It's been a long time since I saw a program which compiled cleanly using just./configure, make, and make install, without any input from the user, no matter what system. Consider, for one thing, that package management (on the APT level, not the RPM/DEB level) is an important facet of easy installation, and you can't do this at all when compiling. If you don't have the right stuff installed with all the files in the right places, AND the dev packages of those programs if you didn't compile them too, you simply can't compile.
Anyway, what would be the point? The user wouldn't want to see the source, and you'd still end up with a binary in the end. --
Are you joking? Installing things with Windows (using InstallShield) is a pain in the ass! It only seems better because it's what you're used to. Every application does the process slightly differently and asks you questions in a different order. What you're doing is comparing the best-designed InstallShield installers to the worst RPMs with no package management system and no frontend.
What we need is first for all distros to start using APT (regardless of whether the packages are RPM or DEB), and then to have a pretty graphical frontend (gnome-apt is getting there, if it weren't for the big warning messages telling you you're nuts for using an alpha program to manage your packages). At that point, you can either type in or find in a list the name of a package you want to install, and it'll install just as it would with "apt-get ".
If a package isn't in the distro, then you'll of course need to download it and install it on its own. Yes, it's a few more steps, but then it's okay to have a deterrent to installing software that isn't part of your distro.
In short, instead of asking for Linux package management to take a step backwards and become InstallShield, you should support the development of programs like gnome-apt. --
But then, let's be realistic. In the past year I haven't been aware of anyone who likes Caldera, especially since they tried to reinvent their dying distro as an "eDesktop". I suppose part of IBM's contract with Caldera is to pretend they still matter.
If there is someone out there who actually uses Caldera eDesktop, by choice, please correct me here. --
If you're running Debian, you can automatically download Microsoft's standard fonts using "apt-get install msttcorefonts". The package doesn't contain the fonts, but a script which downloads them from microsoft.com. --
There's a difference though. Phone numbers made of letters are not unique, and in fact 1-800-GATEWAY and, say, 1-800-HAVE-WAX would be the same number. So it would really be impossible to consider a phone number a trademark.
Of course, I don't think domain names SHOULD be considered trademarks, but that's how it will be as long as ICANN is in power... --
No, you should download the fonts for free from wherever they are on microsoft.com.
Or "apt-get install msttcorefonts" on Debian. Believe it or not, they CAN offer this on Debian, since the package doesn't contain the fonts themselves - it contains a script which downloads them. --
That makes a whole lot of sense... what's the point of peer-to-peer sharing if they're going to tell you precisely which songs you can share anyway? If that's the case, Napster might as well be a website containing those "authorized" titles. --
Not really. The RIAA's offer said that you would get the prize money only if you gave your findings to them and nobody else (at which point, of course, they would probably cover it up and threaten to sue if the "winners" talked about it again). The researchers chose not to take the bait of the prize money, so that they could still have a right to their own research. --
You realize that this case isn't about DeCSS, right? It's about a system the RIAA (not the MPAA) came up with to prevent you from listening to copyrighted music without approved equipment, etc. --
In sixth grade a bunch of my geek friends and I set up a "legal system" at the lunch table. The issues we would litigate on were always trivial, of course, and invariably the process would degenerate into all of us shouting "I'm suing you for suing me!" at each other.
The answer is no. There is no way to compress random data without putting that data somewhere else. It is mathematically impossible. Even a quantum computer could not do something impossible. --
If random data could be compressed in a useful way, it would certainly be a mathematical revelation. You would be discovering that (say) 1000000 bits of pure information was equal to 999999 bits of pure information, and it follows directly from there that 1000000 = 999999, 1 = 0, TRUE = FALSE, "the universe" = "gone", etc. --
If the data consists of nothing but digits and leaves you the rest of the ASCII set (or even a few letters like your "a", "b", and "c") to work with, of course you can compress it.
That is not the case in this problem. If you made 'c' mean '9724', you'd have to make something else mean 'c', and something else mean that something else... and in random data you will save nothing.
The flaw is that, for ANY file size, the probability of finding enough 1s in a row to be longer than the code to reinstate them is damn near close to 0. It will never get close to 50%. It won't even get close to 2%, the break even point. It won't even get close to a tiny fraction of a percent. You'd be better off going out and looking for a $5000 bill on the street. --
And you would have destroyed anything anyone knew about information theory in the process! Yay!
Say you had an algorithm that would take a "compressed" file of all but the last 4 bits of information, and guess at the last 4 bits. It'll get it right 1/16 of the time. That's great! You can spend $1600 and win $5000! So then all you need is a program to do this that fits in the remaining half a byte! That's not too hard, right?:P
Say you're a really l33t assembly coder and you can make an algorithm that would do this sort of thing in 20 bytes. You'd then have to guess at least 20 bytes of information on each attempt. The prize for the contest would have to be approximately 1.5 quindecillion dollars (1.5 x 10^48) for you to have a chance to make a profit. --
A *standard* RFC says that if a router doesn't know what to do with one of the reserved bits, it should leave it alone. The router doesn't have to understand ECN to do this. --
Interestingly enough, on Scrabble servers such as MarlDOoM, a computer (named ACBot) which uses exactly that 'greedy' strategy turns out to be not such a great player. I even beat it once.
Once you get two players who are really good at Scrabble, three factors are equally important: vocabulary (you're dead if you don't know useful words like QAT and KEX), strategy (blocking triple word scores, knowing when to open up the board and when to make it nearly impossible to play), and psychology (only with humans, of course - you can leave yourself a hook for a word that you don't believe the other player will know, and of course, bluffing over whether something is a real word is essential). --
Re:Great idea, you personal own ...
on
Fission in a Box
·
· Score: 1
Oh please. It's comments like this that propagate John Q. Public's concept that there's no difference between a nuclear reactor and a bomb.
A nuclear reactor can not explode. A modern nuclear reactor can't even melt down.
The main obstacle to getting nuclear power (the safest, cleanest form of power) used everywhere is the panic people go into when they hear the word 'nuclear'. --
Re:Newton MessagePads: Will there ever be an Upgra
on
PDAs, PDAs
·
· Score: 1
You know what hits a "nerve" with me? People who put things in "quotes" for no apparent "reason". --
Heck, why not get rid of the concept of "sick leave". It's bad for business. People who can't manage to get themselves to work because they're sick should just be fired and replaced by someone luckier.
That seems to follow from your reasoning, at least. You seem to want to go back to the 1800's. --
Slashdot Mirror
You can automate this process by using spamcop.net.
--
It's been a long time since I saw a program which compiled cleanly using just ./configure, make, and make install, without any input from the user, no matter what system. Consider, for one thing, that package management (on the APT level, not the RPM/DEB level) is an important facet of easy installation, and you can't do this at all when compiling. If you don't have the right stuff installed with all the files in the right places, AND the dev packages of those programs if you didn't compile them too, you simply can't compile.
Anyway, what would be the point? The user wouldn't want to see the source, and you'd still end up with a binary in the end.
--
Are you joking? Installing things with Windows (using InstallShield) is a pain in the ass! It only seems better because it's what you're used to. Every application does the process slightly differently and asks you questions in a different order. What you're doing is comparing the best-designed InstallShield installers to the worst RPMs with no package management system and no frontend.
What we need is first for all distros to start using APT (regardless of whether the packages are RPM or DEB), and then to have a pretty graphical frontend (gnome-apt is getting there, if it weren't for the big warning messages telling you you're nuts for using an alpha program to manage your packages). At that point, you can either type in or find in a list the name of a package you want to install, and it'll install just as it would with "apt-get ".
If a package isn't in the distro, then you'll of course need to download it and install it on its own. Yes, it's a few more steps, but then it's okay to have a deterrent to installing software that isn't part of your distro.
In short, instead of asking for Linux package management to take a step backwards and become InstallShield, you should support the development of programs like gnome-apt.
--
So how would a distinctive ring based on pop music help? "I swear that's not my phone! Mine plays 'Crazy' by Britney Spears!"
That should get your head bashed in anyway.
--
But then, let's be realistic. In the past year I haven't been aware of anyone who likes Caldera, especially since they tried to reinvent their dying distro as an "eDesktop". I suppose part of IBM's contract with Caldera is to pretend they still matter.
If there is someone out there who actually uses Caldera eDesktop, by choice, please correct me here.
--
If you're running Debian, you can automatically download Microsoft's standard fonts using "apt-get install msttcorefonts". The package doesn't contain the fonts, but a script which downloads them from microsoft.com.
--
There's a difference though. Phone numbers made of letters are not unique, and in fact 1-800-GATEWAY and, say, 1-800-HAVE-WAX would be the same number. So it would really be impossible to consider a phone number a trademark.
Of course, I don't think domain names SHOULD be considered trademarks, but that's how it will be as long as ICANN is in power...
--
No, you should download the fonts for free from wherever they are on microsoft.com.
Or "apt-get install msttcorefonts" on Debian. Believe it or not, they CAN offer this on Debian, since the package doesn't contain the fonts themselves - it contains a script which downloads them.
--
That makes a whole lot of sense... what's the point of peer-to-peer sharing if they're going to tell you precisely which songs you can share anyway? If that's the case, Napster might as well be a website containing those "authorized" titles.
--
Tell me about it. Now that they've got archives back to 1995, they've got everything I said when I was a clueless AOLer. *hangs head in shame*
--
Not really. The RIAA's offer said that you would get the prize money only if you gave your findings to them and nobody else (at which point, of course, they would probably cover it up and threaten to sue if the "winners" talked about it again). The researchers chose not to take the bait of the prize money, so that they could still have a right to their own research.
--
You realize that this case isn't about DeCSS, right? It's about a system the RIAA (not the MPAA) came up with to prevent you from listening to copyrighted music without approved equipment, etc.
--
In sixth grade a bunch of my geek friends and I set up a "legal system" at the lunch table. The issues we would litigate on were always trivial, of course, and invariably the process would degenerate into all of us shouting "I'm suing you for suing me!" at each other.
I had no idea how accurate we were.
--
You lose.
--
The answer is no. There is no way to compress random data without putting that data somewhere else. It is mathematically impossible. Even a quantum computer could not do something impossible.
--
If random data could be compressed in a useful way, it would certainly be a mathematical revelation. You would be discovering that (say) 1000000 bits of pure information was equal to 999999 bits of pure information, and it follows directly from there that 1000000 = 999999, 1 = 0, TRUE = FALSE, "the universe" = "gone", etc.
--
If the data consists of nothing but digits and leaves you the rest of the ASCII set (or even a few letters like your "a", "b", and "c") to work with, of course you can compress it.
That is not the case in this problem. If you made 'c' mean '9724', you'd have to make something else mean 'c', and something else mean that something else... and in random data you will save nothing.
--
The flaw is that, for ANY file size, the probability of finding enough 1s in a row to be longer than the code to reinstate them is damn near close to 0. It will never get close to 50%. It won't even get close to 2%, the break even point. It won't even get close to a tiny fraction of a percent. You'd be better off going out and looking for a $5000 bill on the street.
--
And you would have destroyed anything anyone knew about information theory in the process! Yay!
:P
Say you had an algorithm that would take a "compressed" file of all but the last 4 bits of information, and guess at the last 4 bits. It'll get it right 1/16 of the time. That's great! You can spend $1600 and win $5000! So then all you need is a program to do this that fits in the remaining half a byte! That's not too hard, right?
Say you're a really l33t assembly coder and you can make an algorithm that would do this sort of thing in 20 bytes. You'd then have to guess at least 20 bytes of information on each attempt. The prize for the contest would have to be approximately 1.5 quindecillion dollars (1.5 x 10^48) for you to have a chance to make a profit.
--
A *standard* RFC says that if a router doesn't know what to do with one of the reserved bits, it should leave it alone. The router doesn't have to understand ECN to do this.
--
Interestingly enough, on Scrabble servers such as MarlDOoM, a computer (named ACBot) which uses exactly that 'greedy' strategy turns out to be not such a great player. I even beat it once.
Once you get two players who are really good at Scrabble, three factors are equally important: vocabulary (you're dead if you don't know useful words like QAT and KEX), strategy (blocking triple word scores, knowing when to open up the board and when to make it nearly impossible to play), and psychology (only with humans, of course - you can leave yourself a hook for a word that you don't believe the other player will know, and of course, bluffing over whether something is a real word is essential).
--
A nuclear reactor can not explode. A modern nuclear reactor can't even melt down.
The main obstacle to getting nuclear power (the safest, cleanest form of power) used everywhere is the panic people go into when they hear the word 'nuclear'.
--
You know what hits a "nerve" with me? People who put things in "quotes" for no apparent "reason".
--
Heck, why not get rid of the concept of "sick leave". It's bad for business. People who can't manage to get themselves to work because they're sick should just be fired and replaced by someone luckier.
That seems to follow from your reasoning, at least. You seem to want to go back to the 1800's.
--
They are surprisingly reasonable about this use of their trademark.
--