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If you love Python, like I do, consider having an affair with Julia. http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/p...

BTW, in case you haven't noticed, Python syntax is similar to Fortran syntax which is among the oldest, if not the oldest programming language still alive.

This. I think Fortran (and now Julia) strikes the best balance, because it doesn't have the tab/space issue that may produce problems, especially when sharing code. Like Python, it lacks the ugly {} ; punctuations, but it needs something to denote the end of a block, so it uses the English word "end" to keep things simple and clean.

Forth was the best. RIP.

BTW, in case you haven't noticed, Python syntax is similar to Fortran syntax which is among the oldest, if not the oldest programming language still alive.

This. I think Fortran (and now Julia) strikes the best balance, because it doesn't have the tab/space issue that may produce problems, especially when sharing code.

I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on that assertion. Have you ever looked at the Fortran sections of CHARMM (MD package)? You want something hard to read that will make your head explode, go look at some of that mess! Not only is everything in CAPS there are space indents in the code and if you don't match those up, WHAMMO! error time!

BTW, in case you haven't noticed, Python syntax is similar to Fortran syntax which is among the oldest, if not the oldest programming language still alive.

This. I think Fortran (and now Julia) strikes the best balance, because it doesn't have the tab/space issue that may produce problems, especially when sharing code. Like Python, it lacks the ugly {} ; punctuations, but it needs something to denote the end of a block, so it uses the English word "end" to keep things simple and clean.

I'm right handed, and I think a half-keyboard for the right hand would make much more sense. I only saw references to the left-hand one in the given link. I've found a number of good reasons to mouse on the "wrong" hand.

On another, more general note, mechanical does not have to mean clicky. I can't stand any extra noise, but I still like the feel of good mechanical keyboards, so something like Brown switches are a good compromise.

Shameless plug: I wrote about this back in 2001, summarizing the idea about macroscopic quantum phenomena, and it turned out people had already done it -- currents flowing both ways simultaneously, to put it roughly.

I don't have an answer, but I'm reading this with keen interest as I feel similarly about input devices. I recently wrote up some of my ongoing keyboard rants where scrollwheels are also discussed. One general issue seems to be that those who don't learn to use keyboards properly, will reinvent similar functionality in mice (arrow keys and pgup/pgdn -> scrollwheels).

Maybe then we'll get proper application whitelisting / sandboxing by default in a desktop OS. And, hell, why do applications get the run of every file I use under my account? Should they not have to request such things first? Even on Unix-likes, if you get on as my user, you can trash all my data - why?

The answer is functionality. Let's consider the example of Android, an OS with a fairly recent security model, built on top of Linux which provides for chroot. Why not put apps into their own chroot jail by default? Seems like a good idea, right? How do you explain to Grandma why she can't upload photos from her camera's image gallery to Facebook? Oh, you'll solve that problem by putting the photos in a public directory? Okay, that eliminates the functionality concern, but now you're right back where you started with exposure to ransomware....

Not necessarily. This can be solved by having a standard privileged file open/save dialog that grants the access automatically to apps based on user input. Of course that limits the UI designs in some ways.. I wrote some ideas 11 years ago how something like this could be done. Partially obsolete nowadays though but still could be doable (except for the web browser parts - web security seems to be a lost cause already). Perhaps once these kind of worse malwares start happening people would finally implement a more secure desktop. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to easily run whatever program I want without it breaking my computer.

This. To put it short, Gentoo doesn't make this needless user vs. developer distinction.

I started in 1999 with Red Hat 6.

Me too :D And now for the obligatory shameless plug.

This would be great if it happened at once for all mankind. It's the gradual transition that's hard, as some people will still be thinking in terms of protestant work ethic, capitalism etc.

My usual argument is that society is like an engine whose fuel efficiency is improving all the time. As a scientist/engineer I think better fuel efficiency is great. People could work less hours for the same gain, if only the system would allow it -- traditionally, you're either fully employed as a respectable member of the society, or unemployed scum. Basic income could be used to smooth things out, but IMHO it would be much better to divide work itself more evenly.

It's ugly because USB 3.0 breaks the original "legacy free" promise. Remember when USB first replaced serial, parallel and PS/2 ports? It didn't do it by bolting them all together in an ugly lump for maximum compatibility -- it was a clean break.

Is it a pyramid scheme - earlier mining gets more coins?

It's a pyramid scheme in the same way as investing in any company -- early movers take the risk and reap the rewards.

http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/b...

Who knew, when they were building thepiratebay, they were simply making the library of the future?

My thoughts exactly.

While we're on the subject of Descent, the Yamaha OPL MIDI tracks were some of the best I've heard. The way it was meant to sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Playing it in DOSBox doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the real deal... you've got to switch the OPL instrument patch bank and the support for doing that in DOSBox isn't too good. If you play the OPL MIDI files with adlmidi and the proper Descent patch bank, then it sounds good.

I also did some writing using WP 5.1 on DOS back in the day, but later I've come to realize the problem of word processors. The issue became apparent upon learning LaTeX, and since then I've wondered why people spend so much time on the "ink on paper" look, as opposed to the text itself. If you want to focus on text, you should try a plain text editor rather than a "fancy because it's not fancy" word processor.

Further links: http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/w...

How would you steer this imaginary hoverboard? A skateboard will continue rolling in one direction only, as long as you do nothing. The various ways of controlling a skateboard rely on high friction in other directions. Turn it sideways quickly and you can stop it, if you know what you're doing. A hoverboard would simply continue hovering sideways, and you'd have no way to turn it without a wall or something. Similarly, there would be much less room for tricks that rely on hitting the deck against something solid, as the hover mechanism would repel any direct contact. You'd need spacewalk-style thrusters to get where you want to.

(Disclaimer: a little something from my days of physics studies http://iki.fi/teknohog/physics...)

You should all do some homework before throwing out all this prejudice. Flow based programming has been successfully used in many implementations ever since it's invention in the 70's at IBM. One Canadian bank has been running (and maintaining) an FBP program continuously for over 40 years!

You are right that FBP (or something very close) can be found in successful systems such as Unix pipes, LabView and Apple quartz composer. If you read FBP inventor J P Morrisons canonical book on the topic (linked below) though, you will notice that there are some details to the FBP specifications that should be observed, in order to gain all the full benefits of a full-featured FBP implementation.

Some homework suggestions for you all:

1. Why not start with NoFlo creator, Henri Bergius' excellent post, "NoFlo Kickstarter, the hacker's perspective":
      http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/noflo-kickstarter-launch/
2. Watch the intro video to FBP and NoFlo:
      http://vimeo.com/72065207
3. Read up/watch some more on the NoFlo (finished) kickstarter page:
      http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noflo/noflo-development-environment
4. Read up a bit on FBP inventor J P Morrisons website:
      http://jpaulmorrison.com/
5. Join the discussion in the FBP group:
      https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/flow-based-programming
6. Join the FBP Google+ community:
      http://gplus.to/flowbased
7. Last but not least, read the book!
      http://tinyurl.com/fbpbook

i'd be interested to see what happens if you run those regex's through this:
        http://bisqwit.iki.fi/source/regexopt.html

btw can we please get a copy of the patterns you're using? i think they might prove useful for other people. also i'd like to test them myself against regexopt.

oh - to the other person who suggested spamassassin? i tried that, i set it up to run at MTA-time. it often took THIRTY SECONDS to process a message. in fact it was so bad that i was forced to set a limit of 100k on incoming messages, as a lot of virus-ridden word documents (etc) were typically over 100k. that cut down the amount of CPU cycles but it was still far far too much memory and far too CPU intensive.

the one thing that did work well is greylisting, however the problem with greylisting i find is that if you happen not to be at the computer or have direct access to the server and people on the phone say "i'm sending you a message now, have you got it?" you *know* it's going to be at least an hour before it'll arrive. so, unless you can whitelist them in advance (which you can't always do) greylisting does actually interfere with legitimate business.

anyway: in the end i gave up and went to gmail, but with gmail fucking up how they're doing things i have to revisit this and set up a mail server again. thus we come full circle...

Aww, fsck it, not this meme again...

Wish I'd thought of that when Linux itself turned 20 -- oh, wait... http://iki.fi/teknohog/music/col_torvalds.php

BTW, I always wanted a hoverboard like those in Back to the Future II, so shameless plug

I'm not going to write a review, at least for now. The first reason being, of course, laziness :-j However, I don't think a review at this point would make any justice.

It is, in some ways, an unfinished product. The stock distro fails to take full advantage of the hardware, IMHO, and doing the same with a custom distro is tricky because of some driver issues. Drivers are, in fact, on their way, so a review after a few months would make much more sense. Unfortunately, the machine will feel a little outdated by then. Also, mine has a few hardware glitches, and I'm waiting for a warranty replacement that could take ages...

Which brings me to the other point of availability. I was told there are only few of these machines in Europe, as the first production run is sold out. I hope they can fix the initial glitches by the second run, but it does not look like it's going to be too soon. The first batch was late enough already.

Nevertheless, here are some of my initial experiences, answering many of the issues you might expect from a review.

By law, every book and scroll was copied.

At a time before the printing press, this meant lots of jobs for manual labourers.

It was critical for the development of civilization.

Employment for the sake of employment is apparently a good thing. It keeps people off the streets. Copying by computers is bad, because it is too efficient.

I've been a happy camper since I discovered PWM a few years ago. PWM is a rather lightweight WM with integrated menu, great keyboard support, virtual desktops and dock support (for afterstep or windowmaker apps). It is highly customizable and has very few dependencies. Its memory footprint is also impressively low and the system-wide or user-specific configuration is done in plain text files. The source looks clean and well-written. See the author's page for more info or the source code. Of all the window managers I've tried this one left one of the best impressions.

To me, the spreading of knowledge and information is something to celebrate. The GPL promotes this, so I would prefer it to go on forever. Without IP laws, things might not be so open — specifically, the patent system was designed to promote the sharing of ideas, while preserving a limited commercial monopoly.

http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/sex_and_the_ip.php
http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/ip.php

To me, the spreading of knowledge and information is something to celebrate. The GPL promotes this, so I would prefer it to go on forever. Without IP laws, things might not be so open — specifically, the patent system was designed to promote the sharing of ideas, while preserving a limited commercial monopoly.

http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/sex_and_the_ip.php
http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/ip.php

There really isn't any new news about this.

I would have thought the more appropriate Mozilla news is that they have released Rust 0.1 or general browser news that natively supported WebM browser share exceeds natively supported H.264 share

The US patent system is totally broken.

link

link

A while ago I had to explain how USB flash drives are mounted on desktop systems so I made a screencast that shows how you can use systemtap to figure that out: http://lindi.iki.fi/lindi/screencast/what-happens-when-you-mount-usb-stick1.ogv

Indeed. Using rtklib you can get 10 cm accuracy even with two cheap openmoko phones (~200 EUR) and cheap antennas (~20 EUR): http://lindi.iki.fi/lindi/finhack/finhack2010-rtklib-lindfors.pdf -- you can read more about it on foss-gps mailing list.

SELinux doesn't address the problem. I agree with grandparent, although I think the focus should be more about on the UI side. The really low level implementation could perhaps be addressed with SELinux, but it's not a practical solution for any GUI app currently. For example how would you prevent Open Office from deleting everything in your home dir with SELinux, while still allowing it to read and write arbitrary documents? Yeah, you can't unless you manually go changing the labels every time you want to write somewhere.

I thought about how to implement an actually secure operating system in 2004, where you could safely just run any random program from internet, but no one cared to listen and I moved on.

I did my master's thesis on the theoretical basis of hoverboards. The conclusion is that they are not feasible in practice, unless you have insane amouts of electric power to carry around, and don't mind hovering over a ball lightning.

Something that could make computing fun again like it used to be 20-30 years ago.

My initial thought was "Linux", but I guess we've all been there for years already, and the novelty is starting to wear off. But talking about custom chips, I have recently taken up FPGA design, and it's been great fun. Though in that case you may have to forget about the idea of a "computer" for a while, and think more generally about digital circuits. Forget about programming a given piece of hardware, and instead design a piece of hardware to do it much faster. Or if you like, you can include a Free CPU design and make your computer from scratch, without any soldering.

I must admit I'm not very far in this field yet, so here are some fun links from other people:

• FPGA NES
• fpga4fun

Which is even more of an uphill battle, since PNG can't even reproduce colors consistently.

Most people are used to the idea that all software is proprietary. It takes extra work to educate people on the mere existence of open alternatives. To many people it seems like bashing the proprietary, because the idea of open software goes against their preconceptions. The same goes for music, for example. I've had people blame me for illegal activities when burning Linux install CDs, and even CDs of my own music, because clearly copying music and software is wrong.

Same here. I also use symlinks to organize music based on genre, even though all artist directories are under the music dir. This way it is also possible to file one band under multiple genres.

Actually, pathnames are also metadata. Or at least they can be used to provide a lot of metadata, when properly used. Fancy metadata/tagging systems also need some discipline to work, and sloppy people can lose track of their data despite the fancy tools. I choose the old-fashioned way as it works for me, and is readily accessible with a variety of programs.

I also have a simple filing system for music burned to DVDs. Basically, after burning a new disc I do "find > disc#". To find a filename, I simply grep for it in a directory with all these files. Usually it is enough to find just the disc number.

I'd say, the concept of desktop as it was defined through 80s and 90s is beginning to die. Touch interfaces, actually well-working mobile devices and web services ("the cloud") are taking over more and more of the desktop's traditional role. More than a problem for the Linux desktop, I see this shift as a big opportunity as the importance of the traditional vendors like Microsoft is declining. Here are some ideas on what the "Linux desktop" ought to do: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/the_web_and_the_free_desktop/

But, in the case of digital distribution, it takes next to nothing to make after the initial eBook/PDF is created.

Uh...

I write short stories. I publish them on the Internet under CC licenses. And yet, I'd terribly appreciate if I had a publisher. (I just don't bother submitting my stuff to publishers because, frankly, I'm still learning. Maybe when I get a novel done.)

I can understand why people are peeved when music publishers are grabbing money: it's easier to see if a song sucks or is awesome, so as works of art, they're easier to market. The musicians do most of the work on their own, from composition to the finished song. But with books, there's so much more work that the author can't really do on their own - the publishers actually need to do something. Books are harder to market because they're not something you can just spend minutes listening to and deduce it's awesome. Reading a book takes a commitment of a few days. Readers need some assurance that what they're getting is not some badly spelled, barely coherent drivel.

Publishers do far more than just physically distribute the books. They need to make sure the book is in proper physical format (or in an appropriate file format). They need to make sure it's got correct catalogue data (yeah, right, as if I'm going to waste my money on ISBNs).

The publishers edit the books. I find it's freaking impossible for me to edit my work properly - it'd be easier if I just could hit a reset button in my head and see the text from a completely different person's perspective. I can never spot all of the silly little mistakes I make. People whine endlessly when they spot typos, and I can't blame them. I do, especially if I find typos in stuff I've already sent out.

The publishers market the book. This is rather crucial. I do absolutely no marketing, and according to Google Analytics I've had hundreds of page hits over the last year! Some even stayed on the site for more than a few minutes! I'm overjoyed! I don't have a foggiest idea of how to market my stories, and I don't actually want to learn. (Ummm.... here's my boring fantasy stories! ...I fail this marketing stuff forever.)

Marketing and editing are the two things that the publishers are needed for. From a reader's point of view, the publisher acts as a quality control figure: They won't try to sell books unless they think they can make money out of them, and toward that end, they only select books that actually may be marketable and fix them up so people won't gouge their eyes out when they try to read the books. From author's point of view, publishers simplify things: they're doing the boring gruntwork and the author can focus on stuff they're supposed to be good at - that is to say, writing. The authors write, and the publishers hand out an advance based on how well they expect the book will sell and royalties in case the expectations are exceeded. Pure and simple.

Serial is a digital, bit-accurate protocol that has been phased out for a long time. On the other hand, we still have the analog blur of VGA as the only external display connection on many current computers.

http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/vga.php

True, I have Gentoo running on both of my two ARMs (pun intended). But it's not really a distro issue anyway. The Linux kernel runs on more architectures than any other OS, and getting a distro to work is only a matter of time. And you can always install Linux from scratch.

Notice the lack of the word "support" above. I'm not that interested in support, I'm more interested in whether something works. For example, there's some kind of support relationship between my laptop and Windows XP, but I find that Linux works much better.

Seconded, I have a Linkstation Live running Gentoo.

Oh, please. When you connect a digital display to a digital computer, do you really want to convert the signal to analog and then back again? It's such an ass-backwards situation that I've written a somewhat longer rant about it.

BTW, your argument doesn't fly because copper and RCA connectors can be used for digital signals. Speaker cables are a different issue anyway, since at some point the signal will have to be analog for listening. But it's better to keep it in the original, digital form as far as possible.

Bah, that one seems to use bad old hovercraft technology. The hoverboards in the movie use a different principle, as they have much higher ground clearances, and they don't need a flat surface to push against. FWIW, I did my Master's thesis on a theoretical basis for such hoverboards.

http://iki.fi/teknohog/physics/levita.ps

Feel free to correct the Wiki article. While you're at it, you might want to get the myriad web sites which disagree with you to fix their pages.

Shameless plug: http://iki.fi/teknohog/physics/levita.ps

I'm just browsing the replies here and I have to ask... How does this post become an opportunity to bash Windows users? For anybody familiar of what killed the Commodore Amiga... This kind of attitude just leaves a bad taste in the mouth of anyone who only wants to take a look at Linux. New users are bound to complain about it -- hell, even I do sometimes.

I've been using Linux for years -- it's all I ever use anymore. Among the many things I like about it is the availability of help from the Linux Community. Most of these replies have reminded me of what I DON'T like about the Linux Community.

I have to wonder how many people offered her help after she complained... or did everyone just "react".

Just lighten up! Wouldn't it be better to fill up these posts with possible solutions (preferably easy ones) to her unfamiliarity with Linux? Rather than kick her head in as soon as she peeks into the Linux world and makes a complaint.

Perhaps some of you should check out this article by Lars Wirzenius on "Advocating Linux" (he helped Linus Torvalds in the original development of Linux):

Advocating Linux

Look at the table of contents of this BYTE magazine from 1985. In a nutshell it said the same thing as this article: Functional languages are the great hope for solving the parallel programming problem. Only then the languages were different: Hope, Linda, and Prolog were among them.

My response back then was to get excited about FP. My response now is: Where is the proof? Can anyone name a single instance where a functional paradigm has yielded the best measured performance on a parallel computing problem? In other words, take the best functional programmers in the world, and pair them up with the best tools in existence. Can they actually create something superior, on any problem running on any hardware? This is a very low bar, but until it's demonstrated FP will be confined mostly to the lab.

IMHO the path forward is to treat parallel programming like just another optimization. As we know, the vast majority of your code doesn't need to run fast, and you get most of the performance benefit by optimizing small bits of code that really matter. I suspect the same thing will happen with parallel programming: In a given application only a few areas will benefit much from parallelism, and these tasks will probably be very similar across applications. Graphics rendering, large matrix math, video encoding/decoding, and speech recognition would be examples. People will treat these as special cases, and either develop special-purpose hardware (e.g., GPUs), or libraries that encapsulate the nitty-gritty details. The interesting question to me is what is the best runtime model to support this.

How about build an energy efficient PC!

Well, my machine has an 80-watt PSU, enough to keep it fully loaded even without undervolting.

I've noticed that the 'mobile' version of a processor usually consumes roughly half of the power of the 'desktop' equivalent, and I mean with the same processing capabilities. The stupidity is that you usually need a 'mobile' motherboard as well, since the processors are packaged differently. I've been meaning to write a more comprehensive guide on this topic some day.

How about build an energy efficient PC!

Well, my machine has an 80-watt PSU, enough to keep it fully loaded even without undervolting.

I've noticed that the 'mobile' version of a processor usually consumes roughly half of the power of the 'desktop' equivalent, and I mean with the same processing capabilities. The stupidity is that you usually need a 'mobile' motherboard as well, since the processors are packaged differently. I've been meaning to write a more comprehensive guide on this topic some day.