Yeah, I had an Orgo lab TA who was definitely Irish, and sometimes he would come out with phrases like, "Add a wee bit of ethanol to your solution". It made my day every time. Everything else about the class sucked. I hate/hated chemistry.
wii are not amused. It's going to cause all sorts of havoc asking for it.
Me: Can I have a 'wii' please? Irish counter guy: A wee bit of what lad? Me: No, a wii. 'Wii you've heard of it, right? Irish guy: There'll be no sort of that behavior in this store sonny!
I am currently a Verizon customer. I am switching phone companies once I am no longer their bitch (contract is up in a year or so). What really pisses me off is how they charge you for every little small thing. Is it not enough that I am a current paying customer? That I paid that much more for a phone that could run a couple of apps? Nope. You have to pay for every single thing you put on your phone. And if something happens to your phone, it's a major hassle. Something happening can include replacing your phone, because their service sucks in your area. Somehow it's impossible for them to copy everything over.
So it's no surprising at all that they want to charge for this service. As many people have noted it's easily done already. But Verizon can sell it as a 'select' service you can get, to lure you into getting a 10-year contract. They won't mention the cost, until it is too late. They might also leave off needing a TIVO subscription on top of that. Until you get your bill, and realize how stupid it is.
They do that with their web phones. On some phones (like mine) you can actually change the gateway such that you can surf the net for free, until you realize exactly how painful it is to do with a cell phone, and give up.
I have to completely and utterly disagree with you. Web pages are not the best place for web apps, nor will they ever be. And why should they? Web pages were meant for displaying originally static text. The fact that it can be made dynamic, is an add-on, rather than a thought out plan. AJAX/DHTML come off more as a kludge than anything else.
You want systems that were made for complex user interface tasks? Try.net, Cocoa, GTK, or QT. There's a lot of work put in to those libraries. Unless you think those libraries are all fluff, then I'm not sure how you get from href's and text to something as complex as an office suite. And it is complex. If it weren't, M$ office wouldn't have the hold it does.
If you want a simple text editor that can do minimal tasks, sure, web interfaces are *okay*. But compare that to something like abiword, which is still free (or openoffice, if you want), and they *still* can't compare.
Why even try to do a web office suite? To make it cross platformable? Once again, abiword and openoffice have this covered. Remember, the internet consists of more than just webpages. There's lot of ways of transporting data. If you want something that can run anywhere, a solid crossplatform library should be used. QT and GTK are two good examples of this.
Last I checked google wasn't the only one responsible, why are people singling it out? I'm not trying to defend google's actions, but it is also a much more complex issue than people are making it out to be. I thought there was a pretty good summary on google's blog.
China is censoring its citizens already. Google feels that they can at least provide more information than other companies can. Instead of simply deleting references, they make mention that certain items have been deleted at the bottom of the page.
China is not the only place that censorship is occuring. Here in the US, for example, links to Scientology have been edited out. Likewise, google makes mention of this.
They are not providing other services that they feel they have no right to censor like email or blogging on Chinese soil.
So, while perhaps to be more realistic they should claim to do 'less evil', they (unlike the other 3 search engines that appeared in front of Congress) very conciencious of their decisions and ramification, and have done so lightly.
We really should be protesting censorship world wide. And not just in China.
I should point out that Newsome is a fairly well known name in the Neuroscience field. And however crazy this idea is (which, IMHO, is really high up there), he wouldn't be the first neuroscientist to do an experiment on himself. I can't remember his name, but another person vivesected his own arm to understand how sensory nerves worked. Not to mention, researchers put themselves in TMS machines, that essentially shuts down parts of the brain by means of large magnetic fields.
Let me revise that statement. I just received an email from Apple about my order. It looks like the upgrade is actually more of an appeasement since they have moved back the ship date to the 28th of this month (it was supposed to be the 15th [i.e. tomorrow]!). According to their email:
We have upgraded your MacBook Pro from a 1.83GHz processor to a 2.0GHz processor at no additional cost! We anticipate shipping your upgraded order by February 28, 2006.
If I go to the order status page, it confirms this, with the expected ship date being March 7th. The upgrade is cool, and all, but to tell the truth I rather have the laptop already. It's going to be nearly 2 months of waiting..
Is the glass half full or half empty? People have already paid (including me) for their Macbooks, not to mention the Macbooks are majorly backordered (if you didn't order early, there is close to a month waiting period). At least from my POV, Apple doesn't gain much from bumping up the speeds (at least sales-wise short term) except making their customers happy. Which, could very well increase their sales long term.
What is the price of something other than what someone is willing to pay for it? I was willing to pay the set price for the 1.8GHz, so I'm counting it as a free upgrade.
Freedom, as I am sure most/. users are aware (i.e. beer vs. free), is a difficult term. When the term 'free market' was first created, I suspect that the categories were not yet fully explored.
I remember hearing someone once describe two types of freedom: personal freedom, and societal freedom. I, as a person, should be free to do whatever I want, including playing my music as loudly as possible. My neighbors, as part of society, should also have their freedom, and not have to listen to my crap.
Thus, not all forms of freedom are necessarily congruent with one another. Usually some type of compromise must exist. When you say 'free market', do you mean a market that is free for all participating individuals, or a market in which there is no governmental manipulation.
If you meant the latter, then I would point out that this is an impossibility. As long as corporations can influence the government, as they do, then necessarily the government will always also influence the market. For example, Verizon might influence a law saying that WIFI cannot be built in cities. Or that it doesn't have to share it's cables/fiber/etc. with other ISPs. Would such laws be passed, it is unplausible that any other company could compete with Verizon. Each startup that was created could easily have a law enacted causing it to lose its business.
Obviously this is a bit hyperbolic, but the point stands that a completely free market is an idealism. Thus, to make the market *freer* (so we're now talking about relative freedom, instead of absolute) it does make sense to impose certain restrictions on companies. We're compromising between the freedoms of the large corperations, and the small ones.
Ultimately, if the main point of a free market is for competition, then any law passed to allow for greater competition is ultimately in favor of a free market, even if on the first glance it seems to impose more restrictions.
So I think we're mostly in agreement, but I would still maintain that unless you are talking about 'free market' as a complete idealism, my definition still fits.
Yes, that damned WIFI being shoved down our throats. It's nearly as intrusive as those damned telephone cables. Yes, it's true the telephone cables are owned by companies, but there is also a telephone tax to make sure telephone services can be used in parts of the country where there are less people. So it's nearly the same thing. Do they have a *right*, to use your term, for telephone service?
I think we can all agree that telephones are essential to modern day living. If we want all our citizens to be in a level playing field (i.e. such that it's not the case only rich people get the benifits), then it's a good service to provide. Additionally, it can *help* make money for the municipalities as a whole. It makes people actually go outside more, and more likely to spend money. Finally, it's not something that companies will ever do -- in NYC Verizon does have WIFI hubs in all of their payphones, but then you have to use Verizon's services, which I completely, and utterly, refuse to do. Why? Well, to get back to the original subject of this story, it's because they are the type of company to do tiered payments.
It's an unnecessary evil. It doesn't cost them anymore, they aren't partcularly hurting for money, so the only reason for them to do so is to make even more money. I understand that's what companies do. But it doesn't mean I should be happy with it, or help feed their addiction. I will do everything in my power, as an informed consumer, to pay what I actually value the service for. But it's difficult to do with near monopolies like Verizon and SBC.
So, is it a right? Well, if the US is a capalist country, then the free market is supposed to help decide what we 'have a right to'. But, unfortunately, with the FCC relaxing it's definition of monopolies, it's not exactly a free market anymore.
All great things for their day. Well, BGI (Borland Graphics Interface) never quite had the speed to do much, but everything they did was innovate. At least until the point where they stopped innovating, which was basically after Borland C++ 3.1. I have yet to see a comparable IDE. Turbovision was pretty cool, it was essentially the DOS equivalent to curses, and what they used to make their IDE.
I think M$ killed Borland with Windows95. It wasn't clear if they new how to make a better IDE for their OS, or if Borland just made a really crappy IDE. I remember it crashed a whole lot.
Ranging checking can be added c++ with operator overloading quite easily. If I am not mistaken, I beleive that some commercial versions of the STL come with this (although you do have to pay the cost of performance).
Less code? Less code for *what*? You need to be exact what you mean by this. If the libraries are already written, which they usually are, then you don't save anything.
Granted, c++ tends to do less for you so you know exactly what time penalty you will pay, it's usually easy to create your own class to do exactly what you want without much code.
First of, not sure why a big deal is made that it's in c++. c++ was developed to make more stable code. Sloppy programming in any language will cause a crash. I can write python code that will come to halt, it's not that hard.
It sounds like part of the problem is you don't *know* the c++ language. I suggest your first move is to get a book. Bjarne Stroustrup's book is pretty decent, and he goes into design issues.
Here are a couple features that can help your code be stable:
* Object-oriented design allows you to protect your variables by providing a protective layer. Provide access functions to change these variables. This makes debugging a cinch too, because there will be very few places you need to look that directly change variable 'foo'. Also, the constructors allow making sure that your variables are properly initialized. Humans err, so it's not perfect, but what is? You can easily come up with a system to make sure every new variable introduced will be initialized properly.
* Templates allow you to write code once, and use many times. The less code you have, in theory the less errors you will introduce.
* Smart pointers are you friend.
* STL - standard template library, provides almost all the standard container classes one would ever wish for. Less coding on your part, less errors.
* You can actually find garbage collectors for c++ (I am assuming this is why you might think other languages might be better than c++). The advantage, you don't have to worry about memory allocation. The disadvantage? You will lose some of your precious speed.
* Expections. The biggest reason for a program crashing, besides just plainly bad code (i.e. overwriting memory locations etc.) is not handling error conditions correctly. Exceptions are a huge leap from standard C in that they allow you to manage errors in a much more sane way. It will make your code a little more ugly, but if crashing is a major concern, use them.
* RTTI - run time type identification, yes that's right, c++ can do run time inspection if you want. You can use this to make sure that functions are receiving the correct types.
* '#ifdef __DEBUG__ #endif's make code a little ugly but is a great way to have production and a testing code. Put code in to check the sanity of things.
Other posters have suggested that you avoid pointer arithmetic. Generally, it's not a bad practice, but just like fire, pointers aren't bad. Sometimes you *need* fire to do certain things. No getting around it. Just remember, you are playing with fire.
As for design, you should read books. There's a couple good ones out there. You should also read the Linux guidelines. One of the best ones:
* Keep all your functions below 20 lines of code. I adhere strongly to this, and it has kept my code relatively bug free (although, code practices cannot save your from your own stupidity).
In general, keep your code small, and modular. This allows you to test out portions and check the sanity of things.
It is possible to use c++ with other languages. For example, there is a library called boost::python, which allows you to very easily create python modules.
On a final note, I've written tons of simulation code in c++. The only time I really encountered crashing code, was when I had code that sent out data to be crunched over TCP/IP, and then receive back the results. The crashing was simply because I didn't have enough time to write all the error checking code. The more distributed or complex the design, the more errors that can arise, and you have think of what they are and be able to catch them all.
It seems to be vogue to start calling Google evil. Even if you don't agree with all of it's policies/decisions, I think some of the items prove what Google is bent on actually *changing* the world, unlike other big software companies (ending with '$').
The two extremes of the net seem to be: (A) A useless copy of what is out there in the real world. Because of copyright laws, links can only be done to the top of a website, and the majority of content in the real world will never reach the interweb. (B) All information is on the interweb, and freely accessable by all. In addition, because of its importance, everyone will have access of some type.
It's not to say that their fight is completely altruistic. I think they see themselves as becoming the new hub for the transmission of *all* information. But at least it's in the direction the general populace wants. I also think this is why their "do no evil" decree is so important.
Anecdotal evidence is not necessarily 'factual'. It of course depends on what you mean by factual, but at least in the realm of science one needs many sample points before a 'fact' can be determined. You will almost always find outliers in the data, which is why using anecdotal evidence to back things up can be so dangerous.
I won't disagree that sexual preference might be mutable for some people, but it is a long stretch to say *all* people. Perhaps the people you know happen to be in the realm of those who can happily go either way. That does not put any evidence for people who might feel otherwise.
So, even if 'ex-gayness' did work once, which I am suspcious of, as there are *many* (and I mean many) factors that can affect the outcome, it is in no way *proof*. Proof is a much more difficult thing to acheive.
And of the factors that can make it difficult: Is there person actually changed, or has just conformed to society? How long are you looking at? One year? Ten years? Is the person telling the truth to other people? Was the person truly oriented to just one sex, or was more 'mutable'? Many of these questions cannot be answered easily (if at all).
Like my original assertion, I will never truly know if your favorite color is orange or not. It is something I must accept if you state it. I might disagree, and think it is the ugliest color, but understand that you might feel the same way about blue.
You are correct on at least one count. Many people regard 'gay' as a life style, and sexual orientation (i.e. homosexual or hetereosexual) as what you are born with. So, for the people you know who 'chose to be gay', and the other that 'chose not to be', that is lifestyle, not actual desire.
And yes, we don't know in the end what causes sexual orientation. Some people have pointed to the Greeks, and noted it is a social construction. Others, such as Freud, have said the vast majority of people are bisexual (that leaves the fringes to be definitely heterosexual or homosexual). I would add, few things in biology are binary in nature.
But to say something does not exist because of your (small) anecdotal evidence, is not basing anything on factual evidence either. I am willing to bet good money that the person you know now that is 'straight' will rediscover his/her 'unstraight' self in a couple years.
So when people tell me their favorite food is chicken, I will beleive them. When they tell me their favorite color, I will accept that too. Why should I not also accept their sexual orientation? Unless you have some actual solid facts you would like to state.
I loved firefly. I loved the dynamic between the people. After what Joss did to some of the characters at the end of the movie (unless, certain people with the name Wash get resurrected, which may happen in the Buffy-verse, but I doubt will in the Firefly-verse), the show might be over for me, even if it is brought back to life. I thought the interaction between Wash and Zoe was one of the great parts of the show.
In the end, I did fill out the survey, and said I would definitely watch it if they were to bring it back. I have faith in Joss, and hopefully he can remedy his errant ways.
I have a macbook in order. I keep wavering on canceling the order (it doesn't ship until Feb. 15, if that's to even be beleived). On one hand, I really could use a laptop, and while I run linux on my desktop, would prefer OS X on a laptop. While not necessary, I like the idea that windows and linux will be easily available if I need it.
I also wonder if AE30 relates to the reports that the laptops crashed when put into hibernation.
I might be wrong, but I will have to trust that Apple will be very careful in putting out a bad product. The Macbook is their new flagship for laptops. If it sucks too badly, the nice shiney image Apple has managed to construct for itself will be somewhat tarnished. Not having dealt with Apple before, have there been other instances of them putting out a 'broken' product (i.e. am I stupid in beleiving everything will be okay)?
Enjoyment is a purely subjective experience, as I beleive is your main point. But here is a general difference: Mac users tend to use macs because they like the Mac and how it works, whereas Windows users (and I'll make the outrageous claim: majoratively) use Windows because they have to. This is in part due to the size difference in the markets. Were Mac the primary computer maker, I'm sure there would be plenty of people who used Macs, but hated the interface. I *know* people who fiercely dislike the Mac interface. Thus the subjective part.
However, Apple goes to the *extreme* to make things easy to use and intuitive. Take the ipod. It doesn't really *do* anything that other MP3 players cannot also do. But it has a much nicer look and interface. This is what Apple does. They make things more enjoyable. Some people hate the ipod too.
I wouldn't claim that OS X always works.. sometimes it doesn't. It's not an all-or-none thing. But from my personal experience, it works better and with less faults. There may be many reasons for this. Maybe it's better software engineering. Maybe it's the fact that it runs only on limited HW. Maybe it's because they made it difficult to shoot yourself in the foot (which can sometimes also mean less powerful).
Am I a yuppie? No. Do I drink expensive wines? No. Usually I go for the $6 yellowtail. If you never tried it, it's worth the try. Am I a Mac elitist? No. I usually run linux, but boot into Windows when I have to. And at school, when there is the need I use OS X. I would say I have a fairly good sample of all three OSes. Windows is constantly causing me pain. Things that should just work, like trying to install applications often fail (ala installshield -- yes it's a third party, but it's still ultimately part of the windows experience, and the primary install software used).
Firstly, saying that vunerabilities exist is akin to saying that there are bugs in someone's software. You're just about guaranteed to be right.
Smugness, I'm not sure about (I'm a linuxite). Certainly there is something that most Windows users don't experience, and that is actual *enjoyment* from their OS. Microsoft has never tried especially hard to make their OS enjoyable, only usable.
Would things be different if OS X were the predominant OS? Without doubt. However, OS X, both the kernel (Darwin), and user interface, have been precisely engineered. Windows, one might argue, more evolved. They claim complete rewrites of the OS occured, but I'm willing to bet tons of code was copied-and-pasted in the process.
This does not guarantee it is fool-proof. Only time can tell that. But I would be willing to hedge a bet that less exploits exist for OS X than for Windows.
I'm going for you're both right/wrong. Like other things Apple has done (i.e. Fairplay), it's hackable, but not easily, and not for the average user. The difficulty is that Apple makes money on *both* the hardware and software. If they had their way, everyone would just buy Macs, and that would be the end of it.
However, they have to know releasing an Intel version will break this hardware/software relationship a bit. They've had an Intel version from day 1, why release now? Because it's now polished enough that they think it will win in a fight against Windows.
So what to do about the divorce between hardware and software? Well, by making it difficult enough for the newbie (i.e. common user), they create a great incentive to just buy their hardware and software. Even more so, they have image. They have proven very strongly that people will pay top money for style (ipod anyone?).
What about the people who won't be buying the hardware? Well, at least how things are right now, they probably wouldn't buy the hardware anyways. But, if you can instantly convert a good percent of the population to suddently running OS X, then you create a big incentive for newbies to switch as well. They have someone of (at least some) authority vouching for the product, people are now using iWorks to create and use documents, and they get to see what it's like to run a (somewhat) stable OS.
Therefore, my money is on the fact that it won't take too long to get OS X running on standard 8086 hardware. And Apple will expect this (or at least should!), and will not fight it for some time. If Apple ever does get a large enough market share, will they start to be concerned.
Another example of the Mac Cult, are the people who buy the Apple cinema views, when Dell is selling the same basic model for much cheaper. Why? Again, style and name.
I do wonder at times if all humans would pass the Turing test, and this is where things get difficult. It is highly dependent on both the person giving the questions, and the human answering the questions. Much more on the person giving the questions, however. Perhaps not everyone can compare poetry, but there are much more basic questions which I think a computer would have difficulty with. For example: Imagine a blue block, and a yellow sphere. What might it look like if you put the yellow sphere on top of the blue block?
There are no correct answers to this question, I would imagine most of the human population with IQs > 60 could answer this question. I think this would be very difficult for a computer to deal with. Even if you could write a program to do something like this in a beleivable manner (which I'm skeptical), you can easily change the question to retain the same idea, but different representations.
The Turing test is more than holding up a conversation. It is causing difficulty for the testor to decide if room A has the human or room B. It is easy to imagine if the testor is unimaginitive, how this test might seem dull. Questions like: Do you like the Red Sox, how big is the earth, or where is the nearest Starbucks, can all easily be answered by a computer. These rely on standard data mining techniques.
Suppose, on the other hand, the testor asks questions such as: "What's the meaning of Life?", "Please compare Emily Dickenson to Thoreau", or "What do you dream about?". While specific responses might be able to used, provided the programmer has guessed in advanced what might be asked, to actually have a *conversation* about these, is not likely to happen any time soon with a computer near you.
More importantly, to answer your question, being able to converse about these questions, I will submit, *requires* a thinking entity. Why? Because it's dependent on creation of new material -- somehow taking your old data, and coming to new conclusions.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I had an Orgo lab TA who was definitely Irish, and sometimes he would come out with phrases like, "Add a wee bit of ethanol to your solution". It made my day every time. Everything else about the class sucked. I hate/hated chemistry.
wii are not amused. It's going to cause all sorts of havoc asking for it.
Me: Can I have a 'wii' please?
Irish counter guy: A wee bit of what lad?
Me: No, a wii. 'Wii you've heard of it, right?
Irish guy: There'll be no sort of that behavior in this store sonny!
I am currently a Verizon customer. I am switching phone companies once I am no longer their bitch (contract is up in a year or so). What really pisses me off is how they charge you for every little small thing. Is it not enough that I am a current paying customer? That I paid that much more for a phone that could run a couple of apps? Nope. You have to pay for every single thing you put on your phone. And if something happens to your phone, it's a major hassle. Something happening can include replacing your phone, because their service sucks in your area. Somehow it's impossible for them to copy everything over.
So it's no surprising at all that they want to charge for this service. As many people have noted it's easily done already. But Verizon can sell it as a 'select' service you can get, to lure you into getting a 10-year contract. They won't mention the cost, until it is too late. They might also leave off needing a TIVO subscription on top of that. Until you get your bill, and realize how stupid it is.
They do that with their web phones. On some phones (like mine) you can actually change the gateway such that you can surf the net for free, until you realize exactly how painful it is to do with a cell phone, and give up.
What is the use of a blog if bloggers are just going to copy sentences and sentiments from the puppetmaster's email?
I have to completely and utterly disagree with you. Web pages are not the best place for web apps, nor will they ever be. And why should they? Web pages were meant for displaying originally static text. The fact that it can be made dynamic, is an add-on, rather than a thought out plan. AJAX/DHTML come off more as a kludge than anything else.
.net, Cocoa, GTK, or QT. There's a lot of work put in to those libraries. Unless you think those libraries are all fluff, then I'm not sure how you get from href's and text to something as complex as an office suite. And it is complex. If it weren't, M$ office wouldn't have the hold it does.
You want systems that were made for complex user interface tasks? Try
If you want a simple text editor that can do minimal tasks, sure, web interfaces are *okay*. But compare that to something like abiword, which is still free (or openoffice, if you want), and they *still* can't compare.
Why even try to do a web office suite? To make it cross platformable? Once again, abiword and openoffice have this covered. Remember, the internet consists of more than just webpages. There's lot of ways of transporting data. If you want something that can run anywhere, a solid crossplatform library should be used. QT and GTK are two good examples of this.
We really should be protesting censorship world wide. And not just in China.
I should point out that Newsome is a fairly well known name in the Neuroscience field. And however crazy this idea is (which, IMHO, is really high up there), he wouldn't be the first neuroscientist to do an experiment on himself. I can't remember his name, but another person vivesected his own arm to understand how sensory nerves worked. Not to mention, researchers put themselves in TMS machines, that essentially shuts down parts of the brain by means of large magnetic fields.
We have upgraded your MacBook Pro from a 1.83GHz processor to a 2.0GHz processor at no additional cost! We anticipate shipping your upgraded order by February 28, 2006.
If I go to the order status page, it confirms this, with the expected ship date being March 7th. The upgrade is cool, and all, but to tell the truth I rather have the laptop already. It's going to be nearly 2 months of waiting..
Is the glass half full or half empty? People have already paid (including me) for their Macbooks, not to mention the Macbooks are majorly backordered (if you didn't order early, there is close to a month waiting period). At least from my POV, Apple doesn't gain much from bumping up the speeds (at least sales-wise short term) except making their customers happy. Which, could very well increase their sales long term.
What is the price of something other than what someone is willing to pay for it? I was willing to pay the set price for the 1.8GHz, so I'm counting it as a free upgrade.
Freedom, as I am sure most /. users are aware (i.e. beer vs. free), is a difficult term. When the term 'free market' was first created, I suspect that the categories were not yet fully explored.
I remember hearing someone once describe two types of freedom: personal freedom, and societal freedom. I, as a person, should be free to do whatever I want, including playing my music as loudly as possible. My neighbors, as part of society, should also have their freedom, and not have to listen to my crap.
Thus, not all forms of freedom are necessarily congruent with one another. Usually some type of compromise must exist. When you say 'free market', do you mean a market that is free for all participating individuals, or a market in which there is no governmental manipulation.
If you meant the latter, then I would point out that this is an impossibility. As long as corporations can influence the government, as they do, then necessarily the government will always also influence the market. For example, Verizon might influence a law saying that WIFI cannot be built in cities. Or that it doesn't have to share it's cables/fiber/etc. with other ISPs. Would such laws be passed, it is unplausible that any other company could compete with Verizon. Each startup that was created could easily have a law enacted causing it to lose its business.
Obviously this is a bit hyperbolic, but the point stands that a completely free market is an idealism. Thus, to make the market *freer* (so we're now talking about relative freedom, instead of absolute) it does make sense to impose certain restrictions on companies. We're compromising between the freedoms of the large corperations, and the small ones.
Ultimately, if the main point of a free market is for competition, then any law passed to allow for greater competition is ultimately in favor of a free market, even if on the first glance it seems to impose more restrictions.
So I think we're mostly in agreement, but I would still maintain that unless you are talking about 'free market' as a complete idealism, my definition still fits.
Yes, that damned WIFI being shoved down our throats. It's nearly as intrusive as those damned telephone cables. Yes, it's true the telephone cables are owned by companies, but there is also a telephone tax to make sure telephone services can be used in parts of the country where there are less people. So it's nearly the same thing. Do they have a *right*, to use your term, for telephone service?
I think we can all agree that telephones are essential to modern day living. If we want all our citizens to be in a level playing field (i.e. such that it's not the case only rich people get the benifits), then it's a good service to provide. Additionally, it can *help* make money for the municipalities as a whole. It makes people actually go outside more, and more likely to spend money. Finally, it's not something that companies will ever do -- in NYC Verizon does have WIFI hubs in all of their payphones, but then you have to use Verizon's services, which I completely, and utterly, refuse to do. Why? Well, to get back to the original subject of this story, it's because they are the type of company to do tiered payments.
It's an unnecessary evil. It doesn't cost them anymore, they aren't partcularly hurting for money, so the only reason for them to do so is to make even more money. I understand that's what companies do. But it doesn't mean I should be happy with it, or help feed their addiction. I will do everything in my power, as an informed consumer, to pay what I actually value the service for. But it's difficult to do with near monopolies like Verizon and SBC.
So, is it a right? Well, if the US is a capalist country, then the free market is supposed to help decide what we 'have a right to'. But, unfortunately, with the FCC relaxing it's definition of monopolies, it's not exactly a free market anymore.
RIP BGI, BC++ 3.1, and Turbovision.
All great things for their day. Well, BGI (Borland Graphics Interface) never quite had the speed to do much, but everything they did was innovate. At least until the point where they stopped innovating, which was basically after Borland C++ 3.1. I have yet to see a comparable IDE. Turbovision was pretty cool, it was essentially the DOS equivalent to curses, and what they used to make their IDE.
I think M$ killed Borland with Windows95. It wasn't clear if they new how to make a better IDE for their OS, or if Borland just made a really crappy IDE. I remember it crashed a whole lot.
Ranging checking can be added c++ with operator overloading quite easily. If I am not mistaken, I beleive that some commercial versions of the STL come with this (although you do have to pay the cost of performance).
Less code? Less code for *what*? You need to be exact what you mean by this. If the libraries are already written, which they usually are, then you don't save anything.
Granted, c++ tends to do less for you so you know exactly what time penalty you will pay, it's usually easy to create your own class to do exactly what you want without much code.
First of, not sure why a big deal is made that it's in c++. c++ was developed to make more stable code. Sloppy programming in any language will cause a crash. I can write python code that will come to halt, it's not that hard.
It sounds like part of the problem is you don't *know* the c++ language. I suggest your first move is to get a book. Bjarne Stroustrup's book is pretty decent, and he goes into design issues.
Here are a couple features that can help your code be stable:
* Object-oriented design allows you to protect your variables by providing a protective layer. Provide access functions to change these variables. This makes debugging a cinch too, because there will be very few places you need to look that directly change variable 'foo'. Also, the constructors allow making sure that your variables are properly initialized. Humans err, so it's not perfect, but what is? You can easily come up with a system to make sure every new variable introduced will be initialized properly.
* Templates allow you to write code once, and use many times. The less code you have, in theory the less errors you will introduce.
* Smart pointers are you friend.
* STL - standard template library, provides almost all the standard container classes one would ever wish for. Less coding on your part, less errors.
* You can actually find garbage collectors for c++ (I am assuming this is why you might think other languages might be better than c++). The advantage, you don't have to worry about memory allocation. The disadvantage? You will lose some of your precious speed.
* Expections. The biggest reason for a program crashing, besides just plainly bad code (i.e. overwriting memory locations etc.) is not handling error conditions correctly. Exceptions are a huge leap from standard C in that they allow you to manage errors in a much more sane way. It will make your code a little more ugly, but if crashing is a major concern, use them.
* RTTI - run time type identification, yes that's right, c++ can do run time inspection if you want. You can use this to make sure that functions are receiving the correct types.
* '#ifdef __DEBUG__ #endif's make code a little ugly but is a great way to have production and a testing code. Put code in to check the sanity of things.
Other posters have suggested that you avoid pointer arithmetic. Generally, it's not a bad practice, but just like fire, pointers aren't bad. Sometimes you *need* fire to do certain things. No getting around it. Just remember, you are playing with fire.
As for design, you should read books. There's a couple good ones out there. You should also read the Linux guidelines. One of the best ones:
* Keep all your functions below 20 lines of code. I adhere strongly to this, and it has kept my code relatively bug free (although, code practices cannot save your from your own stupidity).
In general, keep your code small, and modular. This allows you to test out portions and check the sanity of things.
It is possible to use c++ with other languages. For example, there is a library called boost::python, which allows you to very easily create python modules.
On a final note, I've written tons of simulation code in c++. The only time I really encountered crashing code, was when I had code that sent out data to be crunched over TCP/IP, and then receive back the results. The crashing was simply because I didn't have enough time to write all the error checking code. The more distributed or complex the design, the more errors that can arise, and you have think of what they are and be able to catch them all.
It seems to be vogue to start calling Google evil. Even if you don't agree with all of it's policies/decisions, I think some of the items prove what Google is bent on actually *changing* the world, unlike other big software companies (ending with '$').
The two extremes of the net seem to be: (A) A useless copy of what is out there in the real world. Because of copyright laws, links can only be done to the top of a website, and the majority of content in the real world will never reach the interweb. (B) All information is on the interweb, and freely accessable by all. In addition, because of its importance, everyone will have access of some type.
It's not to say that their fight is completely altruistic. I think they see themselves as becoming the new hub for the transmission of *all* information. But at least it's in the direction the general populace wants. I also think this is why their "do no evil" decree is so important.
Anecdotal evidence is not necessarily 'factual'. It of course depends on what you mean by factual, but at least in the realm of science one needs many sample points before a 'fact' can be determined. You will almost always find outliers in the data, which is why using anecdotal evidence to back things up can be so dangerous.
I won't disagree that sexual preference might be mutable for some people, but it is a long stretch to say *all* people. Perhaps the people you know happen to be in the realm of those who can happily go either way. That does not put any evidence for people who might feel otherwise.
So, even if 'ex-gayness' did work once, which I am suspcious of, as there are *many* (and I mean many) factors that can affect the outcome, it is in no way *proof*. Proof is a much more difficult thing to acheive.
And of the factors that can make it difficult: Is there person actually changed, or has just conformed to society? How long are you looking at? One year? Ten years? Is the person telling the truth to other people? Was the person truly oriented to just one sex, or was more 'mutable'? Many of these questions cannot be answered easily (if at all).
Like my original assertion, I will never truly know if your favorite color is orange or not. It is something I must accept if you state it. I might disagree, and think it is the ugliest color, but understand that you might feel the same way about blue.
You are correct on at least one count. Many people regard 'gay' as a life style, and sexual orientation (i.e. homosexual or hetereosexual) as what you are born with. So, for the people you know who 'chose to be gay', and the other that 'chose not to be', that is lifestyle, not actual desire.
And yes, we don't know in the end what causes sexual orientation. Some people have pointed to the Greeks, and noted it is a social construction. Others, such as Freud, have said the vast majority of people are bisexual (that leaves the fringes to be definitely heterosexual or homosexual). I would add, few things in biology are binary in nature.
But to say something does not exist because of your (small) anecdotal evidence, is not basing anything on factual evidence either. I am willing to bet good money that the person you know now that is 'straight' will rediscover his/her 'unstraight' self in a couple years.
So when people tell me their favorite food is chicken, I will beleive them. When they tell me their favorite color, I will accept that too. Why should I not also accept their sexual orientation? Unless you have some actual solid facts you would like to state.
I loved firefly. I loved the dynamic between the people. After what Joss did to some of the characters at the end of the movie (unless, certain people with the name Wash get resurrected, which may happen in the Buffy-verse, but I doubt will in the Firefly-verse), the show might be over for me, even if it is brought back to life. I thought the interaction between Wash and Zoe was one of the great parts of the show.
In the end, I did fill out the survey, and said I would definitely watch it if they were to bring it back. I have faith in Joss, and hopefully he can remedy his errant ways.
I have a macbook in order. I keep wavering on canceling the order (it doesn't ship until Feb. 15, if that's to even be beleived). On one hand, I really could use a laptop, and while I run linux on my desktop, would prefer OS X on a laptop. While not necessary, I like the idea that windows and linux will be easily available if I need it.
I also wonder if AE30 relates to the reports that the laptops crashed when put into hibernation.
I might be wrong, but I will have to trust that Apple will be very careful in putting out a bad product. The Macbook is their new flagship for laptops. If it sucks too badly, the nice shiney image Apple has managed to construct for itself will be somewhat tarnished. Not having dealt with Apple before, have there been other instances of them putting out a 'broken' product (i.e. am I stupid in beleiving everything will be okay)?
Enjoyment is a purely subjective experience, as I beleive is your main point. But here is a general difference: Mac users tend to use macs because they like the Mac and how it works, whereas Windows users (and I'll make the outrageous claim: majoratively) use Windows because they have to. This is in part due to the size difference in the markets. Were Mac the primary computer maker, I'm sure there would be plenty of people who used Macs, but hated the interface. I *know* people who fiercely dislike the Mac interface. Thus the subjective part.
.. sometimes it doesn't. It's not an all-or-none thing. But from my personal experience, it works better and with less faults. There may be many reasons for this. Maybe it's better software engineering. Maybe it's the fact that it runs only on limited HW. Maybe it's because they made it difficult to shoot yourself in the foot (which can sometimes also mean less powerful).
However, Apple goes to the *extreme* to make things easy to use and intuitive. Take the ipod. It doesn't really *do* anything that other MP3 players cannot also do. But it has a much nicer look and interface. This is what Apple does. They make things more enjoyable. Some people hate the ipod too.
I wouldn't claim that OS X always works
Am I a yuppie? No. Do I drink expensive wines? No. Usually I go for the $6 yellowtail. If you never tried it, it's worth the try. Am I a Mac elitist? No. I usually run linux, but boot into Windows when I have to. And at school, when there is the need I use OS X. I would say I have a fairly good sample of all three OSes. Windows is constantly causing me pain. Things that should just work, like trying to install applications often fail (ala installshield -- yes it's a third party, but it's still ultimately part of the windows experience, and the primary install software used).
My $0.02
Firstly, saying that vunerabilities exist is akin to saying that there are bugs in someone's software. You're just about guaranteed to be right.
Smugness, I'm not sure about (I'm a linuxite). Certainly there is something that most Windows users don't experience, and that is actual *enjoyment* from their OS. Microsoft has never tried especially hard to make their OS enjoyable, only usable.
Would things be different if OS X were the predominant OS? Without doubt. However, OS X, both the kernel (Darwin), and user interface, have been precisely engineered. Windows, one might argue, more evolved. They claim complete rewrites of the OS occured, but I'm willing to bet tons of code was copied-and-pasted in the process.
This does not guarantee it is fool-proof. Only time can tell that. But I would be willing to hedge a bet that less exploits exist for OS X than for Windows.
The space elevator seems okay, but I'm putting my money on the space catapult. The one downside is the giant net you need to catch the 'passangers'.
I'm going for you're both right/wrong. Like other things Apple has done (i.e. Fairplay), it's hackable, but not easily, and not for the average user. The difficulty is that Apple makes money on *both* the hardware and software. If they had their way, everyone would just buy Macs, and that would be the end of it.
However, they have to know releasing an Intel version will break this hardware/software relationship a bit. They've had an Intel version from day 1, why release now? Because it's now polished enough that they think it will win in a fight against Windows.
So what to do about the divorce between hardware and software? Well, by making it difficult enough for the newbie (i.e. common user), they create a great incentive to just buy their hardware and software. Even more so, they have image. They have proven very strongly that people will pay top money for style (ipod anyone?).
What about the people who won't be buying the hardware? Well, at least how things are right now, they probably wouldn't buy the hardware anyways. But, if you can instantly convert a good percent of the population to suddently running OS X, then you create a big incentive for newbies to switch as well. They have someone of (at least some) authority vouching for the product, people are now using iWorks to create and use documents, and they get to see what it's like to run a (somewhat) stable OS.
Therefore, my money is on the fact that it won't take too long to get OS X running on standard 8086 hardware. And Apple will expect this (or at least should!), and will not fight it for some time. If Apple ever does get a large enough market share, will they start to be concerned.
Another example of the Mac Cult, are the people who buy the Apple cinema views, when Dell is selling the same basic model for much cheaper. Why? Again, style and name.
I do wonder at times if all humans would pass the Turing test, and this is where things get difficult. It is highly dependent on both the person giving the questions, and the human answering the questions. Much more on the person giving the questions, however. Perhaps not everyone can compare poetry, but there are much more basic questions which I think a computer would have difficulty with. For example: Imagine a blue block, and a yellow sphere. What might it look like if you put the yellow sphere on top of the blue block?
There are no correct answers to this question, I would imagine most of the human population with IQs > 60 could answer this question. I think this would be very difficult for a computer to deal with. Even if you could write a program to do something like this in a beleivable manner (which I'm skeptical), you can easily change the question to retain the same idea, but different representations.
The Turing test is more than holding up a conversation. It is causing difficulty for the testor to decide if room A has the human or room B. It is easy to imagine if the testor is unimaginitive, how this test might seem dull. Questions like: Do you like the Red Sox, how big is the earth, or where is the nearest Starbucks, can all easily be answered by a computer. These rely on standard data mining techniques.
Suppose, on the other hand, the testor asks questions such as: "What's the meaning of Life?", "Please compare Emily Dickenson to Thoreau", or "What do you dream about?". While specific responses might be able to used, provided the programmer has guessed in advanced what might be asked, to actually have a *conversation* about these, is not likely to happen any time soon with a computer near you.
More importantly, to answer your question, being able to converse about these questions, I will submit, *requires* a thinking entity. Why? Because it's dependent on creation of new material -- somehow taking your old data, and coming to new conclusions.