Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop
on
Don't Be a Sharecropper
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· Score: 2, Interesting
They can make a press release like this:
Windows Version 1000000 will no longer support DirectX in favor of something better, our new super gamer's library. Directx will no longer install on the windows platform. Then...You have to rewrite the game if it is made for their DirectX library (I only use it as an example because many write games in Directx).
But what's that you say, you wrote it for SDL? Microsoft in a daring move announced a brand new hardware interface to the graphic card totally invalidating all the traditional methods of graphics programming. However you are in much better shape because you can take your game to another platform easily.
But you wrote the game in Java you say? In the most daring move ever Microsoft has totally rewritten the Windows APIs and refused to release the documentation leaving sun unable to write a JVM for Windows XP 6 Alpha (MS's release quality is Alpha software).
The point is if you write your game only for windows, you depend on Microsoft's platform. Since it is their platform they can do what they want. They can change whatever they want. They could render whatever libraries you used inoperable. They are like the game wizards for Windows.
At work, you are pretty much a sharecropper anyway. Often they provide the operating environment, hardware, software, and everything else while you just do the work. Should they decide to reorganize or just make bad decisions they can terminate you at will. Even worse, often many here at their jobs are Sharecropper^2.
1. They are sharecroppers at their job as said (sharecropper)
2. Their place of employment has chosen Microsoft(SQL Server 2000,.NET, etc.), Oracle, SAP, etc. mostly out of convenience so they are also a sharecropepr as per the article.
So many of us have no choice but to be sharecropper^2 to feed our families and to survive. The system is flawed!
Even in the Database world: SQL Server 2000, SAP, Sybase, and Oracle are the leaders and the "expert" level database techs are sharecroppers. MySQL or Postgres is laughed at by many employers, I remember one interview "but do you know any real database packages".
So I ask you, are you a Sharecropper^2? But then when you think about it we are like Sharecroppers on the planet earth making some of us Sharecropper^3 even. I wonder who can come up with the highest power of sharecropping?:)
"Weiss said the recording industry should lobby for special taxes on CD burners and Internet access as a way to recoup losses incurred from file sharing, an idea that Grokster's Rosso also supports."
Yeah right, so you can't properly secure your own cd's or whatever, so go ahead and put a tax on internet access and cd burner's to make up losses because of your own incompetence. And as we all know, no one uses CD Burners for say....backups, or transferring legitimate files from one person to another. No one uses the internet to do do legitament things like research. So of course everyone should Pay the RIAA and help them. Never mind that if they really want to stop piracy they should be better protecting their own media.
The worst thing is that the RIAA probably has enough influence in Washington to pull something like this off!! What's next, Microsoft builds an internet monitoring meter into windows to send usage statistics to the government so they can bill you monthly. Then Linux is outlawed for not having the US government metering package?
Actually the fact that hearing the threat of lawsuits he still decided to install Bearshare certainly says something about human psychology. If you tell a person that they cannot do something, they are almost certainly going to try to do it.
It was true with Napster. I know I didn't care for it at first, but after hearing about the legal issues and such and that you were not supposed to be using napster suddenly I couldn't resist. And it is true that all the legal problems of Napster actually increased the user base.
So Microsoft, whatever you do, do NOT fix all of the bugs in windows!!!
Don't be stupid. Clothes aren't one size fits all and neither are Linux distributions. Some people enjoy the thrill of a Slackware install and having to manually trouble shoot and set up much of their own hardware.
For others there is Redhat, which conveniently was missing from your list of linux distros that you are bashing. Redhat is made for idiots in a lot of respects, while it can be set up for the poweruser, the graphical tools are geared towards the novice. FreeBSD's installer is nowhere near as simple as Redhat. Unfortunately these days when people think Linux, more often than not they think Mandrake of Redhat...the majority of the time thinking Redhat and that is fine...unless the user develops a bad opinion towards one of the distributions, then their viewpoint on Linux is skewed. BSD's installer is harder than red hat's so you will lose the newbies to Redhat:-P and that's the bottom line. So eat lots of tongue:-P:-P:-P:-P:-P
The short point is you are only quoting three of the harder (not trying to get flamed here, but compared to Redhat and Mandrake the named ones are harder) to install distributions and saying the argument Linux users use against windows is invalid. Debian, Slackware (DROOL distro of choice DROOL), and Gentoo are made for more advanced users and they have lots of great features. I myself enjoy the challenge of installing Slackware and fussing with my various hardware on different PC's also with my choice I know that some software I will have to upgrade/build myself and I am fine with that.
To assume that Free BSD is easier to install than all the Linux distros, and that the Linux argument against Windows' complicated install is wrong because of just those THREE distributions you cited without accounting for the others is just plain wrong. Get a life.
Most of the stuff you mentioned is simple. It can be learned in 2 books, one on Intro to Programming with Language X, and in one in a book on data structures. There are plenty of books of both of these topics written at the HS level in plain language, so as long as you read and know a bit about computers you can learn easily. If companies let programmers who cannot code sit around and don't force them to read a book, then the company is STUPID. But ultimately I agree, C++ syntax and libraries do not make you a programmer. Not just because of lack of data structures, but a true programmer is not tied to one language, he or she can pick up others quickly and uses the right tool for the right job. But you make it sound like programming is hard or only the elite should, point of fact it is EASY to learn and do. Incidentally, rumor has it that music majors make some of the best programmers. And this comes from executives at more than one company I've interviewed with.
And that's the bottom line....cause I fscking said so!!!!!!
Re:A place to share code and algorithmic knowledge
on
What Math do You Use?
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· Score: 1
a) There Exists the MIT text book which is excellent and full of algorithms, it is taught to most CS majors in algorithm class. "Introduction to Algorithms" by Carmen et. all. It has been posted in at least 4 other posted in the discussion, including one with a direct link to amazon.com...a recommend the second edition though
B) Another GREAT book is called "The Algorithm Design Manual" by Steven S. Skiena. It focuses more on the algorithms than a mathematical analysis of them. It teaches you how to model problems. The second part of the book is just a catalogue of algorithms. The revevant part to your discussion is here . It is the algorithm repository. It contains many implementations of algorithms in each langauge. Some implementations have weird licenses but aside from that it is a great site.
Excellent book though, a bit hard to understand at some points, it includes quite the algorithm library in it. If you didn't use this book in your course, you should definitely get it as a reference. It is full of all sorts of recipes for cookin' some nice code!!!!
PROBLEM SOLVING. Generally ordinary math classes don't teach it very well. You learn how to solve a certain type of problem usually, applied to artificial situations (direct questions like find dy/dx of x^2). This is good for learning the basic math, but it is not good for application to the real world until you get a science class such as physics where you get the general problem solving. In a class like physics every problem is stated in words based on a real world situation and you have to extract what it is saying from the real world situation, then use the appropriate equations. In physics math is just a tool to be used to help solve problems. I say physics because that is the science course I took. Additionally problem solving is important because most standard tests (GRE, SAT, company hiring tests) are packed full of problem solving questions. Standard math is not enough to get through them with perfect scores. Additionally after enough math classes and a science classes you pay attention to detail and apply mathematical thought to extract the meaning of a problem.
Mathematical tools used in CS sometimes:
- Probability [used in simulations to some degree and algorithm analysis however for most algorithms made by programmers it isn't necessary, and usually if an algorithm complicated enough to need it for analysis is used, it is a standard algorithm with the analysis available in a book. For simulations many times the equations/numbers needed are taken by simple formulas based on frequencies]
- Combinatorics [used in statistics/probability but can often look up solutions required. Used in algorithm analysis, but usually simple either addition principle or multiplication principle for nested loops. Most combinatorics algorithms are well known though and can be modelled based on a standard algorithm]
- Induction [most programmers I know run with input instead of using induction to prove correctness]
- Calculus [ mostly unused by programmers..any transformation on a calc equation is often done by the business users of a system. However differentiation is simple but libs/maple can do it for you. Integration, mostly you use numerical methods since the majority of real world problems can't be integrated...tons of libraries for that. Maple or Mathematica can handle any transformation you can't]
- Linear Algebra [ tons of good libs to solve equations. and trying to solve it on your own can result in incorrectness ]
- Numerical Analysis [ most algorithms taught in that class are available in psuedo code from a good algorithm book]
- Differential Equations [ equations we can solve in class for real are limited. Mostly it comes down to numerical approximation methods see Numerical Analysis]
- Algebra [Widely used but can get along with out. Comprehension of variables is VERY helpful in learning computer language though so recommended]
- Logic [ Mostly I found logic obvious, but it is important. Obvious and means both or none, or means either or both, xor and so fourth. Some of demoir's theorems come in handy. For hardware though k-maps and other logic simplification devices are very valuable.]
- Relations/Sets/Relational Database Theory [I recommend this because relational databases are important and a lot of people working on them still don't understand what a join does or why their query generates a cartesian product and so forth. It is possible to learn relational databases without it, I did just fine. However the math theory would help many misconceptions about it]
- Number Theory [much of cryptography is based on this. But the typical user doesn't care. Aka RSA used number theory and came up with a recipe Z = (p)(q) and all the rest of the equations. You can look up the mini algorithms used in an algorithm book ( find prime, solve modulo equation, etc. ). However most users would just use a cryptography library anyway so the point is mute ]
In conclusion I see math as unimportant to a computer programmer in the sense that you can't program without math. However taken as just another tool in a programmer's vast toolbox, math is useful. And knowledge of algebra definitely makes programming go faster than looking up equations or using maple for them. However the mathematical form of thinking is valuable. And problem solving skills are gold. That is the key for being a programmer. So I recommend you all take physics!!! For theoretical work a mathematical background is useful though. For hardware work, mathematics are vital to simplifying the hardware. Knowledge of the standard algorithms and definitely O notation and at least enough algebra to know O(E^x) much much much much much worse than O(n*ln[x]) is good for the good programmer. However most programming work is just logic and looping based on business rules. But there are fun jobs which require more complicated techniques. Most problems can be modeled as a standard algorithmic problem, but it helps to understand the measures of efficiency to know which one to use. it also helps to understand the weaknesses of each algorithm. Don't end up like Rando the demon on Yu Yu Hakusho, he lost the battle for not understanding the weakness of his own stolen technique! Also keep in mind that most higher math is done by specialists and the equations are given to programmers. As one example, statistics work and equations are quite often done by a statistician who has a graduate degree in math/statistics. Accounting equations are often done by an accountant. So for general programming you don't need to know most higher math. But if you are looking to work on theory then yes you should know as much higher math as possible. Then go solve an NP complete problem with a polynomial algorithm so you can make yourself famous!!!!
And that's the bottom line, because cervo said so...
Ok, this is driving me nuts. I distinctly remember entering this approximately 4,348,182 times on my Nintendo, but I cannot remember what game it was. Contra? Metroid? Super Mario? Mike Tyson's Punchout? AAAAAARRRRGH! HELP!
Oh that's easy, it is the Konami code as it was called. It worked on lots of Konami games, including Contra for 30 lives.
To answer your question on do they get the rights do anything submitted here is rule #7 from the rules page "The applicant will maintain all applicable intellectual, technology and design copyrights for the entries submitted to the contest, but the right for disclosure and distribution of entries submitted will belong to both the applicant and the contest host.".
It appears you get all the copyrights but they are allowed to disclose and distribute your product whatever that means. It could mean they can sell it or give it to whoever they want. The terms sound a bit iffy to me. Any lawyers out there want to offer up an interpretation?
Also most higher ups are busy people. A lot of them don't lug around a laptop either. Their reading time is in the limo, on the airplane, or late at night just before bed when their eyes are too tired to stare at a flashing computer screen. Additionally I am a normal person and I prefer to read things in my bed just before I fall asleep. While it does make a statement about an open source e-book, etc., a wider audience will be captured with a paper or dual release. The above argument about installing an ebook reader being too much of a problem is true also.
Also don't forget that many executives don't even know how to use a computer. Their secretaries print out their e-mail on paper for them to read. Or they know how to barely use a computer. It does happen quite often.
Back in high school for me they used novell so it was super easy. We forged a fake login screen and then called the real one, so after capturing a user name and password it would log it to a file on the C drive. Totally undetectable that it was any of us. We got a supervisor password and made life a living hell for our net admin. We gave random users supervisor rights and used their accounts based on other passwords we stole to have fun. Sometimes we would give group EVERYONE supervisor rights. People have been doing this kind of thing a long time. Our downfall was the net admin figured out one of the supervisor accounts of a guy who was fired was logging in, then set up a trap and boom caught us.
This guy was clearly more enterprising in that he stole some money, but the question is why didn't he steal more money? And what is with this installing ready made programs, now it is too easy. In the past you had to make TSR's, forge login screens, alter commands and so fourth it was actually not hard but not every idiot could do it. Now you just go to a website and download a packet sniffer or keystroke recorder. It is too easy to do. And because it is too easy to do you'd think net admins would be more aware and capable.
But then again all these compromised systems are non UNIX like. It is hard to compromise a UNIX system without root access. And joe public can't necessarily get his hands on root access or exploit a bug to steal it so at least UNIX is somewhat secure.
Also from the tone of the article it sounds like the college thinks that maybe the prosecutor went too far. The college seems to be more forgiving. For example "Smith said, noting that Boudreau could have used it with far more devastating consequences. ". So the security consultant is pointing out he could have done worse. And so is the spokesman for the college 'While we are grateful to the attorney general's office for their assistance in this case, it's important to state that Mr. Boudreau gathered personal identification numbers on students but never misused them in any way," said Jack Dunn, a spokesman for the college.' At least the schools aren't blowing the case out of proportion like the prosecutor is. Although he did steal $2000 so he shouldn't walk. It's one thing just to login and play pranks, but it is quite another to steal money or do other things.
True enough but in some places there is a tax per transfer. Maybe for a download tax 8.25% * 64 MB o just.50 / download. Senators, in general, don't know jack about the net as they have proven (see host of stupid laws). The people who lobby for them do.
The article did not mention if the tax is on commercial software, in which case a sales tax would take care of that. Ie if a company buys a license/something normal taxes should take care of that ftp transfer. If the whining government gets their way with internet sales taxes anyway. Or even a tax on license transfers based on money, if the reply about different taxes for license transfers is true. But the article made a specific point of mentioning download tax. Does this mean that even free software, shareware software, GPLed software, etc. is going to be charged?
The article mentions "In addition to sales taxes, Westly said he is considering a tax on Internet access like those that appear on telephone bills. He also is looking at a tax on software downloads."
What does this mean? Especially with regard to "software downloads". At first I was thinking that commercial software ie you buy windows or something and in the future Microsoft offers a cheaper version for delivery by download and here they have it. Naturally you pay a tax on the commercial price was my thought, but this expression is too vague. It does not limit it to commercial. The tax could be $.50 per software download of any type. Also keep in mind that the country is controlled by big business. Someone like Microsoft could easily pay off the government to make it a reality. A tax on any transfer could easily hurt free software. I download tons of free programs that end up crap and I delete. But occasionally I find that one gem that makes it all worth while. This would definitely encourage people to experiment less and then the company with the best advertising budget would probably win your business, instead of Joe Blow out in the middle of the desert who writes a freeware version of the same program.
Too bad slashdot can't dupe money as well as it can dupe stories!!! Otherwise it would be like money really does grow on trees, no slashdot reader would ever need to work again!!!!!
We need some slashdotters to try it, then have taste contests. There can be a nice article on the perfect recipe and washing machine mods to make the best testing bear. Who knows..........
Although in the USA breweries will cry foul and will try to invoke the DMCA on it or something. Similar to the way telephone companies are whining about the public utilities offering low cost internet access.
It is not really so off topic, because power generation is important to everything. If NASA could generate cheap and renewable power, after the rush of the power companies trying to stop it, NASA could make enough to support the space program. But more importantly, the problem with space travel far away is power. Once you get too far from the sun, solar energy is no longer feasible. Also without carrying around explosive fuel, space shuttles would be much safer not to mention cheaper. Fuel weight makes the shuttle heavier and so it needs even more fuel to fly. A nice lightweight energy source such as a laser beam from a satellite or a solar battery in the shuttle itself would be much more efficient and cheap.
Definitely the policies need revision, some sellers of CRAP get really good feedback ratings by promising to also leave a good feedback rating. My sister ordered a bon jovi cd which was shown in the sale in its true cover and said original. Then she got a cd-r burned copy(two months after the agreed upon date). In the package was a little note saying lets trade positive feedback. Instead she left neutral feedback because of how late he was and unresponsive he was. And then BOOM he tacks on negative feedback saying she was unprofessional in retaliation. And there are a lot of other people I know who get retaliatory feedback from people too. I only wish that we knew he was a putz so we could have given him negative instead of neutral feedback. There were no mistakes on our part either, he had the address and stuff, he just kept saying he'd ship it and never got around to it. Then he claimed he shipped it two weeks later and finally four weeks later again he claimed he just shipped it in which case we got it within a week. Although he made no claims of two items. The guy types two or three word e-mails in all caps I mean geez where is the troll protection on e-bay?
Oh well guess I should cancel that trip to the Statue of Liberty.
The US Government has money troubles, and this technology is not cheap, definitely not to scan all the monuments. It takes time so you have to pay the workers to run the scanners, transport the equipment, and so on. Once the images are scanned they have to be processed using up computing power. The article mentions "But after 9/11, the project won a renewed commitment, increased funding, a speedier timetable and access to government helicopters for overhead photography." If the government is short on money but is funding these projects they think an attack is coming(and they should know, they sure take away enough freedom to spy on terrorists and everyone else). The real question is if the US Government thinks an attack is coming, shouldn't the US Citizens and non US Citizens who come to tour the country?
First of all, the article leaves out if the URL was visited previously in the browsing session, or it was a first visit to the URL. Secondly it Does NOT MENTION a specific test with IIS. The article says what IE's teardown sequence looks like, but does not cite a full trace of an IIS server. It is basically a bunch of speculation and conspiracy theory, or the authors were in a hurry. It definitely was NOT scientifically conducted.
I HIGHLY DOUBT that Microsoft would make the connection to an IIS server between Internet Explorer and IIS lose the reliability of TCP. Images and other large files would be a nightmare to get without acknowledgements.
What I think may be happening(ingenious YES and no, read on), assuming the article isn't all just conspiracy theory, is that Internet Explorer visits a website, and leaves the connection open. Then you hit the back button(which is used extensively in web browsing) or you go to other links on the same web server. Because the client doesn't close its end of the TCP connection(REMEMBER TCP IS FULL DUPLEX), half of the connection is open. The client can just send the request immediately, the sequence numbers were already assigned, because the connection was NOT CLOSED. What support is there for my view?
1. ".And that's it. The client doesn't FIN, and the server doesn't ACK. In other words, the connection is kept "half-open" on the server end. The reason for this? Why, to make subsequent connections from IE clients faster." What is this saying? Quite simply subsequent connections would be faster by leaving it open.
2. The article goes on to show IIS's server's sequence, how it shuts down but the client leaves its upstream to the server open.
It's definitely a trade off. It means YOUR computer as well as the IIS server keeps track of the connection. For a one shot deal on a server(frequently for slashdot users), the connection being left open is a waste. Eventually it must time out, but it does eat up some server resources and it would make the slash effect worse on the machine.
The article doesn't mention what non IIS servers do. If the client(IE) doesn't FIN its end of the connection, the connection is not closed. Do other servers time out? I do notice that when web browsing there are a lot of open connections in a timed wait when I use Internet Explorer. I don't think they all use IIS. In this case, their speedup would work on any client. But I am not knowledgable enough about what Apache/other http servers do to know for sure. In my TCP/IP class a year ago in college we discussed the FIN ACK sequence both ways, but didn't discuss what happens if the client decides not to FIN(aka doesn't follow the rules) by most standard servers. It is probably a design decision. Also what does MS IIS do on the first connection? It would probably be best to respond immediately with that packet so the client could immediately open the connection. And the super slow pages could be on servers that don't answer at all so IE has to wait for the request to time out. Essentially what this article is saying is that Microsoft Internet Explorer is a resource hog. But we all knew that already, that's why we call it Internet Exploiter.
Are we forgetting who is making the key? Microsoft is the one making the key! When we look at their programs, we see more bugs than in the Amazon jungle. Is finding the key any different?
What I mean is that a normally you pick a random number for p and q. However would Microsoft really pick a random number? Keeping in mind they are a bunch of college kids fresh out of school and with a distorted view of the real world, I suspect not(either purposely or accidentally). Probably they used a random number generator and didn't seed it properly, or hand picked the key. I suspect that if you find other Microsoft Products with keys(I don't know any) and crack their keys you will see some sort of pattern to the keys. Microsoft loves patterns. If you ever looked at the common Microsoft Interview questions, a lot of them are about finding patterns.
I could just be blowing smoke, but then again there are those who are experts on Microsoft's way of thinking as well as Bill Gates. I think one of them working on the algorithm to find the key would be able to point to good spots in the sample space to use the algorithm on first to increase the probability of that miracle hit.
Or you could call up Microsoft and tell them you are from some software company and you are trying to make an x-box signature or something. After reading the article about the kid who got nuclear materials and information from impersonating a high school physics teacher, as well as the known fact that the easiest vulnerability in any security system to exploit is the ignorant user, I think a pure brute force attack is the wrong form of attack(see previous posts on estimations for how many machines/years/so fourth).
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Here is an interview with Akira Toriyama here.. He recalls inventing the design of the Super Saiyans, that is DBZ. Furthermore this quote should help clear things up, "a third TV series, independent of Toriyama's manga storyline, Dragon Ball GT, which started airing on Japanese TV right after the end of Dragon Ball Z." It is nothing new. There are more than a few web pages whcih discuss this issue. It has been said often(although not 100% sure how true it is) that Toriyama ran out of ideas after making Dragon Ball well the Dragon Ball part of the manga, and DBZ was about extending his ideas as long as possible through suspense.
I hope this clears things up. If not just web search more, there are more than enough web pages, many with unsubstantiated rumors but some are quite accurate. I assure you Toriyama did work on DBZ and didn't work on DBGT.
However I'm not an expert on the manga but I think from the interview that DB and DBZ are all from the Dragon Ball Manga and they just changed the show name but I'm not sure. But I do know that DBZ is based on a manga, because many web pages point out where the anime and manga differ for DBZ. This feat would be quite difficult to perform if DBZ was not based on the manga.
Let's be honest here. Steamboat willy is not making disney any money. I do not know if mickey becomes public domain or not with that release, but let's assume he does.
Disney has always made many classic fairytells incredibly well like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Others have made the same movies in animated form, only disney's are still popular. Let's look at the anime Dragon Ball and DBZ. Both were based on the manga and made by the same guy, they were incredibly entertaining. DBZ quite probably was/is the most popular anime series ever(as said by a number of source, but probably unsubstantiated). Dragon Ball GT was a sequel to Dragon Ball Z not based on the manga. It sucked bad.
The point? Disney is crazy, even if they lost the copyright on Mickey Mouse, in all likelyhood no one else would be able to make a decent Mickey Mouse cartoon. Disney has always been a big force in the entertainment industry, as is shown by most of the other animated fairytails not being as well known as the Disney ones. And even if someone managed to revive mickey mouse and make a fortune, Mickey isn't really making disney a whole lot with his cartoons today. The brand name recognition with Mickey is fixed for disney as well. When people see Mickey, they will automatically think Disney. So if other studios did manage to make cartoons it would be an advertisement for Disney.
In short, Eisner is a moron. Instead of paying for lawyers and buying off politicians, he should invest his money into making a better product. Overall Disney's movies have been going downhill. Admittedly some of them are good such as Monster Inc, but for the most part the majority of Disney movies are starting to suck lately. He should spend less time worrying about nothing and more time worrying about Disney's future.
./configure and make install are simple and beautiful when they work, however lately when I have upgraded some core system software as well as installed some new projects I run into some problems.
The project depends on other libraries which either
A) Are not mentioned in the software documentation at all, so need to look at messages and do some searches to find the libraries.
B) Are linked to on the web page but the link is bad so need to search them randomly, then most of the links from the search engine are bad, but eventually get to the right page.
C) And the worst is when there is an entire tree of dependencies, and most of them have to be installed in a specific order. Installing one package results in a few hours of compiling all the required libraries in the specified orders.
D) some of the libraries you need to install/upgrade are installed to directories other than the program searches. The libraries are in the path, but the program has hardcoded into it/usr/lib/bleh.so. Or you upgrade the library and the upgrade is installed to/usr/local/lib but the older version is in/usr/lib or/lib.
Software installation can be a nightmare. It's just the way it is. In windows more often then not, when a program needs a library, the library is bundled with the program and installed by the installation program. Errors like required DLL's missing are less and less. This is because many of the windows programming environments include package programs to put all the required dll's with the software and to install them if they are not there. Many games that use additional programs(ie DirectX or what nto) will offer to install it if it is not already there. Whereas with Linux I must go cruising the web, downloading the libs I need, compiling them, then the software.
However, distributing the source code is a better option than the binaries in most cases, because of the multitude of systems linux works on. Assuming the program is written without machine dependent parts, if a binary is made for a different system than yours, you have to emulate it and it is much slower than if it was made in your native format. Furthermore code optimized for a 386 does not work as well on a Pentium IV as code optimized for a Pentium IV in many cases. Additionally in the past I used some software in binaries, and many libraries had newer versions made without regard to backwards compatibility, so that because my distribution was newer my old binaries stopped working. This hasn't happened for a long time, probably because libraries are mostly backwards compatible, but still there are no guarantees, so compiling the source and relinking libraries is the best option.
So to sum things up, if you are whining because you can't./configure and make install with it working, you're an IDIOT. But this method is not perfect and the errors mentioned above do occur. Distributing binaries, NOT the best solution to the installation problems. The supported systems by linux are just too different. A binary compiled for your system is more efficient, additionally linkage problems can come into play with pre-compiled binaries. But with binaries, the real convenience in not providing them is for the poor developers. Maybe they do their code on a PowerPC or something, why should they have to go through the trouble of cross compiling for you. I will say one thing though, automake has certainly improved tremendously. A few years ago there were many things it didn't detect and it was necessary to go into the source code and make modifications to get MANY programs to work. Most of my installations once I have the correct libraries work perfectly.
A vision for the future:
Source code comes with a./configure script which will check your system as it does now. Library not found comes up, you are presented with a set of information about the missing option required to get the program to function, and a list of options(Exit setup and install it yourself, Attempt to auto download and install the library online, Adjust path to the library, etc.). This way there is no web searching for the library, you will see the URL where you can get it in the info. Furthermore it could download and install it right away. If that library has depenencies they could be installed. This method would be extremely convenient, even more so than windows. And it shouldn't be too hard, except that authors of software would have to keep track of where they got the libs from and make sure their URLS are still valid. Additionally the test would give detailed information, not only on the missing package but why the test failed. Hacking an auto generated configure script is NOT FUN.
But, even without these changes installation the way it is, is not too hard to learn. For some library heavy software, it can be a pain, but hang in there and you'll survive. Recently I installed a program which required me to update about 15 libraries, it was a pain, it wasn't mentally challenging, the program is installed and works now. If you stick in there you will succeed with your installations too. There is a higher learning curve than with windows since if you don't know what a directory is you'll have trouble in linux, whereas in windows pop cd's in and many autorun and install themselves. If that's the type of user you are, maybe linux is not for you.
But overall the free software programs have made leaps bounds. Autoconf is working better than ever, the compilers are faster than ever, configuring the linux kernel has gotten much simpler, Gnome and KDE are very convenient and come with a slew of applications that are well functional. Office software for Linux has made many advances since the days of Applixware. Even installing the linux kernel source has gotten simpler. make xconfig is a dream come true. The kernel this year has made tremendous advances. The new pre-empting package alone makes 2.5 worth downloading. ALSA support is absolutely wonderful, configuration was almost a breeze. Compare to the old days where I needed much more specific info and addresses for my sound cards, along with DOS driver hacks to initialize them and that is improvement. The community has had many great years in the past, and will continue to have them in the future!!!!!
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They can make a press release like this: Windows Version 1000000 will no longer support DirectX in favor of something better, our new super gamer's library. Directx will no longer install on the windows platform. Then...You have to rewrite the game if it is made for their DirectX library (I only use it as an example because many write games in Directx).
But what's that you say, you wrote it for SDL? Microsoft in a daring move announced a brand new hardware interface to the graphic card totally invalidating all the traditional methods of graphics programming. However you are in much better shape because you can take your game to another platform easily.
But you wrote the game in Java you say?
In the most daring move ever Microsoft has totally rewritten the Windows APIs and refused to release the documentation leaving sun unable to write a JVM for Windows XP 6 Alpha (MS's release quality is Alpha software).
The point is if you write your game only for windows, you depend on Microsoft's platform. Since it is their platform they can do what they want. They can change whatever they want. They could render whatever libraries you used inoperable. They are like the game wizards for Windows.
At work, you are pretty much a sharecropper anyway. Often they provide the operating environment, hardware, software, and everything else while you just do the work. Should they decide to reorganize or just make bad decisions they can terminate you at will. Even worse, often many here at their jobs are Sharecropper^2.
.NET, etc.), Oracle, SAP, etc. mostly out of convenience so they are also a sharecropepr as per the article.
:)
1. They are sharecroppers at their job as said (sharecropper) 2. Their place of employment has chosen Microsoft(SQL Server 2000,
So many of us have no choice but to be sharecropper^2 to feed our families and to survive. The system is flawed!
Even in the Database world: SQL Server 2000, SAP, Sybase, and Oracle are the leaders and the "expert" level database techs are sharecroppers. MySQL or Postgres is laughed at by many employers, I remember one interview "but do you know any real database packages".
So I ask you, are you a Sharecropper^2? But then when you think about it we are like Sharecroppers on the planet earth making some of us Sharecropper^3 even. I wonder who can come up with the highest power of sharecropping?
"Weiss said the recording industry should lobby for special taxes on CD burners and Internet access as a way to recoup losses incurred from file sharing, an idea that Grokster's Rosso also supports."
Yeah right, so you can't properly secure your own cd's or whatever, so go ahead and put a tax on internet access and cd burner's to make up losses because of your own incompetence. And as we all know, no one uses CD Burners for say....backups, or transferring legitimate files from one person to another. No one uses the internet to do do legitament things like research. So of course everyone should Pay the RIAA and help them. Never mind that if they really want to stop piracy they should be better protecting their own media.
The worst thing is that the RIAA probably has enough influence in Washington to pull something like this off!! What's next, Microsoft builds an internet monitoring meter into windows to send usage statistics to the government so they can bill you monthly. Then Linux is outlawed for not having the US government metering package?
Actually the fact that hearing the threat of lawsuits he still decided to install Bearshare certainly says something about human psychology. If you tell a person that they cannot do something, they are almost certainly going to try to do it.
It was true with Napster. I know I didn't care for it at first, but after hearing about the legal issues and such and that you were not supposed to be using napster suddenly I couldn't resist. And it is true that all the legal problems of Napster actually increased the user base.
So Microsoft, whatever you do, do NOT fix all of the bugs in windows!!!
Don't be stupid. Clothes aren't one size fits all and neither are Linux distributions. Some people enjoy the thrill of a Slackware install and having to manually trouble shoot and set up much of their own hardware.
:-P and that's the bottom line. So eat lots of tongue :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P
For others there is Redhat, which conveniently was missing from your list of linux distros that you are bashing. Redhat is made for idiots in a lot of respects, while it can be set up for the poweruser, the graphical tools are geared towards the novice. FreeBSD's installer is nowhere near as simple as Redhat. Unfortunately these days when people think Linux, more often than not they think Mandrake of Redhat...the majority of the time thinking Redhat and that is fine...unless the user develops a bad opinion towards one of the distributions, then their viewpoint on Linux is skewed. BSD's installer is harder than red hat's so you will lose the newbies to Redhat
The short point is you are only quoting three of the harder (not trying to get flamed here, but compared to Redhat and Mandrake the named ones are harder) to install distributions and saying the argument Linux users use against windows is invalid. Debian, Slackware (DROOL distro of choice DROOL), and Gentoo are made for more advanced users and they have lots of great features. I myself enjoy the challenge of installing Slackware and fussing with my various hardware on different PC's also with my choice I know that some software I will have to upgrade/build myself and I am fine with that.
To assume that Free BSD is easier to install than all the Linux distros, and that the Linux argument against Windows' complicated install is wrong because of just those THREE distributions you cited without accounting for the others is just plain wrong. Get a life.
Most of the stuff you mentioned is simple. It can be learned in 2 books, one on Intro to Programming with Language X, and in one in a book on data structures. There are plenty of books of both of these topics written at the HS level in plain language, so as long as you read and know a bit about computers you can learn easily. If companies let programmers who cannot code sit around and don't force them to read a book, then the company is STUPID. But ultimately I agree, C++ syntax and libraries do not make you a programmer. Not just because of lack of data structures, but a true programmer is not tied to one language, he or she can pick up others quickly and uses the right tool for the right job. But you make it sound like programming is hard or only the elite should, point of fact it is EASY to learn and do. Incidentally, rumor has it that music majors make some of the best programmers. And this comes from executives at more than one company I've interviewed with.
And that's the bottom line....cause I fscking said so!!!!!!
a) There Exists the MIT text book which is excellent and full of algorithms, it is taught to most CS majors in algorithm class. "Introduction to Algorithms" by Carmen et. all. It has been posted in at least 4 other posted in the discussion, including one with a direct link to amazon.com...a recommend the second edition though
B) Another GREAT book is called "The Algorithm Design Manual" by Steven S. Skiena. It focuses more on the algorithms than a mathematical analysis of them. It teaches you how to model problems. The second part of the book is just a catalogue of algorithms. The revevant part to your discussion is here . It is the algorithm repository. It contains many implementations of algorithms in each langauge. Some implementations have weird licenses but aside from that it is a great site.
Excellent book though, a bit hard to understand at some points, it includes quite the algorithm library in it. If you didn't use this book in your course, you should definitely get it as a reference. It is full of all sorts of recipes for cookin' some nice code!!!!
PROBLEM SOLVING. Generally ordinary math classes don't teach it very well. You learn how to solve a certain type of problem usually, applied to artificial situations (direct questions like find dy/dx of x^2). This is good for learning the basic math, but it is not good for application to the real world until you get a science class such as physics where you get the general problem solving. In a class like physics every problem is stated in words based on a real world situation and you have to extract what it is saying from the real world situation, then use the appropriate equations. In physics math is just a tool to be used to help solve problems. I say physics because that is the science course I took. Additionally problem solving is important because most standard tests (GRE, SAT, company hiring tests) are packed full of problem solving questions. Standard math is not enough to get through them with perfect scores. Additionally after enough math classes and a science classes you pay attention to detail and apply mathematical thought to extract the meaning of a problem.
Mathematical tools used in CS sometimes:
- Probability [used in simulations to some degree and algorithm analysis however for most algorithms made by programmers it isn't necessary, and usually if an algorithm complicated enough to need it for analysis is used, it is a standard algorithm with the analysis available in a book. For simulations many times the equations/numbers needed are taken by simple formulas based on frequencies]
- Combinatorics [used in statistics/probability but can often look up solutions required. Used in algorithm analysis, but usually simple either addition principle or multiplication principle for nested loops. Most combinatorics algorithms are well known though and can be modelled based on a standard algorithm]
- Induction [most programmers I know run with input instead of using induction to prove correctness]
- Calculus [ mostly unused by programmers..any transformation on a calc equation is often done by the business users of a system. However differentiation is simple but libs/maple can do it for you. Integration, mostly you use numerical methods since the majority of real world problems can't be integrated...tons of libraries for that. Maple or Mathematica can handle any transformation you can't]
- Linear Algebra [ tons of good libs to solve equations. and trying to solve it on your own can result in incorrectness ]
- Numerical Analysis [ most algorithms taught in that class are available in psuedo code from a good algorithm book]
- Differential Equations [ equations we can solve in class for real are limited. Mostly it comes down to numerical approximation methods see Numerical Analysis]
- Algebra [Widely used but can get along with out. Comprehension of variables is VERY helpful in learning computer language though so recommended]
- Logic [ Mostly I found logic obvious, but it is important. Obvious and means both or none, or means either or both, xor and so fourth. Some of demoir's theorems come in handy. For hardware though k-maps and other logic simplification devices are very valuable.]
- Relations/Sets/Relational Database Theory [I recommend this because relational databases are important and a lot of people working on them still don't understand what a join does or why their query generates a cartesian product and so forth. It is possible to learn relational databases without it, I did just fine. However the math theory would help many misconceptions about it]
- Number Theory [much of cryptography is based on this. But the typical user doesn't care. Aka RSA used number theory and came up with a recipe Z = (p)(q) and all the rest of the equations. You can look up the mini algorithms used in an algorithm book ( find prime, solve modulo equation, etc. ). However most users would just use a cryptography library anyway so the point is mute ]
In conclusion I see math as unimportant to a computer programmer in the sense that you can't program without math. However taken as just another tool in a programmer's vast toolbox, math is useful. And knowledge of algebra definitely makes programming go faster than looking up equations or using maple for them. However the mathematical form of thinking is valuable. And problem solving skills are gold. That is the key for being a programmer. So I recommend you all take physics!!! For theoretical work a mathematical background is useful though. For hardware work, mathematics are vital to simplifying the hardware. Knowledge of the standard algorithms and definitely O notation and at least enough algebra to know O(E^x) much much much much much worse than O(n*ln[x]) is good for the good programmer. However most programming work is just logic and looping based on business rules. But there are fun jobs which require more complicated techniques. Most problems can be modeled as a standard algorithmic problem, but it helps to understand the measures of efficiency to know which one to use. it also helps to understand the weaknesses of each algorithm. Don't end up like Rando the demon on Yu Yu Hakusho, he lost the battle for not understanding the weakness of his own stolen technique! Also keep in mind that most higher math is done by specialists and the equations are given to programmers. As one example, statistics work and equations are quite often done by a statistician who has a graduate degree in math/statistics. Accounting equations are often done by an accountant. So for general programming you don't need to know most higher math. But if you are looking to work on theory then yes you should know as much higher math as possible. Then go solve an NP complete problem with a polynomial algorithm so you can make yourself famous!!!!
And that's the bottom line, because cervo said so...
Ok, this is driving me nuts. I distinctly remember entering this approximately 4,348,182 times on my Nintendo, but I cannot remember what game it was. Contra? Metroid? Super Mario? Mike Tyson's Punchout? AAAAAARRRRGH! HELP!
Oh that's easy, it is the Konami code as it was called. It worked on lots of Konami games, including Contra for 30 lives.
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A , start
Memories.......
To answer your question on do they get the rights do anything submitted here is rule #7 from the rules page "The applicant will maintain all applicable intellectual, technology and design copyrights for the entries submitted to the contest, but the right for disclosure and distribution of entries submitted will belong to both the applicant and the contest host.".
It appears you get all the copyrights but they are allowed to disclose and distribute your product whatever that means. It could mean they can sell it or give it to whoever they want. The terms sound a bit iffy to me. Any lawyers out there want to offer up an interpretation?
Also most higher ups are busy people. A lot of them don't lug around a laptop either. Their reading time is in the limo, on the airplane, or late at night just before bed when their eyes are too tired to stare at a flashing computer screen. Additionally I am a normal person and I prefer to read things in my bed just before I fall asleep. While it does make a statement about an open source e-book, etc., a wider audience will be captured with a paper or dual release. The above argument about installing an ebook reader being too much of a problem is true also.
Also don't forget that many executives don't even know how to use a computer. Their secretaries print out their e-mail on paper for them to read. Or they know how to barely use a computer. It does happen quite often.
Back in high school for me they used novell so it was super easy. We forged a fake login screen and then called the real one, so after capturing a user name and password it would log it to a file on the C drive. Totally undetectable that it was any of us. We got a supervisor password and made life a living hell for our net admin. We gave random users supervisor rights and used their accounts based on other passwords we stole to have fun. Sometimes we would give group EVERYONE supervisor rights. People have been doing this kind of thing a long time. Our downfall was the net admin figured out one of the supervisor accounts of a guy who was fired was logging in, then set up a trap and boom caught us.
This guy was clearly more enterprising in that he stole some money, but the question is why didn't he steal more money? And what is with this installing ready made programs, now it is too easy. In the past you had to make TSR's, forge login screens, alter commands and so fourth it was actually not hard but not every idiot could do it. Now you just go to a website and download a packet sniffer or keystroke recorder. It is too easy to do. And because it is too easy to do you'd think net admins would be more aware and capable.
But then again all these compromised systems are non UNIX like. It is hard to compromise a UNIX system without root access. And joe public can't necessarily get his hands on root access or exploit a bug to steal it so at least UNIX is somewhat secure.
Also from the tone of the article it sounds like the college thinks that maybe the prosecutor went too far. The college seems to be more forgiving. For example "Smith said, noting that Boudreau could have used it with far more devastating consequences. ". So the security consultant is pointing out he could have done worse. And so is the spokesman for the college 'While we are grateful to the attorney general's office for their assistance in this case, it's important to state that Mr. Boudreau gathered personal identification numbers on students but never misused them in any way," said Jack Dunn, a spokesman for the college.' At least the schools aren't blowing the case out of proportion like the prosecutor is. Although he did steal $2000 so he shouldn't walk. It's one thing just to login and play pranks, but it is quite another to steal money or do other things.
True enough but in some places there is a tax per transfer. Maybe for a download tax 8.25% * 64 MB o just .50 / download. Senators, in general, don't know jack about the net as they have proven (see host of stupid laws). The people who lobby for them do.
The article did not mention if the tax is on commercial software, in which case a sales tax would take care of that. Ie if a company buys a license/something normal taxes should take care of that ftp transfer. If the whining government gets their way with internet sales taxes anyway. Or even a tax on license transfers based on money, if the reply about different taxes for license transfers is true. But the article made a specific point of mentioning download tax. Does this mean that even free software, shareware software, GPLed software, etc. is going to be charged?
The article mentions "In addition to sales taxes, Westly said he is considering a tax on Internet access like those that appear on telephone bills. He also is looking at a tax on software downloads."
What does this mean? Especially with regard to "software downloads". At first I was thinking that commercial software ie you buy windows or something and in the future Microsoft offers a cheaper version for delivery by download and here they have it. Naturally you pay a tax on the commercial price was my thought, but this expression is too vague. It does not limit it to commercial. The tax could be $.50 per software download of any type. Also keep in mind that the country is controlled by big business. Someone like Microsoft could easily pay off the government to make it a reality. A tax on any transfer could easily hurt free software. I download tons of free programs that end up crap and I delete. But occasionally I find that one gem that makes it all worth while. This would definitely encourage people to experiment less and then the company with the best advertising budget would probably win your business, instead of Joe Blow out in the middle of the desert who writes a freeware version of the same program.
Too bad slashdot can't dupe money as well as it can dupe stories!!! Otherwise it would be like money really does grow on trees, no slashdot reader would ever need to work again!!!!!
The real question is, how does it taste?
We need some slashdotters to try it, then have taste contests. There can be a nice article on the perfect recipe and washing machine mods to make the best testing bear. Who knows..........
Although in the USA breweries will cry foul and will try to invoke the DMCA on it or something. Similar to the way telephone companies are whining about the public utilities offering low cost internet access.
It is not really so off topic, because power generation is important to everything. If NASA could generate cheap and renewable power, after the rush of the power companies trying to stop it, NASA could make enough to support the space program. But more importantly, the problem with space travel far away is power. Once you get too far from the sun, solar energy is no longer feasible. Also without carrying around explosive fuel, space shuttles would be much safer not to mention cheaper. Fuel weight makes the shuttle heavier and so it needs even more fuel to fly. A nice lightweight energy source such as a laser beam from a satellite or a solar battery in the shuttle itself would be much more efficient and cheap.
Definitely the policies need revision, some sellers of CRAP get really good feedback ratings by promising to also leave a good feedback rating. My sister ordered a bon jovi cd which was shown in the sale in its true cover and said original. Then she got a cd-r burned copy(two months after the agreed upon date). In the package was a little note saying lets trade positive feedback. Instead she left neutral feedback because of how late he was and unresponsive he was. And then BOOM he tacks on negative feedback saying she was unprofessional in retaliation. And there are a lot of other people I know who get retaliatory feedback from people too. I only wish that we knew he was a putz so we could have given him negative instead of neutral feedback. There were no mistakes on our part either, he had the address and stuff, he just kept saying he'd ship it and never got around to it. Then he claimed he shipped it two weeks later and finally four weeks later again he claimed he just shipped it in which case we got it within a week. Although he made no claims of two items. The guy types two or three word e-mails in all caps I mean geez where is the troll protection on e-bay?
Oh well guess I should cancel that trip to the Statue of Liberty.
The US Government has money troubles, and this technology is not cheap, definitely not to scan all the monuments. It takes time so you have to pay the workers to run the scanners, transport the equipment, and so on. Once the images are scanned they have to be processed using up computing power. The article mentions "But after 9/11, the project won a renewed commitment, increased funding, a speedier timetable and access to government helicopters for overhead photography." If the government is short on money but is funding these projects they think an attack is coming(and they should know, they sure take away enough freedom to spy on terrorists and everyone else). The real question is if the US Government thinks an attack is coming, shouldn't the US Citizens and non US Citizens who come to tour the country?
First of all, the article leaves out if the URL was visited previously in the browsing session, or it was a first visit to the URL. Secondly it Does NOT MENTION a specific test with IIS. The article says what IE's teardown sequence looks like, but does not cite a full trace of an IIS server. It is basically a bunch of speculation and conspiracy theory, or the authors were in a hurry. It definitely was NOT scientifically conducted.
I HIGHLY DOUBT that Microsoft would make the connection to an IIS server between Internet Explorer and IIS lose the reliability of TCP. Images and other large files would be a nightmare to get without acknowledgements.
What I think may be happening(ingenious YES and no, read on), assuming the article isn't all just conspiracy theory, is that Internet Explorer visits a website, and leaves the connection open. Then you hit the back button(which is used extensively in web browsing) or you go to other links on the same web server. Because the client doesn't close its end of the TCP connection(REMEMBER TCP IS FULL DUPLEX), half of the connection is open. The client can just send the request immediately, the sequence numbers were already assigned, because the connection was NOT CLOSED. What support is there for my view?
1. ".And that's it. The client doesn't FIN, and the server doesn't ACK. In other words, the connection is kept "half-open" on the server end. The reason for this? Why, to make subsequent connections from IE clients faster." What is this saying? Quite simply subsequent connections would be faster by leaving it open.
2. The article goes on to show IIS's server's sequence, how it shuts down but the client leaves its upstream to the server open.
It's definitely a trade off. It means YOUR computer as well as the IIS server keeps track of the connection. For a one shot deal on a server(frequently for slashdot users), the connection being left open is a waste. Eventually it must time out, but it does eat up some server resources and it would make the slash effect worse on the machine.
The article doesn't mention what non IIS servers do. If the client(IE) doesn't FIN its end of the connection, the connection is not closed. Do other servers time out? I do notice that when web browsing there are a lot of open connections in a timed wait when I use Internet Explorer. I don't think they all use IIS. In this case, their speedup would work on any client. But I am not knowledgable enough about what Apache/other http servers do to know for sure. In my TCP/IP class a year ago in college we discussed the FIN ACK sequence both ways, but didn't discuss what happens if the client decides not to FIN(aka doesn't follow the rules) by most standard servers. It is probably a design decision. Also what does MS IIS do on the first connection? It would probably be best to respond immediately with that packet so the client could immediately open the connection. And the super slow pages could be on servers that don't answer at all so IE has to wait for the request to time out. Essentially what this article is saying is that Microsoft Internet Explorer is a resource hog. But we all knew that already, that's why we call it Internet Exploiter.
Are we forgetting who is making the key? Microsoft is the one making the key! When we look at their programs, we see more bugs than in the Amazon jungle. Is finding the key any different?
What I mean is that a normally you pick a random number for p and q. However would Microsoft really pick a random number? Keeping in mind they are a bunch of college kids fresh out of school and with a distorted view of the real world, I suspect not(either purposely or accidentally). Probably they used a random number generator and didn't seed it properly, or hand picked the key. I suspect that if you find other Microsoft Products with keys(I don't know any) and crack their keys you will see some sort of pattern to the keys. Microsoft loves patterns. If you ever looked at the common Microsoft Interview questions, a lot of them are about finding patterns.
I could just be blowing smoke, but then again there are those who are experts on Microsoft's way of thinking as well as Bill Gates. I think one of them working on the algorithm to find the key would be able to point to good spots in the sample space to use the algorithm on first to increase the probability of that miracle hit.
Or you could call up Microsoft and tell them you are from some software company and you are trying to make an x-box signature or something. After reading the article about the kid who got nuclear materials and information from impersonating a high school physics teacher, as well as the known fact that the easiest vulnerability in any security system to exploit is the ignorant user, I think a pure brute force attack is the wrong form of attack(see previous posts on estimations for how many machines/years/so fourth).
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Here is an interview with Akira Toriyama here.. He recalls inventing the design of the Super Saiyans, that is DBZ. Furthermore this quote should help clear things up, "a third TV series, independent of Toriyama's manga storyline, Dragon Ball GT, which started airing on Japanese TV right after the end of Dragon Ball Z." It is nothing new. There are more than a few web pages whcih discuss this issue. It has been said often(although not 100% sure how true it is) that Toriyama ran out of ideas after making Dragon Ball well the Dragon Ball part of the manga, and DBZ was about extending his ideas as long as possible through suspense.
I hope this clears things up. If not just web search more, there are more than enough web pages, many with unsubstantiated rumors but some are quite accurate. I assure you Toriyama did work on DBZ and didn't work on DBGT.
However I'm not an expert on the manga but I think from the interview that DB and DBZ are all from the Dragon Ball Manga and they just changed the show name but I'm not sure. But I do know that DBZ is based on a manga, because many web pages point out where the anime and manga differ for DBZ. This feat would be quite difficult to perform if DBZ was not based on the manga.
Let's be honest here. Steamboat willy is not making disney any money. I do not know if mickey becomes public domain or not with that release, but let's assume he does.
Disney has always made many classic fairytells incredibly well like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Others have made the same movies in animated form, only disney's are still popular. Let's look at the anime Dragon Ball and DBZ. Both were based on the manga and made by the same guy, they were incredibly entertaining. DBZ quite probably was/is the most popular anime series ever(as said by a number of source, but probably unsubstantiated). Dragon Ball GT was a sequel to Dragon Ball Z not based on the manga. It sucked bad.
The point? Disney is crazy, even if they lost the copyright on Mickey Mouse, in all likelyhood no one else would be able to make a decent Mickey Mouse cartoon. Disney has always been a big force in the entertainment industry, as is shown by most of the other animated fairytails not being as well known as the Disney ones. And even if someone managed to revive mickey mouse and make a fortune, Mickey isn't really making disney a whole lot with his cartoons today. The brand name recognition with Mickey is fixed for disney as well. When people see Mickey, they will automatically think Disney. So if other studios did manage to make cartoons it would be an advertisement for Disney.
In short, Eisner is a moron. Instead of paying for lawyers and buying off politicians, he should invest his money into making a better product. Overall Disney's movies have been going downhill. Admittedly some of them are good such as Monster Inc, but for the most part the majority of Disney movies are starting to suck lately. He should spend less time worrying about nothing and more time worrying about Disney's future.
Software installation can be a nightmare.
./configure and make install are simple and beautiful when they work, however lately when I have upgraded some core system software as well as installed some new projects I run into some problems.
/usr/lib/bleh.so. Or you upgrade the library and the upgrade is installed to /usr/local/lib but the older version is in /usr/lib or /lib.
./configure and make install with it working, you're an IDIOT. But this method is not perfect and the errors mentioned above do occur. Distributing binaries, NOT the best solution to the installation problems. The supported systems by linux are just too different. A binary compiled for your system is more efficient, additionally linkage problems can come into play with pre-compiled binaries. But with binaries, the real convenience in not providing them is for the poor developers. Maybe they do their code on a PowerPC or something, why should they have to go through the trouble of cross compiling for you. I will say one thing though, automake has certainly improved tremendously. A few years ago there were many things it didn't detect and it was necessary to go into the source code and make modifications to get MANY programs to work. Most of my installations once I have the correct libraries work perfectly.
./configure script which will check your system as it does now. Library not found comes up, you are presented with a set of information about the missing option required to get the program to function, and a list of options(Exit setup and install it yourself, Attempt to auto download and install the library online, Adjust path to the library, etc.). This way there is no web searching for the library, you will see the URL where you can get it in the info. Furthermore it could download and install it right away. If that library has depenencies they could be installed. This method would be extremely convenient, even more so than windows. And it shouldn't be too hard, except that authors of software would have to keep track of where they got the libs from and make sure their URLS are still valid. Additionally the test would give detailed information, not only on the missing package but why the test failed. Hacking an auto generated configure script is NOT FUN.
The project depends on other libraries which either
A) Are not mentioned in the software documentation at all, so need to look at messages and do some searches to find the libraries.
B) Are linked to on the web page but the link is bad so need to search them randomly, then most of the links from the search engine are bad, but eventually get to the right page.
C) And the worst is when there is an entire tree of dependencies, and most of them have to be installed in a specific order. Installing one package results in a few hours of compiling all the required libraries in the specified orders.
D) some of the libraries you need to install/upgrade are installed to directories other than the program searches. The libraries are in the path, but the program has hardcoded into it
Software installation can be a nightmare. It's just the way it is. In windows more often then not, when a program needs a library, the library is bundled with the program and installed by the installation program. Errors like required DLL's missing are less and less. This is because many of the windows programming environments include package programs to put all the required dll's with the software and to install them if they are not there. Many games that use additional programs(ie DirectX or what nto) will offer to install it if it is not already there. Whereas with Linux I must go cruising the web, downloading the libs I need, compiling them, then the software.
However, distributing the source code is a better option than the binaries in most cases, because of the multitude of systems linux works on. Assuming the program is written without machine dependent parts, if a binary is made for a different system than yours, you have to emulate it and it is much slower than if it was made in your native format. Furthermore code optimized for a 386 does not work as well on a Pentium IV as code optimized for a Pentium IV in many cases. Additionally in the past I used some software in binaries, and many libraries had newer versions made without regard to backwards compatibility, so that because my distribution was newer my old binaries stopped working. This hasn't happened for a long time, probably because libraries are mostly backwards compatible, but still there are no guarantees, so compiling the source and relinking libraries is the best option.
So to sum things up, if you are whining because you can't
A vision for the future:
Source code comes with a
But, even without these changes installation the way it is, is not too hard to learn. For some library heavy software, it can be a pain, but hang in there and you'll survive. Recently I installed a program which required me to update about 15 libraries, it was a pain, it wasn't mentally challenging, the program is installed and works now. If you stick in there you will succeed with your installations too. There is a higher learning curve than with windows since if you don't know what a directory is you'll have trouble in linux, whereas in windows pop cd's in and many autorun and install themselves. If that's the type of user you are, maybe linux is not for you.
But overall the free software programs have made leaps bounds. Autoconf is working better than ever, the compilers are faster than ever, configuring the linux kernel has gotten much simpler, Gnome and KDE are very convenient and come with a slew of applications that are well functional. Office software for Linux has made many advances since the days of Applixware. Even installing the linux kernel source has gotten simpler. make xconfig is a dream come true. The kernel this year has made tremendous advances. The new pre-empting package alone makes 2.5 worth downloading. ALSA support is absolutely wonderful, configuration was almost a breeze. Compare to the old days where I needed much more specific info and addresses for my sound cards, along with DOS driver hacks to initialize them and that is improvement. The community has had many great years in the past, and will continue to have them in the future!!!!!