You know, at first glance I thought this was cool just for the hack value. But with the introduction of the color PalmOS systems, this might become really cool in practice too. Could be some extremely portable eye candy, at the very least.
Ugh. This isn't a flame; unlike some others, I'm not going to go ape just because I can't get the source to a couple of the components of one of the apps I run.
But whenever I hear 'binary-only,' it turns out to mean Linux-x86 only. As someone who runs Linux (yes, real Linux, new kernels and all) on a PowerPC, this won't be the first almost-must-have goodie denied to me -- and I'm sure folks who run on other open source OSes, even on the x86, can relate.
Define 'perfectly.' Seriously, what I feel is appropriate for my children may not be what you feel is appropriate. What about age ranges? This isn't just a matter of intelligent programs, which may, someday, exist. These programs would have to be mindreaders.
It's almost as tired a phrase as the other side's 'protect the children!' but really, technology is no substitute for attention in parenting.
It's ironic that the interview of the man who brought us Linux can't be played on Linux. At least, not on architectures other than the x86. And they do exist!
Ah well. Maybe an mp3 will be available sometime? *cough*:-)
Cool stuff. Though to be a bit of a wet blanket, CAVE isn't the same type of recursive acronym as PINE or GNU; it doesn't directly reference itself, and while I don't think it is, it _could_ have been a coincidence. CAVE standing for "CAVE's A Virtual Environment" or something similar would've been in the truly recursive spirit!
I can't comment on the first two, but as for the third: wavelet transforms, like the Fourier transforms currently used, can be represented with matrices. The Fourier matrices can be computed in O(n lg(n)) steps -- where lg is the base-2 logarithm -- while wavelet matrices can be computed in linear time.
Sounds to me like they have the potential to be faster -- faster if all other things, like the number of transforms required, are equal.
Anyway, sounds pretty cool. Makes me want to go look up the math.
Interesting. I had no idea the precision needed to be so great. Kinda makes you wonder what kind of code their using. Numerical Recipes in C?
But I don't think the upgrade had anything to do with Y2K. The idea that NASA would wait until the 11th hour to attempt a fix on their most visible -- and really, one of the only recent -- success stories seems pretty unlikely to me.
John
But What Will We Call It?
on
Sex in Space
·
· Score: 0
The super mile-high club? Mile-high2k? The planet-high club? These are issues that need to be addressed!
This is exactly what I thought of when I saw the headline. Wonderful book -- I just, coincidentally, reread it last week. One of the better nonfiction books I've read in quite a while.
ISBN: 0-679-60261-5
The discussion of the technology is likely to be of interest to almost any/. reader, but what really stands out is the depth of character narration, and the humanity it brings to the story.
I've never missed the Shockwave and Flash plugins for Netscape before -- I'm running Linux on a PowerPC which, like all other non-x86 chips, is not supported by Macromedia on the Linux side.
But gee, it's the guys who brought us Orgazmo. Now I wanna see the neat Flash cartoons. I'll be emailing them at customerservice@macromedia.com, and sending a polite note to Macromedia, Inc. 600 Townsend St, Ste 310W San Francisco, CA 94103
I urge anyone else who is unable to use Flash and Shockwave to do the same -- I imagine they could make the port rather easily, already having an x86 version, but don't see the demand yet.
As a onetime Mac user (I still have a small MacOS partition on my LinuxPPC box, this strikes me as sad way for Apple to usher in the new year.
While quite different on the whole, parallels can be drawn between Apple's software and the kind we're now used to in the open source world -- the spirit of fun, and healthy pride. Happy as I am to see Apple doing better, and turning out new and interesting hardware, I can't help but think that if this is the new attitude, they've lost something, and are not the same company that I once enthusiastically supported.
I am somewhat more wary than you, I guess, about the idea of passing the laws and letting time and protest sort it all out. Yeah, adjustments can be made to laws and regulations post facto -- but I'd rather make the omelette without breaking/too/ many eggs in the process.
The other thing that concerns me about this approach is that we -- the consumers and the individual netizens -- don't really have a huge say in what makes a bad law or regulation, and what makes a good one. It's more likely that the voices the legislators will listen to will be the voices of big business (RIAA, anyone?). And the intersection of their interests and ours is small.
New regulations could be a means of creating -- then widening -- the barriers to entry to the online business world. As one must find ways to comply with more and more laws and restrictions, smaller businesses, individuals, artists, etc., may find it very difficult to offer their goods and services online, and their presences could shrink. A wholesale corporitization of the internet would be a sad thing indeed; and I'd hate to see it become another playground for the oligopolies alone.
There's quite a bit more to it than just HD access time -- though that certainly is a limiting factor. But it starts much "earlier" in the memory hierarchy, even with the caches, and to a lesser extent the DRAM. As clock speeds increase, the/relative/ time penalty of a cache miss (or a memory miss) also increases. Given that this overclocking scheme doesn't do anything to improve cache or memory hit rates, the end result is that the actual performance increase is much less than a comparison of MHz would suggest. Each instruction that does not find the necessary data on the first try will have to wait longer, relatively, and this damps performance gains. Patterson and Hennessey's _Computer_Organization_And_Design_ gives a good example of this (page 567 in the second edition). Doubling the clock speed of a computer, without changing its memory systems in any way, will record only a 41% performance gain. While this ignores some considerations, it's a fairly good approximation of the real world behavior. Anyway, I appreciate Bigger Faster Better More as much as the next guy -- and damn! 1 GHz just rolls off the tongue! -- but it's not going to be _that_ cool. Yet. But I still wouldn't mind trying one out:) John
A question: was the encryption scheme used in the DVD discs of the weak 40-bit variety because of US export restrictions? I can't think of another good reason.
If this was the case, maybe it'll be a catalyst towards the reevaluation of crypto export policy in the US -- entertainment industry dollars certainly could speak volumes on capitol hill.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, at first glance I thought this was cool just for the hack value. But with the introduction of the color PalmOS systems, this might become really cool in practice too. Could be some extremely portable eye candy, at the very least.
John
Ugh. This isn't a flame; unlike some others, I'm not going to go ape just because I can't get the source to a couple of the components of one of the apps I run.
But whenever I hear 'binary-only,' it turns out to mean Linux-x86 only. As someone who runs Linux (yes, real Linux, new kernels and all) on a PowerPC, this won't be the first almost-must-have goodie denied to me -- and I'm sure folks who run on other open source OSes, even on the x86, can relate.
John
Define 'perfectly.' Seriously, what I feel is appropriate for my children may not be what you feel is appropriate. What about age ranges? This isn't just a matter of intelligent programs, which may, someday, exist. These programs would have to be mindreaders.
It's almost as tired a phrase as the other side's 'protect the children!' but really, technology is no substitute for attention in parenting.
John
It's ironic that the interview of the man who brought us Linux can't be played on Linux. At least, not on architectures other than the x86. And they do exist!
:-)
Ah well. Maybe an mp3 will be available sometime? *cough*
John
Cool stuff. Though to be a bit of a wet blanket, CAVE isn't the same type of recursive acronym as PINE or GNU; it doesn't directly reference itself, and while I don't think it is, it _could_ have been a coincidence. CAVE standing for "CAVE's A Virtual Environment" or something similar would've been in the truly recursive spirit!
John
Ahem.
*cough* Apple. *cough* LinuxPPC.
John
I can't comment on the first two, but as for the third: wavelet transforms, like the Fourier transforms currently used, can be represented with matrices. The Fourier matrices can be computed in O(n lg(n)) steps -- where lg is the base-2 logarithm -- while wavelet matrices can be computed in linear time.
Sounds to me like they have the potential to be faster -- faster if all other things, like the number of transforms required, are equal.
Anyway, sounds pretty cool. Makes me want to go look up the math.
John
Interesting. I had no idea the precision needed to be so great. Kinda makes you wonder what kind of code their using. Numerical Recipes in C?
But I don't think the upgrade had anything to do with Y2K. The idea that NASA would wait until the 11th hour to attempt a fix on their most visible -- and really, one of the only recent -- success stories seems pretty unlikely to me.
John
The super mile-high club? Mile-high2k? The planet-high club? These are issues that need to be addressed!
John
This is exactly what I thought of when I saw the headline. Wonderful book -- I just, coincidentally, reread it last week. One of the better nonfiction books I've read in quite a while.
/. reader, but what really stands out is the depth of character narration, and the humanity it brings to the story.
ISBN: 0-679-60261-5
The discussion of the technology is likely to be of interest to almost any
Soul Of A New Machine.
John
I've never missed the Shockwave and Flash plugins for Netscape before -- I'm running Linux on a PowerPC which, like all other non-x86 chips, is not supported by Macromedia on the Linux side.
But gee, it's the guys who brought us Orgazmo. Now I wanna see the neat Flash cartoons. I'll be emailing them at customerservice@macromedia.com, and sending a polite note to
Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend St, Ste 310W
San Francisco, CA 94103
I urge anyone else who is unable to use Flash and Shockwave to do the same -- I imagine they could make the port rather easily, already having an x86 version, but don't see the demand yet.
John
As a onetime Mac user (I still have a small MacOS partition on my LinuxPPC box, this strikes me as sad way for Apple to usher in the new year.
While quite different on the whole, parallels can be drawn between Apple's software and the kind we're now used to in the open source world -- the spirit of fun, and healthy pride. Happy as I am to see Apple doing better, and turning out new and interesting hardware, I can't help but think that if this is the new attitude, they've lost something, and are not the same company that I once enthusiastically supported.
Farewell, Secret About Box!
John
Add one more thing:
8. They cooperate with the LinuxPPC folks. _MY_ distro of choice!
Plus like, their logo is cool; and you know, OS, and Gnome, and kernel hacking are all great -- but it's all about the logos.
John
I am somewhat more wary than you, I guess, about the idea of passing the laws and letting time and protest sort it all out. Yeah, adjustments can be made to laws and regulations post facto -- but I'd rather make the omelette without breaking /too/ many eggs in the process.
The other thing that concerns me about this approach is that we -- the consumers and the individual netizens -- don't really have a huge say in what makes a bad law or regulation, and what makes a good one. It's more likely that the voices the legislators will listen to will be the voices of big business (RIAA, anyone?). And the intersection of their interests and ours is small.
New regulations could be a means of creating -- then widening -- the barriers to entry to the online business world. As one must find ways to comply with more and more laws and restrictions, smaller businesses, individuals, artists, etc., may find it very difficult to offer their goods and services online, and their presences could shrink. A wholesale corporitization of the internet would be a sad thing indeed; and I'd hate to see it become another playground for the oligopolies alone.
John
There's quite a bit more to it than just HD access time -- though that certainly is a limiting factor. But it starts much "earlier" in the memory hierarchy, even with the caches, and to a lesser extent the DRAM. As clock speeds increase, the /relative/ time penalty of a cache miss (or a memory miss) also increases. Given that this overclocking scheme doesn't do anything to improve cache or memory hit rates, the end result is that the actual performance increase is much less than a comparison of MHz would suggest. Each instruction that does not find the necessary data on the first try will have to wait longer, relatively, and this damps performance gains. Patterson and Hennessey's _Computer_Organization_And_Design_ gives a good example of this (page 567 in the second edition). Doubling the clock speed of a computer, without changing its memory systems in any way, will record only a 41% performance gain. While this ignores some considerations, it's a fairly good approximation of the real world behavior. Anyway, I appreciate Bigger Faster Better More as much as the next guy -- and damn! 1 GHz just rolls off the tongue! -- but it's not going to be _that_ cool. Yet. But I still wouldn't mind trying one out :) John
A question: was the encryption scheme used in the DVD discs of the weak 40-bit variety because of US export restrictions? I can't think of another good reason.
If this was the case, maybe it'll be a catalyst towards the reevaluation of crypto export policy in the US -- entertainment industry dollars certainly could speak volumes on capitol hill.
johnfish at uclink dot berkeley dot edu