Any news about Logitech providing specs for the Quickcam VC? It would be a good moment for Logitech to do so and jump in the open specs bandwagon. (Yes, I happen to have one of the stupid balls in our lab, and I would like to use it for a webcam instead of a clown hat for my monitor.)
make has been used to manage dependencies between project components for almost a quarter of a century. While it was a major advance over the hand-written shell scripts that preceded it, make's semi-declarative syntax is clumsy, and even short make scripts can be very difficult to debug. In addition, its functionality is not accessible from other programs without heroic effort, and it provides little support for common operations such as recursion.
How can one expect to actually call himself a developer if he can't even manage to understand Makefiles? IMHO the standard make does wonderfully what it was designed for, and the GNU make is half-way to creeping featurism. The consistency and interoperability of each of the system utilities adds elegance to Unix, and learning how to use them helps to keep the brain working!:) Stupidifying it is a mistake.
This isn't elitism, but I believe that replacing make(1) to make it more accessible to dumb people doesn't make sense, except if you dumbify the programming languages as well.
(I actually like autoconf, and I have been using it in some ofmy projects, but the Makefiles generated by automake are just too bloated. I use my own nice very nice recursive Makefiles to build and package the system, and it works quite well!)
If Kibo greps/. he'll soon add these to the Dumb Toys Gallery, along with other very bizarre action figures. Be sure to visit that gallery. It's creepy.
Gillian Anderson naked and petr^H^H^H^Heating pie
on
Humpday Quickies
·
· Score: 2
I think "Gillian Anderson -- Almost naked & Eating pie" is an obvious reference to "Natalie Portman -- Naked and Petrified". That alfdot guy has indeed a good sense of humour:)
(Uhm, I hope Rod didn't install the filter script to ban me forever from/. for posting taboo words)
BTW my Wu name is CGIwrap Error: Script is not executable too.
Programmers live for the "aha" insights that produce breakthrough design solutions. I think this is one reason that software developers' affinity for Monty Python makes more sense than it might at first appear. Monty Python flouts social conventions using extremely unorthodox juxtapositions of elements of time and culture. The same independent, out-of-the-box thinking that gives rise to Monty Python's scripts can also give rise to the innovative technical design solutions that programmers strive for.
I wonder if this could explain the fact that programmers like Pokey the Penguin's twisted sense of humour. Nothing can be more unorthodox in juxtaposing elements of time and culture. The unexpected absurd situation seems to play an important role here.
Great designers aren't satisfied merely to learn facts; they feel compelled to apply what they have learned to real-world situations. To the great designer, not applying knowledge is tantamount to not having obtained the knowledge in the first place.
This can also be related to the ability of easily cross-reference scenes and situations in movies and TV shows. For instance, I love the references in Futurama, especially the most obscure (e.g. to Ed Wood's "Bride of the Monster" in the anchovies episode:)).
...sitting on my shelf. Back in the 1.1 kernel days, or maybe the early 1.2, my Quantum Empire 1 Gb SCSI disk died. It certainly still contain lots of historically valuable data in the netscape cache. Who remembers freshmeat.unreal.org?:)
it's likely that it was mainly just 'preventative maintenance'.. the old CPUs probably already had some damage from the length of time they'd been up there and they needed to be replaced anyway
When originally planned in 1979, the Large Space Telescope program called for return to Earth, refurbishment, and relaunch every 5 years, with on-orbit servicing every 2.5 years. Hardware lifetime and reliability requirements were based on that 2.5-year interval between servicing missions. In 1985, contamination and structural loading concerns associated with return to Earth aboard the shuttle eliminated the concept of ground return from the program. NASA decided that on-orbit servicing might be adequate to maintain HST for its 15- year design life. A three year cycle of on-orbit servicing was adopted. The two HST servicing missions in December 1993 and February 1997 were enormous successes. Future servicing missions are tentatively planned for mid-1999 and mid-2002. Contingency flights could still be added to the shuttle manifest to perform specific tasks that cannot wait for the next regularly scheduled servicing mission (and/or required tasks that were not completed on a given servicing mission).
Of course there is an absolutely scientifake explanation for the flying reindeer (just ask any Harvard-trained medical doctor who also studied biotechnology and electric engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and says he's found the Holy Grail of physics).
The explanation is: the reindeer are made of hydrino compounds and powered by hydrino engines and batteries. There would be pods containing intersecting helium and electron beams under a negatively charged plate. The electrons in the beam would be deformed in such a way that they would oppose gravity and push up against that electric field of the negative plate. Anything attached to the plate would also experience lift!
For a good introduction on the Unified Theory, check Steven Weinberg's article A Unified Physics by 2050? in the December 1999 issue of Scientific American. According to the article, developing a unified theory would require "radically new ideas":
Einstein devoted the last 30 years of his life to an unsuccessful search for a "unified field theory," which would unite general relativity, his own theory of space-time and gravitation, with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. (...) At any rate, it seems likely that by 2050 we will understand the reason for the enormous ratio of energy scales encountered in nature.
"The craft Mills imagines would be made of hydrino compounds and powered by hydrino engines and batteries. There would be pods containing intersecting helium and electron beams under a negatively charged plate. The electrons in the beam would be deformed in such a way that they would oppose gravity and push up against that electric field of the negative plate, Mills theorizes. Anything attached to the plate would also experience lift."
United States Patent 5,629,678: Personal tracking and recovery system
Apparatus for tracking and recovering humans utilizes an implantable transceiver incorporating a power supply and actuation system allowing the unit to remain implanted and functional for years without maintenance. The implanted transmitter may be remotely actuated, or actuated by the implantee. Power for the remote-activated receiver is generated electromechanically through the movement of body muscle. The device is small enough to be implanted in a child, facilitating use as a safeguard against kidnapping, and has a transmission range which also makes it suitable for wilderness sporting activities. A novel biological monitoring feature allows the device to be used to facilitate prompt medical dispatch in the event of heart attack or similar medical emergency. A novel sensation-feedback feature allows the implantee to control and actuate the device with certainty.
Claims:
1. A transceiver device implantable in a human body comprising:
a triggerable radio frequency transmitter,
a power source for powering said transmitter,
triggering means for activating said transmitter,
receiver means allowing the detection of an externally generated information signal,
an antenna for effectively radiating RF energy from said transmitter to produce an identifiable RF signal for a period of time following activation by said trigger means,
said receiver means comprising an electromechanical device having a binary output, a digital decoder for detecting predetermined time-encoded information in the binary output of said electromechanical device and for providing an electrical trigger signal representative of the presence of such pre-determined information, and said trigger signal causing the activation of said transmitter.
(...)
5. The implantable device of claim 1, wherein said receiver means additionally comprises a sustainable power supply comprising means for picking up periodically available external energy without external electrical contact, storing said energy for use over time, such that the resultant stored energy is sufficient to power the receiver means with enough regularity to ensure proper detection of information on said incoming signal.
(...)
15. The transceiver of claim 1, further comprising sensory stimulus means for providing a noticeable stimulus to alert the human in whom the device is implanted that all or part of said externally generated information signal has been detected by said digital decoder.
Law:A code source must be the prime feature used by the programmer to modify the program, not being allowed to intentionally obfuscate the source code or use an intermediate form such as the output of a pre-processor or translator. OSD: The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
Law:The license of use of the open programs must allow modifications and derived works and its exempt distribution under the same terms of the license of the original program. OSD:The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
Law:The license can restrict the distribution of the modified source code only if it allows the distribution of the modifications along with the original source for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. OSD:The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
Law:The license] must also allow the distribution [in binary form] of the program compiled from the modified source code, and may require a different name or version number [to make it clear that it's a derived work]. OSD:The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
Law:the license can't discriminate a person or group of persons OSD:the license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
not being allowed to dim its accessibility nor neither to introduce any intermediate form as output of a daily pay-processor or translator.
not being allowed to intentionally obfuscate the source code or use an intermediate form such as the output of a pre-processor or translator.
1 - the license will only be able to restrict the distribution of the code source in form modified in case that it allows to the distribution of programs modified jointly with the code original source, objectifying the alteration of the program during the compilation process.
The license can restrict the distribution of the modified source code only if it allows the distribution of the modifications along with the original source, i.e. a patch.
2 - source Must allow also the distribution of program compiled from the modified code explicitamente, being able in such a way to demand that the derived programs have different names or version numbers, that differentiate them of the original.
[The license] must also allow the distribution [in binary form] of the program compiled from the modified source code, and may require a different name or version number [to make it clear that it's a derived work].
I live in Brazil, and this is just another case of authorities doing something stupid just to calm down the media. It happens all the time.
The "theatre massacre" had an enormous repercussion in Brazilian media. The first move from the ministry was to restrict "The Fight Club" to sessions after 10PM and to adults only. Not a good deal IMHO -- the shooter is an adult, and it happened after 10PM anyway! Besides, the shooter declared that he didn't watch the movie before acting. What if it happened in Disney's "Tarzan", and if the guy was addicted to Civ or Tetris? Would they ban that too?
Last month a bank inside my school was robbed. The day after, they checked everyone's badges to enter the school. What's the idea? Would the bank robbers return using bad badges or something?
There's a clear difference between a guy that is already a psycho and happen to have certain (very popular) games in his computer, and all the rest of game players. How many of you slashdot readers have played Doom or DN and went to the streets exploding barrels and shooting people?
I'm in the 1/5 of "nuts" people, and I believe the percentage can be roughtly applied to any western country these days. I'm not American and I don't live a rough life in a ghetto (well, at least not yet) and I was recently diagnosed as both anxious and mood swinger. I can be described as the standard anti-social "geek/nerd" with thick glasses and twisted sense of humour, Slashdot reader and free software developer, and I wonder what's the percentage of people with diagnosable "mental disorders" in this segment of the population. Higher or lower than the average? Oh well, I don't think I'm "nuts" yet. Philip K. Dick was nuts.
If you walk into a music store and observe for some time, you'll notice that the experts aren't buying the crap guitars.
Yes indeed, and I will always install my favorite distro when I have the choice. But many times you'll have to use whatever is installed in the site (office, school or lab), and an expert user will be able to work at least semi-decently in Debian, RH or AIX. Anyway, an expert knows what he wants, and probably would not be very impressed with "expert" ratings.
Well, if you're an expert you'll be comfortable with any distro (or any UNIX flavour, for that matter), since you'll be able to tweak it until it meets your personal preferences. In other words, a master guitarist will do much more with a crap guitar than a newbie with the best guitar in the world.
Now isn't it a bit scary to push UNIX to a user that actually doesn't know some UNIX? It seems perfectly reasonable to me that anyone willing to use and maintain a Linux box must have some UNIX background.
Just like if I had to assemble my own snowmobile, I wouldn't do it, so would exposing newbies to Slackware and Debian would turn them off.
I was exposed to Slackware when I was a newbie, and it didn't scare me at all (I'm currently using Debian and, sometimes, NetBSD). UNIX hasn't changed much, but are today's newbies different from the newbies we had four or five years ago? Are the "new newbies" aware of the true UNIX spirit when they use oversimplified interfaces to use their OSes? Will they feel comfortable working with HP-UX or Solaris?
We shouldn't assume that all newbies are stupid. But again, the most hack-inclined will climb up to different distros, pretty much like natural selection.
The December issue of Scientific American features the article "The End of Nature versus Nurture", (not available online). The author points to a combination of nature and nurture, taking into account developmental, innate and cultural elements with parallels between human and animal behaviour. According to the article, "Danger comes from extremes of both positions -- the biological determinism od the Nazis and the social engineering of the Communists".
There clearly were more synapses found in subjects with intellectually skilled professions, such as engineering or teaching
Does it apply for computer OSes and interfaces? If yes, this seems to count a point for the brain-oriented, "intellectually challenging" operating systems like UNIX, or logically structured activities like writing Makefiles, using LaTeX, programming, and so on.
The pursuit for easy-to-use and intuitive interfaces is creating a generation of lazy computer users, and worse, a generation of lazy computer programmers that won't survive outside an IDE with context-sensitive help and syntax highlighting. And bad programmers create bad programs.
Slashdot Mirror
Any news about Logitech providing specs for the Quickcam VC? It would be a good moment for Logitech to do so and jump in the open specs bandwagon. (Yes, I happen to have one of the stupid balls in our lab, and I would like to use it for a webcam instead of a clown hat for my monitor.)
http://helllabs.org/~claudio/alsa/ rms-aureal.txt
How can one expect to actually call himself a developer if he can't even manage to understand Makefiles? IMHO the standard make does wonderfully what it was designed for, and the GNU make is half-way to creeping featurism. The consistency and interoperability of each of the system utilities adds elegance to Unix, and learning how to use them helps to keep the brain working! :) Stupidifying it is a mistake.
This isn't elitism, but I believe that replacing make(1) to make it more accessible to dumb people doesn't make sense, except if you dumbify the programming languages as well.
(I actually like autoconf, and I have been using it in some of my projects, but the Makefiles generated by automake are just too bloated. I use my own nice very nice recursive Makefiles to build and package the system, and it works quite well!)
If Kibo greps /. he'll soon add these to the Dumb Toys Gallery, along with other very bizarre action figures. Be sure to visit that gallery. It's creepy.
(Uhm, I hope Rod didn't install the filter script to ban me forever from
BTW my Wu name is CGIwrap Error: Script is not executable too.
...sitting on my shelf. Back in the 1.1 kernel days, or maybe the early 1.2, my Quantum Empire 1 Gb SCSI disk died. It certainly still contain lots of historically valuable data in the netscape cache. Who remembers freshmeat.unreal.org? :)
The relevancy of hits in Google seems to be pretty good, but the "I'm feeling lucky (TM)" thing IMHO is a dumb feature.
When originally planned in 1979, the Large Space Telescope program called for return to Earth, refurbishment, and relaunch every 5 years, with on-orbit servicing every 2.5 years. Hardware lifetime and reliability requirements were based on that 2.5-year interval between servicing missions. In 1985, contamination and structural loading concerns associated with return to Earth aboard the shuttle eliminated the concept of ground return from the program. NASA decided that on-orbit servicing might be adequate to maintain HST for its 15- year design life. A three year cycle of on-orbit servicing was adopted. The two HST servicing missions in December 1993 and February 1997 were enormous successes. Future servicing missions are tentatively planned for mid-1999 and mid-2002. Contingency flights could still be added to the shuttle manifest to perform specific tasks that cannot wait for the next regularly scheduled servicing mission (and/or required tasks that were not completed on a given servicing mission).
The explanation is: the reindeer are made of hydrino compounds and powered by hydrino engines and batteries. There would be pods containing intersecting helium and electron beams under a negatively charged plate. The electrons in the beam would be deformed in such a way that they would oppose gravity and push up against that electric field of the negative plate. Anything attached to the plate would also experience lift!
"The craft Mills imagines would be made of hydrino compounds and powered by hydrino engines and batteries. There would be pods containing intersecting helium and electron beams under a negatively charged plate. The electrons in the beam would be deformed in such a way that they would oppose gravity and push up against that electric field of the negative plate, Mills theorizes. Anything attached to the plate would also experience lift."
Apparatus for tracking and recovering humans utilizes an implantable transceiver incorporating a power supply and actuation system allowing the unit to remain implanted and functional for years without maintenance. The implanted transmitter may be remotely actuated, or actuated by the implantee. Power for the remote-activated receiver is generated electromechanically through the movement of body muscle. The device is small enough to be implanted in a child, facilitating use as a safeguard against kidnapping, and has a transmission range which also makes it suitable for wilderness sporting activities. A novel biological monitoring feature allows the device to be used to facilitate prompt medical dispatch in the event of heart attack or similar medical emergency. A novel sensation-feedback feature allows the implantee to control and actuate the device with certainty.
Claims:
1. A transceiver device implantable in a human body comprising:
- a triggerable radio frequency transmitter,
- a power source for powering said transmitter,
- triggering means for activating said transmitter,
- receiver means allowing the detection of an externally generated information signal,
- an antenna for effectively radiating RF energy from said transmitter to produce an identifiable RF signal for a period of time following activation by said trigger means,
- said receiver means comprising an electromechanical device having a binary output, a digital decoder for detecting predetermined time-encoded information in the binary output of said electromechanical device and for providing an electrical trigger signal representative of the presence of such pre-determined information, and said trigger signal causing the activation of said transmitter.
(...)5. The implantable device of claim 1, wherein said receiver means additionally comprises a sustainable power supply comprising means for picking up periodically available external energy without external electrical contact, storing said energy for use over time, such that the resultant stored energy is sufficient to power the receiver means with enough regularity to ensure proper detection of information on said incoming signal.
(...)
15. The transceiver of claim 1, further comprising sensory stimulus means for providing a noticeable stimulus to alert the human in whom the device is implanted that all or part of said externally generated information signal has been detected by said digital decoder.
- 216.33.238.149: rotate-the-shield-harmonics.hotmail.com
- 216.33.238.147: ham-in-a-can.hotmail.com
- 216.33.238.148: 27eyedwalleyedbass.hotmail.com
And I complained when they called our server "mrhankey".OSD: The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
Law: The license of use of the open programs must allow modifications and derived works and its exempt distribution under the same terms of the license of the original program.
OSD: The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
Law: The license can restrict the distribution of the modified source code only if it allows the distribution of the modifications along with the original source for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
OSD: The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
Law: The license] must also allow the distribution [in binary form] of the program compiled from the modified source code, and may require a different name or version number [to make it clear that it's a derived work].
OSD: The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
Law: the license can't discriminate a person or group of persons
OSD: the license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
The "theatre massacre" had an enormous repercussion in Brazilian media. The first move from the ministry was to restrict "The Fight Club" to sessions after 10PM and to adults only. Not a good deal IMHO -- the shooter is an adult, and it happened after 10PM anyway! Besides, the shooter declared that he didn't watch the movie before acting. What if it happened in Disney's "Tarzan", and if the guy was addicted to Civ or Tetris? Would they ban that too?
Last month a bank inside my school was robbed. The day after, they checked everyone's badges to enter the school. What's the idea? Would the bank robbers return using bad badges or something?
There's a clear difference between a guy that is already a psycho and happen to have certain (very popular) games in his computer, and all the rest of game players. How many of you slashdot readers have played Doom or DN and went to the streets exploding barrels and shooting people?
Brazil is a funny place indeed.
Sertraline and Alprazolam anyone?
Well, if you're an expert you'll be comfortable with any distro (or any UNIX flavour, for that matter), since you'll be able to tweak it until it meets your personal preferences. In other words, a master guitarist will do much more with a crap guitar than a newbie with the best guitar in the world.
We shouldn't assume that all newbies are stupid. But again, the most hack-inclined will climb up to different distros, pretty much like natural selection.
The December issue of Scientific American features the article "The End of Nature versus Nurture", (not available online). The author points to a combination of nature and nurture, taking into account developmental, innate and cultural elements with parallels between human and animal behaviour. According to the article, "Danger comes from extremes of both positions -- the biological determinism od the Nazis and the social engineering of the Communists".
The pursuit for easy-to-use and intuitive interfaces is creating a generation of lazy computer users, and worse, a generation of lazy computer programmers that won't survive outside an IDE with context-sensitive help and syntax highlighting. And bad programmers create bad programs.
... the Ford Pinto, which means "Ford Penis" in Brazilian Portuguese.