POWERmath is a system of high performance
algorithms engineered to meet your
planet creation and design
needs head on. Want to know more?
Follow the equals...
I read this interview after it was posted on Newsforge, and really, it doesn't say much. The only major thing I gleaned was that Linus plans to open 2.5 sometime this month, and that he's hoping to stabilize it rather than add any 'new paradigms.'
Honestly, he talks about Windows and FreeBSD not to comment but to dismiss - he briefly adds that their new features "don't interest him," but really it's not very much info.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, I'm just stopping in from lunch, but Gloria Foster, who played the Oracle in the first movie, passed away last weekend. She had completed most of her scenes in the first sequel.
This article is very interesting; the idea of code as an art form isn't new, but this article certainly is aggresive in encouraging it.
But what about "Extreme Programming" - doesn't it encourage the same thing, in terms of self-commenting code? Or does its specific nature essentially negate that aspect?
The idea of filtering based on content is what is important here. I was under the impression that as long as the ISP "only provided the lines" - that is, was merely a conduit to the Great Big Internet - they were allowed to get away with lots of illegal stuff going on; but as soon as they began to make value judgments based on legality, they were responsible for all further illegal activity. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I was under (sounds reasonable to me, to be honest.)
Filtering based on bandwidth isn't a new thing - this is why we have such a proliferation of Usenet Providers. Lots of ISPs filter to keep down the cost for such a relatively small 'payback' in user satisfaction/use.
But, again, I'm curious - does this make them liable for the illegal content that does get through, since they are now officialy filtering based on legality?
vymths.com typically has debunkings of numbers like this.
It's definitely recommended reading for any geek. The introductory section is here.
I don't buy these numbers. These exorbitant figures are created from generous estimates of downtime, repair costs, and so forth. In addition, they take into consideration elements only tangentially related; I think that anybody with their Michael Shermer hat on can tell that a more serious inquiry than this is required.
(But, then again, this would be good fodder for anti-Microsoft arguments. Now how ethically responsible would that be?)
...substantial compression. Right now, I'm pleased watching (while I work) a 2inch x 2inch video of the Simpsons in the corner of my screen, which is allegedly at 350kbps, but that's still not Amazing Quality at Low Low Rates - unless I have my figures wrong (i.e. bits/bytes, which is entirely possible,) this would be an additional compression of, what, 12 times? That would be groundbreaking, but wouldn't we have seen some intermediate steps?
Hell, maybe not. Maybe it is genuine. But I'm with gwernol - let's see some independent testing.
...also, does anybody else remember that April Fool's joke about lossy data compression, where it actually just deleted the files? Sure, you get 100% compression - but it's lossy.
The Reg (which is down as of this writing) just posted an article, giving the Handspring's release-of-information date to be October 15. And I believe that the companies requested the information to be pulled; but it's a standard procedure.
But seriously, this looks kind of neat. The Zelda games have always had a subtle sense of humor, and this one seems to make it far less subtle and far more Chuck Jones. (Now, I'm basing that on the article - I don't have a QuickTime viewer on this system.) That doesn't have to be a bad thing; often the unexpected is the best. I've enjoyed every Zelda Game up to this point - and since I'm pretty terrible at games, they've all had lots of time dedicated.
and think he's naive to think that "pro-Microsoft groups" aren't precisely the sort of shills Slashbots probably think I am for expressing insufficiently uncontrolled rage and wild accusations towards Microsoft.
Yeah, after further thought it occurred to me that (especially) in the business world, when dealing with other businesses, "shilling for" and "employed by" are pretty much the same thing. Pardon my initial naivete.
You are robbing people of their voice, stealing their identity and speaking out in their name without their knowledge and quite possibly against their wishes. Certainly the dead have no business lobbying legislators, even if they are known to vote for party machine candidates in Chicago elections from time to time (Mayor Daley being the quintessential example). This goes well beyond lobbying one's own point of view and agenda and is, at the very least, fraudulant.
Wait. Did I miss something? In the article - which I quoted above - it said that every letter was sent out, and then resent to the government. It even went so far as to describe the envelopes as being pre-stamped, pre-addressed.
Where the dead were addressed, it was stated that the names were signed by family members - in their own name or the name of the deceased. That's out of Microsoft's hands - and yeah, I'll concede that the paid shills, the lobbying companies doing it, are essentially part of MS - and into the hands of the 'next of kin' or whatever. Now, if we had evidence MS targetted these people because of recent death, or something, then I think we ought to be angry.
The only place where the origin of the letters was doubted was the mythical "Tucson, Utah," which in all truth I'm very curious about. The other letters weren't sent by Microsoft, as I had commented - but this one is odd. Was it a typo? Possibly, but I'm inclined to say 'not-likely.'
If they had actually signed, forged, WHATEVER, a dead person's name to the list, then I wouldn't have equivocated. As it is, it's a breach of ethics - and very, very wrong. But it's still not what the post said in the headline.
The entire point of my post was to counteract this kind of knee-jerk reaction to the headline. Read the article linked.
Interesting. The tone of almost every post on this topic is strongly anti-MS, yet your post got modded +5 informative. More astroturfing?
I'm responding to this because of the earlier post that (I think) referred to me as "Overturf." Not sure what that means, precisely, but it's easy enough to guess.
No, I'm for real, even though someone with my name works for Microsoft (through MIT, I believe.) Then again, yet another person with my name is some NFL football player.
Just so we're straight - I don't like what I read in the article (the LA Times, and the other one.) I'm an advocate of Free Software (I even call it GNU/Linux sometimes:) but I think that our case is strengthened by not resorting to inaccurate claims; as I said, yeah, it was sleazy, and probably wrong. The way it was reported (here) was nearly as bad though - it neatly encapsulated the story into a short little sound bite so that everybody who reads the headlines sees it and assumes they know the whole story.
The point was, what they did was wrong, but not in the way the snippet summarized.
So, no, I'm not an astroturfer - whether or not that statement will convince you is up to you.
...but with fake signatures of citizens (some of whom are dead!).
This is misleading. Microsoft is not sending the letters to the final destination; based on personal surveys, pre-written and pre-stamped letters are sent out to individuals, who then sign and send. In addition, the article states:
Utah officials found two of the pre-fab letters bore the typed names of dead people. Those names had been crossed out by family members who signed for them. And another letter came from "Tuscon, Utah," a city that doesn't exist.
So the statement implying that the dead had been stuffing the ballot box is misleading, to say the least - but no explanation is offered for Tucson, Utah.
...and in fact, Microsoft doesn't actually do this themselves. Several different "pro-Microsoft" groups are undertaking this.
But... is is sleazy? You're damn right it is. It even sounds, from the tone of the article, like this isn't a common practice. Is it wrong? Probably.
But it's not as bad as the caption said.
(Favorite section: Microsoft complaining about 'well-funded special interest companies.' Um?)
Slashdot Mirror
...it uses the power of math..."
POWERmath is a system of high performance
algorithms engineered to meet your
planet creation and design
needs head on. Want to know more?
Follow the equals...
I read this interview after it was posted on Newsforge, and really, it doesn't say much. The only major thing I gleaned was that Linus plans to open 2.5 sometime this month, and that he's hoping to stabilize it rather than add any 'new paradigms.'
Honestly, he talks about Windows and FreeBSD not to comment but to dismiss - he briefly adds that their new features "don't interest him," but really it's not very much info.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, I'm just stopping in from lunch, but Gloria Foster, who played the Oracle in the first movie, passed away last weekend. She had completed most of her scenes in the first sequel.
Found at Corona.
...does the human eye stop noticing FPS increases? At some absurd speed, we have to stop being able to distinguish, right?
And besides, would Quake have the texture mapping to really utilize it? Or the polygon count?
Really, what I'd like to see is a 'make buildworld' or 'make bzImage' on it. That'd be a good dipstick to jam in the ol' engine.
...does that mean it'll be a pain in the ass to fix "LENGHT" to "LENGTH" in the editor picture on the website?
but seriously, this is pretty sweet. i'm going to load it up at work tomorrow.
Mozillazine has information about it here. MozillaQuest is and has been unreliable. See MozillaQuestQuest for more information.
Best of all, though, it tells a lot of people that there is a decent alternative to Microsoft software.
COMMAND.COM -> bash
EDIT.COM -> nano
Age of Empires 2 -> xBill
Personally, I found Donald Knuth's Literate Programming as well as the Practice of Programming to be wonderful resources for writing better, more beautiful code.
This article is very interesting; the idea of code as an art form isn't new, but this article certainly is aggresive in encouraging it.
But what about "Extreme Programming" - doesn't it encourage the same thing, in terms of self-commenting code? Or does its specific nature essentially negate that aspect?
This way, when you give someone your phone number you are giving them your social security noumber, tax number, medical identity, etc.
Oh, but I hear there's a system to manage all that.
The idea of filtering based on content is what is important here. I was under the impression that as long as the ISP "only provided the lines" - that is, was merely a conduit to the Great Big Internet - they were allowed to get away with lots of illegal stuff going on; but as soon as they began to make value judgments based on legality, they were responsible for all further illegal activity. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I was under (sounds reasonable to me, to be honest.)
Filtering based on bandwidth isn't a new thing - this is why we have such a proliferation of Usenet Providers. Lots of ISPs filter to keep down the cost for such a relatively small 'payback' in user satisfaction/use.
But, again, I'm curious - does this make them liable for the illegal content that does get through, since they are now officialy filtering based on legality?
vymths.com typically has debunkings of numbers like this.
It's definitely recommended reading for any geek. The introductory section is here.
I don't buy these numbers. These exorbitant figures are created from generous estimates of downtime, repair costs, and so forth. In addition, they take into consideration elements only tangentially related; I think that anybody with their Michael Shermer hat on can tell that a more serious inquiry than this is required.
(But, then again, this would be good fodder for anti-Microsoft arguments. Now how ethically responsible would that be?)
Just so we're clear - is this the ISO with the unique identifier that The Reg talked about the other day?
...substantial compression. Right now, I'm pleased watching (while I work) a 2inch x 2inch video of the Simpsons in the corner of my screen, which is allegedly at 350kbps, but that's still not Amazing Quality at Low Low Rates - unless I have my figures wrong (i.e. bits/bytes, which is entirely possible,) this would be an additional compression of, what, 12 times? That would be groundbreaking, but wouldn't we have seen some intermediate steps?
...also, does anybody else remember that April Fool's joke about lossy data compression, where it actually just deleted the files? Sure, you get 100% compression - but it's lossy.
Hell, maybe not. Maybe it is genuine. But I'm with gwernol - let's see some independent testing.
The Reg (which is down as of this writing) just posted an article, giving the Handspring's release-of-information date to be October 15. And I believe that the companies requested the information to be pulled; but it's a standard procedure.
"Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knockin' at my door..."
Next Up: GameCube remake of Dragon's Lair.
...with the notable exception of the CDi games.
But seriously, this looks kind of neat. The Zelda games have always had a subtle sense of humor, and this one seems to make it far less subtle and far more Chuck Jones. (Now, I'm basing that on the article - I don't have a QuickTime viewer on this system.) That doesn't have to be a bad thing; often the unexpected is the best. I've enjoyed every Zelda Game up to this point - and since I'm pretty terrible at games, they've all had lots of time dedicated.
In a related story, the GameCube will now feature a logo from IBM.
GameCube: The only console that's guaranteed to kick your ass at Chess.
Perhaps it should be P2P as in: 'Person 2 person' as Point 2 point is a little to obvious and non-descriptive.
I thought that's what it was. Isn't PPP the abbrev'n for Point to Point Protocol?
(and dear lord do I hate that term)
/me thinks the 'free subscription' was just a ploy to dumb him down with acronyms.
Me too - but not as much as I hate CRM, B2B, and all the other crap that's always sprayed across the front of InfoWorld.
and think he's naive to think that "pro-Microsoft groups" aren't precisely the sort of shills Slashbots probably think I am for expressing insufficiently uncontrolled rage and wild accusations towards Microsoft.
Yeah, after further thought it occurred to me that (especially) in the business world, when dealing with other businesses, "shilling for" and "employed by" are pretty much the same thing. Pardon my initial naivete.
You are robbing people of their voice, stealing their identity and speaking out in their name without their knowledge and quite possibly against their wishes. Certainly the dead have no business lobbying legislators, even if they are known to vote for party machine candidates in Chicago elections from time to time (Mayor Daley being the quintessential example). This goes well beyond lobbying one's own point of view and agenda and is, at the very least, fraudulant.
Wait. Did I miss something? In the article - which I quoted above - it said that every letter was sent out, and then resent to the government. It even went so far as to describe the envelopes as being pre-stamped, pre-addressed.
Where the dead were addressed, it was stated that the names were signed by family members - in their own name or the name of the deceased. That's out of Microsoft's hands - and yeah, I'll concede that the paid shills, the lobbying companies doing it, are essentially part of MS - and into the hands of the 'next of kin' or whatever. Now, if we had evidence MS targetted these people because of recent death, or something, then I think we ought to be angry.
The only place where the origin of the letters was doubted was the mythical "Tucson, Utah," which in all truth I'm very curious about. The other letters weren't sent by Microsoft, as I had commented - but this one is odd. Was it a typo? Possibly, but I'm inclined to say 'not-likely.'
If they had actually signed, forged, WHATEVER, a dead person's name to the list, then I wouldn't have equivocated. As it is, it's a breach of ethics - and very, very wrong. But it's still not what the post said in the headline.
The entire point of my post was to counteract this kind of knee-jerk reaction to the headline. Read the article linked.
Interesting. The tone of almost every post on this topic is strongly anti-MS, yet your post got modded +5 informative. More astroturfing?
:) but I think that our case is strengthened by not resorting to inaccurate claims; as I said, yeah, it was sleazy, and probably wrong. The way it was reported (here) was nearly as bad though - it neatly encapsulated the story into a short little sound bite so that everybody who reads the headlines sees it and assumes they know the whole story.
I'm responding to this because of the earlier post that (I think) referred to me as "Overturf." Not sure what that means, precisely, but it's easy enough to guess.
No, I'm for real, even though someone with my name works for Microsoft (through MIT, I believe.) Then again, yet another person with my name is some NFL football player.
Just so we're straight - I don't like what I read in the article (the LA Times, and the other one.) I'm an advocate of Free Software (I even call it GNU/Linux sometimes
The point was, what they did was wrong, but not in the way the snippet summarized.
So, no, I'm not an astroturfer - whether or not that statement will convince you is up to you.
...but with fake signatures of citizens (some of whom are dead!).
...and in fact, Microsoft doesn't actually do this themselves. Several different "pro-Microsoft" groups are undertaking this.
This is misleading. Microsoft is not sending the letters to the final destination; based on personal surveys, pre-written and pre-stamped letters are sent out to individuals, who then sign and send. In addition, the article states:
Utah officials found two of the pre-fab letters bore the typed names of dead people. Those names had been crossed out by family members who signed for them. And another letter came from "Tuscon, Utah," a city that doesn't exist.
So the statement implying that the dead had been stuffing the ballot box is misleading, to say the least - but no explanation is offered for Tucson, Utah.
But... is is sleazy? You're damn right it is. It even sounds, from the tone of the article, like this isn't a common practice. Is it wrong? Probably.
But it's not as bad as the caption said.
(Favorite section: Microsoft complaining about 'well-funded special interest companies.' Um?)
...this discussion won't degenerate into millions of posts yelling "Tim Ney! TIM NEY!!"
Am I the only one who thinks that "Matrix: Reloaded" is worse than "Attack of the Clones"?
Yes, but it could have been worse.
Matrix: Reduced Row Echelon Form
The Gauss-Jordan Elimination of Neo