perhaps that is a crappy video card (I've never met a good matrox although i've heard they're out there) or you're running redhat/fedora.
I take exception to that, Matrox video cards kick ass in the 2D arena, and are built damn well. I cannot speak for their *Nix drivers, but their Windows drivers are rock solid stable.
Kick ass work horse cards that sit down and do the job.
Programmers now tends tend to, unfortunately, use the "Code it using the most braindead algorithms, and rely on bandwidth/CPU/memory increasing over time."
Software isn't made to be usable at time of release, it is made to be usable two years after release.
I'm currently on my 9th, and final, semester, and I'm finishing up my Bachelor of Science degrees in both Computer Science and Math at a good state university (Univ of Missouri). Though I took a summer class whenever possible and entered college with 12 hours (from AP credit). However, my average semester workload was about 12-14 hours.
5 or 6 years for just one BS? Yeah, maybe if one parties or screws around during the schoolweek and continues flunking classes, or maybe working fulltime and taking less than 9 credit hours a semester.
Excuse me, umm, I have been taking summer courses every quarter and so on and so forth as well, only failed 2 courses ever, one of which was during the summer so it didn't impact me too badly.
The main issue is that, from what I have seen, most students place into Algebra, and need 2 Algrbra courses and 2 Pre-Calc courses to get up to where they can start taking the real math and science courses.
Not to mention the sheer inane number of OTHER requirements.
If I took 16-18 credits a quarter, had miraculously started out in Calc (I had taken math courses through precalc in High School) and passed ALL the classes, then yes, MAYBE it would be possible to get a C.S. degree in 4 years.
Probably not though. This is not even counting that I am transfering from a CC, and one university wanted me to retake a year and a half of CS courses before I could even be admitted into the department! (needless to say I am NOT going to that university! It used the semester system, thus the long period of time to get ANYTHING done, yuck!)
On the plus side, the HUGE math background I was required to get means I can easily get a dual degree in Mathematics with just a few extra courses.:)
Where are you going to school that CS takes 5 to 6 years? I might believe if it was, say...... CE and co-op or something, but 5 to 6 for CS? Ridiculousness......
Every University I talked to in the state mentioned that this is generally the way it works.
First, one extra year of math is required to get up to were students are SUPPOSED to be at, this bumps things up by at least half a year to a year.
Second, unless students PERFECTLY manage their schedule and can handle a HUGE course load EVERY quarter without failing anything, well, I have seen the recommended "to finish CS in 4 years" course loads, and they are generally quite ridiculas (16-18 credits per quarter, 4 classes, etc) and would end up taking way longer than a lighter course load due to the large number of failures
Yah suuuure, taking Physics, CalcIII, Eng102 AND DiffEq all at the same time is a great idea. . ..
The most accepted origin of "w00t" is that it is short for "wonderful loot", taken from an online rpg (Everquest), expressed at times of slaying other players and then looting their remains.
*raises hand in objection*
I've been using "w00t" since before PCs could display 256 colors, mine as well connect to graphical MMORPGs
Roads, come last. We REMOVE lanes to insert tree lines medians.
We like things green around here, VERY green.
We would have mass transit, but it keeps getting delayed year after year as citizens complain it will upset their local. That and the contractors the light rail committee hires to "plan" things out seem to like keeping a regular paycheck...
That, and all the roads in Seattle (we have TWO main roads, let me repeat that, TWO) are now lined with Condos.....
Seattle has horrid traffic problems, lanes small, tiny, yes, mass trans would be good, current mass trans plans are way behind schedule and suck anyways.
More-Lanes-Needed.
It will be drab government approved dormitory style apartments.
Hey wait, isn't that what we have right now with all the d*mn condos that keep being built thanks to ever-further relaxing building codes?
It might not be the third party checkers they are aiming to block so much as the apps that take GMail and put it in a local inbox, or do stuff like forward from Hotmail to GMail, or do other "non-standard" things to GMail.
Google is trying to make a webapp, I can almost understand them wanting to keep users from using local mailer apps.
(I have a GMail account, I don't use it becaaause. . . . I like quick local access!)
Missouri, among other places, traffic is increasing so that in some places having a two or four lane road is insufficient.
Holy fuck, what century are you in? I live in washington state and the damn EIGHT lane roads are tiny and congested most of the day (55 speed limit, traffic at 10), and people moving up here from Florida keep telling me how damn small our highways are!
It might have left, but if you've ever watched a turtle you know they can wander off without you noticing because you got bored watching said turtle try to run.
Some turtles are oddly enough, fast as heck.
Even box turtles can go really fast when they want to. (Oh crud, where did the little bugger go? Ahh!!!)
I think it'd be nice if Sun did some sort of multi-platform automatic binary distrobution system instead of that darn VM, Java itself is a nice language, the API is simple to use for many many things, the only issue is the darn VM!
If compiled binaries were more common, or even some sort of limited compiled binaries, compiled to the LOWEST level possible and still be run in a sandbox, I think Java would have a better chance.
I mean heck, how many plateforms are there REALLY browsing the Internet? Three: Windows, Macintosh, Linux.
For most applets, multibinary support would not add THAT much more size to the applet, since most of the size of an applet is likely to be in the graphics and sound department anyways.
Oh yah, talking about graphics and sound:
Sun: STOP IT WITH THE MINIMAL LEVEL OF SUPPORT CRUD!
2.4Ghz machine;
800x600 resolution;
Instanciating a new Color object to draw random lines: 100% of my CPU use.
Head --> Wall
*POUND* *POUND* *POUND* *POUND*
stupidstupidstupidstupid.
This is not even counting how slow doing other graphical operations is, ugh! Please, sun, optimize Swing on a per machine basis!! On Windows it should automatically take advantage of DirectX, on OSX, Quartz, on Linux, umm, whatever Linux uses (MESA? Err, no clue).
Annnnyways. Aside from the, umm, performance issues (which ARE a killer), and the graphical issues, oh, yes, wait, one more mini-rant on graphics and Java.
People complain that making a GUI in Java is a pain, indeed, it IS a pain, but you know, compared to other APIs, it is not ALL that bad. Just a bit odd at times, having to work with a lowest common denominator toolkit. Actually it is NOT truely crossplateform, as the dude with the Mac OSX Laptop in my class wrote GUIs that didn't "look right" on Windows and the rest of the class on Windows wrote GUIs that didn't look right on his box. ^_^ Oh well, they were USEABLE more or less, only a bit of overlap between elements, hehe.
Yah, umm, that was good for a couple of laughs.
Oh yah, the language.
Fun to program in, very interesting, makes me WANT to program, easy to use.
Note that in most juristictions it's not the degree that matters, but rather the membership in a sanctioned monopoly engineering guild.
Despite the negative attitude many people here on/. seem to have towards these Engineering Guild's maintaining a precise definition of the word "Engineer", this is actually a good thing.
By having accreditation processes and requirements both for Engineering academic programs, and for (in some areas) attaining the title of "Engineer" through work experience, guild's can ensure that members have at least a bare minimum level of knowledge, and thus accountability.
Basically, you want all Engineering students to have studied certian aspects of safety, you want structures to be safe and sound, hardware to work properly, and so on and so forth.
Guild's cannot guarantee this, but they can at least do their best to make sure any institution passing out a degree with the word "Engineer" on it has at least tried to instill in their students the proper attitude and mind set about ensuring the safety and survival of the lives that an Engineer's products will be responsible for, and that anybody who uses the title of Engineer without an academic degree, has had the experiences required that (should hopefully have) instilled similar ideas and knowledge upon them as those learned in an academic environment.
The membership money is a motivating factor as well.:)
Um, yes. It's digtemail@email.com. Is that THAT hard to figure out? I mean, really. How much effort does it take? It's not like you're ever gonna get it wrong.
Yah yah that one is simple, but some people like to put up crap like
"Take the third sentence from the second paragraph of the GettysBurg Address, ROT14 the first half, and ROT12 the second half, then subtract out every second "A", clip off what should "obviously" not be there, and email!"
but, of course, trading based on this secret prediction counts as introducing the prediction into the market and would change the course of events, so you couldn't profit from this prediction even if you were right).
Depends on the model used for purchasing stock, a blind (of sealed bid) auction would allow for a person who is aware of the outcomes to aquire stock without showing others what he or she values the stock at (assuming final bidding prices are not released after the auction).
Now just make sure they are non-voting shares so that who owns them is a moot point and. . . .
Exactly. Why should a humantities major learn mathematics?
Or, to put it in a style of English that some what resembles that of the last past two centuries;
Because mathematics is in of itself a foundation of the arts. A form which describes beauty, grace, and the flow of life, is a form that is at its very basis and foundations one sprung to life from mathematics.
People tend to forget, Mathematics is an art. Only recent (well within the last one hundred years or so) politics within the academic community have changed that viewpoint.
It always pisses me off when an artist says "I just don't get that math stuff." You don't get it because you have been brainwashed into thinking that artists cannot do math!
Grade inflation is a problem. A "C" isn't good enough anymore, even though it's supposed to be average. Most grad schools will drop you if you don't have a "B" average, which means they should lose most students by the end of the program. It's the modern "good enough isn't!" crap again. How do you break the cycle? If you grade properly again, your students can't get a job because of low GPA.
That is not bad.
At the University of Washington, students with a 4.0 GPA are being refused admissions into the C.S. program.
Overwhelming requests for admission, they have to refuse most of the students who apply.
I hear other states a bit different. ^_^
Instructor's in the Puget Sound area feel pressured to give everybody straight 4.0s. Not that they don't work for it, how many reigons have leigons of undergrads studying 5 days a week until the library closes of night?
Yah well, that is what it takes to get accepted into CS, CmpE, or EE around here....
Besides, someone who has studied up to a doctorate is generally up in the clouds and capable of comfortably discussing his work only with colleagues of the same or nearly the same level. It is hard for an expert to relate to undergraduates who don't know anything yet.
"You never really know a subject unless you can prepare a freshman lecture on it." --Feynman.
Of course, this is what the entire Community College system is for, Proffessors who are sick and TIRED of the Research Rat Race and want to just teach!
Frankly Realplayer didn't do anything a dozen or more other software companies did/still do. They just got caught.
No, they just made it blatent and overly irritating
Using anything after RealPlayer 3 (or arguably G2, which wasn't so bad as it was just bloated) is a matter of trying to find a way to make the ads go away, start the player up without fifteen offers to sign up for whatever appearing, and actually figuring out how the HELL to load a media file.
Apple tried this sh!t with a version of quicktime not to long ago (I actually couldn't figure out how to get it to STOP playing ads!), thankfully they seemed to have given up on that tactic very fast.
Then again, I haven't started QuickTime by itself in a long time.
Ok, when starting up I still see an ad, but it is static (for now. . ..), and nothing is actually popping up at me.
No idea why I can only "open a file in a NEW window", what the hell would I want ANOTHER Window open for by default. Granted once in a blue moon that comes in handy, but most of the time, I want to open a video in the SAME windows. . ..
*sigh* Apples vaunted UIs must not extend to the Window's platform.
WinAmp 5 kicks ass, takes too long to load still, (2.0ghz Machine, 512 megs of ram, why the HELL is it taking time to load at ALL? ), man I wish Media Player 6.2 had just BASIC playlist capabilities, then it'd be perfect. Actually it already IS the perfect movie player, being able to use my left and right arrow keys to fast forward and rewind would make it better though.:-D (it is the only "mass market" media player that lets me configure my codecs, damnit, I hate not having the options there, and the Nullsoft dudes damn well know better!)
Slashdot Mirror
I take exception to that, Matrox video cards kick ass in the 2D arena, and are built damn well. I cannot speak for their *Nix drivers, but their Windows drivers are rock solid stable.
Kick ass work horse cards that sit down and do the job.
Programmers now tends tend to, unfortunately, use the "Code it using the most braindead algorithms, and rely on bandwidth/CPU/memory increasing over time."
Software isn't made to be usable at time of release, it is made to be usable two years after release.
Decent my ass, over a 1MB down 256Kbit up cable modem connection, RDP blows massive chunks.
Type
Wait wait wait wait
Type
Wait wait wait wait
Click
Wait await wait wait.
Horrid.
Heavily JPEG compressed VNC isn't much better.
RDP over a 10mbit LAN? Still a bit jerky, but at least usable.
Ed: Every year, doh!
5 or 6 years for just one BS? Yeah, maybe if one parties or screws around during the schoolweek and continues flunking classes, or maybe working fulltime and taking less than 9 credit hours a semester.
Excuse me, umm, I have been taking summer courses every quarter and so on and so forth as well, only failed 2 courses ever, one of which was during the summer so it didn't impact me too badly.
The main issue is that, from what I have seen, most students place into Algebra, and need 2 Algrbra courses and 2 Pre-Calc courses to get up to where they can start taking the real math and science courses.
Not to mention the sheer inane number of OTHER requirements.
If I took 16-18 credits a quarter, had miraculously started out in Calc (I had taken math courses through precalc in High School) and passed ALL the classes, then yes, MAYBE it would be possible to get a C.S. degree in 4 years.
Probably not though. This is not even counting that I am transfering from a CC, and one university wanted me to retake a year and a half of CS courses before I could even be admitted into the department! (needless to say I am NOT going to that university! It used the semester system, thus the long period of time to get ANYTHING done, yuck!)
On the plus side, the HUGE math background I was required to get means I can easily get a dual degree in Mathematics with just a few extra courses.
Every University I talked to in the state mentioned that this is generally the way it works.
First, one extra year of math is required to get up to were students are SUPPOSED to be at, this bumps things up by at least half a year to a year.
Second, unless students PERFECTLY manage their schedule and can handle a HUGE course load EVERY quarter without failing anything, well, I have seen the recommended "to finish CS in 4 years" course loads, and they are generally quite ridiculas (16-18 credits per quarter, 4 classes, etc) and would end up taking way longer than a lighter course load due to the large number of failures
Yah suuuure, taking Physics, CalcIII, Eng102 AND DiffEq all at the same time is a great idea. . .
Not.
Yah, umm, getting a CS degree now takes between 5 and 6 years for a BS. . . . time my man, TIME.
(actually I have managed to squeeze in a FEW extra courses, Piano, painting, etc, but honestly. . .
Most Unis require some sort of core liberal arts basis anyways, random psych course, history, etc.
*raises hand in objection*
I've been using "w00t" since before PCs could display 256 colors, mine as well connect to graphical MMORPGs
Hehe,you don't understand the Seattle mindset.
I rather like it myself, but hey.
Roads, come last. We REMOVE lanes to insert tree lines medians.
We like things green around here, VERY green.
We would have mass transit, but it keeps getting delayed year after year as citizens complain it will upset their local. That and the contractors the light rail committee hires to "plan" things out seem to like keeping a regular paycheck...
That, and all the roads in Seattle (we have TWO main roads, let me repeat that, TWO) are now lined with Condos.
Stupid freaking city building dept...
My main rebuttel:
Ask parental units, they mention, traffic much better long ago, used to be able to get across city.
Huh?
Okaaaaay
Listen.
18 miles.
1hr.
one freaking hour
Seattle has horrid traffic problems, lanes small, tiny, yes, mass trans would be good, current mass trans plans are way behind schedule and suck anyways.
More-Lanes-Needed.
Hey wait, isn't that what we have right now with all the d*mn condos that keep being built thanks to ever-further relaxing building codes?
It might not be the third party checkers they are aiming to block so much as the apps that take GMail and put it in a local inbox, or do stuff like forward from Hotmail to GMail, or do other "non-standard" things to GMail.
Google is trying to make a webapp, I can almost understand them wanting to keep users from using local mailer apps.
(I have a GMail account, I don't use it becaaause. . . . I like quick local access!)
Ah, thanks for the flashback.
The really sad part is, MS keeps dropping the ball, but nobody in the OSS movement can seem to pick it up....
*COUGH COUGH*
Seems like every new version of Windows from 2000 onwards was supposed to have a new file structure that allowed for database like access.
STOP STOP STOP CANCELING IT!
Ugh!
Oh well, old new, MS's new file system canceled AGAIN! Wait another 3-4 years to see if it is in the next release.
Holy fuck, what century are you in? I live in washington state and the damn EIGHT lane roads are tiny and congested most of the day (55 speed limit, traffic at 10), and people moving up here from Florida keep telling me how damn small our highways are!
Some turtles are oddly enough, fast as heck.
Even box turtles can go really fast when they want to. (Oh crud, where did the little bugger go? Ahh!!!)
I think it'd be nice if Sun did some sort of multi-platform automatic binary distrobution system instead of that darn VM, Java itself is a nice language, the API is simple to use for many many things, the only issue is the darn VM!
If compiled binaries were more common, or even some sort of limited compiled binaries, compiled to the LOWEST level possible and still be run in a sandbox, I think Java would have a better chance.
I mean heck, how many plateforms are there REALLY browsing the Internet? Three: Windows, Macintosh, Linux.
For most applets, multibinary support would not add THAT much more size to the applet, since most of the size of an applet is likely to be in the graphics and sound department anyways.
Oh yah, talking about graphics and sound:
Sun: STOP IT WITH THE MINIMAL LEVEL OF SUPPORT CRUD!
2.4Ghz machine;
800x600 resolution;
Instanciating a new Color object to draw random lines: 100% of my CPU use.
Head --> Wall
*POUND* *POUND* *POUND* *POUND*
stupidstupidstupidstupid.
This is not even counting how slow doing other graphical operations is, ugh! Please, sun, optimize Swing on a per machine basis!! On Windows it should automatically take advantage of DirectX, on OSX, Quartz, on Linux, umm, whatever Linux uses (MESA? Err, no clue).
Annnnyways. Aside from the, umm, performance issues (which ARE a killer), and the graphical issues, oh, yes, wait, one more mini-rant on graphics and Java.
People complain that making a GUI in Java is a pain, indeed, it IS a pain, but you know, compared to other APIs, it is not ALL that bad. Just a bit odd at times, having to work with a lowest common denominator toolkit. Actually it is NOT truely crossplateform, as the dude with the Mac OSX Laptop in my class wrote GUIs that didn't "look right" on Windows and the rest of the class on Windows wrote GUIs that didn't look right on his box. ^_^ Oh well, they were USEABLE more or less, only a bit of overlap between elements, hehe.
Yah, umm, that was good for a couple of laughs.
Oh yah, the language.
Fun to program in, very interesting, makes me WANT to program, easy to use.
Just performance bites. Horribly.
Despite the negative attitude many people here on
By having accreditation processes and requirements both for Engineering academic programs, and for (in some areas) attaining the title of "Engineer" through work experience, guild's can ensure that members have at least a bare minimum level of knowledge, and thus accountability.
Basically, you want all Engineering students to have studied certian aspects of safety, you want structures to be safe and sound, hardware to work properly, and so on and so forth.
Guild's cannot guarantee this, but they can at least do their best to make sure any institution passing out a degree with the word "Engineer" on it has at least tried to instill in their students the proper attitude and mind set about ensuring the safety and survival of the lives that an Engineer's products will be responsible for, and that anybody who uses the title of Engineer without an academic degree, has had the experiences required that (should hopefully have) instilled similar ideas and knowledge upon them as those learned in an academic environment.
The membership money is a motivating factor as well.
Yah yah that one is simple, but some people like to put up crap like
"Take the third sentence from the second paragraph of the GettysBurg Address, ROT14 the first half, and ROT12 the second half, then subtract out every second "A", clip off what should "obviously" not be there, and email!"
Damn I hate people who do that.
Depends on the model used for purchasing stock, a blind (of sealed bid) auction would allow for a person who is aware of the outcomes to aquire stock without showing others what he or she values the stock at (assuming final bidding prices are not released after the auction).
Now just make sure they are non-voting shares so that who owns them is a moot point and. . . .
Or, to put it in a style of English that some what resembles that of the last past two centuries;
Because mathematics is in of itself a foundation of the arts. A form which describes beauty, grace, and the flow of life, is a form that is at its very basis and foundations one sprung to life from mathematics.
People tend to forget, Mathematics is an art. Only recent (well within the last one hundred years or so) politics within the academic community have changed that viewpoint.
It always pisses me off when an artist says "I just don't get that math stuff." You don't get it because you have been brainwashed into thinking that artists cannot do math!
That is not bad.
At the University of Washington, students with a 4.0 GPA are being refused admissions into the C.S. program.
Overwhelming requests for admission, they have to refuse most of the students who apply.
I hear other states a bit different. ^_^
Instructor's in the Puget Sound area feel pressured to give everybody straight 4.0s. Not that they don't work for it, how many reigons have leigons of undergrads studying 5 days a week until the library closes of night?
Yah well, that is what it takes to get accepted into CS, CmpE, or EE around here.
"You never really know a subject unless you can prepare a freshman lecture on it." --Feynman.
Of course, this is what the entire Community College system is for, Proffessors who are sick and TIRED of the Research Rat Race and want to just teach!
Yah, right after I posted the above message I went and got it, I had heard of it before.
:)
Old habits die hard, so I am going to create a symbolic link to it, name the link mplayer2, and figure out which directory to shove it in.
Now hell the hell is WMplayer.exe running when D:\program files\Windows Media Player\ isn't even in my path statement. . . . ^_^
Heya, did you know, WMP6.x actually has playlist support, just no UI for it?
No, they just made it blatent and overly irritating
Using anything after RealPlayer 3 (or arguably G2, which wasn't so bad as it was just bloated) is a matter of trying to find a way to make the ads go away, start the player up without fifteen offers to sign up for whatever appearing, and actually figuring out how the HELL to load a media file.
Apple tried this sh!t with a version of quicktime not to long ago (I actually couldn't figure out how to get it to STOP playing ads!), thankfully they seemed to have given up on that tactic very fast.
Then again, I haven't started QuickTime by itself in a long time.
Ok, when starting up I still see an ad, but it is static (for now. . .
No idea why I can only "open a file in a NEW window", what the hell would I want ANOTHER Window open for by default. Granted once in a blue moon that comes in handy, but most of the time, I want to open a video in the SAME windows. . .
*sigh* Apples vaunted UIs must not extend to the Window's platform.
WinAmp 5 kicks ass, takes too long to load still, (2.0ghz Machine, 512 megs of ram, why the HELL is it taking time to load at ALL? ), man I wish Media Player 6.2 had just BASIC playlist capabilities, then it'd be perfect. Actually it already IS the perfect movie player, being able to use my left and right arrow keys to fast forward and rewind would make it better though.
Hey any chance of a Windows port here folks, the real player we got still sucks.