Never mind that the speed limit is enforced and the average SUV driver* has never gone offroad in his/her collective life, but we still need MORE POWER!
I don't know about anyone else, but I want power for acceleration, not top speed. I used to have a diesel MB that had unbelievably bad acceleration. It got to the point where I was literally afraid to change lanes because there was no margin for error.
I like my SUV with V8 power just fine. And yes, I want to make sure I have way more weight than you. As far as I'm concerned, it's survival of the biggest.
but they'll only run on Windows so if you want performance guess who's OS you'll need.
I would imagine that it wouldn't be difficult to make a version of gcc (or g++) that would speak it.
I think the proof of this particular pudding is going to be in the language, not the implementation. I think a lot of people really would like to see a simplified C++ with garbage collection, including engineers at Microsoft. Assuming they don't go off the deep end and put in language details that make it incredibly difficult to make a good compiler (like Java), we might see something interesting.
I have to admit that "platform independence" stuff scares me a bit. I hope they don't do anything stupid and define word lengths or byte orderings.
To be a bit more serious: C-hashed is going to be a byte-coded language with a virtual machine.
Are you sure? If so, then this blows. We don't need another byte-code interpreted language, although I think there is a lot of room for improvement on Java.
Maybe I should've been a little more explicit in what I was looking for. I want a C-like language that also has garbage collection and classes, but not as "overcooked" as C++. I like many of the aspects of Java's classes, but for all the reasons I mentioned, it's not a good choice for system programming.
the idea behind P3P is that viewers will be required to reveal their addresses and other personal information to every commercial site they access or be denied entrance,...
Exactly where in the specification does it state this as the goal of the protocol? Oh, I see, you made it up. Does Michael actually understand the difference between the intention of something, and the possibility of abuse of something? Apparently not.
And by the way, do you think that a site actually has no right to demand personal information before it's accessed? Uh -- yes they do. They can do any damn thing they want. You have a choice -- either provide the information, or don't visit the site. It's called freedom -- on both sides.
Oh I see -- you know what's best for everyone else. You will decide they should not have a convienant capability to pass their personal information automatically. People are too stupid to make that decision for themselves, so they need protection from Michael.
And the "pretty poor privacy" thing is unprofessional. At least give the proper name of the specification, and if you want to make your little joke, then make it. But putting it in the article's title is just disrespectful and immature.
I wish Slashdot would get someone that has a little more class and maturity to do these sort of articles.
I would LOVE to have a C-like language that didn't have the limitations of Java. Java is not an appropriate replacement for C for system programming. For example (my biggest peeve), Java lacks an unsigned data type.
The industry really, really needs a native compiled language between C and C++. At one time, there was an effort by C standards committee to produce a "C with classes" language as a successor to C. It wouldn't be as complex as C++, but would try to include the best aspects of it. Unfortunately, that effort died.
I think it would be great to have a language for system programming that was cleaner that C++ and without the limits of Java. People talk about native compiled Java, but let's face it, the language is very tied to the JVM. It is not designed to be a system programming language like C, with it's non-specified sized data types, non-defined byte order, etc that you need for maximum efficiency.
Only people who don't understand the differences between Java and C++ could possibly see this as a competitor to Java.
I would ask people to not condemn it just because it's from Microsoft. Let's wait to see what pops out. Let's face it -- there are few companies with as much experience with OOP than Microsoft.
Cut to a couple of years ago - Gateway buys the remains of Amiga and potimism flares up that, in fact, they'll take the plunge into a new platform and out of the Wintel business.
potimism (potimism) n.
Smoking so much pot that reason is overwhelmed, resulting in a tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation: "There is a touch of potimism in every worry about one's own moral cleanliness" (Victoria Ocampo). See also optimism.
It's rare that we see such an apt choice of words.:)
A stereotypical Amigan is fanatical, loudmouthed, doesn't shut up about the Amiga, somewhat like me, I'm a perfect example. If you can possibly realize why we are so like that, you can see. It's like having this brilliantly cool toy, and nobody else can experience it like you have. It's almost like having a divine experience to search for words, something like this. You've got to tell everybody about it. They may not understand, but if you can get through to one more person, wow. That's them helped out, especially in the world of the Microsoft monopoly.
Hmmmm... this sounds suspiciously like my Brother-In-Law when he talks to me about Amway. "Hey, I'm only trying to help you out. Multi-level marketing, baby, it's the future!
I don't know; maybe I'm weird but I don't want to join a cult, either Amway or the Amiga.
For each mother, they are better off bearing an fertile child.
Having children is an important factor, but you're forgetting two other factors: survivability and quality of life. The mothers who produce the infertile caregiver child have potentially better ability to 1) have more children, because they are less likely to die off (since they have more protection, etc), and 2) may have better nutrition for herself and her children because of the food gathering ability.
That's why we never see such a thing (except, as someone pointed out, in social insects--who have different mathematical genetics).
I could even argue that we do see this in humans. Why do people live beyond child-bearing age? By your theory, there should be evolutionary pressure to die off as soon as possible.
As for insects, as far as I know biology doesn't recognize different "mathematics" of genetics and evolution. Insects are "molded" through the same evolutionary forces as everything else.
As for "don't have too many children or it will use up the resources": BZZT! Wrong! Genes don't do any long-range planning, let alone allowing for the offspring of other individuals.
Again, you're forgetting about "survivability" as a component of evolution. Let's say I have a population of animals that gets separated into two different valleys. One gets a mutation that causes huge amounts of children to be born. It consumes food faster than it can be replenished through normal growing, and thus it dies out. Environmental equilibrium is an important part of evolution.
But you don't even need a thought experiment to prove it. Why do a lot of mammals have breeding seasons? By your theory, this should never happen because it should be better to crank out children all year 'round. But it's better to have a breeding season and have children born in the spring because that's when a new season of food has grown.
What matters is: Did you have any children? If not, the species "evolves away from you". If so, it "evolves towards you".
That's actually an oversimplification. For example, let's say a strain of humans develops a sterile member every 10 births. That trait should die out by your theory. However, now let's say that this sterile member tends to become a caregiver that helps the rest of the population survive. Then that strain would have better survival characteristics than a strain without the sterile members.
Evolution can be extremely subtle. It's not all about cranking out as many children as possible (in fact, that's an anti-survival trait because of overuse of resources).
Isn't it also "simply factual" that one vote makes no real difference to the overall total, especially when considering the electoral college?
Yes, but there is a cumulative effect that's important.
Look at it this way: My recycling my aluminum cans does not make much of a difference either way. But the cumulative effect of everyone recycling has made a huge effect. I think something like 60% of cans are recycled. That's significant.
In the case of software boxes, even if we eliminated 100% of the packaging, it wouldn't make a practical difference in paper usage. So even the cumulative effect is insignificant.
Landfills do not see significant biodegreadation. Most of us have probably heard of these guys digging 50 year old newspapers out of New York landfills in still redable condition.
I'll probably get pummelled for this, but why does it have to decompose in our lifetime? It seems to me that this is just human centrism, in the sense that everything has to be experienced in one lifetime.
They probably will decompose over a 200 or 300 year span. But what if it even took 1000 years? It's probably a bigger problem for Europe where land is more scarce, but the US has thousands (if not millions) of square miles of useless desert land. In the overall scheme of problems, this one just doesn't resonate all that much with me.
I don't think we need your (hypocritical, btw) cynicism about "what difference will it make".
I'm not saying that people shouldn't do it, I'm only saying that it does practically nothing to solve the problem, which is paper consumption. Maybe I'm weird, but I look at things in terms of actually solving problems, rather than just feeling good about symbolic gestures.
"Cynicism" is when you say "my vote doesn't count; why should I vote?" when clearly the cumulative effect makes a difference (Ghandhi's "what you do makes no difference, but it's very important that you do it"). In this case, it's simply factual that the cumulative effect makes no real difference to the overall total..
your math leaves something to be desired... An increase of 17%.
First of all, I thought it was pretty clear I wasn't doing any math at all, since I was calling for someone to make an accurate figure (I was too lazy). Second, you're forgetting about the cardboard insert that holds the CD and docs. That is usually an I shape, where the tops of the "I" would get thicker. The effect of that may not drop it down to 5%, but it might get it to 10%. Still pretty insignificant.
As for your "0.001%" figure: Let's see some data.
Do you really think that many software packages are sold, compared to maybe 50 million newspapers a day, and innumerable magazines, junk mail, food boxes, etc? I don't know about your house, but my recycle bin is packed full of paper every week, versus maybe one software package a month. Alright, 100,000 to 1 might be exaggerated, but I bet 10,000 to 1 isn't.
Well, I wouldn't term it "destroying the environment", but boxes can be recycled or will biodegrade fairly easily. Where do dead monitors go? Basically into landfills.
You're mixing two concepts. There is the old "Why should we spend resources on XXX when we should be solving all the problems in the world". That's different from "I want to solve XXX, and we should start where we can do the most good".
The original poster's problem is either "there is too much garbage" or "too many trees are being consumed." Either way, if that's the problem you want to solve, then you focus your energy where it will do the most good.
It's a lot like news stories who focus on one person being murdered in a rich area, while giving short shrift to all the murders that happen in the inner cities, simply because there are so many of them, and the single murder is more rare and thus newsworthy. Yes, the single murder is significant, but the more significant problem that should get the most attention are the inner city murders.
Well, let's remember that the box is mostly air. It doesn't take that much more material to make a 2-inch-thick box over a 1 inch box (someone want to run a quick calculation? I guess about 5% more material).
In any case, compared to the volume of newspapers, magazines, and junk mail, I think computer boxes probably are about 0.001% of the total paper mass, much less total garbage mass.
If you want to focus on garbage generation, this is not the place. I could even argue that any paper really isn't the place, since that is pretty easy to recycle.
Having a non-elected section of government is a fantastic idea; it means there is some other influence than petty short-term vote grabbing by politicians. Sure, it's not perfect, and hereditary power isn't particularly fair, but it's a solution that works well and is proven.
This is remarkable. I've never heard of anyone actually calling for royalty and a ruling class.
What I don't understand is why you think this is "proven". The only thing proven about ruling classes is that they get corrupt and are eventually overthrown (usually violently). The only form of government that's ever been stable is democracy. As someone once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
And just to be accurate, the US does not have a democracy, it's a representative republic.
I will agree with you in one respect; the most efficient form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. The only problem is that they don't tend to stay benevolent.
Exactly where in that article does it talk about the "US lagging behind Europe in privacy standards"? Doesn't it ever occur to the Slashdot crew that their may be reasons to have a less regulated Internet?
I'm not saying I agree one way or the other, only that editorializing in the headline is kind of irritating to this Slashdot reader. I can make up my own mind, thank you.
And indeed I do. It was a single benchmark for doing an unrealistic job on an unrealistic hardware configuration. It stinks all over of "Hey - here's one we can win!"
A benchmark means what it means. It was a test for a large-scale site. YMMV, as they say. I don't understand why you think this is so fake. Granted, it's one case out of a lot of possible cases, but it meant something for that one case.
All benchmarks are misleading, if you compare it to what you want to do. Like this BeOS benchmark, for example. People rightly point out that it's only one program in a very limited set of circumstances. But it shows at least something. That doesn't mean that no other benchmarks can ever, or will ever be done.
First of all, they didn't install an "old version", they installed a current version. Second of all, they specifically cited the lack of Linux tuning documentation (which is true). Third, it seems funny that people would complain that Apache is brain damaged in the default configuration. And finally, IIS was not tuned all that much, if you actually read the study rather than taking the average Slashdotter's brainless word for it.
But then I seem to recall that it was rerun with the help of some Linux people, and the result was pretty close to the same. But I'm sure you'll poo-poo that one, also.
I could also point out that no where did anyone state that Linux was a "worthless piece of crap". It clearly can do the job, but runs out of gas when you get to larger configurations (particularly multi-processor). Most objective people recognize this.
Slashdot Mirror
Never mind that the speed limit is enforced and the average SUV driver* has never gone offroad in his/her collective life, but we still need MORE POWER!
I don't know about anyone else, but I want power for acceleration, not top speed. I used to have a diesel MB that had unbelievably bad acceleration. It got to the point where I was literally afraid to change lanes because there was no margin for error.
I like my SUV with V8 power just fine. And yes, I want to make sure I have way more weight than you. As far as I'm concerned, it's survival of the biggest.
--
but they'll only run on Windows so if you want performance guess who's OS you'll need.
I would imagine that it wouldn't be difficult to make a version of gcc (or g++) that would speak it.
I think the proof of this particular pudding is going to be in the language, not the implementation. I think a lot of people really would like to see a simplified C++ with garbage collection, including engineers at Microsoft. Assuming they don't go off the deep end and put in language details that make it incredibly difficult to make a good compiler (like Java), we might see something interesting.
I have to admit that "platform independence" stuff scares me a bit. I hope they don't do anything stupid and define word lengths or byte orderings.
--
To be a bit more serious: C-hashed is going to be a byte-coded language with a virtual machine.
Are you sure? If so, then this blows. We don't need another byte-code interpreted language, although I think there is a lot of room for improvement on Java.
I want a better, compiled, C/C++, dammit!
--
Try "C" for that, it's quite good. [etc etc etc]
Maybe I should've been a little more explicit in what I was looking for. I want a C-like language that also has garbage collection and classes, but not as "overcooked" as C++. I like many of the aspects of Java's classes, but for all the reasons I mentioned, it's not a good choice for system programming.
--
the idea behind P3P is that viewers will be required to reveal their addresses and other personal information to every commercial site they access or be denied entrance,...
Exactly where in the specification does it state this as the goal of the protocol? Oh, I see, you made it up. Does Michael actually understand the difference between the intention of something, and the possibility of abuse of something? Apparently not.
And by the way, do you think that a site actually has no right to demand personal information before it's accessed? Uh -- yes they do. They can do any damn thing they want. You have a choice -- either provide the information, or don't visit the site. It's called freedom -- on both sides.
Oh I see -- you know what's best for everyone else. You will decide they should not have a convienant capability to pass their personal information automatically. People are too stupid to make that decision for themselves, so they need protection from Michael.
And the "pretty poor privacy" thing is unprofessional. At least give the proper name of the specification, and if you want to make your little joke, then make it. But putting it in the article's title is just disrespectful and immature.
I wish Slashdot would get someone that has a little more class and maturity to do these sort of articles.
--
I would LOVE to have a C-like language that didn't have the limitations of Java. Java is not an appropriate replacement for C for system programming. For example (my biggest peeve), Java lacks an unsigned data type.
The industry really, really needs a native compiled language between C and C++. At one time, there was an effort by C standards committee to produce a "C with classes" language as a successor to C. It wouldn't be as complex as C++, but would try to include the best aspects of it. Unfortunately, that effort died.
I think it would be great to have a language for system programming that was cleaner that C++ and without the limits of Java. People talk about native compiled Java, but let's face it, the language is very tied to the JVM. It is not designed to be a system programming language like C, with it's non-specified sized data types, non-defined byte order, etc that you need for maximum efficiency.
Only people who don't understand the differences between Java and C++ could possibly see this as a competitor to Java.
I would ask people to not condemn it just because it's from Microsoft. Let's wait to see what pops out. Let's face it -- there are few companies with as much experience with OOP than Microsoft.
--
I mean.. wow. No matter how big the film is.. it's not really a 'film' if it was on the web first. Hmm.
I mean.. wow. No matter how big the film is.. it's not really a 'film' if it was on TV first. Hmm.
The Oscars are meant for theatrical releases. Why is this so difficult to understand?
--
Cut to a couple of years ago - Gateway buys the remains of Amiga and potimism flares up that, in fact, they'll take the plunge into a new platform and out of the Wintel business.
potimism (potimism) n.
Smoking so much pot that reason is overwhelmed, resulting in a tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation: "There is a touch of potimism in every worry about one's own moral cleanliness" (Victoria Ocampo). See also optimism.
It's rare that we see such an apt choice of words. :)
--
That's the problem with British cooks...
Hey, but they make great fish & chips.
--
A stereotypical Amigan is fanatical, loudmouthed, doesn't shut up about the Amiga, somewhat like me, I'm a perfect example. If you can possibly realize why we are so like that, you can see. It's like having this brilliantly cool toy, and nobody else can experience it like you have. It's almost like having a divine experience to search for words, something like this. You've got to tell everybody about it. They may not understand, but if you can get through to one more person, wow. That's them helped out, especially in the world of the Microsoft monopoly.
Hmmmm... this sounds suspiciously like my Brother-In-Law when he talks to me about Amway. "Hey, I'm only trying to help you out. Multi-level marketing, baby, it's the future!
I don't know; maybe I'm weird but I don't want to join a cult, either Amway or the Amiga.
--
For each mother, they are better off bearing an fertile child.
Having children is an important factor, but you're forgetting two other factors: survivability and quality of life. The mothers who produce the infertile caregiver child have potentially better ability to 1) have more children, because they are less likely to die off (since they have more protection, etc), and 2) may have better nutrition for herself and her children because of the food gathering ability.
That's why we never see such a thing (except, as someone pointed out, in social insects--who have different mathematical genetics).
I could even argue that we do see this in humans. Why do people live beyond child-bearing age? By your theory, there should be evolutionary pressure to die off as soon as possible.
As for insects, as far as I know biology doesn't recognize different "mathematics" of genetics and evolution. Insects are "molded" through the same evolutionary forces as everything else.
As for "don't have too many children or it will use up the resources": BZZT! Wrong! Genes don't do any long-range planning, let alone allowing for the offspring of other individuals.
Again, you're forgetting about "survivability" as a component of evolution. Let's say I have a population of animals that gets separated into two different valleys. One gets a mutation that causes huge amounts of children to be born. It consumes food faster than it can be replenished through normal growing, and thus it dies out. Environmental equilibrium is an important part of evolution.
But you don't even need a thought experiment to prove it. Why do a lot of mammals have breeding seasons? By your theory, this should never happen because it should be better to crank out children all year 'round. But it's better to have a breeding season and have children born in the spring because that's when a new season of food has grown.
--
What matters is: Did you have any children? If not, the species "evolves away from you". If so, it "evolves towards you".
That's actually an oversimplification. For example, let's say a strain of humans develops a sterile member every 10 births. That trait should die out by your theory. However, now let's say that this sterile member tends to become a caregiver that helps the rest of the population survive. Then that strain would have better survival characteristics than a strain without the sterile members.
Evolution can be extremely subtle. It's not all about cranking out as many children as possible (in fact, that's an anti-survival trait because of overuse of resources).
--
Isn't it also "simply factual" that one vote makes no real difference to the overall total, especially when considering the electoral college?
Yes, but there is a cumulative effect that's important.
Look at it this way: My recycling my aluminum cans does not make much of a difference either way. But the cumulative effect of everyone recycling has made a huge effect. I think something like 60% of cans are recycled. That's significant.
In the case of software boxes, even if we eliminated 100% of the packaging, it wouldn't make a practical difference in paper usage. So even the cumulative effect is insignificant.
--
Landfills do not see significant biodegreadation. Most of us have probably heard of these guys digging 50 year old newspapers out of New York landfills in still redable condition.
I'll probably get pummelled for this, but why does it have to decompose in our lifetime? It seems to me that this is just human centrism, in the sense that everything has to be experienced in one lifetime.
They probably will decompose over a 200 or 300 year span. But what if it even took 1000 years? It's probably a bigger problem for Europe where land is more scarce, but the US has thousands (if not millions) of square miles of useless desert land. In the overall scheme of problems, this one just doesn't resonate all that much with me.
--
I don't think we need your (hypocritical, btw) cynicism about "what difference will it make".
I'm not saying that people shouldn't do it, I'm only saying that it does practically nothing to solve the problem, which is paper consumption. Maybe I'm weird, but I look at things in terms of actually solving problems, rather than just feeling good about symbolic gestures.
"Cynicism" is when you say "my vote doesn't count; why should I vote?" when clearly the cumulative effect makes a difference (Ghandhi's "what you do makes no difference, but it's very important that you do it"). In this case, it's simply factual that the cumulative effect makes no real difference to the overall total..
--
Actually, I've always thought sarcasm was a very underrated talent. :)
--
your math leaves something to be desired ... An increase of 17%.
First of all, I thought it was pretty clear I wasn't doing any math at all, since I was calling for someone to make an accurate figure (I was too lazy). Second, you're forgetting about the cardboard insert that holds the CD and docs. That is usually an I shape, where the tops of the "I" would get thicker. The effect of that may not drop it down to 5%, but it might get it to 10%. Still pretty insignificant.
As for your "0.001%" figure: Let's see some data.
Do you really think that many software packages are sold, compared to maybe 50 million newspapers a day, and innumerable magazines, junk mail, food boxes, etc? I don't know about your house, but my recycle bin is packed full of paper every week, versus maybe one software package a month. Alright, 100,000 to 1 might be exaggerated, but I bet 10,000 to 1 isn't.
--
Consider how much more cramped our landfills would be if AOL were widely distributed in such a fashion.
Not much, since garbage is compressed before dumping into landfills, and paper is biodegradable.
--
Well, I wouldn't term it "destroying the environment", but boxes can be recycled or will biodegrade fairly easily. Where do dead monitors go? Basically into landfills.
--
You're mixing two concepts. There is the old "Why should we spend resources on XXX when we should be solving all the problems in the world". That's different from "I want to solve XXX, and we should start where we can do the most good".
The original poster's problem is either "there is too much garbage" or "too many trees are being consumed." Either way, if that's the problem you want to solve, then you focus your energy where it will do the most good.
It's a lot like news stories who focus on one person being murdered in a rich area, while giving short shrift to all the murders that happen in the inner cities, simply because there are so many of them, and the single murder is more rare and thus newsworthy. Yes, the single murder is significant, but the more significant problem that should get the most attention are the inner city murders.
--
Well, let's remember that the box is mostly air. It doesn't take that much more material to make a 2-inch-thick box over a 1 inch box (someone want to run a quick calculation? I guess about 5% more material).
In any case, compared to the volume of newspapers, magazines, and junk mail, I think computer boxes probably are about 0.001% of the total paper mass, much less total garbage mass.
If you want to focus on garbage generation, this is not the place. I could even argue that any paper really isn't the place, since that is pretty easy to recycle.
--
Having a non-elected section of government is a fantastic idea; it means there is some other influence than petty short-term vote grabbing by politicians. Sure, it's not perfect, and hereditary power isn't particularly fair, but it's a solution that works well and is proven.
This is remarkable. I've never heard of anyone actually calling for royalty and a ruling class.
What I don't understand is why you think this is "proven". The only thing proven about ruling classes is that they get corrupt and are eventually overthrown (usually violently). The only form of government that's ever been stable is democracy. As someone once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
And just to be accurate, the US does not have a democracy, it's a representative republic.
I will agree with you in one respect; the most efficient form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. The only problem is that they don't tend to stay benevolent.
--
Exactly where in that article does it talk about the "US lagging behind Europe in privacy standards"? Doesn't it ever occur to the Slashdot crew that their may be reasons to have a less regulated Internet?
I'm not saying I agree one way or the other, only that editorializing in the headline is kind of irritating to this Slashdot reader. I can make up my own mind, thank you.
--
And indeed I do. It was a single benchmark for doing an unrealistic job on an unrealistic hardware configuration. It stinks all over of "Hey - here's one we can win!"
A benchmark means what it means. It was a test for a large-scale site. YMMV, as they say. I don't understand why you think this is so fake. Granted, it's one case out of a lot of possible cases, but it meant something for that one case.
All benchmarks are misleading, if you compare it to what you want to do. Like this BeOS benchmark, for example. People rightly point out that it's only one program in a very limited set of circumstances. But it shows at least something. That doesn't mean that no other benchmarks can ever, or will ever be done.
--
First of all, they didn't install an "old version", they installed a current version. Second of all, they specifically cited the lack of Linux tuning documentation (which is true). Third, it seems funny that people would complain that Apache is brain damaged in the default configuration. And finally, IIS was not tuned all that much, if you actually read the study rather than taking the average Slashdotter's brainless word for it.
But then I seem to recall that it was rerun with the help of some Linux people, and the result was pretty close to the same. But I'm sure you'll poo-poo that one, also.
I could also point out that no where did anyone state that Linux was a "worthless piece of crap". It clearly can do the job, but runs out of gas when you get to larger configurations (particularly multi-processor). Most objective people recognize this.
--