Currently, (as in 2.2-stable), most UDMA/66 support is available via the Unified IDE patch. This still hasn't made it into the "stock" kernel config, which is extremely annoying if you want to install Linux on a UDMA/66 disk. (Unless you're l337 and made yourself an appropriate boot/root disk set after you did it the first time.) It's not that timeconsuming, really... just install via normal IDE, patch kernel and recompile, fix mount points and kernel root, swap cables, and reboot. Okay, that sounds like a lot, but I'm not being sarcastic; if you have the Linux admin knowledge you can do that in 5-10 minutes after installation. But as GNU/Linux seeks to gain the "Windows-convert" market, it should consider merging in Unified IDE, since UDMA/66 is becoming more common on "name-brand" consumer peecees. Some other Unices (cough*FREEBSD*cough) have done this. Now it's Linux's turn.
I'm really looking forward to 2.4 I'm the kind of guy that, once everything's working and features are in place doesn't upgrade the kernel except for security reasons, but even I'm itching to get my hands on 2.4-stable. I have been ever since I picked up that copy of Linux Journal (I think!) last fall/winter with 2.4 as the cover-feature.
Hell, if I hear good reports about this test kernel, I may just have to use it anyway. Users be damned, I want 2.4!!;-)
---------///---------- This post is not redundant, please don't moderate it as such. I repeat, this post is not redundant.
Please start the Java vs. Perl flamewar now. Extra credit for dragging in Python, C/C++, Lisp, Scheme, Tcl/Tk, assembler, the existence of God, and/or gun control.
I'm going to end this whole business right now by summoning Godwin's Law:
I heard Ian is a Nazi.
There, I said it. No go back to your homes. Nothing to see here.
And we should be proud that you're a heterosexual low brow pizza boy; what's your point?
In case you couldn't take the hint from my last post, I'm as gay as Nik. I may be low brow, but I'm no pizza boy. I've been called many things in my time: slut, tramp, two-timing hussy, but NEVER "pizza boy".
I'm afraid I'm going to have to demand satisfaction. En guarde!
"What's my point?" Wouldn't you like to know, missy... drop by Francis' next time you're in New York and you can see my point as much as you want.
Thank you for the response to my question, Kris. I'd like to talk about your attitude towards Nik, though.
Ignoring the insult to Nik...
It wasn't an insult! Seriously, Nik is gay. And he's proud of it, as well he should be. He shouldn't be forced to hide in the closet just because you think it's "weird". You think that Nik shouldn't be allowed his human rights?
For God's sake, it wasn't an insult. I know his ex-boyfriend. Nik knows who I am. He's not offended. You've obviously never spent time in the gay community. We queer nancies have to stick together, and brotherly ribbing is looked at ironically, rather than patronizingly.
We should all be supporting Nik in his decision to be forthright about his homosexuality. I think he'd appreciate your support too, Kris. It's not easy. Even geeks, traditionlly shunned, are surprisingly homophobic. I find it disgusting.
Nik, if you're reading this, I apologise for Kris.
...who has done a lot more for the free software community than you probably realise
I don't need the lecture. I know Nik a lot better than you probably do, Kris.
By the way, Kris: what does it take to get one of those l337 "@freebsd.org" email addresses? Do all of the developers get them, or just the core members?
I'd be willing to help you guys out, if I could get an @freebsd.org email address, so I can be as cool as you and Gay Nik.
i have to clarify something, after reading too many of the same posts about openbsd. many people are under the impression that openbsd is the same as free- or netbsd, and it just comes packaged with more crypto software.
actually, the encryption mechanisms are built right into the operating system, in such a way which would make it illegal to export, if the project were based in the us (which it obviously isn't).
this cryto-integration is what makes openbsd unique.
so yes, you could make freebsd or linux "as secure" as openbsd*, but you won't get crytography on the same level. that's why cypherpunks like myself find openbsd to be such a worthy project.
*(if you can really measure security in such an immature way. security is as much a function of proper administration as it is software. "security is a process, not a product" (paraphrased))
the orange book (and most of the other books in the rainbow series) provide standards for trusted (ie secure) operating systems in different levels of government and military facilities. "trusted" means just that -- a system of trusts, to guarantee that you can trust data to be valid.
trust systems and crytography are two different things.
for instance kerberos (my favorite trust/authentication system) is NOT a type of encryption, as many here seem to think, but a trust system which USES encryption as part of its processes. kerberos in particular is interesting because it authenicates (gains trust) with multiple methods, including passwords, box address, et cetera. you can put the authenication on one server, the password database on another, and do all sorts of devious little things to make it *very* difficult for interlopers. read some of the MIT material and you'll probably be as impressed as i was when i first began studying it.
the best introduction you can possibly find is this one, which explains kerberos' theories of authentication in the form of a short play, where two developers are designing an authenication system. it shows exactly why kerberos has to be as complex as it is, to establish true trust between hosts.
kerberos can use any type of encryption to do its work. the system isn't tied to one method, even though it usually seems to be implemented with a DES-derived algorithm. if you need maximum data integrity, go with 3DES. if you need speed, use blowfish. do whatever you want.
i seem to have gotten quite a ways off-topic. oh well. just remember that openbsd is NOT just freebsd with the evil daemons turned off.
openbsd users can back me up on this. theo really is a paranoid son a a bitch, and i congratulate him for it. the point is, openbsd probably ALREADY qualifies for most of the rainbow book certifications. plus, theo and crew have a track record of finding and fixing security bugs long before the "competition".
probably the biggest thing holding it back is the lack of smp support, which should be changing in the next year. i'd like one of the openbsd core team members to comment on this, if possible. can you guys use any of the freebsd 4.0 code for the smp kernel? freebsd 4.0 really has some decent locking mechanisms, among other things. if you could take advantage of their work, openbsd-smp could really hit the ground running. god bless the bsd license!
The thing I worry about most is losing the variety of information that different media sources provide. It's always good to look at a topic from as many view points as possible, and having many news sources helps.
For instance, regarding porn. Some people like cock-gobbling teens, some love nude Asian schoolgirls, some love hot anal action, and some love Black Dicks in White Chicks. Wouldn't is suck (pardon the pun) if we only had one source for our pornography?!? I really value the fact that I can go from blond pornstar gangbangs to interracial gay orgies in the click of a mouse, if I found the need, while masturbating.
Don't give up your right to porn variety. No-one -- not AOL, not Time, not even God herself (Jenna Jameson) -- can take that away from us.
This goes well with the OSS mindset. We like the internet, and that's where we get our porn. We like free things, and our porn is free (no one actually uses those pay-only sites). We like Linux, and you can be god-damned sure that Linus Torvalds himself takes breaks from coding to masturbate to freaky Finnish goat porn. He may even own his own goat, which he keeps in his bed to hump whenever he feels the urge.
If you think this is bad, wait until you see the destruction that FireWire can cause! I have this friend, (well not really my friend, but my brother's friend's cousin), and he had bought a Mackintash PC, which included this dangerous FireWire technology... he came home one day after leaving his Mac PC on, and the whole block was gone!! The Fire Marshall's analysis revealed that the FireWire had flared up, and after reaching 1500C, its molecular structure collapsed upon itself, causing a gravitational time flux in the immediate area! There was a backwash of negative electrons, and BOOM! everything within 200 yards exploded in a gigantic blue fireball! With lightning! And poison gas!
Since this is a technical crowd here at Slashdot, I'll provide some info on the cause of the catastrophe. Apparently, during normal operation, the FireWire is cooled by EctoThermic Plasma, piped through the circuits. The pumping mechanism is powered by clicks of the Mackintash's freakish singular mouse button. When my friend (well, my brother's cousin's -- you know!) left to go buy some Ecstacy from his friend Tony the Raver, the mouse button wasn't being pressed, and subsequently the internal pressure rose by millions of gigaterabogobytes, triggering the structural collapse.
So anyways, my friend (caveats apply) comes back from doing the drugs with Tony, and sees the huge blue fireball destroying everything in site. The next thing he remembers, he wakes up in a dumpster with no pants. Since when he returned to his house there was no sign of any carnage, we figure it must have been a coverup by the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, DOJ, or RJHGTRUYx2. The Fire Marshall my friend talked to (who for some reason was wearing clown makeup and levitating a few inches off the groud), is nowhere to be found, so we can only assume he was "disposed of" by the conspirators.
I believe it. Enquiring minds believe it. Shouldn't you?!?!
If you think this is bad, wait until you see the destruction that FireWire can cause! I have this friend, (well not really my friend, but my brother's friend's cousin), and he had bought a Mackintash PC, which included this dangerous FireWire technology... he came home one day after leaving his Mac PC on, and the whole block was gone!! The Fire Marshall's analysis revealed that the FireWire had flared up, and after reaching 1500C, its molecular structure collapsed upon itself, causing a gravitational time flux in the immediate area! There was a backwash of negative electrons, and BOOM! everything within 200 yards exploded in a gigantic blue fireball! With lightning! And poison gas!
Since this is a technical crowd here at Slashdot, I'll provide some info on the cause of the catastrophe. Apparently, during normal operation, the FireWire is cooled by EctoThermic Plasma, piped through the circuits. The pumping mechanism is powered by clicks of the Mackintash's freakish singular mouse button. When my friend (well, my brother's cousin's -- you know!) left to go buy some Ecstacy from his friend Tony the Raver, the mouse button wasn't being pressed, and subsequently the internal pressure rose by millions of gigaterabogobytes, triggering the structural collapse.
So anyways, my friend (caveats apply) comes back from doing the drugs with Tony, and sees the huge blue fireball destroying everything in site. The next thing he remembers, he wakes upin a dumpster with no pants. Since when he returned to his house there was no sign of any carnage, we figure it must have been a coverup by the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, DOJ, or RJHGTRUYx2. The Fire Marshall my friend talked to (who for some reason was wearing clown makeup and levitating a few inches off the groud), is nowhere to be found, so we can only assume he was "disposed of" by the conspirators.
I believe it. Enquiring minds believe it. Shouldn't you?!?!
I must know: I've seen that here for some time, as well as the "Tux", "Naked Jackie Chan", and "Breasts" ASCII pix, and I want to know how you did that. Do you have an app? Can you post a link?
I've thought about trying to code something like that... convert the image to a bitmap, read several pixels at a time, and generate a letter based on the darkness/contrast. Light areas get punctuation, dark areas get capital letters like M, W, G, K, N... the output would be similar to your pic. If you have an app, I'd appreciate a link.
(I'm sure the rest of the trolls here would, too.)
I'll never forget the X-Files episode, where Scully's personal computer got turned on remotely, and the l337 h4><0r was able to start downloading her case-files. She just stood there staring at it, IIRC. Just unplug the phone line, you dumb turd! Gawd...
Then again, the X-Files doesn't have a stellar record with accuracy regarding those things. I'm sure we all remember the recent FPS episode. I didn't even see that one... (I find it difficult to watch now that it's like a soap opera)...but I heard enough about it from friends and on/. to make me glad I didn't.
It's great analyzing a popular movies for similar things. My friends thought I had gone insane when I kept having fits of laughter during "Goldeneye"... WTF is a "computer spike", anyhow? "Send spike...." Whatever.
"The Net" was even worse. Remember, kiddies, all the l337 h4><0rz have little Omega symbols on their l337 Geocities homepages.
And finally, "The Matrix". I know this isn't the forum for Matrix criticism, but who else got a laugh in the beginning, when the words mysteriously appear on Neo's monitor? The camera cuts to a closeup of the keyboard (I guess that they thought they could show off their technical knowledge) and we get to see what Keanu types... IIRC, ESC twice, and... CTRL+X! WTF, is he trying to CUT and PASTE? Gee, who would thought that the next generation of h4><0rz would use Windows keybindings. Maybe it's cuz he was still in the Matrix, which is somehow symbollically related to Microsoft...
(At least until Jackson gets through with them. J4Xo/\/ 0w/\/z j00, 81lly!)
But if you had written your program in machine language from the beginning you would have a completely different architecture that an equivelent program written in C.
Programming languages were invented to make coding easier. First, they make data abstraction easy, especially when you start getting into the realm of OOP. Secondly, by learning a widely-used language such as C, coders don't have to know the assembler language of each platform they work on.
Now, hand tuning known slow spots in compile-generated code is fine, but any application that needs the tune-up is usually large enough so that doing the whole thing in hand-coded assembler is just ridiculous.
What I would *really* like to learn, is tuning up Java bytecode. That platform has potential, but is too goddamn slow for any criticial work. Obviously the VM implementaion is half the problem, but there are bound to be some optimizations that can be made to the bytecode.
Hopefully speed will improve with JDK1.3. Of course, being a *BSD person, I'll still be waiting for a stable port of Java 2 SDK when JDK1.3 is released for Linux in September.:-(
If you enter ID and password without cookies on , then preview, it will appear as if you are logged in, but you are not. There's no crack.
In a similar vein, if I have a Slashdot cookie with my ID set, I can turn off cookies, hit "reply" and write my comment, and even though it says I'm AC, if I turn cookies back on before I submit the comment, 95% of the time it will read the cookie and put my ID on the comment.
In fact, I'm doing that now.;-)
I usually surf with cookies off (damn Doubleclick isn't helping me change my mind about that;-). That's how I figured that out.
Just remember: with cookies off, you can only submit; if you preview, the ID won't be saved when you go to submit. That's what the cookies are for, silly.
Prized Abacus Stolen from the bead-it-just-bead-it dept.
A break-in at the Museum of Old and Useless Stuff at Cambridge last night resulted in the theft of a priceless Intel Abacus, dating from the fiteenth century. This particular abacus belonged to Intel's first line of 64-bead Abacuses, which changed the mathematics world forever, by providing unparalleled performance gains in both adding and subtracting. Until the University is able to buy the abacus back on E-bay, the professors will have to research their physics theories using the even more ancient Fingers'N'Toes technology.
Professor Hawking, unable to move his fingers or toes, will have his nurse jack him off into a paper cup until the abacus is returned.
In related news...
Enigma Machine Stolen from the man-timothy-must be bored-dept.
The BBC is reporting the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. A CIA spokesman is quoted as saying, "We could break the cyphertext with a $5.99 pocket calculator. Britain may have lost a priceless museum piece, but the theif has gained a handy footrest. Oh, and this press release doesn't exist."
Ok programe are actually a series of many instructions couldn't the OS just be programmed to have say if you have 100 instructions that instruction 1 would be on processor one and instuction 2 be on on the second processor or just devide the program into two halves to be executed on each?
I'm guessing that you've never done much real programming. Parallel processing is just that -- processors working at the same time. In order for a program to fully utilize both processors, it needs to be able to supply two or more processes. In C, C++, and Perl, it means creative use of the fork family of system calls. In Java, it means knowing how to use threads. Some types of applications suit themselves to this better than others. Daemons, especially server daemons, are particularly enhanced by multi-processor systems.
Many non-technical people assume that a system with two 500MHz processors equals a 1000MHz machine, because 500 + 500 = 1000 (unless you're using those old Intel chips, eh?;-). This is not true. However, this is not true; processing power is not cumulative. Two 500MHz Xeons are not one 1000MHz Xeon, they're two 500MHz Xeons! Simple, ne?
Your idea of "dividing the program into two halves and having one processor work on each" shows a definite lack of understanding about how computers and parallel processing work. Even if the instructions being processed were completely irrelevant, which is what your idea of processor utilization would require, you would gain no performance advantages.
Parallel processing is most basically dependant on having a multi-process OS, such as Unix. Simple operating systems such as Windows 95 are mechanically unable to utilize more than one processor at once. This is perhaps the most fundamental difference between 95 and NT.
How much more effort would you have to do say in a standard C++ program to get it to fully equally use the 2 processors in doing something like calculating all of the primes between 1 and 9,000,000,000,000?
Something that trivial would be rather simple -- one processor computes the primes from 0 to 4.5e12, and the other processor from (4.5e12 + 1) to 9e12. However, any real application is better off being designed "from the ground up" to use multiple processes. This way, no speed will be lost on single-processor systems, and multiple processors may be utilized on SMP systems.
Are there good examples of this?
Heh... yes, dear boy, parallel processing has been common practice for some time now. Anything designed to run on a server, from httpd to Oracle, uses multiple processes, even when it doesn't use multiple processors.
What is the absolutely cheapest dual processor system that one could get?
Two Celeron 350s and an Abit BP-6 mainboard. The board will run you between $115 and $135 (in USD), and the processors about $35 each. You may be able to find better prices. About the Celerons: spend the extra fifteen bucks each and get 400s or 500s. If you get the 350s, make sure you get the versions WITH 128k L2!!
Something tells me, perhaps the fact that the UID seems awfully familiar, that this fellow was trolling. Oh well.
Correct -- anyone who tries to compile that without noticing the commas (instead of semicolons )in the for statement will find that out soon enough.;-D
Python 1.6 Release Schedule duffbeer writes: "There is a 1.6 revison of Python in alpha. In addition, they have a schedule for releases. It looks like the documentation will lag the releases a bit." Apparently, it will break some code. The release notes describe them as "folklore APIs (that were never documented or endorsed but nevertheless were accepted in common use)." The notes on 1.6 also lay out an ambitious roadmap toward Python 3000.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm really looking forward to 2.4 I'm the kind of guy that, once everything's working and features are in place doesn't upgrade the kernel except for security reasons, but even I'm itching to get my hands on 2.4-stable. I have been ever since I picked up that copy of Linux Journal (I think!) last fall/winter with 2.4 as the cover-feature.
Hell, if I hear good reports about this test kernel, I may just have to use it anyway. Users be damned, I want 2.4!! ;-)
---------///----------
This post is not redundant, please don't moderate it as such. I repeat, this post is not redundant.
I'm going to end this whole business right now by summoning Godwin's Law:
I heard Ian is a Nazi.
There, I said it. No go back to your homes. Nothing to see here.
In case you couldn't take the hint from my last post, I'm as gay as Nik. I may be low brow, but I'm no pizza boy. I've been called many things in my time: slut, tramp, two-timing hussy, but NEVER "pizza boy".
I'm afraid I'm going to have to demand satisfaction. En guarde!
"What's my point?" Wouldn't you like to know, missy... drop by Francis' next time you're in New York and you can see my point as much as you want.
Bitch.
Thank you for the response to my question, Kris. I'd like to talk about your attitude towards Nik, though.
Ignoring the insult to Nik...
It wasn't an insult! Seriously, Nik is gay. And he's proud of it, as well he should be. He shouldn't be forced to hide in the closet just because you think it's "weird". You think that Nik shouldn't be allowed his human rights?
For God's sake, it wasn't an insult. I know his ex-boyfriend. Nik knows who I am. He's not offended. You've obviously never spent time in the gay community. We queer nancies have to stick together, and brotherly ribbing is looked at ironically, rather than patronizingly.
We should all be supporting Nik in his decision to be forthright about his homosexuality. I think he'd appreciate your support too, Kris. It's not easy. Even geeks, traditionlly shunned, are surprisingly homophobic. I find it disgusting.
Nik, if you're reading this, I apologise for Kris.
I don't need the lecture. I know Nik a lot better than you probably do, Kris.
I'd be willing to help you guys out, if I could get an @freebsd.org email address, so I can be as cool as you and Gay Nik.
actually, the encryption mechanisms are built right into the operating system, in such a way which would make it illegal to export, if the project were based in the us (which it obviously isn't).
this cryto-integration is what makes openbsd unique.
so yes, you could make freebsd or linux "as secure" as openbsd*, but you won't get crytography on the same level. that's why cypherpunks like myself find openbsd to be such a worthy project.
*(if you can really measure security in such an immature way. security is as much a function of proper administration as it is software. "security is a process, not a product" (paraphrased))
the orange book (and most of the other books in the rainbow series) provide standards for trusted (ie secure) operating systems in different levels of government and military facilities. "trusted" means just that -- a system of trusts, to guarantee that you can trust data to be valid.
trust systems and crytography are two different things.
for instance kerberos (my favorite trust/authentication system) is NOT a type of encryption, as many here seem to think, but a trust system which USES encryption as part of its processes. kerberos in particular is interesting because it authenicates (gains trust) with multiple methods, including passwords, box address, et cetera. you can put the authenication on one server, the password database on another, and do all sorts of devious little things to make it *very* difficult for interlopers. read some of the MIT material and you'll probably be as impressed as i was when i first began studying it.
the best introduction you can possibly find is this one, which explains kerberos' theories of authentication in the form of a short play, where two developers are designing an authenication system. it shows exactly why kerberos has to be as complex as it is, to establish true trust between hosts.
kerberos can use any type of encryption to do its work. the system isn't tied to one method, even though it usually seems to be implemented with a DES-derived algorithm. if you need maximum data integrity, go with 3DES. if you need speed, use blowfish. do whatever you want.
i seem to have gotten quite a ways off-topic. oh well. just remember that openbsd is NOT just freebsd with the evil daemons turned off.
openbsd users can back me up on this. theo really is a paranoid son a a bitch, and i congratulate him for it. the point is, openbsd probably ALREADY qualifies for most of the rainbow book certifications. plus, theo and crew have a track record of finding and fixing security bugs long before the "competition".
probably the biggest thing holding it back is the lack of smp support, which should be changing in the next year. i'd like one of the openbsd core team members to comment on this, if possible. can you guys use any of the freebsd 4.0 code for the smp kernel? freebsd 4.0 really has some decent locking mechanisms, among other things. if you could take advantage of their work, openbsd-smp could really hit the ground running. god bless the bsd license!
Small ones like mom and pop ISPs...
Sure, "mom and pop" ISPs are fine, but I worry about the "Weird Gay Uncle" ISPs and "Loser-brother" ISPs.
Seriously, whose mom or pop runs an ISP? Isn't that what AOL is for? Old people? Like Rob Malda?
For instance, regarding porn. Some people like cock-gobbling teens, some love nude Asian schoolgirls, some love hot anal action, and some love Black Dicks in White Chicks. Wouldn't is suck (pardon the pun) if we only had one source for our pornography?!? I really value the fact that I can go from blond pornstar gangbangs to interracial gay orgies in the click of a mouse, if I found the need, while masturbating.
Don't give up your right to porn variety. No-one -- not AOL, not Time, not even God herself (Jenna Jameson) -- can take that away from us.
This goes well with the OSS mindset. We like the internet, and that's where we get our porn. We like free things, and our porn is free (no one actually uses those pay-only sites). We like Linux, and you can be god-damned sure that Linus Torvalds himself takes breaks from coding to masturbate to freaky Finnish goat porn. He may even own his own goat, which he keeps in his bed to hump whenever he feels the urge.
Oh, wait, that's his WIFE?!
Hmmm...
X MAILER: MIRCOSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS 5.00
Yep, must be Rob.
Hmmm... IP scan complete! The troller was... Signal11! I knew it!
Would anyone mind if I sold the .org TLD?
lol...
Since this is a technical crowd here at Slashdot, I'll provide some info on the cause of the catastrophe. Apparently, during normal operation, the FireWire is cooled by EctoThermic Plasma, piped through the circuits. The pumping mechanism is powered by clicks of the Mackintash's freakish singular mouse button. When my friend (well, my brother's cousin's -- you know!) left to go buy some Ecstacy from his friend Tony the Raver, the mouse button wasn't being pressed, and subsequently the internal pressure rose by millions of gigaterabogobytes, triggering the structural collapse.
So anyways, my friend (caveats apply) comes back from doing the drugs with Tony, and sees the huge blue fireball destroying everything in site. The next thing he remembers, he wakes up in a dumpster with no pants. Since when he returned to his house there was no sign of any carnage, we figure it must have been a coverup by the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, DOJ, or RJHGTRUYx2. The Fire Marshall my friend talked to (who for some reason was wearing clown makeup and levitating a few inches off the groud), is nowhere to be found, so we can only assume he was "disposed of" by the conspirators.
I believe it. Enquiring minds believe it. Shouldn't you?!?!
Since this is a technical crowd here at Slashdot, I'll provide some info on the cause of the catastrophe. Apparently, during normal operation, the FireWire is cooled by EctoThermic Plasma, piped through the circuits. The pumping mechanism is powered by clicks of the Mackintash's freakish singular mouse button. When my friend (well, my brother's cousin's -- you know!) left to go buy some Ecstacy from his friend Tony the Raver, the mouse button wasn't being pressed, and subsequently the internal pressure rose by millions of gigaterabogobytes, triggering the structural collapse.
So anyways, my friend (caveats apply) comes back from doing the drugs with Tony, and sees the huge blue fireball destroying everything in site. The next thing he remembers, he wakes upin a dumpster with no pants. Since when he returned to his house there was no sign of any carnage, we figure it must have been a coverup by the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB, DOJ, or RJHGTRUYx2. The Fire Marshall my friend talked to (who for some reason was wearing clown makeup and levitating a few inches off the groud), is nowhere to be found, so we can only assume he was "disposed of" by the conspirators.
I believe it. Enquiring minds believe it. Shouldn't you?!?!
I've thought about trying to code something like that... convert the image to a bitmap, read several pixels at a time, and generate a letter based on the darkness/contrast. Light areas get punctuation, dark areas get capital letters like M, W, G, K, N... the output would be similar to your pic. If you have an app, I'd appreciate a link.
(I'm sure the rest of the trolls here would, too.)
Then again, the X-Files doesn't have a stellar record with accuracy regarding those things. I'm sure we all remember the recent FPS episode. I didn't even see that one... (I find it difficult to watch now that it's like a soap opera) ...but I heard enough about it from friends and on /. to make me glad I didn't.
It's great analyzing a popular movies for similar things. My friends thought I had gone insane when I kept having fits of laughter during "Goldeneye"... WTF is a "computer spike", anyhow? "Send spike...." Whatever.
"The Net" was even worse. Remember, kiddies, all the l337 h4><0rz have little Omega symbols on their l337 Geocities homepages.
And finally, "The Matrix". I know this isn't the forum for Matrix criticism, but who else got a laugh in the beginning, when the words mysteriously appear on Neo's monitor? The camera cuts to a closeup of the keyboard (I guess that they thought they could show off their technical knowledge) and we get to see what Keanu types... IIRC, ESC twice, and... CTRL+X! WTF, is he trying to CUT and PASTE? Gee, who would thought that the next generation of h4><0rz would use Windows keybindings. Maybe it's cuz he was still in the Matrix, which is somehow symbollically related to Microsoft...
(At least until Jackson gets through with them. J4Xo/\/ 0w/\/z j00, 81lly!)
Programming languages were invented to make coding easier. First, they make data abstraction easy, especially when you start getting into the realm of OOP. Secondly, by learning a widely-used language such as C, coders don't have to know the assembler language of each platform they work on.
Now, hand tuning known slow spots in compile-generated code is fine, but any application that needs the tune-up is usually large enough so that doing the whole thing in hand-coded assembler is just ridiculous.
What I would *really* like to learn, is tuning up Java bytecode. That platform has potential, but is too goddamn slow for any criticial work. Obviously the VM implementaion is half the problem, but there are bound to be some optimizations that can be made to the bytecode.
Hopefully speed will improve with JDK1.3. Of course, being a *BSD person, I'll still be waiting for a stable port of Java 2 SDK when JDK1.3 is released for Linux in September. :-(
In a similar vein, if I have a Slashdot cookie with my ID set, I can turn off cookies, hit "reply" and write my comment, and even though it says I'm AC, if I turn cookies back on before I submit the comment, 95% of the time it will read the cookie and put my ID on the comment.
In fact, I'm doing that now. ;-)
I usually surf with cookies off (damn Doubleclick isn't helping me change my mind about that ;-). That's how I figured that out.
Just remember: with cookies off, you can only submit; if you preview, the ID won't be saved when you go to submit. That's what the cookies are for, silly.
In the project code I am currently maintaining, processes are analogous to threads. Ugh. Perhaps that is the cause of my mental cloudiness.
I can crash a Linux machine, given enough time (with the system RAM these days, it'll take a while, but it happens!), with about as much.
void main () { while (1) { fork(); } }
And if you have max processes set, it'll at least DoS it. Beat that, fucker.
Btw, I can crash a DOS machine with three keys. Guess which three.
It takes a whole hand to fuck yer mom, though! Damn, that bitch is loose!
You shouldn't, of course. All the l337 ha><0rz use Perl on Amiga.
from the bead-it-just-bead-it dept.
A break-in at the Museum of Old and Useless Stuff at Cambridge last night resulted in the theft of a priceless Intel Abacus, dating from the fiteenth century. This particular abacus belonged to Intel's first line of 64-bead Abacuses, which changed the mathematics world forever, by providing unparalleled performance gains in both adding and subtracting. Until the University is able to buy the abacus back on E-bay, the professors will have to research their physics theories using the even more ancient Fingers'N'Toes technology.
Professor Hawking, unable to move his fingers or toes, will have his nurse jack him off into a paper cup until the abacus is returned.
In related news...
Enigma Machine Stolen
from the man-timothy-must be bored-dept.
The BBC is reporting the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. A CIA spokesman is quoted as saying, "We could break the cyphertext with a $5.99 pocket calculator. Britain may have lost a priceless museum piece, but the theif has gained a handy footrest. Oh, and this press release doesn't exist."
Many non-technical people assume that a system with two 500MHz processors equals a 1000MHz machine, because 500 + 500 = 1000 (unless you're using those old Intel chips, eh? ;-). This is not true. However, this is not true; processing power is not cumulative. Two 500MHz Xeons are not one 1000MHz Xeon, they're two 500MHz Xeons! Simple, ne?
Your idea of "dividing the program into two halves and having one processor work on each" shows a definite lack of understanding about how computers and parallel processing work. Even if the instructions being processed were completely irrelevant, which is what your idea of processor utilization would require, you would gain no performance advantages.
Parallel processing is most basically dependant on having a multi-process OS, such as Unix. Simple operating systems such as Windows 95 are mechanically unable to utilize more than one processor at once. This is perhaps the most fundamental difference between 95 and NT.
Something that trivial would be rather simple -- one processor computes the primes from 0 to 4.5e12, and the other processor from (4.5e12 + 1) to 9e12. However, any real application is better off being designed "from the ground up" to use multiple processes. This way, no speed will be lost on single-processor systems, and multiple processors may be utilized on SMP systems.Heh... yes, dear boy, parallel processing has been common practice for some time now. Anything designed to run on a server, from httpd to Oracle, uses multiple processes, even when it doesn't use multiple processors.
Two Celeron 350s and an Abit BP-6 mainboard. The board will run you between $115 and $135 (in USD), and the processors about $35 each. You may be able to find better prices. About the Celerons: spend the extra fifteen bucks each and get 400s or 500s. If you get the 350s, make sure you get the versions WITH 128k L2!!
Something tells me, perhaps the fact that the UID seems awfully familiar, that this fellow was trolling. Oh well.
Correct -- anyone who tries to compile that without noticing the commas (instead of semicolons )in the for statement will find that out soon enough. ;-D
Why would you do that in Java OR Perl? I could run this 10 ten times before you rJava shite finishes compiling.
#include <stdio.h>
void main () {
int i;
for (i = 0, i < 1000, i++) {
printf ("Oh, get a life.");
}
return;
}
Python 1.6 Release Schedule
duffbeer writes: "There is a 1.6 revison of Python in alpha. In addition, they have a schedule for releases. It looks like the documentation will lag the releases a bit." Apparently, it will break some code. The release notes describe them as "folklore APIs (that were never documented or endorsed but nevertheless were accepted in common use)." The notes on 1.6 also lay out an ambitious roadmap toward Python 3000.