Unless you can tell me some good advantage of using linux (other than "showing them there are alternatives"), don't do it...
Your sysadmin is right. He has given you a solution that works, you use it. End of story.
Is there some specific linux software you want to use? Are you sure it can't run on Windows? Or has good alternatives that run on Windows? Sounds to me you are just trolling your sysadmin *and* your students.
Hell, why not go all the way, and insist on a AS/400-only solution, just to show them that there are alternatives, right?
Or better yet, buy a class-set of gameboys (and one of those eprom burners), and develop a data-collection solution for them in assembly language. Now, that's an alternative nobody would think about.
But of course, if you want a real computer, you should buy a real game-console, maybe a Dreamcast running NetBSD would be the ideal solution. I'm sure it could be made to work, and your students would surely be much wiser about "alternatives".
But of course, the best solution would be to set up a cluster of bluetooth-enabled java-cellphones that communicate over ipx to do the calculations and display, and let a C64 with a soldered on modern gameport to do the data-collection. Of course, you will need to distribute the data to the cluster through the C64's serial-port to a laptop runnin OS/2, which can convert the signal into something the bluetooth-devices can understand. Extra credits if you can make all the cellphones display a large graph by putting their displays next to each other. Don't mention linux, most students have already heard about it, remember, it's alternatives we are looking for, right?
5.6G is a lot. I hardly think there even exist a coaster with that much G-force for over a second. And while it's not up to the limits (10G in a figher plane, with specially trained and selected pilots wearing an anti-G suit), it's more than enough for what you want to send your average person through (there are people who could suffer from strokes, heart-attacks, etc...).
Besides, 5.6G is a lot even for just the coaster. If the coaster itself weighs a ton, it would mean the rail would have to be built to deal with 5.6 ton, plus whatever extra comes from vibration, and finally, better double that, just to be on the safe side. This requires extensive testing, all the time... Modern fighter planes spend more time on the ground than in the air for exactly that reason.
If you want more than 5.6G, you should bring your medical attest, sign the waiver, etc... It's just not something you want to send people with unknown physical condition into. And it's not just the cardiac problems. There are people with e.g. weak neck-muscles, skeletal problems, etc. This could probably be enough to trigger a whiplash, or anything else, if you are not physically fit.
Hell, better build the coaster so that they're fun to ride, instead of simply dangerous. The feeling of free fall, the horror of feeling like you're almost going to run into that bar over your head, jerky motion like on a wood-coaster, etc... there are a lot of things you can do without putting people into danger, that will be just as exciting.
And sinking into a chair has nothing to do with it. That is impulse, not sustained force. And while impulse is dangerous too, it's not like you can just compare their numbers without thinking. (While I can survive under water for two minutes, I can probably not survive two days on top of mount everest (even though there are a lot more oxygen at the top of mount everest).)
For an action figure so completely dull and boring as superman, I find the use of Keanu Reeves very appropriate. I mean, who else can play an all-powerful, indestructible, naive and simple-minded person who only does good but never bad things better than him?
In my opinion Keaton was excellent in Batman. True, he could have had a bit more muscle-mass, but otherwise, he made a pretty believable Bruce Wayne.
Well, even I could have thought of milking a cow. But what I really want to know, is who got the idea of churning butter. I mean, it takes a lot of time. If you have the right churning equipment, and the cream is just right, it will take at least half an hour before you start getting something like butter. Otherwise, it will take much longer.
Now consider the reasonably intelligent person thinking "hmm.. today I'm going to try something new...". Let's churn this cream, and see what it will turn into. Any reasonable intelligent person will after 5-10 minutes have given up. But no, not our guy. He continues... 15 minutes. 20 minutes (Hmmm, this is getting heavy and boring, maybe I should do it a bit more...), 25 minutes, 30 minutes (well, ok, let's assume he was lucky the first time).
And then he tastes the stuff. Ough! Butter isn't really that tasty! Maybe I should make some more, and see if I can use it for cooking?
It always amazes me what kind of stupid ideas people come up with, that are actually very useful. Have you ever considered stuffing small green frogs up someones vagina? Hmm, let's try one. No, nothing happens. Hmm, let's try another one then... And another one. I once saw a horrible movie-clip (on kazaa of course) which had exactly this idea. Of course the movie-clip wasn't really long enough to see what kind of interesting stuff might happen if you continued long enough, but hey, if you do it for, say half an hour continously, maybe you eventually get something interesting out of the process... I doubt it will be butter, though.
All of the office suites today have too many features, most of them useless to me.
Ahh, yes, the program that has only features _I_ need. We all want that, don't we. Now tell me exactly which features you want:
Proper font handling
Proper layout of text
and images...
...in combination?
Proper page handling (margins, paper-sizes, one-sided or two-sided, etc...)
Handles printing well
Tables, multiple columns, etc...
Outlines
Crossreferences
TOC
references...
Intuitive GUI
Spellchecker
large documents
macros
extension language
import export from common fileformats
Oops, it seems I forgot one feature of yours I don't use myself (autocomplete). Well, better make the openoffice guys create a specialized version with exactly your features. That's gonna be much better, right?
The problem with free office-type programs today isn't the bloat from added features (hell, emacs has more features than most programs, but that doesn't mean I will not use it as my texteditor!). The problem is that they are relatively new, unstable, missing lot's of features, and has a too small userbase to be interesting for a newcomer (and by definition have almost no interest to a hacker).
For right-handed people still using that old-fashioned kind of writing equipment that smudges bits of ink (or graphite) on a piece of dried pulp, it is kind of nice to see what you have written, instead of smudging it out even more with your wrist before the ink dries. But it is a minor issue, left-handers doesn't seem to have too much problems with it.
Yes Python can do that. And that was one of the reasons Eric chose it. But it would of course be huge, slow, and basically contain a Python interpreter. Perl can also do that, but I think it actually needs to link with libperl, so it would be a little bit more silly...
This is dead embarassing for the Apache group. Both bugs described in Luigi's article are really architectural flaws, not simply buffer overflows, or anything else that can happen to anyone, no matter how careful you are...
The first bug was a "helpful" error message, giving you the _exact_ path of the apache installation, when asking for a file in the error-directory. This is really the kind of fault we expect from Microsoft (always trying to be more "user-friendly" then secure).
The second bug was even worse. Apache didn't interpret '\' as a "dangerous" character in urls. And neither was \..\..\..\WINNT\system32\ looked at as especially suspicious. With all the press nimda and code red got, it wouldn't be so hard to think that Apache wouldn't do the same mistake AFTER Microsoft, but did they do... Oh, yes...
In IIS, the final nail in the coffin when it comes to security is the fact that it runs under the privileges of SYSTEM. Anyone knows what Apache on NT/2k runs as?
I am starting to come to the conclusion that being incredibly dense is almost like a requirement for being on slashdot.
You don't need Objective C to run "natively" on Max OS. You can also use Java (Mac OS X at least), assembler, C, C++, Pascal, or anything else. If your application only uses SDL and standard C/C++ calls, there is no reason to "wrap" anything in some other language.
The rules said that "Only native Macintosh double-clickable applications will be accepted (ie: without emulation software). "
There is no way you could enforce anything else (and there would certainly be no point in doing so...). What does it mean to create source-code that only run on macs? Source-code only runs after it's been compiled and linked, so by definition it doesn't run on anything (not even macs). And since all modern computers generally have the same capabilities, it is generally impossible to create something that cannot be ported (given enough effort).
The man has been involved in pretty much anything in gcc (as in gnu compiler collection, not just gnu c compiler), gdb, and other parts of the toolchain. He has also written Kawa, and been involved in lot's of other free software projects.
I'm not sure if he was the one who started cygnus support, but if he is, that is also something that should help him get the prize (where would free software be without cygnus today?).
Do you want to continue helping them forever? There are some alternatives you can choose between to make life easier for yourself, and having been in that situation, here are some things you can do.
Tell them you've tried your machine, and it doesn't work for you, but they are free to take it if they want. (There is nothing better you can do to avoid helping others, than to play an idiot. Unfortunately, it might be difficult to formulate this in a way that makes them try it out themselves before giving up...)
Do exactly the opposite of helping them. Install QNX and a bunch of worthless applications on that box, but nothing that will help them type that stupid letter. Sooner or later, it's going to get through to them that you are in fact misleading them, and they will probably consider you an idiot, since they will probably not understand why their nephew is deliberately misleading them out of pure selfishness.
Give them machine, Win98 install CD, Word install CD, and free phone support for one hour (yourself). Optionally, give them a book if you think it helps, but they are not going to read it. Hopefully, having done the install once themselves will make it easier for them if they get into trouble, but you may have to lie later to avoid helping them.
Tell them that you will help them for a fee of $350/hour. You can of course help them with anything non-computer-related, but since this is your day-job anyway, doing it for free for friends and families later, is really annoying. I'm sure they'll at least halfway understand it.
Tell them you tried the machine, and it didn't work anymore. Tell them that they will have to buy a new one, and that unfortunately you can't help them (sorry, but you are _so_ busy right now, with all the things at work). This might not make you feel well, but is generally the best option. They can understand that you can't help them, since you haven't got a machine anymore. They can understand that other people are busy. And busyness is always a better excuse then not wanting to.
I don't think that exempts you from the obligatory licensing fee.
I think it does. It cannot be used for the reproduction of that sound (unless he is also a "really good singer" --- able to reproduce exact sound). But then again, I think Thompson would have a hard time convincing the courts that he should have to pay them for being a natural genius.
From a space-episode, in which they meet an alien race speaking like the above comment. It's just like smurfs, overusing another word. Hardly the best episode.
Go ahead and try, but I doubt you will be able to beat the computer programs with less than one second to think per move. (Remember, you have to think, decide where to move/pick/drop, decide the amount to bid for, and communicate that to the server, all in less than one second).
On the other hand, the rules said CPU seconds... Waiting for I/O across the Internet isn't CPU-time, that is wall-clock-time. On the other hand, this isn't IOCCC, so the judges might try to interpret the rules sensibly.
Someone recently told me that SML would be a much better programming language
Yes, people often do that. But what they often neglect to tell you, is that it depends upon the task at hand. Still, SML is a nice language, but I wouldn't use it for everything (neither would I use C++ for everything).
If you like functional programming, like static checking (there are no ways around SML's typesystem, you are really, really safe), like strictness (as opposed to lazy functional languages), and like to be able to do some imperative hacking for the last bit of performance, then SML may be for you. If you are into compilers, theorem-provers, computer algebra or anything similar, then SML is definitely for you.
For tasks that are very low-level (i.e. require lot's of bit-fidling), needs to run in small memory-space, needs access to lot's of C or C++ libraries, etc, C++ is definitely more suited.
though it has no/little support for
variables
Yes, that's the whole point of functional programming. But SML allows you to declare ref-cells which behave just like variables in normal languages. The downside is that using them makes your code incredibly ugly (something most SML'ers think is good, because it encourages good functional programming style).
A good implementation of SML would run with more or less the same speed as C++, and could also run the same algorithms (since it allows you to use imperative constructs), but it would be better if you used functional algorithms except when you really need to tune for the last clock-cycles. Unfortunately, the "standard" implementation, smlnj, runs more like at half speed of g++. There is another dialect of ML, called Ocaml, which has much more impressive native-code compilers. It is also somewhat more geared towards other programming-styles then the functional one (i.e it supports object-oriented programming really well).
I just red the contest problems; It seems as though it can be easily done in C++ -- anyone have insight on this?
Yes, to avoid being blamed for being biased towards functional programming, the ICFP doesn't usually have problems that are much better suited for functional languages. And there has certainly been contestants using C++ before. The main reason C++ may not fare too well in this contest, is probably because (1) usually the biggest C++ gurus are busy doing other things, while the biggest Ocaml, SML, Haskell, etc, gurus are competing, and (2) Functional languages are often more suitable for rapid prototyping than C++, and development speed is certainly an important ingredient in this competition. But it is definitely not impossible that either C++ or Perl comes out a winner some year.
person a) Hey what ditro is good for building a firewall/gateway ?
person b) Realy dont know
person c) Any distro. A linux firewall is so easy to set up, you hardly need a special distro for it.
a) whatyou dont have a linux firewall at home ? damn you are lame
b) yeah well my pix seems to do the job just fine
c) You are both lame, get a life, then consider getting a clue!
They have very bright screens, in fact so bright that you can read the monitor from the face of the person in front of it
Text is usually displayed really slow, like letter for letter, with annoying beeps between each letter.
Or, if the user is a programmer/hacker/etc, it is usually scrolling down the screen in ridiculous speed
They never use account-based security, instead having a password for each interesting or secret document they store
They have internet connection fast enough to show 1600x1200x20fps video in real-time two-way without any kind of jerkiness
But still cannot download the secret document describing some secret government/corporation plan in less than a few minutes...
They are remarkably stable, and will never crash except when being attacked by a virus/worm/whatever
Which is usually so simple to write, that the genius hacker can throw it together in the 20 seconds it take before they have to change scene to keep the movie interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you can tell me some good advantage of using linux (other than "showing them there are alternatives"), don't do it...
Your sysadmin is right. He has given you a solution that works, you use it. End of story.
Is there some specific linux software you want to use? Are you sure it can't run on Windows? Or has good alternatives that run on Windows? Sounds to me you are just trolling your sysadmin *and* your students.
Hell, why not go all the way, and insist on a AS/400-only solution, just to show them that there are alternatives, right?
Or better yet, buy a class-set of gameboys (and one of those eprom burners), and develop a data-collection solution for them in assembly language. Now, that's an alternative nobody would think about.
But of course, if you want a real computer, you should buy a real game-console, maybe a Dreamcast running NetBSD would be the ideal solution. I'm sure it could be made to work, and your students would surely be much wiser about "alternatives".
But of course, the best solution would be to set up a cluster of bluetooth-enabled java-cellphones that communicate over ipx to do the calculations and display, and let a C64 with a soldered on modern gameport to do the data-collection. Of course, you will need to distribute the data to the cluster through the C64's serial-port to a laptop runnin OS/2, which can convert the signal into something the bluetooth-devices can understand. Extra credits if you can make all the cellphones display a large graph by putting their displays next to each other. Don't mention linux, most students have already heard about it, remember, it's alternatives we are looking for, right?
Or you could just teach physics...
Besides, 5.6G is a lot even for just the coaster. If the coaster itself weighs a ton, it would mean the rail would have to be built to deal with 5.6 ton, plus whatever extra comes from vibration, and finally, better double that, just to be on the safe side. This requires extensive testing, all the time... Modern fighter planes spend more time on the ground than in the air for exactly that reason.
If you want more than 5.6G, you should bring your medical attest, sign the waiver, etc... It's just not something you want to send people with unknown physical condition into. And it's not just the cardiac problems. There are people with e.g. weak neck-muscles, skeletal problems, etc. This could probably be enough to trigger a whiplash, or anything else, if you are not physically fit.
Hell, better build the coaster so that they're fun to ride, instead of simply dangerous. The feeling of free fall, the horror of feeling like you're almost going to run into that bar over your head, jerky motion like on a wood-coaster, etc... there are a lot of things you can do without putting people into danger, that will be just as exciting.
And sinking into a chair has nothing to do with it. That is impulse, not sustained force. And while impulse is dangerous too, it's not like you can just compare their numbers without thinking. (While I can survive under water for two minutes, I can probably not survive two days on top of mount everest (even though there are a lot more oxygen at the top of mount everest).)
In my opinion Keaton was excellent in Batman. True, he could have had a bit more muscle-mass, but otherwise, he made a pretty believable Bruce Wayne.
But does that description really fit cowboy neal?
Now consider the reasonably intelligent person thinking "hmm.. today I'm going to try something new...". Let's churn this cream, and see what it will turn into. Any reasonable intelligent person will after 5-10 minutes have given up. But no, not our guy. He continues... 15 minutes. 20 minutes (Hmmm, this is getting heavy and boring, maybe I should do it a bit more...), 25 minutes, 30 minutes (well, ok, let's assume he was lucky the first time).
And then he tastes the stuff. Ough! Butter isn't really that tasty! Maybe I should make some more, and see if I can use it for cooking?
It always amazes me what kind of stupid ideas people come up with, that are actually very useful. Have you ever considered stuffing small green frogs up someones vagina? Hmm, let's try one. No, nothing happens. Hmm, let's try another one then... And another one. I once saw a horrible movie-clip (on kazaa of course) which had exactly this idea. Of course the movie-clip wasn't really long enough to see what kind of interesting stuff might happen if you continued long enough, but hey, if you do it for, say half an hour continously, maybe you eventually get something interesting out of the process... I doubt it will be butter, though.
Ahh, yes, the program that has only features _I_ need. We all want that, don't we. Now tell me exactly which features you want:
Oops, it seems I forgot one feature of yours I don't use myself (autocomplete). Well, better make the openoffice guys create a specialized version with exactly your features. That's gonna be much better, right?
The problem with free office-type programs today isn't the bloat from added features (hell, emacs has more features than most programs, but that doesn't mean I will not use it as my texteditor!). The problem is that they are relatively new, unstable, missing lot's of features, and has a too small userbase to be interesting for a newcomer (and by definition have almost no interest to a hacker).
Ever considered what the reason it's the world's largest economy is? You never get rich by playing nice...
For right-handed people still using that old-fashioned kind of writing equipment that smudges bits of ink (or graphite) on a piece of dried pulp, it is kind of nice to see what you have written, instead of smudging it out even more with your wrist before the ink dries. But it is a minor issue, left-handers doesn't seem to have too much problems with it.
A CD? Nah... Haven't used one in ages. NFS and 3590 tapes, that's more like it. None of them usable as mirrors, though...
Yes Python can do that. And that was one of the reasons Eric chose it. But it would of course be huge, slow, and basically contain a Python interpreter. Perl can also do that, but I think it actually needs to link with libperl, so it would be a little bit more silly...
First reason false. Second reason true. Third reason: it was complex, and nobody understood it...
The first bug was a "helpful" error message, giving you the _exact_ path of the apache installation, when asking for a file in the error-directory. This is really the kind of fault we expect from Microsoft (always trying to be more "user-friendly" then secure).
The second bug was even worse. Apache didn't interpret '\' as a "dangerous" character in urls. And neither was \..\..\..\WINNT\system32\ looked at as especially suspicious. With all the press nimda and code red got, it wouldn't be so hard to think that Apache wouldn't do the same mistake AFTER Microsoft, but did they do... Oh, yes...
In IIS, the final nail in the coffin when it comes to security is the fact that it runs under the privileges of SYSTEM. Anyone knows what Apache on NT/2k runs as?
You don't need Objective C to run "natively" on Max OS. You can also use Java (Mac OS X at least), assembler, C, C++, Pascal, or anything else. If your application only uses SDL and standard C/C++ calls, there is no reason to "wrap" anything in some other language.
The rules said that "Only native Macintosh double-clickable applications will be accepted (ie: without emulation software). "
There is no way you could enforce anything else (and there would certainly be no point in doing so...). What does it mean to create source-code that only run on macs? Source-code only runs after it's been compiled and linked, so by definition it doesn't run on anything (not even macs). And since all modern computers generally have the same capabilities, it is generally impossible to create something that cannot be ported (given enough effort).
I'm not sure if he was the one who started cygnus support, but if he is, that is also something that should help him get the prize (where would free software be without cygnus today?).
I didn't know Barnes & Nobles sold binaries...
I think it does. It cannot be used for the reproduction of that sound (unless he is also a "really good singer" --- able to reproduce exact sound). But then again, I think Thompson would have a hard time convincing the courts that he should have to pay them for being a natural genius.
From a space-episode, in which they meet an alien race speaking like the above comment. It's just like smurfs, overusing another word. Hardly the best episode.
On the other hand, the rules said CPU seconds... Waiting for I/O across the Internet isn't CPU-time, that is wall-clock-time. On the other hand, this isn't IOCCC, so the judges might try to interpret the rules sensibly.
Yes, people often do that. But what they often neglect to tell you, is that it depends upon the task at hand. Still, SML is a nice language, but I wouldn't use it for everything (neither would I use C++ for everything).
If you like functional programming, like static checking (there are no ways around SML's typesystem, you are really, really safe), like strictness (as opposed to lazy functional languages), and like to be able to do some imperative hacking for the last bit of performance, then SML may be for you. If you are into compilers, theorem-provers, computer algebra or anything similar, then SML is definitely for you.
For tasks that are very low-level (i.e. require lot's of bit-fidling), needs to run in small memory-space, needs access to lot's of C or C++ libraries, etc, C++ is definitely more suited.
though it has no/little support for variables
Yes, that's the whole point of functional programming. But SML allows you to declare ref-cells which behave just like variables in normal languages. The downside is that using them makes your code incredibly ugly (something most SML'ers think is good, because it encourages good functional programming style).
A good implementation of SML would run with more or less the same speed as C++, and could also run the same algorithms (since it allows you to use imperative constructs), but it would be better if you used functional algorithms except when you really need to tune for the last clock-cycles. Unfortunately, the "standard" implementation, smlnj, runs more like at half speed of g++. There is another dialect of ML, called Ocaml, which has much more impressive native-code compilers. It is also somewhat more geared towards other programming-styles then the functional one (i.e it supports object-oriented programming really well).
I just red the contest problems; It seems as though it can be easily done in C++ -- anyone have insight on this?
Yes, to avoid being blamed for being biased towards functional programming, the ICFP doesn't usually have problems that are much better suited for functional languages. And there has certainly been contestants using C++ before. The main reason C++ may not fare too well in this contest, is probably because (1) usually the biggest C++ gurus are busy doing other things, while the biggest Ocaml, SML, Haskell, etc, gurus are competing, and (2) Functional languages are often more suitable for rapid prototyping than C++, and development speed is certainly an important ingredient in this competition. But it is definitely not impossible that either C++ or Perl comes out a winner some year.
VB arrays can easily be set to any base you like. Know what you're talking about before you say anything.
person a) Hey what ditro is good for building a firewall/gateway ?
person b) Realy dont know
person c) Any distro. A linux firewall is so easy to set up, you hardly need a special distro for it.
a) whatyou dont have a linux firewall at home ? damn you are lame
b) yeah well my pix seems to do the job just fine
c) You are both lame, get a life, then consider getting a clue!
This wouldn't be so bad if you actually was funny, Jack. But regrettably, you are not, and if someone laughs, it is you they are laughing off.