It does not happen every day that news related to computer technology - news we report on every day - makes its way to the headline news programs and newspapers here in my home country, The Netherlands. So when it does, I am usually on the edge of my seat, simply because it offers an interesting glimpse into how 'normal' people perceive our little world. The last few days, however, that casual interest has made way for something else - tooth gnashing irritation.
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Member since:2006-03-15
>> anybody who gets their evolution wisdom from... I wouldn't trust yours -- or his -- ideas <<
I read 3 of Dawkins' books too, and for example there's nothing mysterious about the genetic markers traced by Spencer Wells' "Journey of Man" - mutations clearly do happen. But the Eigen's Error-Catastrophe which Paul Davies muses on in "Fifth Miracle" invites philosophizing - without that mysterious DNA-self-repair-or-checksumming the genome would degenerate hurriedly, in other words the human genome is already too complex to be stable against random mutations without the self-repair - how does DNA-self-repair know the beneficial mutations it should tolerate ?
Member since:2005-07-24
But the Eigen's Error-Catastrophe which Paul Davies muses on in "Fifth Miracle" invites philosophizing - without that mysterious DNA-self-repair-or-checksumming the genome would degenerate hurriedly, in other words the human genome is already too complex to be stable against random mutations without the self-repair - how does DNA-self-repair know the beneficial mutations it should tolerate ?
Although it would be a major derail to delve into that topic here, I'm sure that other forums, such as
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?f=66
could give you all the answer you need on that one.
But back to OS development, parallels with biological evolution are probably greater than you suspect with the incremental change model -- and that doesn't even preclude adopting major, revolutionary ideas: that's no different in principle than the bacterial sharing of genomic information. The incremental vs major redesign issues aren't mutually incompatible either.
What's important, with respect to the posted article -- compatibility -- has less to do with the development method, and more to do with development goals.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Member since:
2005-07-24
"Back in my ancient University days I was fascinated by Koestler, while today Michael Behe sits on the shelf. The idea that you can't always get there with incremental-improvements-always-forward is Deeply Strategic."
And anybody who gets their evolution wisdom from Michael Behe is getting misled. I wouldn't trust yours -- or his -- ideas about OS development any more than his (utterly bogus) ideas on biological development.