For better or worse, the British welfare state tends to splash the cash about until it can find a reason not to do so.
Logically speaking, homeopathy can't work - I'd agree with that. But then again, logically Plato was right.. the difference is that knowledge (quantum mechanics, general relativity, the standard model) has moved on since Plato's time. The studies into homeopathy have now been done, the results have been analysed and the report presented to parliament following due process (yes, the Brits like their bureaucracy too).
I take two important messages from your statement: 1) the difference in approach - fund first, ask questions later 2) how long has it taken to get through the process? Does anyone know about proper scientific study into homeopathy and when it dates from?
we could create one heard of cows and just chop bits off at intervals.. then just wait for it to regrow! very handy if you get a really tasty piece of beef...
...but, what are the odds of dying in an plane crash? I mean, if you're involved in a crash the odds of dying must be pretty damn high. This talk about the odds of being involved in the crash in the first place, must seriously dilute the useful stats that tell us the best place to sit.
Having said this, I think that if you're in a crash, you must be a very lucky individual to survive it - I'm still not convinced the seat is going to make a big difference.
Many mathematicians I have encountered argue that maths is the only real science and that all other subjects are either off-shoots or applications of maths. An interesting, if somewhat egotistical viewpoint.
Certainly, computing owes a lot to maths, both from the hardware and software angles. That does not, however, make any of the forms of computing a sub-section of maths (or even 'just an application of maths'). That relationship cannot be easily inferred beyond saying that there is a link there.
Maths is an offshoot of the historically all-encompassing subject of philosophy. Philosophy includes the study of art, theology, logic and psychology (and many others, sorry if I missed out your major). Maths appears to dangle somewhere down the logic shoot, but of course the best arrangement of the branches of human thought is not well defined. For example, maths doesn't really draw on psychology (although without human thinking, the subject of maths wouldn't exist - but that's a whole 'nother can of worms). Software engineering, my favourite bit of computing, certainly does. Software is created by people, used by people and maintained by people. Ignore psychology at your peril! All this is just one example where the subject has become more than just maths.
Yeah, if you're going to do hard computer things, you almost certainly need a strong understanding of maths (naturally or taught). I know many people who code well because they have the arty or people focus and no heavy maths background. Obviously I wouldn't ask them to do a simulation of a solution to the n-body problem, but for 80% of software engineering they're probably stronger than most of the mathsy people I know.
In answer then: don't forget maths, but it's not always a mandatory requirement.
I don't really understand the stats at all. Leaving aside the small sample group, I wonder what question was asked. For example, do I target a windows platform? Well, generally, no! I almost always use Java or some other cross platform toolkit. However, when my current project goes live, what will it be hosted on? Is this the platform I am deemed to be targeting? (As it happens, it's still not windows;-)).
I wonder that Java was not in the results. Certainly in the UK, there's a *lot* of development that it targeting the Java platform (if my experience and the current job market is to be believed).
I really think this article and associated survey don't actually say anything of merit..
Perhaps a couple of/. surveys might me more representative?:)
I'm not defending the virus writer here, but doesn't it take at least two to cause problems on the scale Blaster and others have? There's the buggy OS or some rubbishy server software or bad IT mgt to blame too. Can anyone say 'scapegoat'? I personally don't think locking up (or whatever) some 18yr old kid will make the net a safer place to be, that comes with good software and mgt.
If I were to defend the virus writer: virii are often very clever and neat pieces of code. They usually show that someone has been wise enough to spot an exploit and demonstrate it. In some cases they only get out by mistake. Surely it's better to know about holes in software than hide from them? Virii practically do software vendors the service of testing their code - perhaps they should even be paid for it?!?!
I like that idea: virii could be seen as an overt way to force closed source software into improving? A kinda predatory unit test:)
Should it be a linear best-fit? I'd be guessing that the number of errors/warnings will only approach zero? Much like tracking bugs.. On second thoughts, errors will more than likely hit zero but warnings we can live with.. Anyway, interesting stuff:)
The museum is very interesting, but very america-focused. I understand there has to be a boundary else the museum would run outa space very quickly. However, there were many interesting computer-based innovations and landmarks in the rest of the world. Codebreakers in the war in the UK had interesting computers. Sir Sinclair pushed some interesting boundaries. I'd like to see some other stuff too, for example Russia must have created some interesting things during the cold war. Germany now houses some interesting computing establishments - what's the history there?
Well, yeah this fella's a bit offtopic unless you squint a bit. Most programmers I know are heavy coffee drinkers and I understand coffee is a "tooth-stainer".
My opinion is 'live with it'. I can't imagine any method of whitening teeth that won't damage them.
perhaps it's an english thing, but a healthy dose of cynicism can fuel you a long way towards disproving someone else's research.
I'm vaguely interested on how you can prove there is no life on mars. Proving a negative is hard. Proving a positive is much easier and this mission is trying to prove there *is* life on mars.
Actually this story is on the front page, so flame on!:)
A very interesting development indeed, and I think that if anyone were to do work on a Perl/Ruby/Python kernel-plugin I think they'd probably start with a scheme interpreter. These interpreters tend to be good starting points for more complex languages.
GZIP compression by hardware A Joint venture of the University of Wuppertal with the Hagener Vigos AG points to the CeBIT (, D26 resounds to 11) the prototype of a "GZIP accelerator board". The PCI plug-in card removes the time-consuming compression from the processor and is in the current version already 32 MByte per second to compress together to be able. Thus the Netzwerktraffic of a 100-MBit-Leitung can be already compressed in real time; by a modular structure are to be achieved later up to 64 MByte per second. Particularly in Web servers so the outgoing volume of data is to be compressed on-the-fly and be relieved thus both the CCU and the network binding -- a welcome assistance for InterNet Provider, which must act resources-carefully. These are also the primary target group for the procedure patented meanwhile, which is to be used in first standard sets at the end of of 2003. Up to then the manufacturer wants to have adapted also the still very klobige layout of the map on the conditions in server housings. (Christopher Kunz)/(sun/iX)
I like to think that the software I just bought comes with at least a little bit of explaination.. I fondly remember the days when you bought a book on linux and you got slackware free on a CD.. (I still have the CDs and books)
In your next meeting distribute bingo cards with buzzwords instead of numbers. Extra points if someone actually shouts "BINGO" when they've ticked off all the buzzwords!
Ant (apparently) was always a top-level project, it just kinda got a little userped by jakarta. Actually the whole jakarta/apache comunity has had quite a change recently.. Many projects have been promoted to top-level, there's new "management" and things appear a lot more organised.
Imho, I think this was over-due as it was getting a little confusing. I hear talk at one point that apache would become another source-forge, but I'm glad to see the (oldest, most well-known, most respected?) OSS project has maintained focus.
I've some experience of betting (I am currently working in the industry). The first thing I was told when I started here was "What constitutes a bet". Among other things a bet must be time-bounded. This means there must be an end-date at which point the bet dissappears. Mr Lessing probably doesn't mean that he will resign (whatever job he's doing at the time) if the law is passed EVER as part (a) suggests. Presumably there should also be a time-bound on part (b) too..?
Open standards are normally cited as the basis of OSS. Closed standards are the problem (see Word format), where there is no way to be sure you are actually going to be compatible. Open standards allow freedom of choice for the app-user, encourage competition on the basis of functionality and are generally a good thing(tm).
Anyway, the link on the page can be followed to the spec, free registration required.
If I'm understanding you, the P4 architecture allows signals to take extra cycles to arrive at their destination. Hence the real performance is bounded by the same rules as an athlon. I'm aware that the GHz is largely an irrelevance, but I didn't know that a P4 would be operating only once every 2 or 3 clock cycles (half or third the GHz rated)..
I'm guess that the higher GHz allows smaller ops and signal-distances to go through quicker than they otherwise would.. hence any performance increase.. I wonder what operations are used most in a PC and whether these are the ones with shortest paths..
if you have a lot of questions, start a FAQ and refer folks to it.. it's been suggested b4 and it's a good suggestion.
my subject line asks a decent question tho'.. and I'm guessing that's what most of your questions get back to.
From a customer's point of view, open source means several things: It is a quality assurance. You're obviously confident enough to show the world how good your code is:) also you will expect comment from your particular community on howto improve your code. It is additional coding resource to get jobs done quicker. It is control for your customer in that they can use your code as a toolkit to build features that they would otherwise not be available. It doesn't remove you as the project controller and you still maintain the same control over the released code as before.
Note that I am assuming that although the qboard project is winding down, you or your team will still be 'controlling' qboard's path?
Hmm, doesn't this involve an eternal soul, or such?.. All very religion based and no proof either way.
I read a trilogy (turned into 4 books half way thorough) by Tad Williams called Otherland, where the bad-guys invented such a machine and their argument is that obviously you (other bad guy) don't believe in a soul else you wouldn't be here now. Surely all that there is is a complicated neural net making decisions based on previous experiences?
Re:How fast compared to ATA-100?
on
Firewire and Linux?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I know everyone knows this (just thought I'd mention for the newbie)
SCSI (and I think IEEE 1394) can interleave their request/responses. Hence if you're getting a wodge from an IDE/ATA100 drive, you effectively jam it up (and this is also the only way to achieve the burst transfer). I am guessing that most OS's and drivers chunk up requests so that IDE appears to interleave things. Because of this, SCSI is faster on day-to-day useage even ignoring it's faster transfer rate. The same qualification goes for IEEE 1394 if I'm right.
Also, you should be aware that there isn't an ATA100 drive around that can actually put through 100MB/s, that's just the bus-speed, the 7200 drives get closest. However, you normally get 2HD's on one channel, i.e. sharing the 100MB/s bandwidth.. it all gets complex + messy.. similar problems to good old-fashioned networking.
That was all off topic, but my 2d is that IEEE 1394 is great.. watching my Sony camera stream video to an iMac in realtime was quite funky when you realise the implications:) (I don't think there are scsi ports on many cameras;)
Has/will the US actually start regulating against polluants? I believe (may be wrong) that the US regulations are the most lax in the developed world (particularly wrt cars). Do the american ppls actually care about this issue? Will this news create more apathy? Will America continue to be the dirty old man of the developed world?
Slashdot Mirror
For better or worse, the British welfare state tends to splash the cash about until it can find a reason not to do so.
Logically speaking, homeopathy can't work - I'd agree with that. But then again, logically Plato was right.. the difference is that knowledge (quantum mechanics, general relativity, the standard model) has moved on since Plato's time. The studies into homeopathy have now been done, the results have been analysed and the report presented to parliament following due process (yes, the Brits like their bureaucracy too).
I take two important messages from your statement:
1) the difference in approach - fund first, ask questions later
2) how long has it taken to get through the process? Does anyone know about proper scientific study into homeopathy and when it dates from?
we could create one heard of cows and just chop bits off at intervals.. then just wait for it to regrow! very handy if you get a really tasty piece of beef...
...but, what are the odds of dying in an plane crash? I mean, if you're involved in a crash the odds of dying must be pretty damn high. This talk about the odds of being involved in the crash in the first place, must seriously dilute the useful stats that tell us the best place to sit.
Having said this, I think that if you're in a crash, you must be a very lucky individual to survive it - I'm still not convinced the seat is going to make a big difference.
Many mathematicians I have encountered argue that maths is the only real science and that all other subjects are either off-shoots or applications of maths. An interesting, if somewhat egotistical viewpoint.
Certainly, computing owes a lot to maths, both from the hardware and software angles. That does not, however, make any of the forms of computing a sub-section of maths (or even 'just an application of maths'). That relationship cannot be easily inferred beyond saying that there is a link there.
Maths is an offshoot of the historically all-encompassing subject of philosophy. Philosophy includes the study of art, theology, logic and psychology (and many others, sorry if I missed out your major). Maths appears to dangle somewhere down the logic shoot, but of course the best arrangement of the branches of human thought is not well defined. For example, maths doesn't really draw on psychology (although without human thinking, the subject of maths wouldn't exist - but that's a whole 'nother can of worms). Software engineering, my favourite bit of computing, certainly does. Software is created by people, used by people and maintained by people. Ignore psychology at your peril! All this is just one example where the subject has become more than just maths.
Yeah, if you're going to do hard computer things, you almost certainly need a strong understanding of maths (naturally or taught). I know many people who code well because they have the arty or people focus and no heavy maths background. Obviously I wouldn't ask them to do a simulation of a solution to the n-body problem, but for 80% of software engineering they're probably stronger than most of the mathsy people I know.
In answer then: don't forget maths, but it's not always a mandatory requirement.
I don't really understand the stats at all. Leaving aside the small sample group, I wonder what question was asked. For example, do I target a windows platform? Well, generally, no! I almost always use Java or some other cross platform toolkit. However, when my current project goes live, what will it be hosted on? Is this the platform I am deemed to be targeting? (As it happens, it's still not windows ;-)).
/. surveys might me more representative? :)
I wonder that Java was not in the results. Certainly in the UK, there's a *lot* of development that it targeting the Java platform (if my experience and the current job market is to be believed).
I really think this article and associated survey don't actually say anything of merit..
Perhaps a couple of
Go pick on someone your own size!
No seriously, is the RIAA aiming to teach kids that big bullies win? I thought that was supposed to be a 'Bad Thing'(tm)..
I'm not defending the virus writer here, but doesn't it take at least two to cause problems on the scale Blaster and others have? There's the buggy OS or some rubbishy server software or bad IT mgt to blame too. Can anyone say 'scapegoat'? I personally don't think locking up (or whatever) some 18yr old kid will make the net a safer place to be, that comes with good software and mgt.
:)
If I were to defend the virus writer: virii are often very clever and neat pieces of code. They usually show that someone has been wise enough to spot an exploit and demonstrate it. In some cases they only get out by mistake. Surely it's better to know about holes in software than hide from them? Virii practically do software vendors the service of testing their code - perhaps they should even be paid for it?!?!
I like that idea: virii could be seen as an overt way to force closed source software into improving? A kinda predatory unit test
Should it be a linear best-fit? I'd be guessing that the number of errors/warnings will only approach zero? Much like tracking bugs.. On second thoughts, errors will more than likely hit zero but warnings we can live with.. :)
Anyway, interesting stuff
The museum is very interesting, but very america-focused. I understand there has to be a boundary else the museum would run outa space very quickly. However, there were many interesting computer-based innovations and landmarks in the rest of the world. Codebreakers in the war in the UK had interesting computers. Sir Sinclair pushed some interesting boundaries. I'd like to see some other stuff too, for example Russia must have created some interesting things during the cold war. Germany now houses some interesting computing establishments - what's the history there?
Well, yeah this fella's a bit offtopic unless you squint a bit. Most programmers I know are heavy coffee drinkers and I understand coffee is a "tooth-stainer".
My opinion is 'live with it'. I can't imagine any method of whitening teeth that won't damage them.
perhaps it's an english thing, but a healthy dose of cynicism can fuel you a long way towards disproving someone else's research.
I'm vaguely interested on how you can prove there is no life on mars. Proving a negative is hard. Proving a positive is much easier and this mission is trying to prove there *is* life on mars.
Actually this story is on the front page, so flame on! :)
A very interesting development indeed, and I think that if anyone were to do work on a Perl/Ruby/Python kernel-plugin I think they'd probably start with a scheme interpreter. These interpreters tend to be good starting points for more complex languages.
Isn't the new PPC chip (970) made by Intel?
Not a professional job, just bablefished..
GZIP compression by hardware A Joint venture of the University of Wuppertal with the Hagener Vigos AG points to the CeBIT (, D26 resounds to 11) the prototype of a "GZIP accelerator board". The PCI plug-in card removes the time-consuming compression from the processor and is in the current version already 32 MByte per second to compress together to be able. Thus the Netzwerktraffic of a 100-MBit-Leitung can be already compressed in real time; by a modular structure are to be achieved later up to 64 MByte per second. Particularly in Web servers so the outgoing volume of data is to be compressed on-the-fly and be relieved thus both the CCU and the network binding -- a welcome assistance for InterNet Provider, which must act resources-carefully. These are also the primary target group for the procedure patented meanwhile, which is to be used in first standard sets at the end of of 2003. Up to then the manufacturer wants to have adapted also the still very klobige layout of the map on the conditions in server housings. (Christopher Kunz)/(sun/iX)
I like to think that the software I just bought comes with at least a little bit of explaination.. I fondly remember the days when you bought a book on linux and you got slackware free on a CD.. (I still have the CDs and books)
perhaps 'to slashdot' should be a verb to? meaning to subsume with excessive quantities of requests for information.
In your next meeting distribute bingo cards with buzzwords instead of numbers. Extra points if someone actually shouts "BINGO" when they've ticked off all the buzzwords!
Ant (apparently) was always a top-level project, it just kinda got a little userped by jakarta. Actually the whole jakarta/apache comunity has had quite a change recently.. Many projects have been promoted to top-level, there's new "management" and things appear a lot more organised.
Imho, I think this was over-due as it was getting a little confusing. I hear talk at one point that apache would become another source-forge, but I'm glad to see the (oldest, most well-known, most respected?) OSS project has maintained focus.
I've some experience of betting (I am currently working in the industry). The first thing I was told when I started here was "What constitutes a bet". Among other things a bet must be time-bounded. This means there must be an end-date at which point the bet dissappears. Mr Lessing probably doesn't mean that he will resign (whatever job he's doing at the time) if the law is passed EVER as part (a) suggests. Presumably there should also be a time-bound on part (b) too..?
Open standards are normally cited as the basis of OSS. Closed standards are the problem (see Word format), where there is no way to be sure you are actually going to be compatible. Open standards allow freedom of choice for the app-user, encourage competition on the basis of functionality and are generally a good thing(tm).
Anyway, the link on the page can be followed to the spec, free registration required.
If I'm understanding you, the P4 architecture allows signals to take extra cycles to arrive at their destination. Hence the real performance is bounded by the same rules as an athlon. I'm aware that the GHz is largely an irrelevance, but I didn't know that a P4 would be operating only once every 2 or 3 clock cycles (half or third the GHz rated)..
I'm guess that the higher GHz allows smaller ops and signal-distances to go through quicker than they otherwise would.. hence any performance increase.. I wonder what operations are used most in a PC and whether these are the ones with shortest paths..
if you have a lot of questions, start a FAQ and refer folks to it.. it's been suggested b4 and it's a good suggestion.
:) also you will expect comment from your particular community on howto improve your code.
my subject line asks a decent question tho'.. and I'm guessing that's what most of your questions get back to.
From a customer's point of view, open source means several things:
It is a quality assurance. You're obviously confident enough to show the world how good your code is
It is additional coding resource to get jobs done quicker.
It is control for your customer in that they can use your code as a toolkit to build features that they would otherwise not be available.
It doesn't remove you as the project controller and you still maintain the same control over the released code as before.
Note that I am assuming that although the qboard project is winding down, you or your team will still be 'controlling' qboard's path?
Hmm, doesn't this involve an eternal soul, or such?.. All very religion based and no proof either way.
I read a trilogy (turned into 4 books half way thorough) by Tad Williams called Otherland, where the bad-guys invented such a machine and their argument is that obviously you (other bad guy) don't believe in a soul else you wouldn't be here now. Surely all that there is is a complicated neural net making decisions based on previous experiences?
I know everyone knows this (just thought I'd mention for the newbie)
:) (I don't think there are scsi ports on many cameras ;)
l
:)
SCSI (and I think IEEE 1394) can interleave their request/responses. Hence if you're getting a wodge from an IDE/ATA100 drive, you effectively jam it up (and this is also the only way to achieve the burst transfer). I am guessing that most OS's and drivers chunk up requests so that IDE appears to interleave things. Because of this, SCSI is faster on day-to-day useage even ignoring it's faster transfer rate. The same qualification goes for IEEE 1394 if I'm right.
Also, you should be aware that there isn't an ATA100 drive around that can actually put through 100MB/s, that's just the bus-speed, the 7200 drives get closest. However, you normally get 2HD's on one channel, i.e. sharing the 100MB/s bandwidth.. it all gets complex + messy.. similar problems to good old-fashioned networking.
That was all off topic, but my 2d is that IEEE 1394 is great.. watching my Sony camera stream video to an iMac in realtime was quite funky when you realise the implications
Some links:
As someone mentioned earlier, all important drivers: http://linux1394.sourceforge.net/
Grab your vids: http://www.schirmacher.de/arne/dvgrab/index_e.htm
more stuff, lots of links: http://www.coastweb.de/dv/
Also, DVD-RW isn't the only option, many DVDplayers will play VCDs too (use only a CD-RW)
http://www.vcdhelp.com/
hey ho.. moderate me for off topic
Has/will the US actually start regulating against polluants? I believe (may be wrong) that the US regulations are the most lax in the developed world (particularly wrt cars). Do the american ppls actually care about this issue? Will this news create more apathy? Will America continue to be the dirty old man of the developed world?