Linux-Advocacy Digest #622, Volume #28 Thu, 24 Aug 00 19:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary? ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Just converted
Re: When it's time to not be nice... (was Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and Authentic
Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says Linux growth stagnating)
(Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary? ("Anthony D. Tribelli")
Re: BASIC == Beginners language (Was: Just curious.... (Andres Soolo)
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? (Marty)
Re: Linux programmers dont live on this planet! (Andres Soolo)
Re: Linux programmers dont live on this planet! (Andres Soolo)
Re: Microsoft Linux: what if? (Andres Soolo)
Re: Is the GDI-in-kernel-mode thing really so bad?... (was Re: ("Aaron R.
Kulkis")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary?
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 17:09:46 -0400
Perry Pip wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Aug 2000 17:33:24 -0400,
> Colin R. Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Perry Pip wrote:
> >>
> >> 1) Military benefit: Better ability for the U.S. to protect it's borders.
> >>
> >
> >That is a legitimate use of government spending, although the US wasn't
> >really threatened from the West.
> >
> >
>
> Actually, I believe Japan began imperialist activites as early as the 1870's.
Could they have landed on the US West Coast at that time? Or would a
trancontinental railroad have helped defend Pacific possessions?
> >
> >My claim was if the West were that rich in minerals, then a
> >trancontinental railroad should have been economically
> >justifiable to private firms, although the military/political
> >considerations might have tipped the balance.
>
> "economically justifiable" is a bit subjective. For a private
> businesses five to ten year wait for a payback on investment might be
> reasonable. For a public works project, a much longer payback might be
> reasonable if the public wants the benefits of the project. So as I
> said before, it's a matter of opinion.
>
> >The rail net of the South was somewhat degraded during the
> >Civil War. How much had been repaired before the Trancon RR
> >was built?
>
> Totally irrelevent. The Government gave land grants to Union Pacific
> in 1863 and was thus in a contract with Union Pacific. Reconstruction
> was funded from another source.
>
But was Reconstruction funded enough? Or did funds which could have
gone to Reconstruction go to The Transcontinental Railroad? Granted,
maybe they should have gone to the railroad anyway, but insufficient funding
of Reconstruction (if such there were) would have had painful political
consequences as well.
>
> >California (and several other states) had threatened secession in 1861.
> >However, I don't think any state would have seceded after Sherman's
> >march through Georgia and the Carolinas.
> >
>
> Ever wonder why the Germans never marched thru Switzerland?
>
Well, I would have shipped the troops by way of Central America.
An amphibious operation would have taken some time, but Sherman
would have chastised any rebels. Aside from the isolation of
California (which was both an advantage and a disadvantage), the
Union would have had the benefit of knowing who its good generals
were.
>
> >> >Railroads in more populated areas, for one.
> >>
> >> What was needed at the time was railroads to interconnect populated
> >> areas separated by vast distances and difficult terrains.
> >>
> >
> >Was the need just political/military, or was it economic as well?
>
> Like I said, it's a matter of opinion.
>
> >Yes I have asked that before, but we haven't decided it.
> >
>
> I don't think we are going to. Opinions are very rarely mutually
> decided.
>
We might never achieve full agreement, but we might narrow the
disagreement.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Just converted
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:48:03 -0700
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Voltage Spike <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> No more proof here than the guy above, but I would like to point out
> that I have seen similar (althought maybe not as drastic as 166%) speed
> increases in my working. In many cases, I assume that this is a direct
> result of how each operating system handles the initialization string, but
> even when I hand-configure Windows it is still slower.
The modem configuration is not the primary factor in the difference in
performance between Windows and Linux's networking. When connecting the the
internet via a router a workstation running Linux still seems to outperform
the same workstation running Windows.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: When it's time to not be nice... (was Re: Anonymous Wintrolls and
Authentic Linvocates - Re: R.E. Ballard says Linux growth
stagnating)
Date: 24 Aug 2000 22:17:01 GMT
On Thu, 24 Aug 2000 20:23:28 +0200, Matthias Warkus wrote:
>Nope. You mean a dodecahedron. An icosahedron's got twenty vertices.
No, he had it right. "Vertices" means the same thing as corners.
You seem to be confusing vertices with faces. An
icosahedron has 12 vertices, 20 faces and 30 edges. A dodecahedron has
12 faces, 30 edges and 20 vertices.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: "Anthony D. Tribelli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary?
Date: 24 Aug 2000 22:34:39 GMT
Perry Pip <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Anthony D. Tribelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Wrong, our exchanges began when I pointed out the Yorktown failure was an
>>application (or design) problem not an OS problem. You claimed it was an
>>OS problem and I asked for your sources.
>
> And I used Redman as a source because I wasn't limiting the discussion
> to just one incident ...
I asked for evidence related to the specific incident, you offered Redman.
We spent a lot of time reviewing information and this one incident is the
only one we have information on. After finally conceeding that your
opinions were guesswork based on other people's guesswork you moved the
goalposts and began talking about problems in general. I have never joined
you on this new topic since we don't have any real information. You are
making a habit of misrepresenting things, first you claim you did not call
the chief engineer and others liars, now you claim you we were not
discussing the once incident earlier.
> ... What is the sense in vindicating NT for one
> incident when it is responsible for so many others and everybody knows
> it's an unstable operating system.
The one incident is the only one we have information on. We don't know
what these others are. We don't know if WinNT failed or not. All we have
is possibly loose wording by a high level manager in an article later
referred to as early speculation by it's own publisher.
>>>>there is no information on what the effect(s) of these incidents
>>>>were,
>>>
>>> Three *consective* paragraphs directly quoted from the article:
>>>
>>> Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction
>>> Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been
>>> numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown.
>>>
>>> "Refining that is an ongoing process," Redman said. "Unix is a better
>>> system for control of equipment and machinery, whereas NT is a better
>>> system for the transfer of information and data. NT has never been
>>> fully refined and there are times when we have had shutdowns that
>>> resulted from NT."
>>>
>>> The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the
>>> systems failures, he said.
>>>
>>> That last paragraph is clearly in the context of the two above, and is
>>> telling you the effect of the failures. To deny this is a blatent lie.
>>
>>The ship's systems comprise more than an operating system.
>>[stupid conjecture snipped]
A more accurate label would be [points that undermine my assumptions
snipped]. Again, we have a high level manager possibly using words
loosely, the questions you snipped remain unresolved and relevant:
The ship's systems comprise more than an operating system. The part or
parts of the system that failed were not identified. We don't know if he
is talking about the WinNT operating system itself or a WinNT based
system that consists of the WinNT OS and assorted Win32 applications.
There is no specific information here, unlike the specific incident where
a database corruption cascaded. We have no idea if this is an engineer
who has seen detailed analysis of specific failures or upper manager
using words loosely, where are the comments from the chief engineer
aboard the ship during these incidents? Or the comments from the software
developers? Or the press reports of these failures? WinNT itself may or
may not have failed during one or all of thee incidents, I don't know.
What I do know is that the one incident that was described seems to have
involved blaming WinNT prematurely.
> Redman is talking about the operating system: Windows NT. He clearly
> says that NT is responsible for numerous failure and the the ship was
> towed to port several times as a result of these failures. He also
> says NT has never been fully refined. Duh...that's a no brainer.
That is merely your assumption, my questions remain. Only one incident was
decribed, and it was premature to blaim WinNT. We don't know if this is
the exception or the rule.
>>Such consoles (remote terminals and LAN consoles from original article) do
>>not need to be general purpose computers running general purpose operating
>>systems with applications on a hard drive. I would favor hot pluggable CPU
>>boards with applications in ROM.
>
> Pluggable CPU boards with ROM might be nice to have in the engine
> room, and in other specific areas of the ship. However, they are
> limited in both size and flexibility ...
Not really. I've worked on some that rivaled desktop PCs.
> ... On the Yorktown you have many
> subsystems throughout the ship, including engines, navigation systems,
> power systems, communication systems, damage control systems,
> etc. etc. You also have applications for maintenance and operations
> databases, and tools for systems analysis and trending. These
> applications need to be accessable in multiple locations in the
> ship. These applications also need to be upgradable as ship subsystems
> are modified and new technologies are added. Also, the use of COTS
> software is desirable. Thus, a more general purpose platform is used.
But not required, that is one possible implementation I consider inferior.
With a more embedded approach specific application software can be
downloaded to such units as needed, just like information from the data
base is downloaded. A default application can reside in ROM as a backup
and be tailored to the physical location of the terminal. If the server is
unavailable on powerup the terminal can control equipment in it's vicinty,
if the server is available it can download apps and control remote
equipment.
>>What is convenient for the developers is not necessarily what is best for
>>the sailors on board the ship.
>
> Sure, but when you deprive developers of decent tools you are either
> 1) going to spend more man hours on devopment ...
A quite acceptible tradeoff if the embedded orientation provides sailors
with a simpler, more rugged, more reliable system than the general purpose
computer approach. And of course, I believe it can do so.
> ... or 2) accept a lower
> quality application. When you are choosing an OS and hardware
> platform, your choice is driven by the applications. If the
> application is to be custom developed, then you must consider both
> developing and running the application. You may give more preference
> to one or the other, depending on your overall needs and priorities.
I don't think there should be a preference choice. I think for on-ship
applications the developer should always lose to the sailors.
>>> ... Absolute reliability is not required bacuase you will have
>>> multiple consoles, so if one console is down, you can access the
>>> system from another console or by alternate means. As long at it isn't
>>> so bad that operaters are pissing at the consoles all the time.
>>
>>No, reliability is required.
>
> Can you read??? Absolute reliability != reliability. Absolute
> reliability for consoles is not required because you have redundancy.
I meant absolute reliability. You are wrong, absolute reliability is
required for such consoles. See next paragraph.
>>Unless a console is physically damaged a
>>sailor should have access from the terminal he/she happens to be in front
>>of.
>
> A ROM based console can fail to, in hardware or software. All systems
> can fail. That's why you need redundancy. And in a situation where a
> general purpose OS is needed, and reliabity of a single console is
> important, one would certainly choose Unix over NT.
The hot pluggable single board solution I describe is more rugged and more
easily repaired. My point is that with such an implementation a sailor
will have less need to go find an alternate console. Also I'll refer to
the default applicaiton in ROM I mentioned earlier. This can be the
application that controls equipment in the proximity of the console.
There is simply less to go wrong compared to a general purpose computer
performing the same role. Assuming a sailor can just go use a different
console is bad. The local consoles should have connections to local
equipment independent of a LAN and be able to operate independently if
required to do so.
Tony
==================
Tony Tribelli
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: BASIC == Beginners language (Was: Just curious....
Date: 24 Aug 2000 22:44:31 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It's the macro pre-processor on Unix systems, originally designed
> for C,
AFAIR, it was originally designed for Fortran.
In it's default state, it's a little bit difficult to use for C because
of the quotes but it's still more powerful than the standard C
preprocessor. I used to use that until I thought of using eperl as
a C preprocessor :-)
> it can actually be used for ANY language (because of the
> flexibility of Unix pipelines).
Right.
Additionally, it can be frequently used as a language by itself, not
as a preprocessor. I know of at least one web site whose server-side
scripts are written in M4.
--
Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
No good deed goes unpunished.
-- Clare Boothe Luce
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 22:44:26 GMT
Christopher Smith wrote:
>
> "Marty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Christopher Smith wrote:
> > >
> > > "Marty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > Christopher Smith wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Marty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > > > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > > > Christopher Smith wrote:
> > > > > *sigh*
> > > > >
> > > > > I meant compelling alternatives for the majority. Obviously if
> > > > > you're involved in something like DTP then, say, MacOS has been a
> > > > > compelling alternative for years (indeed, it would be the paltform
> > > > > for which there haven't been any compelling alternatives).
> > > >
> > > > Well now I ask you to indulge me once more and consider which
> > > > "majority", keeping in mind the multitude of corporate users, etc.,
> > > > and not just implicitly limiting your scope to the home user crowd.
> > >
> > > The majority that has, thus far, determined Windows to be its platform
> > > of choice.
> >
> > So, reapplying this context to your original statement, you have just
> > said that there haven't been any compelling alternatives to Windows for
> > the majority of users that have determined that Windows is their
> > platform of choice. That's about as insightful as saying X=X.
>
> Not at all. Reapplying that context to my original statement, I've simply
> said that for the majority, who have _thus far_ chosen Windows, there has
> not been a compelling alternative.
Isn't that what I just said? It's still uninsightful and misleading, given
how you qualified your use of "majority". The majority of people that agree
with me think that I'm right. Does that say anything about how many people
think I'm right or how right I am?
------------------------------
From: Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux programmers dont live on this planet!
Date: 24 Aug 2000 22:49:35 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> By "server" == "driver", he was probably talking about his X server.
> That is what I was assuming that he meant, but as we know that is not a
> valid description.
I'd suspect he was talking about microkernels where the modules offering
specific services (such as the filesystem, sound card or virtual terminals)
are called servers, but then again, why would he come to a Linux newsgroup?
--
Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Big M, Little M, many mumbling mice
Are making midnight music in the moonlight,
Mighty nice!
------------------------------
From: Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux programmers dont live on this planet!
Date: 24 Aug 2000 22:51:37 GMT
Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> their 6.2 Delux version which came with telephone help for 30 days. Yes I
>> did RTFM and you know what I found!!! A whole new bloody language!!! For
>> those of you new to Linux; "Image" now means "copy", "Server" now means
> What is the definition of "image" in Bill-Gates land?
A bunch of pixels that form a picture. :-)
--
Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
QED.
------------------------------
From: Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft Linux: what if?
Date: 24 Aug 2000 22:57:53 GMT
Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip: Microsoft Linux]
>> they take for free. If it is GPL they can't add features to it and
> sell
>> it (for a reasonable fee (media expenses)) without releasing the
>> additional code. This may also apply to other licenses.
> But of course the GPL has yet to be legally tested...
You forget Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Sure, Microsoft
can use the code in any way that doesn't violate GPL but if they're
going to create something obscene and call it Linux, Linus has the right
to veto it.
Unfortunately, Lignux is not a trademark yet, and it might be very
attractive to Microsoft ...
--
Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Just to have it is enough.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is the GDI-in-kernel-mode thing really so bad?... (was Re:
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 18:56:52 -0400
Christopher Smith wrote:
>
> "Asher Langton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> > <snip everything>
> >
> > Being new to c.o.l.a., I ran a deja.com search on posts by this Kulkis
> > to see why he's such an irritating moron. And surprise, surprise, his
> > posts reveal that he's not only irritating, but also a completely Foul
> > Person, disliked widely across usenet.
> >
> > In other words, *plonk*.
>
> No, no - those are just "hit and run attacks" meant to spread lies and
> discredit him :).
Now that Odious has resigned from USENET, the number will drop
significantly.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
J: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
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