Have you -tried- to get a programming job lately without having.Net experience? Okay, maybe thats not completely true, but in my chosen field of programming (web dev) it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a job that doesn't require.Net experience. I'm sure others in the field can vouch for that as well.
As CTO of a small (~$1 million annual sales) software company, I can assure you that if you start espousing.net, I'll be thinking.not. If.NET is a requirement where you're applying, you're going for the low-end stuff. Improve your skills and aim higher!
How much special stuff do you expect to go on with an office suite? They're obviously making a feeble attempt at it with this ribbonb nonsense and all, and their "open" xml format. But seriously, an office suite is an office suite is an office suite. I'd like to see you innovate on that.
And, that's the point he's making. The only real innovation currently happening in the Office software space is in the licensing behind it. A la Open Office. But MS Office is in serious danger of jumping the shark any day now if they aren't careful. There's only so many customizable menus and handy-dandy whizbang that people can tolerate - I've already had to deal with plenty of people who didn't understand why their toolbar "disappeared" and were so glad I dragged the little line over from the left to reveal their toolbar!
I use MySQL for a lot of projects, however, I'll be the first to point out that it doesn't have -nearly- the features that MS SQL does. MySQL has improved lately, but if you look back at version 4... Compare that to what was available from MS SQL at the time, and you'll see my point.
OK. MySQL SUX0RZ! Try PostgreSQL or Firebird. Either are CHEAPER (MySQL requires a license for commercial use) and far better than MySQL. Now, compare features with MS SQL Server. Any feature difference is, in most cases, insignificant. And, even with MySQL vs MS SQL, what features does the latter sport that YOU need on the former?
Since YOU extol the large number of projects that you've done on MySQL, apparently not that many. And I'm not saying that MySQL is "as good" as MySQL, it sounds like you've done more with it than I have. I'm just saying that it's "good enough" for a vast armada of uses, and it's honestly "worst of breed" compared to many other FREE (as in speech & beer) alternatives that handily outperform it in virtually any arena. (I've used Postgres everywhere I've gone for over 5 years, and never regretted a day of it)
Now, where did that Microsoft innovation go? They have BAZILLIONS at their behest, why can't they seem to come up with something NEW??!?!?
You are right - there are multiple failures here, and they aren't good.
Can you imagine how much worse this would be if the data compromised included the GPS information that the good state of Oregon seems to want to collect from your car usage patterns? Suddenly, this information on the usage and driving patterns of every single car in the state of Oregon would/could be used by black hats - the number of cars stolen might just drop your jaw.
I'd push hard to preserve the gas tax! It not only preserves your privacy, it also encourages people to save gas, and that preserves our sovereignty.
What is the next big thing in computing and technology? Would either HP or IBM or even Intel recognize it if they saw it? I doubt it. There is something about becoming a behemoth that prevents a company from seeing fast moving trends or foresee future ones. Or, if they do see it, they are too slow to respond in a timely manner. It has something to do with bureaucracy and the inevitable proliferation of internal operating rules.
You called that one spot on. See, big companies by definition are slow, lumbering, and generally a bit behind the 8-ball.
So we have startups. Small, nimble companies built with just a few staff and ideas from one or two. The whole company is about a single idea, and making that idea work. Startups are awful cheap to get started nowadays - the Internet has created an environment where it takes a couch, a computer, and cans of beans to kick out a startup. Most startups fail to come up with the right combination of ideas, technology, and delivery it takes to succeed. That's fine - since startups are cheap, it's no big deal.
Big companies, on the other hand, to try out a new idea, invest bazkillions of buxors. There are enough distorted market forces and so much inertia around the big company that it's very hard to weed out the bad ideas before they lose a ton. So big companies' research tends to come up with things like Microsoft's Bob and clippy, at a cost of millions of dollars.
So big companies tend to buy small startups once they prove an idea. Ask yourself - how many technologies has Microsoft bought over the years? What new, innovative technology that they've come up with that wasn't purchased from a startup?
It's the nature of things - like the sun rising in the East.
Dell keeps growing while other companies are missing the mark. Basically, companies like Leveno announce that they will not support linux (only to retract it, for whatever reason; I would bet that Leveno lose more than 10% of their business just over that remark and retraction). And of course, small to medium size computer companies have the opportunities to grow in size by moving into Linux esp on the desktop (an area that Dell forsakes). But they would rather take the fork that everybody else does.
You think that one comment will affect sales by 10%? You're kidding, right?
People don't pay any attention to providers until/unless it's time to buy. A very small percentage of Lenovo's customers even know about the remark. Certainly less than the 10% needed to affect their sales that much. And in two weeks, that comment is off the table, out of social memory, and won't affect their sales at all.
Think about it: Apple's Mac vs. PC ads are very popular, trendy, and effective. How many times have you seen them? It takes repetition to drive the message, ANY message home. How many times did you cover polynomials in school?
Over and over. Eventually, it sorta takes home by osmosis. A single comment means jack.
At the risk of going completely offtopic, what is the advantage of using WebDAV in this case rather than, say, Samba?
Samba's security over the public Internet is teh sux0rz on the public Internet. Ditto for NIS/NFS. But WebDAV on SSL/HTTPS is pretty damned good, using just.htaccess passwords.
It's stupid simple, good security, decent reliability, and works anywhere. What's not to like?
It's just stupid that this isn't thoroughly embedded into the browser, accessable via a webDAV shared directory. I mean, the technology has been around since like 1996 or so!
We use WebDAV as a backup file store/network drive that our sales dept. uses. By running webDAV on Linux, we can build in easy virus scanning a-la stupid , one-liner script run via cron every 5 minutes:
/usr/local/bin/scan `find/path/to/dav -type f -newer/path/to/touchfile`; touch/path/to/touchfile;
Why aren't more people doing this? CentOS comes config'd for WebDAV RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. Just add a certificate...
So now objecting to my job moving overseas is racist? I don't care what race the guy who's doing my job is. I'm opposed to sending the job where I can't follow.
Of course you are. But, you're just stupid if you think that matters.
See, companies exist to make money. There's no more or less to it than that. If you aren't the best, easiest way to make more money, than your job security is on the line. You get a certain amount of grace simply because you're local, you speak the same language, you're in the same time zone, and you're already hired.
But, if you let some foreign programmer best you in a cost/benefits analysis, your job is toast. So become the very best at what you do. Produce lots of value with your time. Make sure that XYZ megacorp is making out by keeping you on board.
And if XYZ megacorp can't see that, join the startup that will derail XYZ megacorp. Then get rich.
See? Now matter how you look at it, becoming one of the very best pays. Well. Consistently. And perhaps fantastically! So invest in yourself. Take courses, read books, challenge yourself to become the very best that you can be at... something.
I just moved to a new house. This time, I decided to do things right, and had a DSL splitter installed at the point where the phone line enters the house. [My splitter looks just like the one in the picture.] The previous owner had had unacceptably low DSL speed, but with the splitter installed, I'm within about 8% of the theoretical maximum on the 3 Mb/s plan.
This is an interesting point.
At my home, I ordered DSL the first month of availability, in 1998. I got a fixed IP DSL, 1 address, and had to have a splitter installed for a few hundred quid. But the speeds I get out of my home DSL line are consistent not only above the minimums, it's pretty much at the maximum amount capped - It's a 384/128 plan, I get 1500/360 and it's very, very reliable.
Never before occured to me that the splitter might having anything to do with it, but it would make sense if it did!
I wonder if you've graduated High School. Seriously only an idiot uses phrases heavily laden with sarcasm and then adds NOT.
So, what you're saying, is that using terribly immature language doesn't hurt grandparent's post, but one small "NOT" makes me look bad? Sorry, your point is incoherent.
Pick one:
A) Using immature, foul language makes you look bad.
B) Using immature, foul language is irrelevant to one's image.
Java is probably the best example of great technology held back by completely incompetent marketing.
Java is probably the best example of great technology that's killing the company that produced it. Java may well be the very thing that is killing Sun microsystems.
Java makes the hardware platform largely irrelevant, except in terms of raw performance and reliability. Sun Microsystems is a hardware company. Thus, the more popular Java is, the less relevant Sun Microsystems is. If you are using Java, why would you pay extra to go with Sun?
If this just doesn't make sense to you, there's a nice article that should illuminate the subject for ye...
I have no problems whatsoever accepting responsibility for my errors. But there is no f..king way in HELL that I am going to send a client a programme and have them call me once a week bitching about how it keeps crashing becase it's MY fault, when it's because the damned thing is running on an unreliable piece of shit.
I'm certain that your vocabulary impresses your many, important clients who pay you large sums of money for your invaluable services....
NOT.
See, the story has to match itself. And, your creative use of these numerous expletives indicate an inability to properly emphasize what you really mean to say. Combined with the use of the word "client", and I have to say, I don't buy it.
I wonder if you've graduated High School. I think it's very, very dubious that you've earned any significant amounts of money from "clients" who don't have a name like "Auntie Josephine". I would almost certainly put your years of experience as a very small number, say, ummm... one? two?
Windows isn't always the right thing. But all too frequently, despite our best hopes, it's better for the situation than anything else. And, if you've written your software correctly, it really shouldn't make much difference what O/S you use. Even sophisticated graphical apps like Quake, America's Army, and Grand Theft Auto are cross-platform.
Recently, I was asked to port over one of my software applications over to Mac OSX. (Developed on Linux/Windows 2000) Once the appropriate language libraries were installed, the program quite literally ran on the 3rd attempt, beta to be announced in the next month or so.
It can be done. You desperately need some experience to draw from.
And, if I'm wrong about you, please don't blame me. Casual use of profanity makes you look like either (A) frustrated, power-hungry teen (B) Low-life scumbag who can't seem to lay off the powder.
You may be very intelligent. But I have no way of finding this out except by your words, and if your words convey the above, I have no choice but to decide that you sir, are an id10t.
You indicate that you were public schooled, hated it, and that the things you learned, you did by a form of rebellious unschooling. And then, you indicate that those parts of your education that were successful, actually weren't successful because it took you some time to discover that Shakespeare was actually toilet humor?
So, the fact that you followed your interests, and you learned best by doing so, means that parents who let their kids follow their interests are abusive?
Seems to me that you're feeling a bit conflicted, and perhaps need more time to sort things out before you speak out more.
You mention being smart, so I implore you to imagine what your life would be like if your education had kept your interest all along. What if your education consisted of a bunch of self-selected projects that immersed you in increasingly large pieces of the real world? Projects of your choosing, so that you could see what it was really like to live in the real world, and so that you knew firsthand why polynomials were important? How poor spelling can undermine your chances at a satisfying career? What political parties are, and why you should vote?
What if, instead of WASTING AN ENTIRE DECADE of your life just "passing the time", bored stiff in class, you did something that engaged you, challenged you, and interested you, and forced you to expand who and what you are to achieve it?
I mention the ubiquity of the education system being something like the Matrix - that it's hard to see what really happens in the world around you because you've been so carefully trained during your formative years to see things as standards, assessments tests, and gradelevels from your very youth. Seems to me that you are just starting to see what it's all about. I welcome you to continue on your journey!
I'm not dogmatic about unschooling - but I think we can certainly both agree that the public school system is broken. Being a libertarian, I'm for educational choice. I think that education should have facets of a competitive marketplace. The ideas that work will rise to the top very quickly, and education for all will improve.
BTW: you mention the "breadth" of education, that unschoolers don't have breadth. I argue exactly the opposite. The shallow, isolated, "ivory tower" environment of the school classroom manages to take subjects of intense fascination and passion, reducing them to a sterile, repetitive, un-interesting, and insightless monotony that students struggle to bear.
How is that a "broad" education?
But information learned in passion, while following dreams and achieving something that makes you stretch yourself, will stick for the rest of your life, and you won't ever forget it. It has meaning, relevance, and appropriate importance.
I have mixed feelings on your reply.// WARNING - LONG POST AHEAD//
See, I have 5 children, and we've unschooled all of them.
My two oldest twins are 17, have been going to college since 14, (we only let them take a few units at first, they're now full time and are currently at the AA level) working hard towards degrees in the field of microbiology and genetic engineering.
My 14 Y.O. daughter easily competes with her peers and is working towards entrance into the COSMOS program at the CA state UCs. She's already placed in the nationals competition in the Sally Ride Science Foundation's Toy Challenge, in San Diego.
And, my two youngest, 9 & 10, are following the exact pattern the older kids have followed.
What's remarkable in all of this, is that we've really unschooled them. This is not a case of over-involved parents. My wife is a "facilitator", we have two big meetings every year (late spring, late summer) to go over their educational plans and goals, and talk about the benefits/consequences of their choices. Most days, we (as parents) don't do all that much, other than to provide material and guidance to our children, while they explore the world around them.
What few people understand about the public educational system is how little retention there is in public schools. Subjects are taught with the implicit understanding that 90% of the presented material will not be retained a single year later. So, the same ideas get taught, over and over. Algebraic concepts are taught as early as 4th grade, repeated over and over all the way through high school. With all this repetition, the point of the math becomes lost, and real comprehension becomes pointless. Students become these automotons, lost in focus, and really unable to think for themselves. Teachers become numb, lose their altruism, and become taskmasters in a destructive, dwindling spiral.
It's simply amazing to me how much time and money gets wasted in this incredibly inefficient method that's not much different than the educational system of the Monks in the 1500's.
It's like being locked in the matrix. You can't really know what it is, or how bad it truly is, until you are actually, really, and fully, outside of it! And you really don't know - you think that there's a box all around you, and you have no idea it's even there, because it's an integral part of your thinking. To borrow a phrase, it's the world that's been pulled over your eyes, to blind you to the truth.
But real learning happens in spurts, particularly at the elementary education level. When somebody is ready to learn about something new, and they've got the resolve and focus to learn something, they pick it up rather quickly!
Perhaps the single most common adjective used to describe my children by strangers is "curious". They really want to know what's going on, and how the world around them works. They do math because they see the point. We generally teach a concept justs once to our children, when they're ready to get it, and they do get it, the first time. It's just miraculous, and pure joy to watch! 75% or better comprehension for ideas taught in a single afternoon, simply because they are ready, engaged, and focused when the idea is taught.
I've seen 2-3 years of conceptual instruction in a subject taught with great retention covered in a few weeks or months because the child was ready to learn. I've seen my children go from a 3-4th grade reading level to late H.S. - collegiate level in 4-6 months, when they've indicated that they're ready to do so.
And, I'm not exaggerating, in the slightest.
So, with all this success, and quite confident that my educational strategy is quite successful for my children, why would I feel conflicted? Because of the one example you raise - the inner city.
I believe that unschooling works, and works well, in a family culture of learning. My children see me and my wife learning CONSTANTLY. Our DVR is FILLED with history chan
Technologies that were formerly infeasible or unreliable frequently take on new life as the sweeping wave of information technology washes by.
Thus, an ancient, esoteric, expensive, and minimally useful technology (rotational spectroscopy) is suddenly viable as a new, privacy-piercing technology.
Link goes to the most insightful and useful article I've ever seen that illucidates the problem nicely, while providing a solution we can sink our teeth into. If you haven't read it yet, I strongly urge you to do so.
Where the United States goes, I can only guess. But I'm quite sure that the next free society will apply the lessons in the link above.
Given the relatively simple functionality being designed, coding an (even non-AJAX) webapp is a pain in the ass involving a mostly stateless system running 4 or 5 languages.
Right. So let's pile on another language to solve this problem. It would be really cool, hip, and exciting, and will be the grand mother of all abstractions, solving all our problems by providing a consistent, smooth interface into all sorts of technologies, ensuring that:
1) Debugging a language change from version x.4.1 to x.4.2 is damned near impossible,
2) Doing any kind of performance tuning is laughable,
3) Forces you to write things in such an abstract way that you can't take full advantages of the tools you do have available,
4) Sounds "enterprisey".
As a language, it will take other languages (like flash, dhtml, xml, sql, asm) and compile them. It will be glorious! (as soon as all the bugs are worked out)
I say we should give this new meta-meta-meta language the name "Laszlo"!
I haven't used my ISP's DNS for years now. When I'm in a bind and need DNS, I just start named on my local system, and change/etc/resolv.conf so that my nameserver is 127.0.0.1.
Fedora has come with Bind preconfigured for caching DNS for a long time - just `yum install bind` and then start it.
Voila!
Why would I bother with the ISP? I don't even know what the IPs are.
Never tested to milliseconds. Tested to a few seconds. Probably useless feedback. But...
I've been using Tardis95 for many years. (Since Win95, about '97 or so)
Link goes to a somewhat later copy that place pretty nicely with Windows NT kernel. I don't know of a later release that was licensed such that you could freely copy/share it.
Just unzip and run the little installer - it pops up down on the system tray at the bottom left. If you have a favorite NTP server, you can specify it, otherwise you can pick from a predefined list. It works almost as simply and cleanly for me as ntp on *nix does.
(Oh, and go easy on that link - it's a DSL circuit)
It is definitely true that "security by obscurity" works, and anybody who knows anything realizes that.
What craps me out is how typically those who wail about "security by obscurity" don't understand that the issue is that security by obscurity isn't supposed to be your primary form of security. Sure, use obscurity to reduce your vulnerability footprint. But don't use it as your *only* security! Layer it with something else.
Move your ports, but require a strong password, or use RSA keys. (my favorite) If you're paranoid, use RSA keys along with a strongly defined password, on a funny port, with a firewall that blocks any connections from all but a few trusted IP addresses. Get even more paranoid: trap inbound connection attempts on port 22, and set up a script to automatically block the IP of anybody trying to connect on that port for 24 hours. Since you don't use 22, there's nothing lost by doing this!
But too commonly, those who wail the loudest about "security by obscurity" act as though using *any* form of obscurity is somehow bad, like you'll come down with a disease if you do - and they are the clueless dolts you definitely don't want to have managing your company network!
Didja take a look at that website about the solarplane? All kinds of mumbo about "pushing the envelope", and by the language, it's pretty clear that anything resembling construction is a *long* way off.
But, any dolt could take a nice, efficient catamaran, replace the sales with a solar rigging and a trolling motor, load the boat down with some MREs, and start sailing.
Not saying it'd be pleasant, but I'd rather sit on a Hobicat than try to get through the night in an ultralight plane knowing that battery life would just *barely* make it through the night, with almost no margin for error. (and yes, I'm a pilot)
The kind of aspect ratio they're talking about would be mighty difficult to fly, since it would be very prone to flutter, and the difference between the cruising speed and the stall speed would be almost negligable!
Not to mention having to be both very lightweight and also very strong...
Scary!
Better to fuel up a general aviation craft on butanol call it "green" and be done with it! Really, when you read up on it, butanol is some seriously cool stuff.
1) It mixes freely with gasoline
2) It burns like gasoline, in cars unmodified,
3) It can be made from corn, wheat, cheese whey, just about any agricultural product or byproduct.
4) It handles moisture much better than ethanol.
5) It's possible to extract more energy (in BTU) as butanol from corn then as ethanol.
Seriously, the fuel of the future for the United States is here, and it's butanol. (Bio-Diesel is probably more appropriate for Europe, where they have many more diesel cars than the US which is almost all gasoline-powered)
You have a FAR better chance of being struck by lightning than being killed by a "terrorist". In fact, there are hundreds of forseeable and preventable (at some level) ways you can die in this country that do not involve a terrorist act.
Are you sure? I figured I'd do some investigation.
According to this web page the actual strike rate for lightening, annually, is 1 in 600,000. With a U.S. population of 300 million, that comes to 500 strikes per year.
4,000 people died in September, 2001. As a threat, assuming no further terrorist strikes, the odds will invert sometime in 2009.
So, if you assume one 9/11 sized strike every 8 years, you are as likely to be struck by lightening as by terrorism.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you -tried- to get a programming job lately without having .Net experience? Okay, maybe thats not completely true, but in my chosen field of programming (web dev) it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a job that doesn't require .Net experience. I'm sure others in the field can vouch for that as well.
.net, I'll be thinking .not. If .NET is a requirement where you're applying, you're going for the low-end stuff. Improve your skills and aim higher!
As CTO of a small (~$1 million annual sales) software company, I can assure you that if you start espousing
How much special stuff do you expect to go on with an office suite? They're obviously making a feeble attempt at it with this ribbonb nonsense and all, and their "open" xml format. But seriously, an office suite is an office suite is an office suite. I'd like to see you innovate on that.
And, that's the point he's making. The only real innovation currently happening in the Office software space is in the licensing behind it. A la Open Office. But MS Office is in serious danger of jumping the shark any day now if they aren't careful. There's only so many customizable menus and handy-dandy whizbang that people can tolerate - I've already had to deal with plenty of people who didn't understand why their toolbar "disappeared" and were so glad I dragged the little line over from the left to reveal their toolbar!
I use MySQL for a lot of projects, however, I'll be the first to point out that it doesn't have -nearly- the features that MS SQL does. MySQL has improved lately, but if you look back at version 4... Compare that to what was available from MS SQL at the time, and you'll see my point.
OK. MySQL SUX0RZ! Try PostgreSQL or Firebird. Either are CHEAPER (MySQL requires a license for commercial use) and far better than MySQL. Now, compare features with MS SQL Server. Any feature difference is, in most cases, insignificant. And, even with MySQL vs MS SQL, what features does the latter sport that YOU need on the former?
Since YOU extol the large number of projects that you've done on MySQL, apparently not that many. And I'm not saying that MySQL is "as good" as MySQL, it sounds like you've done more with it than I have. I'm just saying that it's "good enough" for a vast armada of uses, and it's honestly "worst of breed" compared to many other FREE (as in speech & beer) alternatives that handily outperform it in virtually any arena. (I've used Postgres everywhere I've gone for over 5 years, and never regretted a day of it)
Now, where did that Microsoft innovation go? They have BAZILLIONS at their behest, why can't they seem to come up with something NEW??!?!?
You are right - there are multiple failures here, and they aren't good.
Can you imagine how much worse this would be if the data compromised included the GPS information that the good state of Oregon seems to want to collect from your car usage patterns? Suddenly, this information on the usage and driving patterns of every single car in the state of Oregon would/could be used by black hats - the number of cars stolen might just drop your jaw.
I'd push hard to preserve the gas tax! It not only preserves your privacy, it also encourages people to save gas, and that preserves our sovereignty.
What is the next big thing in computing and technology? Would either HP or IBM or even Intel recognize it if they saw it? I doubt it. There is something about becoming a behemoth that prevents a company from seeing fast moving trends or foresee future ones. Or, if they do see it, they are too slow to respond in a timely manner. It has something to do with bureaucracy and the inevitable proliferation of internal operating rules.
You called that one spot on. See, big companies by definition are slow, lumbering, and generally a bit behind the 8-ball.
So we have startups. Small, nimble companies built with just a few staff and ideas from one or two. The whole company is about a single idea, and making that idea work. Startups are awful cheap to get started nowadays - the Internet has created an environment where it takes a couch, a computer, and cans of beans to kick out a startup. Most startups fail to come up with the right combination of ideas, technology, and delivery it takes to succeed. That's fine - since startups are cheap, it's no big deal.
Big companies, on the other hand, to try out a new idea, invest bazkillions of buxors. There are enough distorted market forces and so much inertia around the big company that it's very hard to weed out the bad ideas before they lose a ton. So big companies' research tends to come up with things like Microsoft's Bob and clippy, at a cost of millions of dollars.
So big companies tend to buy small startups once they prove an idea. Ask yourself - how many technologies has Microsoft bought over the years? What new, innovative technology that they've come up with that wasn't purchased from a startup?
It's the nature of things - like the sun rising in the East.
Dell keeps growing while other companies are missing the mark. Basically, companies like Leveno announce that they will not support linux (only to retract it, for whatever reason; I would bet that Leveno lose more than 10% of their business just over that remark and retraction). And of course, small to medium size computer companies have the opportunities to grow in size by moving into Linux esp on the desktop (an area that Dell forsakes). But they would rather take the fork that everybody else does.
You think that one comment will affect sales by 10%? You're kidding, right?
People don't pay any attention to providers until/unless it's time to buy. A very small percentage of Lenovo's customers even know about the remark. Certainly less than the 10% needed to affect their sales that much. And in two weeks, that comment is off the table, out of social memory, and won't affect their sales at all.
Think about it: Apple's Mac vs. PC ads are very popular, trendy, and effective. How many times have you seen them? It takes repetition to drive the message, ANY message home. How many times did you cover polynomials in school?
Over and over. Eventually, it sorta takes home by osmosis. A single comment means jack.
At the risk of going completely offtopic, what is the advantage of using WebDAV in this case rather than, say, Samba?
.htaccess passwords.
Samba's security over the public Internet is teh sux0rz on the public Internet. Ditto for NIS/NFS. But WebDAV on SSL/HTTPS is pretty damned good, using just
It's stupid simple, good security, decent reliability, and works anywhere. What's not to like?
Then, from any computer:
wget -O ~/.firefox/default//bookmarks.html http://mywebhost/bookmarks.html
It's just stupid that this isn't thoroughly embedded into the browser, accessable via a webDAV shared directory. I mean, the technology has been around since like 1996 or so!
We use WebDAV as a backup file store/network drive that our sales dept. uses. By running webDAV on Linux, we can build in easy virus scanning a-la stupid , one-liner script run via cron every 5 minutes:
Why aren't more people doing this? CentOS comes config'd for WebDAV RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. Just add a certificate...
So now objecting to my job moving overseas is racist? I don't care what race the guy who's doing my job is. I'm opposed to sending the job where I can't follow.
Of course you are. But, you're just stupid if you think that matters.
See, companies exist to make money. There's no more or less to it than that. If you aren't the best, easiest way to make more money, than your job security is on the line. You get a certain amount of grace simply because you're local, you speak the same language, you're in the same time zone, and you're already hired.
But, if you let some foreign programmer best you in a cost/benefits analysis, your job is toast. So become the very best at what you do. Produce lots of value with your time. Make sure that XYZ megacorp is making out by keeping you on board.
And if XYZ megacorp can't see that, join the startup that will derail XYZ megacorp. Then get rich.
See? Now matter how you look at it, becoming one of the very best pays. Well. Consistently. And perhaps fantastically! So invest in yourself. Take courses, read books, challenge yourself to become the very best that you can be at... something.
I just moved to a new house. This time, I decided to do things right, and had a DSL splitter installed at the point where the phone line enters the house. [My splitter looks just like the one in the picture.] The previous owner had had unacceptably low DSL speed, but with the splitter installed, I'm within about 8% of the theoretical maximum on the 3 Mb/s plan.
This is an interesting point.
At my home, I ordered DSL the first month of availability, in 1998. I got a fixed IP DSL, 1 address, and had to have a splitter installed for a few hundred quid. But the speeds I get out of my home DSL line are consistent not only above the minimums, it's pretty much at the maximum amount capped - It's a 384/128 plan, I get 1500/360 and it's very, very reliable.
Never before occured to me that the splitter might having anything to do with it, but it would make sense if it did!
I wonder if you've graduated High School. Seriously only an idiot uses phrases heavily laden with sarcasm and then adds NOT.
So, what you're saying, is that using terribly immature language doesn't hurt grandparent's post, but one small "NOT" makes me look bad? Sorry, your point is incoherent.
Pick one:
A) Using immature, foul language makes you look bad.
B) Using immature, foul language is irrelevant to one's image.
I argue (A) and your post reinforces my point.
Java is probably the best example of great technology held back by completely incompetent marketing.
Java is probably the best example of great technology that's killing the company that produced it. Java may well be the very thing that is killing Sun microsystems.
Java makes the hardware platform largely irrelevant, except in terms of raw performance and reliability. Sun Microsystems is a hardware company. Thus, the more popular Java is, the less relevant Sun Microsystems is. If you are using Java, why would you pay extra to go with Sun?
If this just doesn't make sense to you, there's a nice article that should illuminate the subject for ye...
I have no problems whatsoever accepting responsibility for my errors. But there is no f..king way in HELL that I am going to send a client a programme and have them call me once a week bitching about how it keeps crashing becase it's MY fault, when it's because the damned thing is running on an unreliable piece of shit.
I'm certain that your vocabulary impresses your many, important clients who pay you large sums of money for your invaluable services....
NOT.
See, the story has to match itself. And, your creative use of these numerous expletives indicate an inability to properly emphasize what you really mean to say. Combined with the use of the word "client", and I have to say, I don't buy it.
I wonder if you've graduated High School. I think it's very, very dubious that you've earned any significant amounts of money from "clients" who don't have a name like "Auntie Josephine". I would almost certainly put your years of experience as a very small number, say, ummm... one? two?
Windows isn't always the right thing. But all too frequently, despite our best hopes, it's better for the situation than anything else. And, if you've written your software correctly, it really shouldn't make much difference what O/S you use. Even sophisticated graphical apps like Quake, America's Army, and Grand Theft Auto are cross-platform.
Recently, I was asked to port over one of my software applications over to Mac OSX. (Developed on Linux/Windows 2000) Once the appropriate language libraries were installed, the program quite literally ran on the 3rd attempt, beta to be announced in the next month or so.
It can be done. You desperately need some experience to draw from.
And, if I'm wrong about you, please don't blame me. Casual use of profanity makes you look like either (A) frustrated, power-hungry teen (B) Low-life scumbag who can't seem to lay off the powder.
You may be very intelligent. But I have no way of finding this out except by your words, and if your words convey the above, I have no choice but to decide that you sir, are an id10t.
I don't get it.
You indicate that you were public schooled, hated it, and that the things you learned, you did by a form of rebellious unschooling. And then, you indicate that those parts of your education that were successful, actually weren't successful because it took you some time to discover that Shakespeare was actually toilet humor?
So, the fact that you followed your interests, and you learned best by doing so, means that parents who let their kids follow their interests are abusive?
Seems to me that you're feeling a bit conflicted, and perhaps need more time to sort things out before you speak out more.
You mention being smart, so I implore you to imagine what your life would be like if your education had kept your interest all along. What if your education consisted of a bunch of self-selected projects that immersed you in increasingly large pieces of the real world? Projects of your choosing, so that you could see what it was really like to live in the real world, and so that you knew firsthand why polynomials were important? How poor spelling can undermine your chances at a satisfying career? What political parties are, and why you should vote?
What if, instead of WASTING AN ENTIRE DECADE of your life just "passing the time", bored stiff in class, you did something that engaged you, challenged you, and interested you, and forced you to expand who and what you are to achieve it?
I mention the ubiquity of the education system being something like the Matrix - that it's hard to see what really happens in the world around you because you've been so carefully trained during your formative years to see things as standards, assessments tests, and gradelevels from your very youth. Seems to me that you are just starting to see what it's all about. I welcome you to continue on your journey!
I'm not dogmatic about unschooling - but I think we can certainly both agree that the public school system is broken. Being a libertarian, I'm for educational choice. I think that education should have facets of a competitive marketplace. The ideas that work will rise to the top very quickly, and education for all will improve.
BTW: you mention the "breadth" of education, that unschoolers don't have breadth. I argue exactly the opposite. The shallow, isolated, "ivory tower" environment of the school classroom manages to take subjects of intense fascination and passion, reducing them to a sterile, repetitive, un-interesting, and insightless monotony that students struggle to bear.
How is that a "broad" education?
But information learned in passion, while following dreams and achieving something that makes you stretch yourself, will stick for the rest of your life, and you won't ever forget it. It has meaning, relevance, and appropriate importance.
I have mixed feelings on your reply. // WARNING - LONG POST AHEAD //
See, I have 5 children, and we've unschooled all of them.
My two oldest twins are 17, have been going to college since 14, (we only let them take a few units at first, they're now full time and are currently at the AA level) working hard towards degrees in the field of microbiology and genetic engineering.
My 14 Y.O. daughter easily competes with her peers and is working towards entrance into the COSMOS program at the CA state UCs. She's already placed in the nationals competition in the Sally Ride Science Foundation's Toy Challenge, in San Diego.
And, my two youngest, 9 & 10, are following the exact pattern the older kids have followed.
What's remarkable in all of this, is that we've really unschooled them. This is not a case of over-involved parents. My wife is a "facilitator", we have two big meetings every year (late spring, late summer) to go over their educational plans and goals, and talk about the benefits/consequences of their choices. Most days, we (as parents) don't do all that much, other than to provide material and guidance to our children, while they explore the world around them.
What few people understand about the public educational system is how little retention there is in public schools. Subjects are taught with the implicit understanding that 90% of the presented material will not be retained a single year later. So, the same ideas get taught, over and over. Algebraic concepts are taught as early as 4th grade, repeated over and over all the way through high school. With all this repetition, the point of the math becomes lost, and real comprehension becomes pointless. Students become these automotons, lost in focus, and really unable to think for themselves. Teachers become numb, lose their altruism, and become taskmasters in a destructive, dwindling spiral.
It's simply amazing to me how much time and money gets wasted in this incredibly inefficient method that's not much different than the educational system of the Monks in the 1500's.
It's like being locked in the matrix. You can't really know what it is, or how bad it truly is, until you are actually, really, and fully, outside of it! And you really don't know - you think that there's a box all around you, and you have no idea it's even there, because it's an integral part of your thinking. To borrow a phrase, it's the world that's been pulled over your eyes, to blind you to the truth.
But real learning happens in spurts, particularly at the elementary education level. When somebody is ready to learn about something new, and they've got the resolve and focus to learn something, they pick it up rather quickly!
Perhaps the single most common adjective used to describe my children by strangers is "curious". They really want to know what's going on, and how the world around them works. They do math because they see the point. We generally teach a concept justs once to our children, when they're ready to get it, and they do get it, the first time. It's just miraculous, and pure joy to watch! 75% or better comprehension for ideas taught in a single afternoon, simply because they are ready, engaged, and focused when the idea is taught.
I've seen 2-3 years of conceptual instruction in a subject taught with great retention covered in a few weeks or months because the child was ready to learn. I've seen my children go from a 3-4th grade reading level to late H.S. - collegiate level in 4-6 months, when they've indicated that they're ready to do so.
And, I'm not exaggerating, in the slightest.
So, with all this success, and quite confident that my educational strategy is quite successful for my children, why would I feel conflicted? Because of the one example you raise - the inner city.
I believe that unschooling works, and works well, in a family culture of learning. My children see me and my wife learning CONSTANTLY. Our DVR is FILLED with history chan
Parents who Unschool should be charged with child abuse.
If you don't mind me asking, why?
Not only can it render HTML, CSS, XML, SVG, W3C, MCP, MJB, DVD, BVD, and other TLAs, but it can climb walls, too!
Not only that, but it could save you 15% or more on your auto insurance!
Technologies that were formerly infeasible or unreliable frequently take on new life as the sweeping wave of information technology washes by.
Thus, an ancient, esoteric, expensive, and minimally useful technology (rotational spectroscopy) is suddenly viable as a new, privacy-piercing technology.
Which brings me to my point: Are we going to sit back and watch our freedoms erode due to the lack of the basic privacy we've taken for granted for so long, or are we going to restructure our society so that we can preserve our freedoms despite the fact that privacy is dying its last breaths?
Link goes to the most insightful and useful article I've ever seen that illucidates the problem nicely, while providing a solution we can sink our teeth into. If you haven't read it yet, I strongly urge you to do so.
Where the United States goes, I can only guess. But I'm quite sure that the next free society will apply the lessons in the link above.
Given the relatively simple functionality being designed, coding an (even non-AJAX) webapp is a pain in the ass involving a mostly stateless system running 4 or 5 languages.
Right. So let's pile on another language to solve this problem. It would be really cool, hip, and exciting, and will be the grand mother of all abstractions, solving all our problems by providing a consistent, smooth interface into all sorts of technologies, ensuring that:
1) Debugging a language change from version x.4.1 to x.4.2 is damned near impossible,
2) Doing any kind of performance tuning is laughable,
3) Forces you to write things in such an abstract way that you can't take full advantages of the tools you do have available,
4) Sounds "enterprisey".
As a language, it will take other languages (like flash, dhtml, xml, sql, asm) and compile them. It will be glorious! (as soon as all the bugs are worked out)
I say we should give this new meta-meta-meta language the name "Laszlo"!
I haven't used my ISP's DNS for years now. When I'm in a bind and need DNS, I just start named on my local system, and change /etc/resolv.conf so that my nameserver is 127.0.0.1.
Fedora has come with Bind preconfigured for caching DNS for a long time - just `yum install bind` and then start it.
Voila!
Why would I bother with the ISP? I don't even know what the IPs are.
Never tested to milliseconds. Tested to a few seconds. Probably useless feedback. But...
I've been using Tardis95 for many years. (Since Win95, about '97 or so)
Link goes to a somewhat later copy that place pretty nicely with Windows NT kernel. I don't know of a later release that was licensed such that you could freely copy/share it.
Just unzip and run the little installer - it pops up down on the system tray at the bottom left. If you have a favorite NTP server, you can specify it, otherwise you can pick from a predefined list. It works almost as simply and cleanly for me as ntp on *nix does.
(Oh, and go easy on that link - it's a DSL circuit)
So is hydrogen. Your point...?
It is definitely true that "security by obscurity" works, and anybody who knows anything realizes that.
What craps me out is how typically those who wail about "security by obscurity" don't understand that the issue is that security by obscurity isn't supposed to be your primary form of security. Sure, use obscurity to reduce your vulnerability footprint. But don't use it as your *only* security! Layer it with something else.
Move your ports, but require a strong password, or use RSA keys. (my favorite) If you're paranoid, use RSA keys along with a strongly defined password, on a funny port, with a firewall that blocks any connections from all but a few trusted IP addresses. Get even more paranoid: trap inbound connection attempts on port 22, and set up a script to automatically block the IP of anybody trying to connect on that port for 24 hours. Since you don't use 22, there's nothing lost by doing this!
But too commonly, those who wail the loudest about "security by obscurity" act as though using *any* form of obscurity is somehow bad, like you'll come down with a disease if you do - and they are the clueless dolts you definitely don't want to have managing your company network!
Didja take a look at that website about the solarplane? All kinds of mumbo about "pushing the envelope", and by the language, it's pretty clear that anything resembling construction is a *long* way off.
But, any dolt could take a nice, efficient catamaran, replace the sales with a solar rigging and a trolling motor, load the boat down with some MREs, and start sailing.
Not saying it'd be pleasant, but I'd rather sit on a Hobicat than try to get through the night in an ultralight plane knowing that battery life would just *barely* make it through the night, with almost no margin for error. (and yes, I'm a pilot)
The kind of aspect ratio they're talking about would be mighty difficult to fly, since it would be very prone to flutter, and the difference between the cruising speed and the stall speed would be almost negligable!
Not to mention having to be both very lightweight and also very strong...
Scary!
Better to fuel up a general aviation craft on butanol call it "green" and be done with it! Really, when you read up on it, butanol is some seriously cool stuff.
1) It mixes freely with gasoline
2) It burns like gasoline, in cars unmodified,
3) It can be made from corn, wheat, cheese whey, just about any agricultural product or byproduct.
4) It handles moisture much better than ethanol.
5) It's possible to extract more energy (in BTU) as butanol from corn then as ethanol.
Seriously, the fuel of the future for the United States is here, and it's butanol. (Bio-Diesel is probably more appropriate for Europe, where they have many more diesel cars than the US which is almost all gasoline-powered)
Just as green, and much easier on the pilot!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Based on your posts, I sure hope that either 1) that's a lie, or 2) I never, ever have to ride on or near one of your rockets!
You have a FAR better chance of being struck by lightning than being killed by a "terrorist". In fact, there are hundreds of forseeable and preventable (at some level) ways you can die in this country that do not involve a terrorist act.
Are you sure? I figured I'd do some investigation.
According to this web page the actual strike rate for lightening, annually, is 1 in 600,000. With a U.S. population of 300 million, that comes to 500 strikes per year.
4,000 people died in September, 2001. As a threat, assuming no further terrorist strikes, the odds will invert sometime in 2009.
So, if you assume one 9/11 sized strike every 8 years, you are as likely to be struck by lightening as by terrorism.
In fact if you looked at a comp lab with open computers chance are at least one IC has some form of ESD damage.
Ummmm.... isn't that why they'd be open in the first place?