Given that the telescope is 12 years old, it's looking like it will well outlive the projected 15 year lifespan originally slated.
I remember all the crap Hubble took when it had been just deployed and the public scandal about the defective lens - "Paperweight in space", they said.
And now, after the correction it endured, and thanks to its continuous flood of information, no one even dares talking about it without respect.
if it has a basic user mode, then it MUST have a power-user mode. I hate it when an app won't let me do what I want, forcing me instead through stupid menus.
Configuration files are GOOD. For a user who groks the app, it's much quicker to edit the.CFG (.ini, rc, whatever) than having to go to the configuration menu/window. Let him do so if he so wishes. Configuration files should be properly commented, too.
On-the-fly reconfiguration. This heavily depends on the type of app, but as few options as possible should require restarting.
Take the pain to write a GOOD help section. Windows apps, for example, have a well organized help system, with perfectly useless content. Have some friends that know nothing of the app come by and try it, and record whatever they ask. Have some power-users come, grok the app, and THEN record whatever they ask. Meaty help, please.
An app should do whatever it's supposed to do, and interface properly with other apps that do other stuff instead of trying to do it itself. For example, tin (the Usenet news client) doesn't have an internal text editor, but rather invokes your editor of choice (vi, EMACS, TSE, whatever). Bloat is bad.
Batch mode is good. Let me use an actual example: I once had to convert 300+ files from.GIF to.PNG. With an interactive app, this takes more or less 30 seconds of user input for EACH file, and it would have been tiring as hell. Instead, I decided to use some Unix utilites (gif2ppm, ppm2xpm and xpm2png in a chain), took some minutes writing a shell script to process each file, and left the job on its own while I got to do other stuff... and it took less overall time.
If you port your app to different OSs, they MUST behave in the same way in each system (obviously there's a limit held by an OS ability to do something). For example, "save file" can't be F2 in Windows and CTRL-S in Unix.
If yor app contains an internal scripting language or something like that, document the source and let the users access it. (The TSE editor is a great example of this).
If your app contains a lot of internal power (usually this is the case for apps with an internal scripting language), an internal command line sometimes helps solve easily some tasks. I kid you not.
Organize the app's files neatly into subdirectories. Having to search for a saved document in a 500+ files directory, especially when you don't know the exact name of the file, and there are internal ones that could be them, too, isn't pretty. A "saved documents" directory is good.
I just hope hardware manufacturers don't make the "mistake" of forgetting to add support for all the older formats (down to old-fashioned CDs), otherwise they will alienate customers.
Yes, the existing base of DVDs isn't as big as, say the existing one of vinyl discs when CDs came out, but it does add several bases to it (CDs, and all the DVD formats (screw laserdiscs, though).
From a customer point of view, the ideal hardware will be one that can play ANY digital disc.
The thing that stuck out most for me when I read the book was that pretty much everyone was illiterate - remember the scenes where the wives talk about "politics", and the deeper issue they discuss is the physical appearance of the candidates. This obviously was caused by the lack of thinking books make you do.
Also point out the television content! Game shows and game shows and game shows...
P.S.: don't forget to completely ignore the hideous movie Truffaut made! It ignores several key points and simplifies the plot to a disgusting level.
Freeciv is a Civ/Civ2 clone, released under the GPL, running on Linux (also Windoze, and a lot of other operating systems). It plays just like Civ/Civ2, with only very minor differences in gameplay, and with a huge one: the interface is much superior to that of Civ2, so you don't end up frustrated and bored by it.
Still I doubt whether Perl should be the language of choice due to it tending to be "write-only code". Maybe this book will change my mind though.
FWIW, in my personal experience, I find Perl to lend itself to some very obscure code, worthy of the IOCCC [*] just as easily to extremely clear code - the latter, though, requires a disciplined programmer and some effort (not much, though) directed to that goal.
[*]: so, when will the first International Obfuscated Perl Code Contest will come? Perl poetry is getting kinda old.
... low-life spammers that send stuff like "Make Money Fast", "enlarge your penis", "cable descrambler", "Here is my resumé. Yours truly, Bernie shifman", "25,000,000 e-mail addresses here", "Help me get this ridiculess amount of money off Nigeria", etcetera are.
DMA member Amazon.com said such rules are already in practice at the online retailer. Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the company gives customers a myriad of choices related to receiving company communications.
"It sounds like we currently comply with all these rules already," she said.
Generally speaking, I bet most DMA members already have an acceptable spam policy - that, or a policy that needs only minor tweaking to make it policy-compliant.
Spinach-enhanced pork will taste so bad, they'll have to do a new Popeye propaganda campaign to promote it among kids. However, this time it'll be a Popeye clone, with some of Brutus' genes thrown into the mix. What we'll have will be a bigger bearded Popeye that will rescue Olivia and then will hit her.
(and as long as they're at it, they put a woman that's both intelligent and good-looking to replace Olivia, who lacks BOTH traits)
Ok, let's say that they can make a REALLY small computer. How do we interface to it? Via a REALLY small keyboard? With a REALLY small monitor?
I think this makes more sense if they have some kind of networking capability, and that they'll be able to form some sort of "sensor cluster", much like in the way Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky's Qeng-Ho's network of dust computers worked. Of course, there's still too much to work on for that.
While it's true that a lot of "attractive/sexy" work can be done via open source methods, there's still some areas that traditional programming models (i.e., closed source) still function better (even though ESR says otherwise in The Cathedral & the Bazaar ). What, in your opinion, is the proper balance between open source and closed source methods Sun should strive to?
If your LAN party is going to be a LONG one (i.e., over a weekend, or even an entire day), AND you and your friends like the good old Civilization/Civilization II turn-based strategy games, I highly recommend you play Freeciv.
Here goes a quick list of features (shamelessly copied from its website):
Generally comparable with Civilization I & II.
Up to 30 players!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) players.
Internet & LAN multiplayer (TCP/IP).
Support for a great number of platforms
Premade maps & scenarios!
47 units and 61 nations.
Modpack support!
Internationalization (i18n).
In game help system.
And, of course, it's open source (released under GPL, to be precise).
Having read the review, I'm rather surprised that no mention was made of the relativistic effects which were the underpinning of the book.
Actually, I chose to not reveal any plot points, including that one, as a way to write a review. Reading it now, it does come off as laconic, and needing more meaty details. For my next review (*), I'll know better.
(*) lame-ass excuse: yes, this is the first book review I've ever done. Next one will be better.
I was used to getting +-10 spams per day, all from pr0n (where did they get my e-mail address? I once posted a naked pic of a regional pr0n newsgroup [chile.binarios.para-mayores.mujeres, to be precise]).
In the last three months, I've begun to get LOCAL spam, from stupid & amp; clueless companies that think that mailing spam equals "to be on the Internet" (equals making huge profits [yeah, I know better]). Now I'm getting around THIRTY daily spams, besides the pr0n I already get.
won't have reliable internet access when I'm there (if I have it at all)
That won't be a problem. As long as you have access to a phone line, you'll be able to get dial-up Internet access in Chile - there are many... er... "on-the-fly & no previous contract" plans from ISPs here that are charged on the phone bill. On the other hand, broadband access is expensive.
As for distros: Conectiva would be the choice here.
I'd release it to the public, then sit down until they hand me my well-deserved Turing award.
Seriously, there are more advantages (quick solutions to complex problems, like the traveller salesman) than disadvantages (cracking easily certain encryption mechanisms) to this.
Just 23 months is pretty much nothing in terms of planetary cyclical events. Maybe this warming is just part of a very long cycle in Martian atmosphere, taking decades of even centuries, that we haven't observed yet. I'd hate to see the November 13, 2614 headlines of The Martian Times stating something like "Global cooling confirmed - atmosphere compromised".
(BTW, will Greenpeace stablish a Martian Chapter called "Redpeace"?)
I can't believe it. They talked about Perl, Scheme, Python, etcetera. Yet they didn't invite ESR to talk about the unique problems (and solutions) that implementing INTERCAL poses.
At least, that's what I always say. I've used tin for ten years now (ever since 1.11PL2), and still is IMNAAHO the best text-based news client.
tin is menu-based, with lots of useful options (and not bloated with irrelevant stuff). The basic usage is very simple, and is pretty configurable. If you have a shell account in your ISP, it's the ideal choice.
Just to note, both games held their city lists in a completely editable file. Want to add "Anon Town"? Go right ahead! Anything was possible with them, and the games didn't mind the larger file sizes.
What I forgot to say is that after I made those city lists, I submitted them to the freeciv-data mailing list, where they were accepted and incorporated into the Freeciv package: now everyone can benefit from my effort!
What really annoyed me about Civ/Civ II was the fact that the nations's cities lists were SMALL (20 names or less) - considering that I like to build large empires (and that I have the nasty habit of renamig the cities I conquer), it was really annoying to have to think of a new name each time. Even nations (my favorite being Spain) with lots of cities available in any decent map were prone to this problem.
In Freeciv, nation rulesets are as open as the source code. So I made LARGE lists of cities for several of my favorite nations (the spanish ruleset's list has 200 entries, thanks to several days worth of work), and now I play happily.
AFAIU, the reason why NASA won't allow couples to go on the shuttle is the risk that they have sex and sperms fertilise in an unknown (and potentially disastrous) way.
So, my suggestion is: get eggs and sperm from some mammal (say: a dog, a horse, a cow or a monkey) and simulate the conditions in which the sperm try to fertilise the egg, to determine what happens.
... they won't believe you at all. At that age, all parents are stupid - I know mine were. Of course, they started to get more intelligent when I hit the 20-year old mark. I can only conclude that intelligence is increased by continous contact with intelligent young people.
Can anybody recommend a mailing list manager that handles periodic email reminders to people? Say every x days a user (where x is that user's pref) gets a "Have you washed your dog.txt" emailed to them if they are on the dog_wash_reminder mailing list[...]
I think that escapes from the scope of a mailing list manager software package. It's better to use good ol' crontab for that kind of stuff, using the MLM account.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that the telescope is 12 years old, it's looking like it will well outlive the projected 15 year lifespan originally slated.
I remember all the crap Hubble took when it had been just deployed and the public scandal about the defective lens - "Paperweight in space", they said.
And now, after the correction it endured, and thanks to its continuous flood of information, no one even dares talking about it without respect.
Long Live Hubble! I, geek, salute you!
(mod me down if you will, I HAD to say this)
some friends that know nothing of the app come by and try it, and record whatever they ask. Have some power-users come, grok the app, and THEN record whatever they ask. Meaty help, please.
That's all I can think of for now.
I just hope hardware manufacturers don't make the "mistake" of forgetting to add support for all the older formats (down to old-fashioned CDs), otherwise they will alienate customers.
Yes, the existing base of DVDs isn't as big as, say the existing one of vinyl discs when CDs came out, but it does add several bases to it (CDs, and all the DVD formats (screw laserdiscs, though).
From a customer point of view, the ideal hardware will be one that can play ANY digital disc.
Re:Hazah to Taco! (Score:5, Offtopic)
by kathleen on 14/02/02 11:22 (#3007930)
(User #570 Info)
How can this possibly have been modded as offtopic (even if other moderators did the right thing)?
Many other females might prefer the "traditional" medthod of proposing, but I liked this way best.
I wish I had a SO I could propose this way.
Congratulations to both of you!
Also point out the television content! Game shows and game shows and game shows...
P.S.: don't forget to completely ignore the hideous movie Truffaut made! It ignores several key points and simplifies the plot to a disgusting level.
Freeciv is a Civ/Civ2 clone, released under the GPL, running on Linux (also Windoze, and a lot of other operating systems). It plays just like Civ/Civ2, with only very minor differences in gameplay, and with a huge one: the interface is much superior to that of Civ2, so you don't end up frustrated and bored by it.
I can't recommend this game enough.
Of course, he wishes he were dead. }:-> .
Earth scientists have taken his fractal work to the point of forecasting the size, location, and windspeed of hurricanes at landfall.
Maybe Mandelbrot's death rumours started with an alleged claim of him doing field work?
FWIW, in my personal experience, I find Perl to lend itself to some very obscure code, worthy of the IOCCC [*] just as easily to extremely clear code - the latter, though, requires a disciplined programmer and some effort (not much, though) directed to that goal.
[*]: so, when will the first International Obfuscated Perl Code Contest will come? Perl poetry is getting kinda old.
DMA member Amazon.com said such rules are already in practice at the online retailer. Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the company gives customers a myriad of choices related to receiving company communications.
"It sounds like we currently comply with all these rules already," she said.
Generally speaking, I bet most DMA members already have an acceptable spam policy - that, or a policy that needs only minor tweaking to make it policy-compliant.
(and as long as they're at it, they put a woman that's both intelligent and good-looking to replace Olivia, who lacks BOTH traits)
I think this makes more sense if they have some kind of networking capability, and that they'll be able to form some sort of "sensor cluster", much like in the way Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky's Qeng-Ho's network of dust computers worked. Of course, there's still too much to work on for that.
I hope HP begins work on some sort of nanoTCP/IP.
While it's true that a lot of "attractive/sexy" work can be done via open source methods, there's still some areas that traditional programming models (i.e., closed source) still function better (even though ESR says otherwise in The Cathedral & the Bazaar ). What, in your opinion, is the proper balance between open source and closed source methods Sun should strive to?
Here goes a quick list of features (shamelessly copied from its website):
And, of course, it's open source (released under GPL, to be precise).
Actually, I chose to not reveal any plot points, including that one, as a way to write a review. Reading it now, it does come off as laconic, and needing more meaty details. For my next review (*), I'll know better.
(*) lame-ass excuse: yes, this is the first book review I've ever done. Next one will be better.
In the last three months, I've begun to get LOCAL spam, from stupid & amp; clueless companies that think that mailing spam equals "to be on the Internet" (equals making huge profits [yeah, I know better]). Now I'm getting around THIRTY daily spams, besides the pr0n I already get.
(10+30)*365 = 14600 spams per year.
Sigh...
won't have reliable internet access when I'm there (if I have it at all)
That won't be a problem. As long as you have access to a phone line, you'll be able to get dial-up Internet access in Chile - there are many... er... "on-the-fly & no previous contract" plans from ISPs here that are charged on the phone bill. On the other hand, broadband access is expensive.
As for distros: Conectiva would be the choice here.
I'd release it to the public, then sit down until they hand me my well-deserved Turing award.
Seriously, there are more advantages (quick solutions to complex problems, like the traveller salesman) than disadvantages (cracking easily certain encryption mechanisms) to this.
But then again, my gut feeling is that P!=NP.
Just 23 months is pretty much nothing in terms of planetary cyclical events. Maybe this warming is just part of a very long cycle in Martian atmosphere, taking decades of even centuries, that we haven't observed yet. I'd hate to see the November 13, 2614 headlines of The Martian Times stating something like "Global cooling confirmed - atmosphere compromised".
(BTW, will Greenpeace stablish a Martian Chapter called "Redpeace"?)
I sure hope next year's LL2 addresses this issue.
At least, that's what I always say. I've used tin for ten years now (ever since 1.11PL2), and still is IMNAAHO the best text-based news client.
tin is menu-based, with lots of useful options (and not bloated with irrelevant stuff). The basic usage is very simple, and is pretty configurable. If you have a shell account in your ISP, it's the ideal choice.
Just to note, both games held their city lists in a completely editable file. Want to add "Anon Town"? Go right ahead! Anything was possible with them, and the games didn't mind the larger file sizes.
What I forgot to say is that after I made those city lists, I submitted them to the freeciv-data mailing list, where they were accepted and incorporated into the Freeciv package: now everyone can benefit from my effort!
... is that is open source.
What really annoyed me about Civ/Civ II was the fact that the nations's cities lists were SMALL (20 names or less) - considering that I like to build large empires (and that I have the nasty habit of renamig the cities I conquer), it was really annoying to have to think of a new name each time. Even nations (my favorite being Spain) with lots of cities available in any decent map were prone to this problem.
In Freeciv, nation rulesets are as open as the source code. So I made LARGE lists of cities for several of my favorite nations (the spanish ruleset's list has 200 entries, thanks to several days worth of work), and now I play happily.
AFAIU, the reason why NASA won't allow couples to go on the shuttle is the risk that they have sex and sperms fertilise in an unknown (and potentially disastrous) way.
So, my suggestion is: get eggs and sperm from some mammal (say: a dog, a horse, a cow or a monkey) and simulate the conditions in which the sperm try to fertilise the egg, to determine what happens.
... they won't believe you at all. At that age, all parents are stupid - I know mine were. Of course, they started to get more intelligent when I hit the 20-year old mark. I can only conclude that intelligence is increased by continous contact with intelligent young people.
I think that escapes from the scope of a mailing list manager software package. It's better to use good ol' crontab for that kind of stuff, using the MLM account.