Topic: Computing/Software (Page 5)
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🔗 Comparison of X Window Managers
This article compares variety of different X window managers. For an introduction to the topic, see X Window System.
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- "Comparison of X Window Managers" | 2019-10-18 | 85 Upvotes 89 Comments
🔗 Flashsort
Flashsort is a distribution sorting algorithm showing linear computational complexity for uniformly distributed data sets and relatively little additional memory requirement. The original work was published in 1998 by Karl-Dietrich Neubert.
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- "Flashsort" | 2020-02-09 | 141 Upvotes 31 Comments
🔗 Cool stuff you can do with netcat
netcat (often abbreviated to nc) is a computer networking utility for reading from and writing to network connections using TCP or UDP. The command is designed to be a dependable back-end that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network debugging and investigation tool, since it can produce almost any kind of connection its user could need and has a number of built-in capabilities.
Its list of features includes port scanning, transferring files, and port listening, and it can be used as a backdoor.
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- "Cool stuff you can do with netcat" | 2010-11-05 | 126 Upvotes 39 Comments
🔗 NeWS – Network Extensible Window System
NeWS (Network extensible Window System) is a discontinued windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal. The NeWS interpreter was based on PostScript (as was the later Display PostScript, although the two projects were otherwise unrelated) extending it to allow interaction and multiple "contexts" to support windows. Like PostScript, NeWS could be used as a complete programming language, but unlike PostScript, NeWS could be used to make complete interactive programs with mouse support and a GUI.
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- "NeWS – Network Extensible Window System" | 2016-04-12 | 86 Upvotes 74 Comments
🔗 BRL-CAD
BRL-CAD is a constructive solid geometry (CSG) solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) system. It includes an interactive geometry editor, ray tracing support for graphics rendering and geometric analysis, computer network distributed framebuffer support, scripting, image-processing and signal-processing tools. The entire package is distributed in source code and binary form.
Although BRL-CAD can be used for a variety of engineering and graphics applications, the package's primary purpose continues to be the support of ballistic and electromagnetic analyses. In keeping with the Unix philosophy of developing independent tools to perform single, specific tasks and then linking the tools together in a package, BRL-CAD is basically a collection of libraries, tools, and utilities that work together to create, raytrace, and interrogate geometry and manipulate files and data. In contrast to many other 3D modelling applications, BRL-CAD primarily uses CSG rather than boundary representation. This means BRL-CAD can "study physical phenomena such as ballistic penetration and thermal, radiative, neutron, and other types of transport". It does also support boundary representation.
The BRL-CAD libraries are designed primarily for the geometric modeler who also wants to tinker with software and design custom tools. Each library is designed for a specific purpose: creating, editing, and ray tracing geometry, and image handling. The application side of BRL-CAD also offers a number of tools and utilities that are primarily concerned with geometric conversion, interrogation, image format conversion, and command-line-oriented image manipulation.
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- "BRL-CAD" | 2022-08-13 | 74 Upvotes 82 Comments
🔗 SIMH – Old Computer Emulator
SIMH is a free and open source, multi-platform multi-system emulator. It is maintained by Bob Supnik, a former DEC engineer and DEC vice president, and has been in development in one form or another since the 1960s.
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- "SIMH – Old Computer Emulator" | 2023-09-29 | 92 Upvotes 63 Comments
🔗 Gary Kildall
Gary Arlen Kildall (; May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur who created the CP/M operating system and founded Digital Research, Inc. (DRI). Kildall was one of the first people to see microprocessors as fully capable computers, rather than equipment controllers, and to organize a company around this concept. He also co-hosted the PBS TV show The Computer Chronicles. Although his career in computing spanned more than two decades, he is mainly remembered in connection with IBM's unsuccessful attempt in 1980 to license CP/M for the IBM Personal Computer.
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- "Gary Kildall" | 2015-06-05 | 87 Upvotes 61 Comments
🔗 HTTP 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons
In computer networking, HTTP 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons is an error status code of the HTTP protocol to be displayed when the user requests a resource which cannot be served for legal reasons, such as a web page censored by a government. The number 451 is a reference to Ray Bradbury's 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, in which books are outlawed. 451 intends to provide more information than 403 Forbidden, which is often used for the same purpose. This status code is standardized in RFC 7725.
Examples of situations where an HTTP 451 error code could be displayed include web pages deemed a danger to national security, or web pages deemed to violate copyright, privacy, blasphemy laws, or any other law or court order.
The RFC is specific that a 451 response does not indicate whether the resource exists but requests for it have been blocked, if the resource has been removed for legal reasons and no longer exists, or even if the resource has never existed, but any discussion of its topic has been legally forbidden (see superinjunction). Some sites have previously returned HTTP 404 (Not Found) or similar if they are not legally permitted to disclose that the resource has been removed. Such a tactic is used in the United Kingdom by some internet service providers utilising the Internet Watch Foundation blacklist, returning a 404 message or another error message instead of showing a message indicating the site is blocked.
The status code was formally proposed in 2013 by Tim Bray, following earlier informal proposals by Chris Applegate in 2008 and Terence Eden in 2012. It was approved by the IESG on December 18, 2015. It was published as RFC 7725 in February 2016.
HTTP 451 was mentioned by the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent program, as an indication of the effects of sanctions on Sudan and the inability to access Airbnb, iOS's App Store, or other Western web services.
After introduction of the GDPR in European Economic Area (EEA) many websites located outside EEA started to serve HTTP 451 instead of trying to comply with this new privacy law.
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- "HTTP 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons" | 2019-10-25 | 72 Upvotes 18 Comments
- "HTTP 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons" | 2019-03-22 | 18 Upvotes 2 Comments
- "HTTP 451: Unavailable for Legal Reasons" | 2017-01-26 | 10 Upvotes 1 Comments
🔗 Cowsay
cowsay is a program that generates ASCII art pictures of a cow with a message. It can also generate pictures using pre-made images of other animals, such as Tux the Penguin, the Linux mascot. It is written in Perl. There is also a related program called cowthink, with cows with thought bubbles rather than speech bubbles. .cow
files for cowsay exist which are able to produce different variants of "cows", with different kinds of "eyes", and so forth. It is sometimes used on IRC, desktop screenshots, and in software documentation. It is more or less a joke within hacker culture, but has been around long enough that its use is rather widespread. In 2007, it was highlighted as a Debian package of the day.
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- "Cowsay" | 2024-03-02 | 106 Upvotes 38 Comments
🔗 Capability Immaturity Model
Capability Immaturity Model (CIMM) in software engineering is a parody acronym, a semi-serious effort to provide a contrast to the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). The Capability Maturity Model is a five point scale of capability in an organization, ranging from random processes at level 1 to fully defined, managed and optimized processes at level 5. The ability of an organization to carry out its mission on time and within budget is claimed to improve as the CMM level increases.
The "Capability Im-Maturity Model" asserts that organizations can and do occupy levels below CMM level 1. An original article by Capt. Tom Schorsch USAF as part of a graduate project at the Air Force Institute of Technology provides the definitions for CIMM. He cites Prof. Anthony Finkelstein's ACM paper as an inspiration. The article describes situations that arise in dysfunctional organizations. Such situations are reportedly common in organizations of all kinds undertaking software development, i.e. they are really characterizations of the management of specific projects, since they can occur even in organizations with positive CMM levels.
Kik Piney, citing the original authors, later adapted the model to a somewhat satirical version that attracted a number of followers who felt that it was quite true to their experience.
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- "Capability Immaturity Model" | 2020-03-02 | 124 Upvotes 19 Comments