Comment Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score 1) 1582
There should be a "Patient" achievement for waiting more than a minute for the comment preview to actually show you a preview...
Comment Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score 1) 1582
AH. Missed one. However, this article apparently doesn't count for the "April Fools Day" achievement.
Comment Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? (Score 1) 1582
Hmm. No achievements for user journals?
Comment Re:That's rich. (Score 5, Funny) 610
Seriously, this whole free will debate is pointless.
Of course, you couldn't help but say that.
Steve Bourne Talks About the History of Sh 232
An anonymous reader writes "Steve Bourne, the creator of the Bourne shell, or sh, talks about its history as the default Unix shell of Unix Version 7. Bourne worked on the shell in 1975 and said the process took no more than 6 months. Sh aimed to improve on the Thompson shell. 'I did change the shell so that command scripts could be used as filters. In the original shell this was not really feasible because the standard input for the executing script was the script itself. This change caused quite a disruption to the way people were used to working. I added variables, control flow and command substitution. The case statement allowed strings to be easily matched so that commands could decode their arguments and make decisions based on that. The for loop allowed iteration over a set of strings that were either explicit or by default the arguments that the command was given.
I also added an additional quoting mechanism so that you could do variable substitutions within quotes. It was a significant redesign with some of the original flavor of the Thompson shell still there. Also I eliminated goto in favour of flow control primitives like if and for. This was also considered rather radical departure from the existing practice.
Command substitution was something else I added because that gives you very general mechanism to do string processing; it allows you to get strings back from commands and use them as the text of the script as if you had typed it directly. I think this was a new idea that I, at least, had not seen in scripting languages, except perhaps LISP,' he says."
Comment Re:Texas Is Not a Very Red State (Score 1) 1334
Are we looking at the same numbers? Because the references I quoted you pretty much disagree with your statements. For the record, from the wikipedia article on the 1964 CRA:
Totals are in "Yea-Nay" format:
The original House version:[9]
* Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
* Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)The Senate version:[9]
* Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)The Senate version, voted on by the House:[9]
* Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
* Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)
Ok. Tell me how 80% of a party voting for the 1964 Civil Rights Act is, in fact, "opposing civil rights"?
As for the "lying Republicans like you" comment - frankly, I'm disgusted. I've cited facts and figures from a (famously) unbiased source, and yet, you still insist that I am the one who's making things up?
As for your ad hominem attacks... you apparently have zero knowledge of me, or my personal views or beliefs, other than that I'm an avowed Republican. And yet, based solely on that one choice - my political party - you have the unmitigated gall not only to judge and condemn me, but to do so based off of your inference of my beliefs? Isn't that the very definition of prejudice?
You, sir, are not just an ass. You have demonstrated yourself to be a bigot of the worst sort.
Submission + - Freakonomics Q&A With Bruce Schneier 1
Samrobb writes: In grand /. tradition, the Freakonomics blog solicited reader questions for a Q&A session with Bruce Schneier. Mr. Schneier has responded, and "...his answers are extraordinarily interesting, providing mandatory reading for anyone who uses a computer. He also plainly thinks like an economist: search below for "crime pays" to see his sober assessment of why it's better to earn a living as a security expert than as a computer criminal."
Journal Journal: INS Absurdity 1
My three daughters were born in China, so this story of gross incompetence and arrogance strikes close to home:
Journal Journal: Technical books for Vanuatu
Via the Geek Etiquette blog, I came across a link to a request for donations of "gently pre-loved technical books" to help the he local IT users group of Vanuatu build a lending library. The island nation of Vanuatu is, as the request states, "a bloody long way from anywhere", and technical
Submission + - Sun Enters the Commodity Silicon Business (sun.com)
Samrobb writes: According to Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Sun has decided to release its UltraSPARC T2 processor under the GPL. According to Schwartz, "We're announcing the fastest microprocessor we've ever shipped this week — delivering 89.6 Ghz of parallel computing power on a single chip — running standard Java applications and open source OS's. Simultaneously, we've said we're entering the commodity marketplace, and opening the chip up to our competition... To add fuel to the fire, the blueprints for our UltraSPARC T2... the core design files and test suites, will be available to the open source community, via its most popular license: the GPL."
Submission + - RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy
An anonymous reader writes: The RIAA is once again revising their lawsuit strategy, and will now be sending college students and others "pre-lawsuit letters." People will now be able to settle for a discount. How nice.
Submission + - Already A Community ready to hack the iPhone
An anonymous reader writes: Less than a week after the iPhone was released, there is already a website that wants to hack it. As it says on the site "Our Goal is to foster a community of Apple iPhone users and developers dedicated to getting the most out of the iPhone. We're on a mission to better the iPhone experience." They also mention that they want to unlock the iPhone so that it can be used on networks other than Cingular, and get to the point where 3rd party applications that are unapproved by Apple can run on the iPhone. I think we've found our "Bad Guys" and only time will tell if they are successful. iFoneResource.com
Journal Journal: multi-touch should replace the mouse 6
if multi-touch is as cool as it looks, i would love it if it would replace the mouse. imagine having a better touchpad that gave you multi-touch for your desktop? that would be very cool. a few gestures to shrink the screen and control windows more "intuitively" than the mouse.
Submission + - The Apple iPhone and DRM
line-bundle writes: "The New York Times has an interesting article on the iPhone in particular and Digital Rights management in general. The article discusses the limitations imposed by DRM and the fact that in the long run it does not work."
Submission + - Sundance movies to be available on iTunes Store
BeerCat writes: "The BBC is reporting that "The Sundance Film Festival has struck a deal with Apple to allow festival films to be sold through its iTunes store"
The film festival, starting 18 January, will allow several (currently 33) of the 71 short films to be made available on the (US) iTunes Store, for the price currently being charged for TV shows and short films ($1.99). This will be in addition to them being available on the Sundance site for streaming. However, it is not intended to allow any of the feature films to be sold this way, as, according to John Cooper of the Sundance Institute, "What Sundance is really known for is as a platform for people to sell their films, and that's mainly the feature film. We didn't want to really interfere with that yet."
Wonder if Apple will make the films available on other iTunes Stores sites other than the US one."
Wonder if Apple will make the films available on other iTunes Stores sites other than the US one."
