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User: agiacalone

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  1. Back to AOL? on Google Wants To Kill the URL (wired.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Didn't AOL try this back in the 90s with the 'AOL Keyword'? IIRC, it failed miserably.

  2. Re:Creating interactive fiction to learn programmi on New Text Adventures Compete In 22nd 'Interactive Fiction Competition' (ifcomp.org) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Inform is a great tool for creating interactive fiction. Since it requires logic, branching, etc. I always thought it'd work well as an introduction to some of the thinking that is required in the design of programs.

    It's interesting that you mention this. I actually teach a Theory of Programming Languages course at a state University, and the first (out of five) languages that I introduce to my students is Inform 7. I do so for a few reasons:

    1. It's a great introduction to "specialty" programming languages. An example of how languages can be created and used for highly specialized use cases.
    2. It's a very unique way of looking at programming (unlike Java, which has been drilled into the CS students since Freshman year).
    3. It has full language documentation in an accessible form, like grammar tree and parse generation tables.
    4. It's fun to make games and I think logic games fit in well with a Computer Science course in tandem with CS language concepts.

    Although, strangely, #4 is quite polarizing among my students. I only get one of two responses typically: "I hate it!", or, "This is awesome!". I guess game creativity isn't something that people usually take CS courses for...and since it's the "easiest" of the five languages to pick up, my students typically have a shortened time to learn it. So maybe that's it...

  3. Ah, yes. You are correct. I believe that I've seen TNCs that will handle 9600 baud data on VHF/UHF frequencies.

  4. Wouldn't that fall under the "pizza rule"?

    It would, IMHO (being an amateur radio operator). What would violate FCC rules is sending any encrypted traffic over the radio waves, including any HTTPS or SSL traffic, making any transactions online pretty useless or extremely insecure.

    Not only that, but the laws as currently stated only allow RTTY speeds up to 1200 bauds due to bandwidth limitations. Of course, that could be changed with any new laws/specrtum allowance.

  5. Obfuscated URLs on Malicious QR Codes Posted Where There's Lots of Foot Traffic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Any time you obfuscate the underlying address in a URL you pose a security risk.

    QR codes are no different than shortened URL services like blt.ly or goo.gl. All of these have the potential to take users to malicious websites because they can't be easily identified to the human reader.

  6. Re:Unity on Ubuntu 13.04 Will Allow Instant Purchasing, Right From the Dash · · Score: 5, Informative

    Current Ubuntu user also.

    I completely agree with Stallman on this issue: Canonical needs to seperate this out for users who don't want this stuff showing up in their dash searches.

    But in the mean time, there's always this:

    'sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping'

    Solves the problem for me rather easily.

  7. Re:Yeah, UCSD p-code Pascal! :) on The Apple II At 30 · · Score: 1

    > I wrote a modified RWTS when I was at Infocom You worked at Infocom? Infocom made some of my favorite games EVER. I started playing those games on my Apple IIe back in the 80s, and I make it a point to install Frotz on every new Linux machine I get. Somehow, I just don't feel that it's really a computer until I have a game like Spellbinder running... :-)