At my previous job, I wrote a lot of code for the yield/moisture/soil/etc mapping software sold by a major farm equipment manufacturer. The software would take data gathered by GPS and other sensors on a combine, and make various color-coded maps of the data.
Farmers were talking about using the data gathered by these sensors, and the maps our software created, to prove losses to their insurance companies.
We developers laughed quite a bit at the thought of that, since we had written a little app which would convert an image file into a sensor data file, so we could make a map of a field with our favorite logo burned into it.
There are all kinds of problems with using collected sensor data as evidence. In fact, this manufacturer planned to use previously-recorded data as a basis for planting seeds and creating chemicals. This practice could mean big trouble if some horrible pesticide was applied too close to the local stream as the result of a GPS error. There should have been some sort of validation key attached to the data, like a PGP signature, to prove its authenticity and reveal tampering. Perhaps they've added something like this since I left the project.
This switching from keyboard to mouse to keyboard to mouse is exactly why I prefer to drive everything from the keyboard. I use WinNT at work, and have found that it's quite easy to get around (most of) the system & developer tools with keyboard strokes only.
[OT: Can someone point me to good resource for keyboard-only navigation under Gnome? Or is KDE better in this regard? I'm using Sawfish at the moment.]
[OT(2): This is one of the things that really bugs me about the Macintosh; you
must use the mouse on a Mac.]
Anyway, in order to reduce my travel from the keyboard to the mouse (necessary even when you can reduce the use of a mouse), I bought an ergo keyboard that has a built-in touchpad in the lower right corner. It took some getting used to, but now I love it.
My main point: I think guesture control would be easiest with one of these touchpads, and not with a mouse (and probably very difficult with a trackball).
Even so, when comparing Toy Story & Toy Story 2, it's obvious how much better the sequel looks than the original.
Anyway, I have to say that I'm not really considering seeing Shrek, because I'm past the point of seeing films just for the CGI or special effects. A fairy tale story just doesn't interest me too much.
This book is probably a much better read. I've heard Kiyosaki on the radio and don't like his approach at all.
Re:This is why I drive a 4 door 4 cylinder family
on
Hi-Tech Repo Man
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· Score: 1
Good advice. How I wish my parents hadn't *encouraged* my short-lived interest in SUV's back when I started working (pre-dotcom '93). I bought an expensive Jeep, which had me strapped until I finally sold it so I could get on with life and buy a house.
Now the only debt I carry is a mortgage. Overspending is a serious problem in our society. Why don't people value living within their means?!
References, mostly agree, but you can save some time and memory by using reference in connection with const for objects. For instance,
int foo( const Obj& o );
Instead of making a copy of Obj, you know get a reference to the original object. Saves you time.
No kidding. If people would learn how to use const correctly, many many runtime bugs would be caught in the compiler. Also the code is easier to understand if const is used correctly.
p.s. I happen to think references are very nice.
Re:If you can't hack CS, don't be a programmer
on
CS vs CIS
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· Score: 1
I know that this was my attitude as well, back when I had some say in who got hired to be on my team. When I saw that someone had an MIS degree, I didn't take them as seriously as someone with a CS degree.
I'm sure it depends on who you try to get a job with, but I think there are many people who see CS as more serious than MIS.
Of course there are also many people who don't care at all about degrees...
It requires effort to push, which is good exercise for me;
it makes very little noise, which is good for the neighbors;
it uses no gasoline, which saves money and resources;
and it cuts rather poorly, which is good for my ego.
Not if you don't have a G3 or G4.:-/
For those of us with older PowerMacs, we can run Linux, but we can't run OSX. Anyway, I like Linux just fine. At the moment I don't have time to learn BSD.
The general FAQ answers how the names will appear in a web browser, but they use a GIF to show the Chinese name. So I'm still wondering how it will look to someone without an OS that displays the characters properly. Never mind that you can download extensions to display the content in the web browser; the location will be garbage, right?
Will this be a good kick in the butt for internationalization of your OS?
What's the big deal? We all know Han Solo landed his modified freighter, the Millenium Falcon, right inside a big asteroid, and it was much cooler looking than this one.
Plus he was being chased by hostile foes through a dangerous asteroid field, and escaped from the giant worm which was living in the asteroid, which is why you won't see anyone making a movie about the NEAR spacecraft.
Personally as a "power user" I've been recommending to anyone who asks me that they should get a Mac.
A few years ago I was recommending a particular PC configuration -- until a relative came back and asked what she should do because she had filled up the first partition on her Win95 system and wondered if she could just move the "Program Files" folder to the D: drive. Uh-oh, I don't have a simple answer for that one. But on the Mac it's no problem. If she had a Mac, I could tell her, "just move the folders wherever you want to, Mrs. Johnson."
And I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to explain to her how to use Linux. Let's be honest, it's just not up to her level yet.
I think for the average user, the Mac seems like a good and simple solution. For the power user, who cares? Maybe the power user is going to run Linux on it (like I do) but there are a lot more average consumers out there buying computers than there are power users.
So as a power user, go for it, run Linux, use GNOME or KDE or whatever. But if you hate Microsoft, then tell your relatives, friends, company, school to buy a Macintosh!
I (also almost all of the people who work around me) have an amazing Plextor CDROM drive with a caddy cartridge for the disc. There is no detent for a 77mm sized disc.
So this format isn't necessarily going to be always more convenient than a PC card storage.
Slashdot Mirror
I am in the process of switching my (few) Linux boxen to NetBSD.
Why?
Because of Mac OS X.
At my previous job, I wrote a lot of code for the yield/moisture/soil/etc mapping software sold by a major farm equipment manufacturer. The software would take data gathered by GPS and other sensors on a combine, and make various color-coded maps of the data.
Farmers were talking about using the data gathered by these sensors, and the maps our software created, to prove losses to their insurance companies.
We developers laughed quite a bit at the thought of that, since we had written a little app which would convert an image file into a sensor data file, so we could make a map of a field with our favorite logo burned into it.
There are all kinds of problems with using collected sensor data as evidence. In fact, this manufacturer planned to use previously-recorded data as a basis for planting seeds and creating chemicals. This practice could mean big trouble if some horrible pesticide was applied too close to the local stream as the result of a GPS error. There should have been some sort of validation key attached to the data, like a PGP signature, to prove its authenticity and reveal tampering. Perhaps they've added something like this since I left the project.
christian
Could be Goh - beh (Japanese style)
Could be Gohb (weird English-style silent 'e' making a long 'o' such as globe)
??
This switching from keyboard to mouse to keyboard to mouse is exactly why I prefer to drive everything from the keyboard. I use WinNT at work, and have found that it's quite easy to get around (most of) the system & developer tools with keyboard strokes only.
Anyway, in order to reduce my travel from the keyboard to the mouse (necessary even when you can reduce the use of a mouse), I bought an ergo keyboard that has a built-in touchpad in the lower right corner. It took some getting used to, but now I love it.
My main point: I think guesture control would be easiest with one of these touchpads, and not with a mouse (and probably very difficult with a trackball).
Even so, when comparing Toy Story & Toy Story 2, it's obvious how much better the sequel looks than the original.
Anyway, I have to say that I'm not really considering seeing Shrek, because I'm past the point of seeing films just for the CGI or special effects. A fairy tale story just doesn't interest me too much.
This book is probably a much better read. I've heard Kiyosaki on the radio and don't like his approach at all.
Good advice. How I wish my parents hadn't *encouraged* my short-lived interest in SUV's back when I started working (pre-dotcom '93). I bought an expensive Jeep, which had me strapped until I finally sold it so I could get on with life and buy a house.
Now the only debt I carry is a mortgage. Overspending is a serious problem in our society. Why don't people value living within their means?!
No kidding. If people would learn how to use const correctly, many many runtime bugs would be caught in the compiler. Also the code is easier to understand if const is used correctly.
p.s. I happen to think references are very nice.
I know that this was my attitude as well, back when I had some say in who got hired to be on my team. When I saw that someone had an MIS degree, I didn't take them as seriously as someone with a CS degree.
I'm sure it depends on who you try to get a job with, but I think there are many people who see CS as more serious than MIS.
Of course there are also many people who don't care at all about degrees...
I use a reel mower, to mow my rather large lawn.
It requires effort to push, which is good exercise for me;
it makes very little noise, which is good for the neighbors;
it uses no gasoline, which saves money and resources;
and it cuts rather poorly, which is good for my ego.
Not if you don't have a G3 or G4. :-/
For those of us with older PowerMacs, we can run Linux, but we can't run OSX. Anyway, I like Linux just fine. At the moment I don't have time to learn BSD.
Yeah, I assume that is the case. That's how it works with KanjiKit as well. But for those without an appropriate IME, it will look like junk. Oh well.
What does Bastille do for me that I can't get by following the rules of TrinityOS?
The general FAQ answers how the names will appear in a web browser, but they use a GIF to show the Chinese name. So I'm still wondering how it will look to someone without an OS that displays the characters properly. Never mind that you can download extensions to display the content in the web browser; the location will be garbage, right?
Will this be a good kick in the butt for internationalization of your OS?
What's the big deal? We all know Han Solo landed his modified freighter, the Millenium Falcon, right inside a big asteroid, and it was much cooler looking than this one.
Plus he was being chased by hostile foes through a dangerous asteroid field, and escaped from the giant worm which was living in the asteroid, which is why you won't see anyone making a movie about the NEAR spacecraft.
Personally as a "power user" I've been recommending to anyone who asks me that they should get a Mac.
A few years ago I was recommending a particular PC configuration -- until a relative came back and asked what she should do because she had filled up the first partition on her Win95 system and wondered if she could just move the "Program Files" folder to the D: drive. Uh-oh, I don't have a simple answer for that one. But on the Mac it's no problem. If she had a Mac, I could tell her, "just move the folders wherever you want to, Mrs. Johnson."
And I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to explain to her how to use Linux. Let's be honest, it's just not up to her level yet.
I think for the average user, the Mac seems like a good and simple solution. For the power user, who cares? Maybe the power user is going to run Linux on it (like I do) but there are a lot more average consumers out there buying computers than there are power users.
So as a power user, go for it, run Linux, use GNOME or KDE or whatever. But if you hate Microsoft, then tell your relatives, friends, company, school to buy a Macintosh!
Not if you wear a sweatshirt over it so no one can see it, since then you aren't offering it for all to see.
You can only wear it in public when no one is looking.
Does a DeCSS t-shirt falling in a forest make a sound when there's no one around to hear it?
Maybe the Helix tool won't suddenly grow larger than the size of my X desktop, though. That would be nice.
I can't stand using linuxconf in X on my "server" box, since it has a video card that only allows 800x600 resolution...
Yeah, but now instead of chipping your auto to improve performance, just patch and recompile!
Sure.
In previous Napster article comments you can find people defending Napster by saying that they downloaded all kinds of independent bands.
Hmmm...
I (also almost all of the people who work around me) have an amazing Plextor CDROM drive with a caddy cartridge for the disc. There is no detent for a 77mm sized disc.
So this format isn't necessarily going to be always more convenient than a PC card storage.