What's worse is when your friends tell all their relations and business partners with computer problems that "I know someone who can fix it, I'm sure he'd be happy to take a look!".
Primitive types are boxed in C#, just automatically wrapped and unwrapped as required. But what he seems to fail to realise is that Java 1.5 is introducing this too, so that I will be able to define method(Object obj) and type method(12) and will receive a boxed Integer type. This should work fairly for generics too (I hope).
A far more sensible solution that I would propose is to do the following:
When a URL such as http://user:pass@www.domain/ is entered, display http://www.domain/ in the Address Bar and put "Logged in as user" in the status bar. This work just as well with https URLs, and would also give people a better sense of security since their passwords wouldn't be displayed in the address bar when viewing pages on an authenticated site.
It makes me wonder how much they are paying people to come up with solutions which involve breaking standards in the name of "security" when I can come up with a better idea in under 30 seconds...
I'd like to think that IBM won't enforce this patent to disrupt paid open source development because they now realise how important Linux, GNU, X, Gnome and KDE are to their business model. However, I suspect I'm just being naieve.
What are your feelings about the Internet in relation to freedom of the press and global democracy?
Does the Internet help opressed peoples in dictatorial regimes to see the rights and freedoms that their governments deny them, and to see around the official views that are put out through party propaganda machines? Is it our responsibility to help people in nations like China circumvent their government's censorship mechanisms (using systems like the ill-fated SafeWeb) and see what's really going on in the world, much as Voice of America and BBC World Service have been doing on the radio for so many years?
How many people have you spoken to in Iraq who used the Internet in some form under Hussein and what did they think of the content? Impressed? Disgusted? Did the Internet have any influence before or during the war, perhaps persuading people not to resist or fight for the regime?
What uses have you found the for Internet in post-dictatorship Iraq? Communications, fostering democratic thinking?
Does Linux (being free and hence requiring no capital investment) represent the ideal way to get people online in Iraq when money is tight and perhaps better used elsewhere?
Yeah, and why do you think the only surviving commonly used base in the world (outside of computing) is 10? Because we have 10 fingers. So effectively (ten fingers) -> (ten numerical digits) -> (base 10 number system), so the reason metric is based on 10 is still because we have 10 fingers.
The only really important historical exceptions I can think of are the Romans who used base-5 (but the way they wrote numbers was so horrendous that it didn't survive) and the Babylonians, who used base-60 (because their mathematicians were all pretty smart!).
Please don't say English/Metric units. The UK is effectively metric now, all schoolchildren are only taught metric units and everything has to be priced in metric units. I don't even have intutitions about how long feet are or how heavy a stone is. Pretty much everyone under the age of 25 only deals with litres, metres and kilograms. The only exception is vehicle speed, which is still measured in mph (and hence all our road signs are in mph). You won't, however, catch any British Engineers or scientists using Imperial units.
Better ways to describe them would be "Imperial" (what we call them), "American" or "Archiac". I think it's about time the US caught up with the rest of the world and ditched these stupid and difficult-to-remember units once and for all.
No. I think "rootless" in the context of the parent implies no root container window within which each X window appears. Cygwin/XFree86 works this way, all the apps are contained within one big container window. In contrast, Apple's X Server that runs on top of OS X and the X Server in DirectFB does not do this. Each X window is mapped to a top-level window in the host windowing system, managed by the host windowing system rather than an X Windowing System Window Manager (so borders and universal window controls like 'Close' and 'Iconify' look the same as the host windowing system, and the individual X windows appear in the window list / taskbar / dock of the host windowing system).
Cygwin can't run a lot of Linux apps directly. Most of the time they need porting, because libraries are not the same. Both try to be POSIX complaint, but both aren't, so the work is usually fairly minimal, but it's still work to be done. CoLinux allows it to all happen transparently with no source code changes. As such, it's much more useful.
Windows Services for UNIX also suffers from the same problem, it also tries to be POSIX complaint, but its POSIX defficiencies match neither Linux nor Cygwin.
I haven't looked at the implementation, but I suspect Linux is running more as a Ring 3 (much like User Mode Linux runs under traditional "kernel mode" Linux) with appropriate layers to forward interupts and virtualise devices.
Cygwin can't run a lot of Linux apps directly. Most of the time they need porting, because libraries are not the same. Both try to be POSIX complaint, but both aren't, so the work is usually fairly minimal, but it's still work to be done. CoLinux allows it to all happen transparently with no source code changes. As such, it's much more useful.
Windows Services for UNIX also suffers from the same problem, it also tries to be POSIX complaint, but its POSIX defficiencies match neither Linux nor Cygwin.
If you notice, the X Server in use is actually Cygwin/XFree86 rather than something built in to this system. The actual system runs in console mode only, and thanks to the flexibility of X, allows apps run in the console to connect back to any X server running on the machine.
The point is, if you can find a rootless X server for MS Windows, you can do so. The only one I'm aware of is eXceed (although I don't keep up with them because I have no need for them). It's commercial, but is usually cheaper or free through a university or college.
Obviously you didn't write that, but could you link me to the site where you found it? I think I might send it to some of my "Christian" friends and see how well they can refute it. It would be nice to have the author's name.
I've heard its full name will be "Microsoft Next Generation Secure Visual SMTP for Mail Transport Agents 2003.NET" or MNGSVSMTPMTA. Just rolls of the tongue, doesn't it?
Despite carrying a PDA and a mobile phone in my pocket; and a pentorch, penknife, and USB memory drive on my keyring, I wear an analogue mechanical watch. It makes me feel like I'm not quite 100% geek. Anyone else do the same?
So does Gnome 2.4 under Desktop Preferences. In standard X I believe there's some key combination to do it, but I forget what it is (never change resolution as I use LCDs).
They probably work unless Sun is deliberately breaking the human interface devices part of the USB specification. Even they wouldn't be that silly. One of the advantages of USB is that there are nice specifications for how a large number of devices should behave. If only other peripheral connect standards were as useful...
There's a great reason for USB mice: higher throughput and therefore higher resolution (dpi). The mouse is more sensitive to small movements and the corresponding movements on the screen are less jerky. This does make a difference when working on a 3200x2400 screen (I don't do this very often, mind!).
Also, newer USB keyboards support trendy features like hubs where you can plug in your mouse, digicam, PDA cradle, even digital speakers. If you're lucky enough to have a monitor with a USB hub built in, your entire I/O subsystem only needs one DVI cable and one USB cable connecting them to the PC. This is how one of my newer machines is configured at the moment. It certainly cuts down on the mess.
Since when is some random person writing very poor quality PHP code news on Slashdot? Most of the portal software around can output RSS these days anyway, if they're worth their weight in salt.
Certificates like this are going to become a real problem for open source software. There's no way a small distribution could get a certificate that costs many thousands of dollars to buy. There's certainly no way a single user who makes changes to his or her kernel could ever hope to achieve this kind of certification.
Hence all the hard work of the kernel developers, who provide their services for free in many cases, cannot be directly recognised. Instead some huge corperation has to come along and sponsor such certification. This just isn't right, IMO.
There's a much bigger issue here though, a threat from the future called Digital Rights Management and NGSCB. Who wants an operating system that will be unable to access secure web services because Microsoft introduces a protocol that requires a DRM-aware application running on a DRM-booted computer? Open source GPL'd Linux will never be able to obtain such certificates without massive corperate sponsorship from IBM, Novell, Redhat or whoever.
Even if it does, changing one line in my kernel and recompiling would invalidate it, locking me out of my legally purchased music and movies, and even things like my e-mail eventually (we're already seeing this with the restrictions that a sender can put on an e-mail in Office 2003. Imagine when this is part of the operating system and not easily circumvented).
Bullshit efforts certification efforts like EAL and NGSCB undermine and threaten open source and play right in to the hands of the major corperations. In today's world, the most important corperation producing operating systems is, you've guessed it: Microsoft!
This sort of thing plays right in to their hands. They're undermining the free work of all the thousands of Linux and BSD developers effectively through the back door: by making open source software an unviable solution under the guise of security. Fuck them.
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What's worse is when your friends tell all their relations and business partners with computer problems that "I know someone who can fix it, I'm sure he'd be happy to take a look!".
Primitive types are boxed in C#, just automatically wrapped and unwrapped as required. But what he seems to fail to realise is that Java 1.5 is introducing this too, so that I will be able to define method(Object obj) and type method(12) and will receive a boxed Integer type. This should work fairly for generics too (I hope).
A far more sensible solution that I would propose is to do the following:
When a URL such as http://user:pass@www.domain/ is entered, display http://www.domain/ in the Address Bar and put "Logged in as user" in the status bar. This work just as well with https URLs, and would also give people a better sense of security since their passwords wouldn't be displayed in the address bar when viewing pages on an authenticated site.
It makes me wonder how much they are paying people to come up with solutions which involve breaking standards in the name of "security" when I can come up with a better idea in under 30 seconds...
I'd like to think that IBM won't enforce this patent to disrupt paid open source development because they now realise how important Linux, GNU, X, Gnome and KDE are to their business model. However, I suspect I'm just being naieve.
What are your feelings about the Internet in relation to freedom of the press and global democracy?
Does the Internet help opressed peoples in dictatorial regimes to see the rights and freedoms that their governments deny them, and to see around the official views that are put out through party propaganda machines? Is it our responsibility to help people in nations like China circumvent their government's censorship mechanisms (using systems like the ill-fated SafeWeb) and see what's really going on in the world, much as Voice of America and BBC World Service have been doing on the radio for so many years?
How many people have you spoken to in Iraq who used the Internet in some form under Hussein and what did they think of the content? Impressed? Disgusted? Did the Internet have any influence before or during the war, perhaps persuading people not to resist or fight for the regime?
What uses have you found the for Internet in post-dictatorship Iraq? Communications, fostering democratic thinking?
Does Linux (being free and hence requiring no capital investment) represent the ideal way to get people online in Iraq when money is tight and perhaps better used elsewhere?
Yeah, and why do you think the only surviving commonly used base in the world (outside of computing) is 10? Because we have 10 fingers. So effectively (ten fingers) -> (ten numerical digits) -> (base 10 number system), so the reason metric is based on 10 is still because we have 10 fingers.
The only really important historical exceptions I can think of are the Romans who used base-5 (but the way they wrote numbers was so horrendous that it didn't survive) and the Babylonians, who used base-60 (because their mathematicians were all pretty smart!).
Please don't say English/Metric units. The UK is effectively metric now, all schoolchildren are only taught metric units and everything has to be priced in metric units. I don't even have intutitions about how long feet are or how heavy a stone is. Pretty much everyone under the age of 25 only deals with litres, metres and kilograms. The only exception is vehicle speed, which is still measured in mph (and hence all our road signs are in mph). You won't, however, catch any British Engineers or scientists using Imperial units.
Better ways to describe them would be "Imperial" (what we call them), "American" or "Archiac". I think it's about time the US caught up with the rest of the world and ditched these stupid and difficult-to-remember units once and for all.
Thanks for the info. Feel free to mod my grandparent down.
No. I think "rootless" in the context of the parent implies no root container window within which each X window appears. Cygwin/XFree86 works this way, all the apps are contained within one big container window. In contrast, Apple's X Server that runs on top of OS X and the X Server in DirectFB does not do this. Each X window is mapped to a top-level window in the host windowing system, managed by the host windowing system rather than an X Windowing System Window Manager (so borders and universal window controls like 'Close' and 'Iconify' look the same as the host windowing system, and the individual X windows appear in the window list / taskbar / dock of the host windowing system).
Cygwin can't run a lot of Linux apps directly. Most of the time they need porting, because libraries are not the same. Both try to be POSIX complaint, but both aren't, so the work is usually fairly minimal, but it's still work to be done. CoLinux allows it to all happen transparently with no source code changes. As such, it's much more useful.
Windows Services for UNIX also suffers from the same problem, it also tries to be POSIX complaint, but its POSIX defficiencies match neither Linux nor Cygwin.
I haven't looked at the implementation, but I suspect Linux is running more as a Ring 3 (much like User Mode Linux runs under traditional "kernel mode" Linux) with appropriate layers to forward interupts and virtualise devices.
Cygwin can't run a lot of Linux apps directly. Most of the time they need porting, because libraries are not the same. Both try to be POSIX complaint, but both aren't, so the work is usually fairly minimal, but it's still work to be done. CoLinux allows it to all happen transparently with no source code changes. As such, it's much more useful.
Windows Services for UNIX also suffers from the same problem, it also tries to be POSIX complaint, but its POSIX defficiencies match neither Linux nor Cygwin.
If you notice, the X Server in use is actually Cygwin/XFree86 rather than something built in to this system. The actual system runs in console mode only, and thanks to the flexibility of X, allows apps run in the console to connect back to any X server running on the machine.
The point is, if you can find a rootless X server for MS Windows, you can do so. The only one I'm aware of is eXceed (although I don't keep up with them because I have no need for them). It's commercial, but is usually cheaper or free through a university or college.
Extremely offtopic but insightful!
Obviously you didn't write that, but could you link me to the site where you found it? I think I might send it to some of my "Christian" friends and see how well they can refute it. It would be nice to have the author's name.
I've heard its full name will be "Microsoft Next Generation Secure Visual SMTP for Mail Transport Agents 2003.NET" or MNGSVSMTPMTA. Just rolls of the tongue, doesn't it?
Despite carrying a PDA and a mobile phone in my pocket; and a pentorch, penknife, and USB memory drive on my keyring, I wear an analogue mechanical watch. It makes me feel like I'm not quite 100% geek. Anyone else do the same?
So does Gnome 2.4 under Desktop Preferences. In standard X I believe there's some key combination to do it, but I forget what it is (never change resolution as I use LCDs).
Yes, and GTK relies on the GDK, which has also been ported to Win32, MacOSX, Cairo and DirectFB.
They probably work unless Sun is deliberately breaking the human interface devices part of the USB specification. Even they wouldn't be that silly. One of the advantages of USB is that there are nice specifications for how a large number of devices should behave. If only other peripheral connect standards were as useful...
There's a great reason for USB mice: higher throughput and therefore higher resolution (dpi). The mouse is more sensitive to small movements and the corresponding movements on the screen are less jerky. This does make a difference when working on a 3200x2400 screen (I don't do this very often, mind!).
Also, newer USB keyboards support trendy features like hubs where you can plug in your mouse, digicam, PDA cradle, even digital speakers. If you're lucky enough to have a monitor with a USB hub built in, your entire I/O subsystem only needs one DVI cable and one USB cable connecting them to the PC. This is how one of my newer machines is configured at the moment. It certainly cuts down on the mess.
Microsoft - Poor Software, Great Input Devices!
Since when is some random person writing very poor quality PHP code news on Slashdot? Most of the portal software around can output RSS these days anyway, if they're worth their weight in salt.
You're missing the point. Not all of us want to buy Enterprise Linux to run DRM applications on our machines.
Certificates like this are going to become a real problem for open source software. There's no way a small distribution could get a certificate that costs many thousands of dollars to buy. There's certainly no way a single user who makes changes to his or her kernel could ever hope to achieve this kind of certification.
Hence all the hard work of the kernel developers, who provide their services for free in many cases, cannot be directly recognised. Instead some huge corperation has to come along and sponsor such certification. This just isn't right, IMO.
There's a much bigger issue here though, a threat from the future called Digital Rights Management and NGSCB. Who wants an operating system that will be unable to access secure web services because Microsoft introduces a protocol that requires a DRM-aware application running on a DRM-booted computer? Open source GPL'd Linux will never be able to obtain such certificates without massive corperate sponsorship from IBM, Novell, Redhat or whoever.
Even if it does, changing one line in my kernel and recompiling would invalidate it, locking me out of my legally purchased music and movies, and even things like my e-mail eventually (we're already seeing this with the restrictions that a sender can put on an e-mail in Office 2003. Imagine when this is part of the operating system and not easily circumvented).
Bullshit efforts certification efforts like EAL and NGSCB undermine and threaten open source and play right in to the hands of the major corperations. In today's world, the most important corperation producing operating systems is, you've guessed it: Microsoft!
This sort of thing plays right in to their hands. They're undermining the free work of all the thousands of Linux and BSD developers effectively through the back door: by making open source software an unviable solution under the guise of security. Fuck them.
Larry pays you money if you develop with Perl!