The common truth of the int datatype in many languages is that it is n-bit arithmetic, meaning that it is arithmetic modulo 2n . If we keep adding 1, we get back to 0. This is a perfectly respectable arithmetic itself, and can be used, if used carefully, to determine integer arithmetic results. But to say that int is integer arithmetic with bounds and overïow conditions is to say that it is not integer arithmetic. Similarly, to say that float is real arithmetic, with approximation errors, is to say that it is not real arithmetic.
This is not to say that mythos is by deïnition false, but typically if mythos was true, it would be semantics or pragmatics. Mythos is the collection of comfortable half-truths that we programmers tell each other so that we do not have to handle the full truth.
This is from Mill's Theoretical Introduction to Programming. I think it's a good way of explaining why people buy into this "rise of the machines" crap. We use very human terms like "intelligence" and "instruction" to refer to patterns of bit-flipping on an inanimate state machine. These words are shorthand at best, and require a lot of poetic license to resemble what they resemble in language outside of computers. The Programming language, and with it, artificial intelligence, is a useful abstraction. As we strip the layers away we eventually get the essence: a glorified abacus.
Abstractions are made possible by ignoring certain details of reality which are deemed unimportant. In the case of computers, it also involves encapsulating something in a facade that makes it easier to work with without worrying about the strange and arbitrary details that govern it. Even the CPU does this (microcode). But the key thing is that we have to limit ourselves in certain ways to use the abstraction. For instance, there are certain kinds of optimization which a C compiler can't give you. But by giving that up we are given the ability to use something that's much easier to understand.
AI is no different. You make assumptions about what intelligence looks like so that you can come up with a version so basic that a calculator can do it. But is that real intelligence? Hell no.
In short: once you start programming the things you realize how dumb they really are. People who say differently probably believe the abstractions to be real, which causes me to doubt their credentials.
It comes down to a few things: - those common device drivers can do a hell of a lot these days - that 4k executable expands to over 300 MB in memory when you run it - these techniques have been perfected over decades of work - mountain landscapes are one of a handful of real-world things that can be realistically generated with small equations - these people are exceptionally talented
You are right to notice the similarity as there is a lot of overlap between music visualization and demoscene work. I would guess that the former arose as a result of work being done in the latter.
It's 4096 bytes, whatever you want to call that. A typical (self-imposed) demo limitation.
These things were being made long before there was a Windows or a WMP. And there are always those ones that make you feel like "this shouldn't be possible," but I suppose that's the point.
- harder to implement - 100% redundant to what CSS can do - does not involve getting a framework in place where modifications and additions become easier down the road - the percentage of users who know what a JS vulnerability is matter...yes, in that somewhat contrived scenario, I'd agree that the JS should be left out.
I didn't include accessibility above. Even WebTV supports JS. Its inclusion doesn't commit any sins that images didn't already.
I'm not interested in continually moving the goalposts in order to back up the flawed "JS is automatically bad" meme. JS *can* be bad but I honestly think we're past the point where there is much to gain by taking even the slightest pain in order to use it sparingly.
I didn't misunderstand the GP, but I did miss the part where "JS should only be used where truly needed" follows logically from "JS is an important technology, which 95% of users have support for."
The technology is powerful and pervasive and mollifying your average/.er, myself included, is a very dark path for a web dev to embark on.
In short: it's reached the saturation level where those without it can safely be ignored. An extra 100k of libraries can be ignored too. I think that if it presents even a slight advantage to a designer in terms of development time then they should use it. Their client and the 95% of people viewing the page with JS on will appreciate the quicker turnaround.
But the 95% percent of people with functioning browsers might appreciate those features, so why do the people stuck in 1996 get to dictate what's useful and what's not?
unless there is a compelling requirement to do so
Everyone has JS. There's no reason to have to justify it's use anymore. It's there, it can be used.
Don't put the word "browser" in the summary of an article that isn't really about them. Knowledge of a web browser represents the bare minimum level of expertise necessary to comment on/. and as such the inclusion of that word in the summary greatly increases the signal-to-noise ratio.
Your pal, The guy who wanted to read informative comments about VM exploits rather than NoScript
It's such an obvious thing. I'm surprised to hear that they haven't already implemented it in all this time. Not having a 360, I had assumed that XNA was some sort of indie game nirvana. I'm disappointed to hear that the good games get buried but I'm glad to have gotten some straight talk on the subject.
For the record I think Microsoft deciding which indie games to bless with XBLA status also creates a conflict of interest, since a cheaper download-only game could potentially cannibalize sales of a more expensive disc-based game.
But it's a software platform, not a court room, so the conflict of interest isn't necessarily a problem, but it means the users see less value out of their system.
Having the top-rated games more or less automatically make it to XBLA would be amazing. I'd buy a 360 for that (not that I won't ever buy a 360, I'm just typically a little behind on the game hardware and haven't yet).
Sounds like letting the users rate the games would be the answer to that. Microsoft doing it automatically creates a conflict of interest. The indies are paying just like everyone else.
But I also think it's silly to assume and design for Javascript
According to 95% of users have JS on. There's no reason to essentially design two separate sites to support the other 5%. And it could be argued that that 5% could either easily turn it back on if they choose (in which case, they're the lazy one), or is using something really really old and has no need to, or doesn't want to.
I'm not a web developer, but it seems obvious to me that while it's possible and often sensible to include the other 5% (which may include spiders, which you typically want), ignoring them because you don't have time for two designs is not at all silly. They may not even be the type of people you want on your site anyway.
Most of those could be argued to be hinting at the the Blu-ray-related DRM present in Vista and newer MacBooks. And the iPhone is a closed system. There's an earlier post with some examples completely unrelated to DRM, and I think in those cases it's a case of the person knowingly using it as a joke to say that whichever commercial os is referenced in the headline is never going to be any good.
As that happens more, it could mean the end of DbD as a DRM flag and just people using it because they heard it once and it sounded cool. But hopefully people will continue to parse the actual words in the phrase. I don't think I've seen it yet where I didn't think it was supposed to be applied humorously.
Of course, this being the internet, and Slashdot at that, sarcasm often goes undetected.
Sorry, I meant that if a band does their own songs and they're getting some of the door money then they need better songs:)
The ASCAP/BMI system works fine when the performance rights org actually notices that your song was played, takes note of it, and sends you your cut. Unfortunately the artist still has to do their own accounting since everyone else benefits if they fail to notice your song was played. We already have automated systems, for instance, radio stations keep track of what they play. You'd think it'd be a simple matter for, say, BMI to just call up the station and verify if one of their member artists claims that a song they wrote is in rotation. A friend of mine, after years with BMI, is moving to ASCAP and has to decide whether to take BMI to court over all of the money they've shafted him.
Accuracy benefits the artist but not the accountants.
The trolling is spot on...what worries me are the positive mods.
Any app with GUI has a good reason to be multi-threaded...we don't expect a button to stay down if it triggers, say, network activity, we expect it to come back up immediately regardless of how long the activity takes.
And anyway this isn't about multi-threading at all. So what's with the mods? I think someone smelled some (misguided) cynicism on the post and said, "yeah, now there's a sentiment I can get behind!"
Jesus, I don't know what you people are doing that your browser crashes every day. For me it's maybe 3 times a year, if that.
It'd be one thing if FF (or Flash) crashed all the time, and then yes you could paint the FF team as ignoring a fundamental flaw. But that's not the case, and you know it. I'm glad they spend the time on the new location bar and the new bookmark system. I actually use those.
I'd say it's bad for traditional broadcasting as well as the traditional ASCAP/BMI arrangements. I have high hope for things like Songbird...I bet if you get enough music blogs who primarily feature the music of artists who stream or host it themselves, and some feeds to aggregate those blogs, you could end up with something Pandora-ish that sidesteps all of the old guard licenses and restrictions.
A band could license one or two tracks from an album under something like CC attribution.
It's working to some extent for Revision 3 and internet TV. Of course, it's normal for a TV show to have ads, it's not normal for a song to have ads. And most of the CC licenses rule out being able to track and collect royalties on someone else's performance of your song, which is how a lot of songrwiters and musicians end up supporting themselves.
So who knows. Could just be a pipe dream. But in general what I'm saying is, if we switch from a broadcasting model to one where people discover music through social tools & feeds, and the artist takes care of their own licensing issues...
Slashdot Mirror
"Because I'm a robot, I don't have any emotions, and sometimes, that makes me sad." - Bender
The common truth of the int datatype in many languages is that it is n-bit arithmetic, meaning that it is arithmetic modulo 2n . If we keep adding 1, we get back to 0. This is a perfectly respectable arithmetic itself, and can be used, if used carefully, to determine integer arithmetic results. But to say that int is integer arithmetic with bounds and overïow conditions is to say that it is not integer arithmetic. Similarly, to say that float is real arithmetic, with approximation errors, is to say that it is not real arithmetic.
This is not to say that mythos is by deïnition false, but typically if mythos was true, it would be semantics or pragmatics. Mythos is the collection of comfortable half-truths that we programmers tell each other so that we do not have to handle the full truth.
This is from Mill's Theoretical Introduction to Programming. I think it's a good way of explaining why people buy into this "rise of the machines" crap. We use very human terms like "intelligence" and "instruction" to refer to patterns of bit-flipping on an inanimate state machine. These words are shorthand at best, and require a lot of poetic license to resemble what they resemble in language outside of computers. The Programming language, and with it, artificial intelligence, is a useful abstraction. As we strip the layers away we eventually get the essence: a glorified abacus.
Abstractions are made possible by ignoring certain details of reality which are deemed unimportant. In the case of computers, it also involves encapsulating something in a facade that makes it easier to work with without worrying about the strange and arbitrary details that govern it. Even the CPU does this (microcode). But the key thing is that we have to limit ourselves in certain ways to use the abstraction. For instance, there are certain kinds of optimization which a C compiler can't give you. But by giving that up we are given the ability to use something that's much easier to understand.
AI is no different. You make assumptions about what intelligence looks like so that you can come up with a version so basic that a calculator can do it. But is that real intelligence? Hell no.
In short: once you start programming the things you realize how dumb they really are. People who say differently probably believe the abstractions to be real, which causes me to doubt their credentials.
You were actually serious about the WMP thing?
It comes down to a few things:
- those common device drivers can do a hell of a lot these days
- that 4k executable expands to over 300 MB in memory when you run it
- these techniques have been perfected over decades of work
- mountain landscapes are one of a handful of real-world things that can be realistically generated with small equations
- these people are exceptionally talented
You are right to notice the similarity as there is a lot of overlap between music visualization and demoscene work. I would guess that the former arose as a result of work being done in the latter.
It's 4096 bytes, whatever you want to call that. A typical (self-imposed) demo limitation.
These things were being made long before there was a Windows or a WMP. And there are always those ones that make you feel like "this shouldn't be possible," but I suppose that's the point.
In a case where the JS is:
- harder to implement ...yes, in that somewhat contrived scenario, I'd agree that the JS should be left out.
- 100% redundant to what CSS can do
- does not involve getting a framework in place where modifications and additions become easier down the road
- the percentage of users who know what a JS vulnerability is matter
I didn't include accessibility above. Even WebTV supports JS. Its inclusion doesn't commit any sins that images didn't already.
I'm not interested in continually moving the goalposts in order to back up the flawed "JS is automatically bad" meme. JS *can* be bad but I honestly think we're past the point where there is much to gain by taking even the slightest pain in order to use it sparingly.
I didn't misunderstand the GP, but I did miss the part where "JS should only be used where truly needed" follows logically from "JS is an important technology, which 95% of users have support for."
The technology is powerful and pervasive and mollifying your average /.er, myself included, is a very dark path for a web dev to embark on.
In short: it's reached the saturation level where those without it can safely be ignored. An extra 100k of libraries can be ignored too. I think that if it presents even a slight advantage to a designer in terms of development time then they should use it. Their client and the 95% of people viewing the page with JS on will appreciate the quicker turnaround.
When I said "most of those" I meant the tag instance, not the articles. Again, you can't assume the tags were 100% serious.
crap, I meant "its use"
But the 95% percent of people with functioning browsers might appreciate those features, so why do the people stuck in 1996 get to dictate what's useful and what's not?
unless there is a compelling requirement to do so
Everyone has JS. There's no reason to have to justify it's use anymore. It's there, it can be used.
Just doing some chop-busting, should have added the wink.
Wink! ;)
Don't put the word "browser" in the summary of an article that isn't really about them. Knowledge of a web browser represents the bare minimum level of expertise necessary to comment on /. and as such the inclusion of that word in the summary greatly increases the signal-to-noise ratio.
Your pal,
The guy who wanted to read informative comments about VM exploits rather than NoScript
Wait, what are you trying to sell me?
It's such an obvious thing. I'm surprised to hear that they haven't already implemented it in all this time. Not having a 360, I had assumed that XNA was some sort of indie game nirvana. I'm disappointed to hear that the good games get buried but I'm glad to have gotten some straight talk on the subject.
For the record I think Microsoft deciding which indie games to bless with XBLA status also creates a conflict of interest, since a cheaper download-only game could potentially cannibalize sales of a more expensive disc-based game.
But it's a software platform, not a court room, so the conflict of interest isn't necessarily a problem, but it means the users see less value out of their system.
Having the top-rated games more or less automatically make it to XBLA would be amazing. I'd buy a 360 for that (not that I won't ever buy a 360, I'm just typically a little behind on the game hardware and haven't yet).
Sounds like letting the users rate the games would be the answer to that. Microsoft doing it automatically creates a conflict of interest. The indies are paying just like everyone else.
Not at liberty? Isn't Firefox open source?
But I also think it's silly to assume and design for Javascript
According to 95% of users have JS on. There's no reason to essentially design two separate sites to support the other 5%. And it could be argued that that 5% could either easily turn it back on if they choose (in which case, they're the lazy one), or is using something really really old and has no need to, or doesn't want to.
I'm not a web developer, but it seems obvious to me that while it's possible and often sensible to include the other 5% (which may include spiders, which you typically want), ignoring them because you don't have time for two designs is not at all silly. They may not even be the type of people you want on your site anyway.
Most of those could be argued to be hinting at the the Blu-ray-related DRM present in Vista and newer MacBooks. And the iPhone is a closed system. There's an earlier post with some examples completely unrelated to DRM, and I think in those cases it's a case of the person knowingly using it as a joke to say that whichever commercial os is referenced in the headline is never going to be any good.
As that happens more, it could mean the end of DbD as a DRM flag and just people using it because they heard it once and it sounded cool. But hopefully people will continue to parse the actual words in the phrase. I don't think I've seen it yet where I didn't think it was supposed to be applied humorously.
Of course, this being the internet, and Slashdot at that, sarcasm often goes undetected.
Whoops, by "they" I mean the record companies.
That part is standard practice, and I doubt they're worried about the artists finding out since they're the ones who draw up the contracts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
she's entirely vacant
In her defense, she appears that way in her movie and TV work as well.
* if they're not getting some of the door money
oy vey
Sorry, I meant that if a band does their own songs and they're getting some of the door money then they need better songs :)
The ASCAP/BMI system works fine when the performance rights org actually notices that your song was played, takes note of it, and sends you your cut. Unfortunately the artist still has to do their own accounting since everyone else benefits if they fail to notice your song was played. We already have automated systems, for instance, radio stations keep track of what they play. You'd think it'd be a simple matter for, say, BMI to just call up the station and verify if one of their member artists claims that a song they wrote is in rotation. A friend of mine, after years with BMI, is moving to ASCAP and has to decide whether to take BMI to court over all of the money they've shafted him.
Accuracy benefits the artist but not the accountants.
Right, but we're talking about streaming. I'll take lower quality over not having the song stutter.
The trolling is spot on...what worries me are the positive mods.
Any app with GUI has a good reason to be multi-threaded...we don't expect a button to stay down if it triggers, say, network activity, we expect it to come back up immediately regardless of how long the activity takes.
And anyway this isn't about multi-threading at all. So what's with the mods? I think someone smelled some (misguided) cynicism on the post and said, "yeah, now there's a sentiment I can get behind!"
Stop being so damn reasonable. It's Slashdot. Pick a side and childishly refuse to acknowledge the other or GTFO.
Jesus, I don't know what you people are doing that your browser crashes every day. For me it's maybe 3 times a year, if that.
It'd be one thing if FF (or Flash) crashed all the time, and then yes you could paint the FF team as ignoring a fundamental flaw. But that's not the case, and you know it. I'm glad they spend the time on the new location bar and the new bookmark system. I actually use those.
which is bad for music
I'd say it's bad for traditional broadcasting as well as the traditional ASCAP/BMI arrangements. I have high hope for things like Songbird...I bet if you get enough music blogs who primarily feature the music of artists who stream or host it themselves, and some feeds to aggregate those blogs, you could end up with something Pandora-ish that sidesteps all of the old guard licenses and restrictions.
A band could license one or two tracks from an album under something like CC attribution.
It's working to some extent for Revision 3 and internet TV. Of course, it's normal for a TV show to have ads, it's not normal for a song to have ads. And most of the CC licenses rule out being able to track and collect royalties on someone else's performance of your song, which is how a lot of songrwiters and musicians end up supporting themselves.
So who knows. Could just be a pipe dream. But in general what I'm saying is, if we switch from a broadcasting model to one where people discover music through social tools & feeds, and the artist takes care of their own licensing issues...
Or is that Last.FM?