Just wanted to say that I read your non-hesitant reply to kdart about contributing back, and I'm really thankful that communities have people/companies that give back selflessly. Without everyone participating, the whole thing breaks down to some degree. Kudos.
Perhaps I didn't say what I was trying to say;)
What I was trying to get at is that, I've mostly mastered the concepts, and now I want to try everything that I can. Almost everything that I do is for the challenge/thrill of it. Yet, at the same time, I desire that what I hack around with should become a tool in my toolbox. It's almost like writing code that never gets used; it just feels wrong to pour your blood, sweat and tears in to a project that never gets used.
I guess it's in my blood, my great grandfather was an architect on the Hoover Dam and Chrysler building, my grandfather a civil engineer (apparently, he used to slam trains together in White Sands, NM. with explosives on them to see how much shock would set them off), and my uncle owns a software company. It's like I have to find the biggest, baddest problem that I can, and then I mustown it! And not just own it, but own it from three angles at once. Then, I put it down and almost never pick it up again unless someone asks me how I would attack that problem. I intern for a small local company where I maintain a Linux server, an old Access database, and write some bash scripts... and play with new 'shiny objects' when I've completely my assigned work. (my boss is a Comp. Sci. geek from back in the day - I can usually get him to let me geek out with stuff since he enjoys it as well, and on occasion, it's worked out well for the company) But when I get home, I want to build something! The more elaborate, the better!
With SDKs, it's the same thing. I'm fairly sure that between kernel hacking and the release of java.util.concurrent with Java 6, (or maybe they extended it...) I failed a course or two. To be honest, while immature, I'd probably say it was worth it for the hours of fun it provided to fully grok the Java threading model or the interrupt routing for an SMP kernel during a critical section of code. The icing on the cake was when I got to hack around more the next semester while we were covering those topics. Or being able to speak somewhat intelligently on the use of 'goto' in class after reading about it in Code Complete. Sure, the extra pay off is nice, but it's what I would have been doing regardless.
Maybe I'm sick, but I love programming languages. Last semester I was required to do a bit of LISP and PROLOG for AI class, ADA95 for procedural languages, and took up PERL for fun. They're all really fun to hack around in (except I can't really find a great use for PROLOG), and I'm always on the lookout for a chance to break out ADA again. Take it as you will, I also enjoy using recursion. It's too elegant to not admire.
So, for mine own part, I've found that solving problems is relatively simple, just break it down in to atomic sub-problems, start with the most trivial, and divide and conquer each layer above it; if the solution makes sense, it works. I just want a few more hammers to try out on other problems. Unfortunately, mot problems dictate the most correct hammer by the time you've broken them down to isolated cases, and usually the most boring hammer is the one you should employ.:/
My biggest problem is that I'm studying frameworks, JITs, libraries, languages and spinoff languages nearly constantly, and they're multiplying faster than I can even say I've given a look at them.
Just a few weeks ago, I had an itch to scratch, so I figured I'd bang out a quick fix in my most well known language, Java (I started Java around early 1.4 days back in high school, as they were fading out C++, although I passed the AP test in C++ the last year it was given in that language). I figured I'd expand my horizons a bit and learn Java Enterprise, as I already have a really solid background in Standard Edition. After compiling a JBoss server, Ant, and getting JBoss studio (read: a day later), I decided to jump right in. Several hours later and a trip to the book store later, I realized that I needed more background info and got the hardcopy version of the Java EE Tutorial. It assumes that you know, XML, RPC, SQL, Hibernate, ODBC, etc. I've got experience with a good deal of it, and it's still a daunting task to learn just the architecture of the Java EE suite. This is before even thinking about writing a bit of code. The amount of time that you have to invest and the steepness of the learning curve is, frankly, intimidating!
My Eclipse install is a gigabyte, ATM, I've got about 10 IDEs, 3 SQL servers, and a directory called 'programming' with a range of tools and a sub directory called 'libraries' which has SDKs that I've downloaded and intend to getting around to trying. I bought Flex2 and Expression Studio last summer and have barely had time to play with them, and both have new versions out already. Then I've the SDK for Android, Flex (looks like another month of studying the architecture just to hit the ground running), and AIR, all sitting around for me to have time to play with them, before they're obsolete. Not to mention another Java release in the wings.
There are simply too many frameworks, languages, and methods for anyone to be well versed in more than a small number of them. And they come and go so quickly, I don't know if I should invest time in what might become the next Laszlo (looked really, really, cool - never got any traction). Google offers APIs and SDKs in what, half a dozen languages, and half of them are just interfaces to XML? What's wrong with libcurl?
I've only got so much time, and lately everything falls in to one of three categories, "cool, and worth the time investment", "cool, but probably only for my own hacking around", and "...what the crap does it do?".
Am I the only one with this issue? I admit, I spend a lot of time playing with Linux distros, too, so I have less time than others. Oh, yeah, and the four or five languages I'm expected to use every semester, and the three or four that I use at work on a monthly basis.
Unfortunately, the person wielding the hammer doesn't know the difference between a hammer and a jackhammer.
Just like stopping file sharing; ask them to define 'file' and 'sharing' and you'll quickly see what I mean. Should they somehow pass that test, ask them to tell you the difference between a protocol, transport, and application. Yet they'll tell you using Azureus for P2P torrents is illegal. Of course, they can't be bothered to be educated on such things, they only create policy based on their ignorance. Which is a good thing, I guess, otherwise they could be dangerous instead of a nuisance.
[...]
and if my kids are smart, they'd find a way around being tracked, and I'd congratulate them for it. Then I'd tell them I actually had two tracking devices in it (which I wouldn't)... and watch them go crazy trying to find the second, non-existant one....
That would be really, really funny, if only it weren't so cruel!:)
Good thing: enabling people to install these devices voluntarily to defend themselves against false claims of speeding or reckless driving.
Bad thing: having the government mandate their installation, and at some later time mandating that the data be uploaded to a central processing facility.
My thoughts...
Good Thing: Everyone thinks the output of electronic devices is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Bad Thing: Everyone thinks the output of electronic devices is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Unfortunately, both actions drain resources equally. I probably wouldn't mind people pretending to take action if they didn't go about expending the same amount of resources as they would have by actually doing something useful. If you're going to put on a show, at least have the sense to be efficient and budget accordingly.
No doubt, both are tried and true and we don't make it very easy for n00bs to find them. And when they do, they stick out like reporters at DefCon, and get shown the door in proper style (kline, FTW!).
IIRC, that model works like quantum tunneling and would require the speed of light to drop everywhere in the universe at the same moment without decelerating to the lower velocity. I think I read somewhere that if that happened, (and IMHO the model makes a lot of sense, but I don't care one way or the other) you wouldn't be able to see it, since everything slows down relative to everything else. However, you could see the difference if you compared the speed of light to previously known values.
As an aside, I have read in a few different places that there is some evidence that the speed of light is exponentially decaying.
I just took a look at the demo (And since I"m a Gentoo user, can't install the plugin) and why the hell does every female avatar in there look like a damn elf? [...]
That's because Kutztown's fiber-optic television, phone and Internet infrastructure is a decade ahead of its time and is still one of the few municipal fiber-optic networks in the United States.
And though Verizon has picked up on the benefits of a fiber-to-the-home system and begun investing billions of dollars in the technology, it is systems like Kutztown's that showed how advantageous a FTTH system is.
Not only does Kutztown's Hometown Utilicom FTTH system cost less than most cable providers â" a customer pays $18 per month for basic cable and $35 per month for expanded cable â" but it also has capabilities that can make it relevant decades into the future. Customers on the system also get free digital and high-definition channels if they have a digital TV or HDTV.
First hatched in 1996, the Hometown Utilicom network in Kutztown was designed as a "talking" electric system, where if a transformer malfunctioned, it'd communicate with the main system and be easy to trace, said Frank Caruso, Kutztown's director of information technology.
But now, the system services more than 1,000 households with Internet and cable, Caruso said. He said the system covers the entire 1.5 square miles of the municipality and there are about 2,200 electric meters in the area, so Hometown Utilicom serves 49 percent of the people in Kutztown.
Caruso said the borough's total investment in the project has been about $8 million since its inception, and the services are available to everyone within the borough, though some people elect to stay with the original service provider.
The money invested in the project didn't come from a tax hike either. It came from a taxable bond that allows private companies to purchase and use the fiber lines and transfers from the borough's Electric Service Fund. This debt could be repaid if the Kutztown's town council decided to do so, Caruso said.
Caruso said the FTTH system doesn't just help the customers using it. He said once the system went online, the competition's cable TV prices split in half. People out of the service area pay about $53 for cable, but residents who have the choice of Hometown Utilicom or Service Electric Cable TV and Communications pay $25 for cable.
He said upfront cost is an issue for towns looking into a FTTH system, but since Kutztown's system was activated in 2002, the town has estimated its residents have saved $1.5 million in cable, phone and Internet billing.
[...]
Also they're safe for the way the car is made to 'throw' off parts when an accident occurs. Breaking off four tires drains a good deal of kinetic energy from the car as it tumbles.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think ISPs have common carrier status.
Just wanted to say that I read your non-hesitant reply to kdart about contributing back, and I'm really thankful that communities have people/companies that give back selflessly. Without everyone participating, the whole thing breaks down to some degree. Kudos.
Perhaps I didn't say what I was trying to say ;)
:/
What I was trying to get at is that, I've mostly mastered the concepts, and now I want to try everything that I can. Almost everything that I do is for the challenge/thrill of it. Yet, at the same time, I desire that what I hack around with should become a tool in my toolbox. It's almost like writing code that never gets used; it just feels wrong to pour your blood, sweat and tears in to a project that never gets used.
I guess it's in my blood, my great grandfather was an architect on the Hoover Dam and Chrysler building, my grandfather a civil engineer (apparently, he used to slam trains together in White Sands, NM. with explosives on them to see how much shock would set them off), and my uncle owns a software company. It's like I have to find the biggest, baddest problem that I can, and then I must own it! And not just own it, but own it from three angles at once. Then, I put it down and almost never pick it up again unless someone asks me how I would attack that problem. I intern for a small local company where I maintain a Linux server, an old Access database, and write some bash scripts... and play with new 'shiny objects' when I've completely my assigned work. (my boss is a Comp. Sci. geek from back in the day - I can usually get him to let me geek out with stuff since he enjoys it as well, and on occasion, it's worked out well for the company) But when I get home, I want to build something! The more elaborate, the better!
With SDKs, it's the same thing. I'm fairly sure that between kernel hacking and the release of java.util.concurrent with Java 6, (or maybe they extended it...) I failed a course or two. To be honest, while immature, I'd probably say it was worth it for the hours of fun it provided to fully grok the Java threading model or the interrupt routing for an SMP kernel during a critical section of code. The icing on the cake was when I got to hack around more the next semester while we were covering those topics. Or being able to speak somewhat intelligently on the use of 'goto' in class after reading about it in Code Complete. Sure, the extra pay off is nice, but it's what I would have been doing regardless.
Maybe I'm sick, but I love programming languages. Last semester I was required to do a bit of LISP and PROLOG for AI class, ADA95 for procedural languages, and took up PERL for fun. They're all really fun to hack around in (except I can't really find a great use for PROLOG), and I'm always on the lookout for a chance to break out ADA again. Take it as you will, I also enjoy using recursion. It's too elegant to not admire.
So, for mine own part, I've found that solving problems is relatively simple, just break it down in to atomic sub-problems, start with the most trivial, and divide and conquer each layer above it; if the solution makes sense, it works. I just want a few more hammers to try out on other problems. Unfortunately, mot problems dictate the most correct hammer by the time you've broken them down to isolated cases, and usually the most boring hammer is the one you should employ.
My biggest problem is that I'm studying frameworks, JITs, libraries, languages and spinoff languages nearly constantly, and they're multiplying faster than I can even say I've given a look at them.
Just a few weeks ago, I had an itch to scratch, so I figured I'd bang out a quick fix in my most well known language, Java (I started Java around early 1.4 days back in high school, as they were fading out C++, although I passed the AP test in C++ the last year it was given in that language). I figured I'd expand my horizons a bit and learn Java Enterprise, as I already have a really solid background in Standard Edition. After compiling a JBoss server, Ant, and getting JBoss studio (read: a day later), I decided to jump right in. Several hours later and a trip to the book store later, I realized that I needed more background info and got the hardcopy version of the Java EE Tutorial. It assumes that you know, XML, RPC, SQL, Hibernate, ODBC, etc. I've got experience with a good deal of it, and it's still a daunting task to learn just the architecture of the Java EE suite. This is before even thinking about writing a bit of code. The amount of time that you have to invest and the steepness of the learning curve is, frankly, intimidating!
My Eclipse install is a gigabyte, ATM, I've got about 10 IDEs, 3 SQL servers, and a directory called 'programming' with a range of tools and a sub directory called 'libraries' which has SDKs that I've downloaded and intend to getting around to trying. I bought Flex2 and Expression Studio last summer and have barely had time to play with them, and both have new versions out already. Then I've the SDK for Android, Flex (looks like another month of studying the architecture just to hit the ground running), and AIR, all sitting around for me to have time to play with them, before they're obsolete. Not to mention another Java release in the wings.
There are simply too many frameworks, languages, and methods for anyone to be well versed in more than a small number of them. And they come and go so quickly, I don't know if I should invest time in what might become the next Laszlo (looked really, really, cool - never got any traction). Google offers APIs and SDKs in what, half a dozen languages, and half of them are just interfaces to XML? What's wrong with libcurl?
I've only got so much time, and lately everything falls in to one of three categories, "cool, and worth the time investment", "cool, but probably only for my own hacking around", and "...what the crap does it do?".
Am I the only one with this issue? I admit, I spend a lot of time playing with Linux distros, too, so I have less time than others. Oh, yeah, and the four or five languages I'm expected to use every semester, and the three or four that I use at work on a monthly basis.
Just to clarify; is that free beer?
Or is that free, as in speech, beer?
Unfortunately, the person wielding the hammer doesn't know the difference between a hammer and a jackhammer.
Just like stopping file sharing; ask them to define 'file' and 'sharing' and you'll quickly see what I mean. Should they somehow pass that test, ask them to tell you the difference between a protocol, transport, and application. Yet they'll tell you using Azureus for P2P torrents is illegal. Of course, they can't be bothered to be educated on such things, they only create policy based on their ignorance. Which is a good thing, I guess, otherwise they could be dangerous instead of a nuisance.
[...] and if my kids are smart, they'd find a way around being tracked, and I'd congratulate them for it. Then I'd tell them I actually had two tracking devices in it (which I wouldn't) ... and watch them go crazy trying to find the second, non-existant one....
That would be really, really funny, if only it weren't so cruel! :)
Good thing: enabling people to install these devices voluntarily to defend themselves against false claims of speeding or reckless driving.
Bad thing: having the government mandate their installation, and at some later time mandating that the data be uploaded to a central processing facility.
My thoughts...
Good Thing: Everyone thinks the output of electronic devices is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Bad Thing: Everyone thinks the output of electronic devices is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was originally a radio drama. Speak ill of it and you'll be handing in your geek card! =)
Animaniacs, man... That brought me back to middle school for a few seconds. That really made my day!
I'm really surprised the mods are on the ball and didn't mod you off topic for an undoubtedly obscure reference. Good job mods!
Unfortunately, both actions drain resources equally. I probably wouldn't mind people pretending to take action if they didn't go about expending the same amount of resources as they would have by actually doing something useful. If you're going to put on a show, at least have the sense to be efficient and budget accordingly.
Does it have to have a roof? (true story!)
Yeah, most Linux distros have a microcode update service, although it has to be enabled in the kernel at compilation time, IIRC.
No doubt, both are tried and true and we don't make it very easy for n00bs to find them. And when they do, they stick out like reporters at DefCon, and get shown the door in proper style (kline, FTW!).
And the .uucp TLD and rsyncable text file of all the nodes. Erm, I guess we gotta' modernize it. Make that an rsyncable XML file of all the nodes!
Xerox. Without them, you'd have a shorter list.
IIRC, that model works like quantum tunneling and would require the speed of light to drop everywhere in the universe at the same moment without decelerating to the lower velocity. I think I read somewhere that if that happened, (and IMHO the model makes a lot of sense, but I don't care one way or the other) you wouldn't be able to see it, since everything slows down relative to everything else. However, you could see the difference if you compared the speed of light to previously known values.
As an aside, I have read in a few different places that there is some evidence that the speed of light is exponentially decaying.
I just took a look at the demo (And since I"m a Gentoo user, can't install the plugin) and why the hell does every female avatar in there look like a damn elf? [...]
Fail.
Because elves are hot.
[...]
That's because Kutztown's fiber-optic television, phone and Internet infrastructure is a decade ahead of its time and is still one of the few municipal fiber-optic networks in the United States.
And though Verizon has picked up on the benefits of a fiber-to-the-home system and begun investing billions of dollars in the technology, it is systems like Kutztown's that showed how advantageous a FTTH system is.
Not only does Kutztown's Hometown Utilicom FTTH system cost less than most cable providers â" a customer pays $18 per month for basic cable and $35 per month for expanded cable â" but it also has capabilities that can make it relevant decades into the future. Customers on the system also get free digital and high-definition channels if they have a digital TV or HDTV.
First hatched in 1996, the Hometown Utilicom network in Kutztown was designed as a "talking" electric system, where if a transformer malfunctioned, it'd communicate with the main system and be easy to trace, said Frank Caruso, Kutztown's director of information technology.
But now, the system services more than 1,000 households with Internet and cable, Caruso said. He said the system covers the entire 1.5 square miles of the municipality and there are about 2,200 electric meters in the area, so Hometown Utilicom serves 49 percent of the people in Kutztown.
Caruso said the borough's total investment in the project has been about $8 million since its inception, and the services are available to everyone within the borough, though some people elect to stay with the original service provider.
The money invested in the project didn't come from a tax hike either. It came from a taxable bond that allows private companies to purchase and use the fiber lines and transfers from the borough's Electric Service Fund. This debt could be repaid if the Kutztown's town council decided to do so, Caruso said.
Caruso said the FTTH system doesn't just help the customers using it. He said once the system went online, the competition's cable TV prices split in half. People out of the service area pay about $53 for cable, but residents who have the choice of Hometown Utilicom or Service Electric Cable TV and Communications pay $25 for cable.
He said upfront cost is an issue for towns looking into a FTTH system, but since Kutztown's system was activated in 2002, the town has estimated its residents have saved $1.5 million in cable, phone and Internet billing. [...]
That's a lose-lose for you! My code contains no comments, and my checks bounce! :)
Can we compromise on "The spirit of the license is more important than the wording of the license"?
If you overflow a buffer then it's a bug, whether it is exploitable or not.
If you can overflow an exabyte-sized memory buffer, you deserve a fucking medal.
*insert emacs joke here*
You forgot to mention vi and emacs, junior professional. ;)
How fast was it going? This really impresses me, as well!
Also they're safe for the way the car is made to 'throw' off parts when an accident occurs. Breaking off four tires drains a good deal of kinetic energy from the car as it tumbles.