Perhaps the Seti project should start listening in the area. I'm not 100% joking, because they have a LOT of experience at identifying (and discounting) man made radio sources.
I've heard of Dylan as being somewhat related to Lisp before, but haven't tried it. As soon as I get some free time, I'll play around for a while and see. New languages are almost always fun!
In every regard other than the damn parens, Lisp really is wonderful. The basic syntax however, blows. Performance prejudice (mostly outdated) is usually quoted as the reason that Lisp hasn't taken over the world, but I suspect that that syntax more than anything is why.
The question is how to make something that is just as flexible and powerful with devolving in a paren counting nightmare.
Python appears to be pointing the way, but (much as I love it) I don't think it's all the way there yet.
One difference. Spammers are making money, and so have nice stuff.
The real pirates (selling illegal copies) are also making money, but that's not who the RIAA/MPAA is chasing. So how exciting is it going to be when they raffle off a "1987 Toyota with only 3 rust spots and 120k miles"?
Most of the time, I can use OO.o to work with Word documents with no trouble. However, you are correct that sometimes it will break documents with complex tables.
However, I find these breakages to be about the same as what happens if I open the document in Word, then switch my default printer.
OO.o has never changed a documents layout on me just because I switched printers.
Oddly enough, I've had the reverse experience to most people with DVRs.
I used to have a TV, but only used it with a VCR and DVD player. No live feeds at all. In general I watched roughly 2-3 movies a month. I had a lot of free time, and in general I really had the experience that all the "I have no TV, I'm so superior" folks talk about.. Assorted geek projects like home robot building, etc, benifited most.
Then I worked a contract for TiVo related to their support for DIRECTV dual tuner support. I then decided I wanted to own one of the boxes I'd worked on.
DIRECTV + Tivo == a lot of stuff that I like (mostly Anime and SciFi). Over time I keep finding more and more stuff that I like.
This means I'm watching more and more TV, and loosing all that spare time. I read less, I computer game less, and projects-for-fun have dropped off to almost nil.
If I didn't have a Tivo (or equivalent), then I'd have a lot more free time. I'm totally unwilling to schedule my time around TV shows, and incapable of enjoying shows without an ongoing story line. Without a smart recorder, I'd never know what was going on and lose interest.
As I side note, I'm pretty sure I'd end up watching a lot less over all if I knew the content would always be available whenever I wanted it. A TiVo with unlimited storage would be okay, but something like NetFlix with all content ever produced would be better.
That may mean that they pull Anime Unleashed for something with a more global appear. That would kill of 90% of the content I find interesting on all of DirecTV.
Of course, maybe they will fix the guide information so that individual shows are listed based on the series they belong to, not just 'Anime Unleashed'. My TiVo will be much happier then.
but don't you have to divide the bits (by 8) to get the bytes?
If memory were bit addressable, you would be correct. However most modern machines are byte addressable. That means that each memory address refers to a full byte.
It is perfectly possible to build machines that are only word addressable, where a word is 32 bits or 64 bits, or even larger. The advantage is that you can address more memory with a given address size. 32 bit words means address size * 4 bytes, 64 bit means * 8 bytes. The disadvantage is that you can't easily work with chunks smaller than the word size. Most current machines fetch and write at least a byte from memory, even when they are only reading or updating a flag of a single bit.
Since most folks are used to working with byte addressable, and there are no major reasons to change, I would expect byte addressable to remain the standard for a long time to come.
It's the closest you can get to owning a particular domain outright, forever.
Whatever happened to the domains that were held prior to the switch to pay-per-register for domain names? I'd hold one of those except that I didn't have a dedicated connection for my DNS server yet. For that matter, what has happened with the old permanently assigned IP address blocks?
For those that don't remember..... before Network Solutions got involved, Domains (and address ranges) were free. You just had to be setup to use them before you applied, but once they were assigned, it was permanent.
The original price tag given to Bush Sr was generated by following a VERY poor plan for reaching Mars, and included money for all sorts of sideline stuff like finishing a super expanded version of the ISS (so it could be used for assembling the ship for the Mars trip, etc).
A number of much more reasonable plans were put forth by people other than NASA, but not in time to make a difference. It would seem that these early super-inflated prices are still going to hold us back.
I think there is a possible moral case for capital punishment against any form of intrusive marketing used on a large enough scale.
I'll explain by giving an example.
Lets assume a large scale spanner sends out about 6,000,000 spam messages a day (figured based on vague memories of slashdot articles). They does this 365 days a year. Let's assume that, on average, each of those emails wastes 1 second of someones time. This is a rough guess based on the time to recognize the message as trash and hit delete, or to setup and maintian spam filters, support the the extra load on mail servers, to vent anger and calm down enough to be productive, etc.
This means that they are wasting 2,190,000,000 seconds of other peoples lives every year. That means they are wasting a bit over 66 years of other peoples time per year. That means that they are wasting an entire human life a year. Even though they are only doing a little harm to many individuals, I see this as being the same as killing someone.
Yes, they make a lot of money, but in effect, they steal a life a year to do it. These figures are based on a lot of vague guess work, but they aren't THAT far out of line. I'm mean, would it be okay, if they only steal 30 years per year they are in business? 20?
I see legally sanctioned violence (meaning trials and executions or life imprisonments) as a reasonable response from society.
I also see this as a rough formula for measuring the damage done by any form intrusive marketing. How much time is someone stealing? Are we as a society willing to allow them to steal that much?
Magnatune is another excellent label that sells music in most any format you want.
There are also a number of free sources for legal music on the web, especially if you aren't into mainstream pop. Band sites are good.
The difference is that you end up listening to music that is not on the radio, has never been on the radio, and never will be. If this is a plus or minus is up to you.
Actually, you can build your own kernel. After you build it, copy it to your dedicated memory card and modify the boot script to list it as an option.
You still have to use the disk that comes with the kit to boot, but that's just for the boot loader, not the kernel itself.
There is even a non-Sony distribution called BlackRhino http://blackrhino.xrhino.com/ that can be used. When I spent most of my time working on the PS/2 it was having issues, but was under rapid development.
If you buy the PS/2 Dev kit, you can turn your console into a linux workstation and start writing easily in a familiar environment. We make this available to everyone, and lots of cool stuff with just appear as people get to try out their own ideas. At least that's the theory.
In practice, the barrier to development is HIGH. There are no high level libraries, and the amount you have to learn about the box to do anything with it is far to high to get anything useful done on a nights and weekends basis.
You buy the kit, it's neat to have RedHat 5.x, it can really run X Windows and Emacs and everything (though kinda slow).
But when you try to build anything you just hit a wall. The documenation is poor (probably better in Japanese) and confusing. The build process is complex, since there are custom languages for the two vector units (which are NOT identical and interchangable), and the main processor is not fast enough to do much real time work by itself.
The video and audio outputs are custom and can't be accessed though any standard mechanism (like OpenGL).
After spending about a month of spare time, digging through docs, reading things online and generally fiddling with pieces until they seem to work, you manage to add 1 and 1 on a vector processor, then get the result back and display it on the console. And you're proud. If you do keep goingand build a real game you can only distribute it to other people that have bought development kits, unless you get a real licensing deal with Sony. That means big money, big business, small/simple games need not apply and don't even consider trying to distribute for free.
What this high barrier to entry means is that the strengths of open source aren't really there, because very few programmers can really use the environment, and few others can even read the code that first set wrote. There isn't much sharing, and not much that's fun to play comes out of it.
I'm part owner and the system admin for a 3 person company. I find it somewhat surreal to get email from 'staff@bgb.cc' when I AM the tech staff for BGB.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps the Seti project should start listening in the area. I'm not 100% joking, because they have a LOT of experience at identifying (and discounting) man made radio sources.
I didn't realize that. I have learned something.
I find it interesting that "learnt" is often (in the US) associated with a lack or education and/or a rural background. It's much like "ain't".
I've heard of Dylan as being somewhat related to Lisp before, but haven't tried it. As soon as I get some free time, I'll play around for a while and see. New languages are almost always fun!
In every regard other than the damn parens, Lisp really is wonderful. The basic syntax however, blows. Performance prejudice (mostly outdated) is usually quoted as the reason that Lisp hasn't taken over the world, but I suspect that that syntax more than anything is why.
The question is how to make something that is just as flexible and powerful with devolving in a paren counting nightmare.
Python appears to be pointing the way, but (much as I love it) I don't think it's all the way there yet.
Who says prices are falling? In my experience they've been going up for the last couple years. Of course, comcast has moved in where I'm located.
One difference. Spammers are making money, and so have nice stuff.
The real pirates (selling illegal copies) are also making money, but that's not who the RIAA/MPAA is chasing. So how exciting is it going to be when they raffle off a "1987 Toyota with only 3 rust spots and 120k miles"?
Most of the time, I can use OO.o to work with Word documents with no trouble. However, you are correct that sometimes it will break documents with complex tables.
However, I find these breakages to be about the same as what happens if I open the document in Word, then switch my default printer.
OO.o has never changed a documents layout on me just because I switched printers.
Oddly enough, I've had the reverse experience to most people with DVRs.
I used to have a TV, but only used it with a VCR and DVD player. No live feeds at all. In general I watched roughly 2-3 movies a month. I had a lot of free time, and in general I really had the experience that all the "I have no TV, I'm so superior" folks talk about.. Assorted geek projects like home robot building, etc, benifited most.
Then I worked a contract for TiVo related to their support for DIRECTV dual tuner support. I then decided I wanted to own one of the boxes I'd worked on.
DIRECTV + Tivo == a lot of stuff that I like (mostly Anime and SciFi). Over time I keep finding more and more stuff that I like.
This means I'm watching more and more TV, and loosing all that spare time. I read less, I computer game less, and projects-for-fun have dropped off to almost nil.
If I didn't have a Tivo (or equivalent), then I'd have a lot more free time. I'm totally unwilling to schedule my time around TV shows, and incapable of enjoying shows without an ongoing story line. Without a smart recorder, I'd never know what was going on and lose interest.
As I side note, I'm pretty sure I'd end up watching a lot less over all if I knew the content would always be available whenever I wanted it. A TiVo with unlimited storage would be okay, but something like NetFlix with all content ever produced would be better.
Better programming.....
That may mean that they pull Anime Unleashed for something with a more global appear. That would kill of 90% of the content I find interesting on all of DirecTV.
Of course, maybe they will fix the guide information so that individual shows are listed based on the series they belong to, not just 'Anime Unleashed'. My TiVo will be much happier then.
There was a period on time when Dell was shipping Linux installed on their machines. I never was really clear on why they stopped.
Were there insufficient sales to justify the hassle of having to support an additional OS, or did MS push them out of it? Or both?
I would suspect that the next step is to find one (or more) companies that can sell and support OSV based systems across the nation.
Have there been any moves in that direction?
but don't you have to divide the bits (by 8) to get the bytes?
If memory were bit addressable, you would be correct. However most modern machines are byte addressable. That means that each memory address refers to a full byte.
It is perfectly possible to build machines that are only word addressable, where a word is 32 bits or 64 bits, or even larger. The advantage is that you can address more memory with a given address size. 32 bit words means address size * 4 bytes, 64 bit means * 8 bytes. The disadvantage is that you can't easily work with chunks smaller than the word size. Most current machines fetch and write at least a byte from memory, even when they are only reading or updating a flag of a single bit.
Since most folks are used to working with byte addressable, and there are no major reasons to change, I would expect byte addressable to remain the standard for a long time to come.
It's the closest you can get to owning a particular domain outright, forever.
Whatever happened to the domains that were held prior to the switch to pay-per-register for domain names? I'd hold one of those except that I didn't have a dedicated connection for my DNS server yet. For that matter, what has happened with the old permanently assigned IP address blocks?
For those that don't remember..... before Network Solutions got involved, Domains (and address ranges) were free. You just had to be setup to use them before you applied, but once they were assigned, it was permanent.
The original price tag given to Bush Sr was generated by following a VERY poor plan for reaching Mars, and included money for all sorts of sideline stuff like finishing a super expanded version of the ISS (so it could be used for assembling the ship for the Mars trip, etc).
A number of much more reasonable plans were put forth by people other than NASA, but not in time to make a difference. It would seem that these early super-inflated prices are still going to hold us back.
Sorry, but what is B.G. ?
I think there is a possible moral case for capital punishment against any form of intrusive marketing used on a large enough scale.
I'll explain by giving an example.
Lets assume a large scale spanner sends out about 6,000,000 spam messages a day (figured based on vague memories of slashdot articles). They does this 365 days a year. Let's assume that, on average, each of those emails wastes 1 second of someones time. This is a rough guess based on the time to recognize the message as trash and hit delete, or to setup and maintian spam filters, support the the extra load on mail servers, to vent anger and calm down enough to be productive, etc.
This means that they are wasting 2,190,000,000 seconds of other peoples lives every year. That means they are wasting a bit over 66 years of other peoples time per year. That means that they are wasting an entire human life a year. Even though they are only doing a little harm to many individuals, I see this as being the same as killing someone.
Yes, they make a lot of money, but in effect, they steal a life a year to do it. These figures are based on a lot of vague guess work, but they aren't THAT far out of line. I'm mean, would it be okay, if they only steal 30 years per year they are in business? 20?
I see legally sanctioned violence (meaning trials and executions or life imprisonments) as a reasonable response from society.
I also see this as a rough formula for measuring the damage done by any form intrusive marketing. How much time is someone stealing? Are we as a society willing to allow them to steal that much?
Funny, that used to be a frequent comment about the differences between Macs and Dos/Windows.
There are also a number of free sources for legal music on the web, especially if you aren't into mainstream pop. Band sites are good.
The difference is that you end up listening to music that is not on the radio, has never been on the radio, and never will be. If this is a plus or minus is up to you.
A few selections:
Debt cards are different, the banks are NOT liable.
With credit cards the liability is legally limited to $50, but debit cards sit in a limbo not covered by the law, so you are liable, not the bank.
I'm not an expert on this subject, just repeating gossip level knowledge.
We got these same taxes in the US. On blank tapes (audio and video) and on blank CD-R's. I find it horrible.
Actually, you can build your own kernel. After you build it, copy it to your dedicated memory card and modify the boot script to list it as an option.
You still have to use the disk that comes with the kit to boot, but that's just for the boot loader, not the kernel itself.
There is even a non-Sony distribution called BlackRhino http://blackrhino.xrhino.com/ that can be used. When I spent most of my time working on the PS/2 it was having issues, but was under rapid development.
If you buy the PS/2 Dev kit, you can turn your console into a linux workstation and start writing easily in a familiar environment. We make this available to everyone, and lots of cool stuff with just appear as people get to try out their own ideas. At least that's the theory.
In practice, the barrier to development is HIGH. There are no high level libraries, and the amount you have to learn about the box to do anything with it is far to high to get anything useful done on a nights and weekends basis.
You buy the kit, it's neat to have RedHat 5.x, it can really run X Windows and Emacs and everything (though kinda slow).
But when you try to build anything you just hit a wall. The documenation is poor (probably better in Japanese) and confusing. The build process is complex, since there are custom languages for the two vector units (which are NOT identical and interchangable), and the main processor is not fast enough to do much real time work by itself.
The video and audio outputs are custom and can't be accessed though any standard mechanism (like OpenGL).
After spending about a month of spare time, digging through docs, reading things online and generally fiddling with pieces until they seem to work, you manage to add 1 and 1 on a vector processor, then get the result back and display it on the console. And you're proud. If you do keep goingand build a real game you can only distribute it to other people that have bought development kits, unless you get a real licensing deal with Sony. That means big money, big business, small/simple games need not apply and don't even consider trying to distribute for free.
What this high barrier to entry means is that the strengths of open source aren't really there, because very few programmers can really use the environment, and few others can even read the code that first set wrote. There isn't much sharing, and not much that's fun to play comes out of it.
I find the work 'effectively' very interesting. It probably has a well defined legal meaning that it counter to what I want, but.....
Since CSS is so easily broken (and broken so often), wouldn't that mean that's it's ineffective? And thus not illegal to bypass?
I'm part owner and the system admin for a 3 person company. I find it somewhat surreal to get email from 'staff@bgb.cc' when I AM the tech staff for BGB.
They weren't when the calls were telemarketers. How are prank calls any different?