Not in the California that I live in. You can register as a permanent vote-by-mail voter, and then California will mail your ballot to you. You just fill it out and mail it back, without having to talk to or even see anyone. You do have to sign the envelope you mail back, but I'm not sure how much security a signature provides. (cf www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_m.htm#perm)
The MS issue here is that they have presumed too much in their decision to take on Sony, whose cash reserves make MSes look like a child's savings account.
I just looked up the profiles of SNE (Sony) and MSFT (Microsoft) on the Yahoo finance site. Sony reports $6.6B in cash, Microsoft reports $38B in cash. In other words, Microsoft has almost 6 times as much cash as Sony -- $31 billion (billion!) more.
One notable new feature of XF 4.1 (for me at least) is that it is the first release to include Alan Hourihane's work on the glint driver that supports the SGI Flat Panel + 3dLabs Oxygen VX1 combo. I've been using my flat panel with CVS XFree86 for a while now and it rocks.
Funny, but there still will be Linuxworld conventions. What's closing is the crappy "magazine" that no one paid any attention to anyway.
This August's Linuxworld in San Francisco will be pretty interesting. Last year they decided to move the convention from the San Jose Convention Center to Moskone in SF, which is bigger. Are they going to have to do some fancy footwork to make a two-thirds empty Moskone look good after all the Linux companies scale down and/or pull out of the conference?
The kernel was then compiled using "
time make bzImage." The dual processor results were then done by first doing "make clean" then "time make -j3 bzImage".
This isn't really a good way to compare single processor results to dual processor results. The make -j3 lets make run three processes at once, which would lead to a speedup even on a single processor system, because disk I/O and CPU-bound compilation can overlap. The only totally fair way to compare is to boot a non-SMP kernel, run the benchmark, then boot an SMP kernel and run exactly the same benchmark.
Even though the 142% speedup is bogus, the two minute kernel compile is pretty damn fast.
Eventually you won't have to worry about rounding out your IDE cables. Low-end hard drives will go from parallel ATA to serial ATA. Serial ATA cables will be nice and thin with a lot few fewer conductors. You can read more about this at serialata.org, but the basic idea is that hard drives will transition to a software compatible, 1.5 Gb/s serial connection. Among the benefits promised are "easier routing of cables." A serial ATA drive has already demoed but they're not promising systems until 2002.
Phone companies sure can take away your phone number. I know because it happened to me. I was chilling out at home one day when I got a call from Pac Bell. The nice man told me that they had meant to give my phone number to someone else and so they'd have to give me a different one.
I asked, "Do I have a choice?" The nice man said, "No." So I had to tell everyone I know my new number. The worst part of it is that my current number used to belong to a fax machine and so I get fax calls at all hours.
I have a PhD from UC Berkeley. To get my PhD I had to write a thesis. When I turned in my thesis, I was required to publish it by signing an agreement with UMI allowing them to sell copies. Every other grad school I'm familiar with is similar.
I keep the copyright, and if UMI ever sells more than a few copies, they pay me royalties. (Although I'd be shocked if they ever sell another copy after the one my mom bought) Contentville is forwarding orders on to UMI, so I'd get paid if someone bought my thesis through Contentville.
The reason for requiring theses to be published is to ensure that the research they contain is always accessible. Sure, I'll send you a copy of my thesis if you ask me, and so will most other academics, but it's nice to have a central repository where theses are always available. Sometimes it's hard to find or get in touch with an author (try getting Ted Kaczynski's thesis directly from Ted!).
Basically this story seems like someone writing a book and then complaining when they discover Barnes & Noble selling it.
Patenting should not be allowed in this field of research.
Actually, I think patenting this type of machine is pretty reasonable. If you're going to allow patents at all, this type of invention is exactly what they were intended for: complex machines with intricate designs that require long, expensive research and development.
Now, if you're opposed to all patents, that's fine. But disallowing patents on devices used in biology doesn't make any sense and won't accomplish anything other than discouraging innovation.
I second the vote for adding a CPUID field for what MHz the chip was designed to run at. Overclockers wouldn't care but it would prevent this from becoming yet another reason to get a good 'ol Intel chip instead.
Unfortunately I don't think this can be made to work. Generally manufacturers use exactly the same silicon for a range of processor speed and only decide what to mark a given processor during testing. In other words 650MHz Athlons and 700MHz Athlons are probably the same chips; the 650MHz ones just couldn't pass testing at 700MHz.
Of course this means that the speed of a processor is controlled by something not on the actual chip. No matter what it is that sets the speed, it's theoretically possible for the remarkers to change. On a slotted processor it's reasonably easy to open the package and change the speed. I would guess that socketed Athlons (and P3s for that matter) will be harder to remark.
Uh... Alan Cox (maybe you've heard of him) is the one who coordinates the 2.2 maintenance releases.
For people who can't afford the random breakage that crops up with 2.3.x on their production machines, it's pretty important for bugs to continue to be fixed in the 2.2 series. Also backporting new drivers is pretty nice.
I know you're going to say "2.3.whatever is totally stable for me" but you probably can afford the risk of downtime. Also high loads seem to uncover bugs that most desktop users don't see.
I agree, but I said cut and paste. For example you mention one case: you realize some code should be in an object or subroutine. So you cut it, paste it elsewhere, and then have an extra step of reformatting. You may be different, but when I program I frequently discover places like this where the design can be improved after I start writing code.
Finally, about splitting long lines where you have a long list of arguements: again, you really shouldn't have arguement lists that long. This isn't really a hard-and-fast programming rule though, so if you *do* run into that, the rule in python is simple. Break lines on the commas. Indent them in the same way you would in C. Xemacs does this for me automatically.
I guess I didn't say exactly what I meant. I was really referring to the case where you have:
If I want to break that line up, I need to put in \s or python gets confused; if I end up reformatting it, I have to move the \s around. Unnecessary hassle.
Minor quibble: with python-mode in emacs, indent region works just fine.
No, it doesn't, because there is often more than one valid way to indent a region, and each way means something different. There always has to be a step when moving code inside a program where you tell the editor what the new indentation will be.
When I talked about "cut-n-paste", I wasn't talking about duplication code. In fact, I was talking about exactly the kind of things Refactoring is about: when you say, "oops, this code shouldn't be here, it should be in another subroutine." In Python, that's followed by, "oops, that code was 12 spaces to the left of where it needs to be now in its previous location -- no, I mean 8 spaces -- wait, what do I mean?" In most other languages, the editor can figure it out for me, but in Python, since the indentation carries meaning, it can't be done automatically.
I'd just like to throw in my two cents about Python's indentation. I know that this has been endlessly discussed and flamed, but I just can't help myself. Let me start by saying that I like Python and I think the language is well-designed. I really like writing quick GUI apps with pygtk and having lists, dictionaries, WWW libraries and the like available.
With that said, I don't think I would ever write a large project in Python because of the extreme syntactic significance of whitespace. Python boosters always say that it avoids "indentation bugs" (as you can get in Perl, where the indentation of a block doesn't match the actual block boundaries). They also claim that with a good editor it's a non-issue. I don't buy these arguments.
For one thing, if you want to move code from one place in your program, you run into trouble. I use emacs, and with perl-mode (or cc-mode) I can just cut, paste, and then do an indent-region. With python, I have to figure out how much the code needs to be indented in its new place and make sure I line it up correctly for things to work.
Second, my more minor quibble is that it's substantially more painful to split long lines in Python. If you have a long subroutine call in perl with lots of parameters and a long subroutine name, you can split it across multiple lines however you like without thinking about it. In Python, you have to take care about how you put newlines into long lines.
I really believe that the significance of whitespace in Python cuts down on my productivity when coding Python. If someone came up with a Python preprocessor that let me use {}'s and made whitespace not count, I'd be the first to sign up.
Still eager to take that "free PC" from your employer?
But these computers were not provided by Northwest. So this story has no relevance for employer-provided computers.
Second, this action does not seem that unreasonable in the context of a lawsuit. I think that framing it as a free speech issue is pretty misleading. These people are being sued for allegedly organizing an illegal sickout; their computers (and presumably paper communications) are being searched as part of the discovery process in the lawsuit.
No one (other than that idiot talking about "business speech") is trying to take away their right to say whatever they want. But as they always say on cop shows, "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
After all, not very many people seem to complain about the internal Microsoft emails that were used as evidence in the antitrust trial. The same principle is at work here, except in this case it's poor little union members on trial.
Then how come the new vid cards that use it sell for $100 more than the ones that don't? Just greed? Product differentiation?
Currently there isn't much supply of double data rate RAM so prices are high. But there's no licensing fees like there are for rambus so once DD gets ramped up, prices should be about the same as for standard SDRAM.
Slashdot Mirror
Not in the California that I live in. You can register as a permanent vote-by-mail voter, and then California will mail your ballot to you. You just fill it out and mail it back, without having to talk to or even see anyone. You do have to sign the envelope you mail back, but I'm not sure how much security a signature provides. (cf www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_m.htm#perm)
The MS issue here is that they have presumed too much in their decision to take on Sony, whose cash reserves make MSes look like a child's savings account.
I just looked up the profiles of SNE (Sony) and MSFT (Microsoft) on the Yahoo finance site. Sony reports $6.6B in cash, Microsoft reports $38B in cash. In other words, Microsoft has almost 6 times as much cash as Sony -- $31 billion (billion!) more.
One notable new feature of XF 4.1 (for me at least) is that it is the first release to include Alan Hourihane's work on the glint driver that supports the SGI Flat Panel + 3dLabs Oxygen VX1 combo. I've been using my flat panel with CVS XFree86 for a while now and it rocks.
Funny, but there still will be Linuxworld conventions. What's closing is the crappy "magazine" that no one paid any attention to anyway.
This August's Linuxworld in San Francisco will be pretty interesting. Last year they decided to move the convention from the San Jose Convention Center to Moskone in SF, which is bigger. Are they going to have to do some fancy footwork to make a two-thirds empty Moskone look good after all the Linux companies scale down and/or pull out of the conference?
The article states:
This isn't really a good way to compare single processor results to dual processor results. The make -j3 lets make run three processes at once, which would lead to a speedup even on a single processor system, because disk I/O and CPU-bound compilation can overlap. The only totally fair way to compare is to boot a non-SMP kernel, run the benchmark, then boot an SMP kernel and run exactly the same benchmark.
Even though the 142% speedup is bogus, the two minute kernel compile is pretty damn fast.
The announcement from Redhat on LWN that gives details about what's new is here.
Yes, they've wised up. From their announcement:
...a really kick-ass IRC client that takes advantage of the multithreaded BeOS to let users chat in multiple channels at once.
MS Driod: Its good, we don't have anything like it, lets buy the company.
Tech Dude: Uhh, Sir, this runs on Linux. We *CANT* aquire them.
Unfortunately companies whose products run on Linux can be bought in exactly the same way as other companies. Just ask Cobalt.
Those products can be ported to other operating systems too, even Windows. (Shocking, but not every port is a game port to Linux)
You can follow the action on the Debian Hurd mailing list (which is slow but nowhere near dead) at the Debian Hurd Kernel Cousin.
Bottom line is that people are getting things like X and PPP going, so there's definite progress toward a system you could use every day.
Eventually you won't have to worry about rounding out your IDE cables. Low-end hard drives will go from parallel ATA to serial ATA. Serial ATA cables will be nice and thin with a lot few fewer conductors. You can read more about this at serialata.org, but the basic idea is that hard drives will transition to a software compatible, 1.5 Gb/s serial connection. Among the benefits promised are "easier routing of cables." A serial ATA drive has already demoed but they're not promising systems until 2002.
...that euro company, Bitboys? Aren't they designing some wonder graphics chip?
OK, I'm just asking this because I love saying their name... (Bitboys OY!)
Phone companies sure can take away your phone number. I know because it happened to me. I was chilling out at home one day when I got a call from Pac Bell. The nice man told me that they had meant to give my phone number to someone else and so they'd have to give me a different one.
I asked, "Do I have a choice?" The nice man said, "No." So I had to tell everyone I know my new number. The worst part of it is that my current number used to belong to a fax machine and so I get fax calls at all hours.
I have a PhD from UC Berkeley. To get my PhD I had to write a thesis. When I turned in my thesis, I was required to publish it by signing an agreement with UMI allowing them to sell copies. Every other grad school I'm familiar with is similar.
I keep the copyright, and if UMI ever sells more than a few copies, they pay me royalties. (Although I'd be shocked if they ever sell another copy after the one my mom bought) Contentville is forwarding orders on to UMI, so I'd get paid if someone bought my thesis through Contentville.
The reason for requiring theses to be published is to ensure that the research they contain is always accessible. Sure, I'll send you a copy of my thesis if you ask me, and so will most other academics, but it's nice to have a central repository where theses are always available. Sometimes it's hard to find or get in touch with an author (try getting Ted Kaczynski's thesis directly from Ted!).
Basically this story seems like someone writing a book and then complaining when they discover Barnes & Noble selling it.
Patenting should not be allowed in this field of research.
Actually, I think patenting this type of machine is pretty reasonable. If you're going to allow patents at all, this type of invention is exactly what they were intended for: complex machines with intricate designs that require long, expensive research and development.
Now, if you're opposed to all patents, that's fine. But disallowing patents on devices used in biology doesn't make any sense and won't accomplish anything other than discouraging innovation.
I second the vote for adding a CPUID field for what MHz the chip was designed to run at. Overclockers wouldn't care but it would prevent this from becoming yet another reason to get a good 'ol Intel chip instead.
Unfortunately I don't think this can be made to work. Generally manufacturers use exactly the same silicon for a range of processor speed and only decide what to mark a given processor during testing. In other words 650MHz Athlons and 700MHz Athlons are probably the same chips; the 650MHz ones just couldn't pass testing at 700MHz.
Of course this means that the speed of a processor is controlled by something not on the actual chip. No matter what it is that sets the speed, it's theoretically possible for the remarkers to change. On a slotted processor it's reasonably easy to open the package and change the speed. I would guess that socketed Athlons (and P3s for that matter) will be harder to remark.
Uh... Alan Cox (maybe you've heard of him) is the one who coordinates the 2.2 maintenance releases.
For people who can't afford the random breakage that crops up with 2.3.x on their production machines, it's pretty important for bugs to continue to be fixed in the 2.2 series. Also backporting new drivers is pretty nice.
I know you're going to say "2.3.whatever is totally stable for me" but you probably can afford the risk of downtime. Also high loads seem to uncover bugs that most desktop users don't see.
you should never ever copy and paste code!
I agree, but I said cut and paste. For example you mention one case: you realize some code should be in an object or subroutine. So you cut it, paste it elsewhere, and then have an extra step of reformatting. You may be different, but when I program I frequently discover places like this where the design can be improved after I start writing code.
Finally, about splitting long lines where you have a long list of arguements: again, you really shouldn't have arguement lists that long. This isn't really a hard-and-fast programming rule though, so if you *do* run into that, the rule in python is simple. Break lines on the commas. Indent them in the same way you would in C. Xemacs does this for me automatically.
I guess I didn't say exactly what I meant. I was really referring to the case where you have:
a=first_object.verbose_method_name(b,c)+second_obj ect.well_documented_method_name(d )/appropriate_scale_factor
If I want to break that line up, I need to put in \s or python gets confused; if I end up reformatting it, I have to move the \s around. Unnecessary hassle.
Minor quibble: with python-mode in emacs, indent region works just fine.
No, it doesn't, because there is often more than one valid way to indent a region, and each way means something different. There always has to be a step when moving code inside a program where you tell the editor what the new indentation will be.
When I talked about "cut-n-paste", I wasn't talking about duplication code. In fact, I was talking about exactly the kind of things Refactoring is about: when you say, "oops, this code shouldn't be here, it should be in another subroutine." In Python, that's followed by, "oops, that code was 12 spaces to the left of where it needs to be now in its previous location -- no, I mean 8 spaces -- wait, what do I mean?" In most other languages, the editor can figure it out for me, but in Python, since the indentation carries meaning, it can't be done automatically.
I'd just like to throw in my two cents about Python's indentation. I know that this has been endlessly discussed and flamed, but I just can't help myself. Let me start by saying that I like Python and I think the language is well-designed. I really like writing quick GUI apps with pygtk and having lists, dictionaries, WWW libraries and the like available.
With that said, I don't think I would ever write a large project in Python because of the extreme syntactic significance of whitespace. Python boosters always say that it avoids "indentation bugs" (as you can get in Perl, where the indentation of a block doesn't match the actual block boundaries). They also claim that with a good editor it's a non-issue. I don't buy these arguments.
For one thing, if you want to move code from one place in your program, you run into trouble. I use emacs, and with perl-mode (or cc-mode) I can just cut, paste, and then do an indent-region. With python, I have to figure out how much the code needs to be indented in its new place and make sure I line it up correctly for things to work.
Second, my more minor quibble is that it's substantially more painful to split long lines in Python. If you have a long subroutine call in perl with lots of parameters and a long subroutine name, you can split it across multiple lines however you like without thinking about it. In Python, you have to take care about how you put newlines into long lines.
I really believe that the significance of whitespace in Python cuts down on my productivity when coding Python. If someone came up with a Python preprocessor that let me use {}'s and made whitespace not count, I'd be the first to sign up.
The post said:
Still eager to take that "free PC" from your employer?
But these computers were not provided by Northwest. So this story has no relevance for employer-provided computers.
Second, this action does not seem that unreasonable in the context of a lawsuit. I think that framing it as a free speech issue is pretty misleading. These people are being sued for allegedly organizing an illegal sickout; their computers (and presumably paper communications) are being searched as part of the discovery process in the lawsuit.
No one (other than that idiot talking about "business speech") is trying to take away their right to say whatever they want. But as they always say on cop shows, "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
After all, not very many people seem to complain about the internal Microsoft emails that were used as evidence in the antitrust trial. The same principle is at work here, except in this case it's poor little union members on trial.
Take a look at gnome-o-phone. It's a free (GPLed) internet telephone for Linux.
Then how come the new vid cards that use it sell for $100 more than the ones that don't? Just greed? Product differentiation?
Currently there isn't much supply of double data rate RAM so prices are high. But there's no licensing fees like there are for rambus so once DD gets ramped up, prices should be about the same as for standard SDRAM.