Umm... no offense intended, but if learning assembler provides "major enlightenment", then I question your education. No, seriously. I've got assembler experience in a few instruction sets (Z80, 68k, ARM, and a bit of x86), and about the only useful thing you'll get out of that is a better understanding of pointers. And if you don't already have that, then the "next level" you'll be reaching is that of an entry level programmer.
If you want real enlightenment, learn Smalltalk or Lisp. Those languages provide you with tools (such as lexical closures and higher-order functions) that will change the way you look at solving programming problems. The only problem is that, once you learn how to effectively use those tools, you'll never want to go back to languages like Java or C#, which don't have them.
Rather than typing two pages of code, it's only half a page(big deal).
Umm... elegance is not measured by terseness. It's measured primarily by clarity, ease of maintenance, ease of extension, ease of code reuse, and probably many other factors. What you describe is "clever" code, but it's not necessarily elegant.
BTW, as an aside, writing clean, elegant code rarely pays off in the short term. However, 6 months or a year down the line (or, better yet 10 years), well written, elegant code will almost always pay off in spades.
It's a shame they didn't leave the mirror list in the same place. I ended up manually editing my yum repositories and selecting a still-operating mirror that's relatively close by.
See, up here in the great white north, it's not actually illegal
Ah, a fellow Canadian.:) The thing to keep in mind is that the levies make it legal to copy music for personal use, but other sorts of piracy (TV, movies, etc) are still very much illegal (AFAIK), or more accurately put, actionable. Of course, as you point out, your average citizen isn't aware of any of this, and so ends up swallowing the US propaganda.
As an aside, I don't know what makes you think it's so much harder to file suit for copyright infringement, here. The only major roadblock is the ISPs, who have, up to this point, refused to release customer information (instead blocking P2P themselves... fuck you, Shaw! Fuck. You.) From a legal standpoint, I'm not aware of any significant differences (especially since the copyright laws are relatively harmonized).
Debian stable, IMHO. It works, the upgrades are flawless (at least in my experience), and while on the desktop it may lag behind other distros, on the server end where you rarely need cutting edge software, it works great.
This is actually a very interesting point. Perhaps the study numbers can be explained because the music/movie industry propaganda machines are working, and people are now unwilling to report the truth because they realize what they're doing is illegal (if not immoral)?
Well, the flip side is that it's a minority government. Really, that's the people saying "you know what, all you parties suck", and in the end, that's probably true.
Frankly, I think this is the best government we've had in a long time... so paralyzed, they don't have the opportunity to screw anything up! And anything they *do* manage to pass must be built on consensus, meaning more Canadians end up represented.
Sure, that means they also can't do anything controversial (eg, decriminalize marijuana), but I still rather that than a solid liberal or conservative majority, capable of passing anything they like.
Sure they can. You do what the federal government did: place the power of drawing election boundaries in the hands of an arms-length, independant group (in this case, Elections Canada).
Oh, I see. So your *particular* brand of christianity is fine, even if there are a bunch of other, nastier christian sects out there who like to fly under the same banner (like, say, the abortion clinic bombers). Meanwhile, to you, all muslims are the same.
Dude, seriously, stop dispelling these myths! If people suddenly realize Canada isn't actually a subarctic wasteland, and that all the stories of people waiting years for operations are overblown or outdated, we'll never be able to keep people out!
Funny, I just installed a MythTV backend server using FC5, and it was an absolute dream. It's running on paired SATA using LVM over RAID-1, so it's not your most standard configuration, and it works like a charm. Granted, it's a backend server, so I have no idea how good the X setup stage is, but for my purposes, FC5 was a very good experience.
BTW, for the record, I run Debian on all my other machines, but the Debian packages for Myth are no longer being maintained, so FC5 was my only option.
Only if IE is the most compelling reason to remain on Windows, which I suspect is not the case for most people.
I don't think you get it. More and more apps are moving to the Internet, or at least, so it would appear. Microsoft's fear, then, is the commoditization of the operating system. If a large number of apps become internet enabled, and thus cross-platform, then the actual operating system one uses doesn't really matter, as long as you have a functioning browser. So, to fight this, Microsoft created IE, with all it's non-standard extensions, as a way of locking people in. See, if people create lots of apps that only work in IE, then you still need a Microsoft OS to use them.
Of course, this is all predicated on the idea that web-enabled apps can out-compete native desktop implementations. Now, a few years ago, I would have scoffed at the idea (Java applets showed some promise, but unfortunately the technology never really took off... though that could also be due to Microsoft's machinations, as well). But these days, when you consider email, and now Google's office suite (which, while limited, is probably sufficient for your average joe), the idea may not be so crazy after all.
Opening the exact same sites in Firefox and Konqueror will often show a major difference between the two in terms of RAM usage.
'course, it helps that Konqueror can leverage a ton of the infrastructure already present in KDE, and as such, it's actual resident set size can be much lower (since many more of the libraries it utilizes will be shared with other apps).
The question is, how much total RAM is that monster KDE desktop taking up?
Of course, if you're using KDE already, then you're absolutely right, konq will be a better choice if your goal is to reduce memory footprint. However, for folks such as myself (I use WindowMaker), there's probably little advantage to using one over the other.
I also disabled the cache for all three browsers, since I've heard that Firefox has a policy that leads to excessive memory usage.
Actually, that's incorrect. What you want to do is disable the fast back/forward cache. It is controlled by a property called "browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers". Set that value to 0 to disable the feature. This can significantly decrease the amount of memory used by FF at the expense of slower back/forward response.
That is, the study shows just that children born with autism are more likely to spend time watching TV
And then, what... move to Pennsylvania and California? Right in the summary, it states that "childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not". That indicates something more complex is going on, here. Now, granted, there could be some third variable that's really causing things, but the simplistic "autism increases TV watching" interpretation is, I think, refuted by the study results.
I think the presumption is that there's something wrong with the 40 year old, and therefore they must be "victimizing" the 17 year old in some way. Not that I agree with that (I think it's totally insane, in fact), but that's the only rationalization I can think of.
Just like you should read a study before criticising it. If you then disagree with the research then fine, but criticising something without reading it is moronic.
Sweet, then I take it you believe me about my milk-bubblegum cold fusion device? I mean, you haven't even read my research...
The person in question was not "being skeptical", to be a skeptic you have to know what you are actually being skeptical about.
Really! Okay, well, I claim to have a device here that generates cold fusion with a glass of skim milk and a pack of bubble gum. Are you skeptical? I would hope not, because, apparently, that would make you arrogant.
God forbid you should use your common sense to question what may be unusual or outlandish claims (and yes, I would argue that attempting to form causative link between obesity and intelligence is an unusual or outlandish claim).
You mean people who are immediately skeptical of any scientific result, particularly ones that make apparently simplistic statements like "if obese => stupid"? People like, say... scientists?
Frankly, I would rather people be skeptical than to swallow what they're told without questioning it. It shows signs of an thinking mind. Something the world is sorely lacking.
Worse, the world is far too *full* of people who are willing to shut others down for contradicting those in the ivory tower (eg, politicians, academics, religious leaders, etc). If this study is valid, it won't need idiots like you defending it. The science will speak for itself. Meanwhile, the rest of us will attempt to participate in intelligent discourse on the subject.
You can explain low-income resulting in a poor education and the worse starting ability... but it doesn't explain the deterioration.
Well that's just plain silly. There are any number of reasons why lower income could result in increasing rates of deterioration. Just off the top of my head:
* Reduced access to high quality foods (due to cost). * General lower quality of life (higher stress levels, poorer living conditions, etc), resulting in poorer health. * Less likely to participate in mentally stimulating activities later in life (reduced access, poorer education, etc).
Frankly, I'm amazed you believe that lower income *wouldn't* correlate with increased rates of mental deterioration.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm... no offense intended, but if learning assembler provides "major enlightenment", then I question your education. No, seriously. I've got assembler experience in a few instruction sets (Z80, 68k, ARM, and a bit of x86), and about the only useful thing you'll get out of that is a better understanding of pointers. And if you don't already have that, then the "next level" you'll be reaching is that of an entry level programmer.
If you want real enlightenment, learn Smalltalk or Lisp. Those languages provide you with tools (such as lexical closures and higher-order functions) that will change the way you look at solving programming problems. The only problem is that, once you learn how to effectively use those tools, you'll never want to go back to languages like Java or C#, which don't have them.
Rather than typing two pages of code, it's only half a page(big deal).
Umm... elegance is not measured by terseness. It's measured primarily by clarity, ease of maintenance, ease of extension, ease of code reuse, and probably many other factors. What you describe is "clever" code, but it's not necessarily elegant.
BTW, as an aside, writing clean, elegant code rarely pays off in the short term. However, 6 months or a year down the line (or, better yet 10 years), well written, elegant code will almost always pay off in spades.
Because maybe it's a good idea, regardless of who came up with it?
It's a shame they didn't leave the mirror list in the same place. I ended up manually editing my yum repositories and selecting a still-operating mirror that's relatively close by.
See, up here in the great white north, it's not actually illegal
:) The thing to keep in mind is that the levies make it legal to copy music for personal use, but other sorts of piracy (TV, movies, etc) are still very much illegal (AFAIK), or more accurately put, actionable. Of course, as you point out, your average citizen isn't aware of any of this, and so ends up swallowing the US propaganda.
Ah, a fellow Canadian.
As an aside, I don't know what makes you think it's so much harder to file suit for copyright infringement, here. The only major roadblock is the ISPs, who have, up to this point, refused to release customer information (instead blocking P2P themselves... fuck you, Shaw! Fuck. You.) From a legal standpoint, I'm not aware of any significant differences (especially since the copyright laws are relatively harmonized).
Debian stable, IMHO. It works, the upgrades are flawless (at least in my experience), and while on the desktop it may lag behind other distros, on the server end where you rarely need cutting edge software, it works great.
This is actually a very interesting point. Perhaps the study numbers can be explained because the music/movie industry propaganda machines are working, and people are now unwilling to report the truth because they realize what they're doing is illegal (if not immoral)?
Well, the flip side is that it's a minority government. Really, that's the people saying "you know what, all you parties suck", and in the end, that's probably true.
Frankly, I think this is the best government we've had in a long time... so paralyzed, they don't have the opportunity to screw anything up! And anything they *do* manage to pass must be built on consensus, meaning more Canadians end up represented.
Sure, that means they also can't do anything controversial (eg, decriminalize marijuana), but I still rather that than a solid liberal or conservative majority, capable of passing anything they like.
Sure they can. You do what the federal government did: place the power of drawing election boundaries in the hands of an arms-length, independant group (in this case, Elections Canada).
Oh, I see. So your *particular* brand of christianity is fine, even if there are a bunch of other, nastier christian sects out there who like to fly under the same banner (like, say, the abortion clinic bombers). Meanwhile, to you, all muslims are the same.
How very stereotypically hypocritical...
Dude, seriously, stop dispelling these myths! If people suddenly realize Canada isn't actually a subarctic wasteland, and that all the stories of people waiting years for operations are overblown or outdated, we'll never be able to keep people out!
Funny, I just installed a MythTV backend server using FC5, and it was an absolute dream. It's running on paired SATA using LVM over RAID-1, so it's not your most standard configuration, and it works like a charm. Granted, it's a backend server, so I have no idea how good the X setup stage is, but for my purposes, FC5 was a very good experience.
BTW, for the record, I run Debian on all my other machines, but the Debian packages for Myth are no longer being maintained, so FC5 was my only option.
Only if IE is the most compelling reason to remain on Windows, which I suspect is not the case for most people.
I don't think you get it. More and more apps are moving to the Internet, or at least, so it would appear. Microsoft's fear, then, is the commoditization of the operating system. If a large number of apps become internet enabled, and thus cross-platform, then the actual operating system one uses doesn't really matter, as long as you have a functioning browser. So, to fight this, Microsoft created IE, with all it's non-standard extensions, as a way of locking people in. See, if people create lots of apps that only work in IE, then you still need a Microsoft OS to use them.
Of course, this is all predicated on the idea that web-enabled apps can out-compete native desktop implementations. Now, a few years ago, I would have scoffed at the idea (Java applets showed some promise, but unfortunately the technology never really took off... though that could also be due to Microsoft's machinations, as well). But these days, when you consider email, and now Google's office suite (which, while limited, is probably sufficient for your average joe), the idea may not be so crazy after all.
Opening the exact same sites in Firefox and Konqueror will often show a major difference between the two in terms of RAM usage.
'course, it helps that Konqueror can leverage a ton of the infrastructure already present in KDE, and as such, it's actual resident set size can be much lower (since many more of the libraries it utilizes will be shared with other apps).
The question is, how much total RAM is that monster KDE desktop taking up?
Of course, if you're using KDE already, then you're absolutely right, konq will be a better choice if your goal is to reduce memory footprint. However, for folks such as myself (I use WindowMaker), there's probably little advantage to using one over the other.
I also disabled the cache for all three browsers, since I've heard that Firefox has a policy that leads to excessive memory usage.
Actually, that's incorrect. What you want to do is disable the fast back/forward cache. It is controlled by a property called "browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers". Set that value to 0 to disable the feature. This can significantly decrease the amount of memory used by FF at the expense of slower back/forward response.
moz-opacity is depreciated and has been for a long time.
:)
I think you mean "deprecated"... given that Firefox is free, it can hardly depreciate.
And, unlike Bubble 1.0, most of these new companies don't really do very much.
And this is unlike Bubble 1.0 how?
Well, apparently someone has no sense of humour...
No kidding. Everyone knows Christianity is stupid. ;)
I fail to see how my preferences are inferior to yours.
Well, apparently you're inferior in more ways than one!
That is, the study shows just that children born with autism are more likely to spend time watching TV
And then, what... move to Pennsylvania and California? Right in the summary, it states that "childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not". That indicates something more complex is going on, here. Now, granted, there could be some third variable that's really causing things, but the simplistic "autism increases TV watching" interpretation is, I think, refuted by the study results.
I think the presumption is that there's something wrong with the 40 year old, and therefore they must be "victimizing" the 17 year old in some way. Not that I agree with that (I think it's totally insane, in fact), but that's the only rationalization I can think of.
Just like you should read a study before criticising it. If you then disagree with the research then fine, but criticising something without reading it is moronic.
Sweet, then I take it you believe me about my milk-bubblegum cold fusion device? I mean, you haven't even read my research...
The person in question was not "being skeptical", to be a skeptic you have to know what you are actually being skeptical about.
Really! Okay, well, I claim to have a device here that generates cold fusion with a glass of skim milk and a pack of bubble gum. Are you skeptical? I would hope not, because, apparently, that would make you arrogant.
God forbid you should use your common sense to question what may be unusual or outlandish claims (and yes, I would argue that attempting to form causative link between obesity and intelligence is an unusual or outlandish claim).
Personally, I can't stand people who do this.
You mean people who are immediately skeptical of any scientific result, particularly ones that make apparently simplistic statements like "if obese => stupid"? People like, say... scientists?
Frankly, I would rather people be skeptical than to swallow what they're told without questioning it. It shows signs of an thinking mind. Something the world is sorely lacking.
Worse, the world is far too *full* of people who are willing to shut others down for contradicting those in the ivory tower (eg, politicians, academics, religious leaders, etc). If this study is valid, it won't need idiots like you defending it. The science will speak for itself. Meanwhile, the rest of us will attempt to participate in intelligent discourse on the subject.
You can explain low-income resulting in a poor education and the worse starting ability... but it doesn't explain the deterioration.
Well that's just plain silly. There are any number of reasons why lower income could result in increasing rates of deterioration. Just off the top of my head:
* Reduced access to high quality foods (due to cost).
* General lower quality of life (higher stress levels, poorer living conditions, etc), resulting in poorer health.
* Less likely to participate in mentally stimulating activities later in life (reduced access, poorer education, etc).
Frankly, I'm amazed you believe that lower income *wouldn't* correlate with increased rates of mental deterioration.