One thing is that many admins probably think "who besides computers looks at robots.txt anyway".
However, I think the best explanation is that they moved the/iraq site to/infocus/iraq, but wanted to keep old pages around to preserve links, but did not want the search engines pulling up links to the web pages at the wrong locations. However, they majorly f'd up whatever script they wrote to do that.
It really doesn't look like it. It looks like someone screwed up, because none of those directories appear to exist at all. I mean really, what are the chances of/firstlady/photos/2003/01/iraq actually having at some time contained real data?
I know I do my development on Linux even if I'm developing for Windows. I use cross-platform tools so I can code on Linux. I believe the Quake guys do this, too which is why it's always supported on Linux. When I worked at Wolfram Research (i.e. Mathematica), even though NeXT was no longer a supported platform, about 1/3 of the developers used it as their primary platform.
'every year it's, "Linux on the desktop has made huge improvements in the last year," but it never quite gets there.'
I have used OS X, but I come back to Linux because I find it easier to use. I liked OS 9, but X bothers me.
One thing I want to point out as well, is that many people are doubting that Linux is gaining momentum on desktops, because they aren't seeing them many places. However, please keep in mind that replacing desktops takes about 5 years (sometimes more).
Now, if Linux sold 2% of new desktop computers, that would be a huuuuuuge deal. For a new trend, that's a major inroad. However, remember that that's just _new_ computers. You still have 4 years of computers that are running the old system. Therefore, selling 2% of the market translates into having around 0.4% of the installed base. Even if you sell as high as 10% of NEW computers, you still only have 2% of the installed base.
So, remember that there is already an entrenched IT technology, and even if the new guy sells 100% of computers this year, it's still only 20% of the installed base.
RAII isn't very useful for memory allocation in C++, although it is useful for other types of resources. The reason is that C++ will often make copies of things even when you don't want to and haven't asked it to, and you have to be VERY aware of the implementation details of your copy constructors at those points. The default copy constructor will screw you over, because it will copy pointers, but if they were alloc'd by you and you free them on destruction, you will have a double-free. That means you have to custom-write ALL your copy constructors. THAT is a nightmare and a half. Using GC you don't have to worry about it nearly as much, because you don't have to worry about the possibility of a double-free in the case of C++ getting over-zealous with copying. There's copy constructors and casting constructors, and sometimes they are used in tandem, which is really screwy (cast to the right type, copy to the program).
Anyway, using GC you don't have to worry _as much_ about this. Of course, I don't use C++ at all (although I teach it on occassion). I stick to languages that do my dirty work for my like Python, Perl, and Scheme.
Actually, if you read the GPL (I understand that's a rare occurrence among both it's promoters and detractors), you will find that learning from the source code is perfectly valid thing to do with GPL code.
So, the Microsoft _developers_ could read the code, learn from it, and then code their own. As long as there isn't line-by-line duplication, they are free to learn for the GPL source code, and do anything with that information that they want, provided they aren't copying it.
There are two ways to bet a company is going down: put options and selling short.
When you sell short, what you are doing is borrowing the company's stock. You immediately sell it. Later, you have to buy the stock to repay it, so if it went down, you have a net gain.
With put options, you are buying the opportunity to sell someone stock at a given price on a given day. You don't have to do so, but you can. For instance, if I were able to buy a put option for SCO today for $13 for $2 (just making up numbers here), then no matter what SCO falls to, I can sell the person SCO stock for $13. So, if I didn't own any SCO stock, I could buy an option for $2, and then if SCO fell to, say, $5, I could then buy SCO for $5 and have a guaranteed sell for $13.
IE finally is starting to support CSS in IE 6, but still fails miserably in several places, like in fixed positioning and absolute positioning of background elements. There is a whole plethora of CSS rules that IE violates. It doesn't do ANY generated content, either. It doesn't even do width: and height: appropriately.
Extensions aren't a problem. What is a problem is
* extensions which modify standard behavior
* lack of standards compatibility
* development tools that don't tell you that they aren't using the standards, or have it really hidden
"For me, the ideal GUI has a linear learning curve."
Ideal for what?
For me the ideal GUI of applications I use every day is to have the most efficient workflow. It doesn't matter if the learning curve is steeper and higher than Mt. Kilimanjaro. If I use it every day, the time I spent learning it is small by comparison.
However, for the ones I don't use every day, I want the learning curve to be flat. Completely flat. Maybe even downhill. Since I don't use them everyday, I have to re-learn it all the time.
Thus, there's usually multiple interfaces that are optimal for different people based on how much they use the program. For example, Wolfram Research has the Mathematica program, which is somewhat difficult to use but very powerful, and CalculationCenter, which is a much more task-oriented version of the same thing.
My _big_ thing is the Photoshop Multiple Document Interface. In order to use photoshop, I basically have to have it maximized on my screen. With GIMP, I can still see and interact with the rest of my desktop while GIMP is running.
I also love right-click menus and tear-off menus much more than top-of-application menus. I don't have to move my mouse to access the menu system, just right-click.
"there are cases where security through obscurity is the best method"
PLEASE don't say this. I understand what you're trying to say, and that is correct, but your wording is completely horrid.
Obscurity is just that - obscurity. Using obscurity for protection is actually a decent plan in many cases - it's just not the same thing as security. The problem with "security through obscurity" is not that people aren't protected enough, it's that they are _confusing_ security and obscurity - thinking they have security when they only have obscurity. Both offer protection, but with different expectations.
There is NO SUCH THING as security through obscurity, and those who try show a complete misunderstanding of the issues. The can be _protection_ through obscurity, but security in relation to computers has a certain, specified meaning, and when people start throwing it around in connection with obscurity, it just makes the situation a lot more confusing than it needs to be.
"The only real measure of how good an interface is is how comfortable people feel while using it."
No. It depends on the application. For applications that are a part of daily life, then the measure of how good an interface is is how fast a user can accomplish tasks, and how complete their interaction with the tool is. "Feeling comfortable" is really only useful for applications that you don't use very often.
Emacs, for example, is a wonderful interface for programmers, but a horrible interface for people who just want to type some notes. For those that depend on text-editting for their daily existence, it's flexibility and ability to customize to your working environment make it one of the best tools ever made. However, for those users who are on the line with Tech Support just wanting to edit 1 config file, it's not a good interface, but gedit is.
"There's nothing wrong in liking a GUI because you're used to it."
No, but claiming that it is better and others suck just because you're not used to it is.
"However, trying to coerce people to start using "a better GUI""
Not coercing anyone here. Simply pointing out that Photoshop's interface on Windows is not very ideal for people who have to use it all the time.
Re:SVG a Huge plus
on
GIMP goes SVG
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm sorry, GIMP's interface may not be perfect, but Photoshop's is 1000x worse. The reason people "prefer" it is because it's what they are used to, not because of any inherent advantage to it. The only thing nice about Photoshop's interface is their custom-painted widgets. But if Photoshop isn't the only app running in your session, it's a pain to work with.
SCO said that there are still unpatched systems that are running with the "benefit" of those lines of code. Shouldn't that be "weighted down" or "burdened" insetad.?
I think the thing that will kill spam is the success of email marketing. I work at a company that does email marketing - i.e. - VERY targetted campaigns (usually under 1,000 recipients, most of whom have some sort of business relationship with the client), easy ways to unsubscribe, always a valid reply-to address, etc. The results are great - we usually get about 80% opens and 10-30% click-throughs. We have one list/service that has 1,000 emails and gets 500 click-throughs when we send to it!
I get frustrated when I hear about ClickZ calling an email campaign to 800,000 people, where many people got the email up to six times, and they got a 4% open rate with a 4% click-through rate OF THE OPENS (i.e. - a 0.16% click-through rate), and called it a great success. Email marketing is a great tool, but spam really hurts it.
For example, I _love_ getting my email at half.com telling me that a book I want is available at the price I was looking for it. It doesn't even seem like marketing. It's cheap, trackable, targetted, and they can load it with whatever other marketing message they want, too.
Anyway, one thing that annoys me about slashdot is that everyone seems to think that all email-marketing is spam, when there are at least some of us that are trying to do the right thing.
We actually have customers that we tell them _not_ to use our service because they don't have a legitimate list. We tell them to start right now and get everyone's email address they can - have places on every form for people to get their email address, have a "newsletter sign-up" link on their website, etc., and then call us in a year with the list they put together and we'll help them with a campaign.
"The idea is to pick ideas that everyone can tolerate, even if they aren't very fond of, with an eye to minding your own business."
Why? And what makes you think there will be universal agreement?
"You don't even need morals to understand how a law against killing helps society."
Yes you do. In many cultures, killing for certain reasons is O.K. (for example, in some cultures, adultery is grounds for murder, not just execution). In addition, wanting to benefit society is a moral conviction, not a necessary one.
"I think it's fair to say some concepts are universal."
You still haven't found one.
"Further, we shouldn't have any rules for victimless crimes."
First, what exactly is a victimless crime? Being exposed to certain behaviors will make children more likely to engage in them, thus even your hair-length situation may cause children to be "victims" to use the word rather loosely. There are only victimless crimes if EVERYONE believes in your philosophy, otherwise the "victimless" crimes actually do have victims.
"Because I think all laws that we need can be derived from enlightened self interest I don't think we need religion in government."
There you go again. You are saying that your worldview (enlightened self-interest) is preferable to those based on religion.
However, as far as Atheism is concerned, you still have to have a way to get moral/social guidelines and norms. Even if it's not through religion, it isn't something that can be universally agreed upon, because it's not something that can be built from logic or proofs. It requires you to make assumptions. And different groups of people are going to have different sets of assumptions. Some of those assumptions are going to include God, and some are not. However, you can't say that any of them don't have the right to exist or play a role in government without denying all of them a role. If that is the case, you wind up without any government at all, because everything eventually comes from some set of assumptions.
All I'm saying is that local communities should be the ones that have the most legal control, because then you can have smaller groups deciding which assumptions are binding on them without affecting the rest of the country. In your scenario, you want _your_ assumptions and worldview to be binding on _everyone_.
Secular humanism is just as much of a religious attitude as any theology. Just because you don't call it a religion doesn't make it not one.
What most people don't realize is that ALL law comes from morals and values. Now, the converse is not true - not all morals and values can or should be made laws. However, there isn't a legal code that is amoral - even when you have "you have total freedom except to inhibit my freedom" - that is still based on an underlying assumed morality. That is certainly not universally agreed upon, nor can it be arrived at scientifically. So, to say that everyone should obey the same set of laws is to say that everyone should think exactly the same, which is silly.
Many people mistakenly believe that you can deduce morality from science. But you cannot. Even those that use evolutionary terms are not scientifically based - they are more or less stealing terms to legitimize what is otherwise a philosophical viewpoint. Science is a servant, not a master. It can't tell you what you _should_ do, it can only tell _how_ things occur. For example, science can tell you that pulling a trigger will cause a bullet to fire, which will cause someone to die, but it can't tell that this is right or wrong. Even going on the "survival of the fittest" mentality only gives you description of what is occurring, not a prescription for what should occur.
Anyway, all of this move to get all semblance of religion out of government is really just a move to get one specific religion in government - secular humanism - at the expense of the others. You can't totally separate religion and government.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing is that many admins probably think "who besides computers looks at robots.txt anyway".
/iraq site to /infocus/iraq, but wanted to keep old pages around to preserve links, but did not want the search engines pulling up links to the web pages at the wrong locations. However, they majorly f'd up whatever script they wrote to do that.
However, I think the best explanation is that they moved the
It really doesn't look like it. It looks like someone screwed up, because none of those directories appear to exist at all. I mean really, what are the chances of /firstlady/photos/2003/01/iraq actually having at some time contained real data?
It looks like someone did a
find . -type d|perl -e 'while(<>){print "${_}/iraq\n"; print "${_}/text\n";}' > robots.txt
I have no idea what the purpose would be, but it seems like a funny thing to do if you were trying to hide something.
By the way, who is going around looking at people's robots.txt files?
Unless you buy enough shares to pump up the price, then you can short at the higher price. Then you're covered both ways.
Documented installs are only box sets, preloads, and site contracts I believe
Very True! Perhaps Longhorn will do for security what Win2K did for stability.
I know I do my development on Linux even if I'm developing for Windows. I use cross-platform tools so I can code on Linux. I believe the Quake guys do this, too which is why it's always supported on Linux. When I worked at Wolfram Research (i.e. Mathematica), even though NeXT was no longer a supported platform, about 1/3 of the developers used it as their primary platform.
'every year it's, "Linux on the desktop has made huge improvements in the last year," but it never quite gets there.'
I have used OS X, but I come back to Linux because I find it easier to use. I liked OS 9, but X bothers me.
One thing I want to point out as well, is that many people are doubting that Linux is gaining momentum on desktops, because they aren't seeing them many places. However, please keep in mind that replacing desktops takes about 5 years (sometimes more).
Now, if Linux sold 2% of new desktop computers, that would be a huuuuuuge deal. For a new trend, that's a major inroad. However, remember that that's just _new_ computers. You still have 4 years of computers that are running the old system. Therefore, selling 2% of the market translates into having around 0.4% of the installed base. Even if you sell as high as 10% of NEW computers, you still only have 2% of the installed base.
So, remember that there is already an entrenched IT technology, and even if the new guy sells 100% of computers this year, it's still only 20% of the installed base.
"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License"
Learning is a separate activity, which is allowed by default in copyright law.
RAII isn't very useful for memory allocation in C++, although it is useful for other types of resources. The reason is that C++ will often make copies of things even when you don't want to and haven't asked it to, and you have to be VERY aware of the implementation details of your copy constructors at those points. The default copy constructor will screw you over, because it will copy pointers, but if they were alloc'd by you and you free them on destruction, you will have a double-free. That means you have to custom-write ALL your copy constructors. THAT is a nightmare and a half. Using GC you don't have to worry about it nearly as much, because you don't have to worry about the possibility of a double-free in the case of C++ getting over-zealous with copying. There's copy constructors and casting constructors, and sometimes they are used in tandem, which is really screwy (cast to the right type, copy to the program).
Anyway, using GC you don't have to worry _as much_ about this. Of course, I don't use C++ at all (although I teach it on occassion). I stick to languages that do my dirty work for my like Python, Perl, and Scheme.
First, Perl _is_ object_oriented, or at least can be.
Check out Objective-C for a better Object-Oriented C environment. Unlike C++, Objective-C is fully compatible with standard C.
What I don't understand is WHY DOESN'T ANYONE COMPILE BOEHM GC INTO THEIR PROGRAMS???????
Is that so hard? Is it too much to ask?
I mean, not only would it save bugs, it would make C++ 10000000 times easier to program in.
Actually, if you read the GPL (I understand that's a rare occurrence among both it's promoters and detractors), you will find that learning from the source code is perfectly valid thing to do with GPL code.
So, the Microsoft _developers_ could read the code, learn from it, and then code their own. As long as there isn't line-by-line duplication, they are free to learn for the GPL source code, and do anything with that information that they want, provided they aren't copying it.
There are two ways to bet a company is going down: put options and selling short.
When you sell short, what you are doing is borrowing the company's stock. You immediately sell it. Later, you have to buy the stock to repay it, so if it went down, you have a net gain.
With put options, you are buying the opportunity to sell someone stock at a given price on a given day. You don't have to do so, but you can. For instance, if I were able to buy a put option for SCO today for $13 for $2 (just making up numbers here), then no matter what SCO falls to, I can sell the person SCO stock for $13. So, if I didn't own any SCO stock, I could buy an option for $2, and then if SCO fell to, say, $5, I could then buy SCO for $5 and have a guaranteed sell for $13.
"IE has supported the standards since 4.0+"
mmmmm... No.
IE finally is starting to support CSS in IE 6, but still fails miserably in several places, like in fixed positioning and absolute positioning of background elements. There is a whole plethora of CSS rules that IE violates. It doesn't do ANY generated content, either. It doesn't even do width: and height: appropriately.
Extensions aren't a problem. What is a problem is
* extensions which modify standard behavior
* lack of standards compatibility
* development tools that don't tell you that they aren't using the standards, or have it really hidden
"For me, the ideal GUI has a linear learning curve."
Ideal for what?
For me the ideal GUI of applications I use every day is to have the most efficient workflow. It doesn't matter if the learning curve is steeper and higher than Mt. Kilimanjaro. If I use it every day, the time I spent learning it is small by comparison.
However, for the ones I don't use every day, I want the learning curve to be flat. Completely flat. Maybe even downhill. Since I don't use them everyday, I have to re-learn it all the time.
Thus, there's usually multiple interfaces that are optimal for different people based on how much they use the program. For example, Wolfram Research has the Mathematica program, which is somewhat difficult to use but very powerful, and CalculationCenter, which is a much more task-oriented version of the same thing.
"What makes GIMP so much easier than Photoshop"
My _big_ thing is the Photoshop Multiple Document Interface. In order to use photoshop, I basically have to have it maximized on my screen. With GIMP, I can still see and interact with the rest of my desktop while GIMP is running.
I also love right-click menus and tear-off menus much more than top-of-application menus. I don't have to move my mouse to access the menu system, just right-click.
"there are cases where security through obscurity is the best method"
PLEASE don't say this. I understand what you're trying to say, and that is correct, but your wording is completely horrid.
Obscurity is just that - obscurity. Using obscurity for protection is actually a decent plan in many cases - it's just not the same thing as security. The problem with "security through obscurity" is not that people aren't protected enough, it's that they are _confusing_ security and obscurity - thinking they have security when they only have obscurity. Both offer protection, but with different expectations.
There is NO SUCH THING as security through obscurity, and those who try show a complete misunderstanding of the issues. The can be _protection_ through obscurity, but security in relation to computers has a certain, specified meaning, and when people start throwing it around in connection with obscurity, it just makes the situation a lot more confusing than it needs to be.
"The only real measure of how good an interface is is how comfortable people feel while using it."
No. It depends on the application. For applications that are a part of daily life, then the measure of how good an interface is is how fast a user can accomplish tasks, and how complete their interaction with the tool is. "Feeling comfortable" is really only useful for applications that you don't use very often.
Emacs, for example, is a wonderful interface for programmers, but a horrible interface for people who just want to type some notes. For those that depend on text-editting for their daily existence, it's flexibility and ability to customize to your working environment make it one of the best tools ever made. However, for those users who are on the line with Tech Support just wanting to edit 1 config file, it's not a good interface, but gedit is.
"There's nothing wrong in liking a GUI because you're used to it."
No, but claiming that it is better and others suck just because you're not used to it is.
"However, trying to coerce people to start using "a better GUI""
Not coercing anyone here. Simply pointing out that Photoshop's interface on Windows is not very ideal for people who have to use it all the time.
I'm sorry, GIMP's interface may not be perfect, but Photoshop's is 1000x worse. The reason people "prefer" it is because it's what they are used to, not because of any inherent advantage to it. The only thing nice about Photoshop's interface is their custom-painted widgets. But if Photoshop isn't the only app running in your session, it's a pain to work with.
RT does kick butt. I like it's full email integration. I haven't used it since version 1, and loved it.
SCO said that there are still unpatched systems that are running with the "benefit" of those lines of code. Shouldn't that be "weighted down" or "burdened" insetad.?
I think the thing that will kill spam is the success of email marketing. I work at a company that does email marketing - i.e. - VERY targetted campaigns (usually under 1,000 recipients, most of whom have some sort of business relationship with the client), easy ways to unsubscribe, always a valid reply-to address, etc. The results are great - we usually get about 80% opens and 10-30% click-throughs. We have one list/service that has 1,000 emails and gets 500 click-throughs when we send to it!
I get frustrated when I hear about ClickZ calling an email campaign to 800,000 people, where many people got the email up to six times, and they got a 4% open rate with a 4% click-through rate OF THE OPENS (i.e. - a 0.16% click-through rate), and called it a great success. Email marketing is a great tool, but spam really hurts it.
For example, I _love_ getting my email at half.com telling me that a book I want is available at the price I was looking for it. It doesn't even seem like marketing. It's cheap, trackable, targetted, and they can load it with whatever other marketing message they want, too.
Anyway, one thing that annoys me about slashdot is that everyone seems to think that all email-marketing is spam, when there are at least some of us that are trying to do the right thing.
We actually have customers that we tell them _not_ to use our service because they don't have a legitimate list. We tell them to start right now and get everyone's email address they can - have places on every form for people to get their email address, have a "newsletter sign-up" link on their website, etc., and then call us in a year with the list they put together and we'll help them with a campaign.
"The idea is to pick ideas that everyone can tolerate, even if they aren't very fond of, with an eye to minding your own business."
Why? And what makes you think there will be universal agreement?
"You don't even need morals to understand how a law against killing helps society."
Yes you do. In many cultures, killing for certain reasons is O.K. (for example, in some cultures, adultery is grounds for murder, not just execution). In addition, wanting to benefit society is a moral conviction, not a necessary one.
"I think it's fair to say some concepts are universal."
You still haven't found one.
"Further, we shouldn't have any rules for victimless crimes."
First, what exactly is a victimless crime? Being exposed to certain behaviors will make children more likely to engage in them, thus even your hair-length situation may cause children to be "victims" to use the word rather loosely. There are only victimless crimes if EVERYONE believes in your philosophy, otherwise the "victimless" crimes actually do have victims.
"Because I think all laws that we need can be derived from enlightened self interest I don't think we need religion in government."
There you go again. You are saying that your worldview (enlightened self-interest) is preferable to those based on religion.
"Religion is an organized system of belief."
Not all religions are organized.
However, as far as Atheism is concerned, you still have to have a way to get moral/social guidelines and norms. Even if it's not through religion, it isn't something that can be universally agreed upon, because it's not something that can be built from logic or proofs. It requires you to make assumptions. And different groups of people are going to have different sets of assumptions. Some of those assumptions are going to include God, and some are not. However, you can't say that any of them don't have the right to exist or play a role in government without denying all of them a role. If that is the case, you wind up without any government at all, because everything eventually comes from some set of assumptions.
All I'm saying is that local communities should be the ones that have the most legal control, because then you can have smaller groups deciding which assumptions are binding on them without affecting the rest of the country. In your scenario, you want _your_ assumptions and worldview to be binding on _everyone_.
I think it's a bit hypocritical.
Secular humanism is just as much of a religious attitude as any theology. Just because you don't call it a religion doesn't make it not one.
What most people don't realize is that ALL law comes from morals and values. Now, the converse is not true - not all morals and values can or should be made laws. However, there isn't a legal code that is amoral - even when you have "you have total freedom except to inhibit my freedom" - that is still based on an underlying assumed morality. That is certainly not universally agreed upon, nor can it be arrived at scientifically. So, to say that everyone should obey the same set of laws is to say that everyone should think exactly the same, which is silly.
Many people mistakenly believe that you can deduce morality from science. But you cannot. Even those that use evolutionary terms are not scientifically based - they are more or less stealing terms to legitimize what is otherwise a philosophical viewpoint. Science is a servant, not a master. It can't tell you what you _should_ do, it can only tell _how_ things occur. For example, science can tell you that pulling a trigger will cause a bullet to fire, which will cause someone to die, but it can't tell that this is right or wrong. Even going on the "survival of the fittest" mentality only gives you description of what is occurring, not a prescription for what should occur.
Anyway, all of this move to get all semblance of religion out of government is really just a move to get one specific religion in government - secular humanism - at the expense of the others. You can't totally separate religion and government.