yes and no... there is a time and money tradeoff, for instance you notice he used a hauppauge card, which costs roughly twice as much but its MPEG encoding means virtually any hardware is capable.
Of course, for people with more money and less time, there are always people who will do the work for you. e.g. hushpc, or I see newegg sell a sort of bundle designed for mythtv.
Of course, none of these will come close to the price of TiVo. A top-of-the-line hushpc could easily set you back $1k
How about we wait until they're getting close to 50% market share _before_ we start to worry about AMD turning evil? AMD has a better product, and they have had a better product for _years_. Thanks to their better product, and our support, they have very slowly being gaining market share. However, they are still very much the underdog. If we withdraw support now and go with something else (transmeta?) then I would guess both AMD and transmeta would end up as minority players.
Curiously, I end up using C over Python most of the time and making exactly the same argument.
See, I love python, but I do a lot of 'research computing', 'scientific computing' or whatever you want to call it. Now, that means I often want fast prototyping (R and python) but equally I often want to run my program on more data than has been used before, I want to be the first to... and when you're trying to push your computer to the limit, python just doesn't cut it.
For the last project I did, I started in clean (functional language) because like python it is elegant and simple. But half way through I realised I couldn't afford to let the language do memory management for me and had to rewrite in C (with my own malloc).
C++ gives me the option of using the STL for tolerably fast prototyping, through to my own classes, through to malloc, through to writing my own malloc. Sure, it has many faults, but it does give freedom.
(Just thought I'd reply since it seemed funny to make the same argument in favour of both choices)
Java feels like it naturally builds large monolithic classes with plenty of features.
Python feels like it is intended for short data transformations and other simple 'do the job' stuff, kinda like a more elegant version of perl that is less tailored to text.
But the difference to me isn't really about language features, it comes down to syntax encouraging long (java) or short (python) constructions. I mean, you can write short(ish) java programs, and long python programs. Just the few long python programs I've fiddled with have felt harder to come to grips with, whereas the java ones still feel fairly coherant. That could just be the compertence of the people who designed it in the first place:-)
Exactly what message do you think is sent by: voting for some other candidate that cannot possibly win?
Because I think there isn't one, I think the one of the two potential winners looking at your vote will say: Damn, why can't they see voting for x is a waste of time?? But do your really think it will change their behaviour? More than voting for them?
Let me put it like this... Say you're a left-wing commie (same argument applies to nazi gun-nuts). You could vote for DEM, or for REP, or for the local commie party who represent your views. However, voting for the local commie party doesn't make them your representative, it makes whoever other people thought was best your representative. Essentially, your vote is almost useless unless it is the single vote that changes the result.
So let's say you're smart enough to understand that, and you vote for DEM as the best choice of representative for you. As a result of your vote, DEM wins the election -- your vote counted. Of course, the DEM candidate does lots of things that disgust you, though fewer than the REP candidate.
Next election, what do you think the positions of these two candidates will be? See, they're both trying to win, so they'll both try to appeal to as many people as possible. Since the electorate (you!) spoke last election and said: we prefer DEM's ideas to REP's ideas, REP will be selling a slightly modified set of ideas, designed to appeal to DEM leaning people -- there are more of them, or REP would have won last election. Similarly, DEM must shift further left to avoid being totally identical to REP -- they can get by with being similar, but not _too_ similar.
Again you vote DEM, and again your candidate wins. Again, the country has very slightly closer policies to those you support. Repeat until both parties policies approximate yours.
In a hypothetical world, there would be more than two candidates/viewpoints and voting for a third one would have some effect. We don't live in that world, so you can quit dreaming and act under the system we've got. There are ways to change the system, but playing make-believe is not among them.
Since you're playing under the system, the best option is to vote for whichever of DEM/REP most closely approximates your position. It doesn't matter if some third party approximates your position better because a vote for them will not affect the winner, and winning is the only thing that matters. Voting for the second place will make a slight difference, because next epoch it will make the race tighter.
Remembering this is/., think of it as reinforcement learning in a NN. You're running a winner-take-all NN with an incredibly complex system. You have k options you could vote for, but only votes for DEM/REP have any chance of changing the winner and THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE BEHAVIOUR IS TO CHANGE THE WINNER. So you place your vote, and next time the system shifts slightly in that direction. Next epoch, both options have shifted slightly in the direction you voted.
Just as in real life, voting for a third option in the NN won't affect the winner and so won't have the slightest effect on the NN's learning.
A couple years ago I was chatting to someone who developed a program where specs could be written in plain English. Specifically, Rational already has a spec language called controlled English that is simple enough for PHBs to _read_ (but not write, kinda the opposite of APL and perl;-)
Anyways, while PHBs cannot write controlled English, they can write English, so this guy treated the problem as human-assisted machine translation. However, it never seemed to take off. *shrug*
gmail doesn't have terribly good support for export; I've seen a POP3 interface but it didn't work so well. I guess as it gets more popular the tools will improve.
The import tools are still fairly primitive too -- I found some emails took forever to import (invariably spam), with no skipping support.
Nobody can read 1GB of text. Therefore the only way to use a gig of email is if either a) it isn't text, or b) you're not actually reading it.
For instance people getting MPEGs in the mail won't notice the difference between 1000MB and 1024MB. Similarly, people subscribed to a dozen mailinglists, hoping to use google to quickly find any message, won't notice the difference since a few days email will fill up the difference.
To make it really clear... say you can read 100 text emails a day. Now, if those emails are text they'll be about 5k, or around half a meg a day. So you're talking about six _years_ worth of email before you fill your box, with the extra 24MB getting you an extra month on your six years. For people getting ten text emails a day worth keeping, 1GB will probably hold enough email for life.
Firstly, I won't deny there is some truth to your point, the pay for dentists is high. But there are a couple things you've forgotten.
1) Setting up as a dentist costs a _lot_ of money. At least $100k in training, and more than that for the practice. Sure, you might die rich, but I think it takes 15 years before you're better off than someone who leaves school for a job at McDs. Of course, you don't have to buy a practice, but pay rates for associates are quite a bit lower. I know we had a lot more disposable money now than we did a couple years ago, and I expect we'll have more in a few years.
2) Your argument is used by pretty much everybody to lump costs on dentists. Guess how much it costs for the piece of paper saying you can use the radiograph, a rubber-stamp with no checking that has to be renewed every? How much for the annual practicing certificate? How much for litigation insurance? How much for continuing eduation (some courses cost $1000/day). Roughly speaking, for every $100 you pay your dentist, they will get $15 cash they can spend.
Corrin (Pissed off because we bought an iPod yesterday for my wife to use at work)
Right, I haven't spoken German for over five years but had no trouble following the pages to subscribe. I mean, anybody reading here would have subscribed to dozens of things over the net, you know the drill. It's much like those early AI attempts at the Turing test, with a tight script even a complete idiot can get by...
The only point I had any trouble was with the passwort vergessen question, where you choose something like your pet's name... I couldn't understand most of the questions so I just went with the one I could read (street you lived as a kid).
There isn't a free alternative available for linux (esp. since we're looking at the music store), and it will apparently never run in wine (though I can run it fine in VMWare).
If you do somehow get it to run (another computer perhaps) then playing.aac files is painless on linux.
Personally I get more from iTunes than from bricks & mortar. Possibly this is an age thing -- going into a music store makes me feel old so I don't just go in and browse. To be honest, I'm pretty lost in a music store now, even on the top 20 I wouldn't have heard of 19 of the artists.
I also find p2p helps somewhat. I hear something and thing, hmm that sound ok. I then download more from p2p and see if I like it before getting the CD. Though this is really just a backup for iTunes.
His description was incorrect, though very close to correct.
Firstly, Like QT, it is under a dual-licence. Secondly, remember GPL controls distribution, not use. Now, you can have the software distributed to you under the terms of sveasoft, which entitles you to upgrades, or under the terms of the GPL. The second option is there because they cannot take away rights under the GPL.
However, the extra rights they are providing (the subscription/upgrade model) are optional -- the GPL does not mandate them. Therefore, they can take them away for any reason whatsoever and in this case, they have said they will take away those bonus rights if you choose to excercise the distribution rights you got through the GPL.
It is much like where the GPL says: "You do not have to accept this licence, however this licence is the only thing permitting you distributing this software... etc." Either give up your cool subscription or choose not to excercise your GPL granted freedoms.
So to make it painfully simple: You have all the rights that the GPL gives you. They are asking you (using a stick) not to excercise them. But you still do have all those rights (and a few more).
She's still using the tyres that came with it. I suggested slicks to her, but she was worried about punctures -- she uses it to get to work and if she got a puncture she would be late.
Everything you're saying is true, but if you lower your standards even more you will see the opposite effect. For example when I go out riding with my wife I use my (20 year old) touring bike while she uses her (new) mountain bike. Now, my bike was pretty flash when it was new, but things have changed in 20 years... And despite her being fitter than me, I have to constantly slow down not to leave her behind -- casual effort on the touring bike is the equivilant of fairly hard work on the MTB.
Conclusion? At the top end the difference between a $500 bike and a $5000 bike may be swamped by the difference in rider ability, but at the bottom end the difference between a bike designed for on-road, and a bike designed for off-road swamps any difference in rider fitness.
As we gradually lose the ability to read, it becomes imperative to find alternate transmission formats of essential knowledge such as./ Based on this, I propose an automatic TTS service begin added to compliment the current RSS feed.
NZ swapped from a duopoly system to a multi-party system um, gosh, must be 9 years ago. It has been interesting watching the change. I would say that the politicians in charge, and especially the media have really not coped well with the change.
But, give it another 20 years and we'll see what happens (unless the politicians manage to hoodwink the public into voting it back).
Or my personal favourite, clean... but as long as you can write elegant lisp and prolog you should have no trouble picking up haskell, and I'd bet it will improve you programming in other languages.
Personally I can't stand ML, but then it all comes down to personal taste in the end.
Slashdot Mirror
yes and no... there is a time and money tradeoff, for instance you notice he used a hauppauge card, which costs roughly twice as much but its MPEG encoding means virtually any hardware is capable.
Of course, for people with more money and less time, there are always people who will do the work for you. e.g. hushpc, or I see newegg sell a sort of bundle designed for mythtv.
Of course, none of these will come close to the price of TiVo. A top-of-the-line hushpc could easily set you back $1k
I believe the first ? gets replaced with W; the second with i; and the third with n. But don't tell SCO...
Scandinavia?
;-)
Some small (island) countries.
That's all I can think of right now
I've been pretty happy with the ACM. They do a few things I disagree with, but less than I'd expect (if that makes sense)
How about we wait until they're getting close to 50% market share _before_ we start to worry about AMD turning evil? AMD has a better product, and they have had a better product for _years_. Thanks to their better product, and our support, they have very slowly being gaining market share. However, they are still very much the underdog. If we withdraw support now and go with something else (transmeta?) then I would guess both AMD and transmeta would end up as minority players.
Essentially, with python I get freedom..
... and when you're trying to push your computer to the limit, python just doesn't cut it.
Curiously, I end up using C over Python most of the time and making exactly the same argument.
See, I love python, but I do a lot of 'research computing', 'scientific computing' or whatever you want to call it. Now, that means I often want fast prototyping (R and python) but equally I often want to run my program on more data than has been used before, I want to be the first to
For the last project I did, I started in clean (functional language) because like python it is elegant and simple. But half way through I realised I couldn't afford to let the language do memory management for me and had to rewrite in C (with my own malloc).
C++ gives me the option of using the STL for tolerably fast prototyping, through to my own classes, through to malloc, through to writing my own malloc. Sure, it has many faults, but it does give freedom.
(Just thought I'd reply since it seemed funny to make the same argument in favour of both choices)
Java feels like it naturally builds large monolithic classes with plenty of features.
:-)
Python feels like it is intended for short data transformations and other simple 'do the job' stuff, kinda like a more elegant version of perl that is less tailored to text.
But the difference to me isn't really about language features, it comes down to syntax encouraging long (java) or short (python) constructions. I mean, you can write short(ish) java programs, and long python programs. Just the few long python programs I've fiddled with have felt harder to come to grips with, whereas the java ones still feel fairly coherant. That could just be the compertence of the people who designed it in the first place
I've already replied, but...
Exactly what message do you think is sent by: voting for some other candidate that cannot possibly win?
Because I think there isn't one, I think the one of the two potential winners looking at your vote will say: Damn, why can't they see voting for x is a waste of time?? But do your really think it will change their behaviour? More than voting for them?
Let me put it like this... Say you're a left-wing commie (same argument applies to nazi gun-nuts). You could vote for DEM, or for REP, or for the local commie party who represent your views. However, voting for the local commie party doesn't make them your representative, it makes whoever other people thought was best your representative. Essentially, your vote is almost useless unless it is the single vote that changes the result.
So let's say you're smart enough to understand that, and you vote for DEM as the best choice of representative for you. As a result of your vote, DEM wins the election -- your vote counted. Of course, the DEM candidate does lots of things that disgust you, though fewer than the REP candidate.
Next election, what do you think the positions of these two candidates will be? See, they're both trying to win, so they'll both try to appeal to as many people as possible. Since the electorate (you!) spoke last election and said: we prefer DEM's ideas to REP's ideas, REP will be selling a slightly modified set of ideas, designed to appeal to DEM leaning people -- there are more of them, or REP would have won last election. Similarly, DEM must shift further left to avoid being totally identical to REP -- they can get by with being similar, but not _too_ similar.
Again you vote DEM, and again your candidate wins. Again, the country has very slightly closer policies to those you support. Repeat until both parties policies approximate yours.
I've got to agree with Nyder here...
/., think of it as reinforcement learning in a NN. You're running a winner-take-all NN with an incredibly complex system. You have k options you could vote for, but only votes for DEM/REP have any chance of changing the winner and THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE BEHAVIOUR IS TO CHANGE THE WINNER. So you place your vote, and next time the system shifts slightly in that direction. Next epoch, both options have shifted slightly in the direction you voted.
In a hypothetical world, there would be more than two candidates/viewpoints and voting for a third one would have some effect. We don't live in that world, so you can quit dreaming and act under the system we've got. There are ways to change the system, but playing make-believe is not among them.
Since you're playing under the system, the best option is to vote for whichever of DEM/REP most closely approximates your position. It doesn't matter if some third party approximates your position better because a vote for them will not affect the winner, and winning is the only thing that matters. Voting for the second place will make a slight difference, because next epoch it will make the race tighter.
Remembering this is
Just as in real life, voting for a third option in the NN won't affect the winner and so won't have the slightest effect on the NN's learning.
A couple years ago I was chatting to someone who developed a program where specs could be written in plain English. Specifically, Rational already has a spec language called controlled English that is simple enough for PHBs to _read_ (but not write, kinda the opposite of APL and perl ;-)
Anyways, while PHBs cannot write controlled English, they can write English, so this guy treated the problem as human-assisted machine translation. However, it never seemed to take off. *shrug*
Hmm, /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.20 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.21 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.22 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.23 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.24 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.25 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.26 /mnt/usb/emerg-mail-backup/2004.07.27
;-)
2.8M
1.6M
1.6M
1.4M
1.5M
1.2M
1.6M
1.7M
Guess you're just more popular than me
gmail doesn't have terribly good support for export; I've seen a POP3 interface but it didn't work so well. I guess as it gets more popular the tools will improve.
The import tools are still fairly primitive too -- I found some emails took forever to import (invariably spam), with no skipping support.
Nobody can read 1GB of text. Therefore the only way to use a gig of email is if either a) it isn't text, or b) you're not actually reading it.
For instance people getting MPEGs in the mail won't notice the difference between 1000MB and 1024MB. Similarly, people subscribed to a dozen mailinglists, hoping to use google to quickly find any message, won't notice the difference since a few days email will fill up the difference.
To make it really clear... say you can read 100 text emails a day. Now, if those emails are text they'll be about 5k, or around half a meg a day. So you're talking about six _years_ worth of email before you fill your box, with the extra 24MB getting you an extra month on your six years. For people getting ten text emails a day worth keeping, 1GB will probably hold enough email for life.
ObBias: I'm married to a dentist.
Firstly, I won't deny there is some truth to your point, the pay for dentists is high. But there are a couple things you've forgotten.
1) Setting up as a dentist costs a _lot_ of money. At least $100k in training, and more than that for the practice. Sure, you might die rich, but I think it takes 15 years before you're better off than someone who leaves school for a job at McDs. Of course, you don't have to buy a practice, but pay rates for associates are quite a bit lower. I know we had a lot more disposable money now than we did a couple years ago, and I expect we'll have more in a few years.
2) Your argument is used by pretty much everybody to lump costs on dentists. Guess how much it costs for the piece of paper saying you can use the radiograph, a rubber-stamp with no checking that has to be renewed every? How much for the annual practicing certificate? How much for litigation insurance? How much for continuing eduation (some courses cost $1000/day). Roughly speaking, for every $100 you pay your dentist, they will get $15 cash they can spend.
Corrin (Pissed off because we bought an iPod yesterday for my wife to use at work)
Have a look at zoë, it does exactly what you're talking about.
Right, I haven't spoken German for over five years but had no trouble following the pages to subscribe. I mean, anybody reading here would have subscribed to dozens of things over the net, you know the drill. It's much like those early AI attempts at the Turing test, with a tight script even a complete idiot can get by...
The only point I had any trouble was with the passwort vergessen question, where you choose something like your pet's name... I couldn't understand most of the questions so I just went with the one I could read (street you lived as a kid).
There isn't a free alternative available for linux (esp. since we're looking at the music store), and it will apparently never run in wine (though I can run it fine in VMWare).
.aac files is painless on linux.
If you do somehow get it to run (another computer perhaps) then playing
Personally I get more from iTunes than from bricks & mortar. Possibly this is an age thing -- going into a music store makes me feel old so I don't just go in and browse. To be honest, I'm pretty lost in a music store now, even on the top 20 I wouldn't have heard of 19 of the artists.
I also find p2p helps somewhat. I hear something and thing, hmm that sound ok. I then download more from p2p and see if I like it before getting the CD. Though this is really just a backup for iTunes.
His description was incorrect, though very close to correct.
Firstly, Like QT, it is under a dual-licence. Secondly, remember GPL controls distribution, not use. Now, you can have the software distributed to you under the terms of sveasoft, which entitles you to upgrades, or under the terms of the GPL. The second option is there because they cannot take away rights under the GPL.
However, the extra rights they are providing (the subscription/upgrade model) are optional -- the GPL does not mandate them. Therefore, they can take them away for any reason whatsoever and in this case, they have said they will take away those bonus rights if you choose to excercise the distribution rights you got through the GPL.
It is much like where the GPL says: "You do not have to accept this licence, however this licence is the only thing permitting you distributing this software... etc." Either give up your cool subscription or choose not to excercise your GPL granted freedoms.
So to make it painfully simple: You have all the rights that the GPL gives you. They are asking you (using a stick) not to excercise them. But you still do have all those rights (and a few more).
She's still using the tyres that came with it. I suggested slicks to her, but she was worried about punctures -- she uses it to get to work and if she got a puncture she would be late.
Everything you're saying is true, but if you lower your standards even more you will see the opposite effect. For example when I go out riding with my wife I use my (20 year old) touring bike while she uses her (new) mountain bike. Now, my bike was pretty flash when it was new, but things have changed in 20 years... And despite her being fitter than me, I have to constantly slow down not to leave her behind -- casual effort on the touring bike is the equivilant of fairly hard work on the MTB.
Conclusion? At the top end the difference between a $500 bike and a $5000 bike may be swamped by the difference in rider ability, but at the bottom end the difference between a bike designed for on-road, and a bike designed for off-road swamps any difference in rider fitness.
As we gradually lose the ability to read, it becomes imperative to find alternate transmission formats of essential knowledge such as ./ Based on this, I propose an automatic TTS service begin added to compliment the current RSS feed.
NZ swapped from a duopoly system to a multi-party system um, gosh, must be 9 years ago. It has been interesting watching the change. I would say that the politicians in charge, and especially the media have really not coped well with the change.
But, give it another 20 years and we'll see what happens (unless the politicians manage to hoodwink the public into voting it back).
Also, disconnected imap doesn't crash any more
For people who got a different banner add, google for "version tracker pro" or click (assuming href is working again) here
Or my personal favourite, clean... but as long as you can write elegant lisp and prolog you should have no trouble picking up haskell, and I'd bet it will improve you programming in other languages.
Personally I can't stand ML, but then it all comes down to personal taste in the end.