Eh, what's the point of having that much storage space? Computer technology has pretty much advanced about as far as is necessary.
No one needs a terabyte disk. No one needs a 50" monitor. No one needs 10GB RAM. No one needs a 10GHz CPU.
In 25 years, we will all be using the same PCs we are today. They'll be smaller, and software will be better, but we really won't need any more power than we have now.
While I was initially shocked by this decision, I am now of the opinion that it might actually be a good thing. It was the notion that a "mouse can be as dangerous as a bullet" that got me thinking.
The more dangerous computer criminals (no, I won't call them "hackers") are in the eyes of the public, the more respect non-criminal computer experts, like most of us here on Slashdot, will get.
When we choose to use our skills for good rather than evil, we will be seen as the benevolent protectors of society, much as the police and military (trained in the arts of combat, just like criminals) are seen today.
Hm, I can't help but fear that this may have a negative impact on the acceptance of Linux among the all-important college student and single IT worker demographics.
Basically, Linux has caught on with people who, due to constant exposure to Windows, hate Microsoft. These people happen to be largely male, largely affluent, and largely large (ha ha).
These days, if you're going non-Windows, you don't have many choices. Basically, it's down to Linux and Mac. And when these anti-MS geeks choose their OS, they will choose the one of these that best suits their needs. QuickTime 6 will give them the ability to watch their multi-gig porn collections and pirated DIVX files, without all of the messy command line mucking about that is necessary for multimedia under Linux.
As a Linux user, I wish Apple hadn't released this. Or at the very least, that Slashdot (a pro-Linux site) hadn't reported it. *sigh*
My first reaction to this news was, I'm sure you can all imagine, horror. Like any good slasheepbot, I am a believer in human rights, such as free speech and freedom of religion. Neither of these are recognized in China.
But then I reconsidered. China, as backward as it may be, has come a long way since the days of the Cultural Revolution. Baby girls are no longer killed by exposure as much, and many people dream now of one day running factories in the larger cities, polluted though they may be.
And to what can this slow but encouraging improvement be attributed? I'd say it must be increased communication and trade with Western societies. The Yahoo! et al decision may seem abhorrent to we in the moral right, but it will also have the effect of keeping the relationship between China and the US strong.
That relationship is what will eventually heal China. Yes, it hurts when you rip off a bandage to let in the air; but in the end, you keep the wound from festering, and infection is avoided. I don't want to have to amputate China.
I can't help thinking that Slashdot, as a bastion of pro-Scientific sentiment, is doing Science a disservice by publishing this story.
Since the attacks of 11 September, there has been an incredible surge in the allegience to "faith" (a general term that encompasses everything from Tarot cards to Christianity to astronomy). Science has weathered the storm--barely--as attacks have come one after another, from left and right alike.
What Science needs most of all right now is credibility. Now is not the time to admit the fallibility of Science. In a few years, when people have learned once again to trust Scientists, then we can tell them about these embarrassing mistakes. Until then, we risk plunging Western civilization into another Dark Age.
This whole "debate" ignores a basic truth about the web. Put simply, there is a whole lot of cr*p out there.
A few companies have put great, useful sites together (Amazon comes to mind...note they're one of the few sites to turn a profit...coincidence?). But for every gem you will find hundreds of ugly, useless pages designed by high school kids between games of Quake and rounds of marijuana smoking.
When I'm searching for something, one of the best ways to seperate the cream from the crop, as it were, is using a simple rule of thumb: if a site's owner is not willing to invest a few dollars to get it listed in the major search engines, then he has probably not put in enough effort to the site as a whole, and I shouldn't bother.
For this reason, I love Google. I always ignore the general results and go straight to the sponsors, who by definition have some confidence in their own worth. If a search engine were created that only listed paid advertisers, then it would replace Google, not only for myself, but for most sensible web users.
In short, this is nothing to get upset about. Search providers that list advertisers in their top search results are doing their users a favor, and should be celebrated with open arms.
It is high time we put a stop to the needless waste of human lives. Our sons have fought victoriously in war after war, and we as a nation have paid our dues in full. It's time to let the robots step in and do our dirty work.
Also, I see no reason to limit the applications of this technology to peacekeeping and stablization of foreign lands. Once it's been tested for several years against hostile populations, we could bring a scaled-down version back home, for use in some of the high crime areas of the US.
People complain about how cops and soldiers are unfair, well we can program fairness right into them. They can't be bribed, don't have prejudices, and they're bullet-proof.
Also, we are starting to develop the technology to grow body parts and organs. Why not incorporate the two? Give a robot cop some real human hands, for superior weapon-handling skills! We could even breed entire brainless bodies, equip them with computer systems, and put them on the street. Economical and effective, and our children don't end up dying for some empty slogan.
Wow, I'm continually amazed by the high-quality products pumped out by Sony, specifically as part of their VAIO line. This little beast looks to be no exception (16.1"? Hot damn that's a lot of xterms!).
However, I am afraid of the impact this laptop might have on the Linux market. Linux has had most of its growth running on older computers that have been replaced with fast, new ones by people who want to watch DVD's, surf the web, and play the latest games. One of the beauties of Linux has always been that you could grab that old Pentium one that was headed for the trash heap, slap Debian on there, and have a damn fine firewall. Even Joe Average PC Owner can figure Mandrake or Red Hat out enough to get Linux running on an obsolete box.
Sadly, this is not the case with new PCs. Higher-end systems tend to come with the latest Windows (that most people will keep just for the "gee whiz" factor) pre-installed. Furthermore, they may come with the latest cutting-edge peripherals (such as video cards, DVD players, and printers) that aren't yet supported under Linux. For whatever the reason, people who don't mind using Linux to "rescue" a dump-bound 486 will frequently have qualms about wiping Windows from their shiny new Dells.
Unfortunately, Sony has a history of making this effect even more pronounced with it's VAIO laptops. They frequently use proprietary chipsets and hardware that isn't fully supported under Linux. Reports about of incompatiblities with filesystems, X configuration, and modem support.
What this boils down to is that this product, sweet as though it may be, is bound to have a detrimental effect on Linux sales. I think I'll pass on this one. Hopefully, if enough people (I'm looking at you, CmdrTaco) follow suit, we'll send Sony a message, demonstrate that Linux does belong on new PCs, and the world will thank us.
Rocket Guy Fires Back sounds like a gay porno. I'm all for widening slashdot's readership and exploring new journalistic niches, but I think this is going a little too far.
So is Hemos surprised that his approach of blocking two entire countries worth of email addresses resulted in some "collateral damaga?" It's knee-jerk responses like "I'll ban East Asia" that are going to Balkanize the Internet until it looks like a bunch of isolated BBSes again.
Hey, 1994 was a good year for computing; maybe it won't be so bad, after all.
Many (most?) people consider Japan part of "Western civilization."
As for Colonialism, it is easy to see that while some former colonies (e.g., the US) have flourished, the vast majority (Canada, the Philippenes, most of Africa) have been failures, for the natives and the colonists alike.
Also note that America's borrowed capital is largely thanks to government bonds, which only have value because of the extreme stability of our society. This is even beside the point, however, since Western civilization as a whole (yes, the US is not the only nation in the world, much as some of you would like to think so) has progressed despite "plagues and other epidemics," thanks largely to, yes, technology.
No, if we are to continue our winning streak, we will have to put our faith in the technology that got us this far.
This is just another example of what happens when our established laws and traditions smash into the emerging ways of the digital revolution.
There is no conflict here about inalienable rights (speech, et al), but about the "rights" that are more rooted in common sense and conventional wisdom than in any deep philosophy or moral framework.
What is Fair Use? Did God intend for us to have Fair Use rights? Do animals have Fair Use rights? Clearly, reasoning on this level leads quickly to absurdity.
In cases like these (for I think we will continue to see legislation like Coble-Berman as the Digital Age gets into full swing), we have to reflect on what it is that has made this society so successful. Few would argue that Western civilization has triumphed due largely to the ongoing improvement of technology.
During the Rennaisance, during the Age of Reconnaisance, throughout Colonialism and the Industrial Revolution, the common sense values of the time were invariably abandoned or metamorphosed as required by the upward march of technology.
The Fair Use doctrine has played an important part in 20th century law. Now, in the 21st century, we should not be so attached to it and other anachronisms that we lose sight of the end goal: the improvement of the society of Man through technology. If disposing of these antiquated ideals is the price for better technology, then it is we, the technological elite, who should be the first to sign the bill.
* 2002-05-01 00:42:20 Public Schools Can Look at Girls' Underpants? (yro,privacy) (rejected) * 2002-05-20 11:57:54 Google to Get New Logo? (articles,internet) (rejected) * 2002-05-30 19:08:04 Kuro5hin is Down (askslashdot,links) (rejected) * 2002-05-30 20:10:11 Looks Like a DOS against K5! (articles,tech) (rejected) * 2002-06-28 12:52:40 Geeks Rejoice: Beards Back in Style! (articles,links) (rejected)
Well, I was all set to rant and rave about how evil the WIPO and ICANN['t] and everyone else is. But after reading all of the links above (be honest: did you?), I have to say I'm reconsidering my stance.
I don't know if many of you remember the cybersquatting "name rush," so let me provide some background. Basically, when the web started exploding, there was a small but significant minority that would purchase tons of domain names of major corporations, betting that just a few would bring in a bunch of money when the trademarked domain name was sold back to its rightful owner.
Needless to say, these greedy bastards were ruining it for the rest of us. A few bright spots (Guy Kawasaki's holding mcdonalds.com hostage in exchange for donations to public schools) didn't make up for what was largely the profitting of a few at the expense at anyone else.
The rules put into effect against cybersquatting were necessary to save the web from anarchy and plutocracy. And if those rules were to disappear, or cease to be enforced, then we would be plunged back into that corporate-sponsored hell. These rulings seem terrible to us now, but if we want to save the 'Net, we need to be firm in our application of the rules. Those found in violation need to be held responsible for their actions, or we will find ourselves back in the web of 1996.
The technology is cool, but I'm afraid of the impact this could have on the Linux world. Drivers for this monster are no doubt going to be part of Windows XP from the get-go, but it'll probably take the XFree86 team a few months to get a Linux driver out.
I think if Slashdot wants to do the Linux world a favor, then it should stop playing up the new great hardware, and instead focus on the reliable, established tech that is well-supported in Linux. Otherwise, we are just driving people to Windows.
My first reaction to this was, "ICANN can go to hell...information wants to be free!" I'm sure if I posted a message saying as much, I'd soon hit the karma cap.
But rather than participate in this perfectly reasonable whoring opportunity, I'm going to risk a few points here to point out that barring ordinary web users from the ICANN board is not a bad idea.
I mean, we're talking about the unwashed masses here. Most of them access the web through AOL or WebTV or (choke, gasp) MSN, for heaven's sake. These are the people who call tech support lines complaining that "their Internet is broke." They use only Microsoft apps, propogate virii, and think there's nothing funnier than that video of the monkey drinking his own pee.
These are not the people we want making decisions on domain names or anything else. The Internet is a great experiment in true democracy, but that could prove to be its undoing if we aren't careful.
Rather than going through the agony of installing sshd on each and every client computer, and then writing a bash script to scp updated files as necessary, just have each client poll a central http server (hidden from the Internet by a firewall, of course) for bug updates. Then you just need one person at each workstation to click "okay" and install the thing.
Just because the Mac is now Unix-based, doesn't mean we should give up the ease of use and convenience that made the Mac great in the first place.
I'm very happy to read this. Linux has long been the OS of choice for blind people. While the GUI is a lovely innovation for the sighted, the command line maps much easier to blind I/O.
It's a short jump to the realization that anything that might attract blind people to computers will disproportionally favor Linux (e.g., 1 in 10 blind computer users might choose Linux versus 1 in 100 for the population as a whole). I think we'll see a subtle boom in Linux market share.
If the big Linux corps take note of the effects of this, maybe we will start to see some real Windows-killing features. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for DVD support, but I know plenty of people holding out for printing and compatibility with mp3 players. Also, a KDE theme that doesn't make people wish they were blind would be much appreciated. Go Linux! Once again, Open Source prevails!
Asked about the deal, an Ebay spokesperson described PayPal's management as "A++++++++++", calling them "VERY RESPONSIVE" and noting that they "WOULD DEFINITLY BUY FROM AGAIN." PayPal's feedback rating is 1283.
First, a little background on gprof, for those new to the *n*x world. Gprof is what's known as a profiler. Basically, it inserts code into the beginnings and ends of functions. When you run your program through gprof, it then records how much time is spent in each part of your program. The idea is that the programmer sees where most of the time is being spent, and optimizes that part of the program.
Now, as for the charges of gprof being useless, I can say that that is far from the case. True, it falls flat when dealing with multithreaded programs. But in practice, multithreaded programs are almost always interactive, and thus are primarily limited by user response times, which are many orders of magnitude longer than even the worst algorithm. In these cases, reducing the amount of input required from the user will always pay off better than any optimizations.
As an example, in our enterprise database frontend, we had a dialog that would prompt users for an administrator password when they attempted the "delete" command. We did analysis (with a commercial profiler, but it may as well have been gprof) and found that, lo and behold, the bulk of execution time was being spent waiting for the user to type in the password. So what we did was change the delete command to "eteled" ("delete" backwards), and only told the administrators the new command name. This way, we could be certain that only administrators would even attempt a deletion, and no password prompt was necessary. We have since applied the same design philosophy throughout our software, and productivity is at an all-time high.
As is usually the case, profiling can be the most important part of a project or next to useless. It all depends on how you use it. Gprof is a great tool for what it does; you just have to know how to use it properly.
Slashdot Mirror
it's mostly not feasible to have the subjects sit in front of the computer all day
Then I guess somebody forgot to tell my boss.
Eh, what's the point of having that much storage space? Computer technology has pretty much advanced about as far as is necessary.
No one needs a terabyte disk. No one needs a 50" monitor. No one needs 10GB RAM. No one needs a 10GHz CPU.
In 25 years, we will all be using the same PCs we are today. They'll be smaller, and software will be better, but we really won't need any more power than we have now.
While I was initially shocked by this decision, I am now of the opinion that it might actually be a good thing. It was the notion that a "mouse can be as dangerous as a bullet" that got me thinking.
The more dangerous computer criminals (no, I won't call them "hackers") are in the eyes of the public, the more respect non-criminal computer experts, like most of us here on Slashdot, will get.
When we choose to use our skills for good rather than evil, we will be seen as the benevolent protectors of society, much as the police and military (trained in the arts of combat, just like criminals) are seen today.
The four letter combination eval pops up in thousands of words (my guess).
/usr/share/dict/words
Guess again:
$ grep -c eval
22
Hm, I can't help but fear that this may have a negative impact on the acceptance of Linux among the all-important college student and single IT worker demographics.
Basically, Linux has caught on with people who, due to constant exposure to Windows, hate Microsoft. These people happen to be largely male, largely affluent, and largely large (ha ha).
These days, if you're going non-Windows, you don't have many choices. Basically, it's down to Linux and Mac. And when these anti-MS geeks choose their OS, they will choose the one of these that best suits their needs. QuickTime 6 will give them the ability to watch their multi-gig porn collections and pirated DIVX files, without all of the messy command line mucking about that is necessary for multimedia under Linux.
As a Linux user, I wish Apple hadn't released this. Or at the very least, that Slashdot (a pro-Linux site) hadn't reported it. *sigh*
My first reaction to this news was, I'm sure you can all imagine, horror. Like any good slasheepbot, I am a believer in human rights, such as free speech and freedom of religion. Neither of these are recognized in China.
But then I reconsidered. China, as backward as it may be, has come a long way since the days of the Cultural Revolution. Baby girls are no longer killed by exposure as much, and many people dream now of one day running factories in the larger cities, polluted though they may be.
And to what can this slow but encouraging improvement be attributed? I'd say it must be increased communication and trade with Western societies. The Yahoo! et al decision may seem abhorrent to we in the moral right, but it will also have the effect of keeping the relationship between China and the US strong.
That relationship is what will eventually heal China. Yes, it hurts when you rip off a bandage to let in the air; but in the end, you keep the wound from festering, and infection is avoided. I don't want to have to amputate China.
I can't help thinking that Slashdot, as a bastion of pro-Scientific sentiment, is doing Science a disservice by publishing this story.
Since the attacks of 11 September, there has been an incredible surge in the allegience to "faith" (a general term that encompasses everything from Tarot cards to Christianity to astronomy). Science has weathered the storm--barely--as attacks have come one after another, from left and right alike.
What Science needs most of all right now is credibility. Now is not the time to admit the fallibility of Science. In a few years, when people have learned once again to trust Scientists, then we can tell them about these embarrassing mistakes. Until then, we risk plunging Western civilization into another Dark Age.
I thought Microsoft owned ChroMagic(tm).
This whole "debate" ignores a basic truth about the web. Put simply, there is a whole lot of cr*p out there.
A few companies have put great, useful sites together (Amazon comes to mind...note they're one of the few sites to turn a profit...coincidence?). But for every gem you will find hundreds of ugly, useless pages designed by high school kids between games of Quake and rounds of marijuana smoking.
When I'm searching for something, one of the best ways to seperate the cream from the crop, as it were, is using a simple rule of thumb: if a site's owner is not willing to invest a few dollars to get it listed in the major search engines, then he has probably not put in enough effort to the site as a whole, and I shouldn't bother.
For this reason, I love Google. I always ignore the general results and go straight to the sponsors, who by definition have some confidence in their own worth. If a search engine were created that only listed paid advertisers, then it would replace Google, not only for myself, but for most sensible web users.
In short, this is nothing to get upset about. Search providers that list advertisers in their top search results are doing their users a favor, and should be celebrated with open arms.
It is high time we put a stop to the needless waste of human lives. Our sons have fought victoriously in war after war, and we as a nation have paid our dues in full. It's time to let the robots step in and do our dirty work.
Also, I see no reason to limit the applications of this technology to peacekeeping and stablization of foreign lands. Once it's been tested for several years against hostile populations, we could bring a scaled-down version back home, for use in some of the high crime areas of the US.
People complain about how cops and soldiers are unfair, well we can program fairness right into them. They can't be bribed, don't have prejudices, and they're bullet-proof.
Also, we are starting to develop the technology to grow body parts and organs. Why not incorporate the two? Give a robot cop some real human hands, for superior weapon-handling skills! We could even breed entire brainless bodies, equip them with computer systems, and put them on the street. Economical and effective, and our children don't end up dying for some empty slogan.
Wow, I'm continually amazed by the high-quality products pumped out by Sony, specifically as part of their VAIO line. This little beast looks to be no exception (16.1"? Hot damn that's a lot of xterms!).
However, I am afraid of the impact this laptop might have on the Linux market. Linux has had most of its growth running on older computers that have been replaced with fast, new ones by people who want to watch DVD's, surf the web, and play the latest games. One of the beauties of Linux has always been that you could grab that old Pentium one that was headed for the trash heap, slap Debian on there, and have a damn fine firewall. Even Joe Average PC Owner can figure Mandrake or Red Hat out enough to get Linux running on an obsolete box.
Sadly, this is not the case with new PCs. Higher-end systems tend to come with the latest Windows (that most people will keep just for the "gee whiz" factor) pre-installed. Furthermore, they may come with the latest cutting-edge peripherals (such as video cards, DVD players, and printers) that aren't yet supported under Linux. For whatever the reason, people who don't mind using Linux to "rescue" a dump-bound 486 will frequently have qualms about wiping Windows from their shiny new Dells.
Unfortunately, Sony has a history of making this effect even more pronounced with it's VAIO laptops. They frequently use proprietary chipsets and hardware that isn't fully supported under Linux. Reports about of incompatiblities with filesystems, X configuration, and modem support.
What this boils down to is that this product, sweet as though it may be, is bound to have a detrimental effect on Linux sales. I think I'll pass on this one. Hopefully, if enough people (I'm looking at you, CmdrTaco) follow suit, we'll send Sony a message, demonstrate that Linux does belong on new PCs, and the world will thank us.
Rocket Guy Fires Back sounds like a gay porno. I'm all for widening slashdot's readership and exploring new journalistic niches, but I think this is going a little too far.
So is Hemos surprised that his approach of blocking two entire countries worth of email addresses resulted in some "collateral damaga?" It's knee-jerk responses like "I'll ban East Asia" that are going to Balkanize the Internet until it looks like a bunch of isolated BBSes again.
Hey, 1994 was a good year for computing; maybe it won't be so bad, after all.
Many (most?) people consider Japan part of "Western civilization."
As for Colonialism, it is easy to see that while some former colonies (e.g., the US) have flourished, the vast majority (Canada, the Philippenes, most of Africa) have been failures, for the natives and the colonists alike.
Also note that America's borrowed capital is largely thanks to government bonds, which only have value because of the extreme stability of our society. This is even beside the point, however, since Western civilization as a whole (yes, the US is not the only nation in the world, much as some of you would like to think so) has progressed despite "plagues and other epidemics," thanks largely to, yes, technology.
No, if we are to continue our winning streak, we will have to put our faith in the technology that got us this far.
This is just another example of what happens when our established laws and traditions smash into the emerging ways of the digital revolution.
There is no conflict here about inalienable rights (speech, et al), but about the "rights" that are more rooted in common sense and conventional wisdom than in any deep philosophy or moral framework.
What is Fair Use? Did God intend for us to have Fair Use rights? Do animals have Fair Use rights? Clearly, reasoning on this level leads quickly to absurdity.
In cases like these (for I think we will continue to see legislation like Coble-Berman as the Digital Age gets into full swing), we have to reflect on what it is that has made this society so successful. Few would argue that Western civilization has triumphed due largely to the ongoing improvement of technology.
During the Rennaisance, during the Age of Reconnaisance, throughout Colonialism and the Industrial Revolution, the common sense values of the time were invariably abandoned or metamorphosed as required by the upward march of technology.
The Fair Use doctrine has played an important part in 20th century law. Now, in the 21st century, we should not be so attached to it and other anachronisms that we lose sight of the end goal: the improvement of the society of Man through technology. If disposing of these antiquated ideals is the price for better technology, then it is we, the technological elite, who should be the first to sign the bill.
* 2002-05-01 00:42:20 Public Schools Can Look at Girls' Underpants? (yro,privacy) (rejected)
* 2002-05-20 11:57:54 Google to Get New Logo? (articles,internet) (rejected)
* 2002-05-30 19:08:04 Kuro5hin is Down (askslashdot,links) (rejected)
* 2002-05-30 20:10:11 Looks Like a DOS against K5! (articles,tech) (rejected)
* 2002-06-28 12:52:40 Geeks Rejoice: Beards Back in Style! (articles,links) (rejected)
Well, I was all set to rant and rave about how evil the WIPO and ICANN['t] and everyone else is. But after reading all of the links above (be honest: did you?), I have to say I'm reconsidering my stance.
I don't know if many of you remember the cybersquatting "name rush," so let me provide some background. Basically, when the web started exploding, there was a small but significant minority that would purchase tons of domain names of major corporations, betting that just a few would bring in a bunch of money when the trademarked domain name was sold back to its rightful owner.
Needless to say, these greedy bastards were ruining it for the rest of us. A few bright spots (Guy Kawasaki's holding mcdonalds.com hostage in exchange for donations to public schools) didn't make up for what was largely the profitting of a few at the expense at anyone else.
The rules put into effect against cybersquatting were necessary to save the web from anarchy and plutocracy. And if those rules were to disappear, or cease to be enforced, then we would be plunged back into that corporate-sponsored hell. These rulings seem terrible to us now, but if we want to save the 'Net, we need to be firm in our application of the rules. Those found in violation need to be held responsible for their actions, or we will find ourselves back in the web of 1996.
Please use the comment system like everyone else. That is not an "update," it is a topical comment.
It's no wonder nobody respects the editors when they consider themselves too good for the discussion system used by the unwashed masses.
What are you afraid of, being modded down? Being flamed? If you don't have the peas for it, post it AC.
The technology is cool, but I'm afraid of the impact this could have on the Linux world. Drivers for this monster are no doubt going to be part of Windows XP from the get-go, but it'll probably take the XFree86 team a few months to get a Linux driver out.
I think if Slashdot wants to do the Linux world a favor, then it should stop playing up the new great hardware, and instead focus on the reliable, established tech that is well-supported in Linux. Otherwise, we are just driving people to Windows.
If they could add a urinal to this, I'd never have to leave my desk.
My first reaction to this was, "ICANN can go to hell...information wants to be free!" I'm sure if I posted a message saying as much, I'd soon hit the karma cap.
But rather than participate in this perfectly reasonable whoring opportunity, I'm going to risk a few points here to point out that barring ordinary web users from the ICANN board is not a bad idea.
I mean, we're talking about the unwashed masses here. Most of them access the web through AOL or WebTV or (choke, gasp) MSN, for heaven's sake. These are the people who call tech support lines complaining that "their Internet is broke." They use only Microsoft apps, propogate virii, and think there's nothing funnier than that video of the monkey drinking his own pee.
These are not the people we want making decisions on domain names or anything else. The Internet is a great experiment in true democracy, but that could prove to be its undoing if we aren't careful.
I agree, this could be invaluable to sys admins.
Rather than going through the agony of installing sshd on each and every client computer, and then writing a bash script to scp updated files as necessary, just have each client poll a central http server (hidden from the Internet by a firewall, of course) for bug updates. Then you just need one person at each workstation to click "okay" and install the thing.
Just because the Mac is now Unix-based, doesn't mean we should give up the ease of use and convenience that made the Mac great in the first place.
I'm very happy to read this. Linux has long been the OS of choice for blind people. While the GUI is a lovely innovation for the sighted, the command line maps much easier to blind I/O.
It's a short jump to the realization that anything that might attract blind people to computers will disproportionally favor Linux (e.g., 1 in 10 blind computer users might choose Linux versus 1 in 100 for the population as a whole). I think we'll see a subtle boom in Linux market share.
If the big Linux corps take note of the effects of this, maybe we will start to see some real Windows-killing features. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for DVD support, but I know plenty of people holding out for printing and compatibility with mp3 players. Also, a KDE theme that doesn't make people wish they were blind would be much appreciated. Go Linux! Once again, Open Source prevails!
Asked about the deal, an Ebay spokesperson described PayPal's management as "A++++++++++", calling them "VERY RESPONSIVE" and noting that they "WOULD DEFINITLY BUY FROM AGAIN." PayPal's feedback rating is 1283.
First, a little background on gprof, for those new to the *n*x world. Gprof is what's known as a profiler. Basically, it inserts code into the beginnings and ends of functions. When you run your program through gprof, it then records how much time is spent in each part of your program. The idea is that the programmer sees where most of the time is being spent, and optimizes that part of the program.
Now, as for the charges of gprof being useless, I can say that that is far from the case. True, it falls flat when dealing with multithreaded programs. But in practice, multithreaded programs are almost always interactive, and thus are primarily limited by user response times, which are many orders of magnitude longer than even the worst algorithm. In these cases, reducing the amount of input required from the user will always pay off better than any optimizations.
As an example, in our enterprise database frontend, we had a dialog that would prompt users for an administrator password when they attempted the "delete" command. We did analysis (with a commercial profiler, but it may as well have been gprof) and found that, lo and behold, the bulk of execution time was being spent waiting for the user to type in the password. So what we did was change the delete command to "eteled" ("delete" backwards), and only told the administrators the new command name. This way, we could be certain that only administrators would even attempt a deletion, and no password prompt was necessary. We have since applied the same design philosophy throughout our software, and productivity is at an all-time high.
As is usually the case, profiling can be the most important part of a project or next to useless. It all depends on how you use it. Gprof is a great tool for what it does; you just have to know how to use it properly.