Not quite. Most snail mail has an envelope, and it's a violation of federal laws to open that envelope unless you are or are authorized by the addressee (or warrant, etc).
Postcards, however, are another matter. Unencrypted email is like postcards.
I was thinking more along the lines that the water would act as an iris.
As for it doesn't allow the water to pass through it, while allowing the people to do so, what are people mostly made of? (From an ST:TNG episode "ugly bags of mostly water".)
And I know I'm not the only one to think so. Some years back when I was working with McGraw-Hill (on deploying BIX for Byte Magazine), I noticed a (partially emptied) case of the books in the IT manager's office. (He promptly offered me one when I remarked on it, but I'd had a copy for a couple of years at that point. He'd already passed them out to everyone on his team.)
What I found significant about that is that The Mythical Man-Month is published by Addison-Wesley, a McGraw-Hill competitor.
It's somewhat amusing that, even with the reviewer's nod to the primitive level of hardware in the 1960s when the book was first written, he still doesn't quite get the implications.
For example, where he says about programming teams: Even with the provisos listed in the book (one Language Lawyer can support two or three Surgeons, the Administrator may be able to look after two teams) this all seems excessive. I'm not clear at all on what the Programming Clerk does even after reading through the description a couple of times. I doubt the two Secretaries are truly necessary.
First, it was "Program Clerk", not "Programming Clerk" -- much of the work that person would do would be handled automatically these days by version control systems, email archives, and so forth. Which reflects on "I doubt the two Secretaries are truly necessary". Today, no. Then, yes. Remember, there were no PCs then. This goes beyond just the requirements for a mainframe support staff to keep the developers' test machine humming. This also meant no voicemail, no email, no wordprocessors (remember typewriters?), no PDAs, no shared calendar systems, no spreadsheets, no instant messaging, no project management software, paper files instead of disk files, etc, etc. Of course two secretaries were necessary, or the project leads would never get any other work done. Today, though, one part-time secretary for the team would probably be sufficient.
At least Brooks didn't include a keypunch operator to create the card decks from the programmers' coding sheets.
(And actually some of the really big projects -- like OS/360 -- did have access to some of the above technologies -- eg for document editing -- but they were mainframe based.)
That wouldn't work -- the 'flush' (or whatever it's called) as the wormhole forms would vaporize it. Note that they don't close the iris until after that.
In a couple of episodes with buried stargates, there's a void formed in the rock (or ice) in front of it. Mind, if buried in loose rubble or sand that would tend to fall into the void each time and act like an iris (I think). Even with a void, someone entering would be stuck there unless they had digging tools and an air supply. (In the director's cut of the original movie, the flattened remains of a couple of Jafar -- although it's not immediately clear what they are -- are found in the rocks under the buried gate.)
Of course this raises the question of how the underwater gate (connected from the Russian gate) ever worked.
(Man, I'm such a Stargate geek. Comes from watching all the episodes on DVD over the course of just a few months.;-)
A bounce is impossible, since the stargate wormhole is one-way (except to EM waves and gravity). Stuff just splatters against the iris - at the subatomic level.
Also, much of the logic in 'normal' stargates is built into the DHD (dial-home device), which the Earth gate doesn't have, and Earth's McGyvered rig (the roomfull of computers) effectively stubs out a lot of the gate control protocol. (This from an episode where somebody is effectively "trapped in the pattern buffers" (in Star Trek terms) when an energy surge collapses the wormhole while he's in transit.)
Yep. Back when I lived in Canada (and maybe still), there was something called "declining a ballot". You show up at the polling place, they check that you're allowed to vote there, and -- as they hand you the paper ballot to take into the booth -- you officially decline it. They have to record that fact.
If enough people (a majority of voters, I think -- never happens) decline the ballot (vs just not showing up), that particular election is void and they have to do it over. Roughly the equivalent of voting for "none of the above".
I did it once -- none of the major party candidates were appealing, the Rhinocerous Party was (very conciously) a joke, and the Libertarian candidate in that area was even loonier than the Rhinocerous candidate. More satisfying than just staying home.
You're right, but you omitted the explanation. (This is a geek site, after all;-)
TNT -- trinitrotoluene -- is a compound all its own. Dynamite is (classically) nitroglycerine plus various binders (Fullers earth, sawdust, etc) to make it a little easier to handle than raw nitroglycerine. As it ages, the nitroglycerine (which is a liquid) tends to weep out of the dynamite. That's when it gets dangerous.
Detonation risk aside, nitroglycerine also has physiological effects -- it's a vasodilator, which is why it's used to treat some heart conditions. But it can also cause severe headache and dangerous drops in blood pressure (and you don't want to faint while holding a quantity of the stuff). And yes, the nitroglycerin pills used for heart conditions really are nitroglycerin (plus filler), just not very much. (There's also a version that comes in a tiny spray can so a paramedic can give a suspected heart attack victim a quick shot under the tongue. Somehow I find the thought of nitroglycerine in a spray can...disturbing. Maybe it's really something else.)
Modern sticks of explosive used for blasting may or may not be dynamite, odds are they're probably something else. For large scale rock blasting, the drill holes are often mostly filled with something like ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil), with a few sticks of dynamite (or whatever) to set it off.
that's the difference between "detonation" or "explosive" and just burning fast - the chemical decomposition is driven by a shockwave at the speed of sound.
Very close. With a high explosive, the detonation wave travels faster than the speed of sound in that material. Power aside, the advantage is that such explosives don't have to be confined or tamped, they're self-tamping. (The mechanical impulse that would push material aside travels at the speed of sound.) Low explosives (gunpowder and the like) will tend to just burn (spectacularly perhaps, but not explosively) unless tamped or confined to build up the pressure.
(A great lab demo of this is to take a small amount of acetone peroxide, loose, and ignite it with a bunsen burner flame. Nice ball of fire. Now take the same amount wrapped in a couple of folds of paper and set on a wire mesh on a stand over a bunsen burner flame (behind a blast shield!). The added confinement of even the folded paper is enough to cause the acetone peroxide to detonate with sufficient force to blast a hole in the wire mesh. Don't try this at home!)
1800 US is a big whack of change to pay for a vacuum cleaner.
Actually it's not for a high-end vacuum cleaner that will really do the job and will last for more than a couple of years. That's about the ballpark for something like a FilterQueen, for example. (Whether that's worth it is another question, of course.)
On the other hand, given likely advances in cybernetics, you may not care if the thing lasts long enough to bequeath to your grandkids.
so you don't have to remember how to execute SQL on a MySQL database, Postgresql, Oracle, etc., like in PHP -- because in languages like PHP they all use different functions.
Um, do you have something against the Pear DB package and putting "require_once 'DB.php';" in your PHP code?
This is cool. Python does seem to be catching on as the embedded scripting language of choice for apps that combine attributes and graphics (eg modelling tools like Blender, as well as GIS). (I've pretty much decided to reject Tcl for Python in Cavor, too). Now if we can just come up with some standard APIs for similar functionality.
On the other hand, there are some advantages to a scripting language highly tailored to the application domain -- although (IMHO) AML and Avenue aren't exactly stellar examples of this. (I'm thinking more of the GML scripting language for GeoVision's -- later Autodesk's -- VISION* products).
Seriously, have any other/.'ers created their own system?
Yeah, twenty years ago, in C. Some of the original sites have updated the software a bit, but the "classic" software is still in use. (I have done some work on modernizing the technology, but that got put on the back burner -- I may start it up again.)
(Some might argue that CoSy wasn't really blogging software. Well, aside from the obvious agreement that the web didn't exist then, so by definition it couldn't have been, there were several Big Names who used Byte Magazine's site (BIX) as just such -- Jerry Pournelle, for example.)
Perhaps he'll be the Big Giant Head from Third Rock From The Sun
Heh, that had one of the funniest "in jokes" I've seen on TV, the episode where Lithgow et al. meet Shatner at an airport, and on being asked about the trip, he mentions thinking he saw gremlins on the wing. The other sympathizes "yes, that's happened to me".
Went over many people's heads, but then I'd seen both the original Twilight Zone episode and the TZ movie where Shatner (pre-Trek) and Lithgow (pre-3rd Rock), respectively, played the character that sees gremlins out on the wing tearing the engine apart.
Wouldn't Shatner be just a little old to play Kirk in the "Enterprise" era?
Re: microkernels the best approach
on
More From Tanenbaum
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If you want successful microkernels, look at NT and Darwin.
No.
Others have already explained why those are not examples of microkernels. If you want a real example of a successful microkernel, look at QNX (which is very successful in its target market).
Hey, if it "just works" for you, fine. Your experience doesn't match that of a couple of friends who recently acquired an XP machine (spontaneously locks up after a few minutes, but only on every other boot) but that could be different hardware issues.
But what you said -- "When properly set up, it simply works. I don't have to mess with setting up Java, I don't have any problems with unstable drivers, my system never ever hangs up, has not been reinstalled since the first installation..." -- equally applies to the Linux boxes I have (except for the development machine where I'm always installing new software, but I've still never had driver problems or hangs -- again, it's a matter of having the right hardware).
The advantages are that I saved $100 or so per box on the basic cost, I don't have to worry about worms, viruses or malicious active content in email messages, or spyware, or violating some obscure EULA term, or BSA stormtroopers, or...but you get the idea.
Okay, some of those weren't "apart from license or money reasons" -- but money and licensing (and licensing boils down to money) are important too.
I'd switch to SuSE if they still produced SPARC binaries in modern kernels. They stopped updating that arch at about 7.1.
At SuSE 7.3 actually, I'm still running it on an IPC I use for an internal web server. They might have stopped the box set for SPARC at 7.1 (I'm not sure), but they had downloadable ISOs for SPARC 7.3.
I'm running SuSE 9.0 or 8.1 on all my x86 machines (okay, not quite, one has BSD and one Solaris), and Yellow Dog on my PPCs. Red Hat always struck me as "functional but not slick". (And besides, SuSE boxed sets were cheaper).
Posting two weeks later to try to get in the last word? That's a bit lame, isn't it?
Why would the Supreme Court care to construct a "brilliant waffle" if they really thought their reasoning couldn't "stand up to serious scrutiny", they don't have to worry about being overturned on appeal, after all.
When there is no precedent, and are forced by circumstance to decide quickly, then specifying that "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances" makes sense so that the decision is not taken overbroadly (ie, in different circumstances) as precedent in future.
Slashdot Mirror
Not quite. Most snail mail has an envelope, and it's a violation of federal laws to open that envelope unless you are or are authorized by the addressee (or warrant, etc).
Postcards, however, are another matter. Unencrypted email is like postcards.
I was thinking more along the lines that the water would act as an iris.
As for it doesn't allow the water to pass through it, while allowing the people to do so, what are people mostly made of? (From an ST:TNG episode "ugly bags of mostly water".)
And I know I'm not the only one to think so. Some years back when I was working with McGraw-Hill (on deploying BIX for Byte Magazine), I noticed a (partially emptied) case of the books in the IT manager's office. (He promptly offered me one when I remarked on it, but I'd had a copy for a couple of years at that point. He'd already passed them out to everyone on his team.)
What I found significant about that is that The Mythical Man-Month is published by Addison-Wesley, a McGraw-Hill competitor.
It's somewhat amusing that, even with the reviewer's nod to the primitive level of hardware in the 1960s when the book was first written, he still doesn't quite get the implications.
For example, where he says about programming teams: Even with the provisos listed in the book (one Language Lawyer can support two or three Surgeons, the Administrator may be able to look after two teams) this all seems excessive. I'm not clear at all on what the Programming Clerk does even after reading through the description a couple of times. I doubt the two Secretaries are truly necessary.
First, it was "Program Clerk", not "Programming Clerk" -- much of the work that person would do would be handled automatically these days by version control systems, email archives, and so forth. Which reflects on "I doubt the two Secretaries are truly necessary". Today, no. Then, yes. Remember, there were no PCs then. This goes beyond just the requirements for a mainframe support staff to keep the developers' test machine humming. This also meant no voicemail, no email, no wordprocessors (remember typewriters?), no PDAs, no shared calendar systems, no spreadsheets, no instant messaging, no project management software, paper files instead of disk files, etc, etc. Of course two secretaries were necessary, or the project leads would never get any other work done. Today, though, one part-time secretary for the team would probably be sufficient.
At least Brooks didn't include a keypunch operator to create the card decks from the programmers' coding sheets.
(And actually some of the really big projects -- like OS/360 -- did have access to some of the above technologies -- eg for document editing -- but they were mainframe based.)
That wouldn't work -- the 'flush' (or whatever it's called) as the wormhole forms would vaporize it. Note that they don't close the iris until after that.
;-)
In a couple of episodes with buried stargates, there's a void formed in the rock (or ice) in front of it. Mind, if buried in loose rubble or sand that would tend to fall into the void each time and act like an iris (I think). Even with a void, someone entering would be stuck there unless they had digging tools and an air supply. (In the director's cut of the original movie, the flattened remains of a couple of Jafar -- although it's not immediately clear what they are -- are found in the rocks under the buried gate.)
Of course this raises the question of how the underwater gate (connected from the Russian gate) ever worked.
(Man, I'm such a Stargate geek. Comes from watching all the episodes on DVD over the course of just a few months.
A bounce is impossible, since the stargate wormhole is one-way (except to EM waves and gravity). Stuff just splatters against the iris - at the subatomic level.
Also, much of the logic in 'normal' stargates is built into the DHD (dial-home device), which the Earth gate doesn't have, and Earth's McGyvered rig (the roomfull of computers) effectively stubs out a lot of the gate control protocol. (This from an episode where somebody is effectively "trapped in the pattern buffers" (in Star Trek terms) when an energy surge collapses the wormhole while he's in transit.)
I'm impressed that he got his first patent when he was 52 years old.
;-)
There's hope for me yet! (And I promise to only use my patents for good.)
Just imagine a cluster of those capacitors...
Sure. What do you think they power the tank's railgun with? Oh, right, that's not deployed technology, yet.
the interaction between the shields and a "lasgun" triggers an explosion comparable to a nuke in both the shield and the gun.
That always to me sounded like the perfect case for remotely deployed and triggered lasguns.
Yep. Back when I lived in Canada (and maybe still), there was something called "declining a ballot". You show up at the polling place, they check that you're allowed to vote there, and -- as they hand you the paper ballot to take into the booth -- you officially decline it. They have to record that fact.
If enough people (a majority of voters, I think -- never happens) decline the ballot (vs just not showing up), that particular election is void and they have to do it over. Roughly the equivalent of voting for "none of the above".
I did it once -- none of the major party candidates were appealing, the Rhinocerous Party was (very conciously) a joke, and the Libertarian candidate in that area was even loonier than the Rhinocerous candidate. More satisfying than just staying home.
Nothing wrong with 'roo meat, mate.
It tastes a bit like elk, as a matter of fact. Kind of a waste to grind it up into a burger, though.
You're right, but you omitted the explanation. (This is a geek site, after all ;-)
TNT -- trinitrotoluene -- is a compound all its own. Dynamite is (classically) nitroglycerine plus various binders (Fullers earth, sawdust, etc) to make it a little easier to handle than raw nitroglycerine. As it ages, the nitroglycerine (which is a liquid) tends to weep out of the dynamite. That's when it gets dangerous.
Detonation risk aside, nitroglycerine also has physiological effects -- it's a vasodilator, which is why it's used to treat some heart conditions. But it can also cause severe headache and dangerous drops in blood pressure (and you don't want to faint while holding a quantity of the stuff). And yes, the nitroglycerin pills used for heart conditions really are nitroglycerin (plus filler), just not very much. (There's also a version that comes in a tiny spray can so a paramedic can give a suspected heart attack victim a quick shot under the tongue. Somehow I find the thought of nitroglycerine in a spray can...disturbing. Maybe it's really something else.)
Modern sticks of explosive used for blasting may or may not be dynamite, odds are they're probably something else. For large scale rock blasting, the drill holes are often mostly filled with something like ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil), with a few sticks of dynamite (or whatever) to set it off.
that's the difference between "detonation" or "explosive" and just burning fast - the chemical decomposition is driven by a shockwave at the speed of sound.
Very close. With a high explosive, the detonation wave travels faster than the speed of sound in that material. Power aside, the advantage is that such explosives don't have to be confined or tamped, they're self-tamping. (The mechanical impulse that would push material aside travels at the speed of sound.) Low explosives (gunpowder and the like) will tend to just burn (spectacularly perhaps, but not explosively) unless tamped or confined to build up the pressure.
(A great lab demo of this is to take a small amount of acetone peroxide, loose, and ignite it with a bunsen burner flame. Nice ball of fire. Now take the same amount wrapped in a couple of folds of paper and set on a wire mesh on a stand over a bunsen burner flame (behind a blast shield!). The added confinement of even the folded paper is enough to cause the acetone peroxide to detonate with sufficient force to blast a hole in the wire mesh. Don't try this at home!)
1800 US is a big whack of change to pay for a vacuum cleaner.
Actually it's not for a high-end vacuum cleaner that will really do the job and will last for more than a couple of years. That's about the ballpark for something like a FilterQueen, for example. (Whether that's worth it is another question, of course.)
On the other hand, given likely advances in cybernetics, you may not care if the thing lasts long enough to bequeath to your grandkids.
so you don't have to remember how to execute SQL on a MySQL database, Postgresql, Oracle, etc., like in PHP -- because in languages like PHP they all use different functions.
Um, do you have something against the Pear DB package and putting "require_once 'DB.php';" in your PHP code?
This is cool. Python does seem to be catching on as the embedded scripting language of choice for apps that combine attributes and graphics (eg modelling tools like Blender, as well as GIS). (I've pretty much decided to reject Tcl for Python in Cavor, too). Now if we can just come up with some standard APIs for similar functionality.
On the other hand, there are some advantages to a scripting language highly tailored to the application domain -- although (IMHO) AML and Avenue aren't exactly stellar examples of this. (I'm thinking more of the GML scripting language for GeoVision's -- later Autodesk's -- VISION* products).
Seriously, have any other /.'ers created their own system?
Yeah, twenty years ago, in C. Some of the original sites have updated the software a bit, but the "classic" software is still in use. (I have done some work on modernizing the technology, but that got put on the back burner -- I may start it up again.)
(Some might argue that CoSy wasn't really blogging software. Well, aside from the obvious agreement that the web didn't exist then, so by definition it couldn't have been, there were several Big Names who used Byte Magazine's site (BIX) as just such -- Jerry Pournelle, for example.)
Perhaps he'll be the Big Giant Head from Third Rock From The Sun
Heh, that had one of the funniest "in jokes" I've seen on TV, the episode where Lithgow et al. meet Shatner at an airport, and on being asked about the trip, he mentions thinking he saw gremlins on the wing. The other sympathizes "yes, that's happened to me".
Went over many people's heads, but then I'd seen both the original Twilight Zone episode and the TZ movie where Shatner (pre-Trek) and Lithgow (pre-3rd Rock), respectively, played the character that sees gremlins out on the wing tearing the engine apart.
Wouldn't Shatner be just a little old to play Kirk in the "Enterprise" era?
If you want successful microkernels, look at NT and Darwin.
No.
Others have already explained why those are not examples of microkernels. If you want a real example of a successful microkernel, look at QNX (which is very successful in its target market).
Troll?
This is obviously some new meaning of the word with which I was previously unfamiliar.
Cool indeed. But is there a C# compiler targetting Parrot yet? ;-) They look like they're almost both pretty groovy.
(There's a language I'd like to see on more platforms.)
Hey, if it "just works" for you, fine. Your experience doesn't match that of a couple of friends who recently acquired an XP machine (spontaneously locks up after a few minutes, but only on every other boot) but that could be different hardware issues.
But what you said -- "When properly set up, it simply works. I don't have to mess with setting up Java, I don't have any problems with unstable drivers, my system never ever hangs up, has not been reinstalled since the first installation..." -- equally applies to the Linux boxes I have (except for the development machine where I'm always installing new software, but I've still never had driver problems or hangs -- again, it's a matter of having the right hardware).
The advantages are that I saved $100 or so per box on the basic cost, I don't have to worry about worms, viruses or malicious active content in email messages, or spyware, or violating some obscure EULA term, or BSA stormtroopers, or...but you get the idea.
Okay, some of those weren't "apart from license or money reasons" -- but money and licensing (and licensing boils down to money) are important too.
I'd switch to SuSE if they still produced SPARC binaries in modern kernels. They stopped updating that arch at about 7.1.
At SuSE 7.3 actually, I'm still running it on an IPC I use for an internal web server. They might have stopped the box set for SPARC at 7.1 (I'm not sure), but they had downloadable ISOs for SPARC 7.3.
I'm running SuSE 9.0 or 8.1 on all my x86 machines (okay, not quite, one has BSD and one Solaris), and Yellow Dog on my PPCs. Red Hat always struck me as "functional but not slick". (And besides, SuSE boxed sets were cheaper).
Posting two weeks later to try to get in the last word? That's a bit lame, isn't it?
Why would the Supreme Court care to construct a "brilliant waffle" if they really thought their reasoning couldn't "stand up to serious scrutiny", they don't have to worry about being overturned on appeal, after all.
When there is no precedent, and are forced by circumstance to decide quickly, then specifying that "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances" makes sense so that the decision is not taken overbroadly (ie, in different circumstances) as precedent in future.