Yeah, when I dabbled in PHP, I definately got the feeling that it wasn't ready for primetime, in a way I never got even with earlier version of Perl. That despite all those one-off convenience functions (and some were, admittedly, pretty convenient, requireing download from CPAN in Perl) , there were many structural and functional things in the language that were that way because it was easier for the implentors of the language to code that way. The way array walkers tended to use variables that were part of the array object, so you'd have to call reset to walk the same array twice....and I found bugs in the language in trying to do some simplish two-dimensional foreach type stuff.
Actually, and yeah yeah yeah, I know there are probably settings around this, but that default of cgi variables automatically being turned into global variables of the form $same_name_as_in_the_form has always seemed to be asking for trouble.
PHP, at least when I was looking at it a year and a half ago, always felt half-baked to me.
So we have to enter out personal identification number number into the automatic teller machine machine.
So? Redunancy in language isn't a bad thing. For instance, it's why you can still tell what someone's saying even over a crappy cellphone connection, or know what they said even if you weren't paying that much attention.
My favorite variation on the fire joke is the one along the lines of (which means I won't be telling it quite right)
there's a wastebasket on fire, an empty bucket, and a faucet. how many steps does it take for a mathematician to put out the fire? Two: fill the bucket with water, put water on fire.
There's a wastebasket on fire, a bucket full of water, and a faucet. now howe many steps does it take the mathematician? Three: empty the bucket. Now it's a previously solved problem...
I don't think that having trouble doing this means they're "completely technically incompetent on a fairly amazing scale". If you've ever designed a software system, you know it can be difficult when the base assumptions you designed against change: in this case, the assumption that you would be assigning new numbers from an existing pool of numbers. Having to add in any new number from like any zipcode could be a hassle, and I'm sure there are other infrastructure issues that they have to sweat.
They may have known for a year that this was in the works, but they were fighting it, and hoping it wouldn't come to pass. No sense paying your techies to undermine the moral of your lawyers by assuming the latter were going to fail to prevent it, eh?
That said...I would consider leaving Sprint, but the reception just really improved at my house, and I think it's still super crappy with some other people's phones on other networks...
I'll agree, I'm reasonably happy w/ my ign subscription. In particular, they have a good interface (if ad-clogged a bit now) to an insanely large backarchive of reviews; when I'm cruising for cheap used games, they're a great resource (just wish i had a wireless view into 'em, to look at when I'm in the actual store...)
the revolutionaries never make any money. they care too much about their ideas to be hardassed enough to profit. its always the people who come around later that just see a business opportunity.
Yeah, but it's those hardassed people seeing a business opportunity that bring the technology to the masses, away from ivory towers and geek playgrounds. And when you have competition, that's what makes things affordable. That's what capitalism does well. It's not always free from problems, what with monopolies and a shortage of long-term thinking, but it is why I had a 9600 baud modem in 1994 and a direct connection to the whole damn Internet in my study today.
Ok, lawyerman, you're right, "Palm Computing Platform" just rolls off the tongue.
"PalmOS" might be a better choice that accurately and succintly says what people usually mean, but suffers because it doesn't have the recognizability that "PalmPilot" has... "PalmPilot" one word, is how the culture was introduced to the series of devices, and is still where the hook of recognition resides.
"Palm Pilot" is the the name of a discontinued model. The platform is just "Palm". And please, we've heard all the masturbation jokes!
Even with jokes aside, just saying "Palm" is kinda ambiguous. I mean, yeah, people will figure out you don't mean your hand, but still, "Palm Pilot" gets the idea across in a much more effective manor, the wishes of corporate flunkies and platform fanboys aside.
It's hard to make new characters that players will take a serious interest in, back-story or no. One of Nintendo's strengths (especially as seen in a game like Smash Bros) is a roster of characters that gamers are more likely to find a bit more interesting just because they've 'grown up with them'.
As for the originality of Master Chief...eh, maybe, but probably not. Actually, a lot like the Marine from DOOM, come to think of it...and with voice acting that reminded me a bit of Duke Nuke 'Em / Bruce Campbell. Still, (despite its Marathon roots) at least Halo was definately not a sequel, just an excellent genre game.
What's wrong with a little anthropomorphizing if you don't take it too seriously? Haven't you ever said, when working on a slow computer, "well, it's got to think about that for a while" or "god, it's being stupid today"?
Now, I'm all for anthromorphizing in those two examples...it's just another way of summarizing the observed behavior. But if you said "this computer HATES me, that's why it's messing up", then I would think you were being silly. With this article, it's the latter case...implying it's explaining WHY there are so many corneal ejections ("so it can shed its skin") when really it's mixing cause and effect (the ejections may well allow for the flip, but the "need to flip" doesn't bring on the ejections)
I'm not solar physicist, but it seems like the article is attributing intention to the sun, as if it "wants" to "shed its magnetic skin", like it was a purposeful way of "dealing" with the increasing tension.
Re:Is this my first ever troll?
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Heh.
It also shows that iPod's audience is more niche (or considers itself so) than for, say, walkman...it's not like plugging in headphones is any new technical trick, but you didn't see this w/ Sony walkman so much.
On the other hand, it might be niche, but a big enough audience that you're likely to see other people with one...
I wonder if there's any iPod vs. generic MP3 player snobbery?
An important thing to note is that this isn't coming up with new optimizations, but rather finding the optimal mix of pre-existing gcc optimizations.
It's an important distinction. When you're trying to do breed some really new system using Genetic Algorithms, it's possible to get some very fragile results, i.e. systems that do the job incredibly efficiently, but only under certain conditions...
For instance, I remember reading some folks were trying to "breed" a circuit using Genetic Algorithm like techniques that created a "pulser" using as few gates as possible. They got something that used like one tenth the number of logic gates of the previous low record...but didn't work when they moved the setup away from their desktop PCs. Turned out what they "discovered" was a sensitive RF receiver that picked up (I think) something like the normal 120V cycling, and utilized. Similarly, a lot of the bred ciruits are extremely sensitive to temperature and other conditions.
So breeding for efficiency can be a bit dangerous, you get things that rely on odd side-effects and environmental states. Though I think the method the article describes isn't much more dangerous than normal optimization selection, though admittedly more likely to stumble over some unusual flag combination that might break under certain circumstances.
In short, *if* GA is ever going to let software development become more like gardening than engineering, (something I've herd as a goal) we're going to have to find ways to apply very general evolutionary pressures, complex test environments.
I'll also agree with the blurring you mention, though sometimes the fuzziness gives me a headache.
Huh. Well, one of my main game buddies usually declines FPS on consoles, it might be the framerate....but I think it's just the framerates that emerge when its doing 4 way split screen, he does ok w/ 2 player co-op Halo (which might be a more powerful system anyway) and whole screen games I think, like Metroid.
It seems funny to me to think of a keyboard as a controller...it seems so big and clunky and old school in some ways, for everything but text. I mean, I can see where 101 or whatever unique buttons gives you some options...but again, from my multiplayer perspective, a keybaord for each guy would look a bit goofy.
The patching issue can be a problem. I mean Matrix is an extreme case, obviously rushed. But then stuff like SOCOM, cheaters w/ game sharks and just exploiting odd bugs in the game.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, when I dabbled in PHP, I definately got the feeling that it wasn't ready for primetime, in a way I never got even with earlier version of Perl. That despite all those one-off convenience functions (and some were, admittedly, pretty convenient, requireing download from CPAN in Perl) , there were many structural and functional things in the language that were that way because it was easier for the implentors of the language to code that way. The way array walkers tended to use variables that were part of the array object, so you'd have to call reset to walk the same array twice....and I found bugs in the language in trying to do some simplish two-dimensional foreach type stuff.
Actually, and yeah yeah yeah, I know there are probably settings around this, but that default of cgi variables automatically being turned into global variables of the form $same_name_as_in_the_form has always seemed to be asking for trouble.
PHP, at least when I was looking at it a year and a half ago, always felt half-baked to me.
So we have to enter out personal identification number number into the automatic teller machine machine.
So? Redunancy in language isn't a bad thing. For instance, it's why you can still tell what someone's saying even over a crappy cellphone connection, or know what they said even if you weren't paying that much attention.
yeah, that's better. Maybe even better than how I heard it.
Oh, I think I forgot:
Liberal Arts Student: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime.
Mathematician: (not sure about the phrasing of this one) let n = 3. n is prime, n + 2 is prime, therefore by induction...
ah that old chestnut, "prove that all odd numbers greater that 2 are prime"
Phsyicist: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is...observational error, 11 is prime...
Engineer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime for all practical purposes, 11 is prime...
Computer Scientist: 3 is prime, 3 is prime, 3 is prime, 3 is prime, 3 is prime....
My favorite variation on the fire joke is the one along the lines of (which means I won't be telling it quite right)
there's a wastebasket on fire, an empty bucket, and a faucet. how many steps does it take for a mathematician to put out the fire? Two: fill the bucket with water, put water on fire.
There's a wastebasket on fire, a bucket full of water, and a faucet. now howe many steps does it take the mathematician? Three: empty the bucket. Now it's a previously solved problem...
"knock knock"
"cow with ESP"
--some guy at work had that joke come to him in a dream after hearing the Interrupting Cow joke the day before
Have you ever considered a career as a straight man?
Career? I thought it was more of a lifestyle choice.
Ok, I admit, I don't get it.
At first i thought it had something to do with edged weapon restrictions and circumcision, but then I realized that's clerics, not paladins...
I don't think that having trouble doing this means they're "completely technically incompetent on a fairly amazing scale". If you've ever designed a software system, you know it can be difficult when the base assumptions you designed against change: in this case, the assumption that you would be assigning new numbers from an existing pool of numbers. Having to add in any new number from like any zipcode could be a hassle, and I'm sure there are other infrastructure issues that they have to sweat.
They may have known for a year that this was in the works, but they were fighting it, and hoping it wouldn't come to pass. No sense paying your techies to undermine the moral of your lawyers by assuming the latter were going to fail to prevent it, eh?
That said...I would consider leaving Sprint, but the reception just really improved at my house, and I think it's still super crappy with some other people's phones on other networks...
I heard that Sega and Lady Miss Kier were working together and then the deal fell apart;
Deee-lite's stuff is pretty good. I think "Groove is in the Heart" is the best dancesong ever, it generally heads up every party mix I make.
I'll agree, I'm reasonably happy w/ my ign subscription. In particular, they have a good interface (if ad-clogged a bit now) to an insanely large backarchive of reviews; when I'm cruising for cheap used games, they're a great resource (just wish i had a wireless view into 'em, to look at when I'm in the actual store...)
"EJB is a good idea for java"
yeesh, the mods went really crazy w/ redundants and overrateds. Those are some of the dumbest moderations to make...
the revolutionaries never make any money. they care too much about their ideas to be hardassed enough to profit. its always the people who come around later that just see a business opportunity.
Yeah, but it's those hardassed people seeing a business opportunity that bring the technology to the masses, away from ivory towers and geek playgrounds. And when you have competition, that's what makes things affordable. That's what capitalism does well. It's not always free from problems, what with monopolies and a shortage of long-term thinking, but it is why I had a 9600 baud modem in 1994 and a direct connection to the whole damn Internet in my study today.
Ok, lawyerman, you're right, "Palm Computing Platform" just rolls off the tongue.
"PalmOS" might be a better choice that accurately and succintly says what people usually mean, but suffers because it doesn't have the recognizability that "PalmPilot" has... "PalmPilot" one word, is how the culture was introduced to the series of devices, and is still where the hook of recognition resides.
"Palm Pilot" is the the name of a discontinued model. The platform is just "Palm". And please, we've heard all the masturbation jokes!
Even with jokes aside, just saying "Palm" is kinda ambiguous. I mean, yeah, people will figure out you don't mean your hand, but still, "Palm Pilot" gets the idea across in a much more effective manor, the wishes of corporate flunkies and platform fanboys aside.
It's hard to make new characters that players will take a serious interest in, back-story or no. One of Nintendo's strengths (especially as seen in a game like Smash Bros) is a roster of characters that gamers are more likely to find a bit more interesting just because they've 'grown up with them'.
As for the originality of Master Chief...eh, maybe, but probably not. Actually, a lot like the Marine from DOOM, come to think of it...and with voice acting that reminded me a bit of Duke Nuke 'Em / Bruce Campbell. Still, (despite its Marathon roots) at least Halo was definately not a sequel, just an excellent genre game.
What's wrong with a little anthropomorphizing if you don't take it too seriously? Haven't you ever said, when working on a slow computer, "well, it's got to think about that for a while" or "god, it's being stupid today"?
Now, I'm all for anthromorphizing in those two examples...it's just another way of summarizing the observed behavior. But if you said "this computer HATES me, that's why it's messing up", then I would think you were being silly. With this article, it's the latter case...implying it's explaining WHY there are so many corneal ejections ("so it can shed its skin") when really it's mixing cause and effect (the ejections may well allow for the flip, but the "need to flip" doesn't bring on the ejections)
I'm not solar physicist, but it seems like the article is attributing intention to the sun, as if it "wants" to "shed its magnetic skin", like it was a purposeful way of "dealing" with the increasing tension.
Heh.
It also shows that iPod's audience is more niche (or considers itself so) than for, say, walkman...it's not like plugging in headphones is any new technical trick, but you didn't see this w/ Sony walkman so much.
On the other hand, it might be niche, but a big enough audience that you're likely to see other people with one...
I wonder if there's any iPod vs. generic MP3 player snobbery?
An important thing to note is that this isn't coming up with new optimizations, but rather finding the optimal mix of pre-existing gcc optimizations.
It's an important distinction. When you're trying to do breed some really new system using Genetic Algorithms, it's possible to get some very fragile results, i.e. systems that do the job incredibly efficiently, but only under certain conditions...
For instance, I remember reading some folks were trying to "breed" a circuit using Genetic Algorithm like techniques that created a "pulser" using as few gates as possible. They got something that used like one tenth the number of logic gates of the previous low record...but didn't work when they moved the setup away from their desktop PCs. Turned out what they "discovered" was a sensitive RF receiver that picked up (I think) something like the normal 120V cycling, and utilized. Similarly, a lot of the bred ciruits are extremely sensitive to temperature and other conditions.
So breeding for efficiency can be a bit dangerous, you get things that rely on odd side-effects and environmental states. Though I think the method the article describes isn't much more dangerous than normal optimization selection, though admittedly more likely to stumble over some unusual flag combination that might break under certain circumstances.
In short, *if* GA is ever going to let software development become more like gardening than engineering, (something I've herd as a goal) we're going to have to find ways to apply very general evolutionary pressures, complex test environments.
Eee-choo-wawa...
Woo, heated argument avoided.
I'll also agree with the blurring you mention, though sometimes the fuzziness gives me a headache.
Huh. Well, one of my main game buddies usually declines FPS on consoles, it might be the framerate....but I think it's just the framerates that emerge when its doing 4 way split screen, he does ok w/ 2 player co-op Halo (which might be a more powerful system anyway) and whole screen games I think, like Metroid.
It seems funny to me to think of a keyboard as a controller...it seems so big and clunky and old school in some ways, for everything but text. I mean, I can see where 101 or whatever unique buttons gives you some options...but again, from my multiplayer perspective, a keybaord for each guy would look a bit goofy.
The patching issue can be a problem. I mean Matrix is an extreme case, obviously rushed. But then stuff like SOCOM, cheaters w/ game sharks and just exploiting odd bugs in the game.