I've just set you as a/. friend simply because you know the difference between abbreviations and acronyms, which most people around here don't seem to know:)
This seems counter to the rest of your argument; after all, if you can reduce brain activity completely into a series of reactions, then it should be possible to model those on a computer. Which would make the computer think exactly like a brain.
Really? Can we put the Control key back to where it first was, where the Caps Lock key is now? (The Caps lock key USED to be on the lower left side - Thank you Microsoft for changing the decades long convention of key placement).
Hmm, I've used computers since late 1980s and I recall the CapsLock/Ctrl placement was the same as it's now. Anyway, I like having two Ctrls placed somewhat symmetrically on the bottom row. I imagine you can't get the symmetry if you have one of them on the middle/home row.
What I would like to see is capslock with a timeout; if you push it, it goes on and stays on while you are typing, but after a second or two has passed without any keystrokes, it will go off by itself. That should save us a lot of headaches.
Yeah, because every time a computer is second-guessing your intentions, you save yourself a lot of headaches.
DRM can be used for good. Let's say you want to build an electronic voting machine properly. You use entirely GPL source code. All parts are off-the-shelf and well known. Everything is open to public review. However, when you actually go to send the machines out, you want to be damn sure those machines are running the same code you put on them at the factory. That means locked and tagged boxes, and that also means DRM. Under the GPLv3 draft, you'd have to publish the secret key to the world, making that security worthless.
How is this better than completely closed-source software?
Why would any company want to open their source code and share their intellectual property with everyone? Hours later, someone would be trying to sell a rebranded version of their hard work.
That someone is in no special position, because anyone can sell a rebranded version. So why would I buy from that one? I'd rather buy from the original company because they're the ones in a special position of knowing their product, and being able to support it better than a random guy.
On the other hand, if that someone provides good support and actually improves on the original product, then he gains a special position that makes his new version more desirable. With open source, people and products are forced to succeed on their own merits, instead of relying on lock-in schemes like Microsofts' file formats. To me that seems like a purer form of capitalism than ever.
Linux has been ready for my desktop since 1999, and it may well have been ready for a long time before that, I just didn't happen to try it.
I've just gotten a friend to buy a Macbook, since it looks like the best way to get a proper OS preinstalled. IMHO the main problem with Linux adoption is that it doesn't come preinstalled like Windows and Mac OS. It can be hard to install it well, though IMHO much easier than installing Windows.
Linux users, do me a favor. Only speak of positives of your OS of choice. Don't sit there and trash every other OS out there. End users don't like "Windows is shitty" as a reason to switch. Why? Most of them think Windows is good enough.
I keep telling people that Linux is safer from viruses and other malware. Isn't that a positive thing about Linux, or is it just Windows bashing? Actually I find it's not a very convincing argument, because people are used to 'computers' by nature requiring virus scanners and firewalls. I do believe once they get some experience with better systems, they begin to wonder why Windows has all those problems. But it's hard to convince them to even try *sigh*
For those extremely rare apps and jobs that are highly parallelable 8 and above will be useful. However this will be very rare and this is why the comparisons to the infamous 640K quote are misguided. Increasing RAM is easy, software naturally consumes RAM with no additional work necessary, just do more of what you are alraedy doing. Multiprocessing is something completely different, the code must be designed and written quite differently, and it is often very difficult to retrofit existing code for multiprocessing. Now you have the practical problem that not all problems are parallelable.
In the field of scientific computing, parallelizable code is pretty much the norm, and there are decent languages and libraries to handle it for the programmer. Scientific computing is a significant portion of the world's overall computing needs, it's not something particularly rare.
While this has gone on in science for decades, multiprocessing is only now starting to become mainstream for consumers. If the only way to improve the performance of CPUs is via multiple cores, then programmers will have to bite the bullet and learn to make use of them.
Please note again that this document is not the same as the book's first chapter. In particular, this document was not copyedited, composited, or proofread by the publisher. I prepared this PDF from my "raw" manuscript. Therefore, this document is not an example of the book's final typesetting or other production aspects.
If you use LaTeX, even a 'raw' version will look great. (Although LaTeX won't help much with proofreading.)
After all, it's so difficult from the naming convention to tell that the Solo has one core, and the Duo has two cores.
But other than that, it's my humble opinion that the 'Core' naming is utterly dumb. As if they were the first/only processors with cores in them. Which leads to the inevitable Core 2, and so on. I can imagine some marketing guy overhearing a bunch of engineers discussing 'processor cores' and getting the brilliant idea. They'll probably have to change it after Core !!! and Core 4 for something else;)
I also don't see what the fuss is about dual cores anyway -- we've had multiproc machines for ages, and the possibilities/challenges of using them are unchanged now that we're putting multiple processors on the same chip (Except for cache and memory access issues, though, but it's a minor detail IMHO). Of course, if multicores are the only way of getting multiproc machines mainstream, that's great, but let's not pretend multicores are somehow revolutionary.
The OP may be trying to be funny, but in fact a modern Fortran (F90/95) is easy to do string manipulation in, has dynamic memory, is type-safe, and is arguably a much higher-level language than C.
*sigh* I was definitely serious. I have a background in scientific computing, which is how I've gotten to know Fortran's strengths. And I don't like the fact that the physics world is moving towards C++, though the tools involved (such as Root) are arguably better in some respects.
This is certainly not the first time that my 'insightful' and 'funny' intentions were confused... perhaps the 'me too' style of my original post didn't help much:-/
I think even the 'mainstream' theories of Einstein's, namely Special and General Relativity, were once considered crank science. There are countless similar examples in the history. Science progresses by studying what we don't yet know, and even now our theories are far from complete.
This is exactly what I've been saying over and over, why I think that e.g. Fortran is better than C in many respects. The main point is neatly summarized at the end:
the more information you can give to your optimizer, the better the job it can do. When you program in a low-level language, you throw away a lot of the semantics before you get to the compilation stage, making it much harder for the compiler to do its job.
its (sic) important to understand the fact that Apple has no control over how hots (sic) Intel's processors run
Actually, Pentium M processors have sofware adjustable voltages. I've successfully undervolted my Dothan 725 and the difference in cooling (and the lack of fan noise) is quite stunning. I believe the Core processors have something similar, in which case Apple does have control over the CPU heating.
Slashdot Mirror
I've just set you as a /. friend simply because you know the difference between abbreviations and acronyms, which most people around here don't seem to know :)
Hmm, I've used computers since late 1980s and I recall the CapsLock/Ctrl placement was the same as it's now. Anyway, I like having two Ctrls placed somewhat symmetrically on the bottom row. I imagine you can't get the symmetry if you have one of them on the middle/home row.
Bush has evolved from apes???? WTF?
Acronym: the kind of abbreviation that you can pronounce as a single word. For example NATO and laser.
How is this better than completely closed-source software?
Dude, the (in)famous Hun's name is spelled "Attila".
That someone is in no special position, because anyone can sell a rebranded version. So why would I buy from that one? I'd rather buy from the original company because they're the ones in a special position of knowing their product, and being able to support it better than a random guy.
On the other hand, if that someone provides good support and actually improves on the original product, then he gains a special position that makes his new version more desirable. With open source, people and products are forced to succeed on their own merits, instead of relying on lock-in schemes like Microsofts' file formats. To me that seems like a purer form of capitalism than ever.
On the other hand, HD-DVD sounds like an incremental upgrade to DVD, whereas Blu-Ray sounds like a completely new technology.
Linux has been ready for my desktop since 1999, and it may well have been ready for a long time before that, I just didn't happen to try it.
I've just gotten a friend to buy a Macbook, since it looks like the best way to get a proper OS preinstalled. IMHO the main problem with Linux adoption is that it doesn't come preinstalled like Windows and Mac OS. It can be hard to install it well, though IMHO much easier than installing Windows.
I keep telling people that Linux is safer from viruses and other malware. Isn't that a positive thing about Linux, or is it just Windows bashing? Actually I find it's not a very convincing argument, because people are used to 'computers' by nature requiring virus scanners and firewalls. I do believe once they get some experience with better systems, they begin to wonder why Windows has all those problems. But it's hard to convince them to even try *sigh*
I think there is a world market for maybe five programming languages.
In the field of scientific computing, parallelizable code is pretty much the norm, and there are decent languages and libraries to handle it for the programmer. Scientific computing is a significant portion of the world's overall computing needs, it's not something particularly rare.
While this has gone on in science for decades, multiprocessing is only now starting to become mainstream for consumers. If the only way to improve the performance of CPUs is via multiple cores, then programmers will have to bite the bullet and learn to make use of them.
But other than that, it's my humble opinion that the 'Core' naming is utterly dumb. As if they were the first/only processors with cores in them. Which leads to the inevitable Core 2, and so on. I can imagine some marketing guy overhearing a bunch of engineers discussing 'processor cores' and getting the brilliant idea. They'll probably have to change it after Core !!! and Core 4 for something else ;)
I also don't see what the fuss is about dual cores anyway -- we've had multiproc machines for ages, and the possibilities/challenges of using them are unchanged now that we're putting multiple processors on the same chip (Except for cache and memory access issues, though, but it's a minor detail IMHO). Of course, if multicores are the only way of getting multiproc machines mainstream, that's great, but let's not pretend multicores are somehow revolutionary.
And I want to know how the heck those AMD processors work at all, because only Intel processors have cores ;)
*sigh* I was definitely serious. I have a background in scientific computing, which is how I've gotten to know Fortran's strengths. And I don't like the fact that the physics world is moving towards C++, though the tools involved (such as Root) are arguably better in some respects.
This is certainly not the first time that my 'insightful' and 'funny' intentions were confused... perhaps the 'me too' style of my original post didn't help much :-/
I think even the 'mainstream' theories of Einstein's, namely Special and General Relativity, were once considered crank science. There are countless similar examples in the history. Science progresses by studying what we don't yet know, and even now our theories are far from complete.
Actually, Pentium M processors have sofware adjustable voltages. I've successfully undervolted my Dothan 725 and the difference in cooling (and the lack of fan noise) is quite stunning. I believe the Core processors have something similar, in which case Apple does have control over the CPU heating.
I for one welcome our cheap, open-design humanoid overbots... but do they run Linux? Oh wait, nevermind.
Is that 'salt' meaning sodium chloride, or perhaps the precious metal salt that leaves dark stains on skin? ;)
If only the browser were capable of showing the link address before clicking on it... oh, wait