So, in other words -- you also distribute javascript that would be practically useless as a startingpoint for modifications, bugfixing etc.
Free javascript does this too -- jQuery and the Yahoo!-tools all have a "for developers" and a "for distribution"-version.
While I haven not RTFA yet -- the point is that when you introduce a bug in your compressed, unreadable to the end-user code, say leaking passwords or cookies over plain http -- there's very little the end-user can do -- weather he/she knows javascript or not.
Now, if you have a link on your page with a Free copy of the scripts you use, along with an algorithm for distributing the "compact" version -- then, given some more improvements to the "normal" web 2.0 architecture -- anyone could fix your bug, and supply you with a patch.
If you accidentially run over someone with your car, or shoot them in cold blood they'll be just as dead -- regardless of your motives.
If you distribute unreadable, unmaintainable code, it would be reasonable to call that code obfuscated -- even if you had a good and noble reason to obfuscate (compress) it.
So, we can assume, that if any intelligence organization today breaks eg. skype encryption, they might go to great lengths in publicizing the service as secure ?
Say, by making it appear that national and international police is unable to tap it efficiently, and starting a long-winded bureaucratic process "allowing" police access ?
Oh, I don't know. According to http://thepiratebay.org/top/201 (top 100 movies) 69 appear to be dvd rips, and a total of 85 are dvd rips OR screener rips.
24 appear to be from 2009, while 61 are from 2008 -- at least 1 half months old.
So, no most of the top 100 films are not "fresh out of the theater".
Maybe you shouldn't just make up facts that can be *easily* checked ?
Might want to add the following patch to avoid compile errors, though: 48a49,50 > %option noyywrap >
I made some additional changes; to account for modern user of Mr etc without a following dot, and references to the EU and the al Queada. As listed in the original code, there's probably room for many more improvements -- these are just some minor updates to bring the lexer into the 21st century:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Internet searches for bomb-making B. B. DayOrder should be blocked across Oceania, the bloc's top security official said on Monday.
Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving B. B. DayOrder on how to make a bomb, Oceania CrimeThink and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.
"I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent party workers from using or searching unsafewise words like bomb, kill, genocide or Goldsteinism, Hail Big Brother!"" Frattini told Reuters.
The Oceania executive is to make this proposal to member states earwise in November as part of a raft of unGoldsteinism proposals.
These include the screening of private data of passengers flying into the 27-nation bloc and the creation of an earwise warning system to alert police forces to thefts of explosives.
Inner Party Members of the Internet industry are meeting the Oceania on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of Eurasia's September 11 attacks on Oceania, at a Oceaniaan Security CrimeThink and Innovation Forum.
The Internet has taken on huge importance for militant groups, enabling them to share know-how and spread propaganda to a mass audience, as well as to link cell members.
MORE COOPERATION
Asked whether a plan to block searches for bomb B. B. DayOrder or for the word 'Goldsteinism' on Web search engines could infringe on the rights to expression and information, Frattini said in the phone interview:
"Frankwise speaking, instructing party workers to make a bomb has nothing to do with the crimethink of expression, or the crimethink of informing party workers.
"The right balance, in my view, is to give priority to the protection of absolute rights and, first of all, right to life. Hail Big Brother!""
Frattini said there would be no bar on opinion, analysis or historwise information but operational B. B. DayOrder useful to terrorists should be blocked.
He said Oceaniaan legislation would spell out the principles of blocking access to bomb B. B. DayOrder. The details would be worked out by each Oceania country.
Disconnecting a Web site immediatewise was currentwise possible only in a minority of Oceania states including Itawise, Frattini said.
After German police arrested three men suspected of a major bomb plot last week, politicians called for greater powers to monitor computers. Oceania's top appeals court has ruled the clandestine monitoring of computers by police is unlegal.
"The level of the threat (in the Oceania) remains doubleplushigh," Frattini said. "That's why I am making appeals and appeals for stronger and closer cooperation." (additional reporting by David Brunnstrom)
So, if we extrapolate according to "Holy Fire" the next steps will be:
1) Monitoring individual households 2) Regulating prices/availability of goverment medical care, depending on drug habits (ie how well you take care of your body).
"We're very sorry, but we can't treat your husbands heart-condition, as the latest report clearly shows that he has been ingesting caffeine against goverment recommendations."
Jeez, tfa is talking almost exclusively about the GNU/Whatever Free userland stuff. It's not about redesigning the solaris *kernel* which is what *Linux* is, remember?
Ok, I know people can't remember more than one brand which has to do with the GPL, and it's long since been determined that they'll remember Linux, not GNU. But *come on*?! Csh != Linux, everyone should be able to see that! Gnu ls != Linux etc.
Ok, they *are* talking about stealing, err, sharing driver code and that has to do with Linux. But even users that reguarily compile their own kernel hardly ever touches anything Linux-specific, with the execption of/etc/modprobe.d and/sys/*. And Solaris *has* a great interface for that stuff. Yes, it's different, but I'm quite sure it's in the part they'll keep in order to differantiate themselves.
There is no such thing as a greyish tinge to light. In subtractive color theory, grey is made by adding black and white. In additive color theory, grey is just a dimmer white. It is not a tinge. If something seems grey, add more light.
Yes and no.
Add more light, can sometimes mean add more of the light *not present*. You might be looking at a red apple, say, and see only reflected yellow, and some parts red -- which means the apple will appear "more grey" than it would in sunlight.
You would see red, if red is the dominant color reflected -- and if just the right amount of red is missing, the apple would appear grey (or, in other words, poorly lit white)
I'd say python, or a similar language with a good interactive shell, and similarily equipped with with poweful libraries would be much better, because it would allow the kids to actually do usefull stuff.
On the other hand, if you want to give them a feel for how the computer "really" works, teach assembly programming. C has a place in modern programming, but I think it's a bad choice for a first language.
For just about any language, you can demonstrate basic concepts, and give such thrills as being able to print out your name 10 times etc. But for moving on to doing really cool stuff that you can show your friends, such as consuming rss, doing interactive 3d etc... python would be an almost perfect fit, especially paired with a couple of modules/packages like http://www.pygame.org/ and http://ipython.scipy.org/.
Java comes a close second, but even using a tool such as http://judo.sourceforge.net/ or http://www.bluej.org/, java requires much, much more setup pr project to get up and running. Additionally java has no transparent compilation, which means you're stuck with the write-compile-test-cycle, rather that just write-test-change-test...
Another alternative would be http://www.squeak.org/ and/or http://www.opencroquet.org/. But it's a pretty steep learning-curve going from c to smalltalk, IMNHO. You're students should have an easier time of it, though.
Give some thought to what platform you and your students will be working on, too. For Mac OS X, I suppose objective-c might be a good place to start. On linux, I'd go with python, on windows, either python or c#.
The one good thing about c, that is also true for assembler *and* python, is simplicity. You don't *need* an IDE to get from idea to working program. Programming java with notepad and javac very quickly becomes difficult to manage, due to classpath-issues. But with c and assembly you'll still need linking for anything but the most trivial programs -- another win for python (or perl, ruby tcl, lisp etc).
While usenet is basically a much better bbs-system then all the crappy web-based forums, with the speed posts traverse the path from poster, via server to reader -- it pretty much does everything you want.
Only problem is you'd have to implement a web-interface that translated bb-code to html to get anyone to use the thing these days.
I personally like mailing-lists with archives too -- but I suppose you'd want to opt-in on recieveing the archive for the past x days when you sign up as a new user.
I realize you really want something "snappier", such as a jabber-server with integrated web interface and chat-logging.
I think the main reason there's so many horrid web-forums is that a) it's dead easy to make one that works (not securly, but who cares about that, right?), and b) it's dead easy to get hosting for such a solution.
To deploy a *real* application server online, you generally need a different type of hosting environment than what most web-hosting companies provide.
Maybe we can hope that the growt of Virtual Servers (be it UML, xen, vmware or something else) in the low-end marked will allow people to start writing real programs again, as opposed to mutilated http-based stuff (You can scream about cookies and php-sessions all you want, but implementing a stateful app over a stateless protocol is going to be a pain, always).
Or; "Why is it that when you've got access to a webserver, everything starts to look like a http-request" ?
I actually experimented with this on my new Laptop (an asus v3j, 1GB ram, ati x1600 gpu). Running most windows-apps w/o swap was no problem -- but when windows suddenly closed down Oblivion after a few hours of play, it was time to enable swap again...
Ofcourse, mobile gpus put an extra strain on the main memory, and it's not really a surprise that I ran out -- but it goes to show that it can be harder to define enough, than one might think (yeah, I hear you scream 2GB -- but laptop ram isn't exactly what I'd call cheap).
As I see it, running without swap has extra potential benefits on a laptop -- allowing the hd to spin down. On the other hand, it might be that if you have a lot of long-running,large binaries, with large portions that are unused -- swap might actually allow the hd to spin down sooner.
Yes, I'm sure the dolphins can smell your religious belief. After all, some people might consider a Navy SEAL to be a Christian terrorist. Wouldn't want the dolphins to attack them.
Perhaps you meant simply "terrorist", as in:
One who governs by terrorism or intimidation;
specifically, an agent or partisan of the revolutionary
tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France. --Burke.
[1913 Webster]
Err... nevermind. Clearly your statement was about copyright in general, it was just the question-part that threw me (and the other poster off). I guess:
Heck, how do even the bands know that their music is lawful
is pretty hard to missintrepret.
And I actually thought I'd had enough coffee today. Blame it on Mondays.
Actually, I think you miss your own point; this has nothing to to with download vs selling vs pirating. After all, in the example the artist thought he had the right to sell his song. It wouldn't have mattered if he gave it away, and the other way around.
Or maybe your point was that copyright, particularily as it is enforced today is hogwash? In which case I agree -- but how is it relevant wrt to the original post?
The DVD is a re-write of VHS. The both do the same thing, but DVD does it better. Same thing.
Not really. VHS was "brilliant" in that it was a cheap, self-degrading, self-protecting distribution medium. DVDs are easier to pirate, and while they do self-destruct during normal use (scratches, anyone), they don't do it nearly as "well" as VHS did.
Ironically DVD are also worse than (digi)Beta, as a medium for high quality professional use, except for cost.
VHS "leveraged" all the "benefits" of analog media distribution, while DVDs are specifically (but somewhat poorly) designed to prevent the benefits of digital distribution.
I'd think you were trolling, except there's a lot of other comments in the same vein. I suppose you'd be needing some serious counselling if you were me; a couple of months back, the three of us sharing a flat was a bit startled by noises in our hall -- Someone locked themselves in by accident! How? They'd been given keys by someone else, and told to lock themselves in, as they arrived late at night to a party. Turns out the ones given the keys weren't sure which apartment they were supposed to be in, and the serialized keys were similar enough that they were able to lock themselves into our apartment. The horror!
Strangely, I've not suffered one bit. Why? First, the illusion that you're safe in your own home (behind those incredible safe devices called windows) is just silly. I bet you could drive a car into most modern houses, straight through the wall -- if you really wanted to get in that badly. Second, no harm no foul. They didn't steal anything, didn't harm anyone -- so why *should* I be upset? It was just a misunderstanding.
And before you start posting "but what if they were come to drill holes in the presumed owner kneecaps, because they were collecting debts" -- well, gosh, if they were that cruel *and* had the wrong apartment number, they'd just have kicked in the door.
The really scary thing is that a lot of people seem to think strict laws and harsh punishment helps change culture. Your argument is basically that the person mis-used your trust (and that of your fellow citizens), so he deserves to be blocked from life for 5 years. Why? To what end? What will he have learned in 5 years in prison that he didn't pick up in the first month?
As for: "The fact is, you don't know what the trespasser is planning, and it doesn't really matter, since he shouldn't have been there in the first place.". Maybe he wanted to warn you that your door was open?
Well, it's pretty simple. According to EFF: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto/Crypto_misc/DESC racker/ the network of over 100.000 machines and the custom des-cracker was able to try 256 billion keys a second. IE, average time they'd take to crack a given message with a 56-bit DES key is: (2**56) / (245*(10**9))/2 = 147056 seconds (or about 40 hours). That's how long it takes to try half the 56 bit keyspace.
They were lucky and hit the right key in half that time again.
Now, if you tried that, with a 128 bit key:
(2**128) / (245*(10**9))/2 = 694453810042731558088519607 seconds, or about 22005913315421057024 years. Can you see a difference between the two?
Even if this type of attack [using social engineering to get the user or company to provide the password/key to the encrypted data] might be effective against many users/companies -- it requires more interaction than simply stealing a laptop, and leaves evidence (such as transmission logs for telephone/email/fax used in the attack).
At best, it allows tracing the attacker in additon to keeping the data safe, at worst it has slowed down retrival of files.
It might also be enough to prove, if the offender is caught, that they tried to access restricted files (as opposed to merly taking and keeping an abandoned item, for instance). Keeping a found item is a very mild offense, compared to a charge of industrial espionage.
In short, there are many reasons to use device encryption, even if it isn't a magic bullet.
It's the same with locks -- almost everyone have breakable windows in their house -- a locked door does *nothing* to keep a determined burlgar out. But it might make proving burglary easier, and also discovery of burglary easier. And it might even work as a deterrent.
Oh... so it means "Mensch". And yes, you see, we do have this concept in traditional western culture.
What part of Yiddish do you consider "Western Culture" ? While there's been a minority of Jiddish-speaking people in "the West" for quite a few centuries, it's still a minority.
Or did you mean that while there's a Yiddish word that is similar in meaning to Ubuntu, and you couldn't find a word in English or another big European language, that doesn't matter, because Jesus talked a lot about how nice it'd be if we could all just get along?
At any rate I agree that gp's implied characterisation of "Western Culture" as being " fundemantally exclusive" might be a bit harsh. But it's been common practice to assume that corporate and capitalistic ideals (competiton, focus on improving your own situation at all costs) are the same ideals most people hold close to their heart in "the West". I think it's simplistic, and wrong. It's certainly hard to explain the success of movements such as GNU/FSF, and the relatively strong welfare states that exist in most of Europe from this perspective.
I've had my px100s for close to 2 years now, and they're still fine. I use them both at home with a small head-amp, and when I'm out and about, with various portable audio sources. They've survived roadtrips, econnomy airtravel and generally rough treatment.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a more comfortable, well-sounding set in the same price-range. They're really light, and can be comfortably worn for 20 hours at a time (gaming anyone ?;-).
If you're *really* worried about durability, get a pair of Koss porta-pros. They don't sound as neutral (bit too much bass IMNHO), but they come with a lifetime warranty. I think you're more likely to develop hearing dammage with the Portapros, though, due to the slight bass emphasis. Still, listen to both at a hi-fi store, and decide for yourself.
Both are reasonably priced, has decent sound and are open, so you can hear what's happening around you. I personally prefer my px100 over Koss, but listen to both. Depending on audio source, and amplifier I would have to change to head-phones 10 times the price to hear any real difference. They're miles ahead of regular cheap headphones though. I've also listened to the Grado SR 80, and I'd take my px100s over SR 80 any day.
I recommend getting a headphone amplifier for use at work, especially if you're getting the px100s or a pair "hi-fi" headphones with similarily high impendance. You have to hear the difference to believe it.
On a side note, I sadly had to give up using my px100s when I got my new mp3 playing phone; the cheap amplifier in the Sony Ericsson w800 is unable to drive them, resulting in the sound breaking up (I got similar noise every time the battery in my portable cd player was about to give out).
Check out the buyers guide at http://headphone.com/ -- I think it's very good, especially considering it's a webshop. Also stop by the forums at http://head-fi.org/ for some good reviews.
And, finally, if you've become a unlimited budget hi-fi maniac, stop by http://headamp.com/ and get a serious amp for your phones... I'd like one, but for now I'm stuck with a cheap amplifier. It's still *way* better than just plugging into line out in the back of your pc.
Finally, would you like an example of a dual platter drive which is much quieter than this supposed gift to modern science? The Samsung Spinpoint is highly recommended for HTPCs. Funny how in the/. review the Barracuda is the quietest. You fell for it didn't you. I guess there is more to it than what's obvious.
Did you RTFA ? I don't find it surprising that the Samsung drive doesn't win this test - as they didn't test any drives from Samsung.
While I agree it would've been interesting to see a test of the Samsung lineup in addition to the drives tested, I've yet to see any reviews that test all types and brands of a certain technology in a field as varied as hard drives. While sponors might account for a bias on some cases, the fact remains that most of these sites have a relatively small budget.
Personaly I'd rather see 4 or 5 disks tested on identical hardware, by the same people, using the same method and meassuring tools, than compare apples to oranges.
On a side note, did anyone else find it interesting that the 80GB drives are listed as using 160GB platters ?
Slashdot Mirror
So, in other words -- you also distribute javascript that would be practically useless as a startingpoint for modifications, bugfixing etc.
Free javascript does this too -- jQuery and the Yahoo!-tools all have a "for developers" and a "for distribution"-version.
While I haven not RTFA yet -- the point is that when you introduce a bug in your compressed, unreadable to the end-user code, say leaking passwords or cookies over plain http -- there's very little the end-user can do -- weather he/she knows javascript or not.
Now, if you have a link on your page with a Free copy of the scripts you use, along with an algorithm for distributing the "compact" version -- then, given some more improvements to the "normal" web 2.0 architecture -- anyone could fix your bug, and supply you with a patch.
If you accidentially run over someone with your car, or shoot them in cold blood they'll be just as dead -- regardless of your motives.
If you distribute unreadable, unmaintainable code, it would be reasonable to call that code obfuscated -- even if you had a good and noble reason to obfuscate (compress) it.
So, we can assume, that if any intelligence organization today breaks eg. skype encryption, they might go to great lengths in publicizing the service as secure ?
Say, by making it appear that national and international police is unable to tap it efficiently, and starting a long-winded bureaucratic process "allowing" police access ?
Oh, I don't know. According to
http://thepiratebay.org/top/201 (top 100 movies)
69 appear to be dvd rips, and a total of 85 are dvd rips OR screener rips.
24 appear to be from 2009, while 61 are from 2008 -- at least 1 half months old.
So, no most of the top 100 films are not "fresh out of the theater".
Maybe you shouldn't just make up facts that can be *easily* checked ?
This will obviously lead to abuse of dolphins on drugs, for extracting images from peoples brains!
Actually with newer versions of vnc/tightvnc this is now even easier:
xvncviewer -via username@remote.host localhost
Equivalent to:
ssh -f -N -L5901:localhost:5901 username@remote.host
vncviewer localhost:5901
that I randomly sumbled accross this flex-code for a English2newspeak-filter today:
... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent party workers from using or searching unsafewise words like bomb, kill, genocide or Goldsteinism, Hail Big Brother!"" Frattini told Reuters.
http://www.obairlann.net/reaper/filters/source/newspeak.l
Might want to add the following patch to avoid compile errors, though:
48a49,50
> %option noyywrap
>
I made some additional changes; to account for modern user of Mr etc without a following dot, and references to the EU and the al Queada. As listed in the original code, there's probably room for many more improvements -- these are just some minor updates to bring the lexer into the 21st century:
28a29
>
48a50,51
> %option noyywrap
>
126c129
< {W}[Mm]r"."/{EW} WCAP("brother");
---
> {W}[Mm]r"."?/{EW} WCAP("brother");
131c134
< {W}[Mm]r?s"."/{EW} WCAP("sister");
---
> {W}[Mm]r?s"."?/{EW} WCAP("sister");
323c326,327
< [Gg]ermany|[Ii]srael|[Ee]urope printf("Oceania");
---
> {THE}?[Ee]urope(an{W}Union)?|EU |
> [Gg]ermany|[Ii]srael printf("Oceania");
326a331
> ([Aa]l{W})?[Qq]aeda |
644d648
<
Anyway, applied to the original article:
By Ingrid Melander
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Internet searches for bomb-making B. B. DayOrder should be blocked across Oceania, the bloc's top security official said on Monday.
Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving B. B. DayOrder on how to make a bomb, Oceania CrimeThink and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.
"I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector
The Oceania executive is to make this proposal to member states earwise in November as part of a raft of unGoldsteinism proposals.
These include the screening of private data of passengers flying into the 27-nation bloc and the creation of an earwise warning system to alert police forces to thefts of explosives.
Inner Party Members of the Internet industry are meeting the Oceania on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of Eurasia's September 11 attacks on Oceania, at a Oceaniaan Security CrimeThink and Innovation Forum.
The Internet has taken on huge importance for militant groups, enabling them to share know-how and spread propaganda to a mass audience, as well as to link cell members.
MORE COOPERATION
Asked whether a plan to block searches for bomb B. B. DayOrder or for the word 'Goldsteinism' on Web search engines could infringe on the rights to expression and information, Frattini said in the phone interview:
"Frankwise speaking, instructing party workers to make a bomb has nothing to do with the crimethink of expression, or the crimethink of informing party workers.
"The right balance, in my view, is to give priority to the protection of absolute rights and, first of all, right to life. Hail Big Brother!""
Frattini said there would be no bar on opinion, analysis or historwise information but operational B. B. DayOrder useful to terrorists should be blocked.
He said Oceaniaan legislation would spell out the principles of blocking access to bomb B. B. DayOrder. The details would be worked out by each Oceania country.
Disconnecting a Web site immediatewise was currentwise possible only in a minority of Oceania states including Itawise, Frattini said.
After German police arrested three men suspected of a major bomb plot last week, politicians called for greater powers to monitor computers. Oceania's top appeals court has ruled the clandestine monitoring of computers by police is unlegal.
"The level of the threat (in the Oceania) remains doubleplushigh," Frattini said. "That's why I am making appeals and appeals for stronger and closer cooperation." (additional reporting by David Brunnstrom)
Hail Big Brother!
So, if we extrapolate according to "Holy Fire" the next steps will be:
1) Monitoring individual households
2) Regulating prices/availability of goverment medical care, depending on drug habits (ie how well you take care of your body).
"We're very sorry, but we can't treat your husbands heart-condition, as the latest report clearly shows that he has been ingesting caffeine against goverment recommendations."
They probably just sent him the warrant as a PDF.
Jeez, tfa is talking almost exclusively about the GNU/Whatever Free userland stuff. It's not about redesigning the solaris *kernel* which is what *Linux* is, remember?
/etc/modprobe.d and /sys/*. And Solaris *has* a great interface for that stuff. Yes, it's different, but I'm quite sure it's in the part they'll keep in order to differantiate themselves.
Ok, I know people can't remember more than one brand which has to do with the GPL, and it's long since been determined that they'll remember Linux, not GNU. But *come on*?! Csh != Linux, everyone should be able to see that! Gnu ls != Linux etc.
Ok, they *are* talking about stealing, err, sharing driver code and that has to do with Linux. But even users that reguarily compile their own kernel hardly ever touches anything Linux-specific, with the execption of
Yes and no.
Add more light, can sometimes mean add more of the light *not present*. You might be looking at a red apple, say, and see only reflected yellow, and some parts red -- which means the apple will appear "more grey" than it would in sunlight.
You would see red, if red is the dominant color reflected -- and if just the right amount of red is missing, the apple would appear grey (or, in other words, poorly lit white)
I'd say python, or a similar language with a good interactive shell, and similarily equipped with with poweful libraries would be much better, because it would allow the kids to actually do usefull stuff.
... python would be an almost perfect fit, especially paired with a couple of modules/packages like http://www.pygame.org/ and http://ipython.scipy.org/.
On the other hand, if you want to give them a feel for how the computer "really" works, teach assembly programming. C has a place in modern programming, but I think it's a bad choice for a first language.
For just about any language, you can demonstrate basic concepts, and give such thrills as being able to print out your name 10 times etc. But for moving on to doing really cool stuff that you can show your friends, such as consuming rss, doing interactive 3d etc
Java comes a close second, but even using a tool such as http://judo.sourceforge.net/ or http://www.bluej.org/, java requires much, much more setup pr project to get up and running. Additionally java has no transparent compilation, which means you're stuck with the write-compile-test-cycle, rather that just write-test-change-test...
Another alternative would be http://www.squeak.org/ and/or http://www.opencroquet.org/. But it's a pretty steep learning-curve going from c to smalltalk, IMNHO. You're students should have an easier time of it, though.
Give some thought to what platform you and your students will be working on, too. For Mac OS X, I suppose objective-c might be a good place to start. On linux, I'd go with python, on windows, either python or c#.
The one good thing about c, that is also true for assembler *and* python, is simplicity. You don't *need* an IDE to get from idea to working program. Programming java with notepad and javac very quickly becomes difficult to manage, due to classpath-issues. But with c and assembly you'll still need linking for anything but the most trivial programs -- another win for python (or perl, ruby tcl, lisp etc).
While usenet is basically a much better bbs-system then all the crappy web-based forums, with the speed posts traverse the path from poster, via server to reader -- it pretty much does everything you want.
Only problem is you'd have to implement a web-interface that translated bb-code to html to get anyone to use the thing these days.
I personally like mailing-lists with archives too -- but I suppose you'd want to opt-in on recieveing the archive for the past x days when you sign up as a new user.
I realize you really want something "snappier", such as a jabber-server with integrated web interface and chat-logging.
I think the main reason there's so many horrid web-forums is that a) it's dead easy to make one that works (not securly, but who cares about that, right?), and b) it's dead easy to get hosting for such a solution.
To deploy a *real* application server online, you generally need a different type of hosting environment than what most web-hosting companies provide.
Maybe we can hope that the growt of Virtual Servers (be it UML, xen, vmware or something else) in the low-end marked will allow people to start writing real programs again, as opposed to mutilated http-based stuff (You can scream about cookies and php-sessions all you want, but implementing a stateful app over a stateless protocol is going to be a pain, always).
Or; "Why is it that when you've got access to a webserver, everything starts to look like a http-request" ?
http://silentrunners.org/
:-)
That, or a reformat and re-install, ofcourse
I actually experimented with this on my new Laptop (an asus v3j, 1GB ram, ati x1600 gpu). Running most windows-apps w/o swap was no problem -- but when windows suddenly closed down Oblivion after a few hours of play, it was time to enable swap again...
Ofcourse, mobile gpus put an extra strain on the main memory, and it's not really a surprise that I ran out -- but it goes to show that it can be harder to define enough, than one might think (yeah, I hear you scream 2GB -- but laptop ram isn't exactly what I'd call cheap).
As I see it, running without swap has extra potential benefits on a laptop -- allowing the hd to spin down. On the other hand, it might be that if you have a lot of long-running,large binaries, with large portions that are unused -- swap might actually allow the hd to spin down sooner.
Yes, I'm sure the dolphins can smell your religious belief. After all, some people might consider a Navy SEAL to be a Christian terrorist. Wouldn't want the dolphins to attack them.
Perhaps you meant simply "terrorist", as in:
And I actually thought I'd had enough coffee today. Blame it on Mondays.
Actually, I think you miss your own point; this has nothing to to with download vs selling vs pirating. After all, in the example the artist thought he had the right to sell his song. It wouldn't have mattered if he gave it away, and the other way around.
Or maybe your point was that copyright, particularily as it is enforced today is hogwash? In which case I agree -- but how is it relevant wrt to the original post?
Not really. VHS was "brilliant" in that it was a cheap, self-degrading, self-protecting distribution medium. DVDs are easier to pirate, and while they do self-destruct during normal use (scratches, anyone), they don't do it nearly as "well" as VHS did.
Ironically DVD are also worse than (digi)Beta, as a medium for high quality professional use, except for cost.
VHS "leveraged" all the "benefits" of analog media distribution, while DVDs are specifically (but somewhat poorly) designed to prevent the benefits of digital distribution.
I'd think you were trolling, except there's a lot of other comments in the same vein. I suppose you'd be needing some serious counselling if you were me; a couple of months back, the three of us sharing a flat was a bit startled by noises in our hall -- Someone locked themselves in by accident! How? They'd been given keys by someone else, and told to lock themselves in, as they arrived late at night to a party. Turns out the ones given the keys weren't sure which apartment they were supposed to be in, and the serialized keys were similar enough that they were able to lock themselves into our apartment. The horror!
Strangely, I've not suffered one bit. Why? First, the illusion that you're safe in your own home (behind those incredible safe devices called windows) is just silly. I bet you could drive a car into most modern houses, straight through the wall -- if you really wanted to get in that badly. Second, no harm no foul. They didn't steal anything, didn't harm anyone -- so why *should* I be upset? It was just a misunderstanding.
And before you start posting "but what if they were come to drill holes in the presumed owner kneecaps, because they were collecting debts" -- well, gosh, if they were that cruel *and* had the wrong apartment number, they'd just have kicked in the door.
The really scary thing is that a lot of people seem to think strict laws and harsh punishment helps change culture. Your argument is basically that the person mis-used your trust (and that of your fellow citizens), so he deserves to be blocked from life for 5 years. Why? To what end? What will he have learned in 5 years in prison that he didn't pick up in the first month?
As for: "The fact is, you don't know what the trespasser is planning, and it doesn't really matter, since he shouldn't have been there in the first place.". Maybe he wanted to warn you that your door was open?
Well, it's pretty simple. According to EFF: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto/Crypto_misc/DESC racker/ the network of over 100.000 machines and the custom des-cracker was able to try 256 billion keys a second. /2 = 147056 seconds (or about 40 hours). That's how long it takes to try half the 56 bit keyspace.
/2 = 694453810042731558088519607 seconds, or about 22005913315421057024 years. Can you see a difference between the two?
IE, average time they'd take to crack a given message with a 56-bit DES key is: (2**56) / (245*(10**9))
They were lucky and hit the right key in half that time again.
Now, if you tried that, with a 128 bit key:
(2**128) / (245*(10**9))
Even if this type of attack [using social engineering to get the user or company to provide the password/key to the encrypted data] might be effective against many users/companies -- it requires more interaction than simply stealing a laptop, and leaves evidence (such as transmission logs for telephone/email/fax used in the attack).
At best, it allows tracing the attacker in additon to keeping the data safe, at worst it has slowed down retrival of files.
It might also be enough to prove, if the offender is caught, that they tried to access restricted files (as opposed to merly taking and keeping an abandoned item, for instance). Keeping a found item is a very mild offense, compared to a charge of industrial espionage.
In short, there are many reasons to use device encryption, even if it isn't a magic bullet.
It's the same with locks -- almost everyone have breakable windows in their house -- a locked door does *nothing* to keep a determined burlgar out. But it might make proving burglary easier, and also discovery of burglary easier. And it might even work as a deterrent.
What part of Yiddish do you consider "Western Culture" ? While there's been a minority of Jiddish-speaking people in "the West" for quite a few centuries, it's still a minority.
Or did you mean that while there's a Yiddish word that is similar in meaning to Ubuntu, and you couldn't find a word in English or another big European language, that doesn't matter, because Jesus talked a lot about how nice it'd be if we could all just get along?
At any rate I agree that gp's implied characterisation of "Western Culture" as being " fundemantally exclusive" might be a bit harsh. But it's been common practice to assume that corporate and capitalistic ideals (competiton, focus on improving your own situation at all costs) are the same ideals most people hold close to their heart in "the West". I think it's simplistic, and wrong. It's certainly hard to explain the success of movements such as GNU/FSF, and the relatively strong welfare states that exist in most of Europe from this perspective.
I've had my px100s for close to 2 years now, and they're still fine. I use them both at home with a small head-amp, and when I'm out and about, with various portable audio sources. They've survived roadtrips, econnomy airtravel and generally rough treatment.
;-).
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a more comfortable, well-sounding set in the same price-range. They're really light, and can be comfortably worn for 20 hours at a time (gaming anyone ?
If you're *really* worried about durability, get a pair of Koss porta-pros. They don't sound as neutral (bit too much bass IMNHO), but they come with a lifetime warranty. I think you're more likely to develop hearing dammage with the Portapros, though, due to the slight bass emphasis. Still, listen to both at a hi-fi store, and decide for yourself.
Both are reasonably priced, has decent sound and are open, so you can hear what's happening around you. I personally prefer my px100 over Koss, but listen to both. Depending on audio source, and amplifier I would have to change to head-phones 10 times the price to hear any real difference. They're miles ahead of regular cheap headphones though. I've also listened to the Grado SR 80, and I'd take my px100s over SR 80 any day.
I recommend getting a headphone amplifier for use at work, especially if you're getting the px100s or a pair "hi-fi" headphones with similarily high impendance. You have to hear the difference to believe it.
On a side note, I sadly had to give up using my px100s when I got my new mp3 playing phone; the cheap amplifier in the Sony Ericsson w800 is unable to drive them, resulting in the sound breaking up (I got similar noise every time the battery in my portable cd player was about to give out).
Check out the buyers guide at http://headphone.com/ -- I think it's very good, especially considering it's a webshop. Also stop by the forums at http://head-fi.org/ for some good reviews.
And, finally, if you've become a unlimited budget hi-fi maniac, stop by http://headamp.com/ and get a serious amp for your phones... I'd like one, but for now I'm stuck with a cheap amplifier. It's still *way* better than just plugging into line out in the back of your pc.
Did you RTFA ? I don't find it surprising that the Samsung drive doesn't win this test - as they didn't test any drives from Samsung.
While I agree it would've been interesting to see a test of the Samsung lineup in addition to the drives tested, I've yet to see any reviews that test all types and brands of a certain technology in a field as varied as hard drives. While sponors might account for a bias on some cases, the fact remains that most of these sites have a relatively small budget.
Personaly I'd rather see 4 or 5 disks tested on identical hardware, by the same people, using the same method and meassuring tools, than compare apples to oranges.
On a side note, did anyone else find it interesting that the 80GB drives are listed as using 160GB platters ?
That's Chevette not Yvette. Doh.