I had been trying to find a means to write a new Operating System since 1997 and back then an Mphil/Dphil at the Universities seemed realistic. I had assessed a variety of institutions and made applications were relevant but nothing was doing. It was then that I realised that I had to do it myself so my plan was to quickly develop a standard Kernel to start the business and allow me to focus on innovation.The plan failed miserably, JxOS not only failed to support the business but so too had the idea of a 1 day training course for software developers. About this time, I also discovered that Californian style Venture Capital, one in which the engineers are wealthy enough and need only agree among themselves instead of attempting to convince bankers
or people who thought that they were once involved in technology of how great their idea is, just doesn’t exist in the U.K.
By now after four years of hanging around and late in 2001, like the wearer of Tolkien’s ring the new Operating System idea was becoming burdensome at which point a manifestation occurred and the Palos project including a
proof of concept were created.
Palos is one of those great ideas that surrounds everyone but much like the study of physics in the natural world requires Hawkinian like astuteness to instantiate, and indeed, like all truly great ideas, much in the same
way that everyone today takes Newtonian Gravity for granted, once established it’s eerily unnatural to deny that no-one knew of or had attempted to exploit it.
A lot of investment had been going into mobile phone technology. The big companies like Microsoft and Compaq responded by duplicating and miniaturising a P.C. into a network enabled Palmtop device which would even run Windows and Office, why anyone wants all of Office running in a Palmtop device momentarily eludes me. Conversely the mobile phone manufacturers were designing up the curve making relatively simple mobile phones powerful enough to run Office. During all this time nobody was interested in any new OS innovation.
Poignantly CEOs are frequently reminding us of how many Ph.Ds work for them and how it is their mission to surround themselves with smart people, but I don’t think CEOs read Dibert. If they did they would uncover the
counter-plot being masterminded in their H.R. departments to infiltrate a significant number of dumb people onto their staff. More alarmingly, like some bad Darwinian joke some of these people seem to have all the characteristics of what passes in some circles as good management material.
It was after developing my Palos concept that I started to believe in the Supernatural, a strange kind of telepathy, because my idea had crossed the ether and ended up being talked in the Technology Quarterly of the London Economist, The Financial Times and Fortune Magazine. It all reminded me of Uberto Eco’s book, Focault’s Pendulum, Aglie aka the Comte de St. Germaine, that great observer of historical drama, or indeed progenitor of history had
seduced Belbo’s girlfriend and in revenge Belbo intrigued Aglie with the invention of The Map, a device that Aglie and his group of Diabolicals (whom Garamond Press had to invent a stunning taxonomy of lame-brainadness) whose very business theirs was to discover through inanely repetitive and arcane ritualistic re-enactments just such an incredible invention as Belbo’s.
More importantly these organisations had already committed in their mobile comms technology plan, making dinky little connected P.C. kit and now appeared to be attempting to recant. Anyway for me the Pendulum had swung
full period and I reconsidered continuing the Palos work only this time on the staff of some University. It was then that I made another startling discovery, they too possessed this strange telepathy because they now had
Research Groups dedicated to PC/TV systems and that zut alors! some were even being funded by Microsoft.
At least I have witnessed a complete lack of conceptual innovation in OS Kernel Design at any University in Europe or America in 30 years. This compounded with the spectacle of how an industrial giant spoiled Microsoft
with funding for 30 years permitting 12 attempts in design engineering before Microsoft came up with something that could be called an Operating System, N.T. which although is a great piece of engineering did not substatially break new conceptual ground. (As if anyone needed reminding Microsofts previous attempts were called Dos 1,2,3, Xenix 1, 2, OS2 1,2,3, Win30 and Win31]). As for that neo-archaeological tradition known as Linux,
even our crocodilian friend Microsoft knows that not everything is lunch and similarly also tolerates some avarian annoyance to preening just in order to look good.
In fusing new OS Kernel design with Mobile Telecoms, the Internet, T.V. and Commerce, Palos presents a significant opportunity which will only be realised when the technical ideas collide with a capable technology design organisation.
About the Author:
David Moore graduated in 1991 with a BSc in Computer Science. He has 11 years Corporate level Labs experience in OS Kernel R&D including time with leading North American and European Semiconductor design companies. He has worked on OS Kernels and C Compilers for 32 and 64 bit CISC and RISC Super Minicomputer systems and advanced Microkernel based Operating Systems used by equipment manufacturers in Production Telecoms switching hardware
and high end database servers. The Kernels were all variously designed for uniprocessor, asmp and smp-multiprocesor and mimd multiprocessor systems. He currently works for his own company Incantation Systems.
Copyright 2003, David Moore, Belfast, U.K.
is it just me or did that article make no sense?
I read it and I’m still not sure what the author was trying to say…?
Sorry, but: What the hell is this article about?
i think it’s an attempt at “bad writing.”
English, right? and why is he doing this to his mother tongue? amazing, really amazing ….
It’s not just an attempt, it’s a successful attempt at bad writing.
<P>
I gather that the “author” has swallowed a thesarus, and is burping it up bit by bit. It may be, also, that he is disgusted with businessmen and operating systems, but that conclusion is more tenuous than the first.
<P>
It’s a pity that it’s so badly written: judging by the bio at the bottom, he might have something interesting to say, if only he could communicate.
…is that he simply is trying to make some advertising for his project.
Otherwise it’s just another mindless rant on why ‘my ideas are great but never got accepted because they were ahead of their time’.
There seems to be little or no information about this “palos”. here’s its website: http://members.aol.com/marlinsmeadow/
yes, members.aol.com
…
and all the documents on the website are generated with office, including the website itself.
why is someone developing a kernel/os using microsoft office again?
Well ok, I’ll venture a guess at a summary: businesses hire stupid people, modern day OSes have very infantile designs, but Palos is their new found saviour, Microsoft is evil, and integrated systems is where the next big money maker is.
So is this what happens when you run an English to English translation through babelfish?
Now I know why the tech bubble burst. Too many people like this running around Silicon Valley collecting VC money.
No, it’s a successfull attempt at really bad writing, combined with a wholesale “blendering” of every fruitcake idea out there from the past 20 years.
by engaging in foucauldian ideas of essentialism, we have indeed entered into a new phase of the paradigm shift that kuhnians among you will know about. i believe that the author indeed recognises the limitism that the current mythos provides, but by realising the faultline apparant in the microsoft/linux hegemony, sees the space by which the ‘palos’ will thrive.
i think it’s quite clear really.
i want my 10 minutes back (most spent trying to understand wtf i was reading).
i’ll hire david boies as my lawyer to get it back.
Here I was thinking this was a tech site, and someone goes all sokal on me (http://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/).
<shrugs/>
I actually offered to raise funds for him, provided I get detailed description, he did not even reply.
he just wanted to impress us with the fact that he read Focault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. The rest of the article kinda/not really makes sense, but regardless of that, there wasn’t much point to the whole thing. Sort of like my post.
I have saved it as a test file for grammar checking software.
The author is from Belfast, UK so his native language is Georgian or some dialect of Irish. He probably used a translater to convert this to English from Russian because he probably also speaks Russian. Speaking of which, has anyone ever been on the singles matchmaking sites & read all the Russian translated ads. They have great looking pictures wearing very little & bending over so you can see what they have to offer but their message is like “You can come here Russia and I will marry you and be your candle on a cold night. My Curtains are open so we can feel the stars in the cold cold cold black sky.” or whatever.. whatever amen… & btw.. I think this author is on to something. I’ll bet his new OS will rock our worlds & then I pity the fools who mock his clever arse.
David, you must also start reading Arturo Perez-Reverte.
Makes you appreciate that teenager who wrote the Linux article, huh? Compared to this its Pulitizer material.
That is a brilliant idea!
I am glad I am not the only who thought the article was Amazing……………………..ly BAD!
It’s a good thing we still are able to read/judge articles and tell if they make sense or not. In physics that seems to be much harder…
I feel bad for the author of this article. If he indeed is native to another language other than English, he probably does not know how we are reading it. It would be nice if OSNews.com would provide some kind of “not to make a fool of yourself” assistance with English. Maybe as far as he knows, he was just sharing his perspective on the computer industry, his frustrations and his ideas in a language that he feels somewhat sucessful and accomplished in and we’ve all ripped him apart for it.
I don’t think his problem is with English. He just does not tell us anything. What is his project? Maybe I need to read it again but I read it word for word and missed detail on what his project is/was.
Also he seems to have just finished reading Hawkings, “A brief history of time” and now feels like he needs to throw around a few outdated physics ideas e.g. “ether” and some other material covered in the early chapters of the book. That combined with a complete disregard for the audience and the need to prove his intellect by showing us how many largely unused words he knows defeats the article in just about every sense.
To me it should be a case study for how someone with intelligence can completely fail in his/her primary goal of communication.
Let me say I am not against a good vocabulary but obscure words should only be used if they are accurately descriptive. He uses them for show!
Please take note of this writing style. This writing style is similar to the French, or Pot-head writing style. The French like to use paragraph-long sentences with references that, although aren’t relevent the the author’s argument, attempt to show how well-read and intelligent the author is.
dude, it’s like soooooo deeeeeeep…. Like, I totally can understand, like about the whole concept man, we’re all like totally connected, it’s all like one big chain,
hey man, I’m starving, let’s go get some peanut butter.
–Lobelt The Bluce.
I come from England & I can’t understand his ramblings either.
I think he’s a Raelian but living in N Ireland which is not English. N Ireland is just a bunch of Scots living in Ireland wishing it was British. Now I’ve offended someone.
We’ll see this superior OS when we see the proof of cloning!
Ok his website is more interesting, he has worked for some pretty good companies. I never heard of U of Ulster, must be one of those recent upgraded polys. He doesn’t stick around very long, ST should have been a good place to stick around as long as possible.
Maybe been watching too much boobies on The Charmed and making his own incantations on himself bound to go loony.
I like expensivelesbian’s explanation best.
Either way, I wish he had actually explained what in the names of Kernighan & Ritchie is so special about Palos.
Also, I do disagree with him about OS design innovation being dead. What I will agree with him on is that the implementation of those ideas doesn’t happen very quickly. Mind you, he only implied this, but it’s true nonetheless.
Also, if the ideas are too far out there (like Plan 9/Inferno, LISP machines, and OpenDoc), then they won’t work with everything else, and they’ll disappear.
–JM.
This is the most brilliant article on the internet. Ever.
His office is basically where they built the Titanic.
http://www.cens.ucla.edu/Project-Descriptions/Sensor%20Platform…
Would that be related?
A Shorter version:
He belives OS development is stagnant.
He decides to write his own.
He doesn’t.
(Although according to his website he does).
I think this article is trying to be far too clever, it’s difficult to read and rassumes the readership here has read books I suspect many (including myself) have never heard of. I can only assume he’s got one of those word processors which gives you a grammar score which soars upwards when you give it a load of really long sentences.
—
From someone who spent 28 years living down the road from Belfast and went to Jordanstown at the same time :
Bout ye big lad,
So, are you gonna give us the craic on this Palos or what?
re: N Ireland is just a bunch of Scots living in Ireland wishing it was British. Now I’ve offended someone.
Let’s try to keep the national politics out of it. OSNews has always been happily free of this sort of thing. This is certainly a badly written article, but to keep the comments friendly place for everybody, it’s probably best to avoid the political/ethnic remarks.
…Hunter S Thompson writes about software.
~Fear and Linux in Las Vegas
You’re totally right about the word usage being pompass and pretentious. I just couldn’t be sure in one reading if it was the overall style or the side-effect of non-native use of English. Different groups of people use different vocabulary. I have been picked-on by many for using a wider, more complex vocabulary. Most folks walking around here in PA are rather ignorant and don’t like reading more than a sentence or two a day, so they are easilly made to feel stupid when you use a word like “overzealous” or “inane.”
Granted, I use the words correctly most of the time while this guy … well… heck, I don’t know what he’s trying to say.
Heck, so it wasn’t because I’m not a native English speaker that I didn’t understand a thing!
aaaaha-ahaha-ha!!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa ha ha ha!!!!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha aha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!