I've found the 2nd edition to be a great learning resource; since I do more PHP than Perl, have sprung for the 3rd. Used the readme.doc link off his site.
Would have to concur with what many others have said: This is one of the best written books I have seen, the author has a real gift for explaining things. I usually just dig into code & "figger" it out, but that can be veeeeery daunting when it comes to regex!
IMHO, Net neutrality is just a clever way for the big ISP's to try and gather more business.
This accomplishes two things: They get more revenue, and their competitors get less.
Forget what anyone says about company X not wanting to foot the bill for through-traffic. What they really want is for *all* traffic to go through them, so that they can be collecting all the associated fees for that traffic.
This is what happens when you let the accounting department drive the company. No disrespect intended toward that very honorable and difficult occupation, but simply put financial accounting does not take into account intagible values.
As always, though, the ultimate judge in this case is the consumer.
It's *your* money, not theirs (at least, not until you pay the bill).
Many people employ multiple internet providers (forwarding your NameZero email to the home account at ComCast, for example).
If you pay company X for service, and they decide to limit said service, then it is only logical to assume that you will limit payment accordingly.
This being a capitalist society, less revenue for company X - or the threat of it - will be the ultimate determining factor in solving this "problem".
Another thing to consider is that the internet, still being relatively new, is in a rapidly evolving state. Some view it as a commodity to be bought & sold, some as infrastructure to be made equally available to anyone who may wish to use it.
I'm leaning toward the latter, though again as we live in a capitalist society I can certainly understand why others would view it as the former.
However, just because it's a societal infrastructure does not mean it's free!
It just means everyone has to foot the bill evenly for its use. There are over 6 billion people on the planet now. Sure, not everyone has a dollar to their name, and not everyone even has access to the internet. But everyone *should* pitch in just a little bit, just as gramma who only drives to church on Sunday pays the same amount for road maintenance as a taxi-cab driver.
The internet is a trans-national entity, and as such we really don't know yet how to - or who should - handle its operation. Should it be helmed by the United Nations? (Logical, as it's global, but way too much beauracracy.) A private company? (Too great an opportunity for financial abuse.) Some sort of rotating volunteer group? (Perhaps, but how do we decide who gets put in place, and how do we trust they're doing a good job?)
In the long run, we all need to pitch in and stop trying to micro-manage the accounting end of internet usage. Some folks will be hogs, some will barely use it, but if we all pitch in equally things will work out just fine.
However, if some of us get greedy & try to grab a bigger piece of the pie, it'll just get ruined for everyone.
Seven is a good number. We like Seven. But sometimes we need Eight. Or Nine...
It would appear that either the analysis indicates AOL is truly the onramp for the Information Superhighway (i.e., they're all actually Newbies), or it draws a faulty conclusion.
There are as many uses for search engines as there are results. One could wish to verify a fact - or learn something new - by looking for it in a variety of ways; this would falsely look like the Omnivore category.
The fact that a Researcher or Fact Checker category was not included indicates Mr. Boutin may need to continue analyzing the data.
Sorry for the caustic title, but that's my general opinion of most solicitors.
Unless the plaintiff honestly believes that Mr. Scantlebury's descendants were also benefiting from his *allegedly* illegal practices, the most reasonable conclusion is that they're in full-tilt Billing Mode and thus not paying attention to any moral consideration.
OK, I'm fairly well-read, but don't keep up with physics in detail.
So, please excuse me if this is a really, really stupid observation, but the numbers given in the article don't seem to add up.
If one supposes:
1) The universe began according to the Big Bang Theory.
2) The universe is currently 15.8 billion years old.
3) The universe expands out from the point the Bang occurred.
4) Observable matter in the universe is subject to Einstein's General Theory, specifically the speed of light.
One could conclude that the maximum width of the universe in light years is age x 2, or 31.6 billion light-years wide. Yet the story reported that the universe is now viewed to be 180 billion light-years wide.
Does that mean matter at one time traveled faster than light? If so, for how long?
Or maybe that was just a typo & I'm being picky...
I'm not entirely convinced that one struggling chip manufacturer purchasing another will really help either.
I live in Austin, Texas, where AMD has one of their fabs.
Back around '99 they layed off a bunch of people, some there for 20 years.
Now they're trying to build a new fab over a very environmentally sensitive portion of town (recharge zone for a huge aquifer that is the primary source of water for folks stretching all the way down to San Antonio. Austin itself gets water from other sources.)
This new fab has caused a great deal of consternation; some say building is inevitable, so just get over it, some say it doesn't matter how many buildings you have if there's no water for the occupants to drink.
Personally, after purchasing an AMD 64-bit-based laptop 1.5 years ago, I realized I jumped the gun as there's not enough software in the 'doze world to really make use of the chip. (Alas I must use 'doze for work, so a proper 'nix operating system is not an option for that machine).
I'd thought I was getting the next batch of technology and 'helping the home team', but with they way they want to trash the environment, my next purchase will definitely be Intel based.
Any program worth its salt has keyboard equivalents; she should abandon the mouse if at all possible until the true cause of (and possible cure for) her pain is discovered.
If the user is able to make that transition (some folks don't adapt to change that well) I would also recommend her looking at the Dvorak keyboard layout, and possibly a different keyboard as well (Kinesis, TypeMatrix, etc.)
Also, as another poster mentioned, there are foot solutions (Kinesis makes one, for example, though I've never tried it).
Let's all remember that the standard (US English, i.e., worldwide) keyboard layout was invented some 130 years ago, and purposefully designed to slow down the typist so they wouldn't jam the individual dyes that made up a typewriter.
August Dvorak's solution came some 60 years after that, and may have caught on except for WWII, which caused most typewriter manufacturers to switch to guns. By the time the war was over, they'd had enough of re-tooling, and here we are another 60 years later, still with a dumb layout.
Here are a couple of other links on alternative keyboard layouts, courtesy of altkeyboards:
While this subject has long been a staple in science fiction (George Alec Effinger's Moddies & Daddys spring to mind), the most recent time I read of this was also the closest to what this article is about: Interface, written by Neal Stephenson & his uncle, Frederick George, deals with a stroke victim who has circuitry embedded in his brain to help re-route past damaged cells.
As with any technology, quite fascinating, and scary!
I'd purchased a Northgate OmniKey Ultra back in '89 when deciding to learn touch-typing. For an extra $18 you could get the Dvorak caps (which I did). DIP switches toggled between the modes (QWERTY, Dvorak standard, left & right hand).
Also around back then was Mavis Beacon v5, the last version that supported the Dvorak keyboard. Interestingly enough, these days she'll teach you Spanish, but not Dvorak!
Now I use any old keyboard, adding a mapping in 'doze or whatever op/sys I'm working in, if at a site where I'm visiting regularly
(I typically add it in as Swedish, because it's easy to show the staff at whatever office to look for the "SV" icon down in the tray & ALT-LEFT-SHIFT until it says "EN" in case I've accidentally left it in DV mode).
At home I use a MS Natural Elite. I haven't looked at the keys in quite some time.
While voice input will eventually become the de facto method for interfacing with 'puter, for now folks still use the keyboard.
Thus, the best thing you can do for your kids is teach them the Dvorak layout.
If you're not familiar with it, the standard "QWERTY" (named for the first six letters on the top row of a keyboard) layout was created in the 1870's by Christopher Sholes, inventor of the modern typewriter.
Mr. Sholes had a problem, in that the keys in his machine jammed if a person tried to type faster than a few words a minute. His solution was to re-arrange the letters on the keyboard to SLOW DOWN THE USER.
In the 1930's, August Dvorak, an efficiency expert, decided to see if he could improve on the design. The result was the Dvorak Simplified Layout.
We'll never know for sure, but odds are Dvorak did stand a chance to replace QWERTY. However, the outbreak of WWII - where many of the typewriter manufacturers of the time switched production to weapons - hindered its acceptance. By the time the war was over, none of the manufacturers wanted to re-tool their product, so Dvorak lapsed into obscurity.
Tests show that the average QWERTY typist's fingers move around 16 miles a day. With the Dvorak layout, it's down to around one mile a day. (Another way to say that is using the QWERTY layout requires sixteen times the effort as does Dvorak)
There are all sorts of claims that Dvorak is or is not faster than QWERTY , but speed is not the issue, it's effort. Dvorak is designed to reduce the amount of effort one must make to produce typed text (for example, all the vowels are under the left hand on the home row, with the most-used consonants under the right hand).
This reduced effort does help mitigate the effects of RSI, and for that reason alone it's good to teach it to your kids. Why help promote arthritis?
When first released over a century and a quarter ago, one ad campaign showed you could type the word "typewriter" using only the buttons on the top row. Well, that's great, but how many times do you type the word 'typewriter'? And look at the home row; one vowel, "A". With Dvorak, you can type hundreds and hundreds of words without leaving the home row.
For a time, the very popular typing program "Mavis Beacon" had a module for learning Dvorak. Not sure why, but they removed that module after version 5. Repeated attempts to contact them for an answer have been unsuccessful. Oddly enough, their latest version now teaches Spanish, but still won't teach Dvorak! Go figure.
Slashdot Mirror
Webmail
Sounds like he added PHP & updated Java.
I've found the 2nd edition to be a great learning resource; since I do more PHP than Perl, have sprung for the 3rd. Used the readme.doc link off his site.
Would have to concur with what many others have said: This is one of the best written books I have seen, the author has a real gift for explaining things. I usually just dig into code & "figger" it out, but that can be veeeeery daunting when it comes to regex!
IMHO, Net neutrality is just a clever way for the big ISP's to try and gather more business.
This accomplishes two things: They get more revenue, and their competitors get less.
Forget what anyone says about company X not wanting to foot the bill for through-traffic. What they really want is for *all* traffic to go through them, so that they can be collecting all the associated fees for that traffic.
This is what happens when you let the accounting department drive the company. No disrespect intended toward that very honorable and difficult occupation, but simply put financial accounting does not take into account intagible values.
As always, though, the ultimate judge in this case is the consumer.
It's *your* money, not theirs (at least, not until you pay the bill).
Many people employ multiple internet providers (forwarding your NameZero email to the home account at ComCast, for example).
If you pay company X for service, and they decide to limit said service, then it is only logical to assume that you will limit payment accordingly.
This being a capitalist society, less revenue for company X - or the threat of it - will be the ultimate determining factor in solving this "problem".
Another thing to consider is that the internet, still being relatively new, is in a rapidly evolving state. Some view it as a commodity to be bought & sold, some as infrastructure to be made equally available to anyone who may wish to use it.
I'm leaning toward the latter, though again as we live in a capitalist society I can certainly understand why others would view it as the former.
However, just because it's a societal infrastructure does not mean it's free!
It just means everyone has to foot the bill evenly for its use. There are over 6 billion people on the planet now. Sure, not everyone has a dollar to their name, and not everyone even has access to the internet. But everyone *should* pitch in just a little bit, just as gramma who only drives to church on Sunday pays the same amount for road maintenance as a taxi-cab driver.
The internet is a trans-national entity, and as such we really don't know yet how to - or who should - handle its operation. Should it be helmed by the United Nations? (Logical, as it's global, but way too much beauracracy.) A private company? (Too great an opportunity for financial abuse.) Some sort of rotating volunteer group? (Perhaps, but how do we decide who gets put in place, and how do we trust they're doing a good job?)
In the long run, we all need to pitch in and stop trying to micro-manage the accounting end of internet usage. Some folks will be hogs, some will barely use it, but if we all pitch in equally things will work out just fine.
However, if some of us get greedy & try to grab a bigger piece of the pie, it'll just get ruined for everyone.
Seven is a good number. We like Seven. But sometimes we need Eight. Or Nine...
It would appear that either the analysis indicates AOL is truly the onramp for the Information Superhighway (i.e., they're all actually Newbies), or it draws a faulty conclusion.
There are as many uses for search engines as there are results. One could wish to verify a fact - or learn something new - by looking for it in a variety of ways; this would falsely look like the Omnivore category.
The fact that a Researcher or Fact Checker category was not included indicates Mr. Boutin may need to continue analyzing the data.
Sorry for the caustic title, but that's my general opinion of most solicitors.
Unless the plaintiff honestly believes that Mr. Scantlebury's descendants were also benefiting from his *allegedly* illegal practices, the most reasonable conclusion is that they're in full-tilt Billing Mode and thus not paying attention to any moral consideration.
But wait, I'm talking about lawyers here...
OK, I'm fairly well-read, but don't keep up with physics in detail.
So, please excuse me if this is a really, really stupid observation, but the numbers given in the article don't seem to add up.
If one supposes:
1) The universe began according to the Big Bang Theory.
2) The universe is currently 15.8 billion years old.
3) The universe expands out from the point the Bang occurred.
4) Observable matter in the universe is subject to Einstein's General Theory, specifically the speed of light.
One could conclude that the maximum width of the universe in light years is age x 2, or 31.6 billion light-years wide. Yet the story reported that the universe is now viewed to be 180 billion light-years wide.
Does that mean matter at one time traveled faster than light? If so, for how long?
Or maybe that was just a typo & I'm being picky...
I'm not entirely convinced that one struggling chip manufacturer purchasing another will really help either.
I live in Austin, Texas, where AMD has one of their fabs.
Back around '99 they layed off a bunch of people, some there for 20 years.
Now they're trying to build a new fab over a very environmentally sensitive portion of town (recharge zone for a huge aquifer that is the primary source of water for folks stretching all the way down to San Antonio. Austin itself gets water from other sources.)
This new fab has caused a great deal of consternation; some say building is inevitable, so just get over it, some say it doesn't matter how many buildings you have if there's no water for the occupants to drink.
Personally, after purchasing an AMD 64-bit-based laptop 1.5 years ago, I realized I jumped the gun as there's not enough software in the 'doze world to really make use of the chip. (Alas I must use 'doze for work, so a proper 'nix operating system is not an option for that machine).
I'd thought I was getting the next batch of technology and 'helping the home team', but with they way they want to trash the environment, my next purchase will definitely be Intel based.
Any program worth its salt has keyboard equivalents; she should abandon the mouse if at all possible until the true cause of (and possible cure for) her pain is discovered.
... losing the use of ones hands. Awful!
If the user is able to make that transition (some folks don't adapt to change that well) I would also recommend her looking at the Dvorak keyboard layout, and possibly a different keyboard as well (Kinesis, TypeMatrix, etc.)
Also, as another poster mentioned, there are foot solutions (Kinesis makes one, for example, though I've never tried it).
Let's all remember that the standard (US English, i.e., worldwide) keyboard layout was invented some 130 years ago, and purposefully designed to slow down the typist so they wouldn't jam the individual dyes that made up a typewriter.
August Dvorak's solution came some 60 years after that, and may have caught on except for WWII, which caused most typewriter manufacturers to switch to guns. By the time the war was over, they'd had enough of re-tooling, and here we are another 60 years later, still with a dumb layout.
Here are a couple of other links on alternative keyboard layouts, courtesy of altkeyboards:
Dvorak Tutorial: http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/
General Info: http://www.theworldofstuff.com/dvorak
Humorous History: http://dvzine.org/
Another Input Solution: http://www.datahand.com/
Best of luck to your employee. Losing the use of ones hands is like
Would prick just as sharp.
While this subject has long been a staple in science fiction (George Alec Effinger's Moddies & Daddys spring to mind), the most recent time I read of this was also the closest to what this article is about: Interface, written by Neal Stephenson & his uncle, Frederick George, deals with a stroke victim who has circuitry embedded in his brain to help re-route past damaged cells.
As with any technology, quite fascinating, and scary!
I'd purchased a Northgate OmniKey Ultra back in '89 when deciding to learn touch-typing. For an extra $18 you could get the Dvorak caps (which I did). DIP switches toggled between the modes (QWERTY, Dvorak standard, left & right hand).
Also around back then was Mavis Beacon v5, the last version that supported the Dvorak keyboard. Interestingly enough, these days she'll teach you Spanish, but not Dvorak!
Now I use any old keyboard, adding a mapping in 'doze or whatever op/sys I'm working in, if at a site where I'm visiting regularly
(I typically add it in as Swedish, because it's easy to show the staff at whatever office to look for the "SV" icon down in the tray & ALT-LEFT-SHIFT until it says "EN" in case I've accidentally left it in DV mode).
At home I use a MS Natural Elite. I haven't looked at the keys in quite some time.
While voice input will eventually become the de facto method for interfacing with 'puter, for now folks still use the keyboard.
Thus, the best thing you can do for your kids is teach them the Dvorak layout.
If you're not familiar with it, the standard "QWERTY" (named for the first six letters on the top row of a keyboard) layout was created in the 1870's by Christopher Sholes, inventor of the modern typewriter.
Mr. Sholes had a problem, in that the keys in his machine jammed if a person tried to type faster than a few words a minute. His solution was to re-arrange the letters on the keyboard to SLOW DOWN THE USER.
In the 1930's, August Dvorak, an efficiency expert, decided to see if he could improve on the design. The result was the Dvorak Simplified Layout.
We'll never know for sure, but odds are Dvorak did stand a chance to replace QWERTY. However, the outbreak of WWII - where many of the typewriter manufacturers of the time switched production to weapons - hindered its acceptance. By the time the war was over, none of the manufacturers wanted to re-tool their product, so Dvorak lapsed into obscurity.
Tests show that the average QWERTY typist's fingers move around 16 miles a day. With the Dvorak layout, it's down to around one mile a day. (Another way to say that is using the QWERTY layout requires sixteen times the effort as does Dvorak)
There are all sorts of claims that Dvorak is or is not faster than QWERTY , but speed is not the issue, it's effort. Dvorak is designed to reduce the amount of effort one must make to produce typed text (for example, all the vowels are under the left hand on the home row, with the most-used consonants under the right hand).
This reduced effort does help mitigate the effects of RSI, and for that reason alone it's good to teach it to your kids. Why help promote arthritis?
When first released over a century and a quarter ago, one ad campaign showed you could type the word "typewriter" using only the buttons on the top row. Well, that's great, but how many times do you type the word 'typewriter'? And look at the home row; one vowel, "A". With Dvorak, you can type hundreds and hundreds of words without leaving the home row.
For a time, the very popular typing program "Mavis Beacon" had a module for learning Dvorak. Not sure why, but they removed that module after version 5. Repeated attempts to contact them for an answer have been unsuccessful. Oddly enough, their latest version now teaches Spanish, but still won't teach Dvorak! Go figure.
For more information on the Dvorak layout, see: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/