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Comments · 79

  1. Market for newbies? on Are Computer Magazines Dead? · · Score: 1

    Some posters have already noted the trend for computing magazines to be dumbed-down. This makes sense for various reasons. The first is that the market for non-technical computing magazines is far larger than the technical market simply because there are less people knowing more stuff :) And of course the market is smaller than you might expect because of online content.

    So what you might call good computing magazines will be limited in number. Anyone wanting up-to-the-minute stuff gets on on the Web. D'uh.

    But even if "News for Nerds" is suited to an online format, not everything is.

    These are the magazines that might/do work (not for me, I'm cheap, I read them in the library!!):
    1. Games (cover CDs alone will keep some afloat).
    2. Introduction to Computer type magazines - the "really really new" market isn't going away. The Sydney Morning Herald's Icon section is still running "What is e-mail?" sections, as is internet.au.
    3. Computer consumer magazines. OK, the market might be fading a bit thanks to online material, but in the same way some (lots of?) people read catalogues in their mailbox, some people want to look at ads for computers. And not all of them are going to go and visit a separate URL for each manufacturer. Especially if they're new to the market or buy computing equipment very seldom.

    There are going to be computing magazines, just as there are for any other lesuire activity, even those centered around another medium - eg TV.

  2. Re:This is most Odd. :) on Happy Odd Day! · · Score: 1

    I keep trying to convince my coworkers of this, but they refues to listen.

    Funny. I would have thought that would be easier to grasp than the fact that the cardinality of the set of rationals = the cardinality of the integers = the cardinality of the squares of the integers etc etc.

    But then, you still have to convince them that the cardinality of the real numbers (the continuum) is in fact unknown... :)

  3. Re:Today is a Prime Day on Happy Odd Day! · · Score: 1
    Just following the link from the reply above...

    Some historical info (from Prime Number):
    Although the number 1 used to be considered a prime (Lehmer 1909; Hardy and Wright 1979, p. 11), it requires special treatment in so many definitions and applications involving primes greater than or equal to 2 that it is usually placed into a class of its own.

    The full references are:
    Lehmer, D. N. Factor Table for the First Ten Millions. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1909.
    Hardy, G. H. and Wright, E. M. ``Prime Numbers'' and ``The Sequence of Primes.'' 1.2 and 1.4 in An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, 5th ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, pp. 1-4, 1979.
  4. Re:Today is a Prime Day on Happy Odd Day! · · Score: 1

    1 would be prime unless they made the special provision so that by definition it isn't.

    I think "they" have (who does make these sort of decisions for maths? - it's IUPAC for chemistry...)

    I read "somewhere" that 1 isn't defined as a prime partly for this reason: that each integer is said to have a unique prime factorisation, ie 12 = 3 x 2 x 2 and 13 = 13.
    If 1 is a prime, then 12 = 3 x 2 x 2 x 1^n and 13 = 13 x 1^n where n is anything you like - hence there goes the unique prime factorisation.
    It's a bit like the definition 0! = 1 - that one make combinatorics easier.

  5. Re:Errgggh!! I'm so tired... on Happy Odd Day! · · Score: 1

    Calendars are a matter of human consensus - you have to look to a human authority.

    I believe that the office of John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia does name Januray 1st, 2001 as The Day.

    So there's our 19 million odd agreed then :)

  6. Re:No! Read the article! on Manyfold Universe Theory · · Score: 1

    Whoops! May I plead the "but... the 'greater than' and 'less than' characters rendered correctly in Preview" excuse for my previous post (I used the special character tags).

    Read it as:

    Is there any way to preserve whitespaces, etc., in HTML?

    There's the PRE tag. Look here for the w3 description of the tag.

    Basically it preserves whitespace and tab indenting. /. doesn't seem to allow it in comments - it doesn't work in preview and it's not
    listed below the comment submit box with the allowed tags.

  7. Re:No! Read the article! on Manyfold Universe Theory · · Score: 1
    Is there any way to preserve whitespaces, etc., in HTML?

    There's the tag. Look here for the w3c description of the tag.

    Basically it preserves whitespace and tab indenting. /. doesn't seem to allow it in comments - it doesn't work in preview and it's not listed below the comment submit box with the allowed tags.

  8. Re:Very sad on 'Kyle's Mom' is Dead at Age 38 · · Score: 1

    If one looses all hope of ever getting better, that is when suicide starts to become a 'viable' option.

    Apparently most suicides actually occur as a person is falling into a major depressive state, or coming out the other side - at the half way point.

    People who are in deep enough lose willpower. But half way - you remember the pain, or anticipate it, and that is when people decide to do something about it.

  9. Re:Fit all code on *one* page. on How To Write Unmaintainable Code · · Score: 1

    Except it should be more of a guideline, than a strict rule.

    :)
    Shouldn't everything?

    Anyone blindly adhering to a rule like that must have forgotten the meaning.

    The spirit of the rule is to have understandable maintainable code - the function should be small enough to twist your mind around without getting sucked into a mental whirlpool of pointers to pointers to..., and besides you don't wnat to have to scroll too much :)

    Obeying the letter of style rules is counter-productive - it shows a lack of understanding of the spirit.

  10. Re:The geek life can be lonely... on Online Romance - For Good or Evil? · · Score: 1

    Or the gal whom I met in engineering class and would talk with and study with (oh boy, a nerd-girl, imagine my luck!) for months, lunching occasionally, then when I called to ask her out, her boyfriend picked up while he was cooking breakfast (either that or her ass was made of bacon because there was sizzling swine on the other end of that line).. Now am I the bad guy here? Am I reading too much into our lunchtime socializing?

    The trouble is, it turned out you were reading too much into your lunchtime socialising. (It doesn't make you the bad guy... :) )

    No matter how many books or /. comments are contributed, no one is getting any better at reading someone else's interest in a relationship. There are no sure signs :(. The one thing you can do fairly reliably is read someone's interest in having casual sex with you in a nightclub... and the failure rate there is still very high - refusal you see.

    You were right, a girl spending lots of friendly time with you could very well be interested in a relationship. It sounds to me like something a girl who liked you might do. But not only something a girl who liked you might do (oh for a sign like that...) But there are a million other things:
    1) She was being friendly cos hanging out with you was fun (this is most likely).
    2) She realised you liked her and was being friendly so as not to hurt your feelings (fairly unlikely, I personally would slip a "and then my boyfriend said..." sentence into a conversation here).

    And maybe one day, you'll discover someone being only that friendly, or maybe a little less, is actually interested in you. Cos of course some people are shy, or have been rejected too much. So they don't get much encouragement from you, you don't get much from them... and around we go again :)

    I guess the only thing I can suggest is, *shrug*, keep trying. Would you look harshly on a friend you weren't attracted to making a move? I wouldn't. Girls, in general, won't look down on you, or hate you or anything for asking them to wherever. They've heard the word 'no' themselves.

    And chances are, one day a girl who hangs round you won't be doing it cos you're a great friend, but cos you'd be a great boyfriend. Unfortunately, she might not make that obvious.

  11. A 'meta-drawing'? on Linux on a Magazine Cover? · · Score: 1

    Disclamier: I have no understanding of visual design principles, so I don't know whether this would be effective in terms of balance etc...

    but...

    how 'bout something along the lines of n hackers co-operatively adding to/ fixing/colouring in/copying a freely distributable illustration of Tux?

  12. Re:The Geek Girl's Ideal Geek Guy. on Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks · · Score: 1

    How about being nice to guys, and letting them win? :)

    Could happen... but my post was a guys' guide to what girls want. The guy wishlist didn't figure. I guess all relationships must be a compromise between the two... even maybe when it comes to Quake.

    I guess Roblimo left "and find a woman who goes easy with nailguns/rocket launchers/BFGs" out of his feature.

  13. Shakespearian names. on I Want Names for my Servers! · · Score: 1

    There seems to be a trend expressed here towards giving boxen names based on their personality...

    I think if we adopted the Bard's names (plenty of scope... 37 plays) most of /. would name their machines something like this:

    NT: Iago, Claudius, Antonio, LadyMacbeth...
    Linux: Prospero, Viola, Rosalind
    DOS machines: Caliban

    I'm not sure what would suit the comic characters, eg Trinculo, maybe Win95? How about the tragic heros, Hamlet, Othello, Lear et al?

    And there are lots and lots of minor characters to suit the quirks of each box.

  14. Re:The Geek Girl's Ideal Geek Guy. on Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks · · Score: 1
    Oh, that's going to happen, sure... If a chick wants to gloat over me for winning a match, she's going to work for it. Then at least she can feel she's earned it, not just feel "oh, he let me win to make me feel better".

    Fair enough. As long as you give her plenty of practice she might (might) concede the point.

    Being good at Quake is a surprisingly effective way to impress geek guys. With some of them it seems you've shattered their most fundamental prejudice against women - 'woman no Quake'.

    With the others - they just appreciate a good game.

    Either way, pretty damn fun way to make new friends.

  15. Re:Male or female? (writing / grammar) on Microsoft Cracked · · Score: 1

    Why is it such a big deal to use "he" by default?

    I'm not sure that it is; and in fact I think I do unconsciously. But the fact that we use language unconsciously is the fact that gives it its power.

    So consider the following question: if 'she' was the accepted default, would you be just as happy with that, and would you be prepared to defend it?

    I actually think the best strategy is using 'she' just as much as 'he', although it jars if varied within a single piece of writing.

  16. .com.au domain rules. on Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act · · Score: 1

    To quote from Internet Names Australia's (the .com.au domain name register) the .com.au domain has similar rules to .ca:
    '[a business] currently registered and trading in Australia [may] register an Internet address (domain name) that is closely aligned with their commercial name.'

    There is also a provision disallowing generic product names (whois.aunic.net has no listing for beer.com.au for instance :-) ).

    However there are several problems with this policy.
    (i) Businesses cannot use registered trademarks as domain names. They get around this by registering 'shelf' business names, ie ones they're never going to use... This annoys people with interests in promoting a commercial product, but they get around it by registering a shelf name they're never going to use. Not ideal.
    (ii) The above provision also causes trouble by allowing people to squat on non-generic, but recognisable names by registering a related business name. The national youth ('alternative') radio station, Triple J, has a website at http://triplej.abc.net.au, but of course, domain name guessing might lead a "young fan" to type 'http://www.jjj.com.au' (JJJ being the station ID), which is currently (and amusingly defensively) being squatted on.

  17. Emacs & men; they're pretty similar: on Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks · · Score: 1

    in both cases, I'd much rather use vi...

  18. Australian Altavista. on Altavista Redesign is more 'Portal-Like' · · Score: 1

    It seems it is still worth the extra keystrokes I tend to invest in typing http://www.altavista.yellowpages.com.au . It still only has a couple of ads and a few 'featured sponsers', and a nice big search text input box, free of travel advice and freemail...

  19. Re:Bottom Line: Money (& Competition) on Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks · · Score: 1

    Not to mention the relative rarity of women who want nothing more than to nurture a geek.

    Even humanities women might, you know, want to devote the tiniest bit of time to, you know, that violin concerto thing they're composing, or their thesis on Derrida (not me btw, I'm taking both a CS degree in CS/Maths and a humanities degree in philosophy, but I'm just too damn lazy to work at it...)

    Margaret Wertheim pointed out in Pythagoras's Trousers (dead trees :-) that male physicists tend to be married to a 'little woman' whose mission in life is assisting a great mind to know the universe without having to cook overly much. So if you do find Ms. Perfect Life Assistant, be prepared to fend off great scientists of all persuasions :)

    And it's worse for women. Women in technical fields (doctors are the stereotypical example) tend to marry men in similar fields. Where are the men who are prepared to devote themselves to letting us acheive our potential without interacting with, you know, life or anything?

  20. The Geek Girl's Ideal Geek Guy. on Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks · · Score: 1
    This is the general prescription of What women want: a smooth talker, a fantastic dresser, interesting, have a sense of humour, not at all shy or awkward, incredibly mature, extraordinarily intelligent, marvelously sensitive and also extremely nice to girls who are less than perfect.

    Most guys could get a girl just from that description alone.

    But for those of you who aren't convinced by Roblimo's argument about non-geek women, here is a specific guide to The Man a Geek Girl Wants:

    • Someone who'll let her win at Quake. All the time.
    • Someone who will put off sex for a couple more minutes to discuss the intricacies of debugging their latest program.
    • Unless we want sex instead, in which case, be ready.
    • Someone who gives us root password on their box.
    • Someone who lets us change root password on their box so that we're the only one who knows it.
    • Someone who is less complicated then a computer, takes up less time, and less maintenence, and is all to willing to maintain our computers, and us, any time, day or night.
    • An Open Source guy, all transparent nice simple coding, but not GPLed - none of this freely distributable stuff.


    I guess that's about it...
  21. Re:Should help his ego on Kasparov Beats the World · · Score: 1

    um aren't there better things we human have to do than solve pspace complete problems? (yeah ... chess is not np)

    Interesting. That reminds me a quote (reference = *shrug*) about there being 3 areas of human genius (ie where a very small subset of individuals have capabilities that are comparable to being able to jump 600 metres in the air, instead of 1); chess, music and mathematics...

    It seems there's something about (some?) human minds that have remarkable intuitive abilities in seeing shortcuts through massive problems.

    And if chess is pspace complete, how difficult is music, programming and mathematics (I rank them in that order with some CS/maths overlap)?

    Where should we give up? :)

  22. Re:Erm... on Kill -9 With a Doom Shotgun · · Score: 1

    It's making me think of a scene Douglas Adams - specifically the last book 'Mostly Harmless', where Ford Prefect is running/thinking around in the depths of Infinidim's computer system in a beautiful 4D virtual reality accounting interface.

    He says to himself something like 'So this is where accountants spend all their time. There's more to those guys than meets the eye.'

    Imagine how much more appealing programming would look to the average Ford Prefect if we were all inside a spakling (bug-free :-) multidimensional world just moving bits of it about to make it prettier and generally nicer/more elegant.

    This is kind of how I think of programming anyway, and mathematics for that matter, but it's a little hard to explain to some people I know.

    And colours are cool :-)

  23. Re:So I discovered ;) on Henley.com, Reznor.com. Is Your Name Next? · · Score: 1

    wtf is a dropbear? :)

    :)

    It's a sort of Australian wierd urban myth thing... horrible frightening snarly bear that falls out of trees and attacks you. Told to tourists in case AU's legendary snakes and spiders don't scare them enough.

    I'd still rather be hypatia.id.au :)

  24. Re:id.au on Henley.com, Reznor.com. Is Your Name Next? · · Score: 1

    Yes there is a id.au domain - see http://www.id.au. Unfortunately; you can't register a subdomain of id.au, you have to register under an already existing subdomain.

    Not good if you don't want your domain to include names of Australian flora/fauna as the options are along the lines of wattle.id.au, waratah.id.au and emu.id.au :)

  25. Reality check. on Can Androids Feel Pain? · · Score: 1

    We are the new species. The earth will not overgrow with vegetation, because we, the new species, eat paper for a living. We burn fossils for sustinence and we belch smoke. We will for a long time, and then things will change somehow.

    I am reminded of the utilitarian (in the philosophical sense) debate over population control - balancing the needs of those who already exist against the potential existences inherent in our biology. We cannot lean too heavily towards possibilities and ignore actualities.

    We live in a physical universe. Much as it would suit many mindsets (sometimes including my own) to have conciousness wholly configured in an artifically or otherwise constructed mental space of pure data-flow, that's not the way it is.

    I'm not pretending to give answers here, but I feel the triumphant declaration of independence in the previous post was a little premature.

    As (still) homo sapiens do we have no responsibility towards those of our own species who live hand-to-mouth, those who's children are dying of starvation while we create new minds in our machines? Do we have no responsibility towards the delicate balances within the biosphere and geosphere which led to our own emergence from a 'lower' species? Even when or if we have no need of them (which is hardly the case now) do we not retain those responsibilities?

    Surely no matter what we create, or what we become, it is only half a creation, half a becoming, to ignore the context in which we create, in which we become, from which we emerge, in which we still exist? Surely the declaration of independence is coming too soon, when we do not have what we need, and we haven't given back what we owe?