Wikipedia is wrong; the original system worked as described but an ammendment was quickly passed to change to the current system: The vice-president is the running mate of the president.
I believe this was done because early Presidents (post-Washington) had trouble cooperating with the Vice Presidents (who came from a different party), or vice-versa (whichever you prefer).
Since Patent law was only changed in 1995 to make it 20 years this patent is only effective for 17 years (which was the previous standard.)
It expires in 2005.
Re:interesting but it's not really true
on
Murphy's Law Rules NASA
·
· Score: 2, Informative
No, it isn't. The Saturn V rocket was the most complicated and largest system ever built by man at the time and launched without a SINGLE failure for its entire operational life. The vehicles and satellites it carried had problems but the rocket itself never failed.
Indeed; even the ancient serial port manages to not allow the user to plug it in incorrectly.
For that matter, a simple "THIS END UP" arrow might have avoided the entire issue.
Re:Too bad we can't mod articles
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 1
Java is hardly the first platform to have a VM and use bytecodes; VB through version 4 (optional in 5 & 6) compiled to pcode (bytecode) and ran with the help of MSVBVM - the VB virtual machine.
There are other examples that go even further back.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants and to whine about who stole from who is stupid.
Re:Important differences between Java and C#
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Funny, I always thought having the ECMA control and adopt a standard was "more open" than Sun's "we're open, as long as you don't propose something we don't like" process.
Re:still very different
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You are correct re:generics. The java complier just wraps all the type casts behind the scenes - the JVM doesn't actually understand generics and the bytecode can't represent them either. Generics gain you nothing except some syntax sugar. This is a direct result of Sun's refusal to modify the JVM to support generics.
C#, VB.NET, and all dotnet languages that support generics behave differently in that the MSIL can represent and consume generic types and the runtime also understands them.
For value types, a unique native version of the class is generated per each value type used. (by the JIT). Reference types share one implementation. Constraints also allow for compile-time safety to be enforced wrt generics.
Mechanical devices, in general, fail due to heat from friction. Yes, there are other failure modes but generally friction causes heat which causes failure in most cases.
At such small sizes, even at very very high switching frequencies, I doubt the devices generate much friction or heat, meaning they won't wear out very quickly.
In Windows 2000 you have the various QueryPerformance APIs to get exact system time as well as POSIX-compliant gettimeofday() which returns a 64-bit int.
GetTickCount() was retained for backward compatibility only.
I assume you are complaining about the tech market which has undergone a large shrink and for good reason; there were way too many IT/IS workers who had no real skills, no love for the job, and little experience. They simply took some CS courses at the community college because "that's where the money is".
We can't hire enough people around here that is for certain... but then again we aren't hiring Bob the electrician who just aced his MCSD boot-camp.
This is only slightly interesting in that it provides a database product for Linux. I also doubt they are giving away any of their "enterprise" stuff like replication, etc in the "free" edition.
I just wanted to point out that this is more than likely a response to Microsoft giving away SQL Express (formerly MSDE) for free. But Microsoft allows you to redistribute SQL Express with your software (free or no) at no cost and without signing any special deals or licenses. Sybase does not allow distribution in any form.
It is true that Sybase ASE and MS SQL Server were once the same core engine but since the split Microsoft has taken off and created a better database product. It is more ANSI SQL compliant (lol! one area where Microsoft is just about the only vendor with strict compliance). It is faster. It has much better tools and features (Enterprise Manager, DTS, etc).
And starting with Yukon (SQL Server 2005) it supports things like writing stored procs in VB.NET/C# or any dotnet language, along with many other new features. But the biggest thing of all, supported by both SQL Express, Standard, and Enterprise editions is what has always set Oracle ahead of the pack: Versioned rows. By turning SET SNAPSHOT ISOLATION on when User A locks in a table and User B tries to read data, instead of blocking user B the database serves up the row versions as they existed prior to A starting a transaction.
Anyone who has worked on a large database before knows that blocking (can be) the biggest issue you face. This is what has always let Oracle stand in front of MS SQL Server for large installs, but no more. This is also something that MySQL, Postgres, Sybase ASE, and even DB2 do not support.
Without that 90K job he can't maintain the house, buy new cars, build that new computer, give his kids expensive gifts or send them to college, etc. The family will have to get by on less. In some cases, MUCH LESS.
Just what, exactly, happens to the bank when they have to forclose because no one else can afford his house either? Or Ford because no one is buying new cars? Newegg with lost sales? Toy companies? How are his kids suposed to get by without a college education?
When Ford, Intel, Microsoft, GE, and the rest of the corporate giants all send their jobs overseas, who do they think will be left to buy their products? Not the rest of us without jobs working as janitors and burger flippers in the "service" jobs that couldn't be outsourced.
The writer of the article is full of it and obviously knows nothing about Windows.
He claims that WebClient, DCOM, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Secondary Logon, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Access Connection Manager, DNS Client are all on or set to manual and should be disabled. Thanks, but I'd like to be able to use WebDAV, COM/DCOM, share files with a roommate/family member, use remote desktop from work, VPN into work in the first place, and resolve DNS hostnames thanks.
I might also add that he rails on Microsoft not taking advantage of multiuser capability properly then recommends that Secondary Logon be disabled for home users! Without it, Windows can't popup when you try to install a program or run Control Panel and ask for an admin password to proceed... which makes using a non-admin account a pain in the ass.
He also whines about these network drivers being installed: Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Print Sharing, and the QoS Packet Scheduler
But perhaps he assumes everyone has one and only one PC in their home and has no wish to share files between them (yeah right). Oh, and you'd like to take advantage of QoS for VOIP or bandwidth throttling? Forget it if the driver isn't available.
With "genius" insights like these I certainly wouldn't trust this yahoo to install a toaster oven, let alone an operating system.
Our planet is going to die. In about 2 billion years when the sun begins to transition into a red giant the earth's oceans and atmosphere will begin to boil away and most living things will be dead. By 5 billion years, the sun will be a red giant and every trace that living things had once inhabited the earth will be stripped away.
The earth will be a dead and lifeless rock. It is a foregone conclusion that we can do nothing to alter, slow down, or stop. Period. Fullstop.
The survivability of earth's biosphere and cleanliness of its environment is only important insofar as we keep things in good order to benefit ourselves; all other concerns are irrelevant since no living thing on the planet will survive long-term anyway.
The real goal is to take life from the earth and spread it throughout the universe; in that sense, humans could be said to be earth's spores.
Alpha lives on (at least in spirit) within AMD; They hired some of the engineers and licensed some of the technology, the EV6 bus being a prime example. Exactly how many and how much we don't know (for obvious business reasons.)
Are we going to run back to mommy every time we stub our toes in space?
Being on the frontier is dangerous; every single one of the astronauts knows this and signed up for it.
If any of them don't want to fly Space Shuttle missions anymore, then don't make them. But I'm sure enough would volunteer for a manned Hubble repair mission that it wouldn't be a problem.
Besides, we need to keep Hubble going; The Webb telescope is NOT a replacement for Hubble - it looks at different wavelengths; if we could ever get both of them operating at the same time they could be used in a complimentary fashion.
Did you miss the part about civil liability? They aren't just talking about criminal actions and those are none of their business anyway; if law enforcement wants something, they get a wiretapping order and that is that.
You might also be aware that the terms of service trump the privacy policy. Oh, and they can change the terms of service anytime they like in any way they like and you have no say in the matter. And they don't have to notify you. If you disagree with the terms, you are still on the hook for any disconnect fees (although I noticed that BT's VOIP service states that they will notify you AND waive any disconnect fees if you decide to cancel the service.)
To this day there is no rocket in existance that has a 100% success rate.
Actually that is incorrect; Wernher Von Braun's Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo program performed with a 100% success rate until they were decomissioned to make way for the space shuttle.
As a side note, Wernher Von Braun was the chief genius behind Germany's rocket programs during World War 2. The US brought him and his team to the states after the war where they went on to do amazing things.
If you want to get even cheaper on managed switches, SMC gear is the exact same thing that Dell is selling at half the price.
You see Accton makes a ton of unmanaged and managed gear. They sell bigtime to the OEM market, and they also make most of Dell's stuff.
Who owns SMC? Accton.
Crack the cases and look at them side-by-side and it all becomes clear. Buy Dell and you pay twice as much for the same exact switch. Buy two for the same price as the Dell and you have support that even Dell can't beat - an always available spare!
This is worth about as much as a slashdot comment saying much the same.
So far, Microsoft's position, as far as anyone can tell from public comments, is that they are patent crazy to avoid being submarined by competitors or "IP companies". They refer to it as a defensive patent portfolio.
I have yet to see any action or statement from Microsoft (official or no) that contradicts this.
Any unintended (i.e. can't shut it off if you want to) effect on the audio is distortion. Period.
Some distortion sounds better than other types. But in the end, you are still getting a signal that is not reproduced faithfully.
(As an aside, modern MOFSETs produce even-order harmonics in an overload situation, just like tubes. This is opposite earlier IC-based gear that produced odd-order harmonics, which are much harder on the human ear. I think this is what the linked talk is going on about. I might also note that audio technology has grown by leaps and bounds since the 70s.)
If you like the "warmness" of a tube, then grab a tube preamp and a modern amp and you can now have the best of both worlds.
The "Audiophile" business is chock full of snake oil, even moreso than many others. $1000/ft "de-ionized oxygen-free" cables? LOL.
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia is wrong; the original system worked as described but an ammendment was quickly passed to change to the current system: The vice-president is the running mate of the president.
I believe this was done because early Presidents (post-Washington) had trouble cooperating with the Vice Presidents (who came from a different party), or vice-versa (whichever you prefer).
Since Patent law was only changed in 1995 to make it 20 years this patent is only effective for 17 years (which was the previous standard.)
It expires in 2005.
No, it isn't. The Saturn V rocket was the most complicated and largest system ever built by man at the time and launched without a SINGLE failure for its entire operational life. The vehicles and satellites it carried had problems but the rocket itself never failed.
Indeed; even the ancient serial port manages to not allow the user to plug it in incorrectly.
For that matter, a simple "THIS END UP" arrow might have avoided the entire issue.
Java is hardly the first platform to have a VM and use bytecodes; VB through version 4 (optional in 5 & 6) compiled to pcode (bytecode) and ran with the help of MSVBVM - the VB virtual machine.
There are other examples that go even further back.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants and to whine about who stole from who is stupid.
Funny, I always thought having the ECMA control and adopt a standard was "more open" than Sun's "we're open, as long as you don't propose something we don't like" process.
You are correct re:generics. The java complier just wraps all the type casts behind the scenes - the JVM doesn't actually understand generics and the bytecode can't represent them either. Generics gain you nothing except some syntax sugar. This is a direct result of Sun's refusal to modify the JVM to support generics.
C#, VB.NET, and all dotnet languages that support generics behave differently in that the MSIL can represent and consume generic types and the runtime also understands them.
For value types, a unique native version of the class is generated per each value type used. (by the JIT). Reference types share one implementation. Constraints also allow for compile-time safety to be enforced wrt generics.
Mechanical devices, in general, fail due to heat from friction. Yes, there are other failure modes but generally friction causes heat which causes failure in most cases.
At such small sizes, even at very very high switching frequencies, I doubt the devices generate much friction or heat, meaning they won't wear out very quickly.
Wang had the patents, Kodak bought them.
Microsoft settled claims with Wang and paid $90 mil for the tech.
No matter what happens in the Sun lawsuit, Microsoft is immune due to that prior licensing agreement.
In Windows 2000 you have the various QueryPerformance APIs to get exact system time as well as POSIX-compliant gettimeofday() which returns a 64-bit int.
GetTickCount() was retained for backward compatibility only.
I assume you are complaining about the tech market which has undergone a large shrink and for good reason; there were way too many IT/IS workers who had no real skills, no love for the job, and little experience. They simply took some CS courses at the community college because "that's where the money is".
We can't hire enough people around here that is for certain... but then again we aren't hiring Bob the electrician who just aced his MCSD boot-camp.
This is only slightly interesting in that it provides a database product for Linux. I also doubt they are giving away any of their "enterprise" stuff like replication, etc in the "free" edition.
I just wanted to point out that this is more than likely a response to Microsoft giving away SQL Express (formerly MSDE) for free. But Microsoft allows you to redistribute SQL Express with your software (free or no) at no cost and without signing any special deals or licenses. Sybase does not allow distribution in any form.
It is true that Sybase ASE and MS SQL Server were once the same core engine but since the split Microsoft has taken off and created a better database product. It is more ANSI SQL compliant (lol! one area where Microsoft is just about the only vendor with strict compliance). It is faster. It has much better tools and features (Enterprise Manager, DTS, etc).
And starting with Yukon (SQL Server 2005) it supports things like writing stored procs in VB.NET/C# or any dotnet language, along with many other new features. But the biggest thing of all, supported by both SQL Express, Standard, and Enterprise editions is what has always set Oracle ahead of the pack: Versioned rows. By turning SET SNAPSHOT ISOLATION on when User A locks in a table and User B tries to read data, instead of blocking user B the database serves up the row versions as they existed prior to A starting a transaction.
Anyone who has worked on a large database before knows that blocking (can be) the biggest issue you face. This is what has always let Oracle stand in front of MS SQL Server for large installs, but no more. This is also something that MySQL, Postgres, Sybase ASE, and even DB2 do not support.
Without that 90K job he can't maintain the house, buy new cars, build that new computer, give his kids expensive gifts or send them to college, etc. The family will have to get by on less. In some cases, MUCH LESS.
Just what, exactly, happens to the bank when they have to forclose because no one else can afford his house either? Or Ford because no one is buying new cars? Newegg with lost sales? Toy companies? How are his kids suposed to get by without a college education?
When Ford, Intel, Microsoft, GE, and the rest of the corporate giants all send their jobs overseas, who do they think will be left to buy their products? Not the rest of us without jobs working as janitors and burger flippers in the "service" jobs that couldn't be outsourced.
The writer of the article is full of it and obviously knows nothing about Windows.
He claims that WebClient, DCOM, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Secondary Logon, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Access Connection Manager, DNS Client are all on or set to manual and should be disabled. Thanks, but I'd like to be able to use WebDAV, COM/DCOM, share files with a roommate/family member, use remote desktop from work, VPN into work in the first place, and resolve DNS hostnames thanks.
I might also add that he rails on Microsoft not taking advantage of multiuser capability properly then recommends that Secondary Logon be disabled for home users! Without it, Windows can't popup when you try to install a program or run Control Panel and ask for an admin password to proceed... which makes using a non-admin account a pain in the ass.
He also whines about these network drivers being installed:
Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Print Sharing, and the QoS Packet Scheduler
But perhaps he assumes everyone has one and only one PC in their home and has no wish to share files between them (yeah right). Oh, and you'd like to take advantage of QoS for VOIP or bandwidth throttling? Forget it if the driver isn't available.
With "genius" insights like these I certainly wouldn't trust this yahoo to install a toaster oven, let alone an operating system.
I've got another nitpick for you then:
Our planet is going to die. In about 2 billion years when the sun begins to transition into a red giant the earth's oceans and atmosphere will begin to boil away and most living things will be dead. By 5 billion years, the sun will be a red giant and every trace that living things had once inhabited the earth will be stripped away.
The earth will be a dead and lifeless rock. It is a foregone conclusion that we can do nothing to alter, slow down, or stop. Period. Fullstop.
The survivability of earth's biosphere and cleanliness of its environment is only important insofar as we keep things in good order to benefit ourselves; all other concerns are irrelevant since no living thing on the planet will survive long-term anyway.
The real goal is to take life from the earth and spread it throughout the universe; in that sense, humans could be said to be earth's spores.
Alpha lives on (at least in spirit) within AMD; They hired some of the engineers and licensed some of the technology, the EV6 bus being a prime example. Exactly how many and how much we don't know (for obvious business reasons.)
Are we going to run back to mommy every time we stub our toes in space?
Being on the frontier is dangerous; every single one of the astronauts knows this and signed up for it.
If any of them don't want to fly Space Shuttle missions anymore, then don't make them. But I'm sure enough would volunteer for a manned Hubble repair mission that it wouldn't be a problem.
Besides, we need to keep Hubble going; The Webb telescope is NOT a replacement for Hubble - it looks at different wavelengths; if we could ever get both of them operating at the same time they could be used in a complimentary fashion.
Did you miss the part about civil liability? They aren't just talking about criminal actions and those are none of their business anyway; if law enforcement wants something, they get a wiretapping order and that is that.
You might also be aware that the terms of service trump the privacy policy. Oh, and they can change the terms of service anytime they like in any way they like and you have no say in the matter. And they don't have to notify you. If you disagree with the terms, you are still on the hook for any disconnect fees (although I noticed that BT's VOIP service states that they will notify you AND waive any disconnect fees if you decide to cancel the service.)
To this day there is no rocket in existance that has a 100% success rate.
Actually that is incorrect; Wernher Von Braun's Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo program performed with a 100% success rate until they were decomissioned to make way for the space shuttle.
As a side note, Wernher Von Braun was the chief genius behind Germany's rocket programs during World War 2. The US brought him and his team to the states after the war where they went on to do amazing things.
If you want to get even cheaper on managed switches, SMC gear is the exact same thing that Dell is selling at half the price.
You see Accton makes a ton of unmanaged and managed gear. They sell bigtime to the OEM market, and they also make most of Dell's stuff.
Who owns SMC? Accton.
Crack the cases and look at them side-by-side and it all becomes clear. Buy Dell and you pay twice as much for the same exact switch. Buy two for the same price as the Dell and you have support that even Dell can't beat - an always available spare!
This is worth about as much as a slashdot comment saying much the same.
So far, Microsoft's position, as far as anyone can tell from public comments, is that they are patent crazy to avoid being submarined by competitors or "IP companies". They refer to it as a defensive patent portfolio.
I have yet to see any action or statement from Microsoft (official or no) that contradicts this.
Ahhh, finally an article that demonstrates, once and for all, that the Open Source community can fling FUD with the best of 'em!
Good job slashdot editors! We all needed a really good laugh today.
Note to moderators: This isn't true - this should be moderated "funny", not "interesting".
Why would we want GSM? It is inferior to CDMA; it requires more towers, supports less customers, and has slower data rates.
We DO need a standard in the US but GSM isn't it.
Any unintended (i.e. can't shut it off if you want to) effect on the audio is distortion. Period.
Some distortion sounds better than other types. But in the end, you are still getting a signal that is not reproduced faithfully.
(As an aside, modern MOFSETs produce even-order harmonics in an overload situation, just like tubes. This is opposite earlier IC-based gear that produced odd-order harmonics, which are much harder on the human ear. I think this is what the linked talk is going on about. I might also note that audio technology has grown by leaps and bounds since the 70s.)
If you like the "warmness" of a tube, then grab a tube preamp and a modern amp and you can now have the best of both worlds.
The "Audiophile" business is chock full of snake oil, even moreso than many others. $1000/ft "de-ionized oxygen-free" cables? LOL.