> This is a story about a shortcoming of gcc and Winelib because so many > Windows C++ developers use SEH instead of sticking to standard C++.
There are a lot of things that standard C++ does not cover: UI, Device I/O, Threading, Synchronization, Async I/O, Interprocess Communications, Virtual Memory management, Registry access, Networking, etc. For that, you must use the underlying OS features (either directly or via a library that abstracts it).
SEH is one such element. It allows you to catch "system" exceptions such as access violations. It is an OS feature that standard C++ does not address.
Quoting form the MSDN: [The] difference is that the structured exception handling model is referred to as "asynchronous" in that exceptions occur secondary to the normal flow of control. The C++ exception handling mechanism is fully "synchronous," which means that exceptions occur only when they are thrown.
A friend's computer was so badly infected with various kinds of malware that it had almost no spare cycles left for actual work.
I tried all the usual approaches, asked for help on the free PC support sites, downloaded and ran every anti-spyware that I could lay my hands on but still couldn't remove everything.
Then I removed the ineffective Norton AntiVirus from the machine and installed the free avast! 4 Home Edition. It restarted the machine, cleaned up everything, restarted again and no problems so far.
> The BSA (A == USA) position is that they want kids to acknowledge that > there's some power greater than themselves, than what they can see and feel.
> Remember to keep separate the American citizens from the American > Government(TM). The citizens are a fun-loving group, who generally like > Canadians, Europeans, Asians, and Australians very much. The latter is a sock > puppet for the corporation. > > Sadly, the people haven't been in charge for decades.
I wonder about your sig: "Sometimes AC, always CD"
"AC" is well defined in the context of slashdot.
But how do I decipher "CD"? Cross Dresser? Celiac Disease? Chemical Dependency? Cognitive Disabilities? Civil Disobedience? Carrier Detect? Claude Debussy?
by CheeseburgerBlue: >> Uh...thanks for the traffic -- I hope the spillover to my own website hasn't >> just cost be a bazillion dollars in bandwidth. I'm watching my stats go >> through the roof...so *this* is getting Slashdotted. Good thing I hosted the >> thing on BlogSpot. Mercy.
by Kehvarl > "You would prefer another target, a military target? Then, name the system! > I grow tired of asking this so it will be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?"
Funny as hell but "insightfull"??? Some mods need a clue by four.
> I'll wager my left testicle that the backlash from them breaking *every* vb app with a > service pack or security update would be so violent and sudden that it simply won't happen.
I believe it is a pretty safe wager for the near future. However, Just in case...
Disclaimer: I do not bother blocking ads on imaging-resource. They are not obtrusive and I have broadband. On the other hand, I don't bother reading either.
That said...
> If you don't like a site's ad policies, then don't use the site.
Unfortunately, Dave, it does not quite work this way.
> Bottom line, if you use something of value that costs somebody else something to create and maintain, you ought to pay for it.
Not necessarily.
Cases in point: free software (both the GPL/BSD/etc. variety and plain old freeware).
If you want me to "pay" for browsing your site, you should clearly state the requirement *upfront*. Otherwise, I am free to access the *public* parts of the internet (including what you put there) in any way that fits me, even running a filter that replaces every third word with "encephalogram" if I so desire.
If you object, you should limit the public access to your content. Draft a EULA, find a technological solution, go to a subsciption model if you must.
> but subscription-based sites generally haven't done well on the web
Ah, so there are unsuccessful business models ot there. Perhaps ad-revenue is one of them?
> If sites aren't supported by one of these three sources of income, they stop existing.
Not necessarily. And even if they did, what of it? Supply and demand, I say. If a site cannot support itself using a *viable* source of income, then why should it?
I appreciate the the time and effort you put into imaging-resource. I may even be persuaded to pay for your content (depending on the actual terms and rates) but I did not accept any *implied* obligation to pay with my time or with my annoyance.
> What do you do when you come across a hotel that you think charges too much for its rooms? > Stay there anyway, and then write them a bad check?
The hotel informs me in advance what is the price of their services. In writing. They also expect my signature to indicate my agreement to their terms *before* I am given the keys.
However, the decision whether to tip the hotel workers is purely at my discretion.
If I am forced to click a "I agree not to block the ads" button whenever I enter your site then I may or may not continue to visit it. But since you do not advertise this pre-requisite, I am not bound by it.
> If popunders or other forms of advertising just flat-out stop working, > then I and other site publishers will have to find some other way to support our businesses. > Or go out of business and find something else to do with our time.
Assume that this time is now.
> If you don't like it, find another site...
Draw an analogue with commercial radio.
I do not pay for it. I *do* change station whever they cut to commercials. I *don't* hear them complaining.
> How is this different from the RIAA going after its infringers? > In both cases, they're intellectual property violations.
Not even close, although it will take a bit to explain.
First, "Intellectual Property" is an oxymoron, a term used by those that wish to to make copyright, patent and trademark laws even more restrictive, for the purpose of drawing analogues between ideas and physical property and advocate ownership of ideas that would somehow make thought and expression restrictions palatable.
However, there are fundamental differences between these concepts. I could repeat the common scarcity and exclusivity arguments but instead I'll remind you that when your ancestors sat in their caves around the fire, eating barely cooked wooly mammoth meat - stories, songs and ideas how to make better hunting or farming tools were shared freely but not necessarily the actual tools.
When copyright and patent protection were devised, the purpose was to benefit society, by granting limited monopolies to allow the creators to recoup their investment before releasing the works into the public domain.
Unfortunately, laws can be bought and original intent can be circumvented (does a protection term of >100 years benefit society? how?). Therefore, one should not confuse legality with morality (this is actually not a new concept; read Sophocles for an example).
So here's the beef:
**AA and their ilk purchased legislation that allows them to rob society of what should rightfully belong to the public. Their excercising their rights under that legislation is legal, but not necessarily moral.
The GPL, on the other hand, is an effort to use the only legal means available to keep free things free. The law is imperfect but no other alternative exists.
I'll try to give an example from the physical world but it may not be perfect since, as I said above, the dynamics are different.
Say I am an artist, I paint pretty decent art and I want as many people as possible to appreciate and enjoy it. So I take all my art, put it in the town square and invite people to freely take some. However, what would stop a person from grabbing all of it, locking it in his basement and charging people who want to view it?
Enter the GPL. It says in simple words that, under the present laws, you don't have any right to distribute the work. However, you can have this right, gratis, if you agree not to abuse it.
The iRiver flash models seem excellent, especially with the long battery life by virtue of using AA batteries.
However, they lack one feature that I consider important - the ability to plug into a USB port without a mandatory cable. In effect, I'd like the MP3 player to double as a USB key, something that the Creative Muvo TX FM or the MPIO FY400 can do (unfortunately, these players take a AAA battery).
The closest I found so far is the Samsung YP-MT6Z, which comes with a short USB attachment that can be used instead of the cable.
Having SD card expandability (a la Diva Gem) is also a nice-to-have feature.
If I can find a flash player that, in addition to being a good player, has Long battery life (AA battery), USB 2.0 High Speed interface (doesn't need a cable) and an SD slot, I will no longer need a USB key or a card reader (for the digicam).
> it has been observed that any evolutionary process (including technology) > will progress exponentially as it builds on past progress, with barely > perceptable slow-down/speed-up "S-curves" as paradigm shifts occur. (emphasis mine)
That is, until the exponential strenghening "Intellectual Property" laws and exponential hoarding of said "IP" will make building on past progress unfeasible (if not impossible).
> What congress needs to learn--and what they'll never admit--is that > congressional elected officials are (a) not a serious terrorist target, and > (b) completely and absolutely expendable.
What they need to learn is that they were elected to serve their constituents, not the other way around.
> We may even be better off if we were to wipe them out and start over.
Slashdot Mirror
> Gamecube. PS2. Xbox.
> I own them all.
> So which category do I fall into?
People with way too much free time?
> Personally, I don't want a combined pda, phone, camera and mp3-player
> since all such devices seem to be bad at everything they do.
I would tend to partially agree, as you cannot fit a high quality lens or a decent-sized screen on a small call phone.
However, I think that a marriage of a cell phone, MP3 player and FM radio can be a good thing, especially if it is expandable with memory cards.
> This is a story about a shortcoming of gcc and Winelib because so many
> Windows C++ developers use SEH instead of sticking to standard C++.
There are a lot of things that standard C++ does not cover:
UI, Device I/O, Threading, Synchronization, Async I/O, Interprocess Communications, Virtual Memory management, Registry access, Networking, etc.
For that, you must use the underlying OS features (either directly or via a library that abstracts it).
SEH is one such element. It allows you to catch "system" exceptions such as access violations. It is an OS feature that standard C++ does not address.
Quoting form the MSDN:
[The] difference is that the structured exception handling model is referred to as "asynchronous" in that exceptions occur secondary to the normal flow of control. The C++ exception handling mechanism is fully "synchronous," which means that exceptions occur only when they are thrown.
> Starting with Basic, Fortran or C is just going to turn off most kids.
Logo, anyone?
> This is solid proof that Microsoft is on the side of the terrorists and
> must have their assets frozen [...]
I agree, Microsoft must have their asses frozen.
I had a similar problem.
A friend's computer was so badly infected with various kinds of malware that it had almost no spare cycles left for actual work.
I tried all the usual approaches, asked for help on the free PC support sites, downloaded and ran every anti-spyware that I could lay my hands on but still couldn't remove everything.
Then I removed the ineffective Norton AntiVirus from the machine and installed the free avast! 4 Home Edition.
It restarted the machine, cleaned up everything, restarted again and no problems so far.
> Are you normally this dense, or are you deliberately misunderstanding simple word definitions?
My guess is: both.
> The BSA (A == USA) position is that they want kids to acknowledge that
> there's some power greater than themselves, than what they can see and feel.
Does the Strong Nuclear Force count?
It is certainly a power greater than myself (it "holds the universe together"), I cannot see nor feel it and I really do believe in its existence.
> If you say "I don't believe in God," you can no longer be considered a Boy Scout
Ummm... Because once you get over the belief in some amorphous, all-powerful father-figure you are no longer a "boy" but a "man"?
Yea, that must be it.
> Well, why is plagiarism immoral?
Keep reading...
> Everyone can agree that trying to pass off someone else's idea as your own is wrong,
So far, so good...
> doesn't that imply that you have some control over how your ideas are disseminated?
Absolutely not.
Plagiarism is wrong because it is lying, not because some implied ownership.
Providing the exact name of the logical fallacy used by mosb1000 to "prove" the point is left as an excercise to the reader.
When I saw "Free MacMini!" in your sig, I thought that you were advocating the liberation of the MacMini.
Imagine my dismay when I learned that it was just a pyramid scheme advertising free-of-charge Mac Minis.
Damn you to hell, sir, now I will never feel the same about "Free Willy"...
> Remember to keep separate the American citizens from the American
> Government(TM). The citizens are a fun-loving group, who generally like
> Canadians, Europeans, Asians, and Australians very much. The latter is a sock
> puppet for the corporation.
>
> Sadly, the people haven't been in charge for decades.
Corporations don't vote.
I wonder about your sig: "Sometimes AC, always CD"
"AC" is well defined in the context of slashdot.
But how do I decipher "CD"?
Cross Dresser?
Celiac Disease?
Chemical Dependency?
Cognitive Disabilities?
Civil Disobedience?
Carrier Detect?
Claude Debussy?
by CheeseburgerBlue:
>> Uh...thanks for the traffic -- I hope the spillover to my own website hasn't
>> just cost be a bazillion dollars in bandwidth. I'm watching my stats go
>> through the roof...so *this* is getting Slashdotted. Good thing I hosted the
>> thing on BlogSpot. Mercy.
by Kehvarl
> "You would prefer another target, a military target? Then, name the system!
> I grow tired of asking this so it will be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?"
Funny as hell but "insightfull"???
Some mods need a clue by four.
> Sorry dude, but an artist is only as good as his materials
And here I thought that an artist is as good as his talent...
Or IMAP?
Bells and whistles are nice but how about adding IMAP compatibility and more configurable filtering (Sieve scripts perhaps?).
> I'll wager my left testicle that the backlash from them breaking *every* vb app with a
> service pack or security update would be so violent and sudden that it simply won't happen.
I believe it is a pretty safe wager for the near future.
However, Just in case...
Disclaimer: I do not bother blocking ads on imaging-resource. They are not obtrusive and I have broadband. On the other hand, I don't bother reading either.
That said...
> If you don't like a site's ad policies, then don't use the site.
Unfortunately, Dave, it does not quite work this way.
> Bottom line, if you use something of value that costs somebody else something to create and maintain, you ought to pay for it.
Not necessarily.
Cases in point: free software (both the GPL/BSD/etc. variety and plain old freeware).
If you want me to "pay" for browsing your site, you should clearly state the requirement *upfront*. Otherwise, I am free to access the *public* parts of the internet (including what you put there) in any way that fits me, even running a filter that replaces every third word with "encephalogram" if I so desire.
If you object, you should limit the public access to your content. Draft a EULA, find a technological solution, go to a subsciption model if you must.
> but subscription-based sites generally haven't done well on the web
Ah, so there are unsuccessful business models ot there.
Perhaps ad-revenue is one of them?
> If sites aren't supported by one of these three sources of income, they stop existing.
Not necessarily. And even if they did, what of it?
Supply and demand, I say. If a site cannot support itself using a *viable* source of income, then why should it?
I appreciate the the time and effort you put into imaging-resource. I may even be persuaded to pay for your content (depending on the actual terms and rates) but I did not accept any *implied* obligation to pay with my time or with my annoyance.
> What do you do when you come across a hotel that you think charges too much for its rooms?
> Stay there anyway, and then write them a bad check?
The hotel informs me in advance what is the price of their services. In writing. They also expect my signature to indicate my agreement to their terms *before* I am given the keys.
However, the decision whether to tip the hotel workers is purely at my discretion.
If I am forced to click a "I agree not to block the ads" button whenever I enter your site then I may or may not continue to visit it. But since you do not advertise this pre-requisite, I am not bound by it.
> If popunders or other forms of advertising just flat-out stop working,
> then I and other site publishers will have to find some other way to support our businesses.
> Or go out of business and find something else to do with our time.
Assume that this time is now.
> If you don't like it, find another site...
Draw an analogue with commercial radio.
I do not pay for it.
I *do* change station whever they cut to commercials.
I *don't* hear them complaining.
> How is this different from the RIAA going after its infringers?
> In both cases, they're intellectual property violations.
Not even close, although it will take a bit to explain.
First, "Intellectual Property" is an oxymoron, a term used by those that wish to to make copyright, patent and trademark laws even more restrictive, for the purpose of drawing analogues between ideas and physical property and advocate ownership of ideas that would somehow make thought and expression restrictions palatable.
However, there are fundamental differences between these concepts. I could repeat the common scarcity and exclusivity arguments but instead I'll remind you that when your ancestors sat in their caves around the fire, eating barely cooked wooly mammoth meat - stories, songs and ideas how to make better hunting or farming tools were shared freely but not necessarily the actual tools.
When copyright and patent protection were devised, the purpose was to benefit society, by granting limited monopolies to allow the creators to recoup their investment before releasing the works into the public domain.
Unfortunately, laws can be bought and original intent can be circumvented (does a protection term of >100 years benefit society? how?). Therefore, one should not confuse legality with morality (this is actually not a new concept; read Sophocles for an example).
So here's the beef:
**AA and their ilk purchased legislation that allows them to rob society of what should rightfully belong to the public. Their excercising their rights under that legislation is legal, but not necessarily moral.
The GPL, on the other hand, is an effort to use the only legal means available to keep free things free. The law is imperfect but no other alternative exists.
I'll try to give an example from the physical world but it may not be perfect since, as I said above, the dynamics are different.
Say I am an artist, I paint pretty decent art and I want as many people as possible to appreciate and enjoy it. So I take all my art, put it in the town square and invite people to freely take some. However, what would stop a person from grabbing all of it, locking it in his basement and charging people who want to view it?
Enter the GPL. It says in simple words that, under the present laws, you don't have any right to distribute the work. However, you can have this right, gratis, if you agree not to abuse it.
> I had an old Samsung mp3 player, and hated it. It was shoddily built.
Apparently the newer ones are better.
The iRiver flash models seem excellent, especially with the long battery life by virtue of using AA batteries.
However, they lack one feature that I consider important - the ability to plug into a USB port without a mandatory cable.
In effect, I'd like the MP3 player to double as a USB key, something that the Creative Muvo TX FM or the MPIO FY400 can do (unfortunately, these players take a AAA battery).
The closest I found so far is the Samsung YP-MT6Z, which comes with a short USB attachment that can be used instead of the cable.
Having SD card expandability (a la Diva Gem) is also a nice-to-have feature.
If I can find a flash player that, in addition to being a good player, has Long battery life (AA battery), USB 2.0 High Speed interface (doesn't need a cable) and an SD slot, I will no longer need a USB key or a card reader (for the digicam).
Unfortunately, I doubt such a beast exists.
> Think NSA
A friend of mine works at NDS (they develop smart card technology for, amonng others, DirecTV).
She told me that a part of her hiring process was a (voluntary) polygraph test.
> it has been observed that any evolutionary process (including technology)
> will progress exponentially as it builds on past progress, with barely
> perceptable slow-down/speed-up "S-curves" as paradigm shifts occur.
(emphasis mine)
That is, until the exponential strenghening "Intellectual Property" laws and exponential hoarding of said "IP" will make building on past progress unfeasible (if not impossible).
> What congress needs to learn--and what they'll never admit--is that
> congressional elected officials are (a) not a serious terrorist target, and
> (b) completely and absolutely expendable.
What they need to learn is that they were elected to serve their constituents, not the other way around.
> We may even be better off if we were to wipe them out and start over.
Good luck with that.