I kind of agree with you and see your point, however, Machiavelli was a lot more enlightened than many people today realise... eg:
"... one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, whilst the former only desire not to be oppressed. It is to be added also that a prince can never secure himself against a hostile people, because of their being too many, whilst from the nobles he can secure himself, as they are few in number. The worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them; but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him; for they, being in these affairs more far-seeing and astute, always come forward in time to save themselves, and to obtain favours from him whom they expect to prevail. Further, the prince is compelled to live always with the same people, but he can do well without the same nobles, being able to make and unmake them daily, and to give or take away authority when it pleases him."
I work in a media company with a mixed Mac/PC,Windows/OSX environment.
If we start replacing end-of-life PCs with Macs we win all round. Its true.
The windows lovers can keep running windows, the OSX lovers can keep running OSX and whenever someone new starts we can ask them which do they prefer and sit them down at a totally generic workstation.
IT support is easier because everything runs on known hardware and systems can easily be imaged without worrying too much about drivers etc.
Corprate It guy: Hey boss I just bought a bunch of macs at 20% over retail of similiar PC's.
Thats not the sort of % I'm seeing.
Mac minis are incredibly cheap and mac pros are low price to power ratio. And consistent hardware makes for easier maintenance and integration, with a PC every box will have different hardware inside it even if you get the same model (eg Dell)
you'll face the high cost of changing back your IT to the Windows world.
This is not true.
You can run Windows perfectly well on a Mac so if you decide to give up on OSX you can install Windows on them.
Cost of Windows licenses should you choose to go back?
You will have tons of old Windows licenses to reuse on them, in fact using Parallels, VMWare or Bootcamp you would probably still be utilising those Windows licenses .
The only real cost in changing back would be changing back from Mac hardware to PC hardware and thats hardly difficult; all you have to do is buy PC hardware as your Mac hardware reaches the end of its servicable life.
The puncher doesn't fly backwards because his fist is gradually accellerated over a period of time (say 0.3 seconds).
I'm not sure that this gradual acceleration thing really matters.
My old martial arts teacher was able to just stand there and place the palm of his hand on your chest and shove you so that you'd fly right across to the other side of the room with barely any perceptible movement on his part.
It was like some kind of movie magic or something.
To count non-operational (powered off) hours in the MTTF is just as dishonest as any other lie. Do you think aircraft engine manufacturers could get away with that?
How about if aero-engine manufacturers gave MTTF based on engines kept running on the ground in a test harness with big filters in front of their intakes ensuring that no crap gets sucked into them? Not exactly 'powered off' hours.
(Or 'second hand' guitar strings from the Bay City Rollers; not exactly new but then not exactly used either, as Jasper Carrot once noted)
Apple are in a funny (strange not ha-ha) space with their desktop offerings...
The mini has core dup CPU and you get to pick your monitor. The cpu is, er, half a generation behind.
The imac has core *2* duo but you don't get to pick your monitor.
The mac pro has dual *xeon* and you get to pick your monitor but the CPU is a generation behind.
My questions are;
1. will there be a core 2 duo mini?
2. will there be a woodcrest mac pro?
What I'd like to see (and buy) is an imac without the fixed monitor... I'd rather have core 2 duo than core duo and I definitely don't want an overpriced dual xeon.
(personaly I think the new imac is the ugliest machine Apple have yet produced but thats a whole nuther story).
For instance, at one time there were no genes, only RNA. Then there was DNA, then DNA coiled into chromosomes, then methylated DNA coiled into chromosomes.
See what evolution does????
It turns us all into METH addicts!
Even god-fearing Christians are not immune to its lure as Ted Haggard recently demonstrated.
In fact Popper's barely concealled objective was to provide a definition of science that Marxist and Freudian pseudoscience would be unable to meet. In particular he objected to the fact that both claimed to be 'scientific' while declaring their core theories to be absolute truth beyond the possibility of doubt.
I remember when I was doing philosophy of science and, of course, we covered Popper.
The lecturer pointed out that, by Poppers standards, Newtonian mechanics would be a pseudoscience (eg 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction' being logicaly equivalent to Freuds 'Every dream is a neurotic symptom').
I think that by Poppers standards virtually all science would be pseudoscience except perhaps mathematics, if that can be said to be science at all...
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle..."
I always thought that meant that in both cases (the rich man and the camel) it helps a lot if you liquefy them first... (Visions if a large blender standing at the pearly gates).
All we have to do is turn the animal kingdom vegetarian and not only will we have 'uplifted' them to ethical eating, but mother earth will love us back too.
Well pandas gave up eating meat and look at whats happened to them; they've become slow and stupid.
FWIW, pandas *will* eat meat if they happen upon a dead animal and will become more active and frisky afterward, often leading to mating.
Though I will grant that it sucks when you run across code someone else wrote that uses tabs, and if python treats these differently I can only imagine how screwed up it would be
Thats pretty much the situation I found myself in -- downloaded code which (as it turned out) had mixed tabs and space characters. Then editing it, laying out the code in what *appeared* to be the correct indentation levels and wondering why on earth the interpreter kept barfing at syntacticaly correct code.
Whitespace should not introduce syntax errors.
Whitespace has no algorithmic *meaning*, it only has meaning to a human reader, not to a computer.
Languages that enforce legibility (Python is great for that)
A language which makes a semantic distinction between tabs and spaces may give the appearance of enforcing legibility but in fact does little useful to help legibility.
A programming language should not make a distinction on meaning based on whether tabs or spaces are used; all whitespace should be regarded equaly (except, understandably, end of line characters).
Otherwise, python seems ok. I just wish it had a whitespace-agnostic mode.
*I* cannot visualy tell the difference between tabs and spaces, why should the programming language?
Slashdot Mirror
I kind of agree with you and see your point, however, Machiavelli was a lot more enlightened than many people today realise... eg:
"... one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, whilst the former only desire not to be oppressed. It is to be added also that a prince can never secure himself against a hostile people, because of their being too many, whilst from the nobles he can secure himself, as they are few in number. The worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them; but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him; for they, being in these affairs more far-seeing and astute, always come forward in time to save themselves, and to obtain favours from him whom they expect to prevail. Further, the prince is compelled to live always with the same people, but he can do well without the same nobles, being able to make and unmake them daily, and to give or take away authority when it pleases him."
Simple...they may have liked what he did, but they wanted to be the ones in charge, not him.
Why does anyone think the USA got involved? "World domination? Thats our fucking game! Killing brown people? Thats our fucking job!"
I work in a media company with a mixed Mac/PC,Windows/OSX environment.
If we start replacing end-of-life PCs with Macs we win all round. Its true.
The windows lovers can keep running windows, the OSX lovers can keep running OSX and whenever someone new starts we can ask them which do they prefer and sit them down at a totally generic workstation.
IT support is easier because everything runs on known hardware and systems can easily be imaged without worrying too much about drivers etc.
Now who is naive?
Corprate It guy: Hey boss I just bought a bunch of macs at 20% over retail of similiar PC's.
Thats not the sort of % I'm seeing.
Mac minis are incredibly cheap and mac pros are low price to power ratio. And consistent hardware makes for easier maintenance and integration, with a PC every box will have different hardware inside it even if you get the same model (eg Dell)
you'll face the high cost of changing back your IT to the Windows world.
This is not true.
You can run Windows perfectly well on a Mac so if you decide to give up on OSX you can install Windows on them.
Cost of Windows licenses should you choose to go back?
You will have tons of old Windows licenses to reuse on them, in fact using Parallels, VMWare or Bootcamp you would probably still be utilising those Windows licenses .
The only real cost in changing back would be changing back from Mac hardware to PC hardware and thats hardly difficult; all you have to do is buy PC hardware as your Mac hardware reaches the end of its servicable life.
where KMail will nuke your disconnected IMAP folder under certain conditions
The severity of this bug would only match that of the microsoft bug if it deleted the imap folders on the server.
I take it that this is not the case?
How many Americans understand Oliver North's point, that often it is morally correct to break the law?
Every American who lights up a joint.
If Hollywood were only to depict reality, no one would go see movies. Reality is too boring.
Coming soon to a movie theater near you:
"Big Brother -- The Movie"
People *obviously* love reality TV.
The puncher doesn't fly backwards because his fist is gradually accellerated over a period of time (say 0.3 seconds).
I'm not sure that this gradual acceleration thing really matters.
My old martial arts teacher was able to just stand there and place the palm of his hand on your chest and shove you so that you'd fly right across to the other side of the room with barely any perceptible movement on his part.
It was like some kind of movie magic or something.
To count non-operational (powered off) hours in the MTTF is just as dishonest as any other lie. Do you think aircraft engine manufacturers could get away with that?
How about if aero-engine manufacturers gave MTTF based on engines kept running on the ground in a test harness with big filters in front of their intakes ensuring that no crap gets sucked into them? Not exactly 'powered off' hours.
(Or 'second hand' guitar strings from the Bay City Rollers; not exactly new but then not exactly used either, as Jasper Carrot once noted)
Thats about as logical as claiming that Linux is an inferior OS to Windows because less people use it!
Oh I don't know... suppose that more people had genital herpes than had HIV.
That would mean that HIV is an inferior virus to genital herpes.
wow if only the sales people knew this :-/
Apple are in a funny (strange not ha-ha) space with their desktop offerings...
The mini has core dup CPU and you get to pick your monitor. The cpu is, er, half a generation behind.
The imac has core *2* duo but you don't get to pick your monitor.
The mac pro has dual *xeon* and you get to pick your monitor but the CPU is a generation behind.
My questions are;
1. will there be a core 2 duo mini?
2. will there be a woodcrest mac pro?
What I'd like to see (and buy) is an imac without the fixed monitor... I'd rather have core 2 duo than core duo and I definitely don't want an overpriced dual xeon.
(personaly I think the new imac is the ugliest machine Apple have yet produced but thats a whole nuther story).
For instance, at one time there were no genes, only RNA. Then there was DNA, then DNA coiled into chromosomes, then methylated DNA coiled into chromosomes.
See what evolution does????
It turns us all into METH addicts!
Even god-fearing Christians are not immune to its lure as Ted Haggard recently demonstrated.
In fact Popper's barely concealled objective was to provide a definition of science that Marxist and Freudian pseudoscience would be unable to meet. In particular he objected to the fact that both claimed to be 'scientific' while declaring their core theories to be absolute truth beyond the possibility of doubt.
I remember when I was doing philosophy of science and, of course, we covered Popper.
The lecturer pointed out that, by Poppers standards, Newtonian mechanics would be a pseudoscience (eg 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction' being logicaly equivalent to Freuds 'Every dream is a neurotic symptom').
I think that by Poppers standards virtually all science would be pseudoscience except perhaps mathematics, if that can be said to be science at all...
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle..."
I always thought that meant that in both cases (the rich man and the camel) it helps a lot if you liquefy them first... (Visions if a large blender standing at the pearly gates).
Its high time that the sterling advice to be found on The Onion were taken more seriously by parents:
_ experts_call_for
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/child_safety
Kenneth McMillan is a hero of the American People!!!
this is a testament to the power of the sexual drive in humans
I've often thought that the internet, in general, gives us something like a microscope into human sexuality.
Getting advice on how to handle security bugs in your software from someone who works on Sendmail
It could be worse; it could be advice on how to write readable code from the person who wrote qmail.
Retired Air Force General Don Shepperd.
He talks like a sports commentator...
Also, it's interesting to look up the etymology of "algebra" and "algorithm".
Alcohol as well, though in todays climate and Islamic political correctness, that may not go down so well...
(IIRC the Koran refers specificaly to prohibition of date wine so theoretically other alcoholic beverages *should* be fine)
All we have to do is turn the animal kingdom vegetarian and not only will we have 'uplifted' them to ethical eating, but mother earth will love us back too.
Well pandas gave up eating meat and look at whats happened to them; they've become slow and stupid.
FWIW, pandas *will* eat meat if they happen upon a dead animal and will become more active and frisky afterward, often leading to mating.
Though I will grant that it sucks when you run across code someone else wrote that uses tabs, and if python treats these differently I can only imagine how screwed up it would be
Thats pretty much the situation I found myself in -- downloaded code which (as it turned out) had mixed tabs and space characters. Then editing it, laying out the code in what *appeared* to be the correct indentation levels and wondering why on earth the interpreter kept barfing at syntacticaly correct code.
Whitespace should not introduce syntax errors.
Whitespace has no algorithmic *meaning*, it only has meaning to a human reader, not to a computer.
Unless its perl with bleach.
I've had python scripts give syntax errors on files with mixed tabs and spaces. I believe this is an FAQ.
Languages that enforce legibility (Python is great for that)
A language which makes a semantic distinction between tabs and spaces may give the appearance of enforcing legibility but in fact does little useful to help legibility.
A programming language should not make a distinction on meaning based on whether tabs or spaces are used; all whitespace should be regarded equaly (except, understandably, end of line characters).
Otherwise, python seems ok. I just wish it had a whitespace-agnostic mode.
*I* cannot visualy tell the difference between tabs and spaces, why should the programming language?