Unfortunately, I think the stresses resulting from thermal contraction and crystallization would cause the shape to change.
Also, you'd need very strong and rigid mountings to keep it from bending as you tilt it (mercury is heavy), so you're back to the same problem they're avoiding in the first place.
Interesting points. If you have the machines (you didn't say anything about the budget/lab facilities) I'd set up a small LAN with Linux and Solaris x86 machines (to get an idea of the similarities and differences between Unix flavors) and a couple of Windows (98 and/or NT) boxes. They can set up Samba, route packets between two LANs (if you have the spare hubs/NICs), etc...
I guess what I'm advocating is make the course "Introduction to Unix and IP networking". Teach the basics of navigating Unix, encourage those with programming experience to write little Unix programs and shell scripts. Teach basic IPv4 concepts--networks, subnets and netmasks, addressing, routing, how DNS works. Do as much hands-on stuff as budget and lab facilities allow.
Also--I think sirket is a little off base--good vi clones are standard in every Linux distribution I've ever seen (nobody's forcing you to use emacs), the route ccommand is subtly different on almost every Unix flavor out there, and the GNU tools are something that practically every sane sysadmin makes sure to have around, especially in a multiplatform environment. If I'm setting up a Solaris box, I make sure and install enough GNU tools (less, gzip, screen, etc, and yes, Emacs) to keep me from cursing constantly as I try to administer the machine.
Except for the fact that the nokia phones put out about 3 times the radiation of other phone and they direct the waves right at your brain instead of away.
gotta love phones that sell based on pretty colours and inline games.... talk about quality
Have to disagree. I have a Nokia 6150 and the damn thing's practically indestructible (and I'm hard on phones), has a great UI, and excellent reception and sound quality (depending on cell of course). Plus I love the way the keypad feels--really positive and firm.
plus there is the added bonus of 40 second long tunes for the phone rings... i hate hearing those god-damned rings
They are annoying, but blame the user for picking the annoying ring--the phone has several subtle ones (or you can buy the vibrating battery).
I've owned Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia phones and Nokia is by far my favorite.
It's also pushing it a little to consider 1984 "sci-fi", as it's more politically-oriented than science.
While I agree (somewhat) about the categorization, I also think that 1984 is very important to read. I read it at about 13, and it scared the living crap out of me, but also helped me to think critically about politics, language, and many other issues.
This is an extremely anti-modular misfeature, which is being phased out of the language, but which is still a thorn in the foot of any large system.
Absolutely agree--I have had to work with large systems in Perl that use dynamic scope intensively, and it's horrible.
You seem to be implying, though, that this is a reason not to start a big project in Perl today. I disagree. If your coding standards (for large projects you do have coding standards, I hope) mandate use strict and discourage use vars (in other words use my variables for everything), it's no worse than C or C++, and has an object system that I rather like.
I might be wrong, but it seems that in the past the FSF legal department only makes a big deal with something like Emacs or GCC needs to be defended.
IANAL, but in order to sue for copyright violation, you need to own the copyright. This is the major part of the reason why the FSF asks for copyright assignments.
You can retain the copyright and release under the GPL, but in that case you have to defend your copyright.
This was the only US code the Japanese never cracked.
Not true at all. The Japanese had basically no success cracking any Allied codes except for low-level weather codes. Whereas their codes were mostly an open book.
The Navajo "code-talkers" were an excellent innovation, though, because (a) the language is obscure and has a very strange structure, with no native speakers available to the Japanese, and (b) they allowed for quick communication with no encryption/decryption time lag.
A good source on this is a book called Combined Fleet Decoded, about the intel war in the Pacific.
Really, the important patent was the patent on Diffie-Hellman key exchange, since this was the first public key algorithm. Since it has already expired, it's already possible to build totally free SSL/PGP workalikes without any patented code. You just need to add a free symmetric key cryptosystem like Blowfish or triple DES.
Right, and that's what GPG does, at least for the PGP equivalence. The 1.0 version came out a month or so ago.
Unfortunately, such a program is indeed a "workalike", but it is not compatible with existing systems. SSL with RSA/RC4 and PGP with RSA/IDEA have large installed bases, and unencumbered software cannot be compatible (until all the patents expire).
Yeah. I also didn't like the "everything is a file" section on the first page--IMHO it analogizes Windows/DOS/Mac drivers, which are files containing binary code, with/dev entries, which are not. Not a useful analogy, and potentially confusing.
The rest is accurate and decently writeen, if basic (which is fine).
( To illustrate, create an 800mb file on the ext2 fs. Now go ahead and delete it. Can you see the smoke coming out of your HDD yet? ) As always, work is being done to address this... but right now the support isn't there.
I found this out the hard way when I was ripping lots of mp3's from my CD collection. There was a discussion about it on linux-kernel, with the suggested workaround of using 4K or 8K blocks when you make the filesystem, instead of the default 1K. It makes a huge difference, much more than a factor of 4 or 8 (I think due to indirection that unlink() is O(n^2) in the number of blocks, which would explain the improvement).
So if you have a disk that you know will store very large files, be sure to use mke2fs -b 4096 or better.
Then you obviously don't do much with Sendmail, BIND, HTML, or a bunch of other stuff.
I'm sure there are some sub-par ones (I've never read any of the NT-related titles) but all the ORA books I've read/bought have been well worth the price.
Continuing this headlong leap offtopic, I'd like to point out that one can respect and honor the military (as both you and I do) and disagree strongly with the political decision (by our civilian leadership) to use them in a given situation.
IMHO, protesting against the Vietnam war was an honorable act. Spitting on returning soldiers (most of whom were draftees) was utterly despicable.
If this clause of the license holds, then it makes sense that it should be prohibited to GZIP or in any way compress GPL'd source code before distribution. There's no distinction made here between reversable or non-reversable obfuscation, and I don't know ANY coder who works directly with source code that's tarred or gzipped in any way or form.
I don't see that it's possible to 'draw a line' here creating a distinction. Therefore it's impossible to police.
Interesting point. I do think you can draw a line--it's precisely your distinction between reversible and irreversible transformations. I agree that the GPL doesn't explicitly address that distinction, and I think a court would have to take into account the intent of the GPL to decide whether tar/gzip was legally different from 'shroud'.
Be interesting to see what rms says about this issue...
...releasing your software under GPL effectively stops you having control over it.
Not true. You are free to release code that you write under any license at any time, and under different licenses to different entities. Perl and Ghostscript are both examples of this freedom.
The purpose of this product was to make it possible to distribute source code that could be built and linked with other code (extendable) without it being possible for people you didn't want to poke around in the code and figure it out. Unless there are readability standards imposed in any licencing sceme (i.e. the GPL) I think this would be an excellent vehicle for organizations hostile to the GPL to incorporate GPL'd code in their products, extend, the code, but totally snarl up and render unusable the source they are required to release with their product. It seems like the inevitable endpoint of arrogant licenses like the GPL.
From the GPL:
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
I read this to mean that a 'shrouded' version of the source is not acceptable, since your company would make its modifications to the 'unshrouded' version.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, you'd need very strong and rigid mountings to keep it from bending as you tilt it (mercury is heavy), so you're back to the same problem they're avoiding in the first place.
I haven't seen any evidence of this myself. Care to provide examples?
-Doug
I guess what I'm advocating is make the course "Introduction to Unix and IP networking". Teach the basics of navigating Unix, encourage those with programming experience to write little Unix programs and shell scripts. Teach basic IPv4 concepts--networks, subnets and netmasks, addressing, routing, how DNS works. Do as much hands-on stuff as budget and lab facilities allow.
Also--I think sirket is a little off base--good vi clones are standard in every Linux distribution I've ever seen (nobody's forcing you to use emacs), the route ccommand is subtly different on almost every Unix flavor out there, and the GNU tools are something that practically every sane sysadmin makes sure to have around, especially in a multiplatform environment. If I'm setting up a Solaris box, I make sure and install enough GNU tools (less, gzip, screen, etc, and yes, Emacs) to keep me from cursing constantly as I try to administer the machine.
-Doug
Reference?
-Doug
Have to disagree. I have a Nokia 6150 and the damn thing's practically indestructible (and I'm hard on phones), has a great UI, and excellent reception and sound quality (depending on cell of course). Plus I love the way the keypad feels--really positive and firm.
plus there is the added bonus of 40 second long tunes for the phone rings... i hate hearing those god-damned rings
They are annoying, but blame the user for picking the annoying ring--the phone has several subtle ones (or you can buy the vibrating battery).
I've owned Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia phones and Nokia is by far my favorite.
-Doug
No. Linux was written from scratch. The Minix FS was the first filesystem supported, which accounts for the mistaken impression in your post.
-Doug
You have a cool wife!
-Doug
I would add "written ... with portability in mind". It's easy to be gratuitously nonportable, especially if all you know is one flavor.
-Doug
While I agree (somewhat) about the categorization, I also think that 1984 is very important to read. I read it at about 13, and it scared the living crap out of me, but also helped me to think critically about politics, language, and many other issues.
So leave it on the list.
-Doug
EverQuest!
EverQuest!
Or, as we call it around my neck of the woods, EverCrack.
That would be so cool.
-Doug
This is an extremely anti-modular misfeature, which is being phased out of the language, but which is still a thorn in the foot of any large system.
Absolutely agree--I have had to work with large systems in Perl that use dynamic scope intensively, and it's horrible.
You seem to be implying, though, that this is a reason not to start a big project in Perl today. I disagree. If your coding standards (for large projects you do have coding standards, I hope) mandate use strict and discourage use vars (in other words use my variables for everything), it's no worse than C or C++, and has an object system that I rather like.
-Doug
IANAL, but in order to sue for copyright violation, you need to own the copyright. This is the major part of the reason why the FSF asks for copyright assignments.
You can retain the copyright and release under the GPL, but in that case you have to defend your copyright.
-Doug
Not true at all. The Japanese had basically no success cracking any Allied codes except for low-level weather codes. Whereas their codes were mostly an open book.
The Navajo "code-talkers" were an excellent innovation, though, because (a) the language is obscure and has a very strange structure, with no native speakers available to the Japanese, and (b) they allowed for quick communication with no encryption/decryption time lag.
A good source on this is a book called Combined Fleet Decoded, about the intel war in the Pacific.
-Doug
Sure. But IE isn't cross platform and it isn't open source. Some of us value those things, and many such folk inhabit /.
Not a flame, just an observation.
-Doug
Right, and that's what GPG does, at least for the PGP equivalence. The 1.0 version came out a month or so ago.
Unfortunately, such a program is indeed a "workalike", but it is not compatible with existing systems. SSL with RSA/RC4 and PGP with RSA/IDEA have large installed bases, and unencumbered software cannot be compatible (until all the patents expire).
-Doug
Yeah. I also didn't like the "everything is a file" section on the first page--IMHO it analogizes Windows/DOS/Mac drivers, which are files containing binary code, with /dev entries, which are not. Not a useful analogy, and potentially confusing.
/.ed...
The rest is accurate and decently writeen, if basic (which is fine).
It's also heavily
-Doug
I found this out the hard way when I was ripping lots of mp3's from my CD collection. There was a discussion about it on linux-kernel, with the suggested workaround of using 4K or 8K blocks when you make the filesystem, instead of the default 1K. It makes a huge difference, much more than a factor of 4 or 8 (I think due to indirection that unlink() is O(n^2) in the number of blocks, which would explain the improvement).
So if you have a disk that you know will store very large files, be sure to use mke2fs -b 4096 or better.
Not a solution, but a darn good workaround...
-Doug
You mean Ft. Meade, MD.
-Doug
I think it was just a comment that got posted twice (or perhaps more than that), which happens a lot. Might be a real bug though.
-Doug
Then you obviously don't do much with Sendmail, BIND, HTML, or a bunch of other stuff.
I'm sure there are some sub-par ones (I've never read any of the NT-related titles) but all the ORA books I've read/bought have been well worth the price.
Furrfu...
IMHO, protesting against the Vietnam war was an honorable act. Spitting on returning soldiers (most of whom were draftees) was utterly despicable.
-Doug
HP has been using RPN on their calculators for thirty years. Do you really think they wouldn't support it on their latest and greatest?
-Doug (RPN fan for 18 years)
I don't see that it's possible to 'draw a line' here creating a distinction. Therefore it's impossible to police.
Interesting point. I do think you can draw a line--it's precisely your distinction between reversible and irreversible transformations. I agree that the GPL doesn't explicitly address that distinction, and I think a court would have to take into account the intent of the GPL to decide whether tar/gzip was legally different from 'shroud'.
Be interesting to see what rms says about this issue...
-Doug
Not true. You are free to release code that you write under any license at any time, and under different licenses to different entities. Perl and Ghostscript are both examples of this freedom.
-Doug
linked with other code (extendable) without it being possible for people you didn't want to poke around
in the code and figure it out. Unless there are readability standards imposed in any licencing sceme (i.e.
the GPL) I think this would be an excellent vehicle for organizations hostile to the GPL to incorporate
GPL'd code in their products, extend, the code, but totally snarl up and render unusable the source they
are required to release with their product. It seems like the inevitable endpoint of arrogant licenses like
the GPL.
From the GPL:
I read this to mean that a 'shrouded' version of the source is not acceptable, since your company would make its modifications to the 'unshrouded' version.
-Doug