work and not an interface for playing cosmetics. Besides, if anyone wants to use something REALLY beautiful then try Enlightenment. Yeah it is less usable than all others. But even I, sometimes, launch it just to see the beauty of a piece of computer art in full motion. Just by its artitistic power, Enlightenment deserves a big place.
Besides, these KDE/GNOME (and Whistler included) interfaces are hugely bloated. They eat several times more memory than WindowMaker and others. Besides they are slower. For compilations and high processing power, they are an overload. so why do I need them?
Well twice I saw this same thing. What amused me was that the submission about Plex86 was late a day, it was refused, and next day they published it.
Besides the situation with this article is quite bad as it is a typical example of yellow journalistics that people have been highly fearing. This way/. will loose every single drop of respect. Frankly, if it wasn't the fact that we readers make 80% of it, I would have quit reading long ago. The headers are sometimes irritating and stupid. Some comments and headers about M$ are on the same level as M$ FUD itself. And published submissions have been degrading highly. First they are coming terribly late, haven't you noted? Second they sometimes forget/delay some critical launches, events. Mandrake was nearly forgotten and only came out when people where already firing Hell for days, about an american distribution chain launching a pre-release as 7.2. And third, their selectivity seems to show that/. keeps living in the end of 90's and does not want to move further. In a day they seem to get 100-300 sumissions. And, published, we see only the same number as before 5-10 a day. It would be curious to think that all 90-290 are dupes, spam, trolls, anti-linux FUD, mass-media junk and co.
And sincerly. I believe Rob is getting no better than Bill. Keeping to rule of the game only in his own and his command is what M$ does and not the OSS/GNU/Free Software community. Open the house Rob, you will not loose but win. If you do it smartly, of course...
This is one of the potential dangers. (Note that I refer to POTENTIAL dangers)
If you are producing closed source programs and M$ asks for your code to certify it, then this will give an unileral competitive advantage to M$. They can reuse your code, hijack/steal it, or block its distribution due to something they didn't like on it. Note the "reuse your code" does not forcefully means that they will steal it from you. That's why I refer to hijack/steal. They may offer you a million dollars bargain for it. But in the market, your code could cost 2-3-10 times more. However the fact that only M$ sees it will give them the power to offer a "get or die" contract.
Besides do not think that stealing/hijacking code means Microsoft Corp. It means something worse. It means all what is M$ is made of. The potential of such situation may create a "inner bazaar" where code is trafficked by M$ employees, departments and other organisms. This would look too similar to Soviet Union, where some valuable items where confiscated to be traded among commissars, Central Committee people and party workers. The point here is that creating such a form of restricted "overlook" will forcefully lead to such.
Interesting to note that the only way to overcome the degree of this danger would be to open the software. Then, such situation would be less critical.
For:
Cyprus, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Switzerland.
These countries are well known for being the "bank countries" where large amounts of many, from all over the globe, rest in their safes. Switzerland is also known to be the "patent country", due to its well developed patent system and for the most well known patent officer in History of Science.
Austria, Belgium, Italy are known to be in the "average" wagon of software development. They possess excelent programmers but in general they are not enough to give a strong status to the country.
Netherlands goes on the "soft countries". While a small country, there the contingent is strong enough to give a weight worldwide.
Greece as far as I know is the poor brother of this group. But it is not completely alone. With exception of Switzerland, all other "bank countries" have poor contingents of software developers. Even poorer than Greece.
Against
Luxembourg -"Bank country" that does not follow its cousins. Maybe solidarity with its two big neighbors, France and Germany?
France, Germany, Denmark+Sweden - "soft countries". Specially Germany that it is becoming the "European Sillicon Valley". Specially to note the strong position of OSS & Free Software in these countries.
Spain, Portugal - Countries that go on the average wagon. However it should be noted that its ex-colonies possess a significant power in the software world and some are strong supporters of OSS & Free Software, for example: Mexico & Brazil. And this may influence the position of these countries in this game.
It is admirable that UK and Finland abstained. At least knowing the strong US influnce in UK and the fact that Finaland possesses a strong position in software development exactly on the side of Free Software.
What would be interesting to know the position of other european countries. It would be probable that Bulgaria & Czechia would be against, while I fear that Poland and the Balts would step on their sickening "follow blindly America" trend. Russia would be against. Its law forbids the patenting of software and sends everything to Copyright Law.
Linux has several systems to verify the integrity of an archive/package/program (ex. PGP/MD5 signatures). I should note that it possesses also several systems that checkup the integrity of files installed (ex. Tripwire). What Linux may not have, is a mechanism doing these checks at run time. Probably this would be a useful option in some cases, but not all as this causes some overload that may be uncessary/undesirable.
On what concerns the lack of a Verisign or similar certification system. On Linux this is not a good option as the dynamics of development are much higher and variable. This specially concerns cases when people work in such projects like distros. I don't wanna say that we don't need Verisign-like certifications at all. But it is not as universal as in Windows, where development is more enclosed.
Slashdot Mirror
A: DNA is one of the very few molecules that can be used as a code carrier. The other is RNA but it is less reliable.
B: Some proteins may be considered also as code carriers but there are some serious doubts on how reliable they can be.
C: There are several hypotesis considering other combinations but they demand other termodynamic conditions, far from those on Earth. One of these hypotesis concerns a more Titan-like environment with a hint on a silicon based life. However, if a living being from such world would fall into ours, he would be momentarly desintegrated.
D: Your question is good and bad. Good because it asks if we may not find something else. Bad because it's too Earth bound. DNA is not a "Earth property" it is an Universal property. Specially if we consider that there are clouds and clouds of the DNA's basic construction blocks floating in Cosmos. However we should not search only for DNA like beings. With a good level of craftsmanship it is possible to create "the other silicon beings" (apart of Tiatan-like ones) much similar to what we see on computers. This is no SF. But it is a hint on artificiality...
No, as far as I know there are traces of bacteria found in places like Greenland with no less than 3,4 billion years old. And there seems to exist indirect evidence that bacteria lived already 3,8 billion years old. Nuclear cells seem to have existed at no less than 2,5-3 billion years ago, and it seems these are traces of algaes. Meanwhile at 1 million years ago there seems to already exist a very large community of animals, plants in morphologies that today are equaled to SF nightmares. These groups were all gone by the end of Archaic, when probably 99% of species were slandered by a possible cosmic impact or something else.
The morphologies of Archaic beings are so weird that it would be possible to say that they are quite alien to us. Or maybe WE are the aliens?
Not inconsistent. There is a difference between what a program does and the front end of it. For example a program plays mp3's. Buttons, windows, menus and pictures are the front end. But the main function of the program is to play music.
If take a VERY GOOD LOOK at Gnome than you will see that there's a big difference here. In quality most programs are better to KDE's. On interface, just take a very good look at the debug dumps...
So don't talk me here that I'm fudding. I'm stating things I see and not crying "M$ RULEZ EVERYONE ELSE SUUUUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!"
And probably this is what makes Gnome/Gtk generally better than KDE ones. However I keep noting. Gnome's interface IS A FRANKENSTEIN. And it is those same average users are saying. Those same Windows which KDE wanna take over. I have thousands of them here and I asked them what do they think about the interfaces. And they said KDE & WindowMaker are good. And Gnome got even worse than BlackBox. So why Gnome&RMS fans FUD so acidly here?
Ok lay me down! Flamebait! Unberrated! Troll! Neanderthal! Go Fish! There is something else more than stupid half-brained soft wars. Remember that Linux, in its hearth, has NOTHING to do with Gnome/KDE. And that there is also: WindowMaker, BlackBox, AfterStep, ICEwm and many others. And whoever comes here demonstrating his intelligence by FUDding his neighbor, he is a M$ lawyer...
I am not pro-KDE. I am stating what I saw from my observations. And my observations say that more than 60% of users choose KDE as main interface. However only 10-20 persons among 4500 choose Gnome. Meanwhile most people use programs based on Gnome/Gtk, more than KDE ones. Anyway, here, the difference is not os big, probably 60 to 30. But one fact remains nearly EVERYONE doesn't like Gnome as an interface.
One thing is blasting a piece of surface to grab some minerals, the other to dig a hole to hide in.
Do you think that closed mining is more proper to use on the Moon? I don't think so. First due to the nature of the rock, second because there is no need to dig it when you may use a pair of nukes to fragment rock, third because this world does not have atmosphere and low gravity. On such environment, dust takes longer to settle down and spreads much larger. Besides fragments of rocks will be flying upon, more frequently, than this would happen on Earth.
And why to spend so much work if nukes can be reliably used there? Note that, due to several reasons, they can be used in a fraction of power needed on Earth. Second they can only be used effectively on subsoil. Third radiation would not be so widespread due to the lack of gaseous or liquid components on Moon surface.
So closed mining would be not only less economical but also more dangerous.
However open mining is also not without dangers. In a near time some places can get heavy on dust that gets harder and harder to settle.
With a well developed system of transport. mining the Moon would be more expensive than in asteroids. Mostly it is due to the fact the nearly lack of atmosphere. While asteroids lack atmosphere, they do not call so many meteoroids and micometeorites to their surfaces. Besides, they are not so prone to call powerful plasma storms. Moon does not have an atmosphere in full, however it possesses a layer of sodium constantly dropping out of its surface. In certain conditions this sub-atmosphere could be an hazard for such things like electronics.
Besides, in cases when a powerful sun storm comes up, it would be easier to take cover on the other side of an asteroid. On the Moon there will be the need to dig up bunkers and this may not be so simple on the basaltic surface of this planet.
It's a great move. As it allows software to keep its development dynamics. And it will allow to have several properietary forms on binaries and sources. With a system of patents this would lead objectively to a stall in some critical points of development.
Of course this will not satisfy those who see a copyright claim not enough for protection. And this does not mean only corporations and cash-hungry egoistic personalities. This means small developers that want to get some money from an hard and original work.
I'm a anti-patent partisan. But I believe that anyone has the right to distribute his work under the conditions that fit most his interests. And it is pretty clear that stamping "My Copyright #### - All rights reserved" is not enough for protection. So how to get out of this?
Patent protection is a nonsense in software and even most hardware systems. However the software product is something real and which allows to evaluate the cases when someone grabs unlawfully its code. Besides software has a property that other Works of Art don't possess. It can be reproduced with a 99% accurancy. So why not to create a Software Depositary where people who wished to protect their works, would keep an copy of their original work? In cases of plagiates, theft, piracy, this would help a lot in litigation processes. Besides it would not hamper development. If someone makes a parallel discovery then he also gets the right to give life to it.
One interesting point. Such institution would not need to see the original code to process registration. Microsoft could well bring all Windows source code in a sealed box and claim it when it wanted to sue someone. However if such things would be there then this institution should have a building stronger than Cheyenne Mountain.
I would say one may suffer.
To add some fire to the discussion. Once I heard about one guy, in St. Peterburg if I'm not mistaken, who suffered from acute form of insomny. You know what he did to pass the sleepless nights? Read the Big Soviet Encyclopedia (there is also the Small SE). Up to the level he could cite any page from it in any way and form. Yes, this may not be exactly the memory process related to learning (this is more "photo" memory) but still it is indirectly related to it.
So I would be more careful doing such studies...
*FUD start*Such thing reminds me of some M$ ideas on concentrating everything all around the world in one bucket. Somehow this resulted in the .NET idea. So now we are up to the Universe...*FUD end*
Well, anyway the idea is not so bad at all. But I don't see how to realise it without making some radical changes in the system. First we have to deal with communication channels. For such volumes like astronomical databases they are highly unreliable. We are not going to run pentabytes on them but surely there will be gigabytes going back and forth. Let's note. A Mars raw image from PDS weighs sometimes up to 20 Megabytes. Processing such images leads sometimes to data volumes 10-30 times bigger. On some cases it is possible to apply JPEG to compress these images. But sometimes it is highly undesirable to do it. So we get something weighing 100-200 Megs. On a 100Mb network, that will take a few minutes to pass from station to station. Now imagine a widespread, worldwide network working such way.
On one side we have archives all spread over the world. On the other side this rises a community of astronomers also working all over. It will be a big challenge to achieve such thing. And a big financial adventure. Maybe dumb burrocritters will think that data will be cheaper if it keeps rotting in a magnetic tape.
What am I doing is denying a result that I don't like because the experiment is fully biased.
The experiment presents people with a rythm that, in any case, disturbs their biological clocks. Wether you sleep 1, 2 or 12 hours a day, you do it at night or in broad daylight. Now the average mass tends to sleep 8 hours a day at night. So what do we have here? You disturb ALL people and try to gather statistics. On the counter part of the experiment the average mass gets its time of due sleep. And you CONCLUDE that people should sleep those 8 hours a day. Isn't there an assymetry on results?
Sorry but in my case ALL people do not have the usual sleep hours. I would not you that such things like the 25 hour bioclock, and other more weird rythms are well observed here. There are some who carry even a 32 hour clock.
A more correct study would be to carry also an experiment with INTTERRUPTED sleep. You give people after a 2 days run, only 2 or four hours of sleep. And on those who went to sleep at regular time, to also interrupt their sleep the same way.
This is simple and does not draws conclusions nearly impossible.
And before getting stupid flamebait try to weight your words. As you said you DON'T know what I do. But the fact that I work 4 days in a row does not mean you're smarter. Maybe the contrary is much more true. And what concerns reading the articles, do read them before posting. But I also have some knowledge about bioclocks (NOT newspaper biorythms) and things like work in Cosmos and my own work. And my conclusion is that the article is pure crapped bias.
The article is pure junk. The described experiment looks much like an amateur doctor trying to check his own stereotypes on how people should live instead of a real scientific analysis, where time frames vary, people are set into several working scenarios and different rythms of work/sleep are set.
Right now I'm in the second day at work. Slept 4 hours. And feel ok except that is a bit cold (temperatures drastically dropped here). Probably I'll remain in the place for one or two days more. Having sleeping cycles of half-four hours between worktimes of 4-15 hours. I didn't forget anything I should do, what I read yesterday or what I did and should do.
And for nearly 10 years I have never seen such things as the crap written in these news...
The only moment when memory does really start to suffer is when you get three-four days without taking a nap and you worked like hell. And, after sleeping, I don't see that I really forgot about anything noticeable. I even remember some details I usually wouldn't note in a normal rythm.
I had rythms on sleeping 2 hours on full 20 hour worktimes for more than a week. The limit of sleepless I reached - 5 days. I also slept two days in a row. And don't see where this guy is making the point.
One thing I'm sure. Each person has his clock. A bioclock that says "you can stay N hours awake, but after that sleep X hours". That's a steel rule. However this clock ranges from people sleeping 3-4 hours to others taking 12-13 hour snaps. These last ones are not lazy. Their rythms demand such long hours of sleep.
Some others, like me, have nearly irregular sleep clocks. One thing I know is that if the brain says "time for a good snap" then better to do it. Besides I and two guys here are typical night owls. I only feel my good working rythm at night, while in the morning or evening I feel sleepy quite frequently. Even if I slept the whole night. Day before yesterday I did so. Came to work and also slept the whole morning. And the next night was a run down to 6 in the morning...
Besides, there are people that suffer a rythm very similar to "Napoleon's syndrome". They can only sleep in very short moments and do not have a fixed sleeping rythm at all.
In front of this, the article is tantalizing for its nonsense...
In this light I would say: ok, use Windows. But don't mess with Linux anymore. Because Linux is not a Windows substitute. It is ANOTHER system. And whatever the media cries about thiis, it is THEIR problem. Specially some /. people.
Linux is not Win^2, or Anti-Win, or Win(-1) or anything else. It is "crunch-Win" when M$ whistleblowers try to overcome its territory. However, on the rest it is a quite peaceful system that lives along with Solaris, BSD and other *NIX cousins.
2,5 years I scrapped the last piece of Windows I had. And till now I haven't seen that I'm loosing something on M$ stuff, except games. But I can live without them. You may not live on Linux the same way I can't live on Windows. As far as no one touches each other's "domain of use" we may peacefully live. Unfortunately Redmond's horde cannot live too long without another OS war.
"All three" aren't learning from each other -- both are learning from Windows. There's only one UI that has any real R&D and UI testing dollars behind it, and it dowesn't have a footprint or K as an icon."
First I should mention that while the menu feature is a typical Windows borrowing, many others are not. Second don't forget to mention some "testing dollars" to Xerox, Apple and even some less known Hewlett-Packard that helped the creation of the Win9x interface. And to end, don't forget a less reffered X that had the menu system quite before Windows had it... If you don't believe than go grab any old Unix from the beginning of the 90's.
And this guy gets 5? UberTroll
NICs, vague tools, and configuration files... Ok let's make a point. If you go to the Army no one tells you that rifles will shoot automatically to where you point, right? If you have some initiate experience on Linux and take intervals of a year to "restudy" it, then wait that the rifle will shoot the same way as before. Linux is not a "AI automatic rifle system". IT IS NOT. Wanna go shoot? Pick the damn RTFM and dig on it as if you are doing 50Km marches a day.
If you did that, then you would know how to launch your damn driver in 2-5 minutes without rebooting the machine and kick KDE into Hell. And a simple wget would be enough to grab the packages you needed. And you wouldn't be whinning about "desktop experience" but kicking the graphic desktop up to the extremes without that "Start" button crap...
If the certifying authority is not bound to one entity then everything is ok! Yes, let's not forget that users should keep the right to revoke Whistler's control. However if this means one house - Verisign that is Bad Move. First because the house is private. Second because it is commercial. Third because it is only one.
Not having a state or non-governemntal institution here is potential step for trouble as we don't have a counterweight for possible abuses.
Being commercial means that you buy and sell things. And some people may think it would be a good thing to sell some stuff on the side. Or Verisign may go bankrupt and we get some cold shower over the whole system. Or it can be bought by M$ and farewell independence...
It is only one house. In case of financial crisis, takeovers, corruptions, theft and earthquakes in their basement, we will have trouble.
Some good years ago there was an accident with an Airbus where the pilot felt that the airplane was flying too low. So he maneuvered to try to get some additional airlift. However the computer considered that the angle the airplane was going pushed its stability. So it nullified all pilot commands and returned everything in place.
The result - KABUUM!!!
"These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation."
For those who call RMS a "damn b*** commie agent".
You're WRONG!
He is an anti-communist! Worse he is DAMN ANTI-COMMUNIST!!!!
What is written here is almost a citation of what communists named the evil of capitalism ideology: Thomas Malthus. Even some capitalists named thsi guy a "damn reactionary b***".
Well, so long for the theories that RMS "came from the cold"...
"What will happen then, is complete speculation. If Microsoft continue to dumb down their $80 version of windows, I can see a growing market in replacement shells for windows"
Less probable that this will happen. For the pro's, a more ideal desktop system is the one that sticks with windows manipulation, performance and less with such things like "Start menu". An example of this is WindowMaker. On Windows there is its twin-brother: LightStep. I don't know its present status, but for nearly a year I witnessed a long and painful path of evolution, where LightStep tried to overcome the all-embedded-in-one world of Windows. I saw how betas balanced on stability, performance and features. I saw the headaches developers had on working NT and 98. It seemed that LightStep would be doomed to be an eternal beta. Sometime ago i noted that the project is still alive. But it seems that is not so popular as before and still fights its beta status. After nearly 3 or 4 years.
So you may imagine what will happen to replacement shells. Besides there is also a problem they may force users to stick into traditional desktop. M$ is removing most chances, if not all, to use a command line terminal. Without it, it will be pretty hard to see other desktops in Windows, as they should be quite complete to fit on a cascade of dialog windows and other diagnostic stuff. Without a clear information about the backstages of the system it will be very hard to make beta
tests of such soft.
In resume. User is doomed to be dumb.
Windows vs. KDE vs. Gnome. Always the same song. And sincerly, do you really care about it? I prefer to have analysis where 80% is about the quality/crap of the system itself and only 20% about comparing things against each other. Yes, because the author then wouldn't forget that exist:
WindowMaker
AfterStep
IceWm
XFce
BlackBox
And several other wm's with a more or less level of features, completeness, stability and many things more. As a pro I prefer the WindowMaker/AfterStep interface. Sincerly it is irritating for me to have a piece of crap on the bottom ALWAYS telling me what I have in my computer. Well, it's my comp, I installed it, I know what's inside. So why I need this "start" menu??? I launch a termnial and get EVERY program I need. Besides I don't need the oversuperfluous amount of features that either Gnome or KDE give. I need my programs to work and not an interface for playing cosmetics. Besides, if anyone wants to use something REALLY beautiful then try Enlightenment. Yeah it is less usable than all others. But even I, sometimes, launch it just to see the beauty of a piece of computer art in full motion. Just by its artitistic power, Enlightenment deserves a big place.
Besides, these KDE/GNOME (and Whistler included) interfaces are hugely bloated. They eat several times more memory than WindowMaker and others. Besides they are slower. For compilations and high processing power, they are an overload. so why do I need them?
Well twice I saw this same thing. What amused me was that the submission about Plex86 was late a day, it was refused, and next day they published it. /. will loose every single drop of respect. Frankly, if it wasn't the fact that we readers make 80% of it, I would have quit reading long ago. The headers are sometimes irritating and stupid. Some comments and headers about M$ are on the same level as M$ FUD itself. And published submissions have been degrading highly. First they are coming terribly late, haven't you noted? Second they sometimes forget/delay some critical launches, events. Mandrake was nearly forgotten and only came out when people where already firing Hell for days, about an american distribution chain launching a pre-release as 7.2. And third, their selectivity seems to show that /. keeps living in the end of 90's and does not want to move further. In a day they seem to get 100-300 sumissions. And, published, we see only the same number as before 5-10 a day. It would be curious to think that all 90-290 are dupes, spam, trolls, anti-linux FUD, mass-media junk and co.
Besides the situation with this article is quite bad as it is a typical example of yellow journalistics that people have been highly fearing. This way
And sincerly. I believe Rob is getting no better than Bill. Keeping to rule of the game only in his own and his command is what M$ does and not the OSS/GNU/Free Software community. Open the house Rob, you will not loose but win. If you do it smartly, of course...
Well somewhere I read that Torvalds mentioned that when his daughter will be borned then the new 2.4.0 would come also up "very soon".
Anyway congratulations to the big daddy. His wife gave him two daughters and the computer a penguin.
This is one of the potential dangers. (Note that I refer to POTENTIAL dangers)
If you are producing closed source programs and M$ asks for your code to certify it, then this will give an unileral competitive advantage to M$. They can reuse your code, hijack/steal it, or block its distribution due to something they didn't like on it. Note the "reuse your code" does not forcefully means that they will steal it from you. That's why I refer to hijack/steal. They may offer you a million dollars bargain for it. But in the market, your code could cost 2-3-10 times more. However the fact that only M$ sees it will give them the power to offer a "get or die" contract.
Besides do not think that stealing/hijacking code means Microsoft Corp. It means something worse. It means all what is M$ is made of. The potential of such situation may create a "inner bazaar" where code is trafficked by M$ employees, departments and other organisms. This would look too similar to Soviet Union, where some valuable items where confiscated to be traded among commissars, Central Committee people and party workers. The point here is that creating such a form of restricted "overlook" will forcefully lead to such.
Interesting to note that the only way to overcome the degree of this danger would be to open the software. Then, such situation would be less critical.
For:
Cyprus, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Switzerland.
These countries are well known for being the "bank countries" where large amounts of many, from all over the globe, rest in their safes. Switzerland is also known to be the "patent country", due to its well developed patent system and for the most well known patent officer in History of Science.
Austria, Belgium, Italy are known to be in the "average" wagon of software development. They possess excelent programmers but in general they are not enough to give a strong status to the country.
Netherlands goes on the "soft countries". While a small country, there the contingent is strong enough to give a weight worldwide.
Greece as far as I know is the poor brother of this group. But it is not completely alone. With exception of Switzerland, all other "bank countries" have poor contingents of software developers. Even poorer than Greece.
Against
Luxembourg -"Bank country" that does not follow its cousins. Maybe solidarity with its two big neighbors, France and Germany?
France, Germany, Denmark+Sweden - "soft countries". Specially Germany that it is becoming the "European Sillicon Valley". Specially to note the strong position of OSS & Free Software in these countries.
Spain, Portugal - Countries that go on the average wagon. However it should be noted that its ex-colonies possess a significant power in the software world and some are strong supporters of OSS & Free Software, for example: Mexico & Brazil. And this may influence the position of these countries in this game.
It is admirable that UK and Finland abstained. At least knowing the strong US influnce in UK and the fact that Finaland possesses a strong position in software development exactly on the side of Free Software.
What would be interesting to know the position of other european countries. It would be probable that Bulgaria & Czechia would be against, while I fear that Poland and the Balts would step on their sickening "follow blindly America" trend. Russia would be against. Its law forbids the patenting of software and sends everything to Copyright Law.
Linux has several systems to verify the integrity of an archive/package/program (ex. PGP/MD5 signatures). I should note that it possesses also several systems that checkup the integrity of files installed (ex. Tripwire). What Linux may not have, is a mechanism doing these checks at run time. Probably this would be a useful option in some cases, but not all as this causes some overload that may be uncessary/undesirable.
On what concerns the lack of a Verisign or similar certification system. On Linux this is not a good option as the dynamics of development are much higher and variable. This specially concerns cases when people work in such projects like distros. I don't wanna say that we don't need Verisign-like certifications at all. But it is not as universal as in Windows, where development is more enclosed.