For one, it makes it a heck of a lot easier if Ubuntu has to only support one or two browsers, especially when there are multitudes of browsers available.
..and it would be a heck of a lot easier for Microsoft to only ship one browser, and even easier still if it was their own browser.
Do you think that Ubuntu doing what Microsoft has been doing, is acceptable because it is a "heck of a lot easier" for Ubuntu?
My squiggle has been standard since 1983, when I spent an afternoon writing my signature over and over again, until it evolved into the most efficient thing I could muster that still resembled an attempt at writing.
This could be possible if the material was not directly generated by the NIST itself --- for example, they paid a contractor to generate it and it is considered a "work for hire".
'They' in this case would be the American public. If the American public paid for a 'work for hire' then the American public owns it. Thats not to say that they necessarily have 'rights' to it.. but your arguement as it stands doesnt seem to qualify.
Glad to see that I am not the only one who looks at things and asks "What are the alternatives?"
There quite frankly are no alternatives here (with the MS code release) other than to use it, or not. There is no replacement alternative. If you want Linux to play well with MS's virtualization scheme then you MUST adopt the code, or some derivative of it.
We can argue all we want about the utility of playing well with Microsofts virtualization, but that my friend is a matter of opinion. I have absolutely no need for ANY virtualization, let alone the specific scenerio this addresses. I also know that other people will find it very beneficial, that it suits their specific needs.
Whether or not Microsoft also benefits from the adoption is completely and utterly irrelevant. Thats none of my business (thats their business.)
But learning that O(n log n) is the fastest you can do a sort and that it's worth it?
Common misconception from people who havent *really* studied sorting (and searching) is that O(n log n) is the fastest (worst case) way to do it. It is just the fastest way to do a comparison sort.
Let me introduce you to me good friends, the Bucket Sort family of algorithms, with the most popular being the Radix Sort. Throw enough memory at a bucket sort and you can approach O(n) behavior.
In the early days of 3D graphics, when programmers were first toying with alpha blending, they had to sort every alpha blended polygon from back to front. Everyone was using radix sort because those O(n log n) algorithms were way too slow.
The 3Gb/sec rating is on each individual port, not on the bridge between the SATA controller(s) and the CPU. THe bridge between the controller and CPU can theoretically max out the system bus (We measure that in GB/sec instead of Gb/sec.) There are plenty of SATA controllers that push well over 3Gb/sec towards the system, it is only that each individual SATA300 device is capped at 3Gb/sec.
Remember that Intel entered this market as a tiger out for blood with their *first* SSD throwing data at just under the SATA300 cap. This isnt a coincedence.
When SATA600 goes live, expect Intel and OCZ to jump right up to the 520MB/sec area as if it was trivial to do so... (because it is!)
ioFusion has a PCIe flash solution that goes several times faster than these SATA300 SSD's. The problem is SATA. The problem is SATA. The problem is SATA.
Don't forget about the "Battleship MTRON" guys that raided up 8 MTRON SSD's (the fastest SSD's at the time) several years ago and then had a lot of trouble actualy finding a raid controller than could handle the bandwidth. This years SSD's are twice as fast, and expect performance to double again within 12 months.
The best way to learn to program is through social interaction about the subject within a culture dedicated to a wide array of programming topics.
Languages like scheme, lisp, haskel, perl, ruby, python... these are often domain-focused, where it would be hard for the budding programmer to get into some areas of programming that might keep them interrested. For example, graphics or sound.
Languages like C# and VB.NET have a more generalized culture, where you could get into just about anything and actualy find other people doing the same stuff via online forums (in the old days it was through BBS's and FidoNet.)
So I recommend a general language, without much meaningfull limitations, that has one or more high traffic public forums online dedicated to it.
If the image you use for your image hosing is copyrighted, then you are still under that copyright. You don't get out of the copyright by using tools like this.
With spore, all those creature part models are copyrighted. Exporting them to other renderers or modelers doesn't change that.
That wont work for the people trying to interop their Pre with iTunes. They are a witness to the shenanigans.
Apple would actualy have to introduce honest-to-goodness new desirable features to get these people to consider moving forward, and what new desirable feature would be easier to implment than Pre support?
I don't think Apple can win this. I think what they are mostly afraid of is not the interop with iTunes.. its being forced to maintain that interop later on, when people come to expect it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with speculation, tho.
Some speculators are right, and some are wrong. Its a wash.
The only people "hurt" by speculation are the people who dont know that thats what they are involved in. Example, Joe Singular sticks his entire retirement account into a single stock. Hes put himself in a high risk position. If he knew that that was the case, its called gambling. If he didnt know that that was the case, its called ignorance. If Joe Singular had taken the advice of Bill Musketeer he would have been heavily diversified where about half of his stocks are speculated high and half are speculated low.
First, it is not easy to virtualize all dos and bios calls into windows api calls. Some of those dos and bios calls do things which are strictly verboten under windows. Additionally, if you take a gander at "Ralf Browns Interrupt List" (which is a compendiam of DOS/BIOS/DRIVER calls collected by one man back in the day) you will see that there are literally hundreds of thousands of these things. The only "solution" is to actualy emulate an entire computer, complete with emulated hardware.
Second, some of those old programs actualy expect to be able to do things only a ring-0 program can, for example configuring its own bizarre hybrid v86 memory models such as keeping the old segment paradigm but upping pointers to 32-bit. Again, the only real solution is to completely emulate an entire computer.
Third, a 64-bit computer once in 64-bit mode cannot ever thunk to 16-bit code. The 64-bit mode entirely supplants the 16-bit mode. Again, emulating an entire computer is the only real solution.
Finally, the features that some of the hardware had simply no longer exist. The SoundBlaster (and older Adlib, and its clones) had Yamaha FM synthesizer chips (the OPL2, OPL3, and OPL4) that are a patent minefield to emulate. No big company is going to emlulate them without something meaningfull to gain, and I'm sure licensing isn't cheap either (Yamaha is a bastard company which agressively protects its IP)
(independent game company)
Game company produces game.
Game company runs through quality control steps until it runs on all test setups.
Game company finds publisher.
Publisher mindlessly bullshit-hacks in the DRM, being unfamiliar with the source code entirely.
The hacked-in DRM breaks many things, but the game hits the shelves anyways.
Customer complains about the quality control of the game company.
(game company already aquired by publisher)
Game company begins producing game.
Publisher demands its release in unfinished state.
Publisher mindlessly bullshit-hacks in the DRM, being unfamiliar with the source code entirely.
The hacked-in DRM breaks many things, but the game hits the shelves anyways.
Customer complains about the quality control of the game company and the unfinished state of the game.
Try and put things in perspective. On a desktop computer, what % of the time is spent doing disk access ? Actually, what % of the time is spent doing blocking disk access, because background ones are not really noticable, fast or slow.
It isnt what % of the time is spent doing disk i/o.. On my system a low % of time is also spent rendering 3D graphics.. just the same I have a good 3D graphics card (8800GT.)
Anandtech found sequential writes to be 50% faster than an HD (192 vs 120 MB/s).
The only HD's that push that much write speed are also expensive. We arent talking about those $100/TB drives here, which are going to struggle with 60MB/sec sequential write. Drives like the velocirapter approach $1/GB. If you are in the market now for a high performance HD, the jump to SSD isnt as much as people make it out to be.
Higher level tests show really negligible performance gains.
Lets go even higher. People who actualy use their computer with these new SSD's rave about the performance. Thats real world.
Some-subset-of-templates was sorely needed, but the form that came out is and will always be completely horrible. Its a way-too-generic solution to some specific problems. When you look at languages like C# which solved most of those specific problems cleanly and simply, one just has to shake their head at what the C++ team was thinking.
Its not only that, but the commodity platters that currently cost so little are not anywhere near the high end of regular HD performance. Time and again people compare the best HD performance against SSD's while only considering the lowest HD prices.
A high performance 10K RPM drive is going to cost $0.66/GB at best, while the 15K RPM drive will easily cost $1.00/GB or even a lot more. SSD's are considerably faster than these things, and look even better compared to the commodity drives.
If you read my "argument" more carefully, you may note that I addressed that possibility already.
No, you actualy didn't. You mentioned it as an "unless.." and then went right back to ignoring it.
But since you've brought it up, the concept that we are simulated is an unfalsifiable one, roughly equivalent to many metaphysical assertions covering issues like reincarnation, the existence of god, heaven, hell, and a host of others.
Thats all true.
Debating the issue will lead nowhere.
You were doing so well until this.
While we can never falsify that we are simulated, the opposite is not true. Your arguement began with the simulated knowing that it is within a simulation, that it is fact would be difficult to hide.
What evidence is there that its difficult to hide?
Slashdot Mirror
For one, it makes it a heck of a lot easier if Ubuntu has to only support one or two browsers, especially when there are multitudes of browsers available.
Do you think that Ubuntu doing what Microsoft has been doing, is acceptable because it is a "heck of a lot easier" for Ubuntu?
but my original point was that to do so would mean that it couldn't be said to be genuinely as self-aware as we are
My squiggle has been standard since 1983, when I spent an afternoon writing my signature over and over again, until it evolved into the most efficient thing I could muster that still resembled an attempt at writing.
..except that at least some of the time, when Joe Sixpack performs a web search, he is in fact looking for the ads.
These arent full time web geeks. They are often looking for something commercial.
This could be possible if the material was not directly generated by the NIST itself --- for example, they paid a contractor to generate it and it is considered a "work for hire".
'They' in this case would be the American public. If the American public paid for a 'work for hire' then the American public owns it. Thats not to say that they necessarily have 'rights' to it.. but your arguement as it stands doesnt seem to qualify.
Glad to see that I am not the only one who looks at things and asks "What are the alternatives?"
There quite frankly are no alternatives here (with the MS code release) other than to use it, or not. There is no replacement alternative. If you want Linux to play well with MS's virtualization scheme then you MUST adopt the code, or some derivative of it.
We can argue all we want about the utility of playing well with Microsofts virtualization, but that my friend is a matter of opinion. I have absolutely no need for ANY virtualization, let alone the specific scenerio this addresses. I also know that other people will find it very beneficial, that it suits their specific needs.
Whether or not Microsoft also benefits from the adoption is completely and utterly irrelevant. Thats none of my business (thats their business.)
But learning that O(n log n) is the fastest you can do a sort and that it's worth it?
Common misconception from people who havent *really* studied sorting (and searching) is that O(n log n) is the fastest (worst case) way to do it. It is just the fastest way to do a comparison sort.
Let me introduce you to me good friends, the Bucket Sort family of algorithms, with the most popular being the Radix Sort. Throw enough memory at a bucket sort and you can approach O(n) behavior.
In the early days of 3D graphics, when programmers were first toying with alpha blending, they had to sort every alpha blended polygon from back to front. Everyone was using radix sort because those O(n log n) algorithms were way too slow.
The 3Gb/sec rating is on each individual port, not on the bridge between the SATA controller(s) and the CPU. THe bridge between the controller and CPU can theoretically max out the system bus (We measure that in GB/sec instead of Gb/sec.) There are plenty of SATA controllers that push well over 3Gb/sec towards the system, it is only that each individual SATA300 device is capped at 3Gb/sec.
Remember that Intel entered this market as a tiger out for blood with their *first* SSD throwing data at just under the SATA300 cap. This isnt a coincedence.
When SATA600 goes live, expect Intel and OCZ to jump right up to the 520MB/sec area as if it was trivial to do so... (because it is!)
ioFusion has a PCIe flash solution that goes several times faster than these SATA300 SSD's. The problem is SATA. The problem is SATA. The problem is SATA.
Don't forget about the "Battleship MTRON" guys that raided up 8 MTRON SSD's (the fastest SSD's at the time) several years ago and then had a lot of trouble actualy finding a raid controller than could handle the bandwidth. This years SSD's are twice as fast, and expect performance to double again within 12 months.
Seriously.
The best way to learn to program is through social interaction about the subject within a culture dedicated to a wide array of programming topics.
Languages like scheme, lisp, haskel, perl, ruby, python... these are often domain-focused, where it would be hard for the budding programmer to get into some areas of programming that might keep them interrested. For example, graphics or sound.
Languages like C# and VB.NET have a more generalized culture, where you could get into just about anything and actualy find other people doing the same stuff via online forums (in the old days it was through BBS's and FidoNet.)
So I recommend a general language, without much meaningfull limitations, that has one or more high traffic public forums online dedicated to it.
If the image you use for your image hosing is copyrighted, then you are still under that copyright. You don't get out of the copyright by using tools like this.
With spore, all those creature part models are copyrighted. Exporting them to other renderers or modelers doesn't change that.
Actualy, SBC had purchased SNET.. and then they had the balls to purchase AT&T!
..creating smaller monopolies, yes.
...and Mass had 1 choice of phone company: New England Telephone (NET.)
Here in Connecticut we had 1 choice of phone company: Southern New England Telephone (SNET.)
I can write 100 of them tonight... while I am sleeping. Seriously.
Its dead-simple to not only make a browser based on Microsofts rendering engine using Visual Basic 6, its also simple to make an installer.
Drop the control on a form, run the package and deployment wizard, and bobs your uncle.
There is your choice right there.
"But but but.. thats all the same rendering engine!"
Really? So one browser from each rendering engine.. eh?
Internet Explorer, some noname webkit, and Opera? One of each, right?
That wont work for the people trying to interop their Pre with iTunes. They are a witness to the shenanigans.
Apple would actualy have to introduce honest-to-goodness new desirable features to get these people to consider moving forward, and what new desirable feature would be easier to implment than Pre support?
I don't think Apple can win this. I think what they are mostly afraid of is not the interop with iTunes.. its being forced to maintain that interop later on, when people come to expect it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with speculation, tho.
Some speculators are right, and some are wrong. Its a wash.
The only people "hurt" by speculation are the people who dont know that thats what they are involved in. Example, Joe Singular sticks his entire retirement account into a single stock. Hes put himself in a high risk position. If he knew that that was the case, its called gambling. If he didnt know that that was the case, its called ignorance. If Joe Singular had taken the advice of Bill Musketeer he would have been heavily diversified where about half of his stocks are speculated high and half are speculated low.
I think they can.
Remember that updates to itunes annoys people.
Sounds good when you say it fast.
Several issues.
First, it is not easy to virtualize all dos and bios calls into windows api calls. Some of those dos and bios calls do things which are strictly verboten under windows. Additionally, if you take a gander at "Ralf Browns Interrupt List" (which is a compendiam of DOS/BIOS/DRIVER calls collected by one man back in the day) you will see that there are literally hundreds of thousands of these things. The only "solution" is to actualy emulate an entire computer, complete with emulated hardware.
Second, some of those old programs actualy expect to be able to do things only a ring-0 program can, for example configuring its own bizarre hybrid v86 memory models such as keeping the old segment paradigm but upping pointers to 32-bit. Again, the only real solution is to completely emulate an entire computer.
Third, a 64-bit computer once in 64-bit mode cannot ever thunk to 16-bit code. The 64-bit mode entirely supplants the 16-bit mode. Again, emulating an entire computer is the only real solution.
Finally, the features that some of the hardware had simply no longer exist. The SoundBlaster (and older Adlib, and its clones) had Yamaha FM synthesizer chips (the OPL2, OPL3, and OPL4) that are a patent minefield to emulate. No big company is going to emlulate them without something meaningfull to gain, and I'm sure licensing isn't cheap either (Yamaha is a bastard company which agressively protects its IP)
The likely problem is the DRM in EA games.
Things generally go in one of two ways:
(independent game company)
Game company produces game.
Game company runs through quality control steps until it runs on all test setups.
Game company finds publisher.
Publisher mindlessly bullshit-hacks in the DRM, being unfamiliar with the source code entirely.
The hacked-in DRM breaks many things, but the game hits the shelves anyways.
Customer complains about the quality control of the game company.
(game company already aquired by publisher)
Game company begins producing game.
Publisher demands its release in unfinished state.
Publisher mindlessly bullshit-hacks in the DRM, being unfamiliar with the source code entirely.
The hacked-in DRM breaks many things, but the game hits the shelves anyways.
Customer complains about the quality control of the game company and the unfinished state of the game.
Try and put things in perspective. On a desktop computer, what % of the time is spent doing disk access ? Actually, what % of the time is spent doing blocking disk access, because background ones are not really noticable, fast or slow.
It isnt what % of the time is spent doing disk i/o .. On my system a low % of time is also spent rendering 3D graphics.. just the same I have a good 3D graphics card (8800GT.)
Anandtech found sequential writes to be 50% faster than an HD (192 vs 120 MB/s).
The only HD's that push that much write speed are also expensive. We arent talking about those $100/TB drives here, which are going to struggle with 60MB/sec sequential write. Drives like the velocirapter approach $1/GB. If you are in the market now for a high performance HD, the jump to SSD isnt as much as people make it out to be.
Higher level tests show really negligible performance gains.
Lets go even higher. People who actualy use their computer with these new SSD's rave about the performance. Thats real world.
Here here. Mod this man up!
Some-subset-of-templates was sorely needed, but the form that came out is and will always be completely horrible. Its a way-too-generic solution to some specific problems. When you look at languages like C# which solved most of those specific problems cleanly and simply, one just has to shake their head at what the C++ team was thinking.
Its not only that, but the commodity platters that currently cost so little are not anywhere near the high end of regular HD performance. Time and again people compare the best HD performance against SSD's while only considering the lowest HD prices.
A high performance 10K RPM drive is going to cost $0.66/GB at best, while the 15K RPM drive will easily cost $1.00/GB or even a lot more. SSD's are considerably faster than these things, and look even better compared to the commodity drives.
Intel's SSD (and OCZ's Vertex) boost random read AND write speed, as well as sequential read AND write speed.
So what the hell are you talking about? Did we catch you talking about something you havent research at all, again?
If you read my "argument" more carefully, you may note that I addressed that possibility already.
No, you actualy didn't. You mentioned it as an "unless.." and then went right back to ignoring it.
But since you've brought it up, the concept that we are simulated is an unfalsifiable one, roughly equivalent to many metaphysical assertions covering issues like reincarnation, the existence of god, heaven, hell, and a host of others.
Thats all true.
Debating the issue will lead nowhere.
You were doing so well until this.
While we can never falsify that we are simulated, the opposite is not true. Your arguement began with the simulated knowing that it is within a simulation, that it is fact would be difficult to hide.
What evidence is there that its difficult to hide?