I am blushing and filing this with "gullible is not in the dictionary".

razn1 ~ $ w
  23:14:15 up 11 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.05
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
bob pts/0 whitechrome.wr.t 23:14 7.00s 1.29s 0.04s w
razn1 ~ $
razn1 ~ $
razn1 ~ $ # flash flash flash... must be one honking flash but mine is big.
razn1 ~ $
@razn1 ~ $ w
  23:16:14 up 13 min, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.04, 0.05 .....

There is a move toward BSD for a number of reasons. It is difficult to comply with the
new GPL on some modern platforms where bits of this and that are closed. Many of
the new SOC devices have NDA or binary blob support for this and that.

The new compiler has already kicked the GCC folk in the logjam of bugs and features.

As long as the bits packaged with GCC are GPL there is no big issue.

The Apple example is interesting. They have used LLVM and kit on some projects
but recently have given their internal changes back to the LLVM community. Not because
they had to but because keeping up with a wider and wider collection of diffs is harder
and harder to do.

RMS is correct to be concerned and the selection of hardware and software
needs to consider licence as well as long term maintenance of their product.
With the internet of things coming there will be litigation should a company
fail to maintain a bug fix stream during the reasonable life expectancy of the device.
Some cell phones distribute the blame... Google, Samsung, AT&T where each
is a congested pile of congesting making me feel samstung. I now only buy
half price unlocked refurbished hardware with removable batteries when a device
get too long in the tooth. My current phone was purchased because of tower investment
and no more. They are no longer updating it so I am looking hard at rooting it
for a list of missing features.

First we need to establish what a Legitimate purpose is.

Journalism is a mixed tangle of bags. There are many goals
one of which is honesty and transparency. Another is greed
and avarice to sell more pages, papers and air time than the
others. Another is to inform...

A journal or diary in history has been the best and most informative
connection we have with the past. Some of the content in the
"Diary of Ann Frank" is not rated G or even PG but had it
been lost the world would have less awareness of that bit of ugly
history. "The Voyage of the Beagle" based on Darwin's journals
has changed the world. The journals of the Apostles and yes
Mohamed have changed the world. Letters and collections of
letters like "The The Born-Einstein Letters" qualify as journalism.

For those that are in denial about the methods and motives of ISIS
this might qualify as a legitimate wake up call. For those that
share the TV with a family: children, parents, grand parents... this
is wrong in a number of ways too obvious to elaborate on.

The worst photo is the one you did not take.
Cell phone cameras cover this convenience factor
very well. Al lot better than the early box point and shoot
film cameras.

Camera vendors will need to look a lot harder at
the user interface, form factor, low light performance,
automatic bracketing,

The good news is the mirrorless cameras are grabbing
a lot of attention and have made astounding moves
forward. They allow quality glass and are also well
suited for home video...

Megapixels are no longer a challenge. With ten
times the pixels needed to display on FleaseBlock
and wanting quality issues on home computer displays
the camera side of this consumer producer equation
will remain unbalanced and the camera market
will continue to shrink. The sensor side has already
consolidated behind the shutter. Sensor upgrades
are pixel depth limited enough that HDR will continue
to be an interesting tool. Automatic bracketing and
on demand HDR is possible on almost all systems today.
Bigger faster lenses with more dynamics will do better
than cell phones.

Can I have this part on a $37 Raspberry Pi mod next please?

If you are first it is hard to be redundant no mater what the cost.

This is almost interesting. As disks get less and less expensive per GB
the entire issue of a reliable RAID both for capacity, reliability and speed
is an increasingly interesting problem.

The difficult thing today is the backup and restoration from a backup.
Large individual TB disks do take a bit of time to write and verify. Copying from
A to B for an off line copy takes a lot of time.... Vast filesystems of the
modern cloud have additional issues.
With viruses and malware that encrypt filesystems and devices. There is an
honest need for off line read only copies when you are held hostage.

Realistic failure and repair assumptions is a red flag.

Pascal is underrated as a language.
It might be said that Modula II improved on it.

As a teaching tool it is astoundingly effective with one limitation.
The set of Pascal compilers out there is not nearly as rich or
portable as Python, Java or JavaScript...

I do not have ^pointers to references but it reduces many
teaching assistant tasks and if the program compiles it tends
do do what the author intended.

Today too many think the value of a language is the massive piles
of library cruft that goes with it. That alone makes Python a winner
because most stuff has been done and the big task is not learning
the language but finding what you need in the pile of changing
library routines.

It is verbose... but for the top down designer a classic screen or
two (24linesx80char) can capture most functions.

It is not well placed as an OS coding language but worthy
systems have been coded in it.

It has a lot of features. Tex & Metafont were coded in a subset
of Pascal. By reducing the language correctness was improved.

Some day I will have to ask DK if he would select a different programming
language if he knew then what we have today.

Students... first year yes.
Working in my shop not so sure.

This may enable potentially important solutions like: http://www.spi.dod.mil/lipose....
Lightweight Portable Security (LPS) creates a secure end node from trusted media on
almost any Intel-based computer (PC or Mac). LPS boots a thin Linux operating system
from a CD or USB flash stick without mounting a local hard drive.

The LPS may be less than ideal but it is a good step forward and makes it clear
that a like solution has a valid place in government and corporate America.
Some think this is a baby step. I think it is a step in the correct direction.

This is sage... No language can protect from a stupid programmer.

Of interest the security model and features in Java as far as I can tell has foundational
problems. The sandbox is not as well built as it might be .... and parts of the security
model are unverified and ill understood.

It is a notable language. It is not magically secure...
The moderately recent enhancements to the VM to permit other languages to use the VM are interesting.

Oracle has used Java for a long time and before they picked off Sun depended on a very old
and outdated version of Java to run many Oracle tools in a browser. This left such a bad
impression on me that I have been unwilling to look and see if it is still necessary to use Java 4.5
or whatever it was...

In the intervening years I would hope that Oracle fixed this now that they own both parts.
Not owning a dependency is like having a pebble in your shoe, painful and crippling.
Being an optimist I hope this was the reason for getting Sun... I hope they acted on it.

Pascal had the advantage of replacing a gaggle of teaching assistants with a compiler.
As a teaching tool it is worthy of consideration.
In reality finding Pascal compilers is moderately difficult which might exclude it.
But as a first language capable of real programs it is real.

I do have a bias. One of the best assembly programmers I know
is also an astounding Pascal programmer. His assembly had all
the organizational requirements that the Pascal language enforces but
in assembly it is a free for all but he keeps it together.

Proof to me was his six+ months of work on a BIOS with no emulator
that booted the first time on new hardware when the hardware was done.
Back when the MC68000 was hot cutting edge stuff tools were sparse and skilled
disciplined programmers were a requirement. Skill and discipline still has value.

OK the out of date horribly behind should not be an issue in a basic class.
A language that moves so fast that basic classes are obsolete is absolutely BROKEN!

It is darn hard to build class material and train teachers. Class content often needs review
to the point that modest revisions are just as hard as a full rewrite (something is broken here).

A year or two of class work can be full of fundamental content that is built not quicksand.

The incredible complex bit is bogus
The book on "c" is vastly shorter than any VB intro text.

If he is a good instructor any modern or near modern language is fine with me (I have my doubts).

I have my preferences in strongly typed languages and I am open to functional vs. object oriented
models. I have been astounded with the work that clever folk do with OO languages but I get
disillusioned when maintenance becomes an issue. Pascal helped many instructors and for
that reason alone still needs to be on the list.

Any language that takes more pages to describe than "The C Programming Language" uses
is suspect to me. Sadly many consider the big pile of library functions and all their interactions
as part of the language.

Modern languages need to be precise enough that a compiler can make common optimizations
safely. A foundation of basic library functions that only depends on the language itself can be
volume II. Having said that string libraries need to be improved. Math libraries are important
to me so Vol III but bounded to K-12 math and statistics. Sorting and Searching can be Vol IV.
University level tools and goals as addressed in libraries need their own number space.

But Vol I needs to be the language itself and no more.

Well DUH....

All the more reason to bug Micro$oft to fix bugs.
As the single largest vector of system infections Micro$oft
seem to be playing loosie goosie and we are all at risk for it.

Fix them bugs ladies and gents.

The astounding bit is the astounding parade of tuesday patches
mostly the bugs are stupid blunder but not all.

At this point all the TLAs and near and far nations and corporations
have copies of WindowZ and it is a simple race to find exploit or find
and plug. For microsoft to take 90+ days to fix a known and verified bug
seems like a lot of time. Given the cash flow to management there is
clearly a mismatch to the talent I know to be there.

All the players need to get it together and focus on stability and correctness.
Yes you too Linus...

N.B. It is clearly time to jailbreak any phone that the seller fails to update.
When network operators like AT&T blocks hardware vendors like Samsung
from issuing patches BY CONTRACT we have a problem. OK I am feeling
a bit Samstung but they are not alone. PS how hard is it to engineer in a bigger
battery so I can get 36 hours of life from the thing... That is not software, that
is not very much in the way of a case adjustment. I would be happy with
a phone the size of a box of Marlboros. BTW Darrell was a nice guy.