Automated volume control is not the same kind of compression as data compression which is not the same kind of compression as air compression or any other kind of compression.
The dynamics of popular music today are squashed to hell in order to sound "as loud" or "louder" than the competition. Most people perceive greater volume as "better", at least initially. Of course we all know it's not better, it's very fatiguing, and mostly unnecessary (especially considering that radio stations already limit the hell out of everything to begin with). But it's the kind of thing where nobody is going to stick their neck out and back off.
While you may be correct, I don't believe that it had much to do with portable devices... in fact I think that's backwards. Most portable devices are putting out less power now because of the state of modern popular music, to the point where they don't put out enough volume when playing back older music, for instance. This problem, from my perspective, is relatively new; older walkmans and the first portable CD players seemed to do just fine before things got out of control (widespread sometime in the early 90s from what I recall).
The biggest problem as I see it is not in any particular search engine itself (although I personally think Google is best), but once again, human nature.
There are simply an enormous number of websites that have no purpose other than to trick people into visiting (pay per click scams, etc) or trick search engines into making some other page sit higher in the rankings. This isn't a problem created by search engines. This is a problem created by assholes, while some companies like Amazon make the problem worse ("fake" storefronts, etc)... and even Google itself (google ads).
What I'd like to see from Google specifically is a "show me FEWER pages like this" option, in addition to the "show me more pages" option. There are many times where my search results will be infected by a huge number of crap pages that all have the same automated content. Another thing I'd like Google to do is to figure out a way to ignore its own damn advertising. It's not uncommon for a website to come up in a search result because at some point it had a GOOGLE sponsored advertisement that contained the text I was searching for. Dumb. There's nothing like an entire page full of results that are nothing but google ads on some website with nothing but Amazon content.
The net sure makes it easier than ever to make money without actually doing any real work:)
Audio hardware and software always seems to have issues whenever new underlying technology is introduced, and results also seem to depend heavily on the chipset. Are you sure your CPU is maxing out, or is the meter just insane? Either case wouldn't suprise me.
This reminds me vaguely of about five years ago when ACPI started to become standard, and we all went about installing Win2K with the standard HAL to improve performance and solve conflicts. Of course at that time the standard support responsde from any soundcard manufacturer was "the soundcard must be on its own IRQ", regardless of the problem. Prior to that I remember all the problems with several lines of soundcards on non-Intel chipsets, about the time when the Athlon started looking like a great processor choice. Or how about all the audio programs and drivers that didn't support NT and didn't get on the ball to support Win2K until 2001-2002?
Anyhow, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about audio developers as a whole, although things have improved. Whether HT is problematic on its own or this is just the result of years of goofball hacking in the audio industry I dunno. But of course what's important to you and I is that we do whatever it takes to get a stable system, no matter what we end up having to disable to get there. I suppose this is true in every case. If SQL Server performs like crap with HT enabled, then disable it. No biggie.
Yeah I don't buy on eBay anymore. Last time I used it, several years ago, it was definately a seller's market. Items were going for prices that were *higher* than regular online retail. So, a great place to sell something, but not a great place to buy something.
That said, eBay can be a good resource if you know specifically what you're looking for. That way you can specify a good search and not be hit with so much clutter.
I wish they'd make a "private seller only" version of eBay. None of this ebay merchant crap. When I use eBay it's to find second hand goods from real people at fair prices....not new stuff at retail prices from shady businesses.
Well, I guess it depends on the service when trying to determine how much privacy you should expect.
I live in a small isolated town of less than 50,000 people. Let's say a local serial killer crops up and the police use public library records to find out that over the past year I've checked out a dozen books about serial killers, more than anybody in town by a long shot. Does that make me suspect? In their minds it very well may, but logically it should not. (this issue came up with the Patriot Act, if you remember) Why the hell would I be so interested in serial killers? Am I some kind of sicko?
1) A person should feel free to pursue knowledge that isn't specifically illegal without fear. This is a very important aspect of a free society. You can't determine intent by analyzing what a person has chosen to learn about. If I do a bunch of research about the theory of evolution, does that mean that I'm a scientist learning about evolution, or does it mean that I'm a christian fundamentalist looking for flaws to prop up the idea of intelligent design? You can't be certain. So maybe you find out that I'm a christian, does that sway you in one particular direction? Well, it might, but it *shouldn't*. And so on and so forth...it can really snowball until you think you've really got me pegged.
2) The police are not infallible, by any means. It is not uncommon that when a good suspect is found (good being subjective), they will concentrate most of their efforts on that suspect, sometimes overlooking clues that would lead them to the real perpetrator. Plenty of people have been wrongfully incarcerated due to purely circumstantial evidence.
After playing with version 2 for a bit now I've really been considering migrating my organization from MS Office to OO. Of course the biggest hurdle, as usual, is getting users to accept the change.
These videos are great, but I do have a couple critcisms:
1) My users range from novice to intermediate when it comes to using MS Office, but these videos are almost geared towards someone who has never used this kind of software before. Spending a great deal of time explaining how to change fonts and correct spelling isn't that beneficial when OO works almost identically to MS Office in this regard. In this respect these videos aren't really "training" as much as they are an overview of features.
It would be great then if *more* features were covered in a shorter amount of time. It's things like working with numbered lists, program integration (using tables from a spreadsheet in a text document, etc), positioning of graphics and text, change tracking, headers & footers, formulas, advanced document layouts, creating charts, and so on that are often difficult but very important for users in an office environment. I can imagine my users watching these videos...the first thing they'll say will be something like, "that's great, but what about."
Sometimes it takes people a great deal of time to figure out how to do something in a particular document, and the thought of having to figure out a new way to do it is very frightening....whatever those things may be, they won't be as trivial as changing font sizes or inserting pictures.
So the videos are great for grandma, but not meaty enough for people who work with these kinds of tools as part of their day-to-day job (which, in my experience, does not make them experts...these folks are often "memorizers").
2) I realize that these videos were improvised, and while that does give them a bit of charm, there were several times where he said the *exact opposite* of what he meant, or where he just didn't explain something very well. A pre-written script or at the very least better planning would have improved the educational value of these videos.
Anyhow, I hate to be overly critical because it's great when people take the time to do things like this.
The AI in farcry was pretty good. The game itself was just very difficult because your weapons do considerably less damage to creatures than most of us are used to in FPS games, and the AI attacks with speed and high precision. It was definately possible to take advantage of the AI limitations to make it through the game without a terrible amount of trouble though.
The only thing I really had trouble with was the final level. I'm not sure it's even possible to beat all those guys...well, I guess I know it is possible, but I couldn't do it the intended way. I ended up taking a chair and blocking the outer door with it so that I could lead badguys in one by one, and also grab more ammo/health. Not really cheating, but not the way the last level was supposed to be played.
Web apps are also nice in that you don't have to distribute client programs, making administration a lot easier.
Of course there are serious drawbacks to web apps. For instance, I've been demoing an opensource document management system that's web based. It seems to have many of the features that I'm looking for, but checking files in and out via a web browser is a big enough pain that I don't think that my users are going to happy with it at all. So while the developers have a product that can run on just about any platform, they comprimised ease of use and functionality.
Anyhow, I really have a hard time believing that anybody gets into education for the power trip. If anything, I'm willing to bet that a lot of poor educators get into education because it was their last resort, and then they become bitter and take their personal issues out on children.
I personally knew at least four people in college who went into education after failing at their original major - well, maybe a couple of them just decided they didn't like their original major. These people had no real *desire* to be teachers, and didn't necessarily even like children. They way they conveyed things to me it was just a sort of fallback. Education undergrad programs are pretty simple too, from the coursework I saw (helped a few with homework). Not that learning how to teach isn't challenging, but a lot of the courses seemed to be really watered down (although I was in engineering so I'm sure I was biased). Anyhow, this is all kind of sad because teaching *well* is a very, very difficult job...as is staying inspired year after year. If someone is just going to sort of pick a major out of the air, I'd hope that they wouldn't even consider education.
I wrote some software years ago that would monitor a device in the background, and then when the user hit a "hotkey" sequence on the keyboard it would paste data from the device into the user's application. Not your every day typical program, but for my users it was very handy. Of course I hooked the keyboard to make it work.
Perhaps limiting the scope of keyboard hooks would be a good solution that would allow for exceptions like these without the current security issues that global hooks introduce? (for instance, don't fire on all keystrokes, but a limited set of combinations, like CTRL+some range)
When I was writing my application I became very aware of the fact that I really destroy the usability of a machine without a lot of effort...even perhaps by mistake. And of course that monitoring keystrokes with malicious intent would be trivial.
Aside from keeping a system patched up, it's important on a web server to lock down all programs that aren't necessary for the operation of your web services. In typical setups there is absolutely no reason that the apache user should have to execute wget, although it will be able to by default.
I was thinking of the Y2K bug myself. I can't think of any other "bug" that impacted as many people worldwide. Everyone from children to grandparents knew about the Y2K bug, even if they didn't understand it. I certainly remember my "Y2K Plan"...doing software/hardware inventories and tests, doing paper audits of suppliers, etc. What a pain. Only had issues with a couple systems. The hype factor of this bug alone should have gotten it on the list.
HOWEVER, the Y2K bug wasn't necessarily a bug, it was a known limitation and a lack of forward thinking. Well, I guess that could be considered a bug...just not a specific bug in a specific piece of software.
Many of your arguments in favor of "traditional" P2P networks are very much the same as my arguments in favor Bittorrent. Your use of magnetic links to maintain your system is exactly why "bittorrent type" sharing is so beneficial.
My arguments against traditional P2P lie almost soley in their typical or originally intended use, which is to connect to the network with a client and start searching. This is not particularly convenient to the end user searching for legitimate content. It's much simpler for them to connect to your website and use your magnetic links, which is analogous to connecting to your website and clicking on torrent links.
If I had been more educated about magnetic links, I would have lumped them in with my arguments in favor of that type of file sharing.
I agree, a person most certainly *could* use file-sharing P2P networks for legitimate reasons. No question. I just believe that this is a very, very rare exception. People in the "industries" who argue against P2P networks have pretty good reasons to be upset (whether we like these people or not).
I think that P2P should be legal because we already have copyright laws that should encompass all of this, no need to get specific IMHO. Plus, poorly worded legislation could affect technologies like Bittorrent that are currently being used by companies to distribute materials (in fact I'm seeing torrents more and more these days from all kinds of different companies).
I don't believe there are any real (as in frequently used) legitimate reasons for P2P networks to exist other than to distribute material illegally. It's the very last place I'd ever look to legally obtain software or media. I would in every single case get the material direct from the author's website, or via some legitimate web service, searching P2P as a last resort (so "last resort" that I've never had to do it). I'm not saying that it's not possible to use P2P networks for legit reasons, and I'm not saying that on occasion people do obtain legal materials from them. Really though, it's not a good way for an author to market something (no tracking, no content control, no targeting, etc), and it's not a convenient way for the consumer to retrieve something (file descriptors can be poor, you get queued up, you have to share back to get good rates with some services, etc).
The one giant exception here is Bittorrent, which is the most exciting P2P idea that's ever come out, in my opinion. BT by its very nature encourages the distribution of *legitamate* content because it a) allows the author to create and maintain a torrent that isn't connected to some vast network of crap, b) torrents can be "distributed" via websites, which is where you want your consumer to be, c) the consumer gets faster downloads, d) the author pays for less bandwidth. Bittorrent also, in my mind, kind of discourages the distribution of illegal content because torrent files themselves have to be hosted somewhere/somehow, thereby perhaps removing a layer of anonimity (at least the host could be held accountable).
Anyhow, while the original intent of the first P2P networks might not have been to distribute illegal content...it is certainly the primary task of such networks today (aside from bittorrent type networks).
There is no byte data type in C, only the char, which in terms of C is an integer of size depending on the most basic machine addressable unit (usually a byte). This example is probably most interesting to people who cut their teeth on C and then moved on to other C syntax style languages like Java.
You're right though, most programmers worth a damn don't make assumptions like this when it comes to data type conversion.
It should be at least a little bit interesting to all, however, since the code is valid and the result isn't intuitively obvious.
I was the only administrative-level moderator at a very popular website for several years. I also produced two successful commercial products for the site, and helped work on many new ideas.
There was a problem, though. The site owner was a frequent no show. In fact, for the last couple years I was there he was virtually invisible...only popping up from time time to restart the server. He wouldn't respond to emails, even from me. He wouldn't respond to user requests or ideas, even when they were filtered through myself or other moderators. He wouldn't back up moderator decisions and the whole site turned very chaotic. He basically just disappeared.
So there was a dilema. Yes, he owned the site and it was his to do with as he pleased. However, the vast majority of the content was produced by volunteers and users.
The solution?
I got in touch with another guy from the site who I felt was trustworthy and we started a small business partnership and started our own website dealing with the same exact subject matter. Since we were members of the original site since its beginning (or nearly), we ended up "stealing" a ton of its users. There were of course big moral debates and a lot of hot heads but it cooled off after six months or so. We just recently passed our two year mark and while the original site has like 30,000 members and millions of forum posts, we only have about 3,000 members and a quarter million posts...but that's ok because it's operating the way we want it to, and that's what it's all about. Our business model is successful too in that we haven't had to pay our high server fees out of pocket since the second month of operation. The original site didn't have a successful model of operation, it all depends on that one invisible guy to fund it with donations and advertising, neither of which are reliable sources of income.
So one lesson learned: if you're willing to volunteer a huge amount of time for a project you believe in when somebody else is going to reap the tangible benefits, and then the project turns to shit.... maybe it's YOUR turn to go for it. You've already got the know-how and the drive after all. You don't need a terribly "unique" idea for a website either, there is a lot of room for good competition out there, which benefits everyone (as long as you're not doing anything slimey).
Another lesson I didn't expect to learn: about a year ago I went through a very unexpected divorce, and suddenly my priorities shifted drastically. I went from putting probably 30-40 hours a week into my project to putting maybe a few hours a month into it. I suddenly understood things a lot better from that other owner's perspective...I didn't want to respond to emails...I didn't want to fix things...I didn't want to take care of anything, it just felt like a burden, but one that I couldn't let go of because it was my baby. Anyhow, the last couple months have been much better and I'm not sure I learned any specific lesson except perhaps some tolerance and understanding.
Sure it's ok to expose others to risk, you're just being selective.
We expose eachother to risk constantly. The fumes from your car are in my lungs. The germs from your cough are on my hands. The pollen from the flowers in your garden is stuck in my nose.
The ban on smoking in most public buildings is a good thing. However, it's gotten way out of control to the point where some people are offended by the mere smell of a cigarette. I'm offended by lots of smells too.
And I suppose you're also trying to legislate away traffic?
The risk to you of inhaling second hand smoke *occasionally* is nil. It's bullshit. You don't have some sort of little "inhaled smoke" meter in your body where you suddenly die when it hits the red line. You need a significant amount of exposure over a significant amount of time for your health to be at risk.
I can understand if you were, say, working in an environment that was heavy with smoke. But you're not going to get lung cancer from going out to the bar to poison your liver.
Well, how about gaining real life experience in matter such as: "how can we sustain a habitable environment in outerspace for long periods of time?" From a mechanical engineering point of view a lot is being learned, and if we're not learning (highly doubtful), we're at least verifying that our ideas were sound. We're also learning about what the effects of being couped up in a zero gravity box are on a human being.
It seems pretty silly to me that somebody would argue that tossing up a working space station wouldn't yield any knowledge or insight into staying alive in outer space. You don't go from mud huts to skyscrapers in one step.
If Microsoft stole its UI from anyone, it's Macintosh (Lisa, 1983 and Mac OS, 1984).
Windows 1.0 came out in 1985 (MS-DOS 1981). The X Windows project started in 1984, and the public X11 we're all familiar with didn't come about until 1988. X Windows isn't even a UI, it's just a UI protocol.
If anything, modern desktop environments for Linux borrow heavily from Windows, which is a common complaint actually.
Yeah, but at $5 I'd say it is worth it when you factor in online distribution means you have to wait for the dang thing to download. Then if you're going to burn a DVD (if you're not blocked by DRM) you have to factor in the time and expense of that, *especially* if you have to transcode. Plus you don't get a nice case or get the durability/playability benefits of a pressed DVD.
On the flipside, buying a DVD and getting it onto your iPod might prove pretty challenging, so the opposite might be true (that is, the benefits of online distribution specifically for iPod might be greater).
It depends on what you're going to watch the show on, how much trouble you're willing to go through, and whether the packaging is worth something to you.
For me, I prefer watching movies on DVD and on my TV. Seeing as how I can rent a movie for a few bucks or buy a movie second hand for a few bucks more, I'd never want to go through the hassle of downloading and burning. Been there, done that, *hated* it.
Off topic: I don't buy anything from Walmart unless there is no alternative (rare).
If you were aware that you're posting on slashdot, you'd probably know that by the time you posted your comment, a half dozen others probably posted the exact same sentiments. That's the way it goes.
Anyhow, nobody implied that we *have* to follow the guide. That's not even an argument. My first sentence, if you understood "at least three words" I said, gets at the fact that it's easier to solve raw FPS performance problems than it is to solve swapping problems. When a game suddenly starts jerking because of memory problems, it's a much more significant problem in terms of playability than frame rates dropping. I then went on to say that since this *guide* obviously assumes that we're re-using hardware, then there might also be enough money left in there (hard drive, CDROM) to bump up to a gig.
Slashdot Mirror
Automated volume control is not the same kind of compression as data compression which is not the same kind of compression as air compression or any other kind of compression.
The dynamics of popular music today are squashed to hell in order to sound "as loud" or "louder" than the competition. Most people perceive greater volume as "better", at least initially. Of course we all know it's not better, it's very fatiguing, and mostly unnecessary (especially considering that radio stations already limit the hell out of everything to begin with). But it's the kind of thing where nobody is going to stick their neck out and back off.
While you may be correct, I don't believe that it had much to do with portable devices... in fact I think that's backwards. Most portable devices are putting out less power now because of the state of modern popular music, to the point where they don't put out enough volume when playing back older music, for instance. This problem, from my perspective, is relatively new; older walkmans and the first portable CD players seemed to do just fine before things got out of control (widespread sometime in the early 90s from what I recall).
The biggest problem as I see it is not in any particular search engine itself (although I personally think Google is best), but once again, human nature.
:)
There are simply an enormous number of websites that have no purpose other than to trick people into visiting (pay per click scams, etc) or trick search engines into making some other page sit higher in the rankings. This isn't a problem created by search engines. This is a problem created by assholes, while some companies like Amazon make the problem worse ("fake" storefronts, etc)... and even Google itself (google ads).
What I'd like to see from Google specifically is a "show me FEWER pages like this" option, in addition to the "show me more pages" option. There are many times where my search results will be infected by a huge number of crap pages that all have the same automated content. Another thing I'd like Google to do is to figure out a way to ignore its own damn advertising. It's not uncommon for a website to come up in a search result because at some point it had a GOOGLE sponsored advertisement that contained the text I was searching for. Dumb. There's nothing like an entire page full of results that are nothing but google ads on some website with nothing but Amazon content.
The net sure makes it easier than ever to make money without actually doing any real work
Audio hardware and software always seems to have issues whenever new underlying technology is introduced, and results also seem to depend heavily on the chipset. Are you sure your CPU is maxing out, or is the meter just insane? Either case wouldn't suprise me.
This reminds me vaguely of about five years ago when ACPI started to become standard, and we all went about installing Win2K with the standard HAL to improve performance and solve conflicts. Of course at that time the standard support responsde from any soundcard manufacturer was "the soundcard must be on its own IRQ", regardless of the problem. Prior to that I remember all the problems with several lines of soundcards on non-Intel chipsets, about the time when the Athlon started looking like a great processor choice. Or how about all the audio programs and drivers that didn't support NT and didn't get on the ball to support Win2K until 2001-2002?
Anyhow, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about audio developers as a whole, although things have improved. Whether HT is problematic on its own or this is just the result of years of goofball hacking in the audio industry I dunno. But of course what's important to you and I is that we do whatever it takes to get a stable system, no matter what we end up having to disable to get there. I suppose this is true in every case. If SQL Server performs like crap with HT enabled, then disable it. No biggie.
Maybe they changed the title, but it doesn't say "Book Review:", it says "Book Excerpt", which is what TFA is.
Shouldn't be front page material though, IMO.
I try to test my unit at least twice a day. So far no problems have been found, knock on wood (pun!).
Yeah I don't buy on eBay anymore. Last time I used it, several years ago, it was definately a seller's market. Items were going for prices that were *higher* than regular online retail. So, a great place to sell something, but not a great place to buy something.
That said, eBay can be a good resource if you know specifically what you're looking for. That way you can specify a good search and not be hit with so much clutter.
I wish they'd make a "private seller only" version of eBay. None of this ebay merchant crap. When I use eBay it's to find second hand goods from real people at fair prices....not new stuff at retail prices from shady businesses.
I disagree.
Well, I guess it depends on the service when trying to determine how much privacy you should expect.
I live in a small isolated town of less than 50,000 people. Let's say a local serial killer crops up and the police use public library records to find out that over the past year I've checked out a dozen books about serial killers, more than anybody in town by a long shot. Does that make me suspect? In their minds it very well may, but logically it should not. (this issue came up with the Patriot Act, if you remember) Why the hell would I be so interested in serial killers? Am I some kind of sicko?
1) A person should feel free to pursue knowledge that isn't specifically illegal without fear. This is a very important aspect of a free society. You can't determine intent by analyzing what a person has chosen to learn about. If I do a bunch of research about the theory of evolution, does that mean that I'm a scientist learning about evolution, or does it mean that I'm a christian fundamentalist looking for flaws to prop up the idea of intelligent design? You can't be certain. So maybe you find out that I'm a christian, does that sway you in one particular direction? Well, it might, but it *shouldn't*. And so on and so forth...it can really snowball until you think you've really got me pegged.
2) The police are not infallible, by any means. It is not uncommon that when a good suspect is found (good being subjective), they will concentrate most of their efforts on that suspect, sometimes overlooking clues that would lead them to the real perpetrator. Plenty of people have been wrongfully incarcerated due to purely circumstantial evidence.
After playing with version 2 for a bit now I've really been considering migrating my organization from MS Office to OO. Of course the biggest hurdle, as usual, is getting users to accept the change.
."
These videos are great, but I do have a couple critcisms:
1) My users range from novice to intermediate when it comes to using MS Office, but these videos are almost geared towards someone who has never used this kind of software before. Spending a great deal of time explaining how to change fonts and correct spelling isn't that beneficial when OO works almost identically to MS Office in this regard. In this respect these videos aren't really "training" as much as they are an overview of features.
It would be great then if *more* features were covered in a shorter amount of time. It's things like working with numbered lists, program integration (using tables from a spreadsheet in a text document, etc), positioning of graphics and text, change tracking, headers & footers, formulas, advanced document layouts, creating charts, and so on that are often difficult but very important for users in an office environment. I can imagine my users watching these videos...the first thing they'll say will be something like, "that's great, but what about
Sometimes it takes people a great deal of time to figure out how to do something in a particular document, and the thought of having to figure out a new way to do it is very frightening....whatever those things may be, they won't be as trivial as changing font sizes or inserting pictures.
So the videos are great for grandma, but not meaty enough for people who work with these kinds of tools as part of their day-to-day job (which, in my experience, does not make them experts...these folks are often "memorizers").
2) I realize that these videos were improvised, and while that does give them a bit of charm, there were several times where he said the *exact opposite* of what he meant, or where he just didn't explain something very well. A pre-written script or at the very least better planning would have improved the educational value of these videos.
Anyhow, I hate to be overly critical because it's great when people take the time to do things like this.
The AI in farcry was pretty good. The game itself was just very difficult because your weapons do considerably less damage to creatures than most of us are used to in FPS games, and the AI attacks with speed and high precision. It was definately possible to take advantage of the AI limitations to make it through the game without a terrible amount of trouble though.
The only thing I really had trouble with was the final level. I'm not sure it's even possible to beat all those guys...well, I guess I know it is possible, but I couldn't do it the intended way. I ended up taking a chair and blocking the outer door with it so that I could lead badguys in one by one, and also grab more ammo/health. Not really cheating, but not the way the last level was supposed to be played.
Web apps are also nice in that you don't have to distribute client programs, making administration a lot easier.
Of course there are serious drawbacks to web apps. For instance, I've been demoing an opensource document management system that's web based. It seems to have many of the features that I'm looking for, but checking files in and out via a web browser is a big enough pain that I don't think that my users are going to happy with it at all. So while the developers have a product that can run on just about any platform, they comprimised ease of use and functionality.
Parent shouldn't be flamebait!
Anyhow, I really have a hard time believing that anybody gets into education for the power trip. If anything, I'm willing to bet that a lot of poor educators get into education because it was their last resort, and then they become bitter and take their personal issues out on children.
I personally knew at least four people in college who went into education after failing at their original major - well, maybe a couple of them just decided they didn't like their original major. These people had no real *desire* to be teachers, and didn't necessarily even like children. They way they conveyed things to me it was just a sort of fallback. Education undergrad programs are pretty simple too, from the coursework I saw (helped a few with homework). Not that learning how to teach isn't challenging, but a lot of the courses seemed to be really watered down (although I was in engineering so I'm sure I was biased). Anyhow, this is all kind of sad because teaching *well* is a very, very difficult job...as is staying inspired year after year. If someone is just going to sort of pick a major out of the air, I'd hope that they wouldn't even consider education.
I wrote some software years ago that would monitor a device in the background, and then when the user hit a "hotkey" sequence on the keyboard it would paste data from the device into the user's application. Not your every day typical program, but for my users it was very handy. Of course I hooked the keyboard to make it work.
Perhaps limiting the scope of keyboard hooks would be a good solution that would allow for exceptions like these without the current security issues that global hooks introduce? (for instance, don't fire on all keystrokes, but a limited set of combinations, like CTRL+some range)
When I was writing my application I became very aware of the fact that I really destroy the usability of a machine without a lot of effort...even perhaps by mistake. And of course that monitoring keystrokes with malicious intent would be trivial.
Mounting tmp noexec won't stop scripts like this.
Aside from keeping a system patched up, it's important on a web server to lock down all programs that aren't necessary for the operation of your web services. In typical setups there is absolutely no reason that the apache user should have to execute wget, although it will be able to by default.
I was thinking of the Y2K bug myself. I can't think of any other "bug" that impacted as many people worldwide. Everyone from children to grandparents knew about the Y2K bug, even if they didn't understand it. I certainly remember my "Y2K Plan"...doing software/hardware inventories and tests, doing paper audits of suppliers, etc. What a pain. Only had issues with a couple systems. The hype factor of this bug alone should have gotten it on the list.
HOWEVER, the Y2K bug wasn't necessarily a bug, it was a known limitation and a lack of forward thinking. Well, I guess that could be considered a bug...just not a specific bug in a specific piece of software.
Many of your arguments in favor of "traditional" P2P networks are very much the same as my arguments in favor Bittorrent. Your use of magnetic links to maintain your system is exactly why "bittorrent type" sharing is so beneficial.
My arguments against traditional P2P lie almost soley in their typical or originally intended use, which is to connect to the network with a client and start searching. This is not particularly convenient to the end user searching for legitimate content. It's much simpler for them to connect to your website and use your magnetic links, which is analogous to connecting to your website and clicking on torrent links.
If I had been more educated about magnetic links, I would have lumped them in with my arguments in favor of that type of file sharing.
I agree, a person most certainly *could* use file-sharing P2P networks for legitimate reasons. No question. I just believe that this is a very, very rare exception. People in the "industries" who argue against P2P networks have pretty good reasons to be upset (whether we like these people or not).
I think that P2P should be legal because we already have copyright laws that should encompass all of this, no need to get specific IMHO. Plus, poorly worded legislation could affect technologies like Bittorrent that are currently being used by companies to distribute materials (in fact I'm seeing torrents more and more these days from all kinds of different companies).
I don't believe there are any real (as in frequently used) legitimate reasons for P2P networks to exist other than to distribute material illegally. It's the very last place I'd ever look to legally obtain software or media. I would in every single case get the material direct from the author's website, or via some legitimate web service, searching P2P as a last resort (so "last resort" that I've never had to do it). I'm not saying that it's not possible to use P2P networks for legit reasons, and I'm not saying that on occasion people do obtain legal materials from them. Really though, it's not a good way for an author to market something (no tracking, no content control, no targeting, etc), and it's not a convenient way for the consumer to retrieve something (file descriptors can be poor, you get queued up, you have to share back to get good rates with some services, etc).
The one giant exception here is Bittorrent, which is the most exciting P2P idea that's ever come out, in my opinion. BT by its very nature encourages the distribution of *legitamate* content because it a) allows the author to create and maintain a torrent that isn't connected to some vast network of crap, b) torrents can be "distributed" via websites, which is where you want your consumer to be, c) the consumer gets faster downloads, d) the author pays for less bandwidth. Bittorrent also, in my mind, kind of discourages the distribution of illegal content because torrent files themselves have to be hosted somewhere/somehow, thereby perhaps removing a layer of anonimity (at least the host could be held accountable).
Anyhow, while the original intent of the first P2P networks might not have been to distribute illegal content...it is certainly the primary task of such networks today (aside from bittorrent type networks).
There is no byte data type in C, only the char, which in terms of C is an integer of size depending on the most basic machine addressable unit (usually a byte). This example is probably most interesting to people who cut their teeth on C and then moved on to other C syntax style languages like Java.
You're right though, most programmers worth a damn don't make assumptions like this when it comes to data type conversion.
It should be at least a little bit interesting to all, however, since the code is valid and the result isn't intuitively obvious.
I've been in this position before.
I was the only administrative-level moderator at a very popular website for several years. I also produced two successful commercial products for the site, and helped work on many new ideas.
There was a problem, though. The site owner was a frequent no show. In fact, for the last couple years I was there he was virtually invisible...only popping up from time time to restart the server. He wouldn't respond to emails, even from me. He wouldn't respond to user requests or ideas, even when they were filtered through myself or other moderators. He wouldn't back up moderator decisions and the whole site turned very chaotic. He basically just disappeared.
So there was a dilema. Yes, he owned the site and it was his to do with as he pleased. However, the vast majority of the content was produced by volunteers and users.
The solution?
I got in touch with another guy from the site who I felt was trustworthy and we started a small business partnership and started our own website dealing with the same exact subject matter. Since we were members of the original site since its beginning (or nearly), we ended up "stealing" a ton of its users. There were of course big moral debates and a lot of hot heads but it cooled off after six months or so. We just recently passed our two year mark and while the original site has like 30,000 members and millions of forum posts, we only have about 3,000 members and a quarter million posts...but that's ok because it's operating the way we want it to, and that's what it's all about. Our business model is successful too in that we haven't had to pay our high server fees out of pocket since the second month of operation. The original site didn't have a successful model of operation, it all depends on that one invisible guy to fund it with donations and advertising, neither of which are reliable sources of income.
So one lesson learned: if you're willing to volunteer a huge amount of time for a project you believe in when somebody else is going to reap the tangible benefits, and then the project turns to shit.... maybe it's YOUR turn to go for it. You've already got the know-how and the drive after all. You don't need a terribly "unique" idea for a website either, there is a lot of room for good competition out there, which benefits everyone (as long as you're not doing anything slimey).
Another lesson I didn't expect to learn: about a year ago I went through a very unexpected divorce, and suddenly my priorities shifted drastically. I went from putting probably 30-40 hours a week into my project to putting maybe a few hours a month into it. I suddenly understood things a lot better from that other owner's perspective...I didn't want to respond to emails...I didn't want to fix things...I didn't want to take care of anything, it just felt like a burden, but one that I couldn't let go of because it was my baby. Anyhow, the last couple months have been much better and I'm not sure I learned any specific lesson except perhaps some tolerance and understanding.
Sure it's ok to expose others to risk, you're just being selective.
We expose eachother to risk constantly. The fumes from your car are in my lungs. The germs from your cough are on my hands. The pollen from the flowers in your garden is stuck in my nose.
The ban on smoking in most public buildings is a good thing. However, it's gotten way out of control to the point where some people are offended by the mere smell of a cigarette. I'm offended by lots of smells too.
And I suppose you're also trying to legislate away traffic?
The risk to you of inhaling second hand smoke *occasionally* is nil. It's bullshit. You don't have some sort of little "inhaled smoke" meter in your body where you suddenly die when it hits the red line. You need a significant amount of exposure over a significant amount of time for your health to be at risk.
I can understand if you were, say, working in an environment that was heavy with smoke. But you're not going to get lung cancer from going out to the bar to poison your liver.
Well, how about gaining real life experience in matter such as: "how can we sustain a habitable environment in outerspace for long periods of time?" From a mechanical engineering point of view a lot is being learned, and if we're not learning (highly doubtful), we're at least verifying that our ideas were sound. We're also learning about what the effects of being couped up in a zero gravity box are on a human being.
It seems pretty silly to me that somebody would argue that tossing up a working space station wouldn't yield any knowledge or insight into staying alive in outer space. You don't go from mud huts to skyscrapers in one step.
You're wrong on all points.
If Microsoft stole its UI from anyone, it's Macintosh (Lisa, 1983 and Mac OS, 1984).
Windows 1.0 came out in 1985 (MS-DOS 1981). The X Windows project started in 1984, and the public X11 we're all familiar with didn't come about until 1988. X Windows isn't even a UI, it's just a UI protocol.
If anything, modern desktop environments for Linux borrow heavily from Windows, which is a common complaint actually.
Yeah, but at $5 I'd say it is worth it when you factor in online distribution means you have to wait for the dang thing to download. Then if you're going to burn a DVD (if you're not blocked by DRM) you have to factor in the time and expense of that, *especially* if you have to transcode. Plus you don't get a nice case or get the durability/playability benefits of a pressed DVD.
On the flipside, buying a DVD and getting it onto your iPod might prove pretty challenging, so the opposite might be true (that is, the benefits of online distribution specifically for iPod might be greater).
It depends on what you're going to watch the show on, how much trouble you're willing to go through, and whether the packaging is worth something to you.
For me, I prefer watching movies on DVD and on my TV. Seeing as how I can rent a movie for a few bucks or buy a movie second hand for a few bucks more, I'd never want to go through the hassle of downloading and burning. Been there, done that, *hated* it.
Off topic: I don't buy anything from Walmart unless there is no alternative (rare).
If you were aware that you're posting on slashdot, you'd probably know that by the time you posted your comment, a half dozen others probably posted the exact same sentiments. That's the way it goes.
Anyhow, nobody implied that we *have* to follow the guide. That's not even an argument. My first sentence, if you understood "at least three words" I said, gets at the fact that it's easier to solve raw FPS performance problems than it is to solve swapping problems. When a game suddenly starts jerking because of memory problems, it's a much more significant problem in terms of playability than frame rates dropping. I then went on to say that since this *guide* obviously assumes that we're re-using hardware, then there might also be enough money left in there (hard drive, CDROM) to bump up to a gig.
Cripes man, take a deep breath.