I know of a geek grrl who's much interested in CS. Her name is Sacha Chua, currently studying at the Ateneo de Manila University. She's been making waves in the local CS scene here in the Philippines, as well as international stuff. She's one of the members of the academic team who won the Microsoft.NET BEST contest held recently, in fact. Ironically, she's a big advocate of Linux and Open Source (and Emacs!). She's recently awarded as a special science awardee in my school, aside from running for Cum Laude honors.
She also started three AskSlashdot main threads: 123
You might find her essays about girls into CS insightful: Essay 1 | Essay 2 (taken from her science awards nomination thingees)
I don't even like my wife messing with my computer, nevermind some complete stranger.
Hmmm, if I had wife I wouldn't want her to mess with some complete stranger either, never mind with a computer.... um, I don't think I want to pursue *that* line of thought...
What's up with all these people...
on
Can You Hear Me Now?
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· Score: 4, Informative
.. who claim that you shouldn't drink alcohol in extreme hypothermic conditions?
Alcohol dilates the blood vessels and the rush amplifies your body heat. True, you lose heat faster and in 'normally' cold conditions you shouldn't drink alcohol. But if you're stuck in a freezing mountain, you need to keep comfortable to keep awake, which is essential to your survival. And the article says the guy is relying on carefully measured doses of brandy. Limiting intake is essential.
Alcoholic beverages are actually present in most hikers' backpacks for this purpose (and also for treating wounds, due to its antiseptic nature).
And what's up with "you shouldn't drink anything at all in hypothermic conditions"? In fact, you should drink adequate amounts of liquids. Water, as most liquids, preserves your temperature. The only time you shouldn't intake liquids is when you're already victimized by hypothermia (in other words, you're already unconscious or near unconsciousness so you can't really do anything anymore, but this is handy advice for people who encounter hypothermia victims -- don't give them food or drink).
hasn't filed suit against the creators of WordPerfect and WordStar and WordPro for Copyright Infringement... I mean, they've got "Word" in their names!
Except that all of those came before Microsoft Word. I think they should sue Microsoft instead for stealing features from them.
Your proof by induction isn't complete. You said that the chance of an exploding supernova affecting life here on Earth is very unlikely, but you only gave *currently-existing* stars as an example. I mean, if a star turned into a supernova ages ago, that star would be dead by now (and hence not mentioned in the "Guiness Book of Closest-Star Records" or whatever the astronomers call it), right?
And the scientists just found evidence that this supernova might have existed before, in the form of those unusual iron samples on the ocean floor.
At least give them credit for that. Your sarcasm doesn't prove anything except that you're cynical. =)
I'll be happy to send them over if you so insist. =) Of course they're emulator-only, and might be illegal if you don't really own the Japanese cartridge (as if you can find any of those anymore). One of the ROMs even had "Do not play this game with NESticle (or other emulators)." Duh. As if you can play it with anything else.
And people in prison waste their time by playing solitaire.;-)
(And they're doing it without the aid of the computer. Imagine if all those users playing Solitaire actually used real cards and played the same number of games in a session... Gosh, we'd be way past a million man-hours!)
This is really what I wanted to address. Not everything is done solely for money, and it's a sad state of affairs that these things should be determined on how much money it will bring in. Square has shown repeatedly in the past that it is willing to take a risk: just look at Vagrant Story or Legend of Mana. They don't like to lose, of course; sadly the teams that don't produce high-yield titles don't usually do well. But at least they're willing to take the risk.
Nice point about the risk-taking thing. In fact, SquareSoft originally developed Final Fantasy I as their last-ever title before they'd go bankrupt back in the 1980's (back when they're known as just "Square") and decided to pull out all the stops on this one last title. Its original Japanese title translates to "Ultimate Fantasy", but they actually named it "Final Fantasy" as a seemingly light-hearted take on the company's own impending fate.
Who knows that the title will become a surprise hit, that it will spin off ten sequels that don't do justice to its name anymore, that Square's bankruptcy will never come?
Actually, that cheat would only get you 10 times of what you put in, e.g. in Contra you get 3 * 10 lives. So if they planned to waste 2 weeks on cracking any particular game, they'd end up spending 20 weeks on it if they used that code.
They're smart enough to avoid that scheduling pitfall, unlike some web designers I know...
Programming difficulties (was Re:16bit vs 24bit)
on
Testing the Audigy
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· Score: 1
Another problem with 24-bit audio nowadays, specifically for PC hardware and software, is that the programming interfaces for accessing a sound card (particularly Windows Media and DirectX; I'm not sure about SDL or other interfaces) imposes a *hard* limit on signal-to-noise ratio. That means that your theoretical SNR can never be reached at all because programs are hard-coded to cut off at either 96dB or 100dB.
I'm not even sure if 24-bit is supported natively at all. From what I've heard, the Audigy can accept 24-bit data but processes it at 16 bits internally. (Or was that 48 vs. 96kHz? I can't remember.) In any case, DirectSound/DirectMusic would only let me set 16-bit audio as the maximum and that support for 24-bit audio has "undefined behavior", which is most likely equivalent to "broken".
This all means that we aren't likely to have our favorite software (especially current games and media players, but probably not audio editing software) take advantage of 24-bit audio for the time being.
Actually, you don't need quotes around "cd"
on
MS DOS: A Eulogy
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· Score: 1
... you end up having to put quotes around practically ever CD command
Try it yourself on a Win2K box without adding quotes:
cd c:\program files
It worked on mine, and I've been using it regularly to the point that I forget about it when I switch to a 95/98/ME box, in which case I would promptly (pardon the pun) get an error message. Actually, you'll have to enable the Command Extensions for this to work (it's enabled by default).
The "rd" command even removes directories recursively now, so "rd \/s/q" is just about as dangerous as "rm / -rf".;)
In any case, type "help" on that prompt and find a few niceties that may help change your mind about Win2K's CLI. I find PUSHD and POPD rather useful when moving through directories in different hierarchies.
I beg to disagree with your kids-only viewpoint. =) I don't mean to troll, but SMS is basically in full swing here in the Philippines and in other parts of the world (Finland would instantly come into mind.)
Heck, even fishball vendors (the ones who sell food-on-sticks on the sidewalks in urban places) and jeepney drivers (i.e. public transportation guys) actually own cellphones here, and they use it mainly for SMS messages (frequently pronounced by Filipinos as just "texts")
It's the simplest way to keep connected in this side of the world. Then again, SMS is pretty cheap here at PhP1.00 (around US$0.02) compared to a cellphone call at PhP6.00/minute. You also get hundreds of free messages per month, too.
If you think about it, the article is actually correct. The latency within the wires themselves also prevent a single central clock from timing the whole system accurately.
Even with a hypothetical chip that doesn't incur speed decreases due to pipelining, the clock will still end up nearer to parts of the chip than to others, which will result in latency at the end of the pipeline.
Hence if you've got a 500Mhz chip with 2 stages and the clock physically placed near stage 1, then stage 1 of the pipeline will run at 500MHz, stage 2 will also run at 500MHz but with some latency, so the two-stage pipeline will complete an instruction very slightly over 2 cycles. Add more stages, you'll get a bigger effect at the end. And as clock speeds go faster, you'll eventually hit the ceiling -- the latency might actually be as fast as a single cycle itself.
And having multiple clocks to offload the work (and to bridge the gap from the other stages) can only do so much -- eventually it becomes an issue of timing all these clocks together. You'll eventually wish to remove the clock altogether. =)
As for I/O with the rest of the system, it's not really an issue here -- what is being discussed is the processor's raw speed. I/O bottlenecks are already being solved via intelligent caching, and for more improvement we will probably have to wait for a totally new architecture.
... is to make sure all my windows are placed in exact positions on the screen. I even make sure that windows that auto-dock to corners of the screen are positioned in such a way that they're close enough but not really docking at all. (e.g. making sure XMMS/Winamp is exactly 10 pixels from the screen borders) Call me obsessive-compulsive.;-)
Having 'tactile responsiveness' to this sort of thing I do would be a God-send for me, but I don't know how else it can be useful. Perhaps a way to determine how deep I am into a surfing session just by listening to the sound of a click-thru?
"... For many years, programmers were taught that global variables and GOTO statements are poor programming practice. In some situations though, these constructs may be exactly what the software needs to marry form with function."
This poor guy has just ignored more than half a century worth of Computer Science developments in order to tell us to go back to the way of the GOTO, even for "some situations", because it has been proven mathematically by Dr. Edsger Dijkstra himself that every piece of code that can be done with GOTOs can also be done using if's, while's and their kin. (And it's more *koff*aesthetically pleasing*koff* that way, too, as opined by Dijkstra in his article)
IMHO, marrying form with function is what this whole evolution from spaghetti code to structured programming to object orientation (and especially object orientation) is all about.
Slashdot Mirror
See, it's the processor that travelled at the speed of light, not us, so it was _the processor_ that got sent back in time.
Hmmm, so that explains why the Alphas were superior in the past...
I know of a geek grrl who's much interested in CS. Her name is Sacha Chua, currently studying at the Ateneo de Manila University. She's been making waves in the local CS scene here in the Philippines, as well as international stuff. She's one of the members of the academic team who won the Microsoft .NET BEST contest held recently, in fact. Ironically, she's a big advocate of Linux and Open Source (and Emacs!). She's recently awarded as a special science awardee in my school, aside from running for Cum Laude honors.
She also started three AskSlashdot main threads: 1 2 3
You might find her essays about girls into CS insightful: Essay 1 | Essay 2 (taken from her science awards nomination thingees)
Daimos, or Gundam. ;)
.. who claim that you shouldn't drink alcohol in extreme hypothermic conditions?
Alcohol dilates the blood vessels and the rush amplifies your body heat. True, you lose heat faster and in 'normally' cold conditions you shouldn't drink alcohol. But if you're stuck in a freezing mountain, you need to keep comfortable to keep awake, which is essential to your survival. And the article says the guy is relying on carefully measured doses of brandy. Limiting intake is essential.
Alcoholic beverages are actually present in most hikers' backpacks for this purpose (and also for treating wounds, due to its antiseptic nature).
And what's up with "you shouldn't drink anything at all in hypothermic conditions"? In fact, you should drink adequate amounts of liquids. Water, as most liquids, preserves your temperature. The only time you shouldn't intake liquids is when you're already victimized by hypothermia (in other words, you're already unconscious or near unconsciousness so you can't really do anything anymore, but this is handy advice for people who encounter hypothermia victims -- don't give them food or drink).
Guybrush Threepwood: Look, a three-headed video card!
Oh, and he looks absolutely sucky in 3D.
hasn't filed suit against the creators of WordPerfect and WordStar and WordPro for Copyright Infringement... I mean, they've got "Word" in their names!
Except that all of those came before Microsoft Word. I think they should sue Microsoft instead for stealing features from them.
Now *that* statement makes the whole analogy kinda fishy.
</me ducks the cream pie>
In this side of the globe, we have spoof t-shirts proclaiming "Inutil Inside" in much the same visual style as Intel's logo.
The funny thing about it is that "inutil" means "dumb" in my language.
I wouldn't be surprised if Intel threatened the manufacturer of these t-shirts.
Your proof by induction isn't complete. You said that the chance of an exploding supernova affecting life here on Earth is very unlikely, but you only gave *currently-existing* stars as an example. I mean, if a star turned into a supernova ages ago, that star would be dead by now (and hence not mentioned in the "Guiness Book of Closest-Star Records" or whatever the astronomers call it), right?
And the scientists just found evidence that this supernova might have existed before, in the form of those unusual iron samples on the ocean floor.
At least give them credit for that. Your sarcasm doesn't prove anything except that you're cynical. =)
There are English translations available.
I'll be happy to send them over if you so insist. =) Of course they're emulator-only, and might be illegal if you don't really own the Japanese cartridge (as if you can find any of those anymore). One of the ROMs even had "Do not play this game with NESticle (or other emulators)." Duh. As if you can play it with anything else.
Of course, by the time we do we would probably be chased after by those guys in black suits and have our memory erased...
Error: Crosslinked neurons in brain.
And people in prison waste their time by playing solitaire. ;-)
(And they're doing it without the aid of the computer. Imagine if all those users playing Solitaire actually used real cards and played the same number of games in a session... Gosh, we'd be way past a million man-hours!)
... and make it stand for "Lindows Is Not the Dumb Os that Windows iS"
;-)
Who knows that the title will become a surprise hit, that it will spin off ten sequels that don't do justice to its name anymore, that Square's bankruptcy will never come?
You have no sense of humor whatsoever, but thanks for the karma. ;)
Actually, that cheat would only get you 10 times of what you put in, e.g. in Contra you get 3 * 10 lives. So if they planned to waste 2 weeks on cracking any particular game, they'd end up spending 20 weeks on it if they used that code.
They're smart enough to avoid that scheduling pitfall, unlike some web designers I know...
Another problem with 24-bit audio nowadays, specifically for PC hardware and software, is that the programming interfaces for accessing a sound card (particularly Windows Media and DirectX; I'm not sure about SDL or other interfaces) imposes a *hard* limit on signal-to-noise ratio. That means that your theoretical SNR can never be reached at all because programs are hard-coded to cut off at either 96dB or 100dB.
I'm not even sure if 24-bit is supported natively at all. From what I've heard, the Audigy can accept 24-bit data but processes it at 16 bits internally. (Or was that 48 vs. 96kHz? I can't remember.) In any case, DirectSound/DirectMusic would only let me set 16-bit audio as the maximum and that support for 24-bit audio has "undefined behavior", which is most likely equivalent to "broken".
This all means that we aren't likely to have our favorite software (especially current games and media players, but probably not audio editing software) take advantage of 24-bit audio for the time being.
... that "Salmon of Doubt" sounds too fishy?
cd c:\program files
It worked on mine, and I've been using it regularly to the point that I forget about it when I switch to a 95/98/ME box, in which case I would promptly (pardon the pun) get an error message. Actually, you'll have to enable the Command Extensions for this to work (it's enabled by default).
The "rd" command even removes directories recursively now, so "rd \
In any case, type "help" on that prompt and find a few niceties that may help change your mind about Win2K's CLI. I find PUSHD and POPD rather useful when moving through directories in different hierarchies.
/me ducks and hides
Heck, even fishball vendors (the ones who sell food-on-sticks on the sidewalks in urban places) and jeepney drivers (i.e. public transportation guys) actually own cellphones here, and they use it mainly for SMS messages (frequently pronounced by Filipinos as just "texts")
It's the simplest way to keep connected in this side of the world. Then again, SMS is pretty cheap here at PhP1.00 (around US$0.02) compared to a cellphone call at PhP6.00/minute. You also get hundreds of free messages per month, too.
If you think about it, the article is actually correct. The latency within the wires themselves also prevent a single central clock from timing the whole system accurately.
Even with a hypothetical chip that doesn't incur speed decreases due to pipelining, the clock will still end up nearer to parts of the chip than to others, which will result in latency at the end of the pipeline.
Hence if you've got a 500Mhz chip with 2 stages and the clock physically placed near stage 1, then stage 1 of the pipeline will run at 500MHz, stage 2 will also run at 500MHz but with some latency, so the two-stage pipeline will complete an instruction very slightly over 2 cycles. Add more stages, you'll get a bigger effect at the end. And as clock speeds go faster, you'll eventually hit the ceiling -- the latency might actually be as fast as a single cycle itself.
And having multiple clocks to offload the work (and to bridge the gap from the other stages) can only do so much -- eventually it becomes an issue of timing all these clocks together. You'll eventually wish to remove the clock altogether. =)
As for I/O with the rest of the system, it's not really an issue here -- what is being discussed is the processor's raw speed. I/O bottlenecks are already being solved via intelligent caching, and for more improvement we will probably have to wait for a totally new architecture.
... is to make sure all my windows are placed in exact positions on the screen. I even make sure that windows that auto-dock to corners of the screen are positioned in such a way that they're close enough but not really docking at all. (e.g. making sure XMMS/Winamp is exactly 10 pixels from the screen borders) Call me obsessive-compulsive. ;-)
Having 'tactile responsiveness' to this sort of thing I do would be a God-send for me, but I don't know how else it can be useful. Perhaps a way to determine how deep I am into a surfing session just by listening to the sound of a click-thru?
Quoted from the article:
"... For many years, programmers were taught that global variables and GOTO statements are poor programming practice. In some situations though, these constructs may be exactly what the software needs to marry form with function."
This poor guy has just ignored more than half a century worth of Computer Science developments in order to tell us to go back to the way of the GOTO, even for "some situations", because it has been proven mathematically by Dr. Edsger Dijkstra himself that every piece of code that can be done with GOTOs can also be done using if's, while's and their kin. (And it's more *koff*aesthetically pleasing*koff* that way, too, as opined by Dijkstra in his article)
IMHO, marrying form with function is what this whole evolution from spaghetti code to structured programming to object orientation (and especially object orientation) is all about.