If you see someone rob a store, you're obligated to say that you saw them rob a store, whether you want to or not.
That's untrue. You are not obligated by law to report a crime you have witnessed. At least not in the country relevant to this discussion.
It would be a screwed up world if it were otherwise, don't you think? Rape victims could be thrown in jail for failing to report being raped. Or, suppose 100 people all witness a crime in public -- must they all report it officially? It would be crazy.
Anyway, I think that 1) The journalist should not be coerced into revealing his source, and 2) Whoever it was is in for a shit-ton of trouble if/when he is discovered.
I hope the person gets busted eventually, but not if it means sacrificing the ability of journalists to keep their sources confidential.
You have just more than doubled your production costs, and that's just for two architectures. Good luck selling these at a profit. And God help your code maintainers.
You presume that there is a large amount of code in between those #ifdef's. Anybody with even a hint of skill will make the parts which can be made portable, portable, and the remaining platform-independent code will be trivial and easy to understand.
It sounds like you're suggesting that there is some way to write completely platform-independent code without actually worrying about which platforms you'll be running on. That's only possible in ideal situations and sophomore programming assignments. In reality, machines are different, and this requires platform-specific code.
It might be hard to grasp by someone who's never written anything real, but sometimes you have to step outside the bounds of strict ANSI C to do what the customer needs done.
Do Slashdot readers know of any mechanical implementations of a truly Universal Turing Machine?
Since a universal TM by definition requires an infinitely long tape, uh... no, I don't think there are any mechanical implementations. What a dumb question.
You are completely wrong. I can write code on vi that has been around for years and years.
I doubt you can code at all, or you'd understand the issues that all developers face with regards to longevity of data formats.
You only believe formats are changing because Microsoft changes the formats to drive sales of their latest office suite.
As I said, I haven't touched a Microsoft product in several years. I'm not basing this statement on MS's products.
Only if you were an idiot. Hard drives crash. They are mechanical devices and the bearings/motor/etc will, eventually, wear out. This is because of "friction".
Precisely my point. I'd have to be an idiot to believe that hard drives don't crash because I've never seen it -- and you'd have to be an idiot to believe that software is always perfectly usable because you've never seen an unusable piece of software.
Why do you assume that one of my life goals is convincing him to use Linux?
Because you're trying to convince him to use it? Apparently by calling him an idiot.
Well it's a good thing that my life goals also don't include impressing you. I hope your goals don't include impressing me because you're off to a really bad start.
As if I give a fuck. Now get back to work using the software I've written for you.
It's software. It doesn't decay. It doesn't wear out.
It gets outdated. Things are always improving, so data formats are always changing to accomodate the improvements. Software that used to work fine becomes useless. Arguing otherwise is just disingenuous.
apt-get install foo
This presumes that all potentially useful software is available as a package. Absolutely not the case.
Okayyyyyyyy....... I can do a complete distribution upgrade and still not have troubles booting. Did you ever think that the problem might be with you and not with Linux?
Ahh, the "I haven't seen it so it doesn't exist" fallacy.
A few days ago I had my first hard drive crash ever. EVER. In 15 years of using computers, I've never had a drive die on me before I threw it out. So would it have been reasonable for me to assume that hard drives never crash?
You're assuming that because you've never had problems with the particular software you use, that nobody must have problems. I'm a developer and a daily Linux user (I haven't touched a Windows box at home or at work in years) and even I have trouble making things work sometimes.
Did you ever think that the problem might be with you and not with Linux?
You won't get very far convincing somebody to use Linux by telling him he's too stupid to figure it out.
Perhaps your problem is that you've never used the system in a sufficiently demanding way to encounter the very real usability issues.
I could continue on, but I think I've said what I wanted to say... As a hardcore Linux user myself, even I think your attitude is caustic.
Anyway, I've often wondered why the OS insists on redetecting hardware when BIOS does it for me already.
Because many BIOSes are crappy, and mis-initialize the hardware. Haven't you ever seen boot messages like "Broken BIOS screwed up ATA PIO mode, fixing..." or something along those lines?
The BIOS is there so that boot code can print stuff on the screen and find the hard drive to boot the OS. Nothing else. It attempts to initialize hardware but it is not to be trusted.
If the most popular OSes out there are taking care of HW at the high level, why haven't BIOS makers taken advantage of this to reduce their workload?
Because then you wouldn't be able to boot MS-DOS. Seriously. A PC is still expected to run every piece of software out there since the 8086. A machine which can't do that isn't really a "PC." I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but the reality is there are still a lot of people using MS-DOS (why fix what isn't broke?)
Do you have any idea how painful it is for enterprise users to change their database vendor?
It's a matter of value. Yeah, it's a nightmare to switch to another platform/product, but does is that cost smaller or greater than the increased cost of licensing? If smaller, it's logical to switch.
Of course, gauging the cost involves sizing up the risks of switching, which might be difficult or impossible to do accurately.
When oh when are we going to learn, you cannot handle untrusted data (data from unknown hosts on the net) using software written with tools that allow dangerous memory access?
Never, because it isn't true. These tools which do not allow dangerous memory accesses, what language do you think they are written in?
Take a memory-secure language like Python or Java. What are these languages implemented in? Right, C. So clearly it is possible to use C to implement secure systems. The problem is that most people are not skilled enough to do so.
Luckily there are a few people on the planet who can do it, and they use that skill to produce safer tools for the rest of us to use. But a blanket statement like "It's impossible to write secure code in a language like C" just isn't correct.
There are people like you teaching our children? Frightening.
I like how you refer to my expression of opinion as a "troll" and then get modded that way yourself for expressing yours. I believe the term "just desserts" is appropriate.
I don't see how the comparison is not fair. The money being spent, in both the tsunami regions and Iraq, all came from my pocket. I would have preferred that none of that money flow to Iraq. Had it not, it would have been available for this event.
People are arguing that I shouldn't bitch if I haven't donated. Leaving the question of whether I have or not aside, it is certainly my right to bitch. The money is MINE. Don't complain to me about not giving enough, when money is being taken from me against my will and given to a purpose I do not support.
Maybe I could give more if I wasn't taxed so much -- make sense?
Why do you expect the American government to foot the bill to care for these people? A product of living one's life having money handed from my paycheck to your pocket, no doubt.
Seeing as how the federal government takes $1257 from me every month, I'd say it's far more likely that you benefit from my tax dollars, than I benefit from yours.
And I'd much rather prefer a large chunk of that $1257 go somewhere beneficial than where it's going now, which is Iraq. As a taxpayer it's my prerogative to express where I want that money spent. Yeah, the government probably won't listen, but that's the great thing about America, I can bitch about it.
Well, upon further thought... You still need traditional anti-counterfeiting techniques if you want to be able to check the ID without a computer terminal. So, it might still be possible to forge a passable ID, but it would only pass if the person checking it didn't have a verification terminal.
But really, it could easily integrate into pre-existing POS systems.
I've been wondering why the don't do this for IDs, as signature verification (public/private, a la PGP) would make counterfeiting much harder, when combined with traiditional anti-counterfeiting measures.
Not just harder, impossible. You don't even need anti-counterfeiting measures anymore -- hell, you can send the ID to the customer as a PDF file and have him print and laminate it himself!
All that's required to check the ID is to verify that the information printed on the front matches the information digitally encoded and signed which is printed on the back. Also, the digital information must include a photograph, otherwise it would be possible to just swap photos onto an already valid ID. But except for that one caveat, this system is as unbreakable as any system based on PKI.
1. Keep the front of the license the same. Photo, personal info, etc. Nothing weird.
2. On the back, print a 2-D barcode which contains a digital photograph, and a copy of all the information on the front of the card.
3. The 2-D barcode is digitally signed by the State.
Now, ID verification goes like this:
1. Take card from holder, check picture and age.
2. Scan card into a computer. This verifies the digital signature and decodes the image and personal information and displays them onscreen.
3. Make sure the digital image matches the one on the front of the card as well as the person standing in front of you. Also match the digital information with the information on the front of the card.
This would literally make it impossible to forge driver's licenses (unless you managed to gain access to the State's signing key, which would be a disaster).
I don't see any privacy impacts. There's no new information that wasn't there before, the card has simply become unforgable.
As you noted, we are giving $190/person displaced. This, however, is not the entire amount we are giving. We have done other "off budget" donations by diverting resources from military, and other means. If anyone can show me a source with a grand total, I would be interested to hear it.
Whether or not the money is sufficient, the fact remains that we're willing to spend 1000 times as much money per capita on war as on humanitarian activities. No matter how you slice it, there's something wrong there. Iraq is not like World War II which had to've been won at any cost.
My argument about your personal giving is valid. If someone doesn't but their money/actions where their mouth is, then they are generally not worth listening to.
I didn't say it was an invalid argument, merely that it's silly because I could simply lie and tell you I donated $1000 personally and you'd have no way of checking. So what's the point in telling you whether I've donated? You can conveniently claim I'm just making it up.
But rather than spend money to better their citizens the corrupt governments line their own pockets and now come crying to us for donations.
The governments are corrupt, so we should punish the citizens? Nice try.
It also makes me sick that barely a year ago a maylay terrorist blew up almost 300 westerners in a night club.
So it only matters to you if white people get killed?
Now we send them whopping loads of money for a natural disaster that some of the mullahs there claim is punishment for them not killing more of us. And people like you want to send more to them?!?
You're arguing that because there are psychotics in Asia we should let everyone rot?
Yes, it's fucking pathetic. $5 billion divided by 5 million displaced people = $1000 per person. That has to cover food and temporary housing for the time it takes to construct permanent housing, as well as the cost of the permanent housing itself. Then you have distribution costs, losses due to corruption, etc. Then, you need even more money to float the economy for years while things begin to get back to normal. It just isn't enough money.
How much have you PERSONALLY given to the cause?
Stupid question. How do you know if I'm telling the truth?
If you want to cast stones, one should be ready for the return volley.
Your "return volley" is what, again? That Bush's pathetic contribution is acceptable because the my contribution is allegedly equally as pathetic? What are you arguing here, that the U.S. is okay because we all suck equally?
Didn't you see the news YESTERDAY where Bush tripled his funding request to Congress for tsunami aid to $950 million?
In other news, I tripled the amount I give a fuck about your opinion, from 0.001% to 0.003%.
$950 million is a pathetic excuse for a donation. So it's triple what is was before. Your point?
It's hard to find exact numbers, but Bush has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 billion in Iraq already. That's 368 times as much money as this silly little pledge.
The number of people affected by the tsunami is far, far greater than the number of Iraqis we've killed so far. This means that we're spending literally thousands of times as much money to kill a single Iraqi as to help a single starving tsunami victim.
Maybe that makes you feel proud, but it makes me feel sick.
These are geological changes, not Grandma's china getting broken.
Heh.. I was going to make the same comment but you got it first.
When a tree grows out of the ground, it pushes soil aside -- would you then describe the ground as "damaged?" Is the moon damaged because it has craters?
The word "damage" is only meaningful in the context of human activities. As you succinctly stated, this is change, not damage.
Interactive visualization, compositing...hell, even games. These cannot be done without a graphical interface.
This depends on your definition of "interface." Consider gnuplot. It's a command-line driven program but it displays its graphs in an X window. However, it can also save graphs to PNG files or other formats instead of displaying in a window. Is it, or is it not, a "GUI interface?" I'd say not.
That's why I say that the command line has been exhausted. All the useful command-line programs have been written.
A very strange claim to make, considering it can be trivially disproven by counterexample.
Acceleration doesn't kill. You could accelerate at 1 billion G's, and so long as every part of your body was accelerating at the same rate, you would feel nothing.
What kills you is spatial force gradients. Suppose you skydive without a parachute. You smack into the ground. You die, not because you experience a gigantic acceleration but because the acceleration is only applied to the body surfaces which contacted the ground first. That force is then transmitted through your body, and because your body is not infinitely rigid, it deforms.
You got the answer kind of right when you said that "gravitational acceleration acts on all elements of an object equally," but in truth there is nothing special about gravity compared to other forces. It is the fact that the acceleration is constant across an object which is the real key here. In practice, only gravitational forces have this property but it isn't something intrinsic to gravity, per se.
Slashdot Mirror
That's untrue. You are not obligated by law to report a crime you have witnessed. At least not in the country relevant to this discussion.
It would be a screwed up world if it were otherwise, don't you think? Rape victims could be thrown in jail for failing to report being raped. Or, suppose 100 people all witness a crime in public -- must they all report it officially? It would be crazy.
Anyway, I think that 1) The journalist should not be coerced into revealing his source, and 2) Whoever it was is in for a shit-ton of trouble if/when he is discovered.
I hope the person gets busted eventually, but not if it means sacrificing the ability of journalists to keep their sources confidential.
You presume that there is a large amount of code in between those #ifdef's. Anybody with even a hint of skill will make the parts which can be made portable, portable, and the remaining platform-independent code will be trivial and easy to understand.
It sounds like you're suggesting that there is some way to write completely platform-independent code without actually worrying about which platforms you'll be running on. That's only possible in ideal situations and sophomore programming assignments. In reality, machines are different, and this requires platform-specific code.
It might be hard to grasp by someone who's never written anything real, but sometimes you have to step outside the bounds of strict ANSI C to do what the customer needs done.
Since a universal TM by definition requires an infinitely long tape, uh... no, I don't think there are any mechanical implementations. What a dumb question.
$ cp /mnt/samba/xyzzy/programs/windows_app.exe . ./windows_app
$ objcopy -O elf32-i386 windows_app.exe windows_app
$
I doubt you can code at all, or you'd understand the issues that all developers face with regards to longevity of data formats.
You only believe formats are changing because Microsoft changes the formats to drive sales of their latest office suite.
As I said, I haven't touched a Microsoft product in several years. I'm not basing this statement on MS's products.
Only if you were an idiot. Hard drives crash. They are mechanical devices and the bearings/motor/etc will, eventually, wear out. This is because of "friction".
Precisely my point. I'd have to be an idiot to believe that hard drives don't crash because I've never seen it -- and you'd have to be an idiot to believe that software is always perfectly usable because you've never seen an unusable piece of software.
Why do you assume that one of my life goals is convincing him to use Linux?
Because you're trying to convince him to use it? Apparently by calling him an idiot.
Well it's a good thing that my life goals also don't include impressing you. I hope your goals don't include impressing me because you're off to a really bad start.
As if I give a fuck. Now get back to work using the software I've written for you.
It gets outdated. Things are always improving, so data formats are always changing to accomodate the improvements. Software that used to work fine becomes useless. Arguing otherwise is just disingenuous.
apt-get install foo
This presumes that all potentially useful software is available as a package. Absolutely not the case.
Okayyyyyyyy....... I can do a complete distribution upgrade and still not have troubles booting. Did you ever think that the problem might be with you and not with Linux?
Ahh, the "I haven't seen it so it doesn't exist" fallacy.
A few days ago I had my first hard drive crash ever. EVER. In 15 years of using computers, I've never had a drive die on me before I threw it out. So would it have been reasonable for me to assume that hard drives never crash?
You're assuming that because you've never had problems with the particular software you use, that nobody must have problems. I'm a developer and a daily Linux user (I haven't touched a Windows box at home or at work in years) and even I have trouble making things work sometimes.
Did you ever think that the problem might be with you and not with Linux?
You won't get very far convincing somebody to use Linux by telling him he's too stupid to figure it out.
Perhaps your problem is that you've never used the system in a sufficiently demanding way to encounter the very real usability issues.
I could continue on, but I think I've said what I wanted to say... As a hardcore Linux user myself, even I think your attitude is caustic.
Because many BIOSes are crappy, and mis-initialize the hardware. Haven't you ever seen boot messages like "Broken BIOS screwed up ATA PIO mode, fixing..." or something along those lines?
The BIOS is there so that boot code can print stuff on the screen and find the hard drive to boot the OS. Nothing else. It attempts to initialize hardware but it is not to be trusted.
If the most popular OSes out there are taking care of HW at the high level, why haven't BIOS makers taken advantage of this to reduce their workload?
Because then you wouldn't be able to boot MS-DOS. Seriously. A PC is still expected to run every piece of software out there since the 8086. A machine which can't do that isn't really a "PC." I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but the reality is there are still a lot of people using MS-DOS (why fix what isn't broke?)
Progress bars are from hell, I can't believe you suggested that.
It's a matter of value. Yeah, it's a nightmare to switch to another platform/product, but does is that cost smaller or greater than the increased cost of licensing? If smaller, it's logical to switch.
Of course, gauging the cost involves sizing up the risks of switching, which might be difficult or impossible to do accurately.
Never, because it isn't true. These tools which do not allow dangerous memory accesses, what language do you think they are written in?
Take a memory-secure language like Python or Java. What are these languages implemented in? Right, C. So clearly it is possible to use C to implement secure systems. The problem is that most people are not skilled enough to do so.
Luckily there are a few people on the planet who can do it, and they use that skill to produce safer tools for the rest of us to use. But a blanket statement like "It's impossible to write secure code in a language like C" just isn't correct.
I like how you refer to my expression of opinion as a "troll" and then get modded that way yourself for expressing yours. I believe the term "just desserts" is appropriate.
People are arguing that I shouldn't bitch if I haven't donated. Leaving the question of whether I have or not aside, it is certainly my right to bitch. The money is MINE. Don't complain to me about not giving enough, when money is being taken from me against my will and given to a purpose I do not support.
Maybe I could give more if I wasn't taxed so much -- make sense?
Seeing as how the federal government takes $1257 from me every month, I'd say it's far more likely that you benefit from my tax dollars, than I benefit from yours.
And I'd much rather prefer a large chunk of that $1257 go somewhere beneficial than where it's going now, which is Iraq. As a taxpayer it's my prerogative to express where I want that money spent. Yeah, the government probably won't listen, but that's the great thing about America, I can bitch about it.
But how did this become a debate about my salary?
But really, it could easily integrate into pre-existing POS systems.
Not just harder, impossible. You don't even need anti-counterfeiting measures anymore -- hell, you can send the ID to the customer as a PDF file and have him print and laminate it himself!
All that's required to check the ID is to verify that the information printed on the front matches the information digitally encoded and signed which is printed on the back. Also, the digital information must include a photograph, otherwise it would be possible to just swap photos onto an already valid ID. But except for that one caveat, this system is as unbreakable as any system based on PKI.
1. Keep the front of the license the same. Photo, personal info, etc. Nothing weird.
2. On the back, print a 2-D barcode which contains a digital photograph, and a copy of all the information on the front of the card.
3. The 2-D barcode is digitally signed by the State.
Now, ID verification goes like this:
1. Take card from holder, check picture and age.
2. Scan card into a computer. This verifies the digital signature and decodes the image and personal information and displays them onscreen.
3. Make sure the digital image matches the one on the front of the card as well as the person standing in front of you. Also match the digital information with the information on the front of the card.
This would literally make it impossible to forge driver's licenses (unless you managed to gain access to the State's signing key, which would be a disaster).
I don't see any privacy impacts. There's no new information that wasn't there before, the card has simply become unforgable.
Whether or not the money is sufficient, the fact remains that we're willing to spend 1000 times as much money per capita on war as on humanitarian activities. No matter how you slice it, there's something wrong there. Iraq is not like World War II which had to've been won at any cost.
My argument about your personal giving is valid. If someone doesn't but their money/actions where their mouth is, then they are generally not worth listening to.
I didn't say it was an invalid argument, merely that it's silly because I could simply lie and tell you I donated $1000 personally and you'd have no way of checking. So what's the point in telling you whether I've donated? You can conveniently claim I'm just making it up.
The governments are corrupt, so we should punish the citizens? Nice try.
It also makes me sick that barely a year ago a maylay terrorist blew up almost 300 westerners in a night club.
So it only matters to you if white people get killed?
Now we send them whopping loads of money for a natural disaster that some of the mullahs there claim is punishment for them not killing more of us. And people like you want to send more to them?!?
You're arguing that because there are psychotics in Asia we should let everyone rot?
You are one sick fuck.
God, I don't know how that snuck in there. $950 million / 5 million is $190 per person. Not $1000.
Yes, it's fucking pathetic. $5 billion divided by 5 million displaced people = $1000 per person. That has to cover food and temporary housing for the time it takes to construct permanent housing, as well as the cost of the permanent housing itself. Then you have distribution costs, losses due to corruption, etc. Then, you need even more money to float the economy for years while things begin to get back to normal. It just isn't enough money.
How much have you PERSONALLY given to the cause?
Stupid question. How do you know if I'm telling the truth?
If you want to cast stones, one should be ready for the return volley.
Your "return volley" is what, again? That Bush's pathetic contribution is acceptable because the my contribution is allegedly equally as pathetic? What are you arguing here, that the U.S. is okay because we all suck equally?
In other news, I tripled the amount I give a fuck about your opinion, from 0.001% to 0.003%.
$950 million is a pathetic excuse for a donation. So it's triple what is was before. Your point?
It's hard to find exact numbers, but Bush has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 billion in Iraq already. That's 368 times as much money as this silly little pledge.
The number of people affected by the tsunami is far, far greater than the number of Iraqis we've killed so far. This means that we're spending literally thousands of times as much money to kill a single Iraqi as to help a single starving tsunami victim.
Maybe that makes you feel proud, but it makes me feel sick.
Heh.. I was going to make the same comment but you got it first.
When a tree grows out of the ground, it pushes soil aside -- would you then describe the ground as "damaged?" Is the moon damaged because it has craters?
The word "damage" is only meaningful in the context of human activities. As you succinctly stated, this is change, not damage.
Here's a program that uses recursion, threads, and condition variables to print "Hello, world!"
#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
struct thread_info
{
pthread_t id;
pthread_mutex_t lock;
pthread_cond_t cond;
int ch;
struct thread_info *next_thread;
};
void *do_thread(void *arg)
{
struct thread_info *inf = (struct thread_info *)arg;
pthread_cond_wait(&inf->cond, &inf->lock);
printf("%c", inf->ch);
if(inf->next_thread)
{
pthread_mutex_lock(&inf->next_thread->lock);
pthread_cond_broadcast(&inf->next_thread->cond);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&inf->next_thread->lock);
pthread_join(inf->next_thread->id, NULL);
}
return NULL;
}
struct thread_info *build_chain(const char *str)
{
struct thread_info *inf;
if(!*str)
{
return NULL;
}
inf = calloc(1, sizeof(*inf));
pthread_mutex_init(&inf->lock, NULL);
pthread_cond_init(&inf->cond, NULL);
pthread_mutex_lock(&inf->lock);
inf->ch = *str;
pthread_create(&inf->id, NULL, do_thread, inf);
inf->next_thread = build_chain(str + 1);
return inf;
}
int main()
{
const char *str = "Hello, world!\n";
struct thread_info *chain;
chain = build_chain(str);
pthread_cond_broadcast(&chain->cond);
pthread_join(chain->id, NULL);
return 0;
}
This depends on your definition of "interface." Consider gnuplot. It's a command-line driven program but it displays its graphs in an X window. However, it can also save graphs to PNG files or other formats instead of displaying in a window. Is it, or is it not, a "GUI interface?" I'd say not.
That's why I say that the command line has been exhausted. All the useful command-line programs have been written.
A very strange claim to make, considering it can be trivially disproven by counterexample.
Acceleration doesn't kill. You could accelerate at 1 billion G's, and so long as every part of your body was accelerating at the same rate, you would feel nothing.
What kills you is spatial force gradients. Suppose you skydive without a parachute. You smack into the ground. You die, not because you experience a gigantic acceleration but because the acceleration is only applied to the body surfaces which contacted the ground first. That force is then transmitted through your body, and because your body is not infinitely rigid, it deforms.
You got the answer kind of right when you said that "gravitational acceleration acts on all elements of an object equally," but in truth there is nothing special about gravity compared to other forces. It is the fact that the acceleration is constant across an object which is the real key here. In practice, only gravitational forces have this property but it isn't something intrinsic to gravity, per se.