As any programmer knows RPN was created to make the user interface more hostile at the benefit of a calculator.
Yes, HP choose to make their calculators RPN for easier implementation, but they found that users who became accustomed to RPN (mostly) did not want to go back to infix. I personally find RPN easier, and I choose to use what's easy for me. Any paradigm requires learning.
All the popwerful calculators now have full editable formula input screens complete with PARENS.
And yet, I still find RPN easier.
The parenthesis is a safe adn [sic] metally (mentally?) clean way to show precedence without the awkward postfix RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) idiocy of older calcualtors.
I find the stack a safe and mentally clean way to perform complex calculations.
The amrketplace has spoken.
The marketplace is made of sheep. The number of people using a particular technique is not always the best measure of that technique's merits.
With modern desktop computers, people prefer to "indicate' rather than 'regurgitate" and use mice and not syntax-error-prone command lines.
The Mac mouse won the command line wars, and the parenthesis and pretty "graphing" 16 dollar casios won the calculator war.
The commandline was brought back to the Mac. Not everyone uses it, but it sure as heck is handy to have.
I'm a kde user. 95% of my interaction with the computer is GUI based, but for the other 5% I need a commandline.
Its time to use PRN as a silly Palm Pilor calculator applet as they exist now. Iam sure there are several freeware RPN calculator programs for PalmOS.
This is the most sensible paragraph of your post. I agree that it's better to integrate one's calculator with one's PDA, thus reducing the number of physical objects one has to carry - but only for that reason.
I find non-RPN calculators very difficult to use because for the last ten years (when I bought my HP48S which still goes BTW) I've been conditioned to RPN. Using the stack is sooo much easier than keeping track of parentheses.
I really feel for the person who posted this question - I'd be gutted if my HP gave up the ghost.
Like someone else suggested - my next handheld device will be a PalmOS based PDA with an HP emulator. I'll probably still keep the HP48S though.
Think of an OS and applications today and the various files they use. Think of configuration files, shortcut files, bookmark files, document files, project files etc. Think of all those files that have until recently all been stored in proprietry, hard to interpret and sometimes buggy binary files.
For most of computer history, config files were text files. I'm not just talking about/etc/*, what about *.INI that windows used before the registry file was invented?
I've been thinking about a document management system that has an integrated word processor. To create a new document users would first be presented with a DE screen asking for some meta-data (perhaps with some manditory fields) before being dropped into the more familiar wordprocessor gui.
Someone with admin rights to the document management system might define the fields that go into the initial DE screen. Users might have to choose beforehand whether the document will be emailed, faxed or printed (eg for snail-mail), and the document would be "attached" to a client record, along with any replies (eg by email).
The "save" feature would be replaced by "save draft" and "save final", because once the document is sent to an external party you need to "freeze" the document as a record of what's been sent. Maybe some kind of versioning & rollback would be useful too (something more powerful than undo/redo).
I'd do it myself, of course, but I don't have the time or the skills. If I ever see a patent application for this idea, I'll point to the/. archive of this post as prior art (although I'm sure this kind of system is already in use in some organisation somewhere).
Well, this comment hasn't been flawless, but no, yuri benjamin, Brandybuck isn't right. Hope you enjoyed my theory, though.
I enjoyed your theory enough to add you to my friends list. You've researched this more than I have, my only document on ancient chinese culture being a translation of the famous myth Monkey, which was also made into a very entertaining TV series about 15 years ago.
We're talking about government, not business, and government does have priorities beyond the "bottom line" (which governments don't even *have*, since the phrase refers to net earnings, and governments aren't profit-generating entities).
Govts may have other priorities, but they'd better make being cost-effective one of them! especially if I have to pay taxes. The less tax-payer money is spent on software licensing, the more can be spent on other worthwhile things like schools and hospitals.
So bottom-line should matter to govts. Of course, the free as in liberty (as opposed to free as in gratis) is also important.
Funny thing about Chinese civilization. The quickly reached their peak, then stayed there ossified for the next 1500 years.
I wasn't going to go there, but you're right. Some would blame communism, but the ossification (is that a word?) started long before that. I'll let others post their theories on this.
I don't mind if govt uses open source or not. The best product for the situation should be used. What I do want do see is "open" document formats to allow them to switch software providers easily.
Open document formats and open communication protocols. Basically, I want to see my govt use standards that will allow me to interact with their systems using the platform of my choice.
Having already built my own PCs at home and going for the cheaper OS alternative, I'd have to fork out for a full version of Microsoft Windows(tm) and a full version of Microsoft Office(tm) if the govt decided to go that way. And since I live in NZ, that would be money going overseas.
I imagine you probably buy into the "benevolent savage" myth
Quite the opposite. I believe all of us are descended from savages who have been most malevolent at some stage or another. Sometimes I'm not even sure we've really risen above it.
Conceded. The example you gave would drive me batty too. But considering I spent NZ$0.00 on it, I can live with the minor irritations. As for the troll earlier in this thread that claimed it only prints Courier 8 - ROTFLMAO! With OOo & CUPS I regularly create PDFs that make colleagues go "wow!" I got the job I have now as a result of a PDF resume emailed to a recruiting firm. The newspaper advert asked for a word doc, but the pdf opened fine on the recruiter's PC apparently, coz I got an interview and she had a print-out of my CV with her at the interview.
My wife uses OOo on her Mdk 9.1 laptop - she's not a techie - and I have set the "save-as" defaults to.doc &.xls for her.
No problem. I expect the bavarian civil servants at Munich city hall will have no problems either.
BTW - it prints fine with CUPS. All out of the box with an Mdk 9.1 standard default install - no tweaking or configuring required. Every font. Every size. Inserted graphics objects too.
The Morris worm was able to mutate acrost all hardware archs because it uploaded source code and compiled it.
That is unbelievable. You sound very knowledgable. I appreciate your help.
Believe it. It used bugs in sendmail and fingerd to send a stream of data to a shell, which compiled a small c program using the local 'cc' command. This is well documented. Google for "morris worm" and read all about it.
I must ask, though, wouldn't Gentoo be immune from this specific problem, now that they no longer require that you install by compiling?
One of the reasons many people use gentoo is because you can set compile flags optimised for your system in a config file, and everything you install is therefore optimised for your system. Recently the have added binary installation options, but this kinda negates the optimisation advantage that made gentoo popular in the first place.
Apparently the ip address of the infinger was the MAC address that got registered as this guy. He says he may have borrowed someones computer but doesn't remember (He probably does but is trying to cover I bet if stuck with being sued he'll probably tell).
Only if he's weak/doesn't have a good lawyer. I'm not in USA, but I would guess that he can't be prosecuted for poor memory. The RIAA would have to prove he can remember and then sub-poena him for the name of the dude he borrowed the PC from. If he didn't comply, he could only be punished with non-compliance with the sub-poena (contempt of court?), not infringing on copyright.
It would be wonderful if I could just send them CDs running *noppix that they could plop in the Internet Cafe computers, reboot, and then browse the net feeling secure that they can trust the software running. All that they need is the basic functionality already present in Knoppix.
Has anybody done this? Any thoughts?
I don't think Internet Cafe owners would like customers by-passing their usage meter. They could ask the owner if it's okay and watch the clock manually.
Yeah but looking elsewhere while browsing the web kinda defeats the purpose.
RTFA! Mandrake stated that you can easily remove the ads. They're just some default bookmarks and the default home page. You do know how to change the defaults, don't you?
Anyway, it pays for the distro. I'd rather have some advertiser pay for my next upgrade than have to pay for it myself.
It seems like mandrake are aware of not overdoing it.
Tone Deaf: These are people who listen to music and they only care about words. Most of their songs the lyrics are rather simple. Or sometimes makes no sense (egg man).
Maybe that's it! I must be tone deaf because to me, His Bobness rules. And everyone knows that Bob doesn't sing very well but his lyrics are among the most inspiring ever written.
However that doesn't explain why I like Bach but not Wagner. Or why I like some Beatles songs but not others, and some of the Beatles songs I do like are the ones with simple (or weird) lyrics. I like While my guitar gently weeps because of the melody, the sounds and the lyrics.
I just don't put the Beatles on a pedestal like so many people do, and I'm quick to disparage the practice of doing so.
Maybe I should rephrase my stance: The Beatles don't suck per se, they just don't belong on the pedestal people put them on - i.e. they're over-rated.
the only person who might be more influential is bob dylan
Now you're talking. His Bobness is certainly the greatest poet IMNSHO that ever lived. I rank Zimmerman above Sheakespeare even (Billy was also over-rated). From all the Beatles documentaries and radio commentries I've seen, heard and read, I've come to the conclusion that Epstein could have taken just about any four reasonably talented musicians and made them into what the Beatles became. Epstein appears to be the true genious behind the fab four.
Heck, I've heard bands that only play in local pubs who are as good (and unique too) as any band that made it big, Beatles included. Some of these bands are not interested in the big time thing, others simply lack a Brian Epstein to take them there.
Zimmerman, on the other hand - now there's a legend.
Please elaborate on how The Beatles suck. I am really not following you on this point.
I'm not the orig poster, but I'll elaborate for him/her. It's a matter of taste. For someone who thinks Beatles music sucks, it sucks. IMNSHO the Beatles are over-rated at best, and suck at worst. I admit I like some of their songs. But most of it is boring drivel to me. What the orig poster and I find boring drivel might sound wonderful to you. I respect your right to your own "taste" in music.
it's bias toward controversy which gets readers as anyone who's ever been involved in an incident that made the news knows. It's the old addage "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story".
From your sig: lilo: linux init=/bin/bash - Instant root without password
Thanks for the hint - I might need it to fix something if I hose my linux box. Seriously though, the paranoid admin knows "physical access to your machine" = "root access to your machine".
It dosen't have to be legal liability to cause trouble. A pissed off client, boss or girlfriend can be plenty of liability to have to deal with. If they have trouble understanding the actual causes, then good luck reasoning with them.
This happened to me, dammit! A social group I used to hang out with. They weren't all tech savy. They used email to organise social events, and my email address was in someone's outlook address book.
To cut a long story short - not long after having a wee rant about windows being insecure, unstable and crappy, and linux being sooo much better, they all got a virus with my address in the from field. I tried to explain that it couldn't have been me for several reasons - 1. I use linux exclusively - it was a windows virus. 2. My ISP account was suspended due to late payment at the time, so I wasn't even online. Some of them thought I'd done it on purpose. To this day, some believe me and some don't, dammit!
Slashdot Mirror
As any programmer knows RPN was created to make the user interface more hostile at the benefit of a calculator.
Yes, HP choose to make their calculators RPN for easier implementation, but they found that users who became accustomed to RPN (mostly) did not want to go back to infix.
I personally find RPN easier, and I choose to use what's easy for me.
Any paradigm requires learning.
All the popwerful calculators now have full editable formula input screens complete with PARENS.
And yet, I still find RPN easier.
The parenthesis is a safe adn [sic] metally (mentally?) clean way to show precedence without the awkward postfix RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) idiocy of older calcualtors.
I find the stack a safe and mentally clean way to perform complex calculations.
The amrketplace has spoken.
The marketplace is made of sheep. The number of people using a particular technique is not always the best measure of that technique's merits.
With modern desktop computers, people prefer to "indicate' rather than 'regurgitate" and use mice and not syntax-error-prone command lines.
The Mac mouse won the command line wars, and the parenthesis and pretty "graphing" 16 dollar casios won the calculator war.
The commandline was brought back to the Mac. Not everyone uses it, but it sure as heck is handy to have.
I'm a kde user. 95% of my interaction with the computer is GUI based, but for the other 5% I need a commandline.
Its time to use PRN as a silly Palm Pilor calculator applet as they exist now. Iam sure there are several freeware RPN calculator programs for PalmOS.
This is the most sensible paragraph of your post. I agree that it's better to integrate one's calculator with one's PDA, thus reducing the number of physical objects one has to carry - but only for that reason.
And yes, I agree, once you get used to RPN, it is definitely superior.
:-P
Unfortunately many people won't take the time to get used to it - unfortunately for them
I find non-RPN calculators very difficult to use because for the last ten years (when I bought my HP48S which still goes BTW) I've been conditioned to RPN.
Using the stack is sooo much easier than keeping track of parentheses.
I really feel for the person who posted this question - I'd be gutted if my HP gave up the ghost.
Like someone else suggested - my next handheld device will be a PalmOS based PDA with an HP emulator. I'll probably still keep the HP48S though.
You've already done what I suggested in an earlier post.
I should have read more of this thread. You posted that 4 hours before I did.
Thanks for that - at least now I know my suggestion wasn't way off the mark.
Think of an OS and applications today and the various files they use. Think of configuration files, shortcut files, bookmark files, document files, project files etc. Think of all those files that have until recently all been stored in proprietry, hard to interpret and sometimes buggy binary files.
/etc/*, what about *.INI that windows used before the registry file was invented?
For most of computer history, config files were text files.
I'm not just talking about
I've been thinking about a document management system that has an integrated word processor.
/. archive of this post as prior art (although I'm sure this kind of system is already in use in some organisation somewhere).
To create a new document users would first be presented with a DE screen asking for some meta-data (perhaps with some manditory fields) before being dropped into the more familiar wordprocessor gui.
Someone with admin rights to the document management system might define the fields that go into the initial DE screen.
Users might have to choose beforehand whether the document will be emailed, faxed or printed (eg for snail-mail), and the document would be "attached" to a client record, along with any replies (eg by email).
The "save" feature would be replaced by "save draft" and "save final", because once the document is sent to an external party you need to "freeze" the document as a record of what's been sent.
Maybe some kind of versioning & rollback would be useful too (something more powerful than undo/redo).
I'd do it myself, of course, but I don't have the time or the skills.
If I ever see a patent application for this idea, I'll point to the
Rome's conquest was, too them, complete
There were tribes/nations known to the romans whom they did not conquer.
Well, this comment hasn't been flawless, but no, yuri benjamin, Brandybuck isn't right. Hope you enjoyed my theory, though.
I enjoyed your theory enough to add you to my friends list.
You've researched this more than I have, my only document on ancient chinese culture being a translation of the famous myth Monkey, which was also made into a very entertaining TV series about 15 years ago.
We're talking about government, not business, and government does have priorities beyond the "bottom line" (which governments don't even *have*, since the phrase refers to net earnings, and governments aren't profit-generating entities).
Govts may have other priorities, but they'd better make being cost-effective one of them! especially if I have to pay taxes.
The less tax-payer money is spent on software licensing, the more can be spent on other worthwhile things like schools and hospitals.
So bottom-line should matter to govts.
Of course, the free as in liberty (as opposed to free as in gratis) is also important.
Funny thing about Chinese civilization. The quickly reached their peak, then stayed there ossified for the next 1500 years.
I wasn't going to go there, but you're right. Some would blame communism, but the ossification (is that a word?) started long before that. I'll let others post their theories on this.
I don't mind if govt uses open source or not. The best product for the situation should be used. What I do want do see is "open" document formats to allow them to switch software providers easily.
Open document formats and open communication protocols.
Basically, I want to see my govt use standards that will allow me to interact with their systems using the platform of my choice.
Having already built my own PCs at home and going for the cheaper OS alternative, I'd have to fork out for a full version of Microsoft Windows(tm) and a full version of Microsoft Office(tm) if the govt decided to go that way.
And since I live in NZ, that would be money going overseas.
I'm glad that govts are realising this.
I imagine you probably buy into the "benevolent savage" myth
Quite the opposite. I believe all of us are descended from savages who have been most malevolent at some stage or another.
Sometimes I'm not even sure we've really risen above it.
By anyone. Did the aboriginees know about egypt,
No, but they knew about Australia. Most of the world was explored, but not all by one tribe or nation.
or the chinese know about madagascar?
Probably not, but they had universities when the anglo-saxons were still living in grass huts.
I'm not trying to be PC. I just don't like too narrow perspectives of history.
It's simply not as polished a product.
.doc & .xls for her.
Conceded.
The example you gave would drive me batty too.
But considering I spent NZ$0.00 on it, I can live with the minor irritations.
As for the troll earlier in this thread that claimed it only prints Courier 8 - ROTFLMAO!
With OOo & CUPS I regularly create PDFs that make colleagues go "wow!"
I got the job I have now as a result of a PDF resume emailed to a recruiting firm. The newspaper advert asked for a word doc, but the pdf opened fine on the recruiter's PC apparently, coz I got an interview and she had a print-out of my CV with her at the interview.
My wife uses OOo on her Mdk 9.1 laptop - she's not a techie - and I have set the "save-as" defaults to
No problem. I expect the bavarian civil servants at Munich city hall will have no problems either.
BTW - it prints fine with CUPS. All out of the box with an Mdk 9.1 standard default install - no tweaking or configuring required.
Every font. Every size. Inserted graphics objects too.
In roman times, not even half of the world had been explored...
... by europeans.
There were Aboriginees in Australia, Native Americans in America and various other non-european indigenous people scattered across the globe.
To say "not even half of the world had been explored" is very euro-centric.
The Morris worm was able to mutate acrost all hardware archs because it uploaded source code and compiled it.
That is unbelievable. You sound very knowledgable. I appreciate your help.
Believe it. It used bugs in sendmail and fingerd to send a stream of data to a shell, which compiled a small c program using the local 'cc' command.
This is well documented. Google for "morris worm" and read all about it.
I must ask, though, wouldn't Gentoo be immune from this specific problem, now that they no longer require that you install by compiling?
One of the reasons many people use gentoo is because you can set compile flags optimised for your system in a config file, and everything you install is therefore optimised for your system.
Recently the have added binary installation options, but this kinda negates the optimisation advantage that made gentoo popular in the first place.
Apparently the ip address of the infinger was the MAC address that got registered as this guy. He says he may have borrowed someones computer but doesn't remember (He probably does but is trying to cover I bet if stuck with being sued he'll probably tell).
Only if he's weak/doesn't have a good lawyer.
I'm not in USA, but I would guess that he can't be prosecuted for poor memory. The RIAA would have to prove he can remember and then sub-poena him for the name of the dude he borrowed the PC from.
If he didn't comply, he could only be punished with non-compliance with the sub-poena (contempt of court?), not infringing on copyright.
It would be wonderful if I could just send them CDs running *noppix that they could plop in the Internet Cafe computers, reboot, and then browse the net feeling secure that they can trust the software running. All that they need is the basic functionality already present in Knoppix.
Has anybody done this? Any thoughts?
I don't think Internet Cafe owners would like customers by-passing their usage meter.
They could ask the owner if it's okay and watch the clock manually.
perhaps the most obvious being 'knight' which used to be pronounced k - ni - cht
That reminds me of the frenchman in Monty Python's Holy Grail:
"You silly english kah-nnnnnniggits!"
Thanks for reminding me of that. I love Monty Python.
Yeah but looking elsewhere while browsing the web kinda defeats the purpose.
RTFA! Mandrake stated that you can easily remove the ads.
They're just some default bookmarks and the default home page.
You do know how to change the defaults, don't you?
Anyway, it pays for the distro. I'd rather have some advertiser pay for my next upgrade than have to pay for it myself.
It seems like mandrake are aware of not overdoing it.
Tone Deaf: These are people who listen to music and they only care about words. Most of their songs the lyrics are rather simple. Or sometimes makes no sense (egg man).
Maybe that's it! I must be tone deaf because to me, His Bobness rules. And everyone knows that Bob doesn't sing very well but his lyrics are among the most inspiring ever written.
However that doesn't explain why I like Bach but not Wagner. Or why I like some Beatles songs but not others, and some of the Beatles songs I do like are the ones with simple (or weird) lyrics. I like While my guitar gently weeps because of the melody, the sounds and the lyrics.
I just don't put the Beatles on a pedestal like so many people do, and I'm quick to disparage the practice of doing so.
Maybe I should rephrase my stance: The Beatles don't suck per se, they just don't belong on the pedestal people put them on - i.e. they're over-rated.
the only person who might be more influential is bob dylan
Now you're talking. His Bobness is certainly the greatest poet IMNSHO that ever lived. I rank Zimmerman above Sheakespeare even (Billy was also over-rated).
From all the Beatles documentaries and radio commentries I've seen, heard and read, I've come to the conclusion that Epstein could have taken just about any four reasonably talented musicians and made them into what the Beatles became. Epstein appears to be the true genious behind the fab four.
Heck, I've heard bands that only play in local pubs who are as good (and unique too) as any band that made it big, Beatles included.
Some of these bands are not interested in the big time thing, others simply lack a Brian Epstein to take them there.
Zimmerman, on the other hand - now there's a legend.
Please elaborate on how The Beatles suck. I am really not following you on this point.
I'm not the orig poster, but I'll elaborate for him/her.
It's a matter of taste. For someone who thinks Beatles music sucks, it sucks. IMNSHO the Beatles are over-rated at best, and suck at worst. I admit I like some of their songs. But most of it is boring drivel to me.
What the orig poster and I find boring drivel might sound wonderful to you. I respect your right to your own "taste" in music.
it's bias toward controversy which gets readers
as anyone who's ever been involved in an incident that made the news knows.
It's the old addage "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story".
From your sig:
lilo: linux init=/bin/bash - Instant root without password
Thanks for the hint - I might need it to fix something if I hose my linux box.
Seriously though, the paranoid admin knows "physical access to your machine" = "root access to your machine".
It dosen't have to be legal liability to cause trouble. A pissed off client, boss or girlfriend can be plenty of liability to have to deal with. If they have trouble understanding the actual causes, then good luck reasoning with them.
This happened to me, dammit! A social group I used to hang out with. They weren't all tech savy. They used email to organise social events, and my email address was in someone's outlook address book.
To cut a long story short - not long after having a wee rant about windows being insecure, unstable and crappy, and linux being sooo much better, they all got a virus with my address in the from field.
I tried to explain that it couldn't have been me for several reasons -
1. I use linux exclusively - it was a windows virus.
2. My ISP account was suspended due to late payment at the time, so I wasn't even online.
Some of them thought I'd done it on purpose. To this day, some believe me and some don't, dammit!