Frankly, if you'd passed 4 weeks trying to get a 675MB drive the size of an industrial washing machine to work you wouldn't be bitching about the reliability of modern disk drives.
(cretins at CDC had wired the +-12V supplies the wrong way around. We never did figure out why the damn thing worked at all.)
Before 3.5" SCSI drives >=4GB all disks were shit.
(with a few tiny high spots, like the 474 Fujitsu Eagles).
And don't get me started on the 40/80MB CDC washing machines - picking tiny fragments of exploded head bearings off the voice coil magnet, smelling the typical smell of the exploding power transistors...
I said "Yup, I know [about the 'Standard American Rules']".
I also said "I use the sensible rule" (i.e. I use some set of rules).
And "I don't read or write 'American Standard English'.".
Is this not a big enough clue?
The "Standard American English" rules of punctuation are not the only ones. I happen to think that the rules I follow are more logical, yours being based on simple visual typographical preferences, mine on logic.
I use the sensible rule: punctuation inside the quotes if you're quoting it, outside if you're not. This may or may not be because I don't read or write "American Standard English".
In the first example you give the question mark obviously belongs inside the quotes, John was asking a question.
In the second it should be outside the quotes, the question is not the quoted text.
In the last example the comma should be outside the quotes, it is part of the quoting sentence, not the quoted one.
Hahah! I've found a great reference, here's the letter from J. Perret (professor if Latin Philology at the Sorbonne) in 1955 to the president of IBM France, in reply to IBM's request for how to translate EDP (Electronic Data Processor) into French:
Cher Monsieur, Le 16 IV 1955
Que diriez vous d'"ordinateur" ? C'est un mot correctement forme, qui se
trouve meme dans le Littre comme adjectif designant Dieu qui met de l'ordre
dans le monde. Un mot de ce genre a l'avantage de donner aisement un verbe
"ordiner", un nom d'action "ordination". L'inconvenient est que "ordination"
designe une ceremonie religieuse ; mais les deux champs de signification
(religion et comptabilite) sont si eloignes et la ceremonie d'ordination
connue, je crois, de si peu de personnes que l'inconvenient est peut-etre
mineur. D'ailleurs votre machine serait "ordinateur" (et non ordination)
et ce mot est tout a fait sorti de l'usage theologique.
"Systemateur" serait un neologisme, mais qui ne me parait pas offensant ;
il permet "systemation" ; - mais systemer ne me semble guere utilisable -
"Combinateur" a l'inconvenient du sens pejoratif de "combine" ; "combiner"
est usuel donc peu capable de devenir technique ; "combination" ne me parait
guere viable a cause de la proximite de "combinaison". Mais les Allemands
ont bien leurs "combinats" (sorte de trusts, je crois), si bien que le mot
aurait peut-etre des possibilites autres que celles qu'evoque "combine".
"Congesteur", "digesteur" evoquent trop "congestion" et "digestion"
"Synthetiseur" ne me parait pas un mot assez neuf pour designer un objet
specifique, determine comme votre machine.
En relisant les brochures que vous m'avez donnees, je vois que plusieurs
de vos appareils sont designes par des noms d'agent feminins (trieuse,
tabulatrice). "Ordinatrice" serait parfaitement possible et aurait meme
l'avantage de separer plus encore votre machine du vocabulaire de la
theologie.
Il y a possibilite aussi d'ajouter a un nom d'agent un complement :
"ordinatrice d'elements complexes" ou un element de composition, par ex.:
"selecto-systemateur". - "Selecto-ordinateur" a l'inconvenient de 2 "o"
en hiatus, comme "electro-ordinatrice".
Il me semble que je pencherais pour "ordinatrice electronique".
Je souhaite que ces suggestions stimulent, orientent vos propres facultes
d'invention. N'hesitez pas a me donner un coup de telephone si vous avez
une idee qui vous paraisse requerir l'avis d'un philologue.
Votre J. Perret
I love it: "it's a correctly formed word used to designate the God who puts order in the world". No wonder IBM went with it.
Odd, I thought the IBM patent was issued before the Unisys one, why does it expire later?
AFAIK IBM has never licensed it's version of the LZW patent to GIF makers, so if the patent is valid people who use the software are still open to attack.
"if the patent is valid" is the important part, you see no "tiny problem" with two people patenting the same algorithm?
Strange, you seem to be reading this report in exactly the opposite way to me.
They do say:
Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.1 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for almost 50 years.
But they then go on to say:
This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. A doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.
Hardly sounds like time to panic.
One odd thing is that the sources of uranium ore they list doesn't include Niger, where Saddam and other nasty people (i.e. the French) get most of their uranium.
... 81. IBM is the lawful owner, by assignment, of the entire right, title and interest in United States Patent No. 4,814,746 ("the '746 Patent"), duly and legally issued on March 21, 1989 to Miller et al., entitled "Data Compression Method".
82. Upon information and belief, SCO has been and is infringing the '746 Patent within this judicial district and elsewhere by making, using, selling and/or offering to sell products, including UnixWare and Open Server, that practice one or more claims of the '746 Patent and therefore infringe that patent to the extent such infringing acts have occurred or occur during the effective period of that patent.
But the "'746" patent is LZW, also patented by Unisys (patent 4,558,302).
So IBM want to sue SCO for compress. Of course SCO have a license from Unisys. Of course the patent should never have been issued to Unisys, 'cos IBM patented the same thing first.
This case is opening up some of the real horrors of the whole "IP" mess.
But that is the famous proof that he was an idiot, or at least that he wasn't thinking clearly when he was dying:
George Orwell... gave the British government a list of 38 suspected or actual communist sympathisers...
Among those singled out for suspicion... were the comedian Charlie Chaplin, the bestselling novelist JB Priestley, the actor Michael Redgrave, the Soviet historian EH Carr, the historian of Trotsky, Isaac Deutscher, and the leftwing Labour MP Tom Driberg.
The list was so over the top that the government promptly filed & forgot it.
(Though it may been another reason not to give Chaplin a knighthood. Wow, that saved the world from the communist threat.)
Ameoba is claiming it's input is about 65W, i.e. 65 joules/second.
What happens to the other 5 joules/second? Where does that energy go? You seem to think that "processed instructions" have energy, that is somehow stored in the chip.
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, if you'd passed 4 weeks trying to get a 675MB drive the size of an industrial washing machine to work you wouldn't be bitching about the reliability of modern disk drives.
(cretins at CDC had wired the +-12V supplies the wrong way around. We never did figure out why the damn thing worked at all.)
Before 3.5" SCSI drives >=4GB all disks were shit.
(with a few tiny high spots, like the 474 Fujitsu Eagles).
And don't get me started on the 40/80MB CDC washing machines - picking tiny fragments of exploded head bearings off the voice coil magnet, smelling the typical smell of the exploding power transistors...
I said "Yup, I know [about the 'Standard American Rules']".
I also said "I use the sensible rule" (i.e. I use some set of rules).
And "I don't read or write 'American Standard English'.".
Is this not a big enough clue?
The "Standard American English" rules of punctuation are not the only ones. I happen to think that the rules I follow are more logical, yours being based on simple visual typographical preferences, mine on logic.
As far as I re
Yup, I know.
I use the sensible rule: punctuation inside the quotes if you're quoting it, outside if you're not. This may or may not be because I don't read or write "American Standard English".
In the first example you give the question mark obviously belongs inside the quotes, John was asking a question.
In the second it should be outside the quotes, the question is not the quoted text.
In the last example the comma should be outside the quotes, it is part of the quoting sentence, not the quoted one.
No, it shouldn't be.
From "ordonner", to put into order, sort, arrange.
Odd, I thought the IBM patent was issued before the Unisys one, why does it expire later?
AFAIK IBM has never licensed it's version of the LZW patent to GIF makers, so if the patent is valid people who use the software are still open to attack.
"if the patent is valid" is the important part, you see no "tiny problem" with two people patenting the same algorithm?
Great, and at the end of the commercial we find that the happy switcher is... ...dead.
Or did you want the Holywood ending?
Hint: it's the famous LZW patent, aka the GIF patent. Slashdot also violates this patent, see for example http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topiclinux.gif
They do say:
But they then go on to say: Hardly sounds like time to panic.One odd thing is that the sources of uranium ore they list doesn't include Niger, where Saddam and other nasty people (i.e. the French) get most of their uranium.
You don't read AC posts but you do reply to them?
So IBM want to sue SCO for compress. Of course SCO have a license from Unisys. Of course the patent should never have been issued to Unisys, 'cos IBM patented the same thing first.
This case is opening up some of the real horrors of the whole "IP" mess.
Mine still works. Well, appart from the serial ports. A bit of a bummer since I bought it to use as a terminal, but that's old Clive for you.
Do you want to hear my "black watch" stories?
Try again:
This is a decimal point: 3·14159
Slashdot won't let me put a decimal point. Why am I not suprised.
No, that was a "period" (full stop for those of us who have female companionship).
This is a decimal point: 314159
Ok, offtopic it is, but overrated? Moderators on crack.
(Though it may been another reason not to give Chaplin a knighthood. Wow, that saved the world from the communist threat.)
Why should socialists not call things Orwelian? Orwell was a socialist after all.
Now you can be the ass-to-risk.
Maybe you need a clue yourself?
Ok, let's run through this one more time.
Power is energy/time, watts are joules/seconds.
The cpu outputs 59.8W, i.e. 59.8 joules/second.
Ameoba is claiming it's input is about 65W, i.e.
65 joules/second.
What happens to the other 5 joules/second? Where does that energy go? You seem to think that "processed instructions" have energy, that is somehow stored in the chip.
Energy input == Energy output + Energy stored.
Where do you think it is being stored?
20% of $ 173,839,320 is $ 34,767,864
Just one person? I doubt it.