The article is a bit hard to understand. It doesn't say what the Slashdot article says it says. Nor does it say what its own headline says it says.
As I read it:
- "Half" of people don't send in rebates
- of that half, 41% forget, 25% lost UPC, 20% don't bother, 14% find it too complicated.
Contrary to the article's own headline, 20.5% (or so) of people forget to send in rebates. Furthermore, since the articles reasons for missing out on rebates add up to 100%, *none* of the people who missed out on rebates did so because their rebates were rejected, or "lost in the mail." Or so the article implies.
You'll need a chassis for that blade, of course. Luckily, they're half-off through the end of March. Buy the entry model and get change back from your $1000 bill. Oh, and you'll want a rack to put the chassis in. But at $1489 for the rack, check the local surplus store first. And while you there pick up a display, mouse and keyboard.
The worst thing about the bicycle patent is its name. It's not a bicycle, it's an exercise machine with a single flywheel. The novel aspect is the pedals - they are independent of one another rather than being connected by a crankshaft.
It's been about eight years now that Java has been touted (not necessarily by present company) as faster than C. Do I really need to check again? I did check yesterday, and Java took about one minute to bring up an application login menu. That is slower than any C program, with the possible exception of Lotus Notes. So there's speed and then there's speed. Initialization is time is still not too good in Java. Maybe Sun (and IBM, from whence my Java comes) could take a few pointers from Microsoft (Word) and Apple (OS/X boot). Keep "hot Java environments" ready for use, starting at boot time. Figure out how to run in less than ~0.5Gb of RAM. Mac OS X has seen memory requirements steadily *shrink* since initial release. That is unusual, if perhaps unprecedented. Amit Singh describes some of Apple's tricks at kernelthread.org. I'd like to see Java do that.
Still, some of us C/C++ coders get pretty tired of the assumption that all technology benefits accrue to Java (or will Real Soon Now - the 4GHz and 5GHz Pentiums should really help) while none accrue to C/C++.
Oh, and can I mention that heap? Java's insistence on the garbage collection model prevents the determinstic destruction of objects, upon which some programming idioms rely ("resource allocaation is initialization" is one). I don't mind that a heap exists for programmers who wish to use it, but It Would Be Nice If Java also permitted automatic allocation (and, more importantly, deallocation) in the C++ model. The RTE would have to deal with stale references to automatic objects, but Java could take care of that by raising an exception when auto destruction would create a stale reference.
It might be more accurate to say that Java forbids buffer overflows. Attempts at C and C++ buffer overflows yield undefined behavior. For example, if p points to a 1-element array, *(p+1) is undefined. And (p+2) is undefined, even without a dereference.
Despite the name, an implementation is allowed to define "undefined behavior" (C99 3.4.3, C++98 1.3.12), and could map it to some safe behavior, such as raise(SIGABRT). Actually doing this would be quite a bit of overhead. The resulting environment might be even slower than JRE, if that is possible.:-)
I have seen it alleged that there are instances for which C or C++ *require* unsafe behavior, but I haven't seen one described specifically. If anyone knows of an example, please post it.
I seem to remember that the second button didn't really DO anything until Windows 95 came out,
Right. OS/2 did use the second button. Microsoft used the same argument (before Win95) that Apple still uses today: the right button is too confusing. Then Win95 came out, using the RMB just like OS/2.
That leap second would have been added to 1998/12/31 23:59. Leap second tables usually show the seconds value for 1999/12/31 00:00:00 because it's seconds value forms the basis for seconds computations going forward.
Incidentally, I sometimes give out the following trivia questions:
A. February is the shortest month of the year, but what is the longest? (Big Hint: This question not valid in Arizona, Hawaii and parts of Indiana.)
B. Now that you've found the longest month, you know the second shortest month as well. Not every year has a unique second longest month, but for those which do, which month is it? (The second longest month, of course, is December due to the occasional leap second. March is a theoretical candidate for a leap second, but it's never had one.)
A pity that the parent is an A/C; it has a link which verifies what I had heard earlier: the new password rules stem from tighter rules passed in Italy. It's obviously easier for multinationals to adopt the most restrictive rule than to have rules which vary by country. From Annex B (Technical Specifications Concerning Minimum Security Measures) of Personal Data Protection Code (a PDF file):
a password shall consist of at least eight characters; if that is not allowed by the electonic equipment, a password shall consist of the maximum permitted number of characters. It [...] shall be modified [...] when it is first used as well as at least every six months thereafter. If sensitive or judicial data are processed, the password shall be modified at least every three months.
Hmmm. A state system where taxpayers subsidize the education, or a private university where rich alumni subsidize the education. Sucks to have only two choices.:-(
POWER and RT PC were two different systems. The IBM RT PC (introduced 1986) was the Research Oriented Microprocessor (ROMP) architecture: 16/32 bit instructions, 16 GPRs. The RT PCs used a separate National Semiconductor floating point processor. The POWER (Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC) architecture was introduced in 1990. It had 32 bit instructions, 32 GPRs, and native floating point.
The two architectures did share a lot of concepts, since both came from the 801 architecture. ROMP was the poor man's 801.
if supercomputer makers go under, they won't necessarily reappear the moment they're needed
Which is why we need Congressional legislation to form the National Supercomputing Corporation. Call it "Amcompute" for short. They can even use the old "pointless arrow" now that Amtrak has moved on to "three sheets to the wind".
Does the National Arbitration Forum publish its decisions and provide a synopsis of what the thinking was that led to their decision?
Yes, and RadioAid was kind enough to link to the decision. Briefly, Clear Channel requested that the complaint be heard by a single arbiter, and the arbiter found that (1) appending "sucks" to a trademarked name does not by itself mean that you are using the name for protected free speech purposes, and (2) RadioAid hadn't shown that it was using the name for free speech purposes as opposed to commercial gain.
Slashdot Mirror
In a country where the federal government has been concentrating power in the capital, I can't see where she gets such bizarre ideas.
I picture innocent's DNA filed next to Arlo Gutherie's fingerprints.
(Those who don't get the reference, search for "we don't like your kind" here.)
EDS lists both Xerox and Oracle as members of the EDS Agility Alliance.
The article is a bit hard to understand. It doesn't say what the Slashdot article says it says. Nor does it say what its own headline says it says.
As I read it:
- "Half" of people don't send in rebates
- of that half, 41% forget, 25% lost UPC, 20% don't bother, 14% find it too complicated.
Contrary to the article's own headline, 20.5% (or so) of people forget to send in rebates. Furthermore, since the articles reasons for missing out on rebates add up to 100%, *none* of the people who missed out on rebates did so because their rebates were rejected, or "lost in the mail." Or so the article implies.
Next up on Slashdot: "Are Google Singular or is They Plural?"
You'll need a chassis for that blade, of course. Luckily, they're half-off through the end of March. Buy the entry model and get change back from your $1000 bill. Oh, and you'll want a rack to put the chassis in. But at $1489 for the rack, check the local surplus store first. And while you there pick up a display, mouse and keyboard.
The worst thing about the bicycle patent is its name. It's not a bicycle, it's an exercise machine with a single flywheel. The novel aspect is the pedals - they are independent of one another rather than being connected by a crankshaft.
And what does Lumens (N/A) mean? it doesn't use light?
That would explain the really long (20000 hour!) bulb life.
An earlier effort by 25 Newsday staffers produced the 1969 best seller Naked Came the Stranger.
All operating systems handle this particular "undefine behavior"
... if they see it. The hard part is to catching the cases which the O/S doesn't see because the memory past the end of the buffer is mapped.
It's been about eight years now that Java has been touted (not necessarily by present company) as faster than C. Do I really need to check again? I did check yesterday, and Java took about one minute to bring up an application login menu. That is slower than any C program, with the possible exception of Lotus Notes. So there's speed and then there's speed. Initialization is time is still not too good in Java. Maybe Sun (and IBM, from whence my Java comes) could take a few pointers from Microsoft (Word) and Apple (OS/X boot). Keep "hot Java environments" ready for use, starting at boot time. Figure out how to run in less than ~0.5Gb of RAM. Mac OS X has seen memory requirements steadily *shrink* since initial release. That is unusual, if perhaps unprecedented. Amit Singh describes some of Apple's tricks at kernelthread.org. I'd like to see Java do that.
Still, some of us C/C++ coders get pretty tired of the assumption that all technology benefits accrue to Java (or will Real Soon Now - the 4GHz and 5GHz Pentiums should really help) while none accrue to C/C++.
Oh, and can I mention that heap? Java's insistence on the garbage collection model prevents the determinstic destruction of objects, upon which some programming idioms rely ("resource allocaation is initialization" is one). I don't mind that a heap exists for programmers who wish to use it, but It Would Be Nice If Java also permitted automatic allocation (and, more importantly, deallocation) in the C++ model. The RTE would have to deal with stale references to automatic objects, but Java could take care of that by raising an exception when auto destruction would create a stale reference.
> C and C++ allow for buffer overflows.
:-)
It might be more accurate to say that Java forbids buffer overflows. Attempts at C and C++ buffer overflows yield undefined behavior. For example, if p points to a 1-element array, *(p+1) is undefined. And (p+2) is undefined, even without a dereference.
Despite the name, an implementation is allowed to define "undefined behavior" (C99 3.4.3, C++98 1.3.12), and could map it to some safe behavior, such as raise(SIGABRT). Actually doing this would be quite a bit of overhead. The resulting environment might be even slower than JRE, if that is possible.
I have seen it alleged that there are instances for which C or C++ *require* unsafe behavior, but I haven't seen one described specifically. If anyone knows of an example, please post it.
A few years ago a non-techie friend mentioned that he had read an interviewer with the creator of Java.
... Gina Centoni."
Me: "Oh, that would be, umm, James Gosling."
He: "No, that's not the name. It was a lady. Let me check
Me "Who?"
A web search revealed that Ms. Centoni's position was "Director of Java Marketing." Out of the mouths of babes come all wise sayings.
> Leap second tables usually show the seconds value for 1999/12/31 00:00:00
That should read "value for 1999/01/01 00:00:00".
Amazing what you don's notice until *after* you post.
That leap second would have been added to 1998/12/31 23:59. Leap second tables usually show the seconds value for 1999/12/31 00:00:00 because it's seconds value forms the basis for seconds computations going forward.
Incidentally, I sometimes give out the following trivia questions:
A. February is the shortest month of the year, but what is the longest? (Big Hint: This question not valid in Arizona, Hawaii and parts of Indiana.)
B. Now that you've found the longest month, you know the second shortest month as well. Not every year has a unique second longest month, but for those which do, which month is it? (The second longest month, of course, is December due to the occasional leap second. March is a theoretical candidate for a leap second, but it's never had one.)
1. Merges divisions A and B to create "synergy."
2. Split the AB divison to improve "focus."
3. Repeat steps 1 through 3.
The good news: a 3 button mouse.
The bad news: an AIX 5L tax.
Vacuum tubes do give a warmer sound. As, to a lesser extent, do the pink and gold mini-iPods.
(The parochialism, not the file system.)
Hmmm. A state system where taxpayers subsidize the education, or a private university where rich alumni subsidize the education. Sucks to have only two choices. :-(
POWER and RT PC were two different systems. The IBM RT PC (introduced 1986) was the Research Oriented Microprocessor (ROMP) architecture: 16/32 bit instructions, 16 GPRs. The RT PCs used a separate National Semiconductor floating point processor. The POWER (Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC) architecture was introduced in 1990. It had 32 bit instructions, 32 GPRs, and native floating point.
The two architectures did share a lot of concepts, since both came from the 801 architecture. ROMP was the poor man's 801.
Which is why we need Congressional legislation to form the National Supercomputing Corporation. Call it "Amcompute" for short. They can even use the old "pointless arrow" now that Amtrak has moved on to "three sheets to the wind".
I wonder how IBM defines "open" for purposes of this document, given that Microsoft Windows is an "open system" in their terminology.