Cool stuff!
Music from my childhood.

How old are you Kronos?

Not that old (Zager&Evans)
Old enough (Laibach)

Myself?
A little older.
I remember the song, but at the time I was more into stuff like Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly.

Getting old enough to know what I want, and digging my heels to prevent being dragged into something more "modern".

Tried to adjust to a table, gave up, and went back to netbooks.

I like the year 252525 from Futurama... :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-ohxdLktbc

> At its current rate of acceleration, evolution will have turned us into
> something we would not recognize.

Evolution accelerates? I'd think that evolution has come to a slowdown given the fact that there's no real natural selection anymore but only (steady) sexual selection taking place. Or are you saying that mutations are increasing, due to increased exposure to nuclear radiation (Fukushima et al)? ;-)

You would think so, but natural selection isn't the only force involved in evolution.
In fact, I think classic Darwinian thinking relys too heavily on this concept.
Mankind's rate of evolution has definately speed up.
We've taken a couple of million years to reach our current state, but the last three homonid species (of which we are the sole suvivor) developed in only a few tens of thousands.
Human populations remained quite low until the development of what we consider modern civilization.
Then our population explodes.
What's next?
The scary prospect that we control how we develop. Enhancing or altering or own genetic makeup, the adoption of cybernetic additions (wired humans, computer enhanced, tied physicaly to the web).
Look at how much our technology has improved in only the last few. hundred years.
Would our ancestors from 500 years ago recognize us.
Would we be able o comprehend mankind's state 500 years from now.

No, we evolve.

[ Edited by Jim 03.03.2013 - 22:58 ]

> natural selection isn't the only force involved in evolution.

Yes, that's why I mentioned two more forces: sexual selection and mutation.

> Mankind's rate of evolution has definately speed up. We've taken a couple of
> million years to reach our current state, but the last three homonid species
> (of which we are the sole suvivor) developed in only a few tens of thousands.

From a cluster of cells to what we are now (= very big genetic change) in couple of million years, and during the last part within this time frame from the first Cro-Magnon to what we are now in 40,000 years (= very small genetic change). I can't see any acceleration there.

> Human populations remained quite low until the development of what we
> consider modern civilization. Then our population explodes.

That's cultural evolution, not biological evolution. Seems we're talking past each other.

> What's next? The scary prospect that we control how we develop. Enhancing or
> altering or own genetic makeup

Yes, that's how cultural evolution (genetic engineering) could lead to an alteration (but not necessarily acceleration) of the biological evolution in the future. But that's not (legally) happening now, thanks to ethics and appropriate laws.

> Look at how much our technology has improved in only the last few. hundred years.

That's cultural evolution again, not biological evolution.

> Would our ancestors from 500 years ago recognize us.

Definitely. We are a bit taller than them on average (there's no scientific consensus on the reasons), and we get much older than them (due to cultural evolution), but the rest of the physique is practically the same.

> Would we be able o comprehend mankind's state 500 years from now.

Physical state (biological) yes, state of mind (cultural) less so.

> we evolve.

True, in both the biological and the cultural sense. But I stand by my opinion, which is: While cultural evolution has been accelerating without doubt, biological evolution has come to a slowdown (not stagnation though) due to natural selection playing only a minor role today thanks to the cultural evolution.

The quality of our tools affects our ability to perform and affects our sucess in our in the real world.
Cultural and biological evolution are intimately intertwined.
One example, we eat much better than our ancstors.
As a result, average height, weight and longevity are increased.
Culture affects biology.

And what would you call the cybernetic creatures we are aleady evolving into?
Cell phones and other devices, instant access to the web and all its supplemental information?
No we are changing, physically, mentally, and socially.

And its a constant.

Some species seem unchanging.
A good example would be yellow perch in Europe and North America.
So little divergence there (one extra spine on the dorsal fin of the European variant) that they can readily interbred.
Yet they were seperated since the time the two continent touched.

In that same time span, two hominid species bred back into Homo Sapiens (or disappeared).
We just happen to be one of the more changable species.

Remember its not just natural selection and cultural evolution.
There's also random genetic drift, mutation, and population mating structures influencing evolution(although the last could be lumped in with culture)

Personally, I coming to believe that evolution may be more proactive then previously thought.
That oganisms change in order to better suit their habitats.
Not selected, change suited to improve.

>True, in both the biological and the cultural sense. But I stand by my opinion, which is: While cultural evolution has been accelerating without doubt, biological evolution has come to a slowdown (not stagnation though) due to natural selection playing only a minor role today thanks to the cultural evolution.

A fairly good summary.
My point, we are influencing biological change and our technology may change us physically and mentally.
It kind of scares me.


[ Edited by Jim 04.03.2013 - 00:43 ]

> Cultural and biological evolution are intimately intertwined.

I'm still not convinced, until humans become subject to genetic engineering, or until we change the climatic conditions (or amount of nuclear radiation) on our planet in such a large scale that certain ethnicities or individuals have a better chance to survive than others due to their genetic make-up.

> we eat much better than our ancstors. As a result, average height, weight
> and longevity are increased.

As I said, the reasons for the height (and thus weight) increase are still being debated by scientists. The increased longevity is due to better nutrition and medical care, yes.

> Culture affects biology.

Yes, but you were not talking about biology in general but about biological evolution (= change of genetic make-up). That's not affected by the cultural evolution unless we start to use genetic engineering to manipulate the genetic make-up of human beings.

> what would you call the cybernetic creatures we are aleady evolving into?

Pure cultural evolution. After all, the child of parents with hip replacements doesn't get born with a titanium hip, does it?

> Cell phones and other devices, instant access to the web and all its supplemental information?

Cultural evolution.

> we are changing, physically, mentally, and socially.

Our genetic make-up doesn't change for those reasons, so they don't constitute biological evolution.

> A good example would be yellow perch in Europe and North America. So little
> divergence there (one extra spine on the dorsal fin of the European variant) that
> they can readily interbred. Yet they were seperated since the time the two continent
> touched. In that same time span, two hominid species bred back into Homo Sapiens
> (or disappeared). We just happen to be one of the more changable species.

The fact that other species have changed very slowly or not at all doesn't prove that our biological evolution accelerates. It could very well be decelerating.

> Remember its not just natural selection and cultural evolution.
> There's also random genetic drift, mutation

Again: It was me who mentioned mutation first as a factor for biological evolution. And I also mentioned sexual selection as a factor for biological evolution. So yes, it's really just biological evolution (with factors like natural selection, sexual selection, mutation, genetic drift and others) and cultural evolution, nothing else. You seem to be slightly confused about the concepts when you don't group forces like natural selection, genetic drift and mutation together in the same group called biological evolution.

> population mating structures influencing evolution(although the last could be
> lumped in with culture)

If it has influence on the genetic make-up, it's biological evolution. If it hasn't, it's cultural evolution.

> I coming to believe that evolution may be more proactive then previously thought.

Cultural evolution yes, biological evolution less so.

> That oganisms change in order to better suit their habitats.
> Not selected, change suited to improve.

If the habitat changes (climatic change or whatever), the individuals that are adapted worse die before they get the chance to reproduce (= natural selection). The remaining individuals with the suited genetic make-up continue to reproduce and thus re-increase the population, which then as a result has a slighty different genetic make-up than before. There's no proactivity about that change. It's all about selection.

> we are influencing biological change and our technology may change us physically

...which isn't usually a case of biological evolution, which happens solely in our genes.

That is the part that worries me.
Natural selection picks those best suited to move forward.
Our ability to meddle with our own make up could lead to even more disfunctional/psychotic humans.

In 2525 we won't have MorphOs
- All the Amiga die hards have died by then
- Current trend on dumbing down computers and software has continued and a WIMP will be something like dinosaurs
- Humans have probably caused a major disaster that might or might not have resulted in our species death

Besided that, I think MorphOs simply needs more developers and a few kick ass applications and we'll be settled for a few more decades.

Well Cinnamon writer ought to be alpha or beta soon.
And as soon as I get him my MDD, Eric wants to try to port Libre Office.

Word processing and web browsing - that takes care of 90% of my needs.

One more whilst it's fresh in my mind:

- Addition of metadata into Ambient lister columns

When viewing (esp media files) in Ambient lister mode, it would be useful to be able to display/sort by track number, album name, etc.

I think something like Libre office woulf be important to get to MorphOS.

On the ARM vs. x86 discussion here are my 2 cents.
X86 days are numbered! its just a matter of time before OS X is ported to ARM according to rumors and Windows RT even if today its useless it will become standard within a couple of versions. So both of the biggest comptuer giants with thier businiesses aimed towards the common man are going ARM i beleive its a maximum of 10 years before x86 is absolulete. Another rumor to support this theory is that Intel are gonna start to make ARM chips and with all the cool stuff Intel made to x86 chips they are bound to make some pretty famn nice improvements to thier ARM chips aswell.
So i vote for ARM for MorphOS future.

Well... anyway...

I'd like to see multiprocessor support, and at least 4gb of memory support on PPC before all this crazy talk about processor change.

At least, that's what I think.

> Another rumor to support this theory is that Intel are gonna start to make ARM chips

Why "rumor" and why "start"? Intel has been developing and manufacturing its own ARM chips since 1998:

"The XScale [...] consists of several distinct families: IXP, IXC, IOP, PXA and CE [...]. Intel sold the PXA family to Marvell Technology Group in June 2006. [...] The XScale core is used in a number of microcontroller families manufactured by Intel and Marvell, notably:
- Application Processors (with the prefix PXA). [...]
- I/O Processors (with the prefix IOP)
- Network Processors (with the prefix IXP)
- Control Plane Processors (with the prefix IXC).
- Consumer Electronics Processors (with the prefix CE).
[...] In April 2007, Intel announced an XScale-based processor targeting consumer electronics markets, the Intel CE 2110. [...] On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale PXA mobile processor assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale PXA business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million in cash and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses. [...] The acquisition was completed on November 9, 2006. Intel was expected to continue manufacturing XScale processors until Marvell secures other manufacturing facilities, and would continue manufacturing and selling the IXP and IOP processors, as they were not part of the deal. The XScale effort at Intel was initiated by the purchase of the StrongARM division from Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Intel still holds an ARM license even after the sale of XScale; this license is at the architectural level."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale

In summary, Intel has only sold one single of its four XScale chip families to Marvell in 2006 and moreover, it has developed after that (in 2007) a new one. The IOP, IXP und CE families are listed as active in Intel's product portfolio even today:

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/iop
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/hardware/ixp-4xx
http://www.intel.com/design/celect/2110/

What's new though (for some months) is that Intel is supposed to start using its fabs to do the manufacturing for fabless ARM chip developers, i.e. to produce ARM chips for other companies beside their very own ARM chips.

> they are bound to make some pretty famn nice improvements to thier ARM chips aswell.

That's news to me. Do you have a source for this? And what does "thier ARM chips" mean, their own XScale chips or the ones to be produced for fabless companies?

I am unaware of the details of this, or if claims above are correct or not - But seen from a bird perspective, I think it is a shift on its way where desktop computing, to a big extent, will move to ARM, likely Cortex A57/A53 in a few years. It would be good if MorphOS was an alternative OS for ARM in 1-2 years from now. I hope for that route a lot more than X86. I believe it is better with power efficient solution for a light OS.

> I think it is a shift on its way where desktop computing, to a big extent, will move to ARM

Either that, or desktop computing will stay on x86(-64) while computing will move more and more away from the desktop :-)

> likely Cortex A57/A53 in a few years.

Cortex-A57 maybe, but scrap Cortex-A53. It's much too weak for the desktop.

@ Andreas I actually agree with everything you said above

One for Kronos:

- Panels: Ability to add commands to context-menus for panels
I'd like to be able to 'get version information', and 'open containing directory' (and whatever else may spring to mind) when right-clicking on individual icons.

boot_wb,
Quote:

Good one!
And relatively low hanging fruit.
I use these two functions all the time under Windows.

Quote:

Speaking of low hanging fruit, having the 'print screen' button launch grabber would be a natural choice.

This can be accomplished in a maximum of 2 easy steps for USB keyboards (no idea how PS/2 or ADB keyboards are handled)

1) Ensure that the print-screen button is correctly mapped*.

2) Set it up as a hotkey to launch grabber** (either directly or by executing a script.for extra fruitiness).

Note that this hotkey will not be 'global' - it is an Ambient hotkey. You will therefore have to have Ambient as the active window ( eg by clicking on the desktop or an Ambient browser window) before pressing 'print screen' will launch grabber.

-----------------------

* Ensure that the print-screen button is correctly mapped.

- rmb>settings>system>USB>Devices
- Double-click the entry for your keyboard in the devices list.
- In the new window double-click the HID entry in the list of interfaces.
- In the new window select the 'keyboard' tab. then tick the checkbox for 'track incoming events' (bottom right). WARNING: Be careful not to mess around in this interface - you can completely remap all the keys on your keyboard and make it unusable.
- Press your 'print screen' button. This should highlight the 'print screen' entry in the left-hand pane - the right hand pane shows what the currently-selected button in the left-hand pane is assigned to - probably 0x7f (ie bugger all) in this case.
- Wtih 'Print Screen' highlighted in the left-hand pane, select entry "0x6c unprintable sequence" in the right hand pane.
- Click 'Save' (to save it for just this keyboard) or 'Save as default' (to save it for all keyboards). Then clsoe the window with the 'interfaces' list. Then click 'Save' on the USB preferences window.
- Now make yourself a nice relaxing cup of tea, that's the hard bit done.

-----------------------

**set up a hotkey to launch grabber

- RMB>Settings>Ambient>Keyboard
- Click the 'Add a Hotkey' button - a new entry will appear in the 'Custom Commands Hotkeys' list.
- Give it a name (eg PrtScr) and in the second box press your 'print screen' button - the string 'prtscr' should appear.
- Click the 'Edit Command' button next to the new entry - a new window is opened;
- Click the 'ADD' button, select 'AmigaDOS' and enter 'sys:applications/grabber' in the command line THEN PRESS ENTER.
- Click Save.
- Drink tea.

-----------------------

As an alternative to launching grabber directly from the hotkey, a simple script can be used instead to prevent multiple instances of grabber being launched.
Everything is the same as above, except instead of entering 'sys:applications/grabber' in the hotkey command line enter 'execute s:prtscr'.

Save the following as s:prtscr :

Quote:

EDIT: Updated to correctly map print screen button.

[ Edited by boot_wb 11.07.2013 - 10:47 ]

Since I'm a noob, can someone point me to somewhere where I can read up on what the Abox and the Qbox is?