Comment Why a new one? (Score 1) 80
Isn't there one near the Mexico border in NM that already exists?
Comment Re:To what end? (Score 1) 219
"My impression, also from German newspapers etc., is that most germans including politicians are truely mad and are seriously considering to cool down relations with the USA."
As they should be, frankly the reaction seems inexplicably mild.
Can you imagine the reaction if the shoe was on the other foot? If this was a BD spy caught infiltrating the CIA?
A 'cool down' in relations would be a serious understatement.
As they should be, frankly the reaction seems inexplicably mild.
Can you imagine the reaction if the shoe was on the other foot? If this was a BD spy caught infiltrating the CIA?
A 'cool down' in relations would be a serious understatement.
Comment Re: haven't we learned from the last 25 exploits? (Score 1) 68
"Over the years, I've done a lot of work with games and simulations for training."
OK. That really doesnt have anything to do with the web, however. Sure, the web can be used to deliver the project - that doesnt mean it has to actually run inside the browser. There is a HUGE difference.
"We could not have produced this educational game with just HTML."
I get where you are coming from but I still think it's far off the mark. The web is not a game platform, that is not it's purpose, so 'we could not do games this way' is not a very telling criticism.
You can use better tools to make the games, and use the web merely to deliver the game. Where is the problem with that?
It would NOT be slower, clunkier, or more prone to error. It could be done using exactly the same technologies in virtually exactly the same way - the only difference would be very slightly less easy to get it started, and in return for that, your browser is no longer a malware vector.
Or, it could be done using technologies better suited for the purpose, in which case I would expect the results to be less clunky, faster, and more stable - but the development process would be more expensive as well.
I get why you would want to use RAD to lower costs, just not why you see the tiny convenience of running in the browser automatically as worth the cost of turning the web into a malware distribution network.
OK. That really doesnt have anything to do with the web, however. Sure, the web can be used to deliver the project - that doesnt mean it has to actually run inside the browser. There is a HUGE difference.
"We could not have produced this educational game with just HTML."
I get where you are coming from but I still think it's far off the mark. The web is not a game platform, that is not it's purpose, so 'we could not do games this way' is not a very telling criticism.
You can use better tools to make the games, and use the web merely to deliver the game. Where is the problem with that?
It would NOT be slower, clunkier, or more prone to error. It could be done using exactly the same technologies in virtually exactly the same way - the only difference would be very slightly less easy to get it started, and in return for that, your browser is no longer a malware vector.
Or, it could be done using technologies better suited for the purpose, in which case I would expect the results to be less clunky, faster, and more stable - but the development process would be more expensive as well.
I get why you would want to use RAD to lower costs, just not why you see the tiny convenience of running in the browser automatically as worth the cost of turning the web into a malware distribution network.
Comment His other project -- electoral-vote.com (Score 5, Informative) 136
So...Dr. Tannenbaum's other project is Electoral-vote.com (2), an election prediction site (and one of the first). Any clue what's going to happen to that?
Comment Re:Global Foundries doesn't want the chipfabs (Score 1) 68
Huh? The Power8 are 22nm same as Intel Haswell and frankly in most ways better than the Haswell.
Comment Technologic Systems (Score 1) 183
I just checked and they state that the TS-7260 draws half a watt minimum and 2W typical... I seem to recall it drawing even less than that though. Perhaps it was 200mA @ 3.3V which would fit within their spec.
Comment Technologic Systems (Score 1) 183
The embedded ARM boards from Technologic Systems are worth looking at also. I used a TS-7260 with a large enough SD card to install Debian with gcc and it worked great. It booted nearly instantly and consumed something like 100mA of current at 3.3V IIRC. It was quite a robust little box. There are newer and faster models than the TS-7260 at the link I provided above.
Comment Re:Lovelace? (Score 2) 285
"the server sucked my job right in"
Comment Re:haven't we learned from the last 25 exploits? (Score 0) 68
"An HTML-only web is great for relatively static content, but not so great for anything much beyond that. "
This sounds like nonsense to me, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you for *concrete* examples of what you are talking about. I have yet to be cited a single good example here - very often what is being done would work just fine in HTML, with less overhead, but the 'designers' just do not understand HTML, or have any desire to learn it, so they do things this way instead.
Certainly javascript can produce a slicker appearance and make certain things a bit smoother - but to do so it sacrifices device-independence and browser agnosticism - critical advantages that underlie the success of the web and whose loss can only undermine it.
Now if you build a proper web page, and then *enhance* it with javascript sanely, preserving graceful fallbacks, that would be fine. You can have your slick interface without sacrificing the web. And I can choose to avoid your slick interface so as not to sacrifice my security.
The 'designers' that cant be bothered to do that, and the suits that keep them employed, are the reason we cant have nice things. In this case, javascript.
"Is it so difficult to grok why you might want content to change on the client?"
Not difficult to understand why it was desired.
The point is it's harmful and been proven harmful, and far too harmful for the small advantages it brings to outweigh that.
This sounds like nonsense to me, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you for *concrete* examples of what you are talking about. I have yet to be cited a single good example here - very often what is being done would work just fine in HTML, with less overhead, but the 'designers' just do not understand HTML, or have any desire to learn it, so they do things this way instead.
Certainly javascript can produce a slicker appearance and make certain things a bit smoother - but to do so it sacrifices device-independence and browser agnosticism - critical advantages that underlie the success of the web and whose loss can only undermine it.
Now if you build a proper web page, and then *enhance* it with javascript sanely, preserving graceful fallbacks, that would be fine. You can have your slick interface without sacrificing the web. And I can choose to avoid your slick interface so as not to sacrifice my security.
The 'designers' that cant be bothered to do that, and the suits that keep them employed, are the reason we cant have nice things. In this case, javascript.
"Is it so difficult to grok why you might want content to change on the client?"
Not difficult to understand why it was desired.
The point is it's harmful and been proven harmful, and far too harmful for the small advantages it brings to outweigh that.
Video Will Google's Dart Language Replace Javascript? (Video) 180
Comment Re:haven't we learned from the last 25 exploits? (Score 1) 68
"If you want the web to be useful, you should be pushing for only the most minimal use of Javascript."
When this crap first started getting pushed, a lot of us saw the potential problems coming and objected. We were assured it was only to be used to 'spice up' webpages, not to replace them.
Such assurances are obviously shit. If it's allowed to use it, then the lowest common denominator of self-proclaimed 'designers' can, will, and must overuse it. This overuse expands steadily and predictably until and unless there is effective pushback. Today we have reached the point where the typical corporate 'website' (and I use scare quotes because these things are NOT websites, at all) consists of hundreds of executable files, fetched from dozens of different servers, all of which the browser is expected to suck in and execute without so much as giving you a warning.
And contrary to the hilarious suggestion I see at the top of many many webpages today ("Enable Javascript for a better user experience") this does not bring with it any substantial improvements for the user. Quite the contrary, it results in a worse immediate experience (no, I didnt want a dozen popups, autoplaying video presentations, and a huge advertisement that floats over the text so I cannot see it!) and also in the longer term (like a week later when you discover that some random ad server sent your browser a rootkit and it happily executed it, oops!.)
But the point is history has proven this is a bad code drives out good situation. If it's allowed, it will take over, just like a weed.
Turn off javascript. See the web as it really is. And support the web that still exists, before it's too late.
When this crap first started getting pushed, a lot of us saw the potential problems coming and objected. We were assured it was only to be used to 'spice up' webpages, not to replace them.
Such assurances are obviously shit. If it's allowed to use it, then the lowest common denominator of self-proclaimed 'designers' can, will, and must overuse it. This overuse expands steadily and predictably until and unless there is effective pushback. Today we have reached the point where the typical corporate 'website' (and I use scare quotes because these things are NOT websites, at all) consists of hundreds of executable files, fetched from dozens of different servers, all of which the browser is expected to suck in and execute without so much as giving you a warning.
And contrary to the hilarious suggestion I see at the top of many many webpages today ("Enable Javascript for a better user experience") this does not bring with it any substantial improvements for the user. Quite the contrary, it results in a worse immediate experience (no, I didnt want a dozen popups, autoplaying video presentations, and a huge advertisement that floats over the text so I cannot see it!) and also in the longer term (like a week later when you discover that some random ad server sent your browser a rootkit and it happily executed it, oops!.)
But the point is history has proven this is a bad code drives out good situation. If it's allowed, it will take over, just like a weed.
Turn off javascript. See the web as it really is. And support the web that still exists, before it's too late.
Comment Re:What happened to Scheme? (Score 1) 415
I absolutely agree with you. I have some doubt though that SICP needs to be a first course.
Embedded, ROMs, low level OS components... is obviously the old paradigm. Most of an OS or VM though I'd say is going to be high level library manipulation. As for writing a library, I think it depends on the library. Most libraries today are highly dependent on other libraries.
Comment Re:Really bad game to use for this comparison. (Score 1) 210
Do you need that much FPS? Can anyone really tell much above 30fps? That used to be my baseline for knowing when I could finish tweaking the settings and start playing.
Absolutely. There is a clear difference between 30 and 60 fps when playing computer games.
Anything above 60 is gravy, but getting a game to stay at 60 is what you want, since it tends to be the refresh rate of the screen you're playing on.
Comment Re:say wha? (Score 4, Insightful) 68
"English translation: as usual, Flash is useless except as a vector for malware, viruses, trojans and keyloggers. Remove Flash from your system."
That's actually not quite true. Flash is a great way to develop simple games quickly and cheaply.
The problem isnt Flash itself (which is on the whole a fine product, used correctly) but the idea of using Flash as a substitute for a webpage, the installation of it as a browser plugin, and the auto-execution of it by the browser. None of that should be tolerated.
It's still possible to get a standalone flash interpreter and only feed it local, vetted files, which is really fine (or as close to fine as lots of other things you do every day, at least.) But Adobe seems to be trying their best to discourage that and force everyone to use it as an auto-enabled browser component instead. The one way to use the program that causes major problems is also the one way they want you to use it.
Everyone who has been infected as a result of this should really get together and sue these arseholes, because money is the only language they understand.
That's actually not quite true. Flash is a great way to develop simple games quickly and cheaply.
The problem isnt Flash itself (which is on the whole a fine product, used correctly) but the idea of using Flash as a substitute for a webpage, the installation of it as a browser plugin, and the auto-execution of it by the browser. None of that should be tolerated.
It's still possible to get a standalone flash interpreter and only feed it local, vetted files, which is really fine (or as close to fine as lots of other things you do every day, at least.) But Adobe seems to be trying their best to discourage that and force everyone to use it as an auto-enabled browser component instead. The one way to use the program that causes major problems is also the one way they want you to use it.
Everyone who has been infected as a result of this should really get together and sue these arseholes, because money is the only language they understand.
Comment Re:haven't we learned from the last 25 exploits? (Score 5, Insightful) 68
Excellent advice.
Expect to be flamed into oblivion by all the 'web devs' that cant be bothered to learn how HTML works and rely on this crap instead, though.
The web - the real web, the HTML web, appears to be shrinking at the moment. New content is often hidden behind some kind of opaque app crap for no apparent reason and with no actual webpage for fallback (thanks google!) and old content occasionally gets removed as well. Each time this happens, it makes it even harder and less likely to revive the healthy web we once built with such love and care.
And naturally the people that are making a profit on this crap will just keep right on cranking it out as long as that is true.
The real victims here are future generations, who should inherit that world-wide web, but are set to inherit something entirely different - and inferior in every way (when judged from the users perspective - from the perspective of big Advertising of course the story will be different, but we built this web for humans, not for marketing.)
Expect to be flamed into oblivion by all the 'web devs' that cant be bothered to learn how HTML works and rely on this crap instead, though.
The web - the real web, the HTML web, appears to be shrinking at the moment. New content is often hidden behind some kind of opaque app crap for no apparent reason and with no actual webpage for fallback (thanks google!) and old content occasionally gets removed as well. Each time this happens, it makes it even harder and less likely to revive the healthy web we once built with such love and care.
And naturally the people that are making a profit on this crap will just keep right on cranking it out as long as that is true.
The real victims here are future generations, who should inherit that world-wide web, but are set to inherit something entirely different - and inferior in every way (when judged from the users perspective - from the perspective of big Advertising of course the story will be different, but we built this web for humans, not for marketing.)
