Well, I suspect there's not much technical advancement or breakthrough as far as chip technology is concerned. All I see is heaps of on-chip memory and ever so complicated preemptive code execution logic. The CPU translates the dog old IA2^n instructions (still there for compat/market stranglehold) into it's own language to run like a JVM or Tranmeta. I think all this sums up to having a compiler hardwired in silicon; which also explains the amount of pipelining and frequency scaling: these operations are quite cumbersome and require loads of gates to perform. So, it's quite obvious that slicing the combinational stuff, throwing luts in the mix and just tweaking the "compiler" makes some difference. It's quite boring as far as I can tell and somehow feels like running on the least commom factor. I'd be interested in reconfigurable logic, compilers that recognize algorithmic patterns in code and instruct the Processing Unit to morph into a hardware representation of it. Away from the single stack, program counter model! multiple thread cores (32?) arbitrating the flow from one hw-alg to the other... oh well Microsoft will never recompile it's sw to anthing that isn't intel so it's just a daydream...
Older people aren't as accustomed to shelling piles of cash for an impalpable good every 4 years as us. Even trivial consumer goods like a toaster, a handheld phone or a TV set are expected to last longer. When they fail, often people have them repaired because the utility provided is deemed sufficient (thus came featuritis in the hope that it justifies the profit margin for a good that could remain on the market unchanged after many years). How can you reconcile these people with planned obsolescence for something that isn't much more than a serial number in a pretty box (and proverbially broken)? As long as you don't have a TV set in your skull you tend to think much more like a corporation rather than a feeding lemming...
Whoever modded this guy down to OT is a complete, utter fool (and jackass). Cripes, I expected the parent to be apped to the plagiarist's score, at least. Bah,/. is getting worse every day... well, you'll pay for it in metamod don't you worry...
In some progressive recesses of the USA it's a felony to indulge in oral sex... even in the privacy of a married couple's bedroom... there are strange dudes that side of the pond....
Here, here, it depends you know... I've somewhat read some of Reiser's Manifesto (I'm being generous for not calling it a logorrhoic rant;-) and thought: "Ho, this man really has a cool toy in his hands!" If I remember correctly Hans has a plugin type architecture in mind and gives as an example a filesystem module specifically targeted for/etc/passwd. In this scenario the caller uid restricts the type of information a read requst would provide un-abstracting the filesystem from the data it contained (in this case uid=0 can read/etc/passwd as it is, password hashed included while anyone else can only read it's own record while the other appear as 'shadowed'). Also, it provides an 'everything is a directory' style extended attribute interface so your.jpeg file could have file.jpeg/attr1, file.jpeg/attr2 (say thumbnails), etc... I'm afraid MS has a patent on something very similar but then it all factors down into having a less abstract, more data-type aware database filesystem. So in your case, a reiser plugin (and some patching to the app) would make transactin-like commits to disk; if anything fails, a rollback would return your datafiles to a fully consistent state in a sense relative to your application rather than to the filesystem. Currently a journalized FS only makes shure that your metadata is consistent, that there are no orphaned inodes or inconsistent free maps... if your application file is halfway though a commit and the data within is partly related to the old and new state you're screwed, but the filesystem is happy. A reiserFS module would know how to clean up if the app called a write() (and one only, with all the relative data updates in one big wallop) and failed for any reason...
Because MS OS wouldn't load on those motherboards. The stranglehold MS has on the market prevents fair competition. I don't know the '80s history of OF or that of BIOS. I have the feeling IBM just hacked enough code to get the "640K is enough forever..." machines they initially designed or perhaps OF wasn't still viable, I don't know. Perhaps IBM wanted to put it's own stranglehold on it's new platform and got screwed when (was it Compaq?) it got reverse engineered. Now it's MS's turn to bully the global market into kneeling down to it's authority... let's hope history repeats itself! Wouldn't it be the perfect worldwide joke if IBM itself, the repentant felon, crushed the Wintel strategy by declaring OF the true successor of BIOS?
Wonderful post... very good description and I totally agree with the conclusion. It sucks being addicted to something you'll have to avoid permanently (especially when everyone around you is smoking the damn things). BTW, tho only time I managed to quit for a decent amount of time (8 months) was a cold turkey and every time I was bored and thought "... hell, one won't do me bad..." I used the AA strategy "... but then you'll have to reset the day-count, that would be a shame..." It did work pretty well...
Well, it means you've never really quit... it takes more time to metabolize all of the nicotine in your body. Believe me, if you light one within the first couple of weeks you're just giving in to nicotine starvation. Only if you light one after months (ah the fool!) you're doing it for the simple "pleasure" of smoking (and also falling back into addiction... remember, after so many years your brain is pretty much set up for nicotine dependancy..02 from an ex-ex-smoker.
Many smokers just don't have enough strenght to endure the withdrawal. During that period temptation gets so high that many simply fall to it and fail. After all it's just a matter of a fortnight and it dies away so if this stuff helps me to force through this period I might try it. Also, once a smoker, always a smoker so if after an arbitrary amount of time you concede to one you've had it, it's back to square one (and this treatment seems to remove this pretty obnoxious aspect). I'm eagerly waiting for the results... BTW, tobacco companies should be forced to invest part of their profit on these anti-addiction researches (through a blind scheme of course...;-)
Which is what makes nicotine surrogates a pathetic setup for failure (for me at least). Let me elaborate: tobacco smoke sends a dose peak within 9 s from inspiration; all the rest simply stabilize high blood levels of the substance. Now, sometimes I think that transition low-high makes the brain bloody happy. So here I am, smoking my lungs into a dumpster...
In my personal experience, the only time I managed to quit for good (8 months) was a cold-turkey one. I also adopted the AA strategy of counting the days I've abstained from tobacco to get the self esteem punch whenever I wished to light one (what a shame it would have been to reset the count... a failed exam blew it though).
I am an addict (btw, I just put one of these damn ones out) and yes I do throw butts on the floor as I phrased it. Unfortunately I was already thinking about the next part of my post where I describe Rome's city center streets so I implicitly referred to that scenario. So yes, I do throw butts on the floor but actually when I'm out on the street (and no, I don't empty car ashtrays at semaphore stops) and there's no dang ashtray in sight. I think in Hong Kong it's a finable offense but over here it's rather normal (there are pathetically small ashtrays embedded in some stylish street trashcans but they tend to be full of anything but cig butts). I hope this vaccine strategy works, I've tried the patch, the gums, even managed to quit without any nicotinic surrogate (which being the only period totally off nicotine I consider my only true success) for as much as 8 months but I've always relapsed. I just wished I was part of that population that smokes just for play and doesn't really get hooked
Man, that doesn't help one little bit beleive me: my dad used to smoke and guess what, he's dead. Did I quit? Oh no, I'm still struggling with the damn things, and I swear I hate the smell, the chest pain and the throat ache in the morning. All this "hate" really works when my nicotine blood concentration is good and the idea of smoking another cig is quite disgusting; once it goes down there's no question... the stink becomes a craven perfume, the small choke when inhaling a sweet caress and the taste a palatable wine. No way the stuff you're suggesting will ever work... has it stopped idiots driving against trees, explorers traveling into the unknown, soldiers putting their life at stake for whatever? No. So please get us a damn pill to swallow and rid of this damn thing...
Off an Impulse? Hell, I've considered qitting for the past 4 years! If this stuff doesn't develop allergies to tobacco (which would be dramatic given the fact that people smoke anywhere) I for shure would joyously get the shots... all of 'em! You know, if anything I will finally be able to just smoke for the sake of acting cool a Saturday night without getting myself screwed into addiction. From the first day I lit a cigarette I liked it too much... I was hooked since the very start, all I did was increase the dose as the years passed.
Hey flamebait, while I do agree with you about the unpoliteness of throwing butts on the floor I assure you that whenever I find an ashtray I _alwais_ use it. Never, ever have I thrown an empty pack on the floor let alone the plastic wrap. If I were to swallow the bait I could complain about the foreigners' habit of littering Campo de Fiori with empty bottles and assorted bodily fluids... after a night of pub crawls Rome becomes a drunkard's bin... Will you be so kind to keep those fundamentalist overtones for yourself? You know, every country has it's joke about it's people's nature and the USA target is: prohibitionist hysteria. Back on topic I'll wait and see if this vaccine develops anaphylactic reactions to nicotine; if it doesn't I'll be one of those using this cure. I've come to the conclusion cigarettes are digging a grave for me but I can't give up (people smoking everywhere around me, frustrations and stress buildup, whatever...ah, shure, addiction...)
Well, as much as a shame a Beagle fizzle can be, it's not THAT much of a tragedy after all. As another poster observes, having a very narrow launch window requires playing against odds; and most importantly there aren't any astronauts roasting their asses because of budget cuts! (damn politicians & bureaucrats) So, if the Beagle landing site is another neat martian crater that's fine... but I'm still chilling for Columbia.
Don't just trust the damn thing, if it's the model where the DC cable enters the plastic brick without the classical grommet but straight into a trench you've had it... it'll break and badly too! Mine died the day I was showing off the beauties of Os X to a chap I had just convinced to get an iBook; and a bad death was it too! The flimsy cheap wire (Apple must have noticed since it changed the design and the wire gauge) shorted on the laptop plug side and the circuitry cooked itself destroying the whole adapter. Now: 1. Ok Apple, you tried to pull a cheap one... the first device went offline on it's own, the second shorted... change design and manufacturer 2. Apple has grown a tad too much for it's current logistics? My dealer was extraoridarily kind and pulled an extra one while the Apple bureaucracy decided my adapter was dead, under warranty, it was their fault after all and replace it. What was I supposed to do in the meantime... BUY A NEW ONE? Well, the dealer made it clear it was a favour since Apple didn't provide for extra "courtesy" stock... it's been past two weeks... 3. For hell's sake, put a short breakout in the silly thing! Not a fuse no, the whole thing is a switching, electronically controlled AC/DC converter; so why on earth didn't Apple put a transistor on the output load to shut off the input stage in case it shorted for some reason?
Now, listen up Apple... I like OS X, the HW and all... but you pull another one of there cheap tricks on me and you won't see another cent... with the money I spent I could have bought 2 shitty Dells... I haven't so I don't expect to be treated as if I had. Rant and bitterness aside, I'm pretty happy with my mac... looking forward to a portable G5.
Well, he is right after all and you should have guessed since it's implicit in your article. Nowhere have you said that blue perception has poor contrast and infact, lossy compression throw away spatial samples rather than dimishing the dinamic range. So in a sense you had the answer but didn't know it; don't worry, it happens to me all the time;-) Andecdotal: try to focus on something under a violet light (don't stare at the lamp, you can't feel it, but it is bright) and feel the frustration of someone that has lost it's glasses.
grsecurity is a promising mechanism to un-root a linux kernel based system: ipaddr, user or group based roles open or deny access to privileged operations without ever having uid=0 to begin with. It's a bit complicated to use but the system can auto-learn and generate these policies. Also, the system includes PaX which does some neat things like scramble the stack to thwart buffer overflows, non executable pages, etc... I've played with both (well, Mandrake secure kernels have grsec compiled in, not shure about pax) and although I still can't figure out (read: "ready made & nicely packaged;-)") all of it but it does give the warm & fuzzy feeling it makes a difference...
Good answer but it makes me wonder... how is this weeding trough the registry simpler than unix administration? It's no wonder Microsoft calls it the Registry Hive... it's a Hornet Nest not much different than/etc Sorry for the flamebait, it's just something that crossed my mind reading your comment.
... for the GPL licensed software patents they're obviously incorporating in their products? Oh sorry, no patents... it's free. Had the reverse been true, don't you doubt the PR would have stormed in crying the Communist Hippies had raped and stolen the innovative creation of successful individuals (thus impoverishing the whole world including Antartica and the depths of the Indian Sea). Oops, 'tis ha shame noone has patented the whole Free Software business process... it would have meant sue time.
Just get a pair of microwave tansducers and rock on! As a fringe benefit you'll have quick & easy fried eggs, right in your office, and coocked on an uber-geek equipment! And you can fry your PHB's cell phone if you're cunning enough... just read some BOFH hints on The Reg! PS./. disses my leet utf (whatever) character codes from my OSX mac... where is my (mu) or u (u with the.. )? oh come on!
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I suspect there's not much technical advancement or breakthrough as far as chip technology is concerned. All I see is heaps of on-chip memory and ever so complicated preemptive code execution logic. The CPU translates the dog old IA2^n instructions (still there for compat/market stranglehold) into it's own language to run like a JVM or Tranmeta. I think all this sums up to having a compiler hardwired in silicon; which also explains the amount of pipelining and frequency scaling: these operations are quite cumbersome and require loads of gates to perform. So, it's quite obvious that slicing the combinational stuff, throwing luts in the mix and just tweaking the "compiler" makes some difference. It's quite boring as far as I can tell and somehow feels like running on the least commom factor. I'd be interested in reconfigurable logic, compilers that recognize algorithmic patterns in code and instruct the Processing Unit to morph into a hardware representation of it. Away from the single stack, program counter model! multiple thread cores (32?) arbitrating the flow from one hw-alg to the other... oh well Microsoft will never recompile it's sw to anthing that isn't intel so it's just a daydream...
Older people aren't as accustomed to shelling piles of cash for an impalpable good every 4 years as us. Even trivial consumer goods like a toaster, a handheld phone or a TV set are expected to last longer. When they fail, often people have them repaired because the utility provided is deemed sufficient (thus came featuritis in the hope that it justifies the profit margin for a good that could remain on the market unchanged after many years). How can you reconcile these people with planned obsolescence for something that isn't much more than a serial number in a pretty box (and proverbially broken)?
As long as you don't have a TV set in your skull you tend to think much more like a corporation rather than a feeding lemming...
Whoever modded this guy down to OT is a complete, utter fool (and jackass). Cripes, I expected the parent to be apped to the plagiarist's score, at least. Bah, /. is getting worse every day... well, you'll pay for it in metamod don't you worry...
In some progressive recesses of the USA it's a felony to indulge in oral sex... even in the privacy of a married couple's bedroom... there are strange dudes that side of the pond....
Here, here, it depends you know... I've somewhat read some of Reiser's Manifesto (I'm being generous for not calling it a logorrhoic rant ;-) and thought: "Ho, this man really has a cool toy in his hands!" If I remember correctly Hans has a plugin type architecture in mind and gives as an example a filesystem module specifically targeted for /etc/passwd. In this scenario the caller uid restricts the type of information a read requst would provide un-abstracting the filesystem from the data it contained (in this case uid=0 can read /etc/passwd as it is, password hashed included while anyone else can only read it's own record while the other appear as 'shadowed'). Also, it provides an 'everything is a directory' style extended attribute interface so your .jpeg file could have file.jpeg/attr1, file.jpeg/attr2 (say thumbnails), etc... I'm afraid MS has a patent on something very similar but then it all factors down into having a less abstract, more data-type aware database filesystem. So in your case, a reiser plugin (and some patching to the app) would make transactin-like commits to disk; if anything fails, a rollback would return your datafiles to a fully consistent state in a sense relative to your application rather than to the filesystem. Currently a journalized FS only makes shure that your metadata is consistent, that there are no orphaned inodes or inconsistent free maps... if your application file is halfway though a commit and the data within is partly related to the old and new state you're screwed, but the filesystem is happy. A reiserFS module would know how to clean up if the app called a write() (and one only, with all the relative data updates in one big wallop) and failed for any reason...
Because MS OS wouldn't load on those motherboards. The stranglehold MS has on the market prevents fair competition. I don't know the '80s history of OF or that of BIOS. I have the feeling IBM just hacked enough code to get the "640K is enough forever..." machines they initially designed or perhaps OF wasn't still viable, I don't know. Perhaps IBM wanted to put it's own stranglehold on it's new platform and got screwed when (was it Compaq?) it got reverse engineered. Now it's MS's turn to bully the global market into kneeling down to it's authority... let's hope history repeats itself! Wouldn't it be the perfect worldwide joke if IBM itself, the repentant felon, crushed the Wintel strategy by declaring OF the true successor of BIOS?
Do you know the drug name? I'm italian and the comercial name usually changes from one country to the other. TNX
Wonderful post... very good description and I totally agree with the conclusion. It sucks being addicted to something you'll have to avoid permanently (especially when everyone around you is smoking the damn things). BTW, tho only time I managed to quit for a decent amount of time (8 months) was a cold turkey and every time I was bored and thought "... hell, one won't do me bad..." I used the AA strategy "... but then you'll have to reset the day-count, that would be a shame..." It did work pretty well...
Well, it means you've never really quit... it takes more time to metabolize all of the nicotine in your body. Believe me, if you light one within the first couple of weeks you're just giving in to nicotine starvation. Only if you light one after months (ah the fool!) you're doing it for the simple "pleasure" of smoking (and also falling back into addiction... remember, after so many years your brain is pretty much set up for nicotine dependancy. .02 from an ex-ex-smoker.
Many smokers just don't have enough strenght to endure the withdrawal. During that period temptation gets so high that many simply fall to it and fail. After all it's just a matter of a fortnight and it dies away so if this stuff helps me to force through this period I might try it. Also, once a smoker, always a smoker so if after an arbitrary amount of time you concede to one you've had it, it's back to square one (and this treatment seems to remove this pretty obnoxious aspect). I'm eagerly waiting for the results... BTW, tobacco companies should be forced to invest part of their profit on these anti-addiction researches (through a blind scheme of course... ;-)
Which is what makes nicotine surrogates a pathetic setup for failure (for me at least). Let me elaborate: tobacco smoke sends a dose peak within 9 s from inspiration; all the rest simply stabilize high blood levels of the substance. Now, sometimes I think that transition low-high makes the brain bloody happy. So here I am, smoking my lungs into a dumpster...
In my personal experience, the only time I managed to quit for good (8 months) was a cold-turkey one. I also adopted the AA strategy of counting the days I've abstained from tobacco to get the self esteem punch whenever I wished to light one (what a shame it would have been to reset the count... a failed exam blew it though).
I am an addict (btw, I just put one of these damn ones out) and yes I do throw butts on the floor as I phrased it. Unfortunately I was already thinking about the next part of my post where I describe Rome's city center streets so I implicitly referred to that scenario. So yes, I do throw butts on the floor but actually when I'm out on the street (and no, I don't empty car ashtrays at semaphore stops) and there's no dang ashtray in sight. I think in Hong Kong it's a finable offense but over here it's rather normal (there are pathetically small ashtrays embedded in some stylish street trashcans but they tend to be full of anything but cig butts). I hope this vaccine strategy works, I've tried the patch, the gums, even managed to quit without any nicotinic surrogate (which being the only period totally off nicotine I consider my only true success) for as much as 8 months but I've always relapsed. I just wished I was part of that population that smokes just for play and doesn't really get hooked
Man, that doesn't help one little bit beleive me: my dad used to smoke and guess what, he's dead. Did I quit? Oh no, I'm still struggling with the damn things, and I swear I hate the smell, the chest pain and the throat ache in the morning. All this "hate" really works when my nicotine blood concentration is good and the idea of smoking another cig is quite disgusting; once it goes down there's no question... the stink becomes a craven perfume, the small choke when inhaling a sweet caress and the taste a palatable wine. No way the stuff you're suggesting will ever work... has it stopped idiots driving against trees, explorers traveling into the unknown, soldiers putting their life at stake for whatever? No. So please get us a damn pill to swallow and rid of this damn thing...
Off an Impulse? Hell, I've considered qitting for the past 4 years! If this stuff doesn't develop allergies to tobacco (which would be dramatic given the fact that people smoke anywhere) I for shure would joyously get the shots... all of 'em! You know, if anything I will finally be able to just smoke for the sake of acting cool a Saturday night without getting myself screwed into addiction. From the first day I lit a cigarette I liked it too much... I was hooked since the very start, all I did was increase the dose as the years passed.
Hey flamebait, while I do agree with you about the unpoliteness of throwing butts on the floor I assure you that whenever I find an ashtray I _alwais_ use it. Never, ever have I thrown an empty pack on the floor let alone the plastic wrap. If I were to swallow the bait I could complain about the foreigners' habit of littering Campo de Fiori with empty bottles and assorted bodily fluids... after a night of pub crawls Rome becomes a drunkard's bin... .
Will you be so kind to keep those fundamentalist overtones for yourself? You know, every country has it's joke about it's people's nature and the USA target is: prohibitionist hysteria
Back on topic I'll wait and see if this vaccine develops anaphylactic reactions to nicotine; if it doesn't I'll be one of those using this cure. I've come to the conclusion cigarettes are digging a grave for me but I can't give up (people smoking everywhere around me, frustrations and stress buildup, whatever...ah, shure, addiction...)
Well, as much as a shame a Beagle fizzle can be, it's not THAT much of a tragedy after all. As another poster observes, having a very narrow launch window requires playing against odds; and most importantly there aren't any astronauts roasting their asses because of budget cuts! (damn politicians & bureaucrats) So, if the Beagle landing site is another neat martian crater that's fine... but I'm still chilling for Columbia.
Don't just trust the damn thing, if it's the model where the DC cable enters the plastic brick without the classical grommet but straight into a trench you've had it... it'll break and badly too! Mine died the day I was showing off the beauties of Os X to a chap I had just convinced to get an iBook; and a bad death was it too! The flimsy cheap wire (Apple must have noticed since it changed the design and the wire gauge) shorted on the laptop plug side and the circuitry cooked itself destroying the whole adapter. Now:
1. Ok Apple, you tried to pull a cheap one... the first device went offline on it's own, the second shorted... change design and manufacturer
2. Apple has grown a tad too much for it's current logistics? My dealer was extraoridarily kind and pulled an extra one while the Apple bureaucracy decided my adapter was dead, under warranty, it was their fault after all and replace it. What was I supposed to do in the meantime... BUY A NEW ONE? Well, the dealer made it clear it was a favour since Apple didn't provide for extra "courtesy" stock... it's been past two weeks...
3. For hell's sake, put a short breakout in the silly thing! Not a fuse no, the whole thing is a switching, electronically controlled AC/DC converter; so why on earth didn't Apple put a transistor on the output load to shut off the input stage in case it shorted for some reason?
Now, listen up Apple... I like OS X, the HW and all... but you pull another one of there cheap tricks on me and you won't see another cent... with the money I spent I could have bought 2 shitty Dells... I haven't so I don't expect to be treated as if I had. Rant and bitterness aside, I'm pretty happy with my mac... looking forward to a portable G5.
Well, he is right after all and you should have guessed since it's implicit in your article. Nowhere have you said that blue perception has poor contrast and infact, lossy compression throw away spatial samples rather than dimishing the dinamic range. So in a sense you had the answer but didn't know it; don't worry, it happens to me all the time ;-)
Andecdotal: try to focus on something under a violet light (don't stare at the lamp, you can't feel it, but it is bright) and feel the frustration of someone that has lost it's glasses.
grsecurity is a promising mechanism to un-root a linux kernel based system: ipaddr, user or group based roles open or deny access to privileged operations without ever having uid=0 to begin with. It's a bit complicated to use but the system can auto-learn and generate these policies. Also, the system includes PaX which does some neat things like scramble the stack to thwart buffer overflows, non executable pages, etc... I've played with both (well, Mandrake secure kernels have grsec compiled in, not shure about pax) and although I still can't figure out (read: "ready made & nicely packaged ;-)") all of it but it does give the warm & fuzzy feeling it makes a difference...
OS X; Alfa Romeo 147; Renault Clio (sigh...)
Good answer but it makes me wonder... how is this weeding trough the registry simpler than unix administration? It's no wonder Microsoft calls it the Registry Hive... it's a Hornet Nest not much different than /etc
Sorry for the flamebait, it's just something that crossed my mind reading your comment.
Uhh, M$ fanboy.... look (museum IBM commercial) kids, this is a specimen of the extinct species "M$ fanboy"... har, har...
... for the GPL licensed software patents they're obviously incorporating in their products? Oh sorry, no patents... it's free. Had the reverse been true, don't you doubt the PR would have stormed in crying the Communist Hippies had raped and stolen the innovative creation of successful individuals (thus impoverishing the whole world including Antartica and the depths of the Indian Sea). Oops, 'tis ha shame noone has patented the whole Free Software business process... it would have meant sue time.
Just get a pair of microwave tansducers and rock on! As a fringe benefit you'll have quick & easy fried eggs, right in your office, and coocked on an uber-geek equipment! And you can fry your PHB's cell phone if you're cunning enough... just read some BOFH hints on The Reg! /. disses my leet utf (whatever) character codes from my OSX mac... where is my (mu) or u (u with the .. )? oh come on!
PS.