My first month was last month and I spent less than one half of what I used to spend, so I'd say that it's a deal. And I got free tethering and no AT&T or Samsung bloatware and the ability to unlock my boot loader. So, all in all, 5 stars out of 5... so far.
I've been using Arch now for over 5 years now and Linux (Unix) for decades, and I recall only one instance of Arch breakage after an update. I run (or ran) Arch on an ancient i686 dual PIII file server, a Gateway netbook, a Lenovo T420i laptop, and now a (wonderful!) ASUS UX305F ultrabook. Your experience does not match mine, and certainly doesn't match the experience of the Window 10 user who comments later.
Linux is not for everyone. Just like (La)TeX or Emacs are not for everyone. I've forgotten who said it, but Unix gives you many "words" and a "grammar" with which you can build sentences, and from these sentences, paragraphs. Windows and OS X give you many sentences that you can re-arrange to form paragraphs, but the sentences have been chosen for you beforehand. Carefully chosen to be useful, but nonetheless chosen for you.
It takes more effort to learn the vocabulary and the grammar, and the sentences you first come up with are near nonsense. But patience, a certain tolerance for error, grit, a desire to be your own master, and a willingness to experiment allow you to have a computer system (editor, publishing system) that does what you want it to do.
It's more complicated that you make it sound. They were suddenly in the middle of a violent and unexpected thunderstorm. Their pitot tubes froze up and stopped working. That caused all the computers to shut down because the computers could no longer calculate anything (not knowing the plane's airspeed). That forced the pilots to fly "manually" (Airbus' are fly-by-wire), Yes, the pilots failed to follow procedure; yes, they are (or should be) trained to deal with sudden, potentially fatal emergencies; but your description doesn't do justice to the events.
Oh, BTW, I would rather have my pilots fresh and rested after a long trans-Atlantic flight using an auto-pilot, than have them fly the plane "manually" the whole flight. AF447 was in the middle of the Atlantic, for crying out loud.
Engine breaking on vehicles that are not intended for it (most passenger vehicles) cause ecessive wear and tear on the engine.
What wears out?
The only difference I can see is that in one case there's combustion with concomitant higher pressure on the piston, connecting rod and crankshaft, and in the other case, there is not.
So, what wears out?
Re:The best tools stay out of the way...
on
Goodbye Cruel Word
·
· Score: 1
TeX/LaTeX and X/Emacs both have a major advantage over most editors or desktop publishing programs*: they are programmable. And because of the are programmable, their communities have built up over the years a huge variety of specialized features that are unrivaled by any program, anywhere.**
Yes, they are complicated, complex and have steep learning curves. But they reward those who persevere with flexibility, extensibility and power. If you don't value flexibility, extensibility and power, then they are not for you.
Their user interfaces are text-based instead of WYSIWYG, but this actually a source of their flexibility, extensibility and power: there are more tools and algorithms (i.e. compilers, macro languages, parsers, generators, regular expressions) that process text than do pixels.
Fortunately, though, you are not forced to choose one paradigm over another: you can use Word, or you can use X/Emacs plus TeX/LaTex.
[*] Textmate, Scribus and the GIMP are also programmable, but don't have the benefit of decades of development and use.
[**] It's like the difference between Unix and Windows. Van Jacobson (of TCP/IP fame) compared them by saying that Windows gives you a (very) large variety of (well-formed) sentences that you assemble into paragraphs, whereas Unix gives you a vocabulary and a grammar that you use to create your own sentences and then assemble into paragraphs. You need to master the grammar in order to create your sentences, but when you do, you're no longer limited to just working with the sentences that were just given to you, you get to create an infinite variety of sentences of your own choosing.
Come to think of it, the TeX/Emacs vs Word and Unix vs Windows differences are very much like the difference between C/C++ and Lisp/Scheme.
There are two problems with the security-by-handgun approach:
1. Many violent criminals don't care one iota about you, so shooting you is like swatting a fly. One example: A drug dealer shot someone, and then turned to a bystander (the person who reported this story) and said by way of starting up a conversation, "What's up, man?"
I just don't believe that there is any effective deterrent against someone who is willing to shoot first, except to try and shoot before the other guy. That's going to increase the number of non-criminals accidentally shot (by how much I have no idea). So it's a trade-off: less crime but more accidents.
2. There's the likelihood of provoking an arms race. If I know that you have a handgun at home, I'll show up at your door with a semi-automatic pistol. You'll then feel compelled to choose an even more deadly weapon to defend yourself, etc., etc. I don't think there are any winners in an arms race.
One observation (not original): People in favor of strict handgun control are more likely to be from urban areas where getting gunned down by a criminal on the street is a real concern. People not in favor of strict handgun control are more likely to be from rural areas where getting gunned down is unlikely, but being defenseless in the face of an armed intruder is a real concern.
My experience has been that big-ticket items will not be dropped shipped without some sort of extra-ordinary validation. I had to call the credit card company and give them the shipping address, in order to get a $600 GPS shipped to my brother. (He still owes me for it...)
William Gates II was born in 1925. Mary Gates was born in 1929.
Bzzzt. That would make Bill Gates the youngest looking 82 year old on the planet married to an equally young looking 78 year old who had children in her 60's.
> the best performing algorithms in real terms are theoretically O(n^2)
Agreed. For example, in a microcode example at work, the cost of searching for a given string was totally dominated by memory access time, so it really didn't matter which algorithm we used. So we used brute force. Pretty easy to debug, as well.
I really wish they'd stop beating their chests over benchmarks that show them beating a three year old version of our desktop product, though.
Does VMware's license forbid its use for comparison purposes? If so, it's up to you (VMware) to change it. The ball is in your court.
If not, why don't you give them a copy to benchmark with? It's not like you'll lose a sale, so the out-of-pocket cost is effectively zero. In fact, it's probably a net gain because of the less-than-favorable publicity they generate. Again, the ball is in your court.
Or, if can't or won't give the s/w away, why don't you publish some benchmarks? Yes, again, the ball is in your court.
Let us (the Greater Slashdot Community ) know what you plan to do.
Well, I'll be damned! You are an existence proof that I was wrong in characterizing [all] Republicans as hypocrites. Congratulations on taking a principled stand when it doesn't benefit you.
One of my complaints about conservatives is that they are hypocritical. If Republican voter registration cards were being torn up, what do you think the Republican reaction would be?
What happens (legally speaking) when someone else, i.e. a sysadmin, clicks through a EULA? Are you bound by that EULA even though you never read it and therefore there was never a "meeting of the minds"?
The author of Election Projection is obviously biased. But he created a model and has stuck to it... Over the summer his model had Kerry winning by the same wide margins that Bush is winning now. The problem with his projection is not his bias but that his model overstates the electoral lead of whoever happens to be leading in national polls.
I was refering more to the comments on the site than to any methodological bias.
In a world with hundreds of millions or billions of computers, that attitude [computers are expensive and have dedicated staff to "observe" and "tune" them] makes no sense anymore.
I discount the second site because of its obvious bias, but even so, things are looking grim for Kerry.
Here's my prediction:
Bush will win a second term, but his popularity will decline steadily, due to an increasingly Vietnam-like Iraq and an increasingly bleak economic scene.
His low popularity will limit his ability to enact his conservative agenda, and with a little luck, the Republicans will implode, leading to a Democratic landslide in 2008.
What evidence do I have to back up my prediction? Well, er,..., see my next posting for details.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder. Are all proteins capable of being misfolded in a prion-like way?
My first month was last month and I spent less than one half of what I used to spend, so I'd say that it's a deal. And I got free tethering and no AT&T or Samsung bloatware and the ability to unlock my boot loader. So, all in all, 5 stars out of 5 ... so far.
I've been using Arch now for over 5 years now and Linux (Unix) for decades, and I recall only one instance of Arch breakage after an update. I run (or ran) Arch on an ancient i686 dual PIII file server, a Gateway netbook, a Lenovo T420i laptop, and now a (wonderful!) ASUS UX305F ultrabook. Your experience does not match mine, and certainly doesn't match the experience of the Window 10 user who comments later.
Linux is not for everyone. Just like (La)TeX or Emacs are not for everyone. I've forgotten who said it, but Unix gives you many "words" and a "grammar" with which you can build sentences, and from these sentences, paragraphs. Windows and OS X give you many sentences that you can re-arrange to form paragraphs, but the sentences have been chosen for you beforehand. Carefully chosen to be useful, but nonetheless chosen for you.
It takes more effort to learn the vocabulary and the grammar, and the sentences you first come up with are near nonsense. But patience, a certain tolerance for error, grit, a desire to be your own master, and a willingness to experiment allow you to have a computer system (editor, publishing system) that does what you want it to do.
But, as I said, Linux is not for everyone.
http://robwhess.github.io/open...
Is software (algorithms) patentable in Europe? Asia outside of China & Russia? (Effectively, nothing is patentable in China or Russia.)
It's more complicated that you make it sound. They were suddenly in the middle of a violent and unexpected thunderstorm. Their pitot tubes froze up and stopped working. That caused all the computers to shut down because the computers could no longer calculate anything (not knowing the plane's airspeed). That forced the pilots to fly "manually" (Airbus' are fly-by-wire), Yes, the pilots failed to follow procedure; yes, they are (or should be) trained to deal with sudden, potentially fatal emergencies; but your description doesn't do justice to the events.
Oh, BTW, I would rather have my pilots fresh and rested after a long trans-Atlantic flight using an auto-pilot, than have them fly the plane "manually" the whole flight. AF447 was in the middle of the Atlantic, for crying out loud.
Engine breaking on vehicles that are not intended for it (most passenger vehicles) cause ecessive wear and tear on the engine.
What wears out?
The only difference I can see is that in one case there's combustion with concomitant higher pressure on the piston, connecting rod and crankshaft, and in the other case, there is not.
So, what wears out?
TeX/LaTeX and X/Emacs both have a major advantage over most editors or desktop publishing programs*: they are programmable. And because of the are programmable, their communities have built up over the years a huge variety of specialized features that are unrivaled by any program, anywhere.**
Yes, they are complicated, complex and have steep learning curves. But they reward those who persevere with flexibility, extensibility and power. If you don't value flexibility, extensibility and power, then they are not for you.
Their user interfaces are text-based instead of WYSIWYG, but this actually a source of their flexibility, extensibility and power: there are more tools and algorithms (i.e. compilers, macro languages, parsers, generators, regular expressions) that process text than do pixels.
Fortunately, though, you are not forced to choose one paradigm over another: you can use Word, or you can use X/Emacs plus TeX/LaTex.
[*] Textmate, Scribus and the GIMP are also programmable, but don't have the benefit of decades of development and use.
[**] It's like the difference between Unix and Windows. Van Jacobson (of TCP/IP fame) compared them by saying that Windows gives you a (very) large variety of (well-formed) sentences that you assemble into paragraphs, whereas Unix gives you a vocabulary and a grammar that you use to create your own sentences and then assemble into paragraphs. You need to master the grammar in order to create your sentences, but when you do, you're no longer limited to just working with the sentences that were just given to you, you get to create an infinite variety of sentences of your own choosing.
Come to think of it, the TeX/Emacs vs Word and Unix vs Windows differences are very much like the difference between C/C++ and Lisp/Scheme.
It seems to me that all this brouhaha is evidence that some change to Debian policies should be made.
There are two problems with the security-by-handgun approach:
1. Many violent criminals don't care one iota about you, so shooting you is like swatting a fly. One example: A drug dealer shot someone, and then turned to a bystander (the person who reported this story) and said by way of starting up a conversation, "What's up, man?"
I just don't believe that there is any effective deterrent against someone who is willing to shoot first, except to try and shoot before the other guy. That's going to increase the number of non-criminals accidentally shot (by how much I have no idea). So it's a trade-off: less crime but more accidents.
2. There's the likelihood of provoking an arms race. If I know that you have a handgun at home, I'll show up at your door with a semi-automatic pistol. You'll then feel compelled to choose an even more deadly weapon to defend yourself, etc., etc. I don't think there are any winners in an arms race.
One observation (not original): People in favor of strict handgun control are more likely to be from urban areas where getting gunned down by a criminal on the street is a real concern. People not in favor of strict handgun control are more likely to be from rural areas where getting gunned down is unlikely, but being defenseless in the face of an armed intruder is a real concern.
My experience has been that big-ticket items will not be dropped shipped without some sort of extra-ordinary validation. I had to call the credit card company and give them the shipping address, in order to get a $600 GPS shipped to my brother. (He still owes me for it...)
Un-bzzzt that. The Bill Gates we know and love is the third Bill Gates. Sorry. (Mod the parent down.)
Bzzzt. That would make Bill Gates the youngest looking 82 year old on the planet married to an equally young looking 78 year old who had children in her 60's.
> the best performing algorithms in real terms are theoretically O(n^2)
Agreed. For example, in a microcode example at work, the cost of searching for a given string was totally dominated by memory access time, so it really didn't matter which algorithm we used. So we used brute force. Pretty easy to debug, as well.
You are wrong. Check the literature on automated testing.
You are wrong. There are dozens (hundreds?) of companies selling software that does what compilers don't do.
Does VMware's license forbid its use for comparison purposes? If so, it's up to you (VMware) to change it. The ball is in your court.
If not, why don't you give them a copy to benchmark with? It's not like you'll lose a sale, so the out-of-pocket cost is effectively zero. In fact, it's probably a net gain because of the less-than-favorable publicity they generate. Again, the ball is in your court.
Or, if can't or won't give the s/w away, why don't you publish some benchmarks? Yes, again, the ball is in your court.
Let us (the Greater Slashdot Community ) know what you plan to do.
lycoris.org is not the homepage for the commercial operation, lycoris.com is.
This is the first time I've heard one of James Bamford's books being called "wrong". In what ways is it wrong?
Well, I'll be damned! You are an existence proof that I was wrong in characterizing [all] Republicans as hypocrites. Congratulations on taking a principled stand when it doesn't benefit you.
One of my complaints about conservatives is that they are hypocritical. If Republican voter registration cards were being torn up, what do you think the Republican reaction would be?
What happens (legally speaking) when someone else, i.e. a sysadmin, clicks through a EULA? Are you bound by that EULA even though you never read it and therefore there was never a "meeting of the minds"?
I was refering more to the comments on the site than to any methodological bias.
Interesting thought. Worth pursuing.
For the truely needy speed freaks, there's the quad Opteron Thunder K8QS Pro (S4882).
Here are two sites that attempt to predict what the Electoral College votes will be:
I discount the second site because of its obvious bias, but even so, things are looking grim for Kerry.
Here's my prediction:
What evidence do I have to back up my prediction? Well, er,