What is more likely is that vendors will include backdoors and time bombs for anti-piracy or other purposes. Should a customer discover that the remote disabling capability is there -- perhaps after suffering a disaster due to it being triggered accidentally -- UCITA protects the vendor from liability.
If this is true I am going to write a small shareware program and at end of the 10 day trail it will demand 1 BILLION DOLLARS and if it is not paid it will "lock" the user from their computer and dial up to a sex chat line in Brazil for $12398.75 per minute to their phone line (convently enough I own the chat line)
But lets think about this (assuming it just isn't FUD) Micro..uh.. Microhard sells a text edtior
user installs text edtior
text editor ask user for serial number
user enters the serial number on the box
text editor says it is the wrong serial number
user learns that they mistyped the serial number (had caps lock on)
To late, text editor deletes entire hard drive and then plays a wav "You Suck user"
user has lost all data and his feelings hurt
judge says "you suck user, that is legal for them to do"
user switches to GNU/Linux
user is happy...
Ahh so this is a good idea after all, we could use more GNU/Linux users in our quest for Total World Domination, so this works quite well.
Really, pay a million dollars for a domain name that costs what, $75 for 2 years from Internic?
Just make up a name and save 1 miilion dollars, for stuff like oh, servers, bandwidth, web developers, those "extra's" that go with a web site...
I am curious though as what it will go for. I wonder what beta.slashdot.org would go for?
Re:It looks like unix is OK but UNIX is not
on
UNIX.com On eBay?
·
· Score: 3
From the Trademark Usage Terms it clearly states "It must not be used as a generic term."
If this site put up unix.com as a be-all *nix site, this this/might/ be in voliation of that (depening on how much the Open Group is willing to spend on lawyers).
Also it could be agrued (not by me) that domain names are case insenitive and there isn't really any way to tell the differance between UNIX.COM and unix.com, which could be taken as a voliation of the (all caps) UNIX trademark
UNIX� is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
on
UNIX.com On eBay?
·
· Score: 4
It must not be used in connection with products, unless the product is licensed to use the mark.
There are detailed guidelines referring to the visual presentation, form and manner of use.
In editorial or articles, but not advertising the trade marks may be used without prior permission - provided that the rules in our
Trademark Usage Guide are followed.
The Internet, still in its first primitive stages, is in a state Stefik calls "becoming."
Wasn't that more like 5-10 years ago, I think we have gotten stage 1 done already, all the frame work is down on paper (or in the ground on wires), it feels like now it is more like stage 2 or 3...
Seriously look at all the AOL users out there, the Internet is avaiable to people besides geeks, and the "normal people" not only know what it is, most of them want to get on it (if they aren't all ready).
If my grandparents use a technolgey it means that it is no longer bleeding edge and means that it is now mainstream and socially acceptable. The first stage of anything is not defined like this, the first stage of anything is small, obsecure, not well defined and sometimes not socailly acceptable, Hrmm how would you descripe the Internet 7 years ago?
The first stage is set and done, moving on to Act 2 (or 3-4)
There is still some issuses to work out like bandwidth, laws, who owns what, etc, I am not saying that we are done, the Internet will be continuely growing and adapting, but the first basic parts have been accomplished.
You and I aren't going to get our hands on this weather package anytime soon;)"
Contray to popular belief they did release these weather package under the GPL, I have it running on couple of 386's Beowulf'd together over 10BaseT in my bedroom.
It is pretty decent software to, do you release that it has never predicted rain, and you know what? It has yet to rain in my bedroom, amazing software.
Tommorrow there is no chance of rain in my bedroom and the temparture will be around room temparture thoughout the entire day! Great weather I am having here
Also since it was release under the GPL, a couple hackers have teamed up with Dr. Evil to create a weather control machine, that not only predicts the weather, but can alter it on the fly! GPL, you can do amazing things with it, including, but not limited to Total World Domination by bringing the United Nations down with a hail strom from uh hell. When Linus made a joke about gaining Total World Domination though the use of free (as in speech) software, he was serious!
On a site note, if you check your preferences Nate has made a slashbox that displayes in real time the number of nations that have sumbited to Dr. Evil and his weather machine, recently they have gotten Russia and China (who would of thought), the part I found assuming was that Canada was the first to go...
Your right, my bad. Never really used them since I found Perl so I am unfamlair with there feartures and shouldn't of made any (uneducated) comments regarding them.
What is the fascination with Perl in the *nix world?
What is the fascination with automation, quick development in the *nix world? I can do everything from send mail automatically, to parse my log files at 4:00 in the morning with a couple small scripts and crontab. Compared to other OS, *nix with perl/shell scripts can automate and build bigger applications from smaller ones in a quick and effective manner.
For example, say I want to dial-in to the Internet, download slashdot every morning at 4:00, parse out the crap, format it into latex and send it to my other computer and post it into an sql database. This could be done with *nix and perl in about 3 cans of jolt cola. Name one other OS/launage that could do it in that short of time, and have it work well.
Try that in.bat VB or VC++ and see how many cans of jolt cola it would take you.
I can't fathom it - after all it adds little to what awk and sed have been doing for years.
Uh, have you check out modules in Perl? Can awk or sed interact with a database? Can awk and sed combined send/get email/news? Also if I remeber correctly you can't do basic logic in awk+sed, like 'while' loops and 'if' statements. Also I think awk+sed lack support of things like OOP, arrays, hashes, sub routines, etc..
Perl is ALOT more then a word parser
For more complex tasks than a simple CGI script Perl seems unwieldly, and even now technologies such as ASP and JSP are taking over the server-side processing domain.
Yea Perl is hard, especailly if you look at C, C++, ASM, Java, Perl seems extremely difficult to use. (sacarism).
.ASP, now there is a winner, with it being all open and everything and not controlled by some greedy company, let me get on that bus (sacarism again).
I haven't check.jsp yet, so I won't make any comments on it
Perl is portable, can run Perl on %99.99 of all CGI enabled web servers, what does ASP run on, like 2 maybe 3 servers? Perl can do a hell of a lot more then ASP will ever be able to do, my freind once created a cgi interface to his coffee maker, not really usefull (to anyone but him), but I would have doubts of trying to do that in.ASP. Again, Perl is a REAL programming launage, that can interact with everything from C programs, other perl programs, other perl cgi scripts, coffee makers, databases, network sockets, other Internet services (smtp, pop3, nntp, irc, etc, etc), encrypted data (des, triple des, blow fish, etc, etc) and about any other thing you could possiablly think of
IMHO Perl has no real domain in which it is better than everything else - so why is it so popular? Can someone please tell me?
Have you even use Perl?
1) It is open source
2) It is Free software (as both in beer and speech)
3) You can quickly develop programs/scripts
4) It can "glue" together seemly random and unrelated compounds (ie. sql server and a pop3 email CLIENT, ie. coffee maker and the http protocol)
5) You can choose your "programming sytle". Hate OOPing? Don't use it. Love OOPing? Your in luck. Like OOPing but hate the rules and interactive between objects? Break the rules.
6) Does it have words in it? Does it need to be parse?
7) Does it need to be portable?
8) Does it have to be working before your jolt cola can goes empty?
The site is slashdotted, so I will make this stuff up for here on in...
Correct me if I am wrong, but when Perl has to do something lowlevel it calls the native system calls for that OS right? So if Perl is the OS, how can it call it's self to something lowlevel when the low level system calls have never been defined (since it defines it, depending on what OS it is running). It seems like a chicken-egg problem...
My guess is that they would have to hack up a kernel with hacked up Perl built directly into it. Then do everything else like memory management/ drivers/ etc though Perl code after the system gets up and going... Hell I don't know. Doing an OS in Perl is cool and all, just seems weird.
Then again having Perl in kernel space would scream...
Obfused Perl Kernel Drive contest.
"Uh, Hrmmm so this is a Video Driver right?"
"Nope"
"Uh, sound card, see here is an IRQ entry"
"Nope, that IRQ entry is run though a regexp 1000 lines down and it turns it into a DMA entry"
"Uh right, hard drive driver?"
"Nope, the file system information is imported, so that we can grep it for packed binary data, if any exists"
"Apple have every right in the world to go after other computer manufacturers that steal the "look and feel" of their machines."
1) Apple doesn't have every right, but has some rights under US law.
2) ""look and feel"" could be applied to anything my Dell PC and home build PC "look and feel" like the old IBM PC I had, does IBM have every right to sue Dell for stealing the "look and feel" of the oringal "look and feel" IBM "innovatived" with the beige case and standard looking beige monitor?
Do you think this HURTS the computer industry as a whole? Copyrights/patents and suing people over them is just a whole big mess that doesn't have any productive outcome for the rest of the world/industry but only benifits some greedy CEO. Plus it really isn't all that "innovatived", I seen phones ten years ago that had this "innovative" design. Maybe Techilishen Phone, Inc. should sue the hell out of Apple for STEALING this "look and feel" from their phones.
I am going to copyright/patent the standard beige PC case and sue any one past/present or furture that decides to use it, it has played a MAJOR role in the advancements in the computer industry, like the iMac case has for example.
"Violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers."
But if you think about it, the graphics in Quake3 SUCK compared to real life, video games suck in general. I am going to go play some football, it it more interactive, more engrossing and requires to identify with agressive behaviour a lot more then these half-assed video games with lousy game play and bad graphics. When I slam into someone at full force I want to FEEL their rip cage crush under the brute force and not some cheese POP sound effect like you get on video games. Plus the blood totaly sucks in video games, sure it splats, but after that it "disappears" for no reason, when I hit someone on the footable field, blood goes everywhere, and it doesn't disappear, it covers my uniform and flows naturally like water, unlike any video game, even if you have a Vodoo3.
That or hockey, give me sharp blades on my feet, give me a huge wood stick, and a solid disc that flies 100mph at people's croches. If any one pisses me off, I will slam them into the guard rail and beat them in the knee caps with my stick. If they still mess with me after that I will drop my gloves and beat this fool in the face with my bare hands. No matter how good your graphic card is, you can't see a blood tooth fall onto the ice after you beat someone senseless. Plus video games are volient and cause volience, I don't want any part of that, I am a all american kid that plays footable and dates the head chearleader. I also pay my taxes on time, unlike these volient video game freaks.
I also bet video games cause aids, war, proverty and any other of society's "demons" that we don't have an obvoius answer for. If it is a difficult society issuse that can be resloved quickly, I am sure video games caused it, because if it is that COMPLEX of a problem, then it has a COMPLEX answer, and video games are COMPLEX, with all the new 3d graphics and such.
"Study 1 found that real-life violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The relation was stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive and for men."
uh? think about this, agressive behavior was stronger as a result of violent video games in people who are characteristically agreesive. Now replace the words "Violent video games" in the above sentance, with any other activity and it still holds true. The statement
Agressive behavior was stronger as a result of home gardening and baking cakes in people who are characteristically agreesive.
I think that above paragraph would also turn true if studied...
So what does this study really prove?
They aren't putting "normal" people in these tests, but people that are already voilent or agreesive in nature
"people who score high on measures of aggressive personality have highly accessible knowledge structures for aggression-related information. They think aggressive thoughts more frequently than do those individuals who score low on aggressive personality measures, and have social perception schemas that lead to hostile perception, expectation, and attributional biases "
Lets give a crack addict a bunch of smack and see if they become addicted to it. Here how do you tell if the smack is addictive or the crack addict is just "replacing" his addiction?
Like a plague? If you keep it in a jar on your shelf, it does no harm, but if you take that glass jar and break it on the street everyone dies from coughing huge amounts of blood up...
I think Microsoft needs to hire me as their new marketing director
I would like to work and have a job at a place where people DO get fired for buying from Microsoft...what has happened to ethics these days? Seriously, when everyone is a kid hacking on their Linux distro of choice, learning about computers, then they grow up. Then they have to get jobs, and in these jobs they "dis"-learn everything they learned as a kid, both about computers and morally.
I once losed a job because I started debating with them about using Apache over IIS during in job interview... and it wasn't really a debate, I was just wondering what advantages IIS had over Apache in this envoriment and they couldn't name ONE reason, the best things I remeber from it was "Because it can be used to serve web pages to our users", "Apache can do that and it will run on a free operating system"... that awkward silence where you know you have lose the job...I don't want to work for a company that has a hard on for MS anyways...
It is kind of sad when a company that makes lousy software is more powerful then the entire govement of the most powerfull country in the world. Think about it, the US Govement has nucelar fucking weapons and a software company from Redmond is walking all over them like they are some bitches while Microsoft being the Pimp Daddy that they are... as the RATM song states "Take the Power Back"
I want to see the super fly Judge Jackson put the snap down on these fools.
They still could give IE for free, relay on VC, Investment and stocks... The software company would make other things like Front Page, Office, Age of the Empires, and on the side slide in some Free IE goodness to it's sister comapany.
Sun gives away the Hot Java browser for free, and it doesn't hurt Sun (to much atleast), why couldn't baby bill #2 give IE for free without it hurting them to much?
Again, why couldn't baby bill #2 license the source code to IE to baby bill #3 for mega $$, both baby bills would win, everyone else would lose...
Instead of Microsoft execs meeting in a board room they will be forced to meet in back allies wearing black trench coats on sunday nights at 9:00 when it is raining outside
"Anyone tail ya?"
"Nah, there is a lot of fuzz out today though"
"I heard that, our freind Bobby is setting up deals now to let the local fuzz into the OS market, pay them off you see, so they don't come hassling us"
"Good idea" pulling out a brown paper bag "Here is the stuff, be careful with this, it's only into beta 2, remember if you get busted with it, you don't know where you got it"
"Good, it will be quickly slided into the W2K kernel code, millions and millions of lines of code, who is going to be able to notice when it is all said and done"
"Carefull man, I said that was beta 2 shit man"
"Don't worry about it, sometimes you need to relax once in a while, if it crashes it crashes, don't worry our tech support can confuse and ward off any complaints by putting the user into a maze of phone prompts"
"The Windows company would be permitted to include functions that permit browsing of the Interne"
Uh, so this would change what??
Even if they do break up Microsoft, couldn't the software and OS sister companies just form an agreement with each other to bundle software with each other and give "favors" to the sister comapany? Oh, but if they did that AFTER the break up, it would be all legal then...
For an example, the MacOS could say "We are going to Intergate Opera with out OS" and then make an API so screwed up that MS or Netscape can't develop a browser on it. Then have Opera state "Opera is the Number 1 browser on the MacOS. To get an updated version send $56.99 to..." Both companies beinifit and create a fake monopoly that is prefectly legal
And the Microsoft sister companies won't be able to do this after the break up?
come on... force Microsoft to release all current and furture code under the GPL:) j/king
Breaking up Microsoft could have some faults in it.
"Windows monopoly to crush competitors, stifle innovation and harm consumers in the computer industry."
I have been saying this for HOW LONG? Does anyone else beilieve me yet?!?
For commerical software, I think it should be a requirement.
First, depending on the software, one may or may not have direct acess to the online help (for example a Unix OS, where all man pages aren't accessiable before the install, but are require for the install (fdisk help for example))
Second, not everyone spends 20 hours per day at their workstation, sometimes you have to leave your computer and relax your eyes/stiff limbs from the glowing screen and the rigid chair, books/manuals and couches can help a lot here, while still being able to learn about computers while not directly in front of them.
Thrid, if it is a piece of "typical" commerical software, it will have a restricted license, limiting the number of workstations you can install it on. If the help manaul is inside the software and requires the software to be installed before the help menu is viewable (think commerical boxed Windows software) then only 1 person can learn the software at a time. It more then one person will be accessing the workstation to use the software (which is normally legal), then only one person can learn the software while the others will have to wait. For example, in an accounting or billing department, you might have one workstation that holds the records for XYZ service/product (think smaller company), but 2-10 people that must learn this software (admin, billing person, manager, account, tech support), it will slow them down a lot. But if you had a printed manual it would be more avaiable, have the billing person learn it from the workstation during normal business hours, have the manager read the manual during normal business hours, and have the admin learn it during off hours (or typically the admin would have to learn it first, for installation/setup purposes.)
Also, just a personally glitch of mine is companies that only have their software/manuals downloadable via the web like koz^H^H^H some of the companies I have deal with. This is REALLY fscking annony, a CD-ROM is hell of a lot faster than a network connection, and a book is more readily avaiable (ie, I can read it in the john if I should choose to do so (I don't (what do you think those dilbert books are for(then again hearing laughter from the bathroom after someone has been in there a while can seem weird)))) sorry for the '()' (does this mean I know lisp now?)
Seriously I (actucally my company) has paid in the thousands of dollars for some software and what do I get in return? A short email with a license key and a message that says "CLICK HERE" to download.
WTF?? If I (actucally my company) pays thousands, or even hundards of dollars for something, it better be something that I can HOLD in my HANDS and look at. It better be something REAL, not some download.
For example, I don't mind shelling out my personal hard earned money for a Linux or *BSD distro, but when I do, it better be something that I can hold, it better be a nice box set, cool looking CD's and a quality manual (and optional stickers, buttons and/or t-shirts and possiable hot grits that could be insert into things like pants and such (even though I am not into grits or grits in my pants)). That is the point of the Linux distro, you pay for the cd-roms and printed manual. Hell who wants to download the 6+ Gig SuSE Linux distro over a network connection, screw that
I see it like this, software is a lot like porn (let me make my point before you screw me on karma). With porn, if you shell out money for it, you better get a tape, video/dvd or other. If you spend good money on porn, it better be a physical media. But if you just download the porn you can't touch it, you can't share it with freinds, you can't take it to the waiting room of a doctors office, it is on your hard drive and THAT is the only place where it can be.. uh used. If you are going to download it, there is no sense in paying good money for it (see usenet, irc, ftp://free_porn.slashdot.org). It just doesn't make sense, this is the same with free (as in speech) software, you won't pay to download a Linux distro would you? You pay for the manuals, cd-rom, support, etc...
I know that commerical software is a lot differant in this aspect, but it FEELS like a rip off to get "nothing" you can actucally hold after paying big $$ just to download and have a license key sent to you.
Include a printed manual, include a really good one.
In general, I don't think printed manuals will die (for commerical or free software), take a look at http://www.ora.org, and tell me, do you think users like printed manuals? O'Reilly seems to making a lot of money on printed manauls, because it makes users fell all warn and fuzzy inside. Your company wants to kill this part of your product? Do you think that is a good idea? Maybe if you don't include a printed manual O'Reilly/SAMS/Playboy will take it upon themselves to write a book on it for themselves (and reap the benifits (ie. money)) to fill this "gapping hole" in your product (assuming they don't include the manual that it)
And most important, who wants to spend 300+ hours starring at a computer screen reading 1000+ pages off a 15 inch monitor? Hell, sit back on the couch, relax, grab a beer and reading about the wonders of Sendmail can be quite enjoyable, where sitting "passivly" at a computer seems like such a waste of computing power.
My quad 1Ghz proc system with 4 gigs of ram can scroll 100 pages in AcroReader in under.001 seconds! WTF? If you are sitting at a computer you should be using that time at the computer to do something active and productive (this rules excludes slashdot of corse:)
Plus, if the manuals are online/cdrom the user will get distracted and start posting to slashdot about the ill-thought-out ideas of not including a printed manual with software products...
The only good online documents (for software) is the man pages, everything else sucks. Even the how-to's suck online, they need to be shoved though a printer before they can become great documents. Online how-to's suck, printed from an old dot matrix printer they are the best resouce, who would of thought? Howto's gain a Magic Power when printed.
If your software is for Unix make sure you man page is extremely well put together (read OpenBSD), because man pages are the only documents that should be in the computer (as far as software documenation and FAQ's) then make sure all your other document is included in a printed manual.
I remeber trying that, (it was a 200 meg file ziped, but had to fit onto a harddrive with 150 megs free). I tried re-compressing it about 30-40 times in a row and IIRC it took it's size down like 200 bytes every 10 passes or so. I was amazed that it could compress a compressed file (even if just by a little bit). I still had to delete stuff off that hard drive, but uncompressed all the files where about 350 megs total before it was ran though PKzip.
Slashdot Mirror
sweet, if I had a mod point...
What is more likely is that vendors will include backdoors and time bombs for anti-piracy or other purposes. Should a customer discover that the remote disabling capability is there -- perhaps after suffering a disaster due to it being triggered accidentally -- UCITA protects the vendor from liability.
If this is true I am going to write a small shareware program and at end of the 10 day trail it will demand 1 BILLION DOLLARS and if it is not paid it will "lock" the user from their computer and dial up to a sex chat line in Brazil for $12398.75 per minute to their phone line (convently enough I own the chat line)
But lets think about this (assuming it just isn't FUD) Micro..uh.. Microhard sells a text edtior
user installs text edtior
text editor ask user for serial number
user enters the serial number on the box
text editor says it is the wrong serial number
user learns that they mistyped the serial number (had caps lock on)
To late, text editor deletes entire hard drive and then plays a wav "You Suck user"
user has lost all data and his feelings hurt
judge says "you suck user, that is legal for them to do"
user switches to GNU/Linux
user is happy...
Ahh so this is a good idea after all, we could use more GNU/Linux users in our quest for Total World Domination, so this works quite well.
It was working, really fast to... but I think it got slashdotted.
If slashdot runs a news story about slashdot, does the slashdot site get slashdotted in an infinate loop?
Really, pay a million dollars for a domain name that costs what, $75 for 2 years from Internic?
Just make up a name and save 1 miilion dollars, for stuff like oh, servers, bandwidth, web developers, those "extra's" that go with a web site...
I am curious though as what it will go for. I wonder what beta.slashdot.org would go for?
From the Trademark Usage Terms it clearly states "It must not be used as a generic term."
If this site put up unix.com as a be-all *nix site, this this
Also it could be agrued (not by me) that domain names are case insenitive and there isn't really any way to tell the differance between UNIX.COM and unix.com, which could be taken as a voliation of the (all caps) UNIX trademark
Open Group owns the Unix trademark
Trademark Usage Guide(PDF Format)
Please note:
It must not be used as a generic term.
It must not be used in connection with products, unless the product is licensed to use the mark.
There are detailed guidelines referring to the visual presentation, form and manner of use.
In editorial or articles, but not advertising the trade marks may be used without prior permission - provided that the rules in our Trademark Usage Guide are followed.
I better get some karama for this dammit
Same hack differant sytnax
The Internet, still in its first primitive stages, is in a state Stefik calls "becoming."
Wasn't that more like 5-10 years ago, I think we have gotten stage 1 done already, all the frame work is down on paper (or in the ground on wires), it feels like now it is more like stage 2 or 3...
Seriously look at all the AOL users out there, the Internet is avaiable to people besides geeks, and the "normal people" not only know what it is, most of them want to get on it (if they aren't all ready).
If my grandparents use a technolgey it means that it is no longer bleeding edge and means that it is now mainstream and socially acceptable. The first stage of anything is not defined like this, the first stage of anything is small, obsecure, not well defined and sometimes not socailly acceptable, Hrmm how would you descripe the Internet 7 years ago?
The first stage is set and done, moving on to Act 2 (or 3-4)
There is still some issuses to work out like bandwidth, laws, who owns what, etc, I am not saying that we are done, the Internet will be continuely growing and adapting, but the first basic parts have been accomplished.
J(ust)MHO
You and I aren't going to get our hands on this weather package anytime soon
Contray to popular belief they did release these weather package under the GPL, I have it running on couple of 386's Beowulf'd together over 10BaseT in my bedroom.
It is pretty decent software to, do you release that it has never predicted rain, and you know what? It has yet to rain in my bedroom, amazing software.
Tommorrow there is no chance of rain in my bedroom and the temparture will be around room temparture thoughout the entire day! Great weather I am having here
Also since it was release under the GPL, a couple hackers have teamed up with Dr. Evil to create a weather control machine, that not only predicts the weather, but can alter it on the fly! GPL, you can do amazing things with it, including, but not limited to Total World Domination by bringing the United Nations down with a hail strom from uh hell. When Linus made a joke about gaining Total World Domination though the use of free (as in speech) software, he was serious!
On a site note, if you check your preferences Nate has made a slashbox that displayes in real time the number of nations that have sumbited to Dr. Evil and his weather machine, recently they have gotten Russia and China (who would of thought), the part I found assuming was that Canada was the first to go...
Massive production on this chips should be along shortly with all this cash they have now.
If they can produces these chips in large numbers, they will be extremely cheap for the average user I am willing to bet.
Your right, my bad. Never really used them since I found Perl so I am unfamlair with there feartures and shouldn't of made any (uneducated) comments regarding them.
What is the fascination with Perl in the *nix world?
What is the fascination with automation, quick development in the *nix world? I can do everything from send mail automatically, to parse my log files at 4:00 in the morning with a couple small scripts and crontab. Compared to other OS, *nix with perl/shell scripts can automate and build bigger applications from smaller ones in a quick and effective manner.
For example, say I want to dial-in to the Internet, download slashdot every morning at 4:00, parse out the crap, format it into latex and send it to my other computer and post it into an sql database. This could be done with *nix and perl in about 3 cans of jolt cola. Name one other OS/launage that could do it in that short of time, and have it work well.
Try that in
I can't fathom it - after all it adds little to what awk and sed have been doing for years.
Uh, have you check out modules in Perl? Can awk or sed interact with a database? Can awk and sed combined send/get email/news? Also if I remeber correctly you can't do basic logic in awk+sed, like 'while' loops and 'if' statements. Also I think awk+sed lack support of things like OOP, arrays, hashes, sub routines, etc..
Perl is ALOT more then a word parser
For more complex tasks than a simple CGI script Perl seems unwieldly, and even now technologies such as ASP and JSP are taking over the server-side processing domain.
Yea Perl is hard, especailly if you look at C, C++, ASM, Java, Perl seems extremely difficult to use. (sacarism).
I haven't check
Perl is portable, can run Perl on %99.99 of all CGI enabled web servers, what does ASP run on, like 2 maybe 3 servers? Perl can do a hell of a lot more then ASP will ever be able to do, my freind once created a cgi interface to his coffee maker, not really usefull (to anyone but him), but I would have doubts of trying to do that in
IMHO Perl has no real domain in which it is better than everything else - so why is it so popular? Can someone please tell me?
Have you even use Perl?
1) It is open source
2) It is Free software (as both in beer and speech)
3) You can quickly develop programs/scripts
4) It can "glue" together seemly random and unrelated compounds (ie. sql server and a pop3 email CLIENT, ie. coffee maker and the http protocol)
5) You can choose your "programming sytle". Hate OOPing? Don't use it. Love OOPing? Your in luck. Like OOPing but hate the rules and interactive between objects? Break the rules.
6) Does it have words in it? Does it need to be parse?
7) Does it need to be portable?
8) Does it have to be working before your jolt cola can goes empty?
9) Does it have to be fast?
10) Does it make you laugh when you have more or less "replaced" yourself as a system admin though the use of Perl/crontab?
11) Is it fun to randomly "glue" odd, unrelated and obsecure things together using perl?
12)Sometimes a 5 minute Perl script can save you 120 minutes of boring, manual work
as the saying goes (in the voice of the comic book store owner in the simpsons)
NOW GO AWAY OR I SHALL REPLACE YOU WITH A 10 LINE PERL SCRIPT USING THE ENGLISH MODULE
The site is slashdotted, so I will make this stuff up for here on in...
Correct me if I am wrong, but when Perl has to do something lowlevel it calls the native system calls for that OS right? So if Perl is the OS, how can it call it's self to something lowlevel when the low level system calls have never been defined (since it defines it, depending on what OS it is running). It seems like a chicken-egg problem...
My guess is that they would have to hack up a kernel with hacked up Perl built directly into it. Then do everything else like memory management/ drivers/ etc though Perl code after the system gets up and going... Hell I don't know. Doing an OS in Perl is cool and all, just seems weird.
Then again having Perl in kernel space would scream...
Obfused Perl Kernel Drive contest.
"Uh, Hrmmm so this is a Video Driver right?"
"Nope"
"Uh, sound card, see here is an IRQ entry"
"Nope, that IRQ entry is run though a regexp 1000 lines down and it turns it into a DMA entry"
"Uh right, hard drive driver?"
"Nope, the file system information is imported, so that we can grep it for packed binary data, if any exists"
"SCSI card?"
"Nope"
"Apple have every right in the world to go after other computer manufacturers that steal the "look and feel" of their machines."
1) Apple doesn't have every right, but has some rights under US law.
2) ""look and feel"" could be applied to anything my Dell PC and home build PC "look and feel" like the old IBM PC I had, does IBM have every right to sue Dell for stealing the "look and feel" of the oringal "look and feel" IBM "innovatived" with the beige case and standard looking beige monitor?
Do you think this HURTS the computer industry as a whole? Copyrights/patents and suing people over them is just a whole big mess that doesn't have any productive outcome for the rest of the world/industry but only benifits some greedy CEO. Plus it really isn't all that "innovatived", I seen phones ten years ago that had this "innovative" design. Maybe Techilishen Phone, Inc. should sue the hell out of Apple for STEALING this "look and feel" from their phones.
I am going to copyright/patent the standard beige PC case and sue any one past/present or furture that decides to use it, it has played a MAJOR role in the advancements in the computer industry, like the iMac case has for example.
"Violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers."
But if you think about it, the graphics in Quake3 SUCK compared to real life, video games suck in general. I am going to go play some football, it it more interactive, more engrossing and requires to identify with agressive behaviour a lot more then these half-assed video games with lousy game play and bad graphics. When I slam into someone at full force I want to FEEL their rip cage crush under the brute force and not some cheese POP sound effect like you get on video games. Plus the blood totaly sucks in video games, sure it splats, but after that it "disappears" for no reason, when I hit someone on the footable field, blood goes everywhere, and it doesn't disappear, it covers my uniform and flows naturally like water, unlike any video game, even if you have a Vodoo3.
That or hockey, give me sharp blades on my feet, give me a huge wood stick, and a solid disc that flies 100mph at people's croches. If any one pisses me off, I will slam them into the guard rail and beat them in the knee caps with my stick. If they still mess with me after that I will drop my gloves and beat this fool in the face with my bare hands. No matter how good your graphic card is, you can't see a blood tooth fall onto the ice after you beat someone senseless. Plus video games are volient and cause volience, I don't want any part of that, I am a all american kid that plays footable and dates the head chearleader. I also pay my taxes on time, unlike these volient video game freaks.
I also bet video games cause aids, war, proverty and any other of society's "demons" that we don't have an obvoius answer for. If it is a difficult society issuse that can be resloved quickly, I am sure video games caused it, because if it is that COMPLEX of a problem, then it has a COMPLEX answer, and video games are COMPLEX, with all the new 3d graphics and such.
From: apa.org
"Study 1 found that real-life violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The relation was stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive and for men."
uh? think about this, agressive behavior was stronger as a result of violent video games in people who are characteristically agreesive. Now replace the words "Violent video games" in the above sentance, with any other activity and it still holds true. The statement
Agressive behavior was stronger as a result of home gardening and baking cakes in people who are characteristically agreesive.
I think that above paragraph would also turn true if studied...
So what does this study really prove?
They aren't putting "normal" people in these tests, but people that are already voilent or agreesive in nature
"people who score high on measures of aggressive personality have highly accessible knowledge structures for aggression-related information. They think aggressive thoughts more frequently than do those individuals who score low on aggressive personality measures, and have social perception schemas that lead to hostile perception, expectation, and attributional biases "
Lets give a crack addict a bunch of smack and see if they become addicted to it. Here how do you tell if the smack is addictive or the crack addict is just "replacing" his addiction?
Like a plague? If you keep it in a jar on your shelf, it does no harm, but if you take that glass jar and break it on the street everyone dies from coughing huge amounts of blood up...
I think Microsoft needs to hire me as their new marketing director
"no one got fired for buying MS..."
I would like to work and have a job at a place where people DO get fired for buying from Microsoft...what has happened to ethics these days? Seriously, when everyone is a kid hacking on their Linux distro of choice, learning about computers, then they grow up. Then they have to get jobs, and in these jobs they "dis"-learn everything they learned as a kid, both about computers and morally.
I once losed a job because I started debating with them about using Apache over IIS during in job interview... and it wasn't really a debate, I was just wondering what advantages IIS had over Apache in this envoriment and they couldn't name ONE reason, the best things I remeber from it was "Because it can be used to serve web pages to our users", "Apache can do that and it will run on a free operating system"... that awkward silence where you know you have lose the job...I don't want to work for a company that has a hard on for MS anyways...
It is kind of sad when a company that makes lousy software is more powerful then the entire govement of the most powerfull country in the world. Think about it, the US Govement has nucelar fucking weapons and a software company from Redmond is walking all over them like they are some bitches while Microsoft being the Pimp Daddy that they are... as the RATM song states "Take the Power Back"
I want to see the super fly Judge Jackson put the snap down on these fools.
They still could give IE for free, relay on VC, Investment and stocks... The software company would make other things like Front Page, Office, Age of the Empires, and on the side slide in some Free IE goodness to it's sister comapany.
Sun gives away the Hot Java browser for free, and it doesn't hurt Sun (to much atleast), why couldn't baby bill #2 give IE for free without it hurting them to much?
Again, why couldn't baby bill #2 license the source code to IE to baby bill #3 for mega $$, both baby bills would win, everyone else would lose...
Instead of Microsoft execs meeting in a board room they will be forced to meet in back allies wearing black trench coats on sunday nights at 9:00 when it is raining outside
"Anyone tail ya?"
"Nah, there is a lot of fuzz out today though"
"I heard that, our freind Bobby is setting up deals now to let the local fuzz into the OS market, pay them off you see, so they don't come hassling us"
"Good idea" pulling out a brown paper bag "Here is the stuff, be careful with this, it's only into beta 2, remember if you get busted with it, you don't know where you got it"
"Good, it will be quickly slided into the W2K kernel code, millions and millions of lines of code, who is going to be able to notice when it is all said and done"
"Carefull man, I said that was beta 2 shit man"
"Don't worry about it, sometimes you need to relax once in a while, if it crashes it crashes, don't worry our tech support can confuse and ward off any complaints by putting the user into a maze of phone prompts"
"Remember you didn't get that from me"
"Get what?"
"HAHA good boy, tell Fat Tony hi for me"
"The Windows company would be permitted to include functions that permit browsing of the Interne"
Uh, so this would change what??
Even if they do break up Microsoft, couldn't the software and OS sister companies just form an agreement with each other to bundle software with each other and give "favors" to the sister comapany? Oh, but if they did that AFTER the break up, it would be all legal then...
For an example, the MacOS could say "We are going to Intergate Opera with out OS" and then make an API so screwed up that MS or Netscape can't develop a browser on it. Then have Opera state "Opera is the Number 1 browser on the MacOS. To get an updated version send $56.99 to..." Both companies beinifit and create a fake monopoly that is prefectly legal
And the Microsoft sister companies won't be able to do this after the break up?
come on... force Microsoft to release all current and furture code under the GPL
Breaking up Microsoft could have some faults in it.
"Windows monopoly to crush competitors, stifle innovation and harm consumers in the computer industry."
I have been saying this for HOW LONG? Does anyone else beilieve me yet?!?
For commerical software, I think it should be a requirement.
.. uh used. If you are going to download it, there is no sense in paying good money for it (see usenet, irc, ftp://free_porn.slashdot.org). It just doesn't make sense, this is the same with free (as in speech) software, you won't pay to download a Linux distro would you? You pay for the manuals, cd-rom, support, etc...
.001 seconds! WTF? If you are sitting at a computer you should be using that time at the computer to do something active and productive (this rules excludes slashdot of corse :)
First, depending on the software, one may or may not have direct acess to the online help (for example a Unix OS, where all man pages aren't accessiable before the install, but are require for the install (fdisk help for example))
Second, not everyone spends 20 hours per day at their workstation, sometimes you have to leave your computer and relax your eyes/stiff limbs from the glowing screen and the rigid chair, books/manuals and couches can help a lot here, while still being able to learn about computers while not directly in front of them.
Thrid, if it is a piece of "typical" commerical software, it will have a restricted license, limiting the number of workstations you can install it on. If the help manaul is inside the software and requires the software to be installed before the help menu is viewable (think commerical boxed Windows software) then only 1 person can learn the software at a time. It more then one person will be accessing the workstation to use the software (which is normally legal), then only one person can learn the software while the others will have to wait. For example, in an accounting or billing department, you might have one workstation that holds the records for XYZ service/product (think smaller company), but 2-10 people that must learn this software (admin, billing person, manager, account, tech support), it will slow them down a lot. But if you had a printed manual it would be more avaiable, have the billing person learn it from the workstation during normal business hours, have the manager read the manual during normal business hours, and have the admin learn it during off hours (or typically the admin would have to learn it first, for installation/setup purposes.)
Also, just a personally glitch of mine is companies that only have their software/manuals downloadable via the web like koz^H^H^H some of the companies I have deal with. This is REALLY fscking annony, a CD-ROM is hell of a lot faster than a network connection, and a book is more readily avaiable (ie, I can read it in the john if I should choose to do so (I don't (what do you think those dilbert books are for(then again
hearing laughter from the bathroom after someone has been in there a while can seem weird)))) sorry for the '()' (does this mean I know lisp now?)
Seriously I (actucally my company) has paid in the thousands of dollars for some software and what do I get in return? A short email with a license key and a message that says "CLICK HERE" to download.
WTF?? If I (actucally my company) pays thousands, or even hundards of dollars for something, it better be something that I can HOLD in my HANDS and look at. It better be something REAL, not some download.
For example, I don't mind shelling out my personal hard earned money for a Linux or *BSD distro, but when I do, it better be something that I can hold, it better be a nice box set, cool looking CD's and a quality manual (and optional stickers, buttons and/or t-shirts and possiable hot grits that could be insert into things like pants and such (even though I am not into grits or grits in my pants)). That is the point of the Linux distro, you pay for the cd-roms and printed manual. Hell who wants to download the 6+ Gig SuSE Linux distro over a network connection, screw that
I see it like this, software is a lot like porn (let me make my point before you screw me on karma). With porn, if you shell out money for it, you better get a tape, video/dvd or other. If you spend good money on porn, it better be a physical media. But if you just download the porn you can't touch it, you can't share it with freinds, you can't take it to the waiting room of a doctors office, it is on your hard drive and THAT is the only place where it can be
I know that commerical software is a lot differant in this aspect, but it FEELS like a rip off to get "nothing" you can actucally hold after paying big $$ just to download and have a license key sent to you.
Include a printed manual, include a really good one.
In general, I don't think printed manuals will die (for commerical or free software), take a look at http://www.ora.org, and tell me, do you think users like printed manuals? O'Reilly seems to making a lot of money on printed manauls, because it makes users fell all warn and fuzzy inside. Your company wants to kill this part of your product? Do you think that is a good idea? Maybe if you don't include a printed manual O'Reilly/SAMS/Playboy will take it upon themselves to write a book on it for themselves (and reap the benifits (ie. money)) to fill this "gapping hole" in your product (assuming they don't include the manual that it)
And most important, who wants to spend 300+ hours starring at a computer screen reading 1000+ pages off a 15 inch monitor? Hell, sit back on the couch, relax, grab a beer and reading about the wonders of Sendmail can be quite enjoyable, where sitting "passivly" at a computer seems like such a waste of computing power.
My quad 1Ghz proc system with 4 gigs of ram can scroll 100 pages in AcroReader in under
Plus, if the manuals are online/cdrom the user will get distracted and start posting to slashdot about the ill-thought-out ideas of not including a printed manual with software products...
The only good online documents (for software) is the man pages, everything else sucks. Even the how-to's suck online, they need to be shoved though a printer before they can become great documents. Online how-to's suck, printed from an old dot matrix printer they are the best resouce, who would of thought? Howto's gain a Magic Power when printed.
If your software is for Unix make sure you man page is extremely well put together (read OpenBSD), because man pages are the only documents that should be in the computer (as far as software documenation and FAQ's) then make sure all your other document is included in a printed manual.
I remeber trying that, (it was a 200 meg file ziped, but had to fit onto a harddrive with 150 megs free). I tried re-compressing it about 30-40 times in a row and IIRC it took it's size down like 200 bytes every 10 passes or so. I was amazed that it could compress a compressed file (even if just by a little bit). I still had to delete stuff off that hard drive, but uncompressed all the files where about 350 megs total before it was ran though PKzip.