The patent for the integrated circuit was hotly contested between Fairchild and Texas Instruments when Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce both invented the integrated circuit at about the same time. The battle dragged on and by the time it was resolved it was totally irrelevant since both companies were making tons of ICs.
This is a very good point. Is the patent application fee refunded if the patent is not granted? It shouldn't be. That would make the patent grant action more fair and discourage frivolous patents.
I would hate to go back to the bad old days of custom OSs for games. DOS4g plus a game was never a very stable platform, and if the game crashed so did my computer. Even if the game didn't crash exiting the game required a reboot. Now when I exit a game my OS is instantly ready to do work, and if the game crashes my OS often survives.
A major record label has a lot of resources that a musician needs to "make it big". They have the capital that is needed to produce albums.
Each album can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to record. Each music video also costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Radio stations must be paid off to get a band's singles in the rotation. And the album has to be manufactured, which costs money as well. Then the album must be distributed, which costs money and requires a business relationship that labels have and most musicians do not.
There are dozens of bands in every city around the world that want to make it, but only a handful of major labels. This is why bands get the short end of the stick.
It is becoming more apparent that Lucas is aiming for kids with the Star Wars franchise. So a new cartoon makes sense. But if past history is any clue there will be no need to watch the cartoons to make sense of Episode 3. Anyone remember Droids or Ewoks?
Both LOTR movies had assloads of CGI and well-known actors and they didn't suck. The original trilogy looked great at the time but if you watch them again the effects are cheesy. The problem with Episode 1 and to a lesser extent Episode 2 is the writing.
It is true that we would have fewer problems like this if we had strong privacy protection laws. Too bad our government is hell-bent on reducing privacy right now. For all you folks that voted in Bush and other security freaks - what good is a tax cut if the secret police are breaking down your door?
Realtime? How gauche. I just got a new internet connection that is so fact streaming media generally starts playing before I even click on the link. It is so fast I think my dick just got bigger.
Games may seem unnecessary but there are other things to do with a video card. Like run a 21" monitor at 1600x1200@85Hz. My Geforce 2 GTS, not an incredibly old card, can't do that. Or run dual-head. Or tune TV and capture video.
I don't think it will be that long before a 3D accelerator will be required to run the default settings for new OS releases. I believe OS X already does. There are several non-default settings for Windows that are much better with hardware acceleration. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts there's a bunch of open-source developers coding up a new 3D desktop paradigm as we speak.
My computer outputs all display info to COM1 which is attached to an automated asskicking machine. That machine proceeds to kick my ass right in the head until I refresh my whiteboard with the next frame using nothing but dry-erase markers. And the black pen is shit out of ink.
Operating systems are a subset of platforms. So are CPUs. An executable could be compiled for i686 and fail to run because OS specific libraries are missing. In this case the OS might be the platform. Or maybe a graphics toolkit is part of the platform.
The JVM is a platform as well because a lot of code is written to run on a JVM rather than a specific processor or OS. Even browsers like Netscape or IE are platforms that support various versions of HTML, JavaScript, etc.
Because C doesn't have built-in garbage collection or network APIs or event handling or objects or many other cool things that have happened since 1971.
It's not like C doesn't have libraries to do most or all of these things. But these libraries are not standard, which reduces the reliability of the code unless all the libraries are included with the program.
Another way of thinking about this is that Java lets you think about the important parts of your software rather than reinventing the wheel to do I/O and memory management.
Your top point is language independence. This sounds great; what are the actual benefits of this?
Porting the bytecodes to another platform should be easier since there is only one set of instructions to implement, but I suspect that Microsoft will do something to make sure the bytecodes don't run on non-Windows platforms. Otherwise how are they going to make money? Time will tell on this one.
Another advantage would be the ability to open code written in one language and use another language to make edits. I have my doubts about this as well, since most people choose to use a language based on what other languages cannot do. Wouldn't code written in one language violate rules of other languages? Maybe someone who has worked with.Net can enlighten me.
Your second assertion regarding platform independence is puzzling. Java is already quite a bit more platform independent then.Net, and right now it has the support of companies like IBM that actually care about platform independence, rather than companies like Microsoft that thinks "platform" and "Windows" are synonymous.
Your third assertion is difficult to support since the only benchmark I know of that compared the two was commissioned by Microsoft. If.NET actually turns out to be cross-platform then it probably will not be more performant because both virtual machines are doing the same thing and companies have been working on the JVM for the last 8 years. The jury is still out on this one until there are more.NET benchmarks to peruse.
So it looks like the best we can hope for out of.NET is support for Microsoft's new language C# and the promise of platform independence. Microsoft can choose to encourage this independence and eventually lose control over.NET or continue to promise openness while producing yet another (albeit nice and new) Windows development platform. Microsoft didn't exactly lose money or influence with ASP, VBScript or any of their other Windows-only technologies. Which path do you think they will choose?
The great thing is you only need one server for every four people! The V880z server can be configured with 6 CPUs and two XVR-4000 graphics modules, which can each support up to 4 monitors. Of course since each graphics module had 4 MAJC-5200 processors plus a bunch of ASICs and 3 different kinds of memory it probably costs a fortune. But what price is too high to pay for a great game of UT?
In a related news story the pay-per-view industry has already starting campaigning against wireless pRon access, claiming it is "immoral". Seems they don't like the competition...
I really enjoy Gibson's work and that includes more recent books like the aforementioned Virtual Light and Idoru. That said I think he has been rewriting the same book over and over again with different characters and details. I would like to see him write a book where the central theme is not Artificial Intelligence.
Sun isn't very popular on the client because there is no consistency in the client-side VM. Gee, do you think Microsoft had anything to do with that?
I doubt that a consistent client JVM would seriously degrade the security of a product that already has weekly security patch releases.
And last time I checked Sun still does more than twice as much business as Apple. But since they don't sell desk lamps to starfuckers they don't get the same kind of press.
I don't know why over a trillion digits of pi would be useful, but I have seen something similar. There was a book I once saw that contained nothing but pages and pages of random decimal digits. I imagine that pi would be quite suitable for whatever purpose this first book was for.
Looks like there is some competition in the random number book business:)
This looks like a clever way to exercise one's professional tools to solve a trivial yet interesting problem. Why are all of you whiners jumping on him?
One factor that he left out was the attrition of vampires due to recovered conscience or suicide, which might be high considering their lifestyle. There must be a percentage of vampires that accidentally get caught in sunlight as well, although those dim bulbs might be the kinds that get slayed eventually anyway. Other than that the numbers look good.
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And they haven't been making these chips for almost ten years now. Because everyone knows that only Intel and AMD make CPUs.
But isn't it more fun to flame the chumps that don't RTFA?
The patent for the integrated circuit was hotly contested between Fairchild and Texas Instruments when Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce both invented the integrated circuit at about the same time. The battle dragged on and by the time it was resolved it was totally irrelevant since both companies were making tons of ICs.
This is a very good point. Is the patent application fee refunded if the patent is not granted? It shouldn't be. That would make the patent grant action more fair and discourage frivolous patents.
I would hate to go back to the bad old days of custom OSs for games. DOS4g plus a game was never a very stable platform, and if the game crashed so did my computer. Even if the game didn't crash exiting the game required a reboot. Now when I exit a game my OS is instantly ready to do work, and if the game crashes my OS often survives.
A major record label has a lot of resources that a musician needs to "make it big". They have the capital that is needed to produce albums.
Each album can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to record. Each music video also costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Radio stations must be paid off to get a band's singles in the rotation. And the album has to be manufactured, which costs money as well. Then the album must be distributed, which costs money and requires a business relationship that labels have and most musicians do not.
There are dozens of bands in every city around the world that want to make it, but only a handful of major labels. This is why bands get the short end of the stick.
It is becoming more apparent that Lucas is aiming for kids with the Star Wars franchise. So a new cartoon makes sense. But if past history is any clue there will be no need to watch the cartoons to make sense of Episode 3. Anyone remember Droids or Ewoks?
Both LOTR movies had assloads of CGI and well-known actors and they didn't suck. The original trilogy looked great at the time but if you watch them again the effects are cheesy. The problem with Episode 1 and to a lesser extent Episode 2 is the writing.
It is true that we would have fewer problems like this if we had strong privacy protection laws. Too bad our government is hell-bent on reducing privacy right now. For all you folks that voted in Bush and other security freaks - what good is a tax cut if the secret police are breaking down your door?
Realtime? How gauche. I just got a new internet connection that is so fact streaming media generally starts playing before I even click on the link. It is so fast I think my dick just got bigger.
Games may seem unnecessary but there are other things to do with a video card. Like run a 21" monitor at 1600x1200@85Hz. My Geforce 2 GTS, not an incredibly old card, can't do that. Or run dual-head. Or tune TV and capture video.
I don't think it will be that long before a 3D accelerator will be required to run the default settings for new OS releases. I believe OS X already does. There are several non-default settings for Windows that are much better with hardware acceleration. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts there's a bunch of open-source developers coding up a new 3D desktop paradigm as we speak.
My computer outputs all display info to COM1 which is attached to an automated asskicking machine. That machine proceeds to kick my ass right in the head until I refresh my whiteboard with the next frame using nothing but dry-erase markers. And the black pen is shit out of ink.
Starring Vin Diesel of course...
Operating systems are a subset of platforms. So are CPUs. An executable could be compiled for i686 and fail to run because OS specific libraries are missing. In this case the OS might be the platform. Or maybe a graphics toolkit is part of the platform.
The JVM is a platform as well because a lot of code is written to run on a JVM rather than a specific processor or OS. Even browsers like Netscape or IE are platforms that support various versions of HTML, JavaScript, etc.
Because C doesn't have built-in garbage collection or network APIs or event handling or objects or many other cool things that have happened since 1971.
It's not like C doesn't have libraries to do most or all of these things. But these libraries are not standard, which reduces the reliability of the code unless all the libraries are included with the program.
Another way of thinking about this is that Java lets you think about the important parts of your software rather than reinventing the wheel to do I/O and memory management.
Your top point is language independence. This sounds great; what are the actual benefits of this?
.Net can enlighten me.
.Net, and right now it has the support of companies like IBM that actually care about platform independence, rather than companies like Microsoft that thinks "platform" and "Windows" are synonymous.
.NET actually turns out to be cross-platform then it probably will not be more performant because both virtual machines are doing the same thing and companies have been working on the JVM for the last 8 years. The jury is still out on this one until there are more .NET benchmarks to peruse.
.NET is support for Microsoft's new language C# and the promise of platform independence. Microsoft can choose to encourage this independence and eventually lose control over .NET or continue to promise openness while producing yet another (albeit nice and new) Windows development platform. Microsoft didn't exactly lose money or influence with ASP, VBScript or any of their other Windows-only technologies. Which path do you think they will choose?
Porting the bytecodes to another platform should be easier since there is only one set of instructions to implement, but I suspect that Microsoft will do something to make sure the bytecodes don't run on non-Windows platforms. Otherwise how are they going to make money? Time will tell on this one.
Another advantage would be the ability to open code written in one language and use another language to make edits. I have my doubts about this as well, since most people choose to use a language based on what other languages cannot do. Wouldn't code written in one language violate rules of other languages? Maybe someone who has worked with
Your second assertion regarding platform independence is puzzling. Java is already quite a bit more platform independent then
Your third assertion is difficult to support since the only benchmark I know of that compared the two was commissioned by Microsoft. If
So it looks like the best we can hope for out of
The great thing is you only need one server for every four people! The V880z server can be configured with 6 CPUs and two XVR-4000 graphics modules, which can each support up to 4 monitors. Of course since each graphics module had 4 MAJC-5200 processors plus a bunch of ASICs and 3 different kinds of memory it probably costs a fortune. But what price is too high to pay for a great game of UT?
Now what we need is a Beowulf cluster of... whoops, never mind.
In a related news story the pay-per-view industry has already starting campaigning against wireless pRon access, claiming it is "immoral". Seems they don't like the competition...
I really enjoy Gibson's work and that includes more recent books like the aforementioned Virtual Light and Idoru. That said I think he has been rewriting the same book over and over again with different characters and details. I would like to see him write a book where the central theme is not Artificial Intelligence.
Sun isn't very popular on the client because there is no consistency in the client-side VM. Gee, do you think Microsoft had anything to do with that?
I doubt that a consistent client JVM would seriously degrade the security of a product that already has weekly security patch releases.
And last time I checked Sun still does more than twice as much business as Apple. But since they don't sell desk lamps to starfuckers they don't get the same kind of press.
It will be called Microsoft Windows LX, because everyone knows Linux is just another first in the long line of M$ innovations.
I don't know why over a trillion digits of pi would be useful, but I have seen something similar. There was a book I once saw that contained nothing but pages and pages of random decimal digits. I imagine that pi would be quite suitable for whatever purpose this first book was for.
:)
Looks like there is some competition in the random number book business
This looks like a clever way to exercise one's professional tools to solve a trivial yet interesting problem. Why are all of you whiners jumping on him?
One factor that he left out was the attrition of vampires due to recovered conscience or suicide, which might be high considering their lifestyle. There must be a percentage of vampires that accidentally get caught in sunlight as well, although those dim bulbs might be the kinds that get slayed eventually anyway. Other than that the numbers look good.