On Mac OS X, swap is stored (by default) in files in the/var/vm directory on the boot hard drive, instead of on a separate partition. So there's no limit to how much is used, nor a predefined minimum amount of space used, the swap space expanding and contracting as needed. That seems reasonable.
True, but I don't think there's any situation in which that notation would be applied to a pointer to an Objective-C object. The compiler could check the type of the receiver, and if it's a C array, then compile it as usual, but if it's an Objective-C object, then translate it to some internally designated accessor method call. That couldn't be hard, considering C++ allows much more overloading of C expressions while still compiling them as usual when they're actually applied to plain C types.
If I remember correctly, GCC yields an error if a subscript expression is used on an Objective-C object anyway. That behaviour could simply be revised to transparently translate a[x] to [a objectAtIndex:x] (or [a valueForKey:x] if x is also an object rather than an integer).
From what's known so far, Objective C 2.0 also has some other interesting new features. It now has a "foreach"-style construct (actually for (x in blah)), and obj.property notation supporting internal getters and setters. God willing, maybe we'll soon see array/dictionary construction and access without ridiculous syntax like [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:..., nil] and [array objectAtIndex:blah]. (Maybe the former could be shortened as @{a, b, c,...}, like how NSString construction consists of C-style syntax prefixed with @. The latter has an obvious choice -- the array[blah] notation used everywhere else in the universe.)
"I finally look like a real person!" -- Lisa Simpson "I finally look like a real programming language!" -- Objective-C
(Not that it wasn't a real programming language before; it just got ridiculous sometimes how much really basic syntactic sugar it lacked.)
Not really. I see it as similar to Microsoft transitioning (their third-party developers at least) from the Win32 API to the open, cross-platform.NET ABI and API. That's a strategy to make it a preferred development environment on other platforms, but still provide the best-quality runtime and integration on their own platform. I think it makes sense from a business standpoint; opening up Cocoa to Windows support could be a response to Microsoft's cross-platform compatibility efforts. Combined with this new support for running Windows on Macs, it will not hurt Apple's market share, and it will increase their mind share.
A while ago, I heard a rumour (I don't remember if it was purported insider information or just speculation) that Apple would release a Cocoa runtime/development environment for Windows, like a revival of the old OpenStep/Yellow Box. If so, then combined with Boot Camp, then this is actually a brilliant strategy for transitioning people to a full native Mac environment. They give normal users a way to use nice Mac hardware with their existing Windows software, and they provide a software development environment for Windows programmers that is superiour to what Microsoft is providing with Win32,.NET, etc. The number of Cocoa programs increases as Windows developers start using it to build native software; at the same time, the number of people with Mac hardware (though without using the Mac OS at first) increases. Then Apple starts providing transition information to Windows-On-Mac users, who will be pleasantly surprised to find that a great deal of their software already works on the Mac, with the advantage of a better user experience, greater security, etc.
Well, how about they do away with anonymous voting? Because if the voters are voting well, and they are not voting for any evildoers (like writing in Osama bin Laden's name), then they have nothing to hide!
Steve Jobs now owns about 7% of Disney, if I remember correctly. That makes him the single largest shareholder, but not the majority shareholder. So he doesn't "own" Disney, technically. But then again, this is Steve Jobs we're talking about, so I expect to see him work his way to the top in due time.
...And "democrat" and "republican" (lowercase) mean basically the same thing, but that doesn't mean the Democrats and Republicans believe the same things.
I know you're probably posting this inflammatory oversimplification on purpose, but I feel like responding anyway. Socialism refers to governmental programmes to bring economic security to all citizens. A further extreme would be communism; the converse would be American-style conservative economics, the further extreme of which is laissez-faire capitalism. If I remember correctly, the "national socialist" name referred to their Aryan nationalist ideology, the "socialist" bit referring to their policy of promoting the "Aryan race" above all others. The ideology of socialism (beyond economics) strongly favours democracy and social progress. The Nazi government was fascist, which, in general, is something like a corporatist-oligarchic authoritarian state; this is practically the opposite of the philosophy of socialism.
I am totally opposed to "trusted computing," but there's a workaround. This won't make a difference for people who really need anonymity (that is, those who don't even want to attach an IP address to their online actions). There is no reason why strong proxy systems like JAP and Tor would be less effective under this. Unless such software is banned, it would work exactly the same as now. Suppose you're using Tor on a TPM-occupied machine. The entry node of your tunnel will know your exact identity, just as now it knows your exact IP address. And by the time your data reaches the exit node of your tunnel, that information will be gone. The destination server will receive the identity details of whoever runs the exit node. So don't panic; anonymity would still be an option.
(By the way, isn't it slightly ironic that Slashdot is decrying the potential end of internet anonymity, when this very site denounces its own anonymous users as "cowards"?)
or shed some light on how this actually threatens my stylishly antiquated md5 shadow file?
It doesn't. These programs generate two files which hash to the same value. They do not generate new files mapping to an existing hash. (There'll probably eventually be a way to do that, but not yet.) Your shadow file is safe, pretty much.
By the time you successfully download the index, the people with the file you want will probably have gone offline. Freenet is just too damn slow. It looks like they're doing some interesting things with the upcoming version 0.7, though, so maybe it will become more usable for things like that.
There is a strongly anonymous file sharing application under development, I2Phex, based on the I2P anonymous transport. Unfortunately, though, it's based on Gnutella, and the anonymous transport substantially reduces the speed, so once the network grows fairly large, it'll probably be congested to the point of being useless. Hopefully a program will be developed based on a more efficient algorithm like Chord or Kademlia.
Internet2 is not a network. It is a consortium of participating universities, research organizations, companies, etc. The IP backbone in question, developed by Internet2, is called Abilene.
Here is a very useful site, listing estimates of how long various algorithms will be secure, and at what key sizes. It covers public- and secret-key algorithms, as well as hashes.
This is only interesting on a theoretical level. These days I don't think anyone uses a 1024 bit RSA key for serious purposes. Banks would probably use no less than 2048 bit.
Ooh, [Listening to 11.975Mhz] = I like it! Thanks muchly for the linkage.
It is inducing gigglement, and the cute girls make it worthwhile.:D But it does not immediately strike me as brilliant in the same way as Pokey does. 11.975Mhz seems to be more silliness/randomness based. I can appreciate silliness and randomness, but I see some major distinction between that and Pokey's style. Words fail me, however, in actually explaining this distinction. What do you think?
I also recommend Farchie Archie, Spamusement, and Animutation. (The latter is a Flash genre rather than a comic strip, but it's a similar sort of humour.)
Slashdot Mirror
On Mac OS X, swap is stored (by default) in files in the /var/vm directory on the boot hard drive, instead of on a separate partition. So there's no limit to how much is used, nor a predefined minimum amount of space used, the swap space expanding and contracting as needed. That seems reasonable.
True, but I don't think there's any situation in which that notation would be applied to a pointer to an Objective-C object. The compiler could check the type of the receiver, and if it's a C array, then compile it as usual, but if it's an Objective-C object, then translate it to some internally designated accessor method call. That couldn't be hard, considering C++ allows much more overloading of C expressions while still compiling them as usual when they're actually applied to plain C types.
If I remember correctly, GCC yields an error if a subscript expression is used on an Objective-C object anyway. That behaviour could simply be revised to transparently translate a[x] to [a objectAtIndex:x] (or [a valueForKey:x] if x is also an object rather than an integer).
From what's known so far, Objective C 2.0 also has some other interesting new features. It now has a "foreach"-style construct (actually for (x in blah)), and obj.property notation supporting internal getters and setters. God willing, maybe we'll soon see array/dictionary construction and access without ridiculous syntax like [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects: ..., nil] and [array objectAtIndex:blah]. (Maybe the former could be shortened as @{a, b, c, ...}, like how NSString construction consists of C-style syntax prefixed with @. The latter has an obvious choice -- the array[blah] notation used everywhere else in the universe.)
"I finally look like a real person!" -- Lisa Simpson
"I finally look like a real programming language!" -- Objective-C
(Not that it wasn't a real programming language before; it just got ridiculous sometimes how much really basic syntactic sugar it lacked.)
Why does this "discovery" merit a Slashdot article? I figured this out in 9th grade biology class.
"This would allow members to discuss sensitive issues and share information without having to worry that it would be made widely public, he said."
:)
I don't think he's fully grasping the concept of open source.
Actually, the APSL is indeed considered free by the FSF. But it is not copyleft nor is it GPL-compatible.
Not really. I see it as similar to Microsoft transitioning (their third-party developers at least) from the Win32 API to the open, cross-platform .NET ABI and API. That's a strategy to make it a preferred development environment on other platforms, but still provide the best-quality runtime and integration on their own platform. I think it makes sense from a business standpoint; opening up Cocoa to Windows support could be a response to Microsoft's cross-platform compatibility efforts. Combined with this new support for running Windows on Macs, it will not hurt Apple's market share, and it will increase their mind share.
A while ago, I heard a rumour (I don't remember if it was purported insider information or just speculation) that Apple would release a Cocoa runtime/development environment for Windows, like a revival of the old OpenStep/Yellow Box. If so, then combined with Boot Camp, then this is actually a brilliant strategy for transitioning people to a full native Mac environment. They give normal users a way to use nice Mac hardware with their existing Windows software, and they provide a software development environment for Windows programmers that is superiour to what Microsoft is providing with Win32, .NET, etc. The number of Cocoa programs increases as Windows developers start using it to build native software; at the same time, the number of people with Mac hardware (though without using the Mac OS at first) increases. Then Apple starts providing transition information to Windows-On-Mac users, who will be pleasantly surprised to find that a great deal of their software already works on the Mac, with the advantage of a better user experience, greater security, etc.
This is an interesting development indeed.
Well, how about they do away with anonymous voting? Because if the voters are voting well, and they are not voting for any evildoers (like writing in Osama bin Laden's name), then they have nothing to hide!
Any GPLed software by FSF will become GPLv3, presumably. So yes, gcc will become GPLv3. However, glibc is LGPL, so that will not be changing.
Steve Jobs now owns about 7% of Disney, if I remember correctly. That makes him the single largest shareholder, but not the majority shareholder. So he doesn't "own" Disney, technically. But then again, this is Steve Jobs we're talking about, so I expect to see him work his way to the top in due time.
...that the name "MacBook Pro" is also only a prototype...
...And "democrat" and "republican" (lowercase) mean basically the same thing, but that doesn't mean the Democrats and Republicans believe the same things.
I know you're probably posting this inflammatory oversimplification on purpose, but I feel like responding anyway. Socialism refers to governmental programmes to bring economic security to all citizens. A further extreme would be communism; the converse would be American-style conservative economics, the further extreme of which is laissez-faire capitalism. If I remember correctly, the "national socialist" name referred to their Aryan nationalist ideology, the "socialist" bit referring to their policy of promoting the "Aryan race" above all others. The ideology of socialism (beyond economics) strongly favours democracy and social progress. The Nazi government was fascist, which, in general, is something like a corporatist-oligarchic authoritarian state; this is practically the opposite of the philosophy of socialism.
Heh... meanwhile, we also need a "-1: Missed Obvious Sarcasm" moderation.
Maybe GNAA will be considered a terrorist organisation now!
That's ok, because it's called Yahoo Widgets, not Dashboard. The article submitter lied, I guess, and Slashdot's "editors" did no fact-checking.
I am totally opposed to "trusted computing," but there's a workaround. This won't make a difference for people who really need anonymity (that is, those who don't even want to attach an IP address to their online actions). There is no reason why strong proxy systems like JAP and Tor would be less effective under this. Unless such software is banned, it would work exactly the same as now. Suppose you're using Tor on a TPM-occupied machine. The entry node of your tunnel will know your exact identity, just as now it knows your exact IP address. And by the time your data reaches the exit node of your tunnel, that information will be gone. The destination server will receive the identity details of whoever runs the exit node. So don't panic; anonymity would still be an option.
(By the way, isn't it slightly ironic that Slashdot is decrying the potential end of internet anonymity, when this very site denounces its own anonymous users as "cowards"?)
It doesn't. These programs generate two files which hash to the same value. They do not generate new files mapping to an existing hash. (There'll probably eventually be a way to do that, but not yet.) Your shadow file is safe, pretty much.
By the time you successfully download the index, the people with the file you want will probably have gone offline. Freenet is just too damn slow. It looks like they're doing some interesting things with the upcoming version 0.7, though, so maybe it will become more usable for things like that.
There is a strongly anonymous file sharing application under development, I2Phex, based on the I2P anonymous transport. Unfortunately, though, it's based on Gnutella, and the anonymous transport substantially reduces the speed, so once the network grows fairly large, it'll probably be congested to the point of being useless. Hopefully a program will be developed based on a more efficient algorithm like Chord or Kademlia.
Internet2 is not a network. It is a consortium of participating universities, research organizations, companies, etc. The IP backbone in question, developed by Internet2, is called Abilene.
Here is a very useful site, listing estimates of how long various algorithms will be secure, and at what key sizes. It covers public- and secret-key algorithms, as well as hashes.
http://www.keylength.com/
This is only interesting on a theoretical level. These days I don't think anyone uses a 1024 bit RSA key for serious purposes. Banks would probably use no less than 2048 bit.
Well, duh. His account's listed URL is a LiveJournal. :)
Ooh, [Listening to 11.975Mhz] = I like it! Thanks muchly for the linkage.
It is inducing gigglement, and the cute girls make it worthwhile. :D But it does not immediately strike me as brilliant in the same way as Pokey does. 11.975Mhz seems to be more silliness/randomness based. I can appreciate silliness and randomness, but I see some major distinction between that and Pokey's style. Words fail me, however, in actually explaining this distinction. What do you think?
I also recommend Farchie Archie, Spamusement, and Animutation. (The latter is a Flash genre rather than a comic strip, but it's a similar sort of humour.)