Well, I'm just a user/programmer/hobbyist and not a
network expert, but I have to say I find FTP a
more elegant choice. It is a little faster,
it is quite reliable, it is the tool for the
job (that's why they call it File Transmission
Protocol). It's also supported by EVERYTHING,
including all major browsers, classical ftp client,
"fancy" ftp clients, wget etc. And, last
but not least, you can use wildcards over
FTP because it is supposed to "mimic" a
real filesystem.
I usually prefer (as a user, always) to do my
transfers via FTP. Hell, I'd use ZModem if
it was available! (quite faster, and extra
speed is always nice if you have a 33.6K
modem, anyway it is not relevant but it made
me remember the good old days when men where
real men and modems where painfully slow).
Well it is quite clear that the Athlon architecture is at the end of its useful life. However,the performance difference is somewhat "exaggerated" in favour of the P4. Most of the "content creation" applications and games are SSE2 enhanced while, on the other hand 3dnow is propably less popular. The hard fact, of course, is that P4 needs less time in these applications so it is faster (whatever the reason).
However, for general purpose usage, I firmly believe that the Athlon is faster, mostly because everyday applications do not need huge memory bandwidth and cannot be made to run with SSE.
I'm thinking that someone should start doing some "Open Source" benchmarks where the source is available. A good idea would be to run a set of: a) Kernel compile (or gcc compile or something
like that) and perhaps even "make check"
gdb or gcc or some other application (libc!). b) MP3 compression with lame c) Video compression with xvid or ffmpeg d) Linpack/POVray for fpu e) Ecasound/LADSPA for sound processing f) Maybe a perl/high-level bechmark for some
standard system tasks. g) Cachegrind some of the above (have a look
at valgrind/cachegrind!!)
Anyway, if someone has anything above XP 2600+ let's gather some results.
---
There needs to be a true revamping of CPU architecture, not simple adding of bits. 64 bits is fine and dandy, but the convoluted instruction set, seemingly random usage of registers, and an inability to do fast floating point operations really hampers the x86 system. Seeing as how IA64 is based on x86, this will be a problem into the future. ---
OK, this has been told far too many times and
it simply is not true.
a) Instruction set: most of the silly opcodes
of the XT era (aaa, xlat etc) are now supported
via microcode and are >emulated painfully
slow by the risc core. They do NOT affect
performance of critical instructions like
mov/add/lea/cmp/or/jmp. New instructions
like the cmpxchg8b8, cmov, syscall/sysret
are actually useful.
b) Random usage of registers: Well, after
the 386 the register set is almost orthogonal
excluding div/mul, scas/movs, push/pop and
a few others.
The x86-64 DOUBLES the number of available
registers. This is great progress. What did
you expect?
c) Slow floating point: The athlon is very
fast at floating point operations (REAL
IEEE floating point, not 3dnow/sse). Also
note that since the Pentium the x86 has
been constantly improving FPU performance.
At that time it became possible to program
the FPU either as a stack or as an array
of registers (many people find the stack
model cumbersome-I do not agree) thanks to
the fxch instruction at 0 cycles (exchange
stack registers at no cost). Also, note
that the precision of x86 processors
is industry standard IEEE precision at
32 (single), 64 (double) and 80 (extended) bits,
not worse than any other processor.
I used to support the idea of throwing away
the x86 model to make something new, but
x86 performance has been increasing at
an accelerating pace. My opinion is that
the x86-64 is a great idea, like the 386
was a true revolution compared to the 286
(please compare the instructions sets and
see for yourself).
Anyway, it's hard to hypothesize ("what if
the alpha had reached 4 GHz") but the truth
is that it is difficult to make something
from scratch that is faster than current x86.
Intel tried to make the Itanium and it was
NOT faster than current x86. Are you willing
to pay more for something that is slower
just because it is "revolutionary"?
Genbank primates (i.e. monkeys-humans) fits on two CDs compressed. Of course, if you want EVERYTHING and uncompressed you can get a few GBs (including fragments, flies, bacteria etc etc).
I'm not quite sure about the total amount of information available right now, but the interesting stuff should be much less than a 2-hour raw video;-)
I am NOT a sound engineer and I greatly appreciate the necessity of a good studio and experienced professionals.
HOWEVER, why do most albums sound like crap? (i'm not talking about the music) Why are they compressed and normalized to sound so very loud (always at 0 db)?
I do not doubt the abilities of the people who mix/master etc, but it seems to me that studios deliberately process music in a manner that always favors radio broadcast/MTV and lame computer speakers.
There is a contradiction here: companies use the best equipment possible (=best audio quality) but generally they assume that the average listener/consumer is completely incapable to tell the difference (which may be true, to some extent).
Anyway, I assume that production costs are quite low compared to marketing costs.
In Europe P4 3.0 with HT costs ~745 euro (+tax) An Asus A7M for dual Athlon costs ~260 euro (+tax) Two Athlon XP 2200+ cost ~340 euro (+tax). Alternatively you can get two Athlon MP 2000+ for roughly the same money (if you don't trust the XPs).
Now, please explain to me why would someone with real SMP needs in mind (and NOT games) consider the P4 with HT.
P.
P.S. I understand that the prices in the US are different, but still, it is VERY expensive.
Why do people assume that coding needs a lot of food? I mean mental labor definitely requires a normal diet, but it is not mountain climbing or pentathlon... Even the hardest mental activity cannot compare to moderate physical activity in terms of calorie consumption.
Even for the longest coding session a 10 minute break to eat something healthier is OK, I suppose.
For those who worry about micronutrients, a nice fresh fruit (orange/apple) is a good idea and you can eat it while coding.
Hydration and electrolyte balance is propably more important, especially in conjuction with fluid loss from caffeine consumption (diuretic).
Even though the plot/monsters etc become a bit boring the games is HUGE. And it has really nice landscapes with different "themes" for different areas.
It is a single player games, but you will definitely feel an explorer. Especially if you try the "levitate" (fly) spell and see cities/mountains from above.You can also swim, enter caves, dungeons, temples etc.
AND, it also gets moded by players (the editor is extremely tough, though) so you may be able to find extra areas on the internet.
VCDs and SVCDs are a tightly made standard with specific multiplexing, bitrate, resolution, framerate etc.
What is "divx" compatibility? Are we talking about.AVI files and if so, what resolution, bitrate, codec (audio/video), VBR/CBR etc?
A computer is flexible enough to handle any weird format you try, but a set-top device needs standards. I would really prefer an "MPEG-4" standard that would specify (similarly to VCDs) a file format, an audio encoding algorithm (I believe AAC was formally proposed...) a resolution etc. That way you know what you are getting and you know that it WILL work on another player and give the same results.
As a matter of fact. An MPEG-4 standard wouldn't even have to be tied to DIVX and should be able to reproduce all MPEG-4 video streams (XVID etc) from compatible encoders.
That is the way to go. Using ad-hoc standards will not help adoption and will certainly not ensure future compatibility.
A lot of people are discussing the file format and the practical problems (would it fit on a CD etc).
I actually have a copy of all GenBank primates in gzipped form and it takes roughly 1.0 GB. That's primates and not just homo sapiens (it is mostly homo sapiens, though).
There is a plain text format used (flat) and it is pretty well documented. Look for GenBank flat file in ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. I think that they have migrated to a "linked" format similar to html to allow better indentation. The flat format is great for Perl:-)
A sample of the actual source is:
LOCUS AAURRA 118 bp ss-rRNA RNA 16-JUN-1986 DEFINITION A.auricula-judae (mushroom) 5S ribosomal RNA. ACCESSION K03160 VERSION K03160.1 GI:173593 KEYWORDS 5S ribosomal RNA; ribosomal RNA. SOURCE A.auricula-judae (mushroom) ribosomal RNA.
ORGANISM Auricularia auricula-judae
Eukaryota; Fungi; Eumycota; Basidiomycotina; Phragmobasidiomycetes;
Heterobasidiomycetidae; Auriculariales; Auriculariaceae. REFERENCE 1 (bases 1 to 118)
AUTHORS Huysmans,E., Dams,E., Vandenberghe,A. and De Wachter,R.
TITLE The nucleotide sequences of the 5S rRNAs of four mushrooms and
their use in studying the phylogenetic position of basidiomycetes
among the eukaryotes
JOURNAL Nucleic Acids Res. 11, 2871-2880 (1983) FEATURES Location/Qualifiers
rRNA 1..118/note="5S ribosomal RNA" BASE COUNT 27 a 34 c 34 g 23 t ORIGIN 5' end of mature rRNA.
1 atccacggcc ataggactct gaaagcactg catcccgtcc gatctgcaaa gttaaccaga
61 gtaccgccca gttagtacca cggtggggga ccacgcggga atcctgggtg ctgtggtt//
The developement of a reliable medical expert
system would be a royal pain in the ass and
totally not worth it.
Doctors ALREADY use systematic procedures for
complex conditions, e.g. the revised Jones
criteria for the diagnosis of rheumatic fever, or
the Ranson scale for the prognosis of
pancreatitis or the Glascow coma scale,
or the PORT system for evaluation of pneumonia
or the TNM system for tumour staging or the ICD
classification for psychic ilnesses or the
DSM classification etc etc (you get the
idea)
Most of these are created and revised constantly
by the experts in the field and doctors can
and do use them. However, not everything can
be put down on algorithms because it would
take a huge amount of time to do work (the
algorithms would have to be extremely thorough
and each step requires the doctor to do some
work).
In my medical school they sometimes give us
a short algorithm for the proper physical
examination. We never follow it. I did it
once and it took me 1h and 20 minutes to
examine a single patient[1]. Typical load
may exceed ~30 patients/day/doctor in some
hospitals. You do the math.
Medicine
is like computers (in a way). You have to chose
two : (a) cheap (b) fast (c) reliable
[1] Also note patient discomfort! Not everyone
likes to be poked for over 1h in order to
diagnose common cold. Imagine e.g. having
to subject every patient to a digital
rectal exam (digital as in finger) as we
are typically required to.
[2] Also note that any classification is BASED
on human experts and NOT on e.g. satellite
data or measurements. As such many human
experts are (by definition) the source
of the data for the system and therefore
superior. Would you trust some software
based on the opinions of Professor Foo
more than Professor Foo himself?
Regarding the IDE-SCSI necessity for CD writers it should be noted that CD writers are NOT plain IDE. This is why on windows you need ASPI from adaptec (now standard).
There should be some easier solution, but IDE-SCSI is necessary.
The CD low pass filter is usually NOT at 20000 Hz because it would have to be extremely steep (very expensive to make). What they do, instead is oversample (eg 8x) and filter with an el-cheapo filter. Oversampling moves aliasing artifacts into very high frequencies where the quality of the filter won't matter much.
Some recent cd players can also UPsample to 24-bit and they seem to do a good job, too.
You should note that the SACDs that are now in the market are a mere 200-300 titles that have been specially selected and "polished" to reveal the abilities of the SACD format.
Do not assume that the average SACD, 5 years from now will be made with equal care in production.
A move to SACD may create greater potential, but if the recording/mastering etc suck on CD they will still suck on SACD.
Actually, recent reports from special magazines seem to indicate that the CD layer of the SACD discs is usually badly mastered. Some people think that the companies do that in purpose so that when you listen to the CD layer you will "obviously" hear how bad it is compared to the SACD. SACD is quite expensive, by the way (the discs, not the hardware!) First class CD recordings are quite satisfactory but they are very hard to find and are usually produced by special companies.
I play Quake 3 regularly on a Geforce2 Pro that
is nicely supported under linux (Thanks NVIDIA!).
Here are some differences to make you think
a little bit (these apply on my system):
- Linux runs 15-20 % faster. I don't know why.
It does. As a matter of fact, I am only
able to use FSAA under linux (due to speed
difference).
- Windows XP insists on using 60 Hz refresh rate
in games (why?). This bothers me most.
- Linux caches the files MUCH better and the
loading time is considerably less. The
difference is astonishing if you are loading
off a CD.
- Linux does not crash. You can play Quake
while doing heavy stuff (e.g. compiling
the kernel or compressing to mp3, simply
renice the process)
- I feel much more comfortable with multiplayer
gaming when I have a proper firewall setup. Windows 98 (popular gaming platform) will not
protect you adequately.
- You don't have to reboot when you take a
break from work.(imagine having to reboot
for every short Quake 3 15' break you take)
Petros
Re:StarOffice 6 XML. *waves goodbye to Tex forever
on
Writing Documentation
·
· Score: 1
Regarding the TeX fonts:
The fonts ARE scalable simply by
using the option "magstep" that
magnifies them to an arbitrary size (the fonts are vector designs and
can be smoothly scaled).
HOWEVER, TeX is a system for very
high quality documents and therefore
every font SHOULD BE DESIGNED AT
ITS INTENDED SIZE!
Using a scalable font for 6 point
text, 12 point text and 24 point
text will not provide optimum
results for all these sizes.
If you need the best possible
appearance you don't scale your
fonts. (even though, as I said,
TeX can scale the fonts)
Protein folding is studied using various
models that try to mimic the actual
molecular interactions.
At least one of these models (a very simple
one!) has been proven to be NP-complete by
Christos Papadimitriou and others (check it
out at xxx.lanl.gov (?)).
Possibly some other model could accurately
solve the problem without requiring O(a^N)
time but no one has yet found it.
Petros
Evolution in software is not clearly defined.
on
The Evolution of Linux
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"Survival" is a very clear term in biology, it means
being able to keep yourself alive.
What does survival mean in software terms? Does
it mean that you make the most money (Microsoft?),
that you get to have the most users?, that you
endure in time and get written in textbooks?,
that you show clear technical superiority?
I think that any of these can be taken as
proof of "survival" of a software project, yet
the fact that MS-DOS lasted extremely long and
became extremely popular cannot possibly
mean that it is something we want to copy or
admire.
An argument that I would happily accept is that
evolution exists in linux-world as the result
of survival of different linux
ideas/implementations (e.g. new VM, new
low-latency etc) in the linux user subspace.
Now, the linux users space is a group of
technically aware people (?!) and evolution
of different linux variants in that space
can be said to be constructive in a technical
sense, thus producing real progress.
This process cannot universally guarantee
software quality (from a purely technical
standpoint)
P.
Ternary has been known to be efficient...
on
Ternary Computing
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Try reading Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 2, Section 4.1, Positional
Number Systems.
There is an extended discussion on the balanced
ternary system and some other exotic number
systems (base 2i etc). There are some merits
to the ternary system but it would be
harder to implement with transistors.
I have done a >REAL3000$ stereo equipment (Van den Hul
cables, atacama stands, gold plated connectors
etc) to play 2 tracks in :
a) vorbis, 192
b) mp3, notlame, high quality VBR, stereo, 128-320, 195 kbps average
c) original wav file
The tracks were ripped from a superb quality
classical recording (I play the piano), from
DECCA.
I then had 3 of my friends compare the track
quality "blindly".
The difference between vorbis and mp3 is
immediately noticeable. Vorbis was found superior
by all the listeners. Some people had difficulty
telling vorbis from wav but they generally
tended to prefer the wav. (each one was
questioned individually)
Personally I find the difference quite striking
and was truly amazed!
This was an important finding for me, because
I make amateur recordings at home and I need
an easy means of archival (we are talking many
GB here, and I don't intend to fill my HD).
I decided to use vorbis at 350 for all my
archived recordings. (I also keep.wav on
cds).
I cannot say whether vorbis is also superior
in lower bit rates such as 128kbps.
You are correct in saying that such a gene will
have adverse side-affects.
I have read reports from people that actually
try caloric restriction diets claiming that they
have reduced their pulse rate below 60 and blood
pressure below 90/60 (or less!).
Such adaptation (that obviously serves the maximum
possible economy in use of calories) propably
reflects a general change of pace for what is
happening in the body. (all cellular mechanisms)
I would really like to see these people, that
are under caloric restriction diets, try
to run (compared to an average weight person),
or perform an average task (mental or manual).
All these processes need energy and an organism
in a dire condition will allow them to fail in
order to support its existence.
Living 120 years partially incapacitated by the
lack of calories is not an option for me. I
seriously doubt (and I do have adequate knowledge
of Molecular Biology) that great lengthening
of the average life expectancy will occur from
such modifications without unbalancing the
rate of cellular (and bodily) processes.
OTOH, the greatest change in average life
expectancy would come by totally eliminating
death by accident and drugs. (this is a known
fact of epidimiology)
I sincerely hope that I am wrong and that
a magicall pill will allow us to live much longer.
Petros
It seems that too many of you consider music in the same terms as computer files.
I prefer to consider audio equipment (decent audio
equipment) as a part of the chain from the
composer to your ears.
You do not criticize a piano for not generating
a perfect 440 Hz sine tone. You do not speak
about Steinway and Bosendorfer pianos in terms of
"S/N ratios" and "frequency response".
I believe that if a new product indeed brings
a better overall musical EXPERIENCE, which is of
course totally subjective in nature, it is a
good product.
That being said, I don't see why vinyl shouldn't
sound better than CD or even DVD-audio and why
tube amplifiers with 0.5 % THD cannot give more
musical satisfaction than 0.001 % THD solid state
equipment.
Technical analysis is indeed useful in comparing
products of a similar "breed" and technology.
Saying that 50 db dynamic range (vinyl) or
20 KHz upper frequency (CD) is not enough is
in itself absurd and can only obtain relative
value in comparing similar technical solutions.
(turntable A vs turntable B)
Human auditory perception is extremely complex
and aesthetic appreciation is even more so. Do
not treat music (which is about pleasure) the
same way you treat a document (which is about
precision and information).
That having been said, I have to add that I
am aware of both the Nyquist theorem and
FFT and I do not choose to see music that way
out of (technical) ignorance. I just prefer
to see a high quality piece of audio equipment as
an instrument and not as a tech-gadget.
Petros
P.S. It is sad, however, that we are sometimes
forced to support and buy inferior products as
a result of marketing strategies.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I'm just a user/programmer/hobbyist and not a network expert, but I have to say I find FTP a more elegant choice. It is a little faster, it is quite reliable, it is the tool for the job (that's why they call it File Transmission Protocol). It's also supported by EVERYTHING, including all major browsers, classical ftp client, "fancy" ftp clients, wget etc. And, last but not least, you can use wildcards over FTP because it is supposed to "mimic" a real filesystem.
I usually prefer (as a user, always) to do my transfers via FTP. Hell, I'd use ZModem if it was available! (quite faster, and extra speed is always nice if you have a 33.6K modem, anyway it is not relevant but it made me remember the good old days when men where real men and modems where painfully slow).
P.
Well it is quite clear that the Athlon
architecture is at the end of its useful life.
However,the performance difference is somewhat
"exaggerated" in favour of the P4. Most of the
"content creation" applications and games
are SSE2 enhanced while, on the other hand
3dnow is propably less popular. The hard fact,
of course, is that P4 needs less time in these
applications so it is faster (whatever the
reason).
However, for general purpose usage, I firmly
believe that the Athlon is faster, mostly
because everyday applications do not need
huge memory bandwidth and cannot be made to
run with SSE.
I'm thinking that someone should start doing
some "Open Source" benchmarks where the source
is available. A good idea would be to run
a set of:
a) Kernel compile (or gcc compile or something
like that) and perhaps even "make check"
gdb or gcc or some other application (libc!).
b) MP3 compression with lame
c) Video compression with xvid or ffmpeg
d) Linpack/POVray for fpu
e) Ecasound/LADSPA for sound processing
f) Maybe a perl/high-level bechmark for some
standard system tasks.
g) Cachegrind some of the above (have a look
at valgrind/cachegrind!!)
Anyway, if someone has anything above XP 2600+
let's gather some results.
P.
---
There needs to be a true revamping of CPU architecture, not simple adding of bits. 64 bits is fine and dandy, but the convoluted instruction set, seemingly random usage of registers, and an inability to do fast floating point operations really hampers the x86 system. Seeing as how IA64 is based on x86, this will be a problem into the future.
---
OK, this has been told far too many times and
it simply is not true.
a) Instruction set: most of the silly opcodes
of the XT era (aaa, xlat etc) are now supported
via microcode and are >emulated painfully
slow by the risc core. They do NOT affect
performance of critical instructions like
mov/add/lea/cmp/or/jmp. New instructions
like the cmpxchg8b8, cmov, syscall/sysret
are actually useful.
b) Random usage of registers: Well, after
the 386 the register set is almost orthogonal
excluding div/mul, scas/movs, push/pop and
a few others.
The x86-64 DOUBLES the number of available
registers. This is great progress. What did
you expect?
c) Slow floating point: The athlon is very
fast at floating point operations (REAL
IEEE floating point, not 3dnow/sse). Also
note that since the Pentium the x86 has
been constantly improving FPU performance.
At that time it became possible to program
the FPU either as a stack or as an array
of registers (many people find the stack
model cumbersome-I do not agree) thanks to
the fxch instruction at 0 cycles (exchange
stack registers at no cost). Also, note
that the precision of x86 processors
is industry standard IEEE precision at
32 (single), 64 (double) and 80 (extended) bits,
not worse than any other processor.
I used to support the idea of throwing away
the x86 model to make something new, but
x86 performance has been increasing at
an accelerating pace. My opinion is that
the x86-64 is a great idea, like the 386
was a true revolution compared to the 286
(please compare the instructions sets and
see for yourself).
Anyway, it's hard to hypothesize ("what if
the alpha had reached 4 GHz") but the truth
is that it is difficult to make something
from scratch that is faster than current x86.
Intel tried to make the Itanium and it was
NOT faster than current x86. Are you willing
to pay more for something that is slower
just because it is "revolutionary"?
P.
P.S. In the end, it's just "bang for the buck".
It's not as much information as you
think it is.
Genbank primates (i.e. monkeys-humans)
fits on two CDs compressed. Of course,
if you want EVERYTHING and uncompressed
you can get a few GBs (including fragments,
flies, bacteria etc etc).
I'm not quite sure about the total amount
of information available right now, but
the interesting stuff should be much less
than a 2-hour raw video
P.
I am NOT a sound engineer and I greatly
appreciate the necessity of a good studio
and experienced professionals.
HOWEVER, why do most albums sound like
crap? (i'm not talking about the music)
Why are they compressed and normalized to
sound so very loud (always at 0 db)?
I do not doubt the abilities of the people
who mix/master etc, but it seems to me that
studios deliberately process music in a manner
that always favors radio broadcast/MTV and
lame computer speakers.
There is a contradiction here: companies use
the best equipment possible (=best audio quality)
but generally they assume that the average
listener/consumer is completely incapable to
tell the difference (which may be true, to
some extent).
Anyway, I assume that production costs are quite
low compared to marketing costs.
P.
This is excellent news, indeed.
Good fonts are (a) very hard to design,
(b) rare, (c) expensive and (d) tremendously
important for the feeling of your desktop.
No matter what you say, it takes a special
kind of artistic ability to make good fonts.
This news is much more important than a 10%
speedup or a "new gadget" type of feature.
P.
P.S. Also note, that a "full" font includes
italics, bold, small capitals and quite a few
symbols. Many free fonts are incomplete in
that respect.
In Europe P4 3.0 with HT costs ~745 euro (+tax)
An Asus A7M for dual Athlon costs ~260 euro (+tax)
Two Athlon XP 2200+ cost ~340 euro (+tax).
Alternatively you can get two Athlon MP 2000+ for
roughly the same money (if you don't trust the
XPs).
Now, please explain to me why would someone
with real SMP needs in mind (and NOT games)
consider the P4 with HT.
P.
P.S. I understand that the prices in the US are
different, but still, it is VERY expensive.
Why do people assume that coding needs a lot
of food? I mean mental labor definitely requires
a normal diet, but it is not mountain climbing
or pentathlon... Even the hardest mental
activity cannot compare to moderate physical
activity in terms of calorie consumption.
Even for the longest coding session a 10 minute
break to eat something healthier is OK, I suppose.
For those who worry about micronutrients, a
nice fresh fruit (orange/apple) is a good idea
and you can eat it while coding.
Hydration and electrolyte balance is propably
more important, especially in conjuction with
fluid loss from caffeine consumption (diuretic).
P.
You should really try Morrowind!!
Even though the plot/monsters etc become
a bit boring the games is HUGE. And it has
really nice landscapes with different "themes"
for different areas.
It is a single player games, but you will
definitely feel an explorer. Especially
if you try the "levitate" (fly) spell
and see cities/mountains from above.You can
also swim, enter caves, dungeons, temples etc.
AND, it also gets moded by players (the editor
is extremely tough, though) so you may be
able to find extra areas on the internet.
Petros
VCDs and SVCDs are a tightly made standard with
specific multiplexing, bitrate, resolution,
framerate etc.
What is "divx" compatibility? Are we talking
about
bitrate, codec (audio/video), VBR/CBR etc?
A computer is flexible enough to handle any
weird format you try, but a set-top device needs
standards. I would really prefer an "MPEG-4"
standard that would specify (similarly to VCDs)
a file format, an audio encoding algorithm
(I believe AAC was formally proposed...) a
resolution etc. That way you know what you
are getting and you know that it WILL work
on another player and give the same results.
As a matter of fact. An MPEG-4 standard wouldn't
even have to be tied to DIVX and should be able
to reproduce all MPEG-4 video streams (XVID etc)
from compatible encoders.
That is the way to go. Using ad-hoc standards will
not help adoption and will certainly not ensure
future compatibility.
P.
A lot of people are discussing the file format
:-)
:
/note="5S ribosomal RNA" //
and the practical problems (would it fit on
a CD etc).
I actually have a copy of all GenBank primates
in gzipped form and it takes roughly 1.0 GB.
That's primates and not just homo sapiens (it
is mostly homo sapiens, though).
There is a plain text format used (flat) and
it is pretty well documented. Look for
GenBank flat file in ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. I think
that they have migrated to a "linked" format
similar to html to allow better indentation.
The flat format is great for Perl
A sample of the actual source is
LOCUS AAURRA 118 bp ss-rRNA RNA 16-JUN-1986
DEFINITION A.auricula-judae (mushroom) 5S ribosomal RNA.
ACCESSION K03160
VERSION K03160.1 GI:173593
KEYWORDS 5S ribosomal RNA; ribosomal RNA.
SOURCE A.auricula-judae (mushroom) ribosomal RNA.
ORGANISM Auricularia auricula-judae
Eukaryota; Fungi; Eumycota; Basidiomycotina; Phragmobasidiomycetes;
Heterobasidiomycetidae; Auriculariales; Auriculariaceae.
REFERENCE 1 (bases 1 to 118)
AUTHORS Huysmans,E., Dams,E., Vandenberghe,A. and De Wachter,R.
TITLE The nucleotide sequences of the 5S rRNAs of four mushrooms and
their use in studying the phylogenetic position of basidiomycetes
among the eukaryotes
JOURNAL Nucleic Acids Res. 11, 2871-2880 (1983)
FEATURES Location/Qualifiers
rRNA 1..118
BASE COUNT 27 a 34 c 34 g 23 t
ORIGIN 5' end of mature rRNA.
1 atccacggcc ataggactct gaaagcactg catcccgtcc gatctgcaaa gttaaccaga
61 gtaccgccca gttagtacca cggtggggga ccacgcggga atcctgggtg ctgtggtt
(mushrooms are not primates, of course)
P.
The developement of a reliable medical expert
system would be a royal pain in the ass and
totally not worth it.
Doctors ALREADY use systematic procedures for
complex conditions, e.g. the revised Jones
criteria for the diagnosis of rheumatic fever, or
the Ranson scale for the prognosis of
pancreatitis or the Glascow coma scale,
or the PORT system for evaluation of pneumonia
or the TNM system for tumour staging or the ICD
classification for psychic ilnesses or the
DSM classification etc etc (you get the
idea)
Most of these are created and revised constantly
by the experts in the field and doctors can
and do use them. However, not everything can
be put down on algorithms because it would
take a huge amount of time to do work (the
algorithms would have to be extremely thorough
and each step requires the doctor to do some
work).
In my medical school they sometimes give us
a short algorithm for the proper physical
examination. We never follow it. I did it
once and it took me 1h and 20 minutes to
examine a single patient[1]. Typical load
may exceed ~30 patients/day/doctor in some
hospitals. You do the math.
Medicine
is like computers (in a way). You have to chose
two : (a) cheap (b) fast (c) reliable
[1] Also note patient discomfort! Not everyone
likes to be poked for over 1h in order to
diagnose common cold. Imagine e.g. having
to subject every patient to a digital
rectal exam (digital as in finger) as we
are typically required to.
[2] Also note that any classification is BASED
on human experts and NOT on e.g. satellite
data or measurements. As such many human
experts are (by definition) the source
of the data for the system and therefore
superior. Would you trust some software
based on the opinions of Professor Foo
more than Professor Foo himself?
Regarding the IDE-SCSI necessity for CD writers
it should be noted that CD writers are NOT plain
IDE. This is why on windows you need ASPI from
adaptec (now standard).
There should be some easier solution, but IDE-SCSI
is necessary.
Petros
The CD low pass filter is usually NOT at
20000 Hz because it would have to be extremely
steep (very expensive to make). What they do,
instead is oversample (eg 8x) and filter with
an el-cheapo filter. Oversampling moves aliasing
artifacts into very high frequencies where the
quality of the filter won't matter much.
Some recent cd players can also UPsample to
24-bit and they seem to do a good job, too.
You should note that the SACDs that are now
in the market are a mere 200-300 titles that
have been specially selected and "polished" to
reveal the abilities of the SACD format.
Do not assume that the average SACD, 5 years
from now will be made with equal care in production.
A move to SACD may create greater potential, but
if the recording/mastering etc suck on CD they
will still suck on SACD.
Actually, recent reports from special magazines
seem to indicate that the CD layer of the SACD
discs is usually badly mastered. Some people
think that the companies do that in purpose
so that when you listen to the CD layer you will
"obviously" hear how bad it is compared to the
SACD. SACD is quite expensive, by the way
(the discs, not the hardware!)
First class CD recordings are quite satisfactory
but they are very hard to find and are usually
produced by special companies.
MP3 and ogg decompression, if done properly,
does not need more than 5% CPU on my Athlon 700.
Now, 5% CPU is ridiculously low and on a high
end system such as those required to play
UT2003 would be even less.
After all, sound is an important element of the
game and you >should be spending some CPU cycles
on it.
P.T.
Linux can be a BETTER platform for gaming.
I play Quake 3 regularly on a Geforce2 Pro that
is nicely supported under linux (Thanks NVIDIA!).
Here are some differences to make you think
a little bit (these apply on my system):
- Linux runs 15-20 % faster. I don't know why.
It does. As a matter of fact, I am only
able to use FSAA under linux (due to speed
difference).
- Windows XP insists on using 60 Hz refresh rate
in games (why?). This bothers me most.
- Linux caches the files MUCH better and the
loading time is considerably less. The
difference is astonishing if you are loading
off a CD.
- Linux does not crash. You can play Quake
while doing heavy stuff (e.g. compiling
the kernel or compressing to mp3, simply
renice the process)
- I feel much more comfortable with multiplayer
gaming when I have a proper firewall setup. Windows 98 (popular gaming platform) will not
protect you adequately.
- You don't have to reboot when you take a
break from work.(imagine having to reboot
for every short Quake 3 15' break you take)
Petros
Regarding the TeX fonts:
The fonts ARE scalable simply by
using the option "magstep" that
magnifies them to an arbitrary size (the fonts are vector designs and
can be smoothly scaled).
HOWEVER, TeX is a system for very
high quality documents and therefore
every font SHOULD BE DESIGNED AT
ITS INTENDED SIZE!
Using a scalable font for 6 point
text, 12 point text and 24 point
text will not provide optimum
results for all these sizes.
If you need the best possible
appearance you don't scale your
fonts. (even though, as I said,
TeX can scale the fonts)
Petros
Protein folding is studied using various
models that try to mimic the actual
molecular interactions.
At least one of these models (a very simple
one!) has been proven to be NP-complete by
Christos Papadimitriou and others (check it
out at xxx.lanl.gov (?)).
Possibly some other model could accurately
solve the problem without requiring O(a^N)
time but no one has yet found it.
Petros
"Survival" is a very clear term in biology, it means
being able to keep yourself alive.
What does survival mean in software terms? Does
it mean that you make the most money (Microsoft?),
that you get to have the most users?, that you
endure in time and get written in textbooks?,
that you show clear technical superiority?
I think that any of these can be taken as
proof of "survival" of a software project, yet
the fact that MS-DOS lasted extremely long and
became extremely popular cannot possibly
mean that it is something we want to copy or
admire.
An argument that I would happily accept is that
evolution exists in linux-world as the result
of survival of different linux
ideas/implementations (e.g. new VM, new
low-latency etc) in the linux user subspace.
Now, the linux users space is a group of
technically aware people (?!) and evolution
of different linux variants in that space
can be said to be constructive in a technical
sense, thus producing real progress.
This process cannot universally guarantee
software quality (from a purely technical
standpoint)
P.
Try reading Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 2, Section 4.1, Positional
Number Systems.
There is an extended discussion on the balanced
ternary system and some other exotic number
systems (base 2i etc). There are some merits
to the ternary system but it would be
harder to implement with transistors.
I have done a >REAL3000$ stereo equipment (Van den Hul
cables, atacama stands, gold plated connectors
etc) to play 2 tracks in :
a) vorbis, 192
b) mp3, notlame, high quality VBR, stereo, 128-320, 195 kbps average
c) original wav file
The tracks were ripped from a superb quality
classical recording (I play the piano), from
DECCA.
I then had 3 of my friends compare the track
quality "blindly".
The difference between vorbis and mp3 is
immediately noticeable. Vorbis was found superior
by all the listeners. Some people had difficulty
telling vorbis from wav but they generally
tended to prefer the wav. (each one was
questioned individually)
Personally I find the difference quite striking
and was truly amazed!
This was an important finding for me, because
I make amateur recordings at home and I need
an easy means of archival (we are talking many
GB here, and I don't intend to fill my HD).
I decided to use vorbis at 350 for all my
archived recordings. (I also keep
cds).
I cannot say whether vorbis is also superior
in lower bit rates such as 128kbps.
Petros
You are correct in saying that such a gene will have adverse side-affects. I have read reports from people that actually try caloric restriction diets claiming that they have reduced their pulse rate below 60 and blood pressure below 90/60 (or less!). Such adaptation (that obviously serves the maximum possible economy in use of calories) propably reflects a general change of pace for what is happening in the body. (all cellular mechanisms) I would really like to see these people, that are under caloric restriction diets, try to run (compared to an average weight person), or perform an average task (mental or manual). All these processes need energy and an organism in a dire condition will allow them to fail in order to support its existence. Living 120 years partially incapacitated by the lack of calories is not an option for me. I seriously doubt (and I do have adequate knowledge of Molecular Biology) that great lengthening of the average life expectancy will occur from such modifications without unbalancing the rate of cellular (and bodily) processes. OTOH, the greatest change in average life expectancy would come by totally eliminating death by accident and drugs. (this is a known fact of epidimiology) I sincerely hope that I am wrong and that a magicall pill will allow us to live much longer. Petros
It seems that too many of you consider music in the same terms as computer files. I prefer to consider audio equipment (decent audio equipment) as a part of the chain from the composer to your ears. You do not criticize a piano for not generating a perfect 440 Hz sine tone. You do not speak about Steinway and Bosendorfer pianos in terms of "S/N ratios" and "frequency response". I believe that if a new product indeed brings a better overall musical EXPERIENCE, which is of course totally subjective in nature, it is a good product. That being said, I don't see why vinyl shouldn't sound better than CD or even DVD-audio and why tube amplifiers with 0.5 % THD cannot give more musical satisfaction than 0.001 % THD solid state equipment. Technical analysis is indeed useful in comparing products of a similar "breed" and technology. Saying that 50 db dynamic range (vinyl) or 20 KHz upper frequency (CD) is not enough is in itself absurd and can only obtain relative value in comparing similar technical solutions. (turntable A vs turntable B) Human auditory perception is extremely complex and aesthetic appreciation is even more so. Do not treat music (which is about pleasure) the same way you treat a document (which is about precision and information). That having been said, I have to add that I am aware of both the Nyquist theorem and FFT and I do not choose to see music that way out of (technical) ignorance. I just prefer to see a high quality piece of audio equipment as an instrument and not as a tech-gadget. Petros P.S. It is sad, however, that we are sometimes forced to support and buy inferior products as a result of marketing strategies.