Slashdot Mirror

it's a counting thing... relative to ages.. here check this out.

http://home1.gte.net/bridavis/timeline.htm

like how they have virtual sex in demolition man?
http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widescreen/demolitio n/

They did

But like the support for Alpha it tanked

P.S. Does anyone know why Windows has never been adapted to run under PPC?

Errm, actually, it WAS. See for instance

http://home1.gte.net/res008nh/nt/ppc/default.htm

Basically, your observations about cars are correct. I was going to point out the Czech exception, but you noted that.

Motorcycles are another story. Russian bikes are not much to speak of, and the Dneper and Ural owe a lot to older BMW designs. However the East German MZ was an innovative and scrappy marque, enjoying racing success well into the 1960s. In fact, it was the defection of MZ rider Ernst Degner to Suzuki in 1961 that gave the Japanese rotary valve technology, making their own two-strokes competitive for the first time. By the seventies, GP development budgets had far exceeded MZ's limited recources and they faded from the racing scene. But they continued to make staid inexpensive bikes. Lately they have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, even in the US.

Not surprisingly, the Czechs also made excellent motorcycles. CZ dominated GP Motocross in the 1960s, winning more titles than any other manufacturer. Likewise, Jawa/ESO completely dominated Speedway and ice racing right through the 1980s. They also made some fine motocross, and IIRC, trials bikes.

Basically, your observations about cars are correct. I was going to point out the Czech exception, but you noted that.

Motorcycles are another story. Russian bikes are not much to speak of, and the Dneper and Ural owe a lot to older BMW designs. However the East German MZ was an innovative and scrappy marque, enjoying racing success well into the 1960s. In fact, it was the defection of MZ rider Ernst Degner to Suzuki in 1961 that gave the Japanese rotary valve technology, making their own two-strokes competitive for the first time. By the seventies, GP development budgets had far exceeded MZ's limited recources and they faded from the racing scene. But they continued to make staid inexpensive bikes. Lately they have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, even in the US.

Not surprisingly, the Czechs also made excellent motorcycles. CZ dominated GP Motocross in the 1960s, winning more titles than any other manufacturer. Likewise, Jawa/ESO completely dominated Speedway and ice racing right through the 1980s. They also made some fine motocross, and IIRC, trials bikes.

Basically, your observations about cars are correct. I was going to point out the Czech exception, but you noted that.

Motorcycles are another story. Russian bikes are not much to speak of, and the Dneper and Ural owe a lot to older BMW designs. However the East German MZ was an innovative and scrappy marque, enjoying racing success well into the 1960s. In fact, it was the defection of MZ rider Ernst Degner to Suzuki in 1961 that gave the Japanese rotary valve technology, making their own two-strokes competitive for the first time. By the seventies, GP development budgets had far exceeded MZ's limited recources and they faded from the racing scene. But they continued to make staid inexpensive bikes. Lately they have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, even in the US.

Not surprisingly, the Czechs also made excellent motorcycles. CZ dominated GP Motocross in the 1960s, winning more titles than any other manufacturer. Likewise, Jawa/ESO completely dominated Speedway and ice racing right through the 1980s. They also made some fine motocross, and IIRC, trials bikes.

Several years back, Microsoft wrote a version of Windows NT for PowerPC chips.

Here's a link.

Actually, Windows NT was made for PPC.

FAQ

Proof. But, like the link says, support was dropped in 1996, and it WAS only NT (obviously). But if it's been done before it can be done again.

Isn't it safe to say if the cost of a 'server' or 'workstation' 64bit chip is cheap enough to replace a 'standard' chip in a PC then why can't they claim the right to the first Desktop PC (64bit)...just because it can be used as a server or workstation doesn't mean it can't do all of the needs of a PC.

If that's how you choose to define things, the first 64-bit desktop PC's were made over a decade ago.

Oh, and if one 64-bit PC architecture weren't enough, how about this one? Of course, back then, Windows NT also ran on the PowerPC architecture.

So... either the fact that the Opteron, like the MIPS and Alpha chips, was not designed or intended for use in "personal computers" means that Opteron-based workstations are not "personal computers" any more than Alpha- or MIPS-based ones were... or neither AMD nor Apple has the first "64-bit personal computer" by an entire decade.

(Incidentally, Windows NT 4.0 CD's -- I have one -- still contain code for those other architectures!)

Aswell I don't know if I agree with the statement that is has to be a basically "Dell" or some big name company build to be a PC... I have a 17inch monitor, speakers, headphones a mouse and keyboard and athlon 1600+... I call it a PC..and I built it from parts.

It doesn't -- it just has to be substantively identical to one. "Personal computers" are -- or are substantively identical to things that are -- mass-produced and marketed to consumers. You didn't see commercials on VH-1 for your system, and you didn't buy it at the mall or a big-box computer store -- but you (or others) have probably seen commercials for substantively identical kit on VH-1, and you could have bought something substantively identical to it in a mall or big-box store.

You cannot (to my knowledge) walk into the mall, or a big-box computer store, right now, and walk out with a BOXX workstation or something substantively identical, nor will you see commercials for it on VH-1. You will see commercials on VH-1 for Apple's G5, and you can walk into an Apple Store or possibly even a CompUSA store (I don't know who's gotten shipments of what, ya know?) and walk out one. (They'll be upset, though, if you don't pay.)

I realize, of course, that this all reeks of people with advertising budgets getting to declare that their products are whatever the heck they darn well please. Apple could have claimed that the G5 was a desktop, a personal computer, a workstation, a server, even a cheese grater, and since they're spending the bucks on commercials, that's what The Masses(tm) will probably believe. :)

Connie Richardson would prefer to hear from you by email at connie.richardson@gte.net.

Yes, back in 1978, I too wrote my own version of Star Trek for an IBM 370 using APL.

APL. (Perl for arrays.)

Star Trek in 15 lines (and a lot of 0,0rho reshaping!)

One of the news articles on the HT front page prompted me to look at the UN page which is worth looking at for a good example of how not to build a page : the UN english page . All the text on the page is in the form of images - usually a sign that the designer has not a clue. (The source says it was done with Adobe GoLive.)

For a good page I'd suggest Arts and Letters Daily which presents a lot of information in a nicely usable format. I would prefer that their banner image be just a tad smaller though. The stuff at the foot is also a bit annoying (expecially the hitbox crap) and not well laid out - but I rarely get that far down.

And if I might indulge my own amusement for a bit I'd recommend my personal webpage as being almost completely unusable. Odd javascript. No navigation. Big (oddly unusable and quite awful) image of me. General overboard hackiness. Serious dependencies on browsers. Here Ya Go

There are one-handed (seperate ones for the left and right hand) Dvorak layouts for normal keyboards.

http://home1.gte.net/bharrell/kbdtxt.htm

'Nuff Said.

You forgot the obligatory reference to the photographic evidence against JFK's alleged assassin.

Actually, there was a PPC version of Windows NT for a little while. It was never meant to run on Macs though.

>> or until that one-handed keyboard comes around.

One handed keyboards (both left and right handed) were developed by Dvorak and some other guy a while ago. They are also *the* standard for disabled one-handed typists. In fact, if your a windows user, you can change your keyboard layout to the left or right handed layout without adding additional software.

See This website for more info

you could also try google for more links and, perhaps, a better typing tutor

good stuff

Maybe one day your OS will run on PPC, then we can really compare Apples to Apples. Then again, no one would buy it.

Windows NT did run on PPC at one time. They discontinued it because no one bought it.

This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, when he warns that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, that this statement is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, be so sure that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large?

Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense.

This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story which was itself submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last Sunday's [2002-10-27] Los Angeles Times. There -- in an article by military analyst William Arkin, detailing the vast expansion of the secret armies being massed by the former Nixon bureaucrat now lording it over the Pentagon -- came the revelation of Rumsfeld's plan to create "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" that will "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception."

According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization -- the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)" -- will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.

In other words -- and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan -- the United States government is planning to use "cover and deception" and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people -- your family, your friends, your lovers, you -- in order to further their geopolitical ambitions.

For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice -- a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime's own preferred terminology and just call it "evil"?) No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action -- by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves? -- they can then take measures against the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."

The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant "justification" for whatever level of intervention/conquest/rapine you might desire. And what if the territory you fancy doesn't actually harbor any convenient marauders to use for fun and profit? Well, surely a God-like "super-Intelligence Support Activity" is capable of creation ex nihilo, yes?

The Rumsfeld-Bush plan to employ murder and terrorism for political, financial and ideological gain does have historical roots (besides al Qaeda, the Stern Gang, the SA, the SS, the KGB, the IRA, the UDF, Eta, Hamas, Shining Path and countless other upholders of Bushian morality, decency and freedom). We refer of course to Operations Northwoods, oft mentioned in these pages: the plan that America's top military brass presented to President John Kennedy in 1963, calling for a phony terrorist campaign -- complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans -- to provide "justification" for an invasion of Cuba, the Mafia/Corporate fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro.

Kennedy rejected the plan, and was killed a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by those brass of yore, with no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him -- and with an ignorant, corrupt president who has shown himself all too eager to embrace any means whatsoever that will augment the wealth and power of his own narrow, undemocratic, elitist clique.

There is prestuplyeniye here, transgression, a stepping-over -- deliberately, with open eyes, with forethought, planning, and conscious will -- of lines that should never be crossed. Acting in deadly symbiosis with rage-maddened killers, God-crazed ranters and those supreme "sub-state actors," the mafias, Bush and his cohorts are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of black ops, retribution, blowback, deceit, of murder and terror -- wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized; of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us, of all that we've won from the bestiality of our primal nature, all that we've raised above the mindless ravening urges and impulses still boiling in the mud of our monkey brains.

It's not a fight for freedom; it's a retreat into darkness.

And the day will be a long time coming.

One of the requirements was the ability to search for recipes. Internet's always an option, but is there anything similar to Meal Master out there for Linux? I searched around Freshmeat, Sourceforge, Google, and the Debian package database, and most of what's available are PHP/SQL web-based solutions. I'm setting up a 486 laptop for my wife to enter recipes, and I was hoping for a console-based app instead of having to run Apache, SQL, and all that. Any suggestions?

Check it out here...he just went over his data transfer on Yahoo =P.

Check out one of these mirror sites:
freelug.org
armorica.biz
gte.net

I don't know how he got the impression that he's going to get some major slashdotting... but the list of mirrors is a good idea.

Anyway... IF the Geocities mirror list get's slashdotted, here are the list of mirrors:

http://perso.freelug.org/legway/LegWay.html
http://legway.armorica.biz
http://home1.gte.net/res1g289/StevesLegWay.htm

Looks like someone gave the guy pre-warning, his page only has links to some mirrors, e.g. Here or here or even here .

...And remember, she's doing it for the children =( *sniff*

All the hoopla about sophisticated robot manipulators does not hide the fact they have no idea how they are goping to control these things in real time. Motor control is a very complex process. It will require more than just powerful computers. Manual dexterity is not something one can hand-program into a computer. It will take a general learning system to learn sensori-motor control in a real-world environment. Spiking neural networks have the best chance of solving this problem. Although I applaud their engineering approach, it will be some time before Shadow's hand becomes useful to handicapped.

What's wrong with the algorithm?

Nothing. It simply should not be the basis of programming. Do a search on Google for "synchronous reactive systems" to get a sense of where software engineering is going.

Project COSA

We're the next group to advance CS/E. We've got to adopt these folks as our mentors and learn all we can from them.

Not just _how_ their stuff works, but _why_ they did it. Fundamental practices 30 years ago are as fundamental today as they were then.

True. But we must also learn why their stuff did not work. Dijkstra learned why the old stuff did not work and changed it. The truth is that we are in a middle of a software reliability and productivity crisis.

Dijkstra did us all a favor by eliminating the cancer of spaghetti code from algorithmic software. Now we need to look further. Are there any more cancerous tumors in software engineering that need to be cut out? I think so.

I think the biggest and nastiest cancer of them all is the practice of basing software construction on the algorithm. We need to abandon our algorithmic past and embrace a signal-based, reactive software paradigm. It took decades before Dijkstra's contributions became widely adopted. I hope we do not repeat the same mistake.

Project COSA

Its unfortunate that our field is so young that its pioneers are just now starting to pass on (compared to other sciences such as Physics, Chemistry, etc.).

Yes. Computer science is indeed in its infancy. Dijkstra cleaned up algorithms by eliminating spaghetti code and introducing structured programming. In my opinion, we are still mired deep in the dark ages of computing. If only someone would clean up software engineering by eliminating the algorithm as the basis of software construction.

Do a search on Google for 'synchronous reactive systems' and find out about the next big advance in software engineering.

Project COSA

If you want to convince people, *do something*, don't just *talk about doing something*.

I have done a lot more than you think. These ideas did not materialize into thin air from nowhere while sitting on my ass. They've been a long time coming. You may not realize it but that is the brunt of the work. The rest is just engineering.

I am working on a two-sided project, AI (Animal) and software reliability (COSA). I have done a tremendous amount of research in AI (see the links below) and written C++ code for a chess learning spiking neural network which can be downloaded from the site. Check it out. I am currently writing code for the COSA execution kernel.

I think this work is too important to allow business interests to control it. I have decided to open-source all the code and research as soon as I can attract one or more sponsors.

Temporal Intelligence

Animal

If you want to convince people, *do something*, don't just *talk about doing something*.

I have done a lot more than you think. These ideas did not materialize into thin air from nowhere while sitting on my ass. They've been a long time coming. You may not realize it but that is the brunt of the work. The rest is just engineering.

I am working on a two-sided project, AI (Animal) and software reliability (COSA). I have done a tremendous amount of research in AI (see the links below) and written C++ code for a chess learning spiking neural network which can be downloaded from the site. Check it out. I am currently writing code for the COSA execution kernel.

I think this work is too important to allow business interests to control it. I have decided to open-source all the code and research as soon as I can attract one or more sponsors.

Temporal Intelligence

Animal

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we create software. The solution requires a fundamental change in the way we program our computers. Software suffers from a seminal problem. The primary reason that software is so unreliable and so hard to produce has to do with a custom that is as old as the computer: the practice of using the algorithm as the basis of software construction. Moving to a pure signal-based software model will result in at least an order of magnitude improvement in both reliability and productivity.

There is something rotten at the heart of software engineering. We are using a software technology that was introduced one hundred and sixty years ago by Lady Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. This was at a time when the best performance they could hope for that speed demon of theirs--the analytical engine, too bad they never got it to work--was maybe fifty cycles per second at the most. Times have changed somewhat since then. More details can be found at the links below:

Project COSA

My longstanding opinion is that neural networks are the wrong level of abstraction for understanding intelligence, human or machine.

Not a very valid opinion since the behavioral complexity and robustness of biological neural networks are many, many orders of magnitude greater than that of any robot or program in existence. Alice is a good example. But this view is to be expected from a GOFAI (good old fashioned AI) guru whose livelihood depends on hawking the hopelessly flawed symbolic intelligence and knowledge representation approach to AI. This approach is over fifty years old and they still can't use it to make a machine as smart as a cockroach. Not a very good track record, IMO.

For a better take on why neural networks are the only hope for achieving human level AI, click on the links below:

Temporal Intelligence
Animal

My longstanding opinion is that neural networks are the wrong level of abstraction for understanding intelligence, human or machine.

Not a very valid opinion since the behavioral complexity and robustness of biological neural networks are many, many orders of magnitude greater than that of any robot or program in existence. Alice is a good example. But this view is to be expected from a GOFAI (good old fashioned AI) guru whose livelihood depends on hawking the hopelessly flawed symbolic intelligence and knowledge representation approach to AI. This approach is over fifty years old and they still can't use it to make a machine as smart as a cockroach. Not a very good track record, IMO.

For a better take on why neural networks are the only hope for achieving human level AI, click on the links below:

Temporal Intelligence
Animal

Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=4, Funny=1, Overrated=3, Total=11.

Interesting moderation totals. I must have struck a sensitive nerve. For the record, my site received over a twelve hundred hits in less than 12 hours after I posted my message on Slashdot. I thank the few enlightened souls who were kind enough to email me their words of encouragement. Stay tuned. There is much more to come.

Project COSA

• the fact that we have largely moved away from an algorithmic model to an event-driven one, which is inconsistant and unstable by nature.
• Program states used to be simplified representations modelling reality (or fantasy). They increasingly base their state on raw reality. It doesn't matter how predictable an algorhithm is if you can't predict the state getting fed to it.
• Due to a combination of both laziness and overwork, as well as a preponderance of reinventing the wheel, most algorhithmic software-based systems use too much code that's too poorly tested to even dream of reliability.

• You can't predict in what order sensors will trigger, making it possible to have unexpected effects when sensors trigger in an unexpected fashion
• Digital data and comparison sensors will never allow for a perfect decision to be made regarding analog reality.

Why do you need the inflight reboot?

Because that is the nature of complex algorithmic systems. An algorithmic system is temporally inconsistent and unstable by nature. Using the algorithm as the basis of software construction is an ancient practice pioneered by Lady Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. It is the fundamental reason why dependable software systems are so hard to produce.

There is something rotten at the core of software engineering. Software functionality should not be fundamentally different from hardware functionality. Software should emulate hardware and serve as an extension to it. It should only provide the two things that are lacking in hardware: flexibility and ease of modification. The only way to solve the reliability crisis is to abandon the bad practice of using algorithms as the basis of software construction and to adopt a pure signal-based paradigm. More details can be found at the links below:

Project COSA

In a way, it's sad. We're stuck with vanilla architecture like x86 and vanilla languages like C. There are many better approaches, but none better enough that the pain of conversion is worth it.

I disagree. There is a better approach to software construction and execution that can bring at least an order of magnitude improvement in reliability and productivity. We are in the middle of a crisis because there is something fundamentally wrong in the way we develop software. The root cause of the problem is as old as Lady Ada and Charles Babbage. It is the old practice of using the algorithm as the basis of software construction. Fortunately we don't have to live with it.

This is a golden opportunity for Transmeta (or any struggling chip and software company) to redefine software engineering and computing as we know it. They can do the right thing and leave Microsoft, Intel and AMD in the dust. Details at the links below.

Project COSA

Transmetta does not have to die. They need to focus on the two biggest problems in the computer industry: unreliability and low productivity. If they can come up with a solution that can bring at least an order of magnitude improvement in both productivity and reliability, they can kick both Intel's and Microsoft's asses.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we develop software and the way we design our CPUs to execute the software that we develop. There is something rotten at the heart of software engineering. It has to do with the old practice of using the algorithm as the basis of software development.

We need a new software construction paradigm, one which is based on signals. Transmeta has the golden opportunity to do something real cool and save lives in the process. More can be found at the links below.

Project COSA

What enquiring onanists need to know is which keyboard layout is fastest using just one hand....

That would be the single handed dvorak layout. I'd go for the left handed layout....

This is lame. A much more interesting story would be that someone had written a program that could play world class chess without world class CPU horsepower.

I am working on just such a project. It's called Animal.

It was at Lung Hu Shan (Mountains of Dragon and Tiger), renowned as the birthplace of Taoism, that first -generation Heavenly Master Chang Tao Ling founded Taoism at the end of the Han Dynasty more than 1,800 years ago. Chang Tao Ling had visited many well known mountains and rivers in China and finally settled on the imposing Mount Lung Hu where he made immortality pills called Chiu Tien ( Nine Heaven Spiritual Elixir) for 36 years. Lung Hu Shan has remained a sacred place of Taoism to the present 65th generation descendants of Chang Tao Ling. With the support of ancient dynasties Taoism developed rapidly in China. During the Ching Dynasty historical records document 230 palaces, temples, and pavilions at Lung Hu Shan. The Taoist skills of making immortality pills played and important role in the formation and development of ancient Chinese chemistry and herbology. The achievement of Taoist medicine in its contribution to Chinese medicine and the treatment of difficult and complicated illness was outstanding.

Tai Hsuan Foundation

... is that travelling in time will (using basic physics) require a change in time over a period of time as measured by an observer inside the machine.

Just as motion along an x-axis with respect to time is represented as dx/dt, we would see a dt/dt. The top and bottom lines cancel to give 1.

What does this mean? Some say this is one if the major problems with time travel, that people make the assumption that time is just another dimension like x-y-z.
I'm not saying this is necessarily 100% correct, but it does give another perspective on the possibility of time travel or lack thereof.

Well, this guy can explain it better then I can.

This guy's web site gives a convincing argument as to why time travel will never be a reality: because time doesn't exist! Time is not a fundamental property of our universe; change is, and time is only a concept we invent to measure change.

Quote: "Motion in time is self-referential."

Quote: "Moving in spacetime is impossible because an evolution parameter (time) cannot be its own evolution parameter."

Something to consider...

Nice uneducated response. Windows NT 3.5 and NT 4 did at one time have a PPC version. Here is a site that talks about it. I couldn't find much else.

Yes, Microsoft did make Windows NT for PowerPC. They ceased to support it more than five years ago, though.

As we all know, attempting to determine the mass of the Higgs boson is what causes Type 13 planets to collapse
to the size of a pea. (Scroll about halfway down the page for the reference, then see here for an explanation of the reference to fans.)