Too bad we didn't get a judge with this degree of technical savvy to understand the arguements in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. If they knew enough to disable this software (and what it was really doing) they wouldn't have had much problem figuring out some of the "technical" issues that had to be explained in the case.
Understanding that the browser was NOT an intrinsic part of the operating system, for example would have taken all of 60 seconds.
With the first release of Mac OS X Server in March of 1999, Apple became a member of the Open Source community. Since that time, both the consumer version of Mac OS X and Darwin have been publicly released, and with the help of the community, both continue to evolve. Apple has been and will continue to be an active partner in Open Source projects. In light of this, there has been a lot of interest among developers, the Unix community and
the general public about Mac OS X, Darwin and Open Source projects at Apple.
The strength of Open Source initiatives originate in the involvement of their participants, and dialogue is essential to their success. With this in mind, we'd like to hear your questions and concerns. We'll incorporate your inquiries into a Q&A on our web site to help you and others with
similar questions.
Please submit any questions that you have about Darwin or any of Apple's Open Source activities by July 6, 2001 to admin_at_opensource.apple.com, and be
sure to include "Open Source Question" in the subject line. With your help, we will be able provide relevant information to all developers and interested parties.
Additionally, you will be able to pose your questions in person at the following USENIX 2001 BOF's:
BOF Date & Time: Thursday June 28th, 10:00-10:30PM BOF Title: UNIX Goes Translucent: Mac OS X & Darwin BOF Presenter: Ernest Prabhakar, Open Source Product Manager
Find out how Mac OS X will soon be bringing BSD to millions of consumer desktops.
BOF Date & Time:Thursday June 28th, 10:30-11:30PM BOF Title:BSD Panel Session moderated by Marshall Kirk McKusick BOF Presenter:Christos Zoulas (NetBSD), TBD (OpenBSD),Jordan Hubbard (FreeBSD), Mike Karels (BSD/OS), Ernest Prabhakar (Darwin)
Come speak to representatives of the BSD groups, ask all your interoperability questions, and hear about the future of BSD.
-end of message-
The message was sent from Brian Cassidy of Apple to the following lists: publicsource-announce-request_at_lists.app le.com, darwin-development_at_lists.apple.com, darwinos-users_at_lists.apple.com, macos-x-server_at_lists.apple.com
If you name your product something unique (like "Zope") you can find info on it easily with a search engine. This is something the allegedly computer-savvy Dave Winer has never figured out (see Frontier, Manila, and Radio).
I'm not saying that they should be unpronouncable but they should be made-up trademarkable words (like Corolla, Camry, and Celica, for instance.)
Linux/PPC has been ported to NuBus Power Macs since June 2000:
http://nubus-pmac.sourceforge.net/
There is nothing wrong with LinuxPPC. You didn't say what version you tried on your 8500 and it is hard to tell what went wrong from your eloquent description. I have been running LinuxPPC since 1999 version on a Workgroup Server 8850/200. The 2000 version is even more polished.
I also am still running MkLinux on an old 7100/80 and while it certainly isn't the latest/greatest Linux distro, it certainly is functional. There are worse things than learning how to use Linux from the command line. Personally, I have grown to prefer it (and I am not a UNIX guru-- I'm a dyed in the wool Mac fan since my first Mac Plus 12 years ago.) You can learn a lot, even with MkLinux (including that Joy of Joys for a Mac User Linux Newbie: Learning to Mount a Floppy! )
So, if you want to let that 7100 continue to rot under the TV, be my guest... but don't bellyache about it when there ARE options out there you just don't want to explore.
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent.They imagine.They heal.
They explore.They create.They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Unless they kill themselves first.
Why is everyone so upset about this? We all believe in evolution, right? Survival of the fittest, right? This is one 13 year old who isn't going to pollute the gene pool, right? If you respond to adversity in this way you clearly are weak and aren't advancing the survival of the species, are you? You can't have it both ways! The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few (or the one). Oh, and if you are a "Christian" you believe that he's in a better place, or God took him or some such rubbish. So why be sad about that? We should all be happy either way, right? Oh, you mean we aren't? I'm callous? I'm full of fecal matter? Hmm. Then there must be another explanation.
I'm a newbie to Java, but not interested in Applets. Servlets is where it's at, right BAY-BEE? Does anybody have any opinions on Marty Hall's book? I'd be interested in hearing the good/bad/indifferent (or alternative titles if you think there is a better one for where I am now. (Have Resin running on a Mac LinuxPPC beige G3). Reader reviews on Amazon seem to like it.
Curious George
A.D.D. means never having to feel off-topic.
I'm a JavaNewbie, but I installed Resin in very little time and have it up and running on a beige Mac G3 LinuxPPC box. Now I'm looking into installing and configuring servlets (like those found at CoolServlets).
I'm one of the people who hated Java because it was slow, but don't blame the language for the client-side problems. This URL says it all better than I could: http://www.davidreilly.com/java/java_network_progr amming/#6.
If you are a newbie like me and interested in learning more about Java/Servlets/etc. you'll find lots of links at my blog: Brainspatter.
The Cheese Shoppe is a classic. A man comes into a Cheese Shoppe and starts asking for different kinds of cheese. The shoppe owner responds in various ways that he is out of them (including a request for Cheddar to which he replies that he doesn't have "much call for it". At one point Cleese says, "This IS a cheese shoppe, isn't it?" the owner replies "Oh, YES sir, the finest in the area". Cleese asks him on what criteria he is basing that assumption. The owner says, "It's so CLEAN!" Cleese mutters "Well it's certainly uncontaminated by CHEESE!" When he finally says he DOES have a requested cheese it is with the proviso that it's "a bit runny today". When the buyer says that is fine "I like it runny", the shoppe owner looks under the counter and cries "Oh, the cat's eaten it." The store owner finally admits that he has no cheese and has been purposely wasting the man's time. Cleese says "alright, that means I'll have to shoot you, then." BLAAAM. End of skit.
PS....not sure that MOVIE SCENES qualify as skits (which were part of the weekly series), but then that's mostly all the movies are is a series of skits with a common thread. . . so I'll let it go this time.
Claris (Filemaker) Home Page 3.0 was a pretty darn good entry level visual editor for HTML and it too was abandoned by Apple/Claris/Filemaker. They stopped distributing it on Feb. 1st. I'd like to see it made available as Open Source instead of simply dying away.
I'm not suggesting that it can hold a candle to Dreamweaver, but for teaching the basics to beginners, I have found that Home Page has next-to-no learning curve. Home Page 3.0 was also really big in the education sector, as it didn't cost an arm and a let ($59 academic) Yet it has some features lacking in the barebones editors like Netscape Composer (like the ability to create form widgets).
I would imagine that Apple is scared of torquing-off any developers that have competing projects, but there is really no one left in Home Page's price catagory on the Mac. I think that is sad. How (in 2001) can you ship a product that does not give the user the ability to create web pages out of the box? (Okay, I know there's SimpleText -but you know what I mean!)
The author of the ZopeNewbies web site reports from the Python Conference in Long Beach, California that "the closing speaker for the conference was Bruce Eckel, of "Thinking in C++" and "Thinking in Java" fame. He was a good choice to give the closing talk, as he was without a doubt the most naturally-gifted speaker I saw this week. He says that he is in love with Python, and he reaches for it first to solve his own programming problems.
Moving from C++ to Java results in a 2x improvement in programmer productivity, he says, while the move from C++ to Python results in a 5x to 10x improvement. He is still developing his reasons as to why this is the case, but he believes that Python allows a programmer to focus on concepts, rather than on mechanics.
Lacking any scientific studies, Bruce offered his top ten reasons why he loves Python:
10. Reduced Clutter - The indented nature of Python makes it easier to read, an important criteria since code is read more often than it is written.
According the the extreme programming (XP) folks, consistant formatting really is important.
9. It's not Backward Compatible in Exchange for Pain - Many popular languages promote their backward compatability, but at the cost to the
programmer of awkward syntax (C++ and Perl) and lots of typing (Java).
8. It Doesn't Value Performance Over Productivity - Rather than forcing the programmer to implement awkward coding sequences for the sake of "speed," Python implements easy-to-learn idioms (but allows extensions to be written in C when performance becomes an issue).
7. It Doesn't Treat Me Like I'm Stupid - Python doesn't prevent operator overloading, doesn't insist on type declarations, and it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't.
6. I Don't Wait Forever for a Full Implementation of the Language - C++ still does not fully implement features invented by the C++ committee.
5. It Does Not Make Assumptions About How We Discover Errors - Python does not force static type checking, moving the programmer quickly along to the discovery of errors using "real" data.
4. Marketing People Are Not Involved... Yet -- Java and MS Visual C++ have been over-hyped.
3. I Don't Have to Type So Much - Not obscure like APL, not endlessly inventive like Perl or FORTH, not verbose like Java.
2. My Guesses are Usually Right - Java and C++ require programmers to constantly look up syntax in a language reference. Python idioms are easier.
1. Python Let Me Focus on Concepts - No stumbling through Java designs, no fighting with C++ compilations or runtime bugs."
PS...if you've been living under a rock, Zope is the Open Source Application server and is Python's "killer app". Also, Bruce's books are available for free online and available from mirrors listed at http://www.mindview.net/DownloadSites/
How difficult would it be for Slashdot/Parent corporation to mirror a page and cache it's images before posting a story. Then they could publish the link to the original site AND provide the alternates (behind a relay on distributed servers) in the event that the slashdot effect caved the originating server.
It would only be necessary for a day or so, assuming the original site owner didn't move the original content or take it down due to the unwanted attention.
I'd have to believe that the server admins on the originating site would appreciate this more than the debilitating amount of traffic coming their way with little or no warning.
I have a hard time believing that Slashdot doesn't have the resources to do this.
An example of how this works is the telephone system. In the early early days you had independent companies with incompatible technologies. It was in the publics interest that one company be given monopoly powers so that a single compatible telephone infrastructure could be built throughout the country. In exchange for that monopoly power, the government required phone service to be made available EVERYWHERE (Ma Bell was not just allowed to "cherry pick", such as providing service only to high population areas). This brought the technology to everyone everywhere. A monopoly that serves the public interests is usually given a certain period of time to reap the benefits of their investment (under regulation).
Eventually it is determined that it would now serve the public's interests to divest the monopoly to provide the benefits that increased competition would bring.
The computer software/OS business developed under our free market system. It never was REGULATED by the government (other than things like making illegal the export of advanced encryption technologies).
The problem is that Microsoft has been acting as an unregulated monopoly which seeks to kill innovation that comes from competition. This is NOT in the public's good.
Nobody is saying that Microsoft can't be a big company. What the rules dictate is that Microsoft can't be a big BAD company. ..one that uses it's power and influence in ways that harm the public good. Anyone who has paid any attention (or read the history) KNOWS they have done this.
Judge Jackson's only failing seems to have been his inability to keep a poker face. This was NOT a jury trial. The winner of the trial would be the side who did a better job of convincing the judge. Microsoft blew their credibility early on telling the judge they didn't say things that the prosecution then proved they did say and by saying that it was impossible to do things (like separate IE from Windows) that were easily possible. Judge Jackson was apparently supposed to suppress his reaction to this (which was to determine early on that Microsoft was full of shit.
Now I agree that it may not have been the wisest thing to involve the press in the story while the trial was going on, but I do not see how this proves that the conclusions that he reached from the trial were flawed. It was foolish of him to put the outcome of the trial in jeopardy by providing the basis for the appeal by making any APPEARANCE of bias. But do not confuse bias with judgment. He was required to reach a judgment and that doesn't happen only at the end of the trial. It is a process that takes place as you consider each witness. Is this witness credible? Is the position credible? Once you determine that you are being fed lies by one side and not by the other it must affect how you view their entire case.
I honestly don't know which is worse, one Microsoft or two. But I had the feeling that Microsoft would win on appeal just as soon as Bush was declared the final winner in Florida. The means by which they keep the status quo is the only part of this that remains to be played out.
Curious George
Too weird. . .a twilight zone dream today.
on
The Challenger
·
· Score: 2
You are going to think I'm making this up.
Took my girls on their early morning paper route and decided to go back to bed. I never remember my dreams, but today I had this extremely vivid technocolor dream that they were going to launch a space shuttle from our college campus. I was supposed to do a live webcast of it and (as in most dreams) everything was going wrong for me. (I was carrying my little ZR10 recording everything, but forgot to set up the Broadcasting app.) People were lined up all over campus to watch the launch and when it went up it was AWESOME. But it appeared to be going north instead of UP and it disappeared into thick clouds. There was a huge sound of an explosion, but it appeared to come from the south. We hopped in a car to try to drive out of town to get a better view and were seeking some sort of news on the radio, but getting nothing. I was awakened at this point and felt extremely anxious.
It wasn't until about an hour ago that I was flipping through the Sunday paper and saw "Today in History". The first item was the Challenger disaster.
Now if you would have asked me what date the accident happened in, I couldn't have told you, let alone known (consciously) that today was the anniversary of the event. Now I log onto Slashdot for the first time today and see it has been a monster thread.
I saw the Challenger disaster live on CNN (I was 27 at the time) and it had a big impact on me. Like seeing any multi-fatality accident live would affect one. It indirectly lead to a reawakening of my interest in amatuer astronomy when I found the Feb. issue of Sky and Telescope thrown away atop a wastebasket at the post office. The cover picture featured Discovery lifting off the launch pad (and was hailing the (then) imminent launch of the Hubble Space Telescope -to be delayed for years.
Anyway, I think the connection is just too weird and more than a coincidence. It's not like I have every dreamed about the Space Shuttle before. It seems to be a powerful reminder of how much our subconscious is able to keep track of and release in the form of dreams.
I've got all three players (Windows Media, RealPlayer & Quicktime 4) on my Mac. But I went with QuickTime when it was time to broadcast because Sorenson Broadcaster ROCKS. If you get a masochistic charge out of doing things the hard way, be my guest, but Sorenson is intuitive to use (who needs a manual?) and has great compression codecs.
I bought Sorenson Broadcaster and used QTSS to deliver live AUDIO of our universities athletic events. A few month's later, the President of the U.S. picked our campus to deliver one of his last major addresses. HAD to try a video webcast. It came off well, with reports from across the country reporting it worked great.
Real offers a free server, but only to get you hooked. Once you become successful, you'll have to purchase expensive licenses.
QuickTime Player is a great choice for users of either major platform. It has a super-easy installer. As already mentioned, the QTSS is free in various incarnations.
Keep in mind that streaming LIVE is different from streaming archived events. You'll be using RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) instead of HTTP. That can cause problems for people behind firewalls that aren't configured to let the stream in.
Broadcaster is great and you can download a fully functional 30 day demo. I swear, if you want to do live video, you really should get a FireWire equipped Mac, plug in your video camera and run Sorenson Broadcaster. If you want to improve on reality, play with the free copy of iMovie to create your archive files. You would have to be insane to spend money for the hardware and software necessary to do the same stuff on another platform.
A good image (photographic or CCD) is the result of two things. The amount of light + the length of the exposure. Very dim astronomical objects often require both a huge light bucket (objective) AND a long exposure time. Remember that the earth is spinning, making astronomical objects appear to move (from our frame of reference). This is why we must have an equatorial mount and an accurate motor drive if we want recorded images of the dim deep sky objects. If we don't do this we get STREAKS or SMUDGES of light as the object moves in reference to our film. Tracking WITH the object accurately makes it appear (on film) to be standing still, so that the light can accumulate on the film for more detail.
Clearly, this is a problem for a mirror that we cannot move from a direction perpendicular to the ground. This problem would be greatest for mercury telescopes closer to the equator and least for mercury telescopes sitting nearer the true north or south poles. The TRACKING problem would be nonexistent at true north or south, but the object would still be ROTATING which would smudge details, as well.
The stuff that is getting moderated up in this discussion shows that the moderators don't know a thing about telescope optics.
When you go out at night, your iris opens up to a maximum of about 7mm. If our pupils were larger (like a cat's) we could see even better in the dark (dim objects appear brighter to cats than to humans). This introduces us to the principle that the larger the diameter of our light collector, the brighter dim objects appear. This is why a telescope with a 10" diameter objective (mirror or in case of refractors, FRONT LENS) will show you dim deep sky objects better than a 6" diameter telescope.
All of that light does little good if it is not focused down into a disk of light that will fit into the observer's pupil (7mm or less). That is why mirrors must be spherical or parabolic. ..to focus all of that light into a small space. The trick of telescope design is how to bend the resulting focal point out of the way of the incoming light. (It does little good if the focal point is placed where you have to block the incoming light with your head!) In the case of the common Newtonian design, a smaller mirror is placed in the way to bend the light path 90 degrees out the SIDE of the tube, where the resulting image can be examined under magnification (using various focal length eyepieces). This smaller mirror is called a "secondary". It must be kept small, since it IS blocking a small percentage of the incoming light.
In the case of the mercury mirror, it is flat in respects its orientation to the earth that it sits upon. But in order to achieve a focal point, the mirror SURFACE is not flat, it must be spherical or parabolic. This is achieved by spinning the platter of mercury. Like stirring a glass of tea, the center dips and the sides rise. Once a constant rate is maintained the focal length will not shift.
The poster's idea CAN NOT WORK (reflect light from other angles into the mirror). In the case of a spherical mirror, the focal point is reflected straight back at the secondary, so how do you view it. In the case of a parabolic mirror, the resulting image would be distorted. To avoid this distortion the path would have to be directed (at some point by yet another mirror, straight down perpendicular to the mirror. Again this additional mirror will be blocking our view of the resulting focused image. IN EITHER CASE, we are losing the benefit of the large mirror, because we must use a smaller mirror to reflect onto it (if we used a large mirror, we must be blocking too large a percentage of our primary mirror.
I would like to thank all of the responders to my original post. Their well reasoned responses opened my eyes to the fact that there are other possibilities. I hadn't realized that I was being so U.S.-centric. (I hate it when people do that).
Thanks again to all the well thought-out responses.
It's supposed to be illegal to dispose of the old oil out of your car just anywhere too, but it seems to me that if I got caught dumping it DOWN BY THE RIVER -- it wouldn't be the Pennzoil Corporation that would be held responsible!
It might be a good idea to make it illegal for dumps and landfills to take old computers (which would encourage you take it to the recyclers), but I don't see how the manufacturers should be held responsible for an irresponsible owner's disposal of his machine.
Making manufacturers responsible would just result in higher consumer prices. (MFG would have to build-in the cost of disposal for trade-ins).
"Yeah, in my day we used to collect computers from the ditches and take them back to the store for the deposits!"
You sir, are easily duped. If the university has to commit its dollars to equipment and support for something that is (at best) unnecessary, then those are dollars that will A) need to come from SOMEWHERE (see: "tuition increase" or "additional state aid") or B) be taken from somewhere else in the departments/university's existing budget dollars. The effects will be tangible somewhere. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The same cannot be said for the advertising on the Coke machines or somebody's t-shirts. Really.
With your current ability to discern issues, here's hoping you aren't a law major, or a university regent.
Slashdot Mirror
Understanding that the browser was NOT an intrinsic part of the operating system, for example would have taken all of 60 seconds.
Curious George
The strength of Open Source initiatives originate in the involvement of their participants, and dialogue is essential to their success. With this in mind, we'd like to hear your questions and concerns. We'll incorporate your inquiries into a Q&A on our web site to help you and others with similar questions.
Please submit any questions that you have about Darwin or any of Apple's Open Source activities by July 6, 2001 to admin_at_opensource.apple.com, and be sure to include "Open Source Question" in the subject line. With your help, we will be able provide relevant information to all developers and interested parties.
Additionally, you will be able to pose your questions in person at the following USENIX 2001 BOF's:
BOF Date & Time: Thursday June 28th, 10:00-10:30PM
BOF Title: UNIX Goes Translucent: Mac OS X & Darwin
BOF Presenter: Ernest Prabhakar, Open Source Product Manager
Find out how Mac OS X will soon be bringing BSD to millions of consumer desktops.
BOF Date & Time:Thursday June 28th, 10:30-11:30PM
BOF Title:BSD Panel Session moderated by Marshall Kirk McKusick
BOF Presenter:Christos Zoulas (NetBSD), TBD (OpenBSD),Jordan Hubbard (FreeBSD), Mike Karels (BSD/OS), Ernest Prabhakar (Darwin)
Come speak to representatives of the BSD groups, ask all your interoperability questions, and hear about the future of BSD. -end of message- The message was sent from Brian Cassidy of Apple to the following lists:p le.com,
publicsource-announce-request_at_lists.ap
darwin-development_at_lists.apple.com,
darwinos-users_at_lists.apple.com,
macos-x-server_at_lists.apple.com
Curious George
I'm not saying that they should be unpronouncable but they should be made-up trademarkable words (like Corolla, Camry, and Celica, for instance.)
Curious George
Curious George
I also am still running MkLinux on an old 7100/80 and while it certainly isn't the latest/greatest Linux distro, it certainly is functional. There are worse things than learning how to use Linux from the command line. Personally, I have grown to prefer it (and I am not a UNIX guru-- I'm a dyed in the wool Mac fan since my first Mac Plus 12 years ago.) You can learn a lot, even with MkLinux (including that Joy of Joys for a Mac User Linux Newbie: Learning to Mount a Floppy! )
So, if you want to let that 7100 continue to rot under the TV, be my guest... but don't bellyache about it when there ARE options out there you just don't want to explore.
Curious__George,br>
Why is everyone so upset about this? We all believe in evolution, right? Survival of the fittest, right? This is one 13 year old who isn't going to pollute the gene pool, right? If you respond to adversity in this way you clearly are weak and aren't advancing the survival of the species, are you? You can't have it both ways! The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few (or the one). Oh, and if you are a "Christian" you believe that he's in a better place, or God took him or some such rubbish. So why be sad about that? We should all be happy either way, right? Oh, you mean we aren't? I'm callous? I'm full of fecal matter? Hmm. Then there must be another explanation.
Curious George
Curious George
A.D.D. means never having to feel off-topic.
"My Uncle went on the ISS and all I got was a lousy Soyuz capsule."
Curious__George
Resin beats the pants off Tomcat according to third party benchmarks.
Curious__George
I'm also interested in investigating Enhydra.
For more info on Java servlet tutorials, ect. check out my blog: Brainspatter
Curious__George
I'm a JavaNewbie, but I installed Resin in very little time and have it up and running on a beige Mac G3 LinuxPPC box. Now I'm looking into installing and configuring servlets (like those found at CoolServlets). I'm one of the people who hated Java because it was slow, but don't blame the language for the client-side problems. This URL says it all better than I could: http://www.davidreilly.com/java/java_network_progr amming/#6.
If you are a newbie like me and interested in learning more about Java/Servlets/etc. you'll find lots of links at my blog: Brainspatter.
Curious__George
Curious George
Thanks for the great idea! I'm looking for more Freudian slips. . .
Curious George
I'm not suggesting that it can hold a candle to Dreamweaver, but for teaching the basics to beginners, I have found that Home Page has next-to-no learning curve. Home Page 3.0 was also really big in the education sector, as it didn't cost an arm and a let ($59 academic) Yet it has some features lacking in the barebones editors like Netscape Composer (like the ability to create form widgets).
I would imagine that Apple is scared of torquing-off any developers that have competing projects, but there is really no one left in Home Page's price catagory on the Mac. I think that is sad. How (in 2001) can you ship a product that does not give the user the ability to create web pages out of the box? (Okay, I know there's SimpleText -but you know what I mean!)
Curious George
Moving from C++ to Java results in a 2x improvement in programmer productivity, he says, while the move from C++ to Python results in a 5x to 10x improvement. He is still developing his reasons as to why this is the case, but he believes that Python allows a programmer to focus on concepts, rather than on mechanics.
Lacking any scientific studies, Bruce offered his top ten reasons why he loves Python:
10. Reduced Clutter - The indented nature of Python makes it easier to read, an important criteria since code is read more often than it is written. According the the extreme programming (XP) folks, consistant formatting really is important.
9. It's not Backward Compatible in Exchange for Pain - Many popular languages promote their backward compatability, but at the cost to the programmer of awkward syntax (C++ and Perl) and lots of typing (Java).
8. It Doesn't Value Performance Over Productivity - Rather than forcing the programmer to implement awkward coding sequences for the sake of "speed," Python implements easy-to-learn idioms (but allows extensions to be written in C when performance becomes an issue).
7. It Doesn't Treat Me Like I'm Stupid - Python doesn't prevent operator overloading, doesn't insist on type declarations, and it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't.
6. I Don't Wait Forever for a Full Implementation of the Language - C++ still does not fully implement features invented by the C++ committee.
5. It Does Not Make Assumptions About How We Discover Errors - Python does not force static type checking, moving the programmer quickly along to the discovery of errors using "real" data.
4. Marketing People Are Not Involved... Yet -- Java and MS Visual C++ have been over-hyped.
3. I Don't Have to Type So Much - Not obscure like APL, not endlessly inventive like Perl or FORTH, not verbose like Java.
2. My Guesses are Usually Right - Java and C++ require programmers to constantly look up syntax in a language reference. Python idioms are easier.
1. Python Let Me Focus on Concepts - No stumbling through Java designs, no fighting with C++ compilations or runtime bugs."
PS...if you've been living under a rock, Zope is the Open Source Application server and is Python's "killer app". Also, Bruce's books are available for free online and available from mirrors listed at http://www.mindview.net/DownloadSites/
Curious George
It would only be necessary for a day or so, assuming the original site owner didn't move the original content or take it down due to the unwanted attention.
I'd have to believe that the server admins on the originating site would appreciate this more than the debilitating amount of traffic coming their way with little or no warning.
I have a hard time believing that Slashdot doesn't have the resources to do this.
Curious George
An example of how this works is the telephone system. In the early early days you had independent companies with incompatible technologies. It was in the publics interest that one company be given monopoly powers so that a single compatible telephone infrastructure could be built throughout the country. In exchange for that monopoly power, the government required phone service to be made available EVERYWHERE (Ma Bell was not just allowed to "cherry pick", such as providing service only to high population areas). This brought the technology to everyone everywhere. A monopoly that serves the public interests is usually given a certain period of time to reap the benefits of their investment (under regulation).
Eventually it is determined that it would now serve the public's interests to divest the monopoly to provide the benefits that increased competition would bring.
The computer software/OS business developed under our free market system. It never was REGULATED by the government (other than things like making illegal the export of advanced encryption technologies). The problem is that Microsoft has been acting as an unregulated monopoly which seeks to kill innovation that comes from competition. This is NOT in the public's good.
Nobody is saying that Microsoft can't be a big company. What the rules dictate is that Microsoft can't be a big BAD company. . .one that uses it's power and influence in ways that harm the public good. Anyone who has paid any attention (or read the history) KNOWS they have done this.
Judge Jackson's only failing seems to have been his inability to keep a poker face. This was NOT a jury trial. The winner of the trial would be the side who did a better job of convincing the judge. Microsoft blew their credibility early on telling the judge they didn't say things that the prosecution then proved they did say and by saying that it was impossible to do things (like separate IE from Windows) that were easily possible. Judge Jackson was apparently supposed to suppress his reaction to this (which was to determine early on that Microsoft was full of shit.
Now I agree that it may not have been the wisest thing to involve the press in the story while the trial was going on, but I do not see how this proves that the conclusions that he reached from the trial were flawed. It was foolish of him to put the outcome of the trial in jeopardy by providing the basis for the appeal by making any APPEARANCE of bias. But do not confuse bias with judgment. He was required to reach a judgment and that doesn't happen only at the end of the trial. It is a process that takes place as you consider each witness. Is this witness credible? Is the position credible? Once you determine that you are being fed lies by one side and not by the other it must affect how you view their entire case.
I honestly don't know which is worse, one Microsoft or two. But I had the feeling that Microsoft would win on appeal just as soon as Bush was declared the final winner in Florida. The means by which they keep the status quo is the only part of this that remains to be played out.
Curious George
Took my girls on their early morning paper route and decided to go back to bed. I never remember my dreams, but today I had this extremely vivid technocolor dream that they were going to launch a space shuttle from our college campus. I was supposed to do a live webcast of it and (as in most dreams) everything was going wrong for me. (I was carrying my little ZR10 recording everything, but forgot to set up the Broadcasting app.) People were lined up all over campus to watch the launch and when it went up it was AWESOME. But it appeared to be going north instead of UP and it disappeared into thick clouds. There was a huge sound of an explosion, but it appeared to come from the south. We hopped in a car to try to drive out of town to get a better view and were seeking some sort of news on the radio, but getting nothing. I was awakened at this point and felt extremely anxious.
It wasn't until about an hour ago that I was flipping through the Sunday paper and saw "Today in History". The first item was the Challenger disaster.
Now if you would have asked me what date the accident happened in, I couldn't have told you, let alone known (consciously) that today was the anniversary of the event. Now I log onto Slashdot for the first time today and see it has been a monster thread.
I saw the Challenger disaster live on CNN (I was 27 at the time) and it had a big impact on me. Like seeing any multi-fatality accident live would affect one. It indirectly lead to a reawakening of my interest in amatuer astronomy when I found the Feb. issue of Sky and Telescope thrown away atop a wastebasket at the post office. The cover picture featured Discovery lifting off the launch pad (and was hailing the (then) imminent launch of the Hubble Space Telescope -to be delayed for years.
Anyway, I think the connection is just too weird and more than a coincidence. It's not like I have every dreamed about the Space Shuttle before. It seems to be a powerful reminder of how much our subconscious is able to keep track of and release in the form of dreams.
Curious George
I bought Sorenson Broadcaster and used QTSS to deliver live AUDIO of our universities athletic events. A few month's later, the President of the U.S. picked our campus to deliver one of his last major addresses. HAD to try a video webcast. It came off well, with reports from across the country reporting it worked great.
Real offers a free server, but only to get you hooked. Once you become successful, you'll have to purchase expensive licenses.
QuickTime Player is a great choice for users of either major platform. It has a super-easy installer. As already mentioned, the QTSS is free in various incarnations.
Keep in mind that streaming LIVE is different from streaming archived events. You'll be using RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) instead of HTTP. That can cause problems for people behind firewalls that aren't configured to let the stream in.
I highly recommend "QuickTime for the Web". Here's a sample chapter from Apple's site.
Broadcaster is great and you can download a fully functional 30 day demo. I swear, if you want to do live video, you really should get a FireWire equipped Mac, plug in your video camera and run Sorenson Broadcaster. If you want to improve on reality, play with the free copy of iMovie to create your archive files. You would have to be insane to spend money for the hardware and software necessary to do the same stuff on another platform.
Curious George.
Dingleberry
Clearly, this is a problem for a mirror that we cannot move from a direction perpendicular to the ground. This problem would be greatest for mercury telescopes closer to the equator and least for mercury telescopes sitting nearer the true north or south poles. The TRACKING problem would be nonexistent at true north or south, but the object would still be ROTATING which would smudge details, as well.
Curious George
When you go out at night, your iris opens up to a maximum of about 7mm. If our pupils were larger (like a cat's) we could see even better in the dark (dim objects appear brighter to cats than to humans). This introduces us to the principle that the larger the diameter of our light collector, the brighter dim objects appear. This is why a telescope with a 10" diameter objective (mirror or in case of refractors, FRONT LENS) will show you dim deep sky objects better than a 6" diameter telescope.
All of that light does little good if it is not focused down into a disk of light that will fit into the observer's pupil (7mm or less). That is why mirrors must be spherical or parabolic. . .to focus all of that light into a small space. The trick of telescope design is how to bend the resulting focal point out of the way of the incoming light. (It does little good if the focal point is placed where you have to block the incoming light with your head!) In the case of the common Newtonian design, a smaller mirror is placed in the way to bend the light path 90 degrees out the SIDE of the tube, where the resulting image can be examined under magnification (using various focal length eyepieces). This smaller mirror is called a "secondary". It must be kept small, since it IS blocking a small percentage of the incoming light.
In the case of the mercury mirror, it is flat in respects its orientation to the earth that it sits upon. But in order to achieve a focal point, the mirror SURFACE is not flat, it must be spherical or parabolic. This is achieved by spinning the platter of mercury. Like stirring a glass of tea, the center dips and the sides rise. Once a constant rate is maintained the focal length will not shift.
The poster's idea CAN NOT WORK (reflect light from other angles into the mirror). In the case of a spherical mirror, the focal point is reflected straight back at the secondary, so how do you view it. In the case of a parabolic mirror, the resulting image would be distorted. To avoid this distortion the path would have to be directed (at some point by yet another mirror, straight down perpendicular to the mirror. Again this additional mirror will be blocking our view of the resulting focused image. IN EITHER CASE, we are losing the benefit of the large mirror, because we must use a smaller mirror to reflect onto it (if we used a large mirror, we must be blocking too large a percentage of our primary mirror.
Curious George
Thanks again to all the well thought-out responses.
Curious George
It might be a good idea to make it illegal for dumps and landfills to take old computers (which would encourage you take it to the recyclers), but I don't see how the manufacturers should be held responsible for an irresponsible owner's disposal of his machine.
Making manufacturers responsible would just result in higher consumer prices. (MFG would have to build-in the cost of disposal for trade-ins).
"Yeah, in my day we used to collect computers from the ditches and take them back to the store for the deposits!"
Curious George
A) need to come from SOMEWHERE (see: "tuition increase" or "additional state aid") or
B) be taken from somewhere else in the departments/university's existing budget dollars. The effects will be tangible somewhere. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The same cannot be said for the advertising on the Coke machines or somebody's t-shirts. Really.
With your current ability to discern issues, here's hoping you aren't a law major, or a university regent.
Curious George