They say if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day... in the beginning, Linux was like teaching him to fish. Self-reliance and knowledge and skill are good things, but if you're just hungry and don't enjoy fishing, you just want the fish. Most people who use computers these days don't want to program - they just want to be given a fish.
Boot into a system which allows you immediate programming
Like Bash? For me, Linux is what made computing interesting and fun again. It has easy access to programming tools, and none of this forced separation of users and developers.
(preferably with a modern OO syntax) and access to video, sound and peripherals. If there's anything that has suffered over the past three decades, it's easy access to I/O.
I admit it gets a little complex here, but for example Python (a key element in my "fun computing" experience) has nice libraries for these. For example, some of my electronics/FPGA work owe a lot to Python's serial port module. Not because the serial port is hard to program otherwise, but for making it easy to write all kinds of code around it.
I have no experience in modern graphics programming. However, I have the feeling that the bar for awesome graphics is a tad higher today than it was in "the year 64". Today's awesome is rather nontrivial at the direct low level we associate with C64 programming, so even professionals use higher level tools. (I think my background in physics and math helps appreciate 3D graphics, for example coordinate transformations using matrices are a basic (pun inteded) skill but I imagine there are lots of programmers with no need to do it.)
Nevertheless, I understand the point about recreating an environment in the '64 spirit. There are several projects around, the two I can think of at the moment being http://sol.gfxile.net/gp/ and http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/ .
As with everything, it depends on (1) what you want to do now, and (2) your past experience.
IMHO, you need to separate the need for a media box from a tinkerable gadget. When you sit down after a hard day and grab a drink, the last thing you want to worry about is JTAG chains or something. I like having a few x86-64 boxes to just get something done, even though the idea of little-endian 4004 descendants isn't exactly elegant.
I still love tinkering with stuff programming-wise, but I've completely lost my ambition to tinker with hardware.
If you love programming, what's the problem? You're lucky to have something that excites you. However, it's nice to take hacking into new directions every now and then. Try to find an avenue from your software skills into hardware, or whateve else that might be remotely interesting. (As a teacher, I just have to mention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z...).
For example, in early 2011 I got into FPGAs, which for me was the perfect union of software and hardware tinkering, having a smattering of experience in both electronics and programming. It was life-changing in some ways, but eventually it's just one of the tools to hack with. For example, designing circuitry to run genuinely in parallel has given me great insight in the software world as well.
The Raspi always seemed kind of meh, both because FPGAs were already established in the embedded field, and because you'd be programming a chip someone else designed, instead of designing your own;) Also, having first learned to program on the 1980s BASIC machines, I imagine something like Python (another life-changer of mine) on a regular computer would be much closer to the experience than something that appears to involve hardware hacking.
No. drives are *not* sealed. Making a sealed drive that won't implode if you, say, take it on an aircraft in your laptop, or to ship it to the client (for example) is non trivial.
By "ship", do you mean a submarine? Because otherwise my head in plode (considering a roughly sea-level internal pressure vs. the mile-high club)
You virtually always hit the noise limit before you get to the point where you have to worry about the fundamental discreteness of matter and energy. The majority of quantum experiments involve a lot of cooling and isolating of systems with very good reason!
However, due to the statistics, you can actually detect the effect of discrete electrons, without going to the level of single-electron measurements. But broadly speaking you're correct.
Good point, the important specification would be "50% of what time?"
I've always had this problem about the whole idea of probability. If the odds of you dying in a car accident are 1/1000000, and you still die tomorrow, what good is the low number of one millionth? You either die or you don't. Probability is only a measure or a larger population, i.e. the fraction that gets the rock, death or whatever. The idea of a probability for a unique event is meaningless.
This is why I like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. It gives real meaning to probability as the fraction of universes with the favourable outcome, even if the event is unique from our perspective (though with a total of infinite universes, the definition of a fraction can be tricky). On the other hand, changing the reality to suit a math concept is not necessarily the wisest thing.
There's basically NO open source hardware out there. And if there were nobody would be in a position to do much with it, because it would take a fab to make any change.
1. There is the good old solder-it-yourself scene, ham radio style, hardware with a hard H.
2. There is a lively FPGA scene, with the complication of mostly closed-source synthesis tools (like compilers). I don't regard this as a huge problem, as long as I can make hardware do what I want. If you're new to the scene, I recommend fpga4fun.
Kernel versions are integer vectors. You may have noticed, after 3.8 and 3.9 we didn't have 4.0, but 3.10, which is "greater than" 3.1 despite the apparent decimal equality.
next-gen is just marketing propaganda for "new, untested, and hype because it is not old 'X' "
I understand that may apply to Wayland or Mir, but not filesystems, unless you refer to XFS:D
Also, I understand that ZFS is not just a filesystem, as it also covers the functionalities of volume management, kitchen sink, life, the universe, everything, and emacs. Btrfs is a filesystem in the unix philosophy (unless the name refers to 'butterflysystem', in which case it covers all aforementioned functionalities and then some).
If I were picking a codename for my next product, I'm not sure I'd pick the name of a language famous for being useless for real work without vendor extensions.
Especially knowing how Nvidia performs with OpenCL vs. their vendor specific solution...
In computing, "Win" has an unfortunate association with "loss", so the phrase "win-win" is ruined. This is why I always say "lin-lin" when referring to mutually profitable outcomes. Although in this case, depending on your measurements, it might also be lin-log or log-log (because everyone loves the log).
No.
A "cyber-attack" is an attack on a "cyber". Whatever the fuck that is.
Cybernetics refers to control and feedback systems, which is traditionally an analogue discipline. Today "cyber", for whatever reasons, refers to doing things over teh intarwebz. So the problem is having old cyber connected to new cyber.
(BTW, "cyber" has something to do with "android" when you stay within either one of the "old" or "new" namespaces.)
0 is the identity element for addition. You can't really define the concept of "-1" without the concept of zero. Of course, it's also nice to have multiplication, with its identity element 1. Now you have some basics for building an algebra, and you can eventually construct fields like rational, real and complex numbers, and beyond.
Slashdot Mirror
They say if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day... in the beginning, Linux was like teaching him to fish. Self-reliance and knowledge and skill are good things, but if you're just hungry and don't enjoy fishing, you just want the fish. Most people who use computers these days don't want to program - they just want to be given a fish.
I'm afraid you forgot the link: http://fishshell.com/
Boot into a system which allows you immediate programming
Like Bash? For me, Linux is what made computing interesting and fun again. It has easy access to programming tools, and none of this forced separation of users and developers.
(preferably with a modern OO syntax) and access to video, sound and peripherals. If there's anything that has suffered over the past three decades, it's easy access to I/O.
I admit it gets a little complex here, but for example Python (a key element in my "fun computing" experience) has nice libraries for these. For example, some of my electronics/FPGA work owe a lot to Python's serial port module. Not because the serial port is hard to program otherwise, but for making it easy to write all kinds of code around it.
I have no experience in modern graphics programming. However, I have the feeling that the bar for awesome graphics is a tad higher today than it was in "the year 64". Today's awesome is rather nontrivial at the direct low level we associate with C64 programming, so even professionals use higher level tools. (I think my background in physics and math helps appreciate 3D graphics, for example coordinate transformations using matrices are a basic (pun inteded) skill but I imagine there are lots of programmers with no need to do it.)
Nevertheless, I understand the point about recreating an environment in the '64 spirit. There are several projects around, the two I can think of at the moment being http://sol.gfxile.net/gp/ and http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/ .
Well, at least they had the extra money to put two seats in one bathroom stall...
As with everything, it depends on (1) what you want to do now, and (2) your past experience.
IMHO, you need to separate the need for a media box from a tinkerable gadget. When you sit down after a hard day and grab a drink, the last thing you want to worry about is JTAG chains or something. I like having a few x86-64 boxes to just get something done, even though the idea of little-endian 4004 descendants isn't exactly elegant.
I still love tinkering with stuff programming-wise, but I've completely lost my ambition to tinker with hardware.
If you love programming, what's the problem? You're lucky to have something that excites you. However, it's nice to take hacking into new directions every now and then. Try to find an avenue from your software skills into hardware, or whateve else that might be remotely interesting. (As a teacher, I just have to mention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z...).
For example, in early 2011 I got into FPGAs, which for me was the perfect union of software and hardware tinkering, having a smattering of experience in both electronics and programming. It was life-changing in some ways, but eventually it's just one of the tools to hack with. For example, designing circuitry to run genuinely in parallel has given me great insight in the software world as well.
The Raspi always seemed kind of meh, both because FPGAs were already established in the embedded field, and because you'd be programming a chip someone else designed, instead of designing your own ;) Also, having first learned to program on the 1980s BASIC machines, I imagine something like Python (another life-changer of mine) on a regular computer would be much closer to the experience than something that appears to involve hardware hacking.
No. drives are *not* sealed. Making a sealed drive that won't implode if you, say, take it on an aircraft in your laptop, or to ship it to the client (for example) is non trivial.
By "ship", do you mean a submarine? Because otherwise my head in plode (considering a roughly sea-level internal pressure vs. the mile-high club)
Is that an African or a European bit?
You virtually always hit the noise limit before you get to the point where you have to worry about the fundamental discreteness of matter and energy. The majority of quantum experiments involve a lot of cooling and isolating of systems with very good reason!
However, due to the statistics, you can actually detect the effect of discrete electrons, without going to the level of single-electron measurements. But broadly speaking you're correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Good point, the important specification would be "50% of what time?"
I've always had this problem about the whole idea of probability. If the odds of you dying in a car accident are 1/1000000, and you still die tomorrow, what good is the low number of one millionth? You either die or you don't. Probability is only a measure or a larger population, i.e. the fraction that gets the rock, death or whatever. The idea of a probability for a unique event is meaningless.
This is why I like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. It gives real meaning to probability as the fraction of universes with the favourable outcome, even if the event is unique from our perspective (though with a total of infinite universes, the definition of a fraction can be tricky). On the other hand, changing the reality to suit a math concept is not necessarily the wisest thing.
I didn't realize that the "less than" symbol wasn't allowed.
Let me introduce you to this newfangled thingamagick called H. T. M. L.
There's basically NO open source hardware out there. And if there were nobody would be in a position to do much with it, because it would take a fab to make any change.
Even better, how come nobody ever thought about using "Sonboard"?
You swine!
Kernel versions are integer vectors. You may have noticed, after 3.8 and 3.9 we didn't have 4.0, but 3.10, which is "greater than" 3.1 despite the apparent decimal equality.
I'm currently doing my daily emerge (update \in Gentoo) on a Powerbook, so obviously my testicles are larger.
May the Swartz be with you!
FTFY.
It makes sense when you watch it with Dutch subtitles, especially the part "I am your father".
Being a robot is great, but we don't have emotions, and sometimes that makes me sad. (B. B. Rodriguez)
It's rough, it's tough, and takes no shit.
next-gen is just marketing propaganda for "new, untested, and hype because it is not old 'X' "
I understand that may apply to Wayland or Mir, but not filesystems, unless you refer to XFS :D
Also, I understand that ZFS is not just a filesystem, as it also covers the functionalities of volume management, kitchen sink, life, the universe, everything, and emacs. Btrfs is a filesystem in the unix philosophy (unless the name refers to 'butterflysystem', in which case it covers all aforementioned functionalities and then some).
..we wouldn't be depressed in the first place.
If I were picking a codename for my next product, I'm not sure I'd pick the name of a language famous for being useless for real work without vendor extensions.
Especially knowing how Nvidia performs with OpenCL vs. their vendor specific solution...
Turtles all the way down.
Doesn't seem too convincing for a fast GPU. But I guess it will be great for mining Slothcoins.
In computing, "Win" has an unfortunate association with "loss", so the phrase "win-win" is ruined. This is why I always say "lin-lin" when referring to mutually profitable outcomes. Although in this case, depending on your measurements, it might also be lin-log or log-log (because everyone loves the log).
No. A "cyber-attack" is an attack on a "cyber". Whatever the fuck that is.
Cybernetics refers to control and feedback systems, which is traditionally an analogue discipline. Today "cyber", for whatever reasons, refers to doing things over teh intarwebz. So the problem is having old cyber connected to new cyber.
(BTW, "cyber" has something to do with "android" when you stay within either one of the "old" or "new" namespaces.)
And how come '0' is fundamental? It is just 1-1.
0 is the identity element for addition. You can't really define the concept of "-1" without the concept of zero. Of course, it's also nice to have multiplication, with its identity element 1. Now you have some basics for building an algebra, and you can eventually construct fields like rational, real and complex numbers, and beyond.
e^i*tau=1 seems a lot more beautiful than e^i*pi=-1 to me. It gets rid of that ugly minus one.
e^{\pi i} + 1 = 0 includes all "fundamental" numbers without doing anything redundant like 1+0, so arguably it is more beautiful.