And anyone interested in high-performance computing/scripting should check out LuaJIT. One of the coolest software projects ever. Imagine a simple, powerful scripting language that runs as fast (or really close) as compiled C. Kick-ass fast built-in FFI interface and super easy to embed.
Go here if you want to switch off Unity and GNOME3.
Both Unity and GNOME 3 suck. Neither one works correctly with multiple monitors. Try running 4 monitors on two video cards, TwinView'd and Xinerama'd, and you will understand.
I especially hate the global menu bar in Unity. I can sort of live with the similar design in OS X but Unity does it horribly. I'm not even sure what the difference is but I just couldn't stand Unity even though I'm used to OS X.
That's too much. Check out lowendbox and find something you like.
Since you don't need disk space, much RAM or CPU then you should be able to find something that will work for less than $20 a year. They usually come with a fair amount of bandwidth.
I have been programming in C for 25 years so it's not my lack of experience. It's a very simple algorithm anyway, there isn't any more optimization that I can do, it's all in the compiler and LuaJIT just does it better than GCC.
I can't explain it either because until now I didn't think it was possible. This algorithm almost 100% pure math operations and LuaJIT is apparently really fast under certain circumstances.
Plain Lua is nice and all but LuaJIT is where the fun is. It blows the doors off of any other scripting language (and many compiled languages) in terms of performance. I actually have some LuaJIT financial data processing code that runs faster than anything I have been able to code in C. It also has an incredibly awesome and fast FFI interface so you don't even need to write native code to interface with most native libraries.
Lua's Achilles Heal is string performance. It does have awesome tools like LPeg and has powerful string handling functions but if you're handling massive amounts of string data then it starts to bog down because of the string interning. It's still very fast and usually faster than other scripting languages like Python (not as fast as Perl though) but it is a long standing problem that pisses me off considering how fast it is otherwise.
By the same token, not getting enough of certain things can have bad consequences. It's a complicated balance and it's different for every person.
It is my personal theory that the correct diet for an individual is similar to whatever tribe they came from back before modern times when we had to eat whatever was available. Some ate a lot of meat, others mostly grains, some had only fruit, and still others had access to a variety of foods, etc. What is healthy for you depends on what type of tribe you are descended from. This is part of the reason why it's so hard to be healthy these days, it takes a lot of work to figure out what is correct for you from the vast array of choices.
And it's not just the government that does that, businesses do it too. Over the past few years we have seen consumers cutting back personal budgets which causes businesses and governments to increase prices or look for other sneaky ways to get more money from people in order to make their next budget cycle. Which then causes consumers to cut back even more, which then causes business to increase prices even more... and so on.
The whole thing is about to implode here at some point if businesses and government don't recognize that they need to seriously cut spending just like us normal people have been doing. You can't have infinite budget increases when the economy is going the opposite direction.
I had an interesting reaction watching that. It was kind of a base level primal fear instinct that got kicked off. I don't even mind snakes and have had many as pets. I have had some pretty big ones too.
However, seeing one that size and moving like that fired off neurons that said "run away!!" Was weird because that is not a normal reaction for me. It seems like it was specifically the size combined with that slithering movement and not the shape of the thing.
They need to separate the applications from the OS the way every other operation system does (eg. BSD, OSX, Windows, etc).
So you have a core system which is just the most basic requirements to run the OS. Kernel, utilities, display, web browser, etc. I would do it like the BSD's where you have a kernel core, x-windows core, etc. No large apps like OpenOffice and all the other crap. Those can and should be installed separately by the user like they do on every other system.
Then you just maintain and have releases of the core like everyone else does. This is much less work and allows for more focus and higher quality.
The general applications can be done as a rolling release or whatever the user wants. Separate from the core.
This is exactly the type of thing a smartcard would be good for. You could have all unique passwords using the strongest randomizer possible (or use PKI or similar) and only have to remember a simple PIN for your card. The PIN can be relatively short and simple too (although making it more complicated is recommended).
A smartcard provides a hardware level of protection as it's much more difficult to brute force because it can be set to self destruct after a certain number of bad PIN attempts. Usually between 3 and 8 attempts will "permanently" block the PIN. Many cards do also have an unblock PIN and/or transport key but those will also block after some low number of attempts, at which point the whole card will probably be permanently "bricked."
It's not some magical solution to all problems because unless you're using PKI then your password has to be read off the card and transmitted but the range of attacks is much smaller (mostly limited to local attacks on your system versus stuff like the Sony breach).
It's just a fad. It's very similar although not exactly the same as "Not Invented Here" syndrome caused by developer inexperience and naivety.
Although this has happened countless times the primary example I like to take out is Java. Java tried to be minimalistic and "simple" by leaving out all sorts of useful functionality (eg. generics, etc). Now look at it, everything they left out in the beginning is shoehorned into the current versions and it sucks because they failed to account for the functionality in the original design.
What will happen is these products and projects will start out very minimalistic but will then slowly grow into a bloated, poorly designed pieces of shit as the developers realize that some features exist for a reason and are actually needed or just plain useful.
Then there will be backlash against the "idiotic" minimalist approach and we will start to get over-designed, over-complicated, inefficient, bureaucratically designed, and slow to implement bloatware which will slowly shrink into buggy poorly designed pieces of shit as the developers realize that you can't start giant designs and implement the whole thing at once.
Then there will be backlask against the "idiotic" over-complicated software so... (this is what is happening now)
Repeat ad nauseum. Einstein had it right: "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." You need to start with a solid flexible, possibly somewhat complicated design but with the intent and proper planning to only implement a simple subset of the design at first. Then it can grow into the full-blown design over time.
Anyone know of any alternatives that will let me sync my Android phone with all the information I do now? Calendar, phone book, installed applications, bookmarks, etc. It is really handy whenever I wipe my phone or get a new one, everything just magically transfers over. I was even able to cross devices when I switched from Symbian to Android, because I was using the Symbian Google syncing stuff.
I hate that Google has all that information but it's just so damn handy. There is no reason why I couldn't run my own server for that though. Something open source and Linux based would be good.
I don't care if they disable it be default as long as there is some officially supported way to turn it back on.
Many normal users are confused by URL's and the like anyway so removing it might be a good idea as long as "power" users have a way to keep doing what they can do now (unlike GNOME3, Unity, and the other crap that effectively cripples the system for people that know what they are doing).
I'm experiencing none of these issues while running a non-stock setup:
Rooted HTC G2 running CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread 2.3.3). The DHCP server I tested against is a WRT54GS using Tomato 1.28 firmware.
With my setup the phone renews the DHCP lease when it reaches 50% of the expiration time if it is already connected. If it is not connected when the lease expires then it renews it correctly when the next connection is made.
You can't set traps for people even if the only way they would be harmed by it would be because they themselves are doing something illegal.
This does "harm" the person running the illegitimate app because it may cost them money to send all those messages plus any potential fallout from people thinking they are a software pirate.
T-Mobile has the best prepaid plans in the US. I hardly ever use my phone and only pay $10/yr for my prepaid plan (Gold Account and I use less than 90 minutes a year). Yes, that's $10 per year.
Actually most people are using G.711 these days which is in fact a fixed bitrate (it's the same protocol used on your normal "hard" voice line).
But most VoIP providers do not offer SRTP or any encryption whatsoever so this whole thing is not even a question. More than likely anyone can listen in on your VoIP calls. We need to put more pressure on VoIP providers to offer encryption.
Quake Live doesn't run in the browser. It launches from a browser but the game runs in a native browser plugin so it's not like Quake Live is and HTML5 game or something.
I personally wonder how companies expect to make money from games when they are giving out the source code. If your game is truly browser based (ie. written in Javascript and HTML) then everyone has the source code to the client-side code of your game. That's a lot of IP you're just giving away for anyone to copy and use in their own games.
It should work that way though, it's too hard to look through all the crap before even using the app. You don't know why it needs some stuff.
For anything that costs you money it should pop up a dialog the first time. Like "XXXX application wants to send a text message. Allow? Yes/No/Always allow".
Then you know the context in which it wants to use something that costs money.
When I was in high school many moons ago I wanted to get into a programming class but my grades weren't good enough so I had to submit some programming work to the teacher. I gave her the source code for a BBS I had written. I remember having to go through the entire source base looking for profanity I had used in variable names, comments, etc. Being the teenager that I was I would sometimes just use them for no reason.
I remember laughing to myself when I handed her that code. It must have been over 200 pages of printed source and I could tell she probably couldn't even write a sort function. This was back in the 80's when the educational system had almost no computer classes, let alone programming.
It was at that time I realized that sometimes other people look at your code and it can reflect on you. I have never used profanity in source ever again. I also never berate other people's stuff in my code (like poorly written API's I have to use). Clean and professional makes for more readable code and keeps everyone happy, including myself.
I hated it too at first but now I like the buttons on the other side. People are just hard-headed and resistant to change, even if it's better.
Also, as Ubuntu gets popular the "geeks" won't feel special/superior any more and have to go somewhere else to boost their ego.
I think I'm a pretty hard core Linux person. I have been using it for something like 17 or 18 years now. I used to like hacking the system but once I got a handle on that what I want to do now is get work done. I'm happy Ubuntu is popular, that's what I want. I want stuff to "just work" and all my hardware to be supported so I can get real honest work done on a system that is fast, stable, and secure. Screwing around with the OS is the last thing I want to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, I came here to make the same post.
And anyone interested in high-performance computing/scripting should check out LuaJIT. One of the coolest software projects ever. Imagine a simple, powerful scripting language that runs as fast (or really close) as compiled C. Kick-ass fast built-in FFI interface and super easy to embed.
Go here if you want to switch off Unity and GNOME3.
Both Unity and GNOME 3 suck. Neither one works correctly with multiple monitors. Try running 4 monitors on two video cards, TwinView'd and Xinerama'd, and you will understand.
I especially hate the global menu bar in Unity. I can sort of live with the similar design in OS X but Unity does it horribly. I'm not even sure what the difference is but I just couldn't stand Unity even though I'm used to OS X.
That's too much. Check out lowendbox and find something you like.
Since you don't need disk space, much RAM or CPU then you should be able to find something that will work for less than $20 a year. They usually come with a fair amount of bandwidth.
I have been programming in C for 25 years so it's not my lack of experience. It's a very simple algorithm anyway, there isn't any more optimization that I can do, it's all in the compiler and LuaJIT just does it better than GCC.
I can't explain it either because until now I didn't think it was possible. This algorithm almost 100% pure math operations and LuaJIT is apparently really fast under certain circumstances.
Plain Lua is nice and all but LuaJIT is where the fun is. It blows the doors off of any other scripting language (and many compiled languages) in terms of performance. I actually have some LuaJIT financial data processing code that runs faster than anything I have been able to code in C. It also has an incredibly awesome and fast FFI interface so you don't even need to write native code to interface with most native libraries.
Lua's Achilles Heal is string performance. It does have awesome tools like LPeg and has powerful string handling functions but if you're handling massive amounts of string data then it starts to bog down because of the string interning. It's still very fast and usually faster than other scripting languages like Python (not as fast as Perl though) but it is a long standing problem that pisses me off considering how fast it is otherwise.
By the same token, not getting enough of certain things can have bad consequences. It's a complicated balance and it's different for every person.
It is my personal theory that the correct diet for an individual is similar to whatever tribe they came from back before modern times when we had to eat whatever was available. Some ate a lot of meat, others mostly grains, some had only fruit, and still others had access to a variety of foods, etc. What is healthy for you depends on what type of tribe you are descended from. This is part of the reason why it's so hard to be healthy these days, it takes a lot of work to figure out what is correct for you from the vast array of choices.
And it's not just the government that does that, businesses do it too. Over the past few years we have seen consumers cutting back personal budgets which causes businesses and governments to increase prices or look for other sneaky ways to get more money from people in order to make their next budget cycle. Which then causes consumers to cut back even more, which then causes business to increase prices even more... and so on.
The whole thing is about to implode here at some point if businesses and government don't recognize that they need to seriously cut spending just like us normal people have been doing. You can't have infinite budget increases when the economy is going the opposite direction.
I had an interesting reaction watching that. It was kind of a base level primal fear instinct that got kicked off. I don't even mind snakes and have had many as pets. I have had some pretty big ones too.
However, seeing one that size and moving like that fired off neurons that said "run away!!" Was weird because that is not a normal reaction for me. It seems like it was specifically the size combined with that slithering movement and not the shape of the thing.
They need to separate the applications from the OS the way every other operation system does (eg. BSD, OSX, Windows, etc).
So you have a core system which is just the most basic requirements to run the OS. Kernel, utilities, display, web browser, etc. I would do it like the BSD's where you have a kernel core, x-windows core, etc. No large apps like OpenOffice and all the other crap. Those can and should be installed separately by the user like they do on every other system.
Then you just maintain and have releases of the core like everyone else does. This is much less work and allows for more focus and higher quality.
The general applications can be done as a rolling release or whatever the user wants. Separate from the core.
This is exactly the type of thing a smartcard would be good for. You could have all unique passwords using the strongest randomizer possible (or use PKI or similar) and only have to remember a simple PIN for your card. The PIN can be relatively short and simple too (although making it more complicated is recommended).
A smartcard provides a hardware level of protection as it's much more difficult to brute force because it can be set to self destruct after a certain number of bad PIN attempts. Usually between 3 and 8 attempts will "permanently" block the PIN. Many cards do also have an unblock PIN and/or transport key but those will also block after some low number of attempts, at which point the whole card will probably be permanently "bricked."
It's not some magical solution to all problems because unless you're using PKI then your password has to be read off the card and transmitted but the range of attacks is much smaller (mostly limited to local attacks on your system versus stuff like the Sony breach).
It's just a fad. It's very similar although not exactly the same as "Not Invented Here" syndrome caused by developer inexperience and naivety.
Although this has happened countless times the primary example I like to take out is Java. Java tried to be minimalistic and "simple" by leaving out all sorts of useful functionality (eg. generics, etc). Now look at it, everything they left out in the beginning is shoehorned into the current versions and it sucks because they failed to account for the functionality in the original design.
What will happen is these products and projects will start out very minimalistic but will then slowly grow into a bloated, poorly designed pieces of shit as the developers realize that some features exist for a reason and are actually needed or just plain useful.
Then there will be backlash against the "idiotic" minimalist approach and we will start to get over-designed, over-complicated, inefficient, bureaucratically designed, and slow to implement bloatware which will slowly shrink into buggy poorly designed pieces of shit as the developers realize that you can't start giant designs and implement the whole thing at once.
Then there will be backlask against the "idiotic" over-complicated software so... (this is what is happening now)
Repeat ad nauseum. Einstein had it right: "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." You need to start with a solid flexible, possibly somewhat complicated design but with the intent and proper planning to only implement a simple subset of the design at first. Then it can grow into the full-blown design over time.
Anyone know of any alternatives that will let me sync my Android phone with all the information I do now? Calendar, phone book, installed applications, bookmarks, etc. It is really handy whenever I wipe my phone or get a new one, everything just magically transfers over. I was even able to cross devices when I switched from Symbian to Android, because I was using the Symbian Google syncing stuff.
I hate that Google has all that information but it's just so damn handy. There is no reason why I couldn't run my own server for that though. Something open source and Linux based would be good.
I don't care if they disable it be default as long as there is some officially supported way to turn it back on.
Many normal users are confused by URL's and the like anyway so removing it might be a good idea as long as "power" users have a way to keep doing what they can do now (unlike GNOME3, Unity, and the other crap that effectively cripples the system for people that know what they are doing).
Then censorship in a baby carriage.
I'm experiencing none of these issues while running a non-stock setup:
Rooted HTC G2 running CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread 2.3.3). The DHCP server I tested against is a WRT54GS using Tomato 1.28 firmware.
With my setup the phone renews the DHCP lease when it reaches 50% of the expiration time if it is already connected. If it is not connected when the lease expires then it renews it correctly when the next connection is made.
You can't set traps for people even if the only way they would be harmed by it would be because they themselves are doing something illegal.
This does "harm" the person running the illegitimate app because it may cost them money to send all those messages plus any potential fallout from people thinking they are a software pirate.
That is what it sounds like to me too. Morons are just suggesting possibilities of what it could be rather than actually solving the problem.
That's what happens when you involve the general population of idiots.
T-Mobile has the best prepaid plans in the US. I hardly ever use my phone and only pay $10/yr for my prepaid plan (Gold Account and I use less than 90 minutes a year). Yes, that's $10 per year.
AT&T is going to kill that, I know they are.
Actually most people are using G.711 these days which is in fact a fixed bitrate (it's the same protocol used on your normal "hard" voice line).
But most VoIP providers do not offer SRTP or any encryption whatsoever so this whole thing is not even a question. More than likely anyone can listen in on your VoIP calls. We need to put more pressure on VoIP providers to offer encryption.
Quake Live doesn't run in the browser. It launches from a browser but the game runs in a native browser plugin so it's not like Quake Live is and HTML5 game or something.
I personally wonder how companies expect to make money from games when they are giving out the source code. If your game is truly browser based (ie. written in Javascript and HTML) then everyone has the source code to the client-side code of your game. That's a lot of IP you're just giving away for anyone to copy and use in their own games.
It should work that way though, it's too hard to look through all the crap before even using the app. You don't know why it needs some stuff.
For anything that costs you money it should pop up a dialog the first time. Like "XXXX application wants to send a text message. Allow? Yes/No/Always allow".
Then you know the context in which it wants to use something that costs money.
Yeah it's "voluntary" like wearing 37 pieces of flair.
When I was in high school many moons ago I wanted to get into a programming class but my grades weren't good enough so I had to submit some programming work to the teacher. I gave her the source code for a BBS I had written. I remember having to go through the entire source base looking for profanity I had used in variable names, comments, etc. Being the teenager that I was I would sometimes just use them for no reason.
I remember laughing to myself when I handed her that code. It must have been over 200 pages of printed source and I could tell she probably couldn't even write a sort function. This was back in the 80's when the educational system had almost no computer classes, let alone programming.
It was at that time I realized that sometimes other people look at your code and it can reflect on you. I have never used profanity in source ever again. I also never berate other people's stuff in my code (like poorly written API's I have to use). Clean and professional makes for more readable code and keeps everyone happy, including myself.
I hated it too at first but now I like the buttons on the other side. People are just hard-headed and resistant to change, even if it's better.
Also, as Ubuntu gets popular the "geeks" won't feel special/superior any more and have to go somewhere else to boost their ego.
I think I'm a pretty hard core Linux person. I have been using it for something like 17 or 18 years now. I used to like hacking the system but once I got a handle on that what I want to do now is get work done. I'm happy Ubuntu is popular, that's what I want. I want stuff to "just work" and all my hardware to be supported so I can get real honest work done on a system that is fast, stable, and secure. Screwing around with the OS is the last thing I want to do.
What if I work weird hours and 10PM to 8AM is the only time that I can play because I'm at work or asleep outside of that window?
In that case they would effectively be banning me from playing games online at all.