> But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies.
I thought they had a debt of billions because of the UMTS licences?
No, that was the german Telecom or whatever name they're now using. T-Online is a child of the german Telecom and to some degree independent... at least on the paper;-)
T-Online is an ISP, and most hackers I know avoid it like the devil avoids holy water. But the majority of normal Germans use T-Online. T-Online is to Germany what AOL once was for America: a large source of stupidity on the Internet (see the Jargon Files, entry The September That Never Ended).
In my case, anything smaller than a CD can easily be lost. Think about how easy it will be to lose a fingernail size music album? Just because we CAN make it smaller, doesn't mean we should. Granted, a little smaller would be nice but that is TOO SMALL.
ACK. In my opinion the mini-disc is the definitiv lower end. Everything smaller gets blown away when someone sneezes:-) But the RIAA would definetely like to see those mini-media BECAUSE they get lost and you'd have to re-buy your music.
Basically, what they are saying in that news article is that some spokesman from T-Online claims buying AOL would be "economical nonsense". But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies. And while T-Online is the biggest online provider of Europe it is largely unknown outside of Europe, thus buying AOL would make sense to some people because T-Online likes to expand and conquer markets outside of Europe.
One weakness as well as strength of Linux has always been the ability to choose. There are so many distributions that you can choose the one that fits you best, that you like best.
Focusing on one distribution has the advantage that this single distribution really would get boosted, but it would limit our choice.
I for one don't like Debian, for several reasons. Don't get me wrong, it is a very good distribution but I don't feel home on it for several minor reasons. So what, that's why I chose another distribution, SuSE, choice rules ! Many who picked Debian don't like SuSE for their own reasons. But after all this really doesn't matter, it's just each ones personal taste.
That's the same like many people suggested giving up GNOME or KDE and join the other, but that would be plain wrong and a very bad idea. Both are focusing on different things, and if someone doesn't like KDE s/he has at least the chance to try GNOME or vice versa (and if you don't like both you can still use some of not-so-integreated desktops).
That's also one thing that really disturbs me among many Linux zealots: bitching about the distribution/desktop/application choice someone else made. After all, that's what Linux is all about. That's what UNIX is all about: for most things I could use FreeBSD as well as some Linux distribution, or even a commercial UNIX variant. And we all are happy that there we can choose, so I don't understand why people bitch about the choice of someone else...
It looks more like an object oriented Pascal variant to me than the mentioned cross of C++, Lisp and XML. Have a look at the parser source.
But it certainly looks like a nice, clean language, with lots of syntatic sugar removed: they seem to use parens only where absolutely necessary, no semicolons in sight and no curly braces anywhere... well, if you like sugar-free languages this one's for you:-)
Luckily they seem to not follow the current trend of languages without header files, since I personally think header files help writing more elegant APIs (but maybe that's just me).
May I enquire what you, as a DJ, do with these Ogg files? Traktor doesn't seem to support it and as far as I know there aren't any other viable computer-DJ-solutions out there. Traktor does support the iPod, incidentally, but maybe it will support that Dell thingy (or other players) at some point in the future.
I do nothing as DJ with Ogg Vorbis... I still find my CDs way more inspiring than just some lists with names. I just wanted to highlight the audiophile part;-)
My collegue uses AtomixMP3, which really is a very nice DJ program and has really intelligent GUI, but I just like my CD cases better, although they are now becoming a space problem and are far heavier than a PC. Besides, AtomixMP3 also doesn't support Ogg Vorbis so sometimes when my friend wants songs from me I have to recode them. No problem, shell scripting rulez, but still annoying.
The thing was that last year I decided it's way easier for me to leave my CD cases in our disco and have copies of them in my office (where I listen to music the most), I read a detailed article about music formats and since all players under Linux I know off support Ogg Vorbis I decided to go the Ogg Vorbis way since it seemed that they offer a better sound at the same bitrate than MP3... and now that I have finally encoded my collection I don't like to recode them, which is why I will buy an iRiver even though I'd like to get an iPod instead.
From Dell site: With the Dell DJ, our customers no longer have to choose between what they can afford and what they really want.
I don't have much choice anyways, since I fsck'ing want Ogg Vorbis support, and AFAIK only iRiver's products support that, damnit !
As a DJ and audiophile I've archived my CD collection with Ogg Vorbis, and I'm not going to recode everything to MP3 just to have it portable... my PC would be busy for several days.
A good start is obviously Linux From Scratch, but you might check Linux From Scratch Via RPM. Having some packaging manager like RPM helps a lot.
But you have to write the build scripts on your own. I have created and am managing our in-house Linux distribution, and I had to write the build system that compiles the packages from spec files, sources and patches, keeps the build system clean, recognizes when spec files changed in order to recompile them, write a tool to compare version number in order to automate checking when new packages are released (and to check whether a package need recompilation) and install the packages into disk images (which could be what you'd like to have). I also implemented some other stuff like controlling everything with a database and stuff, but you won't need that:-)
Getting all necessary packages to compile correctly can sometimes be a real pain. While the GNU packages are trivial, some packages need that you write patches in order to make them compile (most of the time you need to patch the Makefiles so that they compile with the paths that you like and install correctly; sometimes make install DESTDIR=%{buildroot} won't work since the Makefile doesn't support the DESTDIR variable so you have to add that, for example).
But having your own distribution is really cool: you learn a lot about Linux. And while everyone can install and use a normal distribution few have their own, so this is something one can be proud of, I think;-)
I really long for an iPod, but there's a little problem: I am an audiophile and a DJ, and as such I've archived my large CD collection completely with Ogg Vorbis... it would take quite some days to convert them from Ogg Vorbis to MP3:-)
Which leaves me with wanting an iRiver instead, but they aren't as cool as an iPod IMHO...
I have such classics as Burgertime, Donkey Kong and Dig Dug as original PC versions, even Moon-Patrol from 1980.
I don't know Moon-Patrol, but the rest nearly made me cry for the good ol' time when I was playing these games *sigh*:-) I especially loved Dig Dug... but all those old floppies from my 8088 don't work any more or the games don't run on anything else than an 8086/8088 (but I currently don't have one in my museum).
The oldest hardware I own and still use is certainly the keyboard from my first 80286 (I don't have my very first PC any more, an Epson PCe with 8088, which I really really regret having to give away but it wasn't my property in the first place).
I'm 24 now and I got this keyboard propably around age of 10, so it goes with me for more than half my life:-) I have disassembled and cleaned it propably half a dozen times and it still works flawlessly.
There's certainly older hardware in my little computer museum (got around twenty computers), but that keyboard is something I really use on a regular basis. Talk about quality hardware:-) A keyboard is something you really torture physically, so now that I think about it I'm really surprised it still works;-)
As project leader (I assume that you have that role in your project:-) you have to reject patches/feature requests sometimes to avoid creeping featurism. That is, too many fancy features can render your project a nightmare to program in and introduce even more bugs than is normal.
I don't mean to reject really useful features, but if a feature is not obviously useful consider rejecting it in the name of code cleaness.
Is thin client really a cost-saving approach to a large user environment?
In my experience, yes. Look at this:
At a customer site we have the following implementation, fully Linux: every location has one or more application servers where people log in with their thin clients. There is a master application server. At every location on application master is promoted to be a local master. Every night the local masters synchronize with the global master, and later the remaining application servers synchronize with their local masters.
This means that you have to install an application server only on the global master, the next day all other servers have that application as well. Zero point of administration when it comes to that. The configuration files are not synch'ed from the global master, but at every location the application servers synchronize their configuration (/etc directory with a few exceptions) with their local masters, which means for example that configuring a new printer just has to be done on the local master, the next day all servers at that location know about that new printer.
Users' home directories are mounted via NFS from another server.
And now for the Windows part in this picture: we use VMWare and their persistent disk images (I think they're called like that; they throw away all changes and remain constant). On these VMWares we run Windows 2000 servers to which people can connect via rdesktop (RDP). We are now able to administrate just the Windows image of the global master (by temporarily switching off the persistance option), and the next day all other Windows images are the same. That's also pretty resistant to viruses and worms: just reboot in case of infection:-)
This saves money, since the only points to administrate are the global master and sometimes the local masters (site specific configuration stuff like printers).
Let me just say that I would strongly recommend touch typing to anyone. I'm sure you'll feel that you've become more efficient and you'll enjoy the whole typing thing a lot more.
I tried that several times but gave up on it for several reasons:
I checked with that Java applet that is linked somewhere here, and I can type at 60 to 70 wpm with my own system "2 to 4 finger system"... while others can surely type more speedy I'm satisfied with that rate:-)
I can already type blindly with my system (I only have to look when I'm forced to use a German keyboard layout instead of an ASCII layout;-)
Since I'm typing for almost 20 years now I find it hard to get my brain accept that "new" method of typing
From time to time I try to get myself to learn touch typing but I find it frustrating and painful (physically; my wrists hurt after a while because of that little angle your holding your hands when touch-typing on a normal keyboad). I don't think it's worth the hazzle to me...
In my opinion, anyone working in the IT industry and especially programmers should be able to reach a minimum standard of typing (say 70 wpm).
Why ? Being able to type faster than you can think is not a Good Thing when programming;-) Seriously, my programming speed is more limited by the fact that except for trivial constructs (or when I'm really deep in my "flow") I am actually thinking about what I'm typing, how to write what I mean and if there is a more elegant way to do it.
Being able to type at more than 70wpm wouldn't speed up me writing programs...
When you're getting paid the big bucks and you're still doing hunt-and-peck, you're not worth the money.
Not-touch-typing is not hunt-and-peck. I personally suffer the same problem as the guy who asked that "Ask Slashdot" question: I'm using keyboard for nearly 20 years, I'm a programmer, but my system involves two to four fingers;-) But that's not hunt-and-peck, since I type blindly and at quite a good speed, I'd say (sure, the average touch typist is faster, but as said above, my mind is a bigger speedbump than my fingers;-)
It's not the speed at which you produce code that counts but the quality of the code. You're not worth the money when you produce useless/bad quality code at an astonishing rate. You're worth the money when you produce quality code that works, and does so reliable, at a slower rate. In the end the slower but more quality code saves more time since you need less debugging and have lesser problems with you customers;-)
do we really want Linux to become mainstream ? Do we really want that Joe Average avoids Windows and uses Linux instead ?
I personally am happy with the Linux culture as it is: we aren't lacking anything important (except good games, but even here we can use emulators and binary compability layers (WINE)).
The Linux culture consists mainly of people who can use their brains and understand at least the main principles of how computers work. Having Joe Average in this culture would make it less nerdy and thus not a place I'd feel home:-)
I'm working with embedded systems (Linux) in my company and I'm very pleased with the DiskOnChips despite their half-proprietary driver with which you can only generate kernel modules, not compile it into the kernel for legalese reasons. The DiskOnChips work way more reliable than any other flash chips I've used so far, with no defects yet (and we use them just like normal hard-disks currently).
Granted, it could be just that we had bad luck with the other flash chips we tried before, I don't know enough about the flash market / flash chips in general.
Disclaimer: No, I didn't get paid for this "advertising", but I wouldn't mind if someone would do it nevertheless;-)
for telling me, I wouldn't have noticed this myself. This is the first time I'v encountered a real problem with having your own mail server and making it as spam-proof as possible...
I am one of the people deeply involved in this project and so far there are two people directly involved with the design. There is a third handling administration and a few others working on documention. The community comments and provides suggestions. Thats hardly a big commitee.
Then you are soon to aproach the number of people I consider the healthiest for such a project, which is Good Thing(tm). Make sure not to exceed about six people directly involved with the design;-)
On top of this the project is progressing rapidly. It may not ever take off, but it has been fun doing it and thats worth while to me.
Yes, I know the learning-factor from such projects is enormous and is alone justifaction enough to start any software project... one hardly learns by just reading other people's code.
It's sad, but I believe this will fail horribly. The past has shown that "committee" languages don't succeed (or at least only in some niches, like Ada).
In my experience systems (like PL, applications or even OS's) are best when designed by just a small group of people: not too few and too many (I guess four to six people is a good value). Too few (just one or two) tends to include just the exclusive view of thing from the designer, while too many just makes a great mess since it's hard for a group of people to settle on one point.
Another thing I learned while reading some of the stuff about C and its history on dmr's homepage is that languages which are defined first and implemented later often hold some promises in the form of "in theory this should be very elegant and nice, but it turns out to be annoying or very, very hard to implement".
dmr also said one of the reasons C succeeded was because it was created to fit a need, not to make a point or as demonstration. So if there is need for some features then this project might succeed, but I don't see any striking needs any more, there is already a PL for almost every problem out there (and interestingly nearly every PL out there is very strong/elegant in solving certain problems but fails horribly in others).
But nonetheless I wish the people participating in this project all the best, if they would come up with an interesting, useful and beautiful language that would make an improvement to the PL world this would be a very cool thing:-)
My experience with rodents is that they need to nibble on everything they can sink their teeth into. This includes your electronic stuff. Especially cabling.
Yes, they do like cables:-) But they don't like every cable. I haven't figured out why, but they don't touch some cables and like to bite some others. Must be the plastic that's used for them... luckily my cables don't look like the ones from your link, my rats normally don't bite through cables, they just remove the plastic so a bit of tape does the job.
And leave their body wastes whenever the spirit moves them.
Luckily, rats normally don't do that (at least the ones a had and have as pets): they have one place where they drop their waste, and if you know that one and clean it regularly it's no big problem.
Obviously, if you are keeping some in the house on purpose, there is something about rodent psychology I completely missed out on.
Well, rats are very intelligent (for rodents, that is:-) and I find them very cute (my girlfriend as well). Most people don't like their naked tails, but imagine the tail to be furry: it would look almost like a squirrel, and most people find those rather cute:-) They are interesting to watch since they have very visible characters, like dogs: some a brave, others not, some like to cuddle, others not, some like to climb and jumb, etc... and some are very very clever when it comes to stealing your food;-) And they are normally quite active, which makes them fun to watch... I've never understood why hamsters are so popular. They look quite cute but are rather boring rodents, sleeping even more than I do.
If you didn't keep 'em caged, how did you handle the inevitable mess?
Well, if you mean "how do you keep them from nibbling on your furniture" and stuff: I don't. We knew from the very beginning that our sofa will be eaten, so we bought a cheep one:-) And that's about the most mess they do, luckily. That's like accepting that your cats have to whet their claws one some furniture. But because you really like your pet you live with it.
Petunia, my rat, lives in my computer room. She is my company when I'm working. She's very fond of people, and of my three cats -- she loves chasing them. Your pix of Miriel and Arwen made me grab Petunia and snuggle with her for a few minutes. Rats really can be extraordinary little creatures.
Yes, they are... the only drawback is their short lifespan. We had to euthanize Miriel about six weeks ago but got two other rats before, so Arwen wouldn't be alone.:-(
But they are so lovely friends that I don't like to miss having rats in my house:-)
This isn't very surprising...
on
Psychotic Lab Mice
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· Score: 4, Informative
and I bet this applies to rats as well (which are, biological, just very big mice). I have some pet rats and a big cage, but normally they just run around in my living room... and they really love to run around.
When I have them in their cage for more than, say, three days they grab their bars like some prisoners and stare at me with very sad eyes:-) After some days they can really get depressed.
So now normally mice and rat cages in laboratories are way smaller than mine is (I know since a friend of mine works in a laboratory with rats). And they are not allowed to run around. When my rats get depressed after a few days, then I have no doubt most mice/rats get crazy after some months.
Imagine having nothing more than your living room to walk around, your whole life... oh wait, we geeks know that very well;-)
If you mean the homepage under your name then im viewing it just fine in IE. Ive installed Moz a number of times, used it for a week, then uninstalled it. Im not lazy, I just dont like it.
You can view it just fine since I took some care that you can:-) I have a batch of PHP scripts that generate my pages on-the-fly, depending on your browser.
E.g. those boxes like the citation boxes on the bottom of every page: if you're using Netscape4 or something Lynx they're done with tables, if you're using a browser like IE, Mozilla, Opera or Konquerer they're done in CSS.
But if you visit my start page you'll get a white background in IE (plus warning box) and a background image in all other newer browsers.
I've just hacked my index page so you can see the PNG dilemma with IE: without hackwith hack
And with the "I don't like Mozilla" issue: well, of course you can't discuss about taste: if you like IE better then there's nothing wrong with it per se. I just can't live without tabs and popup blocking, so IE is useless for me, but that is just my taste;-)
Slashdot Mirror
> But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies. I thought they had a debt of billions because of the UMTS licences?
No, that was the german Telecom or whatever name they're now using. T-Online is a child of the german Telecom and to some degree independent... at least on the paper ;-)
T-Online is an ISP, and most hackers I know avoid it like the devil avoids holy water. But the majority of normal Germans use T-Online. T-Online is to Germany what AOL once was for America: a large source of stupidity on the Internet (see the Jargon Files, entry The September That Never Ended).
In my case, anything smaller than a CD can easily be lost. Think about how easy it will be to lose a fingernail size music album? Just because we CAN make it smaller, doesn't mean we should. Granted, a little smaller would be nice but that is TOO SMALL.
ACK. In my opinion the mini-disc is the definitiv lower end. Everything smaller gets blown away when someone sneezes :-) But the RIAA would definetely like to see those mini-media BECAUSE they get lost and you'd have to re-buy your music.
According to Heise online this has already been denied by T-Online (sorry, German only).
Basically, what they are saying in that news article is that some spokesman from T-Online claims buying AOL would be "economical nonsense". But T-Online has about 4 billion Euro cash with which they'd like to buy some companies. And while T-Online is the biggest online provider of Europe it is largely unknown outside of Europe, thus buying AOL would make sense to some people because T-Online likes to expand and conquer markets outside of Europe.
One weakness as well as strength of Linux has always been the ability to choose. There are so many distributions that you can choose the one that fits you best, that you like best.
Focusing on one distribution has the advantage that this single distribution really would get boosted, but it would limit our choice.
I for one don't like Debian, for several reasons. Don't get me wrong, it is a very good distribution but I don't feel home on it for several minor reasons. So what, that's why I chose another distribution, SuSE, choice rules ! Many who picked Debian don't like SuSE for their own reasons. But after all this really doesn't matter, it's just each ones personal taste.
That's the same like many people suggested giving up GNOME or KDE and join the other, but that would be plain wrong and a very bad idea. Both are focusing on different things, and if someone doesn't like KDE s/he has at least the chance to try GNOME or vice versa (and if you don't like both you can still use some of not-so-integreated desktops).
That's also one thing that really disturbs me among many Linux zealots: bitching about the distribution/desktop/application choice someone else made. After all, that's what Linux is all about. That's what UNIX is all about: for most things I could use FreeBSD as well as some Linux distribution, or even a commercial UNIX variant. And we all are happy that there we can choose, so I don't understand why people bitch about the choice of someone else...
It looks more like an object oriented Pascal variant to me than the mentioned cross of C++, Lisp and XML. Have a look at the parser source.
But it certainly looks like a nice, clean language, with lots of syntatic sugar removed: they seem to use parens only where absolutely necessary, no semicolons in sight and no curly braces anywhere... well, if you like sugar-free languages this one's for you :-)
Luckily they seem to not follow the current trend of languages without header files, since I personally think header files help writing more elegant APIs (but maybe that's just me).
May I enquire what you, as a DJ, do with these Ogg files? Traktor doesn't seem to support it and as far as I know there aren't any other viable computer-DJ-solutions out there. Traktor does support the iPod, incidentally, but maybe it will support that Dell thingy (or other players) at some point in the future.
I do nothing as DJ with Ogg Vorbis... I still find my CDs way more inspiring than just some lists with names. I just wanted to highlight the audiophile part ;-)
My collegue uses AtomixMP3, which really is a very nice DJ program and has really intelligent GUI, but I just like my CD cases better, although they are now becoming a space problem and are far heavier than a PC. Besides, AtomixMP3 also doesn't support Ogg Vorbis so sometimes when my friend wants songs from me I have to recode them. No problem, shell scripting rulez, but still annoying.
The thing was that last year I decided it's way easier for me to leave my CD cases in our disco and have copies of them in my office (where I listen to music the most), I read a detailed article about music formats and since all players under Linux I know off support Ogg Vorbis I decided to go the Ogg Vorbis way since it seemed that they offer a better sound at the same bitrate than MP3... and now that I have finally encoded my collection I don't like to recode them, which is why I will buy an iRiver even though I'd like to get an iPod instead.
From Dell site: With the Dell DJ, our customers no longer have to choose between what they can afford and what they really want.
I don't have much choice anyways, since I fsck'ing want Ogg Vorbis support, and AFAIK only iRiver's products support that, damnit !
As a DJ and audiophile I've archived my CD collection with Ogg Vorbis, and I'm not going to recode everything to MP3 just to have it portable... my PC would be busy for several days.
But be warned: it's a lot of work !
A good start is obviously Linux From Scratch, but you might check Linux From Scratch Via RPM. Having some packaging manager like RPM helps a lot.
But you have to write the build scripts on your own. I have created and am managing our in-house Linux distribution, and I had to write the build system that compiles the packages from spec files, sources and patches, keeps the build system clean, recognizes when spec files changed in order to recompile them, write a tool to compare version number in order to automate checking when new packages are released (and to check whether a package need recompilation) and install the packages into disk images (which could be what you'd like to have). I also implemented some other stuff like controlling everything with a database and stuff, but you won't need that :-)
Getting all necessary packages to compile correctly can sometimes be a real pain. While the GNU packages are trivial, some packages need that you write patches in order to make them compile (most of the time you need to patch the Makefiles so that they compile with the paths that you like and install correctly; sometimes make install DESTDIR=%{buildroot} won't work since the Makefile doesn't support the DESTDIR variable so you have to add that, for example).
But having your own distribution is really cool: you learn a lot about Linux. And while everyone can install and use a normal distribution few have their own, so this is something one can be proud of, I think ;-)
I really long for an iPod, but there's a little problem: I am an audiophile and a DJ, and as such I've archived my large CD collection completely with Ogg Vorbis... it would take quite some days to convert them from Ogg Vorbis to MP3 :-)
Which leaves me with wanting an iRiver instead, but they aren't as cool as an iPod IMHO...
I have such classics as Burgertime, Donkey Kong and Dig Dug as original PC versions, even Moon-Patrol from 1980.
I don't know Moon-Patrol, but the rest nearly made me cry for the good ol' time when I was playing these games *sigh* :-) I especially loved Dig Dug... but all those old floppies from my 8088 don't work any more or the games don't run on anything else than an 8086/8088 (but I currently don't have one in my museum).
The oldest hardware I own and still use is certainly the keyboard from my first 80286 (I don't have my very first PC any more, an Epson PCe with 8088, which I really really regret having to give away but it wasn't my property in the first place).
:-) I have disassembled and cleaned it propably half a dozen times and it still works flawlessly.
:-) A keyboard is something you really torture physically, so now that I think about it I'm really surprised it still works ;-)
I'm 24 now and I got this keyboard propably around age of 10, so it goes with me for more than half my life
There's certainly older hardware in my little computer museum (got around twenty computers), but that keyboard is something I really use on a regular basis. Talk about quality hardware
As project leader (I assume that you have that role in your project :-) you have to reject patches/feature requests sometimes to avoid creeping featurism. That is, too many fancy features can render your project a nightmare to program in and introduce even more bugs than is normal.
I don't mean to reject really useful features, but if a feature is not obviously useful consider rejecting it in the name of code cleaness.
Is thin client really a cost-saving approach to a large user environment?
In my experience, yes. Look at this:
At a customer site we have the following implementation, fully Linux: every location has one or more application servers where people log in with their thin clients. There is a master application server. At every location on application master is promoted to be a local master. Every night the local masters synchronize with the global master, and later the remaining application servers synchronize with their local masters.
This means that you have to install an application server only on the global master, the next day all other servers have that application as well. Zero point of administration when it comes to that. The configuration files are not synch'ed from the global master, but at every location the application servers synchronize their configuration (/etc directory with a few exceptions) with their local masters, which means for example that configuring a new printer just has to be done on the local master, the next day all servers at that location know about that new printer.
Users' home directories are mounted via NFS from another server.
And now for the Windows part in this picture: we use VMWare and their persistent disk images (I think they're called like that; they throw away all changes and remain constant). On these VMWares we run Windows 2000 servers to which people can connect via rdesktop (RDP). We are now able to administrate just the Windows image of the global master (by temporarily switching off the persistance option), and the next day all other Windows images are the same. That's also pretty resistant to viruses and worms: just reboot in case of infection :-)
This saves money, since the only points to administrate are the global master and sometimes the local masters (site specific configuration stuff like printers).
Let me just say that I would strongly recommend touch typing to anyone. I'm sure you'll feel that you've become more efficient and you'll enjoy the whole typing thing a lot more.
I tried that several times but gave up on it for several reasons:
From time to time I try to get myself to learn touch typing but I find it frustrating and painful (physically; my wrists hurt after a while because of that little angle your holding your hands when touch-typing on a normal keyboad). I don't think it's worth the hazzle to me...
In my opinion, anyone working in the IT industry and especially programmers should be able to reach a minimum standard of typing (say 70 wpm).
Why ? Being able to type faster than you can think is not a Good Thing when programming ;-) Seriously, my programming speed is more limited by the fact that except for trivial constructs (or when I'm really deep in my "flow") I am actually thinking about what I'm typing, how to write what I mean and if there is a more elegant way to do it.
Being able to type at more than 70wpm wouldn't speed up me writing programs...
When you're getting paid the big bucks and you're still doing hunt-and-peck, you're not worth the money.
Not-touch-typing is not hunt-and-peck. I personally suffer the same problem as the guy who asked that "Ask Slashdot" question: I'm using keyboard for nearly 20 years, I'm a programmer, but my system involves two to four fingers ;-) But that's not hunt-and-peck, since I type blindly and at quite a good speed, I'd say (sure, the average touch typist is faster, but as said above, my mind is a bigger speedbump than my fingers ;-)
It's not the speed at which you produce code that counts but the quality of the code. You're not worth the money when you produce useless/bad quality code at an astonishing rate. You're worth the money when you produce quality code that works, and does so reliable, at a slower rate. In the end the slower but more quality code saves more time since you need less debugging and have lesser problems with you customers ;-)
do we really want Linux to become mainstream ? Do we really want that Joe Average avoids Windows and uses Linux instead ?
I personally am happy with the Linux culture as it is: we aren't lacking anything important (except good games, but even here we can use emulators and binary compability layers (WINE)).
The Linux culture consists mainly of people who can use their brains and understand at least the main principles of how computers work. Having Joe Average in this culture would make it less nerdy and thus not a place I'd feel home :-)
You could try M-Systems's products like DiskOnChip or even their IDE/SCSI Flash Disks.
I'm working with embedded systems (Linux) in my company and I'm very pleased with the DiskOnChips despite their half-proprietary driver with which you can only generate kernel modules, not compile it into the kernel for legalese reasons. The DiskOnChips work way more reliable than any other flash chips I've used so far, with no defects yet (and we use them just like normal hard-disks currently).
Granted, it could be just that we had bad luck with the other flash chips we tried before, I don't know enough about the flash market / flash chips in general.
Disclaimer: No, I didn't get paid for this "advertising", but I wouldn't mind if someone would do it nevertheless ;-)
for telling me, I wouldn't have noticed this myself. This is the first time I'v encountered a real problem with having your own mail server and making it as spam-proof as possible...
Interestingly, the CNET article reveals the telephones "...can only call other phones that use the same technology."
Can you say "bankrupt" and "insolvency" ?
I am one of the people deeply involved in this project and so far there are two people directly involved with the design. There is a third handling administration and a few others working on documention. The community comments and provides suggestions. Thats hardly a big commitee.
Then you are soon to aproach the number of people I consider the healthiest for such a project, which is Good Thing(tm). Make sure not to exceed about six people directly involved with the design ;-)
On top of this the project is progressing rapidly. It may not ever take off, but it has been fun doing it and thats worth while to me.
Yes, I know the learning-factor from such projects is enormous and is alone justifaction enough to start any software project... one hardly learns by just reading other people's code.
It's sad, but I believe this will fail horribly. The past has shown that "committee" languages don't succeed (or at least only in some niches, like Ada).
In my experience systems (like PL, applications or even OS's) are best when designed by just a small group of people: not too few and too many (I guess four to six people is a good value). Too few (just one or two) tends to include just the exclusive view of thing from the designer, while too many just makes a great mess since it's hard for a group of people to settle on one point.
Another thing I learned while reading some of the stuff about C and its history on dmr's homepage is that languages which are defined first and implemented later often hold some promises in the form of "in theory this should be very elegant and nice, but it turns out to be annoying or very, very hard to implement".
dmr also said one of the reasons C succeeded was because it was created to fit a need, not to make a point or as demonstration. So if there is need for some features then this project might succeed, but I don't see any striking needs any more, there is already a PL for almost every problem out there (and interestingly nearly every PL out there is very strong/elegant in solving certain problems but fails horribly in others).
But nonetheless I wish the people participating in this project all the best, if they would come up with an interesting, useful and beautiful language that would make an improvement to the PL world this would be a very cool thing :-)
My experience with rodents is that they need to nibble on everything they can sink their teeth into. This includes your electronic stuff. Especially cabling.
Yes, they do like cables :-) But they don't like every cable. I haven't figured out why, but they don't touch some cables and like to bite some others. Must be the plastic that's used for them... luckily my cables don't look like the ones from your link, my rats normally don't bite through cables, they just remove the plastic so a bit of tape does the job.
And leave their body wastes whenever the spirit moves them.
Luckily, rats normally don't do that (at least the ones a had and have as pets): they have one place where they drop their waste, and if you know that one and clean it regularly it's no big problem.
Obviously, if you are keeping some in the house on purpose, there is something about rodent psychology I completely missed out on.
Well, rats are very intelligent (for rodents, that is :-) and I find them very cute (my girlfriend as well). Most people don't like their naked tails, but imagine the tail to be furry: it would look almost like a squirrel, and most people find those rather cute :-) They are interesting to watch since they have very visible characters, like dogs: some a brave, others not, some like to cuddle, others not, some like to climb and jumb, etc... and some are very very clever when it comes to stealing your food ;-) And they are normally quite active, which makes them fun to watch... I've never understood why hamsters are so popular. They look quite cute but are rather boring rodents, sleeping even more than I do.
If you didn't keep 'em caged, how did you handle the inevitable mess?
Well, if you mean "how do you keep them from nibbling on your furniture" and stuff: I don't. We knew from the very beginning that our sofa will be eaten, so we bought a cheep one :-) And that's about the most mess they do, luckily. That's like accepting that your cats have to whet their claws one some furniture. But because you really like your pet you live with it.
Petunia, my rat, lives in my computer room. She is my company when I'm working. She's very fond of people, and of my three cats -- she loves chasing them. Your pix of Miriel and Arwen made me grab Petunia and snuggle with her for a few minutes. Rats really can be extraordinary little creatures.
Yes, they are... the only drawback is their short lifespan. We had to euthanize Miriel about six weeks ago but got two other rats before, so Arwen wouldn't be alone. :-(
But they are so lovely friends that I don't like to miss having rats in my house :-)
and I bet this applies to rats as well (which are, biological, just very big mice). I have some pet rats and a big cage, but normally they just run around in my living room... and they really love to run around.
When I have them in their cage for more than, say, three days they grab their bars like some prisoners and stare at me with very sad eyes :-) After some days they can really get depressed.
So now normally mice and rat cages in laboratories are way smaller than mine is (I know since a friend of mine works in a laboratory with rats). And they are not allowed to run around. When my rats get depressed after a few days, then I have no doubt most mice/rats get crazy after some months.
Imagine having nothing more than your living room to walk around, your whole life... oh wait, we geeks know that very well ;-)
If you mean the homepage under your name then im viewing it just fine in IE. Ive installed Moz a number of times, used it for a week, then uninstalled it. Im not lazy, I just dont like it.
You can view it just fine since I took some care that you can :-) I have a batch of PHP scripts that generate my pages on-the-fly, depending on your browser.
E.g. those boxes like the citation boxes on the bottom of every page: if you're using Netscape4 or something Lynx they're done with tables, if you're using a browser like IE, Mozilla, Opera or Konquerer they're done in CSS.
But if you visit my start page you'll get a white background in IE (plus warning box) and a background image in all other newer browsers.
I've just hacked my index page so you can see the PNG dilemma with IE: without hack with hack
And with the "I don't like Mozilla" issue: well, of course you can't discuss about taste: if you like IE better then there's nothing wrong with it per se. I just can't live without tabs and popup blocking, so IE is useless for me, but that is just my taste ;-)