They haven't done that great a job of sticking to this in the past though - note it is.uk rather the.gb as it should be.
That's because they'd probably get strung from lamp-posts if they tried to make it.gb.
[BTW,.gb is a bit weird as a country-code in the first place, as the political unit is the United Kingdom, not "Great Britain". I wouldn't be surprised if it was the result of political horse-trading, what with the IRA and all that nastiness, etc.]
Most of the members of the "community" seen in that thread seem to be a bunch of shouty whiners. Sadly I expect that for many of them that is their sole "contribution" to Mozilla.
Yeah, I got the same impression. I ended up thinking ``Hey, wait a minute, Slashdot seems more mature than this...'' (I browse at +2, btw:-)
When you see Epiphany you first notice all of the features that are missing. If you're like me, you'll quickly notice that you don't really miss any of those features
What I quickly noticed was that Epiphany is a damn clunky browser, nigh-well unusably so. The same is unfortunately true of almost all `alternative' web-browsers these days; firefox has its problems, but it has the advantage of actually being a nice browser. Epiphany looks more like a quick hack so that the Gnome team can check the `Got a browser' checkbox on some feature list.
Maybe the Epiphany will figure it out someday, who knows, but I'm not waiting around, and it's not clear why anyone else should either.
For the vast majority of downloadable Windows applications, you just download it and install.
You understand the reason for this, don't you? It's because Windows `install bundles' include every single library etc they will use. This is a simple method, but it is hugely problematic:
More often than not, the bundled libraries replace existing installed copies of the same library -- and the `new' (bundled) version may actually be older, broken, whatever. If it installs its libraries into a separate location, of course you then end up with n copies of every library, many of which are seriously out-of-date -- security updates? Hah!
It (obviously) means that install bundles must contain every non-standard subsystem they use, and so can be huge -- which obviously is not good for you poor people without broadband...
The Windows installer stuff is a seriously horrible ball of hair; that it works at all is more a testament to the sweat lavished on it than any inherent merit.
Actually, it's the web *developer* that's an incompetent moron. Designers are typically people who come up with the overall layout, and developers implement it.
There seems to be a pretty strong correlation between moronic design and moronic implementation in my experience.
["My vision for this website starts with a 23-minute long movie that plays before you get to the menu...next, comes the parade of the dancing elephants...then the drum solo..." "For a cooking website?!?" "Darling; leave it to us web experts, OK?"]
I made no claims about efficiency. I stated that Dvorak is ergonomically superior. It is easier on the users hands. I did not, and I do not claim that a Dvorak user can type faster.
Ok, but do you have anything to back up the `ergonomically superior' claim either?
Just because one analyst dissed Linus doesn't mean they all suck.
Of course not. They all suck quite independently of their opinion about Linux.
Seriously, there does seem to be an extremely high rate of suckitude among "analysts". I presume it has to do with the fact that the people who judge them largely have no clue how to do so (if they had a clue, they wouldn't need to hire an "analyst"), and easily fall prey to buzzwords and hype masquerading as analysis.
Given such an environment, there naturally spring up a lot of analysts who are really good with the buzzwords and the hype...
Heh. I run linux at work, and I try my best to ignore MS, but it's pretty damn hard to do.
Practically every day is accompanied by frenzied announcements over the intercom concerning the latest ultra-vital security patch for windows, and managers running around browbeating everybody to install it pronto. This includes me, because I have a windows machine which is never ever used for anything except a particular debugger (and certainly never sees any email).
I have a feeling that if microsoft made a `security announcement' beginning "send us all your money!", they'd do it...
Man, this thing is hideous. I hate nokia's lame attempts at "style" too, but even they do it better than the "new hp".
It's clear that HP, who used to have incredible industrial design -- even on their lowest-end calculators -- has fired all their designers and is now using chimps to design their calculators.
No wait, that's unfair to chimps. They probably just fired the designers, and didn't hire anyone else, so the marketing department ended up doing the design. You can imagine the conversations... "No, no, it needs more racing stripes!"... "Why can't we use the fur buttons?!?"...
I think the main problem now is that corporate America has no idea how to motivate its employees.
As a lowly employee[*], I'd say: show some interest in what I'm doing. Even a very little goes a long way, but oddly, many managers I've had [at least in my current `big corporation' environment -- small companies and academia are much better] don't seem to care, at all; just what the hell they do do is something of a mystery to me, as far as I can tell it's sending endless "reports" to each other and trying to figure out ways to increase paperwork.
My previous manager was a (sorely missed) exception; he:
Showed a lot of enthusiasm for what I was doing, and acted as cheerleader when such was necessary.
Took it upon himself to do some paperwork I'd otherwise be required to do. He knew how to play the game and was pretty skillful at all that stuff, so the result was almost certainly a better reflection on both of us.
Understood how I work best, and knew when to push me, and when to let me be; the result was that I got more done than I might otherwise have.
Ironically, I get the feeling that higher levels were a bit unhappy with him because he spent more time on employee-level interaction, and less writing endless reports (sort of like a university professor that doesn't get tenure because he spends more time trying to teach well than churning out massive quantities of publications).
[*] Amusingly, I'm described on my latest contract as an "assistant manager" though the only living beings under my control are some potted plants. I gather that they just wrote that because company rules require someone at my experience level be in management; uh-oh...
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by cluelessness."
Or something like that.:-)
Slashdot's always been a master of the latter, so...
I'm never sure what to think of Sun -- almost every job I've had for like the last 20 years has used Sun servers; I've learned to hate their software for its cruftiness, and their hardware's damned slow, but man are they reliable! And hey, no Windows (not a joke, really: at stodgy companies they're often the one thing that keeps alive the notion that there are alternatives to microsoft).
[BTW, your post spawned an impressive number of trolls in reply, it's like they were just waiting...]
The point of using extended asm is not to write large chunks of stuff in assembly, it's to write very small chunks (often 1-2 instructions) that can't be represented using standard C -- e.g., special machine instructions that most compilers don't even know about -- and keep the interface between these little asm chunks and the surrounding C code as lightweight as possible. By having the ability to tell the compiler more about how a chunk of assembly code works (which is what extended asm does), it doesn't have to make pessimistic assumptions about it; unlike C code, most compilers can't analyze assembly code to see what properties it has.
BTW, ICC can compile linux these days, as they've added the necessary gcc extensions...
Re:OGL alone is not enough for gaming
on
The State of OpenGL
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
because the dumb fucks have used GCC-specific code, and ignored the C and C++ standards. Linux is one such example
Actually the linux source is pretty good about using gcc extensions only when necessary -- i.e., because the standard is lacking, not because they're "dumbfucks".
For instance, gcc's extended "asm" syntax (parameter passing, constraints) is extremely important for the sort of low-level code a kernel needs sometimes [and, no, moving all assembly code into separate files is not an adequate replacement -- it would result in both much worse performance (because the compiler couldn't optimize around it), and increased maintenance burden].
In cases where the standard has caught up with gcc, linux has moved to using the standard syntax (e.g., recent big changes like replacing gcc-specific structure field initialization syntax with the equivalent C99 syntax).
Indeed. In Tokyo for instance, such diagonal crossings are very common in the busiest areas, and they work very well. In some places the pedestrian traffic is so heavy that I suspect that typical two-direction crossings simply wouldn't work at all. E.g., can you imagine the crossing in front of hachiko exit at shibuya station with normal crossings? It would be utterly insane.
I suspect it also makes such intersections a lot safer -- Japan's worst drivers seem to congegrate in the same areas. [When a Tokyo rich kid buys a new Ferrari, does he take where he can legally drive really fast? No! He takes it straight to the most crowded areas of the city, where he can drive through crowds of pedestrians revving his engine a lot (luckily the crowds often mean an average speed of about 0.01 MPH).]
Indeed; I think a more accurate description of science is that it seeks to construct models that accurately predict observations. That's it. The notion of "truth" isn't really relevant.
A very common sight on Japanese news is a phalanx of cops wearing suits, carrying armloads of empty cardboard boxes, and streaming into the headquarters of company that did something bad (or emerging carrying armloads of full cardboard boxes). I guess they're very used to companies trying to cover stuff up, and basically want to take a snapshot before they can do so.
Since the employees usually don't whip out machine guns and battle the police, I think it's an appropriate approach (especially since it conveys more of an impression of "investigating" rather than "guilty", and you have to allow for the possibility that they may be innocent!) -- if you're a businessman who's done something wrong, seeing someone cart off all your internal documents has got to be really scary...
High end manufacturers already use titanium for tweeters and epoxy-treated paper for woofers. The question here would be whether the wood could be manufactured with enough consistency in sonic properties as to ensure reliably good sound quality.
I don't know about wood, but I've heard titanium tweeters get dissed on quite a bit for being too fatiguing (shrill, brittle), and a popular alternative (which are purported to sound more pleasant) are silk-dome tweeters -- so certainly organic materials are in the running.
Seriously, the changelog is not aimed at end-users, and no matter how "scary" such changelog entries may look to the uninitiated, you can't really judge them unless you really know what's going on.
For instance, a race-condition can exist for many years without being an issue, or even known about, because it's so short and unlikely to be hit. But if a developer happens to find it (perhaps while looking for another bug), he'll fix it none-the-less.
The thing is is that he made this money. And when I say made, I don't mean earned, I mean he and other stakeholders in Microsoft created that money from what would never have been.
So, you're saying that Microsoft is responsible for inflation too?
Hmmm. Well, they both squeak when you step on 'em, but isn't it a bit cruel to the sleek creatures we know as "rats" to associate them with a bulging-eyed hairless dog-roach?
Slashdot Mirror
Aren't those the same question?
[You don't think Steve mesmerizes people the way he does through mere charisma, do you?]
They haven't done that great a job of sticking to this in the past though - note it is .uk rather the .gb as it should be.
.gb.
.gb is a bit weird as a country-code in the first place, as the political unit is the United Kingdom, not "Great Britain". I wouldn't be surprised if it was the result of political horse-trading, what with the IRA and all that nastiness, etc.]
That's because they'd probably get strung from lamp-posts if they tried to make it
[BTW,
Most of the members of the "community" seen in that thread seem to be a bunch of shouty whiners.
:-)
Sadly I expect that for many of them that is their sole "contribution" to Mozilla.
Yeah, I got the same impression. I ended up thinking ``Hey, wait a minute, Slashdot seems more mature than this...'' (I browse at +2, btw
Scarey, huh?
When you see Epiphany you first notice all of the features that are missing. If you're like me, you'll quickly notice that you don't really miss any of those features
What I quickly noticed was that Epiphany is a damn clunky browser, nigh-well unusably so. The same is unfortunately true of almost all `alternative' web-browsers these days; firefox has its problems, but it has the advantage of actually being a nice browser. Epiphany looks more like a quick hack so that the Gnome team can check the `Got a browser' checkbox on some feature list.
Maybe the Epiphany will figure it out someday, who knows, but I'm not waiting around, and it's not clear why anyone else should either.
You understand the reason for this, don't you? It's because Windows `install bundles' include every single library etc they will use. This is a simple method, but it is hugely problematic:
The Windows installer stuff is a seriously horrible ball of hair; that it works at all is more a testament to the sweat lavished on it than any inherent merit.
Actually, it's the web *developer* that's an incompetent moron. Designers are typically people who come up with the overall layout, and developers implement it.
There seems to be a pretty strong correlation between moronic design and moronic implementation in my experience.
["My vision for this website starts with a 23-minute long movie that plays before you get to the menu...next, comes the parade of the dancing elephants...then the drum solo..." "For a cooking website?!?" "Darling; leave it to us web experts, OK?"]
I made no claims about efficiency. I stated that Dvorak is ergonomically superior. It is easier on the users hands. I did not, and I do not claim that a Dvorak user can type faster.
Ok, but do you have anything to back up the `ergonomically superior' claim either?
Just because one analyst dissed Linus doesn't mean they all suck.
Of course not. They all suck quite independently of their opinion about Linux.
Seriously, there does seem to be an extremely high rate of suckitude among "analysts". I presume it has to do with the fact that the people who judge them largely have no clue how to do so (if they had a clue, they wouldn't need to hire an "analyst"), and easily fall prey to buzzwords and hype masquerading as analysis.
Given such an environment, there naturally spring up a lot of analysts who are really good with the buzzwords and the hype...
The first rule of war is "Know thy enemy well".
Heh. I run linux at work, and I try my best to ignore MS, but it's pretty damn hard to do.
Practically every day is accompanied by frenzied announcements over the intercom concerning the latest ultra-vital security patch for windows, and managers running around browbeating everybody to install it pronto. This includes me, because I have a windows machine which is never ever used for anything except a particular debugger (and certainly never sees any email).
I have a feeling that if microsoft made a `security announcement' beginning "send us all your money!", they'd do it...
I would much much rather be on the road with bikers and truckers than the average joe/jane.
Doesn't it just come down to `people suck,' though? If everyone drove a motorcycle, then the average motorcyclist would be completely clueless.
[Best new auto safety feature: a giant spike in the middle of the steering wheel -- just watch how carefully people drive!]
Man, this thing is hideous. I hate nokia's lame attempts at "style" too, but even they do it better than the "new hp".
... "Why can't we use the fur buttons?!?" ...
It's clear that HP, who used to have incredible industrial design -- even on their lowest-end calculators -- has fired all their designers and is now using chimps to design their calculators.
No wait, that's unfair to chimps. They probably just fired the designers, and didn't hire anyone else, so the marketing department ended up doing the design. You can imagine the conversations... "No, no, it needs more racing stripes!"
I shall now go mourn.
As a lowly employee[*], I'd say: show some interest in what I'm doing. Even a very little goes a long way, but oddly, many managers I've had [at least in my current `big corporation' environment -- small companies and academia are much better] don't seem to care, at all; just what the hell they do do is something of a mystery to me, as far as I can tell it's sending endless "reports" to each other and trying to figure out ways to increase paperwork.
My previous manager was a (sorely missed) exception; he:
Ironically, I get the feeling that higher levels were a bit unhappy with him because he spent more time on employee-level interaction, and less writing endless reports (sort of like a university professor that doesn't get tenure because he spends more time trying to teach well than churning out massive quantities of publications).
[*] Amusingly, I'm described on my latest contract as an "assistant manager" though the only living beings under my control are some potted plants. I gather that they just wrote that because company rules require someone at my experience level be in management; uh-oh...
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by cluelessness."
:-)
Or something like that.
Slashdot's always been a master of the latter, so...
I'm never sure what to think of Sun -- almost every job I've had for like the last 20 years has used Sun servers; I've learned to hate their software for its cruftiness, and their hardware's damned slow, but man are they reliable! And hey, no Windows (not a joke, really: at stodgy companies they're often the one thing that keeps alive the notion that there are alternatives to microsoft).
[BTW, your post spawned an impressive number of trolls in reply, it's like they were just waiting...]
The point of using extended asm is not to write large chunks of stuff in assembly, it's to write very small chunks (often 1-2 instructions) that can't be represented using standard C -- e.g., special machine instructions that most compilers don't even know about -- and keep the interface between these little asm chunks and the surrounding C code as lightweight as possible. By having the ability to tell the compiler more about how a chunk of assembly code works (which is what extended asm does), it doesn't have to make pessimistic assumptions about it; unlike C code, most compilers can't analyze assembly code to see what properties it has.
BTW, ICC can compile linux these days, as they've added the necessary gcc extensions...
because the dumb fucks have used GCC-specific code, and ignored the C and C++ standards. Linux is one such example
Actually the linux source is pretty good about using gcc extensions only when necessary -- i.e., because the standard is lacking, not because they're "dumbfucks".
For instance, gcc's extended "asm" syntax (parameter passing, constraints) is extremely important for the sort of low-level code a kernel needs sometimes [and, no, moving all assembly code into separate files is not an adequate replacement -- it would result in both much worse performance (because the compiler couldn't optimize around it), and increased maintenance burden].
In cases where the standard has caught up with gcc, linux has moved to using the standard syntax (e.g., recent big changes like replacing gcc-specific structure field initialization syntax with the equivalent C99 syntax).
Indeed. In Tokyo for instance, such diagonal crossings are very common in the busiest areas, and they work very well. In some places the pedestrian traffic is so heavy that I suspect that typical two-direction crossings simply wouldn't work at all. E.g., can you imagine the crossing in front of hachiko exit at shibuya station with normal crossings? It would be utterly insane.
I suspect it also makes such intersections a lot safer -- Japan's worst drivers seem to congegrate in the same areas. [When a Tokyo rich kid buys a new Ferrari, does he take where he can legally drive really fast? No! He takes it straight to the most crowded areas of the city, where he can drive through crowds of pedestrians revving his engine a lot (luckily the crowds often mean an average speed of about 0.01 MPH).]
Indeed; I think a more accurate description of science is that it seeks to construct models that accurately predict observations. That's it. The notion of "truth" isn't really relevant.
A very common sight on Japanese news is a phalanx of cops wearing suits, carrying armloads of empty cardboard boxes, and streaming into the headquarters of company that did something bad (or emerging carrying armloads of full cardboard boxes). I guess they're very used to companies trying to cover stuff up, and basically want to take a snapshot before they can do so.
Since the employees usually don't whip out machine guns and battle the police, I think it's an appropriate approach (especially since it conveys more of an impression of "investigating" rather than "guilty", and you have to allow for the possibility that they may be innocent!) -- if you're a businessman who's done something wrong, seeing someone cart off all your internal documents has got to be really scary...
High end manufacturers already use titanium for tweeters and epoxy-treated paper for woofers. The question here would be whether the wood could be manufactured with enough consistency in sonic properties as to ensure reliably good sound quality.
I don't know about wood, but I've heard titanium tweeters get dissed on quite a bit for being too fatiguing (shrill, brittle), and a popular alternative (which are purported to sound more pleasant) are silk-dome tweeters -- so certainly organic materials are in the running.
Real Men just hold the lead in a cup over a fire to melt it.
What?!? You use a cup?!
is there a site where i can just browse through the sources without downloading them?
To see the source tree as Linus updates it, go to http://linux.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5 and click on Browse the source tree (Yes, even though it says "2.5", it's really 2.6 these days...)
Seriously, the changelog is not aimed at end-users, and no matter how "scary" such changelog entries may look to the uninitiated, you can't really judge them unless you really know what's going on.
For instance, a race-condition can exist for many years without being an issue, or even known about, because it's so short and unlikely to be hit. But if a developer happens to find it (perhaps while looking for another bug), he'll fix it none-the-less.
The thing is is that he made this money. And when I say made, I don't mean earned, I mean he and other stakeholders in Microsoft created that money from what would never have been.
So, you're saying that Microsoft is responsible for inflation too?
Man, their evil really knows no bounds...
Dog? I always that chihauhaus were large rats.
Hmmm. Well, they both squeak when you step on 'em, but isn't it a bit cruel to the sleek creatures we know as "rats" to associate them with a bulging-eyed hairless dog-roach?