Ummm... This makes about as much sense as saying folks should kill themselves to go straight to the next world... (yes, I know, it's been tried)
I am pretty sure God is all for people using their head... You know, all the stuff about knowing what's right and wrong after having eaten the fruit in the Garden of Eden...
So let's think now, should I support everyone being branded with chemical RFID tags to hasten Armaggeddon. Let's think now... Ummm... Maybe, NO!!!!!!
I wouldn't discount the "major competitor" side of things! The ESA is likely to mount some sort of manned mission series. Europe may be behind in terms of volume of missions mounted to date (they've by and large been quite successful though), but it's sure doing things a lot more cheaply than the U.S. What's more, we have a launch base nearer the Equator, in French Guiana. (As we are reminded each time we look at our banknotes). Hopefully the new Soyuz launcher facility will be up and running there soon - launching stuff from Kazachstan is surely far from ideal! The ESA of course has the benefit of Russian co-operation and the legacy of their space program.
It all looks like being quite some fun! (Not to mention pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, etc, etc)
I would certainly say that it is a good language for more experienced programmers - it is SO painless to manipulate a GUI and yet elements are easily linked to complex code. Unfortunately you can write bad VB code really easily - that is perhaps the main disadvantage. (Not having Option Explicit turned on by default is a perfect example). It's also effortless to access Windows APIs, other types of GUI widgets via OCXs, and basically there's a great "lego brick"-ness to it all. You do need to understand what's happening though to have a good program. VB is simply a tool to make things you know how to do easier - not a complete substitution.
I don't see why Java can't have as nice an IDE as VB6 though - I haven't been impressed with any I've tried. Borland JBuilder, IBM Visualage for Java, Netbeans.
None of the above had the simple indexing methods which VB6 has (copy and paste an object (e.g. button) to get option to create a control array). With the Java IDEs I've had to code arrays of buttons etc. outside the graphical interface, which rather defeats the purpose.
Yep - here in Ireland we get our name ticked off against the register of voters when we go to vote.
Incidentally - the Irish govt. is bringing in electronic voting for the upcoming presidential and European Parliament elections. I'm not at all happy about it. No paper trail at all - we have to trust a closed system. How hard would it be to have a voter-verified paper copy which is put into a ballot box? Then in addition to checking manually any stations where there's suspicion of tampering, faulty software or a close result, random checks of voting stations could be carried out as Quality Control.
Check out the Irish Labour party's policy document on e-voting, it lists the main concerns and suggestions for the Irish system. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the entire voting system for our country is being change by the leading coalition parties, not one opposition party supports the changes in their current form!
Real networks have in the passed on customer details (email address at least) to third parties in the past. I've seen them caught out when a form of email address "real@mydomain.com" was used - where this will reach the mail administrator at "mydomain.com". You guessed it, after using the address on real networks site, suddenly spam starts being sent, addressed to real@mydomain.com
Someone could try this trick again if you have their own mailserver - see if they're still at it.
Forget Computer Science, Computer Engineering is the way to go.
First year starting with Digital circuitry, electrical stuff, engineering maths, heck, even physics. And concurrently? Teaching us how to program (not a programming language) with Pascal. --- Follow on to Object Orientated programming, a dash of graphics programming - all concurrent with more digital stuff (onto microcontrollers etc) and micro-controller assembly language. More horrific calculus. --- Onto Operating System architecture, file systems, software engineering (UML and all that horror), Hardware Description Languages. Oh yes, telecomms, networks, etc. --- Language Processors (compilers, parsing, etc.), Artificial Intelligence. More networking. Computer Architecture.
That's some stuff - I've left out a lot. Not bad for 4 years. Basically everything from how semiconductors work and electrical circuitry, and most steps through to high level software design and object orientated programming. Plenty of side routes too like Digital circuit design, microcontrollers and using HDLs.
It's all been good bar the calculus. Oh, and the UML stuff - i.e. waffle for waffle's sake.
Here in Ireland, the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) - our State electricity company, is setting up something similar. They have a fibre ring following the trunk electricity routes - it's just fibre piggy-backed on their existing infrastructure.
I'm just amazed they haven't done this ages ago - it puts them at a huge advantage to those who have to dig up stuff and lay fibre from scratch.
Not sure what ESBs plan is to connect this main telecomms artery to anything useful...
Apparently 7 Old English feet is 7 ft 0.25 inches. This is from a railway book dealing with track gauge - that was the gauge of the Great Western Railway in England. Apparently the Swedes had Swedish feet too. I'm not sure what the Irish measurements were. I beleive some U.S. measurement (is it lbs and oz) has different number of the smaller unit than Imperial system has?
It's all a bit mental really. I much prefer the Systeme Internationale. It makes sense that one Ampere is:
"that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one metre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to 2 x 10-7 newton per metre of length."
Dang - where did I leave those infinite length negligable cross-sectional wires?
I've always been amused by this definition - it's one I actually bothered to learn in school physics!
No - I don't mean people have to be brought up with 24 hour or that it's a problem. Just that 12 hour analogue clock faces don't work as well with it as digital watches.
24 hour times are the only sane choice for time listings or references. I'm in the sane measurement part of the world here (Ireland) thanks, though we still have to change our speed limits to km/h. There's a mad scheme to do so overnight, putting stickers on every speed sign in the State.
Bizarrely we already use km for distances - though older signs show distances in Imperial miles, Old English Miles or Old Irish Miles. Oh, and mostly signs don't say if the distance is km, or variety of miles. (One can drive towards a town whilst the signs declare it's moving further away!) So perhaps not quite the sane measurement part of the world - but we're having a good bash at the whole metric craic. Add to this that anyone younger than probably 25 hasn't been taught anything but Metric in school... fun fun fun.
Yeah, I'm sorry, Ireland is actually probably THE most insane country for measurements.
> (*) I tried to create a battery recycling deal at work but people kept taking the box, thinking that these were good batteries (apparently, people don't know what "recycling" means). I'll probably try again with a better, more idiot-proof wording.
Sounds like a handy method of disposing batteries to me!
An analogue watch not only displays the current time - but has the reference points for a whole 12 hours. It is vastly more suitable to plan future events/refer to past events. The brain nearly subconciously reads the distances - and the 12 hour clock-face is so ingrained that we can work out relative times instantly. A digital watch involves adding and working out what area of the day the time is.
One could argue that it would work better using a 24 hour circle - but we would have to have been brought up with that as kids. Old habits die hard. I admit that the analogue clock-face has to be explained to kids in school - but it's sure worth the effort.
The only difficulty with analogue clock faces is the problem of translating to 24 hour for checking against time listings (train, bus, TV, etc.). But dealing with the add/subtract 12 hours thing is a minor issue really. On that subject - one doesn't even always have this benefit with digital clocks - my alarm clock, most annoyingly, doesn't have 24 hour display.
I instantly thought of this after your comments because some time back our local ISP (home.eircom.net) has a site of the day. They had an intricately designed site devoted to staplers one day.
I can't be bothered finding the link, so I did a search and was blown away by the number of sites devoted to this subject. Needless to say, I still couldn't be bothered finding the aforementioned site.
"The following URL syntax is no longer supported in Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer after you install the MS04-004 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (832894):"
It affects Windows Explorer too. Of course, one can never be sure if Windows is showing you an IE or Explorer window anyways - the most stupid thing is the inclination for one to mutate into the other. If you use Windows - I would advise you to keep IE updated even if you don't use it day to day. Unfortunately it has been made into an integral part of the OS. I just accept it as being there and un-removeable - it doesn't stop me from using Firebird instead.
How on EARTH did someone write this KB article without cracking up. Are they for real or what?
I mean, either you continue as usual and get screwed should you hit a malicious link, or use a different browser. Who in their right minds would ACTUALLY follow the steps here. "Hmmm, this link looks suspicious... I'd better manually enter the address". Or copy a piece of JScript code for a more verbose description of the link...
Yeah, right. I can't get over this article - it's nearly like a spoof or something.
I've never had problems with Mozilla Firebird - ever. And it's not even v1.0 yet! I've been using it since November last, every day nearly, at work and home.
My main complaint with copy protect CDs is that if you can play them in your PC - it's using an on-disc application. This reads the tracks digitally, leading to not just a rotary saw - but a JET TURBINE noise.
I sent a strongly worded email after purchasing the latest Dido CD. Needless to say it's safely ripped. I wouldn't have bothered ripping if they didn't have copy protect.
Gnarg - why are optical drives louder than ever now! It would be nice to have a review of the quietest DVD drives! MUCH more annoying than PSU noise. Especially the sporadic nature of it.
Still, it does mean that all the things we in Europe don't like about Western civilisation, we can deride without reference to ourselves. Blame it all on the Americans. That's what the US gets for claiming to be the origin of so much "Western civilisation". (Of course, technically it's all Europe's fault - in the historical sense)
We called it "scrabbling". In our case it was worse, a wooden floor above the other room!
And quite often the massive quantities of bricks weren't sorted, so one would trawl through a vast box looking for the right colour of "one-erd".
I should try steal some of that lego out of the house sometime. My youngest bro does NOT need the accumulated stockpiles of 5 of us!
It's not like I can buy decent honest-to-goodness bricks anymore! Well... more correct to say the range was much better in the past! And better value sets too. All they have now is distorted plastic plates that fit together, with twisted widgets that serve few purposes.
Except that at blue-screen stage, Ctrl-Alt-Del often doesn't work!
Ah there's nothing as hideous as the NT core-dump "blue screen of death".
Can that info actually be used or have they subjected end users to years of "sights wot they dare not look upon" for no good reason.
What I loathe MOST though, is individual Apps crashing and Windows asking either to "Close or Debug" (Yes, the latter is a VERY annoying thing to accidently select when one has a full set of development tools installed), or more recently "Send an error report". NO NO NO NO NO. JUST GO AWAY. I NEVER WANT TO USE YOUR APPLICATION AGAIN. Well, until I restart it at any rate.
I don't understand why we can't have REAL power buttons still. It's quite satisfying to punch the button, hear/feel the click and instant power off.
Of course, voice activated Windows with customisable commands would be seriously fun... Plenty of inventive ways to say "shut down". Or even "damn you , you stupid computer, I want to smash you into a million pieces and scatter your components to the four winds". Or somesuch.
I would just like to know, does ANYONE use the "right-click" or "context menu" keyboard button? Or the second "Start" key. In fact, does anyone even use one Start key that often?
Besides, when faced with no mouse, I tend to fall into old habits - Ctrl-Esc to bring up Start Menu, etc.
(Yes, perhaps it's a good idea to just reboot when faced with no mouse - but sometimes one has to meddle with Device Mangler etc. beforehand).
I have never used Scroll Lock, though I think I toyed with using it in a program I was designing. (It lights an LED after all!).
Pause I do end up using sometimes to pause games, or EVEN to interrupt stuck processes (I can't remember what - I think it was a Win32 console process that I hit the break key out of frustration).
Print Screen is invaluable.
I seldom use Function keys nowadays.
Where's the ANY key, that's what I'd like to know.
The right hand "Alt" key isn't strictly speaking the same, being "Alt Gr" - Alternate Graphics. (Try using the left-hand Alt to get Euro symbol, Vertical dashed bar or accented characters) Nevertheless, Windows doesn't seem to care about using Alt Gr for the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence. I'm not so certain that Alt Gr worked for DOS. I beleive in any case the right hand Ctrl key isn't quite a duplication, S/W can tell if you've pressed the R/H or L/H Ctrl key.
And if I've got my left and right mixed up again, then this post makes no sense, sorry!
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm... This makes about as much sense as saying folks should kill themselves to go straight to the next world... (yes, I know, it's been tried)
I am pretty sure God is all for people using their head... You know, all the stuff about knowing what's right and wrong after having eaten the fruit in the Garden of Eden...
So let's think now, should I support everyone being branded with chemical RFID tags to hasten Armaggeddon. Let's think now... Ummm... Maybe, NO!!!!!!
I wouldn't discount the "major competitor" side of things! The ESA is likely to mount some sort of manned mission series. Europe may be behind in terms of volume of missions mounted to date (they've by and large been quite successful though), but it's sure doing things a lot more cheaply than the U.S. What's more, we have a launch base nearer the Equator, in French Guiana. (As we are reminded each time we look at our banknotes). Hopefully the new Soyuz launcher facility will be up and running there soon - launching stuff from Kazachstan is surely far from ideal! The ESA of course has the benefit of Russian co-operation and the legacy of their space program.
It all looks like being quite some fun! (Not to mention pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, etc, etc)
Last one to land people on Mars is a rotten egg!
I would certainly say that it is a good language for more experienced programmers - it is SO painless to manipulate a GUI and yet elements are easily linked to complex code. Unfortunately you can write bad VB code really easily - that is perhaps the main disadvantage. (Not having Option Explicit turned on by default is a perfect example). It's also effortless to access Windows APIs, other types of GUI widgets via OCXs, and basically there's a great "lego brick"-ness to it all. You do need to understand what's happening though to have a good program. VB is simply a tool to make things you know how to do easier - not a complete substitution.
I don't see why Java can't have as nice an IDE as VB6 though - I haven't been impressed with any I've tried. Borland JBuilder, IBM Visualage for Java, Netbeans.
None of the above had the simple indexing methods which VB6 has (copy and paste an object (e.g. button) to get option to create a control array). With the Java IDEs I've had to code arrays of buttons etc. outside the graphical interface, which rather defeats the purpose.
Yep - here in Ireland we get our name ticked off against the register of voters when we go to vote.
Incidentally - the Irish govt. is bringing in electronic voting for the upcoming presidential and European Parliament elections. I'm not at all happy about it. No paper trail at all - we have to trust a closed system. How hard would it be to have a voter-verified paper copy which is put into a ballot box? Then in addition to checking manually any stations where there's suspicion of tampering, faulty software or a close result, random checks of voting stations could be carried out as Quality Control.
Check out the Irish Labour party's policy document on e-voting, it lists the main concerns and suggestions for the Irish system. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the entire voting system for our country is being change by the leading coalition parties, not one opposition party supports the changes in their current form!
Real networks have in the passed on customer details (email address at least) to third parties in the past. I've seen them caught out when a form of email address "real@mydomain.com" was used - where this will reach the mail administrator at "mydomain.com". You guessed it, after using the address on real networks site, suddenly spam starts being sent, addressed to real@mydomain.com
Someone could try this trick again if you have their own mailserver - see if they're still at it.
Forget Computer Science, Computer Engineering is the way to go.
First year starting with Digital circuitry, electrical stuff, engineering maths, heck, even physics. And concurrently? Teaching us how to program (not a programming language) with Pascal.
--- Follow on to Object Orientated programming, a dash of graphics programming - all concurrent with more digital stuff (onto microcontrollers etc) and micro-controller assembly language. More horrific calculus. --- Onto Operating System architecture, file systems, software engineering (UML and all that horror), Hardware Description Languages. Oh yes, telecomms, networks, etc. --- Language Processors (compilers, parsing, etc.), Artificial Intelligence. More networking. Computer Architecture.
That's some stuff - I've left out a lot. Not bad for 4 years. Basically everything from how semiconductors work and electrical circuitry, and most steps through to high level software design and object orientated programming. Plenty of side routes too like Digital circuit design, microcontrollers and using HDLs.
It's all been good bar the calculus. Oh, and the UML stuff - i.e. waffle for waffle's sake.
With computers, two things hold more true than in any other area:
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
and the other is of course:
Murphy's law - if anything can go wrong it will.
Here in Ireland, the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) - our State electricity company, is setting up something similar. They have a fibre ring following the trunk electricity routes - it's just fibre piggy-backed on their existing infrastructure.
I'm just amazed they haven't done this ages ago - it puts them at a huge advantage to those who have to dig up stuff and lay fibre from scratch.
Not sure what ESBs plan is to connect this main telecomms artery to anything useful...
Apparently 7 Old English feet is 7 ft 0.25 inches. This is from a railway book dealing with track gauge - that was the gauge of the Great Western Railway in England. Apparently the Swedes had Swedish feet too. I'm not sure what the Irish measurements were. I beleive some U.S. measurement (is it lbs and oz) has different number of the smaller unit than Imperial system has?
It's all a bit mental really. I much prefer the Systeme Internationale. It makes sense that one Ampere is:
"that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one metre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to 2 x 10-7 newton per metre of length."
Dang - where did I leave those infinite length negligable cross-sectional wires?
I've always been amused by this definition - it's one I actually bothered to learn in school physics!
No - I don't mean people have to be brought up with 24 hour or that it's a problem. Just that 12 hour analogue clock faces don't work as well with it as digital watches.
24 hour times are the only sane choice for time listings or references. I'm in the sane measurement part of the world here (Ireland) thanks, though we still have to change our speed limits to km/h. There's a mad scheme to do so overnight, putting stickers on every speed sign in the State.
Bizarrely we already use km for distances - though older signs show distances in Imperial miles, Old English Miles or Old Irish Miles. Oh, and mostly signs don't say if the distance is km, or variety of miles. (One can drive towards a town whilst the signs declare it's moving further away!) So perhaps not quite the sane measurement part of the world - but we're having a good bash at the whole metric craic. Add to this that anyone younger than probably 25 hasn't been taught anything but Metric in school... fun fun fun.
Yeah, I'm sorry, Ireland is actually probably THE most insane country for measurements.
> (*) I tried to create a battery recycling deal at work but people kept taking the box, thinking that these were good batteries (apparently, people don't know what "recycling" means). I'll probably try again with a better, more idiot-proof wording.
Sounds like a handy method of disposing batteries to me!
> could operate tv's and vcr's
Or a few earlier remote central locking cars? I kid you not!
An analogue watch not only displays the current time - but has the reference points for a whole 12 hours. It is vastly more suitable to plan future events/refer to past events. The brain nearly subconciously reads the distances - and the 12 hour clock-face is so ingrained that we can work out relative times instantly. A digital watch involves adding and working out what area of the day the time is.
One could argue that it would work better using a 24 hour circle - but we would have to have been brought up with that as kids. Old habits die hard. I admit that the analogue clock-face has to be explained to kids in school - but it's sure worth the effort.
The only difficulty with analogue clock faces is the problem of translating to 24 hour for checking against time listings (train, bus, TV, etc.). But dealing with the add/subtract 12 hours thing is a minor issue really. On that subject - one doesn't even always have this benefit with digital clocks - my alarm clock, most annoyingly, doesn't have 24 hour display.
Search online for 'staplers' and 'history'.
I instantly thought of this after your comments because some time back our local ISP (home.eircom.net) has a site of the day. They had an intricately designed site devoted to staplers one day.
I can't be bothered finding the link, so I did a search and was blown away by the number of sites devoted to this subject. Needless to say, I still couldn't be bothered finding the aforementioned site.
Actually, the KB article states:
"The following URL syntax is no longer supported in Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer after you install the MS04-004 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (832894):"
It affects Windows Explorer too. Of course, one can never be sure if Windows is showing you an IE or Explorer window anyways - the most stupid thing is the inclination for one to mutate into the other. If you use Windows - I would advise you to keep IE updated even if you don't use it day to day. Unfortunately it has been made into an integral part of the OS. I just accept it as being there and un-removeable - it doesn't stop me from using Firebird instead.
How on EARTH did someone write this KB article without cracking up. Are they for real or what?
I mean, either you continue as usual and get screwed should you hit a malicious link, or use a different browser. Who in their right minds would ACTUALLY follow the steps here. "Hmmm, this link looks suspicious... I'd better manually enter the address". Or copy a piece of JScript code for a more verbose description of the link...
Yeah, right. I can't get over this article - it's nearly like a spoof or something.
I've never had problems with Mozilla Firebird - ever. And it's not even v1.0 yet! I've been using it since November last, every day nearly, at work and home.
My main complaint with copy protect CDs is that if you can play them in your PC - it's using an on-disc application. This reads the tracks digitally, leading to not just a rotary saw - but a JET TURBINE noise.
I sent a strongly worded email after purchasing the latest Dido CD. Needless to say it's safely ripped. I wouldn't have bothered ripping if they didn't have copy protect.
How ironic. (or should that be moronic).
It's been a while since I read the "trilogy", from the family library at home.
I'll have to get my own copy of the books before they bring out edited, yukky cover, over-priced film merchandise versions of the books.
Gnarg - why are optical drives louder than ever now! It would be nice to have a review of the quietest DVD drives! MUCH more annoying than PSU noise. Especially the sporadic nature of it.
Not so amusing when you're a European!
Still, it does mean that all the things we in Europe don't like about Western civilisation, we can deride without reference to ourselves. Blame it all on the Americans. That's what the US gets for claiming to be the origin of so much "Western civilisation". (Of course, technically it's all Europe's fault - in the historical sense)
We called it "scrabbling". In our case it was worse, a wooden floor above the other room!
And quite often the massive quantities of bricks weren't sorted, so one would trawl through a vast box looking for the right colour of "one-erd".
I should try steal some of that lego out of the house sometime. My youngest bro does NOT need the accumulated stockpiles of 5 of us!
It's not like I can buy decent honest-to-goodness bricks anymore! Well... more correct to say the range was much better in the past! And better value sets too. All they have now is distorted plastic plates that fit together, with twisted widgets that serve few purposes.
Except that at blue-screen stage, Ctrl-Alt-Del often doesn't work!
Ah there's nothing as hideous as the NT core-dump "blue screen of death".
Can that info actually be used or have they subjected end users to years of "sights wot they dare not look upon" for no good reason.
What I loathe MOST though, is individual Apps crashing and Windows asking either to "Close or Debug" (Yes, the latter is a VERY annoying thing to accidently select when one has a full set of development tools installed), or more recently "Send an error report". NO NO NO NO NO. JUST GO AWAY. I NEVER WANT TO USE YOUR APPLICATION AGAIN. Well, until I restart it at any rate.
I don't understand why we can't have REAL power buttons still. It's quite satisfying to punch the button, hear/feel the click and instant power off.
Of course, voice activated Windows with customisable commands would be seriously fun... Plenty of inventive ways to say "shut down". Or even "damn you , you stupid computer, I want to smash you into a million pieces and scatter your components to the four winds". Or somesuch.
I would just like to know, does ANYONE use the "right-click" or "context menu" keyboard button? Or the second "Start" key. In fact, does anyone even use one Start key that often?
Besides, when faced with no mouse, I tend to fall into old habits - Ctrl-Esc to bring up Start Menu, etc.
(Yes, perhaps it's a good idea to just reboot when faced with no mouse - but sometimes one has to meddle with Device Mangler etc. beforehand).
I have never used Scroll Lock, though I think I toyed with using it in a program I was designing. (It lights an LED after all!).
Pause I do end up using sometimes to pause games, or EVEN to interrupt stuck processes (I can't remember what - I think it was a Win32 console process that I hit the break key out of frustration).
Print Screen is invaluable.
I seldom use Function keys nowadays.
Where's the ANY key, that's what I'd like to know.
The right hand "Alt" key isn't strictly speaking the same, being "Alt Gr" - Alternate Graphics. (Try using the left-hand Alt to get Euro symbol, Vertical dashed bar or accented characters) Nevertheless, Windows doesn't seem to care about using Alt Gr for the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence. I'm not so certain that Alt Gr worked for DOS.
I beleive in any case the right hand Ctrl key isn't quite a duplication, S/W can tell if you've pressed the R/H or L/H Ctrl key.
And if I've got my left and right mixed up again, then this post makes no sense, sorry!