I think the phrase "legitimate business reason" was removed from my original post in the drafting process. I needed UNIX more than I needed corporate email, to be honest. I had manager approval, etc.
The point, however, is that if the site 1. complied with some W3C standard and 2. worked with IE, I would have been fine. I'm not demanding testing with my browser. That's, in fact, my core point. Testing with one browser and an SGML parser is no harder than testing with two browsers, but it puts the onus on the browser vendors when stuff breaks. Writing valid code is certainly no harder unless you have developed bad habits. Debuging valid code is easier.
The only place where I could see standardizing on a browser would be for in-house stuff like this. Major companies tend to adopt corporate standards for software like this, and in my case, that software is IE.
That sound nice, but consider that 1. There are web standards, why not use them? and 2. can you be sure that no one in your organization has a legitimate business need to run an OS that doesn't support IE?
At my last job I was a UNIX consultant. I had one PC (a notebook). I did not have (or want, to be honest) a Solaris license for the notebook. The upshot is that I couldn't use any corporate network services. I ended up using my personal server to grab all my corp mail with fetchmail via IMAP and using that for webmail. I found webmail to be indespesable but the coporate webmail was provided by Exchange (and only worked with IE).
I couldn't read the internal website at all because of bogus use of tables that netscape can't handle, but IE likes just fine.
Bottom line is that the only sane thing to do is to make all web pages adhere to a W3C recommendation and report failures to browser vendors. This whole idea of making crappy pages with frontpage or whatever and then trying to rig them to work with a particular set of web browsers is just nuts. It is more work for inferior results. Crazy.
To be clearer, Apache's share of total installs went up. Apache's number of active sites went up. The rate of increase of total installs went up by more than the rate of active sites, so the only drop was in percent active sites. The number in question is orthoginal to number of active sites.
Do you have a link? Were those CPUs being run at spec clock and voltage? Do you happen to know the typical ignition temperature range for common plastics?
Burn or melt? I'm sure you can get it to go around the edges a bit, but does it burn anywhere near as easily as paper? Based on your vast plastic burning experience do you think that a CPU without a fan can reach that temperature?
Can we agree that paper burns more easily than plastic? Can you burn paper with your CPU?
Your fan stops and the inside of your case turns into a vacuum chamber. Maybe you take your computer to MIT, its obviously a miracle machine and you could just win a Nobel Prize.
No, but combustion of most common fuels creates gasses and consumes oxygen. Smoke will go out the openings, air won't be sucked in.
I have yet to see a case that had fire resistant insulation.
I'm talking about the insulation on the wiring. Like the grey stuff on your IDE or SCSI cable. All modern insulation is fire resistant.
Fiberglass??? METAL?? We are talking about the pieces of PLASTIC on the the [sic] motherboard.
What kind of motherboard do you have that has a significant amount of plastic? Mine all consist (in rough order from most to least) of fiberglass (the green part) metal, ceramic, and plastic. Very, very little plastic. A bit around the CMOS, a little on the outside of some of the larger capacitors.
One of my CPU packages is plastic. Do you really think that Intel builds CPU packages out of plastic that burns at a temperature that the CPU can attain if the fan fails?
Yeah, except you have to reach a temperature at which the plastic will create a self-sustaining fire for this to happen. What temperature do you think butane burns at? Ever tried to burn plastic with a lighter? Ever tried to burn paper with a naked CPU?
The whole question hinged on wether a CPU or PS will reach a high enough temperature to raise nearby combustibles to/their/ burning temperature. I think that the clear answer is "no."
1. If the fan stops, airflow basically stops. Air contains oxygen, which is required for oxidation (!). There isn't very much air in a typical case.
2. Fire requires fuel. If you have two ounces of dust and three ounces of flame resistant insulation in your case you don't have much of a fuel source. You aren't going to reach temperatures to cause a metal fire. Fiberglass doesn't burn.
3. The third element of fire is heat. Paper burns at 451 degrees F. The burning point of your draperies is probably higher. Your CPU will fail, and at least temporarily stop generating heat, well below that temperature. I expect a power supply would as well.
So, the bottom line is that you could probably contrive a set of circumstances that would produce a "PC fire," but the odds of one happening spontaneously are virtually nil. Perhaps on a similar scale with the odds of your alarm clock/radio shorting out and catching your nightstand on fire. Undeniably possible, but undeniably remote.
it should be noted that the drop you state is a (miniscule) drop in the total market share of internet sites, not a drop in usage.
That isn't right, either.
That number is the change (drop) in percent of publicly accessable Apache servers that are acutally hosting a page.
So the original posters point is actually in favor of Apache, since over 64% of Apache servers (acording to the survey) serve an actual site (as opposed to an "It Works!" type page), where IIS has just under 25%.
OTOH these numbers are skewed by the fact that there are oodles of "branded" Apache packages out there with custom "It Works!" pages, and undoubtably Netcraft gives Apache more credit than it deserves on this account. But we can't really be sure of anything without more info on their methodology.
-L port:host:hostport
Specifies that the given port on the local (client) host is to be forwarded to the given host and port on the remote side. This works by allocating a socket to listen to port on the local side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and a connection is made to host port hostport from the remote machine. Port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file. Only root can for ward privileged ports. IPv6 addresses can be specified with an alternative syntax: port/host/hostport
-R port:host:hostport
Specifies that the given port on the remote (server) host is to be forwarded to the given host and port on the local side. This works by allocating a socket to listen to port on the remote side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and a connection is made to host port hostport from the local machine. Port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file. Privileged ports can be forwarded only when logging in as root on the remote machine. IPv6 addresses can be specified with an alternative syntax: port/host/hostport
Holy crap, how did this question make it to Ask Slashdot?
You are incorrect about what is tying you to Windows. It is your dependence on proprietary communication protocols and file formats.
The only way to "kick the habit" and to bring any real competition back to the SW industry is to only use software that interchanges data in standard formats.
In the mean time, many dedicated OSS developers are fighting the losing fight of trying to create reverse-engineered software for many of the more popular proprietary formats and protocols. God bless 'em.
There are many badly written (non-microsoft) printer/file filter/device drivers that make things go horribly wrong on Windows, and near as the end user can figure, it's just Windows crapping out.
What's a printer driver? A printer is an I/O device that is on the OTHER SIDE of an industry standard port. In essence it is a "remote device." What business does that sort of software have running in "ring 0?"
I am aware that many "printers" are dependent on "drivers" because they are missing hardware, but who's idea was that . . . ? Blame goes to: Microsoft.
I'm not sure what you mean by "file filter" but the same argument almost certainly holds. Blame goes to: Microsoft.
Beyond that "windows device drivers" aren't really drivers anyway, they are plugins to the (Microsoft) class driver. If they crash the system it is still Microsoft's fault, because the interface is poorly defined or the class driver does insufficient error checking. Blame goes to: Microsoft.
You've missed the beauty of the loser pays system. If my side of the case has merit, even if I am not suing, only being sued, I am likely to be able to get a good lawyer that thinks he can actually win the case. (And, therefore, get paid. He would still be owed payment if I/he loses, but you can't get blood out of a turnip.)
It has an opposite but equal impact on "I'll sue the big company, 'cause they'll just settle." type of case. But that isn't on-topic.
Hmm, you seem to have interpreted what I said as "A real CS class should be as dry and boring as humanly possible. A good CS instructor gets half his students to drop and fails half of those who remain."
Sure, interesting is good. Fun is good. It is easier to work hard at something fun. But in a first semester "this is what a loop is, this is what it is good for, why not use "i" for the loop variable?" class a game is a distraction from the fundamentals and is a less than ideal way to teach them.
BTW, I think that Java is a HORRIBLE language to teach total neophytes on. You either have to teach OOP right out of the chute (but you have to teach procedural at the same time so they can write some methods) or you have to do a lot of arm waving and "Don't worry about why you are doing all this "class" stuff, you'll get that at the end of next semester." which teaches them "this is all black magic, so just mimic what I do and don't worry about how it actually works" right out of the box.
To illustrate, I asked several "Java people" (to include professors) if there was an assembler for the JVM. Not one of them knew, or could even make out if this was a sensible question. I finally found the set of (published?) machine instructions somewhere at java.sun.com and a couple of unofficial assemblers by google.
Java has some really cool features, but it is a dumbed-down language aimed at dumb programmers with the effect of keeping potentially smart programmers dumb.*
-Peter
* Don't get me wrong. One of the smartest guys I have ever met, and probably the best programmer I have ever known is a Java wizard. The point is that as a teaching language it is exactly the worst thing in many ways.
You know the only thing Macrovision does is prevent you from hooking up your DVD player through your VCR - which is sometimes desirable if you have an old TV.
Damn, I forgot about that. The (almost ex-)wife took back her TV the other day, and I am working with a loaner with only an RF input.
I've been using it for about three days, without remembering this problem.
Thank god I spent the extra scratch for a region and Macrovision-free DVD player!
Most of the suggestions have been too hard and/or in the wrong language. This one is WAY too easy. AND it doesn't teach any 1st semester CS stuff. Well, okay, one loop.
As for a general response, all the books that I used for CS (C++ 1,2,3 and intro is asm) Had both example projects and "problems" at the end of the chapter. Why don't you open the text you are teaching out of or *gasp* go down the hall to the library and check some books out.
One I happen to remember is along the lines "Write a program that guesses a number between 1 and 1000 in as few guesses as possible. Detect lying by the player." This is a perfect first semester problem. It forces the use of screen and keyboard I/O, it forces the use of loops. By assignment you can demand that it is broken down into functions. It introduces the idea that you have to detect and deal with bullshit input.
Finally, to all those to say "make it something fun" or "make it games" GROW UP. Go to a bullshit "tech institute" if you need the professor to spoon-feed you and forcibly retain your interest.
-Peter
Re:Perhaps I have no imagination
on
IMSAI Series Two
·
· Score: 2
I guess I don't have any imagination either.
Frankly the more I think about the statement "a driver that will allow you to access an ATX motherboard via the parallel port as a disk drive" the less sense it makes.
How does a driver attach to a parallel port? How do you access a MB as a disk drive? Do the PCI ports get mapped to head/cyl/sector addresses? Can you access USB and serial ports this way too?
I assume you are talking about NOS and Directline Contracts. Well, when I was there the only person with any real UNIX knowledge left for greener pastures.
Glad to hear that they are finally making good to some extent.
Okay, I used to be a Dell server support technician. Time and time again I would see these big pushes for Linux on servers and they were NEVER backed up by any significant effort to acutally be able to support Linux to any reasonable degree.
The last big push before I quit was when they released a couple of 1u boxes. One ran NetWare and the other Red Hat Linux. They really "went the extra mile" that time and provided maybe 25% of the technicians with a big one day class and a copy of O'Reily's "Running Linux"; which is a very good book, but was grossly out of date at the time. One day. You couldn't get your foot in the door without being able to say you had two years of NT experience with a straight face, and back it up in a techinical interview that was no punk.
I genuinely hope that this aliance ends up being a boon for the community, but to be honest I think 'ole Mike has used up his credibility in this department.
-Peter
Re:Homer Simpsons puts it best:
on
Cradle to Cradle
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· Score: 2
If every building produced more energy than it used wouldn't they cause rampant global warming?
What a silly thing to say. If what yousaid [sic] was true there would be no need to teach anything except the dictionary.
I have no idea what you are responding to, but I am sure I didn't say anything that supports your conclusion. Of course I did say things that suggest that vocabulary is an important part of education. Would you disagree?
You have thrice gratuitously asserted that the word moral denotes the religious. As a student of philosophy you are surely aware of the principal Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur (what is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied).
I submit that we aren't debating. I have provided two references that support my claim that you are incorrect. You have simply insisted. (A la Monty Python "That isn't an argument, it is a simple contradiction!")
Am I expected to provide references to back up your argument?!
Slashdot Mirror
I think the phrase "legitimate business reason" was removed from my original post in the drafting process. I needed UNIX more than I needed corporate email, to be honest. I had manager approval, etc.
The point, however, is that if the site 1. complied with some W3C standard and 2. worked with IE, I would have been fine. I'm not demanding testing with my browser. That's, in fact, my core point. Testing with one browser and an SGML parser is no harder than testing with two browsers, but it puts the onus on the browser vendors when stuff breaks. Writing valid code is certainly no harder unless you have developed bad habits. Debuging valid code is easier.
-Peter
At my last job I was a UNIX consultant. I had one PC (a notebook). I did not have (or want, to be honest) a Solaris license for the notebook. The upshot is that I couldn't use any corporate network services. I ended up using my personal server to grab all my corp mail with fetchmail via IMAP and using that for webmail. I found webmail to be indespesable but the coporate webmail was provided by Exchange (and only worked with IE).
I couldn't read the internal website at all because of bogus use of tables that netscape can't handle, but IE likes just fine.
Bottom line is that the only sane thing to do is to make all web pages adhere to a W3C recommendation and report failures to browser vendors. This whole idea of making crappy pages with frontpage or whatever and then trying to rig them to work with a particular set of web browsers is just nuts. It is more work for inferior results. Crazy.
-Peter
To be clearer, Apache's share of total installs went up. Apache's number of active sites went up. The rate of increase of total installs went up by more than the rate of active sites, so the only drop was in percent active sites. The number in question is orthoginal to number of active sites.
-Peter
So, if your heatsink falls off and some plastic is very close to the processor core, there might be some danger.
Pretty thin.
-Peter
Do you have a link? Were those CPUs being run at spec clock and voltage? Do you happen to know the typical ignition temperature range for common plastics?
-Peter
Burn or melt? I'm sure you can get it to go around the edges a bit, but does it burn anywhere near as easily as paper? Based on your vast plastic burning experience do you think that a CPU without a fan can reach that temperature?
Can we agree that paper burns more easily than plastic? Can you burn paper with your CPU?
-Peter
One of my CPU packages is plastic. Do you really think that Intel builds CPU packages out of plastic that burns at a temperature that the CPU can attain if the fan fails?
-Peter
Yeah, except you have to reach a temperature at which the plastic will create a self-sustaining fire for this to happen. What temperature do you think butane burns at? Ever tried to burn plastic with a lighter? Ever tried to burn paper with a naked CPU?
/their/ burning temperature. I think that the clear answer is "no."
The whole question hinged on wether a CPU or PS will reach a high enough temperature to raise nearby combustibles to
-Peter
is that there is very little risk.
1. If the fan stops, airflow basically stops. Air contains oxygen, which is required for oxidation (!). There isn't very much air in a typical case.
2. Fire requires fuel. If you have two ounces of dust and three ounces of flame resistant insulation in your case you don't have much of a fuel source. You aren't going to reach temperatures to cause a metal fire. Fiberglass doesn't burn.
3. The third element of fire is heat. Paper burns at 451 degrees F. The burning point of your draperies is probably higher. Your CPU will fail, and at least temporarily stop generating heat, well below that temperature. I expect a power supply would as well.
So, the bottom line is that you could probably contrive a set of circumstances that would produce a "PC fire," but the odds of one happening spontaneously are virtually nil. Perhaps on a similar scale with the odds of your alarm clock/radio shorting out and catching your nightstand on fire. Undeniably possible, but undeniably remote.
-Peter
That number is the change (drop) in percent of publicly accessable Apache servers that are acutally hosting a page.
So the original posters point is actually in favor of Apache, since over 64% of Apache servers (acording to the survey) serve an actual site (as opposed to an "It Works!" type page), where IIS has just under 25%.
OTOH these numbers are skewed by the fact that there are oodles of "branded" Apache packages out there with custom "It Works!" pages, and undoubtably Netcraft gives Apache more credit than it deserves on this account. But we can't really be sure of anything without more info on their methodology.
-Peter
Holy crap, how did this question make it to Ask Slashdot?
-Peter
You are incorrect about what is tying you to Windows. It is your dependence on proprietary communication protocols and file formats.
The only way to "kick the habit" and to bring any real competition back to the SW industry is to only use software that interchanges data in standard formats.
In the mean time, many dedicated OSS developers are fighting the losing fight of trying to create reverse-engineered software for many of the more popular proprietary formats and protocols. God bless 'em.
-Peter
What's a printer driver? A printer is an I/O device that is on the OTHER SIDE of an industry standard port. In essence it is a "remote device." What business does that sort of software have running in "ring 0?"
I am aware that many "printers" are dependent on "drivers" because they are missing hardware, but who's idea was that . . . ? Blame goes to: Microsoft.
I'm not sure what you mean by "file filter" but the same argument almost certainly holds. Blame goes to: Microsoft.
Beyond that "windows device drivers" aren't really drivers anyway, they are plugins to the (Microsoft) class driver. If they crash the system it is still Microsoft's fault, because the interface is poorly defined or the class driver does insufficient error checking. Blame goes to: Microsoft.
I have no sympathy at all.
-Peter
You've missed the beauty of the loser pays system. If my side of the case has merit, even if I am not suing, only being sued, I am likely to be able to get a good lawyer that thinks he can actually win the case. (And, therefore, get paid. He would still be owed payment if I/he loses, but you can't get blood out of a turnip.)
It has an opposite but equal impact on "I'll sue the big company, 'cause they'll just settle." type of case. But that isn't on-topic.
-Peter
loser pays.
-Peter
Hmm, you seem to have interpreted what I said as "A real CS class should be as dry and boring as humanly possible. A good CS instructor gets half his students to drop and fails half of those who remain."
Sure, interesting is good. Fun is good. It is easier to work hard at something fun. But in a first semester "this is what a loop is, this is what it is good for, why not use "i" for the loop variable?" class a game is a distraction from the fundamentals and is a less than ideal way to teach them.
BTW, I think that Java is a HORRIBLE language to teach total neophytes on. You either have to teach OOP right out of the chute (but you have to teach procedural at the same time so they can write some methods) or you have to do a lot of arm waving and "Don't worry about why you are doing all this "class" stuff, you'll get that at the end of next semester." which teaches them "this is all black magic, so just mimic what I do and don't worry about how it actually works" right out of the box.
To illustrate, I asked several "Java people" (to include professors) if there was an assembler for the JVM. Not one of them knew, or could even make out if this was a sensible question. I finally found the set of (published?) machine instructions somewhere at java.sun.com and a couple of unofficial assemblers by google.
Java has some really cool features, but it is a dumbed-down language aimed at dumb programmers with the effect of keeping potentially smart programmers dumb.*
-Peter
* Don't get me wrong. One of the smartest guys I have ever met, and probably the best programmer I have ever known is a Java wizard. The point is that as a teaching language it is exactly the worst thing in many ways.
You know the only thing Macrovision does is prevent you from hooking up your DVD player through your VCR - which is sometimes desirable if you have an old TV.
Damn, I forgot about that. The (almost ex-)wife took back her TV the other day, and I am working with a loaner with only an RF input.
I've been using it for about three days, without remembering this problem.
Thank god I spent the extra scratch for a region and Macrovision-free DVD player!
-Peter
Most of the suggestions have been too hard and/or in the wrong language. This one is WAY too easy. AND it doesn't teach any 1st semester CS stuff. Well, okay, one loop.
As for a general response, all the books that I used for CS (C++ 1,2,3 and intro is asm) Had both example projects and "problems" at the end of the chapter. Why don't you open the text you are teaching out of or *gasp* go down the hall to the library and check some books out.
One I happen to remember is along the lines "Write a program that guesses a number between 1 and 1000 in as few guesses as possible. Detect lying by the player." This is a perfect first semester problem. It forces the use of screen and keyboard I/O, it forces the use of loops. By assignment you can demand that it is broken down into functions. It introduces the idea that you have to detect and deal with bullshit input.
Finally, to all those to say "make it something fun" or "make it games" GROW UP. Go to a bullshit "tech institute" if you need the professor to spoon-feed you and forcibly retain your interest.
-Peter
I guess I don't have any imagination either.
Frankly the more I think about the statement "a driver that will allow you to access an ATX motherboard via the parallel port as a disk drive" the less sense it makes.
How does a driver attach to a parallel port? How do you access a MB as a disk drive? Do the PCI ports get mapped to head/cyl/sector addresses? Can you access USB and serial ports this way too?
I don't know, it all sounds crazy to me.
-Peter
Just play KMines. And PySol is the best solitare game EVER (and cross-platform to boot!)
-Peter
I assume you are talking about NOS and Directline Contracts. Well, when I was there the only person with any real UNIX knowledge left for greener pastures.
Glad to hear that they are finally making good to some extent.
-Peter
Okay, I used to be a Dell server support technician. Time and time again I would see these big pushes for Linux on servers and they were NEVER backed up by any significant effort to acutally be able to support Linux to any reasonable degree.
The last big push before I quit was when they released a couple of 1u boxes. One ran NetWare and the other Red Hat Linux. They really "went the extra mile" that time and provided maybe 25% of the technicians with a big one day class and a copy of O'Reily's "Running Linux"; which is a very good book, but was grossly out of date at the time. One day. You couldn't get your foot in the door without being able to say you had two years of NT experience with a straight face, and back it up in a techinical interview that was no punk.
I genuinely hope that this aliance ends up being a boon for the community, but to be honest I think 'ole Mike has used up his credibility in this department.
-Peter
If every building produced more energy than it used wouldn't they cause rampant global warming?
-Peter
Does anyone know if there is a Linux build of 1.0 that uses a contemporary version of QT instead of GTK?
I need anti-aliasing, damnit!
-Peter
I have no idea what you are responding to, but I am sure I didn't say anything that supports your conclusion. Of course I did say things that suggest that vocabulary is an important part of education. Would you disagree?
You have thrice gratuitously asserted that the word moral denotes the religious. As a student of philosophy you are surely aware of the principal Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur (what is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied).
I submit that we aren't debating. I have provided two references that support my claim that you are incorrect. You have simply insisted. (A la Monty Python "That isn't an argument, it is a simple contradiction!")
Am I expected to provide references to back up your argument?!
-Peter