Some years ago, I got a faily good stereo system - the works, an amp, tuner, turntable, tape deck and speakers - I already had a reasonably good CD player. It doesn't sound too bad. However, the speakers and cabinets I inherited from my father (aging 10" twin-cones in a prted box) look like shit, but sound a million dollars ($AU, of course) compared to the spiffy 4-cone, crossoverred cabinets that came with the stereo. My mum keeps nagging me about how crappy they look, but the sound's the thing, and she only has to look at them when she visits.
> It is especially clear on recordings that feature a small number of accoustic instruments and human voice. There's no reason to listen to techno on vinyl, but Bob Dylan sounds a lot better.
Bullshit. I've got a couple of Dylan's recordings on both, and I can't tell the difference (except for the surface noise). Of course, my 52 year old ears aren't as good as they used to be, but my sons can't tell the difference, either.
In fact, you have potentially _more_ dynamic range with a CD, as you don't have to run the sound through a limiter to avoid upsetting your cutting lathe when producing the master.
A bloke I know once accidentally refilled his army LandRover with diesel fuel (this was quite a while ago, I think it was a Series III). It worked fine the rest of that day (although it was blowing a bit of smoke), but once it had cooled down, it wouldn't start again and the engine had to be completely rebuilt. He was a bit embarrassed, as you can imagine.
However, this just goes to show that, in the short term, you can get away with ignoring standards, but eventually it bites you on the arse.
This implies that your sender will have to keep every packet until the end of the transfer. You will trade off lots of memory and reduced speed (overall) against... what?
Actually, my home-brew is _extremeley_ good, better than a lot of factory-brewed beer, and heaps cheaper. I also have almost total control over the alcohol content, so if I want to brew an India Pale Ale with 8% alcohol, I can.
Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper kind of made a blockbuster at home with "Easy Rider". OK, the movie sucks when viewed with the perspective of maturity and less chemical "assistance" for your critical sense, but we all thought it was pretty cool at the time and it made serious money.
Actually, we're not reasonably certain there are an infinite number of primes. This was proved a loooong time ago, I think by some Greek bloke.
On the other hand, being as computers are finite systems (unlike the set of primes, for example), sometimes induction isn't going to be as reliable a guide to correctness as you'd think.
It's still going to be impossible to test every state before the heat death of the universe, though.
And, fyi, it was still being used at least 20 years later. I forget when they decomissioned it, but it wasn't all that long ago. Oh, all right, it was a fair while ago, but it was certainly after my voice broke.
Actually, believers in a god generally _are_ worse off than I am. For a start, they have to believe a shitload of mutually contradictory things (at least, if they're christians - I don't know that much about the other major religions). Then, they have to try and follow a whole heap of really stupid rules, most of which can't be justified except by a recursive appeal to the-holy-revealed-word-of-god.
When my dog was younger, she'd piss on the floor when I came home... joy incontinence, we called it. Now she just leaps around a lot and insists on a tummy rub (she has me well programmed). She has also been known to shit on the carpet when she's annoyed with me.
Ada's actually quite nice - it was the teaching language at Adelaide University when I was there. Although even Defence don't use it much any more (so it doesn't translate directly into a gig), it teaches you good programming habits, and it's what Oracle used as a basis for PL/SQL, so you can use what you've learnt at any Oracle site without too steep a learning curve.
The beaut thing about using a slide rule (or log tables or just pen and paper for that matter) is that you _must_ have a pretty good idea of the order of magnitude of the answer before you start, which is a far, far better thing than having a very precise, hopelessly inaccurate, answer. I don't regard this as harmful, and yes, I am an olde fogey (I didn't even have a slide rule at high school).
I'm also dubious about the benefits of kids using computers at school (unless they're learning to program or type) - they _don't_ save paper in my experience (as a number of others have already pointed out), and they are more likely to be a distraction than a help. In fact, I always remember something better if I write it out (as I said, I'm old).
Unfortunately, you Americans have a disturbing impulse towards fascism (which was defined on slashdot the other day as - roughly - an alliance of big business with a repressive government). Your media today are saying much the same things about people who are against your government's latest military adventure ("Traitors!" etc) as they did 30-odd years ago during the last one. Admittedly ours in Australia aren't much better, but at least Australians are generally too lazy, apathetic and cynical to be completely taken in.
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Some years ago, I got a faily good stereo system - the works, an amp, tuner, turntable, tape deck and speakers - I already had a reasonably good CD player. It doesn't sound too bad. However, the speakers and cabinets I inherited from my father (aging 10" twin-cones in a prted box) look like shit, but sound a million dollars ($AU, of course) compared to the spiffy 4-cone, crossoverred cabinets that came with the stereo. My mum keeps nagging me about how crappy they look, but the sound's the thing, and she only has to look at them when she visits.
> It is especially clear on recordings that feature a small number of accoustic instruments and human voice. There's no reason to listen to techno on vinyl, but Bob Dylan sounds a lot better.
Bullshit. I've got a couple of Dylan's recordings on both, and I can't tell the difference (except for the surface noise). Of course, my 52 year old ears aren't as good as they used to be, but my sons can't tell the difference, either.
In fact, you have potentially _more_ dynamic range with a CD, as you don't have to run the sound through a limiter to avoid upsetting your cutting lathe when producing the master.
This one used to piss my middle son off (he played drums at the time).
Q: What has three legs and an arsehole?
A: A drumstool.
Boom,boom!
Funny you should say that. The French actually do have a language standards body.
A bloke I know once accidentally refilled his army LandRover with diesel fuel (this was quite a while ago, I think it was a Series III). It worked fine the rest of that day (although it was blowing a bit of smoke), but once it had cooled down, it wouldn't start again and the engine had to be completely rebuilt. He was a bit embarrassed, as you can imagine.
However, this just goes to show that, in the short term, you can get away with ignoring standards, but eventually it bites you on the arse.
I saw 'Gone with the Wind' about 20 years ago, and it sucked _then_.
This implies that your sender will have to keep every packet until the end of the transfer. You will trade off lots of memory and reduced speed (overall) against ... what?
> The beer is never good.
Actually, my home-brew is _extremeley_ good, better than a lot of factory-brewed beer, and heaps cheaper. I also have almost total control over the alcohol content, so if I want to brew an India Pale Ale with 8% alcohol, I can.
Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper kind of made a blockbuster at home with "Easy Rider". OK, the movie sucks when viewed with the perspective of maturity and less chemical "assistance" for your critical sense, but we all thought it was pretty cool at the time and it made serious money.
Er ... I think you'll find that there was prior art to Gutenburg. Maybe you're thinking of movable type.
Actually, we're not reasonably certain there are an infinite number of primes. This was proved a loooong time ago, I think by some Greek bloke.
On the other hand, being as computers are finite systems (unlike the set of primes, for example), sometimes induction isn't going to be as reliable a guide to correctness as you'd think.
It's still going to be impossible to test every state before the heat death of the universe, though.
A peppercorn rent was originally quite expensive (just recall that pepper, in the Middle Ages, was worth rather more than its own weight in gold).
And, fyi, it was still being used at least 20 years later. I forget when they decomissioned it, but it wasn't all that long ago. Oh, all right, it was a fair while ago, but it was certainly after my voice broke.
Actually, believers in a god generally _are_ worse off than I am. For a start, they have to believe a shitload of mutually contradictory things (at least, if they're christians - I don't know that much about the other major religions). Then, they have to try and follow a whole heap of really stupid rules, most of which can't be justified except by a recursive appeal to the-holy-revealed-word-of-god.
When my dog was younger, she'd piss on the floor when I came home ... joy incontinence, we called it. Now she just leaps around a lot and insists on a tummy rub (she has me well programmed). She has also been known to shit on the carpet when she's annoyed with me.
Ada's actually quite nice - it was the teaching language at Adelaide University when I was there. Although even Defence don't use it much any more (so it doesn't translate directly into a gig), it teaches you good programming habits, and it's what Oracle used as a basis for PL/SQL, so you can use what you've learnt at any Oracle site without too steep a learning curve.
I don't much care for Emacs, either (seeing as we're gearing up for a flame war here).
What I don't understand is how come he didn't mention FORTRAN. After all, there's a lot to hate there (although I kind of liked it).
...
Oh, wait, no-one uses it any more
The beaut thing about using a slide rule (or log tables or just pen and paper for that matter) is that you _must_ have a pretty good idea of the order of magnitude of the answer before you start, which is a far, far better thing than having a very precise, hopelessly inaccurate, answer. I don't regard this as harmful, and yes, I am an olde fogey (I didn't even have a slide rule at high school).
I'm also dubious about the benefits of kids using computers at school (unless they're learning to program or type) - they _don't_ save paper in my experience (as a number of others have already pointed out), and they are more likely to be a distraction than a help. In fact, I always remember something better if I write it out (as I said, I'm old).
So was East Germany. A Democratic Republic, that is.
Well, yes. Think Spanish-American War or the more recent military adventure in South East Asia, just for starters.
Actually, I'm pretty sure he is correct.
Unfortunately, you Americans have a disturbing impulse towards fascism (which was defined on slashdot the other day as - roughly - an alliance of big business with a repressive government). Your media today are saying much the same things about people who are against your government's latest military adventure ("Traitors!" etc) as they did 30-odd years ago during the last one. Admittedly ours in Australia aren't much better, but at least Australians are generally too lazy, apathetic and cynical to be completely taken in.
You forgot the fifth major food group - caffeine.