Geez, the only thing that 'pales' in the general's
face when he get's the bill for 25K X $679.95 so soldiers can make powerpoint presentations and type office memo's
What I think is really cool about this is that the DOD does put their office applications to quite a bit of work. Having spent a few years working for a DOD contractor I know first hand how much officers like long word documents, slide shows, spreadsheets, and well... anything else a piece of office software can provide. I think this is a step in the right direction as a way to support users on multiple platforms, as well as to save money.
Hmm... someone should patent adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing
If someone (living) can prove they invented those operations then they deserve to get the patent.
That crap shouldn't be patentable in the first place. Of course, in the US you can patent math.
On a side note, perhaps editorial comments and opinions of the slashdot staff should stay off the front page and go on the comments page where they belong.
As for patenting math, I would have to say that if a company invests money and time into developing a complex algorithm they should have the right to patent it. What about when a company designs a machine of some sort, are they patenting metal? No, they're patenting something they invented so that they can make money off the money they invested in inventing it.
I know most of you won't agree, but that's how I see things.
Killing and experimenting on many millions of Jewish people wasn't a perfect solution, but it did prevent many more deaths (theoretically)
I think I see the point you're trying to make, but that statement doesn't make any sense. How exactly did the random killing of a culture prevent any deaths?
First, like many Allied actions in WWII, the nuking of Japan probably had more to do with scaring the Russians than anything else.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that. If you look at how we had to fight the war in the pacific, it was all about sending Marines onto small islands to kill the Japanese inhabiting the island (and I mean KILL, they were not going to give up). That style of combat resulted in a HUGE number of American deaths. The last group of islands we had to attack was Japan itself. As soon as we set foot on mainland Japan we would have been attacked by every man, woman, and child, none of who were afraid to die (there was no more honorable way to die than serving the empire).
The casualties from that battle would have been tremendous for both sides. Killing 110,000 Japanese civilians wasn't a perfect solution, but it did prevent many more deaths (theoretically). I'm sure it also made for a nice display of American power and scientific knowledge, but our military leaders had more important things to think about when they decided to drop those bombs.
Isn't it up the a child's parents to teach them not to read Jon Katz articles? I mean, what age does a person become immune to his pointless rantings? 17? 18? Maybe what we need is a rating system so that children don't get exposed to 5000 words of his opinionated dribble...
struggles against totalitarian political power, then the history of the Twenty-first will likely be marked by efforts to curtail the excessive corporate power that grips the United States and is spreading throughout the world.
While I usually just skip over the Jon Katz articles, sometimes I need to stop and post something about his half baked ideas that he likes to spew upon us. Everyone here at slashdot seems to feel that large corporations are always bad (and perhaps that is true to some degree), but the very idea that the "badness" of a corporation can compare in any way to Nazi Germany or any of the wars or politcal battles of the last century (or ANY centry) is just wrong.
Look around, you're not being oppressed just because a new McDonalds opened up...
I agree with both of you. I feel that NASA might be better off putting a little time into developing a program to safely and comfortably (withing reason) send tourists into space. NASA would also benefit from teaming up with other companies in some ventures. I know everyone here thinks corporations are bad, but they're the ones with the money and I'd like to see some of that going into helping the space program.
You also have to remember that if NASA does decide to start sending tourists into space, then one accident could mean the end of our space program. Not that accidents in NASA are a common occurance, but one mistake and the public would go crazy to the point of forcing the government to put an end to NASA. (I can see the slashdot posts now "WHAT IDIOT HAD TO IDEA TO SEND TOURISTS INTO SPACE?!?! Click here for goatsex")...
I'll have to agree with you on the fact that Virginia has been going a little crazy recently. It seems like they'll give anyone a drivers license and then they're more than happy to take it away. They have no problem putting people in jail for speeding or driving under a suspended license (I can understand both of those). As near as I can figure, its the overzelous northern VA police trying to make up for the overcrowded roads while dealing with the governor who loves to slash budgets for things like highway improvements (why did we elect Gilmore? You know, most people get fired when they do a bad job...). While we're far from being in a police state things are getting carried away... but at least the police are doing SOMETHING about all the horrible drivers around here.
I'm not exactly sure how we got on this topic, but I felt the need to complain about it... thank you.
The price of the processor is the least of your worries. There's so many other expenses when you buy a laptop (like the screen) that a low cost processor won't have too big of an effect...
But any little bit helps, I guess... as long as you can save a couple bucks.
Since g++ (the GNU C++ compiler) is written in C, C and C++ are equivalent
I think you need to check your logic there. Yes, g++ is written in C, but its also set up to efficiently generate code for the important features of an OO language.
Ok, everyone seems to be saying over and over that the code generated for an OO program and the code generated for some other type of language will all end up as machine code eventually, and this is of course true. The reason that we have high level languages is to make things easier on the programmer. I tend to do a lot of OO programming and I don't have the time to go and rig together a big old piece of ugly code to try to emulate one of the many useful features that an OO language would provide for me. Its as simple as that.
You could write OO code in a big pile of NAND gates
Now, that would be a very stupid thing to do. By your way of thinking I guess we should get rid of all programming lanugages and just do everything in the most complex way we can find.
one common misconception is that one can not do object oriented design in C
That's not a misconception at all. I think you need to look at the definition of an "Object Oriented" language. You'll see that to be OO a language must support certain things like inheritance, polymorphism, run time binding (dynamic binding) and many other fun things that you can't do in procedural languages. C doesn't support any of those. You can't do things derive a new type of struct from another type of struct.
These few requirements created by the "approved by the OOP zealots" make OO programming into OO programming... you can write code in a non OO language that looks a little like OO code, but its not gonna behave the same way.
Ok, the spelling may suck, but the message is there...
The irony involved in buying a Sony project because you want to avoid manufacturers who unfairly prevent interoperability for their own advantage is just sickening...
Hahaha... good point. I think you forgot about one thing, a company (or person, or government...) is only doing something wrong if the people know about it/haven't fergotten it.
yea... I've been following the development of MOSIX for the past year or so. Its a great piece of software. Here's the idea behind it: you have a cluster of computers, a process starts on one of the computers, the MOSIX software figures out that there is less load on another computer and "migrates" (meaning moves the process and its entire environment) the process to another computer in the cluster.
This is much more useful to the average joe than something like a beowulf cluster would be. The advantages of MOSIX over a beowulf cluster include: it will work with any existing program (well, almost... it doesn't tend to migrate processes that have huge I/O requirements) and you don't need to put any special code into your software (no need to code something around the PVM or MPI libraries, like you would be doing for beowulf).
I'd suggest giving it a try if you have some extra machines laying around.
Slashdot Mirror
And there still isn't.
Yup, and we're still waiting
Got to love it when people can't understand humor, let alone how to close their tags
I also love it when people can't understand humor. But, as it turns out, humor is defined as:
The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness
Which I guess means that there has been no humor so far in this thread for someone to not understand.
Get off my obstacle cource private Pyle! Goddamn it, you climb like old people fuck!
the pwesident says big corporations our are friends!
heh, Dubya... heh
we produce 40W of excess heat. This fact makes cuddling up next to someone a very pleasent ordeal
So it must be extra pleasent when they fart...
Geez, the only thing that 'pales' in the general's face when he get's the bill for 25K X $679.95 so soldiers can make powerpoint presentations and type office memo's
What I think is really cool about this is that the DOD does put their office applications to quite a bit of work. Having spent a few years working for a DOD contractor I know first hand how much officers like long word documents, slide shows, spreadsheets, and well... anything else a piece of office software can provide. I think this is a step in the right direction as a way to support users on multiple platforms, as well as to save money.
Billy boy does bring up a good point... where can I find a GPLed version of Pac Man?
I mean, surely this cannot be correct. 2-way satellite communications ?
It is, read about it.
What's wrong with putting wires across the tundra ?
Its expensive and takes a really long time. Canada is a huge country... and hell, it takes the phone companies long enough to run 1 mile of cable.
Still I guess it is typical for Americans to overlook the big picture and focus on the sensational aspects of a story.
Awe, sounds like someone is jelous. Don't worry, if you're nice we might let you pretend you're almost as good as us.
the end user can't just pick one up at CompukeSA
actually last time I was in Compusa they had DSL modems on the shelf
Hmm... maybe he's implying that they're too heavy to pick up...
Hmm ... someone should patent adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing
If someone (living) can prove they invented those operations then they deserve to get the patent.
That crap shouldn't be patentable in the first place. Of course, in the US you can patent math.
On a side note, perhaps editorial comments and opinions of the slashdot staff should stay off the front page and go on the comments page where they belong.
As for patenting math, I would have to say that if a company invests money and time into developing a complex algorithm they should have the right to patent it. What about when a company designs a machine of some sort, are they patenting metal? No, they're patenting something they invented so that they can make money off the money they invested in inventing it.
I know most of you won't agree, but that's how I see things.
Killing and experimenting on many millions of Jewish people wasn't a perfect solution, but it did prevent many more deaths (theoretically)
I think I see the point you're trying to make, but that statement doesn't make any sense. How exactly did the random killing of a culture prevent any deaths?
First, like many Allied actions in WWII, the nuking of Japan probably had more to do with scaring the Russians than anything else.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that. If you look at how we had to fight the war in the pacific, it was all about sending Marines onto small islands to kill the Japanese inhabiting the island (and I mean KILL, they were not going to give up). That style of combat resulted in a HUGE number of American deaths. The last group of islands we had to attack was Japan itself. As soon as we set foot on mainland Japan we would have been attacked by every man, woman, and child, none of who were afraid to die (there was no more honorable way to die than serving the empire).
The casualties from that battle would have been tremendous for both sides. Killing 110,000 Japanese civilians wasn't a perfect solution, but it did prevent many more deaths (theoretically). I'm sure it also made for a nice display of American power and scientific knowledge, but our military leaders had more important things to think about when they decided to drop those bombs.
Isn't it up the a child's parents to teach them not to read Jon Katz articles? I mean, what age does a person become immune to his pointless rantings? 17? 18? Maybe what we need is a rating system so that children don't get exposed to 5000 words of his opinionated dribble...
struggles against totalitarian political power, then the history of the Twenty-first will likely be marked by efforts to curtail the excessive corporate power that grips the United States and is spreading throughout the world.
While I usually just skip over the Jon Katz articles, sometimes I need to stop and post something about his half baked ideas that he likes to spew upon us. Everyone here at slashdot seems to feel that large corporations are always bad (and perhaps that is true to some degree), but the very idea that the "badness" of a corporation can compare in any way to Nazi Germany or any of the wars or politcal battles of the last century (or ANY centry) is just wrong.
Look around, you're not being oppressed just because a new McDonalds opened up...
I agree with both of you. I feel that NASA might be better off putting a little time into developing a program to safely and comfortably (withing reason) send tourists into space. NASA would also benefit from teaming up with other companies in some ventures. I know everyone here thinks corporations are bad, but they're the ones with the money and I'd like to see some of that going into helping the space program.
You also have to remember that if NASA does decide to start sending tourists into space, then one accident could mean the end of our space program. Not that accidents in NASA are a common occurance, but one mistake and the public would go crazy to the point of forcing the government to put an end to NASA. (I can see the slashdot posts now "WHAT IDIOT HAD TO IDEA TO SEND TOURISTS INTO SPACE?!?! Click here for goatsex")...
Anyway, some stuff to think about...
speaking of police state, virginia...
I'll have to agree with you on the fact that Virginia has been going a little crazy recently. It seems like they'll give anyone a drivers license and then they're more than happy to take it away. They have no problem putting people in jail for speeding or driving under a suspended license (I can understand both of those). As near as I can figure, its the overzelous northern VA police trying to make up for the overcrowded roads while dealing with the governor who loves to slash budgets for things like highway improvements (why did we elect Gilmore? You know, most people get fired when they do a bad job...). While we're far from being in a police state things are getting carried away... but at least the police are doing SOMETHING about all the horrible drivers around here.
I'm not exactly sure how we got on this topic, but I felt the need to complain about it... thank you.
I pledge allegiance, to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands....
... one nation, under God...
If there is no god, does that mean we're not a nation?
really, well then you deserve what you get, which is a buttfucking, followed by a run in with a mac truck
Isn't it a wonderful world we live in where processor selection can lead to anal penetration?
Maybe I can actually buy a laptop now.
The price of the processor is the least of your worries. There's so many other expenses when you buy a laptop (like the screen) that a low cost processor won't have too big of an effect...
But any little bit helps, I guess... as long as you can save a couple bucks.
Since g++ (the GNU C++ compiler) is written in C, C and C++ are equivalent
I think you need to check your logic there. Yes, g++ is written in C, but its also set up to efficiently generate code for the important features of an OO language.
Ok, everyone seems to be saying over and over that the code generated for an OO program and the code generated for some other type of language will all end up as machine code eventually, and this is of course true. The reason that we have high level languages is to make things easier on the programmer. I tend to do a lot of OO programming and I don't have the time to go and rig together a big old piece of ugly code to try to emulate one of the many useful features that an OO language would provide for me. Its as simple as that.
You could write OO code in a big pile of NAND gates
Now, that would be a very stupid thing to do. By your way of thinking I guess we should get rid of all programming lanugages and just do everything in the most complex way we can find.
one common misconception is that one can not do object oriented design in C
That's not a misconception at all. I think you need to look at the definition of an "Object Oriented" language. You'll see that to be OO a language must support certain things like inheritance, polymorphism, run time binding (dynamic binding) and many other fun things that you can't do in procedural languages. C doesn't support any of those. You can't do things derive a new type of struct from another type of struct.
These few requirements created by the "approved by the OOP zealots" make OO programming into OO programming... you can write code in a non OO language that looks a little like OO code, but its not gonna behave the same way.
Ok, the spelling may suck, but the message is there...
Man, that would be cool! Think about it, you can pause the world, rewind, record other things while you look at something! Its an amazing idea!
I think it would really come in handy at strip clubs....
I guess after reading this everyone will feel that people under 30 can't take a joke.
The irony involved in buying a Sony project because you want to avoid manufacturers who unfairly prevent interoperability for their own advantage is just sickening...
Hahaha... good point. I think you forgot about one thing, a company (or person, or government...) is only doing something wrong if the people know about it/haven't fergotten it.
Has anyone actually used Mosix?
yea... I've been following the development of MOSIX for the past year or so. Its a great piece of software. Here's the idea behind it: you have a cluster of computers, a process starts on one of the computers, the MOSIX software figures out that there is less load on another computer and "migrates" (meaning moves the process and its entire environment) the process to another computer in the cluster.
This is much more useful to the average joe than something like a beowulf cluster would be. The advantages of MOSIX over a beowulf cluster include: it will work with any existing program (well, almost... it doesn't tend to migrate processes that have huge I/O requirements) and you don't need to put any special code into your software (no need to code something around the PVM or MPI libraries, like you would be doing for beowulf).
I'd suggest giving it a try if you have some extra machines laying around.