that are hanging in shady areas, loitering, with no real reason to be there.
If you grow up in a shady area, you don't have much of a choice of where you hang out. Also, the Supreme Court has stricken down anti-loitering laws on several occassions. Basing possible future criminal activity on perfectly legal activities smacks of police statism. How about they compile a list of Berkeley students? They usually end up as PITA members, which is a terrorist organization.
I kept getting one that was a woman who immediately said, "sorry, I dialed the wrong number.". I thought it was odd the first time. The second time I realized it was a recording. Some telephone sales company looking for phone numbers to use later on, no doubt. I would get the service to block "unknown" caller ids, but we get a lot of calls from Europe and they are often "unknown".
can be rather tricky when the beast is tempting you with spoils.
Hell, take the spoils (make sure there are no strings attached), then implement the Linux solution anyway. Have a raffle at a dollar a ticket with the prizes being the Microsoft junk.
bogus crap that consumer friendly monsters like InstallShield do
This is the kind of attitude that is keeping Linux out of the mainstream. Consumer friendly crap like InstallShield are exactly what is needed.
Typical installation on installation on Linux...
Download rpm and try to install. Now go look for the dependency rpm needed. Download that and try to install. Oops, that has a dependency, too. Can't find an rpm, get the source in a tar.gz. Unpack it and run./configure, make, make install. Oops, need the source for a missing library. Go find that....
Typical install using InstallShield...
Run InstallShield, choose directory, choose components (though the defaults are usually correct for the average user). Wait for install to finish. Sometimes reboot (yuck, that's stupid).
Now which method is a typical computer user going to prefer?
I worked with Wil many years ago. He was spending some time at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire as a boothie. I was running the Seadogs. We did a few gigs at his expense and he took it with a smile.
It's unfortunate the writers for ST:TNG were idiots and did a lot of stupid things with his character, but that wasn't under his control. He had basically two choices, live with it or quit. Would you quit a high paying job on Star Trek because you didn't like the direction your character was going? Hell no! I would have been happy to play any sort of character just to get on Star Trek.
Her: Why do you leave the toilet seat up? I always need it down, and you need it down 50% of the time. Efficiency would require leaving it down as a matter of practice.
These are not the people you should be asking for advice on your girlfriend. These are geeks. Most of them don't even have girlfriends.
Trolling aside, if you think your girlfriend would want a diamond, you would be a fool to substitute something else. She may suggest something else is ok, but that is a lie. She really wants the diamond and she will resent the fact that you didn't get her one.
And then the FBI runs the ISBNs of all the books they find "interesting" through the hash and searchs for matches.
Good point. Some method needs to be used to randomize the hash. Perhaps each person would have a PIN they would use. The ISBN and the PIN generate the hash. When you return the book, you enter your PIN and they scan the ISBN to compare the hashes Big downside here! Now we've added an element that makes it even easier to track you if the MIBs compromise the database. I think I need more foil for my hat.
I was trying to come up with a method that did not require a deposit on the book. People with limited incomes have as much right to privacy as people with money.
Information should only record that you have something checked out, but not exactly what you have in your possession. Use a one-way hash such as MD5 on the ISBN as a key. When you check out a book, only this hash is recorded. When you return the book, this information is purged from the computer.
Downside, the library can't tell how much the book is worth when it is lost. If you record the value along with the hash, it could theoretically be used to figure out the exact book. To fix this, only the value "range" is recorded, and the maximum is charged if the book is loss. For example, the book is in the "Under $10 range". If lost, you own $10 to the library, even if the book only cost $7.
Another downside, the library doesn't have a way of keeping track of which books need to be replaced. This isn't a good situation, but privacy overrides inventory tracking need. I think it's a fair trade-off. The library could implement an "inventory week". During that week, the actual ISBN is recorded when you borrow a book so they can do a proper inventory check. If you don't want that information recorded (even if purged when the book is returned), don't check anything out that week.
I can justify it simply by looking at the crime figures for the U.K. The number of gun crimes have shot up since the total ban was put in place. In Britain, ALL violent crimes have been rising at an alarming rate. Where do I get this info? From the United Nations report on Crime in Europe.
If someone wants to get a version of a film "edited for reactionary right-wing christian fundamentalists", so what. As long as it is clearly labeled that it is an edited version and is not "sanctioned" by the film makers, it shouldn't be a problem.
Read the comments. The Europeans say, "we've had this for years, what's the problem?" We Americans say, fuck this! I'm not going to let the government track me like sheep."
We Americans tend to be distrustful of governments. I think this is a good thing. When you start trusting the government too much, you let them get away with too much.
Look at the U.K. They trusted too much. Now they have cameras everywhere, a complete ban on guns (although the criminals have no problem finding them), and it is virtually illegal to defend yourself. As a result, violent crime is spiraling out of control. Of course, their solution is even more control of the subjects, further erosion of rights, and another step (or two) to the perfectly controlled society.
Meanwhile, we paranoid Yanks get pissed every time the government suggests national I.D.s or tries to implement gun control. The violent crime rate has been falling for several decades.
Seriously. Have you ever dealt with the postal service in another country? For the most part, it sucks. All too often, packages disapear. If something does arrive, it took bloody forever.
I stopped complaining about the USPS after having extensive dealings with European postal services.
An actual situation. I needed a nic driver on a system. Without it, no net access. The only way to get the driver onto the box was via floppy. There are alternate methods, e.g. serial port, zip drive, etc., but nothing beats the ease and convenience of a floppy drive. I'd rather spend the $10 for a floppy drive than have to hassle with the other methods.
The last time I worked on a commercial game (it's been a few years), we avoided pointers like the plauge. We also avoided dynamically allocating and deallocating memory. Everything was kept in big honkin' arrays because it was FAST. Accessing into an array with a constant index is a very simple operation because the details are taken care of at compile time. Using pointers, however, took a huge amount of overhead. In real time games, performance is everything.
Another benefit of this system was reduced bugs. Eliminate pointers and you automatically eliminate a good portion of your potential bugs.
The U.S. military is also the military for a large number of other nations. Most of Europe could not field a decent army if their lives depended on it.
Some months back I made a database of information available to the public. I did this because the person who controlled the yahoo-group where the info came from decided to take it offline and make it a paid service. I took exception to making information freely given into a commercial product.
The information contained reviews of translation agencies (basically, how long did they take to pay for services - the translation industry is notorious for not paying). Each submission required the real name of the person who posted the data. This was to prevent someone from anonymously libeling a company.
When I made the data public, a small, but extremely vocal group made all kinds of legal threats because I had posted their "personal" information (one cheese-eating surrender monkey threatened to hire a Parisian lawyer and toss me in jail - yeah, right). For some reason these idiots felt their names, business addresses, business phone numbers, and business email addresses were somehow private.
I googled a handful of the loudest complainers just to see the results. Not only did I find their business contact information, but I also found some interesting other tidbits such as home addresses and phone numbers, CVs, school projects, and more.
I took the data offline, but not because of the legal threats. They had no legal weight. My limited bandwidth, however, was screaming in agony from the large number of hits from the people who appreciated me making the data available. I had experienced a mini-slashdotting. I hope I never experience the real thing.
I did learn one thing. People will go to unusual lengths to convince themselves that information posted on the internet is private.
The need to mount and unmount CD/DVDs has been one of my pet peeves. Hell, Windoze can detect when a new disk is inserted and even launch stuff (which is annoying but can be disabled). So use the same technique and automount the damn thing. And when the eject button is pressed, catch that and umount. If the Microsoft programmers can do it, it can't be all that hard!
robots.txt has a legitimate use. Redirecting attempts to access it would be extremely stupid.
When a legitimate bot such as google scans your system, it looks in robots.txt for find out where NOT to scan in case you have web pages you do not wish to be searchable.
Slashdot Mirror
Mail forwarding for first class mail is free in the U.S. Magazines have a slight charge to them.
I kept getting one that was a woman who immediately said, "sorry, I dialed the wrong number.". I thought it was odd the first time. The second time I realized it was a recording. Some telephone sales company looking for phone numbers to use later on, no doubt. I would get the service to block "unknown" caller ids, but we get a lot of calls from Europe and they are often "unknown".
Hell, take the spoils (make sure there are no strings attached), then implement the Linux solution anyway. Have a raffle at a dollar a ticket with the prizes being the Microsoft junk.
I agree. apt-get is a great program. I wish it was made part of the United Linux standard.
This is the kind of attitude that is keeping Linux out of the mainstream. Consumer friendly crap like InstallShield are exactly what is needed.
Typical installation on installation on Linux...
Download rpm and try to install. Now go look for the dependency rpm needed. Download that and try to install. Oops, that has a dependency, too. Can't find an rpm, get the source in a tar.gz. Unpack it and run ./configure, make, make install. Oops, need the source for a missing library. Go find that....
Typical install using InstallShield...
Run InstallShield, choose directory, choose components (though the defaults are usually correct for the average user). Wait for install to finish. Sometimes reboot (yuck, that's stupid).
Now which method is a typical computer user going to prefer?
I worked with Wil many years ago. He was spending some time at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire as a boothie. I was running the Seadogs. We did a few gigs at his expense and he took it with a smile.
It's unfortunate the writers for ST:TNG were idiots and did a lot of stupid things with his character, but that wasn't under his control. He had basically two choices, live with it or quit. Would you quit a high paying job on Star Trek because you didn't like the direction your character was going? Hell no! I would have been happy to play any sort of character just to get on Star Trek.
These are not the people you should be asking for advice on your girlfriend. These are geeks. Most of them don't even have girlfriends.
Trolling aside, if you think your girlfriend would want a diamond, you would be a fool to substitute something else. She may suggest something else is ok, but that is a lie. She really wants the diamond and she will resent the fact that you didn't get her one.
I was trying to come up with a method that did not require a deposit on the book. People with limited incomes have as much right to privacy as people with money.
Information should only record that you have something checked out, but not exactly what you have in your possession. Use a one-way hash such as MD5 on the ISBN as a key. When you check out a book, only this hash is recorded. When you return the book, this information is purged from the computer.
Downside, the library can't tell how much the book is worth when it is lost. If you record the value along with the hash, it could theoretically be used to figure out the exact book. To fix this, only the value "range" is recorded, and the maximum is charged if the book is loss. For example, the book is in the "Under $10 range". If lost, you own $10 to the library, even if the book only cost $7.
Another downside, the library doesn't have a way of keeping track of which books need to be replaced. This isn't a good situation, but privacy overrides inventory tracking need. I think it's a fair trade-off. The library could implement an "inventory week". During that week, the actual ISBN is recorded when you borrow a book so they can do a proper inventory check. If you don't want that information recorded (even if purged when the book is returned), don't check anything out that week.
I can justify it simply by looking at the crime figures for the U.K. The number of gun crimes have shot up since the total ban was put in place. In Britain, ALL violent crimes have been rising at an alarming rate. Where do I get this info? From the United Nations report on Crime in Europe.
If someone wants to get a version of a film "edited for reactionary right-wing christian fundamentalists", so what. As long as it is clearly labeled that it is an edited version and is not "sanctioned" by the film makers, it shouldn't be a problem.
The economy is in the shitter. Sales for just about everything you can think of is down.
Why is this even considered news?
Read the comments. The Europeans say, "we've had this for years, what's the problem?" We Americans say, fuck this! I'm not going to let the government track me like sheep."
We Americans tend to be distrustful of governments. I think this is a good thing. When you start trusting the government too much, you let them get away with too much.
Look at the U.K. They trusted too much. Now they have cameras everywhere, a complete ban on guns (although the criminals have no problem finding them), and it is virtually illegal to defend yourself. As a result, violent crime is spiraling out of control. Of course, their solution is even more control of the subjects, further erosion of rights, and another step (or two) to the perfectly controlled society.
Meanwhile, we paranoid Yanks get pissed every time the government suggests national I.D.s or tries to implement gun control. The violent crime rate has been falling for several decades.
Flamebait!? You've got to be kidding!? Whomever modded it down is an idiot.
I didn't say ALL European mail was bad, just a lot of it. The UK seems to have excellent service, too, at least in my experience.
Seriously. Have you ever dealt with the postal service in another country? For the most part, it sucks. All too often, packages disapear. If something does arrive, it took bloody forever.
I stopped complaining about the USPS after having extensive dealings with European postal services.
An actual situation. I needed a nic driver on a system. Without it, no net access. The only way to get the driver onto the box was via floppy. There are alternate methods, e.g. serial port, zip drive, etc., but nothing beats the ease and convenience of a floppy drive. I'd rather spend the $10 for a floppy drive than have to hassle with the other methods.
The last time I worked on a commercial game (it's been a few years), we avoided pointers like the plauge. We also avoided dynamically allocating and deallocating memory. Everything was kept in big honkin' arrays because it was FAST. Accessing into an array with a constant index is a very simple operation because the details are taken care of at compile time. Using pointers, however, took a huge amount of overhead. In real time games, performance is everything.
Another benefit of this system was reduced bugs. Eliminate pointers and you automatically eliminate a good portion of your potential bugs.
The U.S. military is also the military for a large number of other nations. Most of Europe could not field a decent army if their lives depended on it.
Some months back I made a database of information available to the public. I did this because the person who controlled the yahoo-group where the info came from decided to take it offline and make it a paid service. I took exception to making information freely given into a commercial product.
The information contained reviews of translation agencies (basically, how long did they take to pay for services - the translation industry is notorious for not paying). Each submission required the real name of the person who posted the data. This was to prevent someone from anonymously libeling a company.
When I made the data public, a small, but extremely vocal group made all kinds of legal threats because I had posted their "personal" information (one cheese-eating surrender monkey threatened to hire a Parisian lawyer and toss me in jail - yeah, right). For some reason these idiots felt their names, business addresses, business phone numbers, and business email addresses were somehow private.
I googled a handful of the loudest complainers just to see the results. Not only did I find their business contact information, but I also found some interesting other tidbits such as home addresses and phone numbers, CVs, school projects, and more.
I took the data offline, but not because of the legal threats. They had no legal weight. My limited bandwidth, however, was screaming in agony from the large number of hits from the people who appreciated me making the data available. I had experienced a mini-slashdotting. I hope I never experience the real thing.
I did learn one thing. People will go to unusual lengths to convince themselves that information posted on the internet is private.
Less than 25 cents a package, prep time about 3 minutes. If someone at a LAN party wants something better, they can order it.
Seriously, a proper lan party survives on pizza and jolt (or Mountain Dew).
The need to mount and unmount CD/DVDs has been one of my pet peeves. Hell, Windoze can detect when a new disk is inserted and even launch stuff (which is annoying but can be disabled). So use the same technique and automount the damn thing. And when the eject button is pressed, catch that and umount. If the Microsoft programmers can do it, it can't be all that hard!
robots.txt has a legitimate use. Redirecting attempts to access it would be extremely stupid.
When a legitimate bot such as google scans your system, it looks in robots.txt for find out where NOT to scan in case you have web pages you do not wish to be searchable.