This whole credit card industry is the biggest old-boy closed-source proprietary catch-22 you will ever find. The established players like the way it works, so you play by their rules. The don't _want_ open secure monetary transfers, because then someone might be able to overturn the VISA/MC/Discover/Amex monopoly. You are just now experiencing the first part of the joy.
That being said, there are good companies to deal with and bad companies to deal with. In our years as a software merchant, we've had both. We are now with a very good one. A relative with a small home-based service business referred them to us, and we switched and have never regretted it. We use the old ZON terminals because we haven't had the motivation to integrate their software with our operations systems, but they do offer a (Windows-based) software solution.
Our rep is in Boulder, CO, but I think they are a nationwide outfit: ACS Merchant Services 800-654-9256 Can't hurt to give them a try.
BTW: Many merchant account agreements give them the right to hold transactions for indefinite periods of time, or to chargeback (revoke) large amounts of money from you if they determine you did something fraudulent. These companies mean business.
If you want some geniune spaced bits, just do a traceroute to mcmsun5.mcmurdo.gov. It goes through a geosynchonous sat along the way, and your bits will pick up lots of frequent flier miles.
This is the most short-sighted view I have ever heard, and I am appalled to hear it from our Librarian of Congress.
I have a proper reverance for books. I don't believe most will ever choose to read a book online over a paper incarnation. But that is not the point of putting books online. I believe using this as grounds for not embracing your responsibilities in the information age is simply elitist, arrogant and isolating.
Do you simply wish to keep all of these books for yourself alone? To be shared only with those who can make the journey to your little empire there in Washinton DC? Or would you prefer to open your wonderous assets to every researcher in the world? Every college student writing a paper in their dorm? Every community library with an internet connection? Let every K-12 school in the nation have access to the collected and indexed works of Man? Every school child with a home computer writing a book report? Any person anywhere in the world, US Citizen or not, who can find a way to access the Internet could enjoy the weath of knowledge that you are the curator for. You feel the Internet is just sex, violence and commercialism? Why not make a difference then, by contributing knowledge, wisdom and information?
If this is a matter of money, simpy say so. But don't try to defend this with bull-headed reactionary luddite tripe. It is not your place to tell the world how it should utilize these resources. You are the servant of the Library of Congress, not the master. This week the American people (myself included) graciously and painfully paid every penny of your salary and operating expenses for the next year. Be sure you know who your employer is, and that you serve the needs of your employer, not just your own whims. Perhaps if your goal is not to serve the whole of American people, then the whole of American people should not be asked to fund the Library of Congress any longer.
Yes, God yes. I've been reading this whole thread, swearing that if no one else asked this, I would have to. I've wanted to ask RMS this myself, especially now that FreeNet has appeared, espousing that the havoc it wreaks through convenience piracy is of no matter, because they (FreeNet) follow RMS's beliefs.
I'm a programmer. I believe I'm a good one. I believe (perhaps arrogantly) that the best programmers are artists, not just technicians, and this field is an art, just like writing, painting and music. Many of the best programmers I know are very creative people, and do write, paint and make music. (Or would if they didn't program so darn much). I believe I make great software. Lord knows I try. I put more hours into making great software than I really should. I would be perfectly happy to give my software away for all to enjoy. But I don't. I'm one of the evil ones. I'm a capitalist. I sell my software. Why?
Because I own a car. And I have bills. And I bought a house. And I like to eat nice food when I'm not eating burritos and doritos and Mountain Dew. And I like to travel and ski and play when I'm not programming. And someday I will have kids, and I want to give them a good home and childhood. And in our world, this means I need to make money. And not small amounts of it either.
I'm not opposed to working hard -- far from it, I work too hard already and don't play enough. I read The article about reward and creativity on the gnu.org site. It's correct, yes. But it doesn't mean all of us programmers (and other artists and IP-authors by association) should give our hard work away. It means we want to feel sufficiently compensated that we don't have to worry about creating for money, and we can get on with creating great works for the sake of creating great works.
I don't want to be a waiter. I see through the handwaving about Free Software authors making a living 'through other means'. I don't want my company to make a living through that nebulous 'support' thing. I want to make software that's so great that the masses don't need to pay someone to support it. Besides, building on that business model means you end up focussing all of your company's efforts and resources on a whole bunch of support infrastructure and (unhappy and hard-to-staff) support positions, and not on the real deal: writing great code and making a great product. Tom Gooding (anonymous Coward) said it well in #153, above. No offense to anyone involved but it's easier to make a living supporting a moderately complex hacker-ish product like Emacs, an OS like Linux, the GNU tools or a web server like Apache, than it is to do the same with an application like Photoshop.
I read Atlas Shrugged. I'm not a frothing objectivist, but I agree with ronfar (above). A wise person I once knew said, "Yes, but great programmers must also eat." The Internet offers many ways to streamline the software development and distribution process, and I take advantage of every one I can to improve the relationship between my company and our customers to help deliver a better product and a better experience with it. But the day I can no longer make a decent living doing what I enjoy (coding great stuff) is the day I quit making great stuff and go become a ditch digger, and keep the fruits of my art to myself. And maybe, finally, have a healthy lifestyle and a suntan.
(That's Richard M Stallman and Intellectual Property, not Root Mean Squared and Internet Protocol;)
Do you agree with RMS's ideas about people/companies owning software? I want to make a living writing software, not doing software-support-services. I want to make software that is so great and easy to use that no one needs support contracts and stuff. The recent rise of gnutella and Freenet strikes fear into my heart -- soon everyone will have a much easier time of finding and pirating my software. Freenet's defense that they follow RMS's theories about software ownership does little to console me. I know that most pirates wouldn't actually buy my software anyway, but I also know that thwere are people who currently buy my software who wouldn't if they had easy access to a pirated copy.
At the same time, my friends and I live in fear of accidentaly blowing our foot off in the Russian-Roulette minefield of modern patent law, especially software patents. You may not know you're violating a patent, and you could get creamed by one. You might know you are violating a bogus patent, but if you keep quiet and step carefully, you might never trip the bomb.
Is there a sane resolution to these complex issues of IP ownership? The Internet didn't create the problem -- but like everything else it touches, it has ehanced it, sped it up, and made it more accessible.
>There are performance issues, however. But using Java for a front-end, and c++ for the back-end >can result in a quick application, with cross-platform, consistant UI.
I want to know more about this. I've been considering this strategy for a while. I need portability to Windows and Mac right now, and I want to port to Linux and BeOS and anything else fun that comes down the pike. I already have a tested core of C++ code, and I hate our current portable GUI technique. I use GL now for all of my 2D/3D graphics, and I need something to make good portable GUI/widget stuff. I have already written a number of Win32 custom widgets (controls, they call them) that I'd need to port to a new UI system. Where do I start? How do I bind a C++ back end to a Java front-end? What products already use this? Does this involve CORBA or COM or how do I resolve the fact that no two C++ compilers link/mangle the same way?
Does anyone know anyting about Netscape/Mozilla's XPCOM/XPWidgets system? It looks like a great (though complex) design. Could it be used to make component software and UIs outside of Mozilla?
>>>Do you have some good reason for wanting to develop on Linux? >>Well, would you want to reboot a dozen times a day if you didn't have to? >The point is; you don't want to lose your code when your machine accidentally reboots because you close internet explorer. Seriously; I develop under Linux but >had to do some porting sometime ago and decided to use VC++ for it and lost my changes twice because the platform just/crashes/ man!
I'm not normally a Microsoft apologist -- far from it. But I will defend them here. I use Linux quite a bit, and it definitely crashes less than NT. But an NT development machine running VC++ (I use 4.x still) is not an unstable environment. I have not crashed the OS itself in weeks, months even.
I _do_ crash Visual C++. Moderately often. But I crash a lot of software often, Linux and NT. The difference between crashing an app and the OS is significant, and I really don't find NT _that_ fragile.
Now don't get me started about how horrible the Win32 APIs are. I too am looking for a good cross-platform development toolset. More in a later message.
I bought a nice 19" CTX short-neck from buy.com, and am very happy with it, and the proce was excellent. They also make 21 inch models: buy.com listings. They seem to be reasonably priced ($657-$771).
There's a guy I knew over at Nasa who operates a program known as Cool Space who sure could put these birds to use. COOL SPACE is an acronym for Communications Over Obscure Locations / Special Purpose Advanced Communications Equipment. They do launch tracking and special-purpose communications support in exotic parts of the world where cell phones don't work.
I met them while I was working in Antarctica. Oddly enough while exploring their home page, I discovered a 1995 picture of myself in a helo on one of their experiments. (I'm the seated guy in the red parka in the helicopter at the bottom of the page).
I went through the same process a while ago looking for a WebSP with good connectivity, no bandwidth limits or fees, lots of storage and good server-side services like perl/PHP etc. I ended up with Communitech.net. I had heard they'd had some service and customer service problems a year or two ago, but they have been very good while I have been there, and the price is very reasonable. I think it's $29 per month. From their newsletter, I gather they've put a lot of work into redundant systems and reliability and they seem to have geat connectivity. They're in St Louis, MO. You can try our web site at http://www.3dnature.com if you want traceroutes or bandwidth tests or anything.
Plusses:
They have a neat Java-based Control Panel app for remotely adminning most of your web account settings. Very nice.
NT/IIS or Solaris/Apache 1.3.3 based hosting. We use Solaris/Apache.
Tech support must initially be made by e-mail, telephone contact is only initiated if Communitech feels it is necessary. E-mail support is usually quite good though.
Their VirtualServer/VirtualDomain package _requires_ that their servers run mail for your domain as well as web hosting. They do allow for forwarding, mailing lists, lots of mailboxes, etc, and it can all be controlled through the control panel. But, if you like doing your own sendmail and MX for your domain, you may find it annoying that they won't make exceptions.
Set up fee of $35 unless you pre-pay 6 months. You must sign up and pre-pay at least 3 months to start. I think there's a refund if you bail.
Dunno if they have a referral deal or anything, but if you decide to go with them, mention my name -- maybe my hosting bill will go down.;)
How do you feel about closed-source software incorporating support for zip/gzip files via ZLib? Is this what you originally intended? Is there any way closed-source developers can give back to the ZLib project (other than buying copies of Linux Mandrake?;)
A friend of mine runs http://www.free-ip.com. Free-ip is a lot less hype, and a lot more content. Several cores are online now, and there is some exciting new stuff ready but not yet released. Obligatory grumble, I've been trying to get Slashdot to run a link about it for months, but it never gets approved.;)
I just travelled Europe for three weeks using IPass, and with the exception of Venice, Italy and all POPs near it, I was able to successfully connect to the Internet from almost anywhere via a local or nearby POP.
Very cool. Recommended. I used it with the IPass MCM dialer for NT on my laptop, they also have 95 and Mac dialers. Not sure how it works with linux, but it seems to be plain old PPP, and you login with username@yourisp.net and your regular password, so I imagine if you have the list of local POP numbers, you can use almost any platform.
I'll join the club -- I have an old MS Ergo that someone gave me when the spacebar quit working on it. On a whim, I decided to try it one day when my hands were bothering me. I fixed the spacebar, and have never regretted it. We bought ergo-style keyboards for all of the other people here who wanted them.?p?
Things to note:?p? ?ul? ?li? Not all are alike. Some put the '6' key on the right-hand half of the keyboard, and some on the left. If you're a native touch-typist, you go for the '6' with your left hand, and if it's on the right half you will go crazy. The MS ergo and one of our Logitech's put it on the left where it belongs. ?li?A great number of them (like the Logitech model) hork around with rearrangements of the Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys. Why? This is inane and makes habitual interoperability with other keyboards impossible. ?/ul?
Let me say that while I don't think any language is perfect, and C++ certainly isn't, I use it heavily on a daily basis, and I can't imagine being without it.
I look forward to any successor languages and tools, as I'm painfully aware that our choice of language greatly impacts the techniques and results we are capable of framing.
I have a number of years experience of becoming comfortable with the core features of C++ (and some more esoteric bits). I've avoided common use of templates/exceptions because of portability and implementation fears. I think my first question has sort of been alluded to already, but I'm going to restate it in my words in case I'm misinterpreting others questions:
I have found virtual functions and large amounts of multiple inheritance to be very helpful in designing diverse categories of objects that often need to be operated on (in many ways) by callers who need not (and hope not to) know the exact type/class of the objects they manipulate. Our current solution with a base class with many virtual functions makes the task delightfully simple for the callers, at the expense of increased storage for the virtual function pointers. I find a desire for a technique of funneling multiple methods through a single base class virtual function and then dispatching them from there in the derived objects. (Eg: Windows MFC message crackers, Amiga MUI method dispatchers, possibly Objective C if I understand it correctly.) Obviously like most OO techniques, you can implement this yourself without support from the language, but as C++ itself has proved, OO techniques are much easier and more robust when the language/compiler supports them.
Do you feel this is a significant enough technique that it would be considered for future languages (C++ derived or not), or is there a good way to accomplish this in C++ now?
You say in your FAQ that you are "looking for fundamental ways of improving the tools and techniques we use to build large real-world systems." Do you foresee a move away from the plain flat-text files, text makefiles, dumb text preprocessor includes, text parsing and the errors/ambiguities it entails, towards a smarter edit/build environment capable of more intelligently managing code/files, minimizing recompiles, easier incremental compiles, etc? As much as I like the flexibility of being able to manipulate flat-text source with a wealth of editors and tools, are we holding ourselves back by doing so?
There's a review here on Slashdot. It will help you greatly, and answer most of your questions. Virtually anyone involved in SQL servers or thinking about getting involved with SQL servers will get something useful out of this book.
Hmm. Perhaps you are deliberately meant to interpret your own bogeyman into the role. I always inferred that it was supposed to Satan or some other devilish entity.
Offtopic: Clarke and Lovecraft
on
Childhood's End
·
· Score: 1
I have to agree on Kadath, one of the finest plain-ol-fiction stories I can recall. Vibrant imagery, and none of the 'formula' of modern-day fiction.
I highly recommend Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness too.
I was not all that crazy about Childhood's End when I last read it. It was ok, but not all of Clarke's stuff really fires my rocket. Likewise 2061 (the sequel to 2001 and 2010) left me cold. Rama was incredible.
1. With the enormous growth and pace of modern science, how do you feel about the generally overwhelming scope of knowledge required to make further progress? Today a researcher almost has to specialize in a narrow field in order to absorb enough material even to understand what has already been discovered. Do you feel this limits further research, because so few people can actually see the "Big Picture"?
2. The classic "two-slit" experiment is usually cited as the best demonstration of the wave-particle duality. I'd like to open others eyes to the uncertainties and implications of quantum physics. Is there a good "kitchen sink" version of this experiment that can be performed at home, maybe with some Edmund parts?
All joking aside, I think you're very close to the mark. But it isn't commentary on the code, I believe it is in fact commented-out code. Or fragments of commented-out code. What happens if a random mutation "uncomments" a section of code comprised of leftover bits of old code that aren't in use anymore? Evolution.
Slashdot Mirror
This whole credit card industry is the biggest old-boy closed-source proprietary catch-22 you will ever find. The established players like the way it works, so you play by their rules. The don't _want_ open secure monetary transfers, because then someone might be able to overturn the VISA/MC/Discover/Amex monopoly. You are just now experiencing the first part of the joy.
That being said, there are good companies to deal with and bad companies to deal with. In our years as a software merchant, we've had both. We are now with a very good one. A relative with a small home-based service business referred them to us, and we switched and have never regretted it. We use the old ZON terminals because we haven't had the motivation to integrate their software with our operations systems, but they do offer a (Windows-based) software solution.
Our rep is in Boulder, CO, but I think they are a nationwide outfit:
ACS Merchant Services
800-654-9256
Can't hurt to give them a try.
BTW: Many merchant account agreements give them the right to hold transactions for indefinite periods of time, or to chargeback (revoke) large amounts of money from you if they determine you did something fraudulent. These companies mean business.
Where's my secure digital cash?
If you want some geniune spaced bits, just do a traceroute to mcmsun5.mcmurdo.gov. It goes through a geosynchonous sat along the way, and your bits will pick up lots of frequent flier miles.
I used IPASS on a month-long European trip with a laptop. Worked great everywhere except Venice, Italy. Can't say enough good about IPASS.
I was just spec'ing a new R&D machine this afternoon for heavy compiling. THis is exactly the article I wanted to see.
I'm addicted to dual-processors though, I really wish the Dual-Athlons were out.
By droppping a note to lcweb@loc.gov.
I am:
This is the most short-sighted view I have ever heard, and I am appalled to hear it from our Librarian of Congress.
I have a proper reverance for books. I don't believe most will ever choose to read a book online over a paper incarnation. But that is not the point of putting books online. I believe using this as grounds for not embracing your responsibilities in the information age is simply elitist, arrogant and isolating.
Do you simply wish to keep all of these books for yourself alone? To be shared only with those who can make the journey to your little empire there in Washinton DC? Or would you prefer to open your wonderous assets to every researcher in the world? Every college student writing a paper in their dorm? Every community library with an internet connection? Let every K-12 school in the nation have access to the collected and indexed works of Man? Every school child with a home computer writing a book report? Any person anywhere in the world, US Citizen or not, who can find a way to access the Internet could enjoy the weath of knowledge that you are the curator for. You feel the Internet is just sex, violence and commercialism? Why not make a difference then, by contributing knowledge, wisdom and information?
If this is a matter of money, simpy say so. But don't try to defend this with bull-headed reactionary luddite tripe. It is not your place to tell the world how it should utilize these resources. You are the servant of the Library of Congress, not the master. This week the American people (myself included) graciously and painfully paid every penny of your salary and operating expenses for the next year. Be sure you know who your employer is, and that you serve the needs of your employer, not just your own whims. Perhaps if your goal is not to serve the whole of American people, then the whole of American people should not be asked to fund the Library of Congress any longer.
Yes, God yes. I've been reading this whole thread, swearing that if no one else asked this, I would have to. I've wanted to ask RMS this myself, especially now that FreeNet has appeared, espousing that the havoc it wreaks through convenience piracy is of no matter, because they (FreeNet) follow RMS's beliefs.
I'm a programmer. I believe I'm a good one. I believe (perhaps arrogantly) that the best programmers are artists, not just technicians, and this field is an art, just like writing, painting and music. Many of the best programmers I know are very creative people, and do write, paint and make music. (Or would if they didn't program so darn much). I believe I make great software. Lord knows I try. I put more hours into making great software than I really should. I would be perfectly happy to give my software away for all to enjoy. But I don't. I'm one of the evil ones. I'm a capitalist. I sell my software. Why?
Because I own a car. And I have bills. And I bought a house. And I like to eat nice food when I'm not eating burritos and doritos and Mountain Dew. And I like to travel and ski and play when I'm not programming. And someday I will have kids, and I want to give them a good home and childhood. And in our world, this means I need to make money. And not small amounts of it either.
I'm not opposed to working hard -- far from it, I work too hard already and don't play enough. I read The article about reward and creativity on the gnu.org site. It's correct, yes. But it doesn't mean all of us programmers (and other artists and IP-authors by association) should give our hard work away. It means we want to feel sufficiently compensated that we don't have to worry about creating for money, and we can get on with creating great works for the sake of creating great works.
I don't want to be a waiter. I see through the handwaving about Free Software authors making a living 'through other means'. I don't want my company to make a living through that nebulous 'support' thing. I want to make software that's so great that the masses don't need to pay someone to support it. Besides, building on that business model means you end up focussing all of your company's efforts and resources on a whole bunch of support infrastructure and (unhappy and hard-to-staff) support positions, and not on the real deal: writing great code and making a great product. Tom Gooding (anonymous Coward) said it well in #153, above. No offense to anyone involved but it's easier to make a living supporting a moderately complex hacker-ish product like Emacs, an OS like Linux, the GNU tools or a web server like Apache, than it is to do the same with an application like Photoshop.
I read Atlas Shrugged. I'm not a frothing objectivist, but I agree with ronfar (above). A wise person I once knew said, "Yes, but great programmers must also eat." The Internet offers many ways to streamline the software development and distribution process, and I take advantage of every one I can to improve the relationship between my company and our customers to help deliver a better product and a better experience with it. But the day I can no longer make a decent living doing what I enjoy (coding great stuff) is the day I quit making great stuff and go become a ditch digger, and keep the fruits of my art to myself. And maybe, finally, have a healthy lifestyle and a suntan.
See also:
Free-IP
It's a (semi-humorous) jibe at the controversial state of federal abortion law.
(That's Richard M Stallman and Intellectual Property, not Root Mean Squared and Internet Protocol ;)
Do you agree with RMS's ideas about people/companies owning software? I want to make a living writing software, not doing software-support-services. I want to make software that is so great and easy to use that no one needs support contracts and stuff. The recent rise of gnutella and Freenet strikes fear into my heart -- soon everyone will have a much easier time of finding and pirating my software. Freenet's defense that they follow RMS's theories about software ownership does little to console me. I know that most pirates wouldn't actually buy my software anyway, but I also know that thwere are people who currently buy my software who wouldn't if they had easy access to a pirated copy.
At the same time, my friends and I live in fear of accidentaly blowing our foot off in the Russian-Roulette minefield of modern patent law, especially software patents. You may not know you're violating a patent, and you could get creamed by one. You might know you are violating a bogus patent, but if you keep quiet and step carefully, you might never trip the bomb.
Is there a sane resolution to these complex issues of IP ownership? The Internet didn't create the problem -- but like everything else it touches, it has ehanced it, sped it up, and made it more accessible.
>There are performance issues, however. But using Java for a front-end, and c++ for the back-end
>can result in a quick application, with cross-platform, consistant UI.
I want to know more about this. I've been considering this strategy for a while. I need portability to Windows and Mac right now, and I want to port to Linux and BeOS and anything else fun that comes down the pike. I already have a tested core of C++ code, and I hate our current portable GUI technique. I use GL now for all of my 2D/3D graphics, and I need something to make good portable GUI/widget stuff. I have already written a number of Win32 custom widgets (controls, they call them) that I'd need to port to a new UI system. Where do I start? How do I bind a C++ back end to a Java front-end? What products already use this? Does this involve CORBA or COM or how do I resolve the fact that no two C++ compilers link/mangle the same way?
Does anyone know anyting about Netscape/Mozilla's XPCOM/XPWidgets system? It looks like a great (though complex) design. Could it be used to make component software and UIs outside of Mozilla?
>>>Do you have some good reason for wanting to develop on Linux? /crashes/ man!
>>Well, would you want to reboot a dozen times a day if you didn't have to?
>The point is; you don't want to lose your code when your machine accidentally reboots because you close internet explorer. Seriously; I develop under Linux but
>had to do some porting sometime ago and decided to use VC++ for it and lost my changes twice because the platform just
I'm not normally a Microsoft apologist -- far from it. But I will defend them here. I use Linux quite a bit, and it definitely crashes less than NT. But an NT development machine running VC++ (I use 4.x still) is not an unstable environment. I have not crashed the OS itself in weeks, months even.
I _do_ crash Visual C++. Moderately often. But I crash a lot of software often, Linux and NT. The difference between crashing an app and the OS is significant, and I really don't find NT _that_ fragile.
Now don't get me started about how horrible the Win32 APIs are. I too am looking for a good cross-platform development toolset. More in a later message.
I bought a nice 19" CTX short-neck from buy.com, and am very happy with it, and the proce was excellent. They also make 21 inch models: buy.com listings. They seem to be reasonably priced ($657-$771).
There's a guy I knew over at Nasa who operates a program known as Cool Space who sure could put these birds to use. COOL SPACE is an acronym for Communications Over Obscure Locations / Special Purpose Advanced Communications Equipment. They do launch tracking and special-purpose communications support in exotic parts of the world where cell phones don't work.
I met them while I was working in Antarctica. Oddly enough while exploring their home page, I discovered a 1995 picture of myself in a helo on one of their experiments. (I'm the seated guy in the red parka in the helicopter at the bottom of the page).
Plusses:
Minuses:
Dunno if they have a referral deal or anything, but if you decide to go with them, mention my name -- maybe my hosting bill will go down. ;)
How do you feel about closed-source software incorporating support for zip/gzip files via ZLib? Is this what you originally intended? Is there any way closed-source developers can give back to the ZLib project (other than buying copies of Linux Mandrake? ;)
A friend of mine runs http://www.free-ip.com. Free-ip is a lot less hype, and a lot more content. Several cores are online now, and there is some exciting new stuff ready but not yet released. Obligatory grumble, I've been trying to get Slashdot to run a link about it for months, but it never gets approved. ;)
I just travelled Europe for three weeks using IPass, and with the exception of Venice, Italy and all POPs near it, I was able to successfully connect to the Internet from almost anywhere via a local or nearby POP.
Very cool. Recommended. I used it with the IPass MCM dialer for NT on my laptop, they also have 95 and Mac dialers. Not sure how it works with linux, but it seems to be plain old PPP, and you login with username@yourisp.net and your regular password, so I imagine if you have the list of local POP numbers, you can use almost any platform.
I'll join the club -- I have an old MS Ergo that someone gave me when the spacebar quit working on it. On a whim, I decided to try it one day when my hands were bothering me. I fixed the spacebar, and have never regretted it. We bought ergo-style keyboards for all of the other people here who wanted them.?p?
Things to note:?p?
?ul?
?li? Not all are alike. Some put the '6' key on the right-hand half of the keyboard, and some on the left. If you're a native touch-typist, you go for the '6' with your left hand, and if it's on the right half you will go crazy. The MS ergo and one of our Logitech's put it on the left where it belongs.
?li?A great number of them (like the Logitech model) hork around with rearrangements of the Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys. Why? This is inane and makes habitual interoperability with other keyboards impossible.
?/ul?
I look forward to any successor languages and tools, as I'm painfully aware that our choice of language greatly impacts the techniques and results we are capable of framing.
I have a number of years experience of becoming comfortable with the core features of C++ (and some more esoteric bits). I've avoided common use of templates/exceptions because of portability and implementation fears. I think my first question has sort of been alluded to already, but I'm going to restate it in my words in case I'm misinterpreting others questions:
Do you feel this is a significant enough technique that it would be considered for future languages (C++ derived or not), or is there a good way to accomplish this in C++ now?
Keep up the good work.
There's a review here on Slashdot. It will help you greatly, and answer most of your questions. Virtually anyone involved in SQL servers or thinking about getting involved with SQL servers will get something useful out of this book.
Hmm. Perhaps you are deliberately meant to interpret your own bogeyman into the role. I always inferred that it was supposed to Satan or some other devilish entity.
I have to agree on Kadath, one of the finest plain-ol-fiction stories I can recall. Vibrant imagery, and none of the 'formula' of modern-day fiction.
I highly recommend Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness too.
I was not all that crazy about Childhood's End when I last read it. It was ok, but not all of Clarke's stuff really fires my rocket. Likewise 2061 (the sequel to 2001 and 2010) left me cold. Rama was incredible.
1. With the enormous growth and pace of modern science, how do you feel about the generally overwhelming scope of knowledge required to make further progress? Today a researcher almost has to specialize in a narrow field in order to absorb enough material even to understand what has already been discovered. Do you feel this limits further research, because so few people can actually see the "Big Picture"?
2. The classic "two-slit" experiment is usually cited as the best demonstration of the wave-particle duality. I'd like to open others eyes to the uncertainties and implications of quantum physics. Is there a good "kitchen sink" version of this experiment that can be performed at home, maybe with some Edmund parts?
All joking aside, I think you're very close to the mark. But it isn't commentary on the code, I believe it is in fact commented-out code. Or fragments of commented-out code. What happens if a random mutation "uncomments" a section of code comprised of leftover bits of old code that aren't in use anymore? Evolution.
The philsophy can be summarized in the motto of the Nemesis Air Racing Team:
Chase the Dream, not the competition.