Without the retail set, I expect their enterprise edition to drop in quality.
Well, there's always the old fashioned way of hiring testers, buying a range of supported hardware, and running various suites of tests within the company. This is more of an economic burden on Redhat, but it's a necessity if they're going to abandon the previous system for testing releases. Someone in their management may feel they can save enough money by dropping the retail version that internal testing would be cheaper for them.
Or alternatively, they may have too many suits on the payroll who haven't yet considered this. The resultant product quality will show which is the case.
If you want another example, think about your car. You can't get in unless you have keys. Your keys are secret, but the locking mechanism isn't. And despite that, I bet nobody's been able to get your car without getting your keys (or smashing the car, but that's not my point). Security-through-obscurity is not benificial.
Okay, let's take the car example. The shape of my key can be expressed as a set of numbers. By enumerating this set of numbers, I can make all possible keys. Or, alternatively, I can make the shape of the key publicly known, and make where to put the key different on each car. Make 10 key holes, and I have to put the key in those 10 key holes in a different order for each car. This is obscurity, because I'm obscuring where to put the key, but it's not much different than a password.
The problem with the "security through obscurity is ALWAYS bad" argument, is that it fails to take into account the fuzzy line between data and algorithms. Algorithms are also enumerable just as easily as data, and thus, an "obscure" algorithm, properly implemented and properly kept secret, can be as valuable as an "obscure" password.
What it means is that obscurity is not sufficient for security. It does not mean that obscurity is not helpful as part of an overall security system.
Precisely. If obscurity were not beneficial as part of security, then root passwords would be publicly available. If the login name for root were an unknown random alphanumeric string like the password, this would increase security. And if every command you ran as root required you to enter a different password, this would increase security again. If a system has a detector to detect intruders, and every command that can be run has a random filename, this can increase security by limiting what can be effectively done with the decoder book.
These are all obscurity additions to security, and they DO make the situation better, they just aren't sufficient. Obscurity is particularly bad when mass distributed, and every system uses the same obscurity (since then it isn't very obscure). Obscurity is useful when its kept as secret as a password.
and there'll be annoying syntax questions at job interviews
If you get asked an annoying syntax question at a job interview to which you don't know the answer, simply respond "I don't know, but I know how to look it up. Programming is a thought process, not memorization of syntax eccentricities."
would just happen to coincide with the time that we monkeys are hoping around on our world
Well, if we manage to live long enough to make it off of this dirt ball in significant numbers, then it would take an extraordinary event to cause our extinction.
Extinctions in the past are typically caused by changes in environment or conflict with other species. If we leave Earth, this would probably coincide with the ability to make significant environmental changes in our favor on other planets. Conflict with other species outside of Earth could easily cause our extinction if either we or they lack sufficient tolerance, but it's hard to imagine us reaching that point and then vaporizing of our own doing.
Estimating from the decay of Uranium has been used.
The Uranium decay estimate you linked to put the universe at 12.5 billion years old, while this planet was measured to be 13.7 billion years old. News articles should include error bars.
i.e. the B-2 has a + charge on the leading edge of the wing and a - charge on the trailing edge (or vice versa and who cares anyway). It's classified, so it must be interesting, no?
No. Picture the B-2 as a cat, and the atmosphere as a sweater. Then move the cat at a few hundred miles per hour along the sweater. I guarantee you that you'll displace a few charges toward the tail of the cat.
Take the phrase "linguistic concision" for example. To replace that with a simpler vernacular I'd have to say something to the effect of "being really precise with words" - far less elloquent and efficient.
"Linguistic Concision" means something of or relating to language which has few words and is clear and succinct. Google hits for "linguistic concision", 4.
"Concise Wording" means a statement which has few words and is clear and succinct. Google hits for "concise wording", 1090, and thus is far more likely to be understood.
One must consider their audience when speaking
Linguistic concision is less accurate to the meaning you're aiming for, and its "elloquence" is perceived by the hearer as pretentiousness, rather than elloquence. You are right that you cannot consider communication without considering the audience, and there is almost no audience on Earth which will be impressed by such language. The only value using confusing uncommon words or phrasing has is to confuse or misdirect the audience. "Regime" "sexual relations" "unlawful combatant"
As for technology, as programmers we should be much better at communicating jargon concepts than we actually are. The profession of programming is littered with layers of abstraction. You develop a low level function or object, then you start using it at a higher level and stop thinking about how it works at the lowest level, and then continue upward. Jargon is just another lower level function, which gives us good information about how things work. We should just as easily be able to put layers of abstraction on top of it so that people can interact at an even higher level. As an example, "Segmentation Fault" or "General Protection Fault" can just as easily say "This program contains an error which has caused it to fail." Jargon information should only need to be there to those who need it.
The wisdom in the business is that 30 second clips (this is the magic number for some reason) are perfectly legal to allow people to access without payment.
Good thinking... I'm going to immediately go register FirstThirtySeconds.com, SecondThirtySeconds.com, ThirdThirtySeconds.com, etc, etc... Then someone from Estonia will write a program to recompile these clips.
The article is wrong in the sense that it treats the photons from Sun to be in the form of heat - they are not, because their velocities are not randomised - there is a net momentum radially away from the sun.
Precisely. It is easy to argue against the article with this simple thought experiment. Place a mirror floating in a vacuum, then point a laser at it, aimed so that the laser light reflects off of the mirror and is reabsorbed by black material attached to the side of the laser. Both the emission and absorption of photons will cause the laser and its attachment to be gain momentum away from the mirror. He suggests that the mirror will simply sit there and gain no momentum. This violates an extremely important principle, the conservation of momentum (since one object starts moving without the other interacting object moving in the opposite direction).
If instead, solar sails do work, then everything balances out just fine.
The rules of thermodynamics ONLY apply at the thermodynamic limit. Put 2000 shotgun pellets in a box, shake it, and set it down, and this can be considered a thermodynamic system. Take those 2000 shotgun pellets and fire them all in a single direction, and this is NOT a thermodynamic system.
Tom's had an article that showed that WineX was within a couple percent of Windows, and it was emulating the Direct3D calls.
By a couple percent you mean 50?
That article shows that X has comparable speed, sometimes a percent or two slower, sometimes a percent or two faster, than Windows 2000. The article also shows that the same games running under WineX are significantly slower than under windows. It goes on further to show that the slow down is not related to a delay in displaying graphics, and thus X is doing good, it's just WineX which is providing a bit of a bottleneck. This was one year ago, WineX may have improved since then.
4. The semi-truck is tailgating you. See #2 and if you have an automatic downshifitng is not much of an option so you still have to slow down. If you crash into the car the semi truck will still run over you.
So when you are crushed completely by the semi-truck and die instantly you will complain to St. Peter that it was the semi-truck which was responsible, not you.
1, 2, 3, 5
I already know how to drive and avoid these situations, and since I have a human brain capable of parallel processing, I can effectively use the entirety of information available to determine the appropriate maneuver to survive the event. Having my decision overridden by a machine which knows less than me is just plain silly. I have no problem with a beeping light on the dashboard, sometimes humans get groggy.
In general we are fairly efficient image processors, better than anything we will be able to build for at least a decade or three.
or asking them why they aren't instead working on a way to contribute to the ISS program?
You are neglecting the strong psychological component to economics. If the Chinese successfully lead a manned space program, this will show the world that China and its people are ready and able to undertake complex technological endeavors. This translates directly into international investment into China and business cooperation with Chinese companies, which translates directly into booming economic strength.
I for one hope they have a successful space program, science can benefit greatly from the diversity of approaches this can yield.
If you think of terrorism as a crime, then yes, there is a problem, but no, it won't ever be stopped. There are two kinds of terrorism, one kind originates from individuals, and no approach can ever completely stop this. The second kind originates from organizations, and this can be reduced by infiltrating and breaking the organization.
But with both of these, we as a society need to strongly resist the temptation and calls for throwing away "innocent until proven guilty" in the case of terrorism. If you throw away that statement for any one crime, you have discarded it completely. You only have to be accused of one guilty-first crime (example, witchcraft) to be conveniently removed just because someone dislikes you.
Gathering of private information by the government when no crime is known can in essence be a presumption of guilt, and this can be extremely dangerous.
People aren't excited while skydiving because they expect to plummet to their death, but most of them do know it's possible.
I doubt if anyone in history who has ever won the lottery put more into it than they got out. It's this possibility which excites people, let them have their fun.
How can you have a denominator _at_ infinity? After all, you can then have one at infinity plus one. Thus, there is no way for the denominator to actually reach infinity, so grandparent is correct - you're always approaching infinity, and thus approaching zero.
If the number in the denominator is defined as the number of primes, then it is by definition countably infinite. One of the properties of something being countably infinite is that you can add one, and it is still countably infinite.
Slashdot Mirror
Without the retail set, I expect their enterprise edition to drop in quality.
Well, there's always the old fashioned way of hiring testers, buying a range of supported hardware, and running various suites of tests within the company. This is more of an economic burden on Redhat, but it's a necessity if they're going to abandon the previous system for testing releases. Someone in their management may feel they can save enough money by dropping the retail version that internal testing would be cheaper for them.
Or alternatively, they may have too many suits on the payroll who haven't yet considered this. The resultant product quality will show which is the case.
1. Jump on the ogg bandwagon.
2. Get pigs to fly.
3. Sell passenger tickets.
4. Profit!
but how many people can stop the blinking 12:00?
With or without duct tape?
Independents = Liberals who won't use the L-word.
:)
That's probably becase "You dirty independent" doesn't have quite the same ring to it...
If you want another example, think about your car. You can't get in unless you have keys. Your keys are secret, but the locking mechanism isn't. And despite that, I bet nobody's been able to get your car without getting your keys (or smashing the car, but that's not my point). Security-through-obscurity is not benificial.
Okay, let's take the car example. The shape of my key can be expressed as a set of numbers. By enumerating this set of numbers, I can make all possible keys. Or, alternatively, I can make the shape of the key publicly known, and make where to put the key different on each car. Make 10 key holes, and I have to put the key in those 10 key holes in a different order for each car. This is obscurity, because I'm obscuring where to put the key, but it's not much different than a password.
The problem with the "security through obscurity is ALWAYS bad" argument, is that it fails to take into account the fuzzy line between data and algorithms. Algorithms are also enumerable just as easily as data, and thus, an "obscure" algorithm, properly implemented and properly kept secret, can be as valuable as an "obscure" password.
What it means is that obscurity is not sufficient for security. It does not mean that obscurity is not helpful as part of an overall security system.
Precisely. If obscurity were not beneficial as part of security, then root passwords would be publicly available. If the login name for root were an unknown random alphanumeric string like the password, this would increase security. And if every command you ran as root required you to enter a different password, this would increase security again. If a system has a detector to detect intruders, and every command that can be run has a random filename, this can increase security by limiting what can be effectively done with the decoder book.
These are all obscurity additions to security, and they DO make the situation better, they just aren't sufficient. Obscurity is particularly bad when mass distributed, and every system uses the same obscurity (since then it isn't very obscure). Obscurity is useful when its kept as secret as a password.
auto x = foo
would simply be a shortcut for:
typeof(foo) x = foo;
#define AUTO(x,foo) typeof(foo)(x)=(foo)
now you can write:
auto x = foo;
as:
AUTO(x, foo);
If you are really inclined to want this.
and there'll be annoying syntax questions at job interviews
If you get asked an annoying syntax question at a job interview to which you don't know the answer, simply respond "I don't know, but I know how to look it up. Programming is a thought process, not memorization of syntax eccentricities."
*Sound of Crickets*
would just happen to coincide with the time that we monkeys are hoping around on our world
Well, if we manage to live long enough to make it off of this dirt ball in significant numbers, then it would take an extraordinary event to cause our extinction.
Extinctions in the past are typically caused by changes in environment or conflict with other species. If we leave Earth, this would probably coincide with the ability to make significant environmental changes in our favor on other planets. Conflict with other species outside of Earth could easily cause our extinction if either we or they lack sufficient tolerance, but it's hard to imagine us reaching that point and then vaporizing of our own doing.
Estimating from the decay of Uranium has been used.
The Uranium decay estimate you linked to put the universe at 12.5 billion years old, while this planet was measured to be 13.7 billion years old. News articles should include error bars.
i.e. the B-2 has a + charge on the leading edge of the wing and a - charge on the trailing edge (or vice versa and who cares anyway). It's classified, so it must be interesting, no?
No. Picture the B-2 as a cat, and the atmosphere as a sweater. Then move the cat at a few hundred miles per hour along the sweater. I guarantee you that you'll displace a few charges toward the tail of the cat.
Take the phrase "linguistic concision" for example. To replace that with a simpler vernacular I'd have to say something to the effect of "being really precise with words" - far less elloquent and efficient.
"Linguistic Concision" means something of or relating to language which has few words and is clear and succinct. Google hits for "linguistic concision", 4.
"Concise Wording" means a statement which has few words and is clear and succinct. Google hits for "concise wording", 1090, and thus is far more likely to be understood.
One must consider their audience when speaking
Linguistic concision is less accurate to the meaning you're aiming for, and its "elloquence" is perceived by the hearer as pretentiousness, rather than elloquence. You are right that you cannot consider communication without considering the audience, and there is almost no audience on Earth which will be impressed by such language. The only value using confusing uncommon words or phrasing has is to confuse or misdirect the audience. "Regime" "sexual relations" "unlawful combatant"
As for technology, as programmers we should be much better at communicating jargon concepts than we actually are. The profession of programming is littered with layers of abstraction. You develop a low level function or object, then you start using it at a higher level and stop thinking about how it works at the lowest level, and then continue upward. Jargon is just another lower level function, which gives us good information about how things work. We should just as easily be able to put layers of abstraction on top of it so that people can interact at an even higher level. As an example, "Segmentation Fault" or "General Protection Fault" can just as easily say "This program contains an error which has caused it to fail." Jargon information should only need to be there to those who need it.
The wisdom in the business is that 30 second clips (this is the magic number for some reason) are perfectly legal to allow people to access without payment.
Good thinking... I'm going to immediately go register FirstThirtySeconds.com, SecondThirtySeconds.com, ThirdThirtySeconds.com, etc, etc... Then someone from Estonia will write a program to recompile these clips.
The article is wrong in the sense that it treats the photons from Sun to be in the form of heat - they are not, because their velocities are not randomised - there is a net momentum radially away from the sun.
Precisely. It is easy to argue against the article with this simple thought experiment. Place a mirror floating in a vacuum, then point a laser at it, aimed so that the laser light reflects off of the mirror and is reabsorbed by black material attached to the side of the laser. Both the emission and absorption of photons will cause the laser and its attachment to be gain momentum away from the mirror. He suggests that the mirror will simply sit there and gain no momentum. This violates an extremely important principle, the conservation of momentum (since one object starts moving without the other interacting object moving in the opposite direction).
If instead, solar sails do work, then everything balances out just fine.
The rules of thermodynamics ONLY apply at the thermodynamic limit. Put 2000 shotgun pellets in a box, shake it, and set it down, and this can be considered a thermodynamic system. Take those 2000 shotgun pellets and fire them all in a single direction, and this is NOT a thermodynamic system.
Tom's had an article that showed that WineX was within a couple percent of Windows, and it was emulating the Direct3D calls.
By a couple percent you mean 50?
That article shows that X has comparable speed, sometimes a percent or two slower, sometimes a percent or two faster, than Windows 2000. The article also shows that the same games running under WineX are significantly slower than under windows. It goes on further to show that the slow down is not related to a delay in displaying graphics, and thus X is doing good, it's just WineX which is providing a bit of a bottleneck. This was one year ago, WineX may have improved since then.
4. The semi-truck is tailgating you. See #2 and if you have an automatic downshifitng is not much of an option so you still have to slow down. If you crash into the car the semi truck will still run over you.
So when you are crushed completely by the semi-truck and die instantly you will complain to St. Peter that it was the semi-truck which was responsible, not you.
1, 2, 3, 5
I already know how to drive and avoid these situations, and since I have a human brain capable of parallel processing, I can effectively use the entirety of information available to determine the appropriate maneuver to survive the event. Having my decision overridden by a machine which knows less than me is just plain silly. I have no problem with a beeping light on the dashboard, sometimes humans get groggy.
In general we are fairly efficient image processors, better than anything we will be able to build for at least a decade or three.
or asking them why they aren't instead working on a way to contribute to the ISS program?
You are neglecting the strong psychological component to economics. If the Chinese successfully lead a manned space program, this will show the world that China and its people are ready and able to undertake complex technological endeavors. This translates directly into international investment into China and business cooperation with Chinese companies, which translates directly into booming economic strength.
I for one hope they have a successful space program, science can benefit greatly from the diversity of approaches this can yield.
>I have yet to see a tool that does 100% of what a person needs.
Might I introduce you to a little device known as a can opener?
Not particularly useful without a little device to put food in cans.
Sensors which detect seat movement. Now that's definitely a solution looking desperately for a problem.
(GNU/Unix) = ((Gnu's)(Not)(Unix))/(Unix) = (Gnu's Not) = GN. WTF is a GN?
:)
Why it's a Gnu Nut, of course.
What would help? Or is there even a problem?
If you think of terrorism as a crime, then yes, there is a problem, but no, it won't ever be stopped. There are two kinds of terrorism, one kind originates from individuals, and no approach can ever completely stop this. The second kind originates from organizations, and this can be reduced by infiltrating and breaking the organization.
But with both of these, we as a society need to strongly resist the temptation and calls for throwing away "innocent until proven guilty" in the case of terrorism. If you throw away that statement for any one crime, you have discarded it completely. You only have to be accused of one guilty-first crime (example, witchcraft) to be conveniently removed just because someone dislikes you.
Gathering of private information by the government when no crime is known can in essence be a presumption of guilt, and this can be extremely dangerous.
A) A tax for people bad at math.
Or, cheap entertainment.
People aren't excited while skydiving because they expect to plummet to their death, but most of them do know it's possible.
I doubt if anyone in history who has ever won the lottery put more into it than they got out. It's this possibility which excites people, let them have their fun.
How can you have a denominator _at_ infinity? After all, you can then have one at infinity plus one. Thus, there is no way for the denominator to actually reach infinity, so grandparent is correct - you're always approaching infinity, and thus approaching zero.
If the number in the denominator is defined as the number of primes, then it is by definition countably infinite. One of the properties of something being countably infinite is that you can add one, and it is still countably infinite.
My actual residence is about 300 feet from my mailbox. Which one will be used as my "address?" The place where I live, or the mailbox?
And what about the 49 floors above you in your 50 story apartment complex?