I like first person shooters, but I never got into the Urban theme. Seems the Space theme is dead too. And WWII/Vietnam style has been soo over done. Is there nothing new?
"...its easy to detect that many of the criticisms don't stem from any virtuous concerns but are the mutterings of people with a seething nature more sympathetic to criminal elements they share an identity with..."
That is the argument. You are either with us or against us. Black or white.
My world is more about color than that. It's easy for me to see how a seemingly "protective" program becomes one about Government control. No I don't want terrorist to rule my life - nor do I want the Government to be in a position to quiet decent, spy on political opponents, or dictate what is appropriate behavior.
These new programs that have been in-acted by this administration go beyond hunting for Muslim Extremist-Terrorist. These programs are being used to monitor and attack far-left domestic extremest as well (such as ELF). No these are not a "good bunch of guys" - but where is the line. Will the spying be used to stop "right-wing nut jobs" as well? Or is it going to be used to "quiet" those who speak out against war-profiteering?
It's a nice thought that we can be cozy and secure. But I would rather have a government that is kept in check so that a Vice President who has a cozy relationship with a government contractor can not get away with disclosing a CIA operatives in a retaliatory move against someone who speaks out against White House policy.
So far the record has been pretty clear - those who have spoken out against the governments motives for going to war have been right - despite being branded as "un-patriotic" or "anti-American". This administration has proved time and time again that it can not be trusted to do the right thing as the sole-source of secret intelligence.
My observation on the software industry is that when an idea is floated around enough (distributed programming) a software engineer will develop a protocol and then programmers will start to use it and then designers start to incorporate it. Then the designers will start to demand the functionality plus some enhancements and then the programmers will change/re-create/enhance/copy/simplify the protocol.
That's how we go from CORBA to SOAP to REST and back to "SOAP-like". The original protocols are created in a time when it takes a lot of for-sight to guess what will be needed because there are so few apps that demand it. As programmers start to identify what can be done with the protocol, designers start to require enhancements that the original protocol was never designed to handle and ignore a great deal of what it was meant to handle. The programmers start to hack the protocol, maybe creating a new one in the process.
When designers can grasp the functionality, or better yet, demand new features, the protocol becomes App-driven rather than engineer-driven. This tends to limit the extensibility, but greatly simplifies the protocol which leads to further adoption.
The reason why CORBA is "dead" (with the exception of legacy code and legacy programmers) is that it was an early protocol that was engineer driven and relatively complex. Contrast that with REST (which gets a lot of play as a web service thanks designer driven protocols like AJAX) which is such a basic inherent part of web application development that it barely deserves a name of its own.
The theory that "ultra-clean environments leads to more allergies" doesn't explain the rise in food allergies. While it may be true that someone who has never been exposed to environmental pollutants may have a harder time with them as an adult than those who grew up exposed to them, it is also true that those born with peanut allergies will die if exposed at any point in their life to high levels of peanut oil. The same can happen with soy, milk, eggs, shell fish (which can actually get worse the more you're exposed to it) etc.
It's also true that unusually high levels of man-made pollutants will make your immune system weaker - not stronger - the more you're exposed (though it would be interesting to be able to track populations over time - but that debate can be saved for an evolution article)
Who else gets paid to play or do their hobby? Who else will spend hours creating a program to scrape data from websites so they don't have to do any data-entry/manual labor?
Who else "scripts" their job away so they can spend more time "playing" with the technology they really want to learn?
Programmers are by their very nature lazy. It's the only profession that would allow you to do nothing more than write 20 lines of code a day and still be considered "productive". And yet it's the only profession where you can write 20 lines of code to write 20 lines of code... so even though *your* productivity stays constant, your output multiplies.
If your example was reality someone would have made an installer that simply recognized code and auto-compile-auto-executes it. Why? Because no one (unless that's your *thing*) wants to compile, figure out the dependency issues, and then install.
The convenience, which the typical command-line-freaks would ridicule because of the *safety issues* and *sissy issues* (and they'd be right), is what would bring the computers into the mainstream - as Apple/MS have done.
Great example of this are the.hta files that were such a huge pain in the ass (virus/spyware wise) because they would come across in email and auto-install - and.hta files are *just textual code*. They don't even need to be compiled.
The bottom line is that convenience is a security risk. The problem is that everyone has a different tolerance level. Some have more tolerance for making computers "do stuff" (more manual interaction) and some have more tolerance for putting up with spyware/spam/viruses.
Look at the film/freeze frames again. The plane was already on the ground when it enters the frame from the right side. The white bit that *looks* like a plane is just smoke (it's much more obvious in the frames after hitting the building - as it looks like a contrail). The smoke is either from hitting the ground or early and bouncing, and/or the plane was already on fire, probably from hitting the several of the parking lot light polls that were taken out. You can make out (in freeze frames) the planes verticle stabelizer just above the mechanical arm leading the white smoke
I don't know where you got the idea the plane was "flying around at 5-10ft above the ground" - it was 25-30ft above the ground when it started hitting light polls and that was as it started leveling out of a dive. It wasn't a direct-hit - the plane was already on the ground when it slammed into the building (hense the trail of smoke leading out into the parking lot).
I've been thinking the same thing. This video is the *only* video of the Pentagon getting hit and it's been *out there* for quite some time (since hours after the attack).
Regarding the nay-sayers - Nay-say to the victims family - I'm sure they'll be reassured that their loved ones did not die in the Pentagon crash. Nay-say to the eye-witnesses who watch their cars get smashed by light polls.
Regarding the "white blob" - that's smoke. The plane's tail is visible just over the automatic arm and in front (to the left) of the white *smoke*. The plane hit the ground or started to smoke due to hitting light poles prior to hitting the side of the Pentagon. At 300+ mph it really doesn't matter - it's going to do damage (and did) even if it wasn't a direct hit.
I think you've nailed it. I run Redhat 8 on my "basement computer" and my typical usage goes like this.
"Surf, surf, surf.... gee it would be nice be using Firefox.....getFirefoxnow...unzip, untar, run.... ah.. damn - it needs some graphics lib installed... Hunt for necessary graphics lib... rpm doesn't seem to want to install it... damn...Look at the time - I'll worry about this next time I come down here...."
And so my home Linux usage is very unsatifiying.
I can image the replies to this: Well you should use 'blah blah'... followed by 'any idiot can download and install 'blah blah'... followed by 'you're a damn fool - you should be using 'something completey different' try this link".
Mean while the productive solution is to truck back upstairs and use Firefox on XP.
I've used Linux off and on for years - and I love it in our office server environment. But frankly I'm going to use what ever is going to let me be most productive - and so far staying on top of which distro to use, which library to install, which latest gnuTool to setup - is not helping me do anything productive.
-CF
Not whining. I have never applied. I do know people who have been rejected by Google because of GPA, regardless of work experience. (She was actually head-hunted by Google for the interview i.e. she didn't apply to work there).
And yeah I was lazy in school, and my GPA shows that. 12 years later I am a seasoned software developer and my GPA has nothing to do with who I am, my measure of productivity, or my ability to problem solve.
Who am I to knock Google for their elitism? It's obviously working for them. I suspect it will bite them in the end however.
As to the relation of the article, it was meant to address the "Keep the Bozos out" comment.
-CF
I Would Never Work For Google.....
Not because I don't want to, but because Google would never let me in the door. Despite 12 years of Software Development experience, they still require a high GPA which I can never modify/rectify no matter how many life corners I may turn. Let that be a lesson to the new CS students.
It's too bad too. I am your typical Make Magazine fanatic who brings "outside the box" thinking to his job. Always looking to do more than the initial requirments when appropriate, always looking to add that little extra bit of "wow", always looking to make life easier for the end user. My current boss loves it, and at least he'll feel safe knowing that Google will never steal me away.
-CF
Bill Gates, whether you believe he is the anti-Christ or otherwise, has tremendous vision. No not technical vision - business vision. His goal was "A computer on every desktop" - and low and behold - here we are with a computer (or two or three) on(under, over) just about every desktop(laptop, palmtop) running one version of MS-Windows or another.
It was his *arrogance* that lead to the current state we are in. Not in spite of it.
The point being that arrogance by itself is not preventing Linux from enjoying wide spread adoptance. It IS vision that has stiffled the wide ranging exceptance.
It is interesting that Linux has been able to really dominate the Web Server (and in many shops *Servers) and also has been able to conqure much of the imbedded world. Why is that? Because the those users are technically more adapt at picking the right OS for the job.
Bill Gates vision has always been to target the lay person. Maybe a manager, maybe a teacher, maybe a construction worker - never assuming that they were computer savy. (Jobs had the same vision in terms of target, but not in terms of world domination. Jobs' vision was to create a brand that was synomsis with great design - which is what Apple is - along with price tags to match (at least traditionally) - and his assumption is that "if you design it (right) they will come" - and many do). Gates vision was not to get hung up on the design - just make it "good enough" - and figure out how to force people to use MS-Windows on their desktop. Competitor attracting a sizeable market? - copy them - buy them - assimilate them. It's all about his vision.
But arrogance can certainly keep a technology down. Look at Perl - it's received wide-ranging adoption in the *nix world - especially for web-based scripting. Without a doubt that camp is the most arrogant in the history of computing. Where are they now? Being surpassed by PHP and MS-* despite being the de-facto web application language for so long. The PHP and MS* communities are just friendlier and the vision is to make those languages friendly, easy to use, and widely adopted. The Perl philosophy is that you should use it "because it's cool damn it" - but there is not concerted effort to bring it to wider audience - and therefore will not enjoy a wider audience.
-CF
COX Communications here on the East Coast states very clearly that you can not run a server on your home internet connection. I actually don't have a problem with this for several reason. First they were up front about it. Second, it only costs me about $10/month to run a website with virtually unlimited bandwidth/storage on a thrid-party webfarm. I don't like that they block port 25 (SMTP), but I undstand why they do - and since they offer their own SMTP server it's not that big of a hassel.
Yes the service is throttled (sending is much slower than receiving) - but that is standard internet business. Given my ration of download-vs-upload, I'd gladdly sacrifice my upload bandwidth for more download bandwidth.
I'm perplexed to as to why Teloco's feel that need to muck around with a "tiered" Internet. It's already "tiered" based on how much data one wishes to push/pull.
-CF
Firefox
Thunderbird
PHPEdit
Tortise CVS
It's what I use 90% of the time. Yeah I know that firefox/thunderbird are cross-platform, but the install of those apps are night-and-day between WinXP and Linux.
Last night I tried installing Firefox on Redhat - it came up with all sorts of issues and since I was in no mood I let it go and stuck with what I had. It was not a download and go installation.
On WinXP it simply click to install and at most a couple of clicks to accept defaults. I assume OSX is similar.
What are the must have apps on OSX? The ones that don't exist for XP, or are night and day in their usability?
-CF
Send all new systems with a 256M USB thumb drive with Linux installed on it. Set the BIOS settings to boot from USB port.
MS doesn't get to collect licenese fee.
End user gets a cheap USB thumb drive that is bootable and easily used for other purposes.
End user gets a throw-away OS that costs them nothing.
End user doesn't get a polluted HD.
MS forces makers to promote alternative OSs
Done.
-CF
Most likely you're going to recommend the language you are most comfortable with. Once you start thinking in a language, it quickly becomes the best choice for a multitude of problems. As long as you follow basic programming constructs you are going to be able to make most languages solve most problems.
Those that are really good at slapping other's people code together - what I call the *glue masters* may have little computer science background but will be able to accomplish an incredible amount of stuff in Ruby on Rails. Those that love loosely typed functional languages will love PHP. Those that love full-featured programming environments will do well in VB. Those that enjoy bit-twiddling will find C second nature. Those who love microcontrollers are likely learn to love assembly.
I would never recommend to a beginner to pick up VB if their focus platform is going to be a PIC. I would never recommend to someone who is planning on doing a lot of web development to pick up a book on assembly for the Z-80.
If you ask "What is the best language for beginner programmers?"
I would ask "To Begin programming what?"
-CF
"...
The first extra-solar planets were detected by noticing that the stars they orbited wobbled slightly. No one actually saw the planets, they just came to the conclusion that the wobble was caused by a massive body rotating the star./i>...."
There is no problem using the deduction that you outlined. There is no problem listing evidence that supports your hypothesis as you did. There is no problem standing by your hypothesis while no other evidence is introduced to contradict it. And while it may be very reasonable to assume that your hypothesis is correct, you don't know that it is until you have direct observable proof.
The stated hypothesis that the wobble in you example was caused by a planet was not the end of the story. It took scientist many, many years of observations and improvements in technology before they were able to say with certainty that the wobble was indeed a planet. No doubt that many - especially the layman-press, stated it as fact early in the discovery of the anomaly - lots of people wanted to believe that there are planets outside our solar system (myself included). But it's not the belief that makes it right, nor the "no other explanation", nor the amount of hard work that went into the discoveries. What makes it right is compounding evidence as our technologies improved to the point that we now have direct visual evidence on a limited number of the previously discovered "potential" extra-solar system planets.
Back on topic,
I'm not saying that the existence of dark matter is bunk. What I am saying is that process of elimination does not give you a proof or "therefore".
For the reasons why dark matter must exist; some reasons are straight forward, some are more round-about-observations. The easiest one is from galaxies rotating too fast. The fact that they stay together means something is holding them together. Since we don't observe anything like a giant rope or hand of God holding our sun in place, the only logical explanation is gravity. Since we can't see enough matter to make this much gravity, it must be dark.
Explain to me how this is not like ID? Your argument is identical to the ID argument which relies on lack of evidence to "prove" a belief.
I have no problem with scientist who use dark matter/energy in equations and other theory, or who has a "really strong hunch" that it's there and strives to find it. But I do have a problem with anyone who states that it is there because we "can't find any other explanation". That is the fatal leap from science to belief that I've been fighting the creationist on for years.
When you have no evidence you only have a hypothesis - or worse - a WAG. Lack of evidence is never-ever evidence.
No one is ever "right" - you're only not found to be wrong.
-CF
This is exactly my thought. With SBC threatening to charge Google for access to customers - while also charging customers for access to the net and therefor Google, this is exactly the kind of thing that Google needs to be doing to protect themeself.
So should we. Screw the telco - community networks of wireless boxes that guarantee end to end unfettered service I believe is the way to go. American's are too passive in their willingness to pay monthly *service* fees on things like cable, telephone, cell, virus protection, fire walling, financial software, etc....
We've got the power - or you can get it easily for $25 (a simple WAP) - why aren't we building connections that don't touch the telcos network?
What's wrong with having a moderator? Personally I think given the number of problems with certain highly-active and controversial topics a moderator would be appropriate. While it takes away from some of the "instant updates" it would prevent abuse. Maybe instead of notifying previous authors of updates after an edit, they can be notified prior to the edit being posted.
-CF
Slashdot Mirror
I like first person shooters, but I never got into the Urban theme. Seems the Space theme is dead too. And WWII/Vietnam style has been soo over done. Is there nothing new?
-CF
I know I'm a little dense, but where would the lubricant evaporate to?
I mean the HDs built today are sealed to prevent dust and moisture from coming in. wouldn't it also prevent moisture from leaving?
If the lubricant condenses to the lid, it would seem there would be a way to capture and recycle it. You shouldn't have to run out.
Better yet let it run in a lubricant bath - then you avoid evaporation and application of it all together.
-CF
"...its easy to detect that many of the criticisms don't stem from any virtuous concerns but are the mutterings of people with a seething nature more sympathetic to criminal elements they share an identity with..."
That is the argument. You are either with us or against us. Black or white.
My world is more about color than that. It's easy for me to see how a seemingly "protective" program becomes one about Government control. No I don't want terrorist to rule my life - nor do I want the Government to be in a position to quiet decent, spy on political opponents, or dictate what is appropriate behavior.
These new programs that have been in-acted by this administration go beyond hunting for Muslim Extremist-Terrorist. These programs are being used to monitor and attack far-left domestic extremest as well (such as ELF). No these are not a "good bunch of guys" - but where is the line. Will the spying be used to stop "right-wing nut jobs" as well? Or is it going to be used to "quiet" those who speak out against war-profiteering?
It's a nice thought that we can be cozy and secure. But I would rather have a government that is kept in check so that a Vice President who has a cozy relationship with a government contractor can not get away with disclosing a CIA operatives in a retaliatory move against someone who speaks out against White House policy.
So far the record has been pretty clear - those who have spoken out against the governments motives for going to war have been right - despite being branded as "un-patriotic" or "anti-American". This administration has proved time and time again that it can not be trusted to do the right thing as the sole-source of secret intelligence.
-CF
My observation on the software industry is that when an idea is floated around enough (distributed programming) a software engineer will develop a protocol and then programmers will start to use it and then designers start to incorporate it. Then the designers will start to demand the functionality plus some enhancements and then the programmers will change/re-create/enhance/copy/simplify the protocol.
That's how we go from CORBA to SOAP to REST and back to "SOAP-like". The original protocols are created in a time when it takes a lot of for-sight to guess what will be needed because there are so few apps that demand it. As programmers start to identify what can be done with the protocol, designers start to require enhancements that the original protocol was never designed to handle and ignore a great deal of what it was meant to handle. The programmers start to hack the protocol, maybe creating a new one in the process.
When designers can grasp the functionality, or better yet, demand new features, the protocol becomes App-driven rather than engineer-driven. This tends to limit the extensibility, but greatly simplifies the protocol which leads to further adoption.
The reason why CORBA is "dead" (with the exception of legacy code and legacy programmers) is that it was an early protocol that was engineer driven and relatively complex. Contrast that with REST (which gets a lot of play as a web service thanks designer driven protocols like AJAX) which is such a basic inherent part of web application development that it barely deserves a name of its own.
-CF
The theory that "ultra-clean environments leads to more allergies" doesn't explain the rise in food allergies. While it may be true that someone who has never been exposed to environmental pollutants may have a harder time with them as an adult than those who grew up exposed to them, it is also true that those born with peanut allergies will die if exposed at any point in their life to high levels of peanut oil. The same can happen with soy, milk, eggs, shell fish (which can actually get worse the more you're exposed to it) etc.
It's also true that unusually high levels of man-made pollutants will make your immune system weaker - not stronger - the more you're exposed (though it would be interesting to be able to track populations over time - but that debate can be saved for an evolution article)
-CF
Who else gets paid to play or do their hobby? Who else will spend hours creating a program to scrape data from websites so they don't have to do any data-entry/manual labor?
Who else "scripts" their job away so they can spend more time "playing" with the technology they really want to learn?
Programmers are by their very nature lazy. It's the only profession that would allow you to do nothing more than write 20 lines of code a day and still be considered "productive". And yet it's the only profession where you can write 20 lines of code to write 20 lines of code... so even though *your* productivity stays constant, your output multiplies.
I love it.
-CF
If your example was reality someone would have made an installer that simply recognized code and auto-compile-auto-executes it. Why? Because no one (unless that's your *thing*) wants to compile, figure out the dependency issues, and then install.
.hta files that were such a huge pain in the ass (virus/spyware wise) because they would come across in email and auto-install - and .hta files are *just textual code*. They don't even need to be compiled.
The convenience, which the typical command-line-freaks would ridicule because of the *safety issues* and *sissy issues* (and they'd be right), is what would bring the computers into the mainstream - as Apple/MS have done.
Great example of this are the
The bottom line is that convenience is a security risk. The problem is that everyone has a different tolerance level. Some have more tolerance for making computers "do stuff" (more manual interaction) and some have more tolerance for putting up with spyware/spam/viruses.
-CF
It's not so much "Darwin was wrong" as much as "Survival of the Fitest" is misleading.
I like to call it "Non-survival of the least fit". The subtle difference is that you don't have to be the best - you just can't be the worst.
Or as the common joke goes - I don't have to run faster than the bear - I just have to run faster than you (or whoever the slowest guy is).
-CF
Look at the film/freeze frames again. The plane was already on the ground when it enters the frame from the right side. The white bit that *looks* like a plane is just smoke (it's much more obvious in the frames after hitting the building - as it looks like a contrail). The smoke is either from hitting the ground or early and bouncing, and/or the plane was already on fire, probably from hitting the several of the parking lot light polls that were taken out. You can make out (in freeze frames) the planes verticle stabelizer just above the mechanical arm leading the white smoke
I don't know where you got the idea the plane was "flying around at 5-10ft above the ground" - it was 25-30ft above the ground when it started hitting light polls and that was as it started leveling out of a dive. It wasn't a direct-hit - the plane was already on the ground when it slammed into the building (hense the trail of smoke leading out into the parking lot).
-CF
I've been thinking the same thing. This video is the *only* video of the Pentagon getting hit and it's been *out there* for quite some time (since hours after the attack).
Regarding the nay-sayers - Nay-say to the victims family - I'm sure they'll be reassured that their loved ones did not die in the Pentagon crash. Nay-say to the eye-witnesses who watch their cars get smashed by light polls.
Regarding the "white blob" - that's smoke. The plane's tail is visible just over the automatic arm and in front (to the left) of the white *smoke*. The plane hit the ground or started to smoke due to hitting light poles prior to hitting the side of the Pentagon. At 300+ mph it really doesn't matter - it's going to do damage (and did) even if it wasn't a direct hit.
-CF
I think you've nailed it. I run Redhat 8 on my "basement computer" and my typical usage goes like this. "Surf, surf, surf.... gee it would be nice be using Firefox.....getFirefoxnow...unzip, untar, run.... ah.. damn - it needs some graphics lib installed... Hunt for necessary graphics lib... rpm doesn't seem to want to install it... damn...Look at the time - I'll worry about this next time I come down here...." And so my home Linux usage is very unsatifiying. I can image the replies to this: Well you should use 'blah blah'... followed by 'any idiot can download and install 'blah blah'... followed by 'you're a damn fool - you should be using 'something completey different' try this link". Mean while the productive solution is to truck back upstairs and use Firefox on XP. I've used Linux off and on for years - and I love it in our office server environment. But frankly I'm going to use what ever is going to let me be most productive - and so far staying on top of which distro to use, which library to install, which latest gnuTool to setup - is not helping me do anything productive. -CF
That's usually when I give up and turn the TV off for a week. -CF
Not whining. I have never applied. I do know people who have been rejected by Google because of GPA, regardless of work experience. (She was actually head-hunted by Google for the interview i.e. she didn't apply to work there). And yeah I was lazy in school, and my GPA shows that. 12 years later I am a seasoned software developer and my GPA has nothing to do with who I am, my measure of productivity, or my ability to problem solve. Who am I to knock Google for their elitism? It's obviously working for them. I suspect it will bite them in the end however. As to the relation of the article, it was meant to address the "Keep the Bozos out" comment. -CF
I Would Never Work For Google..... Not because I don't want to, but because Google would never let me in the door. Despite 12 years of Software Development experience, they still require a high GPA which I can never modify/rectify no matter how many life corners I may turn. Let that be a lesson to the new CS students. It's too bad too. I am your typical Make Magazine fanatic who brings "outside the box" thinking to his job. Always looking to do more than the initial requirments when appropriate, always looking to add that little extra bit of "wow", always looking to make life easier for the end user. My current boss loves it, and at least he'll feel safe knowing that Google will never steal me away. -CF
Bill Gates, whether you believe he is the anti-Christ or otherwise, has tremendous vision. No not technical vision - business vision. His goal was "A computer on every desktop" - and low and behold - here we are with a computer (or two or three) on(under, over) just about every desktop(laptop, palmtop) running one version of MS-Windows or another. It was his *arrogance* that lead to the current state we are in. Not in spite of it. The point being that arrogance by itself is not preventing Linux from enjoying wide spread adoptance. It IS vision that has stiffled the wide ranging exceptance. It is interesting that Linux has been able to really dominate the Web Server (and in many shops *Servers) and also has been able to conqure much of the imbedded world. Why is that? Because the those users are technically more adapt at picking the right OS for the job. Bill Gates vision has always been to target the lay person. Maybe a manager, maybe a teacher, maybe a construction worker - never assuming that they were computer savy. (Jobs had the same vision in terms of target, but not in terms of world domination. Jobs' vision was to create a brand that was synomsis with great design - which is what Apple is - along with price tags to match (at least traditionally) - and his assumption is that "if you design it (right) they will come" - and many do). Gates vision was not to get hung up on the design - just make it "good enough" - and figure out how to force people to use MS-Windows on their desktop. Competitor attracting a sizeable market? - copy them - buy them - assimilate them. It's all about his vision. But arrogance can certainly keep a technology down. Look at Perl - it's received wide-ranging adoption in the *nix world - especially for web-based scripting. Without a doubt that camp is the most arrogant in the history of computing. Where are they now? Being surpassed by PHP and MS-* despite being the de-facto web application language for so long. The PHP and MS* communities are just friendlier and the vision is to make those languages friendly, easy to use, and widely adopted. The Perl philosophy is that you should use it "because it's cool damn it" - but there is not concerted effort to bring it to wider audience - and therefore will not enjoy a wider audience. -CF
COX Communications here on the East Coast states very clearly that you can not run a server on your home internet connection. I actually don't have a problem with this for several reason. First they were up front about it. Second, it only costs me about $10/month to run a website with virtually unlimited bandwidth/storage on a thrid-party webfarm. I don't like that they block port 25 (SMTP), but I undstand why they do - and since they offer their own SMTP server it's not that big of a hassel. Yes the service is throttled (sending is much slower than receiving) - but that is standard internet business. Given my ration of download-vs-upload, I'd gladdly sacrifice my upload bandwidth for more download bandwidth. I'm perplexed to as to why Teloco's feel that need to muck around with a "tiered" Internet. It's already "tiered" based on how much data one wishes to push/pull. -CF
You don't have to wait for OLED to be widely available. You can experiment with them now: http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/nanolab/oLED/index.htm l
-CF
Firefox Thunderbird PHPEdit Tortise CVS It's what I use 90% of the time. Yeah I know that firefox/thunderbird are cross-platform, but the install of those apps are night-and-day between WinXP and Linux. Last night I tried installing Firefox on Redhat - it came up with all sorts of issues and since I was in no mood I let it go and stuck with what I had. It was not a download and go installation. On WinXP it simply click to install and at most a couple of clicks to accept defaults. I assume OSX is similar. What are the must have apps on OSX? The ones that don't exist for XP, or are night and day in their usability? -CF
Send all new systems with a 256M USB thumb drive with Linux installed on it. Set the BIOS settings to boot from USB port. MS doesn't get to collect licenese fee. End user gets a cheap USB thumb drive that is bootable and easily used for other purposes. End user gets a throw-away OS that costs them nothing. End user doesn't get a polluted HD. MS forces makers to promote alternative OSs Done. -CF
Most likely you're going to recommend the language you are most comfortable with. Once you start thinking in a language, it quickly becomes the best choice for a multitude of problems. As long as you follow basic programming constructs you are going to be able to make most languages solve most problems. Those that are really good at slapping other's people code together - what I call the *glue masters* may have little computer science background but will be able to accomplish an incredible amount of stuff in Ruby on Rails. Those that love loosely typed functional languages will love PHP. Those that love full-featured programming environments will do well in VB. Those that enjoy bit-twiddling will find C second nature. Those who love microcontrollers are likely learn to love assembly. I would never recommend to a beginner to pick up VB if their focus platform is going to be a PIC. I would never recommend to someone who is planning on doing a lot of web development to pick up a book on assembly for the Z-80. If you ask "What is the best language for beginner programmers?" I would ask "To Begin programming what?" -CF
That's when the Unix timestamp rolls over. -CF
"... The first extra-solar planets were detected by noticing that the stars they orbited wobbled slightly. No one actually saw the planets, they just came to the conclusion that the wobble was caused by a massive body rotating the star./i>...." There is no problem using the deduction that you outlined. There is no problem listing evidence that supports your hypothesis as you did. There is no problem standing by your hypothesis while no other evidence is introduced to contradict it. And while it may be very reasonable to assume that your hypothesis is correct, you don't know that it is until you have direct observable proof. The stated hypothesis that the wobble in you example was caused by a planet was not the end of the story. It took scientist many, many years of observations and improvements in technology before they were able to say with certainty that the wobble was indeed a planet. No doubt that many - especially the layman-press, stated it as fact early in the discovery of the anomaly - lots of people wanted to believe that there are planets outside our solar system (myself included). But it's not the belief that makes it right, nor the "no other explanation", nor the amount of hard work that went into the discoveries. What makes it right is compounding evidence as our technologies improved to the point that we now have direct visual evidence on a limited number of the previously discovered "potential" extra-solar system planets. Back on topic, I'm not saying that the existence of dark matter is bunk. What I am saying is that process of elimination does not give you a proof or "therefore".
For the reasons why dark matter must exist; some reasons are straight forward, some are more round-about-observations. The easiest one is from galaxies rotating too fast. The fact that they stay together means something is holding them together. Since we don't observe anything like a giant rope or hand of God holding our sun in place, the only logical explanation is gravity. Since we can't see enough matter to make this much gravity, it must be dark. Explain to me how this is not like ID? Your argument is identical to the ID argument which relies on lack of evidence to "prove" a belief. I have no problem with scientist who use dark matter/energy in equations and other theory, or who has a "really strong hunch" that it's there and strives to find it. But I do have a problem with anyone who states that it is there because we "can't find any other explanation". That is the fatal leap from science to belief that I've been fighting the creationist on for years. When you have no evidence you only have a hypothesis - or worse - a WAG. Lack of evidence is never-ever evidence. No one is ever "right" - you're only not found to be wrong. -CF
This is exactly my thought. With SBC threatening to charge Google for access to customers - while also charging customers for access to the net and therefor Google, this is exactly the kind of thing that Google needs to be doing to protect themeself.
So should we. Screw the telco - community networks of wireless boxes that guarantee end to end unfettered service I believe is the way to go. American's are too passive in their willingness to pay monthly *service* fees on things like cable, telephone, cell, virus protection, fire walling, financial software, etc....
We've got the power - or you can get it easily for $25 (a simple WAP) - why aren't we building connections that don't touch the telcos network?
-CF
What's wrong with having a moderator? Personally I think given the number of problems with certain highly-active and controversial topics a moderator would be appropriate. While it takes away from some of the "instant updates" it would prevent abuse. Maybe instead of notifying previous authors of updates after an edit, they can be notified prior to the edit being posted. -CF