somebody had to post the most obvious idea: yeah, code everything in c.
shit, why don't you write your own web server and rdms while you're at it.
look, if you're amazon, you have the cash to fill a room with nameless drones and demand everything in c.
an optimal solution for a particular web may require multiple languages ("for some stuff"), but most of the code for building pages should be interpreted, otherwise making changes (fixing mistakes) will take too much time.
the majority of people should use a string processing oriented, interpreted language for creating dynamic pages, and they should not waste any time "proving" compiled c is faster. the earth revolves around the sun.
give a young person a 1500$ computing device in new york city, you wanna get the poor fucking kid killed? my car has been broken into four times since i brought it here, that's four times in three boroughs in less than two years.
new york has enough trouble protecting school children from "sodomy" and sexual assault on school grounds (not making this up guys).
I'd like to see one of these drawing its power from a battery pack instead of the PS/2 port and featuring a tiny LCD display, for times when it'd be nicer to type an e-mail out on the porch than inside, or as a more efficient idea-gobbler than a pen-driven PDA. -- Timothy Lord
http://www.alphasmart.com/
enough said...
or that should be enough, what the hell good is a real/stripped notebook computer to a kid in the urban jungle? any of you ever listen to lou reed? some homes are not ready, keep those boxen in a more secure environment.
what is really important, stupid educational programs, or being able to type and write simple letters/stories/essays? that's why alphasmart is so smart, universal skills, cheap.
have to admit some of katz awareness-building language constructions get a bit tiresome, but the corporatist/geekdom stuff make sense...
i find this particular article/activism very compelling, good job katz!
alas, there are problems... i designed military electronic systems, and had to justify my livelihood ethically and morally to *myself*. nice and balanced how katz provides the obvious surface facts (you would expect any real journalist to provide), the wave system can lead to oppression-abuse and gosh-darn-it, the principles are nice people who just have different priorities, maybe lack some moral refinement or ethical reasoning, but not *bad*.
the piece walks these three pinkerton employees out onto the plank to hover above the vast inky void of being culpable in "harassing innocent people" and akin to *nazi collaborators*, but accepts just *shrugs* with mightily damning conclusion the organization is *inherently amoral*.
i wonder if katz even recognizes his own culpability?
#### Shannon and Dawn (given the volume of hostile e-mail Pinkerton was getting, I've decided not to use their full names) let Jim do the policy talking. ####
how stupid is this, anybody think we cannot find these people? let me be the one to risk my own reputation and plainly state facts, these fucking assholes are mere millimeters from being guilty of discrimination, manslaughter and conspiracy to commit murder.
remember judge bork? if your video rental preferences are news, just think what political opponents could do with a transcript of the pinkerton wave report on you...
just image how traumatic wave-inspired "intervention" could be, how many "dangerous" people will be driven to suicide out of despair, fear, or shame...
those are potential consequences reports made in good-faith (although quite probably deluded or otherwise inappropriate), now step this way to the area of stupid adolescent pranks, cruelty, community-based cultural conflicts (a ripe area for murderous episodes since the salem witch trials)... voila, thinks me you are in the realm of collaborating in harassment which will escalate to murder. of course, such disputes escalated to mayhem before pinkerton, and if they didn't get involved in this abuse, some other opportunistic sod would.
i do not believe this is conjecture, but actually common sense, a program like this, if "successful" (oh, for the love of marketing) *will* result in more people harmed than spared harm. i have a very strict sense of justice, and would not dream of retribution without *concrete* evidence of culpability--but what about someone related to a future victim of pinkerton?
once the anecdotal, personal horror stories start rolling in, a few more people at pinkerton will probably have to wear bulletproof vests home at night, and when the statistics (gotta love those) pile up about pinkerton victims getting thrown in jail (having no criminal history *before* becoming a target) and winding up in the morgue, well, if you work at pinkerton, stock up on narcotics now, you might have trouble sleeping at night.
so shannon and dawn, how do you justify yourselves? the systems i designed protect people, can you truly say the same thing?
"big advantage of using a Video Toaster is that your video is handled UNCOMPRESSED"
_sigh_, could you explain how this is a benefit with the dv (compressed digital video) format?
the whole thread is predominately dv, your post is predominately dv, most people are using digital cameras which have inherent compression--so where is the "advantage"?
this is not just about emachines, but since they were mentioned... do not buy an e-machines or other leading-economy-brand wintel box, you will be sorry.
on the low end, for power-users seeking to save money, shop around for a used blue-and-white g3 (perhaps with scsi, your preference)... you can get deals on the software, camera, everything you need, but you have to be knowledgeable to save money.
bottom-line is you have a higher likelihood of distressing down-time with a cost-cutting wintel box. there is a reason apple dominates this market (since when have you seen such a macintosh-positive thread), borrow/rent/test-drive a real setup to see why.
and whatever you do, back up. dv source tapes are the primary backup, but you want to have your final rendering backed up, and you *must* have the edit list (project file) backed up.
if money is not an issue, buy whatever hotrod box you like, you will be able throw together some kludge to do most of what you want or need, but do not think you can save money on a cheap wintel box when working with media (print, audio, visual, whatever).
big picture: most people will not really save money that way, other expenses related to using junk hardware/software will eliminate the savings.
"Manic-Depression is obviously a HORRIBLE illness in that such a high percentage of its patients commit suicide": borderline personality disorder claims the most victims (in terms of suicide mortality), if the statistics i read are to be believed.
of course, some people claim that borderline personality disorder is a sham, does not exist--probably more people consider manic depression a credible illness, whatever.
while assisting manic depressive technical workers is important, you should be careful not to romanticize any mental illness, if you know a programmer or engineer who is preoccupied with preparing their will and emptying their closets, does it really matter what the fucking diagnosis is? kuma
interesting article, delphi on linux will be a good thing... but before you add this clear-seeing-oracle (amazing the business insight he brings to the game, he should consider giving up programming for management) to your list of future geek-gods, he is an asshole (opinionated while ignorant or fond of glossing over the truth).
for the record (again), apple lost it's lawsuit against microsoft due to a lame licensing agreement--xerox and their contributions had nothing to do with the outcome of the lawsuit.
oh, and the title, great prez-ronny-type story, but a person with integrity should draw a clear line when their words could be mistaken for truth.
boy, i am going to feel the heat for this, but there are great fucking universities in china, too... great engineering jobs to be had the world over and plenty of american engineers (who may not be able to spell, but do understand how a toaster works) who need jobs *here*.
the whole visa processing situation is sad, and "professional" immigrants are taken advantage of, but where does it say we owe anybody *anything*? especially when these people are more technically capable than the majority of people who post here.
how many people on this forum are "professionals"? seems odd to me that there should be much empathy for immigrants who earn more than your garden variety hacker.
just keep this in perspective, "lives ruined", oh please, many of these fucking people should go home and make a real contribution to their nations and the world--let's reserve some sympathy for people who flee oppression or are needlessly separated from their families by idiotic ins red-tape. kuma
right now i am pretty happy *not* having a dvd player--might eventually get one, but only for another region (how ridiculous) or built into a computer.
dvd has momentum (and some cool features), but i am contemplating a personal boycott. great films are being released on dvd, but owning a player and discs means buying into an ugly system. kuma
you say we do not know enough biology to simulate it accurately.
eh, but we know well how to interpret what we learn from torturing for the benefit of men.
these hymns cannot both be true.
microsoft missing the content boat?
on
AOL Nation
·
· Score: 1
Ironically, it threatens to further pressure Microsoft, whose bumbling efforts to expand into new media now appear even more short-sighted and poorly-timed.
what? am i the only person who remembers that gates now has a stock photo service and has reportedly been purchasing the rights to digital content...
what we have here is white-gold, gates is microsoft, microsoft is gates... and assholes you would never vote for will be soon be altering copyright laws to suit "corporatist". kuma
oh, no-no-no, purple moon was *not* a scorsese film, he was responsible for the re-release.
from what i have read, the new work is quite different from purple moon, which may have had interesting sexual politics *off* the screen... really, the new film provides (according to what i have read) a powerful performance by damon as thwarted in homo-erotic love. no actual homosexual contact occurs in the film, but if you are homophobic (or otherwise mentally-ill), beware this complex story. kuma
purple moon (1958) vs. the talented mr. ripley
on
Holiday Movie Thread
·
· Score: 1
something of cineast here... why doesn't anyone even mention "purple moon"? how does this film remain so forgotten after its recent re-release (about two years ago)?
maybe someone around here knows why some reviewers refer to "strangers on a train" with regard to purple moon, yet neglect "the talented mr. ripley"? kuma
getting macos x server (serving in the field now) qualified for smp should not be too difficult, and developers are already using release 2 of macos x (haven't had time to install it myself though)
"ethically questionable" is somewhat overstated--without macosx, the machines would likely be marketed only for macos x server and/or the most well-funded-and-supported desktop publishing shops, i.e. not for consumers or even run-of-the-mill power users... kuma
as a former next owner (attempting to escape the inanity of quickdraw quirks) and rabid macintosh enthusiast, mainstream multiprocessor systems running macosx are something of a holy grail (_especially_ since i recall discussing a sweet dual-processor prototype next machine with the nextstep crowd at mit _years_ ago)... where did those tissues go, i'm all misty;) kuma
this is one of the biggest frustrations imaginable...
1) the physical media is already difficult to manufacture, but those with deep pockets will have the means to create bootleg copies--this does nothing to really slow down major pirates, and much to confound consumers.
2) burning dvd-ram copies for sale is long and tedious, and will not have a big impact (how many music and software companies going broke due to the popularity cd-rw drives?).
3) a good engineering student could hack together a compact disc player, but even with a suite of standard components, would have difficulty building a bare-bones dvd player... when dvd media becomes obsolete, some audio may be effectively lost due to the encryption.
4) what happens when audio legally purchased on dvd-audio becomes public domain? no one seems to be concerned about all these encryption schemes which potentially lock away information *forever*.
the source is open, except the gateway to credit card processors...
greenspun-sama has written *at length* about server-side web development, and basically, i agree that with his assertion that any business is going to require so much customization that no solution will obviate the necessity for programming.
beware of closed e-commerce *solutions*, they may require months of work mapping your data to their "flexible" model (with nine-hundred tables--to take an example from legal billing, the dread lawpack to cms open transition). kuma
apple may not be doing the right thing with benchmarks, but how do you play fair with the intel/microsoft crowd (the politicians of modern technology)?
otoh, apple is doing *exactly* the right thing by consumers with the imac... usb and firewire are easy to use interfaces, a dozen removable media *formats* (not just products) will be available if-and-when the new computer user needs heavy-duty archiving. anything other than cd/dvd rom becomes a potential liability.
Slashdot Mirror
printed manuals are fine, but companies should provide pdf's as well.
unfortunately, most companies do not generate appropriate bookmarks.
4d (mac/win rdms) provides some fantastic pdf-based manuals (the huge language reference is indispensable).
rarely use on-line help, it usually sucks...
html documentation drives me insane, i cannot stand installers littering my file system with thousands of files when a single pdf would suffice!
somebody had to post the most obvious idea: yeah, code everything in c.
shit, why don't you write your own web server and rdms while you're at it.
look, if you're amazon, you have the cash to fill a room with nameless drones and demand everything in c.
an optimal solution for a particular web may require multiple languages ("for some stuff"), but most of the code for building pages should be interpreted, otherwise making changes (fixing mistakes) will take too much time.
the majority of people should use a string processing oriented, interpreted language for creating dynamic pages, and they should not waste any time "proving" compiled c is faster. the earth revolves around the sun.
give a young person a 1500$ computing device in new york city, you wanna get the poor fucking kid killed? my car has been broken into four times since i brought it here, that's four times in three boroughs in less than two years.
new york has enough trouble protecting school children from "sodomy" and sexual assault on school grounds (not making this up guys).
I'd like to see one of these drawing its power from a battery pack instead of the PS/2 port and featuring a tiny LCD display, for times when it'd be nicer to type an e-mail out on the porch than inside, or as a more efficient idea-gobbler than a pen-driven PDA.
-- Timothy Lord
http://www.alphasmart.com/
enough said...
or that should be enough, what the hell good is a real/stripped notebook computer to a kid in the urban jungle? any of you ever listen to lou reed? some homes are not ready, keep those boxen in a more secure environment.
what is really important, stupid educational programs, or being able to type and write simple letters/stories/essays? that's why alphasmart is so smart, universal skills, cheap.
have to admit some of katz awareness-building language constructions get a bit tiresome, but the corporatist/geekdom stuff make sense...
i find this particular article/activism very compelling, good job katz!
alas, there are problems... i designed military electronic systems, and had to justify my livelihood ethically and morally to *myself*. nice and balanced how katz provides the obvious surface facts (you would expect any real journalist to provide), the wave system can lead to oppression-abuse and gosh-darn-it, the principles are nice people who just have different priorities, maybe lack some moral refinement or ethical reasoning, but not *bad*.
the piece walks these three pinkerton employees out onto the plank to hover above the vast inky void of being culpable in "harassing innocent people" and akin to *nazi collaborators*, but accepts just *shrugs* with mightily damning conclusion the organization is *inherently amoral*.
i wonder if katz even recognizes his own culpability?
####
Shannon and Dawn (given the volume of hostile e-mail Pinkerton was getting, I've decided not to use their full names) let Jim do the policy talking.
####
how stupid is this, anybody think we cannot find these people? let me be the one to risk my own reputation and plainly state facts, these fucking assholes are mere millimeters from being guilty of discrimination, manslaughter and conspiracy to commit murder.
remember judge bork? if your video rental preferences are news, just think what political opponents could do with a transcript of the pinkerton wave report on you...
just image how traumatic wave-inspired "intervention" could be, how many "dangerous" people will be driven to suicide out of despair, fear, or shame...
those are potential consequences reports made in good-faith (although quite probably deluded or otherwise inappropriate), now step this way to the area of stupid adolescent pranks, cruelty, community-based cultural conflicts (a ripe area for murderous episodes since the salem witch trials)... voila, thinks me you are in the realm of collaborating in harassment which will escalate to murder. of course, such disputes escalated to mayhem before pinkerton, and if they didn't get involved in this abuse, some other opportunistic sod would.
i do not believe this is conjecture, but actually common sense, a program like this, if "successful" (oh, for the love of marketing) *will* result in more people harmed than spared harm. i have a very strict sense of justice, and would not dream of retribution without *concrete* evidence of culpability--but what about someone related to a future victim of pinkerton?
once the anecdotal, personal horror stories start rolling in, a few more people at pinkerton will probably have to wear bulletproof vests home at night, and when the statistics (gotta love those) pile up about pinkerton victims getting thrown in jail (having no criminal history *before* becoming a target) and winding up in the morgue, well, if you work at pinkerton, stock up on narcotics now, you might have trouble sleeping at night.
so shannon and dawn, how do you justify yourselves? the systems i designed protect people, can you truly say the same thing?
"big advantage of using a Video Toaster is that your video is handled UNCOMPRESSED"
_sigh_, could you explain how this is a benefit with the dv (compressed digital video) format?
the whole thread is predominately dv, your post is predominately dv, most people are using digital cameras which have inherent compression--so where is the "advantage"?
this is not just about emachines, but since they were mentioned... do not buy an e-machines or other leading-economy-brand wintel box, you will be sorry.
on the low end, for power-users seeking to save money, shop around for a used blue-and-white g3 (perhaps with scsi, your preference)... you can get deals on the software, camera, everything you need, but you have to be knowledgeable to save money.
bottom-line is you have a higher likelihood of distressing down-time with a cost-cutting wintel box. there is a reason apple dominates this market (since when have you seen such a macintosh-positive thread), borrow/rent/test-drive a real setup to see why.
and whatever you do, back up. dv source tapes are the primary backup, but you want to have your final rendering backed up, and you *must* have the edit list (project file) backed up.
if money is not an issue, buy whatever hotrod box you like, you will be able throw together some kludge to do most of what you want or need, but do not think you can save money on a cheap wintel box when working with media (print, audio, visual, whatever).
big picture: most people will not really save money that way, other expenses related to using junk hardware/software will eliminate the savings.
"Manic-Depression is obviously a HORRIBLE illness in that such a high percentage of its patients commit suicide": borderline personality disorder claims the most victims (in terms of suicide mortality), if the statistics i read are to be believed.
of course, some people claim that borderline personality disorder is a sham, does not exist--probably more people consider manic depression a credible illness, whatever.
while assisting manic depressive technical workers is important, you should be careful not to romanticize any mental illness, if you know a programmer or engineer who is preoccupied with preparing their will and emptying their closets, does it really matter what the fucking diagnosis is? kuma
interesting article, delphi on linux will be a good thing... but before you add this clear-seeing-oracle (amazing the business insight he brings to the game, he should consider giving up programming for management) to your list of future geek-gods, he is an asshole (opinionated while ignorant or fond of glossing over the truth).
for the record (again), apple lost it's lawsuit against microsoft due to a lame licensing agreement--xerox and their contributions had nothing to do with the outcome of the lawsuit.
oh, and the title, great prez-ronny-type story, but a person with integrity should draw a clear line when their words could be mistaken for truth.
boy, i am going to feel the heat for this, but there are great fucking universities in china, too... great engineering jobs to be had the world over and plenty of american engineers (who may not be able to spell, but do understand how a toaster works) who need jobs *here*.
the whole visa processing situation is sad, and "professional" immigrants are taken advantage of, but where does it say we owe anybody *anything*? especially when these people are more technically capable than the majority of people who post here.
how many people on this forum are "professionals"? seems odd to me that there should be much empathy for immigrants who earn more than your garden variety hacker.
just keep this in perspective, "lives ruined", oh please, many of these fucking people should go home and make a real contribution to their nations and the world--let's reserve some sympathy for people who flee oppression or are needlessly separated from their families by idiotic ins red-tape. kuma
right now i am pretty happy *not* having a dvd player--might eventually get one, but only for another region (how ridiculous) or built into a computer.
dvd has momentum (and some cool features), but i am contemplating a personal boycott. great films are being released on dvd, but owning a player and discs means buying into an ugly system. kuma
let us see now...
you say we do not know enough biology to simulate it accurately.
eh, but we know well how to interpret what we learn from torturing for the benefit of men.
these hymns cannot both be true.
Ironically, it threatens to further pressure Microsoft, whose bumbling efforts to expand into new media now appear even more short-sighted and poorly-timed.
what? am i the only person who remembers that gates now has a stock photo service and has reportedly been purchasing the rights to digital content...
what we have here is white-gold, gates is microsoft, microsoft is gates... and assholes you would never vote for will be soon be altering copyright laws to suit "corporatist". kuma
oh, no-no-no, purple moon was *not* a scorsese film, he was responsible for the re-release.
from what i have read, the new work is quite different from purple moon, which may have had interesting sexual politics *off* the screen... really, the new film provides (according to what i have read) a powerful performance by damon as thwarted in homo-erotic love. no actual homosexual contact occurs in the film, but if you are homophobic (or otherwise mentally-ill), beware this complex story. kuma
something of cineast here... why doesn't anyone even mention "purple moon"? how does this film remain so forgotten after its recent re-release (about two years ago)?
maybe someone around here knows why some reviewers refer to "strangers on a train" with regard to purple moon, yet neglect "the talented mr. ripley"? kuma
you are being rather conservative aren't you?
getting macos x server (serving in the field now) qualified for smp should not be too difficult, and developers are already using release 2 of macos x (haven't had time to install it myself though)
"ethically questionable" is somewhat overstated--without macosx, the machines would likely be marketed only for macos x server and/or the most well-funded-and-supported desktop publishing shops, i.e. not for consumers or even run-of-the-mill power users... kuma
as a former next owner (attempting to escape the inanity of quickdraw quirks) and rabid macintosh enthusiast, mainstream multiprocessor systems running macosx are something of a holy grail (_especially_ since i recall discussing a sweet dual-processor prototype next machine with the nextstep crowd at mit _years_ ago)... where did those tissues go, i'm all misty ;) kuma
let's not forget etoys.com!
hmmm, maybe someone out there should be keeping a list? amazon, etoys... kuma
minna-san:
this is one of the biggest frustrations imaginable...
1) the physical media is already difficult to manufacture, but those with deep pockets will have the means to create bootleg copies--this does nothing to really slow down major pirates, and much to confound consumers.
2) burning dvd-ram copies for sale is long and tedious, and will not have a big impact (how many music and software companies going broke due to the popularity cd-rw drives?).
3) a good engineering student could hack together a compact disc player, but even with a suite of standard components, would have difficulty building a bare-bones dvd player... when dvd media becomes obsolete, some audio may be effectively lost due to the encryption.
4) what happens when audio legally purchased on dvd-audio becomes public domain? no one seems to be concerned about all these encryption schemes which potentially lock away information *forever*.
sincerely, kuma
minna-san:
see http://arsdigita.com/free-tools/shoppe.html
the source is open, except the gateway to credit card processors...
greenspun-sama has written *at length* about server-side web development, and basically, i agree that with his assertion that any business is going to require so much customization that no solution will obviate the necessity for programming.
beware of closed e-commerce *solutions*, they may require months of work mapping your data to their "flexible" model (with nine-hundred tables--to take an example from legal billing, the dread lawpack to cms open transition). kuma
apple may not be doing the right thing with benchmarks, but how do you play fair with the intel/microsoft crowd (the politicians of modern technology)?
;) kuma
otoh, apple is doing *exactly* the right thing by consumers with the imac... usb and firewire are easy to use interfaces, a dozen removable media *formats* (not just products) will be available if-and-when the new computer user needs heavy-duty archiving. anything other than cd/dvd rom becomes a potential liability.
if you need scsi, get the supercomputer