If the ship existed in the dimensions described, it is most likely Noah's ark. They will have matched the mountain and the dimensions. There is simply no other reasonable explanation.
Their seems to be this implication that a discovery made by a Christian which affirms the Bible is somehow less objective, or perhaps suspect. But if an atheistic scientist discovers something which purportedly affirms evolution, the discovery is treated as gospel truth. There seems to be a double-standard of proof for Christians.
But as much as unbelievers might claim, proof is not the issue, but a distraction. Those who resist believing in God do so not because they need proof that there's a God, but rather because they are uncomfortable of the implications of such. No ship on Mount Ararat is going to change this.
Said software filters out not only copyrighted files, but political speech as well? How long before said software will prohibit distribution of any copyrightable content, regardless of the owner's intent? (Thus preventing "publishing" by "unauthorized" parties...)
This is a serious threat to liberty.
Yeah, copyright infringement is illegal. But the primary reason why people use the Internet is the free flow of information. If we restrict the flow of information on the internet, people will instead move on to another medium where it is not so restricted. A literal case of "we had to destroy the city to save it..."
Yeah, that's really too bad. But fortunately it only affected a few drives and Iomega eventually fixed the problem.
Ever wonder why a zip drive that ruins even a single disk is considered defective, where a CD-R or CD-RW that repeatedly ruins disks is still considered normal? Why is it that people just accept this? Floppy drives read and write more reliably than most CD-RW drives!
I wish those who bashed Iomega for bad zip drives would hold CD-R and CD-RW drive makers to the same standard. Then CD-R and CD-RW might actually be useful for something other than temporary copies.
My Toshiba CD-RW can only burn ~500MB of a 700MB CD-R without errors, the writable capacity of this drive is probably closer to 71 GB.
And considering that said CD-RW drive can't read a burned file larger than 133MB, the read capacity of this hard drive is probably closer to 19 GB.
I, for one, could care less about the size increases of the newer drives. I would rather have something that works as advertised for longer than the warranty period.
Why would I ever buy a 100 GB hard drive if it was going to fail before I could fully use that capacity?
Why, when hard drive speed is the single largest factor affecting perceived system performance, do manufacturers insist on improving storage capacity at the expense of speed and reliability?
Is that I can still read data from Iomega Zip disks that are 6 years old, yet can't read CD's I burned 6 months ago. For some reason, the perils of magnetic media and Zip drives never came true for me.
What really irks me is that CD-R was sold to the public as a way of _permanently_ archiving data. Once written, it was supposed to be permanent. The non-magnetic, non-rewritable nature of the media was supposed to prevent accidental overwrites and erasures from magnetic fields.
Top Ten reasons to love CD-R/CD-RW:
No Pesky Aborts or Retries: CD-R is the only media in which a failed write ruins the media. Retrying a failed write is so 80's. I never liked that "Abort, Retry, Ignore" stuff anyway....
No Multitasking: I don't like to surf the internet or do other things when a CD is being burned. I'd rather shut down all applications, turn off my screensaver*, and watch the progress meter and wait.
Home Improvement with the PC: I like having a CD coaster place setting for every chair at the dining room table. I could never ruin enough floppies for a full table's worth.
Software is Never Obsolete: You never have to worry about restoring obsolete software during a system restore - by the time the software is obsolete, your CD-R backup has long been unreadable.
No Pithy Operations: I hate updating single files. When I want to update an archive, I want to reburn the whole disk! (CD-R, some CD-RW here...)
Snazzy Disk-Cache Progress Meter: I like disk caches. In fact, I'm not comfortable with a file transfer until I see the "flushing cache to disk" progress meter.
Laid Back Attitude: I'm never in a hurry. Whether I'm just starting work or on my way out the door, I want a file transfer to take at least one minute.
I would never want to save what I'm working on and immediately run out the door. (Office space, anyone?)
Security: With CD-R/CD-RW, your files are always safe from editing at a public or shared computer. Even should you come across a machine with a CD-RW drive installed, the read-write latency of a CD-RW will make editing the files practically impossible. And you can forget running an application from your removable media.
No Obsolete Computers: With UDF, all your friends and colleagues will have to upgrade to the latest Microsoft Operating system in order to read your disks.
Prosecutorial Immunity: Should your illegal mp3 CD-R collection get seized by the police, it will be unreadable by the time it gets to trial.
* - yes, these are the recommendations that came with a 2004 Toshiba laptop regarding making CD's.
I know a lot people here on/. plug Linux as the best thing short of the Second Coming...
But... The real issue is that most people don't install their own operating systems. They take what comes on their PC from the factory, and that's it.
That said, the only way in which Linux is going to gain significant ground on the desktop is if:
Using Linux enables people to do something they want to do, but can't do in Windows, and:
Installing Linux is as easy and foolproof as installing the average Windows Application*, and:
Linux is simpler than Windows. People can't figure out what is wrong with MS systems simply because they are so complicated and arcane. And Linux is even more complicated.
Linux's big hurdle for the desktop is that for most people, Windows is Good Enough(TM). Any difficulties installing Windows are simply irrelevant because the average user never installs their own OS - when it crashes, they take it back to the store.
For Linux to succeed on the desktop, hardware detection and driver installation is going to have to be completely automatic. A distro which can't autodetect the video card or sound card would do better to inform the user that their hardware is unsupported than ask them to select their hardware from a seemingly endless list of meaningless names.
Linux developers are going to have to stop following Microsoft's lead and start really innovating.
* - yes, I know that many windows apps mangle the system. Let's just ignore this and pretend that they work as advertised for the sake of argument, shall we?
"Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...."
A computer can more optimally adjust the ignition timing, fuel to air ratios, accessory loading, etc, than merely mechanical components. However, that doesn't mean that a computer controlled engine is immune to failure; it depends on the ethics and design principles of the engineers who built it. That said, computers have definitely improved the driving experience of the average driver.
Because the computer runs the engine, changing ignition timing or fuel delivery is as simple as replacing an EPROM or (possibly?) uploading new software. But more, some engine electronics enable capabilities that mechanical systems could _never_ provide. For example:
The alternator is now controlled by the computer. Since the computer can know both the alternator's field current and the battery voltage, the computer itself could diagnose a battery which is losing its ability to hold a charge before the battery quits completely. Additionally, it can monitor the voltage drop and cranking rpm of the engine - which again, can determine if the starting circuit is developing resistance before the vehicle won't start at all.
Some more advanced systems, like Cadillac's Northstar V8's, can run without any coolant whatsoever. When the computer detects a catastrophic coolant loss, it fires alternate banks of cylinders - the result is that the "dead" power cycles pull air through the engine, cooling it down. While you won't have air conditioning, at least you'll be able to make it to a repair shop.
Even basic systems now have the ability to prevent engine damage by shutting the engine down when the temperature is too high or oil pressure is insufficient.
Computers can use the wheel sensors used for antilock brakes to determine if a tire is low and alert the driver: a tire with low pressure has a lower effective radius and will turn slightly faster than the others when the car is moving in a straight line.
There's a saying among Chevy enthusiasts, "Those who'd rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy usually do...." Yes, it is true that you can fix vintage vehicles much more easily than computerized ones, and if you buy one, you might just end up fixing it more often than you'd like. What it comes down to is that at a certain point, it is going to cost more to keep an older vehicle running than it would to buy a new one.
Auto manufacturers can go a LONG way to lower the cost of cars and car repair by creating a variety of standardized systems.
Ever hear of a small-block chevy V8? This engine was pioneered in the 1950's and is still used today. Interestingly enough, the engine parts made today still fit the classic cars - a 1970 Camaro owner can salvage engine parts from a 2004 Camaro.
GM already modularizes their powertrains. You'll notice that GM offers a few different engine/transmission options, and that these options don't really change from one GM brand to the next.
$10,000 for tools - that's just to get _started_. It isn't at all uncommon for an experienced mechanic to have more equity in his tools than in his house; $40,000 is not at all uncommon.
The "special tools" racket is nothing new. As early as 1969, Chrysler required a "special tool" for removing the distributor - it was a factory-approved ball peen hammer.
True, cars today have fewer user-maintainable parts, however, they last longer. Prior to fuel injection, a four cylinder engine could get about 25 miles to the gallon and would last about 85,000 to 100,000 miles. It would produce about 95 to 100 horsepower, and would have to be tuned up every 10,000 to 15,000 miles. Today, a car with a "standard" four cylinder engine averages around 35 mpg, produces 120 horsepower, can go for 100,000 miles between tuneups, and will last about 200,000 miles with good maintenance.
Over the course of 100,000 miles, the increase in fuel economy will save more than 1100 gallons of gas. At 1.85 per gallon, that's about $2100. Add in the cost of 6 tuneups (at $350 a piece), and now you've saved $3900.
Thanks to fuel injection and electronic ignition timing, a normally aspirated 4 cylinder engine can easily produce 140 brake horsepower. A turbocharged four can now easily break the 225 hp mark. Prior to this, horsepower figures like these required a V8 and abysmal fuel economy. (And note that the 400+ hp figures quoted in vintage promotional materials were actually measured at the flywheel, not the car's wheels. When the SAE adopted the new standard, V8's that had formerly been rated at 350 hp were now rated at 200.)
Carbureuted cars were notorious for failing to start in the winter. 25 years ago, _no one_ started their car in winter and attempted to drive off without first letting the engine warm up - most would stall. While it was possible to tune a carbureuted car for winter starts, doing so resulted in the engine running a little richer than it should, and it had to be done every season.
35 years ago, the average person could understand enough about an automobile to do their own repairs, and many of them did - quite frequently, as a matter of fact. If I owned a vintage car, with my driving schedule, I'd have to:
Rebuild the engine every other year.
Replace the brakes every year.
Pay $3300 a year more in gasoline.
Tune up the car twice a year.
Change the oil every five weeks. (Which hasn't changed for new vehicles...).
The only area in which cars have not become lower maintenance is oil changes. You still need to change the oil every 3,000 miles. But aside from that, most cars today require very little maintenance compared to their simpler predecessors.
Yes, cars are more complicated, but for the first time in history, machines with moving parts are more reliable than those without. The average PC is less reliable than the average car, and given a choice, I think most people would rather have a reliable vehicle than a simple one requiring more maintenance.
Why doesn't DirecTV owe me damages? They are irradiating my property with microwave radiation without my consent.
I'm sorry, but this is a classic case of IIA (Idiots In Action). These guys are like the kid who hits his baseball through your window and then calls the police claiming you stole his baseball. And "of course" you're guilty - you're in possession of "stolen property". But who put it there?
The reason why I'm unsympathetic is because DirecTV set themselves up for piracy - there's no physical control over the infrastructure, and the signal is available everywhere. Did they really believe that their signal wasn't going to get hacked? The military learned a long time ago that when it comes to broadcast commo, key control is of the utmost importance. How DirecTV thought they could maintain a secure distro channel when they passed out keys to the general public remains a mystery.
In short, our
clients have one of the most generous personal use rights attached to
services of this kind...
[emphasis mine]
Since when is giving me access to music that I've already paid for "most generous".
Would a car dealer be "most generous" if he allowed you a second set of keys to your new car?
Would McDonald's be "most generous" if they gave you an additional straw for your large Coke?
It's coming to the point where ownership seems to be reserved solely for corporations. Instead of owning things, people are starting to lease them, or even "license" them - they pay for ownership, receive all of the liabilities associated with ownership, yet none of the rights.
I looks to me like iTunes isn't playing fair. They seem to think that they still own what they've sold you. Perhaps you should try this:
Sell your house to Apple. After they've assumed legal ownership and paid the taxes, utilities, and mortgage, inform them that they can't occupy the property, because it would violate the "license agreement."
Sell your car to a dealer. After he's paid the money, change the locks - informing him that the "license agreement" requires him to contact you anytime he needs the keys.
Sound reasonable? Of course not. If it was indeed "intellectual property", Apple wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But it's not. Yet they treat it as property as far as their interests are concerned, but when it comes to your interests, it's merely a "license agreement".
Re:How about NO TV? Works for me in a weird way
on
National TV Turn Off Week
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I cant get thru one day at work without someone parroting some viewpoint not of their own making becuase some show said something about a topic.
Amen to that.
For years, tv has been liberally biased. Yet I believe one of the reason why the Democrats have lost power in the House and Senate is that the popular tv stations were broadcasting the liberal dogma. What happened was that while liberals were watching their tv sets, conservatives were building political networks. The end result was that the liberal programming actually dumbed down the viewers so that their political effectiveness extended little beyond repeating the same tired, old expressions taught to them by TV. They knew what they were supposed to feel and think, but lacked the ability to actually change their world.
My Mom, unfortunately, bought me a set for Christmas when I moved into an apartment. I say "unfortunately" because my wife is now addicted to tv, and I can't stand the thing, personally.
After the Army, everything changed for me. I hadbeen there, done that in a very big way. After college, I became aware of how positively assinine the programming was:
I can't watch a news program without wondering how much they've exaggerated, how much they've left out, or if they've made the whole thing up.
I can't watch a sitcom without being inundated with someone else's socio-political agenda. Yes, I know gays exist. No, the fact that you're gay does't make you a good actor, nor does it make your story interesting. Everyone has had to overcome something in their life, and you are no different - but just less interesting.
I can't watch a "reality" show at all. On the rare occasion when the contestant is smarter than a cardboard box, they still can't act. I'm listening to someone spill their guts about their date, rehashing it like an NFL play-by-play. And then, in some monotone voice, they tell me that they "care about this person, might have feelings for them..." Which makes me think their love for this person is no deeper than a puddle, or they're just trying to pretend they love this person so they go home with the prize money.
Television really doesn't offer me anything anymore.
Please. "I have no idea how this all works, but I hate them" would really have been less hassle to type.
You misinterpreted that. I discussed the difference between a basic raytracer and a more advanced graphics engine to lend fairness toward the coders. Yes, a basic raytracing engine could be fit into a 4k executable, but not without sacrificing the more esoteric graphics effects - as I explained. If the goal of the coders had been to produce the absolutely smallest exe, they've failed by a long shot. But I don't think this was the case. Rather, I think they successfully demonstrated an alternative form of compression in which the data was regenerated at runtime by an executable set of instructions, rather than merely reading and applying a transformation to existing data. And that is worth talking about.
I kind of hate to see this, but it irks me that people will worship this kind of thing - an FPS in under 96kB! How cool! Really. How many times have you heard of game reviewers rating games based on.exe size? Does it even matter? (I've got plenty of FPS games that come in under 96kB. Yes, they suck. Who cares? - the point of a game is to have fun, not marvel at the small size of the executable!)
I post this in reply to a few of the responses I've gotten, not just the parent post.
I'm not impressed with the 96kB executable size. As far as executables go, it is small for a Windows app, but it still dwarfs the animated demos which have a limit of 4k.
It seems to me that the point of writing this game was not to produce the smallest useful binary, but rather to illustrate a particular method of reducing binary size by producing textures at runtime rather than compile-time.
That said, the real story is not the size of the executable, but rather the value of the tradeoffs made to produce it. I don't find this particularly remarkable. The coders made a tradeoff; they exchanged a smaller exe size for a lower runtime performance. So what? How is this any different from what every other coder has had to do at one point in their career?
I wish these guys had actually made the exe larger, because/. would focus instead on the technique used to compress the textures, rather than its small size. Maybe instead, someone would comment on how the 96kB exe actually runs faster because the whole executable image resides in the processor's cache?
if that 96kB included the rendering engine, graphics, etc....
The fact that it is only 96kB is really nothing to laud, considering that most assembly programmers could fit a basic raytracer in under 4k of code - provided that all textures and layouts were read from disk.
A "basic" raytracing algorithm is very simple - you simply map a texture over a wireframe model and then scale the result by dividing the x and y dimensions by the z distance. Basic FPS gameplay would involve loading your device handlers (mouse, keyboard, etc...), and writing a response loop. Asynchrous gameplay (i.e., enemy moves as you stand still) can likewise be handled by chaining the timer interrupt (18h? IIRC) to your "enemy movement" code. Collision detection, etc, could simply be brute-forced by plotting the vector of the expelled projectile until it collided with another object.
But this is basic raytracing and gameplay. It works well for a fast computer because no optimizations are done - the scene is rendered back to front, with non-visible components overlaid by visible ones. And of course, the finer elements of scene rendering such as shadows, lighting, antialiasing, etc... are completely absent. It also uses a lot of CPU time, and the collision detection routines don't scale - as the size of the game map increases, so does the amount of time used to determine collisions. Michael Abrash discusses more advanced techniques in The Zen of Assembly Language, and I'd highly recommend reading his work.
What I find curious is why the executable is 96k when it depends on DirectX. I would imagine that a good game engine written in assembly could easily be fit into 16kB. I would be more impressed with this particular effort if they had built their own graphics engine (with lighting effects, etc...)
And 96kB is not a "small" binary. I've seen fractal programs written in assembly come in at 81 bytes! Most C/C++ files compile down to 4-6 kB, and the majority of the binary size is actually the standard libraries slapped on to the end by the linker. If one omits standard library support, a 10 or 20 kB executable is very easily obtained, even in C++.
I've got a WinXP box that cannot be restored without the blaster worm.
The patch system is flawed. It's not secure - in order to patch my XP box, I've got to connect to the internet to download the patches and virus updates.... During which, Blaster siezes the opportunity to infect my machine.
Suppose, for example, that someone wrote a virus which disabled Windows Update, or even AV software. Such a machine could never be successfully patched without having physical media. Nor could it ever access the internet - if one did a restore of the machine, the "older" AV software wouldn't detect the newer virus signature, and the machine would be infected as soon as an internet connection was established. In this case, every user would have to buy a new, recently boxed copy of the AV suite and install it before they connected to the internet.
The idea that users can patch their machine using the internet is inherently flawed. Should someone write a worm which disabled the AV software, or Windows Update, a user's machine could not ever be recovered, as the patching mechanism itself would be disabled. (Of course, they could still shell out cash for the patches on CD....)
So I'm applying for a home loan, and the broker requests my name and SSN. That's all.
Within minutes, he's reading back to me recent payments, credit card balances, bank account info, etc... basically, my entire financial history. He knows that we were late on our electric bill in November, and comments on how nice it is that our car payments are so low.
Anyone who thinks that CAPPS II is a serious invasion of privacy is seriously naive. The average person no longer possesses any privacy to speak of. The sad fact of the matter is that you can be tracked no matter where you go:
Your credit card purchases and ATM withdrawals track where you go and how much you spend.
Even the small bills ($20) are tagged with RFID's, so cash no longer guarantees privacy. Plus, it's not likely that you'll find a good job which pays cash only.
Your grocer records your every purchase, linked to your discount, bank, or credit card. The FBI can have this information simply for the asking...
Your library viewing habits are now subject to Federal review, thanks to the PATRIOT act.
Your medical practitioner is bound by law to turn over your medical records in cases where they suspect certain crimes have been committed. (Child abuse, for example. And yes, most practitioners consider any injury beyond a minor scrape or bruise "potential" child abuse.)
Your ISP and phone company are required to possess the cabability to intercept your communications. The FBI can eavesdrop on these with no oversight or accountability whatsoever.
So, in light of the above, does CAPPS even matter? Even before 9/11, the FBI could get very detailed information about a person simply by asking people around the suspect. For example, in the Ruby Ridge fiasco, the FBI knew the suspect's daughter's menstrual cycle - the school nurse volunteered the information!
Hate to say it, but your privacy is already gone. A person cannot function in today's society without consenting to monitoring of their every move. Why does CAPPS matter when the FBI already knows what you eat, which movies you watch, which books you read, how much you owe, and with whom you associate? CAPPS is more or less a "feel-good" government program - it's designed to assuage passengers' fear of flying while providing jobs to people who would otherwise be out of work.
I've written some utilities to do just what you want.
filestat.exe - prints out the file dates and checksum - very handy if you suspect virus infection.
profile.exe (not the Windows XP command!) - This prints a recursive list of the files in a directory with checksums. It also counts the number of directories and files, so you can see what has changed at a glance.
changectl.exe - can compare large text files
incback - an incremental backup utility which can be used to selectively copy files. You can use this to filter out which files have changed most recently.
Granted, their still in beta form, but if you're interested, reply and I'll send you the source. I'm also working on a system installer...
...well, partly because they've dedicated their lives to the pursuit of scientific truth...
Does this mean we should believe the Vatican about the existence of God? Since they've studied morality the longest, shouldn't they be the leading moral authority? Shouldn't our government consult with them about the morality of laws? - I mean, they've been studying it the longest.*
I happen to know of a great many "scientific" thinkers who go to great lengths to reject the morality espoused by the Catholic Church. It would seem that 2000 years of study is not enough to come to any definite conclusions regarding morality, but science can understand global warming completely after less than 200 years.
Just a thought. Maybe if people sat down and thought about it, they'd realize just how much we don't know about the world around us.
* - yes, I know there are older religions, but most can identify with Catholicism. Don't get upset...
They wouldn't do it anyway? It doesn't matter if you looked at their source or not, they still will drag you into court if you "violate" one of their patents.
And you need not know you are violating a patent in order to incur liability for doing so. While knowingly infringing a patent affords the plaintiff a much larger damage claim, even inadvertent or unintentional violation is still actionable.
When it comes down to it, you aren't doing yourself a favor by not looking at the code; if anything, you should look at it so you can at least avoid copying MS's ideas.
After all, "I never saw the source!" is no defense of patent infringement. It won't keep you out of court, either.
Please don't take this as a troll - it just irks me when someone thinks the can avoid legal liability through ignorance. You may avoid criminal prosecution by not distributing the source, but let's face it - a corporation can sue you for copyright or patent infringement regardless of the merits of the case. The RIAA is suing IP addresses! Innocence is no assurance that you won't be sued.
Technically, there is no right to privacy until the Supreme Court adds it to the Constitution.
Right now, they're still cleaning up after the addition of the "separation of church and state" clause - Give 'em a break, man. Lawmaking is hard on a judge...
And when the Supreme Court passes a law, don't bother looking for it in either the Constitution or the Federal Statutes.
Considering that an embryo is the beginning stage of a human being, there is a moral question of using embrionic stem cells for research. We are literally creating humans for harvest(TM).
Adult stem cells, OTOH, have no such moral dilemna, and they have a much greater potential, because:
Adult stem cells can be extracted from the patient directly, and match the patient's own DNA. There is no risk of the body rejecting a cure using adult stem cells. Embrionic stem cells, OTOH, can never exactly match the patient's DNA.
Doctors have already successfully treated diseases such as Parkinson's using adult stem cells in clinical trials.
The truly ironic thing is that embrionic stem cell researchers are hoping someday to find cures for diseases that are already being treated with adult stem cells.
Wake up. It has nothing to do with genuine research and everything to do with politics. The far left has a political motive for using embrionic stem cells. The left fears an "overpopulation crisis" - that is, a situation in which the world's wealth is no longer concentrated in the hands of the elite. The idea is that "other" people use up precious resources that could otherwise be owned by the elite. The idea is to keep the fertility of the underclasses to a minimum, so that they can never gain political control and upset the balance of power. One way to do this is to keep them from having children. Birth control was the first step; this is the next. If a cure for a debilitating disease is found in embrionic stem cells, then the powers that be could justify sterilizing the women of the underclass for the sake of treating the diseases of the elite. Of course, the destitute woman would be willing to sell her eggs for the sake of curing disease, right? Of course, the poor could not afford said treatment, but that doesn't really matter, right? The end result is the same - the elite get a cure for their disease, while securing their position in society, all at the expense of the underclass.
Now how moral is that?
Note, it's the Republicans who are against embrionic stem cell research. For a party that has been tarred and feathered as the Big Business Party, they seem rather docile when it comes to protecting the big business of embrionic stem cell research. Just something to think about.
Slashdot Mirror
Built ships on mountaintops?
If the ship existed in the dimensions described, it is most likely Noah's ark. They will have matched the mountain and the dimensions. There is simply no other reasonable explanation.
Their seems to be this implication that a discovery made by a Christian which affirms the Bible is somehow less objective, or perhaps suspect. But if an atheistic scientist discovers something which purportedly affirms evolution, the discovery is treated as gospel truth. There seems to be a double-standard of proof for Christians.
But as much as unbelievers might claim, proof is not the issue, but a distraction. Those who resist believing in God do so not because they need proof that there's a God, but rather because they are uncomfortable of the implications of such. No ship on Mount Ararat is going to change this.
Said software filters out not only copyrighted files, but political speech as well? How long before said software will prohibit distribution of any copyrightable content, regardless of the owner's intent? (Thus preventing "publishing" by "unauthorized" parties...)
This is a serious threat to liberty.
Yeah, copyright infringement is illegal. But the primary reason why people use the Internet is the free flow of information. If we restrict the flow of information on the internet, people will instead move on to another medium where it is not so restricted. A literal case of "we had to destroy the city to save it..."
Yeah, that's really too bad. But fortunately it only affected a few drives and Iomega eventually fixed the problem.
Ever wonder why a zip drive that ruins even a single disk is considered defective, where a CD-R or CD-RW that repeatedly ruins disks is still considered normal? Why is it that people just accept this? Floppy drives read and write more reliably than most CD-RW drives!
I wish those who bashed Iomega for bad zip drives would hold CD-R and CD-RW drive makers to the same standard. Then CD-R and CD-RW might actually be useful for something other than temporary copies.
My Toshiba CD-RW can only burn ~500MB of a 700MB CD-R without errors, the writable capacity of this drive is probably closer to 71 GB.
And considering that said CD-RW drive can't read a burned file larger than 133MB, the read capacity of this hard drive is probably closer to 19 GB.
I, for one, could care less about the size increases of the newer drives. I would rather have something that works as advertised for longer than the warranty period.
Why would I ever buy a 100 GB hard drive if it was going to fail before I could fully use that capacity?
Why, when hard drive speed is the single largest factor affecting perceived system performance, do manufacturers insist on improving storage capacity at the expense of speed and reliability?
Is that I can still read data from Iomega Zip disks that are 6 years old, yet can't read CD's I burned 6 months ago. For some reason, the perils of magnetic media and Zip drives never came true for me.
What really irks me is that CD-R was sold to the public as a way of _permanently_ archiving data. Once written, it was supposed to be permanent. The non-magnetic, non-rewritable nature of the media was supposed to prevent accidental overwrites and erasures from magnetic fields.
Top Ten reasons to love CD-R/CD-RW:
* - yes, these are the recommendations that came with a 2004 Toshiba laptop regarding making CD's.
I know a lot people here on /. plug Linux as the best thing short of the Second Coming...
But... The real issue is that most people don't install their own operating systems. They take what comes on their PC from the factory, and that's it.
That said, the only way in which Linux is going to gain significant ground on the desktop is if:
Linux's big hurdle for the desktop is that for most people, Windows is Good Enough(TM). Any difficulties installing Windows are simply irrelevant because the average user never installs their own OS - when it crashes, they take it back to the store.
For Linux to succeed on the desktop, hardware detection and driver installation is going to have to be completely automatic. A distro which can't autodetect the video card or sound card would do better to inform the user that their hardware is unsupported than ask them to select their hardware from a seemingly endless list of meaningless names.
Linux developers are going to have to stop following Microsoft's lead and start really innovating.
* - yes, I know that many windows apps mangle the system. Let's just ignore this and pretend that they work as advertised for the sake of argument, shall we?
"Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...."
A computer can more optimally adjust the ignition timing, fuel to air ratios, accessory loading, etc, than merely mechanical components. However, that doesn't mean that a computer controlled engine is immune to failure; it depends on the ethics and design principles of the engineers who built it. That said, computers have definitely improved the driving experience of the average driver.
Because the computer runs the engine, changing ignition timing or fuel delivery is as simple as replacing an EPROM or (possibly?) uploading new software. But more, some engine electronics enable capabilities that mechanical systems could _never_ provide. For example:
There's a saying among Chevy enthusiasts, "Those who'd rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy usually do...." Yes, it is true that you can fix vintage vehicles much more easily than computerized ones, and if you buy one, you might just end up fixing it more often than you'd like. What it comes down to is that at a certain point, it is going to cost more to keep an older vehicle running than it would to buy a new one.
Ever hear of a small-block chevy V8? This engine was pioneered in the 1950's and is still used today. Interestingly enough, the engine parts made today still fit the classic cars - a 1970 Camaro owner can salvage engine parts from a 2004 Camaro.
GM already modularizes their powertrains. You'll notice that GM offers a few different engine/transmission options, and that these options don't really change from one GM brand to the next.
The only area in which cars have not become lower maintenance is oil changes. You still need to change the oil every 3,000 miles. But aside from that, most cars today require very little maintenance compared to their simpler predecessors.
Yes, cars are more complicated, but for the first time in history, machines with moving parts are more reliable than those without. The average PC is less reliable than the average car, and given a choice, I think most people would rather have a reliable vehicle than a simple one requiring more maintenance.
Why doesn't DirecTV owe me damages? They are irradiating my property with microwave radiation without my consent.
I'm sorry, but this is a classic case of IIA (Idiots In Action). These guys are like the kid who hits his baseball through your window and then calls the police claiming you stole his baseball. And "of course" you're guilty - you're in possession of "stolen property". But who put it there?
The reason why I'm unsympathetic is because DirecTV set themselves up for piracy - there's no physical control over the infrastructure, and the signal is available everywhere. Did they really believe that their signal wasn't going to get hacked? The military learned a long time ago that when it comes to broadcast commo, key control is of the utmost importance. How DirecTV thought they could maintain a secure distro channel when they passed out keys to the general public remains a mystery.
From the C & D letter:
In short, our clients have one of the most generous personal use rights attached to services of this kind... [emphasis mine]
Since when is giving me access to music that I've already paid for "most generous".
Would a car dealer be "most generous" if he allowed you a second set of keys to your new car?
Would McDonald's be "most generous" if they gave you an additional straw for your large Coke?
It's coming to the point where ownership seems to be reserved solely for corporations. Instead of owning things, people are starting to lease them, or even "license" them - they pay for ownership, receive all of the liabilities associated with ownership, yet none of the rights.
I looks to me like iTunes isn't playing fair. They seem to think that they still own what they've sold you. Perhaps you should try this:
- Sell your house to Apple. After they've assumed legal ownership and paid the taxes, utilities, and mortgage, inform them that they can't occupy the property, because it would violate the "license agreement."
- Sell your car to a dealer. After he's paid the money, change the locks - informing him that the "license agreement" requires him to contact you anytime he needs the keys.
Sound reasonable? Of course not. If it was indeed "intellectual property", Apple wouldn't have a leg to stand on. But it's not. Yet they treat it as property as far as their interests are concerned, but when it comes to your interests, it's merely a "license agreement".Amen to that.
For years, tv has been liberally biased. Yet I believe one of the reason why the Democrats have lost power in the House and Senate is that the popular tv stations were broadcasting the liberal dogma. What happened was that while liberals were watching their tv sets, conservatives were building political networks. The end result was that the liberal programming actually dumbed down the viewers so that their political effectiveness extended little beyond repeating the same tired, old expressions taught to them by TV. They knew what they were supposed to feel and think, but lacked the ability to actually change their world.
Oh yeah, right man, I mean, how could those Southerners be faulted for using Jim Crow laws in their favor...
The fact that something is legal doesn't necessarily mean that it is ethical.
I gave up tv several years ago.
My Mom, unfortunately, bought me a set for Christmas when I moved into an apartment. I say "unfortunately" because my wife is now addicted to tv, and I can't stand the thing, personally.
After the Army, everything changed for me. I had been there, done that in a very big way. After college, I became aware of how positively assinine the programming was:
Television really doesn't offer me anything anymore.
You misinterpreted that. I discussed the difference between a basic raytracer and a more advanced graphics engine to lend fairness toward the coders. Yes, a basic raytracing engine could be fit into a 4k executable, but not without sacrificing the more esoteric graphics effects - as I explained. If the goal of the coders had been to produce the absolutely smallest exe, they've failed by a long shot. But I don't think this was the case. Rather, I think they successfully demonstrated an alternative form of compression in which the data was regenerated at runtime by an executable set of instructions, rather than merely reading and applying a transformation to existing data. And that is worth talking about.
I kind of hate to see this, but it irks me that people will worship this kind of thing - an FPS in under 96kB! How cool! Really. How many times have you heard of game reviewers rating games based on .exe size? Does it even matter? (I've got plenty of FPS games that come in under 96kB. Yes, they suck. Who cares? - the point of a game is to have fun, not marvel at the small size of the executable!)
I post this in reply to a few of the responses I've gotten, not just the parent post.
- I'm not impressed with the 96kB executable size. As far as executables go, it is small for a Windows app, but it still dwarfs the animated demos which have a limit of 4k.
- It seems to me that the point of writing this game was not to produce the smallest useful binary, but rather to illustrate a particular method of reducing binary size by producing textures at runtime rather than compile-time.
That said, the real story is not the size of the executable, but rather the value of the tradeoffs made to produce it. I don't find this particularly remarkable. The coders made a tradeoff; they exchanged a smaller exe size for a lower runtime performance. So what? How is this any different from what every other coder has had to do at one point in their career?I wish these guys had actually made the exe larger, because /. would focus instead on the technique used to compress the textures, rather than its small size. Maybe instead, someone would comment on how the 96kB exe actually runs faster because the whole executable image resides in the processor's cache?
Oh yeah? When we wrote code on IBM Mainframes, we had to stay within 4k - and we liked it!
</oldtimer>
if that 96kB included the rendering engine, graphics, etc....
The fact that it is only 96kB is really nothing to laud, considering that most assembly programmers could fit a basic raytracer in under 4k of code - provided that all textures and layouts were read from disk.
A "basic" raytracing algorithm is very simple - you simply map a texture over a wireframe model and then scale the result by dividing the x and y dimensions by the z distance. Basic FPS gameplay would involve loading your device handlers (mouse, keyboard, etc...), and writing a response loop. Asynchrous gameplay (i.e., enemy moves as you stand still) can likewise be handled by chaining the timer interrupt (18h? IIRC) to your "enemy movement" code. Collision detection, etc, could simply be brute-forced by plotting the vector of the expelled projectile until it collided with another object.
But this is basic raytracing and gameplay. It works well for a fast computer because no optimizations are done - the scene is rendered back to front, with non-visible components overlaid by visible ones. And of course, the finer elements of scene rendering such as shadows, lighting, antialiasing, etc... are completely absent. It also uses a lot of CPU time, and the collision detection routines don't scale - as the size of the game map increases, so does the amount of time used to determine collisions. Michael Abrash discusses more advanced techniques in The Zen of Assembly Language, and I'd highly recommend reading his work.
What I find curious is why the executable is 96k when it depends on DirectX. I would imagine that a good game engine written in assembly could easily be fit into 16kB. I would be more impressed with this particular effort if they had built their own graphics engine (with lighting effects, etc...)
And 96kB is not a "small" binary. I've seen fractal programs written in assembly come in at 81 bytes! Most C/C++ files compile down to 4-6 kB, and the majority of the binary size is actually the standard libraries slapped on to the end by the linker. If one omits standard library support, a 10 or 20 kB executable is very easily obtained, even in C++.
I've got a WinXP box that cannot be restored without the blaster worm.
The patch system is flawed. It's not secure - in order to patch my XP box, I've got to connect to the internet to download the patches and virus updates.... During which, Blaster siezes the opportunity to infect my machine.
Suppose, for example, that someone wrote a virus which disabled Windows Update, or even AV software. Such a machine could never be successfully patched without having physical media. Nor could it ever access the internet - if one did a restore of the machine, the "older" AV software wouldn't detect the newer virus signature, and the machine would be infected as soon as an internet connection was established. In this case, every user would have to buy a new, recently boxed copy of the AV suite and install it before they connected to the internet.
The idea that users can patch their machine using the internet is inherently flawed. Should someone write a worm which disabled the AV software, or Windows Update, a user's machine could not ever be recovered, as the patching mechanism itself would be disabled. (Of course, they could still shell out cash for the patches on CD....)
Within minutes, he's reading back to me recent payments, credit card balances, bank account info, etc... basically, my entire financial history. He knows that we were late on our electric bill in November, and comments on how nice it is that our car payments are so low.
Anyone who thinks that CAPPS II is a serious invasion of privacy is seriously naive. The average person no longer possesses any privacy to speak of. The sad fact of the matter is that you can be tracked no matter where you go:
- Your credit card purchases and ATM withdrawals track where you go and how much you spend.
- Even the small bills ($20) are tagged with RFID's, so cash no longer guarantees privacy. Plus, it's not likely that you'll find a good job which pays cash only.
- Your grocer records your every purchase, linked to your discount, bank, or credit card. The FBI can have this information simply for the asking...
- Your library viewing habits are now subject to Federal review, thanks to the PATRIOT act.
- Your medical practitioner is bound by law to turn over your medical records in cases where they suspect certain crimes have been committed. (Child abuse, for example. And yes, most practitioners consider any injury beyond a minor scrape or bruise "potential" child abuse.)
- Your ISP and phone company are required to possess the cabability to intercept your communications. The FBI can eavesdrop on these with no oversight or accountability whatsoever.
So, in light of the above, does CAPPS even matter? Even before 9/11, the FBI could get very detailed information about a person simply by asking people around the suspect. For example, in the Ruby Ridge fiasco, the FBI knew the suspect's daughter's menstrual cycle - the school nurse volunteered the information!Hate to say it, but your privacy is already gone. A person cannot function in today's society without consenting to monitoring of their every move. Why does CAPPS matter when the FBI already knows what you eat, which movies you watch, which books you read, how much you owe, and with whom you associate? CAPPS is more or less a "feel-good" government program - it's designed to assuage passengers' fear of flying while providing jobs to people who would otherwise be out of work.
- filestat.exe - prints out the file dates and checksum - very handy if you suspect virus infection.
- profile.exe (not the Windows XP command!) - This prints a recursive list of the files in a directory with checksums. It also counts the number of directories and files, so you can see what has changed at a glance.
- changectl.exe - can compare large text files
- incback - an incremental backup utility which can be used to selectively copy files. You can use this to filter out which files have changed most recently.
Granted, their still in beta form, but if you're interested, reply and I'll send you the source. I'm also working on a system installer...Does this mean we should believe the Vatican about the existence of God? Since they've studied morality the longest, shouldn't they be the leading moral authority? Shouldn't our government consult with them about the morality of laws? - I mean, they've been studying it the longest.*
I happen to know of a great many "scientific" thinkers who go to great lengths to reject the morality espoused by the Catholic Church. It would seem that 2000 years of study is not enough to come to any definite conclusions regarding morality, but science can understand global warming completely after less than 200 years.
Just a thought. Maybe if people sat down and thought about it, they'd realize just how much we don't know about the world around us.
* - yes, I know there are older religions, but most can identify with Catholicism. Don't get upset...
They wouldn't do it anyway? It doesn't matter if you looked at their source or not, they still will drag you into court if you "violate" one of their patents.
And you need not know you are violating a patent in order to incur liability for doing so. While knowingly infringing a patent affords the plaintiff a much larger damage claim, even inadvertent or unintentional violation is still actionable.
When it comes down to it, you aren't doing yourself a favor by not looking at the code; if anything, you should look at it so you can at least avoid copying MS's ideas.
After all, "I never saw the source!" is no defense of patent infringement. It won't keep you out of court, either.
Please don't take this as a troll - it just irks me when someone thinks the can avoid legal liability through ignorance. You may avoid criminal prosecution by not distributing the source, but let's face it - a corporation can sue you for copyright or patent infringement regardless of the merits of the case. The RIAA is suing IP addresses! Innocence is no assurance that you won't be sued.
Technically, there is no right to privacy until the Supreme Court adds it to the Constitution.
Right now, they're still cleaning up after the addition of the "separation of church and state" clause - Give 'em a break, man. Lawmaking is hard on a judge...
And when the Supreme Court passes a law, don't bother looking for it in either the Constitution or the Federal Statutes.
Considering that an embryo is the beginning stage of a human being, there is a moral question of using embrionic stem cells for research. We are literally creating humans for harvest(TM).
Adult stem cells, OTOH, have no such moral dilemna, and they have a much greater potential, because:
- Adult stem cells can be extracted from the patient directly, and match the patient's own DNA. There is no risk of the body rejecting a cure using adult stem cells. Embrionic stem cells, OTOH, can never exactly match the patient's DNA.
- Doctors have already successfully treated diseases such as Parkinson's using adult stem cells in clinical trials.
The truly ironic thing is that embrionic stem cell researchers are hoping someday to find cures for diseases that are already being treated with adult stem cells.Wake up. It has nothing to do with genuine research and everything to do with politics. The far left has a political motive for using embrionic stem cells. The left fears an "overpopulation crisis" - that is, a situation in which the world's wealth is no longer concentrated in the hands of the elite. The idea is that "other" people use up precious resources that could otherwise be owned by the elite. The idea is to keep the fertility of the underclasses to a minimum, so that they can never gain political control and upset the balance of power. One way to do this is to keep them from having children. Birth control was the first step; this is the next. If a cure for a debilitating disease is found in embrionic stem cells, then the powers that be could justify sterilizing the women of the underclass for the sake of treating the diseases of the elite. Of course, the destitute woman would be willing to sell her eggs for the sake of curing disease, right? Of course, the poor could not afford said treatment, but that doesn't really matter, right? The end result is the same - the elite get a cure for their disease, while securing their position in society, all at the expense of the underclass.
Now how moral is that?
Note, it's the Republicans who are against embrionic stem cell research. For a party that has been tarred and feathered as the Big Business Party, they seem rather docile when it comes to protecting the big business of embrionic stem cell research. Just something to think about.