It's should be pretty clear what I'm saying. My original post was in response to bleckywelcky's claim that rural dwellers are self-reliant, while city dwellers walk around with their hands out, expecting help from the government. My post was to point out, breaking the geography of the country down economically, the exact opposite is true.
Fact of the matter is, I use the "red state"/"blue state" terms because they are popularly understood, but I don't even believe in the characterization. "Red states"/"blue states" are merely an artifact of the peculiarities of our federal election system. The fact that you live in a "red state" and oppose government subsidies is not relevant to my argument. You somehow thought it was, since that was your specific contribution, along with two flippant comments, in reponse to my post, completely ignoring the broader point that I was making.
So, I'll restate the broader point, differently. "Red states" residents who feel so strongly that the federal subsidies should be restrained should apply pressure locally and at a state level to wean their local communities off those subsidies. If they can't do that, they stop touting their "self-reliance" and "responsibility" and recognize that they are the primariy beneficiary of our welfare state, and therefore part of the problem, and not the other way around.
FYI, I don't believe that there is much difference in either party. It just happens that those who claim to be Democrats (I'm not one) seem to be less hypocritical about fiscal policy that those who claim to be Republican (I'm not one of them, either). Both parties cater to their base by providing welfare to their constituencies, as required. It's just that the Republican pols do it, and their supporters expect it, all the while claiming the opposite is true.
So, I'm not bashing half the country. I'm criticizing that fraction of the country that doesn't recognize how it benefits from the current system, and seeks to tear it down without fixing the problem first. If your state/community/region/demographic/etc can live within its means, contribute meaningfully to the economy, and generates a surplus for the collective coffers, then great. Criticize away and work to fix the problem at the federal level. Otherwise, fix your state, walk the talk, demonstrate that you can live without the subsidies your state is from the wealthier states, then come talk to us about how bad welfare is.
BTW, I'd be MUCH happier to pay less in Federal taxes. i just don't think the red state part of the country can handle it. The red states may be an anchor, but its easier to keep them dragging along and hope they shape up, rather than let them collapse and try to fix the mess later. Ounce of prevention, and all that.
Yeah...well, we now have executive and legislative branches dominated by those who ran on a platform to end those subsidies. Even though those in my state and in my tax bracket may get more cash back from the Feds, how much do you want to bet that subsidies to the red states will actually *increase* over the next four years? I'm willing to bet that fiscal irresponsibility will abound in order to keep the red staters fat and sassy.
Instead of giving the money back, I'd appreciate it if the red states would spend some of it on their educational systems. The US going to need a better educated workforce if we're going to stay competitive. That, or keep recruiting the top foreign talent in place of the brains we're not willing to train at home.
Continuing the discussion of the disconnect between red state political ideals and realities. Guess which ten states have the highest bankruptcy rates? Utah, Tennessee, Nevada, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho - all red states. Nice, huh? What an incredible demonstration of fiscal responsibility and self reliance! Still, I like that your representatives are willing to put the screws to you with the change in bankrupcy laws they are trying to enact.
Once red staters stop drinking the Kool-Aid and realize that they were never as self-reliant as they think they are, and that the Republican elite DON'T have their best economic interests at heart, they're going to switch. It might kill them to join up with gay-loving baby killers, but they'll do it anyway when they can't feed their families. And they'll be begging for those safety nets that are being slowly stripped away.
Don't worry. We blue staters are an understanding and tolerant lot. Comes with the territory, so to speak. *grynn* You'll be welcome back into the mainstream fold.
So, you posit that rural dwellers are self-reliant and accountable for their own actions, while city dwellers want government handouts.
Well, actually, the real data shows that the opposite is true. Let's talk taxes. Consider this study of the 2000 Bush-v-Gore election results, as mapped against states that receive net benefits from federal spending. If you want more recent data, you can map the raw facts yourself against the result of the 2004 Bush-v-Kerry election using this data published by taxfoundation.org.
I'm come from plain talking folk, so let me just say it how it is. How red staters can keep posing about their hardy self-reliance while simultaneously sucking so hard on the public teat provided by the blue staters strikes me as being, at the very least, impolite. I don't mind contributing my fair share of taxes - I view it as an investment in my country for all that it provides to me- and for some of those taxes to go to support the undereducated, indigent or unfortunate, be they rural or urban. I don't even expect the recipients to say "please" or "thank you" when they take the money given to them. But do expect not to have my hand spit when I'm trying to give you the handout.
So, pass this around to your fellow self-reliant, hardy, accountable red staters -- Strut around and pose all you want, but if you can't be polite, give us back our taxes.
Protests were only a part of (perhaps the most visible part of) the 60s counterculture. But it was by no means the only characteristic of the movement. In fact, protests were only one expression of the fundamental underlying meme of the whole counterculture movement. The counterculture phenomina, in general, is primarly about questioning the status quo, and the social, political and economic structures that are viewed as sacrosanct. The fact that the hippies were protesting, as you put it, is just one expression of what was going on in the country, for many citizens, at the time.
So, consider that many of the innovative and decentralized uses of computers that we identify today sprung from technologists living the Bay Area in the 60s - a place and time iconic of the counterculture movement.
Is it such as stretch to consider that underlying current of questioning the status quo would also effect how individuals viewed (computer) technology, and how it was created, adminstered and used? Is it hard to believe that here were serious people who studied math, science and engineering who were also steeped in the counterculture?
I think it'd be foolish to dismiss the influence that the social attitudes have on the development of technology. In fact, it's obvious to anyone that has studied the human history of science and technology even superficially can tell you that socio-economic developments drives invention and discovery, and invention and discovery drives socio-economic development. Read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond for a comprehensive overview of how the cycle works.
I wouldn't dismiss the influence that the (liberal) hippies had so casually, just like I wouldn't dismiss the influence that the "Iron Triangle" had on the development of American technology prowess in the later half of the 20th century.
Well, that allows persons from the present to time travel to the event, too. Why should those from the future have all the fun? Barring any unforeseen unfortunate circumstance, I'll be attempting the journey to the future from the present.
Not that I'd expect to see any willful attendees from the future journeying back in time to attend the event. It'd violate the Temporal Prime Directive. Dog forbid that a butterfly get stepped on...
Still, if any comely lasses from the future are seeking DNA samples from a robust and not-unattractive example of an early 21st century homo sapien male, I'd be happy to contribute. In the interest of science, of course.
Unfortunately, it devolved into YAKP (yet another keg party), instead. I had a hard time keeping my fellow collegians motivated and committed towards the party's original theme and goals.
That, plus we actually wanted girls to attend, and we realized that girls from the present were more likely to show if we weren't actively advertising for attendees from the future.
Interesting perspective. I recently started using QS under Panther. Within about 5 minutes of installation, it became second nature. The nature of my work is such that I access scores of unrelated data in the course of a work day, and QS has been a dogsend. Probably the most useful hack I've seen in years.
So ingrained is it in my routine workflow that I forget I even use it. I was working at a friend's house, sitting at his kitchen counter with him looking over my shoulder as I pulled together a document. After about 10 minutes of his watching in relative silence, he finally asked "How the hell getting access to those data sources so damned fast." (He's a Windows user). I had to think a minute before I realized he was asking about QS. After which, I proceeded to demonstrate and gloat. *grynn*
It's nice to hear that Spotlight and QS complement each other. Can't wait to show off all of Tiger's goodness to my drooling Win and Lin user friends.
I love it when people comment on Lisp without learning even most rudimentary aspects of the language. Not to single you out, but it is obvious to when one reads a comment posted by someone who is regurgitating commentary provided elsewhere by other who know nothing about the subject.
I'm not certain what you've learned, but it certainly isn't "a lot". Certainly not about programming language design in general, and Lisp in particular. If you had even taken the time to read about just the history and design of Lisp, which is accessible to even the layman, you'd be able to post a more insightful comment than you just did. Why don't you try that, at minimum, since you are obviously uninterested and/or incapable of learning the technical apsects of the language.
As for Lisp being an experimental language, nothing could be farther than the truth. Lisp is a language that was several decades ahead of its time in design, functionality and capability. Everything else is just now catching up. Evidence all the effort to fold in Lispy features into Python, Perl, Ruby, etc., etc. The thing is, these languages' designers are trying to bolt the features into their language after the fact. While Lisp Just Works.
So, since you raised the topic, what's the answer? What would you have us "move on" to?
Re:This is not a troll, but a query...
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Practical Common Lisp
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· Score: 2, Informative
I am an ex-Lisper who strayed from the One True Language and am now in the process of regaining proficiency to rejoin the Lisp Priesthood. My motivation is that I am tired of the limitations I hit due to the deficiencies inherent in all the other supposed "modern" popular programming languages I've encountered. I also remembered really *enjoying* the whole process of rolling Lisp code, a joy I lost long ago when I strayed into the mass market of more socially acceptable programming languages.
The deficiencies of modern languages I speak of above are not necessarily those of capability (though those exist), but are primarily of language design. Most languages are designed with the goal of increasing the productivity of the average programmer. Lisp's design was entirely about elegance, simplicity and power. I can give you lots of reasons why Lisp is better than insert-your-favorite-programming-language-here, but that will just devolve the conversation into a jihad. So, let me tell you what Lisp is fantastic at.
Actually, you know what? I'm not going to reiterate that which others have stated. If you really are interested, let me just point you to a couple of sites to get you started on your journey of discovery. Read Paul Graham's essays/articles, the first two chapters of Peter Siebel's book available on-line, this essay on Lisp's prowess as a rapid prototyping language and this paper on why the future of the (semantic) Web may lie with Lisp. Then, if you appetite is whetted, Google for more info, download a flavor of Common Lisp, work thru Seibel's book, and experience it for yourself.
Or not. If you're perfectly satisfied with whatever flavor you how you do your work, there is absolutely no reason to learn ANYTHING new, is there?
Learning Lisp. It will take you back to the future.
You speak truth, brother. iPhoto is a pig and a half, and it's no fault of the Apple hardware. Fine for lightweight usage, for those with pictures that are few in number and small in size. But it is completely unusable if one has thousands of large format pics. Of all of Apple's apps, iPhoto is by far the weakest effort. I wish the dev team paid as much attention to the guts of the app as it did the UI.
Maybe if it didn't insist on trying to load the entire photo database on start, it wouldn't choke so bad...
I understand that, because I actually did RTFA. My point is so what? Fine, do it as an exercise in something new-to-you. Do it as for practice. But understand that there is absolutely nothing news worthy, or even noteworthy, about what was done.
Now, if they were going to post information about tasks that they were seeking to accomplish with said cluster, that would interesting. More interesting would have been metrics associated in the performance of said tasks.
But, basically this post is about some guys who installed software on some computers, configured in a manner similar to what has been done thousands of times in the past by others, and got it to run.
*YAWN*
I'm sure it was fun. I'm sure it was interesting, maybe even educational, to the guys doing the work. But hardly worth sharing with others, IMHO. I even call into question how high a "geek" factor this activity has. At the end of the day, they installed software for the sake of installing software.
If you don't agree, then perhaps I should post articles on how a buddy downloaded and installed Cloudscape on a Sawtooth G4. It was exciting (to him)! It was cool (to him)! Sure, many others have done the same thing, and sure, he's not actually using it for anything, But hey! It was geeky, especially since he did it on a Fr night instead of doing something socially interactive.
This may be interesting if the cluster was created to serve some purpose. but if the purpose was merely for the admins to learn about how to set up a Beowulf cluster, well, that exercise is probably performed at least once a day somewhere in the world.
Hardly seems to warrant a post on one's own Web site, let alone a link to Slashdot, IMHO.
"Skittles"...Cute name, though. Wait til Mars, Inc. hears about it...
Is all you need to write the sort of apps that you were talking about.
Xcode, as every other post has said, is free.
Wrt books, I'd recommend "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, 2nd ed", by Aaron Hillegass. Aaron has a lot of experience teaching NextStep, WebObjects and OS X development, and his book reflect that experience. It is excellent - much better than the O'Reilly offerings I've seen. Big Nerd Ranch also has a book about programming the underpinnings of OS X called "Core Mac OS X and Unix Programming." Haven't seen this version book yet, but apparently it's the spiffed up, published version of BNR's student guide, so I'd bet it's pretty well done. You can get both together for $96.20 from Amazon.
There are other good references, tutorials, as well, some free on-line, and some for purchase. Do some Googling and mining on Amazon or B&N to find one that suits your purposes.
BTW, OS X has some very strong scripting capabilities built in that you might find useful for the kinds of apps you typically develop. And, as someone else noted, Ruby and other cool hacking languages come shipped with OS X and work well with XCode. Also, Eclipse, with all its goodness, runs nicely on OS X.
Lastly, if you want to put the limitations of "modern" programming languages behind you and get back to the future of software development, OS X has some of the best OSS Lisp implementations. SBCL or OpenMCL (if you want to do Cocoa apps), plus SLIME and Emacs is all a real programmer needs, and it's all free. *grynn*
What are your credentials? Must lie in something other than computers and internet, since all of the nerds here can answer questions such as yours by doing a Google search. If you had bothered to so so, you'd have read that Clarke was chairman of Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Board when he retired in 2003. He was also the first counter-terrorism coordinator. His office also released the US National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, and he seems to be enough of an authority in the field to be interviewed by IEEE Security & Privacy. There is a lot more to his background, if one really cares to investigate.
So, I'd say that he's pretty well credentialed to comment on threats to US cybersecurity. Perhaps not from the perspective as a bits-and-bytes technologist, but certainly as someone who has expertise in assessing systemic strengths/weaknesses from the perspective of counter-terrorism.
Hmmm...did the moderator not understand the point that I was making that the telecomm industry is no longer a growth industry due, in part, to developments like Skype?
Or was the moderator to0 obtuse to understand that the "In completely unrelated news..." header was tongue-in-cheek?
Hmmm...you were able to glean, from that "...press release with pictures of nothing..." all those facts related to "non-battlefield uses".
So, apparentlly there *was* some information in that press release, after all. Who what other information can be gleaned from that "brochue" (Encore's spelling, not mine). *grynn*
As for the "...it's nothing more than a PDA with GPS" comment -- my laptop is nothing more than a PDA with a faster processor, keyboard, bigger screen, more memory, hard drive, FireWire, etc. etc. Your point?
*My* point in providing that link was to show that this is low-cost, ruggedized, general purpose computer with features that may (or may not) be useful to coordinating soldiers in the field. At the very least, if the Indian Army does decide to deploy these units to the individual soldiers, the soldiers will all have access to a fully featured, ruggedized computing platform that can be configured for a variety of uses.
Contrast that with the experience of some friends of mine in the US military, who had to provide their own laptops (mostly for personal use, though some did find "unofficial, official use"), many of which failed after a relatively short period of time due to conditions on station.
The US military is itself researching the development of battlefield computers that can be deployed at the unit level. It's stated goals are a lot more ambitious than the relatively modest ones of the SATHI developers. But I'd be very surprised if they aren't going to be viewing the Indian military's experience in this area with more than a little interest, if for nothing else then to gain some "lessons learned" from real-world, field deployed units at someone else's expense.
For these reasons alone, I'd say the development is interesting enough to warrent reporting. And the fact that SATHI uses Linux in the provision of a real-world solution, and not a proprietary OS, is also interesting enough to warrant reporting, IMHO.
If gentle readers will indulge me further, let me make some observations intended to actually advance the discussion, instead of holding in back thru trivialization. In observing the approaches being employed by the US and Indian military approaches to computerizing the battlefield, there appears to be an interesting divergence.
The US military appears to be following an approach where they are building up a centralized command and control computerized structure, and then rolling out integrated systems down the chain until, eventually, the individual soldiers and sailors are integrated in the chain. The Indian military appear to be working from "the bottom up". They appear to be putting general purpose "battlefield computers" in the hands of their units without first thinking thru how to integrate all those units into a centralized backend.
If true, it was interesting to me to hypothesize why this is the case. Even more intriguing, I think, is continuing to observe how the two systems develop, to see which method results in a more effective overall platform. It seems to me that the US military's approach is more likely to follow the mantra of "this is how we want our people to use the system, so these are the features we'll provide." The other is more likely to follow the mantra of "this is how our people actually use the system, so how can we support that?" Now, I think that *that* is very, very interesting, *especially* since this is a military organization we are talking about. The success of the latter approach will be predicated on smart people actually getting continual feedback from the end-users, and incorporating that feedback into an incremental development cycle. Sound familiar to anyone?
And, lastly, in a related, but slightly off-topic issue......someone still needs to solve the battery problem.
I understand all the points being made about "slingshotting" off other planets to gain speed, etc. That's all good and fine. But what I meant to argue is that in for *this* particular mission, where the stated goal is to determine how the solar winds interact with "materials between the stars" (as quoted from the article), I wanted to know why it's important to go to a point where the "solar winds flow out past Pluto"?
I'm arguing that we could achieve that boundary quicker by going orthogonal to the plane. This also as the added benefit of providing a more continuous gradient in which to study that interaction, without stuff from our solar system getting in the way.
Lastly, you state that "...it is expected that the interstellar wind pretty much dominates in the plane of the galaxy." If this is presently just a hypothesis, I'd like to see it tested. At the very least, it seems to me that we should send out at least two probes, one in the plane, and one orthogonal.
You know, just to get data to test these hypothesis before we accept them as fact. *grynn*
First, I'll grant that there is a dearth of information wrt the capabilities of this SATHI unit in that article.
But to claim that the capabilities of a unit like the Garmin Rino is sufficient coordinating actions of individual soldiers in the achievement of a specific object is to vastly understate the requirements of a useful battlefield computer.
The stated goals and capabilities of the SATHI is a bit more complex. Whether this unit accomplishes all those goal is yet to be determined, though. That can only be determined in field trials. But it is an interesting first step.
Slashdot Mirror
And between the "G", "H" and "B" keys on ThinkPad keyboards.
I dunno about that. Playing PacMan always made me feel like reaching for some crackers to go with the cheese.
So, was I the only one to find Ms PacMan, what with saucy bow and full red lips, sexy?
Really? Me neither.
...until they capture the *real* essence of driving.
Sucking exhaust fumes from a sight-blocking SUV. *That* is what I'm talking about.
It's should be pretty clear what I'm saying. My original post was in response to bleckywelcky's claim that rural dwellers are self-reliant, while city dwellers walk around with their hands out, expecting help from the government. My post was to point out, breaking the geography of the country down economically, the exact opposite is true.
Fact of the matter is, I use the "red state"/"blue state" terms because they are popularly understood, but I don't even believe in the characterization. "Red states"/"blue states" are merely an artifact of the peculiarities of our federal election system. The fact that you live in a "red state" and oppose government subsidies is not relevant to my argument. You somehow thought it was, since that was your specific contribution, along with two flippant comments, in reponse to my post, completely ignoring the broader point that I was making.
So, I'll restate the broader point, differently. "Red states" residents who feel so strongly that the federal subsidies should be restrained should apply pressure locally and at a state level to wean their local communities off those subsidies. If they can't do that, they stop touting their "self-reliance" and "responsibility" and recognize that they are the primariy beneficiary of our welfare state, and therefore part of the problem, and not the other way around.
FYI, I don't believe that there is much difference in either party. It just happens that those who claim to be Democrats (I'm not one) seem to be less hypocritical about fiscal policy that those who claim to be Republican (I'm not one of them, either). Both parties cater to their base by providing welfare to their constituencies, as required. It's just that the Republican pols do it, and their supporters expect it, all the while claiming the opposite is true.
So, I'm not bashing half the country. I'm criticizing that fraction of the country that doesn't recognize how it benefits from the current system, and seeks to tear it down without fixing the problem first. If your state/community/region/demographic/etc can live within its means, contribute meaningfully to the economy, and generates a surplus for the collective coffers, then great. Criticize away and work to fix the problem at the federal level. Otherwise, fix your state, walk the talk, demonstrate that you can live without the subsidies your state is from the wealthier states, then come talk to us about how bad welfare is.
BTW, I'd be MUCH happier to pay less in Federal taxes. i just don't think the red state part of the country can handle it. The red states may be an anchor, but its easier to keep them dragging along and hope they shape up, rather than let them collapse and try to fix the mess later. Ounce of prevention, and all that.
Get my point now?
Yeah...well, we now have executive and legislative branches dominated by those who ran on a platform to end those subsidies. Even though those in my state and in my tax bracket may get more cash back from the Feds, how much do you want to bet that subsidies to the red states will actually *increase* over the next four years? I'm willing to bet that fiscal irresponsibility will abound in order to keep the red staters fat and sassy.
Instead of giving the money back, I'd appreciate it if the red states would spend some of it on their educational systems. The US going to need a better educated workforce if we're going to stay competitive. That, or keep recruiting the top foreign talent in place of the brains we're not willing to train at home.
Continuing the discussion of the disconnect between red state political ideals and realities. Guess which ten states have the highest bankruptcy rates? Utah, Tennessee, Nevada, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho - all red states. Nice, huh? What an incredible demonstration of fiscal responsibility and self reliance! Still, I like that your representatives are willing to put the screws to you with the change in bankrupcy laws they are trying to enact.
Once red staters stop drinking the Kool-Aid and realize that they were never as self-reliant as they think they are, and that the Republican elite DON'T have their best economic interests at heart, they're going to switch. It might kill them to join up with gay-loving baby killers, but they'll do it anyway when they can't feed their families. And they'll be begging for those safety nets that are being slowly stripped away.
Don't worry. We blue staters are an understanding and tolerant lot. Comes with the territory, so to speak. *grynn* You'll be welcome back into the mainstream fold.
Riiiight.
So, you posit that rural dwellers are self-reliant and accountable for their own actions, while city dwellers want government handouts.
Well, actually, the real data shows that the opposite is true. Let's talk taxes. Consider this study of the 2000 Bush-v-Gore election results, as mapped against states that receive net benefits from federal spending. If you want more recent data, you can map the raw facts yourself against the result of the 2004 Bush-v-Kerry election using this data published by taxfoundation.org.
I'm come from plain talking folk, so let me just say it how it is. How red staters can keep posing about their hardy self-reliance while simultaneously sucking so hard on the public teat provided by the blue staters strikes me as being, at the very least, impolite. I don't mind contributing my fair share of taxes - I view it as an investment in my country for all that it provides to me- and for some of those taxes to go to support the undereducated, indigent or unfortunate, be they rural or urban. I don't even expect the recipients to say "please" or "thank you" when they take the money given to them. But do expect not to have my hand spit when I'm trying to give you the handout.
So, pass this around to your fellow self-reliant, hardy, accountable red staters -- Strut around and pose all you want, but if you can't be polite, give us back our taxes.
Thanks a bunch.
Protests were only a part of (perhaps the most visible part of) the 60s counterculture. But it was by no means the only characteristic of the movement. In fact, protests were only one expression of the fundamental underlying meme of the whole counterculture movement. The counterculture phenomina, in general, is primarly about questioning the status quo, and the social, political and economic structures that are viewed as sacrosanct. The fact that the hippies were protesting, as you put it, is just one expression of what was going on in the country, for many citizens, at the time.
So, consider that many of the innovative and decentralized uses of computers that we identify today sprung from technologists living the Bay Area in the 60s - a place and time iconic of the counterculture movement.
Is it such as stretch to consider that underlying current of questioning the status quo would also effect how individuals viewed (computer) technology, and how it was created, adminstered and used? Is it hard to believe that here were serious people who studied math, science and engineering who were also steeped in the counterculture?
I think it'd be foolish to dismiss the influence that the social attitudes have on the development of technology. In fact, it's obvious to anyone that has studied the human history of science and technology even superficially can tell you that socio-economic developments drives invention and discovery, and invention and discovery drives socio-economic development. Read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond for a comprehensive overview of how the cycle works.
I wouldn't dismiss the influence that the (liberal) hippies had so casually, just like I wouldn't dismiss the influence that the "Iron Triangle" had on the development of American technology prowess in the later half of the 20th century.
Well, that allows persons from the present to time travel to the event, too. Why should those from the future have all the fun? Barring any unforeseen unfortunate circumstance, I'll be attempting the journey to the future from the present.
Not that I'd expect to see any willful attendees from the future journeying back in time to attend the event. It'd violate the Temporal Prime Directive. Dog forbid that a butterfly get stepped on...
Still, if any comely lasses from the future are seeking DNA samples from a robust and not-unattractive example of an early 21st century homo sapien male, I'd be happy to contribute. In the interest of science, of course.
..while I was at college.
Unfortunately, it devolved into YAKP (yet another keg party), instead. I had a hard time keeping my fellow collegians motivated and committed towards the party's original theme and goals.
That, plus we actually wanted girls to attend, and we realized that girls from the present were more likely to show if we weren't actively advertising for attendees from the future.
Interesting perspective. I recently started using QS under Panther. Within about 5 minutes of installation, it became second nature. The nature of my work is such that I access scores of unrelated data in the course of a work day, and QS has been a dogsend. Probably the most useful hack I've seen in years.
So ingrained is it in my routine workflow that I forget I even use it. I was working at a friend's house, sitting at his kitchen counter with him looking over my shoulder as I pulled together a document. After about 10 minutes of his watching in relative silence, he finally asked "How the hell getting access to those data sources so damned fast." (He's a Windows user). I had to think a minute before I realized he was asking about QS. After which, I proceeded to demonstrate and gloat. *grynn*
It's nice to hear that Spotlight and QS complement each other. Can't wait to show off all of Tiger's goodness to my drooling Win and Lin user friends.
...of search technology."
/. in a long, long time.
That, my fine AC friend, is the funniest and truest thing that I read on
I love it when people comment on Lisp without learning even most rudimentary aspects of the language. Not to single you out, but it is obvious to when one reads a comment posted by someone who is regurgitating commentary provided elsewhere by other who know nothing about the subject.
I'm not certain what you've learned, but it certainly isn't "a lot". Certainly not about programming language design in general, and Lisp in particular. If you had even taken the time to read about just the history and design of Lisp, which is accessible to even the layman, you'd be able to post a more insightful comment than you just did. Why don't you try that, at minimum, since you are obviously uninterested and/or incapable of learning the technical apsects of the language.
As for Lisp being an experimental language, nothing could be farther than the truth. Lisp is a language that was several decades ahead of its time in design, functionality and capability. Everything else is just now catching up. Evidence all the effort to fold in Lispy features into Python, Perl, Ruby, etc., etc. The thing is, these languages' designers are trying to bolt the features into their language after the fact. While Lisp Just Works.
So, since you raised the topic, what's the answer? What would you have us "move on" to?
I am an ex-Lisper who strayed from the One True Language and am now in the process of regaining proficiency to rejoin the Lisp Priesthood. My motivation is that I am tired of the limitations I hit due to the deficiencies inherent in all the other supposed "modern" popular programming languages I've encountered. I also remembered really *enjoying* the whole process of rolling Lisp code, a joy I lost long ago when I strayed into the mass market of more socially acceptable programming languages.
The deficiencies of modern languages I speak of above are not necessarily those of capability (though those exist), but are primarily of language design. Most languages are designed with the goal of increasing the productivity of the average programmer. Lisp's design was entirely about elegance, simplicity and power. I can give you lots of reasons why Lisp is better than insert-your-favorite-programming-language-here, but that will just devolve the conversation into a jihad. So, let me tell you what Lisp is fantastic at.
Actually, you know what? I'm not going to reiterate that which others have stated. If you really are interested, let me just point you to a couple of sites to get you started on your journey of discovery. Read Paul Graham's essays/articles, the first two chapters of Peter Siebel's book available on-line, this essay on Lisp's prowess as a rapid prototyping language and this paper on why the future of the (semantic) Web may lie with Lisp. Then, if you appetite is whetted, Google for more info, download a flavor of Common Lisp, work thru Seibel's book, and experience it for yourself.
Or not. If you're perfectly satisfied with whatever flavor you how you do your work, there is absolutely no reason to learn ANYTHING new, is there?
Learning Lisp. It will take you back to the future.
Whoops! Wrong lawsuit!
And here I sith, without mod points to givth.
Nicely done, my friend.
You speak truth, brother. iPhoto is a pig and a half, and it's no fault of the Apple hardware. Fine for lightweight usage, for those with pictures that are few in number and small in size. But it is completely unusable if one has thousands of large format pics. Of all of Apple's apps, iPhoto is by far the weakest effort. I wish the dev team paid as much attention to the guts of the app as it did the UI.
Maybe if it didn't insist on trying to load the entire photo database on start, it wouldn't choke so bad...
I understand that, because I actually did RTFA. My point is so what? Fine, do it as an exercise in something new-to-you. Do it as for practice. But understand that there is absolutely nothing news worthy, or even noteworthy, about what was done.
Now, if they were going to post information about tasks that they were seeking to accomplish with said cluster, that would interesting. More interesting would have been metrics associated in the performance of said tasks.
But, basically this post is about some guys who installed software on some computers, configured in a manner similar to what has been done thousands of times in the past by others, and got it to run.
*YAWN*
I'm sure it was fun. I'm sure it was interesting, maybe even educational, to the guys doing the work. But hardly worth sharing with others, IMHO. I even call into question how high a "geek" factor this activity has. At the end of the day, they installed software for the sake of installing software.
If you don't agree, then perhaps I should post articles on how a buddy downloaded and installed Cloudscape on a Sawtooth G4. It was exciting (to him)! It was cool (to him)! Sure, many others have done the same thing, and sure, he's not actually using it for anything, But hey! It was geeky, especially since he did it on a Fr night instead of doing something socially interactive.
..."Why?"
Not why do it. But why post about it.
This may be interesting if the cluster was created to serve some purpose. but if the purpose was merely for the admins to learn about how to set up a Beowulf cluster, well, that exercise is probably performed at least once a day somewhere in the world.
Hardly seems to warrant a post on one's own Web site, let alone a link to Slashdot, IMHO.
"Skittles"...Cute name, though. Wait til Mars, Inc. hears about it...
Is all you need to write the sort of apps that you were talking about.
Xcode, as every other post has said, is free.
Wrt books, I'd recommend "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, 2nd ed", by Aaron Hillegass. Aaron has a lot of experience teaching NextStep, WebObjects and OS X development, and his book reflect that experience. It is excellent - much better than the O'Reilly offerings I've seen. Big Nerd Ranch also has a book about programming the underpinnings of OS X called "Core Mac OS X and Unix Programming." Haven't seen this version book yet, but apparently it's the spiffed up, published version of BNR's student guide, so I'd bet it's pretty well done. You can get both together for $96.20 from Amazon.
There are other good references, tutorials, as well, some free on-line, and some for purchase. Do some Googling and mining on Amazon or B&N to find one that suits your purposes.
BTW, OS X has some very strong scripting capabilities built in that you might find useful for the kinds of apps you typically develop. And, as someone else noted, Ruby and other cool hacking languages come shipped with OS X and work well with XCode. Also, Eclipse, with all its goodness, runs nicely on OS X.
Lastly, if you want to put the limitations of "modern" programming languages behind you and get back to the future of software development, OS X has some of the best OSS Lisp implementations. SBCL or OpenMCL (if you want to do Cocoa apps), plus SLIME and Emacs is all a real programmer needs, and it's all free. *grynn*
What are your credentials? Must lie in something other than computers and internet, since all of the nerds here can answer questions such as yours by doing a Google search. If you had bothered to so so, you'd have read that Clarke was chairman of Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Board when he retired in 2003. He was also the first counter-terrorism coordinator. His office also released the US National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, and he seems to be enough of an authority in the field to be interviewed by IEEE Security & Privacy. There is a lot more to his background, if one really cares to investigate.
So, I'd say that he's pretty well credentialed to comment on threats to US cybersecurity. Perhaps not from the perspective as a bits-and-bytes technologist, but certainly as someone who has expertise in assessing systemic strengths/weaknesses from the perspective of counter-terrorism.
Hmmm...did the moderator not understand the point that I was making that the telecomm industry is no longer a growth industry due, in part, to developments like Skype?
Or was the moderator to0 obtuse to understand that the "In completely unrelated news..." header was tongue-in-cheek?
Their is much speculationthat SBC is interest in acquiring AT&T for ~$15B.
Two dinosaurs mating, even as an extinction-level event unfold around them. LOL
If you still own telecomm stock..SELL! SELL!!!
Hmmm...you were able to glean, from that "...press release with pictures of nothing..." all those facts related to "non-battlefield uses".
...someone still needs to solve the battery problem.
So, apparentlly there *was* some information in that press release, after all. Who what other information can be gleaned from that "brochue" (Encore's spelling, not mine). *grynn*
As for the "...it's nothing more than a PDA with GPS" comment -- my laptop is nothing more than a PDA with a faster processor, keyboard, bigger screen, more memory, hard drive, FireWire, etc. etc. Your point?
*My* point in providing that link was to show that this is low-cost, ruggedized, general purpose computer with features that may (or may not) be useful to coordinating soldiers in the field. At the very least, if the Indian Army does decide to deploy these units to the individual soldiers, the soldiers will all have access to a fully featured, ruggedized computing platform that can be configured for a variety of uses.
Contrast that with the experience of some friends of mine in the US military, who had to provide their own laptops (mostly for personal use, though some did find "unofficial, official use"), many of which failed after a relatively short period of time due to conditions on station.
The US military is itself researching the development of battlefield computers that can be deployed at the unit level. It's stated goals are a lot more ambitious than the relatively modest ones of the SATHI developers. But I'd be very surprised if they aren't going to be viewing the Indian military's experience in this area with more than a little interest, if for nothing else then to gain some "lessons learned" from real-world, field deployed units at someone else's expense.
For these reasons alone, I'd say the development is interesting enough to warrent reporting. And the fact that SATHI uses Linux in the provision of a real-world solution, and not a proprietary OS, is also interesting enough to warrant reporting, IMHO.
If gentle readers will indulge me further, let me make some observations intended to actually advance the discussion, instead of holding in back thru trivialization. In observing the approaches being employed by the US and Indian military approaches to computerizing the battlefield, there appears to be an interesting divergence.
The US military appears to be following an approach where they are building up a centralized command and control computerized structure, and then rolling out integrated systems down the chain until, eventually, the individual soldiers and sailors are integrated in the chain. The Indian military appear to be working from "the bottom up". They appear to be putting general purpose "battlefield computers" in the hands of their units without first thinking thru how to integrate all those units into a centralized backend.
If true, it was interesting to me to hypothesize why this is the case. Even more intriguing, I think, is continuing to observe how the two systems develop, to see which method results in a more effective overall platform. It seems to me that the US military's approach is more likely to follow the mantra of "this is how we want our people to use the system, so these are the features we'll provide." The other is more likely to follow the mantra of "this is how our people actually use the system, so how can we support that?" Now, I think that *that* is very, very interesting, *especially* since this is a military organization we are talking about. The success of the latter approach will be predicated on smart people actually getting continual feedback from the end-users, and incorporating that feedback into an incremental development cycle. Sound familiar to anyone?
And, lastly, in a related, but slightly off-topic issue...
I understand all the points being made about "slingshotting" off other planets to gain speed, etc. That's all good and fine. But what I meant to argue is that in for *this* particular mission, where the stated goal is to determine how the solar winds interact with "materials between the stars" (as quoted from the article), I wanted to know why it's important to go to a point where the "solar winds flow out past Pluto"?
I'm arguing that we could achieve that boundary quicker by going orthogonal to the plane. This also as the added benefit of providing a more continuous gradient in which to study that interaction, without stuff from our solar system getting in the way.
Lastly, you state that "...it is expected that the interstellar wind pretty much dominates in the plane of the galaxy." If this is presently just a hypothesis, I'd like to see it tested. At the very least, it seems to me that we should send out at least two probes, one in the plane, and one orthogonal.
You know, just to get data to test these hypothesis before we accept them as fact. *grynn*
First, I'll grant that there is a dearth of information wrt the capabilities of this SATHI unit in that article.
But to claim that the capabilities of a unit like the Garmin Rino is sufficient coordinating actions of individual soldiers in the achievement of a specific object is to vastly understate the requirements of a useful battlefield computer.
The stated goals and capabilities of the SATHI is a bit more complex. Whether this unit accomplishes all those goal is yet to be determined, though. That can only be determined in field trials. But it is an interesting first step.