I realize prescriptions are no panacea. Many of the societal problems we see from drugs are, however indirectly, caused by artificial scarcity. OxyContin (yes, it's spelled that way) is produced by exactly one manufacturer. Any time a drug has no generic competitors you can bet the price is artificially high. Even then, it's far from the most expensive drug around. The number I saw (some from the FDA) quoted around $1.25 for a 10mg tablet. That tablet has approximately the same power as 20mg of morphine, so it's nothing to laugh at. And if you're going to believe that the rising cost fo OxyContin is anything more than the law of suplpy and demand kicking in...well, just because Purdue Pharma's a big company doesn't make them any less drug pushers.
In addition, you're confusing the issue with drugs that are a high risk for physiological dependence versus a drug that has only shown an ability for psychological dependence. Your body can start needing oxycodone, but the best you're going get with THC is a moderate desire to get high. It's an entirely different class of drugs.
Same with marijuana...the same things that make it illegal could be the reason its illegal for terminally ill from getting it. I've known one terminally ill man with HIV that robbed several homes because he needed money for crack before he died (a girlfriend's brother). Dopers are generally a bit less violent, but there is still a public reason marijuana is illegal.
Okay...and how would your one cardinal case of harm being done by an addict NOT be alleviated by legalization? I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but your choice of examples is rather poorly considered.
If it was provided as a drug on a prescription basis, no girlfriend-robbing would be necessary.
I'd be concerned that setting up 128K blocks would be counter-prodcutive, since you'd have a hard time getting your your blocks to align perfectly with the drive's hardware blocks. After all, you lose a few K here for the partition table, another few bytes there for filesystem info...
I never said it was intuitive. I said it's more logically and predictably laid-out that the UNIX Way of Life. Yes, somebody who's unfamiliar with the command set will be confused at first. THe thing is, once you know one of the commands, it becomes quite a bit easier to predict the name of, and how to use, other commands.
This in stark contrast to UNIX commands where the names are chosen based on varying rules, some commands accept regexp input while others have their own special formatting (or require that you use grep with them), and it's in general a much longer learning curve.
In short, I agree. Intuitive is the wrong word. (In addition, the way I phrased is made it look like I was calling the MS way intuitive - that's not my intention.) THey're both artificial constructs that the user has to learn to control. My argument is that while the UNIX way offers shorter command names once you're intimately familiar with the command set, it may save oyu a little typing. On the other hand, the MSH command set should be easier to use while you're still learning how to use it.
Re:Take THAT, space science nay-sayers!
on
Glass In Spaaaaace
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· Score: 1
First, you're assuming that transportation costs will never go down. Granted, it'll always be more expensive to ship something to and from orbit than it is to truck it across the continent, but the cost differential should decrease somewhat in the future as technology improves.
Second, what about things that simply cannot be produced in a terrestrial environment? I see no evidence that this is the case, but humor me: suppose you can fabricate semiconductors that are significantly higher-performing in microgravity. Eventually Intel could manufacture their super-premium processors in space, that are capable of performing at eight times the capacity of their chips made in Malaysia. Certain customers would pay a rather huge premium for processors that give them that much more performance. You can see it now, in the way a Xeon EM64T 3.4 GHz will set you back over $700 while a Celeron with 2/3 the clock rate can be had for under $70. With a wider gap in speeds, I could see a much larger gap in prices becoming possible.
Now, apply this to other markets - we'll eventually devize products that can only be manufactured with the greater precision afforded by the microgravity environment that orbital manufacturing can provide. Turning lead to gold is only a losing proposition because there is such a supply here on Earth. What about things that can only be manufactured in space?
Okay, so what should we be learning from the fact that "process" is abbreviated "ps?" Apparently, the rule when naming UNIX commands is to take the first and last letters.
Okay, so directory list, should be...dt? Okay, we'll assume we just want "list" so then the command would be..."lt." Oh, I guess it's first and second-to-last letters. That works for both situations. Now, let's use an editor. "eo" does nothing for me. Hmm, my learning device must be broken somehow.
On the other hand, the MSH commands follow a predictable pattern: to get data, you use a command starting with "get-" followed by what it is you want to get. Get-content. Get-process.
Get-a-grip. Next time you claim that learning by wrote equals intuitive knowledge, I reserve the right to kick you in the balls.
The best part is many of the things that aren't officially "supported" by OS X are still supported about as well as they are by Linux. Download a hacked/modified driver and install it, then it starts working. As a bonus, you won't have to re-compile your kernel.
Out of curiosity...if it's different hardware that uses the same PCI vendor and product codes, how do the vendor's Windows drivers tell the difference?
It's more satisfying in some regards to think of it that was, but after the whole "Han shoots first" fiasco, there's no way Lucas would allow Yoda to act in a self-centered manner.
It's amazing that Fractal Painter has become MSs new toy. Then again, that company went through so many name-, management-, and focus-changes that nobody could keep up. At the bottom of this link you'll find a good chronology of the company in the early days. You know, the Good Ol' Days.
Even then, I liked Ray Dream better before Fractal purchased them. Designer 3 forever!
"Pieces of it" in BeOS? As far as I recall, the mechanics were all there...it was just the app support that was lacking in any material way. BFS queries were awesome.
I think that's the main problem: most apps really don;t know how to do this, and that'e by-and-large out of the control of the OS vendor. This is one of the few occasions that Linux has to *really* take the lead with something.
Then again, when you look at how well ACLs are supported, proper support of a query-based FS seems rather unlikely to happen in the near future.
I'm 23 and I get it, but as per usual YMMV. I would guess most people over about 21 or 22 should get it; what are the Slashdot demographics these days? I usually consider myself about the norm, but then I remember I've been reading the site since I was 16.
A washing machine is not very similar to a power spike, last I knew. A flash device will be much more suceptible to electricla damage than a mechanical hard drive, or at least if *part* of it goes the whole thing goes - unlike an old-fashioned spinning-ceramic hard drive.
There it is! IBM knows there's exactly zero chance of MS supporting the PowerPC line - they've committed to the 64-bit offerings from AMD and Intel. Linux support the PowerPC quite well, so pushing people to use Linux is not only good advice for the customer, it's good advice for IBM. They get to sell you something they made entirely again - the whole widget.
Selling people a Windows box nets them the support money, and that's it. With PPC Linux, they get the income for manufacruting the hardware and perhaps the software running on it.
As you said, too, moving to another supplier is difficult, as Freescale (Motorola) has shown little ability or interest to make high-performance CPUs.
It's also, generally, the most obnoxious console to play on. Load times that are slower than the XBox, with the game-save limitations of the GameCube. Throw in optical drive reliability that's downright shameful, and you have one frustrating gaming experience.
Well, the general rule is that you need at least two times the speed to emulate a given processor, and a PPC that's over 4X as fast clock-rate-wise should be sufficient for emulating an X86 processor - especially given the increase in such things as IPC and number of registers available, key features when you're dealing with emulation. Depending on how close the XBox360's processor parallels current G5 hardware, it should be simple to emulate the original XBox's CPU. It's the other parts of the system that present a problem, like the nVidia-specific graphics architecture.
1) If the XBox360 was going to be backwards-compatible, they would mention it. If it wasn't, they wouldn't exactly be trumpeting this lack of a feature. Since the XBox360 is less than a year off, and mundane details like the case design are already finalized, MS's lack of comment can pretty reliably be read as "no backwards compatibility."
2) To acheive true back-compatibility, certain functions would have to be licensed from nVidia, as the new XBox design uses graphics hardware from ATi. This has been brought up as a problem before, and nobody's mentioned that it has been solved. Presumably, licensing the needed tech from nVidia would nullify any cost advantage gained from going to ATi for the hardware itself.
No, you're either not very far through school or have forgotten the order of operations. Maybe writing it as "1 + 11^281" wil make things easier for you.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize prescriptions are no panacea. Many of the societal problems we see from drugs are, however indirectly, caused by artificial scarcity. OxyContin (yes, it's spelled that way) is produced by exactly one manufacturer. Any time a drug has no generic competitors you can bet the price is artificially high. Even then, it's far from the most expensive drug around. The number I saw (some from the FDA) quoted around $1.25 for a 10mg tablet. That tablet has approximately the same power as 20mg of morphine, so it's nothing to laugh at. And if you're going to believe that the rising cost fo OxyContin is anything more than the law of suplpy and demand kicking in...well, just because Purdue Pharma's a big company doesn't make them any less drug pushers.
In addition, you're confusing the issue with drugs that are a high risk for physiological dependence versus a drug that has only shown an ability for psychological dependence. Your body can start needing oxycodone, but the best you're going get with THC is a moderate desire to get high. It's an entirely different class of drugs.
That's not Timothy's editorializing, that's from the submitter - hence the italics.
Agreed, though, the submitter basically re-posted DVForge's position on the topic.
Same with marijuana...the same things that make it illegal could be the reason its illegal for terminally ill from getting it. I've known one terminally ill man with HIV that robbed several homes because he needed money for crack before he died (a girlfriend's brother). Dopers are generally a bit less violent, but there is still a public reason marijuana is illegal.
Okay...and how would your one cardinal case of harm being done by an addict NOT be alleviated by legalization? I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but your choice of examples is rather poorly considered.
If it was provided as a drug on a prescription basis, no girlfriend-robbing would be necessary.
I'd be concerned that setting up 128K blocks would be counter-prodcutive, since you'd have a hard time getting your your blocks to align perfectly with the drive's hardware blocks. After all, you lose a few K here for the partition table, another few bytes there for filesystem info...
Some people call me an identity pirate, but I know the truth:
Your identity wants to be free!
Since it's a constant, he would "disappear" or be wiped out by the new guy in town.
So, yes. Lame, but definitely calc-centric.
I never said it was intuitive. I said it's more logically and predictably laid-out that the UNIX Way of Life. Yes, somebody who's unfamiliar with the command set will be confused at first. THe thing is, once you know one of the commands, it becomes quite a bit easier to predict the name of, and how to use, other commands.
This in stark contrast to UNIX commands where the names are chosen based on varying rules, some commands accept regexp input while others have their own special formatting (or require that you use grep with them), and it's in general a much longer learning curve.
In short, I agree. Intuitive is the wrong word. (In addition, the way I phrased is made it look like I was calling the MS way intuitive - that's not my intention.) THey're both artificial constructs that the user has to learn to control. My argument is that while the UNIX way offers shorter command names once you're intimately familiar with the command set, it may save oyu a little typing. On the other hand, the MSH command set should be easier to use while you're still learning how to use it.
First, you're assuming that transportation costs will never go down. Granted, it'll always be more expensive to ship something to and from orbit than it is to truck it across the continent, but the cost differential should decrease somewhat in the future as technology improves.
Second, what about things that simply cannot be produced in a terrestrial environment? I see no evidence that this is the case, but humor me: suppose you can fabricate semiconductors that are significantly higher-performing in microgravity. Eventually Intel could manufacture their super-premium processors in space, that are capable of performing at eight times the capacity of their chips made in Malaysia. Certain customers would pay a rather huge premium for processors that give them that much more performance. You can see it now, in the way a Xeon EM64T 3.4 GHz will set you back over $700 while a Celeron with 2/3 the clock rate can be had for under $70. With a wider gap in speeds, I could see a much larger gap in prices becoming possible.
Now, apply this to other markets - we'll eventually devize products that can only be manufactured with the greater precision afforded by the microgravity environment that orbital manufacturing can provide. Turning lead to gold is only a losing proposition because there is such a supply here on Earth. What about things that can only be manufactured in space?
Okay, so what should we be learning from the fact that "process" is abbreviated "ps?" Apparently, the rule when naming UNIX commands is to take the first and last letters.
Okay, so directory list, should be...dt? Okay, we'll assume we just want "list" so then the command would be..."lt." Oh, I guess it's first and second-to-last letters. That works for both situations. Now, let's use an editor. "eo" does nothing for me. Hmm, my learning device must be broken somehow.
On the other hand, the MSH commands follow a predictable pattern: to get data, you use a command starting with "get-" followed by what it is you want to get. Get-content. Get-process.
Get-a-grip. Next time you claim that learning by wrote equals intuitive knowledge, I reserve the right to kick you in the balls.
An even better idea: have all the password-characters pre-arranged for me, so that I only need to copy and paste once.
Let me know when it's ready. Thanks.
IF that's true, then tell me why 90% of USB peripherals were a translucent shade of "Bondi Blue" for a solid year after the iMac's introduction?
The best part is many of the things that aren't officially "supported" by OS X are still supported about as well as they are by Linux. Download a hacked/modified driver and install it, then it starts working. As a bonus, you won't have to re-compile your kernel.
Out of curiosity...if it's different hardware that uses the same PCI vendor and product codes, how do the vendor's Windows drivers tell the difference?
It's more satisfying in some regards to think of it that was, but after the whole "Han shoots first" fiasco, there's no way Lucas would allow Yoda to act in a self-centered manner.
It's amazing that Fractal Painter has become MSs new toy. Then again, that company went through so many name-, management-, and focus-changes that nobody could keep up. At the bottom of this link you'll find a good chronology of the company in the early days. You know, the Good Ol' Days.
Even then, I liked Ray Dream better before Fractal purchased them. Designer 3 forever!
"Pieces of it" in BeOS? As far as I recall, the mechanics were all there...it was just the app support that was lacking in any material way. BFS queries were awesome.
I think that's the main problem: most apps really don;t know how to do this, and that'e by-and-large out of the control of the OS vendor. This is one of the few occasions that Linux has to *really* take the lead with something.
Then again, when you look at how well ACLs are supported, proper support of a query-based FS seems rather unlikely to happen in the near future.
I'm 23 and I get it, but as per usual YMMV. I would guess most people over about 21 or 22 should get it; what are the Slashdot demographics these days? I usually consider myself about the norm, but then I remember I've been reading the site since I was 16.
::assumes grumpy voice:: kids these days...
Ah,
A washing machine is not very similar to a power spike, last I knew. A flash device will be much more suceptible to electricla damage than a mechanical hard drive, or at least if *part* of it goes the whole thing goes - unlike an old-fashioned spinning-ceramic hard drive.
There it is! IBM knows there's exactly zero chance of MS supporting the PowerPC line - they've committed to the 64-bit offerings from AMD and Intel. Linux support the PowerPC quite well, so pushing people to use Linux is not only good advice for the customer, it's good advice for IBM. They get to sell you something they made entirely again - the whole widget.
Selling people a Windows box nets them the support money, and that's it. With PPC Linux, they get the income for manufacruting the hardware and perhaps the software running on it.
As you said, too, moving to another supplier is difficult, as Freescale (Motorola) has shown little ability or interest to make high-performance CPUs.
The common shortcut for silent mode on LG phones is to hold the "*" key down for a couple seconds.
That's with the specific hardware solution, though. What we're talking about is software RAID, something Windows XP Home does not support.
Linux, as a point of fact, does support software RAID quite well. You know, in case you were curious.
It's also, generally, the most obnoxious console to play on. Load times that are slower than the XBox, with the game-save limitations of the GameCube. Throw in optical drive reliability that's downright shameful, and you have one frustrating gaming experience.
Well, the general rule is that you need at least two times the speed to emulate a given processor, and a PPC that's over 4X as fast clock-rate-wise should be sufficient for emulating an X86 processor - especially given the increase in such things as IPC and number of registers available, key features when you're dealing with emulation. Depending on how close the XBox360's processor parallels current G5 hardware, it should be simple to emulate the original XBox's CPU. It's the other parts of the system that present a problem, like the nVidia-specific graphics architecture.
Key rebuttals:
1) If the XBox360 was going to be backwards-compatible, they would mention it. If it wasn't, they wouldn't exactly be trumpeting this lack of a feature. Since the XBox360 is less than a year off, and mundane details like the case design are already finalized, MS's lack of comment can pretty reliably be read as "no backwards compatibility."
2) To acheive true back-compatibility, certain functions would have to be licensed from nVidia, as the new XBox design uses graphics hardware from ATi. This has been brought up as a problem before, and nobody's mentioned that it has been solved. Presumably, licensing the needed tech from nVidia would nullify any cost advantage gained from going to ATi for the hardware itself.
No, you're either not very far through school or have forgotten the order of operations. Maybe writing it as "1 + 11^281" wil make things easier for you.