Secondly, *everyone* has something to hide. Everyone. It may not be something criminal, it may not be something wrong...
Yup. The introduction of mandatory ID cards is something I'm happy to go to prison about. I'm not a criminal, I've "nothing to hide". But that doesn't mean that I'm willing to have the government poking around in my life. The introduction of biometric ID cards is a possible foot in the door for much larger things.
...so it isn't nearly as obscure as something written in Pascal or Fortran
Pascal, yes. But Fortran? There is still alot of development done today in the defense, and other related industries, in Fortran. It's robust and fast, and that's all that matters.
Well I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK 999 operators do not appear to know your location, even when dialling from a static location...
Normally they do, but...
When working in a store in a large shopping mall, I had to call for an ambulance...
You were calling from a large shopping centre, almost certainly you were behind some sort of internal PAX system. Hence the number probably didn't make much sense to the operator as no address information would have come up.
Actually in the UK you're better off phoning from a mobile as the emergency operator is now provided with a fairly accurate fix of your location (using base station triangulation). Of course in the UK this sort of service is available to the general public so its hardly suprising that the emergency operator can do it...
The government uses 1 billion = 10^9, as do scientists...
Must depend on the scientists I guess... I'm a Astrophysicist and I use 1 billion = 10^12, and so do all my colleagues who I asked at afternoon coffee today.
I don't know when the change happened, but I'm a 24 year old Brit. When my parents were in school they were taught 1 billion = 10^12, when I was in school I was taught 1 billion = 10^9.
Well I'm British as well, and only six years older than you. I was taught, and still teach to undergraduates, that 1 billion = 10^12.
They seem to have some hope that an automated system could grapple HST and tow it up to ISS.
You mean down, down to the ISS. The ISS is actually in a 200km lower orbit than Hubble, thats why the station needs to be reboosted everytime the shuttle docks. Putting Hubble next to the ISS isn't really an option, its a poor orbit from which to observe from and Hubble would have to be constantly reboosted just like the station. Bad for science, and bad for the budget.
Well since there's already a web server for Nokia phones...
Unfortunately most of the cell networks firewall off the phone's IP rather vicously and you can't actually access it after you have it running (except from another phone on the same network)... ho hum!
Why are people assuming by hardware I meant the computers? The computers control stuff, this is also hardware? Its just rather hard to use without the computers... *scratch head*
How many bytes of mem does it use at runtime? How is it linked?
Sometimes the correct thing to do is to trade off memory and CPU usage for less upfront developer time. Sometimes you need something that'll run small and tight and it doens't matter how much effort (within limits) it takes to get it to run faster and smaller. It depends very heavily on what you're doing and why...
CGI was the first easy way to program interactive web pages, as far as I know (it was a bit before my time), and perl was one of the languages you could use...
While you can use Perl to write CGI, Perl doesn't really have anything to do with CGI coding. You talk alot about CGI, not Perl, I don't see your point? CGI is totally irrelevant to mobile phones...?
Saying that Perl is used to write CGI scripts is like saying Java is used for writing web applets. Yes, you can write applets in Java, but most of the people I know don't.
Perl is dead. All the old perl geeks I know are presently unemployed, and doing their damndest to learn java,.NET or even PHP. Perl is probably fine for half arsed system scripts that don't exceed 50 lines or so, but it is a hindrance and an abomination to a professional development environment - most of which are tending towards python for their prototyping half-arsed scripting needs anyway.
Err, right...
Perl is used alot for CGI and for system admin stuff, but thats not really its target market (any more?). I'm part of a group thats got 30 or 40,000 lines of mission critical Perl running hardware that costs $10 a second whether its running or not. Down time is minimal.
Large Perl applications can be very maintainable so long as you have decent coding standards and actually use the features that are available in the language. Perl is powerful, just because the basics are easy to learn doesn't mean the heavy duty stuff isn't there. Most people that think themselves serious Perl hackers don't use a tenth of the languages features and aren't familiar with how to write decent, readable, object-orientated Perl.
Like any language you can't force people to write good code. You only have to look at the hideously slow half arsed Java applications that get churned out by people calling themselves programmers, but who know nothing about proper application design, to know that.
But mobile phones aren't static. The more modern ones can already run applications written in C/C++ or Java. Simply adding support for perl merely increases the number of people who could write code for them. The difference is nowhere near as great as CGI vs custom web server was.
No but there is currently alot of overhead to getting started, getting the toolchain working is actually quite tricky.
Well, okay I'm a UNIX developer and getting the SymbianOS Java toolchain in place was my first serious exposure to programming under Windows, so maybe it wouldn't be so hard for a native Windows person.
But none the less writing Perl (which I do alot) produces alot more lightweight code than writing Java (which I also do alot) to do the same sort of job. Making the learning curve a bit less steep can only be a good thing.
So if you have any work totally unrelated with your unni/college work, then it has nothing to do with them and the IP is all yours.
But that said Universities have lots of lawyers and students usually don't. Its a very fine (but none the less blurry) line, and if I was working on something that I thought would make me money (and was attending a major University), I'd try real hard to get something on paper from them to say it wasn't their property.
When I write an essay, I own the copyright. I give my prof a copy of my essay when I hand it in , but copyright ownership remains with me. I am free to sell my essay, publish it in a book, a newspaper or a journal, not the prof or university.
Actually I think you'll find that the University owns the copyright if the essay was written as fufilment a requirement of your course. That's standard practice, you did read everything your University made you sign when you started your course, right?
The bright spot on the left-hand side of this picture is
the back side of Beagle 2, slowly drifting away from Mars Express. This image, taken this morning (19-Dec-2003) at 9:33 CET, shows the lander when it was about 20 metres away from the mother spacecraft, on its way to Mars. - ESA, 19 Dec. 2003
Slashdot Mirror
Secondly, *everyone* has something to hide. Everyone. It may not be something criminal, it may not be something wrong...
Yup. The introduction of mandatory ID cards is something I'm happy to go to prison about. I'm not a criminal, I've "nothing to hide". But that doesn't mean that I'm willing to have the government poking around in my life. The introduction of biometric ID cards is a possible foot in the door for much larger things.
Al.Pascal, yes. But Fortran? There is still alot of development done today in the defense, and other related industries, in Fortran. It's robust and fast, and that's all that matters.
Al.Nope, with the introdcution of their new trains Virgin now have power points in cattle class as well.
Al.Well I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK 999 operators do not appear to know your location, even when dialling from a static location...
Normally they do, but...
When working in a store in a large shopping mall, I had to call for an ambulance...
You were calling from a large shopping centre, almost certainly you were behind some sort of internal PAX system. Hence the number probably didn't make much sense to the operator as no address information would have come up.
Actually in the UK you're better off phoning from a mobile as the emergency operator is now provided with a fairly accurate fix of your location (using base station triangulation). Of course in the UK this sort of service is available to the general public so its hardly suprising that the emergency operator can do it...
Al.Remember they had three redudant rovers (Spirit, Opportunity and Beagle 2)...
Beagle 2 wasn't a rover... Al.
The government uses 1 billion = 10^9, as do scientists...
Must depend on the scientists I guess... I'm a Astrophysicist and I use 1 billion = 10^12, and so do all my colleagues who I asked at afternoon coffee today.
I don't know when the change happened, but I'm a 24 year old Brit. When my parents were in school they were taught 1 billion = 10^12, when I was in school I was taught 1 billion = 10^9.
Well I'm British as well, and only six years older than you. I was taught, and still teach to undergraduates, that 1 billion = 10^12.
Al.With US 52.8 billion dollars in the bank...
You do realise that a US billion (a thousand million) is alot smaller than a European billion (a million million), right?
Al.They seem to have some hope that an automated system could grapple HST and tow it up to ISS.
You mean down, down to the ISS. The ISS is actually in a 200km lower orbit than Hubble, thats why the station needs to be reboosted everytime the shuttle docks. Putting Hubble next to the ISS isn't really an option, its a poor orbit from which to observe from and Hubble would have to be constantly reboosted just like the station. Bad for science, and bad for the budget.
Al.Use a CSD connection (dial-up) instead of WAP/GPRS...
Doh! Yes that would work, so long as your ISP wasn't heavy handed with their firewall rules of course...
Al.Well since there's already a web server for Nokia phones...
Unfortunately most of the cell networks firewall off the phone's IP rather vicously and you can't actually access it after you have it running (except from another phone on the same network)... ho hum!
Al.If your hardware is so expensive...
Why are people assuming by hardware I meant the computers? The computers control stuff, this is also hardware? Its just rather hard to use without the computers... *scratch head*
Al.He didn't say that...
No, I didn't.
Al.That is over $315 million dollars a year in costs. What system on the planet costs that much to run per year?
Big budget, big science. Trust me $315 million isn't really that much money.
Al.How many bytes of mem does it use at runtime? How is it linked?
Sometimes the correct thing to do is to trade off memory and CPU usage for less upfront developer time. Sometimes you need something that'll run small and tight and it doens't matter how much effort (within limits) it takes to get it to run faster and smaller. It depends very heavily on what you're doing and why...
Al.wait, with a UK URL you want 39.970, don't you?
No, thats the Europeans, we don't talk to them (much)...
Ah, you meant between 30 and 40,000 lines.
Pedants, the lot of you! Humpf!
Al.CGI was the first easy way to program interactive web pages, as far as I know (it was a bit before my time), and perl was one of the languages you could use...
While you can use Perl to write CGI, Perl doesn't really have anything to do with CGI coding. You talk alot about CGI, not Perl, I don't see your point? CGI is totally irrelevant to mobile phones...?
Saying that Perl is used to write CGI scripts is like saying Java is used for writing web applets. Yes, you can write applets in Java, but most of the people I know don't.
Al.Perl is dead. All the old perl geeks I know are presently unemployed, and doing their damndest to learn java, .NET or even PHP. Perl is probably fine for half arsed system scripts that don't exceed 50 lines or so, but it is a hindrance and an abomination to a professional development environment - most of which are tending towards python for their prototyping half-arsed scripting needs anyway.
Err, right...
Perl is used alot for CGI and for system admin stuff, but thats not really its target market (any more?). I'm part of a group thats got 30 or 40,000 lines of mission critical Perl running hardware that costs $10 a second whether its running or not. Down time is minimal.
Large Perl applications can be very maintainable so long as you have decent coding standards and actually use the features that are available in the language. Perl is powerful, just because the basics are easy to learn doesn't mean the heavy duty stuff isn't there. Most people that think themselves serious Perl hackers don't use a tenth of the languages features and aren't familiar with how to write decent, readable, object-orientated Perl.
Like any language you can't force people to write good code. You only have to look at the hideously slow half arsed Java applications that get churned out by people calling themselves programmers, but who know nothing about proper application design, to know that.
Al.Big question - does it have an SSH client?
What? For the Nokia Series 60 platform? Yes!
I SSH into my workplace UNIX box from my Nokia 3650 moderately regularly. The SSH client for SymbainOS is a port of PuTTY and can be found here.
Al.But mobile phones aren't static. The more modern ones can already run applications written in C/C++ or Java. Simply adding support for perl merely increases the number of people who could write code for them. The difference is nowhere near as great as CGI vs custom web server was.
No but there is currently alot of overhead to getting started, getting the toolchain working is actually quite tricky.
Well, okay I'm a UNIX developer and getting the SymbianOS Java toolchain in place was my first serious exposure to programming under Windows, so maybe it wouldn't be so hard for a native Windows person.
But none the less writing Perl (which I do alot) produces alot more lightweight code than writing Java (which I also do alot) to do the same sort of job. Making the learning curve a bit less steep can only be a good thing.
Al.Apparently, he has not studied Gentoo.
Apparently you haven't actually read the whole article, the author talks about Gentoo at length.
Al.So if you have any work totally unrelated with your unni/college work, then it has nothing to do with them and the IP is all yours.
But that said Universities have lots of lawyers and students usually don't. Its a very fine (but none the less blurry) line, and if I was working on something that I thought would make me money (and was attending a major University), I'd try real hard to get something on paper from them to say it wasn't their property.
Al.When I write an essay, I own the copyright. I give my prof a copy of my essay when I hand it in , but copyright ownership remains with me. I am free to sell my essay, publish it in a book, a newspaper or a journal, not the prof or university.
Actually I think you'll find that the University owns the copyright if the essay was written as fufilment a requirement of your course. That's standard practice, you did read everything your University made you sign when you started your course, right?
Al.Last I checked the US wasn't a theocracy...
When was the last time you checked?
Al.None of them. It's probably an X server with some lightweight window manager they've been using since the 80s.
Looking at the desktop its some sort of NextStep clone, looks too lightweight to be WindowMaker, might be GNUStep or the like.
Al.You havn't by any chance an URL ? Or are they not published yet ?
You can find it here.
Al.