Don't forget that PhysX has software out there, too. It hasn't been doing well against Havok, but it's obviously in NVidia's best interests to promote the use of physics engines in games, seeing as they could provide the hardware acceleration for them. I expect the PhysX engine will soon have the ability to use NVidia GPUs, and it will pushed as a more viable competitor to Havok, especially since Intel cancelled Havok FX.
There's a huge population of people, especially outside the US, who have mobile phones but not computers. And none of them have any relevance whatsoever. The iPhone costs more than a low-end computer to activate it.
So? The point is that anything you write could be covered up with masking tape or a layer of paint without compromising the functionality of the display. (Unless you write it backwards on the lens of the projector, which may not be accessible.)
Is Python's development team following Microsoft's lead here? No. When creating new platforms, it is inevitable that nobody will get it right on the first try, and that flaws will be found as people try to do new things with it. The similarities stop there. Microsoft frequently doesn't even try to fix fundamental design flaws until after they release the software into the wild and let it fester for a few years. Python, on the other hand, was designed from the start to be a readable and easy to use language, and evidently with considerably more care than many of Microsoft's more notorious kludges. It's a trade-off for sure, but obviously one that appeals to most hacker types.
Your assumption that the time taken to select, load, and display new information is minimal not only is false, but laughably so in the case of anything operating over a cellular network.
When you are trying to browse a web page on a screen that is an order of magnitude smaller than what the author expected, it is absurd for a full 10% of that precious space to be permanently devoted to a mere 4 buttons, only one of which sees frequent use. In the case of the stocks, once the user has selected what they want to know about (be it a single stock or a set of stocks) it makes sense to display as much information as possible about them. After all, the user has already asked for the information. The only reason to leave relevant information out is if it won't fit without sacrificing the readability of the report. Tufte has never failed to understand that point, and he certainly didn't leave it out of TFA.
You are right that paper's primary limitation is space, and that this is not the case with digital displays. This is not because the digital displays are less limited in space (they never are, and in this case, the computer display is downright tiny). The reason is that the resolution of digital displays is so much lower than that of paper that the overall size doesn't really matter anymore.
If KDE runs on Windows as a substitute for the existing user interface, it could end up being significantly faster in the areas where the Aero UI is the bottleneck. It can't however, make up for any slowness introduced by things like kernel-level DRM enforcement.
If you are starting with a good database, MapReduce is definitely a step backwards. But that isn't what MapReduce is designed to replace. In reality, MapReduce replaces the for loop, and viewed from that perspective, it is a major step forward. Most languages (C, C++, Java, etc.) define the for loop and other iteration facilities in such a way that the compiler can seldom safely parallelize the loop. MapReduce gives the programmer an easy way to convert probably 90% of their for loops into highly scalable code.
I said that there was no point in measuring the difference. If you have another reason to measure the overall power consumption of the internet, then it may be worth the effort (although coming up with an accurate figure will still be very difficult and thus expensive). But measuring the energy cost of the internet simply to compare it with DVDs as a movie-distribution medium would be a colossal waste of time, money, and energy.
Of course not. There is no point to measuring how big the difference is, when we know that downloading is by far the best way to go. If something were to come within an order of magnitude, then precise measurement might not be a total waste of time.
All of human history (particularly nations like France) would seem to contradict that. There definitely is a point beyond which courts are powerless against the pissed-off citizenry.
Apple cares a lot more about the iTunes revenue than the computer hardware revenue. For it to be worth their while to sell a WM codec with DRM support, they would probably have to charge more than they currently do for QuickTime Pro ($30). I really don't see how that could work out for Apple customers.
This article focuses on the effect of Cell's SPEs (DSPs), but Cell also has a PowerPC CPU and a RAMBUS memory bus. So unless Toshiba's removed those parts from this version of Cell, this laptop, with its Intel CPU, has two complete, separate, incompatible CPUs, memory buses and memory banks. How is this any different from the laptops with high-end graphics chips? Also, it is worth noting that this chip tops out at about 20W, so it probably uses much less power than the intel chip for things like video encoding and decoding.
Schneier isn't being an idiot. Do you think the feds could actually pull off an "investigation" like you describe on him of all people? It would look really fishy, and it would probably hit the mainstream media. I'd say that Schneier is pretty safe from high-level harassment.
Besides, the police probably wouldn't be able to get any useful data off his computers without hiring him to help.
More precisely, $1 billion is just over two months of sales. I don't think anybody expects the market for the Wii to pop like a bubble before March, so this isn't really a problem for Nintendo.
Almost nobody will read proofs. Britannica has no proofs. I think proofs at Wikipedia are doomed. How many students of mathematics did you survey before coming to that conclusion? Based on my dealings with dozens of math students over the past few years, I'd say you're very wrong that almost nobody will look at wikipedia's proofs.
Besides, who are you to decide how large the audience must be for a proof to be included? Wikipedia isn't short on space, and the proofs are easy to check and provide references for. They are also the bread and butter of a very active academic field. This information should be available in a free form.
As an undergrad, I found Wikipedia's math articles to be a very good reference in many cases where the Wolfram site assumes far too much knowledge. In most cases, Wikipedia ends up being the most convenient way to check on something I've forgotten due to lack of coffee or sleep.
I think you'll find that the math and science articles that are impenetrable to you are on subjects that would barely get a passing mention in Britannica.
Some subjects are simply hard. Wikipedia, along with everybody else writing about technical topics, should follow Einstein's advice: simplify it as much as possible, but no further. On no account should precise but highly technical wording ever be replaced with vague descriptions in layman's terms. The latter should simply be used to supplement the existing article. Otherwise, many articles (such as those pertaining to quantum mechanics or modern mathematics) would be reduced to a small list of far-fetched, disparate "real-world" applications of the theories that at best explain nothing, and at worse give a misleading impression of the topic.
Also, it is much easier to add simple descriptions when the detailed and precise text is already in place than when it is absent.
This is only high school. They won't be doing professional work because they lack the time and professional cameras. They likely won't be exploring the nether regions of Photoshop that the GIMP lacks.
It will also be a lot harder for them to buy the relevant software for use outside of the classroom, both because they would be using out-of-date commercial software, and because it is harder to get academic discounts as a high-schooler (as opposed to college students).
This is a school, so they should try very hard to equip the students with the tools to learn. That includes training them on software that they can actually get and use outside of school.
RTFA. It's almost a subtle jab at how different the PDF standardization process has been from the OOXML standardization attempt. The PDF process has been straightforward, with no "trickery," and the proponents were actually working to improve the standard and resolve technical problems.
He thinks the Wii's sales will start slacking off any day now, and then most of the money will be spent on games, which means him. Of course, the market for the Wii is nowhere close to saturated, and Microsoft and Sony are very far from earning back the losses they incurred upon selling the hardware.
The Wii is the fastest selling console in history, and is currently selling at about four times the rate of the Xbox 360. Is it that hard to believe that sales are genuinely exceeding expectations? Certainly at launch time, very few of the pundits or fanboys were seriously predicting sales of this magnitude. Also, Nintendo has been increasing production significantly - from 1M to 1.8M per month. That doesn't exactly lend credibility to your theory that the shortage is completely artificial.
Besides, do you really think Nintendo was equipped to predict the Wii's popularity in new markets, such as retirement homes? I simply don't see any way that demand hasn't far exceeded Nintendo's expectations.
An artificial shortage would only help Nintendo if it enabled them to sell more consoles in the long run or if it enabled them to jack up prices. They obviously aren't going to increase the price, so how might an artificial shortage still lead to increased sales in the long run? Earlier in the year, it would have been reasonable to say that they wanted to wait until there were some solid games out, but with the hype about Super Mario Galaxy, it seems pretty clear that that time is over. So, if Nintendo is capable of making significant production increases, why wait?
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget that PhysX has software out there, too. It hasn't been doing well against Havok, but it's obviously in NVidia's best interests to promote the use of physics engines in games, seeing as they could provide the hardware acceleration for them. I expect the PhysX engine will soon have the ability to use NVidia GPUs, and it will pushed as a more viable competitor to Havok, especially since Intel cancelled Havok FX.
So? The point is that anything you write could be covered up with masking tape or a layer of paint without compromising the functionality of the display. (Unless you write it backwards on the lens of the projector, which may not be accessible.)
If you cared to weigh in, you would have already bought a player.
Your assumption that the time taken to select, load, and display new information is minimal not only is false, but laughably so in the case of anything operating over a cellular network.
When you are trying to browse a web page on a screen that is an order of magnitude smaller than what the author expected, it is absurd for a full 10% of that precious space to be permanently devoted to a mere 4 buttons, only one of which sees frequent use. In the case of the stocks, once the user has selected what they want to know about (be it a single stock or a set of stocks) it makes sense to display as much information as possible about them. After all, the user has already asked for the information. The only reason to leave relevant information out is if it won't fit without sacrificing the readability of the report. Tufte has never failed to understand that point, and he certainly didn't leave it out of TFA.
You are right that paper's primary limitation is space, and that this is not the case with digital displays. This is not because the digital displays are less limited in space (they never are, and in this case, the computer display is downright tiny). The reason is that the resolution of digital displays is so much lower than that of paper that the overall size doesn't really matter anymore.
If KDE runs on Windows as a substitute for the existing user interface, it could end up being significantly faster in the areas where the Aero UI is the bottleneck. It can't however, make up for any slowness introduced by things like kernel-level DRM enforcement.
If you are starting with a good database, MapReduce is definitely a step backwards. But that isn't what MapReduce is designed to replace. In reality, MapReduce replaces the for loop, and viewed from that perspective, it is a major step forward. Most languages (C, C++, Java, etc.) define the for loop and other iteration facilities in such a way that the compiler can seldom safely parallelize the loop. MapReduce gives the programmer an easy way to convert probably 90% of their for loops into highly scalable code.
I said that there was no point in measuring the difference. If you have another reason to measure the overall power consumption of the internet, then it may be worth the effort (although coming up with an accurate figure will still be very difficult and thus expensive). But measuring the energy cost of the internet simply to compare it with DVDs as a movie-distribution medium would be a colossal waste of time, money, and energy.
Of course not. There is no point to measuring how big the difference is, when we know that downloading is by far the best way to go. If something were to come within an order of magnitude, then precise measurement might not be a total waste of time.
All of human history (particularly nations like France) would seem to contradict that. There definitely is a point beyond which courts are powerless against the pissed-off citizenry.
Apple cares a lot more about the iTunes revenue than the computer hardware revenue. For it to be worth their while to sell a WM codec with DRM support, they would probably have to charge more than they currently do for QuickTime Pro ($30). I really don't see how that could work out for Apple customers.
Schneier isn't being an idiot. Do you think the feds could actually pull off an "investigation" like you describe on him of all people? It would look really fishy, and it would probably hit the mainstream media. I'd say that Schneier is pretty safe from high-level harassment.
Besides, the police probably wouldn't be able to get any useful data off his computers without hiring him to help.
More precisely, $1 billion is just over two months of sales. I don't think anybody expects the market for the Wii to pop like a bubble before March, so this isn't really a problem for Nintendo.
Besides, who are you to decide how large the audience must be for a proof to be included? Wikipedia isn't short on space, and the proofs are easy to check and provide references for. They are also the bread and butter of a very active academic field. This information should be available in a free form.
As an undergrad, I found Wikipedia's math articles to be a very good reference in many cases where the Wolfram site assumes far too much knowledge. In most cases, Wikipedia ends up being the most convenient way to check on something I've forgotten due to lack of coffee or sleep.
I think you'll find that the math and science articles that are impenetrable to you are on subjects that would barely get a passing mention in Britannica.
Some subjects are simply hard. Wikipedia, along with everybody else writing about technical topics, should follow Einstein's advice: simplify it as much as possible, but no further. On no account should precise but highly technical wording ever be replaced with vague descriptions in layman's terms. The latter should simply be used to supplement the existing article. Otherwise, many articles (such as those pertaining to quantum mechanics or modern mathematics) would be reduced to a small list of far-fetched, disparate "real-world" applications of the theories that at best explain nothing, and at worse give a misleading impression of the topic.
Also, it is much easier to add simple descriptions when the detailed and precise text is already in place than when it is absent.
There you go, living up to your name again....
Just because the standard is open doesn't mean that all implementations must be GPL'd or even open source.
HP is the only company currently producing calculators that use RPN.
This is only high school. They won't be doing professional work because they lack the time and professional cameras. They likely won't be exploring the nether regions of Photoshop that the GIMP lacks.
It will also be a lot harder for them to buy the relevant software for use outside of the classroom, both because they would be using out-of-date commercial software, and because it is harder to get academic discounts as a high-schooler (as opposed to college students).
This is a school, so they should try very hard to equip the students with the tools to learn. That includes training them on software that they can actually get and use outside of school.
RTFA. It's almost a subtle jab at how different the PDF standardization process has been from the OOXML standardization attempt. The PDF process has been straightforward, with no "trickery," and the proponents were actually working to improve the standard and resolve technical problems.
So the chimps should be better at Counter Strike?
He thinks the Wii's sales will start slacking off any day now, and then most of the money will be spent on games, which means him. Of course, the market for the Wii is nowhere close to saturated, and Microsoft and Sony are very far from earning back the losses they incurred upon selling the hardware.
The Wii is the fastest selling console in history, and is currently selling at about four times the rate of the Xbox 360. Is it that hard to believe that sales are genuinely exceeding expectations? Certainly at launch time, very few of the pundits or fanboys were seriously predicting sales of this magnitude. Also, Nintendo has been increasing production significantly - from 1M to 1.8M per month. That doesn't exactly lend credibility to your theory that the shortage is completely artificial.
Besides, do you really think Nintendo was equipped to predict the Wii's popularity in new markets, such as retirement homes? I simply don't see any way that demand hasn't far exceeded Nintendo's expectations.
An artificial shortage would only help Nintendo if it enabled them to sell more consoles in the long run or if it enabled them to jack up prices. They obviously aren't going to increase the price, so how might an artificial shortage still lead to increased sales in the long run? Earlier in the year, it would have been reasonable to say that they wanted to wait until there were some solid games out, but with the hype about Super Mario Galaxy, it seems pretty clear that that time is over. So, if Nintendo is capable of making significant production increases, why wait?