Really?
So even a simple method that just load some stuff into a hash and then returns the value that matches the key it was given should be commented?
At some point the code is so simple it comments itself.
Sure, because then the next coder, instead of saying
"Huh? Why is he filling a hash only to return a single value?"
can say:
"Oh, that's what he was trying to do. What a kludge. I'll fix it."
I think that people with a poor grasp of grammar and language rules don't recognize or assign as much weight to their absence.
This.
An otherwise competent writer may still not know when to use "which" vs. "that", why not to use a comma splice, or when precisely to use "whomever", and as a result may not see the value in following those grammatical rules. Someone who knows when to use an apostrophe, when to use "they're", "their" and "there", and when to use "John and me" correctly might consider themselves perfectly competent even without knowing the difference between an em-dash and an en-dash, or when to use a semicolon.
There arrives a point when one deserves a brand of linguistic competence but may not actually be perfect. Then there is the issue of style guides; When do I use numerals? When do I uppercase the first letter of words in titles? To serial-comma or not to serial-comma? Broken parallelism, anyone?
What, indeed, is perfection?
Re:Technically right, but...
on
Cracking Go
·
· Score: 1
"I once played go against one of the top-50 players in one of the top-10 go countries in the world. He...only just managed to beat me."
You need to read some go stories and proverbs. Narrowly beating an opponent (especially a considerably weaker opponent) is considered a mark of respect.
Maybe the article only describes what US call centres are like.
Heehee. I worked over two years in European tech support - based in Ireland - for one of the big three (at that time), and it was all true! One difference - in my section, we had laptops, so using laplink and a serial cable we could install games on our machines. Got rid of the frustration. But not the big brother attitude of the omnipresent phone stats and supervisors...
***This is an effort to put all existing news and current rumor together in such a way that we (the fans) can visualize what Star Wars Episode 3 will be like over a year before hand, in a more entertaining manner than simple lists of unorganized facts; sources include: Star Wars Hyperspace, Set Notes, Insider, Homing Beacon, SW web chats, and current rumors that fit well with the facts from TFN, T'Bone, Eppy X, and JediNet***
Star Wars Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith (rumored title)
Rated PG - Rumored to push the PG envelope
Film time - Approximately 2hrs
Film Style - Sci-Fi adventure; reported to have more action & adventure than the 1st two prequels
Plot timeline and synopsis (keep in mind that the order and detail of scenes will be subject to change as new information becomes available; this is a living and breathing document):
- Opening Scroll: Episode III takes place 3 years after AOTC and is very important because the film opens up in the middle of things (like ANH).... Rumored paraphrase of the opening crawl: Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has been captured by the Separatists. Two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker have found out where Palpatine is being held and lead a Squad of Clonetroopers to rescue the Chancellor...
- Giant space battle: Supposedly the clone wars end at the beginning of the film and a huge space battle is taking place above the planet of Coruscant. It looks that the battle will be focused around a 'kidnapped' Palpatine. Windu will be in some sort of space action... Anakin will be impressive in the opening battle as he shows us all why he's known as the best star pilot in the galaxy. R2 will be part of a space battle between proto-type Ties and X-Wings. R2 will be flying in the back of a small fighter (new Jedi Starfighter) in Eppy 3 (likely with Anakin). The opening battle is strictly a SPACE battle, but land battles will occur later on in the film! We will see gigantic fleets of starships. Choreography of E3 space battle will supercede the ROTJ space battle.
- Giant space battle - Jedi Starfighters: Anakin, Obi-Wan, Plo-Koon and other Jedi will fly Starfighters. These scenes include a Jedi being destroyed by enemy fire from behind, high-energy scenes of Anakin and Obi-Wan piloting a rotating Starfighter cockpit. Anakin will be wearing a similar headband seen used by Obi-Wan in the Jedi Starfighter in AOTC...
- Giant space battle - Trade Federation Cruiser Bridge: The shooting is on the fully-constructed Trade Federation Cruiser Bridge set which is one of the largest built for Eppy 3. The Neimoidian characters in the scene will show them working the controls of the ship and looking up with alarm at a new development. Sounds like someone is about to go kablooey!
- Giant space battle - Anakin Rescues Obi-Wan, Kills Dooku, and saves Palpatine: Dooku is supposed to die within the first 10 minutes of the movie... Christopher Lee shot a pivotal confrontation scene as Count Dooku which will have action and powerful dialogue. It's rumored he will be beheaded by Anakin due to a conversation between Nick Gillard's and Christopher Lee. While Lee was chatting with Gillard, he jokingly talked about decapitation. It's also rumored that Dooku will lose some limbs and Anakin will hack him up with two sabers...
- Rumored action: Obi-Wan and Anakin are flying new Jedi Starfighters that have a strange similarity to TIE fighters in the original trilogy. It's a very exciting scene with lots of action. Obi-Wan and Anakin try to get a lock on Shaak Ti's tracking device (she was captured along with Palpatine) and find that she and Palpatine are in the most heavily guarded ship. Obi-Wan and Anakin call for backup from the Clone troopers just as 20 or so droid fighters leave the ship and attack.
- The droid fighters look like smaller Imperial shuttles. The battle continues and one of the droid shuttles deploy
The Essential Episode 3 Character Summary Analysis:
***This Character summary and analysis is the companion guide to the Definitive Episode 3 Plot and Timeline Synopsis. It will also be subject to change as we obtain new information about Episode 3. This character summary will provide additional information that the 'timeline' will not. Together, both projects should provide a signifigant insight into Star Wars Episode 3. Sources include: HS Set Notes, Web Cam, Web Chats, SW Insider, Homing Beacon, and other various rumors/sources from around the net.***
Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: In episode 3 Anakin will indeed be a Jedi Knight, and he will sport two very different looks. One rugged look, and one very rugged, scarred look. Rick McCallum confirms that Anakin loses more body parts. Anakin's light saber style is vulnerable on a slope. Anakin's turn to the dark side is TWO HRS LONG! Obi/Ani fight will not be about effects, but---betrayal! Anakin's downfall will make fans saddened, shocked, angry and betrayed! Anakin kills Dooku, and really early in the film as previously reported. And the former Jedi isn't officially named "Darth Vader" until after the lava bath. But don't take this to mean he doesn't do some very, very dark things before the duel takes place. A scene was filmed which echoes the Palpatine/Anakin discussion in Episode II. It also takes place in Palpatine's office, but the "assignment" being talked about in this situation is vastly different than that of the AOTC Palpatine/Anakin discussion. This assignment will likely be that of Palpatine's body guard... We will see why Darth Vader is named Darth Vader... All of Vader's injuries will be explained except one... We will see LORD VADER....choking could happen. Vader will be the most deadly character in the movie... There is currently no plan for Vader to be CG! It's true that Anakin will lose more of himself as the movie progresses and become more machine than man. One way in which this happens is that he'll lose his right leg after the 'duel'. Anakin knows Padme is pregnant... Anakin will attempt to rescue Obi again. JEJ won't record his dialogue for another year, if at all; he had been rumored to be recording 5 mins of dialogue for the final mins of the movie...
- Dialogue - Vader/Anakin:
3 words from Vader: "I don't fear... "
- Anakin meets Lava: (3 tests - one version will likely be used for the movie)
- Anakin Test #1: Anakin is burned black almost completely head to toe, except for his face. He is charcoal black and it honestly is sickening. The only burn marks on his face creep up along his right side of the face and the top and bottom of his eye. His ear is almost completely gone and around his lips there are several severe burns as well. This is really a sight to behold.
- Anakin Test #2: This test involved Hayden getting made to look very close to the unmasked Vader from Return of the Jedi. His skin is very dark tan in color and he has that huge gash in the right side of the top his head and other marks you may recognize. There are many small burns and scrapes on his face, with the most substantial burns appearing on both cheeks and then burned to a black crisp the rest of the way down.
- Anakin Test #3: In this final version, Hayden was made up to be burned, but not NEARLY as severe. He has massive bags under his eyes and his hair is almost completely singed off - but not quite, some stubble still remains. The left side of his face is in terrible condition, extending down his neck then to an entirely burned body as well. The others look more over the top, where this one looks more like just terrible 2nd degree burns.
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Ben: Obi-Wan's actions are important to the events that end the Clone Wars; he will become General Kenobi, THE great hero of the Clone wars! Obi-Wan will fight droids under water in Episode Obi-Wan will get the living crud beaten out of him in Eppy 3! Obi-Wan will become a fugitive and change his name to Ben... The reason
I doubt anything would be done as in the UK & EU we don't have the laws on the statute books under which California reached its settlement with Microsoft.
True, but it's going to court as we speak, and by all accounts it appears that Microsoft will not fare as well in the EU as they did in the post-Clinton aftermath of the trial.
Rest assured the European politicians will pay more attention when the target of your angst is a convicted monopolist in their jurisdiction.
Err, doesn't it seem a little unfair that most Microsoft "customers" won't get these vouchers? As I'm not a California resident - I won't have a voucher to donate to the FSF. Complain to your local representative if you haven't already done so. California had a critical mass of people do so, otherwise the Microsoft lobbyists would have squashed any rebellion. If the local politicians in a particular state (be it U.S. or sovereign) are aware on a political level that there are victims of a convicted monopolist in their constituencies, and understand that their votes may count, they will pay attention.
I just noticed that my (boring) website got a few hits straight out of this Slashdot comment, about half were misc. Win machines, and only one of the Win machines had Mozilla, the rest were IE. Of the Linux viewers, about half were moz, half Galeon (excluding my own Mandrake/Galeon visits). The mind boggles.
Dunno if anyone else noticed, but when I clicked on the article, a "VNUNet Special" opened in the background, which was an advertisement or promotion under another name. It was formatted just like all other VNUNet articles, but was clearly a Microsoft sales pitch for W2003, complete with a flash advert on the right, and one at the top, both for W2003.
Interestingly unbiased, when clicking on a Samba article...
University professors on the other hand, are pretentiously thoughtful in her experience, and speak slowly in order to attain this image.
I teach small-to-medium groups at university level and/or general IT (two jobs) for a living and find I speak slowly sometimes and quickly at other times. It really depends on the group, and has little or nothing to do with deliberately evoking gravitas. If I have a fast group, I speak quickly. If they're struggling, I speak more slowly, to allow absorption of ideas. Unfortunately, group distribution can be fairly inconsistent, so often I will speak slower than the average skill level warrants, to suit the lowest common denominator. I think this is more likely the reason for lecturers' bad reputation.
Now imagine that there is a big car manufacturer who has a virtual monopoly on the market are making cars which don't have locks - who's fault is it when the car gets stolen?
The thief. No two ways about it. To be fair to the parent poster, the context was in "insurance", but this isn't about insurance. It's also not about the choice of whether to lock or not to lock. It's about mistakes and liability.
It seems to me that the car manufacturer is equally guilty by cutting corners to save money by not fitting locks in the first place.
Again, a flawed analogy because of the choice issue. Microsoft did not make the choice to leave the car unlocked - they work at their security, they simply make mistakes. A better analogy would be if the owner left the car running, or left a key in the lock, or if there was a design flaw that meant the door could be opened with a swift kick to the lock, or with a screwdriver. In each of these cases (and I have heard of cars with these characteristics!), the thief is still at fault, not the manufacturer. When such a mistake is found, the manufacturer can post-fix a more secure lock, so solving that problem. And hey, the analogy fits: service packs, and patches.
Bugs happen. Mistakes happen. Criminals exist. All facts, but remember: we must blame those who do wrong, and acknowledge those who make mistakes and learn from them.
So MS are saying that it is not their responsibility to write secure software, it's the virus-writer's responsibility not to take advantage of it?
No, Yes.
Everyone should work ethically. We have seen so many tool vs. use threads here - guns, p2p, etc. The gun manufacturer is not at fault if someone maliciously uses it to kill someone, but they should strive to make the guns safe to use, i.e. accurate and not prone to self-destruct. That's not to say that some criminal will use their "responsibility not to take advantage of it" to threaten or kill someone
Both sides of the argument are valid, but when it comes to malice and exploitation, carrying out intent is the crime. In this case, Microsoft are trying to make their software less prone to self-destruction - their newer stuff is so much more reliable than W95 etc. I haven't seen a blue screen in years, and I TEACH Microsoft products to groups. The argument in the lawsuit is largely concerned with security in the face of malice. You cannot sue Smith & Wesson for your brother's death-by-shooting, nor could you sue Ford for a hit and run by joyriders.
The analogy breaks down after a certain point - some worms abuse features, like the ability to execute files as attachments or in an ILAYER tag. But some abuse bugs, and that's the questionable point. So, let's say I accidentally leave my knife on my porch, and a thief picks it up and stabs my wife when she discovers him, am I to blame for him abusing my mistake? Or if I leave a window open, am I at fault for my TV being stolen? Any thief using such a defense would be laughed into his sentence.
The mistake is not the crime, but the means to facilitate it. The criminal commits the crime. That's not to say we shouldn't close our windows (no pun intended) and lock our doors at night, because there will always be opportunists. We (homeowners AND software developers! aren't metaphors wonderful?) can't make life easy for the criminals, but we are not to blame for their crimes.
Ctrl-Alt-Del is the only key combination on your computer that has its own hardware interrupt
Nope. It shares the same hardware IRQ with everything else on the keyboard. The interrupt service routine handles the particular values received from the keyboard, so it spawns a software interrupt for ctrl-alt-del that (OS-specific) suspends user mode code and does something configurable, e.g. Windows Security dialog in W2K, task mgr in W9x, or in Linux configured by what you've got in/etc/inittab.
Just to be pernickety - the API that may be used in your own code allows you to write plugins, but not to instantiate xpertmud from your own process or use it via some IPC mechanism. Your code contains functions that can be called by xpertmud, and you can then control the screen (colours etc) or even other screens (for the updates and highlights), and send text to the server from within your code.
The only key feature missing from MUSHclient is the ability to map any key or key combination to any given macro.
xPertMud has this and more. It plugs into a Perl engine, and has a Perl API that you can call from your own code. I've got a 2KB plug-in I've written over time containing triggers, aliases, macros, colour highlighting, additional screens that contain a summary of my health, exp, and gp/karma/mana, and keystrokes for F1, F2, etc., because I use a laptop I don't have a numberpad, so I use ctrl-j, ctrl-u etc. for e and ne etc., alt-j, alt-u for journey east and journey northeast etc., and many many many more.
If you can code perl (I think it's pythonable too) there's nothing like it. Go with xpertmud:)
Depends what you consider good music. From what I can see, the RIAA and cronies tend to be pushing mass-market pop and "easy listening", so they can get their money back and much more.
This way, good music can get to the top so much more easily, if it's all word of mouth and independent of mass-marketting, rather than hyped.
Hackers who don't indulge in Usenet consider it a huge waste of time and bandwidth; fans of old adventure games such as ADVENT and Zork consider MUDs to be glorified chat systems devoid of atmosphere or interesting puzzles; hackers who are willing to devote endless hours to Usenet or MUDs consider IRC to be a real waste of time; IRCies think MUDs might be okay if there weren't all those silly puzzles in the way.
Why should I have to put all that effort in bringing my "licenses in order" if I can just use Linux without ever wasting a single thought on licensing?
Walking on thin ice, buddy. Linux the kernel, and GNU/Linux the distributions (just to keep the FSF zealots happy:) both make use of extensive licensing. In order to use Linux, you need to be licenced to. As it happens, you are -- the GPL is as complete a licence as any Microsoft EULA.
The fact that you choose not to waste a single thought on licencing does not remove the fact that you must be licenced to use the software, and if you have been paying attention to the news, you would see that SCO (and others) are in danger of having their rights to use Linux removed due to licence infringements.
Any organisation that chooses not to waste a single thought on licencing, for example, a German government body, is simply looking for a fall, whether they choose to use proprietary software or free/libre software. Either way, they should be aware of any restrictions placed upon their use of such software, or risk losing something of value to them, be it simply the use of the software (along with a loss of face in the community, as with SCO), or millions of (dollars|euro|pounds) in fines, costs, etc.
In fact, a stated reason for many organisations to move toward the use of Linux is precisely because of the licence and the freedoms it grants, not because they don't want to waste a single thought on it.
Be careful what you wish for - if we didn't have licences, we wouldn't have freedoms.
France and other countries have had to suffer long enough using english vocabulary for tech related terminology.
"Suffer" is probably a bit too much of a fnord to use accurately. To wit - the English language has borrowed several terms from others, like ombudman, galore, smorgasbord, and I could probably go on and on. Even from the French: (Eau de) Cologne, nonchalant, cavalier, chandelier, deja vu, chauffeur, pirouette, flambée, etc.
Many many French words are used in cooking. Does that mean anglophones should boycott those words and use our own? Languages migrate and evolve, to force them to do otherwise is unnatural.
In Irish, we have tried the same - there are words for "bicycle", "computer", "parcel" etc. which are never used in real life, and most people experience them for the last time in school, before arriving in the real world and using the words "bicycle", "computer", and "parcel" within the Irish language, albeit in a grammatically correct way.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? So even a simple method that just load some stuff into a hash and then returns the value that matches the key it was given should be commented?
At some point the code is so simple it comments itself.
Sure, because then the next coder, instead of saying
can say:
This.
An otherwise competent writer may still not know when to use "which" vs. "that", why not to use a comma splice, or when precisely to use "whomever", and as a result may not see the value in following those grammatical rules. Someone who knows when to use an apostrophe, when to use "they're", "their" and "there", and when to use "John and me" correctly might consider themselves perfectly competent even without knowing the difference between an em-dash and an en-dash, or when to use a semicolon.
There arrives a point when one deserves a brand of linguistic competence but may not actually be perfect. Then there is the issue of style guides; When do I use numerals? When do I uppercase the first letter of words in titles? To serial-comma or not to serial-comma? Broken parallelism, anyone?
What, indeed, is perfection?
"I once played go against one of the top-50 players in one of the top-10 go countries in the world. He ...only just managed to beat me."
You need to read some go stories and proverbs. Narrowly beating an opponent (especially a considerably weaker opponent) is considered a mark of respect.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Heehee. I worked over two years in European tech support - based in Ireland - for one of the big three (at that time), and it was all true! One difference - in my section, we had laptops, so using laplink and a serial cable we could install games on our machines. Got rid of the frustration. But not the big brother attitude of the omnipresent phone stats and supervisors...
***This is an effort to put all existing news and current rumor together in such a way that we (the fans) can visualize what Star Wars Episode 3 will be like over a year before hand, in a more entertaining manner than simple lists of unorganized facts; sources include: Star Wars Hyperspace, Set Notes, Insider, Homing Beacon, SW web chats, and current rumors that fit well with the facts from TFN, T'Bone, Eppy X, and JediNet***
Star Wars Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith (rumored title)
Rated PG - Rumored to push the PG envelope
Film time - Approximately 2hrs
Film Style - Sci-Fi adventure; reported to have more action & adventure than the 1st two prequels
Plot timeline and synopsis (keep in mind that the order and detail of scenes will be subject to change as new information becomes available; this is a living and breathing document):
- Opening Scroll: Episode III takes place 3 years after AOTC and is very important because the film opens up in the middle of things (like ANH). ... Rumored paraphrase of the opening crawl: Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has been captured by the Separatists. Two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker have found out where Palpatine is being held and lead a Squad of Clonetroopers to rescue the Chancellor...
- Giant space battle: Supposedly the clone wars end at the beginning of the film and a huge space battle is taking place above the planet of Coruscant. It looks that the battle will be focused around a 'kidnapped' Palpatine. Windu will be in some sort of space action... Anakin will be impressive in the opening battle as he shows us all why he's known as the best star pilot in the galaxy. R2 will be part of a space battle between proto-type Ties and X-Wings. R2 will be flying in the back of a small fighter (new Jedi Starfighter) in Eppy 3 (likely with Anakin). The opening battle is strictly a SPACE battle, but land battles will occur later on in the film! We will see gigantic fleets of starships. Choreography of E3 space battle will supercede the ROTJ space battle.
- Giant space battle - Jedi Starfighters: Anakin, Obi-Wan, Plo-Koon and other Jedi will fly Starfighters. These scenes include a Jedi being destroyed by enemy fire from behind, high-energy scenes of Anakin and Obi-Wan piloting a rotating Starfighter cockpit. Anakin will be wearing a similar headband seen used by Obi-Wan in the Jedi Starfighter in AOTC...
- Giant space battle - Trade Federation Cruiser Bridge: The shooting is on the fully-constructed Trade Federation Cruiser Bridge set which is one of the largest built for Eppy 3. The Neimoidian characters in the scene will show them working the controls of the ship and looking up with alarm at a new development. Sounds like someone is about to go kablooey!
- Giant space battle - Anakin Rescues Obi-Wan, Kills Dooku, and saves Palpatine: Dooku is supposed to die within the first 10 minutes of the movie... Christopher Lee shot a pivotal confrontation scene as Count Dooku which will have action and powerful dialogue. It's rumored he will be beheaded by Anakin due to a conversation between Nick Gillard's and Christopher Lee. While Lee was chatting with Gillard, he jokingly talked about decapitation. It's also rumored that Dooku will lose some limbs and Anakin will hack him up with two sabers...
- Rumored action: Obi-Wan and Anakin are flying new Jedi Starfighters that have a strange similarity to TIE fighters in the original trilogy. It's a very exciting scene with lots of action. Obi-Wan and Anakin try to get a lock on Shaak Ti's tracking device (she was captured along with Palpatine) and find that she and Palpatine are in the most heavily guarded ship. Obi-Wan and Anakin call for backup from the Clone troopers just as 20 or so droid fighters leave the ship and attack.
- The droid fighters look like smaller Imperial shuttles. The battle continues and one of the droid shuttles deploy
The Essential Episode 3 Character Summary Analysis:
***This Character summary and analysis is the companion guide to the Definitive Episode 3 Plot and Timeline Synopsis. It will also be subject to change as we obtain new information about Episode 3. This character summary will provide additional information that the 'timeline' will not. Together, both projects should provide a signifigant insight into Star Wars Episode 3. Sources include: HS Set Notes, Web Cam, Web Chats, SW Insider, Homing Beacon, and other various rumors/sources from around the net.***
Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: In episode 3 Anakin will indeed be a Jedi Knight, and he will sport two very different looks. One rugged look, and one very rugged, scarred look. Rick McCallum confirms that Anakin loses more body parts. Anakin's light saber style is vulnerable on a slope. Anakin's turn to the dark side is TWO HRS LONG! Obi/Ani fight will not be about effects, but---betrayal! Anakin's downfall will make fans saddened, shocked, angry and betrayed! Anakin kills Dooku, and really early in the film as previously reported. And the former Jedi isn't officially named "Darth Vader" until after the lava bath. But don't take this to mean he doesn't do some very, very dark things before the duel takes place. A scene was filmed which echoes the Palpatine/Anakin discussion in Episode II. It also takes place in Palpatine's office, but the "assignment" being talked about in this situation is vastly different than that of the AOTC Palpatine/Anakin discussion. This assignment will likely be that of Palpatine's body guard... We will see why Darth Vader is named Darth Vader... All of Vader's injuries will be explained except one... We will see LORD VADER....choking could happen. Vader will be the most deadly character in the movie... There is currently no plan for Vader to be CG! It's true that Anakin will lose more of himself as the movie progresses and become more machine than man. One way in which this happens is that he'll lose his right leg after the 'duel'. Anakin knows Padme is pregnant... Anakin will attempt to rescue Obi again. JEJ won't record his dialogue for another year, if at all; he had been rumored to be recording 5 mins of dialogue for the final mins of the movie...
- Dialogue - Vader/Anakin: 3 words from Vader: "I don't fear... "
- Anakin meets Lava: (3 tests - one version will likely be used for the movie)
- Anakin Test #1: Anakin is burned black almost completely head to toe, except for his face. He is charcoal black and it honestly is sickening. The only burn marks on his face creep up along his right side of the face and the top and bottom of his eye. His ear is almost completely gone and around his lips there are several severe burns as well. This is really a sight to behold.
- Anakin Test #2: This test involved Hayden getting made to look very close to the unmasked Vader from Return of the Jedi. His skin is very dark tan in color and he has that huge gash in the right side of the top his head and other marks you may recognize. There are many small burns and scrapes on his face, with the most substantial burns appearing on both cheeks and then burned to a black crisp the rest of the way down.
- Anakin Test #3: In this final version, Hayden was made up to be burned, but not NEARLY as severe. He has massive bags under his eyes and his hair is almost completely singed off - but not quite, some stubble still remains. The left side of his face is in terrible condition, extending down his neck then to an entirely burned body as well. The others look more over the top, where this one looks more like just terrible 2nd degree burns.
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Ben: Obi-Wan's actions are important to the events that end the Clone Wars; he will become General Kenobi, THE great hero of the Clone wars! Obi-Wan will fight droids under water in Episode Obi-Wan will get the living crud beaten out of him in Eppy 3! Obi-Wan will become a fugitive and change his name to Ben... The reason
True, but it's going to court as we speak, and by all accounts it appears that Microsoft will not fare as well in the EU as they did in the post-Clinton aftermath of the trial.
Rest assured the European politicians will pay more attention when the target of your angst is a convicted monopolist in their jurisdiction.
Err, doesn't it seem a little unfair that most Microsoft "customers" won't get these vouchers? As I'm not a California resident - I won't have a voucher to donate to the FSF.
Complain to your local representative if you haven't already done so. California had a critical mass of people do so, otherwise the Microsoft lobbyists would have squashed any rebellion. If the local politicians in a particular state (be it U.S. or sovereign) are aware on a political level that there are victims of a convicted monopolist in their constituencies, and understand that their votes may count, they will pay attention.
Everybody! See the Windows user in the wild! ;-)
I just noticed that my (boring) website got a few hits straight out of this Slashdot comment, about half were misc. Win machines, and only one of the Win machines had Mozilla, the rest were IE. Of the Linux viewers, about half were moz, half Galeon (excluding my own Mandrake/Galeon visits). The mind boggles.
ROFL! Busted. Although I'm not using IE, believe it or not. I just haven't enabled popup-filtering in this browser...
Chalk one up to the ad weenies, and clickety click, no more popups.
Dunno if anyone else noticed, but when I clicked on the article, a "VNUNet Special" opened in the background, which was an advertisement or promotion under another name. It was formatted just like all other VNUNet articles, but was clearly a Microsoft sales pitch for W2003, complete with a flash advert on the right, and one at the top, both for W2003.
Interestingly unbiased, when clicking on a Samba article...
University professors on the other hand, are pretentiously thoughtful in her experience, and speak slowly in order to attain this image.
I teach small-to-medium groups at university level and/or general IT (two jobs) for a living and find I speak slowly sometimes and quickly at other times. It really depends on the group, and has little or nothing to do with deliberately evoking gravitas. If I have a fast group, I speak quickly. If they're struggling, I speak more slowly, to allow absorption of ideas. Unfortunately, group distribution can be fairly inconsistent, so often I will speak slower than the average skill level warrants, to suit the lowest common denominator. I think this is more likely the reason for lecturers' bad reputation.
The thief. No two ways about it. To be fair to the parent poster, the context was in "insurance", but this isn't about insurance. It's also not about the choice of whether to lock or not to lock. It's about mistakes and liability.
It seems to me that the car manufacturer is equally guilty by cutting corners to save money by not fitting locks in the first place.
Again, a flawed analogy because of the choice issue. Microsoft did not make the choice to leave the car unlocked - they work at their security, they simply make mistakes. A better analogy would be if the owner left the car running, or left a key in the lock, or if there was a design flaw that meant the door could be opened with a swift kick to the lock, or with a screwdriver. In each of these cases (and I have heard of cars with these characteristics!), the thief is still at fault, not the manufacturer. When such a mistake is found, the manufacturer can post-fix a more secure lock, so solving that problem. And hey, the analogy fits: service packs, and patches.
Bugs happen. Mistakes happen. Criminals exist. All facts, but remember: we must blame those who do wrong, and acknowledge those who make mistakes and learn from them.
No, Yes.
Everyone should work ethically. We have seen so many tool vs. use threads here - guns, p2p, etc. The gun manufacturer is not at fault if someone maliciously uses it to kill someone, but they should strive to make the guns safe to use, i.e. accurate and not prone to self-destruct. That's not to say that some criminal will use their "responsibility not to take advantage of it" to threaten or kill someone
Both sides of the argument are valid, but when it comes to malice and exploitation, carrying out intent is the crime. In this case, Microsoft are trying to make their software less prone to self-destruction - their newer stuff is so much more reliable than W95 etc. I haven't seen a blue screen in years, and I TEACH Microsoft products to groups. The argument in the lawsuit is largely concerned with security in the face of malice. You cannot sue Smith & Wesson for your brother's death-by-shooting, nor could you sue Ford for a hit and run by joyriders.
The analogy breaks down after a certain point - some worms abuse features, like the ability to execute files as attachments or in an ILAYER tag. But some abuse bugs, and that's the questionable point. So, let's say I accidentally leave my knife on my porch, and a thief picks it up and stabs my wife when she discovers him, am I to blame for him abusing my mistake? Or if I leave a window open, am I at fault for my TV being stolen? Any thief using such a defense would be laughed into his sentence.
The mistake is not the crime, but the means to facilitate it. The criminal commits the crime. That's not to say we shouldn't close our windows (no pun intended) and lock our doors at night, because there will always be opportunists. We (homeowners AND software developers! aren't metaphors wonderful?) can't make life easy for the criminals, but we are not to blame for their crimes.
Nope. It shares the same hardware IRQ with everything else on the keyboard. The interrupt service routine handles the particular values received from the keyboard, so it spawns a software interrupt for ctrl-alt-del that (OS-specific) suspends user mode code and does something configurable, e.g. Windows Security dialog in W2K, task mgr in W9x, or in Linux configured by what you've got in /etc/inittab.
Just to be pernickety - the API that may be used in your own code allows you to write plugins, but not to instantiate xpertmud from your own process or use it via some IPC mechanism. Your code contains functions that can be called by xpertmud, and you can then control the screen (colours etc) or even other screens (for the updates and highlights), and send text to the server from within your code.
xPertMud has this and more. It plugs into a Perl engine, and has a Perl API that you can call from your own code. I've got a 2KB plug-in I've written over time containing triggers, aliases, macros, colour highlighting, additional screens that contain a summary of my health, exp, and gp/karma/mana, and keystrokes for F1, F2, etc., because I use a laptop I don't have a numberpad, so I use ctrl-j, ctrl-u etc. for e and ne etc., alt-j, alt-u for journey east and journey northeast etc., and many many many more.
If you can code perl (I think it's pythonable too) there's nothing like it. Go with xpertmud :)
Depends what you consider good music. From what I can see, the RIAA and cronies tend to be pushing mass-market pop and "easy listening", so they can get their money back and much more.
This way, good music can get to the top so much more easily, if it's all word of mouth and independent of mass-marketting, rather than hyped.
Maybe I should have my own category - the hacker who only really hangs around on /. and thinks everything else is a waste of time...
Move over, I think I'll join you .... along with about 100,000 others:)
Chatrooms were always a waste of time anyway imho...
Horses for courses :)
From the Jargon file:
Hackers who don't indulge in Usenet consider it a huge waste of time and bandwidth; fans of old adventure games such as ADVENT and Zork consider MUDs to be glorified chat systems devoid of atmosphere or interesting puzzles; hackers who are willing to devote endless hours to Usenet or MUDs consider IRC to be a real waste of time; IRCies think MUDs might be okay if there weren't all those silly puzzles in the way.
Ooops. Well spotted. That's what I get for paying too much attention to proprietary licenses and not reading the GPL in a while.
I am Jack's lack of attention to detail.
Why should I have to put all that effort in bringing my "licenses in order" if I can just use Linux without ever wasting a single thought on licensing?
Walking on thin ice, buddy. Linux the kernel, and GNU/Linux the distributions (just to keep the FSF zealots happy :) both make use of extensive licensing. In order to use Linux, you need to be licenced to. As it happens, you are -- the GPL is as complete a licence as any Microsoft EULA.
The fact that you choose not to waste a single thought on licencing does not remove the fact that you must be licenced to use the software, and if you have been paying attention to the news, you would see that SCO (and others) are in danger of having their rights to use Linux removed due to licence infringements.
Any organisation that chooses not to waste a single thought on licencing, for example, a German government body, is simply looking for a fall, whether they choose to use proprietary software or free/libre software. Either way, they should be aware of any restrictions placed upon their use of such software, or risk losing something of value to them, be it simply the use of the software (along with a loss of face in the community, as with SCO), or millions of (dollars|euro|pounds) in fines, costs, etc.
In fact, a stated reason for many organisations to move toward the use of Linux is precisely because of the licence and the freedoms it grants, not because they don't want to waste a single thought on it.
Be careful what you wish for - if we didn't have licences, we wouldn't have freedoms.
"Suffer" is probably a bit too much of a fnord to use accurately. To wit - the English language has borrowed several terms from others, like ombudman, galore, smorgasbord, and I could probably go on and on. Even from the French: (Eau de) Cologne, nonchalant, cavalier, chandelier, deja vu, chauffeur, pirouette, flambée, etc.
Many many French words are used in cooking. Does that mean anglophones should boycott those words and use our own? Languages migrate and evolve, to force them to do otherwise is unnatural.
In Irish, we have tried the same - there are words for "bicycle", "computer", "parcel" etc. which are never used in real life, and most people experience them for the last time in school, before arriving in the real world and using the words "bicycle", "computer", and "parcel" within the Irish language, albeit in a grammatically correct way.