They didn't seem to make too much of a fuss when people successfully plugged them into their Windoze boxes, but will Apple get angry at this?
Considering that Apple now sells iPods specifically to be plugged into Windows boxes, I don't think they'll care. The "Mac-only" nature of the iPod is now gone, and they want to sell as many as they can.
Re:finally can sync my Handspring on OSX
on
iSync Beta Released
·
· Score: 2
Huh? I had no problems with Palm Desktop 4 under OS X with my Visor, starting from the Public Beta and until I switched back to my Vx about a month ago.
T-Mobile (nee Voicestream) has a decent online presence, as does Sprint; it's looking like T-Mobile and Cingular are going to be merging, so coverage should get better (I've only had problems out in the boonies anyway), and you get to play with the same or similar phones to the rest of the world.
I'd hate to see what sort of words you reserve for punks that can't understand a technical discussion and instead go in for incessant personal attacks.
Sorry, it's contrary to Apple's own pundits on UI design: if you want to edit document x, manipulating x is the correct way for the interface to let you do it. Opening random application y is not the correct way, whether y is the application you want to edit x in or an application to let you control which application x is edited in.
As a practical matter, going off and finding y in the Finder in order to "directly manipulate" x via drag'n'drop is also unreasonably difficult compared to just pulling up a context menu or Info window.
Further, Type codes aren't as reliable as filename extensions when transmitting files; apparently, people tend to do that a lot, a lot more than they rename a file they already have.
As was pointed out by another poster, some programs use the same extention for different documents.
Not on Mac systems, and not in files that Mac users tend to concern themselves with. Apple does the same type registry that they did with Type codes, with filename extensions.
With the C/T codes, I can look at the creator
Doesn't happen with C/T codes either, because of Apple's central registry.
But you did say that Siracusa was a "Mac bigot" because of his belief in Classic MacOS Metadata.
Nope. I stated
"... until Siracusa sees the light shining out of my ass on the evils of HFS+ metadata, he's just one more Mac bigot."
I stated that a) he is a Mac bigot, and b) there is a condition under which he could cease to be a Mac bigot. Nothing more, nothing less.
linkage of metadata technology with Mac true-believers.
I linked belief in the value of HFS+ metadata with being a Mac true-believer; you misread me, and opined that I must think you were a Mac bigot for thinking that file extensions were inappropriate or bad. In fact, I really do think that anyone who believes that HFS+'s metadata handling is excellent, or even better than the way current versions of Windows or OS X handle metadata, is biased (or bigoted) in their point of view.
Does anyone else here not see this as dismissal?
Read my comments about the common usage of the phrase I used: a reasonable person could not take it as anything but self-deprecating. Perhaps if I had said, "Siracusa needs to realize that the holy light of truth doesn't shine out of his ass," it could be completely dismissive and maybe (but probably not) rude. But I didn't say that.
First you identify Siracusa with his less intelligent followers, then you say, "it's not him, it's his followers." I think we need another Venn diagram.
Nope, I said that I'm tired of explaining my reasons for dismissing him, as a defense against the claim that I dismissed him out of hand; I have ample evidence that I have a lot of reasons for dismissing him, and just because I didn't post them this time doesn't mean I don't have them.
I also didn't characterize him as having followers, just people who thought his opinion was worthwhile and valuable on the topic.
You're still rudely dismissing Siracusa,
Is this whole thing over my use of the word "ass"? Take a look here, and tell me whether it was rude to him for me to describe myself that way.
OK, now that's actually a technical argument.
Ya think? Tell you what... if you want to argue this some more, why don't you read my other posts about metadata, posted in the last article on Siracusa's reviews of OS X (for 10.1), and on MacSlash (ditto). See if you agree or disagree with what I said there.
I have to confess ignorance of exactly how extensions work in OS X.
No need to confess it; it was clear last time, which is why I bothered to describe the OS X behavior. Perhaps you will consider, in the future, thinking about whether you should assume you know all the details of something you haven't used.
But as long as a user can mung the data type of a file just by changing its name,
There is no way to do that without being aware of the danger involved in doing so. You can change it easily with "mv" from a shell, but using a shell presumes the competence to not do it trivially; you can change it from the Finder only by reading a warning and clicking on the non-default button of the warning. The default interface hides extensions and preserves them across name changes; I have a file that looks like "PDA Phone" in ~/Documents that is actually "PDA Phone.txt" - renaming it to "Ack! Stupid Visorphone" from the Finder actually changes the name to "Ack! Stupid Visorphone.txt", and changing it to "foo.bar" changes it to "foo.bar.txt" (because.bar isn't a valid filetype, it's considered part of the name). Trying to change it to "PDA Phone.rtf" pops up a dialog asking me if I know what I'm doing; which is correct behavior.
PS- please be more rigorous in your use of quotation marks in the future - either quote directly and put it in quotes, or paraphrase without quotes.
Sloppy thinking. Until Siracusa sees that I'm right, he is just one more Mac bigot: I say that because I know more about him than that.
Too many have multiple meanings.
On Windows. But we're not talking about a Windows implementation, are we?
If you have to specify an extension every time you copy or rename a file
You don't have to do that in Mac OS X.
If you leave it up the system, you're at the mercy of applications that play with extension associations without telling you and that impose "descriptions" that are more advertisements than useful classifications.
In Mac OS X, you're not at the mercy of applications that play with extension associations; there is a simple user interface to controlling the information. Further, you may have noticed how, during a file's lifetime, it tends to continue to be one particular file type; and, at least in Mac OS X, those types are associated by a single largely impartial entity, so they aren't advertisements (I don't know what you're thinking of in Windows that would qualify, but I'll assume you know what you're talking about).
Looks to me like you have generalized from Windows' poor implementation that file extensions are bad; the same mistake I think Siracusa makes. Believe me, file extensions are imperfect, but right now Mac OS X has the best type system available in a high-volume operating system.
I have to comment on your use of the word "bigot". My American Heritage Dictionary defines "bigot" as "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ." Dismissing other people's opinions by with simplistic stereotypes and scatological insults would seem to fit that definition.
I must admit, I am biased against those who do not think clearly. I am impatient with their comments, and generally don't concern myself with what they say.
But in fact, I am not dismissing Siracusa's opinions out of hand with simplistic stereotypes; I've just gotten tired of re-writing an essay on why he's wrong every time I come across a group of Mac users who think he's the cat's meow and think that hes conclusions on metadata are authoritative. If you'd like to read some of them, look on MacSlash, or look at old articles here on Slashdot where Siracusa's "definitive" articles have been posted.
Oh, and one more thing... the "scatalogical insult" to which I must assume you refer was, if you look at it, deprecating humor directed at the vehemence with which I disagree with Siracusa; in general, people refer to sweet holy light shining out of someone else's ass, to describe the unreasoning holding of their belief.
On MacSlash, until Siracusa sees the light shining out of my ass on the evils of HFS+ metadata, he's just one more Mac bigot.
The way Classic MacOS worked with regard to file types was unforgivable. That he wants them to go back to it is ludicrous. I don't care about file type being encoded in the filename; it's better than letting a publisher tell you with what program you will read their documents.
That's true, it's not "homegrown," but it's also not crap like the PC BIOS. NeXT went down the road of trying to support regular PCs before, and Sun has made an effort too; I think everyone has learned their lesson about trying to go from a tightly controlled in-house architecture to an open market-controlled architecture.
Apple would die if they tried to pull the same "your hardware is five years old; too bad" games on a regular PC that they do with Macs. Any move would involve not much more, I think, than putting an x86 processor in their Macs.
When programming in a literate system do you describe the objects and methods from a programming viewpoint, a business viewpoint, or from a
metaphor viewpoint?
At its heart, literate programming creates multiple documents from a single master document. The common case is creating two documents - a document that is a paper on a program, and a document that compiles to the program - from the master document; but it's entirely possible to create more than just the two documents with a tool like noweb.
As an example, you could produce API documentation, algorithm descriptions, a description of the interaction of the whole schebang, and the program source itself from a single set of master documents.
And, again, the gain of literate programming is that you can keep all these forms of documentation close to each other and close to the code, which is a win.
Now, noweb isn't perfect: it's optimized for creating just one set of documentation, so the other documentation would have to be treated as code. It would be a lot better if you could name documentation blocks just like code blocks, but oh well...
If your code requires massive documentation within the code to make it understandable, then your code likely needs to be rewritten.
There are two very big reasons why in line documentation is good. First, having user documentation in the source (as with PerlPOD or javadoc) makes it easier to maintain documentation that reflects the reality of implementation.
Second, algorithm description is important. If you ever try to read 500 lines of uncommented, complicated code, with your only reference is a vague explanation of the algorithm in a book: you'll see what I mean.
Algorithm description is probably the most important part of literate programming, at least in my view. Particularly when you have to make changes to the general algorithm, or the steps of the algorithm are lost in memory management and error-checking.
And for mathematical programming, equation formatting (either automatically and in line how CWEB does it or manually the way noweb lets you do it) is essential to bug hunting. With noweb, you can compare raw TeX and C fairly easily, and you can do so with the knowledge that the TeX is a correct expression of the equation.
Microsoft Handheld Synchronization for Entourage X is temporarily unavailable as we investigate some technical issues that have been reported to us by customers. These issues include problems associated with the memory size of records and conflicts with DateBook.
There's no information under "News and Updates" about a re-release either...
Nuts, I nearly bought Offive v.X for Entourage and the Palm Sync (academic, so I wouldn't be spending $500 on sync software). But then it came out that it was blowing pdbs up to fill your memory (or some such).
That's a pretty fatal blow, for the moment, and since 10.2 is going to have iSync...
Of course, I'm an exception: I use LaTeX and noweb to write papers, and AppleWorks' spreadsheet is enough for my non-scientific use.
But the truth is, I need working functionality a lot more than I need another whiz-bang feature; I don't use Office for the same reason I don't troll for new software on freshmeat; I don't feel safe putting my data in their hands.
Exactly. My post was a dig against open source IMAP servers
You are misinformed, then. Of the three notable open source IMAP servers, cyrus, courier-imap, and uw-imap, only one keeps messages in a flat file in/var/mail (uw-imap).
Perhaps you meant "My post was a dig against an open source IMAP server"?
Here's some geek-specific advice, since that will tend to be in short supply in general sites (and might be of interest to other readers):
If you have more than one computer, accept that you only want to transport one - the laptop. Don't have a laptop? Time to get one, particularly if, when you first get there, you'll be taking up space in your SO's current place.
Any computers that provide an external service like http, consider co-locating in the U.S., either with a colo company or with a friend you trust. The cost may or may not be too high, if it's too high, you can't provide that service and make the move.
Any computers that provide an internal service like file servers, get rid of. Your laptop has to do it all (it will be cheaper to replace such services when you get there and have the money/time/wherewithal to do so).
Syslog is strongly discouraged on flash memory, possibly due to superstition, because of the number of writes and overwrites.
The recommended way to log anything from an embedded computer like this is over the network. There's almost always something on misc@openbsd about a secure syslog set up.
As I look at the electric bill during the summer, stuff like the Soekris kit (which pulls 10W, rather than the 200-400W of a PC) looks more and more like a good investment... with 2-5 computers being 'always on,' (right now it's 2, but it's heading towards 5), it's worth at least looking at cutting the power requirements of each.
Eh? That's talking about Mach, and how Apple engineers got their hands wet by porting Linux to it. Yes, look at the history, Apple started MkLinux specifically to experiment and learn.
As for this whole Unixy OS, recall that this all started in the late '90s when they were looking at Be and NeXT to buy for their technology. They made the decision to buy NeXT, and use NeXTStep as the basis for their next-gen operating system, in 1997 (the first version of MkLinux was released in 1996, and based on 1.2/1.3 versions of Linux).
You may recall that Linux wasn't exactly getting mad props as a server, or a desktop, in those days, BSD was just undergoing the Net/Open split and people were talking like it was the end of the world, and everyone thought Unix was finally dying.
First, there's no such implication. (I see no reason to support this further; it seems fair to counter your bald assertion with one of my own. Besides, it seems clear enough -- to me, anyway -- from a plain reading of the text.)
I think there's more to it, particularly accounting for the development that went into it, but I'll give you the point.
Second, you need to clarify which religious ritual you're talking about. The rituals of my religion are anything but empty.
I'm sorry, I should not have said that.
But the fact remains that it is a ritual, glorifying someone or something other than God. I think that's idol worship, and I hope you can see that it inhibits my free practice of religion to be asked to do it.
There. You asked a question and I answered.
Good. All my questions do request answers. It might be that your answer illuminates a point that makes you change your mind, it might be that your answer illuminates a point that makes me change my mind, or it might just give me the information I need to continue trying to make my point.
Yes, actually. God sees all no matter what we do, but men for their part seem to take vows more seriously when they invoke him as a witness, in general.
I take your 'yes' to mean that it is less wholly felt, rather than intrinsically less true or less seen by God. In which case you are arguing that giving the pledge is important because it doesn't mean as much. See below.
If you're an exception to that generality, then good for you.
Ah! Now it's a generality, that some people might except. Does your claim, that a pledge is less than an oath, and does not interfere with the religious freedom of people who will not take oaths, still stand? My impression is that it does not.
And you're incorrect about pledges.
I am? It doesn't mean to make a promise? It doesn't interfere with someone's interest in speaking only the Truth? I can make a pledge, and go back on it, without having lied?
As a verb it means to make a promise or agreement.
Ah, no, I wasn't wrong. So a reasonable person that might be willing to admit that a better country might come along, and might be willing to ditch one imperfect country for another less imperfect country, would be lying if they took the pledge. OK.
and in any event does not involve calling upon any higher power.
Point taken. I'm afraid I didn't make both of my points clear before, that it could fail as a statement of Truth, and (erroneously) that it calls upon the power of God.
It's interesting that with all this you feel no loyalty to the country that does not interfere with your freedom practise your religion, to the point where the Constitution even allows for affirmations where it otherwise calls for oaths so that persons of your persuasion need not violate their beliefs in order to take a public duty upon themselves. At the very least, some might perceive you as ungrateful.
I'm sorry if you disapprove of my beliefs. But I think you misunderstand. How can I be loyal to a fiction? I am grateful to the people who, accepting the fiction, operating with their understanding of the ideals that other people created the fiction with, respect my resolve to practice my religion.
The people who respect my resolve to practice my religion are, in that respect, good people. Don't you agree that if they did not respect it, the blame would not fall to the nation's feet, but theirs? Why should I place blame upon one's actions at his feet, but praise for his actions at another's feet?
It's interesting that you discuss my loyalty, but defend and support offering up a promise that you don't expect people to completely support. Isn't just withholding my pledge the same as offering up a pledge I won't necessarily uphold?
Good Lord, we even have people posting here who object to the non-religious part of the Pledge.
You betcha. Theologically it smacks of making the State the state religion, and is thus idol worship, and practically, it's low-key brainwashing.
Are the United States so grand? I'd rather be here than living in China, but that's hardly a vote of confidence. Should I so completely pledge myself to this country that I would be unable to ethically decide, "I like that country over there better"?
If our national consciousness has an ounce of self-preservation instinct -- and much of my point is that we have lost that culturally
Are you kidding me? The founders of the US made pretty clear that they were trying hard to make a good nation, but that, inevitably, it would be a bad nation, that might need to be overthrown, or at least shaken up a bit... and that the preservation of the state should be less important than the preservation of the rights of the people.
The preservation instinct is what makes the country bad, because the tiny little parts of the country can't see whether a change that hurts them hurts the nation, or helps it.
The preservation instinct leads a bad President to take away our rights before we take away his power. The preservation instinct leads us to inculcate our children with a blind love for the US as it is, so that they will preserve it.
but you need to explain more to avoid the impression that these objections are irrelevant.
First, there is the implication that God smiles upon the U.S. first and/or most. Second, there is the presence of the exact same sort of empty ritual present in religious worship.
But you say:
The flag is one of the more important symbols that have come to be a substitute for it.
And that isn't idol worship?
The meaning of "pledge" is on the same level roughly as promise; it doesn't quite rise to the status of an oath.
And what is the difference between them? Is one, or the other, less true, less wholly felt, or said such that God sees what you say less?
To someone who sees speaking the Truth at all times a holy leading, there is no difference between speaking, promising, and making an oath or pledge, except that all of the latter tend to depend upon external forces (Heaven, God, or something on earth), at which point it is inappropriate.
The only belief I think I should be expected to profess, in any circumstance, is my belief in God. I will gladly fail any expectation put upon me to profess belief in how wonderful, important, holy, or correct the United States are.
Go to a concert, enjoy the artist, buy the album right there. The CDs can be cheaper, they provide instant gratification, they are anonymous with cash (and mostly, they don't accept credit card), and generally more money goes to the artist because of the fewer middle men.
Oh yeah, and you get to go to a concert, which is usually a better experience than just listening to the CD. Unless it's one of these bands/people that didn't start off playing clubs and such, but jumped into a studio....
Live music is where you get the most entertainment, and the artist gets the most money.
We can only guess how much Apple is paying for the iPod hard drives (which retail for the same as the iPod), but when you tack on the software, screen, and so on, it stands to reason that the iPod is not a high-margin product.
So, given that the iMac has a high (and thus higher margin, and a price an order of magnitude higher (remember, margin is the percentage, so the same margin on two products with different prices yields different money), it stands to reason that they're making more money selling 1,000 more iMacs (but it's still in the same order of magnitude as selling 10,000 more iPods).
But you get better market share with the iMacs, so it's win-win. And you can use the iMacs to drive other sales, so you get more money.
Slashdot Mirror
Blockquoth prichardson:
Considering that Apple now sells iPods specifically to be plugged into Windows boxes, I don't think they'll care. The "Mac-only" nature of the iPod is now gone, and they want to sell as many as they can.
Huh? I had no problems with Palm Desktop 4 under OS X with my Visor, starting from the Public Beta and until I switched back to my Vx about a month ago.
T-Mobile (nee Voicestream) has a decent online presence, as does Sprint; it's looking like T-Mobile and Cingular are going to be merging, so coverage should get better (I've only had problems out in the boonies anyway), and you get to play with the same or similar phones to the rest of the world.
That was being a jerk?
I'd hate to see what sort of words you reserve for punks that can't understand a technical discussion and instead go in for incessant personal attacks.
Oh yeah, you call those people fm6.
Blockquoth MoneyT:
Ah, spoken with a truly open mind...
Sorry, it's contrary to Apple's own pundits on UI design: if you want to edit document x, manipulating x is the correct way for the interface to let you do it. Opening random application y is not the correct way, whether y is the application you want to edit x in or an application to let you control which application x is edited in.
As a practical matter, going off and finding y in the Finder in order to "directly manipulate" x via drag'n'drop is also unreasonably difficult compared to just pulling up a context menu or Info window.
Further, Type codes aren't as reliable as filename extensions when transmitting files; apparently, people tend to do that a lot, a lot more than they rename a file they already have.
Not on Mac systems, and not in files that Mac users tend to concern themselves with. Apple does the same type registry that they did with Type codes, with filename extensions.
Doesn't happen with C/T codes either, because of Apple's central registry.
Blockquoth fm6:
Nope. I stated
I stated that a) he is a Mac bigot, and b) there is a condition under which he could cease to be a Mac bigot. Nothing more, nothing less.
I linked belief in the value of HFS+ metadata with being a Mac true-believer; you misread me, and opined that I must think you were a Mac bigot for thinking that file extensions were inappropriate or bad. In fact, I really do think that anyone who believes that HFS+'s metadata handling is excellent, or even better than the way current versions of Windows or OS X handle metadata, is biased (or bigoted) in their point of view.
Read my comments about the common usage of the phrase I used: a reasonable person could not take it as anything but self-deprecating. Perhaps if I had said, "Siracusa needs to realize that the holy light of truth doesn't shine out of his ass," it could be completely dismissive and maybe (but probably not) rude. But I didn't say that.
Nope, I said that I'm tired of explaining my reasons for dismissing him, as a defense against the claim that I dismissed him out of hand; I have ample evidence that I have a lot of reasons for dismissing him, and just because I didn't post them this time doesn't mean I don't have them.
I also didn't characterize him as having followers, just people who thought his opinion was worthwhile and valuable on the topic.
Is this whole thing over my use of the word "ass"? Take a look here, and tell me whether it was rude to him for me to describe myself that way.
Ya think? Tell you what... if you want to argue this some more, why don't you read my other posts about metadata, posted in the last article on Siracusa's reviews of OS X (for 10.1), and on MacSlash (ditto). See if you agree or disagree with what I said there.
No need to confess it; it was clear last time, which is why I bothered to describe the OS X behavior. Perhaps you will consider, in the future, thinking about whether you should assume you know all the details of something you haven't used.
There is no way to do that without being aware of the danger involved in doing so. You can change it easily with "mv" from a shell, but using a shell presumes the competence to not do it trivially; you can change it from the Finder only by reading a warning and clicking on the non-default button of the warning. The default interface hides extensions and preserves them across name changes; I have a file that looks like "PDA Phone" in ~/Documents that is actually "PDA Phone.txt" - renaming it to "Ack! Stupid Visorphone" from the Finder actually changes the name to "Ack! Stupid Visorphone.txt", and changing it to "foo.bar" changes it to "foo.bar.txt" (because .bar isn't a valid filetype, it's considered part of the name). Trying to change it to "PDA Phone.rtf" pops up a dialog asking me if I know what I'm doing; which is correct behavior.
PS- please be more rigorous in your use of quotation marks in the future - either quote directly and put it in quotes, or paraphrase without quotes.
Blockquoth fm6:
Sloppy thinking. Until Siracusa sees that I'm right, he is just one more Mac bigot: I say that because I know more about him than that.
On Windows. But we're not talking about a Windows implementation, are we?
You don't have to do that in Mac OS X.
In Mac OS X, you're not at the mercy of applications that play with extension associations; there is a simple user interface to controlling the information. Further, you may have noticed how, during a file's lifetime, it tends to continue to be one particular file type; and, at least in Mac OS X, those types are associated by a single largely impartial entity, so they aren't advertisements (I don't know what you're thinking of in Windows that would qualify, but I'll assume you know what you're talking about).
Looks to me like you have generalized from Windows' poor implementation that file extensions are bad; the same mistake I think Siracusa makes. Believe me, file extensions are imperfect, but right now Mac OS X has the best type system available in a high-volume operating system.
I must admit, I am biased against those who do not think clearly. I am impatient with their comments, and generally don't concern myself with what they say.
But in fact, I am not dismissing Siracusa's opinions out of hand with simplistic stereotypes; I've just gotten tired of re-writing an essay on why he's wrong every time I come across a group of Mac users who think he's the cat's meow and think that hes conclusions on metadata are authoritative. If you'd like to read some of them, look on MacSlash, or look at old articles here on Slashdot where Siracusa's "definitive" articles have been posted.
Oh, and one more thing... the "scatalogical insult" to which I must assume you refer was, if you look at it, deprecating humor directed at the vehemence with which I disagree with Siracusa; in general, people refer to sweet holy light shining out of someone else's ass, to describe the unreasoning holding of their belief.
On MacSlash, until Siracusa sees the light shining out of my ass on the evils of HFS+ metadata, he's just one more Mac bigot.
The way Classic MacOS worked with regard to file types was unforgivable. That he wants them to go back to it is ludicrous. I don't care about file type being encoded in the filename; it's better than letting a publisher tell you with what program you will read their documents.
Blockqouth g4dget:
That's true, it's not "homegrown," but it's also not crap like the PC BIOS. NeXT went down the road of trying to support regular PCs before, and Sun has made an effort too; I think everyone has learned their lesson about trying to go from a tightly controlled in-house architecture to an open market-controlled architecture.
Apple would die if they tried to pull the same "your hardware is five years old; too bad" games on a regular PC that they do with Macs. Any move would involve not much more, I think, than putting an x86 processor in their Macs.
Blockquoth bons:
At its heart, literate programming creates multiple documents from a single master document. The common case is creating two documents - a document that is a paper on a program, and a document that compiles to the program - from the master document; but it's entirely possible to create more than just the two documents with a tool like noweb.
As an example, you could produce API documentation, algorithm descriptions, a description of the interaction of the whole schebang, and the program source itself from a single set of master documents.
And, again, the gain of literate programming is that you can keep all these forms of documentation close to each other and close to the code, which is a win.
Now, noweb isn't perfect: it's optimized for creating just one set of documentation, so the other documentation would have to be treated as code. It would be a lot better if you could name documentation blocks just like code blocks, but oh well...
Blockquoth lkaos:
There are two very big reasons why in line documentation is good. First, having user documentation in the source (as with PerlPOD or javadoc) makes it easier to maintain documentation that reflects the reality of implementation.
Second, algorithm description is important. If you ever try to read 500 lines of uncommented, complicated code, with your only reference is a vague explanation of the algorithm in a book: you'll see what I mean.
Algorithm description is probably the most important part of literate programming, at least in my view. Particularly when you have to make changes to the general algorithm, or the steps of the algorithm are lost in memory management and error-checking.
And for mathematical programming, equation formatting (either automatically and in line how CWEB does it or manually the way noweb lets you do it) is essential to bug hunting. With noweb, you can compare raw TeX and C fairly easily, and you can do so with the knowledge that the TeX is a correct expression of the equation.
Poetry is vague.
Ever tried explaining why the sky is really blue poetically?
From http://www.microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/OFFICEX/palm sync.asp:
There's no information under "News and Updates" about a re-release either...
Nuts, I nearly bought Offive v.X for Entourage and the Palm Sync (academic, so I wouldn't be spending $500 on sync software). But then it came out that it was blowing pdbs up to fill your memory (or some such).
That's a pretty fatal blow, for the moment, and since 10.2 is going to have iSync...
Of course, I'm an exception: I use LaTeX and noweb to write papers, and AppleWorks' spreadsheet is enough for my non-scientific use.
But the truth is, I need working functionality a lot more than I need another whiz-bang feature; I don't use Office for the same reason I don't troll for new software on freshmeat; I don't feel safe putting my data in their hands.
blockquoth CustomDesigned:
You are misinformed, then. Of the three notable open source IMAP servers, cyrus, courier-imap, and uw-imap, only one keeps messages in a flat file in /var/mail (uw-imap).
Perhaps you meant "My post was a dig against an open source IMAP server"?
And I'm still grappling with the ethical issues.
It made her very happy, yes; and it made me feel good to make her that happy.
But was it worth it? I honestly don't know. I don't think I'm ever buying a diamond again, though.
All we have is this "25 year old" language for numeric tasks, and another language that's about as old for system programming. It's called C.
Here's some geek-specific advice, since that will tend to be in short supply in general sites (and might be of interest to other readers):
If you have more than one computer, accept that you only want to transport one - the laptop. Don't have a laptop? Time to get one, particularly if, when you first get there, you'll be taking up space in your SO's current place.
Any computers that provide an external service like http, consider co-locating in the U.S., either with a colo company or with a friend you trust. The cost may or may not be too high, if it's too high, you can't provide that service and make the move.
Any computers that provide an internal service like file servers, get rid of. Your laptop has to do it all (it will be cheaper to replace such services when you get there and have the money/time/wherewithal to do so).
Good luck!
Syslog is strongly discouraged on flash memory, possibly due to superstition, because of the number of writes and overwrites.
The recommended way to log anything from an embedded computer like this is over the network. There's almost always something on misc@openbsd about a secure syslog set up.
As I look at the electric bill during the summer, stuff like the Soekris kit (which pulls 10W, rather than the 200-400W of a PC) looks more and more like a good investment... with 2-5 computers being 'always on,' (right now it's 2, but it's heading towards 5), it's worth at least looking at cutting the power requirements of each.
Eh? That's talking about Mach, and how Apple engineers got their hands wet by porting Linux to it. Yes, look at the history, Apple started MkLinux specifically to experiment and learn.
As for this whole Unixy OS, recall that this all started in the late '90s when they were looking at Be and NeXT to buy for their technology. They made the decision to buy NeXT, and use NeXTStep as the basis for their next-gen operating system, in 1997 (the first version of MkLinux was released in 1996, and based on 1.2/1.3 versions of Linux).
You may recall that Linux wasn't exactly getting mad props as a server, or a desktop, in those days, BSD was just undergoing the Net/Open split and people were talking like it was the end of the world, and everyone thought Unix was finally dying.
I think there's more to it, particularly accounting for the development that went into it, but I'll give you the point.
I'm sorry, I should not have said that.
But the fact remains that it is a ritual, glorifying someone or something other than God. I think that's idol worship, and I hope you can see that it inhibits my free practice of religion to be asked to do it.
Good. All my questions do request answers. It might be that your answer illuminates a point that makes you change your mind, it might be that your answer illuminates a point that makes me change my mind, or it might just give me the information I need to continue trying to make my point.
I take your 'yes' to mean that it is less wholly felt, rather than intrinsically less true or less seen by God. In which case you are arguing that giving the pledge is important because it doesn't mean as much. See below.
Ah! Now it's a generality, that some people might except. Does your claim, that a pledge is less than an oath, and does not interfere with the religious freedom of people who will not take oaths, still stand? My impression is that it does not.
I am? It doesn't mean to make a promise? It doesn't interfere with someone's interest in speaking only the Truth? I can make a pledge, and go back on it, without having lied?
Ah, no, I wasn't wrong. So a reasonable person that might be willing to admit that a better country might come along, and might be willing to ditch one imperfect country for another less imperfect country, would be lying if they took the pledge. OK.
Point taken. I'm afraid I didn't make both of my points clear before, that it could fail as a statement of Truth, and (erroneously) that it calls upon the power of God.
I'm sorry if you disapprove of my beliefs. But I think you misunderstand. How can I be loyal to a fiction? I am grateful to the people who, accepting the fiction, operating with their understanding of the ideals that other people created the fiction with, respect my resolve to practice my religion.
The people who respect my resolve to practice my religion are, in that respect, good people. Don't you agree that if they did not respect it, the blame would not fall to the nation's feet, but theirs? Why should I place blame upon one's actions at his feet, but praise for his actions at another's feet?
It's interesting that you discuss my loyalty, but defend and support offering up a promise that you don't expect people to completely support. Isn't just withholding my pledge the same as offering up a pledge I won't necessarily uphold?
You betcha. Theologically it smacks of making the State the state religion, and is thus idol worship, and practically, it's low-key brainwashing.
Are the United States so grand? I'd rather be here than living in China, but that's hardly a vote of confidence. Should I so completely pledge myself to this country that I would be unable to ethically decide, "I like that country over there better"?
Are you kidding me? The founders of the US made pretty clear that they were trying hard to make a good nation, but that, inevitably, it would be a bad nation, that might need to be overthrown, or at least shaken up a bit... and that the preservation of the state should be less important than the preservation of the rights of the people.
The preservation instinct is what makes the country bad, because the tiny little parts of the country can't see whether a change that hurts them hurts the nation, or helps it.
The preservation instinct leads a bad President to take away our rights before we take away his power. The preservation instinct leads us to inculcate our children with a blind love for the US as it is, so that they will preserve it.
First, there is the implication that God smiles upon the U.S. first and/or most. Second, there is the presence of the exact same sort of empty ritual present in religious worship.
But you say:
And that isn't idol worship?
And what is the difference between them? Is one, or the other, less true, less wholly felt, or said such that God sees what you say less?
To someone who sees speaking the Truth at all times a holy leading, there is no difference between speaking, promising, and making an oath or pledge, except that all of the latter tend to depend upon external forces (Heaven, God, or something on earth), at which point it is inappropriate.
The only belief I think I should be expected to profess, in any circumstance, is my belief in God. I will gladly fail any expectation put upon me to profess belief in how wonderful, important, holy, or correct the United States are.
Go to a concert, enjoy the artist, buy the album right there. The CDs can be cheaper, they provide instant gratification, they are anonymous with cash (and mostly, they don't accept credit card), and generally more money goes to the artist because of the fewer middle men.
Oh yeah, and you get to go to a concert, which is usually a better experience than just listening to the CD. Unless it's one of these bands/people that didn't start off playing clubs and such, but jumped into a studio....
Live music is where you get the most entertainment, and the artist gets the most money.
We can only guess how much Apple is paying for the iPod hard drives (which retail for the same as the iPod), but when you tack on the software, screen, and so on, it stands to reason that the iPod is not a high-margin product.
So, given that the iMac has a high (and thus higher margin, and a price an order of magnitude higher (remember, margin is the percentage, so the same margin on two products with different prices yields different money), it stands to reason that they're making more money selling 1,000 more iMacs (but it's still in the same order of magnitude as selling 10,000 more iPods).
But you get better market share with the iMacs, so it's win-win. And you can use the iMacs to drive other sales, so you get more money.
Make sense?