Domain: earthlink.net
Stories and comments across the archive that link to earthlink.net.
Comments · 991
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Re:Wow
You may want to check out Doug Sutherland's Fashion Wearable. Take a look at Cliff Leong's wearables as well.
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Moz on a Mac [Re:So what exactly does Apple want?]
It kind of uses the native Mac appearance, but not the exact widgets...what I mean is that the pop up menu does use the system font as set in the control panel and the scroll bars will match the configuration set in the appearance control panel, but Mozilla's still doing most of the work. And this is something that's been improving over time, as in previous milestones, there was no popup menu if you held down the mouse button on a page -- you had to right-click or control-click, and the menu font was always Charcoal (the default mac system font), no matter if you were using something else system-wide. Now it's a simple click-and-hold, just like Netscape 4.x or IE. So I'd bet that Mozilla can be made to use native Aqua widgets to a large degree; it may not use them everywhere (like buttons, etc.) but then neither does IE under OSX (it uses, for example, rounded-region quick-draw style buttons in forms) or even iTunes, which insists on using blue as its highllight/scrollbar color even though I have the system set to use graphite...whew, unintentionally long post. Here's a screenshot if that made no sense.
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Re:I Love Dvorak
Its not an argument. Its the reason...
The reason I call it an argument is that I find many different "reasons" why QUERTY was invented/adopted. A google search turns up many theories about this... the one I link to is the one I hear the most, but on the same site are some myths, including the "slow typists down" and some others I've heard in the past. I tend to agree with the first one, the one I hinted at in my first post, that it was done to keep certain common letter combinations physically separated helping to avoid jamming in typewriters.
In general I have found people that can not use or do not like to use split keyboards are people who can't type correctly.
As I said, I know I don't type "correctly", but I do touch-type (eg, I don't look at the keyboard). I do use the wrong fingers for certain keys, which means using a split keyboard involves a bit of work on my part. As I mentioned earlier, I'm either stubborn or have no patience (or probably just plain lazy).
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Re:I Love Dvorak
Its not an argument. Its the reason...
The reason I call it an argument is that I find many different "reasons" why QUERTY was invented/adopted. A google search turns up many theories about this... the one I link to is the one I hear the most, but on the same site are some myths, including the "slow typists down" and some others I've heard in the past. I tend to agree with the first one, the one I hinted at in my first post, that it was done to keep certain common letter combinations physically separated helping to avoid jamming in typewriters.
In general I have found people that can not use or do not like to use split keyboards are people who can't type correctly.
As I said, I know I don't type "correctly", but I do touch-type (eg, I don't look at the keyboard). I do use the wrong fingers for certain keys, which means using a split keyboard involves a bit of work on my part. As I mentioned earlier, I'm either stubborn or have no patience (or probably just plain lazy).
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QWERTY myth repeated
His credibility does take a hit, though, in that he repeats the myth that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow typists down...
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If you'd like to contact their executives....
Just follow this link.
I tried posting the mailto: here, but /. filters wouldn't allow it.
Please let these people know that if they are this willing to ccensor our music, they are not worthy of the stewardship of such a large percentage of American radio outlets. -
More info about Multicasting
I hate to be a link whore, but i didnt understand very clearly what multicast basically is. These helped me a bit.
AskJeeves Here
MentorTech (PDF)
Bob Stein (boatload of good links at the bottom)
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No Carnivore HereWe do not have carnivore installed. We never have, and we don't now.
That's all.
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Re:"Donation" Spammers...
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Photos
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Just use the mail serverProdigy has (finally) now implemented port 25 filtering, after no little amount of prodding from the rest of the idustry. This practice significantly reduces the spam output from a network - no more worrying about open relays, etc. But as you point out, it does limit your mail server options.
There is no reason, howe ver, that you can't use the perscribed servers. All it's changing is a few IP addresses in a "Received" header that no one is ever going to look at anyway. It's really not a big deal unless your ISP can't keep their servers alive. And if that's the case, why are you with them in the first place?
There's nothing stopping you from POPing mail into your client from every server you can imagine (POP3 service runs on port 110, not 25), and your "From" and "To" fields are set clientside, and will remain unchanged. In the end, there is sure to be some adjustment, but likely little loss in functionality.
If this is not a feasible solution for you, perhaps it is time to consider upgrading to a commercial internet account, they start around $70 a month, and you can run your own non-port-25-filtered mail server (I don't know that Prodigy sells business accounts anymore, but most national ISPs, including us, do.
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maslow's hierarchy
because with humans, after you get past
the first tier of needs (money, security,
place to eat and sleep), you get higher
level needs kicking in, and those include
needs to contribute and be part of a community.
Social Threefolding
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Re:Purple Monkey Dishwasher!
Check out the screen shots [earthlink.net] of LB's death here. A picture is worth a thousand words!!
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Re:Good idea... i think
QWERTY's fine. check out this site for the history of qwerty and why it was invented.
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Another interesting article here:
The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades (1998):
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeve n-9809.html
It has some nice pictures too, if you don't know what Damascus Steel looks like.
http://www.miaminiceknife.com/pictures_1.htm also has some good shots.
http://home.earthlink.net/~glennwood/swordmyths.ht m dispells some of the most common myths surrounding swords, including the scarf slicing one. -
An unpopular position
"The DCMA[sic] takes away my right to h4x0r j00..."
<irony>
That having been cleared up, there is a portion of the article that seems interesting. In summation, Ms. Harmon writes:
copied directly from this article without permission, with all due credit, and with unknown intentions.
"The inequity is of greatest concern to the law where there's a constitutional interest at stake," said Pamela Samuelson, co-director of the Center for Law and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley. "If there is a constitutional-based interest in fair use, it shouldn't just be someone with a Ph.D. in computer science who can circumvent an access control -- just like you can't say people who own property can vote, but poor people can't."
end quote
Essentially, the viewpoint that Ms. Harmon relates here shows the problem of fair use limitation in the DMCA as a question of equality before the law.
Now, the traditional American viewpoint (as you can see above) is even still somewhat fragmented. Equality before the law is given at least a nod of consideration, unless of course it isn't....
So if I may make a slight and modest proposal....
Proposed:
Whereas much of western polical thought since the Hellenic age has rested in part on an underpinning concerned with a 'aristocracy of the mind', and whereas the DMCA is one of the clearest positional statements of the American Government on the principle of an 'aristocracy of the mind', it is hearby proposed that
The American Government consciensiously and systematically adopt the advancement of an aristocracy of the mind with respect to equality before the law.
Perhaps, if we're lucky, the right to vote in America will some day have the prerequsite of correctly explaining the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent.
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Re:'Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers'Here's a fun one:
You know, this is the midst of the disillusionment and heartbreak season and,with the recent outbreak of that suicidal strain of despair up in Boston,well, you'd better keep a close watch on your emotions. So remember the seven danger signals of depression; that's a general and lasting feeling of hope-lessness, inability to concentrate, loss of self-esteem, fear of rejection, feelings of guilt, misdirected anger, and extreme dependency on others. At the first sign of these symptoms, friends, follow these simple rules: keep working, drink as much as possible, and... take your television's advice. And y'know more TV's recommend an amazing new psychic breakthrough than any other, and that's... Confidence in the System. Fast, safe, and guaranteed through constant Federal control, Confidence in the System will keep THEM in power longer, longer, longer, and tend to calm and obscure the miseries of disillusionment and despair. In easy-to-swallow Propaganda form or new fast-acting Thought Control, that's Confidence in the System. So have some... today.
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Re:Contrivance? Sure.Yeah, I could see "George Tirebiter" being a contrivance. It's about as blaringly screaming "ignore me, I'm a mo-ron" as "Anonymous Coward". But for someone in charge to be doing it...guh.
The only place I know the name "George Tirebiter" from is from the Firesign Theater album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers". Do you know of it being used in some other context? Or were you giving a cold impression of the name? Or, are you being sarcastic, and neglecting to use the <SARCASM> tags?
I'm not being facetious - I really want to know.
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George TirebiterFor those out of the loop, here's a link to the entry for Tirebiter in the Firesign Theater lexicon.
In RealSpace, he was "the doughty unofficial mascot of USC (Univ. South. Calif.) athletic teams in earlier times, renowned for his devotion to attacking the spinning wheels of large American automobiles...."
In the Firesign Theater world, he's the Everyman protaganist of the comedy album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (which appears to be out of print, although I found a cassette in a local record store). It's high comedy from Firesign Theater, a team that was known for a counter-cultural radio program in the sixties. It's very funny, but requires FULL attention, a strong liberal arts background, and occassionaly several listens, to get a large percentage of the jokes.
Check out the entry for DWARF to get a feel for the humor.
That said, even though I got the reference, I don't think seeing a post under the name George Tirebiter would make me think "Oh - It's the editor!" or "He's just joking!". I would instead think "This guy is a pretty poor satirist - it's like posting under 'Chaucer'".
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George TirebiterFor those out of the loop, here's a link to the entry for Tirebiter in the Firesign Theater lexicon.
In RealSpace, he was "the doughty unofficial mascot of USC (Univ. South. Calif.) athletic teams in earlier times, renowned for his devotion to attacking the spinning wheels of large American automobiles...."
In the Firesign Theater world, he's the Everyman protaganist of the comedy album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (which appears to be out of print, although I found a cassette in a local record store). It's high comedy from Firesign Theater, a team that was known for a counter-cultural radio program in the sixties. It's very funny, but requires FULL attention, a strong liberal arts background, and occassionaly several listens, to get a large percentage of the jokes.
Check out the entry for DWARF to get a feel for the humor.
That said, even though I got the reference, I don't think seeing a post under the name George Tirebiter would make me think "Oh - It's the editor!" or "He's just joking!". I would instead think "This guy is a pretty poor satirist - it's like posting under 'Chaucer'".
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Does ten more still count?You might want to look into Earthlink DSL
At $49.95 per month, it's $10 more than what your looking for, but there's no setup or install costs.
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Check out the other links too!His Links Page was an excellent resource. After the beer cooler story, I found this and then spent most of Sunday reading about how various folks built their engines.
I highly recommend checking out some of the homebrew jet websites these guys have. Its wild to see the different approaches they take to reach the goal of self-sufficiency. One guy used plain old cast iron pipe you could buy at Home Depot and got it working. Another is working on an engine that uses a turbocharger from an M-60 tank! He's also got one that has an afterburner on it with some REALLY cool pictures.
This is quite the hobby. On guy built a really sweet engine that used a PLC to help start the engine which is a multi step process. His worked so well he sometimes had trouble keeping his cart braked. Interesting to see how folks also try various fuels from K-1 to LP gas to Diesel.
I honestly was blown away by the time and effort folks put into one of these just to have it run - but it really was a blast browsing all these sites all day - careful!! You might get hooked!
:) Geeks with jet engines is a scary prospect! -
NuSphere clearly violating 15 USC � 1125(d)
MySQL.org clearly violates 15 USC 1125(d) , specifically 1125 (d)(1)(A)(ii)(I) . The term "MySQL" is a trademark of MySQL AB. Using a domain name of someone else's trademark was made illegal by the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999.
Regardless of whatever complaints NuSphere has about getting the stiff arm when trying to submit code, they have unclean hands until they fix their clear trademark violation.
I would like to remind everybody that there were similar accusations of stiff arming associated with the release of Interbase by Borland. The approach taken there was to create the Firebird project by forking. Without trying to endorse NuSphere's complaints, even if they are true, the fork and rename plan is the honorable way to procede when you don't feel the project owner is fair. Until NuSphere fixes their blatent legal violations, their other arguments are just sorry excuses. -
The Ultimate Beowulf Project...Consciousness!!!
What I would like to see happen with beowulf research is for everybody to connect their clusters via the internet (the proverbial Beowulf of Beowulfs) and go for the Holy Grail - the simulation of consciousness within the human brain. Folks, we are already using clusters of computers to search for consciousness...that's what SETI@Home is. But space is big, and very empty, and our odds of finding ET are small. Let's start a public project to search for HAL instead. Here is what we know about the brain. Here is the place to scratch the surface on how we think it generates consciousness. We are geeks, we are hackers, we joke endlessly anout Beowulfs of Beowulfs...what are we waiting for?
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Re:Clearly TM infringement
MySQL.org clearly violates 15 USC 1125(d) , specifically 1125 (d)(1)(A)(ii)(I) . Using a domain name of someone else's trademark was made illegal by the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999.
It also appears that MySQL.org is clearly violating the GPL by distributing a modified version without source code for the mods. -
You can sign-up right ...... here
.... Pick how fast u wanna get connected, then sign-up. cake. -
Re:What three would be OK then ??You're totally right, I've read a lot of criticisms on the 3 competitors being picked but I didn't see anyone offer better alternatives. As far as I know, there is not a fiercer AOL competitor than EarthLink out there.
EarthLink has always positioned itself as the clear alternative to AOL by always offering far superior services at lower prices than AOL, may it be dialup, broadband or wireless, if that's not competition, I don't know what is!
Now just because AOL is looking to strike a financial deal with EarthLink and other ISP's to share pipelines doesn't mean any of this is going to stop. There are tremendous costs associated with sharing cable lines due to the fact that they cannot be abstracted into various layers like dialup and DSL and this forces all parties in the game to financially cooperate at some level so those costs are fairly spread out. That's what I believe those deals are all about.
But in the end the competition will still remain fierce and AOL will have to be on its toes, especially since EarthLink has been *extremely* aggressive in the broadband market, offering a far wider array of broadband and mobile connectivity options than any other ISP out there: Case in point
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Re:Lets ask Google what it thinks.you really want to see:
Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-MeterFrom their page:
This operating system quality and approval metric is based on a periodic AltaVista search for each of several operating systems, directly followed by "sucks", "rules", or "rocks".there's also one for programming languages and some other things - check out the bottom of the first page.
-f
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Re:I love 901'sDid you even try to listen to other similar prices speakers?
Bose is as close as you get to fraud without being sued
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Using The GIMP
I've been somewhat seriously using The GIMP for about a year now. But, because of time pressures, I'm still learning. And I'm a bit of a perfectionist as well.
Why did I start using The GIMP? Well:
- It came with Red Hat Linux.
- I've been manipulating photographs in the darkroom since 1983 and wanted to try it with computer software.
- It's free, as in beer. This was a bit of a consideration given the price of Photoshop.
Reactions? The book "The Artist's Guide to The GIMP" has been helpful, but it reads more like a computer manual than something an artist would write. I've been reading Popular Photography for a very long time now. It's much more oriented to how to do some project than the book is. I like Pop Photo's approach over the book's. And I make my living as a software engineer.
I have been able to do some neat things with the GIMP and I expect to be able to do more as I become more comfortable with the tool. See my current site for some samples of my manipulated images, both photographic and computer. Look quickly, though. I'm in the process of switching ISPs.
Will I move on to Photoshop? Depends upon what limitations I run into with The GIMP. No, I'm not willing to plunge into coding new things for the GIMP. I do art to get away from being a software engineer. I am willing to be a guinea pig for people developing GIMP software, though.
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Re:This is serious... disregard the -1 please!!!
First, I'd like to say thanks for making the post, jaxn. It's good that you're honest and open.
Your story hits home for me--I really believe that addiction can happen to anyone. I've had a lot of good friends that were addicts. And they are great people (as long as they don't use drugs).
While some people are much more susceptible, anyone can become an addict. It might not be drugs--it can be an addiction to shopping, to eating, to sex, to sports, to the Internet, to computers... It's worth taking a long hard look at yourself to see if you are addicted to anything. Honestly, I think that "positive addictions" are damaging too (just not as much or in the same way). Anything that drives you, that come in between being fully conscious and aware of your actions is ultimately going to cause pain and suffering.
Having an "addictive personality" isn't very far from having an "obsessive personality", and I'm sure a lot of people here can relate. "Obsessive" certainly describes me. I'm not obsessive about everything, or all the time, but it's an issue. It's a bigger problem when I get tired or stressed out. I've know that I'm fairly obsessive-compulsive, but it hasn't been until recently that I've really started to look at the impact of it in my life. And it's made a huge impact.
The best treatment for me is to exercise a bit and, most importantly, to meditate regularly. I've been into meditation since I was about 12 years old, but I didn't start to really practice until I was about 18. Even then, I didn't do it regularly or consistently enough. Recently I've gone through a divorce and that motivated me to take a good hard look at myself and my life so far. One of the results of that is I've begun a much more regular meditation practice.
(For those of you who are interested in such things, the best teacher I've found is Shinzen Young. He used to teach at a college, and does the best job I've heard translating esoteric eastern spiritual philosophy into something I can understand. He also one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. He has some talks freely available on his web site, some cassettes you can buy, and, if you can get Kpfk (90.7 FM, in Los Angeles, CA), they usually play his talks on Thursday night after midnight (Kpfk also has a web cast). I highly recommend checking him out. If anyone would like more info re: Shinzen, please mail me.)
Meditation also has some great health and pain management aspects. Shinzen's "Break Through Pain" set is perhaps the best thing I've found to help deal with physical pain. And formal sitting can be good for your back.
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Re:Price Change and contracts...The rest of that is: "We are believers in the Golden Rule. In all our dealings we will strive to be friendly and courteous, as well as fair and compassionate. "
The rest of the CV&Bs are here.
--
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Re:Will probably need a new interface...There is a good set of pages covering the fact and fiction of the QWERTY keyboard here
The QWERTY keyboard, believe it or not, was present on the very first modern typewriter... the Sholes & Glidden, made by E. Remington & Sons (best known for their guns) beginning in 1874. Data from the 1878 patent can be seen here, as well as other historical data.
(Of course there were many other designs going back more than 100 years before. but they didn't go anyplace)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
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Re:Will probably need a new interface...There is a good set of pages covering the fact and fiction of the QWERTY keyboard here
The QWERTY keyboard, believe it or not, was present on the very first modern typewriter... the Sholes & Glidden, made by E. Remington & Sons (best known for their guns) beginning in 1874. Data from the 1878 patent can be seen here, as well as other historical data.
(Of course there were many other designs going back more than 100 years before. but they didn't go anyplace)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
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Re:Double /. standard?I could go into business as General Motors brand toilet plungers and all GM could do was bury me with legal fees in hopes that I couldn't go the distance to win the case.
That is absolutely false. You could absolutely not go into business as "General Motors" brand toilet plungers. Trademark case law refers to something called "famous" marks, i.e. trademarks which are so well-known and ubiquitous that it can be successfully argued that any use of them other than by the owner constitutes a dilution and infringment. See this link for more info.
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Re:Why...
I've got a halfway there solution for that:
http://home.earthlink.net/~simoncooke/SVDefuser.zi p
20kb of quick anti-script-virus bliss. Basically forces all script files to open in notepad by default, instead of run. You can still run them by selecting Open from the context menu though.
Simon
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has anyone..
..had the yarbles to try Mosix out yet?
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This always happens...
This always happens to me... When ever i do research on a topic (or am about too), it comes up in Ask Slashdot... must have a mental connection with Cliff... oh well
Anyway, here's what i've found (other than what's already been mentioned)
FuzzCat -- it seems to work, but A) it's more full featured than i'm looking for and B) i can't seem to find the source code for it...
:(HTML WYSIWYG Editor -- This is a good tutorial on how to write a formatting editor with javascript and IE4+. I think i'm going to use this (combined with some tricks used by Yahoo mail...)
Here r some others (from a german PHP list):
http://www.mycgiserver.com/~fuzzcat/webfile/text/
t ext.htmlhttp://www.secretgate.com/axadir/classic.html
http://netword.secretgate.com/
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Re:Unexperienced Creator of language?
You should look at his resume. I would not call that unexperienced.
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Re:Enumeration and distinct scalar typesThe page you read is not a spec. The (incomplete) spec can be found there. Naturally, LX has enums. It also has distinct scalar types:
type Color is enum(Red, Green, Blue)
type speed is other real
type distance is other real
type time is other real
function Speed(distance D; time T) return speed written D/T -
Re:Some real problemsFirst off most language design has always been open source.
I disagree. The design of Fortran, C, C++, Pascal, Eiffel and LISP were done behind closed doors.
I don't see any attempt at a formal definition of the language.
You are right. The good news is: the formal definition exists; it is about 90 pages long. The bad news is: it's boring, it's incomplete, and it's based on a pre indentation-sensitive version. You can find it there. And yes, I know it is not finished...
Before designing a programming language you should know about operational semantics, denotational semantics and all that good stuff.
Thanks for the recommendation
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Re:I can't resist this one!
Close, but not quite. QWERTY was developed in the early days of mechanical typewriters to slow people down.
Check out Why QWERTY Was Invented" for an alternative explanation. -
Re:A serious (rather unpopular) hope...
You can't be serious with C++. I've tried (see my bio if you have any doubt
;-) You should rather consider one of the many C-- in existence. Some tidbits:C-- is a subset of all ambiguous constructs which could be removed from any C++ extension without impact on general code quality. This naturally include all standard C and C++ constructs.
All new features range from "useless" to "potentially disastrous". The C-- reserved words that fall in the last category do not contain an asterisk (*).
The current implementation (V21.13) is a post-processor written in FORTRAN. It handles errors generated by the C compiler and interpolates with the C-- source code to create an MS-DOS batch file, which more or less does the same thing as what your C-- program intended to do, only slower. This implementations makes it easy to port the C-- compiler, provided there is a FORTRAN compiler, a C compiler and an MS-DOS batch file interpreter. IBM PC/DOS version is currently in beta test.
OK, I wrote all that crap a long time ago, and it shows a bit... But I may have been one of the first ones to propose comments ending in \\ (for left-handed people), a C++ compatible implementation of comefrom, function inheritance, #try
.. #catch (to try and compile something), and a few others niceties. Too bad I did not finish it, I still had a lot of work to do on short long, dereferencing of float, dodecadecimal numbers, probabilistic switch, etc. -
Arcosanti
You might want to check out Paolo Soleri's ``arcology in progress'', Arcosanti. I'm not sure what its current state is, since its web page is down, but it is/was an interesting project: construct an arcology starting without billions of dollars...
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Re:Economies of scale
Look at Earthlink; their slogan is, "We're 10% better than AOL." For most people that's enough. Sure, people reading this comment probably want shell access on a *nix box for their $20/month, but Joe Sixpack just wants something that's easy to use (i.e. limited in options and functionality so it doesn't confuse him).
EarthLink's campaign to bail out the fragmented ISP market and provide a viable alternative to AOL/Time Warner is something that should be applauded. To begin with there are not many if any other players looking in this direction for new business opportunities. If not for ELNK's interest we would be reading alot more about situations like the recent Northpoint/Verio fiasco that left tens of thousands of people without internet access and established email addresses.
Sure there are always going to be those people who would have preferred anything but the inevitable, what can you do? Providing quality service with skilled technical support and customer service is not possible at a profitable level in today's market until you begin to divide your costs into the revenue that only comes from millions of subscribers.
The 'mom and pop' scenario functioned when a real income was to be had from advertising and investors were excited about the possibilities. That is no longer a reality and one should begin to consider the long term viability of their ISP before commiting to them.
If your ISP is purchased by EarthLink then I welcome you to sample the services. From the most reliable mail servers in the industry to full-service and online management for almost all account features. Award winning technical support and customer service are only the beginning.
By the way port 25 blocking is necessary. If you stop and think about it, why should any network administrator be asked to pay for your outbound mail to some spam server is malaysia or even worse those people who would log in to EarthLink's smtp server from another network. Nobody here likes recieving spam and I think we all know the amount of traffic and expense that can occur when one doesn't control the mail that is generated from their network. If you really are using your own mail server for business purposes then purchase a dedicated line and use it how you see fit.
By the way, EarthLink's slogan is best surmised by their Core Values and Beliefs. I do not know where you got the 10% better than AOL but its not accurate.
R_V_Winkle -
Re: Economies of scale
Worked fine for me.
http://help.earthlink.net/port25/
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The occasional poster formerly known as jihad23 -
Economies of scale
"What has happened in the Internet industry to cause such a decline in not only sales, but in jobs as well?" Consolidation has happened, and it's going to keep happening. DSL and cable are putting mom-and-pop ISPs out of business left and right. For every cable sign-up, one person leave LocalISP Inc. forever. Each DSL signup makes it harder to run a cheap 56k modem-based operation. "...where is this going to end?" When there are a handful of huge national ISPs and a bunch of local, hacker-friendly "boutique" ISPs.
It's ironic that, as promised 50 years and more ago, machines and computers really are labor-saving devices, just not in the way we hoped. Machines don't save you from doing more labor, but they save your company from paying for more labor. As more dataflow gets automated, and as hardware and software get easier to use, less human intervention and ingenuity is required to keep things running (less in aggregate, I mean, not in depth).
The ISP apocolypse is similar to what has happened in nearly every other industry: start off with thousands of little operations which compete fiercly for customers and market share. Eventually only a few will be left. After a while the service stops being differentiated from company to company and they compete on price. Once that happens, the company with the best economics - the most efficient - wins.
Look at Earthlink; their slogan is, "We're 10% better than AOL." For most people that's enough. Sure, people reading this comment probably want shell access on a *nix box for their $20/month, but Joe Sixpack just wants something that's easy to use (i.e. limited in options and functionality so it doesn't confuse him).
Yes, it's very sad that so many good ISPs are going away. My personal favorite, Teleport, was based in Portland, Oregon for years. They were reliable, responsive, and hacker-friendly. The got bigger, got inhaled by OneMain which was promptly inhaled by Earthlink. My service went from "shell access to pine" to "pray that 50% of my mail makes it through" in less than a month. And now I'm stuck with Earthlink's port 25 blocking.
I just signed up with another local ISP. Hopefully they won't be bought too soon. :)
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes -
You don't even know what a URL isIt's the thing you click on that's supposed to GO SOMEWHERE.
BTW, YHBT HAND
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I-CubeX
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Re:Sports News Matters?
Since when are nerds and geeks into sports? Well, here's one aspect of sports-geekdom...