There is a flipside to that. I did my MSc and PhD in applied Numerical Analysis, and I am concious of the number of people in the field who have very good skills in modelling and in algorithm design, but are basically self-taught when it comes to implementation. Hence there is a lot of NA code out there which is very fast and solves interesting problems, but is written so badly as to be unmaintanable.
Perhaps you could offer these kind of people a chance to do some more formally structured (and colaborative) software development, including some training in software engineering (which us mathematicians rarely get a chance to study).
I went to a demo against the Newbury ByPass and the "organisers" were handing out Groucho Marx glasses-and-moustaches
to help everyone disguise themselves from the Police surveliance helicopters!
CCTV is a useful tool in crime fighting, but it is not a panacea or the best use of funds in every case. The authorities should be subject to the same data protection laws as individuals and coroporations.
You can get a cable modem if you live in a Telewest or Blueyonder area. Most people don't . You can get ADSL if you live within 4km of the right kind of BT exchange. Most people don't. The ADSL will come from BT only (Freeserve, Demon et al just sell rebadged BT ADSL). This does not constitute competition in my book, or in that of any sane person. And this is just for home use, the prices they charge to businesses are significantly higher.
If OFTEL gave BT a kick up the arse, and there was proper LLU, then (a) there would be ADSL available from more exchanges, (b) there would be an incentive on BT's ADSL competitors to provide ADSL at >4km distance, (c) cable companies would have further incentive to lay more cable in order to reach more possible users and (d) you would get a better cable modem service at a better price. What we seem to be getting is exactly what has happened in the US. Yet another case of the UK blindly copying the US and it all going tits-up.
Yes, but POST data doesn't show up in the logs (which may be less secure than the network or the user database) and more importantly doesn't show up in other peoples referrer logs.
Well the article is not totally clear, but the implication is that Corel feel they would have to "aquire" control of the software to be able to be a one-stop shop, not acquire expertise. So in order to support Apache they think they have to own Apache. Which just shows even more that they don't "get it". (Admittedly the article can be interpreted in a different way).
You've gotta respect them a little for at least trying to market Linux as a desktop OS though.
... you have to get a server version from some company, a desktop from somebody else, and utilities from a few other people, and it's not something that's going to happen, because [end users] don't want to trade 1 support call for 15.
Well *DUH!*. That's an opportunity, not a threat. Be that company taking the 1 support call.
Reading books isn't free. In the UK the public libraries effectively contribute to the PPublic Lending Right scheme, which compenstates authors according to how often their books are checked out of the libraries (similar to the system that exists for music played on the radio). I beleive there are reciprocal arrangements with various other countries with similar schemes.
Of course the cost of this is subsumed into the total running costs of the library, so the user pays via taxes and not at the point of service.
Electronic books provided via libraries don't really fit into the existing scheme very easily. But some arrangement could be made, and of coude it would probably be EASIER to administer, as you could collect data on exactly what was being read rather than just doing a sample.
Interesting. In fact, IIRC, Coke established most of the case law in this area. You can make up your own minds about whether the law represents what is morally right.
Yep, I'll second that. Our Students' Union fitted rev limiters on all thier vehicles, despite the fact that all the people who actually drive them didn't want it. (It does save them a ton of cash in fuel costs). First time I got on the motorway in the rev limited moinibus, I got boxed in by a couple of lorries and prats driving too close behind me. Not nice.
Get up some speed, head out to something really big, like say Jupiter. Slingshot around it, close your sails and back home to Earth you go. Not quick, admittedly.
Don't blame Perl if your code is too messy to maintain. TIMTOWTDI - Perl lets you write bad code, but it lets you write great code too. Quick hacks for when quick hacks will do, Packages and O-O for when they won't.
What's your problem with OO in Perl? It's really nothing to be frightened of (I was, but then I tried it). Create a Package, create an object, bless it into the Package. Easy-peasy. For the hard stuff get the Damian Conway book, it's a classic.
I'll be buying Camel v3. I am one of the few people I know who learnt Perl without a Camel (I just read the perldocs. Probably not recommended though!).
The good news for all involved is that there's nothing stopping someone from incorporating TeX into the back end of a CSS or FO processor. It's just a Small Matter of Programming.
But where is the actual software? Nobody knows! It's all vapourware or "pre-alpha".
Please, some company with some cash, committed to open source, (or some org like Apache) give us a calendering server that works. Then we will get some clients (web, command line, pda, etc.).
Most interesting. Firstly, a point of fact. Sherwood Forest is in Nottinghamshire, not near.
I don't think is fair (as some posters suggest) that the original Luddites were entirely selfish. The move from an agrarian to an industrial economy caused an immense amount of social upheaval. Cities like Nottingham experienced huge population increases, but often without a corresponding increase in their boundaries or facilities, leading to terrible housing, poor health, food shortages, etc. In this sense the Luddites were justified in their actions. However, over time, industry has on balance improved things!
It is interesting to compare these changes to those occuring in England over the last 20 years, as we have moved from an industrial to a service economy. Whole industries (e.g. mining, textiles) have been wiped out in Nottinghamshire, with consequential poverty. Try talking to some of those people about the information revolution...
I hacked together a printer with a saw, does this count?
Ingredients:
One Applewriter with very poor print quality and broken (and very slow) lower paper feed
One HP LaserJet III with broken upper paper feed
Miscellaneous tools
Method: Take both printers apart. Attach upper part of Apple LaserWriter to lower part of HP LaserJet III. Use saw to cut away plastic trim until the lid will shut.
Wap is nothing more than a technological stop-gap introduced by the telcos as a result of of bandwidth and hardware limitations in the current generation of phones. These problems will be largely solved in the next generation of phones, and my prediction is that these will use TCP/IP, HTTP, IMAP, etc., just like any other net connected device. As such, WAP is a already deadin the water.
In the generation of wireless devices after that, there will be little or no distinction between phones or any other device (laptop, PDA, security passes, credit cards, whatever), and they will all use the same open protocols (which may be new versions of those we know and love today).
Right. Anyone got any good guesses as to what the reserve price actually is? I reckon about $1m. That's a nice amount to put aside for a rainy day, even after tax. If it doesn't meet the reserve then he has got lots of free publicity. Nice.
Interesting and insightful comments. I guess PHP and Perl are both useful languages, though perhaps at different stages of maturity. I came into Perl programming from a sysadmin/scripting/text-file-parsing angle, and only subsequently used it for web-scripting. Recently I had to use PHP for a project, and any comments I make are possibly tainted by frustration at that project, not the language itself. Though I did find that we ended up solving many problems (mainly system level stuff, calling exisiting Perl code, etc) by using the PHP to call a perl script...
My beef with system() and exec() in PHP is that the only difference between them is whether output is echoed. This is somewhat different to the standard unix meaning of theese functions.
Since this is meant to be about books, I would say don't bother buying one to start with. The learning curve for PHP is pretty gentle. Certainly don't buy the Wrox book. The php.net documentation is in the main pretty darn good, and continuously improving.
(But what is it with all the rounded corner websites.... ????)
Perl can be used for tasks other than web scripts. Why learn a new language for every task?
Perl does OO fairly sensibly. Hence not all perl code has to be a tangled mess. Get Damian Conway's book on this.
Ease of code reusability. Modules. CPAN. Etc., etc.
Syntax. The PHP concept of a 'global' is just fubarred.
Integration with OS. PHP's idea of what 'system' and 'exec' should do is brain damaged.
Bodged REGEXP implementation
Perl can generate HTML, or you can embed it in phtml. Your choice.
I could go on. It is certainly easier to get PHP working than mod_perl. But perl scripts can also be run as simple CGI's, not in mod_perl, so that isn't a huge hurdle. Hell, you can run your CGI scripts at the command line for testing them.
I'll let someone else say why PHP is better...
(Is it just me, or does every site that uses PHP have rounded edges everywhere, just like php.net?)
I don't follow this area much, but the Darwin FAQ says that it has been compiled on PowerPC for intel. This is not the same as it running on intel or being compiled on intel.
Well, BT still own the local loop, so you have to rent a BT line to use this. Plus a second line if you are going to be on 24-7....
It works pretty much like the guy says, except that Linux or NetBSD with SSH is my preferred remote access method. Remote FTP and CVS (through SSH) is feasible, but a web-server is pushing the upload speed of the modem a bit much.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a flipside to that. I did my MSc and PhD in applied Numerical Analysis, and I am concious of the number of people in the field who have very good skills in modelling and in algorithm design, but are basically self-taught when it comes to implementation. Hence there is a lot of NA code out there which is very fast and solves interesting problems, but is written so badly as to be unmaintanable.
Perhaps you could offer these kind of people a chance to do some more formally structured (and colaborative) software development, including some training in software engineering (which us mathematicians rarely get a chance to study).
CCTV is a useful tool in crime fighting, but it is not a panacea or the best use of funds in every case. The authorities should be subject to the same data protection laws as individuals and coroporations.
If OFTEL gave BT a kick up the arse, and there was proper LLU, then (a) there would be ADSL available from more exchanges, (b) there would be an incentive on BT's ADSL competitors to provide ADSL at >4km distance, (c) cable companies would have further incentive to lay more cable in order to reach more possible users and (d) you would get a better cable modem service at a better price. What we seem to be getting is exactly what has happened in the US. Yet another case of the UK blindly copying the US and it all going tits-up.
You've gotta respect them a little for at least trying to market Linux as a desktop OS though.
Well *DUH!*. That's an opportunity, not a threat. Be that company taking the 1 support call.
Of course the cost of this is subsumed into the total running costs of the library, so the user pays via taxes and not at the point of service.
Electronic books provided via libraries don't really fit into the existing scheme very easily. But some arrangement could be made, and of coude it would probably be EASIER to administer, as you could collect data on exactly what was being read rather than just doing a sample.
Interesting. In fact, IIRC, Coke established most of the case law in this area. You can make up your own minds about whether the law represents what is morally right.
Yep, I'll second that. Our Students' Union fitted rev limiters on all thier vehicles, despite the fact that all the people who actually drive them didn't want it. (It does save them a ton of cash in fuel costs). First time I got on the motorway in the rev limited moinibus, I got boxed in by a couple of lorries and prats driving too close behind me. Not nice.
Harrision only did research in one field, not many, therefore he was not "catholic". Whether or not he was (Roman) Catholic is besides the point.
Get up some speed, head out to something really big, like say Jupiter. Slingshot around it, close your sails and back home to Earth you go. Not quick, admittedly.
Don't blame Perl if your code is too messy to maintain. TIMTOWTDI - Perl lets you write bad code, but it lets you write great code too. Quick hacks for when quick hacks will do, Packages and O-O for when they won't.
What's your problem with OO in Perl? It's really nothing to be frightened of (I was, but then I tried it). Create a Package, create an object, bless it into the Package. Easy-peasy. For the hard stuff get the Damian Conway book, it's a classic.
I'll be buying Camel v3. I am one of the few people I know who learnt Perl without a Camel (I just read the perldocs. Probably not recommended though!).
Been done: PassiveTeX
http://www.softwarestudio.org/libical/
RFC2445-2447
IETF-CALSCH
But where is the actual software? Nobody knows! It's all vapourware or "pre-alpha".
Please, some company with some cash, committed to open source, (or some org like Apache) give us a calendering server that works. Then we will get some clients (web, command line, pda, etc.).
I don't think is fair (as some posters suggest) that the original Luddites were entirely selfish. The move from an agrarian to an industrial economy caused an immense amount of social upheaval. Cities like Nottingham experienced huge population increases, but often without a corresponding increase in their boundaries or facilities, leading to terrible housing, poor health, food shortages, etc. In this sense the Luddites were justified in their actions. However, over time, industry has on balance improved things!
It is interesting to compare these changes to those occuring in England over the last 20 years, as we have moved from an industrial to a service economy. Whole industries (e.g. mining, textiles) have been wiped out in Nottinghamshire, with consequential poverty. Try talking to some of those people about the information revolution ...
Ingredients:
- One Applewriter with very poor print quality and broken (and very slow) lower paper feed
- One HP LaserJet III with broken upper paper feed
- Miscellaneous tools
Method: Take both printers apart. Attach upper part of Apple LaserWriter to lower part of HP LaserJet III. Use saw to cut away plastic trim until the lid will shut.In the generation of wireless devices after that, there will be little or no distinction between phones or any other device (laptop, PDA, security passes, credit cards, whatever), and they will all use the same open protocols (which may be new versions of those we know and love today).
My beef with system() and exec() in PHP is that the only difference between them is whether output is echoed. This is somewhat different to the standard unix meaning of theese functions.
Since this is meant to be about books, I would say don't bother buying one to start with. The learning curve for PHP is pretty gentle. Certainly don't buy the Wrox book. The php.net documentation is in the main pretty darn good, and continuously improving.
(But what is it with all the rounded corner websites .... ????)
Advantages of Perl:
- Perl can be used for tasks other than web scripts. Why learn a new language for every task?
- Perl does OO fairly sensibly. Hence not all perl code has to be a tangled mess. Get Damian Conway's book on this.
- Ease of code reusability. Modules. CPAN. Etc., etc.
- Syntax. The PHP concept of a 'global' is just fubarred.
- Integration with OS. PHP's idea of what 'system' and 'exec' should do is brain damaged.
- Bodged REGEXP implementation
- Perl can generate HTML, or you can embed it in phtml. Your choice.
I could go on. It is certainly easier to get PHP working than mod_perl. But perl scripts can also be run as simple CGI's, not in mod_perl, so that isn't a huge hurdle. Hell, you can run your CGI scripts at the command line for testing them.I'll let someone else say why PHP is better ...
(Is it just me, or does every site that uses PHP have rounded edges everywhere, just like php.net?)
It works pretty much like the guy says, except that Linux or NetBSD with SSH is my preferred remote access method. Remote FTP and CVS (through SSH) is feasible, but a web-server is pushing the upload speed of the modem a bit much.