but it still doesn't answer whether there will be windows only PHP extensions. Will it be another java type fiasco, this time with incompatible PHP's? I certainly hope not. If this is MS's way of screwing it up so badly that people say "screw PHP", kinda like MS did with CSS and IE, that would royally suck. Zend, and all PHP developers should be very wary.
I've heard it said that liberals favor unity and conservatives favor division.
yes, because it's only the right that plays the race game. I mean, Ray "chocolate city" Nagin is an archetypal republican. I'm a school teacher, and racial identity politics is one of the seven sacrments of the church or the left. Or is multi-culturalism the brianchild of the right? How does John Kerry's "million disenfranchised blacks" without any evidence supporting it and even evidence to the contrary promote unity?
Yes, maybe I wasn't paying too much attention in 2000, but then again, I didn't vote for Bush in 2000. Didn't vote for Gore either. I didn't mistake "compassionate conservatism" for anything other than just cloaked big government. I only became more supportive of Bush as he decided to fight an agressive war on terror. I am disappointed that we're not fighitng it agressively enough. We can disagree (and probably will) but my feeling is that Truman or FDR would not have had any qualms about offending anyone's sensitivities regarding threats to this country. You'd be surprised to know that I don't fault Clinton for the failure to address islamicism in the 1990's. Hell, who was really concerned about it?
As for Bush, let's just say I am pissed at the republicans for violating a basic principle of their party: small government. damn hypocrites. or liars. hell, like there's a difference.
which is exactly why I don't understand the liberal love fest for clinton. he signed welfare reform and balanced budgets and yes, cut government. sure it took divided goverment, but still, the current occupant the white house has been a huge disappointment. of course, he never claimed to be a reagan/goldwater disciple and he sure has been anything but. clinton was more a moderate republican than democrat. it's hell for libertarians like me. what the hell ever happened to Article 1, Section 8?
You apparently know nothing of what you claim such strong emotions about. First, Israel is hardly an apartheid state. What country in the middle east can Palestinans vote? What country can they own property? What country can they serve in parliament? What country do they have full legal protections of the courts and law? If you know the answer to each, which I highly doubt, then your sig and churlish post must have been designed to elicit a the type of response it has. For in each case, the answer is the same: Israel. How many Palestinians, or any Arabs in any Arab country for that matter, have been tried and sent to jail for crimes against Jews or Israelis? News flash, none. Yet Israelis are right now in jail because of crimes committed against Palestinians.
If the Palestinians wanted peace, they could have it right now. All they have to do is acknowledge Isreal's right to exist, end the violence, and begin things like trade. That's it. They refuse all of that. It is they that want a perpetual state of war, they that want to destroy Isreal, etc. Consider this: at the southern end of Israel, across the Gulf of Acquba, one can see (one of) the Saudi's largest oil refineries, defended only by a token police force. no anti-aircraft batteries, no airplanes, etc. Why? It is litteraly a 2 minute flight from Israeal, yet it will never happen. Why? Because Israel has no claims or animosity towards the Saudis.
Should Israel have wanted to invade and conquer Syria, Jordan, et al., it would have long since done so. Instead, it pursues simply to peacefully live, nay exist, alongside its neighbors. It would rather trade goods than missiles and threats. Given its large arsenal, how many missiles did they shoot into Iraq? How many Israeli PM's have threatened Iran with annihiliation? How many countries does Israel have a perpetual decalration of war against? How many terrorists does Israel fund to blow themselves up in Arab restaraunts? But you already know the answers to those, I presume.
I don't think it's anti-semitism, anti-Jewish, or anti-anything that drives you. It's pure stupidity and ignorance.
(not posted anon because I'll at least stand on the truth and facts. of course I'll be modded down. Such is the/. life.)
only the government can censor anything. when a firm makes a decision to purposefully not provide content, that is not censorship. it might not be a policy you or I agree with, fine. every time I hear so and so is "censoring", it makes my blood boil. if you don't like waht a company does, such as Walmart not selling certain cd's, DON"T SHOP THERE, if you don't like YouTube's policies, open you own damn website. when the government says you can't do those things, then cry censorship. until then, just say YouTube made a corporate decision...
It's the continual lowering of standards in the core courses and grade inflation.
AMEN!!! I teach high school economics, government, and history. I hear all the time, "I tried." Actually, bulls*** they tried. I am sure that each previous generation said of the next, "kids today (fill in the blank)" but something I see today is far different from the past. I was no prize in high school and didn't care about actually learning anything until college, when a) I had some really good professors and b) the material was interesting. However, what's changed is that today's students have unrealistically high expectations about what they "deserve", from teachers, life, the world, and unrealistically low expectations about what is expected of them. When I was in school, if I did a crap job or put little effort into something (and yes, I did), I didn't bitch when the prof or teacher called me on it. And, I expected to grow up and have to work hard. The other thing is that back then, we at least knew it was cheating, and figured we might get one by the old dude. Today they a) don't think it's cheating and b) don't care if they're cheating.
For example, I had my econ class do a semester project on a current issue, evaluated from an economic perspective. I.e. immigration, not about laws, language, etc., but about wages, supply and demand of labor, etc. So, one student literally copies and pastes the entire paper from the internet (at least it was a reputable source!!), I print the entire article out, attach it to the paper with a 0 on it, and he complains that "well, I didn't copy the whole thing." That was the funniest part. The paper was too long and he took only the first half. His mom even had the audacity to ask me to give a chance at a rewrite. I said emphatically no, and save a specific school policy on cheating, and thankfully the admin backing me, I might have been forced to allow a rewrite. And that's the saddest part.
My government students (and my econ students as well) are seniors, and they ask me how long the final is. I say 60 years. Huh? Well, they're 18, life expectancy is 78-79 years, so I say simply that they are going to learn how our political system (or economic system for that matter) works and they are going to be functioning productive members of a republic (not a democracy by the way) for their entire lives or we are going to see a Pisastratus or a Sulla.
All this therapeutic, self-esteem, student-centered learning paradigm has done is create babbling, whining, intellectually vacuous, apathetic, lazy kids. And we wonder why businesses want to hire people from south o' the border or want to send jobs overseas, to people who at the least will work hard. And all we have to do is look at election 2004 and ask, "our great nation, and those two were the best we could do?" (by the way, bash the president all you want, I have many complaints as well, me of the small "l" libertarian fold, but c'mon, Kerry? Hell, at least give me a choice, not a revolver!!!)
some time ago when I was busier setting up servers for my school (unbeknownst to my linux-phobic district honchos!!) because the librarian and others couldn't wait for a district approved solution, anyways...I was forced to learn vim because admining a server without a gui (I was running P166's w/32mb ram which make great small servers). Anyways, the best advice I can give you is to learn a basic subset of vim. Then, you can add things to the knowledge base as needed.
I personally love vim, but, it does take some time to get used to. First, it is entirely oposite a standard text editor. I.e., no common key sequences. So ctrl-c/v/x etc don't work. And you never use a mouse, which again is hard to adjust to. However, you'll be much faster once you ignore the mouse.
Learn some of the notations in vim. For example, $ means end of the line. Thus, d$ means delete to the end of the line. Hitting $ takes you to the end of the line.
Here's an example of vim's power. Say you're coding java and you want you need to comment out to functions, let's say lines 48-72. Now, you could scroll up to line 48 and type/* then scroll down to line 72 and type */ or:
type in command mode:
:48,72s/^/\/\//g
Some quick useful things:
d means delete and copy to buffer
y means copy to buffer
p means paste
w takes you to the next word (10w advances 10 words)
b takes you to the previous word (10w takes you 10 words back) :47 takes you to line 47 :$ takes you to the end fo the doc,:0 to the beginning :r -filename- will read filename into the file. useful for a variety of things.
know when you're in command versus edit mode. There's so much more to the editor, but as I said, learn a few basic things, and then gradually acquire more. Once yo udo so, you'll find that you are really more productive. At least that's been my experience.
the ipod is facing the only serious competition from, guess what?, older ipods. the problem is sort of like cell phones. everyone who wants one pretty much has one. the market now is as much keeping current customers and luring switchers. for the ipod, the problem is that the ipod you bought last year is still perfect for your needs. the number of people who really want one and can buy one but have one is probably very small. it's not so much as a fad as more market equilibrium. the ipod targeted a certain sector in the market. not too many older folks are going to buy one, and as for younger people, it's hard to justify to mom and dad you need a second ipod.
sun is dying. at least apple, for its relatively small market share (on computers, not iPods), has tremendous influence over the industry. sun is barely a pimple on the IT world's ass anymore. this is I would gather, just another example of how poorly led sun really is. sad when you think about it. one time on top of the world, dot-com mania, etc. just shows you that corporate leadership really does matter. all the brilliance in the world in engineering will not help if the suits are fsck ups.
This makes me wonder if you've ever worked within a corporation.
Worse. I'm a teacher and I work in a school district, so I am fully aware how tech-phobic, mypoic and avers to change some, er, many, er most, can be. I always loved the "I don't do windows/mac" line, and this from educators who you'd think would e able to learn something new. Jeez. Now, nobody expects a school district, or any publi institution to give two shits abotu cost savings, but businesses run on the profit motive (our schools should too, but that's another issue) so if they can save money, you'd think they'd give it a shot. But it goes back to my original point that if businesses hire morons, they will pay alot more down the road.
No, I don't expect people to just be able to switch in 5 minutes, but is OO.org really so different? hardly. The truth is that people can make the change, especially if they have to. Tell your employees "hey, we're moving to this software..." and you know what, they will learn it. As for recipes, it wouldn't take much to come up with some kind of cheat sheet for most common things. Every version of office changes, and somehow the employees had to learn it. And they don't even have the luxury of a home copy.
this is where businesses are dumb. word processing is a skill. period. the actual differences between word and OO.org are almost nil. Apple's Pages OTOH is a little different but it is a "mac" app so it adheres to mac standards. i do like pages though it took a few minutes to get used to the inspector. businesses could switch to OO.org on windows and unless they have complete morons working for them (which is another issue altogether!!) it'd take 10 minutes to convert. tell me seriously, for most WP stuff, what is the real diff? besides, it's free. all they have to say "here's a disk, install it at home, learn it." you think they can do that with a new version of Office. I'm sure MS is just so willing to allow cube farmers to install a business version on their home box.
that's interesting. I use the nvidia driver (which I know isn't gpl'd) and haven't any problems. of course I've had iBook problems (mouse and video) that most others have not. I'll give ubuntu some time as I have it on my classroom computer. If it crashes, I'll go another route. So far it's been stable for the last few days. I'll have to see.
I love ubuntu. easy install, recognizes all hardwrae, even my wifi. synaptic is great. debian is like my kayak I fish off of: great platform, but I had to add the custom rod holders, bait tank, etc. now it's a fishing machine. ubuntu has taken a great base and made it into truly an awesome OS.
My experiences are probably not the norm, but they are mine. I had two separate iBooks with two different yet recurring problems. Why? I've no idea. I never claimed it was data, but simply what I have dealt with.
apparently, someone never heard of sarcasm. And you are right, it is a bitch removing the HDD's from the G3's. The G4's are a little better. I hope Apple has made it easier with the new MB's. Maybe my experiences are unique, I don't know. I really hope they are as I love OS X, not just for the *nix but for the iApps as well. Hey, i've got kids and there's nothing that compares to iMovie!!
I agree there as I use a G3/350 iMac for my general home usage. I have 10.3 on it and it is basically my "grandma" computer, you know, email, web, etc. Nothing fancy. I keep all my personal info on it, so I don't have to worry should my laptop get lost, etc. Plus, I have two firewire/USB hard drives for music, video, backup, etc. I also have a G3/233 that is in the kids' room and hums along nicely. The wife's mini has been almost flawless for a year. My mom has had a G4/700 iMac for 4 years run perfectly and my dad's eMac for two years do the same. My sister uses powermacs at her production studio and her powermacs at home like wise have not had hardware problems.
Given my experiences, I'd say that mac desktops are top notch but their laptops are flaky. I'm a teacher and need a good laptop. I love Keynote which I use daily in class, and as I teach programming as well, OS X is the perfect platform. However, right now I only need java for the AP Comp Sci and next year (hopefully!!) or the year after we're going to expand our comp sci offerings. I'll be using python, ruby, along with AMP and javascript so nothing will be windows centric (i.e. no VB!!!) and linux will work equally as well. It pains me that I've had problems with their hardware, but that's just been my experience. And, as I mentioned, Apple has had quite a few problems as of late. I'd buy a new iMac in a second but I need the portability. Perhaps when Leopard comes out, the kinks will worked out of the MB's and I'll feel more confident. Until then, I'll wait.
I wish I had mod points. I have two iBooks, a G3 and a G4. The G3 had video problems and had to be sent back 2X. Then, just after the 3 year warranty ran out, it up and died. Just got a beep, and nothing else on boot. Tried everything, and nothing worked. I had to rip out the hard drive to salvage all my work. No problem there, but accessing the HDD is a 2 hour operation (or close to it) and basically fsck's up the computer. Now, the G4 has had repeated mouse problems. It's been on repair 2X and the thrid time I just said fsck it, I'll use a USB mouse. The screen also has brightness problems, sometimes getting darker. But hey, I'll deal with it because OS X is sweet. But, why haven't I bought a new MB? Very simple. I don't trust Apple hardware enough. And recent reports of all kinds of problems I think justify my hesitation. I am seriously thinking of scrounging up a good ThinkPad on ebay and installing Ubuntu.
xenu.net? at least we agree there!! as for contracts, no, libertarians (and I hardly speak for any but myself) wouldn't recognize that any contract is okay. for one, few if any would agree that a slavery contract woudl be acceptable, even if agreed to by both sides. There are basic human rights and those must be observed and protected by the government. Some libertarians, myself included here, understand that there is a social contract, that we agree to give up certain absolutes in the state of nature and willingly accept certain limitations on our actions. usually they imply those with externalities, those that impose a cost on others. For example, motorcycle helmet laws. A purist libertarian says the law is wrong, except that would also imply that the state has no responsibility if, er when, the motorcyclist crashes and explodes his brains on the freeway. other than just cleaning up, there is no obligation to transport or care for. In fact, motorcyclist insurance are actually subsidized by auto drivers. but a real libertarian understands that the cost of not wearing a helmet is borne by more than just the motorcyclist, and thus helmet laws are lawful and maybe necessary.
many confure liberatrian with libertine however there is a huge difference. getting back to the contract, if we voluntarily agree to live in a society, than we must accept those constraints that society imposes so long as our inalienable rights are not abridged. thus the libertarian dilemma: how to make a government powerful enough to enforce the social contract and protect rights, without being simultaneously powerful enough to violate and deprecate those same rights? you do so with a strict and inflexible constitution, one that severely limits the government to few and defined powers only. anything else is left "to the states or the people."
if it does what you need, then it's a good tool. for you.
if it can help speed a project along, then it's a good tool. for that project,
if it's stregth's fit with your needs, then it's a good choice.
it it's weaknesses aren't neceassrily a problem, then it's a good choice.
you wouldn't write a kernel in java or python, and likewise you wouldn't write a log file parser in C. there's a reason why millions of web sites out there are based on LAMP. and it isn't because they're "free". a good programmer writes good code in whatever language they use. and a good programmer uses the right tool for the job.
One more thing amazes me: the level of complete ignorance on basic governmental responsibility. Go read (reread I know would be the wrong word) Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, his Politics, and even his Ethics. Read Plato's Republic. Read Locke, Rousseau. Read Adams and Madison. Read the Federalist papers. Why? Well, for one, you'll understand that government has few basic and necessary responsibilities. The first and foremost is to protect it's people, the second to protect property rights. ultimate freedom requires that the government protect those rights. otherwise, anarchy ensues, which by any other name is a form of totalitarianism. the government must be very limited, and only do those things which protect freedom. It must have full power to do so. that is called the social contract. but you knew that, right? and that is the heart of being a libertarian. I recognize the difference between a limited government and ordered society, and anarchy which is the complete absence of freedom. though in an anarchist state I'd be technically "free" to do whatever I desire, so too does everyone else, and with no limits.
I teach HS gov't (among other things) and this has been an ongoing debate for, well, 220+ years. If you remember the FDR years, he tried to pack the court after they kept overturning his New Deal legislation. Ultimately, two justices retired, and he was able to put his people on the bench and get his programs past the courts. It was a sad day for true lovers of liberty. (Make no mistake, I applaus FDR for taking on the Nazis when few wanted to. But domestically...) There was a 1942 SCOTUS decision called Wickard v. Filburn which basically stretched the commerce clause to enormous proportions. It is oddly enough, under the guise of the commerce clause that the drug war is justified. The courts (not the people, though we have no problem with most of it) have granted the congress powers to do whatever it feels necessary. The elastic clause states that congress has the power to do all things necessary and proper to execute the "foregoing powers", in other words, those specifically listed under Art. I, Sect. 8. But...the days of limited gov't are over. What amazes me is that around here, all of those that decry the NSA wiretapping, Gitmo, loss of privcy, et al., have no problem with the gov't running health care, and all sorts of programs. Me? I'm a libertarian on msot things. I am opposed to the stem cell bill on libertarian grounds: i.e. the gov't is simply not authorized and should not get involved. Same thing with the NEA. I don't care if some guy wants to do research on stem cells or take photos of dude with things shoved up his ass. I just don't want the gov't involved in any sense, either saying what they can or can't do, nor spending a dime on it. But sadly, I'm in the vast minority. Most people, republicans and democrats alike, want the very same things. They want the gov't to effect their agenda, though the outcomes might be different, the means are the same. I disagree on means. The growth in power and influence of the gov't in our lives has increased tenfold the last few decades. There's precious little we can do.
my only concern with future OS X versions is that Apple veers from a UNIX core. As long as I can get AMP, python, etc., identical to linux, then I'm not going to get religious or anything. for me it's more practical. I don't know enough about the core internals of a UNIX system, but I imagine it is possible that Apple breaks compatibility in the future. it's not like they haven't done that already, many times over. I can't say that I don't care taht Apple has basically abandoned its true open source venture, but they still pimp open source to a degree. I guess if they feel that there is little value in that as a sales pitch, they'll walk away. their market is rapidly expanding, and it's not coming from linux/unix geeks. it's coming from people fed up with windows and wouldn't know (or care about) a command line from a traut line.
Slashdot Mirror
Sun to control PHP?
but it still doesn't answer whether there will be windows only PHP extensions. Will it be another java type fiasco, this time with incompatible PHP's? I certainly hope not. If this is MS's way of screwing it up so badly that people say "screw PHP", kinda like MS did with CSS and IE, that would royally suck. Zend, and all PHP developers should be very wary.
All of this is irrelevant against a government that has tanks and other superior firepower.
which as we all know has been tremendously effecttive in stopping the Iraqi insurgency.
I've heard it said that liberals favor unity and conservatives favor division.
yes, because it's only the right that plays the race game. I mean, Ray "chocolate city" Nagin is an archetypal republican. I'm a school teacher, and racial identity politics is one of the seven sacrments of the church or the left. Or is multi-culturalism the brianchild of the right? How does John Kerry's "million disenfranchised blacks" without any evidence supporting it and even evidence to the contrary promote unity?
Yes, maybe I wasn't paying too much attention in 2000, but then again, I didn't vote for Bush in 2000. Didn't vote for Gore either. I didn't mistake "compassionate conservatism" for anything other than just cloaked big government. I only became more supportive of Bush as he decided to fight an agressive war on terror. I am disappointed that we're not fighitng it agressively enough. We can disagree (and probably will) but my feeling is that Truman or FDR would not have had any qualms about offending anyone's sensitivities regarding threats to this country. You'd be surprised to know that I don't fault Clinton for the failure to address islamicism in the 1990's. Hell, who was really concerned about it?
As for Bush, let's just say I am pissed at the republicans for violating a basic principle of their party: small government. damn hypocrites. or liars. hell, like there's a difference.
which is exactly why I don't understand the liberal love fest for clinton. he signed welfare reform and balanced budgets and yes, cut government. sure it took divided goverment, but still, the current occupant the white house has been a huge disappointment. of course, he never claimed to be a reagan/goldwater disciple and he sure has been anything but. clinton was more a moderate republican than democrat. it's hell for libertarians like me. what the hell ever happened to Article 1, Section 8?
You apparently know nothing of what you claim such strong emotions about. First, Israel is hardly an apartheid state. What country in the middle east can Palestinans vote? What country can they own property? What country can they serve in parliament? What country do they have full legal protections of the courts and law? If you know the answer to each, which I highly doubt, then your sig and churlish post must have been designed to elicit a the type of response it has. For in each case, the answer is the same: Israel. How many Palestinians, or any Arabs in any Arab country for that matter, have been tried and sent to jail for crimes against Jews or Israelis? News flash, none. Yet Israelis are right now in jail because of crimes committed against Palestinians.
/. life.)
If the Palestinians wanted peace, they could have it right now. All they have to do is acknowledge Isreal's right to exist, end the violence, and begin things like trade. That's it. They refuse all of that. It is they that want a perpetual state of war, they that want to destroy Isreal, etc. Consider this: at the southern end of Israel, across the Gulf of Acquba, one can see (one of) the Saudi's largest oil refineries, defended only by a token police force. no anti-aircraft batteries, no airplanes, etc. Why? It is litteraly a 2 minute flight from Israeal, yet it will never happen. Why? Because Israel has no claims or animosity towards the Saudis.
Should Israel have wanted to invade and conquer Syria, Jordan, et al., it would have long since done so. Instead, it pursues simply to peacefully live, nay exist, alongside its neighbors. It would rather trade goods than missiles and threats. Given its large arsenal, how many missiles did they shoot into Iraq? How many Israeli PM's have threatened Iran with annihiliation? How many countries does Israel have a perpetual decalration of war against? How many terrorists does Israel fund to blow themselves up in Arab restaraunts? But you already know the answers to those, I presume.
I don't think it's anti-semitism, anti-Jewish, or anti-anything that drives you. It's pure stupidity and ignorance.
(not posted anon because I'll at least stand on the truth and facts. of course I'll be modded down. Such is the
only the government can censor anything. when a firm makes a decision to purposefully not provide content, that is not censorship. it might not be a policy you or I agree with, fine. every time I hear so and so is "censoring", it makes my blood boil. if you don't like waht a company does, such as Walmart not selling certain cd's, DON"T SHOP THERE, if you don't like YouTube's policies, open you own damn website. when the government says you can't do those things, then cry censorship. until then, just say YouTube made a corporate decision...
what? you want to tickle my ass with a feather? oh, particularly nice weather.
AMEN!!! I teach high school economics, government, and history. I hear all the time, "I tried." Actually, bulls*** they tried. I am sure that each previous generation said of the next, "kids today (fill in the blank)" but something I see today is far different from the past. I was no prize in high school and didn't care about actually learning anything until college, when a) I had some really good professors and b) the material was interesting. However, what's changed is that today's students have unrealistically high expectations about what they "deserve", from teachers, life, the world, and unrealistically low expectations about what is expected of them. When I was in school, if I did a crap job or put little effort into something (and yes, I did), I didn't bitch when the prof or teacher called me on it. And, I expected to grow up and have to work hard. The other thing is that back then, we at least knew it was cheating, and figured we might get one by the old dude. Today they a) don't think it's cheating and b) don't care if they're cheating.
For example, I had my econ class do a semester project on a current issue, evaluated from an economic perspective. I.e. immigration, not about laws, language, etc., but about wages, supply and demand of labor, etc. So, one student literally copies and pastes the entire paper from the internet (at least it was a reputable source!!), I print the entire article out, attach it to the paper with a 0 on it, and he complains that "well, I didn't copy the whole thing." That was the funniest part. The paper was too long and he took only the first half. His mom even had the audacity to ask me to give a chance at a rewrite. I said emphatically no, and save a specific school policy on cheating, and thankfully the admin backing me, I might have been forced to allow a rewrite. And that's the saddest part.
My government students (and my econ students as well) are seniors, and they ask me how long the final is. I say 60 years. Huh? Well, they're 18, life expectancy is 78-79 years, so I say simply that they are going to learn how our political system (or economic system for that matter) works and they are going to be functioning productive members of a republic (not a democracy by the way) for their entire lives or we are going to see a Pisastratus or a Sulla.
All this therapeutic, self-esteem, student-centered learning paradigm has done is create babbling, whining, intellectually vacuous, apathetic, lazy kids. And we wonder why businesses want to hire people from south o' the border or want to send jobs overseas, to people who at the least will work hard. And all we have to do is look at election 2004 and ask, "our great nation, and those two were the best we could do?" (by the way, bash the president all you want, I have many complaints as well, me of the small "l" libertarian fold, but c'mon, Kerry? Hell, at least give me a choice, not a revolver!!!)
some time ago when I was busier setting up servers for my school (unbeknownst to my linux-phobic district honchos!!) because the librarian and others couldn't wait for a district approved solution, anyways...I was forced to learn vim because admining a server without a gui (I was running P166's w/32mb ram which make great small servers). Anyways, the best advice I can give you is to learn a basic subset of vim. Then, you can add things to the knowledge base as needed.
/* then scroll down to line 72 and type */ or:
:48,72s/^/\/\//g
:47 takes you to line 47
:$ takes you to the end fo the doc, :0 to the beginning
:r -filename- will read filename into the file. useful for a variety of things.
I personally love vim, but, it does take some time to get used to. First, it is entirely oposite a standard text editor. I.e., no common key sequences. So ctrl-c/v/x etc don't work. And you never use a mouse, which again is hard to adjust to. However, you'll be much faster once you ignore the mouse.
Learn some of the notations in vim. For example, $ means end of the line. Thus, d$ means delete to the end of the line. Hitting $ takes you to the end of the line.
Here's an example of vim's power. Say you're coding java and you want you need to comment out to functions, let's say lines 48-72. Now, you could scroll up to line 48 and type
type in command mode:
Some quick useful things:
d means delete and copy to buffer
y means copy to buffer
p means paste
w takes you to the next word (10w advances 10 words)
b takes you to the previous word (10w takes you 10 words back)
know when you're in command versus edit mode. There's so much more to the editor, but as I said, learn a few basic things, and then gradually acquire more. Once yo udo so, you'll find that you are really more productive. At least that's been my experience.
the ipod is facing the only serious competition from, guess what?, older ipods. the problem is sort of like cell phones. everyone who wants one pretty much has one. the market now is as much keeping current customers and luring switchers. for the ipod, the problem is that the ipod you bought last year is still perfect for your needs. the number of people who really want one and can buy one but have one is probably very small. it's not so much as a fad as more market equilibrium. the ipod targeted a certain sector in the market. not too many older folks are going to buy one, and as for younger people, it's hard to justify to mom and dad you need a second ipod.
sun is dying. at least apple, for its relatively small market share (on computers, not iPods), has tremendous influence over the industry. sun is barely a pimple on the IT world's ass anymore. this is I would gather, just another example of how poorly led sun really is. sad when you think about it. one time on top of the world, dot-com mania, etc. just shows you that corporate leadership really does matter. all the brilliance in the world in engineering will not help if the suits are fsck ups.
Ah well, users. No wonder in the movies the computers always try to get rid of them...
probably the best line I've read around here in ages!!
This makes me wonder if you've ever worked within a corporation.
Worse. I'm a teacher and I work in a school district, so I am fully aware how tech-phobic, mypoic and avers to change some, er, many, er most, can be. I always loved the "I don't do windows/mac" line, and this from educators who you'd think would e able to learn something new. Jeez. Now, nobody expects a school district, or any publi institution to give two shits abotu cost savings, but businesses run on the profit motive (our schools should too, but that's another issue) so if they can save money, you'd think they'd give it a shot. But it goes back to my original point that if businesses hire morons, they will pay alot more down the road.
No, I don't expect people to just be able to switch in 5 minutes, but is OO.org really so different? hardly. The truth is that people can make the change, especially if they have to. Tell your employees "hey, we're moving to this software..." and you know what, they will learn it. As for recipes, it wouldn't take much to come up with some kind of cheat sheet for most common things. Every version of office changes, and somehow the employees had to learn it. And they don't even have the luxury of a home copy.
this is where businesses are dumb. word processing is a skill. period. the actual differences between word and OO.org are almost nil. Apple's Pages OTOH is a little different but it is a "mac" app so it adheres to mac standards. i do like pages though it took a few minutes to get used to the inspector. businesses could switch to OO.org on windows and unless they have complete morons working for them (which is another issue altogether!!) it'd take 10 minutes to convert. tell me seriously, for most WP stuff, what is the real diff? besides, it's free. all they have to say "here's a disk, install it at home, learn it." you think they can do that with a new version of Office. I'm sure MS is just so willing to allow cube farmers to install a business version on their home box.
that's interesting. I use the nvidia driver (which I know isn't gpl'd) and haven't any problems. of course I've had iBook problems (mouse and video) that most others have not. I'll give ubuntu some time as I have it on my classroom computer. If it crashes, I'll go another route. So far it's been stable for the last few days. I'll have to see.
I love ubuntu. easy install, recognizes all hardwrae, even my wifi. synaptic is great. debian is like my kayak I fish off of: great platform, but I had to add the custom rod holders, bait tank, etc. now it's a fishing machine. ubuntu has taken a great base and made it into truly an awesome OS.
My experiences are probably not the norm, but they are mine. I had two separate iBooks with two different yet recurring problems. Why? I've no idea. I never claimed it was data, but simply what I have dealt with.
apparently, someone never heard of sarcasm. And you are right, it is a bitch removing the HDD's from the G3's. The G4's are a little better. I hope Apple has made it easier with the new MB's. Maybe my experiences are unique, I don't know. I really hope they are as I love OS X, not just for the *nix but for the iApps as well. Hey, i've got kids and there's nothing that compares to iMovie!!
I agree there as I use a G3/350 iMac for my general home usage. I have 10.3 on it and it is basically my "grandma" computer, you know, email, web, etc. Nothing fancy. I keep all my personal info on it, so I don't have to worry should my laptop get lost, etc. Plus, I have two firewire/USB hard drives for music, video, backup, etc. I also have a G3/233 that is in the kids' room and hums along nicely. The wife's mini has been almost flawless for a year. My mom has had a G4/700 iMac for 4 years run perfectly and my dad's eMac for two years do the same. My sister uses powermacs at her production studio and her powermacs at home like wise have not had hardware problems.
Given my experiences, I'd say that mac desktops are top notch but their laptops are flaky. I'm a teacher and need a good laptop. I love Keynote which I use daily in class, and as I teach programming as well, OS X is the perfect platform. However, right now I only need java for the AP Comp Sci and next year (hopefully!!) or the year after we're going to expand our comp sci offerings. I'll be using python, ruby, along with AMP and javascript so nothing will be windows centric (i.e. no VB!!!) and linux will work equally as well. It pains me that I've had problems with their hardware, but that's just been my experience. And, as I mentioned, Apple has had quite a few problems as of late. I'd buy a new iMac in a second but I need the portability. Perhaps when Leopard comes out, the kinks will worked out of the MB's and I'll feel more confident. Until then, I'll wait.
I wish I had mod points. I have two iBooks, a G3 and a G4. The G3 had video problems and had to be sent back 2X. Then, just after the 3 year warranty ran out, it up and died. Just got a beep, and nothing else on boot. Tried everything, and nothing worked. I had to rip out the hard drive to salvage all my work. No problem there, but accessing the HDD is a 2 hour operation (or close to it) and basically fsck's up the computer. Now, the G4 has had repeated mouse problems. It's been on repair 2X and the thrid time I just said fsck it, I'll use a USB mouse. The screen also has brightness problems, sometimes getting darker. But hey, I'll deal with it because OS X is sweet. But, why haven't I bought a new MB? Very simple. I don't trust Apple hardware enough. And recent reports of all kinds of problems I think justify my hesitation. I am seriously thinking of scrounging up a good ThinkPad on ebay and installing Ubuntu.
xenu.net? at least we agree there!! as for contracts, no, libertarians (and I hardly speak for any but myself) wouldn't recognize that any contract is okay. for one, few if any would agree that a slavery contract woudl be acceptable, even if agreed to by both sides. There are basic human rights and those must be observed and protected by the government. Some libertarians, myself included here, understand that there is a social contract, that we agree to give up certain absolutes in the state of nature and willingly accept certain limitations on our actions. usually they imply those with externalities, those that impose a cost on others. For example, motorcycle helmet laws. A purist libertarian says the law is wrong, except that would also imply that the state has no responsibility if, er when, the motorcyclist crashes and explodes his brains on the freeway. other than just cleaning up, there is no obligation to transport or care for. In fact, motorcyclist insurance are actually subsidized by auto drivers. but a real libertarian understands that the cost of not wearing a helmet is borne by more than just the motorcyclist, and thus helmet laws are lawful and maybe necessary.
many confure liberatrian with libertine however there is a huge difference. getting back to the contract, if we voluntarily agree to live in a society, than we must accept those constraints that society imposes so long as our inalienable rights are not abridged. thus the libertarian dilemma: how to make a government powerful enough to enforce the social contract and protect rights, without being simultaneously powerful enough to violate and deprecate those same rights? you do so with a strict and inflexible constitution, one that severely limits the government to few and defined powers only. anything else is left "to the states or the people."
as for the readings, yes, I have.
if it does what you need, then it's a good tool. for you.
if it can help speed a project along, then it's a good tool. for that project,
if it's stregth's fit with your needs, then it's a good choice.
it it's weaknesses aren't neceassrily a problem, then it's a good choice.
you wouldn't write a kernel in java or python, and likewise you wouldn't write a log file parser in C. there's a reason why millions of web sites out there are based on LAMP. and it isn't because they're "free". a good programmer writes good code in whatever language they use. and a good programmer uses the right tool for the job.
One more thing amazes me: the level of complete ignorance on basic governmental responsibility. Go read (reread I know would be the wrong word) Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, his Politics, and even his Ethics. Read Plato's Republic. Read Locke, Rousseau. Read Adams and Madison. Read the Federalist papers. Why? Well, for one, you'll understand that government has few basic and necessary responsibilities. The first and foremost is to protect it's people, the second to protect property rights. ultimate freedom requires that the government protect those rights. otherwise, anarchy ensues, which by any other name is a form of totalitarianism. the government must be very limited, and only do those things which protect freedom. It must have full power to do so. that is called the social contract. but you knew that, right? and that is the heart of being a libertarian. I recognize the difference between a limited government and ordered society, and anarchy which is the complete absence of freedom. though in an anarchist state I'd be technically "free" to do whatever I desire, so too does everyone else, and with no limits.
weep not for my students.
I teach HS gov't (among other things) and this has been an ongoing debate for, well, 220+ years. If you remember the FDR years, he tried to pack the court after they kept overturning his New Deal legislation. Ultimately, two justices retired, and he was able to put his people on the bench and get his programs past the courts. It was a sad day for true lovers of liberty. (Make no mistake, I applaus FDR for taking on the Nazis when few wanted to. But domestically...) There was a 1942 SCOTUS decision called Wickard v. Filburn which basically stretched the commerce clause to enormous proportions. It is oddly enough, under the guise of the commerce clause that the drug war is justified. The courts (not the people, though we have no problem with most of it) have granted the congress powers to do whatever it feels necessary. The elastic clause states that congress has the power to do all things necessary and proper to execute the "foregoing powers", in other words, those specifically listed under Art. I, Sect. 8. But...the days of limited gov't are over. What amazes me is that around here, all of those that decry the NSA wiretapping, Gitmo, loss of privcy, et al., have no problem with the gov't running health care, and all sorts of programs. Me? I'm a libertarian on msot things. I am opposed to the stem cell bill on libertarian grounds: i.e. the gov't is simply not authorized and should not get involved. Same thing with the NEA. I don't care if some guy wants to do research on stem cells or take photos of dude with things shoved up his ass. I just don't want the gov't involved in any sense, either saying what they can or can't do, nor spending a dime on it. But sadly, I'm in the vast minority. Most people, republicans and democrats alike, want the very same things. They want the gov't to effect their agenda, though the outcomes might be different, the means are the same. I disagree on means. The growth in power and influence of the gov't in our lives has increased tenfold the last few decades. There's precious little we can do.
my only concern with future OS X versions is that Apple veers from a UNIX core. As long as I can get AMP, python, etc., identical to linux, then I'm not going to get religious or anything. for me it's more practical. I don't know enough about the core internals of a UNIX system, but I imagine it is possible that Apple breaks compatibility in the future. it's not like they haven't done that already, many times over. I can't say that I don't care taht Apple has basically abandoned its true open source venture, but they still pimp open source to a degree. I guess if they feel that there is little value in that as a sales pitch, they'll walk away. their market is rapidly expanding, and it's not coming from linux/unix geeks. it's coming from people fed up with windows and wouldn't know (or care about) a command line from a traut line.