Finally, I'd like to submit one last idea. Right now, there are three technologies that are capable of providing good TV, Internet and Telephony services. That would be the telephone companies' copper (or fiber), the cable companies' coax (or fiber) and wireless broadband. If all of these technologies can provide the same services, I really don't care if each is a monopoly. As long as they compete with each other, prices will go down and service will go up. What I don't want to see is one company controlling all of these technologies in the same area.
In the most extensive independent study of broadband to date, the National Research Council came to a mixed conclusion regarding interplatform competition. The report found that interplatform, or "facilities based," competition, is important and should be encouraged. But it also predicted it would not take hold everywhere and should not be relied on exclusively for consumer protection.
Witness the awe inspiring, gore splattering, all out rumble! Endure the bone-shaking battle of the century! You will not believe what you see this weekend at the Rosemont Horison! The First Church Of Digital Grepping will pit it's strength against old-school Islam! Call now! Tickets limited!
Professor Frink: Well, theoretically, yes. But the computer matches would be so perfect as to eliminate the thrill of romantic conquest. Mw-hurgn-whey.
I was wondering how to tie a World Cup story into Slashdot. Congratulations to Senegal.
Well, Michael, I can create you a genetic program for this situation. You can tell it "I want/. to feature xxx-flavor-of-the-day", and it will come up with a snappy headline, and a nice semi-controvertial article. So what if the links it makes up are fabricated, I mean no one actually follows them anyway, right?
The best part is, I can build it for you at the rock-bottom price of just $5,000,000!
anti-antipatterns
on
Bitter Java
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If design patterns are used correctly, they accomplish one of 2 things, but rarely both:
they speed up the development of a system or
they speed up the execution of a system
This is, of course, one of the fundamental trade-offs that us computer programmers make all the time. The important part is choosing a pattern that is appropriate for the system. For example, the flyweight pattern is used to limit/reuse objects in a system. It is appropriate to use this pattern when top execution speed is necessary, but the price is the complexity of implementation.
The facade pattern, OTOH, is designed to make life simpler for programmers, potentially at the cost of execution speed.
It sounds to me like this guy has trouble picking the appropriate patterns from the start.
Just for kicks, I have been experimenting with my own processor design using TkGate for the past few weeks. TkGate is a great digital circuit simulator with lots of neat features.
I built a working lcd display simulator out of the built-in LED outputs that is connected to some video memory. I also built a data bus that is partially working. I am currently playing with connecting the ALU. I even built an assembler and a cheap assembly language for it:-) Once I add block device support, I want to write a simple OS with a built-in shell for it:-)
Information itself becomes free (or do I mean worthless?), but metadata?the means of organizing information?is priceless.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lars Ulrich! Because graveyhead is a database/sql nerd he becomes the star because he can organize all the worthless Metallica tracks!
I just love buying the same book twice because the cover changed
Eew, even worse about six years ago I bought two titles from a certain unnamed snail-mail based bookseller, one titled "Power Macintosh Programming Starter Kit". I forget the title of the other one, 'cause I gave it to a friend a long time ago, but the topic was similar, Power Macintosh programming around the time when the PowerPC was first released. Here's the kicker: the content of the books was identical, although they listed different authors! Access to a database like this would've saved me $29.95 + shipping. At least I had a friend who was interested in the same topic so I could at least give it to someone as a present.
The only problem I see with your point is this: how, exactly does management *know* they will be able to get support for your products in the future? If I'm right, and you are talking about big blue, you are correct to an extent. Any other company, however, could fold tomorrow. Where does the ex-customer go for support in that case? Although it wouldn't come "straight from the horses mouth", popular OSS projects will continue to be supported potentially even after the original author or development group is long gone.
Case in point, Loki developed a neat audio API called "OpenAL". Although they are now defunct, the API lives on, and you could pay me to support your OpenAL based project. The project and support for it will continue to remain alive as long as it remains useful.
I know this is slightly offtopic, but I have been waiting for an excuse to publish it, so here goes anyway.
I seriously believe that Microsoft is fully correct about this aspect of the GPL. *graveyhead dons asbestos underpants*. The GPL is communist with respect to the fact that it puts everyone (even Microsoft) on the same playing field. Just because it didn't work well as a means of government and economy doesn't mean that the ideas of Carl Marx, et. al. were totally defunct.
Microsoft, however, has used the statement to spin it as evil, in the same way as the US government treated communism during the cold war. I thought we were over that as a species.
I've always found it frustrating that the superior products produced by the Apache foundation are so sorely underrated by the mainstream media. Buzzwords like "BroadVision" and "WebSphere" are pounded into the heads of middle management by way of large advertising budgets. The truth is, however, that I can do anything a BroadVision developer can do *with no software cost whatsoever*
Cocoon is a brilliant publishing system which combines many of the Apache projects: Xalan for XSLT transformations of all kinds, FOP for building dynamic PDFs (don't pay Adobe but use their format anyway:-) from XSL:FO, Batik for building dynamic SVGs, and a ton of library code that makes building dynamic websites very easy.
Not to mention, Apache has provided us with solid implementations of *many* w3c and Java specifications, including SOAP for XML based RPC, and JServ and Tomcat Java servlet engines.
My point is only this: appreciate The Apache Foundation because they totally rock!
Does anyone know who (if anyone) is going to maintain OpenAL? This is a promising spatial audio api, and I would hate to see it go by the wayside. Already I see dead links on their site (e.g. CVS server), and have to find backup FTP servers to get access.
Interesting... although I was pictuing capture to DVD/RW as more of an interactive thing... the dumb terminals could potentially have a recorder, and the user could record whatever/whenever they wanted to DVD.
The main problem I see is that a robotic arm would add the other $4.95M development cost that the poster of the previous reply suggested:-)
I have done a little bit of other exploratory thinking along these lines, and I came up with two other solutions:
* tape backup (yuk)
* network backup
Potentially, I was picturing the closet server hooked up to a high speed internet connection of some kind (after all it's for rich people). Maybe there could be a "shared backup" server where everone who recorded a program has the ability to use some common network disk space. A program would only have to exist in network storage once even if many users wanted to save it.
Oh god how I HATE grammar and spelling nazis like yourself. Do you really think I would send a proposal for any system to a venture c-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-s-t without checking this kind of thing first? I just knocked out a post in 2 seconds to harvest some ideas from the slashdot crowd, and you're not helping.
Even though I was joking somewhat about the development cost, I could build this beast for $50k, though it might be tight. I can do all the hardware assembly myself, from off the shelf parts. I can also do all the programming, networking, sysadmin, and system building, having been a C developer for the past 17 years. The only thing I might outsource is GUI design, and I have plenty of friends that do that for a living. I figure about $10-15k of that is hardware cost/GUI design, and the other ~$30k pays my bills and keeps me eating for the six to eight months while I build it.
If you have $5M to spare, though, I wouldn't say "no".
This is exactly what I've been looking for for my massive media closet project.
The idea is to build a tivo-like device for rich people with terrabytes of storage, so you don't have to delete shows when you are done if you don't want to. It would be attached to 200 DVD and 200 CD changers. When the user buys a new CD or DVD, they pop it in the media closet.
Each individual TV would have a dumb terminal machine that connects to the closet server via bluetooth networking. Video would be streamed on demand from the server closet to any one of the remote terminals.
The remote control would be a Palm V, also with bluetooth networking. A unified interface would control access to all media including recorded TV shows, all DVDs and all CDs.
The audio component would be similar to what many people have in their homes currently, with speaker wire running through the walls.
Now, anyone have about $50000 venture capitol for me so I can build the prototype?:-)
I apologise but I don't know how this post ended up in this thread. I posted to "Ask Slashdot: Beginning Project Documentation?", but forgot to login. It prompted me to login... I submitted and it ended up here!?!?!
In this situation, I use XML. I invent my own markup language that is self-consistent and describes the API of a system. I then use an XSLT processor, Apache Xalan to be precise, to transform the source to various other formats including: a web site, one big printable web page, PDF, and I've been thinking about writing a stylesheet for man pages as well.
The only issue with a system like this is version control of your source files, which is highly situation specific.
If not, this generation of WPA is now surely toast. If so, I guess they'll have to change the name to "Product Cracktivation":-D Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I have invented this awesome technology. I call it "battery bootsrapping". Just take any ordinary battery operated electrical device and start it up with the batteries in place. While the apparatus is running, remove the batteries. Voila! YMMV, but my palm operated for exactly 0.00013 seconds before dying... zero point energy!
I assume you mean Kinko's. They were seriously burned about seven years ago when several large textbook publishers sued them from making their "couseworks" packages... copies of teacher selections from textbooks all bound together in a nice package... *much* cheaper for students (esp. in poorer communities). It would have cost more than it was worth to get permission for every single passage. Since then, they have been training all "co-workers" (ha!) to refuse to copy any material that they suspect is copyrighted.
This is cool, but I have a question: do you mean you copy each source tree into the ram disk before you build? If so, how do you avoid running out of space when building libc or xfree86?
Slashdot Mirror
How about the RSA factoring challenge? The biggest prize is $200,000 for the 2048 bit key (256 bytes). That makes it about $781 per byte.
Witness the awe inspiring, gore splattering, all out rumble! Endure the bone-shaking battle of the century! You will not believe what you see this weekend at the Rosemont Horison! The First Church Of Digital Grepping will pit it's strength against old-school Islam! Call now! Tickets limited!
Apu: Could it be used for dating?
Professor Frink: Well, theoretically, yes. But the computer matches would be so perfect as to eliminate the thrill of romantic conquest. Mw-hurgn-whey.
Well, Michael, I can create you a genetic program for this situation. You can tell it "I want /. to feature xxx-flavor-of-the-day", and it will come up with a snappy headline, and a nice semi-controvertial article. So what if the links it makes up are fabricated, I mean no one actually follows them anyway, right?
The best part is, I can build it for you at the rock-bottom price of just $5,000,000!
they speed up the development of a system
or
they speed up the execution of a system
This is, of course, one of the fundamental trade-offs that us computer programmers make all the time. The important part is choosing a pattern that is appropriate for the system. For example, the flyweight pattern is used to limit/reuse objects in a system. It is appropriate to use this pattern when top execution speed is necessary, but the price is the complexity of implementation.
The facade pattern, OTOH, is designed to make life simpler for programmers, potentially at the cost of execution speed.
It sounds to me like this guy has trouble picking the appropriate patterns from the start.
Just for kicks, I have been experimenting with my own processor design using TkGate for the past few weeks. TkGate is a great digital circuit simulator with lots of neat features.
:-) Once I add block device support, I want to write a simple OS with a built-in shell for it :-)
I built a working lcd display simulator out of the built-in LED outputs that is connected to some video memory. I also built a data bus that is partially working. I am currently playing with connecting the ALU. I even built an assembler and a cheap assembly language for it
Anyone else remember pixelon? You'd think investers would learn from their past mistakes...
Hmm. Big blue? :-)
The only problem I see with your point is this: how, exactly does management *know* they will be able to get support for your products in the future? If I'm right, and you are talking about big blue, you are correct to an extent. Any other company, however, could fold tomorrow. Where does the ex-customer go for support in that case? Although it wouldn't come "straight from the horses mouth", popular OSS projects will continue to be supported potentially even after the original author or development group is long gone.
Case in point, Loki developed a neat audio API called "OpenAL". Although they are now defunct, the API lives on, and you could pay me to support your OpenAL based project. The project and support for it will continue to remain alive as long as it remains useful.
I know this is slightly offtopic, but I have been waiting for an excuse to publish it, so here goes anyway.
I seriously believe that Microsoft is fully correct about this aspect of the GPL. *graveyhead dons asbestos underpants*. The GPL is communist with respect to the fact that it puts everyone (even Microsoft) on the same playing field. Just because it didn't work well as a means of government and economy doesn't mean that the ideas of Carl Marx, et. al. were totally defunct.
Microsoft, however, has used the statement to spin it as evil, in the same way as the US government treated communism during the cold war. I thought we were over that as a species.
Now, go forth and write code, comrades!
I've always found it frustrating that the superior products produced by the Apache foundation are so sorely underrated by the mainstream media. Buzzwords like "BroadVision" and "WebSphere" are pounded into the heads of middle management by way of large advertising budgets. The truth is, however, that I can do anything a BroadVision developer can do *with no software cost whatsoever*
:-) from XSL:FO, Batik for building dynamic SVGs, and a ton of library code that makes building dynamic websites very easy.
Cocoon is a brilliant publishing system which combines many of the Apache projects: Xalan for XSLT transformations of all kinds, FOP for building dynamic PDFs (don't pay Adobe but use their format anyway
Not to mention, Apache has provided us with solid implementations of *many* w3c and Java specifications, including SOAP for XML based RPC, and JServ and Tomcat Java servlet engines.
My point is only this: appreciate The Apache Foundation because they totally rock!
Open Source advocates may find opposing Hollings bill makes for strange bedfellows. It actually suggests that Microsoft might be our ally (gasp!) because of their recently found devotion to streaming media and peer to peer networking.
Whoops, here's the correct link. Aparently "openal.org" takes you to the loki site, but "www.openal.org" works fine. Duh.
Does anyone know who (if anyone) is going to maintain OpenAL? This is a promising spatial audio api, and I would hate to see it go by the wayside. Already I see dead links on their site (e.g. CVS server), and have to find backup FTP servers to get access.
Interesting... although I was pictuing capture to DVD/RW as more of an interactive thing... the dumb terminals could potentially have a recorder, and the user could record whatever/whenever they wanted to DVD.
:-)
The main problem I see is that a robotic arm would add the other $4.95M development cost that the poster of the previous reply suggested
I have done a little bit of other exploratory thinking along these lines, and I came up with two other solutions:
* tape backup (yuk)
* network backup
Potentially, I was picturing the closet server hooked up to a high speed internet connection of some kind (after all it's for rich people). Maybe there could be a "shared backup" server where everone who recorded a program has the ability to use some common network disk space. A program would only have to exist in network storage once even if many users wanted to save it.
Oh god how I HATE grammar and spelling nazis like yourself. Do you really think I would send a proposal for any system to a venture c-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-s-t without checking this kind of thing first? I just knocked out a post in 2 seconds to harvest some ideas from the slashdot crowd, and you're not helping.
Even though I was joking somewhat about the development cost, I could build this beast for $50k, though it might be tight. I can do all the hardware assembly myself, from off the shelf parts. I can also do all the programming, networking, sysadmin, and system building, having been a C developer for the past 17 years. The only thing I might outsource is GUI design, and I have plenty of friends that do that for a living. I figure about $10-15k of that is hardware cost/GUI design, and the other ~$30k pays my bills and keeps me eating for the six to eight months while I build it.
If you have $5M to spare, though, I wouldn't say "no".
:-P
This is exactly what I've been looking for for my massive media closet project.
:-)
The idea is to build a tivo-like device for rich people with terrabytes of storage, so you don't have to delete shows when you are done if you don't want to. It would be attached to 200 DVD and 200 CD changers. When the user buys a new CD or DVD, they pop it in the media closet.
Each individual TV would have a dumb terminal machine that connects to the closet server via bluetooth networking. Video would be streamed on demand from the server closet to any one of the remote terminals.
The remote control would be a Palm V, also with bluetooth networking. A unified interface would control access to all media including recorded TV shows, all DVDs and all CDs.
The audio component would be similar to what many people have in their homes currently, with speaker wire running through the walls.
Now, anyone have about $50000 venture capitol for me so I can build the prototype?
I apologise but I don't know how this post ended up in this thread. I posted to "Ask Slashdot: Beginning Project Documentation?", but forgot to login. It prompted me to login... I submitted and it ended up here!?!?!
In this situation, I use XML. I invent my own markup language that is self-consistent and describes the API of a system. I then use an XSLT processor, Apache Xalan to be precise, to transform the source to various other formats including: a web site, one big printable web page, PDF, and I've been thinking about writing a stylesheet for man pages as well.
The only issue with a system like this is version control of your source files, which is highly situation specific.
If not, this generation of WPA is now surely toast. If so, I guess they'll have to change the name to "Product Cracktivation" :-D Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I have invented this awesome technology. I call it "battery bootsrapping". Just take any ordinary battery operated electrical device and start it up with the batteries in place. While the apparatus is running, remove the batteries. Voila! YMMV, but my palm operated for exactly 0.00013 seconds before dying... zero point energy!
It's a shame.
This is cool, but I have a question: do you mean you copy each source tree into the ram disk before you build? If so, how do you avoid running out of space when building libc or xfree86?