that design doesn't look much better than the current one
Sure it does - it gives you scale. I, for one, never spent the time required to appreciate the differences in scale. So this new graphical representation provided me with an immediate and intuitive grasp on the situation. Sure - the numbers are there. But I never really thought about them beyond being a number (I'm sure that non-chemists can appreciate and forgive this ignorance).
And the gaps create an immediate sense of wonder. I think wonder is only a good thing (perhaps something that is missing from today's youth).
The biggest that I saw was about 5 inches across (Independence Oaks in Clarkston) but, normally, they are less than half of that size. I had a couple in my house recently - only about 1.5 inches - and they are QUICK.
Oil is a remarkable sealant - something to keep in mind. I don't have a cockroach problem but, here in Michigan, the wolf spider (and various other species scare the bejebus out of me (ever hear a 12 year old girl scream?) so I have discovered that eucalyptus oil is handy to keep them at bay.
In an episode of "Cheers," Cliff Clavin, the trivia-spouting, quirky, irksome mama's boy mailman is seated at the bar describing the buffalo theory to his buddy, Norm Peterson, the beer loving heavyweight bar stool sitting perpetual patron.
Cliff expounds his "Buffalo Theory" to Norm: Well, you see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it's the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.
And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.
We need governments. More to the point, if we didn't have them, we would create them.
That is entirely the point of Common Sense (though I can see how my out of context quote can and most certainly be misconstrued). I should have posted the following, in addition:
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him to quit his work, and every different want would call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for, though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.
Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other: and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.
Although the prose is a bit dated, this is some remarkably "back to basics" thinking that could do some people a lot of good. I quote:
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer
Don't use anything that will automate the work. Make the students do everything at a low-level if they are to learn anything. This is my opinion, only.
Start with basic theory - digital logic and Karnaugh Maps. Introduce the clock and how it can manipulate the states of a digital logic device. Then pick something simple - like a stoplight controller, for example. And then create it.
Using the stop light controller as an example, you have a number of states that can be easily reduced with Karnaugh. Using a basic breadboard and logic gates (not more than a few bucks per head in bulk), the students should be able to design and build the stoplight controller. Use LEDs for a direct representation of the stoplights.
Extra Credit: put in a cross-walk button, corresponding states, Karnaugh maps, gates and LEDs.
I can see a point where the United States becomes a lawsuit-based economy: instead of producing actual stuff, we'll all just patent stuff like email on a cell phone (who would have thought of that otherwise?).
The lawyers will obviously need to eat and get haircuts, so the money will eventually trickle down into the hands of the middle class.
I'm a genius - off to the patent office to patent this idea! I can't wait for my first royalty check.
I don't understand why you need a bootloader in the BIOS. It's not enough to have one on the MBR of the primary disk? It'd be a nice feature to have, yes, but hardly a necessary one.
Getting a manufacturer to run a non-Microsoft bootloader is not going to happen. Affording them the ability to boot from a variety of media without modification of the base system would spur a number of boot options.
If BIOS makers would do something trivial - simply allow the user to select a different drive from which to boot, then it would be trivial to offer a linux on a secondary drive (for desktops, or even laptops with an SD card).
It is a wonder that it is 2009 and this feature does not yet exist - almost like someone has colluded against it.
YES - to all of the obtuse slashdotters who will indicate that it is easy for them to switch their primary boot drive - I understand that it is easy for you and me. But it isn't so easy for Joe and Jane Six Pack. If they had a nice clean GUI that asked them to which system they'd like to boot, then Linux and other alternate OS would probably be a lot more popular - especially when Windows gets full of malware (most of these PCs are going in the garbage, now).
I've had the chance to play with some pretty phenomenal solid state drives (SSD) lately and, I have to say, that I can't believe that there isn't more industry buzz.
In a few months, an extra $100 will probably buy 120GB SSD, which will make a given PC perform like something completely different (you really need to go test drive an SSD PC if you have not yet indulged).
In a decade, I can see handhelds having so much storage and so much processing power, that we'll all just carry around our PC-on-a-phone and just use a standard interface to put that PC on any external monitor and keyboard. Hell, I can USB boot Ubuntu from my Blackberry, already.
Sure, MS has gotten some bad press lately but they still enjoy the overwhelming share of the OS market, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon.
I respectfully disagree.
When you start talking about something as complex as an operating system, your biggest problem is managing the code base. This is best illustrated by all of Vista's canceled features - Microsoft simply can't manage the code in-house anymore. At least not in a timely manner. They might solve it temporarily, but it will just grow beyond their control, once again.
In a closed-source Microsoft, developers really only have one itch to scratch - their pay check. So the best ones move on once they have accomplished something, leaving someone to pick up where they left off. Even if this someone is worth their salt, it will still take them a lot of time to pick up the pieces and become productive. If they are really good, then rinse and repeat.
With open source, the developers are scratching a different itch. Often, they'll work on something out of passion alone, at which point some commercial entity may decide simply to start paying them full-time for doing what they enjoy. Recognition, pay - what could be better?
The speed at which some open source projects have progressed is astounding. Compiz went from nothing to everything in no-time flat (speaking from a business perspective) while it took Microsoft a LOT longer to pound out aero, which doesn't have nearly as much eye candy.
I think that it is more important to look at the rate of progression than it is to look at where we are today.
...because lynx does not support favicons, you insensitive clod!
Lynx!?
Real hackers just stick the UTP on their tongue and decipher the signals with their taste buds. SIDE NOTE: I once discovered the hard way that a telephone ring signal is 90vac.
On a related note, I have been storing all of my favorites on the bookmark bar (or whatever it is called). As more sites are using the "favicon", it has been helpful to just edit the bookmark and remove the title altogether (leaving just the icon). You can fit a lot of favorites in the toolbar in this manner.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no "normal" - everyone seems to have something. Developers (and geeks, in general) just wear it out there on their sleeve.
Should we throw away all that usefulness in the name of "fresh" and "new" ideas?
Who suggested that we throw anything away?
I think that this is a good supplement that open the minds of people who might not grok the scale illustrated non-graphically by the canonical chart.
that design doesn't look much better than the current one
Sure it does - it gives you scale. I, for one, never spent the time required to appreciate the differences in scale. So this new graphical representation provided me with an immediate and intuitive grasp on the situation. Sure - the numbers are there. But I never really thought about them beyond being a number (I'm sure that non-chemists can appreciate and forgive this ignorance).
And the gaps create an immediate sense of wonder. I think wonder is only a good thing (perhaps something that is missing from today's youth).
Can anyone tell me why it costs nearly $10 to register a domain for a year? What is the profit margin on this? Who keeps the profit?
Maybe old hat to you network engineers, but I was previously unfamiliar with "bits per second.kilometer".
This is equivalent to 43 LoC/HI (Libraries of Congress per hour-inch).
The biggest that I saw was about 5 inches across (Independence Oaks in Clarkston) but, normally, they are less than half of that size. I had a couple in my house recently - only about 1.5 inches - and they are QUICK.
***shudder***
Oil is a remarkable sealant - something to keep in mind. I don't have a cockroach problem but, here in Michigan, the wolf spider (and various other species scare the bejebus out of me (ever hear a 12 year old girl scream?) so I have discovered that eucalyptus oil is handy to keep them at bay.
In an episode of "Cheers," Cliff Clavin, the trivia-spouting, quirky, irksome mama's boy mailman is seated at the bar describing the buffalo theory to his buddy, Norm Peterson, the beer loving heavyweight bar stool sitting perpetual patron.
Cliff expounds his "Buffalo Theory" to Norm:
Well, you see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it's the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.
And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.
Not to mention that pigeon bittorrent implementation is a bit cumbersome.
We need governments. More to the point, if we didn't have them, we would create them.
That is entirely the point of Common Sense (though I can see how my out of context quote can and most certainly be misconstrued). I should have posted the following, in addition:
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him to quit his work, and every different want would call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for, though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.
Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other: and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.
Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution
Although the prose is a bit dated, this is some remarkably "back to basics" thinking that could do some people a lot of good. I quote:
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer
Don't use anything that will automate the work. Make the students do everything at a low-level if they are to learn anything. This is my opinion, only.
Start with basic theory - digital logic and Karnaugh Maps. Introduce the clock and how it can manipulate the states of a digital logic device. Then pick something simple - like a stoplight controller, for example. And then create it.
Using the stop light controller as an example, you have a number of states that can be easily reduced with Karnaugh. Using a basic breadboard and logic gates (not more than a few bucks per head in bulk), the students should be able to design and build the stoplight controller. Use LEDs for a direct representation of the stoplights.
Extra Credit: put in a cross-walk button, corresponding states, Karnaugh maps, gates and LEDs.
Or maybe this guy now works for Amazon?!
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Hitler!
There.
Now we can have an objective conversation about how much GTK sucks.
Are any of us expected to make a full recovery?
Life is the leading cause of death, ya know.
If I had a son, he might not be alive at that point.
No discussion about a daughter - interesting. Would she not be able to hold a copyright?
I can see a point where the United States becomes a lawsuit-based economy: instead of producing actual stuff, we'll all just patent stuff like email on a cell phone (who would have thought of that otherwise?).
The lawyers will obviously need to eat and get haircuts, so the money will eventually trickle down into the hands of the middle class.
I'm a genius - off to the patent office to patent this idea! I can't wait for my first royalty check.
I don't understand why you need a bootloader in the BIOS. It's not enough to have one on the MBR of the primary disk? It'd be a nice feature to have, yes, but hardly a necessary one.
Getting a manufacturer to run a non-Microsoft bootloader is not going to happen. Affording them the ability to boot from a variety of media without modification of the base system would spur a number of boot options.
"Add $100 for an Ubuntu secondary drive"
If BIOS makers would do something trivial - simply allow the user to select a different drive from which to boot, then it would be trivial to offer a linux on a secondary drive (for desktops, or even laptops with an SD card).
It is a wonder that it is 2009 and this feature does not yet exist - almost like someone has colluded against it.
YES - to all of the obtuse slashdotters who will indicate that it is easy for them to switch their primary boot drive - I understand that it is easy for you and me. But it isn't so easy for Joe and Jane Six Pack. If they had a nice clean GUI that asked them to which system they'd like to boot, then Linux and other alternate OS would probably be a lot more popular - especially when Windows gets full of malware (most of these PCs are going in the garbage, now).
Does anyone have any screenshots? I always hate that when they post some great new upgrade without any screenshots.
I've had the chance to play with some pretty phenomenal solid state drives (SSD) lately and, I have to say, that I can't believe that there isn't more industry buzz.
In a few months, an extra $100 will probably buy 120GB SSD, which will make a given PC perform like something completely different (you really need to go test drive an SSD PC if you have not yet indulged).
In a decade, I can see handhelds having so much storage and so much processing power, that we'll all just carry around our PC-on-a-phone and just use a standard interface to put that PC on any external monitor and keyboard. Hell, I can USB boot Ubuntu from my Blackberry, already.
Sure, MS has gotten some bad press lately but they still enjoy the overwhelming share of the OS market, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon.
I respectfully disagree.
When you start talking about something as complex as an operating system, your biggest problem is managing the code base. This is best illustrated by all of Vista's canceled features - Microsoft simply can't manage the code in-house anymore. At least not in a timely manner. They might solve it temporarily, but it will just grow beyond their control, once again.
In a closed-source Microsoft, developers really only have one itch to scratch - their pay check. So the best ones move on once they have accomplished something, leaving someone to pick up where they left off. Even if this someone is worth their salt, it will still take them a lot of time to pick up the pieces and become productive. If they are really good, then rinse and repeat.
With open source, the developers are scratching a different itch. Often, they'll work on something out of passion alone, at which point some commercial entity may decide simply to start paying them full-time for doing what they enjoy. Recognition, pay - what could be better?
The speed at which some open source projects have progressed is astounding. Compiz went from nothing to everything in no-time flat (speaking from a business perspective) while it took Microsoft a LOT longer to pound out aero, which doesn't have nearly as much eye candy.
I think that it is more important to look at the rate of progression than it is to look at where we are today.
...because lynx does not support favicons, you insensitive clod!
Lynx!?
Real hackers just stick the UTP on their tongue and decipher the signals with their taste buds. SIDE NOTE: I once discovered the hard way that a telephone ring signal is 90vac.
On a related note, I have been storing all of my favorites on the bookmark bar (or whatever it is called). As more sites are using the "favicon", it has been helpful to just edit the bookmark and remove the title altogether (leaving just the icon). You can fit a lot of favorites in the toolbar in this manner.
Roland was really doing Slashdot-type reporting before there was a World Wide Web.
Now, Now... there's no need to insult the guy at this point.