Having -- and hating -- to wear glasses, I wish lasik were absolutely cast-iron 100% guaranteed. But I'm blind in one eye, so even if it ever gets to 99.9999%, it's that last decimal place that will prevent me from getting the work done.
Well, there is a free version of it, but the actual suite is US$895, which is a little pricey for the average individual. The free version isn't the same thing as the pro version:
J systems are available for download on a number of platforms. It may be used and redistributed freely. There is a fee for a professional key (prokey) that enables features required for commercial development of large systems. See Help|Product and Ordering Information for prices and order form.
One dodge would be to take ONE class at the local community college and, while enrolled, buy a student edition of Mathematica for around US$140 or so -- roughly one-tenth the price of the identical thing in the "professional" version. I'm looking at buying Mathematica this fall even though I won't strictly need it for school.
Well, maybe. OTOH, I'm a southpaw too and I learned starting in 1984 to use my right hand for pointing devices, so it didn't occur to me until a long time after I'd purchased my second Logitech Trackman Marble that there wasn't a left-handed one available.
As I'm eagerly and anxiously awaiting the day when telecommuting reaches critical mass and I it's assumed that I'll work (including conferencing and collaboration) from home, I wonder: Sure, the content developers need to live and work in SF if that's where the happenin' culture is, but why does Salon.com require office space of any respectable size? Couldn't their billing department and servers be across the bay in Oakland or something? I mean, in a real telecorporation, who needs expensive offices (anywhere but his/her own home, if that's his/her choice)?
Naaah, the right thing to do is to just add an l between the o and d in God and make the backed-currency folks jump up and down in glee, pointing, clapping and saying "See! We were right all along!"
A little green (sorry) at this Red Hat stuff -- qn
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GNOME 2.0 Released
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· Score: 2
If I'm using the Red Hat Update service where I get notifications and use up2date, do they notify for this kind of release? IOW, should I be expecting an email from RH Real Soon Now(tm)?
I hope a lot of companies get pissed at MS for not releasing any new software during this first cycle of "Software Assurance."
I'm neither joking nor trolling when I suggest that many companies may find it a welcome relief from the "release fatigue" discussed a few days ago.
OT: How much longer will we use paper money?
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Greenbacks No More
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· Score: 2
Given the increasing proportion of money velocity that happens electronically rather than the old-fashioned way (promissory notes, letters of credit, checks, paper currency and coins), I wonder how long it'll be before modern governments start phasing out non-electronic transactions entirely and start posting all buying, selling and lending against databases under control of their banking and finance authorities.
I seem to recall a passing reference in a short story of William Gibson's -- might have been "Johnny Mnemonic"? -- to the idea that paper currency might actually become illegal. Certainly it would be easier for the US to implement this in the guise of making us all safer from terrorism by allowing the Powers That Be to track every transaction. The IRS would love to make the underground economy suddenly 100% taxable, I'm sure. To the extent that it would aid in the War On (Some) Drugs, it's probably further desirable to certain folks.
In parting, here's a musing by Neal Stephenson about the very subject of electronic currency: his short story "The Great Simoleon Caper", a sort of a free-software take on the idea.
Yeah, it's better to lose an engine than to lose the engine -- especially over water. Tactical jet aircraft, to paraphrase Tom Wolfe, have the glide characteristics of a set of car keys.
All I can think about this design choice is that they're counting on this engine being more reliable than the previous generations of powerplants. That's a mighty dubious proposition when it's your ass strapped to the ACES III ejection seat, though.
And think how much easier it will be to repair and service an electrical bus compared to a bunch of heavy-duty hoses and pipes full of hydraulic fluid!
And to further congratulate LockMart on their wise design choice, consider that this is a combat aircraft, and in a world full of people trying to kill you and/or break your airplane, it's comforting to note that an electrical bus can have holes blown through it and chunks blasted off of it and still probably work. One little hole in a hydraulic system and it's Pull The Black-and-Yellow-Striped Handle Time, if you're lucky enough to be able to.
OTOH, if you get a chance to see a cutaway view of the -35's internals (I'm referring to the V/STOL version), you may find yourself shaking your head in disbelief at all the extra moving parts inside the aircraft. It makes the AV-8 Harrier look fairly simple by comparison.
The bizarre appearance of the fighter's enormous single air intake, coupled with an understanding of the inherent dangers for flight-deck personnel in carrier operations, caused one US Navy officer to dub the X-32 with the sobriquet of "the Sailor Inhaler."
Back around '79 or so, I remember hearing a COBOL trainer (in a corporate setting) assert that in the next century, there would be a language called COBOL, even if there was not way of knowing what it would evolve (or maybe the word is mutate) into. By now, I feel pretty secure in seconding his notion that COBOL, the Legacy Language from Heck, is never gonna fade away. (In fact, as a career option I'm weighing COBOL as a language to concentrate on.) IBM apparently feels the same way, so it's not too surprising that they'd come up with a whole new way to archive all those billions of lines of code in the handy, familiar 80x25 format.
There have been conventions and traditions associated with naming warships, but they're subject to political and romantic whims -- and even in-jokes, such as the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-la, named for FDR's humorous response to a query about where the Doolittle raid on Tokyo launched from. (The source of the name is a fictitious Himilayan country in James Hilton's popular novel Lost Horizon.)
I liked the USN Submarine Service much better back when attack boats were named for sea creatures (the Growler, the Hammerhead, the Albacore etc.), but Hyman G. "Father of the Nuclear Navy" Rickover screwed that all up: "Fish don't vote!" Thanks to him, we got 688s named for cities for a while there, supposedly to increase voter -- and ultimately Congressional -- support. OTOH, although we now have a new Seawolf, we also have another attack boat named for a state (the Virginia) and one named for a president (the Jimmy Carter).
I do kinda like USS Badass, though. Might be a good name for one of those Cyclone-class littoral-warfare PCs that support SEAL operations inshore. Maybe her sister ships could be USS Ass Kicker, USS Tough Guy, USS Snake Eater, and USS Get Yer Beady Eyes Offa Me.
He also raised his right hand and dedicated his life to the defense of the United States -- twice -- once as a sailor, the second time as an elected Federal official. He wasn't merely a "nuke engineer"; he was a commissioned officer in the United States Navy, and he was the first USN Submarine Service veteran to serve as President of the United States. That, my peacenik friend, is the reason for naming the submarine after him.
...back in '84 or so, I remember a dormmate at UT Austin mentioning that he'd carefully searched and found no books on locksmithing anywhere on campus. (And believe me, Texas has a whole lot of well-stocked libraries.)
Just thought I'd mention this in the interests of good citizenship.;o)
Wow, totally different AOL experience
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Disconnecting
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· Score: 2
AOL was my "training wheels" for a while, and my wife (then a teacher) loved all the content related to her profession. But at length, we outgrew it and cancelled. I didn't have any trouble getting ahold of an account rep, and when asked "Why are you leaving?" I simply told them I wanted to use a straightforward ISP instead. He could'nt have been a nicer man; he offered to give me free months, and when I demurred, he told me AOL would hold our screen names in case we reconsidered.
Bear in mind that this was eighteen months ago, before AOLTW came under the severe financial pressure and market scrutiny it's "enjoyed" lately.
Incidentally, I switched to Earthlink, and I've had nothing but positive experiences dealing with customer and technical service there, too. There was one minor glitch where my billing got screwed up, and once we all figured out what was wrong, everything was cool. Everyone I've talked to has been a reasonable, attentive, polite adult.
Sorry to read about your frustrations, Jon.
Re:Official Signs that you'd think would be jokes.
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Hacking the Highways
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· Score: 2
If I remember Pennsylvania Amish country geography, you also go either through or damn near Blue Balls as well.
Astonishing, really, the lengths to which Microsoft seems to go sometimes to piss on their own shoes. Here, they demonstrate by their hamfisted tactics how great is their disdain for the rest of computerdom. It's to ponder: Does no one in their executive boardroom consider that, in shoving Open Source developers more fully away from having anything to do with Microsoft, they're increasing the likelhood of their own eventual irrelevance?
After fifteen years, I'm sick of getting laid off. I'm going back to school to get some retraining to be a programmer, and if I can accumulate at least a couple years' total experience in the workplace pushing bytes around, then I'll look into the design aspect of IT -- after all, I already know I can talk to project managers, coders, and end users. I just have to get past the "Rodney Dangerfield syndrome" of being "just" a technical writer.
Slashdot Mirror
Having -- and hating -- to wear glasses, I wish lasik were absolutely cast-iron 100% guaranteed. But I'm blind in one eye, so even if it ever gets to 99.9999%, it's that last decimal place that will prevent me from getting the work done.
Well, there is a free version of it, but the actual suite is US$895, which is a little pricey for the average individual. The free version isn't the same thing as the pro version:
J systems are available for download on a number of platforms. It may be used and redistributed freely. There is a fee for a professional key (prokey) that enables features required for commercial development of large systems. See Help|Product and Ordering Information for prices and order form.
One dodge would be to take ONE class at the local community college and, while enrolled, buy a student edition of Mathematica for around US$140 or so -- roughly one-tenth the price of the identical thing in the "professional" version. I'm looking at buying Mathematica this fall even though I won't strictly need it for school.
And if so, shouldn't it be retroactive?
Well, maybe. OTOH, I'm a southpaw too and I learned starting in 1984 to use my right hand for pointing devices, so it didn't occur to me until a long time after I'd purchased my second Logitech Trackman Marble that there wasn't a left-handed one available.
As I'm eagerly and anxiously awaiting the day when telecommuting reaches critical mass and I it's assumed that I'll work (including conferencing and collaboration) from home, I wonder: Sure, the content developers need to live and work in SF if that's where the happenin' culture is, but why does Salon.com require office space of any respectable size? Couldn't their billing department and servers be across the bay in Oakland or something? I mean, in a real telecorporation, who needs expensive offices (anywhere but his/her own home, if that's his/her choice)?
Naaah, the right thing to do is to just add an l between the o and d in God and make the backed-currency folks jump up and down in glee, pointing, clapping and saying "See! We were right all along!"
If I'm using the Red Hat Update service where I get notifications and use up2date, do they notify for this kind of release? IOW, should I be expecting an email from RH Real Soon Now(tm)?
How long have we been waiting for GNU Hurd to be finished, anyway?
I hope a lot of companies get pissed at MS for not releasing any new software during this first cycle of "Software Assurance."
I'm neither joking nor trolling when I suggest that many companies may find it a welcome relief from the "release fatigue" discussed a few days ago.
Given the increasing proportion of money velocity that happens electronically rather than the old-fashioned way (promissory notes, letters of credit, checks, paper currency and coins), I wonder how long it'll be before modern governments start phasing out non-electronic transactions entirely and start posting all buying, selling and lending against databases under control of their banking and finance authorities.
I seem to recall a passing reference in a short story of William Gibson's -- might have been "Johnny Mnemonic"? -- to the idea that paper currency might actually become illegal. Certainly it would be easier for the US to implement this in the guise of making us all safer from terrorism by allowing the Powers That Be to track every transaction. The IRS would love to make the underground economy suddenly 100% taxable, I'm sure. To the extent that it would aid in the War On (Some) Drugs, it's probably further desirable to certain folks.
In parting, here's a musing by Neal Stephenson about the very subject of electronic currency: his short story "The Great Simoleon Caper", a sort of a free-software take on the idea.
Yeah, it's better to lose an engine than to lose the engine -- especially over water. Tactical jet aircraft, to paraphrase Tom Wolfe, have the glide characteristics of a set of car keys.
All I can think about this design choice is that they're counting on this engine being more reliable than the previous generations of powerplants. That's a mighty dubious proposition when it's your ass strapped to the ACES III ejection seat, though.
And think how much easier it will be to repair and service an electrical bus compared to a bunch of heavy-duty hoses and pipes full of hydraulic fluid!
And to further congratulate LockMart on their wise design choice, consider that this is a combat aircraft, and in a world full of people trying to kill you and/or break your airplane, it's comforting to note that an electrical bus can have holes blown through it and chunks blasted off of it and still probably work. One little hole in a hydraulic system and it's Pull The Black-and-Yellow-Striped Handle Time, if you're lucky enough to be able to.
OTOH, if you get a chance to see a cutaway view of the -35's internals (I'm referring to the V/STOL version), you may find yourself shaking your head in disbelief at all the extra moving parts inside the aircraft. It makes the AV-8 Harrier look fairly simple by comparison.
The bizarre appearance of the fighter's enormous single air intake, coupled with an understanding of the inherent dangers for flight-deck personnel in carrier operations, caused one US Navy officer to dub the X-32 with the sobriquet of "the Sailor Inhaler."
Back around '79 or so, I remember hearing a COBOL trainer (in a corporate setting) assert that in the next century, there would be a language called COBOL, even if there was not way of knowing what it would evolve (or maybe the word is mutate) into. By now, I feel pretty secure in seconding his notion that COBOL, the Legacy Language from Heck, is never gonna fade away. (In fact, as a career option I'm weighing COBOL as a language to concentrate on.) IBM apparently feels the same way, so it's not too surprising that they'd come up with a whole new way to archive all those billions of lines of code in the handy, familiar 80x25 format.
That'd be great, but I wonder what kind of deal with Microsoft it would run afoul of.
There have been conventions and traditions associated with naming warships, but they're subject to political and romantic whims -- and even in-jokes, such as the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-la, named for FDR's humorous response to a query about where the Doolittle raid on Tokyo launched from. (The source of the name is a fictitious Himilayan country in James Hilton's popular novel Lost Horizon.)
I liked the USN Submarine Service much better back when attack boats were named for sea creatures (the Growler, the Hammerhead, the Albacore etc.), but Hyman G. "Father of the Nuclear Navy" Rickover screwed that all up: "Fish don't vote!" Thanks to him, we got 688s named for cities for a while there, supposedly to increase voter -- and ultimately Congressional -- support. OTOH, although we now have a new Seawolf, we also have another attack boat named for a state (the Virginia) and one named for a president (the Jimmy Carter).
I do kinda like USS Badass, though. Might be a good name for one of those Cyclone-class littoral-warfare PCs that support SEAL operations inshore. Maybe her sister ships could be USS Ass Kicker, USS Tough Guy, USS Snake Eater, and USS Get Yer Beady Eyes Offa Me.
And chewing gum. SEALs like to chew gum during pressure equalization in "lockouts" to help "pop" their ears...
He also raised his right hand and dedicated his life to the defense of the United States -- twice -- once as a sailor, the second time as an elected Federal official. He wasn't merely a "nuke engineer"; he was a commissioned officer in the United States Navy, and he was the first USN Submarine Service veteran to serve as President of the United States. That, my peacenik friend, is the reason for naming the submarine after him.
"The American republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
...back in '84 or so, I remember a dormmate at UT Austin mentioning that he'd carefully searched and found no books on locksmithing anywhere on campus. (And believe me, Texas has a whole lot of well-stocked libraries.)
;o)
Just thought I'd mention this in the interests of good citizenship.
AOL was my "training wheels" for a while, and my wife (then a teacher) loved all the content related to her profession. But at length, we outgrew it and cancelled. I didn't have any trouble getting ahold of an account rep, and when asked "Why are you leaving?" I simply told them I wanted to use a straightforward ISP instead. He could'nt have been a nicer man; he offered to give me free months, and when I demurred, he told me AOL would hold our screen names in case we reconsidered.
Bear in mind that this was eighteen months ago, before AOLTW came under the severe financial pressure and market scrutiny it's "enjoyed" lately.
Incidentally, I switched to Earthlink, and I've had nothing but positive experiences dealing with customer and technical service there, too. There was one minor glitch where my billing got screwed up, and once we all figured out what was wrong, everything was cool. Everyone I've talked to has been a reasonable, attentive, polite adult.
Sorry to read about your frustrations, Jon.
If I remember Pennsylvania Amish country geography, you also go either through or damn near Blue Balls as well.
Astonishing, really, the lengths to which Microsoft seems to go sometimes to piss on their own shoes. Here, they demonstrate by their hamfisted tactics how great is their disdain for the rest of computerdom. It's to ponder: Does no one in their executive boardroom consider that, in shoving Open Source developers more fully away from having anything to do with Microsoft, they're increasing the likelhood of their own eventual irrelevance?
Shhhhh. I smell further layoffs.
After fifteen years, I'm sick of getting laid off. I'm going back to school to get some retraining to be a programmer, and if I can accumulate at least a couple years' total experience in the workplace pushing bytes around, then I'll look into the design aspect of IT -- after all, I already know I can talk to project managers, coders, and end users. I just have to get past the "Rodney Dangerfield syndrome" of being "just" a technical writer.