It's a model of computation, based on the S and K combinators (as used in functional programming). It's similar in concept to the Turing machine, in that it's a basis for computation, and a model to base implementations on. The Turing machine models an imperative computational style, while combinatory logic models a style more akin to the lambda calculus.
Better to download the ISOs and send the cash direct to Mandrake (eg by joining the Mandrake Linux Users Club). That way they'll see more of the cash, as you've cut out the middleman.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms
of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source [...]
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost
of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, [...]
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code [...]
So, you don't need to distribute the source with the binary, but you do need to make it available.
The interview says "We sell one product that is GPL", but doesn't mention which product, but a bit of Googling reveals that it's Korelib, and in principle there's a uri for the source: ftp://ftp.rygannon.com/pub/Korelib/releases/koreli b-0.0.1.tar.gz, though the server is very reluctant to let anyone in. I got the message "Sorry, rygannon.com already has 6 users logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.". A bit more Googling reveals that there are RPMs and debs (libkore0) available, and I can (on my Debian box) get the source with apt-get source libkore0.
Comments in code are a good thing (especially if used properly), though not things like:
i += 1/* add one to i */
Even better than source comments, though, are proper docs; design documents are a great help in changing or using others' code.
WRT your comment about being fired, Gerald Weinberg said, in his classic "The Psychology of Computer Programming"; "If a programmer is indispensable, get rid of him [sic] as quickly as possible".
RSI and carpal tunnel syndrome aren't only caused by the physical hitting of the fingers on a hard key; the real problem is the multitude of repeated small movements that are made when typing. I don't think that cushioning the keyboard makes this better, and (IME) "spongy" keyboards are nasty to type on.
OTOH, it would be nice to be able to modify your keyboard at will.
It's hard enough to find a decent keyboard with physical keys. I imagine that typing on your kitchen table (or wherever) is going to get painful pretty quickly. Perhaps the flexibility of the keyboard and the ability to get rid of physical effort might have a positive effect, but I'd be reluctant to use a "virtual keyboard" for a lengthy period without having the ergonomics properly checked out
What would be really cool is if you had clear tubes
and a special die in the water that changed colors by temperature
The Cray 2 had a fancy see-through waterfall cooling unit, you can see a picture at Cray's site too. The cooling liquid is fluorinert, which (IIRC) is used as a substitute for human plasma in surgery. The whole circuitry is immersed in the liquid (which is non-conductive); there's non of the heatsink and radiator business that happens with watercooled CPUs.
Every now and then a used Cray turns up on Ebay, so it might be worth a look. It'd save on heating bills, and make a good conversation piece, too!
How about portability, flexibility, reliability, consistency, standards-compliance, and attitude:)
Seriously, though, GNU/Linux is still a much more standards-compliant OS (that's standards as is "open standards", not as in "the standards that we just made up") than Windows. Can you run Windows (anything) on your PowerPC? How about your ARM? Is the first thing that you see when you install Linux "convince me that you're not a thief"?
Yeah, that's what I got, and you showed your working: full marks to you!
CD drive lenses don't touch the media, by a reasonable distance, and for good reason. I've seen reports of cracked CDs fragmenting in drives and being flung in all directions; it's not nice to be hit with sharp bits of plastic moving at half the speed of sound!
Hmmm , I think that at 40x, the edge of the disk is moving at about 188 metres/second. Quite fast: about 678 thousand kmh, though my arithmetic is probably wrong somewhere. At that speed, the bit of glass in your CD reader lens is (ahem) toast...
Not that this actually applies; the disk itself would be safely tucked between rigid sheets, and the lens is (hopefully) a safe distance from the CD itself.
It might seem incredible, but in this case the government is acting on behalf of the people. Almost as if it felt that it might be accountable in some way, or as if there was some connection between the people and the government...
The purpose of personal cryptography is to hide sensitive information from anyone who you don't want to read it; not just the Government. Various EU countries want strong encryption in order to protect European companies' trade secrets from (say) large foreign governments with big eavesdropping projects (what can I mean??).
Open source software is becoming more supported by EU countries for political reasons (Government should use non-proprietary tools), social reasons (open access), quality reasons (speaks for itself), and so on. There is quite a lot of money being spent on open-source development by various EU agencies, the German government being just one example of many. Sadly the UK government is in Microsoft's pocket at the moment:(
Blindfolded installation of Debian? In my day, we had to toggle in our own operating system from the bootloader, and we thought ourselves lucky. Tell that to the youth of today, and they won't believe you...
How about just sticking out of the floppy drive? As my machine's on a network, I very rarely use the floppy drive, so it seems ideal to keep a floppy in it:)
That's a reasonable idea, but if this is for an important password, you'd probably want to make it a bit stronger (mix case, bung in some non-alphanumeric characters, that kind of thing). It's not necessarily a good idea to have a well-known way of generating your password; if it's mentioned a few times in public places (eg/.), cracking tools may well get extra features to cope with it. I wouldn't be surprised if some tools guessed things like "2bon2b" along with dictionary words.
If you go to a lot of trouble thinking up a very good password (nb: basilisk isn't good, as it's in the dictionary), it's probably not a good idea to print it in a book, especially if it's published in your own name...
One way to keep track of too-many-passwords-to-remember is to keep them in a file and use strong encryption and a healthy dose of paranoia. Changing passwords frequently would be a good idea too.
The really paranoid would use the Cryptonomicon approach; keep the passwords strongly encrypted, don't make it obvious that you're entering the password, and use something like the blinking of a status LED to report the password (to help prevent shoulder-surfing).
Even these wouldn't be entirely risk-free (see the story about modem status lights giving away secrets), but it'd be safer than having the same password for everything. Until the DNA computers can factor huge primes, that is...
Slashdot Mirror
It's a model of computation, based on the S and K combinators (as used in functional programming). It's similar in concept to the Turing machine, in that it's a basis for computation, and a model to base implementations on. The Turing machine models an imperative computational style, while combinatory logic models a style more akin to the lambda calculus.
Swap files don't change size dynamically under Linux, so using a swap file shouldn't make much difference to fragmentation.
Better to download the ISOs and send the cash direct to Mandrake (eg by joining the Mandrake Linux Users Club). That way they'll see more of the cash, as you've cut out the middleman.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source [...]
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, [...]
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code [...]
So, you don't need to distribute the source with the binary, but you do need to make it available.
The product that he's referring to is korelib
The interview says "We sell one product that is GPL", but doesn't mention which product, but a bit of Googling reveals that it's Korelib, and in principle there's a uri for the source: ftp://ftp.rygannon.com/pub/Korelib/releases/koreli b-0.0.1.tar.gz, though the server is very reluctant to let anyone in. I got the message "Sorry, rygannon.com already has 6 users logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.". A bit more Googling reveals that there are RPMs and debs (libkore0) available, and I can (on my Debian box) get the source with apt-get source libkore0.
i += 1 /* add one to i */
Even better than source comments, though, are proper docs; design documents are a great help in changing or using others' code.
WRT your comment about being fired, Gerald Weinberg said, in his classic "The Psychology of Computer Programming"; "If a programmer is indispensable, get rid of him [sic] as quickly as possible".
OTOH, it would be nice to be able to modify your keyboard at will.
It's hard enough to find a decent keyboard with physical keys. I imagine that typing on your kitchen table (or wherever) is going to get painful pretty quickly. Perhaps the flexibility of the keyboard and the ability to get rid of physical effort might have a positive effect, but I'd be reluctant to use a "virtual keyboard" for a lengthy period without having the ergonomics properly checked out
Every now and then a used Cray turns up on Ebay, so it might be worth a look. It'd save on heating bills, and make a good conversation piece, too!
In one of the discussions, a moderator claims to have had a machine run. Not for very long (yet), but it's run an iteration of Sysmark.
Seriously, though, GNU/Linux is still a much more standards-compliant OS (that's standards as is "open standards", not as in "the standards that we just made up") than Windows. Can you run Windows (anything) on your PowerPC? How about your ARM? Is the first thing that you see when you install Linux "convince me that you're not a thief"?
Ooops, so I am! What's an order of magnitude (or three) here or there....
CD drive lenses don't touch the media, by a reasonable distance, and for good reason. I've seen reports of cracked CDs fragmenting in drives and being flung in all directions; it's not nice to be hit with sharp bits of plastic moving at half the speed of sound!
Not that this actually applies; the disk itself would be safely tucked between rigid sheets, and the lens is (hopefully) a safe distance from the CD itself.
It might seem incredible, but in this case the government is acting on behalf of the people. Almost as if it felt that it might be accountable in some way, or as if there was some connection between the people and the government...
Open source software is becoming more supported by EU countries for political reasons (Government should use non-proprietary tools), social reasons (open access), quality reasons (speaks for itself), and so on. There is quite a lot of money being spent on open-source development by various EU agencies, the German government being just one example of many. Sadly the UK government is in Microsoft's pocket at the moment :(
Blindfolded installation of Debian? In my day, we had to toggle in our own operating system from the bootloader, and we thought ourselves lucky. Tell that to the youth of today, and they won't believe you...
How about just sticking out of the floppy drive? As my machine's on a network, I very rarely use the floppy drive, so it seems ideal to keep a floppy in it :)
If you think that my French is bad, wait till you hear my Italian...
There are some interesting links at Matt's Unix Security Page, particularly a paper by Daniel Klein on how password crackers could work, though it's bit dated now.
If you go to a lot of trouble thinking up a very good password (nb: basilisk isn't good, as it's in the dictionary), it's probably not a good idea to print it in a book, especially if it's published in your own name...
The really paranoid would use the Cryptonomicon approach; keep the passwords strongly encrypted, don't make it obvious that you're entering the password, and use something like the blinking of a status LED to report the password (to help prevent shoulder-surfing).
Even these wouldn't be entirely risk-free (see the story about modem status lights giving away secrets), but it'd be safer than having the same password for everything. Until the DNA computers can factor huge primes, that is...