Shudder... regedit. Actually there is nothing particularly evil about the tool itself. Some mechanism for comments would have been nice. The real wtf is the binary format, the "one big config file" for not only Windows, but all of your application settings as well, and the reckless abandon with which the monstrosity has grown. Single point of failure? You betcha. The actual implementation and use of the registry is a crime against nature. Somebody in Redmond should have slain this beast a decade ago. win.ini looks pretty nice by comparison.
Funny, we had a robotics class for "gifted studends" in my elementary school using some setup called Lego-Logo. It was around 1989-1990. It was like mindstorms. Build a little Lego gizmo, hook up the controllable parts to the computer, and use LOGO to drive it. See this for some info.
First, websites, next they'll want automobiles accessible to the blind. I hate lawsuits, and I have no sympathy for a group that uses litigation in this manner just because the target has deep pockets. However this raises the issue of how do we make sure our web sites work for the largest audience possible? My method is this:
1. Check the HTML Validator
2. Test in IE and Firefox for visual defects
3. Make sure the site works and is comprehensible in links or lynx
If any of these tests fail, you're going to have usability problems at some point down the road. If all three pass, you're on the right track and it's probably good enough. As a side note, Target does offer a ADA compliant version of their website. It's called a store, and all visitors are welcome to drive down to the compliant facilities and park in the designated spaces. The website is a convenience to give people added functionality and allow them to shop in their PJs. I like when stores do this. Please don't make it go away because one group got greedy.
Seriously, I have a Commodore 64 sitting right next to me hooked up to a dos box as a hard drive. Data is data. You just need a x1541 cable. There are lots of free software tools to facilitate this, and the d64 and t64 formats are well supported. You can even use audio tapes and a soundcard to transfer files. Once you have the data on the PC, there are multitudes of C64 emulators to run the software directly. I've been doing this since the late '90s. Google is your friend.
But in classes like basic Economics 101 with 300 kids in the class, are you really going to be able to do attendance every class?
Firstly, I'm against compulsory attendance (especially for large lectures like that), but its called a sign-in sheet. If you want to go high-tech you can replace it with a couple of pin pads for students to enter their Student-ID and automate the whole deal. In my math lectures we passed around an attendance book with a pre-printed class list and a line to sign your name on. It's pretty easy to see at a glance who's not there.
Your comments are enlightening but disturbing to me on a personal level.
Decaf
Is this what the world is coming to? And yes I can tell you're a Math/CS major. You're here. But can you explain why all math profs have a heavy foreign accent, poor grammar, and bad handwriting? Attending lecture is one thing. Understanding the words is quite another. For the orignal submitter, stop trying to fight a War On Truancy, and just make sure the podcasts have GOOD audio quality. Attending class is an important part of the educational process, but adding layers of policy tends to bog down a university and promote a more 'us against them' mentality, its just bad for morale. A better way to encourage attendance is (easy) semi-frequent surprise pop quizzes (like 'What was the topic of last lecture?') worth say 5-10% of the final grade. Make it worth their while to show up, but since you're providing a service to the students anyway don't withhold the information from those who couldn't make it (they did pay for the class at least). And the bright side is if you're helping otherwise poor students learn more despite themselves, this is a benefit to all parties involved.
Possibly "People" represent more than one viewpoint on an issue. The people who are alarmist about fat kids might not be the same people who are screaming about how it's invasive and controlling.
Maybe my area is different than the rest of the country, but I know a lot of local high-school kids and not one of them is overweight. However, regardless of my opinion on the validity of the premise here, putting a parental or scholastic ban on anything has in my experience always elevated the "coolness" factor of said item. My school had the Coed-Naked T-shirt ban back in the 90's, which prompted everyone to go out and buy one on principle. I'm not saying you can't ban or put controls on anything at all, but you have to choose your battles and be prepared for the fallout of such bans if teenagers feel their rights are being infringed. It might just teach the kids to stand up for themselves and organize a boycott or protest. One idealistic crusade begets another.
C doesn't hold your hand. It allows you to do anything you could do in assembly language. That's the point of C. This includes setting arbitrary memory locations to arbitrary values. C works under the assumption that if you wrote it, you must have meant it. Why else would you have written it? Even more evil is the conditional statement if (p = NULL). One missing keystroke can lead to hours upon hours of debug time (we've all done it at least once). Don't like it? Put on a pink dress and go use Java.
... in effect (re)hiring Jobs as his own replacement. Still, history is written by men who have hanged heroes. Apple needed a leader who could turn their freewheeling hippie crowd into a 'real' company during the post-68k Mac era. Maybe they suffered from a lack of vision, but a little structure and stability goes a long way toward preventing startups like Apple from flopping like so many dot-com ventures from earlier this century. Business cycles are just that: cyclic. Grow, fortify, grow, fortify. Growth requires colorful visionaries like Jobs. Fortification requires boring gray suits like Amelio. Sound business strategy means correctly identifying which part of the cycle you are currently in, and executing appropriately.
OK, but what really bakes my noodle about the whole plot is what exactly is driving the metabolic processes in humans that makes them produce more energy than a 100 watt light bulb. Humans need an energy source, food, to stay alive and continue to convert chemical energy into mechanical energy and heat. Our food comes from other living organisms, which in turn store solar energy in a chemical form. No matter how hard you try, you can't reduce entropy in what is essentially a closed system. We need sunlight to survive as much as the machines do, doubly so if machines are tapping some of that energy for their own uses. Wouldn't just burning the carcasses of the conquered human race be more effective in producing energy than trying to keep everyone alive?
Linux was in the same boat 10 years ago. Personal Computers were there 25 years ago. IBM was of the opinion that serious businesses use serious computers and stayed focused on mainframes until they all but lost the PC market to smaller competitors (like Apple). Disruptive technology has a weird way of pulling the market out from under your feet and turning your assumptions around. Don't underestimate your potential competitors.
Turing test... so none of us would still have any chance with them? There are plenty of real women out there to turn me down. I don't need to resort to new technology just for rejection.
Yeah well, back then the more people listened to popular music the more they wanted to buy it. No harm no foul. Now, the more you listen to current music the more you're sure you don't want to buy it. Its just economics. Personally, I think they should be paying us for having to endure current top 40 music. Don't stop believing.
I want the mains wiring in my house to be 18awg copper to save materials cost. Will you install it for me? Or will you at least present the reasons why this is a bad idea? If you put your name to a product your reputation will be reflected in the quality of the product down the road as well as today, not in what the customer asked for originally. It is your own long-term self interest that dictates the steps you should take and the concessions you are willing to make in producing something. This trade-off, quality vs. immediate cash-flow, is something that separates short-lived businesses and successful ones, and a reasonable balance must be reached. Pay the bills, but don't sell your soul.
Given, but the standards are the only common thread these browsers have to work with. Go for standards first, then tweak from there. The further you deviate from the standards, the more work you will have to do in the future to keep your page rendering on the next generation of browsers. But maybe the goal is job security, not simplicity.
I can think of 8 reasons off the top of my head why you should strive for standards compliance:
IE 5
IE 6
IE 7
Mozilla
Firefox
Opera
IE for MacOS
Netscape
All of these browsers support some odd set of features vaguely related to some form of HTML. In order to author a website that's viewable by your target audience you have to test against as many of these platforms as you can afford to. Only through a "standard" can you have at least a sane baseline for viewable information. It is possible to write standards-compliant code that's cross-browser compatible if you lay off the bells and whistles a step and focus on clean design instead (both codewise and presentation-wise). Lets all try to speak the same language ok? As developers we need to steer clear of ugly hacks wherever we can. Won't somebody think of the children?
Host it on a cable modem to save costs. Debate anything that devolves into a flame war. Then post it to slashdot to inform everyone to visit the site and post their opinions. Call it Frak.
Slashdot Mirror
Shudder... regedit. Actually there is nothing particularly evil about the tool itself. Some mechanism for comments would have been nice. The real wtf is the binary format, the "one big config file" for not only Windows, but all of your application settings as well, and the reckless abandon with which the monstrosity has grown. Single point of failure? You betcha. The actual implementation and use of the registry is a crime against nature. Somebody in Redmond should have slain this beast a decade ago. win.ini looks pretty nice by comparison.
Funny, we had a robotics class for "gifted studends" in my elementary school using some setup called Lego-Logo. It was around 1989-1990. It was like mindstorms. Build a little Lego gizmo, hook up the controllable parts to the computer, and use LOGO to drive it. See this for some info.
First, websites, next they'll want automobiles accessible to the blind. I hate lawsuits, and I have no sympathy for a group that uses litigation in this manner just because the target has deep pockets. However this raises the issue of how do we make sure our web sites work for the largest audience possible? My method is this: 1. Check the HTML Validator 2. Test in IE and Firefox for visual defects 3. Make sure the site works and is comprehensible in links or lynx If any of these tests fail, you're going to have usability problems at some point down the road. If all three pass, you're on the right track and it's probably good enough. As a side note, Target does offer a ADA compliant version of their website. It's called a store, and all visitors are welcome to drive down to the compliant facilities and park in the designated spaces. The website is a convenience to give people added functionality and allow them to shop in their PJs. I like when stores do this. Please don't make it go away because one group got greedy.
Seriously, I have a Commodore 64 sitting right next to me hooked up to a dos box as a hard drive. Data is data. You just need a x1541 cable. There are lots of free software tools to facilitate this, and the d64 and t64 formats are well supported. You can even use audio tapes and a soundcard to transfer files. Once you have the data on the PC, there are multitudes of C64 emulators to run the software directly. I've been doing this since the late '90s. Google is your friend.
Your comments are enlightening but disturbing to me on a personal level.
Decaf
Is this what the world is coming to? And yes I can tell you're a Math/CS major. You're here. But can you explain why all math profs have a heavy foreign accent, poor grammar, and bad handwriting? Attending lecture is one thing. Understanding the words is quite another. For the orignal submitter, stop trying to fight a War On Truancy, and just make sure the podcasts have GOOD audio quality. Attending class is an important part of the educational process, but adding layers of policy tends to bog down a university and promote a more 'us against them' mentality, its just bad for morale. A better way to encourage attendance is (easy) semi-frequent surprise pop quizzes (like 'What was the topic of last lecture?') worth say 5-10% of the final grade. Make it worth their while to show up, but since you're providing a service to the students anyway don't withhold the information from those who couldn't make it (they did pay for the class at least). And the bright side is if you're helping otherwise poor students learn more despite themselves, this is a benefit to all parties involved.
Possibly "People" represent more than one viewpoint on an issue. The people who are alarmist about fat kids might not be the same people who are screaming about how it's invasive and controlling. Maybe my area is different than the rest of the country, but I know a lot of local high-school kids and not one of them is overweight. However, regardless of my opinion on the validity of the premise here, putting a parental or scholastic ban on anything has in my experience always elevated the "coolness" factor of said item. My school had the Coed-Naked T-shirt ban back in the 90's, which prompted everyone to go out and buy one on principle. I'm not saying you can't ban or put controls on anything at all, but you have to choose your battles and be prepared for the fallout of such bans if teenagers feel their rights are being infringed. It might just teach the kids to stand up for themselves and organize a boycott or protest. One idealistic crusade begets another.
Wouldn't want to share a cubicle with you, man. Damn!
You seek Tapper.
Does the US know about this arsenal you're developing? Everybody knows nuclear power plants are just a front for WMDs.
C doesn't hold your hand. It allows you to do anything you could do in assembly language. That's the point of C. This includes setting arbitrary memory locations to arbitrary values. C works under the assumption that if you wrote it, you must have meant it. Why else would you have written it? Even more evil is the conditional statement if (p = NULL). One missing keystroke can lead to hours upon hours of debug time (we've all done it at least once). Don't like it? Put on a pink dress and go use Java.
Jackass.
I remember running across BartPE. Its a windows live-cd option. I don't particularly care for it, but it has its place.
... in effect (re)hiring Jobs as his own replacement. Still, history is written by men who have hanged heroes. Apple needed a leader who could turn their freewheeling hippie crowd into a 'real' company during the post-68k Mac era. Maybe they suffered from a lack of vision, but a little structure and stability goes a long way toward preventing startups like Apple from flopping like so many dot-com ventures from earlier this century. Business cycles are just that: cyclic. Grow, fortify, grow, fortify. Growth requires colorful visionaries like Jobs. Fortification requires boring gray suits like Amelio. Sound business strategy means correctly identifying which part of the cycle you are currently in, and executing appropriately.
It's not a debt until service is rendered. See right to refuse service.
OK, but what really bakes my noodle about the whole plot is what exactly is driving the metabolic processes in humans that makes them produce more energy than a 100 watt light bulb. Humans need an energy source, food, to stay alive and continue to convert chemical energy into mechanical energy and heat. Our food comes from other living organisms, which in turn store solar energy in a chemical form. No matter how hard you try, you can't reduce entropy in what is essentially a closed system. We need sunlight to survive as much as the machines do, doubly so if machines are tapping some of that energy for their own uses. Wouldn't just burning the carcasses of the conquered human race be more effective in producing energy than trying to keep everyone alive?
Linux was in the same boat 10 years ago. Personal Computers were there 25 years ago. IBM was of the opinion that serious businesses use serious computers and stayed focused on mainframes until they all but lost the PC market to smaller competitors (like Apple). Disruptive technology has a weird way of pulling the market out from under your feet and turning your assumptions around. Don't underestimate your potential competitors.
Turing test... so none of us would still have any chance with them? There are plenty of real women out there to turn me down. I don't need to resort to new technology just for rejection.
Yeah well, back then the more people listened to popular music the more they wanted to buy it. No harm no foul. Now, the more you listen to current music the more you're sure you don't want to buy it. Its just economics. Personally, I think they should be paying us for having to endure current top 40 music. Don't stop believing.
How can this be when we are only the third most intelligent life form on this planet?
I want the mains wiring in my house to be 18awg copper to save materials cost. Will you install it for me? Or will you at least present the reasons why this is a bad idea? If you put your name to a product your reputation will be reflected in the quality of the product down the road as well as today, not in what the customer asked for originally. It is your own long-term self interest that dictates the steps you should take and the concessions you are willing to make in producing something. This trade-off, quality vs. immediate cash-flow, is something that separates short-lived businesses and successful ones, and a reasonable balance must be reached. Pay the bills, but don't sell your soul.
Given, but the standards are the only common thread these browsers have to work with. Go for standards first, then tweak from there. The further you deviate from the standards, the more work you will have to do in the future to keep your page rendering on the next generation of browsers. But maybe the goal is job security, not simplicity.
I can think of 8 reasons off the top of my head why you should strive for standards compliance: IE 5 IE 6 IE 7 Mozilla Firefox Opera IE for MacOS Netscape All of these browsers support some odd set of features vaguely related to some form of HTML. In order to author a website that's viewable by your target audience you have to test against as many of these platforms as you can afford to. Only through a "standard" can you have at least a sane baseline for viewable information. It is possible to write standards-compliant code that's cross-browser compatible if you lay off the bells and whistles a step and focus on clean design instead (both codewise and presentation-wise). Lets all try to speak the same language ok? As developers we need to steer clear of ugly hacks wherever we can. Won't somebody think of the children?
Host it on a cable modem to save costs. Debate anything that devolves into a flame war. Then post it to slashdot to inform everyone to visit the site and post their opinions. Call it Frak.
Somebody else's reality distortion problem field?