Actually, there is structure and discipline. But it's not academic structure or discipline. It's the structure and discipline of hard limitations and necessity. For example in 4, 16 and 64KiB compos, where every single byte matters, pretty much. In the 4KiB compos, a huge focus is on the packers and all the math surrounding that, where the packer is optimized for two things: Size and speed. And since you're not showing just one or two static effects, but animations, preferably with multiple effects, there's a lot of code that needs to go into that limited footprint.
In fact, I think demos should be required study in comp.sci etc, especially these limited footprint demos, specifically to teach the role of creativity in problem solving, instead of just wasting resources to sidestep them.
A prime example is that the demoscene, if we look at it as an entity, pushed the boundaries of real-time procedural content generation before the games industry or academia did, and still continue to do so. The ones in the game industry who do look into procedural content generation often have a background in the demoscene
Speaking as someone who develops embedded devices: Raven64 is correct.
Many projects still require minimal hardware(less than 16KiB RAM, a barebones processor with no cache etc etc), for many different reasons, such as hardening, long battery life(speaking months or even years here, not hours or a couple of days at most), heat/cooling reasons etc, and reduced complexity, increasing reliability.
Other reasons not to use glibc include real-time requirements, with glibc being barely capable of soft real-time, meaning you use other libraries instead, if you even use any.
No, building your own little HTPC from a Mini-ITX board etc does not constitute embedded development.
Nah, us Amiga users are a diverse bunch, using a bit of this, a bit of that. Many of us tend to be on the high-end side of things, not having settled for mere routine work
Considering that the Amiga vs Atari flamewars were of a magnitude even Emacs vs Vi will only ever dream of reaching, I find it hard to believe that claim:p
Now now, not all of us slashdotters fear documentation, dependability etc:p
I don't work on mainframes, but I've worked in projects where mainframes have been involved as well as mainframe people, and in many ways it reminds me of my days in the military, the amount of dedication to logistics etc. Sure, to the run-of-the-mill "geek", it probably looks stifling, but for those of us who are used to teamwork etc, it's actually refreshing to have decent planning. Contrast that to working for academia... *shudders*
True, especially when you factor in the ECC or other checksumming, as well as the transparent encryption at no performance cost that are available on the mainframes.
It's not the decimal places as such. It's the fact that, if we step through the entire stack: Everything is rounded off properly(that means, no floating points math rounding errors), input from many concurrent sources without choking, reliability not just in terms of machine/OS/application uptime, but also in terms of data integrity(a modern mainframe does ECC, checksumming etc at every stage of data handling, even in transfers to and from RAM. With the proper configuration, you can also have it encrypted in transfer, at no cost in throughput or computational performance). The I/O also means it can crunch through all the conditionals listed in records much faster, including all banking and tax rules etc. In terms of physical hardware, everything is redundant, with the aforementioned ECC etc, and if you are serious, you sysplex it. And that's just for payroll/employee records. Virtualization is handled pretty much transparently, seeing as IBM has done it on mainframes since the 1960's. Security of the underlying system is excellent with superb compartmentalization and ACL's etc, such that the Linux images that you can run virtualized are less secure even in a hardened configuration.
For financials or insurance, it's everything mentioned above, and handling thousands of terminals/ATM's, handling transfers between accounts in real time etc. At a bank here in Sweden, the Unix/Linux crowd has been trying to move the bank away from mainframes for over 9 years now, but the mainframe division can show, year after year, that even with the support costs, it's cheaper to use the mainframe, because it's more reliable, and needs less infrastructure and manpower than the bundle-of-servers approach.
Only in some aspects, and GPGPU clusters have a hard time matching the transaction rates and number of concurrent I/O's of a Z9. I wouldn't want to use a GPGPU cluster for financial/payrolls, just as an example.
First of all, I was speaking about 1944 and onwards when the real tank to tank fighting against Panthers and Tigers took place for the UK and US. At that time, the UK had already shifted focus in doctrine, towards the Firefly and Cromwells, with other tanks relegated to support roles. As for the initial Panzer IV, that was a pre-war design, with the redesigns having started in early 1943 and deployment in 1943 and onward being designed for tank vs tank combat but could also support infantry, even more so when they got the L/48 gun.
The doctrine problem WAS a specific US problem at that time, and due to one very specific general, McNair, who saw no need for heavier tanks, specifically not ones designed to kill other tanks. In the end, Eisenhower had to finally override him to get only 76mm gun Shermans, as well as the few Pershings, sent to Europe.
And yes, I do know about the T20's and such that lead to what would eventually become the Pershing. Though the 90mm gun is a prime example of how even the Pershing was sabotaged to appease the doctrine, when the US had been offered the use of the British 17-pounder, which was superior.
As for the TD's, they could have been used offensively in different terrain. For example, the Hellcat and the Slugger would have been very interesting on the eastern front,
That figure was for the Sherman with the 76mm gun, and it wasn't just about landing a hit, it was about landing a crippling or destroying hit, which was rather more difficult
The ratios is an interesting thing: First of all, the only American tank designed to actually go into tank vs tank combat was the Pershing, because the doctrine, thanks to an idiot general in the US, was that Tank Destroyer battalions should do the combat with the tanks, while tanks should only support infantry. The M4 with a 76mm gun was an emergency solution, and the gun was just roughly comparable to the 75mm on the Panzer IV, that is, not at all comparable to the short 88 on the Tiger, or the long 75 on the Panther. (As an aside: many people mix the KWK 36 L/56 together with the KWK/PAK 43 L/71 in terms of fearsome, but they used completely different ammunition. The KWK 42 L/70, that is the Panthers long 75 was actually a better anti-tank gun than the short 88)
In terms of ratios, the only hard ones I've seen are in regards to the Tiger.
US estimated that to deal with a Tiger, they'd need 6 Sherman with 75mm guns, and they'd lose 5
Russia estimated that to deal with a Tiger, they'd need 5 T-34, and they'd lose 4
UK, with their Firefly augmented tank troops, estimated that they'd need a troop of 5, and they'd lose 3 ordinary Shermans while the Firefly got into a position to kill the Tiger, and that's because the Firefly had a gun almost comparable to the KWK 43 L/71.
In terms of impact, yes the T-34 had an impact on following tanks in the war, but the Panther had a much larger impact on everything that came later, including the Centurion and the Leopard 1, and even carrying on to modern designs.
A household where you have multiple heavy internet users, such as 1080p streaming, download of games/patches(City of Heroes and CCP for example use decent CDN's(that is, not Akamai), and can pretty much max out our 100Mb/s downstream), distro downloads, telecommuting, sending high-resolution RAW format photos around etc etc.
Actually, our female soldiers HAVE been very useful in Afghanistan, because they've been able to talk to the women there in ways that male soldiers just can't, and thus gotten valuable recon data. They are also useful in city surveillance, because many male-dominated cultures inherently underestimate women to the point of disregarding them, and thus act carelessly.
And yes, it's just you that are sexist. I've served in the armed forces, and been on deployment abroad, both in strictly male units and in mixed units, and the adrenaline levels and "combat high" are less rampant in mixed units, thus the unit is more disciplined and less likely to fight just for the sake of fighting.
It's not men calling us male nurses pussies. It's the women in the nursing field merely considering us men as biological lifting apparatus, not fit for the other parts of nursework. Most men I know have incredible respect for nurses, no matter what gender, but then again, I'm in Sweden, it's somewhat different here in regards to that.
I know they aren't 100% comparable, but it's still worth pointing out that institutional sexism isn't restricted to men against women.
Another example is child care... Hell, a man doesn't even need to be guilty of what he's accused for to lose custody of a child, the fact that he's accused is cause enough. Happened to a man in my platoon. In the middle of ops in Kosovo, he gets called in to the CO, where Military Police are waiting for him. Turns out his girlfriend has accused him of child abuse. Which happened while he was in Kosovo. Police cleared him, but Social Services didn't relent, and court gave the woman full custody. For a woman to lose custody, she must be really far down into drug abuse and violence, and then it's likely that she'll still get part-time custody.
It's a mark of equality. It's also useful in Hearts&Minds operations in many areas of the world. Also leads to fewer unnecessary fights. So yes, you're a sexist, and ignorant too.
Ok, I haven't had many dealings with Lund, but I've had dealings with LinkÃping, Stockholms Universitet, KTH, Uppsala, UmeÃ¥ and LuleÃ¥. Of those, LuleÃ¥ and LinkÃping have the least problems on both sides, but they also have the strongest involvement with non-academic entities in terms of practical projects. If I recall correctly, Nuclear Physics, especially the experimental kind, is also reliant on lots of non-academic contacts? If so, that might explain why you have it less harsh.
I brought up the prostate and breast cancers because they are gender tied.
As for Hoity Toity and Fancypants, they aren't exactly intellectual, since they cater more to primal functions like preening etc. Also, they are more of a negative stereotype once again, because the fashion world is an example of extremely bad gender characterization, sick ideals, extreme demands etc, which further reinforces my point. As for Star Trek, that wouldn't really work either. Then again, I'm a geek who thinks Star Trek sucks also so...:p Babylon 5 was more interesting since it brought up the consequences of actions within a long-term view, rather than just as set-piece, even though the latter is preferable to many scientists because it's more "sciency".
As for Transformers, I can't make any comment there, haven't watched it, and never really have.
In alpine skiing, yes, physical strength matters a lot. It allows you to seek higher speeds and still maintain control, both in turning as well as dealing with compressions and jumps.
Let's take an example from Vancouver 2010 olympics, the downhill races:
The men's course was 3717m long, the women's course was 2502m.
The fastest woman took 1min 44s to run the women's course. The fastest man took 1min 54s to run the men's course. That should tell you what forces are involved.
When women have done timed training runs/competitions on courses designed more towards men, they have had a higher ratio of really bad or even fatal crashes.
Except that it's not a mere few "radicals", it's institutional. Calling it anything else is just trying to wave the problem away. It's also not just a few radicals in terms of adherents, the modern day feminists outnumbers the old equality movement that wanted equal rights and equal responsibilities.
It's also funny that you use My Little Pony as an example, when it just highlights my point. Let's take a look at gender roles in the series shall we? How many good, wise, friendly, or intellectual roles are portrayed? How many of those are female? Why is it that the only really intelligent and well-studied male in the series is a villain?
Just try to understand that institutional sexism in for example academia is far more dangerous than people such as Fred Phelps, RMS or Michael Moore. Because the institutional sexism directly affects what research is encouraged, funded and reported, which in turn also affects PR and policy, and that carries greater momentum, especially in Social Services etc. We can take an example from medical research. Prostate cancer affects more men than breast cancer affects women. Prostate cancer has a higher lethality. Breast cancer gets, in the EU at least, on average 13.6 times greater funding.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, there is structure and discipline. But it's not academic structure or discipline. It's the structure and discipline of hard limitations and necessity. For example in 4, 16 and 64KiB compos, where every single byte matters, pretty much. In the 4KiB compos, a huge focus is on the packers and all the math surrounding that, where the packer is optimized for two things: Size and speed. And since you're not showing just one or two static effects, but animations, preferably with multiple effects, there's a lot of code that needs to go into that limited footprint.
In fact, I think demos should be required study in comp.sci etc, especially these limited footprint demos, specifically to teach the role of creativity in problem solving, instead of just wasting resources to sidestep them.
A prime example is that the demoscene, if we look at it as an entity, pushed the boundaries of real-time procedural content generation before the games industry or academia did, and still continue to do so. The ones in the game industry who do look into procedural content generation often have a background in the demoscene
Yeah, but the AC claimed that the hardware restraints don't exist anymore
Speaking as someone who develops embedded devices: Raven64 is correct.
Many projects still require minimal hardware(less than 16KiB RAM, a barebones processor with no cache etc etc), for many different reasons, such as hardening, long battery life(speaking months or even years here, not hours or a couple of days at most), heat/cooling reasons etc, and reduced complexity, increasing reliability.
Other reasons not to use glibc include real-time requirements, with glibc being barely capable of soft real-time, meaning you use other libraries instead, if you even use any.
No, building your own little HTPC from a Mini-ITX board etc does not constitute embedded development.
Nah, us Amiga users are a diverse bunch, using a bit of this, a bit of that. Many of us tend to be on the high-end side of things, not having settled for mere routine work
Considering that the Amiga vs Atari flamewars were of a magnitude even Emacs vs Vi will only ever dream of reaching, I find it hard to believe that claim :p
Calling LANfest a giant LAN party? Riiiiight....
I think TG, Assembly etc must, at the very least, class as galaxy-scale events then, with Dreamhack possibly being classed as Galaxy Cluster-scale..
Now now, not all of us slashdotters fear documentation, dependability etc :p
I don't work on mainframes, but I've worked in projects where mainframes have been involved as well as mainframe people, and in many ways it reminds me of my days in the military, the amount of dedication to logistics etc. Sure, to the run-of-the-mill "geek", it probably looks stifling, but for those of us who are used to teamwork etc, it's actually refreshing to have decent planning. Contrast that to working for academia... *shudders*
True, especially when you factor in the ECC or other checksumming, as well as the transparent encryption at no performance cost that are available on the mainframes.
As much as I use and abuse VMWare, it's not yet comparable to IBM Mainframe class virtualization.
Except that the HP Blade cluster has nothing on the mainframe in terms of reliability and data integrity.
It's not the decimal places as such. It's the fact that, if we step through the entire stack: Everything is rounded off properly(that means, no floating points math rounding errors), input from many concurrent sources without choking, reliability not just in terms of machine/OS/application uptime, but also in terms of data integrity(a modern mainframe does ECC, checksumming etc at every stage of data handling, even in transfers to and from RAM. With the proper configuration, you can also have it encrypted in transfer, at no cost in throughput or computational performance). The I/O also means it can crunch through all the conditionals listed in records much faster, including all banking and tax rules etc. In terms of physical hardware, everything is redundant, with the aforementioned ECC etc, and if you are serious, you sysplex it. And that's just for payroll/employee records. Virtualization is handled pretty much transparently, seeing as IBM has done it on mainframes since the 1960's. Security of the underlying system is excellent with superb compartmentalization and ACL's etc, such that the Linux images that you can run virtualized are less secure even in a hardened configuration.
For financials or insurance, it's everything mentioned above, and handling thousands of terminals/ATM's, handling transfers between accounts in real time etc. At a bank here in Sweden, the Unix/Linux crowd has been trying to move the bank away from mainframes for over 9 years now, but the mainframe division can show, year after year, that even with the support costs, it's cheaper to use the mainframe, because it's more reliable, and needs less infrastructure and manpower than the bundle-of-servers approach.
Only in some aspects, and GPGPU clusters have a hard time matching the transaction rates and number of concurrent I/O's of a Z9. I wouldn't want to use a GPGPU cluster for financial/payrolls, just as an example.
First of all, I was speaking about 1944 and onwards when the real tank to tank fighting against Panthers and Tigers took place for the UK and US. At that time, the UK had already shifted focus in doctrine, towards the Firefly and Cromwells, with other tanks relegated to support roles. As for the initial Panzer IV, that was a pre-war design, with the redesigns having started in early 1943 and deployment in 1943 and onward being designed for tank vs tank combat but could also support infantry, even more so when they got the L/48 gun.
The doctrine problem WAS a specific US problem at that time, and due to one very specific general, McNair, who saw no need for heavier tanks, specifically not ones designed to kill other tanks. In the end, Eisenhower had to finally override him to get only 76mm gun Shermans, as well as the few Pershings, sent to Europe.
And yes, I do know about the T20's and such that lead to what would eventually become the Pershing. Though the 90mm gun is a prime example of how even the Pershing was sabotaged to appease the doctrine, when the US had been offered the use of the British 17-pounder, which was superior.
As for the TD's, they could have been used offensively in different terrain. For example, the Hellcat and the Slugger would have been very interesting on the eastern front,
That figure was for the Sherman with the 76mm gun, and it wasn't just about landing a hit, it was about landing a crippling or destroying hit, which was rather more difficult
The ratios is an interesting thing: First of all, the only American tank designed to actually go into tank vs tank combat was the Pershing, because the doctrine, thanks to an idiot general in the US, was that Tank Destroyer battalions should do the combat with the tanks, while tanks should only support infantry. The M4 with a 76mm gun was an emergency solution, and the gun was just roughly comparable to the 75mm on the Panzer IV, that is, not at all comparable to the short 88 on the Tiger, or the long 75 on the Panther. (As an aside: many people mix the KWK 36 L/56 together with the KWK/PAK 43 L/71 in terms of fearsome, but they used completely different ammunition. The KWK 42 L/70, that is the Panthers long 75 was actually a better anti-tank gun than the short 88)
In terms of ratios, the only hard ones I've seen are in regards to the Tiger.
US estimated that to deal with a Tiger, they'd need 6 Sherman with 75mm guns, and they'd lose 5
Russia estimated that to deal with a Tiger, they'd need 5 T-34, and they'd lose 4
UK, with their Firefly augmented tank troops, estimated that they'd need a troop of 5, and they'd lose 3 ordinary Shermans while the Firefly got into a position to kill the Tiger, and that's because the Firefly had a gun almost comparable to the KWK 43 L/71.
In terms of impact, yes the T-34 had an impact on following tanks in the war, but the Panther had a much larger impact on everything that came later, including the Centurion and the Leopard 1, and even carrying on to modern designs.
A household where you have multiple heavy internet users, such as 1080p streaming, download of games/patches(City of Heroes and CCP for example use decent CDN's(that is, not Akamai), and can pretty much max out our 100Mb/s downstream), distro downloads, telecommuting, sending high-resolution RAW format photos around etc etc.
Actually, our female soldiers HAVE been very useful in Afghanistan, because they've been able to talk to the women there in ways that male soldiers just can't, and thus gotten valuable recon data. They are also useful in city surveillance, because many male-dominated cultures inherently underestimate women to the point of disregarding them, and thus act carelessly.
And yes, it's just you that are sexist. I've served in the armed forces, and been on deployment abroad, both in strictly male units and in mixed units, and the adrenaline levels and "combat high" are less rampant in mixed units, thus the unit is more disciplined and less likely to fight just for the sake of fighting.
Well, L&D and Gynecologists, I can see some need for gender separation, for the patients sake, but still the nasty comments etc are really bad, yes.
It's not men calling us male nurses pussies. It's the women in the nursing field merely considering us men as biological lifting apparatus, not fit for the other parts of nursework. Most men I know have incredible respect for nurses, no matter what gender, but then again, I'm in Sweden, it's somewhat different here in regards to that.
I know they aren't 100% comparable, but it's still worth pointing out that institutional sexism isn't restricted to men against women.
Another example is child care... Hell, a man doesn't even need to be guilty of what he's accused for to lose custody of a child, the fact that he's accused is cause enough. Happened to a man in my platoon. In the middle of ops in Kosovo, he gets called in to the CO, where Military Police are waiting for him. Turns out his girlfriend has accused him of child abuse. Which happened while he was in Kosovo. Police cleared him, but Social Services didn't relent, and court gave the woman full custody. For a woman to lose custody, she must be really far down into drug abuse and violence, and then it's likely that she'll still get part-time custody.
It's a mark of equality. It's also useful in Hearts&Minds operations in many areas of the world. Also leads to fewer unnecessary fights. So yes, you're a sexist, and ignorant too.
Ok, I haven't had many dealings with Lund, but I've had dealings with LinkÃping, Stockholms Universitet, KTH, Uppsala, UmeÃ¥ and LuleÃ¥. Of those, LuleÃ¥ and LinkÃping have the least problems on both sides, but they also have the strongest involvement with non-academic entities in terms of practical projects. If I recall correctly, Nuclear Physics, especially the experimental kind, is also reliant on lots of non-academic contacts? If so, that might explain why you have it less harsh.
I brought up the prostate and breast cancers because they are gender tied.
As for Hoity Toity and Fancypants, they aren't exactly intellectual, since they cater more to primal functions like preening etc. Also, they are more of a negative stereotype once again, because the fashion world is an example of extremely bad gender characterization, sick ideals, extreme demands etc, which further reinforces my point. As for Star Trek, that wouldn't really work either. Then again, I'm a geek who thinks Star Trek sucks also so... :p Babylon 5 was more interesting since it brought up the consequences of actions within a long-term view, rather than just as set-piece, even though the latter is preferable to many scientists because it's more "sciency".
As for Transformers, I can't make any comment there, haven't watched it, and never really have.
In alpine skiing, yes, physical strength matters a lot. It allows you to seek higher speeds and still maintain control, both in turning as well as dealing with compressions and jumps.
Let's take an example from Vancouver 2010 olympics, the downhill races:
The men's course was 3717m long, the women's course was 2502m.
The fastest woman took 1min 44s to run the women's course. The fastest man took 1min 54s to run the men's course. That should tell you what forces are involved.
When women have done timed training runs/competitions on courses designed more towards men, they have had a higher ratio of really bad or even fatal crashes.
Except that it's not a mere few "radicals", it's institutional. Calling it anything else is just trying to wave the problem away. It's also not just a few radicals in terms of adherents, the modern day feminists outnumbers the old equality movement that wanted equal rights and equal responsibilities.
It's also funny that you use My Little Pony as an example, when it just highlights my point. Let's take a look at gender roles in the series shall we? How many good, wise, friendly, or intellectual roles are portrayed? How many of those are female? Why is it that the only really intelligent and well-studied male in the series is a villain?
Just try to understand that institutional sexism in for example academia is far more dangerous than people such as Fred Phelps, RMS or Michael Moore. Because the institutional sexism directly affects what research is encouraged, funded and reported, which in turn also affects PR and policy, and that carries greater momentum, especially in Social Services etc. We can take an example from medical research. Prostate cancer affects more men than breast cancer affects women. Prostate cancer has a higher lethality. Breast cancer gets, in the EU at least, on average 13.6 times greater funding.