Domain: xahlee.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to xahlee.org.
Comments · 34
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Re:Standards
They used to be hardware keys. Frankly I don't miss them and I don't think giving newbies more keys to press is going to put them at ease.
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Re:In other news...
And an individual is also working on HTML6:
http://xahlee.org/comp/html6.html
It's a mix of JSON and SXML:
The author also explains why unicode characters are used instead of the xml angle brackets.
It's quite funny, a must read. -
Re:Secure wipes?
Plus, if the phone is being wiped, I don't think any other processes are going to be running.
No, I'm pretty sure that when you wipe an iPhone it starts up the MP3 player and sings Daisy Bell.
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Re:Missed the best feature!
If you like Emacs, but like me hate the default key bindings, try ErgoEmacs. It is a set of Emacs key bindings which are not so painful.
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Re:The US and US flags
Oh please, there is plenty of flag waving in other countries. How many people paint their faces or show their colors at sporting events? http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44955000/jpg/_44955514_face_getty_220_300.jpg http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41791000/jpg/_41791514_swedefan_getty.jpg http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/lanci/wc2006/wc2006_it_face-s.jpg
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Re:If it has API - it will ROCK
If it has API it will rock as a secondary input system to mouse. You will be able to scroll through text/code just by looking, switch windows, copy paste - it has an enormous potential.
An enormous potential FOR EVIL, that is. The Escape Meta Alt Control Shift people are bad enough already. They'll go crazy with this, and I don't mean good-crazy-like-that-hot-barista-with-all-those-tattoos crazy. Running the compiler's going to be "control meta think_about_puppies think_about_hot_wings C" by the time they're done with it.
A number of prominent EMACS users already have permanent wrist damage from all those modifier keys. If they release an API for this thing, there'll be a whole new generation of people with repetitive mind stress injuries.
You heard it hear first. -
Re:Totally off topic
Probably was photoshopped off.
Here is another one with a collar around her neck.
And here is another one but nothing really telling there. -
Re:The downside
It's an upside, because more linux geeks will then be working on usability. True laziness will save the day! of course, in the short term, if you want to get out of fixing everyone's iptables rulesets you should practice saying the following with a straight face: "sorry, I only work on windows."
It may take you a couple of years, so start now...
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Re:Good catch
That post wasn't written by Xah Lee, he was just reposting someone's blog entry to Usenet as a kind of troll. Xah Lee's own posts aren't nearly as coherent, since he writes in a variety of Engrish. Of course, the submitter of the current article used a pseudonym used by the philosopher Kierkegaard, and could be anyone. However, I would bet against it being Xah Lee just because the English is too good.
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Re:Sheer Brilliance
Oh come on?
This man has nothing but intelligent and non biased articles. Jeez
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Unix is Dead! Wanna Fight??
http://www.xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_fastfood_d ir/unixdead_j_dvorak.html
The following is from the August '86 issue of the DEC Professional, pilfered from http://catalog.com/hopkins/unix-haters/etc/unix-is -dead.html
Unix is Dead! Wanna Fight??
John C. Dvorak
Summer is over and a plague of UNIX programmers is upon us. College kids, wet behind the ears; greenhorns, rubes. They pour out of various campuses talking about ROFF and ED and pipes and paths, and they look for work. They're impressed with themselves. After all, they've learned the language of a secret society. If they're from Berkeley, they've learned the secret language of a secret society.
They all program in C, and wherever they go they change the prompts on whatever computer they get their hands on so it resembles a UNIX machine. They creative ones go into whatever operating system they have to use and find a symbol or token table; then they change the commands to look like UNIX. The *more* creative ones customize the commands further so they are even more cryptic and weird than UNIX. Whether these people ever do any real work is a mystery.
"Yes, weeell, to list my files I merely type P; MJOI."
"P; MJOI?? What they heck does that mean?"
"It just so happens that if I put my coffee cup on the keyboard and rock it a certain way, that's what it will type; so, I do that to list my files!"
While it's good to see these kids doing something other than wasting quarters on endless games of Pole Position, I'm not so sure UNIX dabbling is much better for society.
I feel this way, not so much because UNIX is an old-fashioned OS that has a special place reserved in hell, but because its time has passed. UNIX is dead, but no one bothered to claim the body. It lives like a zombie on college computers and serves as a gateway to all sorts of weird networks.
UNIX haunts marketing men, too. I remember when Fortune Systems was getting started. That's about the time that a bumper crop of college-bred UNIX drones was dumped like mulch into the marketplace. They all were singing the praises of UNIX to the low end of the market.
So, I went to this strategy demonstration given by one of the vice presidents of Fortune Systems. These guys surely were ahead of their time, and it was a perfect example of having too much bad information. The Fortune 16:32 (or was it 32:16? In either case it looked like a biblical reference...) said unto us: "Come to me for thine microprocessor and spend, spend, spend!" it was the first camel of microcomputers. Like a horse designed by committee (aka camel), the Fortune was preceded by too much market research. A lot of this was skewed by the hordes of UNIX maniacs running through the valley waving the UNIX flag.
First of all, I was shown a slide that clearly showed the Motorola 68000 as the world's greatest microprocessor.
The 68000 beat everything. Personally, I can't remember what it was pitted against -- probably the 8080, the 6502 and a 4004. Whatever, this was the chip to use.
Then the company did some market research and, because writers, pundits, researchers, secretaries, publishers, and programmers all said that UNIX was the next hot operating system, they chose it for their own little machine.
The UNIX community yelled, "Yea!" But, they continued to use free university-provided time, and none of the UNIX hackers bought the little UNIX boxes. Well, that was okay, it was intended to be a business machine, anyway.
Ooops! Gee, it seems that the businessmen couldn't cope with UNIX and "$ ls /bin/pr -p -t" or any other such nonsense. So they had to build a performance-sapping shell around the system, code name: SLOW. So much for the UNIX world takeover. I figured that would be the last I heard of it.
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Re:WTF?!! Nobody's posted THIS yet?!!!
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Re:Well...
Yeah, let's write task schedulers in LISP! ROFL
I don't know why you find that funny. That's exactly what Symbolics did. They beat Unix to the "Workstation" market by several years, too. Many Unix Haters were very upset when their LISP machines were replaced with Unix:
This is the fifth day I've used a Sun. Coincidentally, it's also the fifth time my Emacs has given up the ghost. So I think I'm getting a feel for what's good about Suns.
One neat thing about Suns is that they really boot fast. You ought to see one boot, if you haven't already. It's inspiring to those of us whose LispMs take all morning to boot.
Another nice thing about Suns is their simplicity. You know how a LispM is always jumping into that awful, hairy debugger with the confusing backtrace display, and expecting you to tell it how to proceed? Well, Suns ALWAYS know how to proceed. They dump a core file and kill the offending process. What could be easier? If there's a window involved, it closes right up. (Did I feel a draft?) This simplicity greatly decreases debugging time because you immediately give up all hope of finding the problem, and just restart from the beginning whatever complex task you were up to. In fact, at this point, you can just boot. Go ahead, it's fast!
Besides, it's not like a task scheduler is a hard piece of code to write. It's actually stupidly simple to write. The hard part is creating an algorithm that will most effectively extend CPU resources to running programs. What is effective depends on the purpose of the OS. See "The Dining Philosophers Problem" for an example of the issues that task schedulers must resolve.
AFAIK, its not the API but the language features (VM and garbage collector) that don't allow deterministic behavior.
1. VMs by their very nature are deterministic. If they weren't, your CPU wouldn't be either.
2. Garbage Collection is as deterministic as the algorithm behind it. Standard "mark and sweep" algos are indeed deterministic.
None of this has anything to do with compiled Java code, which runs in as deterministic a fashion as you code it. Do you even know what "deterministic" means?
I'm not saying that C/C++ are better languages but you don't have these problems there.
Yes you do. Any problem you code, you have in any language you code it. If you choose to write a device driver with a random timeout inserted, you must take responsibility for that behavior, no matter what the language. If you require that your device driver have an uninterrupted time slice of X milliseconds, then you must use the OS services available to ensure that you have a time slice of X milliseconds.
It's not a question of performance, but deterministic behavior and guaranteed maximum latency.
Maximum latency is not a determinable factor in ANY language, save for when real-time services are utilized. If you utilize real-time services, then it doesn't matter what language you use as long as you have access to those real-time services. -
Yes
its main use is by nerophiliac sysadmins and pedophiles trading pics of 12 year olds in tight outfits
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a logo tour
for a tour of unix logos, please see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html for a tour of the lambda logo, see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/lambda_logo.ht
m l -
a logo tour
for a tour of unix logos, please see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html for a tour of the lambda logo, see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/lambda_logo.ht
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las vegas
for a encompassing report on las vegas, please see http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/las_vegas/2
0 031020_vegas.html -
a gamut of logos in unix & corp
please see logo tour
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Re:Lack of alternatives
Lack of alternatives is a misleading phrase. The reality is that alternatives are inferior when all things considered by the consumer. please see Microsoft Hatred, the beginning
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Microsoft hatred, unjust
please see: Microsoft Hatred, the beginning
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Microsoft Hatred
i disagree with the ongoing sentiment of MS hatred. Please see: Microsoft Hatred
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Re:Blinded By Hate
see Microsoft Hatred
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the right thing to do
i say good call Microsoft, for good or bad.
see
Microsoft Hatred, the beginning -
responsible license
please see responsible license
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responsible license
please see responsible license Xah Lee
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responsibilities of licenses
please see responsible software license Xah Lee
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Microsoft Hatred
i believe that if Microsoft Windows is compared to unixes, Windows are far more secure. Please see Mirosoft Hatred, the beginning follow down to MS hatred FAQ. Xah Lee
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the unix pestilence
please see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html Xah Lee
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the unix pestilence
please see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html Xah Lee
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perl attack
please see http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/perlr.html xah lee
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Microsoft Hatred, the beginning
please see "Microsoft Hatred, the beginning" at http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatred1
5 5.html Xah Lee -
Microsoft Hatred
worth reading: Microsoft Hatred, the beginning
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Microsoft Hatred
please see Microsoft Hatred Xah Lee
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Re:windows has the majority of the market
Apple, does in fact, advertise to Linux users. Inside the cover of New Scientist, 29 June 2002 (AU edition) there is a double page advertisement entitled: "Sends other UNIX boxes to
/dev/null."
A copy of this ad can be seen here.
They really are targeting OS X at the scientific Unix crowd, even Linux, as the ad says: "'After two-and-a-half years of Linux, I've finally found joy in a UNIX operating system. And I found it when I purchased a Macintosh - the first one I've ever owned.' - John Hummel Jr., The Gamers' Press"
While I can see them winning business off expensive Unix hardware, I wonder how effective they will be in targetting linux users.