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Comment Re:Python (Score 5, Informative) 466

There are two possible answers to the question: Python and Javascript.

Python is a general-purpose language, with a large number of user areas. It is your best bet for general applicability.
However, if you want to aim for the web market -- which, granted, is huge -- go with Javascript.

That's pretty much all you need to know to make your decision.

Comment Re:Eskimo?! (Score 1, Interesting) 166

Alaskas perspective: http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/resour...

Although the name "Eskimo" is commonly used in Alaska to refer to all Inuit and Yupik people of the world, this name is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean "eater of raw meat."

Linguists now believe that "Eskimo" is derived from an Ojibwa word meaning "to net snowshoes." However, the people of Canada and Greenland prefer other names. "Inuit," meaning "people," is used in most of Canada, and the language is called "Inuktitut" in eastern Canada although other local designations are used also. The Inuit people of Greenland refer to themselves as "Greenlanders" or "Kalaallit" in their language, which they call "Greenlandic" or "Kalaallisut."

Perhaps we are trying to force a term on a group of peoples which never considered themselves as a group of peoples.

Comment Re:Eskimo?! (Score 4, Informative) 166

Some Inuit in Canada and Greenland object very strongly, which is as good a reason as we need not to do it.

This whole topic is a bit of minefield, it's fair to say. We can initially divide the Eskimo/Aleut people into three - the Inuit, the Unangax (Aleut), and the Yupik.

The Unangax of the Aleutian Islands don't care to be called Inuit or Eskimo. They see themselves as distinct from Eskimos and don't mind being described as Native Americans; other Eskimo/Aleut people don't identify as being such. The Unangax are easily distinguished by their language (many borrowings from Russian, including the system of verb inflexions) and their religion (most are Russian Orthodox).

The Yupik have no objection to being called Eskimos, and will use that term to encompass both themselves and the Inuit. The main groupings within the Yupik are the Alutiiq of the coast, the Yuit or Siberian Yupik, and the Yup'ik of Central Alaska.

Then we come to the Inuit. The two largest groupings are the Canadian Inuit and the Kalallit or Greenland Inuit, both of which would prefer you not to call them Eskimos. (The Greenlanders are happy with Inuit to mean both themselves and the Canadians.) Ethnically speaking, two smaller groupings - the Iñupiat of the North Slope and the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic - are also Inuit, although the Iñupiat would rather be described as Eskimo.

I said it got confusing ...

by "suze", from http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...
further in http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...

The word "Eskimo" is non-PC in Canada, much as it's fine in Alaska. The particular indigenous person of the north who was featured on QI was a Yupi'ik from Alaska - Sarah Palin's husband is one of those as well - and hence "Eskimo" rather than "Inuit" is the term to use. The plural of Yup'ik is Yupiit.

Had the person been an Aleut, then again "Eskimo" might have caused offence. The Aleut are very sure that they are not Eskimos; while they don't object to "Aleut", they prefer one Unangax, two Unangax, three or more Unangan. (Note that most of the Eskimo-Aleut languages have what's called a dual number; this comes between singular and plural and is used when there are two of something. It's rare in European languages; Slovenian and Sorbian have it, and it's on the point of vanishing from Lithuanian.)

The indigenous people of Baffin Island and such like places absolutely are Inuit, although "an Inuit" or "lots of Inuits" are always going to be wrong since "Inuit" is the plural. One Inuk, two Inuuk, three or more Inuit.

While the people of the central Arctic would prefer Inuinnaq to Inuit, they won't get especially upset at the more general word. As for indigenous Greenlanders, the preferred term is Kalaallit, singular Kalaaleq. (There's no dual in Greenlandic.)

Wikipedia is not informative on why/where it is considered offensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... But it has a nice map of the tribes.

Comment Open Source it (Score 1) 131

If TrueCrypt devs really gave up because they think it is pointless, then they should open source the code (BSD, Apache2, GPL, MIT). There is no reason not to, unless they had contributers who passed away.

So finally, was the duress canary activated or not? If it is "still there" as according to that tweet, that should mean it was not activated.

Btw, tc-play is not a solution, because it is Linux/BSD only.

Comment Re:It's like Swatch .beat Internet time all over (Score 1) 209

Complicated totally unfamiliar representation of date and time for the "information age"?

Why is it unfamiliar, it is almost the same as current representation:
YY.MM.DD,HH.MM.SS TC+7H
RFC3339 is
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS+07:00

And that May 31st corresponds to 5.20. is logical, as there are fewer days in their month.

Comment Zero-Day allowing the attacker run arbitrary code (Score 2, Interesting) 134

"Zero-Day exploit allowing the attacker to run arbitrary code"

I thought these words should be history based on the implemented NX bit, sandboxing, multiple lines of defense and Data Execution Prevention features of MS Windows after XP.

Why do all these features fail, when they are specifically designed for exposed code like IE? Or does this warning assume the worst case, where all these other features are turned off?

Comment Re:What goes around comes around (Score 1) 97

Not just that, but by ignoring any bacteria that might have survived the trip from Earth to Mars aboard Curiosity (and presumably earlier probes all the way back to Viking) they could potentially be ruling out other strains of the same bacteria that may have made the trip by means such as impact ejecta.

You can always later on send new probes to another part of Mars that do not have these strains, and get a sample from there. Mars' conditions are not exactly to make these bacteria thrive globally.

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