Your facts are correct, but I don't necessarily agree that SETI is crap. As you point out, we are unable to detect stray emissions from anything further away than 10 l-y. But we can detect focused emissions from much farther away - perhaps 1000 l-y or so (disclaimer: this is a wild-ass guess). So if a civilization is trying to be found and they are reasonably close we could potentially detect them. *If* we happened to be listening at the right time, *if* we happened to be tuned to the right frequency, and a lot of other ifs. The odds are low. Does this mean that we don't listen? Some would say "yes", but I think that means that we just have to listen that much more closely to improve the odds. Even if we never detect a signal, it's still useful scientific information - a negative result is still a result. Also, it costs us very little to try so there's not much to lose.
The key, though, is that for us to find a civilization they have to be trying to be found by broadcasting a message (or at least a carrier) more or less continuously. We aren't. Aside from a signal we sent to M13 (like we're going to find anything there!) many years ago, we aren't advertising that we're here. Maybe there's lots of other folks out there like us who just can't be bothered to dedicate an expensive radio telescope to sending signals that likely no one will ever hear.
...is "Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot" by Allen Holub. He has many things to say about programming style in general and he devotes an entire chapter to formatting and documentation. I find I actually agree with most of what he has to say. To me, the cardinal rule of commenting is:
In a comment, explain not what the code does, but why it does what it does. In other words, assume your reader knows the language the code is written in. Explain to him your thought processes as you were writing the code. I have found many of my own bugs this way before the code was even compiled.
Another point that Holub makes is that whitespace is a (very effective) form of comment. I like to group several lines together that are logically related and separate them from the rest of the code with a blank line. Think of them as paragraphs. Spaces before and after operators makes the code read better as well, eg, y = a + b;
Of course you can get too hung up on this stuff too. I'm sure holy wars have been waged over K&R braces vs. indented braces vs. outdented braces, not to mention how many lines to indent (correct answer: 4 *g*). The important point is to pick a style and go with it; be consistent.
Billions of dollars coming streaming down into our atmosphere.
Remember folks, this is a *good* thing. Radio astronomers all over the world are rejoicing. Yes, it's a huge waste of money. But none of it was your money, so relax (unless you have stock in Mot). It's just another product that didn't work out. Think of them as Edsels in space.
I *will* miss the cool flashes of light as they pass overhead, though. I saw a couple of them in broad daylight - probably mag. -6 or -7.
At about 10am (EST) it bottomed out, down ~10%. At the moment it seems to be rebounding - only down $1 7/16 (2%). Looking at the volume curve there was a huge selloff corresponding to the 10am drop, but something prevented an outright plunge and it's in reasonably good shape right now. Wouldn't surprise me if it finished up for the day.
I finally got Galeon up and running myself. I have mixed feelings about it. It's nice and fast, first of all, and I like the minimalistic approach. Up to a point. It's still missing a couple of key features that I need to do serious browsing with it. One is the ability to go back (or forward) more than one step at a time. The other is being able to open a link in a new window (middle click in Netscape). I use that all the time. Anybody know offhand whether the developers plan to add these features?
That's true, didn't seem that long ago that scientists were saying that there was no way we could detect extrasolar planets because our instruments weren't sensitive enough. Now not only are we detecting them, there is talk of building optical interferometers and such to *image* them.
Pretty soon it'll be a big deal if a star is discovered that *doesn't* have any planets.:)
keyboard is specialized. I know, there's that little numeric thingy on the right, but it's still hard to use. Where's the parenthesis, exponentiation, integration, log, trig, and other buttons?
Most Palm calc programs have all those features. And you don't have to use the numeric thingy if you don't wanna, you can just push buttons like you've always done. And you can get them in infix versions (including parentheses) if you're RPN-challenged.
Good point, but the calc pgms I've seen for the Palm don't use much in the way of menus - they use buttons on the screen. I'll admit that it's slightly faster to push buttons rather than tap 'virtual' buttons on the screen, but once you get used to it there's not much difference. Not enough (for me anyway) to justify the expense.
My Palm Pilot calculator does math, trig, financial (TVM), logic, statistics, as well as time, weight, length, area, temperature, volume, power/energy and currency conversions. Try to integrate on your HP/Ti calc.
First of all, this doesn't sound much like a calculator. It sounds more like a PDA. I mean the thing can play mp3s - at some point you can't call it a calculator anymore.
Secondly, PalmPilots, et al. are really the calculators to end all calculators anyway. Why buy a piece of hardware that only does one thing, when you could have one that runs whatever calculator software you like and a bunch of other stuff too. Want a calculator that uses infix notation? Install this application. Prefer RPN? Use this other program. Hell, use them both!
The days of dedicated hardware are gone. Even game consoles can do other things besides play games.
Ok, this is way OT, but please don't mod me to oblivion.
A few of us have noticed that the meta-mod link is now gone from the main/. page. If we go straight to metamod.pl, is says that we haven't been Slashdotters long enough to meta-mod even though we've meta-modded many times in the past. Does anyone have the scoop on this? Did they change the m2 rules so that you have to have been a member (for lack of a better word) longer? Did they disable it altogether? Go to the metamod page and post any info you may have. Thx.
On my version of Lookout (98), you have to go to Tools->Options and the headers show up in a little read-only text window inside the dialog. It does make it kind of a pain in the butt to forward spam to Spam Cop.
On my version of Lookout (98), you have to go to Tools->Options and the headers show up in a little read-only text window inside the dialog. It does make it kind of a pain in the butt to forward spam to Spam Cop.
Post a description of the problem to the kernel mailing list and ask for the appropriate developer to contact you over a private channel to get the source.
Re:Amazing Web page. Too bad it's "spun".
on
The History of UNIX
·
· Score: 1
Agreed. No mention either of the fact that after the Multics debacle, Thompson, Ritchie, et al. were in effect cast into the dungeon - banished to a grim building in a remote corner of the Murray Hill campus to meditate on the error of their ways. Which they did. They realized that the reason Multics failed was that it tried to do everything for everybody all at once. They saw that a more modular approach would be more flexible and robust. The Unix philosophy was born and the name was a play on words to let everybody know that this was not Multics; in fact it was quite the opposite.
My message says, "I'm not home. Think fast....beeep". At least once a day I get a message from a telemarketer along these lines: "Hello......hello.......may I speak to Greg Mizell?.....hello......click" Apparently they just can't think quite that fast.
Slashdot Mirror
Your facts are correct, but I don't necessarily agree that SETI is crap. As you point out, we are unable to detect stray emissions from anything further away than 10 l-y. But we can detect focused emissions from much farther away - perhaps 1000 l-y or so (disclaimer: this is a wild-ass guess). So if a civilization is trying to be found and they are reasonably close we could potentially detect them. *If* we happened to be listening at the right time, *if* we happened to be tuned to the right frequency, and a lot of other ifs. The odds are low. Does this mean that we don't listen? Some would say "yes", but I think that means that we just have to listen that much more closely to improve the odds. Even if we never detect a signal, it's still useful scientific information - a negative result is still a result. Also, it costs us very little to try so there's not much to lose.
The key, though, is that for us to find a civilization they have to be trying to be found by broadcasting a message (or at least a carrier) more or less continuously. We aren't. Aside from a signal we sent to M13 (like we're going to find anything there!) many years ago, we aren't advertising that we're here. Maybe there's lots of other folks out there like us who just can't be bothered to dedicate an expensive radio telescope to sending signals that likely no one will ever hear.
...is "Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot" by Allen Holub. He has many things to say about programming style in general and he devotes an entire chapter to formatting and documentation. I find I actually agree with most of what he has to say. To me, the cardinal rule of commenting is:
In a comment, explain not what the code does, but why it does what it does.
In other words, assume your reader knows the language the code is written in. Explain to him your thought processes as you were writing the code. I have found many of my own bugs this way before the code was even compiled.
Another point that Holub makes is that whitespace is a (very effective) form of comment. I like to group several lines together that are logically related and separate them from the rest of the code with a blank line. Think of them as paragraphs. Spaces before and after operators makes the code read better as well, eg, y = a + b;
Of course you can get too hung up on this stuff too. I'm sure holy wars have been waged over K&R braces vs. indented braces vs. outdented braces, not to mention how many lines to indent (correct answer: 4 *g*). The important point is to pick a style and go with it; be consistent.
Yeah, and dysprosium just doesn't have the same ring to it does it?
Yep
Billions of dollars coming streaming down into our atmosphere.
Remember folks, this is a *good* thing. Radio astronomers all over the world are rejoicing. Yes, it's a huge waste of money. But none of it was your money, so relax (unless you have stock in Mot). It's just another product that didn't work out. Think of them as Edsels in space.
I *will* miss the cool flashes of light as they pass overhead, though. I saw a couple of them in broad daylight - probably mag. -6 or -7.
At about 10am (EST) it bottomed out, down ~10%. At the moment it seems to be rebounding - only down $1 7/16 (2%). Looking at the volume curve there was a huge selloff corresponding to the 10am drop, but something prevented an outright plunge and it's in reasonably good shape right now. Wouldn't surprise me if it finished up for the day.
I finally got Galeon up and running myself. I have mixed feelings about it. It's nice and fast, first of all, and I like the minimalistic approach. Up to a point. It's still missing a couple of key features that I need to do serious browsing with it. One is the ability to go back (or forward) more than one step at a time. The other is being able to open a link in a new window (middle click in Netscape). I use that all the time. Anybody know offhand whether the developers plan to add these features?
Napster.
That's true, didn't seem that long ago that scientists were saying that there was no way we could detect extrasolar planets because our instruments weren't sensitive enough. Now not only are we detecting them, there is talk of building optical interferometers and such to *image* them.
:)
Pretty soon it'll be a big deal if a star is discovered that *doesn't* have any planets.
keyboard is specialized. I know, there's that little numeric thingy on the right, but it's still hard to use. Where's the parenthesis, exponentiation, integration, log, trig, and other buttons?
Most Palm calc programs have all those features. And you don't have to use the numeric thingy if you don't wanna, you can just push buttons like you've always done. And you can get them in infix versions (including parentheses) if you're RPN-challenged.
Good point, but the calc pgms I've seen for the Palm don't use much in the way of menus - they use buttons on the screen. I'll admit that it's slightly faster to push buttons rather than tap 'virtual' buttons on the screen, but once you get used to it there's not much difference. Not enough (for me anyway) to justify the expense.
My Palm Pilot calculator does math, trig, financial (TVM), logic, statistics, as well as time, weight, length, area, temperature, volume, power/energy and currency conversions. Try to integrate on your HP/Ti calc.
First of all, this doesn't sound much like a calculator. It sounds more like a PDA. I mean the thing can play mp3s - at some point you can't call it a calculator anymore.
Secondly, PalmPilots, et al. are really the calculators to end all calculators anyway. Why buy a piece of hardware that only does one thing, when you could have one that runs whatever calculator software you like and a bunch of other stuff too. Want a calculator that uses infix notation? Install this application. Prefer RPN? Use this other program. Hell, use them both!
The days of dedicated hardware are gone. Even game consoles can do other things besides play games.
Perhaps there's an Earth-like moon orbiting the Jupiter-like planet. Maybe.
The Universe orbits the United States of America. Don't believe me? Live here for a while.
So what would happen if some internet search engine figured out a way to provide a very up to date list of all files available via FTP?
Sorta like Lycos?
If you *do* get one, I'll be really confused since your user # is higher than all of us who "Haven't been Slashdot Users long enough" to meta-mod.
Ok, this is way OT, but please don't mod me to oblivion.
/. page. If we go straight to metamod.pl, is says that we haven't been Slashdotters long enough to meta-mod even though we've meta-modded many times in the past. Does anyone have the scoop on this? Did they change the m2 rules so that you have to have been a member (for lack of a better word) longer? Did they disable it altogether? Go to the metamod page and post any info you may have. Thx.
A few of us have noticed that the meta-mod link is now gone from the main
St. Louis is not easily accessed....it's just equally inaccessible for everyone.
On my version of Lookout (98), you have to go to Tools->Options and the headers show up in a little read-only text window inside the dialog. It does make it kind of a pain in the butt to forward spam to Spam Cop.
On my version of Lookout (98), you have to go to Tools->Options and the headers show up in a little read-only text window inside the dialog. It does make it kind of a pain in the butt to forward spam to Spam Cop.
yeah, i thought about that too....digital signatures?
Post a description of the problem to the kernel mailing list and ask for the appropriate developer to contact you over a private channel to get the source.
Agreed. No mention either of the fact that after the Multics debacle, Thompson, Ritchie, et al. were in effect cast into the dungeon - banished to a grim building in a remote corner of the Murray Hill campus to meditate on the error of their ways. Which they did. They realized that the reason Multics failed was that it tried to do everything for everybody all at once. They saw that a more modular approach would be more flexible and robust. The Unix philosophy was born and the name was a play on words to let everybody know that this was not Multics; in fact it was quite the opposite.
My message says, "I'm not home. Think fast....beeep". At least once a day I get a message from a telemarketer along these lines: "Hello......hello.......may I speak to Greg Mizell?.....hello......click" Apparently they just can't think quite that fast.