The BBC has a page about them here. The sky today has been very clear, and there's a good chance that there will be a good view. It should start around 11pm and peak around 2am.
Someone will say, "First Post" (and be wrong). Someone else will say "This isn't News For Nerds" (and possibly be right). I'm going to say "Beowulf" and be on-topic (for once)
For the ignorati, Beowulf is an epic Anglo-Saxon poem/story.
HH
Re:Look out for the managers at work
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
Those cords bring a whole new meaning to 'plug and play'
There seem to be a large number of Linux users who only user Windows for Quicken and would like a native port. We should get organized and petition Intuit for a port. Does anyone have an email address for Intuit - there isn't one on their web site and the feedback form there only accepts US addresses.
HH
(if this is posted twice, it's because I got a server error the first time)
Thanks for the above advice and for emailing these companies asking for drivers. I also hope that everyone who asked Creative Labs for open-source drivers now emails them and thanks them.
We've used words beginning in Sun for out Sun boxen. E.g. sunshine, sunburn, suntan, sunstroke etc. Another one we used for PC's was words beginning in Z (zygote, zounds, zebra, zoo etc.)
I always liked the idea of cheeses for server names. Trouble is, as you say, all of the good ones are too damn long. no sysadmin is going to want to type:
telnet swaledale-with-old-peculier
or
ping venezualan-beaver-cheese
Of course, edam is short and simple, as is yarg (from Cornwall). I'd recommend the Monty Python cheese shop sketch for a good (if somewhat out of date) list of cheeses.
Call them 'telnet', 'rlogin', 'telinit', 'ping', 'fdisk', 'format', 'rm', 'mkfs' etc. I guarantee you hours of fun typing commands like 'ping ping' or 'telnet rlogin'.
Two very good suggestions. There should definitely be many more generic top level domains. This would, however, create a goldrush of people trying to register domains such as hot.sex, free.sex or chicken.sex
I would suggest that people who want DVD for Linux also start lobbying manufacturers of hardware DVD decoders, such as Sigma Designs who make the Hollywood Plus, for Linux support and drivers.
This isn't about competition, it's about choice. I want to choose which operating system I use on my PC. Having a choice of Windows or Linux isn't much use if there's no applications for Linux. The more applications that appear for Linux, the more choice I've got. It would be great to have Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop for Linux (whatever happened to Photoshop for Unix/Solaris?). Open Source is about freedom and the more choice I have, the freer I am. Open and closed source software can (and must) exist together. Fundamentalism and bigotry are Bad Things whether religious or open-source.
According to the article, the Willamette is coming out 9 months early. So were Intel originally planning on sitting on this chip for 9 months, but forced to release early by the impending 1GHz Athlons due early next year? Is this chip going to be fully tested, or will it contain major problems like those found in the i820 chipset? Perhaps this is just vapourware, designed to put off people who were thinking of buying Athlon systems - this wouldn't be the first time that companies have done this.
I'm left wondering if this article is going to be any more accurate than one the Register ran earlier this year when they said that the 666MHz Coppermine would appear in late 1999, "clear 12 months before AMD is expected to reach the magical figure". Yeah, right.
What is the world coming to, when there's a piece on Linux in a big mainstream newspaper that's been written by a journalist with a clue. Initially, I thought that this piece was going to be another addition to the mountain of FUD that's been written in the last few months, but was very pleasantly suprised by its balance and accuracy. The article quite cleverly and subtly suggests to its readers that linux fragmentation is something to be a little wary of, but is not likely to be cause for great concern.
Sun's are using a variety of tactics to try to hurt Microsoft. These include Java, the StarOffice aquisition and now releasing Solaris under their SCSL. Sun are unlikely to lure many Linux developers with the Solaris SCSL, but it may very well appeal strongly to existing Solaris developers. I would imagine that they are also trying to encourage Linux apps to be ported to Solaris. Sun's reaction to Linux seems a bit lukewarm. On one hand, it's in competition to Solaris, but on the other, Linux may encourage more people to use *nix, which will benefit Sun as a Unix hardware & software vendor.
I believe that Sun would be better off by genuinely supporting Linux, in the way that SGI and IBM are, and should offer customers a choice of Linux or Solaris on their hardware. I would much rather use Sun servers than NT ones (is NT Server an oxymoron?) as Sun are a damn sight more open than MS, though obviously not as open as some people would like.
I work in London (England) and earlier today a colleague told me that he had tried pinging a site in the US. He claimed that the packets were making it across the pond OK and then were being routed via Australia. We didn't believe him. Guess that I'll have to apologise tomorrow.
The monitor, about half the size of a pen cap, sits about an inch from the eye, giving the user the illusion of reading a 14-inch screen at normal viewing distances.
How does this work? I've got pretty good eyesight but I can't focus on something that's only 1 inch from my eye. Would it work for people who need glasses, or would they have to use contact lenses? Would reading something this close to your eye cause damage to your eyesight?
If John Carmack was at Transmeta to talk to the engineers, then he must have signed a NDA. In that case, he wouldn't be able to say anything about what they're up to. I would guess that he could mention the discussion with Linus only because 3D on Linux has absolutely nothing to do with what Transmeta is working on. However, I'm very curious to know why Carmack needed to talk to Transmeta engineers. Maybe Transmeta need a kick-ass game to demonstrate the awesome power of their processor and have hired ID to port Quake 3?
Thanks for all the information, but it still doesn't explain: what does XML DO?
It's not a traditional programming/scripting language like C, Java, Javascript or Perl. It's a meta-language for defining markup languages such as HTML or SMIL. You would use it for creating structures of tags to mark up data. These would look very similar to HTML markup tags, the difference being that HTML gives you a fixed set of tags (e.g. <P>, <head> etc.) whereas XML allows you to define your own.
The tags are defined in a Document Type Definition (DTD) which looks complex, but isn't that hard to write. This gives you an enormous amount of flexibility in what you use XML for. If you defined a slashdotter DTD as:
<!ELEMENT slashdotter (name, email)> <!ELEMENT name CDATA> <!ELEMENT email CDATA>
This could then be displayed in a web-browser using a style-sheet, read into a database, used to send spam etc. DTDs can be defined for configuration files, spreadsheets, word-processor documents, or almost any data, which makes XML enormously flexible.
the use of simple, separate, config files is that they can be moved, edited, built using simple sh, grep, awk, cat, vi, etc. commands
Since XML is plain ASCII, just like HTML, standard ASCII editing tools and scripting languages can be used to build and edit XML files. XML is also easily human-readable, sometimes more so that standard *nix config files.
Any plain text editor can be used to edit XML files, but a structured editor helps enormously. I have tried out quite a number of (free and commercial) structured XML editors on Unix and Windoze and my favourite so far is the XML mode for Emacs, which is based on the excellent PSGML package. And it's open source and I don't have to leave my favourite development environment. Does anyone know of any other open-source XML editors?
For those who don't know much about XML, it's a markup language similar to HTML. In fact, it's not really a super version of HTML, but a subset of SGML. XML is a meta-language used for creating other markup languages such as the multimedia language SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language). XML is useful for storing data independently of it's presentation. In HTML, the presentation tags are mixed up with the content. XML allows you to separate the two and use stylesheets (possibly written in XSL, its stylesheet language) to format the data for display.
I started out using XML for simple configuration files on a Java software project. Once we started to use it, we realised that it's extremely powerful and soon started finding many uses for it.
Expect to see XML cropping up everywhere soon. Microsoft (boo, hiss) is going to be using it for document exchange (XML is very good at this) in their Office products. There are rumours that M$ is already bastardising XML, rather than stick to the standards (now where have we heard that before?).
XML initially looks daunting, but really isn't too difficult to learn. There are some standard API's being developed (SAX and DOM), at least in Java. XML and Java work very well together. I haven't used XML with Linux, so can't comment on available libraries, if indeed there are any yet.
I certainly would encourage developers to look into using XML. It certainly beats writing your own parsers and you'll soon appreciate its flexibility. HH
Despite this article, the date 9/9/99 has no significance for pagans that I am aware of. Most pagans (myself included) aren't interested in dates like this. OK, so they've found some nut who'll give 'em a soundbite about the supposed significance of the number 9, but as we all know, there are plenty of morons who think that 'first post' is somehow significant too.
I can't imaging 9/9/99 causing any real computing problems either. I read a report that said that some mainframe programs use 9999 as an end-of-file (or record) marker and may be confused by the date 9/9/99. But todays date couldn't be stored simply as 9999, since you couldn't write a parser to read dates in this format (what would 12399 parse to - 12th March 99 or 23rd Jan 99?)
So if anyone tries to sell you any portents of doom for today - either pseudo-mystical or pseudo-compsci, take it with a large pinch of salt.
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC has a page about them here. The sky today has been very clear, and there's a good chance that there will be a good view. It should start around 11pm and peak around 2am.
HH
Someone will say, "First Post" (and be wrong).
Someone else will say "This isn't News For Nerds" (and possibly be right).
I'm going to say "Beowulf" and be on-topic (for once)
For the ignorati, Beowulf is an epic Anglo-Saxon poem/story.
HH
Those cords bring a whole new meaning to 'plug and play'
HH
Well, I must have been the first ;-)
There seem to be a large number of Linux users who only user Windows for Quicken and would like a native port. We should get organized and petition Intuit for a port. Does anyone have an email address for Intuit - there isn't one on their web site and the feedback form there only accepts US addresses.
HH
(if this is posted twice, it's because I got a server error the first time)
Thanks for the above advice and for emailing these companies asking for drivers. I also hope that everyone who asked Creative Labs for open-source drivers now emails them and thanks them.
HH
We've used words beginning in Sun for out Sun boxen. E.g. sunshine, sunburn, suntan, sunstroke etc. Another one we used for PC's was words beginning in Z (zygote, zounds, zebra, zoo etc.)
HH
I always liked the idea of cheeses for server names. Trouble is, as you say, all of the good ones are too damn long. no sysadmin is going to want to type:
telnet swaledale-with-old-peculier
or
ping venezualan-beaver-cheese
Of course, edam is short and simple, as is yarg (from Cornwall). I'd recommend the Monty Python cheese shop sketch for a good (if somewhat out of date) list of cheeses.
HH
Call them 'telnet', 'rlogin', 'telinit', 'ping', 'fdisk', 'format', 'rm', 'mkfs' etc. I guarantee you hours of fun typing commands like 'ping ping' or 'telnet rlogin'.
Two very good suggestions. There should definitely be many more generic top level domains. This would, however, create a goldrush of people trying to register domains such as hot.sex, free.sex or chicken.sex
Did I say chicken.sex? I mean normal.sex, honest.
I would suggest that people who want DVD for Linux also start lobbying manufacturers of hardware DVD decoders, such as Sigma Designs who make the Hollywood Plus, for Linux support and drivers.
HH
This isn't about competition, it's about choice. I want to choose which operating system I use on my PC. Having a choice of Windows or Linux isn't much use if there's no applications for Linux. The more applications that appear for Linux, the more choice I've got. It would be great to have Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop for Linux (whatever happened to Photoshop for Unix/Solaris?). Open Source is about freedom and the more choice I have, the freer I am. Open and closed source software can (and must) exist together. Fundamentalism and bigotry are Bad Things whether religious or open-source.
There once was a fellow from Cheam
Who invented a fucking machine
Concave or convex
It could fit either sex
And was incredibly easy to clean
I'm left wondering if this article is going to be any more accurate than one the Register ran earlier this year when they said that the 666MHz Coppermine would appear in late 1999, "clear 12 months before AMD is expected to reach the magical figure". Yeah, right.
HH
HH
Sun's are using a variety of tactics to try to hurt Microsoft. These include Java, the StarOffice aquisition and now releasing Solaris under their SCSL. Sun are unlikely to lure many Linux developers with the Solaris SCSL, but it may very well appeal strongly to existing Solaris developers. I would imagine that they are also trying to encourage Linux apps to be ported to Solaris. Sun's reaction to Linux seems a bit lukewarm. On one hand, it's in competition to Solaris, but on the other, Linux may encourage more people to use *nix, which will benefit Sun as a Unix hardware & software vendor.
I believe that Sun would be better off by genuinely supporting Linux, in the way that SGI and IBM are, and should offer customers a choice of Linux or Solaris on their hardware. I would much rather use Sun servers than NT ones (is NT Server an oxymoron?) as Sun are a damn sight more open than MS, though obviously not as open as some people would like.
I work in London (England) and earlier today a colleague told me that he had tried pinging a site in the US. He claimed that the packets were making it across the pond OK and then were being routed via Australia. We didn't believe him. Guess that I'll have to apologise tomorrow.
The monitor, about half the size of a pen cap, sits about an inch from the eye, giving the user the illusion of reading a 14-inch screen at normal viewing distances.
How does this work? I've got pretty good eyesight but I can't focus on something that's only 1 inch from my eye. Would it work for people who need glasses, or would they have to use contact lenses? Would reading something this close to your eye cause damage to your eyesight?
HH
If John Carmack was at Transmeta to talk to the engineers, then he must have signed a NDA. In that case, he wouldn't be able to say anything about what they're up to. I would guess that he could mention the discussion with Linus only because 3D on Linux has absolutely nothing to do with what Transmeta is working on. However, I'm very curious to know why Carmack needed to talk to Transmeta engineers. Maybe Transmeta need a kick-ass game to demonstrate the awesome power of their processor and have hired ID to port Quake 3?
HH
It's not a traditional programming/scripting language like C, Java, Javascript or Perl. It's a meta-language for defining markup languages such as HTML or SMIL. You would use it for creating structures of tags to mark up data. These would look very similar to HTML markup tags, the difference being that HTML gives you a fixed set of tags (e.g. <P>, <head> etc.) whereas XML allows you to define your own.
The tags are defined in a Document Type Definition (DTD) which looks complex, but isn't that hard to write. This gives you an enormous amount of flexibility in what you use XML for. If you defined a slashdotter DTD as:
<!ELEMENT slashdotter (name, email)>
<!ELEMENT name CDATA>
<!ELEMENT email CDATA>
You could then write the following XML:
<slashdotter>
<name>A Coward</name>
<email>a.coward@slashdot.org</email>
</slashdotter>
This could then be displayed in a web-browser using a style-sheet, read into a database, used to send spam etc. DTDs can be defined for configuration files, spreadsheets, word-processor documents, or almost any data, which makes XML enormously flexible.
Hope this helps a bit
HH
Since XML is plain ASCII, just like HTML, standard ASCII editing tools and scripting languages can be used to build and edit XML files. XML is also easily human-readable, sometimes more so that standard *nix config files.
HH
Any plain text editor can be used to edit XML files, but a structured editor helps enormously. I have tried out quite a number of (free and commercial) structured XML editors on Unix and Windoze and my favourite so far is the XML mode for Emacs, which is based on the excellent PSGML package. And it's open source and I don't have to leave my favourite development environment. Does anyone know of any other open-source XML editors?
Cheers
HH
I started out using XML for simple configuration files on a Java software project. Once we started to use it, we realised that it's extremely powerful and soon started finding many uses for it.
Expect to see XML cropping up everywhere soon. Microsoft (boo, hiss) is going to be using it for document exchange (XML is very good at this) in their Office products. There are rumours that M$ is already bastardising XML, rather than stick to the standards (now where have we heard that before?).
XML initially looks daunting, but really isn't too difficult to learn. There are some standard API's being developed (SAX and DOM), at least in Java. XML and Java work very well together. I haven't used XML with Linux, so can't comment on available libraries, if indeed there are any yet.
I certainly would encourage developers to look into using XML. It certainly beats writing your own parsers and you'll soon appreciate its flexibility. HH
I was getting a script error too, but it now appears to be fixed.
Thanks Google
HH
http://www.google.com/linux
HH
Despite this article, the date 9/9/99 has no significance for pagans that I am aware of. Most pagans (myself included) aren't interested in dates like this. OK, so they've found some nut who'll give 'em a soundbite about the supposed significance of the number 9, but as we all know, there are plenty of morons who think that 'first post' is somehow significant too.
I can't imaging 9/9/99 causing any real computing problems either. I read a report that said that some mainframe programs use 9999 as an end-of-file (or record) marker and may be confused by the date 9/9/99. But todays date couldn't be stored simply as 9999, since you couldn't write a parser to read dates in this format (what would 12399 parse to - 12th March 99 or 23rd Jan 99?)
So if anyone tries to sell you any portents of doom for today - either pseudo-mystical or pseudo-compsci, take it with a large pinch of salt.
HH