Do not, under any circumstances, code under the influence of alcohol.
This was actually a rule at a company for which I worked. We'd occasionally have beer or wine at company parties and such, and writing code after drinking was verboten. You could go back to your desk and work on design, documentation, etc. But no programming after drinking.
...then how the hell are you going to create realistic 3D meshes?
Sure, you could use some that somebody else made. But then it's hard to say what part of the result is actually your work.
Or you could take a 3D scan of some objects. But you may as well just take a snapshot of the objects then, and maybe trace the photo.
No, this sort of software is actually much more useful for people who _can_ draw and/or sculpt, or who at least have a well-developed sense of proportion. Architects have been using this kind of software for years to produce drawings that appear hand-drawn from CAD drawings.
Actually, Doug Englebart and his colleagues invented the GUI. Some smart folks at Xerox PARC realized his work was great stuff and built a machine around it.
As a corporation, Xerox deserves (IMO) nearly zero credit for anything GUI because the executives there completely failed to understand it even when their own people explained it to them.
People make money by registering domain names and selling them at inflated prices to companies you'd expect to own them.
You've just defined cybersquatting.
In this case, however, the goal doesn't seem to be to sell the domain at an inflated price, but instead to use it to get a point across. It does seem deceptive to register someone's name and then use it against them. I'm not sure it's all that unfair, however, as long as the party that owns the domain doesn't try to make the site there look like it belongs to the named party.
In this case, if Floyd is putting up a site that pretends to be Van Hollen's then that's deceptive, unfair, and probably slanderous. On the other hand, if www.vanhollen.com makes it clear that it's owned by Floyd, well that's at least less offensive and probably more reasonably "free speech."
Then it should tell you something that global warming has been in the news for twenty years or more, and that it's a theory that's been widely accepted by scientists.
The only people you hear saying that it doesn't matter these days are politicians with links to the oil and gas industries.
This particular article may be out of the headlines in a few days, but the issue will be with us for the rest of our lives.
I was actually talking about "newness" from Anand's perspective. I'm plenty familiar with the Mac menu bar and its advantages, so (as I said) I wouldn't have even thought to mention it even to a new Mac user. It's just something I take for granted. Anand was coming to the Mac for (almost) the first time, though, and things completely basic for you and me were novel for him. It's an interesting read.
My criteria: 1) Around $50 2) Functional enough to be used after my trip as a generic backpack 3) Tough enough to survive hauling through airport, yet comfortable enough to endure wearing for hours 4) Enough pockets for my chargers, cables, etc.
That's a pretty tall order for a $50 bag. You should decide whether you want a regular old backpack plus some sort of padded case for your laptop, or a bag designed and built to carry a laptop. If the former, check out the REI Outlet for some decent packs at very good prices. Another source for the same is Campmor. You can add something ilke the Kelty computer sleeve for $20 more.
If you're willing to spend a little more money, check out the Timbuk2 Detour. We've go about five different Timbuk2 bags around here and every one of them is a winner. I've been using an El Ocho with a padded cell to carry a PowerBook for a few years now, and it shows almost no wear despite frequent use. The Detour looks like an even better solution with a carry handle, a courier-style shoulder strap, and a pair of backpack-type straps.
Wasting cycles looking for ET = wasting tax dollars.
Does it really matter how the cycles are "wasted"? Either the machine sits in a loop waiting for something to happen, or it sits in a loop waiting for something to happen and crunching some numbers in the meantime. Either way, the machine is just waiting for something useful to do and is perfectly capable of doing useful work when asked.
What's more, it's not like the taxpayers are paying for the server on a per cycle basis. They already bought the server, and now it's sitting there, paid for, apparently without enough work to keep it busy.
If anything, running SETI@Home actually makes better use of taxpayer dollars by using cycles that would otherwise be truly wasted to do some scientific computing in the public interest. Now, you may quibble with the quality of the science in question, but the alternative is for the machine to do nothing, and that's unquestionably a waste of a potentially useful resource.
With Windows, you have no doubts that there is going to be an application out there, already written, somewhere in cyberland...
Perhaps, but there's no guarantee that it will work very well.
I'm not talking just about dinky little shareware apps, mind you. I fired up Microsoft Word the other day after not using it very often for quite a while. Word must be the most intrusive program I've ever used! It kept moving text around on me, reformatting it, and telling me that I'd misspelled things. A long look at the preferences failed to reveal a way to turn off many of the features which were getting in my way.
Unfortunately, Word does the same sh*t on the Mac. But fortunately, most other programs don't. Using both platforms, my feeling is that Mac programs present a much more consistant interface. And there's more than enough Mac software out there that outside a few very narrow, very specialized fields, anyone will be able to do their work on a Mac.
I'm glad to see that Anand is open to trying a new OS. I give him lots of credit for plunking down a few grand, buying a nice Mac, and giving it an honest go. And I'm glad that in the end he had a positive experience and continues to enjoy using his Mac.
It's pretty interesting to read the impressions of someone trying out MacOS X for the first time, particularly if that someone hasn't travelled outside the world of Windows. Anand writes:
The uniformity really extends far beyond keyboard shortcuts...a menubar always exists at the top of your screen in MacOS X, regardless of what application you're in.
Talk about getting down to basics, eh? I think that's a very interesting comment. It would never have occurred to me to explain that to a new Mac user, particularly one with extensive computing experience on another platform. Kudos to Anand for capturing the newness of it all.
That said, there are a number of things that bug be about the article. For one, it seems pretty ballsy to switch to an entirely different platform and think that you've learned enough in 30 days to write an article of this length (printed, it comes to 24 pages). He clearly is laboring under a number of misconceptions that probably would have been cleared up if he'd spent some more time with his system.
Another thing is that he seems to want his Mac to work the way Windows does. That's a pretty common thing with switchers, and it's totally understandable. But if you're going to review an OS you should really try to come to it with an open mind. To his credit, he's pretty up front about his bias being due to using Windows for so long, but his "the directory structure seems very foreign because it's different from Windows" comments make me want to choke him.
A good editor (human editor, not text editor) would really help this article. Anand tends to use 50 words where 7 are called for, and he even manages to contradict himself occasionally. Though it clearly was not, it should have been reviewed by a knowledgeable Mac user or two to clear up some of the obvious misconceptions.
Anand criticizes the price of the system he bought several times. He spent about $2700 on a top of the line, dual processor G5 because:
I knew that if I was going to give the platform a good chance, I needed to get the fastest system that Apple had to offer.
It's great that he knew what he wanted and all, but as a newcomer he wasn't really in a position to know whether he really needed that much power or whether he could have gotten along just fine with a G4 iMac. He never considered that something less than the fastest thing available could meet his needs, and he doesn't bother to try to find out. So it's a little unfair to whine about the price when something costing half as much very well might have performed acceptably.
Overall, I'm glad he wrote it and I'm glad he's happy with the Mac. Keep at it.
How, EXACTLY, would the 9-11 attackers been stopped if they had been issued RFID drivers licenses?
Presumably, the hijackers' licenses would have been read by a computer and then compared to a security watch list. If the hijackers were on the watch list, they would have been flagged and possibly prevented from boarding the plane.
My initial reaction, like many I've read here, was "Virginia ought to be a little more careful about who it gives licenses to." But a moment's reflection made me realize that licenses have a fairly long validity period, and it was likely not until after they obtained their licenses that it became known that these guys might be dangerous.
I'd agree that the RFID idea is pretty dumb. There's no reason that the person at the airport checking ID's can't simply scan the bar code on the front of my license, swipe the mag stripe on the back, or key in the license number.
The only reason I can think of for using RFID technology in a license is so that it can be scanned without my knowledge, and I can't think of a legitimate reason that government agencies or businesses should be allowed to do that.
You wind up turning off the undecideds/moderates out there with the over-the-top Bush bashing.
In 2000, Bush made a big deal of the fact that he speaks plainly. And this time around, he has made a lot of hay over the difference between his own simplistic but clear view of the world and John Kerry's more complicated, nuanced understanding.
Apparently, those who would vote for Bush prefer simple, clear, uncomplicated statements. I say we give it to 'em. Bush lied.
No, not that NCSA. The one in Illinois is the "National Center for Supercomputing Applications." The one referenced above is the "National Cyber Security Alliance."
Not sure why 'cyber,' which is usually a prefix, has become an entire word there. Maybe they felt that hyphenation is for sissies. Maybe they figured it'd be easier to get a budget through Congress if they stole a well-liked organization's moniker.
Or perhaps he felt that there are a lot of issues to be concerned about, but nobody in the administration wanted to consider them. Maybe it's the same thing. If I recall, that was essentially Richard Clarke's beef. According to Clarke, he kept telling the administration that this terrorism stuff was serious, but his superiors didn't want to hear it, didn't want to have to do anything about it.
How can you have compatable pinout on a dual core cpu?
As others have pointed out, the newly released version is not dual core. But more to the point, what's to prevent the dual core version from having the same, or substantially same, pinout? No matter how many processing units you have on the chip, you still only need one address bus, one data bus, one clock, etc. Maybe multiple cores would require a few extra signals -- I'm certainly not a chip designer -- but it seems unlikely that the pinouts would have to be very different.
Enterprise was parked out at Dulles for a while, and it too seemed to be abandoned, but in retrospect it seems likely that it was just waiting during the construction of its new home.
Slashdot Mirror
Do not, under any circumstances, code under the influence of alcohol.
This was actually a rule at a company for which I worked. We'd occasionally have beer or wine at company parties and such, and writing code after drinking was verboten. You could go back to your desk and work on design, documentation, etc. But no programming after drinking.
It's a damn good rule.
...then how the hell are you going to create realistic 3D meshes?
Sure, you could use some that somebody else made. But then it's hard to say what part of the result is actually your work.
Or you could take a 3D scan of some objects. But you may as well just take a snapshot of the objects then, and maybe trace the photo.
No, this sort of software is actually much more useful for people who _can_ draw and/or sculpt, or who at least have a well-developed sense of proportion. Architects have been using this kind of software for years to produce drawings that appear hand-drawn from CAD drawings.
It's hardly a new idea.
...because they'll get sued by Fox for infringing on intellectual property.
Actually, Doug Englebart and his colleagues invented the GUI. Some smart folks at Xerox PARC realized his work was great stuff and built a machine around it.
As a corporation, Xerox deserves (IMO) nearly zero credit for anything GUI because the executives there completely failed to understand it even when their own people explained it to them.
People make money by registering domain names and selling them at inflated prices to companies you'd expect to own them.
You've just defined cybersquatting.
In this case, however, the goal doesn't seem to be to sell the domain at an inflated price, but instead to use it to get a point across. It does seem deceptive to register someone's name and then use it against them. I'm not sure it's all that unfair, however, as long as the party that owns the domain doesn't try to make the site there look like it belongs to the named party.
In this case, if Floyd is putting up a site that pretends to be Van Hollen's then that's deceptive, unfair, and probably slanderous. On the other hand, if www.vanhollen.com makes it clear that it's owned by Floyd, well that's at least less offensive and probably more reasonably "free speech."
Then it should tell you something that global warming has been in the news for twenty years or more, and that it's a theory that's been widely accepted by scientists.
The only people you hear saying that it doesn't matter these days are politicians with links to the oil and gas industries.
This particular article may be out of the headlines in a few days, but the issue will be with us for the rest of our lives.
...where can I get one of those foam cheese hats?
So, in order to collect the reward, do you have to answer any questions? Like "How do you happen to know about this pornographic web site?"
I was actually talking about "newness" from Anand's perspective. I'm plenty familiar with the Mac menu bar and its advantages, so (as I said) I wouldn't have even thought to mention it even to a new Mac user. It's just something I take for granted. Anand was coming to the Mac for (almost) the first time, though, and things completely basic for you and me were novel for him. It's an interesting read.
My criteria: 1) Around $50 2) Functional enough to be used after my trip as a generic backpack 3) Tough enough to survive hauling through airport, yet comfortable enough to endure wearing for hours 4) Enough pockets for my chargers, cables, etc.
That's a pretty tall order for a $50 bag. You should decide whether you want a regular old backpack plus some sort of padded case for your laptop, or a bag designed and built to carry a laptop. If the former, check out the REI Outlet for some decent packs at very good prices. Another source for the same is Campmor. You can add something ilke the Kelty computer sleeve for $20 more.
If you're willing to spend a little more money, check out the Timbuk2 Detour. We've go about five different Timbuk2 bags around here and every one of them is a winner. I've been using an El Ocho with a padded cell to carry a PowerBook for a few years now, and it shows almost no wear despite frequent use. The Detour looks like an even better solution with a carry handle, a courier-style shoulder strap, and a pair of backpack-type straps.
Type "flaunt vs. flout" into Google and see what you get.
Sure, fine, he violated a policy and got fired for it. I don't have much problem with that, depending on the circumstances.
But don't tell me that he got fired because he was wasting processor cycles. That argument doesn't hold much water.
If you're stupid (yes, STUPID) enough to flaunt the rules
And if you weren't stupid (yes, STUPID), you'd know the difference between flaunt and flout.
Wasting cycles looking for ET = wasting tax dollars.
Does it really matter how the cycles are "wasted"? Either the machine sits in a loop waiting for something to happen, or it sits in a loop waiting for something to happen and crunching some numbers in the meantime. Either way, the machine is just waiting for something useful to do and is perfectly capable of doing useful work when asked.
What's more, it's not like the taxpayers are paying for the server on a per cycle basis. They already bought the server, and now it's sitting there, paid for, apparently without enough work to keep it busy.
If anything, running SETI@Home actually makes better use of taxpayer dollars by using cycles that would otherwise be truly wasted to do some scientific computing in the public interest. Now, you may quibble with the quality of the science in question, but the alternative is for the machine to do nothing, and that's unquestionably a waste of a potentially useful resource.
With Windows, you have no doubts that there is going to be an application out there, already written, somewhere in cyberland...
Perhaps, but there's no guarantee that it will work very well.
I'm not talking just about dinky little shareware apps, mind you. I fired up Microsoft Word the other day after not using it very often for quite a while. Word must be the most intrusive program I've ever used! It kept moving text around on me, reformatting it, and telling me that I'd misspelled things. A long look at the preferences failed to reveal a way to turn off many of the features which were getting in my way.
Unfortunately, Word does the same sh*t on the Mac. But fortunately, most other programs don't. Using both platforms, my feeling is that Mac programs present a much more consistant interface. And there's more than enough Mac software out there that outside a few very narrow, very specialized fields, anyone will be able to do their work on a Mac.
I'm glad to see that Anand is open to trying a new OS. I give him lots of credit for plunking down a few grand, buying a nice Mac, and giving it an honest go. And I'm glad that in the end he had a positive experience and continues to enjoy using his Mac.
It's pretty interesting to read the impressions of someone trying out MacOS X for the first time, particularly if that someone hasn't travelled outside the world of Windows. Anand writes:
The uniformity really extends far beyond keyboard shortcuts...a menubar always exists at the top of your screen in MacOS X, regardless of what application you're in.
Talk about getting down to basics, eh? I think that's a very interesting comment. It would never have occurred to me to explain that to a new Mac user, particularly one with extensive computing experience on another platform. Kudos to Anand for capturing the newness of it all.
That said, there are a number of things that bug be about the article. For one, it seems pretty ballsy to switch to an entirely different platform and think that you've learned enough in 30 days to write an article of this length (printed, it comes to 24 pages). He clearly is laboring under a number of misconceptions that probably would have been cleared up if he'd spent some more time with his system.
Another thing is that he seems to want his Mac to work the way Windows does. That's a pretty common thing with switchers, and it's totally understandable. But if you're going to review an OS you should really try to come to it with an open mind. To his credit, he's pretty up front about his bias being due to using Windows for so long, but his "the directory structure seems very foreign because it's different from Windows" comments make me want to choke him.
A good editor (human editor, not text editor) would really help this article. Anand tends to use 50 words where 7 are called for, and he even manages to contradict himself occasionally. Though it clearly was not, it should have been reviewed by a knowledgeable Mac user or two to clear up some of the obvious misconceptions.
Anand criticizes the price of the system he bought several times. He spent about $2700 on a top of the line, dual processor G5 because:
I knew that if I was going to give the platform a good chance, I needed to get the fastest system that Apple had to offer.
It's great that he knew what he wanted and all, but as a newcomer he wasn't really in a position to know whether he really needed that much power or whether he could have gotten along just fine with a G4 iMac. He never considered that something less than the fastest thing available could meet his needs, and he doesn't bother to try to find out. So it's a little unfair to whine about the price when something costing half as much very well might have performed acceptably.
Overall, I'm glad he wrote it and I'm glad he's happy with the Mac. Keep at it.
How, EXACTLY, would the 9-11 attackers been stopped if they had been issued RFID drivers licenses?
Presumably, the hijackers' licenses would have been read by a computer and then compared to a security watch list. If the hijackers were on the watch list, they would have been flagged and possibly prevented from boarding the plane.
My initial reaction, like many I've read here, was "Virginia ought to be a little more careful about who it gives licenses to." But a moment's reflection made me realize that licenses have a fairly long validity period, and it was likely not until after they obtained their licenses that it became known that these guys might be dangerous.
I'd agree that the RFID idea is pretty dumb. There's no reason that the person at the airport checking ID's can't simply scan the bar code on the front of my license, swipe the mag stripe on the back, or key in the license number.
The only reason I can think of for using RFID technology in a license is so that it can be scanned without my knowledge, and I can't think of a legitimate reason that government agencies or businesses should be allowed to do that.
Perhaps we're all just taking advantage of the opportunity to speak out against our government while we still have that right.
No, your post was fine. It just irks me that someone modded it "funny" rather than "interesting" or "insightful."
You wind up turning off the undecideds/moderates out there with the over-the-top Bush bashing.
In 2000, Bush made a big deal of the fact that he speaks plainly.
And this time around, he has made a lot of hay over the difference between his own simplistic but clear view of the world and John Kerry's more complicated, nuanced understanding.
Apparently, those who would vote for Bush prefer simple, clear, uncomplicated statements. I say we give it to 'em. Bush lied.
The sarcasm is well taken, but it sure as hell isn't funny.
Stupid moderators.
No, not that NCSA. The one in Illinois is the "National Center for Supercomputing Applications." The one referenced above is the "National Cyber Security Alliance."
Not sure why 'cyber,' which is usually a prefix, has become an entire word there. Maybe they felt that hyphenation is for sissies. Maybe they figured it'd be easier to get a budget through Congress if they stole a well-liked organization's moniker.
Sounds like he feels he was being setup to fail.
Or perhaps he felt that there are a lot of issues to be concerned about, but nobody in the administration wanted to consider them. Maybe it's the same thing. If I recall, that was essentially Richard Clarke's beef. According to Clarke, he kept telling the administration that this terrorism stuff was serious, but his superiors didn't want to hear it, didn't want to have to do anything about it.
How can you have compatable pinout on a dual core cpu?
As others have pointed out, the newly released version is not dual core. But more to the point, what's to prevent the dual core version from having the same, or substantially same, pinout? No matter how many processing units you have on the chip, you still only need one address bus, one data bus, one clock, etc. Maybe multiple cores would require a few extra signals -- I'm certainly not a chip designer -- but it seems unlikely that the pinouts would have to be very different.
Boy, what I would give to be able to sit in that seat and flip those switches!
I doubt that they'll let you sit in it, but you can see the American space shuttle Enterprise for yourself at the McDonnell Space Hangar facility of the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum. It's out near Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia.
Enterprise was parked out at Dulles for a while, and it too seemed to be abandoned, but in retrospect it seems likely that it was just waiting during the construction of its new home.