Re:mod original article downto 'troll'
on
C# To Crush Java?
·
· Score: 1
Cross-platform is only important when you want to move onto a higher-capacity platform - in otherwords, scalability.
Not so. I, for example, develop an application that runs on both UNIX and Windows NT. The installed customer base does not live on a single platform. Or you might simply want/need to change hardware vendors and go with the implied OS change (migration from IRIX to Solaris, for example.). There are too many reasons for being cross-platform to list here.
Of course, this is what you get for replying to AC's:(
it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. Double negatives aside, maybe the mindless paranoia is justified at a deeper level.
Defenders of a new technology are usually blind to its dangers. It doesn't help that the opposition (lacking specific information at the time) acts as mindless as you parody.
Keep in mind: in the late 1800s, people wrote nightmare pollution scenarios for coal power. They were laughed at by the educated. It took about 100 years to get to the point they feared. I've read books written in early 1960s claiming that nuclear power will always be 100% safe. If you actualy read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, you migh catch yourself looking at certain sections and saying "what's the big deal" and then shuddering. The list goes on.
Potential Nightmares:
(I'm sure the bad guys have been thinking about these)
-Targeted assasinations: Biological warfare is one thing, but imagine the ability to have ubiquitious "smart dust" everywhere and once in a while commanding it to snip important connections in your enemys nervous system. Worse yet, you can give your enemy the psychological disorder of your choice.
-Custom plagues: By the same token, you can have Ebola-like flesh-eating plagues that can now be safely deployed because of their targetability.
-If you get enough nanomachines to swarm, you can use them to instantly pulverize things/people.
-Spydust: enough said.
-Slime mold style robots: you can have an evenly distributed (and thus undetectable) layer of nanomachines come together (Voltron style) out of nowhere and form the killer robot of your choice. Far fetched, but truly the stuff of nightmares. (Look up slime molds for a biological analogy).
-The upper bound in how fast nanomachines can replicate is not necessarily the same as that for existing algae/bacteria. Remember that if these are small enough to be 'artificial life-forms' introducing them into the environment would be like introducing a completely alien life form. Such life forms can devastate an environment before they limit their own growth. The "gray goo" problem is real, even if remote.
-Energy might not be a problem:
http://www.gastrobots.com/
For that matter, I have not seen obstacle mentioned here that's fundamental.
-Long term consequences failure by _someone_ to follow any of the development guidelines outlined in:
http://www.foresight.org/guidelines/current.html
Please keep in mind that self-replication is a lot easier at the microscopic level. Bacteria are simpler than mammals, yet manage to replicate/mutate just fine.
I, for one, pray that we never get this far or run into the same types of 'technical problems' that have kept us from achieving true (or even good) AI. With complete molecular-level control, I can imagine a lot more horrendous stuff that I'd rather not even write down. I'm not trolling here. Far-fetched does NOT mean impossible or unlikely. And even though what I outlined above may not be useful to terrorists as we know them today, they will be useful to _someone_.
I hope to look at what I wrote here in 25 years and laugh at my ignorance.
mod original article downto 'troll'
on
C# To Crush Java?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
But I'll bite anyway:)
Java became popular in the first place because:
1) there was a genuine need for a truly cross-platform language that had built in graphics, networking, etc. (no matter how bloated or buggy)
2) SUN set up indoctrination camps for IT managers and marketed the heck out of Java
3) SUN bribed colleges into teaching Java
(My school had dropped C/C++ completely in 1997. All the computer labs are donated by Sun)
No matter how dominant Microsoft is, I just don't see them doing what SUN did with Java and getting the same mileage. At best, they will manage to replace Visual Basic. Why would a sane (non-MS)development shop switch to a Windows-only language from something that is cross-platform? What will C# buy me that Java/C++/Visual Basic does not?
Of course, if C# does (by some cruel twist of fate) become dominant, I would _hate_ to see what the average programmer looks like in 10 years. The _average_ "Java programmer" already acts like a brain-washed zombie posessing no problem-solving skills other than using existing Java APIs. Just imagine a world populated by the Microsoft Centric version of the same breed...
"Java is a peculiar mixture of hype and sound technology"
--overheard at a CS colloquium circa 1997
I think Neal Stephenson (in Snow Crash) had a disabled guy controlling his wheelchair/truck by making grunts and other noises. The idea always made sense to me.
I don't want to see the U.S flag on our space ships. Or Russian, Chinese Canadian or anything else. Instead I want to see either a picture of Earth, or a flag that symbolizes all of Earth.
I want to see the U.S. flag on our spaceships. I also want to see the Russian, Chinese, and hopefully Saudi, Iraqi, and Afghan flags on theirs. I want to see the flags of the enemy. COOPERATION IS THE LAST THING WE NEED.
Then we can explore as a unity.
S(#3$ unity. We need competition!
People are short sighted by nature. Joe Sixpack or Jill the Soccer Mom will NOT spend money on something as "ridiculous" as exploring Mars or building a base on the moon when "we haven't even balanced our own budget, built a healthcare system, made our beaches free from sharks, stopped online music piracy, etc."
Right now, we're trying to invent "Earth based" problems supposedly solved by space research. Nobody's buying. It's politically suicidal to talk about exploration for its own sake. In the 50's they were just trying to get out there ahead of other guy, and (necessarily) ended up discovering stuff that was useful. If they had unity, they'd still be debating the usefulness of having an artificial sattelite. But because of competition, there was political will for the space program, and that brought money. The rest took care of itself.
WHAT WE NEED IS A NEW SPACE RACE!
it would certainly beat the current race to actively destroy each other
Seriously, if USPS took some gamma ray emitters (i.e., the kind they use to sterilize food, hospital equipment, etc--Cobalt 60, I think) and "nuked" every letter before it got to the destination, wouldn't that solve the whole Anthrax/letter based bioterrorism problem?
This would probably be relatively easy to centralize.
OK...someone please clue me in. When did the laws of economics change?
I'm a geek. I have broadband now, which I get relatively cheap. I PAY for this, and I'm willing to pay more if needed.
If/when Excite@home dies, there will be many more like me who are already "sold" on the concept of broadband with cable modems sitting around. So you're telling me that nobody will crop up to sell me this service, for which I'll gladly shell out cold, hard cash?
If I were them, I'd simply have the legislation passed that would:
1) Make the use of "illegal" crypto more easy to prosecute. Once you prosecute several high profile cases, you'd scare most people (including most/.'ers, despite the rhetoric) into using weaker versions of crypto. Random seeming info would be easier to identify (and scrutinize).
2) Make the installation of other "backdoors" easier to justify. They could save themselves a lot of trouble if they mandated keyboard manufacturers to include hardware keystroke loggers. These could be remotely controlled. Tampering with this device would be like tampering with your odometer. If they promise to 'keep it safe' do you think they would have much opposition in the current atmosphere?
Of course, this may not keep the most paranoid from doing whatever they want, but they would have a lot easier time catching the average (non-computer-savvy) criminals.
go read _1984_...or, better yet, _A Brave New World_
I think what you mean is that chaotic systems have to be non-linear (note that not all non-linear systems are chaotic). Also, you do not need differential equations.
Basically, you can define chaos as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Consider the following very simple example:
Xn+1= A*Xn*(1-Xn)
This is known as the Logistic Map. You can think of it as a population model where X0 is the initial population, Xn is the population at generation n, and A is the rate of growth. The (1-Xn) term models death in every generation.
Now Play with this:
start with x0=0.1 and A = 4 and iterate
the X values look something like:
0.1
0.36
0.9216
0.28901376
0.821939226
for 5 generations.
Change X0 to 0.11 and rerun the simulation
0.11
0.3916
0.95299776
0.179172118
0.58827788
There's your "butterfly effect." No matter how little you change X0, the solution will diverge.
Just imagine this with several thousand more variables!
(Note: play with A and you'll see that some cases of this system are not chaotic)
excellent paper. But, for the crypto types out there:
On the other hand, if each wheat packet contains a single bit, and
there is a chaff packet with the same serial number containing the
complementary bit, then the adversary will have a very difficult
(essentially impossible) task. Being able to distinguish wheat from
chaff would require him to break the MAC algorithm and/or know the
secret authentication key used to compute the MACs.
Even in this case, isn't the sytem extremely vulnerable to a chosen plaintext attack?
So for me, and I'm sure most of the code jockeys on Slashdot, the "real world" is one where software is written, THEN MAINTAINED. Beauty is part of maintanence.
Actually, a lot of software is written, THEN ABANDONED. Only the software that makes it to the customer first lives long enough to be maintained.
Herein lies the problem: most software that "survives" in the market is crap that was thrown together to beat the other systems. Unless you're in a well-funded, stable environment with customers who know _exactly_ what they want [i.e., developing life support sytems, etc.], you have no choice but to produce software this way.
If your program survives, you can go back and "refactor" your code to be prettier
(I _really_ hate that word...:(
>admittedly assembler tends to have labels and comments and stuff
actually, DNA does have "comments" (in a manner of speaking). It's called DNA Methylation
This is nature's way of "commenting out" pieces of genetic code.
from the link:
Experimental evidence has shown that in certain cells there are heavily methylated genes and these genes are not expressed. On the other hand cells that have non-methylated forms of these genes are expressed.
And I always get in trouble for leaving commented code in--it's actually Nature's way!
The demonstration you talk about is how I learned
about lab safety in high school (the hard way).
For my final demo in high school, I had bored a hole in a slab of dry ice (which is
rather difficult to do) and placed some magnesium powder in it. My chemistry teacher also recommended that I mix in some potassium chlorate (strong oxidizer) in there.
Well, I prepared the mixture, got another slab of dry ice to place over it, _held it down with my hand _(with the chemistry teacher watching), and lit the fuse.
I should have noticed the evil smirk on the teachers face as I did this...
What resulted was a little explosion right under my hand that broke the glassware on the bench and scared the daylights out of me. Luckily, the debris had spread out laterally, and I was not hurt.
Other things I learned not to do by watching others in high school:
-Do not stick your hand in forming polyurethane
-Do NOT set up an experiment that produces gaseous copper
-Phosphorus left in the sink will catch fire spontaneously in the middle of class
-elemental sodium is not a toy
Moral: always trust your own [hopefully paranoid] judgement about lab & on the job safety.
Next time: how to alarm bedroom community with "improvised thermite":)
I'll pay (and so will many others, if its good)
on
Quicktime In Linux
·
· Score: 1
The truth is that I use windows just because
there are certain sites that are designed to be useless without these (IMHO bloated) plugins.
This may not be a huge help in getting Joe Schmo to try LINUX, but I'll _happily_ fork over $20 for something so useful.
In fact, if this is a decent product, let's try not to write an open source competitor to this so that the company can make some (well deserved) money.
If we want mainstream acceptance of LINUX, maybe having some decent commercial products out there will help.
Maybe this is too obvious to point out. But
say I do any of the following:
I violate the DMCA, get an "evaluation" copy
of win2k from my friend (without stealing anyones
_physical_ property), or violate M$'s license by disassembling and publishing a portion of their OS and publish it on my web page.
Then the police knocks down my door, tries to arrest me, or kills me if I resist arrest, thus seriously decreasing my flerbage:)
The last one (Hamlet) is one of the most insightful books I own, despite the corny title. Snow Crash is full of concepts waiting to be implemented and patented (yuk)...
I had a CS professor who made Neuromancer and Hamlet on the Holodeck required reading for our VR class:)
He says etext.org has not removed the file and has not been sued: "The worry I have is not
this particular case. It's more a worry about the ability to convey information on the Net in a
way that's other than commercially motivated."
My old employer was one extreme. They would not
send me to training on the specialized tool
(BMC Patrol) I was expected to support.
Nor would they bother buying the manuals. Since
the online user community for this product was
pretty small/nonexistent at the time, I had to kludge ways around everything, which included trying to glean information wherever I could, experimenting, and finding ways to get stuff done without the tool. I believe this was unreasonable (the extra time I spent cost them more than training would have).
My current employer is a lot better about this. I have been sent to training on tools I don't even use. While this has benefited me greatly, I don't know if I would have been as generous if I were the boss.
I think it's reasonable to expect some cooperation from your employer on technologies you are currently working on (especially specialized ones for which documentation is scant). But it is unfair/unrealistic to expect them to support your Java certification, send you to linux training, or otherwise increase your value for your next employer at their expense.
For most technologies, I imagine your life will
not be too difficult. Nobody will stop you from buying a book on Java, XML, Linux, etc. and most employers will/should pay for such things. They should also encourage some playing around with new technologies because this is beneficial to both the employer and the employee (and helps retain geeks:).
I would, however, be careful about trying to demand things from your employer that does not directly benefit them, and might in fact harm them (such as a 2 week training session in Hawaii from which you might not return).
Slashdot Mirror
Cross-platform is only important when you want to move onto a higher-capacity platform - in otherwords, scalability.
Not so. I, for example, develop an application that runs on both UNIX and Windows NT. The installed customer base does not live on a single platform. Or you might simply want/need to change hardware vendors and go with the implied OS change (migration from IRIX to Solaris, for example.). There are too many reasons for being cross-platform to list here.
Of course, this is what you get for replying to AC's
it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. Double negatives aside, maybe the mindless paranoia is justified at a deeper level.
l
Defenders of a new technology are usually blind to its dangers. It doesn't help that the opposition (lacking specific information at the time) acts as mindless as you parody.
Keep in mind: in the late 1800s, people wrote nightmare pollution scenarios for coal power. They were laughed at by the educated. It took about 100 years to get to the point they feared. I've read books written in early 1960s claiming that nuclear power will always be 100% safe. If you actualy read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, you migh catch yourself looking at certain sections and saying "what's the big deal" and then shuddering. The list goes on.
Potential Nightmares:
(I'm sure the bad guys have been thinking about these)
-Targeted assasinations: Biological warfare is one thing, but imagine the ability to have ubiquitious "smart dust" everywhere and once in a while commanding it to snip important connections in your enemys nervous system. Worse yet, you can give your enemy the psychological disorder of your choice.
-Custom plagues: By the same token, you can have Ebola-like flesh-eating plagues that can now be safely deployed because of their targetability.
-If you get enough nanomachines to swarm, you can use them to instantly pulverize things/people.
-Spydust: enough said.
-Slime mold style robots: you can have an evenly distributed (and thus undetectable) layer of nanomachines come together (Voltron style) out of nowhere and form the killer robot of your choice. Far fetched, but truly the stuff of nightmares. (Look up slime molds for a biological analogy).
-The upper bound in how fast nanomachines can replicate is not necessarily the same as that for existing algae/bacteria. Remember that if these are small enough to be 'artificial life-forms' introducing them into the environment would be like introducing a completely alien life form. Such life forms can devastate an environment before they limit their own growth. The "gray goo" problem is real, even if remote.
-Energy might not be a problem:
http://www.gastrobots.com/
For that matter, I have not seen obstacle mentioned here that's fundamental.
-Long term consequences failure by _someone_ to follow any of the development guidelines outlined in:
http://www.foresight.org/guidelines/current.htm
Please keep in mind that self-replication is a lot easier at the microscopic level. Bacteria are simpler than mammals, yet manage to replicate/mutate just fine.
I, for one, pray that we never get this far or run into the same types of 'technical problems' that have kept us from achieving true (or even good) AI. With complete molecular-level control, I can imagine a lot more horrendous stuff that I'd rather not even write down. I'm not trolling here. Far-fetched does NOT mean impossible or unlikely. And even though what I outlined above may not be useful to terrorists as we know them today, they will be useful to _someone_.
I hope to look at what I wrote here in 25 years and laugh at my ignorance.
But I'll bite anyway :)
Java became popular in the first place because:
1) there was a genuine need for a truly cross-platform language that had built in graphics, networking, etc. (no matter how bloated or buggy)
2) SUN set up indoctrination camps for IT managers and marketed the heck out of Java
3) SUN bribed colleges into teaching Java
(My school had dropped C/C++ completely in 1997. All the computer labs are donated by Sun)
No matter how dominant Microsoft is, I just don't see them doing what SUN did with Java and getting the same mileage. At best, they will manage to replace Visual Basic. Why would a sane (non-MS)development shop switch to a Windows-only language from something that is cross-platform? What will C# buy me that Java/C++/Visual Basic does not?
Of course, if C# does (by some cruel twist of fate) become dominant, I would _hate_ to see what the average programmer looks like in 10 years. The _average_ "Java programmer" already acts like a brain-washed zombie posessing no problem-solving skills other than using existing Java APIs. Just imagine a world populated by the Microsoft Centric version of the same breed...
"Java is a peculiar mixture of hype and sound technology"
--overheard at a CS colloquium circa 1997
i.e., broadband
I think Neal Stephenson (in Snow Crash) had a disabled guy controlling his wheelchair/truck by making grunts and other noises. The idea always made sense to me.
I want to see the U.S. flag on our spaceships. I also want to see the Russian, Chinese, and hopefully Saudi, Iraqi, and Afghan flags on theirs. I want to see the flags of the enemy. COOPERATION IS THE LAST THING WE NEED.
S(#3$ unity. We need competition!
People are short sighted by nature. Joe Sixpack or Jill the Soccer Mom will NOT spend money on something as "ridiculous" as exploring Mars or building a base on the moon when "we haven't even balanced our own budget, built a healthcare system, made our beaches free from sharks, stopped online music piracy, etc."
Right now, we're trying to invent "Earth based" problems supposedly solved by space research. Nobody's buying. It's politically suicidal to talk about exploration for its own sake. In the 50's they were just trying to get out there ahead of other guy, and (necessarily) ended up discovering stuff that was useful. If they had unity, they'd still be debating the usefulness of having an artificial sattelite. But because of competition, there was political will for the space program, and that brought money. The rest took care of itself.
WHAT WE NEED IS A NEW SPACE RACE!
it would certainly beat the current race to actively destroy each other
Seriously, if USPS took some gamma ray emitters (i.e., the kind they use to sterilize food, hospital equipment, etc--Cobalt 60, I think) and "nuked" every letter before it got to the destination, wouldn't that solve the whole Anthrax/letter based bioterrorism problem?
This would probably be relatively easy to centralize.
OK...someone please clue me in. When did the laws of economics change?
I'm a geek. I have broadband now, which I get relatively cheap. I PAY for this, and I'm willing to pay more if needed.
If/when Excite@home dies, there will be many more like me who are already "sold" on the concept of broadband with cable modems sitting around. So you're telling me that nobody will crop up to sell me this service, for which I'll gladly shell out cold, hard cash?
They are probably way ahead of all of us.
/.'ers, despite the rhetoric) into using weaker versions of crypto. Random seeming info would be easier to identify (and scrutinize).
...or, better yet, _A Brave New World_
If I were them, I'd simply have the legislation passed that would:
1) Make the use of "illegal" crypto more easy to prosecute. Once you prosecute several high profile cases, you'd scare most people (including most
2) Make the installation of other "backdoors" easier to justify. They could save themselves a lot of trouble if they mandated keyboard manufacturers to include hardware keystroke loggers. These could be remotely controlled. Tampering with this device would be like tampering with your odometer. If they promise to 'keep it safe' do you think they would have much opposition in the current atmosphere?
Of course, this may not keep the most paranoid from doing whatever they want, but they would have a lot easier time catching the average (non-computer-savvy) criminals.
go read _1984_
I think what you mean is that chaotic systems have to be non-linear (note that not all non-linear systems are chaotic). Also, you do not need differential equations.
Basically, you can define chaos as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Consider the following very simple example:
Xn+1= A*Xn*(1-Xn)
This is known as the Logistic Map. You can think of it as a population model where X0 is the initial population, Xn is the population at generation n, and A is the rate of growth. The (1-Xn) term models death in every generation.
Now Play with this:
start with x0=0.1 and A = 4 and iterate
the X values look something like:
0.1
0.36
0.9216
0.28901376
0.821939226
for 5 generations.
Change X0 to 0.11 and rerun the simulation
0.11
0.3916
0.95299776
0.179172118
0.58827788
There's your "butterfly effect." No matter how little you change X0, the solution will diverge.
Just imagine this with several thousand more variables!
(Note: play with A and you'll see that some cases of this system are not chaotic)
Even in this case, isn't the sytem extremely vulnerable to a chosen plaintext attack?
Beowulf Schaeffer has known this for a while :)
Now all we have to do is follow the puppeteers out of here
Maybe...
:)
[I'm sure some will beg to differ...]
but unless they have a good licensing scheme, you could probably hit "hibernate" in Windows 2000 or never turn off your machine...
Actually, a lot of software is written, THEN ABANDONED. Only the software that makes it to the customer first lives long enough to be maintained.
Herein lies the problem: most software that "survives" in the market is crap that was thrown together to beat the other systems. Unless you're in a well-funded, stable environment with customers who know _exactly_ what they want [i.e., developing life support sytems, etc.], you have no choice but to produce software this way.
If your program survives, you can go back and "refactor" your code to be prettier
(I _really_ hate that word...
actually, DNA does have "comments" (in a manner of speaking). It's called DNA Methylation
This is nature's way of "commenting out" pieces of genetic code.
from the link:
And I always get in trouble for leaving commented code in--it's actually Nature's way!
I hear Microsoft is already working on a version of Passport to work with these :)
The demonstration you talk about is how I learned
:)
about lab safety in high school (the hard way).
For my final demo in high school, I had bored a hole in a slab of dry ice (which is
rather difficult to do) and placed some magnesium powder in it. My chemistry teacher also recommended that I mix in some potassium chlorate (strong oxidizer) in there.
Well, I prepared the mixture, got another slab of dry ice to place over it, _held it down with my hand _(with the chemistry teacher watching), and lit the fuse.
I should have noticed the evil smirk on the teachers face as I did this...
What resulted was a little explosion right under my hand that broke the glassware on the bench and scared the daylights out of me. Luckily, the debris had spread out laterally, and I was not hurt.
Other things I learned not to do by watching others in high school:
-Do not stick your hand in forming polyurethane
-Do NOT set up an experiment that produces gaseous copper
-Phosphorus left in the sink will catch fire spontaneously in the middle of class
-elemental sodium is not a toy
Moral: always trust your own [hopefully paranoid] judgement about lab & on the job safety.
Next time: how to alarm bedroom community with "improvised thermite"
BTW, our textbook was Chemical Demonstrations by Bassam Z. Shakhashiri.
The truth is that I use windows just because
there are certain sites that are designed to be useless without these (IMHO bloated) plugins.
This may not be a huge help in getting Joe Schmo to try LINUX, but I'll _happily_ fork over $20 for something so useful.
In fact, if this is a decent product, let's try not to write an open source competitor to this so that the company can make some (well deserved) money.
If we want mainstream acceptance of LINUX, maybe having some decent commercial products out there will help.
Maybe this is too obvious to point out. But
:)
say I do any of the following:
I violate the DMCA, get an "evaluation" copy
of win2k from my friend (without stealing anyones
_physical_ property), or violate M$'s license by disassembling and publishing a portion of their OS and publish it on my web page.
Then the police knocks down my door, tries to arrest me, or kills me if I resist arrest, thus seriously decreasing my flerbage
If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of this, remember that they used the _latest brain imaging techniques_!!!
:)
You can ask the author about
what else to smoke while writing these in-depth, well-researched articles
P.P.S. in all seriousness, the blank looks of the teenagers walking out of the arcade has been worrying me for a while...
Unix Network Programming (Richard Stevens) [the first edition!]
Probably the most complete and concise UNIX programming reference you can find (network or not).
In addition, every CS student must read:
Neuromancer (William Gibson)
Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)
Hamlet on The Holodeck (Janet Murray)
The last one (Hamlet) is one of the most insightful books I own, despite the corny title. Snow Crash is full of concepts waiting to be implemented and patented (yuk)...
I had a CS professor who made Neuromancer and Hamlet on the Holodeck required reading for our VR class :)
What kind of nerds are you people?
Think of all the the sci-fi that currently
can't be made into movies:
Integral Trees (by Larry Niven)
Ringworld (again, LN)
and pretty much anything else that takes
place in space without gravity generators!
anymore suggestions?
My old employer was one extreme. They would not send me to training on the specialized tool (BMC Patrol) I was expected to support. Nor would they bother buying the manuals. Since the online user community for this product was pretty small/nonexistent at the time, I had to kludge ways around everything, which included trying to glean information wherever I could, experimenting, and finding ways to get stuff done without the tool. I believe this was unreasonable (the extra time I spent cost them more than training would have).
My current employer is a lot better about this. I have been sent to training on tools I don't even use. While this has benefited me greatly, I don't know if I would have been as generous if I were the boss.
I think it's reasonable to expect some cooperation from your employer on technologies you are currently working on (especially specialized ones for which documentation is scant). But it is unfair/unrealistic to expect them to support your Java certification, send you to linux training, or otherwise increase your value for your next employer at their expense. For most technologies, I imagine your life will not be too difficult. Nobody will stop you from buying a book on Java, XML, Linux, etc. and most employers will/should pay for such things. They should also encourage some playing around with new technologies because this is beneficial to both the employer and the employee (and helps retain geeks :).
I would, however, be careful about trying to demand things from your employer that does not directly benefit them, and might in fact harm them (such as a 2 week training session in Hawaii from which you might not return).
For consistency, try:
:)
Linux, a 24x80 screen, and the command line
now if only Gopher were still alive...