I'd *much* rather part with the small amount of vertical space tabs currently take up, or even double or triple that, than the horizontal space they'd take up on the side, because I like to have two browser windows up side-by-side.
I really hope they let me keep my tabs where they are.
Though not my favorite game ever, I did like X-com a lot. For pure longevity in my games library, Starcraft takes the cake. Not better in every way than other games (e.g., Total Annihilation had the *best* unit control), but overall Starcraft is still my favorite RTS. If I were having a LAN party this weekend, I'd want to fire it up.
Re:My experiences so far
on
The Age of Steam
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I think I must be misunderstanding, because it sounds like the company broke your physical copy because you used their on-line service, and you think this is a good thing.
I'd like to thank you for helping me understand Steam better. Now I'm *sure* I want no part of it.
Service charges are a big consideration for me, too. I'd be really tempted to get an iPhone, even though I can't "upgrade" to it, but it's too much $/month.
If an Android phone comes along that has a more reasonable monthly charge, I'm there.:)
I don't know enough about astronomy to comment on it and telescopes, but as for CS: I'm not sure we all agree on what "Computer Science" means. And by "we" here I don't just mean readers and posters on/., I mean everybody involved with CS.
Specifically, I think an open question are, should "Computer Science" include Software Engineering? Historically, it has: CS degree programs teach not just the science of computing, but how to build software (to some extent, anyway), too. And of the people with a CS degree, far more do engineering than science.
If you think this field is mostly about the engineering, then Dijkstra is wrong. If you're building actual artifacts that people are going to use the properties of those artifacts and the "materials" used to build them are very important. Physicists are not taught, do not know, and do not do the same things as engineers whose disciplines use theories from physics. For example, when I was in college, the civil engineering curriculum included a class on dirt and one on concrete.
I think most current CS programs are suboptimal for most graduates (and the companies that hire them), because the instruction is focused on science but the vast majority of their students will end up with engineering jobs/careers. I'm not saying that, for example, knowing physics isn't useful for building bridges, just that if you know you want to build bridges, you'd be a lot better off studying civil engineering.
Anyway, I wish everyone everywhere could be clear whether when they say "Computer Science" they really mean software engineering. They're related, obviously, but they are not the same thing.
I've written a really big technical document (>200 page dissertation) in FrameMaker and various smaller ones in Word, LaTeX, and OpenOffice. Since I was a student at the time, Frame was merely expensive, not insanely expensive. And it did a good job. It has a sane document model that can, for example, keep captions with their figures (unlike Word). But it's in no way free and pretty darned expensive. And it doesn't play well with version control.
I dislike writing anything bigger than a page or two in Word, and despise writing anything in it of any length that contains figures. I once wrote a technical paper in Word that had over 20 figures. Then I went and edited some of the text. Suddenly, many captions were no longer with their figures, and some of the figures overlapped each other. (This was extra fun when a large figure covered a smaller one. Where did Figure 18 go? Guess what? It could be hidden under any other Figure.) I've also had bad experiences with Word cross-references just suddenly becoming wrong and having to correct them manually.
If you're willing to put in some learning time, LaTeX is an excellent technical documentation tool. It is fairly novice-hostile (moreso than Emacs, IMHO), but extremely expert-friendly. There are decent tutorials on- and off-line, and front ends like LyX that make it easier. And it plays really nicely with version control.
Whenever I have a choice, I use LaTeX for docs more than a few pages long. (For short ones I use OpenOffice and/or Emacs to write HTML.)
At my office, I plug in: 1. power, 2. keyboard+mouse (thanks to the USB outlet on the keyboard, I only need one for both), 3. external monitor, 4. network (faster than the wireless), 5. usb-to-VGA adapter, 6. audio out to speakers
I really like the auto-sleep when I close the MacBook, but I don't take it to as many meetings as I would otherwise, because connecting & reconnecting is such a PITA.
The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.
I agree. I work at a small technology company where nearly all employees have a laptop and no desktop computer. MacBooks have made some inroads here (I'm typing on one now), but they're not as good players "enterprise-wise" as their Windows counterparts. (My personal peeve lately: no docking station? For the MacBook "Pro"??? (Yes, I know there are 3rd party ones, but give me a break. They're a joke compared to ones for ThinkPads or Dell laptops.))
With the increasing integration of work and home, and people wanting to use the same technologies everywhere (e.g., smart phones), it seems it would really be good for Apple to be more business-friendly.
One of my favorite emacsisms a long time ago was ange-ftp, and the modern descendant, tramp, is one of my current faves. It lets you edit remote files over lots of protocols, including: ssh, scp, ftp, rsync, ftp, and smb.
Most emacs stuff works transparently, like dired and archive browsing. When you edit a file and save it, it's automatically put back on the remote machine. I have had trouble with psvn, but that's about the only thing that I kinda expected to work that didn't.
If you edit remote files and you use emacs, you want to start using this.
I've recently discovered and almost instantly become a fan of org-mode, which is a great outlining tool (including folding, numbering, and other similar things you'd probably expect).
It's also good for lists of things to do, schedules, deadlines, and related stuff. It uses its own really simple markup langauge (similar to trac wiki), but you can include LaTeX and HTML inline.
It comes with exporters to HTML and LaTeX (and iCal for date stuff). You can also put tables inline, and the table editor is excellent for simple tables.
I use it every day for my list of things to do, and use it regularly for outlining text documents, pseudocode, and meeting notes.
I agree. SS2 was pretty scary. If you want creepy, trawl the web for Zork: Nemesis.
One of, if not the, scariest movie for me was The Shining (the earlier one, with Jack Nicholson). There's very little gore (altho, ok, a fair amount of blood at one point), and fewer than 5 people die. But it's really suspenseful, and scary.
What do you think about nutritional labels on food? Or ingredient labels on food?
Personally, I would object if the government forbade me from eating Ben & Jerry's Triple Chocolate Caramel Fudge Brownie Marshmellow with Butterscotch ice cream. But I am glad manufacturers have to tell me what's in my food (and the nutrition info). Because if I don't know, I can't make an informed decision. Capitalism doesn't work well if the consumers don't know what they're buying.
I'm not familiar with IronPython or any Perl+Windows combo, but I strongly disagree with your assertion that JPython/Jython is a vanity/research project. Like everything else, it's not the perfect tool for all jobs, but it can be extremely handy, for example: experimenting with new Java APIs, writing Java tests that don't fit well into existing frameworks (e.g., JUnit), rapid prototyping, and building real apps (although IMNSHO, like Python, it's best suited to small-to-medium-sized ones).
This is true not just in IT, but in product/software/etc. development, too. If your (team's) work is well-organized and you make your milestones/deadlines/deliverables, nobody blinks. But if things are poorly managed so everyone has to work for 3 days straight right before the deadline, they're all heroes for "going the extra mile".
To sum up, I'd say that competence is too often invisible. If you're competent and want people beyond your immediate coworkers to notice, you probably have to take some action to make that happen since it probably won't on its own.
I agree that it's a bad way to hire people. I think job postings looking for "Senior Java Developer" are pretty shallow. Maybe at the entry level it's suitable to look for someone who has specific skills to start, but certainly for more senior folks what really matters is how generally good they are.
But it's a lot easier to test in a 1-2 hour interview process whether someone knows a few facts about a programming language or environment than it is to tell if they're generally smart or a fast learner.
My position is technical, but I occassionally interview someone, and I try to determine if they are smart, can learn quickly, and want to learn. But it's hard.
I agree that the only way to get authentication is to use a properly signed cert (or one that you verify via another channel, like the phone).
However, normal http connections are completely unauthenticated. An attacker would have a strictly easier time performing a MITM attack on http than on any https connection. So an unauthenticated https connection is no less secure than http, and is more secure against attackers who are eavesdropping but not performing MITM attacks (because traffic over https is always encrypted, even if not properly authenticated).
What exactly do you think Firefox should warn you about? "This connection is unauthenticated, exactly like all those http connections you make"? This does not seem like useful information to me.
Why should you use encryption (securing transit lines) when you don't need authentication (securing transit endpoints)? When you're not sure if the endpoint you're talking to is the one you want, you could as well transmit everything in cleartext, because your receiving endpoint might as well be the eavesdropper himself.
That argument is totally valid, if: 1. Your connection is only subject to attack by one "bad guy", AND 2. The sole attacker is technically sophisticated enough to set up a MITM attack. That may be valid in some corners of the Internet, but I expect a connection may often be attackable by multiple attackers, and it's entirely possible that some of them may have the ability to intercept traffic but not mount a MITM attack.
Personally, I'd prefer to have protection against some bad guys than none.
Don't you see a small problem with that? Don't let the user know that the free wifi access point they're using internet from is doing a man in the middle attack when they login to their bank account with what they think is SSL? Because, after all, encryption is better than no encryption.
Encryption is not always a good thing, especially if there is no trust. You work at a CA, you should know that. Encryption without trust gives you the false impression that your data is safe.
You're conflating confidentiality and authentication. Why wouldn't I always prefer to have confidentiality vs. not if I have a choice? For some sites I might care about authentication (e.g., my bank), for others not (e.g., fark). The browser should make it clear when a connection is and is not authenticated. But it's strictly just as good or better for the user to transparently add encryption to provide confidentially, when possible. (Just don't do anything in the UI to indicate this implies anything about authentication.)
There are many sites which should use real encrypted connections (ie with a signed certificate + SSL).
Like some other replies, you've conflated two separate issues: confidentiality (only sender and recipient can read the messages) and authentication (you know who you're talking to). SSL always does the former (using encryption), and can do the latter if you've got a signed cert.
Any SSL connection provides confidentiality, which is an improvement (security-wise) over http. So it still has value, even if it does not provide authentication.
The vast majority of web requests are totally unauthenticated (http), so why should the browser yell and scream about another one? The important thing, IMNSHO, is that people not think they're getting more security than they are.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that the judge made only decision possible under current law.
However, I'd like to point out that fair use is statutory law:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
It's true that it has/leaves more room for interpretation by the courts than some statutes, but it's still based on statute.
Julia, Julia, she's our guide,
She directs us far and wide.
If you're lost and can't find your way,
Julia's here to save the day!
- Julia, Islandia's robotic tour guide (c. 1990)
I'd *much* rather part with the small amount of vertical space tabs currently take up, or even double or triple that, than the horizontal space they'd take up on the side, because I like to have two browser windows up side-by-side.
I really hope they let me keep my tabs where they are.
To paraphrase an old joke...
Q: What version of Windows will most people be running in 2100?
A: I don't know, but it will be called "Windows XP".
Though not my favorite game ever, I did like X-com a lot. For pure longevity in my games library, Starcraft takes the cake. Not better in every way than other games (e.g., Total Annihilation had the *best* unit control), but overall Starcraft is still my favorite RTS. If I were having a LAN party this weekend, I'd want to fire it up.
I think I must be misunderstanding, because it sounds like the company broke your physical copy because you used their on-line service, and you think this is a good thing.
I'd like to thank you for helping me understand Steam better. Now I'm *sure* I want no part of it.
Service charges are a big consideration for me, too. I'd be really tempted to get an iPhone, even though I can't "upgrade" to it, but it's too much $/month.
If an Android phone comes along that has a more reasonable monthly charge, I'm there. :)
I don't know enough about astronomy to comment on it and telescopes, but as for CS: I'm not sure we all agree on what "Computer Science" means. And by "we" here I don't just mean readers and posters on /., I mean everybody involved with CS.
Specifically, I think an open question are, should "Computer Science" include Software Engineering? Historically, it has: CS degree programs teach not just the science of computing, but how to build software (to some extent, anyway), too. And of the people with a CS degree, far more do engineering than science.
If you think this field is mostly about the engineering, then Dijkstra is wrong. If you're building actual artifacts that people are going to use the properties of those artifacts and the "materials" used to build them are very important. Physicists are not taught, do not know, and do not do the same things as engineers whose disciplines use theories from physics. For example, when I was in college, the civil engineering curriculum included a class on dirt and one on concrete.
I think most current CS programs are suboptimal for most graduates (and the companies that hire them), because the instruction is focused on science but the vast majority of their students will end up with engineering jobs/careers. I'm not saying that, for example, knowing physics isn't useful for building bridges, just that if you know you want to build bridges, you'd be a lot better off studying civil engineering.
Anyway, I wish everyone everywhere could be clear whether when they say "Computer Science" they really mean software engineering. They're related, obviously, but they are not the same thing.
I've written a really big technical document (>200 page dissertation) in FrameMaker and various smaller ones in Word, LaTeX, and OpenOffice. Since I was a student at the time, Frame was merely expensive, not insanely expensive. And it did a good job. It has a sane document model that can, for example, keep captions with their figures (unlike Word). But it's in no way free and pretty darned expensive. And it doesn't play well with version control.
I dislike writing anything bigger than a page or two in Word, and despise writing anything in it of any length that contains figures. I once wrote a technical paper in Word that had over 20 figures. Then I went and edited some of the text. Suddenly, many captions were no longer with their figures, and some of the figures overlapped each other. (This was extra fun when a large figure covered a smaller one. Where did Figure 18 go? Guess what? It could be hidden under any other Figure.) I've also had bad experiences with Word cross-references just suddenly becoming wrong and having to correct them manually.
If you're willing to put in some learning time, LaTeX is an excellent technical documentation tool. It is fairly novice-hostile (moreso than Emacs, IMHO), but extremely expert-friendly. There are decent tutorials on- and off-line, and front ends like LyX that make it easier. And it plays really nicely with version control.
Whenever I have a choice, I use LaTeX for docs more than a few pages long. (For short ones I use OpenOffice and/or Emacs to write HTML.)
"Distributor shall not distribute any Adobe Runtime for use on any... internet-connected device."
Well, so much for distributing it for use on most desktop computers out there.
At my office, I plug in: 1. power, 2. keyboard+mouse (thanks to the USB outlet on the keyboard, I only need one for both), 3. external monitor, 4. network (faster than the wireless), 5. usb-to-VGA adapter, 6. audio out to speakers
I really like the auto-sleep when I close the MacBook, but I don't take it to as many meetings as I would otherwise, because connecting & reconnecting is such a PITA.
They [Microsoft] have no vision.
Agreed. I like how Steve Jobs put it in Triumph of the Nerds:
The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.
I agree. I work at a small technology company where nearly all employees have a laptop and no desktop computer. MacBooks have made some inroads here (I'm typing on one now), but they're not as good players "enterprise-wise" as their Windows counterparts. (My personal peeve lately: no docking station? For the MacBook "Pro"??? (Yes, I know there are 3rd party ones, but give me a break. They're a joke compared to ones for ThinkPads or Dell laptops.))
With the increasing integration of work and home, and people wanting to use the same technologies everywhere (e.g., smart phones), it seems it would really be good for Apple to be more business-friendly.
One of my favorite emacsisms a long time ago was ange-ftp, and the modern descendant, tramp, is one of my current faves. It lets you edit remote files over lots of protocols, including: ssh, scp, ftp, rsync, ftp, and smb.
Most emacs stuff works transparently, like dired and archive browsing. When you edit a file and save it, it's automatically put back on the remote machine. I have had trouble with psvn, but that's about the only thing that I kinda expected to work that didn't.
If you edit remote files and you use emacs, you want to start using this.
I've recently discovered and almost instantly become a fan of org-mode, which is a great outlining tool (including folding, numbering, and other similar things you'd probably expect).
It's also good for lists of things to do, schedules, deadlines, and related stuff. It uses its own really simple markup langauge (similar to trac wiki), but you can include LaTeX and HTML inline.
It comes with exporters to HTML and LaTeX (and iCal for date stuff). You can also put tables inline, and the table editor is excellent for simple tables.
I use it every day for my list of things to do, and use it regularly for outlining text documents, pseudocode, and meeting notes.
So MTV is branching out into music, huh? Interesting.
"After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network."
-The Onion
I agree. SS2 was pretty scary. If you want creepy, trawl the web for Zork: Nemesis.
One of, if not the, scariest movie for me was The Shining (the earlier one, with Jack Nicholson). There's very little gore (altho, ok, a fair amount of blood at one point), and fewer than 5 people die. But it's really suspenseful, and scary.
What do you think about nutritional labels on food? Or ingredient labels on food?
Personally, I would object if the government forbade me from eating Ben & Jerry's Triple Chocolate Caramel Fudge Brownie Marshmellow with Butterscotch ice cream. But I am glad manufacturers have to tell me what's in my food (and the nutrition info). Because if I don't know, I can't make an informed decision. Capitalism doesn't work well if the consumers don't know what they're buying.
I'm not familiar with IronPython or any Perl+Windows combo, but I strongly disagree with your assertion that JPython/Jython is a vanity/research project. Like everything else, it's not the perfect tool for all jobs, but it can be extremely handy, for example: experimenting with new Java APIs, writing Java tests that don't fit well into existing frameworks (e.g., JUnit), rapid prototyping, and building real apps (although IMNSHO, like Python, it's best suited to small-to-medium-sized ones).
This is true not just in IT, but in product/software/etc. development, too. If your (team's) work is well-organized and you make your milestones/deadlines/deliverables, nobody blinks. But if things are poorly managed so everyone has to work for 3 days straight right before the deadline, they're all heroes for "going the extra mile".
To sum up, I'd say that competence is too often invisible. If you're competent and want people beyond your immediate coworkers to notice, you probably have to take some action to make that happen since it probably won't on its own.
I agree that it's a bad way to hire people. I think job postings looking for "Senior Java Developer" are pretty shallow. Maybe at the entry level it's suitable to look for someone who has specific skills to start, but certainly for more senior folks what really matters is how generally good they are.
But it's a lot easier to test in a 1-2 hour interview process whether someone knows a few facts about a programming language or environment than it is to tell if they're generally smart or a fast learner.
My position is technical, but I occassionally interview someone, and I try to determine if they are smart, can learn quickly, and want to learn. But it's hard.
I agree that the only way to get authentication is to use a properly signed cert (or one that you verify via another channel, like the phone).
However, normal http connections are completely unauthenticated. An attacker would have a strictly easier time performing a MITM attack on http than on any https connection. So an unauthenticated https connection is no less secure than http, and is more secure against attackers who are eavesdropping but not performing MITM attacks (because traffic over https is always encrypted, even if not properly authenticated).
What exactly do you think Firefox should warn you about? "This connection is unauthenticated, exactly like all those http connections you make"? This does not seem like useful information to me.
Why should you use encryption (securing transit lines) when you don't need authentication (securing transit endpoints)? When you're not sure if the endpoint you're talking to is the one you want, you could as well transmit everything in cleartext, because your receiving endpoint might as well be the eavesdropper himself.
That argument is totally valid, if: 1. Your connection is only subject to attack by one "bad guy", AND 2. The sole attacker is technically sophisticated enough to set up a MITM attack. That may be valid in some corners of the Internet, but I expect a connection may often be attackable by multiple attackers, and it's entirely possible that some of them may have the ability to intercept traffic but not mount a MITM attack.
Personally, I'd prefer to have protection against some bad guys than none.
Don't you see a small problem with that? Don't let the user know that the free wifi access point they're using internet from is doing a man in the middle attack when they login to their bank account with what they think is SSL? Because, after all, encryption is better than no encryption.
Encryption is not always a good thing, especially if there is no trust. You work at a CA, you should know that. Encryption without trust gives you the false impression that your data is safe.
You're conflating confidentiality and authentication. Why wouldn't I always prefer to have confidentiality vs. not if I have a choice? For some sites I might care about authentication (e.g., my bank), for others not (e.g., fark). The browser should make it clear when a connection is and is not authenticated. But it's strictly just as good or better for the user to transparently add encryption to provide confidentially, when possible. (Just don't do anything in the UI to indicate this implies anything about authentication.)
There are many sites which should use real encrypted connections (ie with a signed certificate + SSL).
Like some other replies, you've conflated two separate issues: confidentiality (only sender and recipient can read the messages) and authentication (you know who you're talking to). SSL always does the former (using encryption), and can do the latter if you've got a signed cert.
Any SSL connection provides confidentiality, which is an improvement (security-wise) over http. So it still has value, even if it does not provide authentication.
The vast majority of web requests are totally unauthenticated (http), so why should the browser yell and scream about another one? The important thing, IMNSHO, is that people not think they're getting more security than they are.