On a slightly off-topic note, has anyone found a decent server-side graph generator? GD seems to be a bit pants, and almost none of them understand antialising...
One option might be to find a server-side SVG renderer. Assuming you believe SVG will become an implemented standard (practically speaking, that means something that IE will eventually support) you could generate graphs in SVG, server-side render them for the time being, and have a relatively easy way of stepping forward to a SVG + JavaScript/DOM page in the future.
Otherwise, if you want really clever ways of altering the graph's values or view that work today, you're going to have to use either Flash or Java.
An interesting point is that if you do integer calculations that you expect to work with perfect accuracy on a 32 bit integer, then they will also work with perfect accuracy on a float with a 32+ bit mantissa.
Quite useful if you're adding integer numbers together on a 32 bit machine in C and you want the carry bit, for instance (and you're too lazy to write the code entirely in integer arithmetic): you can't easily find the sum and carry bit if you're using 32 bit ints, but it's trivial if you have a larger FP type (e.g. a double).
This is not to say FP numbers are better than ints, but if you know what you're doing you can do anything with an FP type that you can with an int type. The cost is usually the slowness of the FP operation - highly unlikely to take 1 ALU cycle, even on modern processors.
Assuming foldable screens fold as well as paper, you get 8 or 9 folds max. (Try this. Any piece of paper will do, it's the same for all sizes, supposedly.) I can see that being a problem - 2m^2 / 2^7 is as small as you describe - just - but any fewer folds and you'd be in trouble. Also, folded at 8 times, it's 256 layers - perhaps a bit thick to fit in a compartment in your laptop...
I thought most ideas on this sort of thing assumed that a screen would be rolled up rather than folded, anyway. So your shortest dimension is 1m.
"Released" is a very vague term, it would seem. I've had a quick dig through the online sellers here (in the UK), and the only 2003 device I've found so far (iPaq 2k) has a ship date in the middle of July... Feel free to prove me wrong, but I won't be holding my breath.
No, really, it is called survex.
Given data it attempts to construct a map of the cave allowing for inaccuracy. At least, so the author told me. I've got better things to do with my weekend than crawl around wet caves...
Showshifter's extras page (part-way down) lists a few products they interface to to do exactly what you want to do, from Windows. You'll have to dig through a few links to work out what suits, but it should make a good starting point.
many have been verbally warned that phrases like: "sex workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex" and "needle exchange," may cause the government to withhold grant money.
Absolutely. Stick to "prossies", "shirt lifters" and "shit stabbing" and you'll be fine.
...But you can end up with a nasty surprise when making a call from a land line, where mobile call costs are large and variable between mobile providers.
Isn't Trusted Solaris basically just this? [...] Two (or more) people can work on the same box at the same time and view completely different boxes because of their trust level.
Plan9 has the ability to isolate 2 processes completely from each other, since all they have in common is accessed via the FS and mounts are process-specific in Plan9. Hurd presumably has the same ability given that it's based on the same principles.
The concept is a better one than Unix has - Unix has the FS in common between processes, protectable via the chroot() syscall, which is adequate but not as capable as Plan9's mount() - but it also publicly shares out PID space, network interfaces and lots of other odds and sods of kernel data, and has the problem that you can't really prevent a process from knowing about and striving to attain root privs. Plan9 and Hurd can both put multiple levels of interference between you and any useful privileged options on the box.
And I'm not advocating this as a real-world solution; I just like the design concept.
Tomatoes and herbs are nice to have, but don't ignore flowers: petunias, marigolds and geraniums are good and are in flower for ages.
Nasturtiums look nice and can be used as a salad vegetable. Not that I know of anyone who's ever eaten them, but it's a theory. Runner beans (string beans in Merkin?) were originally grown as an ornamental plant, too - they have scarlet flowers and lots of foliage. And chives have bright blue-purple flowers.
If you do try them, be sure to get a determinate tomato plant (the non-determinate ones keep growing and can get up to 8 ft long.
Yes, but they can be managed with a bit of care. RTFM. You take out the side-shoots as it grows and the top when you're happy with the quantity of fruit on it. Fine for planting outside or in a greenhouse and tying to canes; probably not so good if you live in a 1st floor flat, though.
Basil might grow fast in some climates, but in the UK it's incredibly slow. Plant other herbs, like sage (which smells nice and the purple stuff's quite attractive), thyme (slow grower, but it forms a little mound and looks good on rockeries or in the side of a bigger pot) and oregano and get the 70p packs of growing basil from the supermarket. They'll often keep growing for quite a long time if you repot them (basil's a bad example, though, cos I always eat it too quickly;-)
If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug.
Once (years ago), I tried, with a showstopper problem with Excel. I rang them up, and after 30 minutes on hold decided "what's the point?" Maybe only 1% of their calls are about bugs because this is how they treat people who report them.
Certainly if I were making business policy I don't see why I'd encourage my technical staff to spend their time waiting on MS's hekp if that's the sort of respect that MS show to customers.
anyone know if a charge like this exists in the uk?
No such thing in the UK. I'd like to say there never will be, but the current government's passed crap technology-related laws in the recent past, presumably based on the impression that an overwhelming majority negates the need for common sense...
Obviously, the same bill should make it perfectly legal to copy any copyrighted CD or DVD music made by recipients of the levy, because after all they're receiving dues for it, aren't they?
However, I just finished reading The First chronicles of Thomas Covenant:Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson for about the 50th time, which IMHO is an awesome series. I recommend it to anyone, especially to those who find like Eddings but may find it a little too simplistic. It's pretty easy to find all three books in one volume, too.
Though you can save yourself a lot of disappointment by not reading the second trilogy... Not that it's bad, exactly, but it's certainly a big disappointment after the first one.
Alas, part 10 ( Crossroads of Twilight ) doesn't pick up the pace at all. In fact, it slows down so much that you don't get any further (in linear time) than the end of book 9 until about two thirds into the book...
Indeed. In fact, you might as well read the inside of the dustcover. 5 plot threads, 5 summaries of the current state of play at the start of the book, 5 'hints' about how the story pans out. But in fact it doesn't pan out. About all that happens is each character manages to move a few miles, but they don't actually do anything.
And it made me realise how annoying it is to pick up a book like this after a year of not reading the series. There are far too many characters that are either active or referred to in passing to remember, which means you wonder if you're missing something important all the time...
I'm currently awaiting the 3rd book in J.V. Jones' "A Cavern of Black Ice" series, and I found the first two very good. I'm surprised she's not been mentioned up till now, but the other comments seem to focus on SF and rather more established authors.
Another author worth looking for is Robin Hobb - the stories are good, but I find that the books themselves can take a while to get through, particularly the Liveship Traders series.
Take all my recommendations with a pinch of salt. I'll read anything;-)
Slashdot Mirror
(E&OE ;-)
One option might be to find a server-side SVG renderer. Assuming you believe SVG will become an implemented standard (practically speaking, that means something that IE will eventually support) you could generate graphs in SVG, server-side render them for the time being, and have a relatively easy way of stepping forward to a SVG + JavaScript/DOM page in the future.
Otherwise, if you want really clever ways of altering the graph's values or view that work today, you're going to have to use either Flash or Java.
By fetching another image when a change is requested, perhaps? This is easy enough to do without a page reload.
An interesting point is that if you do integer calculations that you expect to work with perfect accuracy on a 32 bit integer, then they will also work with perfect accuracy on a float with a 32+ bit mantissa.
Quite useful if you're adding integer numbers together on a 32 bit machine in C and you want the carry bit, for instance (and you're too lazy to write the code entirely in integer arithmetic): you can't easily find the sum and carry bit if you're using 32 bit ints, but it's trivial if you have a larger FP type (e.g. a double).
This is not to say FP numbers are better than ints, but if you know what you're doing you can do anything with an FP type that you can with an int type. The cost is usually the slowness of the FP operation - highly unlikely to take 1 ALU cycle, even on modern processors.
Assuming foldable screens fold as well as paper, you get 8 or 9 folds max. (Try this. Any piece of paper will do, it's the same for all sizes, supposedly.) I can see that being a problem - 2m^2 / 2^7 is as small as you describe - just - but any fewer folds and you'd be in trouble. Also, folded at 8 times, it's 256 layers - perhaps a bit thick to fit in a compartment in your laptop...
I thought most ideas on this sort of thing assumed that a screen would be rolled up rather than folded, anyway. So your shortest dimension is 1m.
"Released" is a very vague term, it would seem. I've had a quick dig through the online sellers here (in the UK), and the only 2003 device I've found so far (iPaq 2k) has a ship date in the middle of July...
Feel free to prove me wrong, but I won't be holding my breath.
Why all the wierd ask slashdots lately?
Think of it as self-expression.
For info, from the site owner:
"my slashdotting is up to 21 hits now. at peak I was received 2 hits per minute. it's a tribute to linux that the server stayed up"
;-)
No, really, it is called survex. Given data it attempts to construct a map of the cave allowing for inaccuracy. At least, so the author told me. I've got better things to do with my weekend than crawl around wet caves...
Showshifter's extras page (part-way down) lists a few products they interface to to do exactly what you want to do, from Windows. You'll have to dig through a few links to work out what suits, but it should make a good starting point.
many have been verbally warned that phrases like: "sex workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex" and "needle exchange," may cause the government to withhold grant money.
Absolutely. Stick to "prossies", "shirt lifters" and "shit stabbing" and you'll be fine.
...But you can end up with a nasty surprise when making a call from a land line, where mobile call costs are large and variable between mobile providers.
Isn't Trusted Solaris basically just this? [...] Two (or more) people can work on the same box at the same time and view completely different boxes because of their trust level.
Plan9 has the ability to isolate 2 processes completely from each other, since all they have in common is accessed via the FS and mounts are process-specific in Plan9. Hurd presumably has the same ability given that it's based on the same principles.
The concept is a better one than Unix has - Unix has the FS in common between processes, protectable via the chroot() syscall, which is adequate but not as capable as Plan9's mount() - but it also publicly shares out PID space, network interfaces and lots of other odds and sods of kernel data, and has the problem that you can't really prevent a process from knowing about and striving to attain root privs. Plan9 and Hurd can both put multiple levels of interference between you and any useful privileged options on the box.
And I'm not advocating this as a real-world solution; I just like the design concept.
Also, stay away from plastic pots. They hold moisture too well, and even with the right drainage, it's tough to keep mold / mildew from growing in it.
I get white mould on the soil surface of pots, but ime it's never caused the plants a problem. Perhaps you worry too much? ;-)
Tomatoes and herbs are nice to have, but don't ignore flowers: petunias, marigolds and geraniums are good and are in flower for ages.
Nasturtiums look nice and can be used as a salad vegetable. Not that I know of anyone who's ever eaten them, but it's a theory. Runner beans (string beans in Merkin?) were originally grown as an ornamental plant, too - they have scarlet flowers and lots of foliage. And chives have bright blue-purple flowers.
If you do try them, be sure to get a determinate tomato plant (the non-determinate ones keep growing and can get up to 8 ft long.
Yes, but they can be managed with a bit of care. RTFM. You take out the side-shoots as it grows and the top when you're happy with the quantity of fruit on it. Fine for planting outside or in a greenhouse and tying to canes; probably not so good if you live in a 1st floor flat, though.
Basil might grow fast in some climates, but in the UK it's incredibly slow. Plant other herbs, like sage (which smells nice and the purple stuff's quite attractive), thyme (slow grower, but it forms a little mound and looks good on rockeries or in the side of a bigger pot) and oregano and get the 70p packs of growing basil from the supermarket. They'll often keep growing for quite a long time if you repot them (basil's a bad example, though, cos I always eat it too quickly ;-)
Do none of the decent filesystems have a snapshotting facility? That's the best solution to coherent backups...
Full featured. Shame it's ugly as sin.
If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug.
Once (years ago), I tried, with a showstopper problem with Excel. I rang them up, and after 30 minutes on hold decided "what's the point?" Maybe only 1% of their calls are about bugs because this is how they treat people who report them.
Certainly if I were making business policy I don't see why I'd encourage my technical staff to spend their time waiting on MS's hekp if that's the sort of respect that MS show to customers.
anyone know if a charge like this exists in the uk?
No such thing in the UK. I'd like to say there never will be, but the current government's passed crap technology-related laws in the recent past, presumably based on the impression that an overwhelming majority negates the need for common sense...
I'd agree to the levy.
Obviously, the same bill should make it perfectly legal to copy any copyrighted CD or DVD music made by recipients of the levy, because after all they're receiving dues for it, aren't they?
However, I just finished reading The First chronicles of Thomas Covenant:Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson for about the 50th time, which IMHO is an awesome series. I recommend it to anyone, especially to those who find like Eddings but may find it a little too simplistic. It's pretty easy to find all three books in one volume, too.
Though you can save yourself a lot of disappointment by not reading the second trilogy... Not that it's bad, exactly, but it's certainly a big disappointment after the first one.
Alas, part 10 ( Crossroads of Twilight ) doesn't pick up the pace at all. In fact, it slows down so much that you don't get any further (in linear time) than the end of book 9 until about two thirds into the book...
Indeed. In fact, you might as well read the inside of the dustcover. 5 plot threads, 5 summaries of the current state of play at the start of the book, 5 'hints' about how the story pans out. But in fact it doesn't pan out. About all that happens is each character manages to move a few miles, but they don't actually do anything.
And it made me realise how annoying it is to pick up a book like this after a year of not reading the series. There are far too many characters that are either active or referred to in passing to remember, which means you wonder if you're missing something important all the time...
I'm currently awaiting the 3rd book in J.V. Jones' "A Cavern of Black Ice" series, and I found the first two very good. I'm surprised she's not been mentioned up till now, but the other comments seem to focus on SF and rather more established authors.
;-)
Another author worth looking for is Robin Hobb - the stories are good, but I find that the books themselves can take a while to get through, particularly the Liveship Traders series.
Take all my recommendations with a pinch of salt. I'll read anything