At that rate, it takes 1246 days to cut off everybody, which is fairly precisely 3.5 years.
Not if the ISPs preempt that by crumbling and dying off like flies. Then it'll happen faster.
I'm glad this is happening somewhere other than my country first. If I'd be French, I'd look for some work that doesn't require any internet connection right now. Maybe McDonalds is hiring...
Re:Why is this news?
on
Facebook Is Down
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Since a few months ago, Facebook has surpassed Google as the website with the most traffic on the web. If #2 Google.com went down, it'd be here as well, so why not #1?
If I would manage someone who produced code like this, that person would be fired on the spot. This is not only bad coding, it shows a severe disregard for any common security practices. The feel for what you should do and shouldn't do (like validating all input) just isn't there. A server-side programmer seeing that kind of code is supposed to intuitively have an awkward feeling in his bowels and be unable to sleep until the problem is fixed in any way, not actually writing up and releasing this thing into the public for others to install. Note that I'm not talking about the more subtile bugs not mentioned in that article.
In my eyes, these programmers have lost all basis for trust of any kind, and should get some basic web programming education (they obviously have slept on that course if they ever attended it) before ever touching a code editor again.
I think using some cameras (infrared or visible light) and computer vision algorithms is way more reliable than GPS for determining whether you're still on the road and which lane you're in.
Hardware performance is not a linear scale. The PS2 had a lot of domain-specific specialized processors that would all have to be emulated on an SPU. Specialized processors are always faster at a task they were designed for than comparable generic processors. This is not a trivial task, and even the Windows-based emulators have some severe performance issues (at least when I tried one of them a year ago).
Additionally, since the games were coded for a fixed platform, they are very likely to rely on specific timings (like DVD loading performance), which are very hard to emulate, even when you have enough performance to do so.
If you think XMPP is only about instant messaging, you haven't looked into the protocol at all. I'm actually on facebook, so I know very well what's required for a direct competitor.
So, they started from scratch whipping up a solution that's potentially huge, with programmers that apparently aren't that experienced.
I question how intelligent this approach really is.
My solution would have been: Take a standard XMPP server, use its capabilities in the area of code stability, pubsub technology, server-to-server communication and properly documented communications protocol (as an RFC), and just write a javascript-based client (based on jQuery and strophe.js for example) that uses it. Any common server like ejabberd would be perfectly able to handle the stuff they need, no server-side coding required at all. As a bonus, the code has already been tested for security and has fewer bugs due to being out in the open for much longer.
Additionally, it would be trivial to have competing implementations. They already exist.
So you think just because there isn't a "Press Release" headline, that statement in the interview was done on a hunch and not effected by the marketing department in some way?
I actually have read the article, and it doesn't invalidate my statement. Half a year ago I talked to a scientist working in the area of multitouch surfaces, and he told me that their approach is horrible and that they're never going to get anywhere with it, except into installations that have too much money to spend.
When you have nothing to compete against a product, just post a press release containing promises about whatever the marketing department can come up with.
Given Microsoft's non-relevancy in the mobile area, this might fail horribly this time though.
Sure, I can sit here and watch Myth Busters and think that's the greatest job in the world... But I bet they have shitty days too. I bet they've got folks on staff that they can't stand working with. I bet they've got bosses telling them to do stupid things. I bet they have days when they really don't want to wake up and go in to work. I bet they have days when they just can't wait to get home and relax. I bet there's stretches where they don't know if they'll be doing another season, and don't know if they're going to have a reliable paycheck.
There are days when I think like you do, but most of them I think I'm just trying to convince myself of that so that I feel less shitty. I believe there are really people out there that do enjoy their job, that do enjoy having lots of cash to spend for minimal work, that do enjoy having free time so they can do some hobby projects.
That comparison isn't really fair, since those Chinese that get paid that low wage do get housing/food/utilities paid for, and they don't need land or transportation, since they live in special work camps with a daily bus that drives them straight to the factory every day (really every day, since there are no weekends). The money they earn goes straight to their families, since they don't have anything to spend it on themselves (and that's the motivation behind doing that job).
I couldn't agree more. The problem is that teaching institutions see a big degradation in student attendance and test results, and struggle to adapt to a modern life in any way. They see that tablets are the wave of the present, and so they try to hop on the train by copying their current material verbatim, completely missing the whole point of a computing device (the interactivity and networkability).
The real problem behind that is that it's still the same people, who learnt themselves in school that way and apparently can't think outside the box. It will probably take a whole (failed) generation to get schools onto the right track.
"Four of Alexandrias's largest school districts will be trying something new on eighth-grade algebra students this year: giving them books instead of scrolls. The devices come bound with separate pages of text, allowing students to flip through pages and scribble notes on in the margins. If the students with books turn out to do improve at a faster pace than their peers as expected, the program could soon spread throughout Egypt."
Also keep in mind that today's $500 iPad will probably be around $250 in a couple of years. and those are retail prices not educational institution prices.
That's not how Apple (and other companies aiming at higher priced products) works. They decide on a price point, and develop a product that is as good as it can get for that price. When the components get cheaper, they add more stuff to the device (like the better camera, more RAM and faster processor on iPhone 4) and keep at the same level. The only times when they lower it is when they decide that they made a mistake with the initial judgement (see Apple TV), or when they perceive a change in the market they have to follow.
For example, the price for the Mac Mini actually went UP over time. Same for the entry-level MacBook.
Actually, Crytek uses a post-processing effect in the deferred renderer for the two viewpoints for CryEngine 3. Rendering everything twice would obviously half the fps, but they state that they only get a 1.5% degradation using their technique.
Oh yea, I remember thinking to myself "damn, I probably have to get a new graphics card" when they announced that they've switched to the Unreal engine (version 1 that is), since my current one couldn't handle it.
Well, I am an engineer (computer science) with a Master's degree, and nearly all of the stuff I'm using at the job now I learned at home reading books, web pages, scientific papers and just fiddling around. Even the stuff I needed during studying I learned that way.
I dont't consider it such a bad choice. It had serious impact on culture in certain channels (just look at all the cake jokes), is a rather slowly-paced puzzle game most of the time, has something to say on lies and morality, is accessible due to the easy user interface (movement, jump, aim and the two portal keys), and most importantly is very short (It took me 6h, and I'm a very slow player looking at every corner). You woudn't want to require them playing through a game that takes a year to finish for unskilled players.
The problematic part is that iPhone 2G users won't get an update but are still susceptible to this bug, so they're SOL. Additionally, iOS 4 sucks on the iPhone 3G (nearly no new features, but much slower), so many are reluctant to update.
You're right, but then tell it by its real name: It's not about choice or freedom, it's about building community. Using the GPL means sacrificing the developer's freedom to build a community around a software product.
This is important, since it also gives you a hint about what's needed for building a working GPL product.
For example, take Google Wave: Google threw it out there, published the server source (maybe as GPL, I don't know), documented the protocol, and then did nothing more. Did a community build around it? Nope. That's because important non-software parts were missing.
Slashdot Mirror
At that rate, it takes 1246 days to cut off everybody, which is fairly precisely 3.5 years.
Not if the ISPs preempt that by crumbling and dying off like flies. Then it'll happen faster.
I'm glad this is happening somewhere other than my country first. If I'd be French, I'd look for some work that doesn't require any internet connection right now. Maybe McDonalds is hiring...
Since a few months ago, Facebook has surpassed Google as the website with the most traffic on the web. If #2 Google.com went down, it'd be here as well, so why not #1?
If I would manage someone who produced code like this, that person would be fired on the spot. This is not only bad coding, it shows a severe disregard for any common security practices. The feel for what you should do and shouldn't do (like validating all input) just isn't there. A server-side programmer seeing that kind of code is supposed to intuitively have an awkward feeling in his bowels and be unable to sleep until the problem is fixed in any way, not actually writing up and releasing this thing into the public for others to install. Note that I'm not talking about the more subtile bugs not mentioned in that article.
In my eyes, these programmers have lost all basis for trust of any kind, and should get some basic web programming education (they obviously have slept on that course if they ever attended it) before ever touching a code editor again.
I think using some cameras (infrared or visible light) and computer vision algorithms is way more reliable than GPS for determining whether you're still on the road and which lane you're in.
Hardware performance is not a linear scale. The PS2 had a lot of domain-specific specialized processors that would all have to be emulated on an SPU. Specialized processors are always faster at a task they were designed for than comparable generic processors. This is not a trivial task, and even the Windows-based emulators have some severe performance issues (at least when I tried one of them a year ago).
Additionally, since the games were coded for a fixed platform, they are very likely to rely on specific timings (like DVD loading performance), which are very hard to emulate, even when you have enough performance to do so.
If you think XMPP is only about instant messaging, you haven't looked into the protocol at all. I'm actually on facebook, so I know very well what's required for a direct competitor.
Here, let me help you with the spec on pubsub via XMPP.
In other words: Maybe you should brush up on just what this XMPP is all about before you comment.
So, they started from scratch whipping up a solution that's potentially huge, with programmers that apparently aren't that experienced.
I question how intelligent this approach really is.
My solution would have been: Take a standard XMPP server, use its capabilities in the area of code stability, pubsub technology, server-to-server communication and properly documented communications protocol (as an RFC), and just write a javascript-based client (based on jQuery and strophe.js for example) that uses it. Any common server like ejabberd would be perfectly able to handle the stuff they need, no server-side coding required at all. As a bonus, the code has already been tested for security and has fewer bugs due to being out in the open for much longer.
Additionally, it would be trivial to have competing implementations. They already exist.
So you think just because there isn't a "Press Release" headline, that statement in the interview was done on a hunch and not effected by the marketing department in some way?
I actually have read the article, and it doesn't invalidate my statement. Half a year ago I talked to a scientist working in the area of multitouch surfaces, and he told me that their approach is horrible and that they're never going to get anywhere with it, except into installations that have too much money to spend.
When you have nothing to compete against a product, just post a press release containing promises about whatever the marketing department can come up with.
Given Microsoft's non-relevancy in the mobile area, this might fail horribly this time though.
Sure, I can sit here and watch Myth Busters and think that's the greatest job in the world... But I bet they have shitty days too. I bet they've got folks on staff that they can't stand working with. I bet they've got bosses telling them to do stupid things. I bet they have days when they really don't want to wake up and go in to work. I bet they have days when they just can't wait to get home and relax. I bet there's stretches where they don't know if they'll be doing another season, and don't know if they're going to have a reliable paycheck.
There are days when I think like you do, but most of them I think I'm just trying to convince myself of that so that I feel less shitty. I believe there are really people out there that do enjoy their job, that do enjoy having lots of cash to spend for minimal work, that do enjoy having free time so they can do some hobby projects.
That comparison isn't really fair, since those Chinese that get paid that low wage do get housing/food/utilities paid for, and they don't need land or transportation, since they live in special work camps with a daily bus that drives them straight to the factory every day (really every day, since there are no weekends). The money they earn goes straight to their families, since they don't have anything to spend it on themselves (and that's the motivation behind doing that job).
Did you miss that there are 6 iPad models available?
However, there are some rumors about an iPad nano, that's true.
I couldn't agree more. The problem is that teaching institutions see a big degradation in student attendance and test results, and struggle to adapt to a modern life in any way. They see that tablets are the wave of the present, and so they try to hop on the train by copying their current material verbatim, completely missing the whole point of a computing device (the interactivity and networkability).
The real problem behind that is that it's still the same people, who learnt themselves in school that way and apparently can't think outside the box. It will probably take a whole (failed) generation to get schools onto the right track.
"Four of Alexandrias's largest school districts will be trying something new on eighth-grade algebra students this year: giving them books instead of scrolls. The devices come bound with separate pages of text, allowing students to flip through pages and scribble notes on in the margins. If the students with books turn out to do improve at a faster pace than their peers as expected, the program could soon spread throughout Egypt."
Since the iPads have a calculator pre-loaded
Actually, that's not true. The iPhone has one, but not the iPad. The mind boggles.
Also keep in mind that today's $500 iPad will probably be around $250 in a couple of years. and those are retail prices not educational institution prices.
That's not how Apple (and other companies aiming at higher priced products) works. They decide on a price point, and develop a product that is as good as it can get for that price. When the components get cheaper, they add more stuff to the device (like the better camera, more RAM and faster processor on iPhone 4) and keep at the same level. The only times when they lower it is when they decide that they made a mistake with the initial judgement (see Apple TV), or when they perceive a change in the market they have to follow.
For example, the price for the Mac Mini actually went UP over time. Same for the entry-level MacBook.
Actually, Crytek uses a post-processing effect in the deferred renderer for the two viewpoints for CryEngine 3. Rendering everything twice would obviously half the fps, but they state that they only get a 1.5% degradation using their technique.
Oh yea, I remember thinking to myself "damn, I probably have to get a new graphics card" when they announced that they've switched to the Unreal engine (version 1 that is), since my current one couldn't handle it.
Those were the times...
Well, I am an engineer (computer science) with a Master's degree, and nearly all of the stuff I'm using at the job now I learned at home reading books, web pages, scientific papers and just fiddling around. Even the stuff I needed during studying I learned that way.
I dont't consider it such a bad choice. It had serious impact on culture in certain channels (just look at all the cake jokes), is a rather slowly-paced puzzle game most of the time, has something to say on lies and morality, is accessible due to the easy user interface (movement, jump, aim and the two portal keys), and most importantly is very short (It took me 6h, and I'm a very slow player looking at every corner). You woudn't want to require them playing through a game that takes a year to finish for unskilled players.
No, 3.2.x is iPad-only.
The problematic part is that iPhone 2G users won't get an update but are still susceptible to this bug, so they're SOL. Additionally, iOS 4 sucks on the iPhone 3G (nearly no new features, but much slower), so many are reluctant to update.
You're right, but then tell it by its real name: It's not about choice or freedom, it's about building community. Using the GPL means sacrificing the developer's freedom to build a community around a software product.
This is important, since it also gives you a hint about what's needed for building a working GPL product.
For example, take Google Wave: Google threw it out there, published the server source (maybe as GPL, I don't know), documented the protocol, and then did nothing more. Did a community build around it? Nope. That's because important non-software parts were missing.
Couldn't it just be that it sucked and was an unusable concept to begin with? It was an engineering pet project.
Perhaps, you won't hear that explanation from engineers (which is the primary user base on /.), though :)
I personally believe it's item 1 combined with its sucky user interface (both in usability and speed).