The sad thing is, the obvious answer the car industry is going to come up with is to encrypt the canbus and use DRM to control access to the bus. This will provide a (false) sense of security, while locking out those pesky people that want to mod their vehicles and add all those cheaper after market parts like remote starts. And in the end this is bad thing for all of us.
Sketchup Pro is not a Google product, so begging Google to release it for free is not likely to go anywhere. Now why Trimble bought Sketchup from Google in the first place I'll never know. Setting up Google Earth Pro to be free *before* Google sells it off is probably a good move for users. Too bad they didn't do that with Sketchup before they sold it.
Didn't Grooveshark lose a massive copyright infringement case recently? I notice they are still online had have a lot of music there, some of which I know is ripped because one album they have has never been released on any digital music service that I know of (and they still have Taylor Swift...). Why are they still around? I'm glad they are but I can't see how they can justify their existence.
Just to be clear, and responding to the NMEA comment, when it comes to mapping and field prescriptions, all the major systems will accept GPS from just about any receiver via a serial connection (NMEA or some other). It's the guidance part of the computer that is locked to vendor-specific receivers. There's no reason at all for this vendor lock except to guarantee you will be paying a subscription for correction signals from the vendor. In my mind this area is ripe for disruption. The sooner we can get cheap RTK GPS positioning the better. And even if it means replacing the hydraulic steering valve, if there's an open. hackable GPS guidance system out there, I and many farmers will move to it.
Interoperability is increasing, but it's not being done in an open way in my opinion. Rather it's being done with cross-licensing of protocols, file formats, etc. Each major machinery company wants to get people into their ecosystem, their cloud. And for GPS each company wants to lock me into a subscription to their service, which I can't easily switch without changing out all the hardware. If you think proprietary software subscriptions are bad (office 365, etc), it's worse here!
There are some standards including ISO 11783 (known as IsoBus) that standardize the way implements talk to the tractor, to the mapping system, and to the variable rate systems (GPS is involved, but not in a guidance fashion). Though in practice, interoperability is somewhat hit and miss. The other day I plugged my air seeder cart (New Holland) into my John Deere tractor's isobus (we've been using a NH computer monitor added to our other John Deere tractor as an external display), but the Deere computer could only see one of the two devices the cart puts on the bus. Some kind of incompatibility. Pretty sure NH sells a little converter box to tweak the baud rate or something to make it work with Deere's monitor. So it's a bit of a crap shoot.
A couple of years ago I thought it would be nice to interface a device like a raspberry pi with isobus. There's a GPL library for implementing ISOBUS protocol on Linux. But accessing the ISO documents themselves cost a fair amount of money. Just trying to break into this world to get information seems very difficult. I'm still unsure of the exact nature of the electrical interface. It's a proprietary connector, and I think the signalling is j1939. It's hard to find out without buying expensive SDKs and such. Very frustrating.
I spent nearly 15 years in IT before returning to the family farm to work with my brothers. We farm several thousand acres of irrigated land with some large, expensive machines, so I have some experience in this. This article really hits home for me. Forgive some of the jargon, but this is slashdot; you can deal with it.
Coming from the open source world, computer technology in farming, both in the machines themselves, and the software farmers use, is like stepping back in time 20 years or more. Farm software is a niche market, and companies are pretty jealous of their profits. So mapping software is very expensive and interoperability is a bit difficult. Right now I can pull maps off my machines (Case, John Deere), but they each use different native formats so if I want to do any work in QGIS I have to use the company's individual software (which ironically enough is DRMd even though it comes for free with the machine) to export the data in SHAPE format. Software packages like the SMS mapper can read some manufacturers' data files directly because they licensed the formats. But there's very little info out there on hacking these formats and very few open source hackers know enough about farming and these systems to bring expertise to bear.
Even worse, all the companies are talking about cloud-based mapping solutions, but that's even more proprietary and closed.
Companies talk about "open standards" but what they really mean is they export SHAPE files from a computer program. It's really frustrating, but with interest in UAVs, perhaps people will finally crack this barrier.
As to the machines themselves, there are a number of issues. One is government regulations. Adjusting the timing as the farmer in the article wanted to do is extremely illegal and can get you a huge fine from the EPA if you are caught, which you will be. Because unlike in the automotive world, there aren't a any third-party repair shops with access to the parts, let alone diagnostic equipment. Apparently the EPA requires the manufacturer to report any deviations from the the approved program, and they levy fines. Sounds orwellian, but the EPA doesn't mess around when it comes to pollution regs (and I'm okay with that in theory). Suppose the manufacturers want to cover themselves.
Someone asked why a company can't spring up to develop hackable machines? There are efforts to this effect.
But for larger scale farming, it's harder. In the case of engines, the EPA would simply never allow them to market if the parameters that cause an engine to meet EPA regs are allowed to be changed. Regulatory capture has made modern diesels so expensive to develop now, including licensing patented pollution control technologies like the urea injection systems, that it's cheaper for companies to buy an existing engine than to develop their own. So even if I started a hackable tractor company I'd still need to use an engine with an extremely proprietary ECU, and would have to license canbus info to simply connect a transmission to the engine.
The other part of machines that is jealously guarded is the main canbus that links everything on the tractor. We're talking engine control, transmission control, hydraulic remotes, cab systems, and most importantly, the GPS receiver, guidance computer, and steering valve. The commands that flow on this bus are not yet encrypted (they will be soon, starting in cars I predict), but they are highly proprietary and protected by NDAs. You'd think that with a modern tractor I could take anyone's GPS receiver, mate it with anyone's guidance computer, and control any tractor's steering. Well it's not like that. On John Deere, for example, if I want to use anything other than GreenStar for GPS and guidance (a $10-$20k touch by the way, plus yearly fees for RTK), I have to physically replace the steering valve system with one that the 3rd party system is compatible with. There was a company that rev
My bad. The X200 is a much older laptop. The X220 is what I have and it's practically identical to the X230, which is the latest shipping version that has the chicklet keyboard that I can't stand.
I have an X200 and specwise it's hardly any different from the current X220. Same processor (i5), same speed, same memory options. I bought it only last year specifically because it had a real keyboard. So, no the X200 is still a great laptop. And $700 is a good price, about par with used X200s.
When I got the X200, I wiped it and put Linux on it. Now months later, I was fiddling with the BIOS and discovered that the Lojack stuff is activated, and cannot be deactivated (fortunately it does nothing on Linux, so far as I've been able to read). In order to deactivate it I need to contact the company who makes the malware and provide them with proof of purchase, and they'll give ma code to deactivate it, provided of course it's not been reported stolen (always a risk when buying used laptops, even on reputable sites). The catch is that I have to be running Windows to deactivate it. Sigh. So my ears perked up when the article mentions they've replaced the firmware. Wonder if that can be done to existing laptops without too much trouble.
No idea what you're talking about. LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and StarOffice before it are all written in C++. Java is used as a glue between certain components, such as database part. It's also used in some import filters. But it's certainly not required for LO or OO, and hasn't been a requirement ever as far as I know. Guess you haven't ever used LO or OOo.
LibreOffice is the least of my concerns, UI-wise (I refuse to use the "experience" term; it's an interface, not an experience). I'm much more concerned about apps I use every day that suck UI-wise, like Firefox. Or Chrome. I'm stuck at Firefox 24 (and Palemoon) as that's the last version that the GTK native theme works with. Most of the UI is somewhat GTK-ish, but the tabs have always been out of place. GTK native theme fixes that and gives me an app that looks and feels right at home on my Mate desktop. GTK3, well, that's another story.
That's okay though. Most of these idiots that buy and fly these things can't fly in manual mode anyway. They aren't really pilots. Kind of like script kiddies vs hackers. So it's a silly solution, but it might have the desired effect for a short while.
The whole regulation issue is such a sticky one. Obviously we don't want idiots flying these things in crowded city areas, over people, or near airports. Before technology advanced and made park fliers and quadcopters possible and easy, the hobby was rather self-regulating. And the hobby still is for the most part. But the trouble is now we have a lot of people who aren't really part of the hobby (they just want to play with a toy) buying and using these devices. They aren't being safe or smart. And regulation is likely not to reach them anyway as they wouldn't know or care about the regs. Just the people and companies who are interested and vested in model aircraft operation will even understand the regs, and they are the people who are already trying to be safe and smart. The regs will just burden them unduly.
Though it may not be using mp4, but rather webm, if you install the wonderful YouTube central add-on in Firefox, you can have it force HTML5 player. Seems to work but playback doesn't seem as smooth as with flash, ironically.
Sounds like you're not aware of what Qt actually is. Qt is one of the oldest, most capable, most portable GUI libraries ever made. It's a little too C++-ish for my tastes, but it's certainly not hipster or craptastic or buggy. It's been around for over 20 years but still feels modern (Qt 5 QtQuick is a game changer), and forms the basis for more than a few large-scale commercial applications. In my mind, particularly if you use C++, it's the only game in town. The only downside is it's hampered by being written in C++. It's really hard to get good up-to-date bindings for other languages that aren't as popular, such as FreePascal, as you have to thunk between the object systems.
As for your Pascal arguments, I use Python for the same reasons. Use what works for you.
The story about the water fountain sign reminds me of the sign at the Foucault pendulum at the uni where I studied. They had problems with people touching the pendulum, stopping it, etc. So they put up a sign that said, "Danger, do not touch! 10,000 ohms." Haven't had problems with people messing with it in many years!
Being a farmer myself, I find that quote pretty funny. Guess he never bothered to actually visit a farm and fine out. I can't comment on the "safe to eat" part but I can certainly attest that yields are much higher, and pesticide application is much reduced with GMO varieties of corn, canola, and soybeans. However with the increase in yield comes increased disease pressure, so overall, with or without GMO, pesticide use is still on the rise and that concerns me, not so much for food safety, but for sustainability and environmental reasons. It's kind of like hospital antibiotic resistance issues.
The blogger also would be interested to know that the majority of food crops we eat (cereals) are not genetically engineered at all; they are bred as we've bred them for thousands of years. The real next stage for cereals is to develop cereals and bacteria cultures that can fix nitrogen. That is going to be a game changer.
As far as "organic" pesticides go, Chemical companies do work on naturally-derived pesticides all the time, but few of them make it to market because they fail toxicity tests (don't want them to kill birds, animals, etc). It's in their interest to develop good organic pesticides because there's huge public demand for it, and a lot of money to be made. But it's a very hard thing to do.
Re:Do you really trust the OpenSSL Corporation?
on
OpenSSL 1.0.2 Released
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Sorry but that's all just pure baseless speculation on your part and fear mongering. The NSA can snoop SSL traffice regardless of ssl library simply by doing a man in the middle attack. And you'd never know it either, since they would be using a recognized root certificate. So I don't see what this issue has to do with openssl. And If they can brute force sniff SSL, I don't see how other ssl libraries are much safer.
Several of the OpenSSL developers have commented here on slashdot and expressed chagrin combined with determination to fix the problems which years ago were not considered problems--they were bad but accepted solutions for the portability problem. But times have changed, and openssl is changing too. As others have said it's still the most portable, and it is a good choice, and I do trust it. I think their response to heartbleed was admirable. They acknowledged and fixed the problem promptly.
Not sure if this is true, but someone claimed recently that highlight to copy, middle-click to paste was a bug in X originally, but it was found useful so kept. Also, as it currently stands it is a highly useful, but very insecure mode of operation. In effect anything you highlight is immediately visible to other apps running. In today's world this starts to become a security concern, especially if you run something that's not fully vetted and trusted (that's what non-root is for, after all!). Not sure quite how this dilemma will be solved.
The middle mouse button is certainly useful, but I find the scroll wheel being a button is sufficient for me. I don't like Apple's multitouch mouse at all. Real buttons for me, thanks.
But I guess paradigms are changing. In Linux, as we move forward to Wayland, policies regarding the middle click are pushed into the toolkits. I hope they see fit to allow the enabling of select and middle-click paste. I can understand that not all users want it (some actually like the middle-click to start a page scroll), but for those that do, it's so fast and handy.
No, whitespace significance is probably not going to develop any bad habits. I can tell you've not done much with python. The whitespace syntax is excellent at helping one always use structure in his programs. Watching beginners use braces in java without any indenting at all illustrated to me that it's quite the opposite to what you suggest.
I program is several languages and python has never been a liability. The only thing it has done is make me hate how ugly braces make code. That and maybe forgetting semicolons in C.
Why is that? Have you ever used visual basic? For that matter have you seen any basic language in the last 20 or even 30 years? You do realize it's every bit as structured and powerful as Pascal and even c? There are lots of reasons to not to use visual basic but it's clear that you are not qualified to pass judgment here.
You can't really fault him for sticking with what he knows and knows how to teach. Any of us would probably do the same. Yes I'm confused as any of you what he means about python being based on C. But I can't really fault him. He probably (obviously ) has no experience with python. Come to think of it most of you bashing visual basic probably haven't ever used it either.
Seems like Android phones can outspec the iPhone in every way, including megapixels, but none that I've seen have the image quality of the iPhone camera. It's quite embarrassing how good of pictures my friends with iPhones can actually get. Mine are always noisy and blurry. Even with the LED flash. What's crazy is that even Sony, who makes the camera and camera chipset for Apple cannot even get a camera as good on their Android phones. What am I missing?
Package managers are essential, but the problem of distribution remains. Do you want to have to oneget install all your software through Microsoft? For OneGet to be useful it should at least allow the equivalent of Ubuntu's PPA system for adding third-party repositories, and maybe it does. Of course nothing prevents a malware-laden site like download.come from offering their own PPA.
Ugg. xda-developers is a forum of very smart people, but it's a frustrating place to go to find information. Having to read through dozens of pages of posts trying to glean bits of information is rather fatiguing. Especially topics that stretch on for literally years with hundreds of posts. Sometimes the first posts are updated to provide latest information, sometimes you have to read through several pages of comments to find what you're looking for.
Really all web forums just suck, plain and simple.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad thing is, the obvious answer the car industry is going to come up with is to encrypt the canbus and use DRM to control access to the bus. This will provide a (false) sense of security, while locking out those pesky people that want to mod their vehicles and add all those cheaper after market parts like remote starts. And in the end this is bad thing for all of us.
Sketchup Pro is not a Google product, so begging Google to release it for free is not likely to go anywhere. Now why Trimble bought Sketchup from Google in the first place I'll never know. Setting up Google Earth Pro to be free *before* Google sells it off is probably a good move for users. Too bad they didn't do that with Sketchup before they sold it.
Didn't Grooveshark lose a massive copyright infringement case recently? I notice they are still online had have a lot of music there, some of which I know is ripped because one album they have has never been released on any digital music service that I know of (and they still have Taylor Swift...). Why are they still around? I'm glad they are but I can't see how they can justify their existence.
Just to be clear, and responding to the NMEA comment, when it comes to mapping and field prescriptions, all the major systems will accept GPS from just about any receiver via a serial connection (NMEA or some other). It's the guidance part of the computer that is locked to vendor-specific receivers. There's no reason at all for this vendor lock except to guarantee you will be paying a subscription for correction signals from the vendor. In my mind this area is ripe for disruption. The sooner we can get cheap RTK GPS positioning the better. And even if it means replacing the hydraulic steering valve, if there's an open. hackable GPS guidance system out there, I and many farmers will move to it.
One guy using a laptop and arduino made his own GPS guidance system. Very cool stuff:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index....
So it's still possible to do incredibly cool hacks.
That said, the proprietary solutions do work very well and are well-integrated
Interoperability is increasing, but it's not being done in an open way in my opinion. Rather it's being done with cross-licensing of protocols, file formats, etc. Each major machinery company wants to get people into their ecosystem, their cloud. And for GPS each company wants to lock me into a subscription to their service, which I can't easily switch without changing out all the hardware. If you think proprietary software subscriptions are bad (office 365, etc), it's worse here!
There are some standards including ISO 11783 (known as IsoBus) that standardize the way implements talk to the tractor, to the mapping system, and to the variable rate systems (GPS is involved, but not in a guidance fashion). Though in practice, interoperability is somewhat hit and miss. The other day I plugged my air seeder cart (New Holland) into my John Deere tractor's isobus (we've been using a NH computer monitor added to our other John Deere tractor as an external display), but the Deere computer could only see one of the two devices the cart puts on the bus. Some kind of incompatibility. Pretty sure NH sells a little converter box to tweak the baud rate or something to make it work with Deere's monitor. So it's a bit of a crap shoot.
A couple of years ago I thought it would be nice to interface a device like a raspberry pi with isobus. There's a GPL library for implementing ISOBUS protocol on Linux. But accessing the ISO documents themselves cost a fair amount of money. Just trying to break into this world to get information seems very difficult. I'm still unsure of the exact nature of the electrical interface. It's a proprietary connector, and I think the signalling is j1939. It's hard to find out without buying expensive SDKs and such. Very frustrating.
I spent nearly 15 years in IT before returning to the family farm to work with my brothers. We farm several thousand acres of irrigated land with some large, expensive machines, so I have some experience in this. This article really hits home for me. Forgive some of the jargon, but this is slashdot; you can deal with it.
Coming from the open source world, computer technology in farming, both in the machines themselves, and the software farmers use, is like stepping back in time 20 years or more. Farm software is a niche market, and companies are pretty jealous of their profits. So mapping software is very expensive and interoperability is a bit difficult. Right now I can pull maps off my machines (Case, John Deere), but they each use different native formats so if I want to do any work in QGIS I have to use the company's individual software (which ironically enough is DRMd even though it comes for free with the machine) to export the data in SHAPE format. Software packages like the SMS mapper can read some manufacturers' data files directly because they licensed the formats. But there's very little info out there on hacking these formats and very few open source hackers know enough about farming and these systems to bring expertise to bear.
Even worse, all the companies are talking about cloud-based mapping solutions, but that's even more proprietary and closed.
Companies talk about "open standards" but what they really mean is they export SHAPE files from a computer program. It's really frustrating, but with interest in UAVs, perhaps people will finally crack this barrier.
As to the machines themselves, there are a number of issues. One is government regulations. Adjusting the timing as the farmer in the article wanted to do is extremely illegal and can get you a huge fine from the EPA if you are caught, which you will be. Because unlike in the automotive world, there aren't a any third-party repair shops with access to the parts, let alone diagnostic equipment. Apparently the EPA requires the manufacturer to report any deviations from the the approved program, and they levy fines. Sounds orwellian, but the EPA doesn't mess around when it comes to pollution regs (and I'm okay with that in theory). Suppose the manufacturers want to cover themselves.
Someone asked why a company can't spring up to develop hackable machines? There are efforts to this effect.
http://opensourceecology.org/
But for larger scale farming, it's harder. In the case of engines, the EPA would simply never allow them to market if the parameters that cause an engine to meet EPA regs are allowed to be changed. Regulatory capture has made modern diesels so expensive to develop now, including licensing patented pollution control technologies like the urea injection systems, that it's cheaper for companies to buy an existing engine than to develop their own. So even if I started a hackable tractor company I'd still need to use an engine with an extremely proprietary ECU, and would have to license canbus info to simply connect a transmission to the engine.
The other part of machines that is jealously guarded is the main canbus that links everything on the tractor. We're talking engine control, transmission control, hydraulic remotes, cab systems, and most importantly, the GPS receiver, guidance computer, and steering valve. The commands that flow on this bus are not yet encrypted (they will be soon, starting in cars I predict), but they are highly proprietary and protected by NDAs. You'd think that with a modern tractor I could take anyone's GPS receiver, mate it with anyone's guidance computer, and control any tractor's steering. Well it's not like that. On John Deere, for example, if I want to use anything other than GreenStar for GPS and guidance (a $10-$20k touch by the way, plus yearly fees for RTK), I have to physically replace the steering valve system with one that the 3rd party system is compatible with. There was a company that rev
My bad. The X200 is a much older laptop. The X220 is what I have and it's practically identical to the X230, which is the latest shipping version that has the chicklet keyboard that I can't stand.
I have an X200 and specwise it's hardly any different from the current X220. Same processor (i5), same speed, same memory options. I bought it only last year specifically because it had a real keyboard. So, no the X200 is still a great laptop. And $700 is a good price, about par with used X200s.
When I got the X200, I wiped it and put Linux on it. Now months later, I was fiddling with the BIOS and discovered that the Lojack stuff is activated, and cannot be deactivated (fortunately it does nothing on Linux, so far as I've been able to read). In order to deactivate it I need to contact the company who makes the malware and provide them with proof of purchase, and they'll give ma code to deactivate it, provided of course it's not been reported stolen (always a risk when buying used laptops, even on reputable sites). The catch is that I have to be running Windows to deactivate it. Sigh. So my ears perked up when the article mentions they've replaced the firmware. Wonder if that can be done to existing laptops without too much trouble.
No idea what you're talking about. LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and StarOffice before it are all written in C++. Java is used as a glue between certain components, such as database part. It's also used in some import filters. But it's certainly not required for LO or OO, and hasn't been a requirement ever as far as I know. Guess you haven't ever used LO or OOo.
LibreOffice is the least of my concerns, UI-wise (I refuse to use the "experience" term; it's an interface, not an experience). I'm much more concerned about apps I use every day that suck UI-wise, like Firefox. Or Chrome. I'm stuck at Firefox 24 (and Palemoon) as that's the last version that the GTK native theme works with. Most of the UI is somewhat GTK-ish, but the tabs have always been out of place. GTK native theme fixes that and gives me an app that looks and feels right at home on my Mate desktop. GTK3, well, that's another story.
That's okay though. Most of these idiots that buy and fly these things can't fly in manual mode anyway. They aren't really pilots. Kind of like script kiddies vs hackers. So it's a silly solution, but it might have the desired effect for a short while.
The whole regulation issue is such a sticky one. Obviously we don't want idiots flying these things in crowded city areas, over people, or near airports. Before technology advanced and made park fliers and quadcopters possible and easy, the hobby was rather self-regulating. And the hobby still is for the most part. But the trouble is now we have a lot of people who aren't really part of the hobby (they just want to play with a toy) buying and using these devices. They aren't being safe or smart. And regulation is likely not to reach them anyway as they wouldn't know or care about the regs. Just the people and companies who are interested and vested in model aircraft operation will even understand the regs, and they are the people who are already trying to be safe and smart. The regs will just burden them unduly.
Though it may not be using mp4, but rather webm, if you install the wonderful YouTube central add-on in Firefox, you can have it force HTML5 player. Seems to work but playback doesn't seem as smooth as with flash, ironically.
Android 4.4 isn't really an update for me. Broken SD support is a deal breaker.
Wonder if cyanogenmod will backport the fix? Or is it time to switch from Dolphin to Firefox?
Sounds like you're not aware of what Qt actually is. Qt is one of the oldest, most capable, most portable GUI libraries ever made. It's a little too C++-ish for my tastes, but it's certainly not hipster or craptastic or buggy. It's been around for over 20 years but still feels modern (Qt 5 QtQuick is a game changer), and forms the basis for more than a few large-scale commercial applications. In my mind, particularly if you use C++, it's the only game in town. The only downside is it's hampered by being written in C++. It's really hard to get good up-to-date bindings for other languages that aren't as popular, such as FreePascal, as you have to thunk between the object systems.
As for your Pascal arguments, I use Python for the same reasons. Use what works for you.
The story about the water fountain sign reminds me of the sign at the Foucault pendulum at the uni where I studied. They had problems with people touching the pendulum, stopping it, etc. So they put up a sign that said, "Danger, do not touch! 10,000 ohms." Haven't had problems with people messing with it in many years!
Being a farmer myself, I find that quote pretty funny. Guess he never bothered to actually visit a farm and fine out. I can't comment on the "safe to eat" part but I can certainly attest that yields are much higher, and pesticide application is much reduced with GMO varieties of corn, canola, and soybeans. However with the increase in yield comes increased disease pressure, so overall, with or without GMO, pesticide use is still on the rise and that concerns me, not so much for food safety, but for sustainability and environmental reasons. It's kind of like hospital antibiotic resistance issues.
The blogger also would be interested to know that the majority of food crops we eat (cereals) are not genetically engineered at all; they are bred as we've bred them for thousands of years. The real next stage for cereals is to develop cereals and bacteria cultures that can fix nitrogen. That is going to be a game changer.
As far as "organic" pesticides go, Chemical companies do work on naturally-derived pesticides all the time, but few of them make it to market because they fail toxicity tests (don't want them to kill birds, animals, etc). It's in their interest to develop good organic pesticides because there's huge public demand for it, and a lot of money to be made. But it's a very hard thing to do.
Sorry but that's all just pure baseless speculation on your part and fear mongering. The NSA can snoop SSL traffice regardless of ssl library simply by doing a man in the middle attack. And you'd never know it either, since they would be using a recognized root certificate. So I don't see what this issue has to do with openssl. And If they can brute force sniff SSL, I don't see how other ssl libraries are much safer.
Several of the OpenSSL developers have commented here on slashdot and expressed chagrin combined with determination to fix the problems which years ago were not considered problems--they were bad but accepted solutions for the portability problem. But times have changed, and openssl is changing too. As others have said it's still the most portable, and it is a good choice, and I do trust it. I think their response to heartbleed was admirable. They acknowledged and fixed the problem promptly.
Not sure if this is true, but someone claimed recently that highlight to copy, middle-click to paste was a bug in X originally, but it was found useful so kept. Also, as it currently stands it is a highly useful, but very insecure mode of operation. In effect anything you highlight is immediately visible to other apps running. In today's world this starts to become a security concern, especially if you run something that's not fully vetted and trusted (that's what non-root is for, after all!). Not sure quite how this dilemma will be solved.
The middle mouse button is certainly useful, but I find the scroll wheel being a button is sufficient for me. I don't like Apple's multitouch mouse at all. Real buttons for me, thanks.
But I guess paradigms are changing. In Linux, as we move forward to Wayland, policies regarding the middle click are pushed into the toolkits. I hope they see fit to allow the enabling of select and middle-click paste. I can understand that not all users want it (some actually like the middle-click to start a page scroll), but for those that do, it's so fast and handy.
No, whitespace significance is probably not going to develop any bad habits. I can tell you've not done much with python. The whitespace syntax is excellent at helping one always use structure in his programs. Watching beginners use braces in java without any indenting at all illustrated to me that it's quite the opposite to what you suggest.
I program is several languages and python has never been a liability. The only thing it has done is make me hate how ugly braces make code. That and maybe forgetting semicolons in C.
Why is that? Have you ever used visual basic? For that matter have you seen any basic language in the last 20 or even 30 years? You do realize it's every bit as structured and powerful as Pascal and even c? There are lots of reasons to not to use visual basic but it's clear that you are not qualified to pass judgment here.
You can't really fault him for sticking with what he knows and knows how to teach. Any of us would probably do the same. Yes I'm confused as any of you what he means about python being based on C. But I can't really fault him. He probably (obviously ) has no experience with python. Come to think of it most of you bashing visual basic probably haven't ever used it either.
Seems like Android phones can outspec the iPhone in every way, including megapixels, but none that I've seen have the image quality of the iPhone camera. It's quite embarrassing how good of pictures my friends with iPhones can actually get. Mine are always noisy and blurry. Even with the LED flash. What's crazy is that even Sony, who makes the camera and camera chipset for Apple cannot even get a camera as good on their Android phones. What am I missing?
Package managers are essential, but the problem of distribution remains. Do you want to have to oneget install all your software through Microsoft? For OneGet to be useful it should at least allow the equivalent of Ubuntu's PPA system for adding third-party repositories, and maybe it does. Of course nothing prevents a malware-laden site like download.come from offering their own PPA.
Ugg. xda-developers is a forum of very smart people, but it's a frustrating place to go to find information. Having to read through dozens of pages of posts trying to glean bits of information is rather fatiguing. Especially topics that stretch on for literally years with hundreds of posts. Sometimes the first posts are updated to provide latest information, sometimes you have to read through several pages of comments to find what you're looking for.
Really all web forums just suck, plain and simple.