South Korea may not be as free as you think. A few weeks ago, I was surprised to learn (from a friend of mine who is teaching English there) that the government was blocking access to a number of web sites, including blogs hosted at Blogger (a.k.a. BlogSpot) and TypePad (a.k.a blogs.com).
The Korea Times and other news sources reported that this was done to frustrate the distribution of videos depicting the decapitation of South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il. But you hardly need to point out to Slashdot readers that blocking entire domains like that entails a lot of "collateral damage". My friend in Korea, for example, was unable to read his own blog, which consists mostly of his poems.
I submitted this as a Your Rights Online story, but it was rejected for reasons I still don't understand. This is the kind of story that I depend on Slashdot to keep me apprised of.
One feature that Omniweb seems to have to itself is the ability to edit the HTML source of pages that you view and then redisplay the pages as edited -- without leaving the browser or the page. This is useful for getting rid of background images or color schemes that make some pages unreadable. It's also good for testing CGI forms, since you can quickly manipulate hidden inputs, etc.
As more political campaign material moves online, it might be interesting to apply a similar process and analyze candidates' speeches and promotional materials with an eye to uncovering how much stump speech is original. A lot of candidates make only modest efforts to repackage what is, in effect, a centrally distributed message: the party line. This is less crude than the cut-and-paste activism decried in the article, but it bears comparison. Since pattern recognition techniques can smack down commercial robots, why not sic them on the political automatons as well?
I just heard about the worm on television on MSNBC. The report was painfully opaque: The worm was said to attack "servers" or "the Internet". No mention of the fact that it was specifically Microsoft software at risk.
The report on the MSNBC web site is more forthcoming. Still, I can't help but feel that the omission in the broadcast report shows editorial influence at work from MSNBC's parent company.
- If there are cases of this happening where the affected user does *not* have admin permissions - What the affected users have set as their default download folder
This seems like a serious threat, but without more data it is hard to know just how serious.
One aspect of OS X that seems to have gone largely underreported is the decision to distribute developer tools with the operating system. The developer tools include the Project Builder IDE and Interface Builder GUI constructor, as well as gcc, gdb, cvs, make, perl, and the Java JDK.
The integration with Java is alone remarkable; full Cocoa bindings means that your Java applications are no-less "mac-like" than apps implemented in c/c++/objective-c. The file-bundle structure (executables are packaged in hierarchical directories with resources and XML files providing metadata) completes the encapsulation: a Java app looks and launches just like any other.
On the other hand, you can double-click ".jar" files, and programs that use AWT or Swing, and run them as well.
Providing the facility to write first class programs "out of the box" is an important, if unheralded, aspect of Apple's "open" philosophy. It's a form of user empowerment. It may not go far enough to please the proponents of some open source ideologies, but for the great majority of personal computer users it represents more freedom than they know what to do with. I think it could have a significant effect in introducing people to programing. IANA Windows programmer, but my impression is that the barrier to entry is considerably higher.
The Saudi's aren't the only ones banning the "beer of kings":
http://www.american.edu/TED/budweis.htm
Yes, this is off-topic.
Correction: Ruby Reflection
on
Why not Ruby?
·
· Score: 1
> Python OO is, by the way, far more reflective than Ruby OO
This kind of statement begs more than "a cursory examination of the language"!
Ruby is quite reflective, but as a design choice keeps the implementation of objects private. You can get the list of any object's instance variables, but as an ordinary case you cannot set or read the variables independently of any accessors that may exist.
If you don't want this kind of encapsulation, you can add a (public) method to return an object's "binding" -- this is much like the __dict__ attribute, with the difference that Ruby objects are implemented in private namespaces rather than associative arrays. With the binding, you can munge the attributes to your hearts content.
I couldn't find the "Mac OS X" hints story, nor elsewhere -- I think the story may have been pulled while its legitimacy is debated.
In short, the proponents are claiming that the dock's orientation can be changed like so...
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation Left
...but that it only works on the "Cheetah" build of OSX, which is only available to paying members of the developer network.
Screenshots have been posted, but there are irregularities, not the least of which is the return of the Apple Menu in one of these shots. Come to your own conclusions:
Incidentally, I confirmed that it doesn't work on my copy of the Public Beta. Additionally, I checked the dock binary and "orientation" is nowhere to be found, although the other well-known settings are there.
I'm getting only errors when I attempt my own "privacy violations". When I submit a search, the frame refreshes, and the JavaScript console (which, in doubt, I surfaced) kicks out this:
JavaScript Error: http://www.enow.com/website/ActiveD.asp?QueryField =perl, line 116: document.Negative has no properties.
"perl" is the search keyword I typed in. Anyone else having better luck? Is the site slashdotted, buggy and/or incompatible with my Linux/NS4.5.1 browser?
I'm an ardent admirer of perl, but no enemy to python -- after all, shouldn't the greater vision of "Tim Toady" extend to other languages if appropriate?
There are shortcomings in perl (lack of function signatures, array context weirdness, inability to specify non-autovivifying hashes, etc.) that have encouraged me to look to Python for relief while working on certain projects.
I've found a great barrier, however, in the documentation: the O'Reilly python books, though they parallel the perl books in name, don't approach the quality of the latter.
Whereas "Learning Perl" offers a conceptual tutorial grounded in simple examples, and "Programming Perl" sets forth the definitive specification and philosophy of the language, the python books both seem to me to take a fairly scattered "cookbook" approach, introducing specific applications of the language, but never offering a comprehensive initiation, either for beginners or experienced programmers.
Maybe I rely more than I ought to on dead trees, but I've also failed to find worthy online docs.
Has anyone else out there found better info? Am I wrong in my assessment of Lutz's books? Suggestions for further reading are welcomed!
With the increasing popularity of broadband, always-on connections and the increasing distribution of networking software, it seems like "Joe DSL" faces a greater risk of having his system compromised than before. How much can the average user be expected to learn about securing their system? Do you foresee developments, either in software, education or in other services that might help private computer users or small time administrators protect themselves better?
The platonic influence may be indirect. "The Matrix" resembles the allegory of the cave to a certain point, but I think it makes a significant departure. Consider motive.
Plato populates the inside of the cave with tyrannical sophists who forge a social order on their mastery of the shadows and are hostile to unbelievers. It's important to note however that they are prisoners of the cave themselves, with an implication that they too would reject the shadows if only they could make the journey to the outside.
What I find missing in this vision which plays such an important role in "The Matrix" is the element of conspiracy. The action of the movie is driven by the fact that as soon as Neo gets his "wake-up call", he is hunted and persecuted by the intelligence and force behind the Matrix, in the guise of the Agents.
I think this idea of an active force of ignorance or evil is distinctly "un-platonic" -- Plato (or more definitely, followers like Augustine) argued that evil and ignorance were just the absence of good and knowledge.
The idea of a "conspiracy of unknowing" however certainly has roots in the mystical sect of the gnostics, some of whom drew on elements of Plato's vision and even adopted his term "Demiurge" (from "Timaeus", lit. "craftsman") for the god of creation.
The Demiurge, whom gnostics identify with the god of the Old Testament, is an emanation of the true Supreme Being. Tragically flawed in character, ("I am a jealous God") he created the world of matter to trap the light of creation for himself. Gnostic enlightenment is then the process of escaping the false world of matter, which was envisioned as seven concentric spheres guarded by the "Archons", agents(!) of the Demiurge.
In this I see a closer parallel to "The Matrix": in both cases you have a deliberate fabrication to trap the consciousness of humans. One of the harder to swallow premises of the movie is that the computers are captivating human beings in this way because they need the human bodies as batteries -- as if they produced more energy than they consume! If the need for heat and energy is read as a gnostic metaphor, I think this is more palatable.
Slashdot Mirror
South Korea may not be as free as you think. A few weeks ago, I was surprised to learn (from a friend of mine who is teaching English there) that the government was blocking access to a number of web sites, including blogs hosted at Blogger (a.k.a. BlogSpot) and TypePad (a.k.a blogs.com).
The Korea Times and other news sources reported that this was done to frustrate the distribution of videos depicting the decapitation of South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il. But you hardly need to point out to Slashdot readers that blocking entire domains like that entails a lot of "collateral damage". My friend in Korea, for example, was unable to read his own blog, which consists mostly of his poems.
I submitted this as a Your Rights Online story, but it was rejected for reasons I still don't understand. This is the kind of story that I depend on Slashdot to keep me apprised of.
A lot of CDs are marked with a notice that lending is forbidden.
One feature that Omniweb seems to have to itself is the ability to edit the HTML source of pages that you view and then redisplay the pages as edited -- without leaving the browser or the page. This is useful for getting rid of background images or color schemes that make some pages unreadable. It's also good for testing CGI forms, since you can quickly manipulate hidden inputs, etc.
As more political campaign material moves online, it might be interesting to apply a similar process and analyze candidates' speeches and promotional materials with an eye to uncovering how much stump speech is original. A lot of candidates make only modest efforts to repackage what is, in effect, a centrally distributed message: the party line. This is less crude than the cut-and-paste activism decried in the article, but it bears comparison. Since pattern recognition techniques can smack down commercial robots, why not sic them on the political automatons as well?
I just heard about the worm on television on MSNBC. The report was painfully opaque: The worm was said to attack "servers" or "the Internet". No mention of the fact that it was specifically Microsoft software at risk.
The report on the MSNBC web site is more forthcoming. Still, I can't help but feel that the omission in the broadcast report shows editorial influence at work from MSNBC's parent company.
I would like to know:
- If there are cases of this happening where the affected user does *not* have admin permissions
- What the affected users have set as their default download folder
This seems like a serious threat, but without more data it is hard to know just how serious.
It took several clicks to get to the price tag.
Awesome? For that price, it better take the photos for me.
Another reason to reconsider all-night cramming (with or without pharmacological assistance) is the possible role of sleep in memory consolidation.
One aspect of OS X that seems to have gone largely underreported is the decision to distribute developer tools with the operating system. The developer tools include the Project Builder IDE and Interface Builder GUI constructor, as well as gcc, gdb, cvs, make, perl, and the Java JDK.
The integration with Java is alone remarkable; full Cocoa bindings means that your Java applications are no-less "mac-like" than apps implemented in c/c++/objective-c. The file-bundle structure (executables are packaged in hierarchical directories with resources and XML files providing metadata) completes the encapsulation: a Java app looks and launches just like any other.
On the other hand, you can double-click ".jar" files, and programs that use AWT or Swing, and run them as well.
Providing the facility to write first class programs "out of the box" is an important, if unheralded, aspect of Apple's "open" philosophy. It's a form of user empowerment. It may not go far enough to please the proponents of some open source ideologies, but for the great majority of personal computer users it represents more freedom than they know what to do with. I think it could have a significant effect in introducing people to programing. IANA Windows programmer, but my impression is that the barrier to entry is considerably higher.
The Saudi's aren't the only ones banning the "beer of kings":
http://www.american.edu/TED/budweis.htm
Yes, this is off-topic.
> Python OO is, by the way, far more reflective than Ruby OO
This kind of statement begs more than "a cursory examination of the language"!
Ruby is quite reflective, but as a design choice keeps the implementation of objects private. You can get the list of any object's instance variables, but as an ordinary case you cannot set or read the variables independently of any accessors that may exist.
If you don't want this kind of encapsulation, you can add a (public) method to return an object's "binding" -- this is much like the __dict__ attribute, with the difference that Ruby objects are implemented in private namespaces rather than associative arrays. With the binding, you can munge the attributes to your hearts content.
I couldn't find the "Mac OS X" hints story, nor elsewhere -- I think the story may have been pulled while its legitimacy is debated.
2 .html
In short, the proponents are claiming that the dock's orientation can be changed like so...
defaults write com.apple.dock orientation Left
...but that it only works on the "Cheetah" build of OSX, which is only available to paying members of the developer network.
Screenshots have been posted, but there are irregularities, not the least of which is the return of the Apple Menu in one of these shots. Come to your own conclusions:
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Forum3/HTML/00213
Incidentally, I confirmed that it doesn't work on my copy of the Public Beta. Additionally, I checked the dock binary and "orientation" is nowhere to be found, although the other well-known settings are there.
--Riley
I'm an ardent admirer of perl, but no enemy to python -- after all, shouldn't the greater vision of "Tim Toady" extend to other languages if appropriate?
There are shortcomings in perl (lack of function signatures, array context weirdness, inability to specify non-autovivifying hashes, etc.) that have encouraged me to look to Python for relief while working on certain projects.
I've found a great barrier, however, in the documentation: the O'Reilly python books, though they parallel the perl books in name, don't approach the quality of the latter.
Whereas "Learning Perl" offers a conceptual tutorial grounded in simple examples, and "Programming Perl" sets forth the definitive specification and philosophy of the language, the python books both seem to me to take a fairly scattered "cookbook" approach, introducing specific applications of the language, but never offering a comprehensive initiation, either for beginners or experienced programmers.
Maybe I rely more than I ought to on dead trees, but I've also failed to find worthy online docs.
Has anyone else out there found better info? Am I wrong in my assessment of Lutz's books? Suggestions for further reading are welcomed!
With the increasing popularity of broadband, always-on connections and the increasing distribution of networking software, it seems like "Joe DSL" faces a greater risk of having his system compromised than before. How much can the average user be expected to learn about securing their system? Do you foresee developments, either in software, education or in other services that might help private computer users or small time administrators protect themselves better?
Plato populates the inside of the cave with tyrannical sophists who forge a social order on their mastery of the shadows and are hostile to unbelievers. It's important to note however that they are prisoners of the cave themselves, with an implication that they too would reject the shadows if only they could make the journey to the outside.
What I find missing in this vision which plays such an important role in "The Matrix" is the element of conspiracy. The action of the movie is driven by the fact that as soon as Neo gets his "wake-up call", he is hunted and persecuted by the intelligence and force behind the Matrix, in the guise of the Agents.
I think this idea of an active force of ignorance or evil is distinctly "un-platonic" -- Plato (or more definitely, followers like Augustine) argued that evil and ignorance were just the absence of good and knowledge.
The idea of a "conspiracy of unknowing" however certainly has roots in the mystical sect of the gnostics, some of whom drew on elements of Plato's vision and even adopted his term "Demiurge" (from "Timaeus", lit. "craftsman") for the god of creation.
The Demiurge, whom gnostics identify with the god of the Old Testament, is an emanation of the true Supreme Being. Tragically flawed in character, ("I am a jealous God") he created the world of matter to trap the light of creation for himself. Gnostic enlightenment is then the process of escaping the false world of matter, which was envisioned as seven concentric spheres guarded by the "Archons", agents(!) of the Demiurge.
In this I see a closer parallel to "The Matrix": in both cases you have a deliberate fabrication to trap the consciousness of humans. One of the harder to swallow premises of the movie is that the computers are captivating human beings in this way because they need the human bodies as batteries -- as if they produced more energy than they consume! If the need for heat and energy is read as a gnostic metaphor, I think this is more palatable.