If the windows NT server next to me were a bicycle, it would be nice and shiney, have one gear (slow)
That part of your analogy is poor. Fixed-gear bicycles are extremely reliable, quiet, strong, and require very little maintenance. You can re-gear if a task requires it. Ask a bicycle courier or mountain bike trials rider.
And there's no such thing as a "slow" gear. Horses for courses. It either brings you up to speed quickly but lacks top-end power, or it takes forever to get there but once it's there it flies.
I do agree with Windows' "wheels flying off every now and then for no apparent reason" though...
FCC regulations prohibit deliberately interfering with radio communication. 47 CFR 15.5(b)
You're right, as far as actively transmitting goes. But something passive (like stuffing an RFID tag into an ESD bag or maybe even tinfoil) would not contravene this regulation.
Here's the text...
Title 47, CFR Section 15.5 General conditions of operation.
(b) Operation of an intentional, unintentional, or incidental radiator is subject to the conditions that no harmful interference is caused and that interference must be accepted that may be caused by the operation of an authorized radio station, by another intentional or unintentional radiator, by industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) equipment, or by an incidental radiator.
I believe widescreen TVs, movie theater screens, and even Credit Cards also follow the golden ratio (loosely).
The math behind this often-passed rumor is easy to do, so here it is:
phi: ~= 1.618 Credit card: 86mm:54mm ~= 1.593 (1.5% off phi) Normal TV: 4:3 ~= 1.333 (way off phi) Widescreen TV: 16:9 ~= 1.778 (10% off phi)
And as the author of the book points out, if you drag a tape measure all over -any- painting, you're going to find ANY proportion your're looking for all over the place.
I'm assuming a simple implementation of the knock protection here, but if one was to constantly knock at scattered ports and times on the targeted system, the system might not open the secret destination port to anyone, including legitimate users who are trying to get in at the time.
Being nine years old with an aptitude for math and computers should allow your son to grok much of Python and especially the Pygame modules for easy game writing in Python. Pygame runs well in both Linux and Win32 (based on the SDL libraries, also free). There are plenty of short, easy examples of graphics and sound and animation using Pygame.
LiveWires has some Python courses specifically for non-programmers and young people, some with a slant toward games.
You might also look at Guido van Robot, a Python-based robot programming environment for children. Maybe it won't allow for 'real' game writing, but the concepts seem sound and it might be a more gentle intro.
The article doesn't touch on it, but the NASA FAQ mentions this unique property...
Q: What happens if I touch it?
A: Silica aerogel is semi-elastic because it returns to its original form if slightly deformed. If further deformed, a dimple will be created. However, if the elastic limit is exceeded, it will shatter catastrophically, like glass.
I cannot think of a single PC game that uses multi-monitors like this. Can anyone give me an example?
There are more than a few PC games now that use multiple monitors (ie, the game is aware of separate physical monitors laid out vertically or horizontally, not just mapped as one large display).
235,396 fewer Computer Programmers... wow, that's half the population of Wyoming!
For those whose base unit of measurement is not 'Wyomings'... if we lined those programmers up head-to-toe, they would stretch approximately 250 miles from Silicon Valley out into the Pacific Ocean heading towards Asia. At that point, of course, many would drown.
Alternatively, if the computer programmers were laid end-to-end, the chain would be longer than 4,000 football fields. Of course, it would be dangerous leaving so many nerds lying down in fields if football players were around.
Unfortunately, turbine blades are still designed by highly skilled engineers
Exactly. Once the highly skilled engineers design the blade, he wants to ensure that a bunch of hamfisted craftsmen and welders and such don't screw up the implementation with mistakes, sabotage, job-security-slackness, labor negotiations, etc.
Simonyi says he wants the code to "look like the design". There is still a role for the designer.
what he wants to do is give somebody the ability to say "I want a fan-like-thing that moves a big metal bird" and have a jet engine pop out.
No, I don't think he's trying to translate vague human requests into code. He wants the user to become the designer or modeller, and the tool to become the code-monkey. He wants the user to create the design with GUI tools and reusable components (like PowerPoint, he says -- dunno about that), which is going to require the user to think about requirements and interfaces (hmmm, good luck) but not the code or maintenance. He doesn't envision replacing the role of designer or the model. I thought the article made that clear. But he does want every "user" to be a designer/modeller. Ugh. Not so sure about that one.;-)
You want a group that has been, historically, non-conformists to agree on something so singular as a logo?
Sure. Even anarchists have a logo, for god's sake!
Hackers are a rich subculture, and it's been that way for decades. Hackers share common life views, activities, and experiences that are different than the mainstream. So they're distinctive and weird, not unlike peace-activists, republicans, christians, motorcyclists, masons, homosexuals, etc. They've all got their logos that some wear with pride and others choose not to. But if you do choose to fly the flag, at least there's a community understanding of what it means.
One problem I see with a logo though, is that hackers tend to hate posers (since hacking is more about competence than simply attitude). And it's easier to pose with a logo.
Ah, my mistake. Yes. When you wrote "warming the can" you didn't say "drink the contents", so bizarrely, I was picturing warming it in your hands or in some other external way. That would certainly burn calories also, but somewhat less so as I pointed out.
Of course, drinking it is a very effective way to warm it.:-)
therefore you would gain 300 - 11.55 = 288.45 Calories of energy from a 4 degrees C, 350mL can of Coke.
Interesting math. If it's correct, I think it would work only in a very special situations, like if you entirely surround the can with your body, perhaps inside a big roll of flab, or maybe inside a body orafice:-o. Otherwise, I think contact with the surrounding air (and external condensation effects) will affect the can's warming in addition to your own effects.
I'm not going to speculate whether god exists or prayer works. (Shocking.) But I'm trying to reason through why people continue to pray, even when results aren't observed...
1. Person of faith prays for X to happen. 2. One of two outcomes occurs:
a. X happens. God answered prayer and/or it was god's will,
so existence of god confirmed and person's faith grows.
(More prayers to follow!)
b. X doesn't happen. Person of faith believes it was god's will,
so existence of god confirmed and person's faith grows.
(More prayers to follow!)
Results don't matter! I can see why people would continue to pray, but the feedback loop in the reasoning kind of sickens me from a "truth" perspective.
This man speaks the truth: "if I were on life-support, I'd rather have it run by a Gameboy than a Windows box" -- Cliff Wells, 2002.03.13, in comp.lang.python (original UseNet article)
The second half of your legitimate complaining was about non-IT industries and unskilled, non-professional labour which has nothing to do with outsourcing a programming project.
As for the IT industry, well, what would you have the Indian IT industry do? Not advertise its services? Shut itself out of the largest IT market in the world? Say, oh, no, we won't accept offers from the USA because it's not fair to workers there? Puhleeeze. Canada, for example, became a great IT (especially programming) resource because it had an educated workforce, able and willing to work for cheaper than Americans. The lasted for some time, but the Canadian IT workforce has hit similar slowdowns as the Americans now also. The difference with India is even greater. Indians found a market where they can do comparable work (I'm not saying better or worse, but comparable) for much less cost. They moved in. That's the natural progression for anyone rational.
The writing has been on the wall for 10 years or more. Robert Cringley wasn't the only one writing lucid books on "The Decline & Fall of the American Programmer" in 1993. Any American who has entered the IT profession in the last 10 years either did their research and knew what the risks were, or simply didn't do basic research about where their IT industry was going and what its competition was going to be. The latter group missed the cluetrain and it was their own fault. This is not news.
I see people jumping to the conclusion here that anyone hitting these caps must be doing something illegal. Try this scenario on for size...
Listening to a 160kbps SHOUTcast/Icecast stream will cost you over 50 gigs per month if you left it on 24/7. Wasteful, yes perhaps. But legal. So less hypothetically, let's say you work and hang out at home a lot and listen to a high quality stream 10 hours per day. That's still 21 gigs per month. Shave the bitrate down to 96kbps (below many people's threshold of "high quality") and you'd still be using over 12 gigs per month.
This seems like a reasonable, legal use to me. The selection of music available in online streams is amazing, and could be one of the more compelling reasons to get a dedicated internet connection, especially after checking out the cost and selection of alternatives (eg. satellite, digital RF, or digital cable radio)
First, I realize that any action's legality can only -truly- be tested in the courts and we're playing theoretical/law-school games here. But how about this protocol...
1) Server receives HTTP GET for file. 2) Recognize that (for example) a 3 megabyte file can be described by a 24 million bit long number in base 2, or even shorter numbers in other bases you might prefer. 3) Recognize that numbers are free and can't be copyrighted. Every number can and is used for a multitude of purposes. 4) Respond with HTTP code 401 Unauthorized or a 403 Forbidden or whatever is applicable. Heck, create a new code that informs the client that you can't give them the file requested, since copying a digital work -may- infringe on copyright law. 5) In the body of the response, give an extended error code number as per 2) above. It's up to the client how they interpret or use that number. You're giving them a freely available and multi-purpose number.
Nothing in my response to the client was a copyrighted work, just a free number that is not and cannot be copyrighted.
He would have been lynched for such an action back in the days of the Apple-Commodore-Atari religious wars! The photo on his home page clearly shows the Apple I prototype hooked up to a Commodore 1701 monitor on the builder's workbench.
(BTW, was that model # 1701 -really- Commodore's reference to the USS Enterprise as we all seemed to think at the time? Or did we just not get out enough?)
I've never been to a concert in my life and don't understand why I should care to
Let me help you. You may want to see a concert if you think you'd enjoy:
- the feeling of 'never stepping in the same stream twice' -- go see artist X every year for 5 years, and each performance of any given song will 1) be different than the CD version, 2) be different than the previous year, 3) be different than the previous night!
- hearing unscripted improvisation between artists -- many musicians claim that the set they're most proud of playing was NOT the one recorded in the studio for the CD
- the little live mistakes and recoveries of talented artists -- you'll rarely get that on a CD
- experiencing the energy of dozens or hundreds or thousands of like-minded people simultaneously grooving or interpreting or dancing or just chilling to the same music you love
- to experience the artist -- 16 bit stereo samples @ 44.1kHz captures audio quite well -- but it doesn't capture dance, facial expressions, stage antics, synchronized light/lasers/visual effects, costumes, etc.
Recorded music is here to stay, obviously, but live performance is different. It's not necessarily better. If you like any given artist though, it's enriching. More times than not, if I've appreciated an artist before going to see them live, the live experience made me respect them even more.
Some (not all) artists are multidimensional. CD is great for the car or bus or office, but CD doesn't do many artists the justice that live performance can. And of course, some artists suck live. Explore.
Here are the distros currently supported by Oracle.
Yes, it's mostly just RedHat and SuSE that are supported by Oracle. Actually, SuSE just falls under UnitedLinux alongside SCO and some others. Not just any SuSE, either. The personal edition of SuSE you can download for free is not supported. You need Advanced or Enterprise Server versions of RedHat, SuSE, and other distros in order to be actually "supported" by Oracle.
That said, I'm sucessfully running Oracle 8i on Slackware and Oracle 9i on free SuSE, but those are non-production servers for evaluation.
The production servers run PostgreSQL on Slackware, naturally!;-)
The cameras flashed when SCO attorneys briefly highlighted on screen alleged examples of "literal" copyright infringement and improper use of derivative works of Unix System V code that appear in Linux 2.4X and Linux 2.5X.
While it was difficult to ascertain the exact code being shown on screen, attorneys pointed to exact copying of some code from Unix to Linux and claimed that IBM improperly donated almost a million lines of Unix System V code to the Linux 2.4x and Linux 2.5x kernel that infringe on its Unix System V contract with SCO -- and SCO's intellectual property.
Okay, so can we start seeing some photos or filenames or something now? Let's put this story to rest. Either SCO is wrong in their claims and we all get on with life, or they are correct and those of us with 2.4+ kernels might consider applying patches. Photos! Filenames! Output from a 'diff'! Anything dammit!
Slashdot Mirror
If the windows NT server next to me were a bicycle, it would be nice and shiney, have one gear (slow)
That part of your analogy is poor. Fixed-gear bicycles are extremely reliable, quiet, strong, and require very little maintenance. You can re-gear if a task requires it. Ask a bicycle courier or mountain bike trials rider.
And there's no such thing as a "slow" gear. Horses for courses. It either brings you up to speed quickly but lacks top-end power, or it takes forever to get there but once it's there it flies.
I do agree with Windows' "wheels flying off every now and then for no apparent reason" though...
FCC regulations prohibit deliberately interfering with radio communication. 47 CFR 15.5(b)
You're right, as far as actively transmitting goes. But something passive (like stuffing an RFID tag into an ESD bag or maybe even tinfoil) would not contravene this regulation.
Here's the text...
Title 47, CFR Section 15.5 General conditions of operation.
(b) Operation of an intentional, unintentional, or incidental radiator is subject to the conditions that no harmful interference is caused and that interference must be accepted that may be caused by the operation of an authorized radio station, by another intentional or unintentional radiator, by industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) equipment, or by an incidental radiator.
I believe widescreen TVs, movie theater screens, and even Credit Cards also follow the golden ratio (loosely).
The math behind this often-passed rumor is easy to do, so here it is:
phi: ~= 1.618
Credit card: 86mm:54mm ~= 1.593 (1.5% off phi)
Normal TV: 4:3 ~= 1.333 (way off phi)
Widescreen TV: 16:9 ~= 1.778 (10% off phi)
And as the author of the book points out, if you drag a tape measure all over -any- painting, you're going to find ANY proportion your're looking for all over the place.
I'm assuming a simple implementation of the knock protection here, but if one was to constantly knock at scattered ports and times on the targeted system, the system might not open the secret destination port to anyone, including legitimate users who are trying to get in at the time.
it seems it is nearly impossible to buy a wireless keyboard without having a mouse bundled with it
The person asking the question (and the editor who accepted it) are not trying very hard. "wireless keyboard" -mouse
Being nine years old with an aptitude for math and computers should allow your son to grok much of Python and especially the Pygame modules for easy game writing in Python. Pygame runs well in both Linux and Win32 (based on the SDL libraries, also free). There are plenty of short, easy examples of graphics and sound and animation using Pygame.
LiveWires has some Python courses specifically for non-programmers and young people, some with a slant toward games.
You might also look at Guido van Robot, a Python-based robot programming environment for children. Maybe it won't allow for 'real' game writing, but the concepts seem sound and it might be a more gentle intro.
The article doesn't touch on it, but the NASA FAQ mentions this unique property...
Q: What happens if I touch it?
A: Silica aerogel is semi-elastic because it returns to its original form if slightly deformed. If further deformed, a dimple will be created. However, if the elastic limit is exceeded, it will shatter catastrophically, like glass.
I cannot think of a single PC game that uses multi-monitors like this. Can anyone give me an example?
There are more than a few PC games now that use multiple monitors (ie, the game is aware of separate physical monitors laid out vertically or horizontally, not just mapped as one large display).
Microsoft Flight Sim has proper multi-monitor support.
Matrox lists 19 dual-monitor games on their site.
There may be others.
Lawyer A: "What do you call 235,000 fewer programmers by 2015?"
Lawyer B: "I dunno."
Lawyer A: "A good start."
235,396 fewer Computer Programmers... wow, that's half the population of Wyoming!
For those whose base unit of measurement is not 'Wyomings'... if we lined those programmers up head-to-toe, they would stretch approximately 250 miles from Silicon Valley out into the Pacific Ocean heading towards Asia. At that point, of course, many would drown.
Alternatively, if the computer programmers were laid end-to-end, the chain would be longer than 4,000 football fields. Of course, it would be dangerous leaving so many nerds lying down in fields if football players were around.
Unfortunately, turbine blades are still designed by highly skilled engineers
;-)
Exactly. Once the highly skilled engineers design the blade, he wants to ensure that a bunch of hamfisted craftsmen and welders and such don't screw up the implementation with mistakes, sabotage, job-security-slackness, labor negotiations, etc.
Simonyi says he wants the code to "look like the design". There is still a role for the designer.
what he wants to do is give somebody the ability to say "I want a fan-like-thing that moves a big metal bird" and have a jet engine pop out.
No, I don't think he's trying to translate vague human requests into code. He wants the user to become the designer or modeller, and the tool to become the code-monkey. He wants the user to create the design with GUI tools and reusable components (like PowerPoint, he says -- dunno about that), which is going to require the user to think about requirements and interfaces (hmmm, good luck) but not the code or maintenance. He doesn't envision replacing the role of designer or the model. I thought the article made that clear. But he does want every "user" to be a designer/modeller. Ugh. Not so sure about that one.
You want a group that has been, historically, non-conformists to agree on something so singular as a logo?
Sure. Even anarchists have a logo, for god's sake!
Hackers are a rich subculture, and it's been that way for decades. Hackers share common life views, activities, and experiences that are different than the mainstream. So they're distinctive and weird, not unlike peace-activists, republicans, christians, motorcyclists, masons, homosexuals, etc. They've all got their logos that some wear with pride and others choose not to. But if you do choose to fly the flag, at least there's a community understanding of what it means.
One problem I see with a logo though, is that hackers tend to hate posers (since hacking is more about competence than simply attitude). And it's easier to pose with a logo.
We also assume that you chug it...
:-)
Ah, my mistake. Yes. When you wrote "warming the can" you didn't say "drink the contents", so bizarrely, I was picturing warming it in your hands or in some other external way. That would certainly burn calories also, but somewhat less so as I pointed out.
Of course, drinking it is a very effective way to warm it.
therefore you would gain 300 - 11.55 = 288.45 Calories of energy from a 4 degrees C, 350mL can of Coke.
:-o. Otherwise, I think contact with the surrounding air (and external condensation effects) will affect the can's warming in addition to your own effects.
Interesting math. If it's correct, I think it would work only in a very special situations, like if you entirely surround the can with your body, perhaps inside a big roll of flab, or maybe inside a body orafice
I'm not going to speculate whether god exists or prayer works. (Shocking.) But I'm trying to reason through why people continue to pray, even when results aren't observed...
1. Person of faith prays for X to happen.
2. One of two outcomes occurs:
a. X happens. God answered prayer and/or it was god's will,
so existence of god confirmed and person's faith grows.
(More prayers to follow!)
b. X doesn't happen. Person of faith believes it was god's will,
so existence of god confirmed and person's faith grows.
(More prayers to follow!)
Results don't matter! I can see why people would continue to pray, but the feedback loop in the reasoning kind of sickens me from a "truth" perspective.
This man speaks the truth: "if I were on life-support, I'd rather have it run by a Gameboy than a Windows box"
-- Cliff Wells, 2002.03.13, in comp.lang.python (original UseNet article)
The second half of your legitimate complaining was about non-IT industries and unskilled, non-professional labour which has nothing to do with outsourcing a programming project.
As for the IT industry, well, what would you have the Indian IT industry do? Not advertise its services? Shut itself out of the largest IT market in the world? Say, oh, no, we won't accept offers from the USA because it's not fair to workers there? Puhleeeze. Canada, for example, became a great IT (especially programming) resource because it had an educated workforce, able and willing to work for cheaper than Americans. The lasted for some time, but the Canadian IT workforce has hit similar slowdowns as the Americans now also. The difference with India is even greater. Indians found a market where they can do comparable work (I'm not saying better or worse, but comparable) for much less cost. They moved in. That's the natural progression for anyone rational.
The writing has been on the wall for 10 years or more. Robert Cringley wasn't the only one writing lucid books on "The Decline & Fall of the American Programmer" in 1993. Any American who has entered the IT profession in the last 10 years either did their research and knew what the risks were, or simply didn't do basic research about where their IT industry was going and what its competition was going to be. The latter group missed the cluetrain and it was their own fault. This is not news.
Nintendo doesn't have to add a port. You can already play NES games on the GameCube. Investigate the following combo:
18 minutes of UHDV takes up 3.5 terabytes.
How many terabytes after the DRM is added?
I see people jumping to the conclusion here that anyone hitting these caps must be doing something illegal. Try this scenario on for size...
Listening to a 160kbps SHOUTcast/Icecast stream will cost you over 50 gigs per month if you left it on 24/7. Wasteful, yes perhaps. But legal. So less hypothetically, let's say you work and hang out at home a lot and listen to a high quality stream 10 hours per day. That's still 21 gigs per month. Shave the bitrate down to 96kbps (below many people's threshold of "high quality") and you'd still be using over 12 gigs per month.
This seems like a reasonable, legal use to me. The selection of music available in online streams is amazing, and could be one of the more compelling reasons to get a dedicated internet connection, especially after checking out the cost and selection of alternatives (eg. satellite, digital RF, or digital cable radio)
First, I realize that any action's legality can only -truly- be tested in the courts and we're playing theoretical/law-school games here. But how about this protocol...
:-)
1) Server receives HTTP GET for file.
2) Recognize that (for example) a 3 megabyte file can be described by a 24 million bit long number in base 2, or even shorter numbers in other bases you might prefer.
3) Recognize that numbers are free and can't be copyrighted. Every number can and is used for a multitude of purposes.
4) Respond with HTTP code 401 Unauthorized or a 403 Forbidden or whatever is applicable. Heck, create a new code that informs the client that you can't give them the file requested, since copying a digital work -may- infringe on copyright law.
5) In the body of the response, give an extended error code number as per 2) above. It's up to the client how they interpret or use that number. You're giving them a freely available and multi-purpose number.
Nothing in my response to the client was a copyrighted work, just a free number that is not and cannot be copyrighted.
Okay, my tongue is out of my cheek now...
He would have been lynched for such an action back in the days of the Apple-Commodore-Atari religious wars! The photo on his home page clearly shows the Apple I prototype hooked up to a Commodore 1701 monitor on the builder's workbench.
(BTW, was that model # 1701 -really- Commodore's reference to the USS Enterprise as we all seemed to think at the time? Or did we just not get out enough?)
I've never been to a concert in my life and don't understand why I should care to
Let me help you. You may want to see a concert if you think you'd enjoy:
- the feeling of 'never stepping in the same stream twice' -- go see artist X every year for 5 years, and each performance of any given song will 1) be different than the CD version, 2) be different than the previous year, 3) be different than the previous night!
- hearing unscripted improvisation between artists -- many musicians claim that the set they're most proud of playing was NOT the one recorded in the studio for the CD
- the little live mistakes and recoveries of talented artists -- you'll rarely get that on a CD
- experiencing the energy of dozens or hundreds or thousands of like-minded people simultaneously grooving or interpreting or dancing or just chilling to the same music you love
- to experience the artist -- 16 bit stereo samples @ 44.1kHz captures audio quite well -- but it doesn't capture dance, facial expressions, stage antics, synchronized light/lasers/visual effects, costumes, etc.
Recorded music is here to stay, obviously, but live performance is different. It's not necessarily better. If you like any given artist though, it's enriching. More times than not, if I've appreciated an artist before going to see them live, the live experience made me respect them even more.
Some (not all) artists are multidimensional. CD is great for the car or bus or office, but CD doesn't do many artists the justice that live performance can. And of course, some artists suck live. Explore.
Here are the distros currently supported by Oracle.
;-)
Yes, it's mostly just RedHat and SuSE that are supported by Oracle. Actually, SuSE just falls under UnitedLinux alongside SCO and some others. Not just any SuSE, either. The personal edition of SuSE you can download for free is not supported. You need Advanced or Enterprise Server versions of RedHat, SuSE, and other distros in order to be actually "supported" by Oracle.
That said, I'm sucessfully running Oracle 8i on Slackware and Oracle 9i on free SuSE, but those are non-production servers for evaluation.
The production servers run PostgreSQL on Slackware, naturally!
From SCO attorneys' presentation today...
The cameras flashed when SCO attorneys briefly highlighted on screen alleged examples of "literal" copyright infringement and improper use of derivative works of Unix System V code that appear in Linux 2.4X and Linux 2.5X.
While it was difficult to ascertain the exact code being shown on screen, attorneys pointed to exact copying of some code from Unix to Linux and claimed that IBM improperly donated almost a million lines of Unix System V code to the Linux 2.4x and Linux 2.5x kernel that infringe on its Unix System V contract with SCO -- and SCO's intellectual property.
Okay, so can we start seeing some photos or filenames or something now? Let's put this story to rest. Either SCO is wrong in their claims and we all get on with life, or they are correct and those of us with 2.4+ kernels might consider applying patches. Photos! Filenames! Output from a 'diff'! Anything dammit!