The firm my mother worked for put itself out of action by selling large hydraulic presses to the Russians to use in factories that were to produce large hydraulic presses...
They put themselves out of action by not recognizing the the market is dynamic.
You cannot survive making hydraulic presses, unless you keep developing better/larger/cheaper (pick at least one) hydraulic presses than your competitors do.
So much of the US aerospace production is classified as "military" that it's a real problem for companies trying to export equipment.
The US regulators should become aware that it was progress, not secrecy, that kept the US ahead of the others during the Cold War. Now that the Soviet Union is no more, military technology does not have the same pressure as before to keep developing new stuff, so they try to keep the same old secrets forever.
some of them are up to 60% efficient (compared to 35% for coal and 10% for your car).
Not exactly. Any thermal engine has an efficiency limited by the Carnot cycle. The efficiency is given by the following formula:
e = 1 - Tc / Th
where Tc is the temperature of the cold part of the engine (radiator or exhaust) and Th is the temperature of the hot part. The cold part is at least slightly warmer than the environment where the engine is, for a jet plane in the stratosphere this is lower than for an engine operating at sea level in a tropical country.
The hot part is limited by the materials used in the engine. Normally this will result in an efficiency of around 45% at most. Then there's the mechanical loss in friction, pressure leakage, etc, which is lower for larger engines than for smaller ones.
A large industrial power plant can use waste heat recovery and that's where the 60% efficiency comes from. Even if the thermal efficiency of the power generation itself is lower than 50% you get an additional use of the heat from the exhaust, something very difficult to do in a moving vehicle.
Combine a flash video with a busy site and that's what you get. Why can't they just put a link to a mpeg file and let the browser use the normal video player?
Anyhow, the BBC being slashdotted seems a bit too much for me. If they want real time video they should first make sure that their servers can send out the bits at whatever rate is required.
If anything can be a "god" of sorts now, how do I know that you're actually an atheist?If anything can be a "god" of sorts now, how do I know that you're actually an atheist?
Somebody above answered that: "portraits of the prophets everywhere, worship rituals, religious processions (with mandatory attendance), holy scripture and a priest class"
Warlock's printf("0x%08xn", x) becomes print('0x{0:08x}'.format(x)) in Python 3. It's cleaner and easier to read, and has the advantage of positional formatting
"Cleaner and easier to read" is in the eye of the beholder, and, for me at least, something that's 60% longer doesn't fit that description.
Remember, 60% longer means 60% more typing when you create the code. Typically, my programs are about 30% I/O which means 60% longer format strings mean a lot more effort in coding.
Besides, remember how much code is out there in C format strings. By creating a new standard you suddenly are putting all that outside easy conversion.
But, anyhow, that's a simple example, in the new format function documentation you'll find some more complicated examples that will need even more coding than that.
BTW, the old Python '%' format operator already supports positional formatting.
I think having a new text formatting library is OK, but it's an epic fail to deprecate something that has been working so well for so long. Why not keep the '%' operator while still having the 'format' string method? Are they so afraid of the Perl "there's more than one way to do it"?...
I don't use popen-- but isn't that the purpose of the shell=True argument?
The "shell" argument is meant for security purposes. By setting shell=False one avoids script injection vulnerabilities.
Again, there's more than one way to do things. One may want an ironclad function to use in executable programs that work on a website, it's OK to have some library to do that, but for every such function one creates hundreds of small scripts on a day to day workplace that don't need such security and it's a PITA to have to type five times more code for a functionality that's needed in just 0.001% of the programs one writes.
You could have stopped here and avoided a lot of TL;DRs, but I must say I agree with everything you wrote.
In the 1980s I started programming in C and fell instantly in love with it. It's still my favorite today, even if I use a lot of Python where it can do the job.
Imagine my disappointment when I first met C++. I had heard people mention this "improved" C and was curious to use it. I got a book named "Turbo C++ Disk Tutor" which came with four 5.25" floppies with the compiler included. The book itself was rather good, a good book about a bad subject.
In C, you'd use "printf("0x%08xn", x);" for int x. In C++, you use "std::cout std::hex std::setfill('0') std::setw(8) x std::dec std::endl;" It's absurd.
You know what worries me? Take a look at Python 3, they have deprecated the *excellent* C standard formatting method for a new way that's about as complicated and absurd as the C++ way.
Another Python "improvement": deprecated popen. This means that the nice, clean, easy to understand Unix command
It's like a garden hose stretched across the driveway. A car is parked with a wheel sitting on the hose preventing water from flowing. When a signal that triggers a fear response arrives, it releases the parking brake, letting the car roll down the driveway off the hose and allowing fear, like water, to flow. Once the flow of fear has begun, that impulse can be transmitted to other regions of the brain that control fearful behavior, such as freezing in place.
Is there a Grokking the Blender?
on
Blender 3D 2.49
·
· Score: 0
I think Blender is a lot like Gimp, very powerful, but the UI sucks. I learned how to use Gimp by reading and following the instructions in the Grokking the Gimp tutorial, which is excellent. I used to say you can do anything you imagine with the Gimp, but you cannot imagine how, until I found Grokking the Gimp.
Does anybody know of some Blender tutorial in the same level?
increasing irritation with the dichotomy between alcohol and (other) drugs.
Then vote to have the law changed. If marijuana were sold like lettuce there would be no dichotomy.
The problem of illegal drugs is no only the harm done to the user, the problem is that buying them finances crime. You have never seen a brewer gunning down people at the Al-Anon, have you?
Excuse me, sir, but please let us at marketing do this stuff. You at the upper levels of management have no clue of how to properly defend this sorry mess that's the windows registry.
Is it not just possible that humans commit horrible acts all on their own and some merely use religion to justify their actions?
Let's see how that works: -"Hey, I have a great idea, let's hijack a couple of jet planes with 200 passengers each and crash them into a skyscraper!" -"Great idea! But, wait, what excuse shall we use for it?" -"Hmmm, I'm not quite sure... How about religion?" -"Well, maybe. OK, unless someone gets a better idea, we will justify it through religion"
No, I think religion is the *prime* motive for a lot of shit people does, not a "mere justification".
If you believe someone can become a suicide terrorist without religion, then you really don't understand people... or religion.
I don't understand why people need to deface sites just to show... what ?
They do it just to show how ignorant are the people who are supposed to manage those sites.
The Royal Navy used to be the defense of the UK against invaders. They were supposed to fight to the end, to resist against everyone. Yet, nowadays, some script kiddie is able to defeat the Royal Navy from his mom's basement? WTF???
The message is that the sites can be defeated very easily, that's all.
Slashdot Mirror
The firm my mother worked for put itself out of action by selling large hydraulic presses to the Russians to use in factories that were to produce large hydraulic presses...
They put themselves out of action by not recognizing the the market is dynamic.
You cannot survive making hydraulic presses, unless you keep developing better/larger/cheaper (pick at least one) hydraulic presses than your competitors do.
So much of the US aerospace production is classified as "military" that it's a real problem for companies trying to export equipment.
The US regulators should become aware that it was progress, not secrecy, that kept the US ahead of the others during the Cold War. Now that the Soviet Union is no more, military technology does not have the same pressure as before to keep developing new stuff, so they try to keep the same old secrets forever.
Georgia the nation has a GDP of $20 Billion, General Electric has a revenue of $157 Billion
And Georgia the USA state has a GSP of $400 billion.
some of them are up to 60% efficient (compared to 35% for coal and 10% for your car).
Not exactly. Any thermal engine has an efficiency limited by the Carnot cycle. The efficiency is given by the following formula:
e = 1 - Tc / Th
where Tc is the temperature of the cold part of the engine (radiator or exhaust) and Th is the temperature of the hot part. The cold part is at least slightly warmer than the environment where the engine is, for a jet plane in the stratosphere this is lower than for an engine operating at sea level in a tropical country.
The hot part is limited by the materials used in the engine. Normally this will result in an efficiency of around 45% at most. Then there's the mechanical loss in friction, pressure leakage, etc, which is lower for larger engines than for smaller ones.
A large industrial power plant can use waste heat recovery and that's where the 60% efficiency comes from. Even if the thermal efficiency of the power generation itself is lower than 50% you get an additional use of the heat from the exhaust, something very difficult to do in a moving vehicle.
Combine a flash video with a busy site and that's what you get. Why can't they just put a link to a mpeg file and let the browser use the normal video player?
Anyhow, the BBC being slashdotted seems a bit too much for me. If they want real time video they should first make sure that their servers can send out the bits at whatever rate is required.
how often do you leave earprints at the scene of a crime?
You know the joke of the blonde with a burned ear? The phone rang when she was ironing her clothes.
If anything can be a "god" of sorts now, how do I know that you're actually an atheist?If anything can be a "god" of sorts now, how do I know that you're actually an atheist?
Somebody above answered that: "portraits of the prophets everywhere, worship rituals, religious processions (with mandatory attendance), holy scripture and a priest class"
The atheists that created soviet Russia
Karl Marxk == Mohammed
Das kapital == Quran
Marxist are atheists in a technical sense, but they display the same amount of blind fanaticism as religious people.
If you're scared of typing, you shouldn't be a programmer
I'm not afraid of typing, but I'd rather code 60% more for the same amount of typing.
If I wanted the program code to spell out everything in English I'd be a Cobol programmer.
Try living in a country that is actively oppressed, where the supply of practically everything is subject to the whims of some outside force
Considering what the Hamas government does, I think those outside forces aren't so whimsical at all.
That's how the human mind works - you need to have your base desires satisfied before you start thinking about more abstract things.
The problem here is that what you call "base desires" and "abstract things" aren't as clearcut as that.
From the religious fanatic point of view, the "base desire" is their religion, things like food or medicine are "abstract things" for them.
Warlock's printf("0x%08xn", x) becomes print('0x{0:08x}'.format(x)) in Python 3. It's cleaner and easier to read, and has the advantage of positional formatting
"Cleaner and easier to read" is in the eye of the beholder, and, for me at least, something that's 60% longer doesn't fit that description.
Remember, 60% longer means 60% more typing when you create the code. Typically, my programs are about 30% I/O which means 60% longer format strings mean a lot more effort in coding.
Besides, remember how much code is out there in C format strings. By creating a new standard you suddenly are putting all that outside easy conversion.
But, anyhow, that's a simple example, in the new format function documentation you'll find some more complicated examples that will need even more coding than that.
BTW, the old Python '%' format operator already supports positional formatting.
I think having a new text formatting library is OK, but it's an epic fail to deprecate something that has been working so well for so long. Why not keep the '%' operator while still having the 'format' string method? Are they so afraid of the Perl "there's more than one way to do it"?...
I don't use popen-- but isn't that the purpose of the shell=True argument?
The "shell" argument is meant for security purposes. By setting shell=False one avoids script injection vulnerabilities.
Again, there's more than one way to do things. One may want an ironclad function to use in executable programs that work on a website, it's OK to have some library to do that, but for every such function one creates hundreds of small scripts on a day to day workplace that don't need such security and it's a PITA to have to type five times more code for a functionality that's needed in just 0.001% of the programs one writes.
C++ has an astonishingly complicated grammar
You could have stopped here and avoided a lot of TL;DRs, but I must say I agree with everything you wrote.
In the 1980s I started programming in C and fell instantly in love with it. It's still my favorite today, even if I use a lot of Python where it can do the job.
Imagine my disappointment when I first met C++. I had heard people mention this "improved" C and was curious to use it. I got a book named "Turbo C++ Disk Tutor" which came with four 5.25" floppies with the compiler included. The book itself was rather good, a good book about a bad subject.
In C, you'd use "printf("0x%08xn", x);" for int x. In C++, you use "std::cout std::hex std::setfill('0') std::setw(8) x std::dec std::endl;" It's absurd.
You know what worries me? Take a look at Python 3, they have deprecated the *excellent* C standard formatting method for a new way that's about as complicated and absurd as the C++ way.
Another Python "improvement": deprecated popen. This means that the nice, clean, easy to understand Unix command
output=`dmesg | grep hda`
has been replaced by:
p1 = Popen(["dmesg"], stdout=PIPE)
p2 = Popen(["grep", "hda"], stdin=p1.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
output = p2.communicate()[0]
WTF???
Today I use Python a lot, but if this trend goes on, by Python 5 or so I'm willing to bet that I'll be back to using C exclusively for my programs.
It's like a garden hose stretched across the driveway. A car is parked with a wheel sitting on the hose preventing water from flowing. When a signal that triggers a fear response arrives, it releases the parking brake, letting the car roll down the driveway off the hose and allowing fear, like water, to flow. Once the flow of fear has begun, that impulse can be transmitted to other regions of the brain that control fearful behavior, such as freezing in place.
His full name is Theodore Rex Jameson, but the marketing people don't want to hear of T.Rex in an exoskeleton.
wxWidgets - helping X-windows newbs like me since at least 1997.
Why do you want X-windows newbs to like you?
To be fair, brewers used to gun down people in Chicago.
http://www.gambino.com/bio/alcapone.htm
Yep. WHEN BREWERY WAS ILLEGAL.
I rest my case.
Plus, they really like seafood. This city could follow the fish.
Until they run out of fish. Then they would have nowhere to go.
Then hurry! There's not much time left.
I think Blender is a lot like Gimp, very powerful, but the UI sucks. I learned how to use Gimp by reading and following the instructions in the Grokking the Gimp tutorial, which is excellent. I used to say you can do anything you imagine with the Gimp, but you cannot imagine how, until I found Grokking the Gimp.
Does anybody know of some Blender tutorial in the same level?
increasing irritation with the dichotomy between alcohol and (other) drugs.
Then vote to have the law changed. If marijuana were sold like lettuce there would be no dichotomy.
The problem of illegal drugs is no only the harm done to the user, the problem is that buying them finances crime. You have never seen a brewer gunning down people at the Al-Anon, have you?
I tried palying GTW, too, but a script kiddie at colossus.gov cracked the system and won't let me play anymore.
Now it's just him and some other dumbass at guardian.ru playing that game.
it MIGHT be a demonstration to China that US Subs can launch intercontinental missiles
Considering that the US first launched an ICBM from a sub in 1960, this demonstration seems a bit late by now.
What next, will the US demonstrate that cars can be made with tail fins?
Slim Pickens rode a bomb not a missile.
Yes, but the missile made an awesome WOOOSH sound.
Excuse me, sir, but please let us at marketing do this stuff. You at the upper levels of management have no clue of how to properly defend this sorry mess that's the windows registry.
Is it not just possible that humans commit horrible acts all on their own and some merely use religion to justify their actions?
Let's see how that works:
-"Hey, I have a great idea, let's hijack a couple of jet planes with 200 passengers each and crash them into a skyscraper!"
-"Great idea! But, wait, what excuse shall we use for it?"
-"Hmmm, I'm not quite sure... How about religion?"
-"Well, maybe. OK, unless someone gets a better idea, we will justify it through religion"
No, I think religion is the *prime* motive for a lot of shit people does, not a "mere justification".
If you believe someone can become a suicide terrorist without religion, then you really don't understand people... or religion.
I don't understand why people need to deface sites just to show ... what ?
They do it just to show how ignorant are the people who are supposed to manage those sites.
The Royal Navy used to be the defense of the UK against invaders. They were supposed to fight to the end, to resist against everyone. Yet, nowadays, some script kiddie is able to defeat the Royal Navy from his mom's basement? WTF???
The message is that the sites can be defeated very easily, that's all.