Alfred North Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics.
An Asimov essay made a point apropos to TFA, and that points out at least one major gaping hole in the "here's an eighth-grade test from a 19th century elementary school; could you pass it?" meme. The Asimov essay dealt with a math book of 18th or 19th century vintage, and pointed out how much of it was spent on things that aren't studied today--because they're of minimal worth in today's world. The example Asimov gave was mixed-base arithmetic (adding shillings and pence and pounds)--the eighth-grade test was chock full of similarly antiquated and now-worthless units of measure.
That said--there is a core of information that people should learn well enough to not need to consult Google, lest one spend one's time looking things up rather than doing something worthwhile. The question is, what is that core?
Ironically, on Labor Day I hustled over to CompUSA less than an hour before closing time because a brand new, unused, fresh out of the box Maxtor hard drive showed me just what the "click of death" is all about. (Though thanks to the computer proper, it was the "click-beep of death.") The store had been stripped bare of the 200 GB Maxtors for $80, and I ended up buying a Hitachi 160 GB drive which, after twiddling thumbs for rebates, will cost me $30.
So far, so good...twice the space of the Maxtor that died on installation, $0.19/GB once the smoke clears, 8MB cache, and it's very quiet. I take it a bunch of people will assert that there's a reason they're going for that price. We'll see how it goes (and we'll see how the replacement Maxtor drive does when it gets here; I have to give them credit for how easily that went). Does anyone have non-anecdotal evidence about drive quality and lifetime?
1. The author of TFA presumably wishes there were a better UI, considering how much he or she kvetches about the existing UIs.
2. Given (1) and the amount of money and fame that would presumably result from a wonderful UI, if the author could create a better UI, he or she would.
3. The author presumably hasn't done so, else TFA would be an ad for the wonderful UI.
4. The author claims his rabbit could make a better UI than Microsoft, Apple, et al.
I infer that we'd be better off reading the author's rabbit's blog than we are reading the author's blog.
It is funny, though, how UI rants are universally unaccompanied by a better alternative.
Its not all that long ago that nVidia released a Linux driver that broke old and low-end cards and didn't bother to release a fix for months.
They released a fix? Maybe I should try again; for months the GeForce MX4000 that I thought would be an upgrade from the MX400 I was using has been running with nv because nvidia's binary driver was sending xorg into CPU-eating navel contemplation.
1. Will the manufacturer support every target processor, including compiling with options optimized for each processor in a given family of processors? I doubt it.
2. Will the manufacturer maintain feature and performance parity with Windows drivers? Maybe nVidia does; I'm not aware of anyone else.
3. Will the manufacturer maintain API/ABI compatibility, or continue to support older hardware? ATI's Linux drivers don't even support older Radeons.
I couldn't resist the price a vendor offered for a Samsung CLP-510N printer, and didn't check linuxprinting.org--yeah, I'm an idiot. The proprietary driver works on FC3 after a fashion (funny how the CUPS server dies periodically since I installed said driver), and works on Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog (though the installer breaks with the default Ubuntu configuration), but refuses to print anything under FC4--I get a worthless popup window that I suppose was intended to be "user friendly" and not bother the user's pretty little head with details, but comes off as condescending, as it doesn't give any information on just what part of the printing/spooling process failed, but just states that it failed and smugly adds "You might want to find out why."
If manufacturers kept feature and efficiency parity with Windows, supported all their devices, and supported all versions of Linux on all target processors, maybe you'd have a point. Alas, they don't.
That will mean exactly one show on G4 that is not utter mindless garbage. AotS may someday ascend to the competence level of public access channel shows, but I won't hold my breath.
Sorry... here is the/. article on the issue, and details can be found here.
In brief: a library routine doesn't bother to check for the SSE support if CPUID doesn't return "Genuine Intel" as the vendor string, even though one can detect SSE/SSE2 support independent of the vendor string.
Intel will argue that their compiler produces accurate x86 code, AMD will argue its inconsistancies. AMD would love to have another reason to point out the way the Intel C compiler libraries test for the presence of certain features in such a way as to never detect them on AMD chips even if they're present.
What you're losing with a small lens is "light gathering power", i.e. the ability to take pictures in low light conditions.
As far as resolution goes--it's harder to maintain quality the bigger the lens gets (hence the big bucks you have to put out for a good quality lens with good light gathering power).
The purpose of insurance is to trade the risk of being wiped out by a expensive but unlikely event for the certainty of paying the expected value of the unlikely event (its cost times its probability). For pre-existing conditions, unfortunately, the expected value equals its cost, because it is certain--it's already happened--so insurance is useless for that. Insisting on coverage for pre-existing conditions is like waiting until your building has burned down to sign up for fire insurance. Having a functioning reproductive system is close to certain--so it makes no sense for insurance to pay for birth control.
To borrow a Biblical metaphor, you can't uneat the apple of knowledge. We're at that unfortunate intermediate stage, where we can tell who's going to get something, but don't know enough that it's trivial to fix.
You're inferring that from some random blogger who counts referrers to his site? Before reading your post, I'd never heard of rianjs.net. The "about me" section says the blog on the average gets 50-80 hits a day--is that a representative sample of/. users?
The #1 documentary is Farenheit 9/11 , which is completely out of the league of normal documentaries....because it's propaganda made with an utter lack of intellectual honesty, and "true" in the same sense that the first mate's log entry in an old joke, "The captain was sober today," is true.
Slashdot Mirror
Alfred North Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics.
An Asimov essay made a point apropos to TFA, and that points out at least one major gaping hole in the "here's an eighth-grade test from a 19th century elementary school; could you pass it?" meme. The Asimov essay dealt with a math book of 18th or 19th century vintage, and pointed out how much of it was spent on things that aren't studied today--because they're of minimal worth in today's world. The example Asimov gave was mixed-base arithmetic (adding shillings and pence and pounds)--the eighth-grade test was chock full of similarly antiquated and now-worthless units of measure.
That said--there is a core of information that people should learn well enough to not need to consult Google, lest one spend one's time looking things up rather than doing something worthwhile. The question is, what is that core?
Gates's disagreeing with one Google slogan is logically independent of whether he disagrees with the other.
Ironically, on Labor Day I hustled over to CompUSA less than an hour before closing time because a brand new, unused, fresh out of the box Maxtor hard drive showed me just what the "click of death" is all about. (Though thanks to the computer proper, it was the "click-beep of death.") The store had been stripped bare of the 200 GB Maxtors for $80, and I ended up buying a Hitachi 160 GB drive which, after twiddling thumbs for rebates, will cost me $30.
So far, so good...twice the space of the Maxtor that died on installation, $0.19/GB once the smoke clears, 8MB cache, and it's very quiet. I take it a bunch of people will assert that there's a reason they're going for that price. We'll see how it goes (and we'll see how the replacement Maxtor drive does when it gets here; I have to give them credit for how easily that went). Does anyone have non-anecdotal evidence about drive quality and lifetime?
Obligatory qualifier: "open source Linux drivers with, as a minimum, feature and speed parity with the Windows drivers."
Nick Fury
I guess because the Punisher movie worked so well...
If Steranko were involved (and given appropriate authority), I'd see this one in a heartbeat.
OK...apologies for confusing the author's rabbit with the USSR. Rather a large mistake, when one thinks about it.
OK, so from RTFAing we know the following:
1. The author of TFA presumably wishes there were a better UI, considering how much he or she kvetches about the existing UIs.
2. Given (1) and the amount of money and fame that would presumably result from a wonderful UI, if the author could create a better UI, he or she would.
3. The author presumably hasn't done so, else TFA would be an ad for the wonderful UI.
4. The author claims his rabbit could make a better UI than Microsoft, Apple, et al.
I infer that we'd be better off reading the author's rabbit's blog than we are reading the author's blog.
It is funny, though, how UI rants are universally unaccompanied by a better alternative.
If the USSC is controlled by the same people that control the House, the Senate, and the White House...
I don't think you'll find history showing Supreme Court justices marching in lockstep with the politics of the Presidents that nominated them.
Loading the PDF viewer is SLOW.
Have you tried evince?
Its not all that long ago that nVidia released a Linux driver that broke old and low-end cards and didn't bother to release a fix for months.
They released a fix? Maybe I should try again; for months the GeForce MX4000 that I thought would be an upgrade from the MX400 I was using has been running with nv because nvidia's binary driver was sending xorg into CPU-eating navel contemplation.
Why can't a binary driver be accepted?
Let me count the ways:
1. Will the manufacturer support every target processor, including compiling with options optimized for each processor in a given family of processors? I doubt it.
2. Will the manufacturer maintain feature and performance parity with Windows drivers? Maybe nVidia does; I'm not aware of anyone else.
3. Will the manufacturer maintain API/ABI compatibility, or continue to support older hardware? ATI's Linux drivers don't even support older Radeons.
I couldn't resist the price a vendor offered for a Samsung CLP-510N printer, and didn't check linuxprinting.org--yeah, I'm an idiot. The proprietary driver works on FC3 after a fashion (funny how the CUPS server dies periodically since I installed said driver), and works on Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog (though the installer breaks with the default Ubuntu configuration), but refuses to print anything under FC4--I get a worthless popup window that I suppose was intended to be "user friendly" and not bother the user's pretty little head with details, but comes off as condescending, as it doesn't give any information on just what part of the printing/spooling process failed, but just states that it failed and smugly adds "You might want to find out why."
If manufacturers kept feature and efficiency parity with Windows, supported all their devices, and supported all versions of Linux on all target processors, maybe you'd have a point. Alas, they don't.
Most of the content from G4/TechTV is just awful.
I think you misspelled "all."
Actually - I wouldn't even qualify Attack of the Show that way. That show actually is good.
The show whose high point was cramming a web server up someone's posterior?
G4 didn't/doesn't give a flying Wallenda about TechTV; they were after cable TV systems TechTV was on.
That will mean exactly one show on G4 that is not utter mindless garbage. AotS may someday ascend to the competence level of public access channel shows, but I won't hold my breath.
Sorry... here is the /. article on the issue, and details can be found here.
In brief: a library routine doesn't bother to check for the SSE support if CPUID doesn't return "Genuine Intel" as the vendor string, even though one can detect SSE/SSE2 support independent of the vendor string.
Intel will argue that their compiler produces accurate x86 code, AMD will argue its inconsistancies.
AMD would love to have another reason to point out the way the Intel C compiler libraries test for the presence of certain features in such a way as to never detect them on AMD chips even if they're present.
What you're losing with a small lens is "light gathering power", i.e. the ability to take pictures in low light conditions.
As far as resolution goes--it's harder to maintain quality the bigger the lens gets (hence the big bucks you have to put out for a good quality lens with good light gathering power).
Those are called "floaters"; they're irregularities in the vitreous humor in your eye. They show up best against a solid bright background.
If they suddenly increase in number, get yourself to a doctor.
"The new Jaguar for the year between 2011 and 2013."
"Tonight: Sean Connery as James Bond in Atomic Number 79-Finger, followed by The Endless Hot Season."
"Get an X-Box bundled with two exciting, uh, things that you play, for just..."
The purpose of insurance is to trade the risk of being wiped out by a expensive but unlikely event for the certainty of paying the expected value of the unlikely event (its cost times its probability). For pre-existing conditions, unfortunately, the expected value equals its cost, because it is certain--it's already happened--so insurance is useless for that. Insisting on coverage for pre-existing conditions is like waiting until your building has burned down to sign up for fire insurance. Having a functioning reproductive system is close to certain--so it makes no sense for insurance to pay for birth control.
To borrow a Biblical metaphor, you can't uneat the apple of knowledge. We're at that unfortunate intermediate stage, where we can tell who's going to get something, but don't know enough that it's trivial to fix.
...the Xbox 360 is not being renamed the Xbox Osborne.
Journalist with a lack of integrity? Aren't you being redundant there?
You're inferring that from some random blogger who counts referrers to his site? Before reading your post, I'd never heard of rianjs.net. The "about me" section says the blog on the average gets 50-80 hits a day--is that a representative sample of /. users?
"Open standards may be implemented by software developed under any development and licensing model - non-OSS and OSS alike."
At best, that's disingenuous; don't non-OSS licensing models preclude interoperable OSS software?
The #1 documentary is Farenheit 9/11 , which is completely out of the league of normal documentaries. ...because it's propaganda made with an utter lack of intellectual honesty, and "true" in the same sense that the first mate's log entry in an old joke, "The captain was sober today," is true.