I just visited the University biometrics lab this week for a tour...
Some grad students were studying ways of countering biometric devices. They were successful in spoofing an eye scanner with a picture of an eye that had a pupil hole cut out (the scanner looks for depth or reflection from in the pupil, I believe).
They had 4 different fingerprint scanners (AC, DC, optical, something else?), and the most reliable and easiest way to fool it (ALL 4 scanners) was with a simple PlayDoh mold!
You havn't checked back in awhile...AoA is available in the old 16 bit/DOS version, as well as an updated 32 bit/Win32 and (finally) a 32 bit/Linux version!
One, my experience and the experience of a lot of others says the opposite. You spend an unbelievable amount of time jumping through compiler hoops in a static typed language, and sometimes the smallest change cascades down your entire static hierarchy. You spend a lot of time worrying about things that really aren't importent in the grand scheme of things. Half the time if you're trying to write with any sort of flexible pattern like Iterator or something you end up with a superclass called "Iterable" or "Object" (sound familiar?) or some equivalent, which isn't that far from dynamic typing anyhow.
Sorry, but what you describe above is the java Interface, a way of guaranteeing that an object will meet a particular group of method signatures (but doesn't require any of the work like creating parent-class implementations). This is something that Python lacks in a big way. For instance, all the almost-like-all-file objects you mention don't have the same group of file-like methods. An interface promises you that all the methods you expect will be there.
And I really don't understand the argument against strong typing anyway, are you too fucking lazy to use an extra keyword for an argument and return type? You don't like having auto-generated documentation that you can actually use without examining the code to fill in the details?
The other thing is again, "mechanically checking" code isn't possible for anything but type-correctness. No other goodness properties can be checked that way; in fact Rice's theorem [stanford.edu] proves no non-trivial property of programs can be proven mechanically. (This implies type correctness is not an interesting property;-) )
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. I'm writing code in a weakly-typed language with the most advanced IDE possible. If I'm writing inside a function or method definition, that IDE cannot provide me any intelligent auto-completion or method checking of ANY of the arguments passed in. That IDE can provide me no help when using that funtion or method because it doesn't know what it returns. This might not mean much on a small API that you wrote yourself, but working with someone else's code on a large project means that you've got to have access to all source, all the time to serve as your own documentation.
Vita Nuova say in their most recent newsletter that they are considering "a dual-licence scheme that makes the Inferno software free for non-commercial use, but with a more traditional software licence for commercial use."
A quick glance at the features of the upcoming release reveals some clarification on this:
It is available as `Free Software' (in the sense of the Free Software Foundation) if the use you make of it will also be made available on the same terms, as Free Software.
A more conventional software licence if the result of your work using Inferno will not or cannot be made Free Software.
Inferno is the very interesting cousin OS to Plan 9 (both modern descendants of UNIX). This would be a very cool thing.
XMill by AT&T is free (not quite GPL, but the source is there too), and it takes advantage of the redundancy in XML data so that it's super efficient. Here are some comparisons to plain old gzip compression (it blows it away). It'd be horrible on random data, but it squishes XML like you wouldn't believe.
I've been using WinAmp 2.666 very happily with Wine...it seems to use an equal amount of CPU as XMMS does on my machine. Unfortunately there's a few kinks lost in the translation, but I find that I use it more than XMMS.
This ought to be on the front page. This is an excellent book, I wish it'd encourage more people to start writing some beautiful Ada code. It's a shame so many open source projects are done in C/C++ when Ada lends itself so well to large projects.
You can get the free (and awesome) Gnat Ada compiler here:
Last I heard, the big X was looking to sell off Pala Alto Research to avoid going bankrupt (this was right about when I quit working for Xerox), I've not heard anything about their financial status since...Does anyone know if PARC is still in danger of being sold?
Slashdot Mirror
I just visited the University biometrics lab this week for a tour...
Some grad students were studying ways of countering biometric devices. They were successful in spoofing an eye scanner with a picture of an eye that had a pupil hole cut out (the scanner looks for depth or reflection from in the pupil, I believe).
They had 4 different fingerprint scanners (AC, DC, optical, something else?), and the most reliable and easiest way to fool it (ALL 4 scanners) was with a simple PlayDoh mold!
You havn't checked back in awhile...AoA is available in the old 16 bit/DOS version, as well as an updated 32 bit/Win32 and (finally) a 32 bit /Linux version!
Sorry, but what you describe above is the java Interface, a way of guaranteeing that an object will meet a particular group of method signatures (but doesn't require any of the work like creating parent-class implementations). This is something that Python lacks in a big way. For instance, all the almost-like-all-file objects you mention don't have the same group of file-like methods. An interface promises you that all the methods you expect will be there.
And I really don't understand the argument against strong typing anyway, are you too fucking lazy to use an extra keyword for an argument and return type? You don't like having auto-generated documentation that you can actually use without examining the code to fill in the details?
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. I'm writing code in a weakly-typed language with the most advanced IDE possible. If I'm writing inside a function or method definition, that IDE cannot provide me any intelligent auto-completion or method checking of ANY of the arguments passed in. That IDE can provide me no help when using that funtion or method because it doesn't know what it returns. This might not mean much on a small API that you wrote yourself, but working with someone else's code on a large project means that you've got to have access to all source, all the time to serve as your own documentation.
If you really want to be astounded with some ascii craziness...
Q: How do you get a bassist off your porch?
A: Pay him for the pizza!
(...sorry)
Vita Nuova say in their most recent newsletter that they are considering "a dual-licence scheme that makes the Inferno software free for non-commercial use, but with a more traditional software licence for commercial use."
A quick glance at the features of the upcoming release reveals some clarification on this:
Inferno is the very interesting cousin OS to Plan 9 (both modern descendants of UNIX). This would be a very cool thing.
Ha!
Intel's XScale site is here: http://www.intel.com/design/intelxscale/
This looks interesting. Doesn't look like an XBox adapter exists yet though...
Stolen info included "the perfect mix of information to allow identity theft" according to the Sacramento Valley Hi Tech Task Force."
Their Slashdot passwords?!
Update this story so as not to confuse anyone else. Is it that much egg on the face to admit when you're wrong?
So does ATI release Free drivers unlike the NVIDIA hell I've been stuck with the last 2 years?
I wish it were easier to turn down hardware on the same issues we can turn down software, but it seems to be a sellers' market.
What the hell is a starwipe?
Didn't he just invent them?
Sounds to me like Plan9!
I love that little bunny.
Hopefully they don't keep the repository on the same machine that hosts their website...
/.'ed the kernel!
We may have
XMill by AT&T is free (not quite GPL, but the source is there too), and it takes advantage of the redundancy in XML data so that it's super efficient. Here are some comparisons to plain old gzip compression (it blows it away). It'd be horrible on random data, but it squishes XML like you wouldn't believe.
Download the xbox.bin linked at the very top of his page...
;-)
lukewarm@mr-causey:~ > cat xbox.bin
gamecube rulez...
This encryption is going to take a long time to crack!
I've been using WinAmp 2.666 very happily with Wine...it seems to use an equal amount of CPU as XMMS does on my machine. Unfortunately there's a few kinks lost in the translation, but I find that I use it more than XMMS.
I can eat glass, it doesn't hurt me.
Lameness filter encountered.
Your comment violated the postercomment compression filter. Comment aborted
This ought to be on the front page. This is an excellent book, I wish it'd encourage more people to start writing some beautiful Ada code. It's a shame so many open source projects are done in C/C++ when Ada lends itself so well to large projects.
You can get the free (and awesome) Gnat Ada compiler here:
ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat
Read up and start writing some great code!
02:21:55 (193.93 KB/s) - `wolfmptest-0.7.16-1.x86.run.1' saved [67861928]
Last I heard, the big X was looking to sell off Pala Alto Research to avoid going bankrupt (this was right about when I quit working for Xerox), I've not heard anything about their financial status since...Does anyone know if PARC is still in danger of being sold?
I'll bet he's controlling Deep Fritz via ICQ.
It's much worse than you think, friend...Read this
FAQ to find out *just* how bad water is.
Paranoia-safe URL: http://www.psychoactive.com/h2o.html