Never mind Web 2.0 apps on my mobile, I'm still waiting for Web 1.0 pages to work half decent.
For better or worse, the Web seems to have settled on a header plus the two or three column layout. On a mobile, unless the site has been optimized (which very few are) you have to scroll down through the header (where every link usually ends up being a seperate line) then through everything on the left and right before you get to the content.
Actually, in the spirit of "picture worth 1000 words," let me SHOW you what the slashdot home page looks like on my BlackBerry 8700;
the first new article is in bold below -- See how far you have to scroll to see it?
Slashdot [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] Search [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] News for nerds, stuff that matters
* Preferences [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Subscribe [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Journal [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Bookmarks [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Password [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* Logout [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Why Subscribe? [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Sections [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* Main [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Apple [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * AskSlashdot [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Backslash [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Books [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Developers [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Games [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Hardware [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Interviews [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * IT [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Linux [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Politics [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Science [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * YRO [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Vendors [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* AMD [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Help [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* FAQ [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Bugs [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Stories [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* Old Stories [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Old Polls [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Topics [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Hall of Fame [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Bookmarks [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Submit Story [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
About [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* Supporters [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Code [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Services [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* PriceGrabber [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Sponsor Solutions [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Special Offers [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame] * Surveys [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Older Stuff [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
* [added for lameness filter] [Grr still says too lame]
Tuesday October 17 o Kansas Soil Yields Massive Meteorite (157) o Flic
Actually, when I'm asked for such personal data to complete a sale, I just make it up.
But what's really fun is to make up data from a foreign country, and watch them try to enter it into their (probably) very un-international-aware terminal.
Example (for US'erian readers)
Salesdroid: Can I have your telephone number please?
Me: Sure. 011 7 095 44 244 31 197 (some random number from Moscow, Russia)
Salesdroid: Um, my system won't take that.
Me: Just enter your phone number then.
...
Salesdroid: Can I have your zip code please?
Me: Sure. SW14 2T7 (some random postal code from the U.K.)
Companies like Symantec (aka Norton) have profited immensely from an industry created because Windows wasn't secure.
Now they're upset because Microsoft wants that piece of that market; in other words, Microsoft wants to profit from the fact that Windows isn't secure.
Yet in pretty much every other operating system, the solution is simply to make the darned thing secure.
Now, I realize that the issues are a bit larger than this, but I do wonder: IF Microsoft ever released a truly secure operating system, thus making Symantec and other such companies as relevant as the buggy whip, would they then sue to prevent the release of the O/S?
He came up with a rating scheme from 1 to 4, where 4 is the "best" password. And he says "I consider strength two fine for a myspace account." Very good point: Not all websites need the same level of password strength.
My personal pet peeve is websites that probably only require a 2 or 3 (on his scale) but demand strength 99. For example, forum sites that reject passwords that my bank would consider good enough.
Your password was rejected because it was only seven characters long, does not contain enough characters that are neither letters or numbers, and contains a substring that was found in a dictionary of Croation words. Plus, you used that password three years ago when we forced you to change it with our 30-day password aging policy.
My plea to anyone reading this who develops websites: The strength of the password only has to match the importance of the information that it's protecting.
Small wonder why the only time you see children at a playground nowadays is with very strict parental supervision....
And there's another problem...
[cue music] When I was a kid, you went to the playground and there were just kids there. If you got a splinter (remember playgrounds made of wood and not plastic?) you either pulled it out or ran home crying. If you ran home crying, the other kids would tease you when you came back.
If you were a little ass, some other kid would make you eat dirt. You learnt not to be an ass. If you played a game and disputed the rules, you either negotiated, capitulated, or ran home crying.
In other words, I think I learnt a lot of lessons on the playground. I wonder how many today's kids learn when mommy or daddy is sitting right there, ready to solve all their problems for them.
Of course, if it's not done by then, you can say the schedule slipped and take up to four years to complete it.
If you don't like your grade, submit a service pack for your assignment and I'll regrade it. You can do this as often as you want.
Footnotes are not important; if you plagerize something, just define it as your standard. Make sure to change one word so that your writing is different enough from the source.
And, of course, it's perfectly all right to buy someone else's assignment and then submit it.
Don't let anyone tell you the Unix way is the easy way; it took Six Whole Versions for Sun to get true correct! No wonder Windows is so full of bugs - they're trying to do hundreds of things. If they'd only adopt the Unix philosophy, they might have gotten it right in only ten tries! (Ten, because all the smart people work on Unix.)
One of the main problems with blender is its learning curve. Yes, they're are manuals, and web pages, but it many cases, they refer to an earlier version of Blender (e.g. Blender X - 0.02). Every dot release, the UI changes. Not all of it, but enough that if you're trying to figure it out from an old manual or page, you spend a lot of time going "but there IS no such button!"
OBDisclaimer: This is from personal experience. I was curious about 3D apps, and tried to learn blender, but got too frustrated with "this panel looks nothing like that page" and just plain "why?" I ended up buying SoftImage/XSI and a commercial training DVD.
... advocates say [open-souring Java] would foster innovative open-source development.
Because
there
are
so
few
innovative
open
source
java
projects
right
now? Heck, I can hardly keep track.
Leaving aside the politics of open source, and the "I can't play with your toys" argument, the main issue here seems to be the license incompatability that keeps Java from being bundled with the 267 different Linux distributions.
If people want to be innovative, how about working to unify the basic functionality of all those distributions, specifically one common, simple way that works on all distributions and architectures to install 3rd party packages, like, say, Java?
ObMetaDig: And besides, why do you care? Every time I see java on/., the whole thread seems to be "it's slow / no it isn't / GC sucks / no it doesn't /.NET rules / no it doesn't"
Kill a man, you get 20 years in jail. 'Steal' 20 bucks worth of software, you get 10.
Okay, now you're just fear-mongering. I rather doubt that any judge would impose the maximum sentence of ten years for $20 worth of software.
But following your example, there could be an interesting effect on tort law. If you got 10 years for $20 of software, and 20 for murder, then the effective value of a human life is $40. Throw that back in the face of a tort judgement like the $8m for coffee that was too hot at McDonalds.
> Honestly, I can't think for the life of me why they haven't become a non-profit yet.
Well, there are two obvious answers; your choice may depend on your feelings about Theo...
OpenBSD is based in Canda. That's what lets them get around the US ITAR restrictions on strong encryption. But, on the other hand, if they set up a non-profit, they would only be able to give deductions off Canadian taxes, which doesn't help companies in the U.S. Incorporating as a non-profit in the US and transferring all the money to Canada would require dual taxation returns (which are a pain) and might affect the Non-Profit status in the U.S.
Right now, their donations page says "Make cheques out to Theo." If they incorporated in any way, they would need to have, for government purposes, an official set of accounting books, which might prove less, ehm, "personally beneficial" to Theo.
They looked at the record of Bush's first term and said 'Yes. This is what we want from our Presidents.
I think we were watching different elections. 2004 seemed largely a referendum on whether gays should be allowed to marry, based on the exit polls they showed on TV.
From where I watch (Canada,) a large number of voters in the US seem to be single-issue voters; voting for the candidate who agrees with their view on:
Should I be able to have a gun?
Do I support abortion rights?
Should gays be allowed to marry? (2004 special!)
Do I support labour unions?
Also remember, although the people in office may change every few years, the lobbyists don't.
Considering most people don't know of any numbers larger than a million, and the U.S. and U.K. can't even agree how big a billion is, I think they were just simplifying for the masses. Most press releases are quite { funny , embarassing } to people who actually understand what they're talking about.
And, in a wonderful "pot-kettle-black" moment, you say TFEstimate is off by about 14 orders of magnitude...
For those of us who studied maths to get degrees in computers, there's really only about a half dozen orders of magnitude; for example O(1), O(log n), O(n), O(n log n), O(n ^ k), O(2 ^ log(n)), O(2 ^ n), and O(2 ^ n ^ n ^ n ^...(n times)).
Ackermann's function is somewhere in the next order of magnitude above the last one there... Some theorize that the halting problem and other uncomputable problems are bounded by the next order of magnitude beyond that.
And we'd need to go another four orders of magnitude to get your "14 orders of magnitude" , even though we exausted the number of atoms in the universe before we even got here.
IOW, just making the point that different readers read different things in the same words.
Thanks for reminding me of that article. It's quite good.
However, it leaves to the very last paragraph something that limits its generality:
There is only one piece of software,
that only runs on one hardware configuration,
which is operated by highly intelligent people,
who understand the importance of detailed requirements analysis,
who have the same goals (reliability & defect avoidance) as the software team.
In other words, their world is a little different than writing shrink-wrapped software that will be discarded in six months, and has to run on every PC hardware configuration out there.
Or, "Never underestimate the effect a different serial card can have on your software, especially if your software doesn't use a serial card."
Please explain why the government granted China "
most favoured nation" trading status despite their repeated and unapologetic human rights abuses. How dare you betray the ideals of the American view of human rights?
When you can answer this question without using the words "we make more money," then you can criticise others for their actions in China.
Slashdot Mirror
Never mind Web 2.0 apps on my mobile, I'm still waiting for Web 1.0 pages to work half decent.
For better or worse, the Web seems to have settled on a header plus the two or three column layout. On a mobile, unless the site has been optimized (which very few are) you have to scroll down through the header (where every link usually ends up being a seperate line) then through everything on the left and right before you get to the content.
Actually, in the spirit of "picture worth 1000 words," let me SHOW you what the slashdot home page looks like on my BlackBerry 8700;
the first new article is in bold below -- See how far you have to scroll to see it?
Actually, when I'm asked for such personal data to complete a sale, I just make it up.
But what's really fun is to make up data from a foreign country, and watch them try to enter it into their (probably) very un-international-aware terminal.
Example (for US'erian readers)
There is nothing like a secure OS.
People who forget Multics are doomed to, er, um, forget that it existed.
Companies like Symantec (aka Norton) have profited immensely from an industry created because Windows wasn't secure.
Now they're upset because Microsoft wants that piece of that market; in other words, Microsoft wants to profit from the fact that Windows isn't secure.
Yet in pretty much every other operating system, the solution is simply to make the darned thing secure.
Now, I realize that the issues are a bit larger than this, but I do wonder: IF Microsoft ever released a truly secure operating system, thus making Symantec and other such companies as relevant as the buggy whip, would they then sue to prevent the release of the O/S?
And that section is sooooo popular... I mean, there's not enough dupes on /. already; let's make a section where we dupe comments!
He came up with a rating scheme from 1 to 4, where 4 is the "best" password. And he says "I consider strength two fine for a myspace account." Very good point: Not all websites need the same level of password strength.
My personal pet peeve is websites that probably only require a 2 or 3 (on his scale) but demand strength 99. For example, forum sites that reject passwords that my bank would consider good enough.
My plea to anyone reading this who develops websites: The strength of the password only has to match the importance of the information that it's protecting.
Thus endeth my rant.
Mom: Here's $10 - get your eight-year-old-ass to the store and get me a bottle of rum and a pack of cigarettes.
Can't do that anymore - now adults have to run their own errands. :)
And there's another problem...
[cue music] When I was a kid, you went to the playground and there were just kids there. If you got a splinter (remember playgrounds made of wood and not plastic?) you either pulled it out or ran home crying. If you ran home crying, the other kids would tease you when you came back.
If you were a little ass, some other kid would make you eat dirt. You learnt not to be an ass. If you played a game and disputed the rules, you either negotiated, capitulated, or ran home crying.
In other words, I think I learnt a lot of lessons on the playground. I wonder how many today's kids learn when mommy or daddy is sitting right there, ready to solve all their problems for them.
Microsoft management practices, eh?
/bin/true!
The ultimate example of the Unix philosophy of doing one thing, one thing only, and doing it right!
No arguments, no parameter lists, no side effects, just true!
Such a beautiful example of Unix doesn't just happen; it takes work! Let's look at /bin/true on a Solaris 2.10 box:
Don't let anyone tell you the Unix way is the easy way; it took Six Whole Versions for Sun to get true correct! No wonder Windows is so full of bugs - they're trying to do hundreds of things. If they'd only adopt the Unix philosophy, they might have gotten it right in only ten tries! (Ten, because all the smart people work on Unix.)
Worship the true!
One of the main problems with blender is its learning curve. Yes, they're are manuals, and web pages, but it many cases, they refer to an earlier version of Blender (e.g. Blender X - 0.02). Every dot release, the UI changes. Not all of it, but enough that if you're trying to figure it out from an old manual or page, you spend a lot of time going "but there IS no such button!"
OBDisclaimer: This is from personal experience. I was curious about 3D apps, and tried to learn blender, but got too frustrated with "this panel looks nothing like that page" and just plain "why?" I ended up buying SoftImage/XSI and a commercial training DVD.
... as long as you realize that words are spelled the way they were pronouced back in the 15th century, before the great vowel shift
Is it wrong that I'm reading this topic while waiting to be respawned in Counter Strike?
Eventually people learn that this really means "I don't feel like doing it." When that happens, I get a new job and start again.
Because there are so few innovative open source java projects right now? Heck, I can hardly keep track.
Leaving aside the politics of open source, and the "I can't play with your toys" argument, the main issue here seems to be the license incompatability that keeps Java from being bundled with the 267 different Linux distributions.
If people want to be innovative, how about working to unify the basic functionality of all those distributions, specifically one common, simple way that works on all distributions and architectures to install 3rd party packages, like, say, Java?
ObMetaDig: And besides, why do you care? Every time I see java on /., the whole thread seems to be "it's slow / no it isn't / GC sucks / no it doesn't / .NET rules / no it doesn't"
Okay, now you're just fear-mongering. I rather doubt that any judge would impose the maximum sentence of ten years for $20 worth of software.
But following your example, there could be an interesting effect on tort law. If you got 10 years for $20 of software, and 20 for murder, then the effective value of a human life is $40. Throw that back in the face of a tort judgement like the $8m for coffee that was too hot at McDonalds.
Real men don't use cable you can coil... That's why I stick with good old 10B5 thick ethernet.
I loved sausages, so I went into the sausage industry. Now I hate sausages and always smell like raw meat. Ewww.
If you love something, you don't want to know how it's made.
Well, there are two obvious answers; your choice may depend on your feelings about Theo...
I think we were watching different elections. 2004 seemed largely a referendum on whether gays should be allowed to marry, based on the exit polls they showed on TV.
From where I watch (Canada,) a large number of voters in the US seem to be single-issue voters; voting for the candidate who agrees with their view on:
Also remember, although the people in office may change every few years, the lobbyists don't.
That didn't work. It loaded the page in the current tab.
I tried to use my back button. It went back, then forward to the full page image.
I tried to just go back to the main page by typing "www.live.com" in the URL bar. It gave an empty page.
I tried to exit and restart my browser. There was a Moz process still living that I had to manually kill.
I don't think I'll be back.
R. Murdoch
And, in a wonderful "pot-kettle-black" moment, you say TFEstimate is off by about 14 orders of magnitude...
For those of us who studied maths to get degrees in computers, there's really only about a half dozen orders of magnitude; for example O(1), O(log n), O(n), O(n log n), O(n ^ k), O(2 ^ log(n)), O(2 ^ n), and O(2 ^ n ^ n ^ n ^ ...(n times)).
Ackermann's function is somewhere in the next order of magnitude above the last one there... Some theorize that the halting problem and other uncomputable problems are bounded by the next order of magnitude beyond that.
And we'd need to go another four orders of magnitude to get your "14 orders of magnitude" , even though we exausted the number of atoms in the universe before we even got here.
IOW, just making the point that different readers read different things in the same words.
Thanks for reminding me of that article. It's quite good.
However, it leaves to the very last paragraph something that limits its generality:
In other words, their world is a little different than writing shrink-wrapped software that will be discarded in six months, and has to run on every PC hardware configuration out there.
Or, "Never underestimate the effect a different serial card can have on your software, especially if your software doesn't use a serial card."
Please explain why the government granted China " most favoured nation" trading status despite their repeated and unapologetic human rights abuses. How dare you betray the ideals of the American view of human rights?
When you can answer this question without using the words "we make more money," then you can criticise others for their actions in China.