Well... there was the naming computers after fruits phase that made me question Mac users sexuality
Okay, now I think I may have a clearer idea of why you may think of mac users as 'teh ghey', but I stand by my claim that there is NO commonality (sexual, political or otherwise) amongst mac users... except for a ruthless efficiency and fanatical devotion to the pope... But as to the naming of a computer comany after a fruit...has to do mostly with the bizarre dietary habits of Steve Jobs. Now he is the strictest of vegetarians...a VEGAN! The most dreaded strain of vegetarian at all. BUT before Steve-O was a vegetarian of any stripe he was a fruitarian. As far as I understand (I am an Atkins practicioning carnivour, and not a vegetarian or especially a "fruitarian") fruitairians not only eat only fruit...it is prohibited by some sects to eat any fruit that has not dropped naturally to the ground from the vine. NO HAND PICKING or OFF THE DAMN DIRTY HIPPY COMMUNE YOU GO!!!:) Before Jobs started Apple, he lived for a while on a Fruitarian commune in Oregon. Many suppose that it was this experience that lead to the naming of the now famous computer company.
I was actually a fruitarian at that point in time. I ate only fruit. Now I'm a garbage can like everyone else. And we were about three months late in filing a fictitious business name so I threatened to call the company Apple Computer unless someone suggested a more interesting name by five o'clock that day. Hoping to stimulate creativity. And it stuck. And that's why we're called Apple.
....90s at a few dotcom startups and it was presented to him as a way of interfacing with the kdb highspeed relational database.
Well, thanks (sortof) for supporting my contention that "K is NOT S" (though now I'm curious what 'S' is, wish that guy had supplied a link), if you had clicked the link in my initial post, it would've taken you...well...here, smart guy!;) And if you wanted to find out more about K you could've stripped out "product_info/high-performance-database-kdb-plus.h tm" from the URL and it would've taken you here.
But, since I am at work and don't have time to read the entire site before I get home I'm hoping some nice poster (or even a nasty one! I'm not being picky) will chime in with some useful info on whether 'K' is
Procedural
Object Oriented
Aspect Oriented
or some programming style with which I am not yet acquainted
A friend of mine today told me about an amazing database oriented programming language known as "K". I've been in IT for many a year and NEVER caught wind of it, in any way. My friend said that he first encountered it in the late 90s at a few dotcom startups and it was presented to him as a way of interfacing with the kdb highspeed relational database. Typically, it's supposedly used amongst people who write programs for re-insurers (insurance companies that insure insurance comanies...meta-insurance companies if you will) to run just about every financial model conceivable. Why? I asked. Because it is FAST.
It is able (again, according to him for I know nothing of which he speaks) to predict market performance with scary accuracy. This is a claim of which I'm extremely dubious because I do NOT believe (as Burton Malkiel points out) that past market can in any way predict future performance. However, I digress...
But supposedly these k prediction models currently in us base themselves not solely on data from past market performance, but every form of economic condition imaginable.
But my real question is WHAT THE BLINKIN' HELL IS 'K'??? My bud is not a programmer, so my asking questions like "Is it procedural? OO? Aspect Oriented?" went nowhere. Ever see the look a dog gives you when you make a funny noise with your mouth that confuses him?...not to be condescending toward my buddy just 'cuz he doesn't know what those things are. But tust me for that is exactly the look he made. Which is the look I made when confronted with another single character programming language of which I was unaware.
... these/. mac fags should go get their own site and leave real enthusiasts/nerds alone.
Okay. I'll bite. Dear Mister Troll sir...as to us having a site of our own...we do. Infactwehaveseveralfromwhichtochoose. And, pray tell, what in your tiny little troll-like mind leads you to believe that Mac users are all of a particular sexual orientation of any kind at all? Or that mac users don't qualify as nerds? And by some strange twisting path of logic that we don't in some way belong here?Newsfalsh! The mac now not only sports a command line environment, but you can set your environment to your shell of choice!
I know, I know, please don't feel the trolls. Move along. Move along...
I mentioned this for the last story about Nigerian scam spammers, but amazingly my friend's adventures with a Nigerian scam artist are more ontopic than last time. It's a bit long, but a gut-busting read if you take the time.
Throughout his correspondence with the 419er he pretended to be an interested business partner with "tourettes syndrom", and the scam artist seemed to fall for it hook line and sinker. How a supposedly savvy criminal could've been hooked by prose like:
Is there nothing to understand? My tone has turned from blue to joyful yellow with the arrivalling of your offer of most generous. I am tickled pink, and my nether regions throb with joy at the prospects of meeting your family, especially your lovely mother, Catarina, and your nubile son. I think your father's name is with only one "n", however. I have many, many bank account, and also, my chest remains hairy, with sweat.
...is absolutely beyond me! But he had him going for a good long time!
I recently took a programming class at NYU. The class was pretty evenly divided between older and younger students. By some strange roundabout of discussion the topic of Star Trek came up. Of the several people who were under 20 not a single one had ANY idea what the fuck we were talking about. They were all like "Star Trek? What's that?" I was literally astounded, simply blown away by that.
Interesting, this story reminded me of the Jacquard Loom. The Jacquard Loom used punch cards to control the designs it embroidered into clothing material.
Herman Hollerith was hired to automate the 1890 US Census because it was apparent that information processing techniques simply weren't keeping up with the burgeoning US population. When it came time to do the 1890 census, they weren't yet finished processing teh previous census.
When Hollerith encountered the Jacquard loom and realized the significance of its punch card method he realized that he had stumbled on a method for automating the input of information for later processing.
He then took his information processing techniques and founded the Hollerith Corporation. This company later underwent a name change and eventually came to dominate in the computing field.
Of course, most of the liberal media seems to be in the whitehouse's pocket...
Not that I disagree at all with that statement. But there's something peculiar to me about the idea of a "liberal media" being in the pocket of a conservative administation...
This work reminds me of the work that Douglas Englebart was doing in the 1960s. And while I think this new interface work is great and needed I also believe that the biggest impediment to adopting new methods are cultural ones. While you could (and should) say that the delay in adoption of Englebart's ideas (windowing systems, a mouse for input) was the technical challenge of bringing these methods to home computing mahcines, you can't forget that cultural forces were also at work slowing down people's acceptance of the GUI.
But a more dramatic example of the slowness of cultural change is the fact that I am typing this on a QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak has been around for years but still we type on devices that show their Victorian age heritage. Even when there is no need at all for the random shuffling of the alphabet across the current keyboard in the way we use it!
Another fine example is the red-headed stepchild of the Englebart revolution; the BAT keyboard. The BAT is supposedly easier to learn to use (I've never tried it myself) than a regular keyoard and is also supposedly more ergonomic than a keyboard, as well. It is aslo easier on the joints (or so they say). Now it's mostly sold for people who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other injuries/disabilities. But it was originally thought to be a better method for input for everyone (injured/disabled or not) to use.
Englebart was right about most things (which were later refined by others into the form in which we now recognize them), but the BAT just never caught on. Too different, probably, from what people had already been using for over a century.
yes but the first star wars were good, and the high budget effects didn't take away from the great storyline. Now Lucas is just milking the franchise and trying to string together effects as a story...
This first Star Wars was EXCELLENT and the foundation of a worldwide genuine 20th Century mytholical system that makes money even today. Empire was really really good and a worthy continuation of the first. Jedi, was, let's face facts...a LETDOWN! Needed to cap off the first trilogy, but unwatchable in any other respect.
I still watch the modern day knock offs, but I will never in my life enjoy them (obviously) like I did when I was a 12 year old watching the opening scrawl of Jedi with nervous excitement (bordering on mania). Adulthood doesn't provide that kind of excitement about anything at all barring maybe, taking up skydiving in your 30s or older. By then the "bucket" of your experiential reserve is so much greater and there is no going back to that kind of fresh excitement about something genuinely *NEW* (to you).
But, I've known older guys that run successful businesses that still love Cowboy movies becuase playing "cowboys and indian" when they were kids in the 50s was a popular pastime. This, I guess is my generation's "cowboys and indians". I can only enjoy these things on that level.
Hoping, am I that OT stand for "Original Theatrical" . Not for "Odious Trilogy" - aka lame-o Lucas "Greedo shoots first" special edition historical revisionism.
My work bud finally had enough of this Nigerian scam that he decided he would a have a little fun with the situation. His deed of daring do is a damn hilarious read!
Neo Saves the day.He wakes up to find that he was in a matrix inside a matrix. He wakes up from both matrices only to find that in reality he is...*GASP*Jean Louis Gasse. He instantly takes the blue pill and returns to being a svelte young Hollywood star...
How about we change that to "walking on the sun"? I doubt that will be happening during our lifetimes.
Except that walking on the sun is definitely NOT something that will EVER happen. Period. Curing cancer is something that may or may not happen in our lifetimes. But saying that Cancer will NEVER be cured is like insisting that the world is flat (and there are some morons who even do THAT).
Colloquially, the phrase
"cure for cancer" is meant to say "he/she can do the impossible".
Conversely, the phrase "if we can go to the moon, why can't we do
'x'..." is meant to imply that we can do anything, because what's more
impossible than a man walking on the moon? Well, today there may be
cause to celebrate what may be the medical equivalent of "walking on the
moon".
the CEO of Red Hat now says that Linux is not ready for the desktop, but may be ready in a few more years.
CEOs are known for their business acumen, but not necessarily for their techincal knowledge or skills. I've even read in one really great Apple history book that Apple engineers lambasted Steve Jobs as "non-technical" and considered him unfit to make "technical" decisions. I don't know that much about the RedHat CEO, but this may be a similar case.
That language instruction link seems really freakin' cool! I've toyed with the idea of learning Japanese for a while now. Maybe I'll finally find the motivation to try it out with this.
I've recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who runs a tech staffing agency about foreign language study amongst computer programmers. Both programming and foregin languages have always been an interest of mine. I was surprised to hear from him that this is actually "not unusual at all", and that in his mind the two interests have always gone hand in hand. I was wondering if anyone else here might have noticed this correlation?
Yumpin' Yiminy! You mean the game shows Frodo and Sam battling and killing Shelob, Frodo getting trapped in Cirith Ungol and being rescued by Sam, and Gollum biting the ring off of Frodo's finger and falling into the pit of Mount Doom? It would be cool if the game showed the 'scouring of the Shire" (which will NOT be in the movie). This book has been out for Yeesh, RTFB already!
Hopefully this doesn't happen! Ximian makes some of the best Gnome products around! I'm worried though, if Novell makes Ximian port their products to KDE, it might make RedHat fork the last version of Evolution. I really don't want to see that happen.
I'm mainly a GNOME user, but my MUA of choice is K-Mail. No problems there. Let's say that Novell drops Ximian support for GNOME entirely. I'm sure it might, but why would that be a p0rblem?
Slashdot Mirror
Well... there was the naming computers after fruits phase that made me question Mac users sexuality
:) Before Jobs started Apple, he lived for a while on a Fruitarian commune in Oregon. Many suppose that it was this experience that lead to the naming of the now famous computer company.
Okay, now I think I may have a clearer idea of why you may think of mac users as 'teh ghey', but I stand by my claim that there is NO commonality (sexual, political or otherwise) amongst mac users... except for a ruthless efficiency and fanatical devotion to the pope... But as to the naming of a computer comany after a fruit...has to do mostly with the bizarre dietary habits of Steve Jobs. Now he is the strictest of vegetarians...a VEGAN! The most dreaded strain of vegetarian at all. BUT before Steve-O was a vegetarian of any stripe he was a fruitarian. As far as I understand (I am an Atkins practicioning carnivour, and not a vegetarian or especially a "fruitarian") fruitairians not only eat only fruit...it is prohibited by some sects to eat any fruit that has not dropped naturally to the ground from the vine. NO HAND PICKING or OFF THE DAMN DIRTY HIPPY COMMUNE YOU GO!!!
Actually, as I google around, I find this supposedly direct quote:
I was actually a fruitarian at that point in time. I ate only fruit. Now I'm a garbage can like everyone else. And we were about three months late in filing a fictitious business name so I threatened to call the company Apple Computer unless someone suggested a more interesting name by five o'clock that day. Hoping to stimulate creativity. And it stuck. And that's why we're called Apple.
Well, thanks (sortof) for supporting my contention that "K is NOT S" (though now I'm curious what 'S' is, wish that guy had supplied a link), if you had clicked the link in my initial post, it would've taken you...well...here, smart guy!
But, since I am at work and don't have time to read the entire site before I get home I'm hoping some nice poster (or even a nasty one! I'm not being picky) will chime in with some useful info on whether 'K' is
A friend of mine today told me about an amazing database oriented programming language known as "K". I've been in IT for many a year and NEVER caught wind of it, in any way. My friend said that he first encountered it in the late 90s at a few dotcom startups and it was presented to him as a way of interfacing with the kdb highspeed relational database. Typically, it's supposedly used amongst people who write programs for re-insurers (insurance companies that insure insurance comanies...meta-insurance companies if you will) to run just about every financial model conceivable. Why? I asked. Because it is FAST.
It is able (again, according to him for I know nothing of which he speaks) to predict market performance with scary accuracy. This is a claim of which I'm extremely dubious because I do NOT believe (as Burton Malkiel points out) that past market can in any way predict future performance. However, I digress...
But supposedly these k prediction models currently in us base themselves not solely on data from past market performance, but every form of economic condition imaginable.
But my real question is WHAT THE BLINKIN' HELL IS 'K'??? My bud is not a programmer, so my asking questions like "Is it procedural? OO? Aspect Oriented?" went nowhere. Ever see the look a dog gives you when you make a funny noise with your mouth that confuses him?...not to be condescending toward my buddy just 'cuz he doesn't know what those things are. But tust me for that is exactly the look he made. Which is the look I made when confronted with another single character programming language of which I was unaware.
So, again I ask, WHAT DA HECK IS 'K'???
... these /. mac fags should go get their own site and leave real enthusiasts/nerds alone.
Okay. I'll bite. Dear Mister Troll sir...as to us having a site of our own...we do. In fact we have several from which to choose. And, pray tell, what in your tiny little troll-like mind leads you to believe that Mac users are all of a particular sexual orientation of any kind at all? Or that mac users don't qualify as nerds? And by some strange twisting path of logic that we don't in some way belong here?Newsfalsh! The mac now not only sports a command line environment, but you can set your environment to your shell of choice!
I know, I know, please don't feel the trolls. Move along. Move along...
My modem can beat up your modem!
YEAH??? Well MY 768/128 DSL line can beat up your scrawny 56k v.90 modem any day of the week!
I mentioned this for the last story about Nigerian scam spammers, but amazingly my friend's adventures with a Nigerian scam artist are more ontopic than last time. It's a bit long, but a gut-busting read if you take the time.
:
Throughout his correspondence with the 419er he pretended to be an interested business partner with "tourettes syndrom", and the scam artist seemed to fall for it hook line and sinker. How a supposedly savvy criminal could've been hooked by prose like
Is there nothing to understand? My tone has turned from blue to joyful yellow with the arrivalling of your offer of most generous. I am tickled pink, and my nether regions throb with joy at the prospects of meeting your family, especially your lovely mother, Catarina, and your nubile son. I think your father's name is with only one "n", however. I have many, many bank account, and also, my chest remains hairy, with sweat.
...is absolutely beyond me! But he had him going for a good long time!
Read the short bio linked above, it is really a must for anyone interested in computers.
Thanks for the link, it was pretty good. You also might want to check out Tools for Thought by Howard Rheingold. I'd consider it required reading.
Next you'll be saying "Star Trek? What's that?"
I recently took a programming class at NYU. The class was pretty evenly divided between older and younger students. By some strange roundabout of discussion the topic of Star Trek came up. Of the several people who were under 20 not a single one had ANY idea what the fuck we were talking about. They were all like "Star Trek? What's that?" I was literally astounded, simply blown away by that.
Interesting, this story reminded me of the Jacquard Loom. The Jacquard Loom used punch cards to control the designs it embroidered into clothing material.
Herman Hollerith was hired to automate the 1890 US Census because it was apparent that information processing techniques simply weren't keeping up with the burgeoning US population. When it came time to do the 1890 census, they weren't yet finished processing teh previous census.
When Hollerith encountered the Jacquard loom and realized the significance of its punch card method he realized that he had stumbled on a method for automating the input of information for later processing.
He then took his information processing techniques and founded the Hollerith Corporation. This company later underwent a name change and eventually came to dominate in the computing field.
Of course, most of the liberal media seems to be in the whitehouse's pocket...
Not that I disagree at all with that statement. But there's something peculiar to me about the idea of a "liberal media" being in the pocket of a conservative administation...
DOH! must...hit...preview!!!
Meant to say, I think I know the #1 most overpaid Jobs...
I think I know the #1 most
I, for one WELCOME all our new SKYNET overloards!
This work reminds me of the work that Douglas Englebart was doing in the 1960s. And while I think this new interface work is great and needed I also believe that the biggest impediment to adopting new methods are cultural ones. While you could (and should) say that the delay in adoption of Englebart's ideas (windowing systems, a mouse for input) was the technical challenge of bringing these methods to home computing mahcines, you can't forget that cultural forces were also at work slowing down people's acceptance of the GUI.
But a more dramatic example of the slowness of cultural change is the fact that I am typing this on a QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak has been around for years but still we type on devices that show their Victorian age heritage. Even when there is no need at all for the random shuffling of the alphabet across the current keyboard in the way we use it!
Another fine example is the red-headed stepchild of the Englebart revolution; the BAT keyboard. The BAT is supposedly easier to learn to use (I've never tried it myself) than a regular keyoard and is also supposedly more ergonomic than a keyboard, as well. It is aslo easier on the joints (or so they say). Now it's mostly sold for people who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other injuries/disabilities. But it was originally thought to be a better method for input for everyone (injured/disabled or not) to use.
Englebart was right about most things (which were later refined by others into the form in which we now recognize them), but the BAT just never caught on. Too different, probably, from what people had already been using for over a century.
yes but the first star wars were good, and the high budget effects didn't take away from the great storyline. Now Lucas is just milking the franchise and trying to string together effects as a story...
This first Star Wars was EXCELLENT and the foundation of a worldwide genuine 20th Century mytholical system that makes money even today. Empire was really really good and a worthy continuation of the first. Jedi, was, let's face facts...a LETDOWN! Needed to cap off the first trilogy, but unwatchable in any other respect.
I still watch the modern day knock offs, but I will never in my life enjoy them (obviously) like I did when I was a 12 year old watching the opening scrawl of Jedi with nervous excitement (bordering on mania). Adulthood doesn't provide that kind of excitement about anything at all barring maybe, taking up skydiving in your 30s or older. By then the "bucket" of your experiential reserve is so much greater and there is no going back to that kind of fresh excitement about something genuinely *NEW* (to you).
But, I've known older guys that run successful businesses that still love Cowboy movies becuase playing "cowboys and indian" when they were kids in the 50s was a popular pastime. This, I guess is my generation's "cowboys and indians". I can only enjoy these things on that level.
Hoping, am I that OT stand for "Original Theatrical" . Not for "Odious Trilogy" - aka lame-o Lucas "Greedo shoots first" special edition historical revisionism.
My work bud finally had enough of this Nigerian scam that he decided he would a have a little fun with the situation. His deed of daring do is a damn hilarious read!
Sick of gentoo zealots throwing plugs in completely unrelated topics? Me too!
Yes, but have you seen the system requirements for the Matrix?
Neo Saves the day. He wakes up to find that he was in a matrix inside a matrix. He wakes up from both matrices only to find that in reality he is...*GASP* Jean Louis Gasse. He instantly takes the blue pill and returns to being a svelte young Hollywood star...
How about we change that to "walking on the sun"? I doubt that will be happening during our lifetimes.
Except that walking on the sun is definitely NOT something that will EVER happen. Period. Curing cancer is something that may or may not happen in our lifetimes. But saying that Cancer will NEVER be cured is like insisting that the world is flat (and there are some morons who even do THAT).
Sorry to disappoint you Karnak, but your analogy is about as useful as a chocolate teapot!
Colloquially, the phrase "cure for cancer" is meant to say "he/she can do the impossible". Conversely, the phrase "if we can go to the moon, why can't we do 'x'..." is meant to imply that we can do anything, because what's more impossible than a man walking on the moon? Well, today there may be cause to celebrate what may be the medical equivalent of "walking on the moon".
the CEO of Red Hat now says that Linux is not ready for the desktop, but may be ready in a few more years.
CEOs are known for their business acumen, but not necessarily for their techincal knowledge or skills. I've even read in one really great Apple history book that Apple engineers lambasted Steve Jobs as "non-technical" and considered him unfit to make "technical" decisions. I don't know that much about the RedHat CEO, but this may be a similar case.
That language instruction link seems really freakin' cool! I've toyed with the idea of learning Japanese for a while now. Maybe I'll finally find the motivation to try it out with this.
I've recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who runs a tech staffing agency about foreign language study amongst computer programmers. Both programming and foregin languages have always been an interest of mine. I was surprised to hear from him that this is actually "not unusual at all", and that in his mind the two interests have always gone hand in hand. I was wondering if anyone else here might have noticed this correlation?
Yumpin' Yiminy! You mean the game shows Frodo and Sam battling and killing Shelob, Frodo getting trapped in Cirith Ungol and being rescued by Sam, and Gollum biting the ring off of Frodo's finger and falling into the pit of Mount Doom? It would be cool if the game showed the 'scouring of the Shire" (which will NOT be in the movie). This book has been out for Yeesh, RTFB already!
Hopefully this doesn't happen! Ximian makes some of the best Gnome products around! I'm worried though, if Novell makes Ximian port their products to KDE, it might make RedHat fork the last version of Evolution. I really don't want to see that happen.
I'm mainly a GNOME user, but my MUA of choice is K-Mail. No problems there. Let's say that Novell drops Ximian support for GNOME entirely. I'm sure it might, but why would that be a p0rblem?