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Comments · 31,462

  1. Re:Scalability and Maintainability go hand in hand by adamfranco · · Score: 1 · on On PHP and Scaling

    During the developement of our PHP CMS, Segue, we did just what you mentioned: a rewrite, with the realization that another was needed before the first was even done. To nip this one in the bud, we spent several months researching application design, OO design, XP, and several other topics. This research left us with two products:

    - A large application framework (Harmoni) written in PHP that provides implementations of the Open Knowledge Inititiative (OKI) services along with others.

    - A site that is a collection of most of the articles that we read in preparation to all this work.

    The documentation site title is XP, but the articles contained are more general design stuff than just XP. Speaking of XP, it is something that over time we have found to be partially useful. Unit testing can be good, though we often don't do it, while pair-programming is universally despised by our group.

    Anyway, read a lot before writing.

  2. Re:Scalability and Maintainability go hand in hand by adamfranco · · Score: 1 · on On PHP and Scaling

    During the developement of our PHP CMS, Segue, we did just what you mentioned: a rewrite, with the realization that another was needed before the first was even done. To nip this one in the bud, we spent several months researching application design, OO design, XP, and several other topics. This research left us with two products:

    - A large application framework (Harmoni) written in PHP that provides implementations of the Open Knowledge Inititiative (OKI) services along with others.

    - A site that is a collection of most of the articles that we read in preparation to all this work.

    The documentation site title is XP, but the articles contained are more general design stuff than just XP. Speaking of XP, it is something that over time we have found to be partially useful. Unit testing can be good, though we often don't do it, while pair-programming is universally despised by our group.

    Anyway, read a lot before writing.

  3. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  4. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  5. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  6. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  7. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  8. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  9. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  10. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  11. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  12. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  13. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  14. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  15. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  16. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  17. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  18. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  19. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  20. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  21. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  22. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  23. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  24. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  25. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  26. Other Professor Creates His Own Mentifex AI Manual by Mentifex · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual
    Los 34 Modulos de AI4U is a similar example of an academic professor creating his own instructional materials, in his own language (Spanish), for the needs of his own academic curriculum (artificial intelligence).
    The AGI Mail List on Artificial General Intelligence provides more details about the {gasp!} AGI Cognitive Architecture that has escaped from our English-speaking world into the Spanish nuevo mundo. Alife Main AI Program Loop calls the following mind-modules:
  27. Re:Eeeeek... by mhifoe · · Score: 3, Informative · on Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual

    If you already have Word, PDFCreator can give better results.

  28. Re:Ballot books and voter fraud by Teancum · · Score: 1 · on E-voting to be a 'Train Wreck'?

    I'm still trying to learn more about this issue. There is an "Open Source" group that is trying to put together an independent e-voting system.

    The site I was thinking about was the GPL'd E-vote site that also has a source forge website for development of this system. I think this project has some very good merits, but unfortunately they also have the attitude of "if we make it they will come". I wish them luck, and if this really does succeed I hope this project at least forms the initial basis for proper e-voting systems. The sample ballot they have made shows just what this could really turn into.

    In terms of voter fraud, the problem is that trying to uncover registration fraud (which is a totally different beast from tampering with ballots after/while they are cast) is difficult at best unless you really do properly identify each individual and confirm citizenship/voter elegibility (like disqualifications for committing a certain kinds of felonies). With SCOTUS saying it is unconstititional to determine identities of voters, and with voter registration cards being handed out like campaign literature (sometimes even with campaign literature), how can you tell just who is registered and if that person really exists?

    Obituaries are sometimes used to remove people from voting rolls, but what if they are missed? Where I live, the only sure way to get dropped from the voting lists is to not vote for an extended period of time, like 10 years or so.

    It became a local issue here that some non-citizens were voting in the local election. State law allows for "poll observers", presumably representatives of local political parties but it can be any member of the general public. You may have to be an actual resident of the precint that you are "observing", but I don't know of any other restriction. Mainly what these observers are allowed to do is drive the poll workers nuts and get in everybody's hair. Officially they can "challenge" an individual ballot, which gets put into a seperate stack and the voter registration information if verified somehow. Election judges also can put ballots into this "provisional" category, and there are certain rules that require ballots be put there anyway, such as late registration or if the judge suspects there might be something not quite correct. Generally only about 2-3% of all the ballots are of "provisional" status.

    The issue came up regarding illegal aliens in particular voting in local elections. Some people thought it was stupid to even suggest the idea, but it became an election issue and is still being discussed. A group of local citizen threatened to act as "poll watchers" and challenge everybody that was of a certain ethnic minority. Federal election officials came in and has made a minor issue into a major one, and the real issue regarding if non-citizens are voting was never really addressed.

    The state Lt. Governor, who is in this state constitutionally responsible for the state election system, made IMHO a rather stupid statement: "We have determined that there is not even one non-citizen registered to vote in this state." How that was determined and the blanket 100% certainty makes me wonder if this really is a bigger issue than is being made out right now. If you can't keep non-citizens from voting, how about duplicate registrations (being registered to vote in more than one precinct, even with the same name, and voting in each precinct), or controlling people voting in behalf of somebody else, like a boss, union rep, or voting through extortion. At the moment it can't even be verified that this might be happening, so the presumption is that it is not happening. I consider that strong logic (yeah, right!*) Not a single issue I've mentioned here even has to deal with an election judge, because the fraud occurs even before the voting booth opens up.

    My wife is an el

  29. Re:He could be right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny · on Fedora, SuSE And Mandrake Compared
    What, you didn't think there was a Linux alternative? Here's one for all the happy vi noobs out there:

    Vigor

  30. Re:Repartitioning by Noksagt · · Score: 1 · on Fedora, SuSE And Mandrake Compared

    You should check agian! NTFS support is still considered "in developmnet," but I just used QTParted to format a whole NTFS partition. The FAQ claims this has been featured since 0.1.6 (they are up to 0.4.4).

  31. Re:Centrino? by AirLace · · Score: 1 · on Fedora, SuSE And Mandrake Compared

    Actually, the article talks about "the Dell's Centrino WiFi circuitry". My emphasis on 'the', a definite pronoun, shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.

    (Incidentally, open source drivers for Centrino wireless are available at ipw2100.)

  32. Re:nc: a better tool for distributed builds by joe_bruin · · Score: 1 · on Reduce C/C++ Compile Time With distcc

    sorry, "nc" is netcat (or, if you prefer, gnu netcat). you have committed a namespace violation. your application will be ignored until you find a name that does not conflict with a currently maintained, widely used application.

    regards,
    the management

  33. K-Meleon for Win32 by d-Orb · · Score: 3, Informative · on MSN's Slate Recommends Firefox over IE

    No one seems to realise that a very fast and nice concoction of Gecko (Mozilla/Firefox's rendering engine) with a simplistic Win32 UI called K-Meleon is available and provides a very fast and snappy browser in Windows. Since it uses quicklaunch, you don't need to wait for ages to start it, as oppossed to FireFox. I like it anyway :)

  34. Re:spilling acetone on a sony vaio laptop by Fred_A · · Score: 1 · on What Was Your Worst Computer Accident?

    Personal Vaio keyboard story :

    - Work on brand new first generation pcg-c1xd PictureBook (which I still use regularly),
    - Get up to grab dictionnary on shelves above desk
    - Dislodge little book which proptly falls prey to gravity
    - Little book bounces on desk and fall to the floor
    - Look at Vaio and think "Hmm, weren't there more keys on that keyboard just two minutes ago ?"
    - Pick up broken keys from the floor (curse cusrse)
    - Call Sony
    - scream "How much !?!!?!" (120 I think it was)
    - Pay (while mumbling a lot)
    - remember to be veeeerrryy careful around the picturebook (and curse Sony to the 7th generation for scratching the screen when replacing the keyboard)

    It also taught me to be extra careful when buying hardware since the camera still isn't supported (and probably never will be -- the Windows partition is long gone) and I'm not too sure about the FireWire port (I don't have any FireWire stuff to test it with). In this case the small size more or less makes up for that. A fact mitigated by the lousy battery life, even with the double battery.

  35. Re:Frames Weren't Practical by SeinJunkie · · Score: 1 · on Jakob Nielsen Interview on Web Site Redesigns

    IMO, if I understand what you're suggesting correctly, frames are still not necessary even for web-based applications. I've never used SlimServer, but there are web-driven appliance interfaces that never need to invoke frames to control their backend. AFAIK (and tell me if this is a bad comparison), neither SmoothWall's nor Media Player Classic's (if you were to use MPC to run a media server) web interface felt it necessary to use a framed layout.

    I thought about what advantages frames would give you in a web-based application situation. I think that the most practical thing I could see it being used for would be to refresh the current playing song in the top or bottom while you manipulate the config or controls in the main window. If that is the case, then an alternative to the frameset could be coded in a similar fashion to Gmail. It might require heavy Javascript, but all of the form information or whatever could be left in tact while the code goes out and checks for an update on current song information.

    But, in a web-based application, the disadvantages of frames are reduced to almost nothing anyway. Everything should be rolling around inside of the frames at that point and if there is ever a need to externally link, it should have been handled and tested properly by the developer.

  36. Re:True, true... by Graftweed · · Score: 4, Insightful · on Videogame Nostalgia Isn't What It Used To be

    Why is it that you can walk up to any book store and pick up titles that were written centuries ago, or purchase movies that date as far back as 1912.. and yet you can't even play a game anymore that came out 5-7 years ago?

    One might argue that it's due to technical reasons, but that's no excuse is it?

    Why do we find ourselves donating our precious time hacking away at emulators and virtual machines when it should be the people who made the games in the first place that should be supporting them? Does the game industry hold their own products in so little regard that it has already decided that future generations can't enjoy them?

    Sure, there's the odd overpriced nostalgia pack put out every now and then, but that's just a drop in the ocean.

  37. Re:jsp is a bad idea, but Java is not by archangel77 · · Score: 1 · on On PHP and Scaling

    If you look for something like Struts for PHP, you can have a look at Phrame. They tried to come very close to Struts.
    If you look for somthing like Hibernate for PHP you can look at Propel.

  38. PearPC by jisatsusha · · Score: 1 · on Apple and the Open Source Community

    OS X will never, never, never run on any hardware that Apple has not produced

    Never heard of PearPC? :)
  39. Re:Semantic Key For The Clueless by leomekenkamp · · Score: 1 · on Taiwanese Makers Will Squeeze DVD Recorder Prices

    Both the PVR 250 and 350 come with on board MPEG2 (and MPEG1) encoder (350 has h/w MPEG2 decoder also), and can record full PAL and/or NTSC resolutions at a quality better than what Discovery Channel uses for some broadcasts (can see artifacts) with a max. of 12 megabit / sec.

    The ivtv project has a working driver in alpha afaik.

  40. Re:Open Source developer machines by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 2, Insightful · on Apple and the Open Source Community

    There are also products like VMWare and VirtualPC which help significantly.

    I don't know if you're aware of PearPC, but it might help. Sadly my system's too slow to make any use of it, so I can't offer much in the way of a review. Also sadly, I'm in the same situation as yourself - well, minus project popularity. I'd be happy if there were just a way to easily crosscompile for osx/ppc from an x86 linux setup.

  41. Re:Sun??? by Cajal · · Score: 4, Informative · on Apple and the Open Source Community
    Sun did most of the HIG testing for GNOME. They open-sourced OpenOffice. They developed NetBeans. They've developed an open-source XACML processing engine (http://sunxacml.sourceforge.net/). They developed an open-source connector for Evolution and their Java Calendar Server. They open-sourced Looking Glass, the Java 3D API and JXTA. Their grid computing system, Sun Grid Engine, is open-source.

    Further, they've involved in several smaller projects. Check out http://www.sunsource.net/ for more information. Oh, and they're a member of the Open Source Development Lab.

    Is that good enough for you?

    Further, Sun has developed several technologies which have been widely adopted by other Unix vendors, such as NFS and PAM.

    While Sun doesn't get a lot of media attention for their open-source work, they do contribute a lot.

  42. Re:Yes, I am a Mac fan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative · on Apple and the Open Source Community
    Does Mac have a repository of free software? (it's a genuine question - not a rant).
    A couple. The most popular is Fink, but Darwin Ports has a following of its own.

    Most common opensource packages compile out of the box on OS X as well, so you can roll your own of your prefer.

  43. Re:AAC encodes better than MP3 by Handpaper · · Score: 1 · on Are iTMS's 128kbps Songs Worth Collecting?

    you can argue that CD-Audio is lossy from the get go, being at only 44.1 kHz and 16-bit
    I was saying that when CDs were invented - if it has a sample rate and discrete sample levels (and only 65536 of them), its going to lose information - period.
    When a non-pro app like Audacity can handle samples at up to 96KHz with 32-bit float precision, it's time to wonder where that leaves the good old RedBook CD.

  44. Re:Strongly Typed Container Classes by MarkWPiper · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Java 1.5.0 Now Officially Java 5.0
    While this is a nice feature, it is strictly (at least for now), syntactic. The difference is that the expense of casting is still occurring under the hood; you just no longer have to bother typing it out. I believe people are referring to it as 'autoboxing'. Therefore, these strongly typed container classes are not as powerful as C++'s templates.

    I read a pretty good interview w/ Eckel and that guy who has done most of the work on C#. The creator of C# was bashing Java's generics, because they aren't giving the full performance possible. And I agree. There is still such a thing as performance critical code, and Java can make it frustratingly hard to write it. Providing featureful, fast data structures would be a good place to start.

    I can't find the article I'm referencing, but this sums up Eckel's view.

    Pizza was an alternative implementation of generics for Java. I wish that Sun had chosen this project as their basis for 1.5's generics, rather than GJ (Generic Java). I believe its implementation is much closer to that of C++'s templates. I'd love to use pizza, but it's just not wide-spread enough to justify it in enterprise code.

  45. Re:The Worst. by scrod · · Score: 2, Informative · on What Was Your Worst Computer Accident?

    Well, there is the GPL tool Recover, which works on ext2 file systems. You could use this, or you could follow these steps manually.

  46. Re:Torrent by woosoki · · Score: 1, Interesting · on Moore Approves Fahrenheit 9/11 Downloads
    If you are (still) tied to Windows environment, I'd recommend ABC (Yet Another BitTorrent Client). It's got several options to fine-tune your BitTorrent file transfer.

    It's available at http://pingpong-abc.sourceforge.net/

  47. Re:Torrent by Davak · · Score: 5, Informative · on Moore Approves Fahrenheit 9/11 Downloads

    Better yet, where the torrent tools?

    My favorite is Azureus although it uses java and is a resource hog.

    Original client--no bells or whistles

    Experimental client with some speed controls

  48. Anarchy by ickoonite · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Endangered Countries On The Internet

    As many a FOSS geek has argued, information wants to be free. The Internet is perhaps both the cause and effect of this little maxim. As has been noted elsewhere in the discussion, the protocols that make the Net are not particularly good at things like verification, authenticity, trust, etc. You know, all the things that are necessary in a cutthroat capitalist world...

    So if we take this anarchy as something of a fait accompli, then where we go from here kind of depends on where you stand on the issue of, well, free.

    I'm no anarchist, but country blacklisting seems a little over the top, a tad heavy-handed, if you will. Granted, these countries might produce more than a small amount of slurry, but that is the inherent problem with freedom - you might not like what comes out. It's like the people who get scared about Freenet and the idea that child porn might travel over their wires. This might be a little of an extreme example but the point is the same.

    Not a few people have lamented that the problem with the Internet is it allows every man his voice - ugh, it sounds awful, doesn't it!? So democratic.

    I'm not pro-spam. Depending on my mood, I can ache for the pre-commercial glory days of the Internet. But this is what it is now - pig shit that we have to roll around in. I just don't think that anyone has the right to silence someone else's voice because of the actions of a third party.

    It's also interesting to note what a peculiar façade the Manufacturers Exporters Directory Global Worldwide Association, or whatever, is. Any site that uses Babelfish to offer translation is, in my book, seriously lacking in credibility. It is rather evocative of those irritating placeholder sites you sometimes get to when you type a URL slightly wrong. Furthermore, calling itself a bureau and using the eagle in its logo it downright misleading.

    I don't know where the Slashdot crowd stands on free speech, but the crock of shit we are discussing at the moment is not in a small part America-made. It's the World Wide Web, people. Don't forget that.

    iqu :(

  49. Re:The real juicy stuff isn't in the screenshots by mrchaotica · · Score: 1 · on Tiger Slideshow: Pretty Mac OS X Pictures

    Well, first of all, an 800MHz G4 is a lot faster than a G3. I find OS X very usable on mine, although RAM helps - I got 256 with it from Apple, but almost immediately got another 512 (for a total of 640 - had to take out 128) from Crucial, for ~$100. It's worth it. I guarantee, though, that mine is fast enough - and I was just playing a divx movie, running a shell script in a tight loop, running xplanet (3d-renders a pic of the earth over and over again), downloading a very large file via bittorrent (.torrent located elsewhere in the threads for this article: D ), and browsing with several Firefox windows with multiple tabs.

    Secondly, right now is a very good time to buy an iBook, since they just upgraded them - you can get a faster one (1GHz for the 12") for the same price as the slower ones only a month ago, or you can get one of the slower ones for $899 or something.

    The only caveat is Tiger: I'm pretty sure mine at least doesn't have the required graphics card for Core Image (it's got a Mobility Radeon 9200). This may have changed for the new ones; the 9600 is supported...wait, actually I just checked; the new ones still have 9200s (you'd have thought they would have upgraded, oh well). Of course, unless you do a lot of image processing, having unacclerated Core Image probably wouldn't be a problem (it won't for me, at least).

    The best idea is always to buy a PowerBook, of course (if money were not a concern)! : )

    Otherwise, I have some advice from my shopping experience, slightly out-of-date:

    When I was shopping (about 6 months ago) the most comparable laptop I could find was a Gateway 200X - it's about the same size and weight, it's got a 14" screen, and it's a Centrino (with the linux-incompatible (afaik) wi-fi card that that implies). It should have a faster processor (at least, I think a Pentium M 1.6 would be faster than the 800MHz G4 in my iBook), but less battery life, and it would be ~$200 more for comparable specs (HD space, RAM, etc).

    You could take a look at the Sharp Actius MM20, which is pretty much exactly what I was looking for (except for Mac OS). It's only 2 lbs (less than half the weight of the iBook) but it has a Transmeta CPU, 10.4" display, no CD-ROM, and short battery life, and is probably more expensive than the 200X, let alone the iBook.

  50. Re:Multi-headed Computer by KjetilK · · Score: 2, Informative · on FourHead: One PC, Four Users
    This is probably going to make me sound like I'm a really old bearded hacker, whereas in reality, my sig said "Linux newbie asks for help in his journal" up to a few months ago...

    Nevertheless, it should be noted that Ruby needs to be grabbed from CVS, some instructions here. Most of that is about the 2.4 backport, called backstreet ruby, but you'll get the 2.6 code along with it.