Rotaries are nothing new here in Massachusetts, but out-of-state drivers tend to do stupid things like stopping in the middle. Like with most other issues on the road, the issue is that driver training in the US is completely inadequate. If we actually trained drivers adequately — like in Germany or Finland — crashes would decrease, both on rotaries (which are more fuel-efficient than traffic lights, at least for low to moderate volume traffic) and elsewhere. That drivers are as distracted as they are, despite really poor car-control skills, is a deadly combination.
Smarter, more traffic-aware traffic lights would also be an improvement.
I don't know C# and haven't used VB in over a decade, so forgive my mistakes there:)
You don't need to understand the functional aspects of blocks in Ruby to use them. So, you can teach it as block syntax without showing how blocks are actually things that can be handed around. You don't have to teach yield right away. That's the approach Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby takes and I think it's very effective.
To teach a programming language, sometimes you do have to lie a little:)
Err, no, I didn't mean to make that contrast against Python, but rather against Java and C# and their ilk.
I think Ruby's terseness is a good thing. I do not think that first-clas functions are pushed in any way; they're there, but you do NOT need to go there in Ruby until you've gotten into some pretty advanced stuff. And I'd much rather teach advanced functional programming to an enthusiastic Jr. High kid than I would C pointer math... the pointer arithmetic is conceptually easy but a huge headache over time.
I'd particularly recommend Ruby, even over Python. It's got very clean, elegant syntax, and its main disadvantages (performance, mostly) won't matter to him. He would be able to quickly get into web development too if he learned Rails.
I highly recommend the book Learn To Program by Chris Pine. It uses Ruby as a teaching language.
Ruby is truly purely object-oriented (no primitives) which helps with consistency and the principle of least surprise. It also does NOT have the whitespace-as-syntax 'issue' of Python. But, python is also a good choice. Ruby has nice functional aspects as well, which if he eventually learns how to use them, will make him a better programmer in any language.
Lua is used as the scripting engine for a lot of games, which might make it a good choice.
Scala is another alternative, though it might be a little tricky as a first language.
The advantages of higher-level languages like Ruby, Python, Lua, Scala etc. are that there's less code and less boilerplate, and while they're further from the metal than C, you can get meaningful stuff done faster, which may be a good thing for a 12 year old's attention span.
I'm a PhD student in computer science at Tufts University and our department is seriously rethinking how intro CS is taught at the undergrad level, so I've put some thought into this. Note that I would NOT make the same recommendations for a 12 year old as for a college freshman, necessarily.
Apple didn't just decide in 2005 to switch to Intel. Apple had kept Intel builds of OS X going since before OS X came out in 2001. If Apple were going to switch *away* from the PowerPC, Intel was really the only choice (since the port had been kept alive); starting anew with a port to Niagara or any other architecture would have cost years.
First, despite what some people say, I think you really have to learn the Ruby language first. Yes, you can get by coding 'by rote' but a deep understanding of this really elegant language will help a lot.
Second, there are some great tutorials at the Ruby on Rails site but I think the best is the Agile Web Development with Rails book, though it hasn't yet been updated with the new Rails 1.1 features.
I never reboot my OS X systems, except for OS updates. I'm not interested in having to (for example) interrupt my massive BitTorrent warez downloads to reboot to Windows to play my pirated copy of Doom 5 that only runs on Windows (yes, I'm being facetious here). Proper virtualization should allow games and such to run fine in a virtual machine; even if not, I have no interest in running Windows in anything but the un-networked sandbox in which it belongs.
Maybe interesting as an exercise...
on
WinXP on a Mac, Hoax?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
but I'd much rather see darWINE working well, or VMWare/VirtualPC running Windows at nearly native speed, or even some significant speedups that make QEMU nearly native speed. A Virtual Windows without the slowdown of emulation would be really nice; on the other hand, I have no desire whatsoever to actually boot Windows on a Mac. That's like putting 87 octane gas in a formula 1 car!;-)
My former employer, Analog Devices, first implemented web filtering many years ago.
They put an immediate halt to it, pending better software being available, when their very own website was inaccessible to them. Why? It contained the substring 'anal'.
Yeah, they had to change filtering software pretty quickly.
They also blocked anything beer or wine related, even years later. Planning corporate (e.g. sales) related outings necessarily involved circumventing things.
the whole "criminal activity" thing about http tunneling, proxies, etc. definitely rings a bell too.
Suffice it to say, our head of Information Security was a great moron.
I can understand that for anything with storage - laptop, external hard drive, usb drive; ANYTHING that would compromise security. But a monitor? What if someone has a preference for a keyboard that's more comfortable? where does it end? Firing someone for having a wrist support? A trackball instead of a mouse?
OH NOES! Someone has a TRACKBALL and a BIG MONITOR! FIRE THEM!
the basic theme of this is that draconian and over-wrought corporate policies do little more than annoy employees and make them think less, overall, of corporate policy in general (and thus more likely to circumvent it when it _does_ matter).
Ok, I think I understand your comment... you were talking about the proprietary nature of the hardware required to run the OS. Fair enough. I think that does go hand in hand with the stability. Also, I don't think that the switch to intel processors is going to change this (it better not!) because you won't be able to run OS X/x86 on just any PC. So, the huge variety of hardware will be somewhat pared down. However, yes, the larger variety of things like network cards, video cards, etc. may present an issue, but I don't think that's the core problem.
That said, I don't think Windows' instability is entirely due to the variety of hardware; Linux supports a similar variety of hardware and seems to be overall more stable. Yes, bad RAM or a bad CPU will cause any OS to crash; that's not the only cause of Windows bluescreens.
For what it's worth, I *have* taken advantage of open source to hack things like openssh to run on really awfully old systems (Sun 4), or to get a php trouble-ticket system to work more the way I wanted it to. So this sort of thing, at the application level, can be useful, even without getting into any sort of religious debate about the 'evils' of closed source (I expect you and I would agree here, and would likely respond to such debate with a resounding 'whatever...')
Pragmatically speaking, open source is a wonderful thing. Morever, the unix-ness of the operating system makes much of the underlying functionality much more transparent - the result is that it's easier to troubleshoot problems that might be due to weird third-party software installs, bad file permissions, and such. That is, IF you know what you're doing; I would never claim that it's for the average user. But unlike the classic MacOS (which *sucked*) and unlike Windows, the idea of wipe-and-reinstall is pretty much obsolete with OS X. Most problems that might occur (and some problems do occur) *can* be fixed due to the transparent (if you grok Unix deeply enough) nature of the operating system.
Oh, I typoed in my parent message... it's iLife, not iLive.
I agree, this is a nice, non-flaming discussion:-)
iApps is sort of the catch-all name for iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, etc. Corny, yes. Apple doesn't refer to them by that name; they call the collection 'iLive' which is perhaps equally corny.
Anyways... iPhoto now deals beautifully with that many photos; earlier versions did not. However, most professional photographers would more likely use something else; iView (not an apple product) is a great alternative to ACDSee; there are others as well. There's an old and outdated ACDSee for the Mac; I wouldn't recommend it at all.
Your comment about "proprietary everything" is really quite ironic. The entirely of OS X *below* the GUI and the high-level frameworks is open source. The kernel, all the BSD tools, all of that stuff - it's a *fantastic* Unix, and as a Unix guy I love it. Yes, you can muddle through with Cygwin on a Windows box, but why would you?
In contrast, Windows is entirely proprietary and closed-source. I'm kind of shocked by your comment, is all.
I'm a pro-Unix guy, so perhaps I'm biased myself, but I use OS X as it's the best Unix out there for what I do (that is, as a workstation or compute-cluster OS; it's not what I'd choose for super big-iron servers).
It can't be hard to disable (fry) these RFID tags, and how's a poor innocent driver supposed to know (heh) that the RFID tag in his license plate isn't working any more, and thus automated revenue-collection systems (e.g. next-gen speed cameras) won't target him?:-)
X11 is window-based, so you can throw arbitrary windows at arbitrary displays to your heart's content, whereas Windows Terminal Services are a session-based system (i.e. log-in-and-run-your-app-and-log-out).
POSIX does not have a networked windows system. Well, most POSIX-compliant systems do happen to have one (X11) but X11, or any GUI for that matter, is NOT part of the POSIX standard.
For that matter, isn't Windoze now at least partially POSIX-compliant?
Just come out and say it... s/POSIX/unix/g in your post:)
No. CVT is continuously variable, but typical CVT applications (multitronic included) include preset gear ratios to mimic a traditional automatic tranny - or, for that matter, a SMG. CVT can also do really cool things, like hold you at the horsepower peak (by continuously changing the gear ratio) for great acceleration.
If Audi did an "SMG" it might actually be based on a CVT rather than a true sequential manual. They'll eventually beef up the multitronic's capabilities though.
The S4's shifter is good once you replace it (I have a tanoga short-shift and a drivetrain stabilizer) but stock it's kinda lame.
I have an Audi S4, and I love it, but it's a great car with a mediocre tranny - and I have the 6-speed. The Tiptronic is still an automatic, and feels like it. It's much improved with a 'tip chip' that shortens the shift times and makes the shift points more aggressive, but it's still an automatic:/
However, Audi's rumored to be working on a Multitronic-based "sequential manual" style tranny for the next RS4... possibly a 7-speed!
Don't even bother enabling root! You don't need to. sudo is there for a reason, and anyone in the admin group can sudo *anything*. Need a GUI app as root? sudo open.
Apple's pushing a good security model (I didn't say it was a perfect implementation) - don't ever use root, just use sudo and Authentication Manager to do various things as root.
hey, at least I'm not going to deliver my rant against linux kiddiez thinking it's l33t to do everything as root on their box, get mail as "root@mybox", and then end up hosing the system inadvertently... or am I?:)
Perhaps you could keep the disc from becoming useless by coating it again with something that would keep the disc from oxidizing. Of course you'd have to make it very thin and make sure it didn't affect the optics... dunno if it would be possible.
But would it violate the DMCA?:) I can see cans of spray lacquer being pulled from store shelves because they're "circumvention devices!"
you have it backwards; if the Fed owes us money (silver/gold) for a note (even if we can't redeem it) then it means we are creditors, not debtors; the Fed is in debt, and we are owed money.
2020: Computers everywhere are controlled by grunts, moans, sighs, and snorts.
2040: Computers are finally small enough that they're all embedded into our environments, but neural interfaces don't work, so we still grunt and snort into our computers, but it looks like we're just grunting and snorting in general. People use computers exclusively, and never talk to one another; thus, language is lost and we just grunt and snort a lot.
2060: aliens visit hoping to find intelligent life, but instead find a bunch of snorting, grunting apes. They leave.
Slashdot Mirror
Rotaries are nothing new here in Massachusetts, but out-of-state drivers tend to do stupid things like stopping in the middle. Like with most other issues on the road, the issue is that driver training in the US is completely inadequate. If we actually trained drivers adequately — like in Germany or Finland — crashes would decrease, both on rotaries (which are more fuel-efficient than traffic lights, at least for low to moderate volume traffic) and elsewhere. That drivers are as distracted as they are, despite really poor car-control skills, is a deadly combination.
Smarter, more traffic-aware traffic lights would also be an improvement.
I don't know C# and haven't used VB in over a decade, so forgive my mistakes there :)
You don't need to understand the functional aspects of blocks in Ruby to use them. So, you can teach it as block syntax without showing how blocks are actually things that can be handed around. You don't have to teach yield right away. That's the approach Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby takes and I think it's very effective.
To teach a programming language, sometimes you do have to lie a little :)
Err, no, I didn't mean to make that contrast against Python, but rather against Java and C# and their ilk.
I think Ruby's terseness is a good thing. I do not think that first-clas functions are pushed in any way; they're there, but you do NOT need to go there in Ruby until you've gotten into some pretty advanced stuff. And I'd much rather teach advanced functional programming to an enthusiastic Jr. High kid than I would C pointer math... the pointer arithmetic is conceptually easy but a huge headache over time.
I'd particularly recommend Ruby, even over Python. It's got very clean, elegant syntax, and its main disadvantages (performance, mostly) won't matter to him. He would be able to quickly get into web development too if he learned Rails.
I highly recommend the book Learn To Program by Chris Pine. It uses Ruby as a teaching language.
Ruby is truly purely object-oriented (no primitives) which helps with consistency and the principle of least surprise. It also does NOT have the whitespace-as-syntax 'issue' of Python. But, python is also a good choice. Ruby has nice functional aspects as well, which if he eventually learns how to use them, will make him a better programmer in any language.
Lua is used as the scripting engine for a lot of games, which might make it a good choice.
Scala is another alternative, though it might be a little tricky as a first language.
The advantages of higher-level languages like Ruby, Python, Lua, Scala etc. are that there's less code and less boilerplate, and while they're further from the metal than C, you can get meaningful stuff done faster, which may be a good thing for a 12 year old's attention span.
I'm a PhD student in computer science at Tufts University and our department is seriously rethinking how intro CS is taught at the undergrad level, so I've put some thought into this. Note that I would NOT make the same recommendations for a 12 year old as for a college freshman, necessarily.
Apple didn't just decide in 2005 to switch to Intel. Apple had kept Intel builds of OS X going since before OS X came out in 2001. If Apple were going to switch *away* from the PowerPC, Intel was really the only choice (since the port had been kept alive); starting anew with a port to Niagara or any other architecture would have cost years.
It's "Microsoft Powers Hell"
First, despite what some people say, I think you really have to learn the Ruby language first. Yes, you can get by coding 'by rote' but a deep understanding of this really elegant language will help a lot. Second, there are some great tutorials at the Ruby on Rails site but I think the best is the Agile Web Development with Rails book, though it hasn't yet been updated with the new Rails 1.1 features.
I never reboot my OS X systems, except for OS updates. I'm not interested in having to (for example) interrupt my massive BitTorrent warez downloads to reboot to Windows to play my pirated copy of Doom 5 that only runs on Windows (yes, I'm being facetious here). Proper virtualization should allow games and such to run fine in a virtual machine; even if not, I have no interest in running Windows in anything but the un-networked sandbox in which it belongs.
but I'd much rather see darWINE working well, or VMWare/VirtualPC running Windows at nearly native speed, or even some significant speedups that make QEMU nearly native speed. A Virtual Windows without the slowdown of emulation would be really nice; on the other hand, I have no desire whatsoever to actually boot Windows on a Mac. That's like putting 87 octane gas in a formula 1 car! ;-)
My former employer, Analog Devices, first implemented web filtering many years ago.
They put an immediate halt to it, pending better software being available, when their very own website was inaccessible to them. Why? It contained the substring 'anal'.
Yeah, they had to change filtering software pretty quickly.
They also blocked anything beer or wine related, even years later. Planning corporate (e.g. sales) related outings necessarily involved circumventing things.
the whole "criminal activity" thing about http tunneling, proxies, etc. definitely rings a bell too.
Suffice it to say, our head of Information Security was a great moron.
I can understand that for anything with storage - laptop, external hard drive, usb drive; ANYTHING that would compromise security. But a monitor? What if someone has a preference for a keyboard that's more comfortable? where does it end? Firing someone for having a wrist support? A trackball instead of a mouse?
OH NOES! Someone has a TRACKBALL and a BIG MONITOR! FIRE THEM!
the basic theme of this is that draconian and over-wrought corporate policies do little more than annoy employees and make them think less, overall, of corporate policy in general (and thus more likely to circumvent it when it _does_ matter).
Ok, I think I understand your comment... you were talking about the proprietary nature of the hardware required to run the OS. Fair enough. I think that does go hand in hand with the stability. Also, I don't think that the switch to intel processors is going to change this (it better not!) because you won't be able to run OS X/x86 on just any PC. So, the huge variety of hardware will be somewhat pared down. However, yes, the larger variety of things like network cards, video cards, etc. may present an issue, but I don't think that's the core problem.
:-)
That said, I don't think Windows' instability is entirely due to the variety of hardware; Linux supports a similar variety of hardware and seems to be overall more stable. Yes, bad RAM or a bad CPU will cause any OS to crash; that's not the only cause of Windows bluescreens.
For what it's worth, I *have* taken advantage of open source to hack things like openssh to run on really awfully old systems (Sun 4), or to get a php trouble-ticket system to work more the way I wanted it to. So this sort of thing, at the application level, can be useful, even without getting into any sort of religious debate about the 'evils' of closed source (I expect you and I would agree here, and would likely respond to such debate with a resounding 'whatever...')
Pragmatically speaking, open source is a wonderful thing. Morever, the unix-ness of the operating system makes much of the underlying functionality much more transparent - the result is that it's easier to troubleshoot problems that might be due to weird third-party software installs, bad file permissions, and such. That is, IF you know what you're doing; I would never claim that it's for the average user. But unlike the classic MacOS (which *sucked*) and unlike Windows, the idea of wipe-and-reinstall is pretty much obsolete with OS X. Most problems that might occur (and some problems do occur) *can* be fixed due to the transparent (if you grok Unix deeply enough) nature of the operating system.
Oh, I typoed in my parent message... it's iLife, not iLive.
I agree, this is a nice, non-flaming discussion
iApps is sort of the catch-all name for iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, etc. Corny, yes. Apple doesn't refer to them by that name; they call the collection 'iLive' which is perhaps equally corny.
Anyways... iPhoto now deals beautifully with that many photos; earlier versions did not. However, most professional photographers would more likely use something else; iView (not an apple product) is a great alternative to ACDSee; there are others as well. There's an old and outdated ACDSee for the Mac; I wouldn't recommend it at all.
Your comment about "proprietary everything" is really quite ironic. The entirely of OS X *below* the GUI and the high-level frameworks is open source. The kernel, all the BSD tools, all of that stuff - it's a *fantastic* Unix, and as a Unix guy I love it. Yes, you can muddle through with Cygwin on a Windows box, but why would you?
In contrast, Windows is entirely proprietary and closed-source. I'm kind of shocked by your comment, is all.
I'm a pro-Unix guy, so perhaps I'm biased myself, but I use OS X as it's the best Unix out there for what I do (that is, as a workstation or compute-cluster OS; it's not what I'd choose for super big-iron servers).
It can't be hard to disable (fry) these RFID tags, and how's a poor innocent driver supposed to know (heh) that the RFID tag in his license plate isn't working any more, and thus automated revenue-collection systems (e.g. next-gen speed cameras) won't target him? :-)
Sorry I was late, I had to pull over to take a dump; my scooter was out of 'gas'!
X11 is window-based, so you can throw arbitrary windows at arbitrary displays to your heart's content, whereas Windows Terminal Services are a session-based system (i.e. log-in-and-run-your-app-and-log-out).
:P
And then there's cost
POSIX does not have a networked windows system. Well, most POSIX-compliant systems do happen to have one (X11) but X11, or any GUI for that matter, is NOT part of the POSIX standard.
:)
For that matter, isn't Windoze now at least partially POSIX-compliant?
Just come out and say it... s/POSIX/unix/g in your post
No. CVT is continuously variable, but typical CVT applications (multitronic included) include preset gear ratios to mimic a traditional automatic tranny - or, for that matter, a SMG. CVT can also do really cool things, like hold you at the horsepower peak (by continuously changing the gear ratio) for great acceleration.
If Audi did an "SMG" it might actually be based on a CVT rather than a true sequential manual. They'll eventually beef up the multitronic's capabilities though.
The S4's shifter is good once you replace it (I have a tanoga short-shift and a drivetrain stabilizer) but stock it's kinda lame.
I have an Audi S4, and I love it, but it's a great car with a mediocre tranny - and I have the 6-speed. The Tiptronic is still an automatic, and feels like it. It's much improved with a 'tip chip' that shortens the shift times and makes the shift points more aggressive, but it's still an automatic :/
However, Audi's rumored to be working on a Multitronic-based "sequential manual" style tranny for the next RS4... possibly a 7-speed!
You still can; I have the following in my .cshrc:
sched +0:00 alias postcmd 'echo -n "^[]0;\!#^G"'
Don't even bother enabling root! You don't need to. sudo is there for a reason, and anyone in the admin group can sudo *anything*. Need a GUI app as root? sudo open .
:)
Apple's pushing a good security model (I didn't say it was a perfect implementation) - don't ever use root, just use sudo and Authentication Manager to do various things as root.
hey, at least I'm not going to deliver my rant against linux kiddiez thinking it's l33t to do everything as root on their box, get mail as "root@mybox", and then end up hosing the system inadvertently... or am I?
Perhaps you could keep the disc from becoming useless by coating it again with something that would keep the disc from oxidizing. Of course you'd have to make it very thin and make sure it didn't affect the optics... dunno if it would be possible.
:) I can see cans of spray lacquer being pulled from store shelves because they're "circumvention devices!"
But would it violate the DMCA?
you have it backwards; if the Fed owes us money (silver/gold) for a note (even if we can't redeem it) then it means we are creditors, not debtors; the Fed is in debt, and we are owed money.
2020: Computers everywhere are controlled by grunts, moans, sighs, and snorts.
2040: Computers are finally small enough that they're all embedded into our environments, but neural interfaces don't work, so we still grunt and snort into our computers, but it looks like we're just grunting and snorting in general. People use computers exclusively, and never talk to one another; thus, language is lost and we just grunt and snort a lot.
2060: aliens visit hoping to find intelligent life, but instead find a bunch of snorting, grunting apes. They leave.
Well, they just said "best-of-breed" - they didn't say just what that breed was. (halfbred? inbred?)