Re:VB is powerful but not respected
on
Lisp and Ruby
·
· Score: 1
Here nothing can beat VB
Wanna bet?
What OS are you developing on? If you only want to use MS products, VB might be ok. However, I've found VB to be a real PITA when working with databases, and VB programs tend to be much, much larger than comparable scripts in other languages.
On the other hand, you can also write very small, clean applets with Perl or Python--which work just fine on Linux, BSD *and* Windows--and you can even have a pretty GUI for the scripts if you use, for example, Zenity to create your forms (not sure if Zenity works on Windows, though--I've never tried).
Yeah, but according to a cnet.com article, Linksys trademarked the iPhone name in 1996 (I'm too lazy too look it up, or I'd post a URL--just go to cnet.com and search for iphone linksys). If that's correct, then Linksys has owned the name for three years longer than you claim Apple has been using the i* naming convention, and your argument fails.
With proper usage electrolytics will not typically fail
Perhaps this application wasn't properly designed, but as a lot of owners of DSM cars (Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser) know, the electrolytic caps in the Engine Control Unit will last ~7 years before they start leaking (Ref: http://www.tmo.com/howto/ecu1g/caps.htm). I had a '92 Talon, and discovered the problem about two years ago. I pulled the ECU from my car, popped it open, and sure enough, two of the three caps had started leaking. One of them had leaked bad enough to corrode the copper trace on the printed circuit board to the point where I had to wire wrap the leg of the cap and solder the wire further up the trace:(
I now own a '97 Talon TSi and I intend to check the ECU on it, when I get the time.
Besides which, a recompile every month or so is good for your system.
Riiiiiight. I "emerge -e world" all the time, just for the sake of it.</sarcasm> If I really had to rebuild every package on my Gentoo systems on a monthly basis, I'd still be using Slack.
Yes, after upgrading gcc, I "emerge -e system && emerge -e world" but fortunately, that's a once-in-a-while occurrence. Even then, a minor version upgrade to gcc doesn't usually *require* you to recompile world with the new version unless you want to.
Sure, everything's exploitable. But, dude--9 days of unpatched, exploitable security holes (Firefox) vs. 284 days (IE6) in 2006 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/04/162 238. Since MS claims that IE is "an integral part of the OS" do you really think any of the rest of their software is any better?
No kidding. Anyone who complains that desktop Linux is too dificult hasn't tried Knoppix or Ubuntu (for example) recently.
Case in point: I was recently installing Win2K (I despise XP for a number of reasons, none of which are relevant here) on a new, relatively high-end computer for my wife recently, and found that Windows didn't detect a good portion of her hardware (graphics card, sound card, etc.). My 2-3 year old Knoppix CD, on the other hand, had no problem detecting and setting up all of the hardware that Windows didn't recognize. A few "lspci" commands and voila! I had the information I needed to finish the Windows install. Granted, there's a little bit of "apples to oranges" here since Win2K is 6-7 years old and the Knoppix CD was only 2-3 years old, but the point I'm really trying to make is that this supposedly difficult OS automatically detected the installed hardware and set up the device drivers as appropriate without any user intervention.
Seriously, desktop Linux is *quickly* catching up to the (ahem) "user friendliness" of Windows, but in an arguably more stable and secure environment.
At an ISP where I used to work, management decided we wanted to start offering managed networks for business customers. The demark between what we managed and what was the customers' problem was a Cisco Pix router/firewall, which we supplied. One night while I was on shift, I noticed an alarm on one of our customer's networks. SSH to the Pix didn't respond, so I dialed into the OOB modem to find the Pix perpetually rebooting. I dispatched one of our field techs to investigate, and what he found suprised even this jaded sys admin:
The customer had mounted the Pix in a corner of the hottest room in the building (no AC). Unfortunately, there was a mouse problem in the building, so the customer had placed the Pix in metal box to keep the mice out. Unfortunately, while the box was very good at keeping cooling air from reaching the Pix, somehow the mice were apparently able to get in, based upon the quantity of mouse poop and urine stains covering the Pix.
While I'm not a huge fan of Cisco, they certainly deserve kudos for the fact that Pix worked *at all* IMHO.
Meh...the problem isn't the celebrities; it's all of the morons who listen to them and assume it *must* be true because Tom Cruise or Jay Leno or Merryl (sp?) Streep said so.
Theoretically at least, in the U.S. even celebrities have the right to their own opinions and the right to voice them. It is incumbent upon *us* to differentiate between the inane babble of the clueless and what is truly educated and/or wise.
I would be thrilled by such a law...but can you say "Political Action Committe?" Maybe I'm just a cynical old sourpuss, but somehow I don't think such a law would get very far in Congress:(
When you accept a security clearance to work for the government, you sign a contract stating that you will not publish details about the job you did--even after leaving employment with the government--without having it cleared first. Nothing necessarily new or heinous about this.
As I understand, it's the letter from their lawyers claiming that you are infringing upon their IP that allows MS to get what it wants most of the time. Let's face it, who can afford the better lawyers, Joe User or Microsoft? Who can better afford a protracted legal dispute with years of appeals and such?
So, no, there aren't very many lawsuits because even the *DOJ* couldn't change MS's business practices; what chance would you or I have?
Linus is choosing to allow code that restricts the rights of the users in his kernel.
Ehhhh....no.
Linus is allowing me the freedom to choose whether a binary driver or a F/OSS driver is the best tool for the job. If I am doing something that requires the higher performance and better graphics of a proprietary nvidia or ati driver, then Linus says it is ok for me, on my own machine, to use that driver. But I can't legally distribute a kernel with the binary only driver. IMHO, that's the way F/OSS is supposed to work.
I suspect that MySQL (the support company) took a look at the number of customers they had and compared that to the number of customers using various distributions, then made a business decision to offer support to the customers that made up the lion's share of their business. If they see that 90% of their customers use RHEL or Suse, then perhaps it simply cost them more money than it was worth to continue offering support for the small fraction of their (support) customers who run MySQL on Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu, etc.
IMHO, it isn't really a problem because, even though I've used MySQL personally and professionally for something like six years, I've *never* needed support on it. Let's face it, my Slack and Gentoo servers aren't "supported" either, nor is my Apache installation, my Postfix installation, my Bind installation, etc., etc., etc.--except by me, and so far, that's been good enough.
This is one/.'er who can compile a kernel, put a skin on KDE *and* do...well...something similar to what the dude in the video did, anyway:) I can't edit video, but that's because I've never tried. On the other hand, to see what the creative side of this geek can do, (shameless plug goes here) check out http://www.soundclick.com/elementop/.
So now that I've argued against the parent post:) I have to admit that I do, in fact, agree with the poster. Whether or not the guy can actually play one of his performances live, he is a musician. Like someone else commented above, his instrument of choice is his computer, and he's quite skilled with it. Creating an original composition, whether you play it, someone else plays it, or a computer plays it, is still a work of art, and it's hard. I've written a few songs, and none of them were easy. And, while I do play guitar or bass (yes, even live), I couldn't have created most of my music without a computer either, because with one exception, all of my recordings were done with a sequencer and digital multi-track recorder. IMHO, it's the creativity that goes into a work of art that counts--not whether or not you can play your composition live.
First the RIAA estranged their customers with DRM and other strong-arm tactics. Now they are trying to estrange the artists by lobbying to have royalties reduced.
Can anyone tell me what happens to an organization that puts off both the supply and the demand side of their business model?
I basically do the same thing when someone is tailgating.
Of course, there was that one time when I tried to downshift from 5th to 4th when this dude was tailgating me, but I missed and went from 5th to 2nd instead.
Oh...and I forgot one other thing: my airplane has a *really* basic instrument panel, so I don't fly it in less than ideal conditions:) Even though I'm rated to fly in instrument-weather, my airplane isn't equipped for it, so if there's any question about the weather being good enough, I stay on the ground. If I'm flying my airplane in bad weather, airliners nearby are the least of my concerns.
Not really. Airlines scoot up to 10,000+ feet as fast as they can (jet engines drink a *lot* of fuel at low altitudes). Plus, there's what's known as "Class C" airspace around most airports big enough for airliners to fly in an out of, and I have to call air traffic control to fly in Class C airspace since I don't have a transponder. What this means is I just avoid Class C airspace, since it isn't worth the hassle for me to fly there. By the time an airliner is out of this airspace, they are higher than I can fly, so the lack of a transponder is pretty much a non-issue. And, around the really busy airports like Sea-Tac, I'm prohibited from flying with 30 nautical miles, so I'm really not a factor there.
Well thats precisely what TCAS (Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System) is designed to do
That's true, but not every aircraft is equipped with the avionics necessary to make TCAS effective. I own a Falcon XP http://www.gecko-ak.org/N600LW/. It's basically a glorified two-seat ultralight registered as an amateur-built experimental aircraft, and it has no electrical system. Without an electrical system, I can't run a transponder, much less a Mode-C altitude encoder, and therefore a TCAS equipped airplane will have no idea that I am anywhere near.
Okay, so maybe I should get an electrical system, right? Problem is, there is a *really* limited supply of engines that have the proper size, weight and horsepower to work in my aircraft, and the one that is designed for my airplane (a Rotax 503--well, technically, the airplane was designed for the engine, but whatever) has a tiny generator that only has enough oomph to run the ignition. So, in short, there is no practical way of which I am aware to make my airplane visible to a UAV using TCAS. And I'm not alone--there are a number of small, light, certified airplanes like the J-3 Cub or Aircoupe that were originally certified with bona fide airplane engines that have no electrical systems. In the research I've done, the $1500+ transponder is *always* one of the cheapest parts of retrofitting these airplanes with transponders and altitude encoders.
So...unless the FAA is going to issue a notice to airmen or a temporary flight restriction (like we need more of those, but I digress), you can't guarantee separation between civil aircraft and civil UAVs in our existing airspace until either a whole buttload of existing airplanes are grounded or the UAVs are equipped with much more advanced avionics that can see and avoid airplanes like mine.
Slashdot Mirror
Wanna bet?
What OS are you developing on? If you only want to use MS products, VB might be ok. However, I've found VB to be a real PITA when working with databases, and VB programs tend to be much, much larger than comparable scripts in other languages.
On the other hand, you can also write very small, clean applets with Perl or Python--which work just fine on Linux, BSD *and* Windows--and you can even have a pretty GUI for the scripts if you use, for example, Zenity to create your forms (not sure if Zenity works on Windows, though--I've never tried).
Yeah, but according to a cnet.com article, Linksys trademarked the iPhone name in 1996 (I'm too lazy too look it up, or I'd post a URL--just go to cnet.com and search for iphone linksys). If that's correct, then Linksys has owned the name for three years longer than you claim Apple has been using the i* naming convention, and your argument fails.
And I'll bet when you were a kid, you walked to school in 10-foot-deep (3-meter-deep) snow, uphill, both ways...and you liked it, right? <grin>
I thought Linksys/Cisco trademarked the iPhone name in 1996? http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6144447.html
Did Apple license the name from Linkcisco or can we expect another IP infringement battle between corporate giants soon?
Perhaps this application wasn't properly designed, but as a lot of owners of DSM cars (Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser) know, the electrolytic caps in the Engine Control Unit will last ~7 years before they start leaking (Ref: http://www.tmo.com/howto/ecu1g/caps.htm). I had a '92 Talon, and discovered the problem about two years ago. I pulled the ECU from my car, popped it open, and sure enough, two of the three caps had started leaking. One of them had leaked bad enough to corrode the copper trace on the printed circuit board to the point where I had to wire wrap the leg of the cap and solder the wire further up the trace
I now own a '97 Talon TSi and I intend to check the ECU on it, when I get the time.
Riiiiiight. I "emerge -e world" all the time, just for the sake of it.</sarcasm> If I really had to rebuild every package on my Gentoo systems on a monthly basis, I'd still be using Slack.
Yes, after upgrading gcc, I "emerge -e system && emerge -e world" but fortunately, that's a once-in-a-while occurrence. Even then, a minor version upgrade to gcc doesn't usually *require* you to recompile world with the new version unless you want to.
African or European? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_swallow
Sure, everything's exploitable. But, dude--9 days of unpatched, exploitable security holes (Firefox) vs. 284 days (IE6) in 2006 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/04/162 238. Since MS claims that IE is "an integral part of the OS" do you really think any of the rest of their software is any better?
No kidding. Anyone who complains that desktop Linux is too dificult hasn't tried Knoppix or Ubuntu (for example) recently.
Case in point: I was recently installing Win2K (I despise XP for a number of reasons, none of which are relevant here) on a new, relatively high-end computer for my wife recently, and found that Windows didn't detect a good portion of her hardware (graphics card, sound card, etc.). My 2-3 year old Knoppix CD, on the other hand, had no problem detecting and setting up all of the hardware that Windows didn't recognize. A few "lspci" commands and voila! I had the information I needed to finish the Windows install. Granted, there's a little bit of "apples to oranges" here since Win2K is 6-7 years old and the Knoppix CD was only 2-3 years old, but the point I'm really trying to make is that this supposedly difficult OS automatically detected the installed hardware and set up the device drivers as appropriate without any user intervention.
Seriously, desktop Linux is *quickly* catching up to the (ahem) "user friendliness" of Windows, but in an arguably more stable and secure environment.
At an ISP where I used to work, management decided we wanted to start offering managed networks for business customers. The demark between what we managed and what was the customers' problem was a Cisco Pix router/firewall, which we supplied. One night while I was on shift, I noticed an alarm on one of our customer's networks. SSH to the Pix didn't respond, so I dialed into the OOB modem to find the Pix perpetually rebooting. I dispatched one of our field techs to investigate, and what he found suprised even this jaded sys admin:
The customer had mounted the Pix in a corner of the hottest room in the building (no AC). Unfortunately, there was a mouse problem in the building, so the customer had placed the Pix in metal box to keep the mice out. Unfortunately, while the box was very good at keeping cooling air from reaching the Pix, somehow the mice were apparently able to get in, based upon the quantity of mouse poop and urine stains covering the Pix.
While I'm not a huge fan of Cisco, they certainly deserve kudos for the fact that Pix worked *at all* IMHO.
Meh...the problem isn't the celebrities; it's all of the morons who listen to them and assume it *must* be true because Tom Cruise or Jay Leno or Merryl (sp?) Streep said so.
Theoretically at least, in the U.S. even celebrities have the right to their own opinions and the right to voice them. It is incumbent upon *us* to differentiate between the inane babble of the clueless and what is truly educated and/or wise.
I would be thrilled by such a law...but can you say "Political Action Committe?" Maybe I'm just a cynical old sourpuss, but somehow I don't think such a law would get very far in Congress :(
When you accept a security clearance to work for the government, you sign a contract stating that you will not publish details about the job you did--even after leaving employment with the government--without having it cleared first. Nothing necessarily new or heinous about this.
As I understand, it's the letter from their lawyers claiming that you are infringing upon their IP that allows MS to get what it wants most of the time. Let's face it, who can afford the better lawyers, Joe User or Microsoft? Who can better afford a protracted legal dispute with years of appeals and such?
So, no, there aren't very many lawsuits because even the *DOJ* couldn't change MS's business practices; what chance would you or I have?
Huh...you would think the Linux distro favored at McMurdo station would be....Gentoo ;)
Yeah, but what happens to the price per pound when you suddenly flood the supply of nickel/iron with a small asteroid you managed to drag back home?
Ehhhh....no.
Linus is allowing me the freedom to choose whether a binary driver or a F/OSS driver is the best tool for the job. If I am doing something that requires the higher performance and better graphics of a proprietary nvidia or ati driver, then Linus says it is ok for me, on my own machine, to use that driver. But I can't legally distribute a kernel with the binary only driver. IMHO, that's the way F/OSS is supposed to work.
I suspect that MySQL (the support company) took a look at the number of customers they had and compared that to the number of customers using various distributions, then made a business decision to offer support to the customers that made up the lion's share of their business. If they see that 90% of their customers use RHEL or Suse, then perhaps it simply cost them more money than it was worth to continue offering support for the small fraction of their (support) customers who run MySQL on Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu, etc.
IMHO, it isn't really a problem because, even though I've used MySQL personally and professionally for something like six years, I've *never* needed support on it. Let's face it, my Slack and Gentoo servers aren't "supported" either, nor is my Apache installation, my Postfix installation, my Bind installation, etc., etc., etc.--except by me, and so far, that's been good enough.
This is one /.'er who can compile a kernel, put a skin on KDE *and* do...well...something similar to what the dude in the video did, anyway :) I can't edit video, but that's because I've never tried. On the other hand, to see what the creative side of this geek can do, (shameless plug goes here) check out http://www.soundclick.com/elementop/.
:) I have to admit that I do, in fact, agree with the poster. Whether or not the guy can actually play one of his performances live, he is a musician. Like someone else commented above, his instrument of choice is his computer, and he's quite skilled with it. Creating an original composition, whether you play it, someone else plays it, or a computer plays it, is still a work of art, and it's hard. I've written a few songs, and none of them were easy. And, while I do play guitar or bass (yes, even live), I couldn't have created most of my music without a computer either, because with one exception, all of my recordings were done with a sequencer and digital multi-track recorder. IMHO, it's the creativity that goes into a work of art that counts--not whether or not you can play your composition live.
So now that I've argued against the parent post
First the RIAA estranged their customers with DRM and other strong-arm tactics. Now they are trying to estrange the artists by lobbying to have royalties reduced.
Can anyone tell me what happens to an organization that puts off both the supply and the demand side of their business model?
I basically do the same thing when someone is tailgating.
Of course, there was that one time when I tried to downshift from 5th to 4th when this dude was tailgating me, but I missed and went from 5th to 2nd instead.
Boy, that guy behind me sure got pissed.......
Yeah, but transplants are much easier on computers...
Oh...and I forgot one other thing: my airplane has a *really* basic instrument panel, so I don't fly it in less than ideal conditions :) Even though I'm rated to fly in instrument-weather, my airplane isn't equipped for it, so if there's any question about the weather being good enough, I stay on the ground. If I'm flying my airplane in bad weather, airliners nearby are the least of my concerns.
Not really. Airlines scoot up to 10,000+ feet as fast as they can (jet engines drink a *lot* of fuel at low altitudes). Plus, there's what's known as "Class C" airspace around most airports big enough for airliners to fly in an out of, and I have to call air traffic control to fly in Class C airspace since I don't have a transponder. What this means is I just avoid Class C airspace, since it isn't worth the hassle for me to fly there. By the time an airliner is out of this airspace, they are higher than I can fly, so the lack of a transponder is pretty much a non-issue. And, around the really busy airports like Sea-Tac, I'm prohibited from flying with 30 nautical miles, so I'm really not a factor there.
That's true, but not every aircraft is equipped with the avionics necessary to make TCAS effective. I own a Falcon XP http://www.gecko-ak.org/N600LW/. It's basically a glorified two-seat ultralight registered as an amateur-built experimental aircraft, and it has no electrical system. Without an electrical system, I can't run a transponder, much less a Mode-C altitude encoder, and therefore a TCAS equipped airplane will have no idea that I am anywhere near.
Okay, so maybe I should get an electrical system, right? Problem is, there is a *really* limited supply of engines that have the proper size, weight and horsepower to work in my aircraft, and the one that is designed for my airplane (a Rotax 503--well, technically, the airplane was designed for the engine, but whatever) has a tiny generator that only has enough oomph to run the ignition. So, in short, there is no practical way of which I am aware to make my airplane visible to a UAV using TCAS. And I'm not alone--there are a number of small, light, certified airplanes like the J-3 Cub or Aircoupe that were originally certified with bona fide airplane engines that have no electrical systems. In the research I've done, the $1500+ transponder is *always* one of the cheapest parts of retrofitting these airplanes with transponders and altitude encoders.
So...unless the FAA is going to issue a notice to airmen or a temporary flight restriction (like we need more of those, but I digress), you can't guarantee separation between civil aircraft and civil UAVs in our existing airspace until either a whole buttload of existing airplanes are grounded or the UAVs are equipped with much more advanced avionics that can see and avoid airplanes like mine.