I think what really happened is that Fox felt it needed to follow through on its commitment to Family Guy, which had been promised the slot after the Simpsons as part of the signing deal. Remember, Futurama was brought in after Family Guy flopped the first time. I don't know whether they did this because of contractual reasons, or because they really believed in the show, but it necessitated moving Futurama out of the post-Simpsons timeslot. This was the genesis of the unprecedented 7-8 Pacific/6-7 Central Sunday timeslot, and they moved in King of the Hill to shore up the lead-in.
Unfortunately, after Family Guy died on the vine the second time, they replaced it with awful Malcolm in the Middle instead of going back to Futurama, by then having built something of an audience at the earlier timeslot (or wanting to use the "incubator" slot for another show).
hypersomnia (sleeping a long time) can be a sign of serious chronic illness
Hypertension can also cause hypersomnia. For years, I was sleepy almost all the time, and regularly could not wake up for classes, appointments, work, etc. I've since found out that my blood pressure is chronically high, and had ostensibly been that way for years (since I was a teenager). Since I started controlling my blood pressure with medication, I haven't had any significant problems with undue sleepiness.
If you find you are sleepy all the time, or regularly have trouble waking up in the mornings or whenever you fall asleep, go get your blood pressure checked. Not only will you feel better if there's a problem and you address it, you'll live longer.
...but you might detect its effect on non-sinusoidal sounds.
No, you won't. Sadly, this is exactly what all those audiophile magazines want you to believe so they can sell you "better" gear. There is no such effect. You simply can't hear any frequency components above your range of hearing, and no one's range of hearing goes anywhere near 48 kHz.
i don't like the fact that they added an Assert keyword...
Why? It's not like it will realistically break anything, and it's far better than the usual Assert class and associated techniques.
The Log4J people are upset because there is now a 'stanard' Java package for logging. IMO the 'standard' package is inferior to Log4J in many situations.
So use Log4J, nothing stopping you.
The regexp package is not all it is cracked up to be either. I would recommend Jakarta ORO or Jakarta Regexp.
Yeah, except that the better of the two (ORO) has inexcusable bugs, even after all the years it's been around.
Re:new in 1.4: public Exception(Throwable cause)
on
Java2 SDK v. 1.4 Released
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
It lets you pass the root cause exception up the stack trace, while preserving the entire state, without having to declare it everywhere.
...and will thus used by every VB programmer cum Java programmer to completely break Java's strongly typed exception checking. *sigh*
At least in the automotive engineering field, punchcards and Fortran seem to still be going strong. I remember when I got my ME degree in the early nineties, we had photocopies in our handouts of the punchcards used to calculate flame propagation for combustion engine design. Interestingly, the programs companies and researches use for these calculations are written in Fortan.
Wrong. Late fees, which frequently cost more than the original rental, are a major revenue stream for Blockbuster and other movie rental companies. They don't have any incentive to back this sort of technology.
One clarification. Potentially unsafe code in Java, such as deleting files, must be written to explicitly request permissions from the Java security infrastructure. Code that does not ask permission will not run in a sandboxed environment. Java's security infrastructure is not tied to running in a browser or other hosted environment--the user can change the permissions for running any piece of Java code, anywhere on the system.
Dammit! I found Salmon Days, laughed my ass off at it, and then submitted it as an article. It was promptly smacked down by the Slashdot editors for no clear reason, and now they post an article about a BOFH book... Anyway, here's my original submission:
Almost anyone who's worked with clueless users will double over laughing at this: a live-action, Internet-only video series called "Salmon Days", starring the Bastard Operator from Hell. Featured are a thrashing of the Microsoft Paperclip, an inter-office porn show, and lots of idiot users getting their comeuppance. You have to call a phone number and pay a small fee to gain access to the full episodes, but just the trailer is hilarious, and the profits go to charity.
I don't understand why manufacturers spend so much time and effort making bad design choices with pad-type mobile computers. Why not just take a standard high-end laptop, put a touch screen where the keyboard is, and bundle a top-flight handwriting recognition package with it? Why is it any more complicated than this? I see great opportunities for people who are in the laptop market to buy such a variant--it makes much more sense if the machine will be used in social situations, or in vertical markets.
I agree, the survey is hardly a surprise, but it is interesting in what I expect will be its social impact. I expect that this survey is going to be (perhaps widely) used by the zealots to bolster their position that open source software can match or supercede closed source software in quality. Unfortunately, the survey does nothing to support that position.
Why? Because "pro" here means "IT professional". In addition to actual software engineers, the term includes sysadmins, tech support guys, webmasters, DBAs, script hackers, recent CS graduates, etc., and none of these latter types would actually be qualified to touch most closed-source product code. Although these guys have the heart, they don't necessarily have the chops to turn out engineered solutions.
So, in the end, all this survey says to me is that people who work on open source projects typically work in the IT field. It doesn't say anything at all about the viability or quality of open source software projects as a result. If anything, it suggests that the quality of most open source code would be lower as a result.
Why do some many otherwise clueful people think that the film industry defines "good" in any terms other than "in the black"? If a movie makes money, that's a "good" movie. And, as much as we wish it weren't so, special effects, locales, and star power get Joe Sixpack (or more likely, teenage girls) out there to watch the movie.
I appreciate your view point on problems with the animation (which you hit dead on), but I think the real reason the characters fall flat is the script. The characters don't do rational things; there is no well-established motivation for their actions; there's no way to get to know them becase none of them actually have an arc. A great script with less-than-perfect animation would be no problem. Great animation with a less-than-perfect script is what the movie was.
As far as the TiVo is concerned, I watched the Superbowl from beginning to end, non-stop
Actually, you're wrong. TiVo also tracks when you turn your TV on or off using the TiVo remote. Therefore, they know not only what you watch, but when you watch.
Agreed, though they all add up to the same thing: divergance of local state from the canonical state.
For sideband information like messaging, I agree with you, it makes sense to localize. However, it is incredibly difficult to manage distributed state, especially when individual connections have varying bandwidth and latencies. Add to this that a shared game experience requires keeping the average latency for all users within a factor of 2-3x (if even that), and you have a very difficult time introducting latencies intentionally.
I think deputization of local servers only makes sense given two capabilities. First, you must have a dynamic QoS infrastructure that can manage changes in network health and migrate state information and clients from unhealthy nodes. Second, there must be a single server that is the canonical host for a portion of the overall state at any one time--you can't have two hosts competing for the same state.
If you add to the architecture the ability to migrate clients from one host to another as they move from area to area, your plan may work. This is similar to how Neverwinter Nights is architected, though the change from area to area is discontinuous. This scheme works well when such discontinuity is acceptable, but probably wouldn't work when trying to provide a seamless experience.
Microsoft's (admittally) [sic] no better developers
Have you or anyone else here ever tried to get a job coding at Microsoft? Microsoft's interview process is extremely rigorous; it is NOT easy to get a position there. Most other software companies, including (or especially) the big-name ones, have a fairly high percentage of clunkers working for them. Not Microsoft.
Contrast this to the skill base of the coders working on Linux. What are the requirements necessary to start hacking away on Linux? You won't find someone mistaking '=' for '==' at Microsoft.
Nearly every one of Microsoft's coders are A-list. They don't have to hire anything less. Even if there are many more, most of Linux's coders are B-list at best--students, part-timers, hackers, sysadmins, webmasters, tech support guys. Sure, these guys have the heart, but that doesn't mean they have the chops.
It's easy to be seduced by the common assumption that there is a large group of dedicated, top-shelf engineers out there working day-in, day-out on all areas of Linux, but that's only half-fantasy at best. Sure, there are some greats out there, but the more likely reality is a) they're few in number compared to the legions of paid employees at Microsoft (all of which we know are directly contributing, full-time), and b) many of them work on the stuff they *want* to do, rather than the stuff that *has* to be done. In some cases this translates to fitting the right people to the right job. Regardless, the result is the same: it leaves areas of Linux neglected by the best engineers.
Interesing idea (you are basically describing a P2P network), but "latency" and "server lag" are the same thing. Lag is the ability to for the canonical server state to diverge from the client state, and this occurs because because of latency in sending/retrieving updates. In a time-critical application, where state needs to remain as consistent as possible in all views, your idea is problematic. This is especially the case when you start to consider clients with high-latency connections of their own.
I think there is also the problem of peer-to-peer connections from a security point of view. Hacking a naive player's machine would be quite easy for a directly-connected, semi-sophisticated player.
Actually, as I understand (from an interview with David Byrne), an artist is legally able to perform a cover of another artist's song once the original artist has publicly performed the work. In other words, the artist gets first crack at it, but after that, it's up for grabs. Assuming this is the case, could we consider Al's use of the original music as simply a cover?
You know, looking at the list of items from the brainstorming session in February 1980, I see many games listed that would be more interesting that the clone games that have been in arcades for the last 5 years:
5) 1st person Space Invaders
11) 1st person Adventure - player moves through rooms (25 cents each) and encounters situations and characters in each
13) 1st person Cockroach - like wack-a-mole, but using feet (my personal favorite!)
15) Hang Glider - Hang from controls, terrain scrolls on video under feet
16) 1st person Mole - find your way out of 1st person maze. Screen is black except when you hit a wall. (Doesn't sound fun at all, but interesting nonetheless. It's the licorice of game designs.)
17) 1st person Skydiver -use fans or stereo sound to indicate wind direction.
18) Color/pattern generator based on player input. Could be located in discos and keyed to audio input from P.A.
It really sucks that Atari can't take these ideas and revitalize the arcade market. I'd love to see something new and unusual like these games.
I can't believe Atari thought so many "hot chicks" would be hanging out at the arcade playing their games. It's clear that this is the staff's collective male fantasy captured for all of us to see.
Maybe Atari's downfall was hastened because of their inability to see video game culture taken over by hordes of people just like them: mouth-breathing, pimply-faced, adolescent male dweebs in O.P. shorts.
The difference is that FORTRAN and COBOL are not even in this race while Java is right there trying to compete with C++.
That's an interesing point. It's certainly the perception, anyway. You can't write an OS or device driver in Java, but you can in C/C++. You can write an application in C++, but should you? It used to be that C++ was the only game in town for application development. It's what programmers knew, and the APIs they needed from the OS were written in the same language. It's great for writing low-level things, or things that need absolute speed, but it certainly doesn't excel over other languages for building apps, especially networked apps. Delphi/Pascal, VB, and Java are all better choices there. Why that's a problem for some people, I don't know.
Actually I do know. Whatever tool someone last used is what they consider the best tool for the job, especially when they don't have experience with lots of different tools. It takes intellectual honesty to admit that your favorite tool isn't always the best tool for the job, and it takes a fair amount of experience and detachment to reach that point.
Given how the brewing Enron scandal is looking, and God knows what else is going down in Bush's old boy network, it wasn't just "me and people like me" that got fucked over. Checked who's dick is in your asshole lately?
You were talking about intelligence right?
I never said that a minority of intelligence is a match for a majority of stupidity. Don't get me wrong, the world needs stupid people, just not so many of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, after Family Guy died on the vine the second time, they replaced it with awful Malcolm in the Middle instead of going back to Futurama, by then having built something of an audience at the earlier timeslot (or wanting to use the "incubator" slot for another show).
If you find you are sleepy all the time, or regularly have trouble waking up in the mornings or whenever you fall asleep, go get your blood pressure checked. Not only will you feel better if there's a problem and you address it, you'll live longer.
At least in the automotive engineering field, punchcards and Fortran seem to still be going strong. I remember when I got my ME degree in the early nineties, we had photocopies in our handouts of the punchcards used to calculate flame propagation for combustion engine design. Interestingly, the programs companies and researches use for these calculations are written in Fortan.
One clarification. Potentially unsafe code in Java, such as deleting files, must be written to explicitly request permissions from the Java security infrastructure. Code that does not ask permission will not run in a sandboxed environment. Java's security infrastructure is not tied to running in a browser or other hosted environment--the user can change the permissions for running any piece of Java code, anywhere on the system.
Almost anyone who's worked with clueless users will double over laughing at this: a live-action, Internet-only video series called "Salmon Days", starring the Bastard Operator from Hell. Featured are a thrashing of the Microsoft Paperclip, an inter-office porn show, and lots of idiot users getting their comeuppance. You have to call a phone number and pay a small fee to gain access to the full episodes, but just the trailer is hilarious, and the profits go to charity.
I don't understand why manufacturers spend so much time and effort making bad design choices with pad-type mobile computers. Why not just take a standard high-end laptop, put a touch screen where the keyboard is, and bundle a top-flight handwriting recognition package with it? Why is it any more complicated than this? I see great opportunities for people who are in the laptop market to buy such a variant--it makes much more sense if the machine will be used in social situations, or in vertical markets.
Why? Because "pro" here means "IT professional". In addition to actual software engineers, the term includes sysadmins, tech support guys, webmasters, DBAs, script hackers, recent CS graduates, etc., and none of these latter types would actually be qualified to touch most closed-source product code. Although these guys have the heart, they don't necessarily have the chops to turn out engineered solutions.
So, in the end, all this survey says to me is that people who work on open source projects typically work in the IT field. It doesn't say anything at all about the viability or quality of open source software projects as a result. If anything, it suggests that the quality of most open source code would be lower as a result.
Why do some many otherwise clueful people think that the film industry defines "good" in any terms other than "in the black"? If a movie makes money, that's a "good" movie. And, as much as we wish it weren't so, special effects, locales, and star power get Joe Sixpack (or more likely, teenage girls) out there to watch the movie.
I appreciate your view point on problems with the animation (which you hit dead on), but I think the real reason the characters fall flat is the script. The characters don't do rational things; there is no well-established motivation for their actions; there's no way to get to know them becase none of them actually have an arc. A great script with less-than-perfect animation would be no problem. Great animation with a less-than-perfect script is what the movie was.
Except for the fact that TiVo subscribers move around and don't bother to update their addresses with TiVo, you might be right.
For sideband information like messaging, I agree with you, it makes sense to localize. However, it is incredibly difficult to manage distributed state, especially when individual connections have varying bandwidth and latencies. Add to this that a shared game experience requires keeping the average latency for all users within a factor of 2-3x (if even that), and you have a very difficult time introducting latencies intentionally.
I think deputization of local servers only makes sense given two capabilities. First, you must have a dynamic QoS infrastructure that can manage changes in network health and migrate state information and clients from unhealthy nodes. Second, there must be a single server that is the canonical host for a portion of the overall state at any one time--you can't have two hosts competing for the same state.
If you add to the architecture the ability to migrate clients from one host to another as they move from area to area, your plan may work. This is similar to how Neverwinter Nights is architected, though the change from area to area is discontinuous. This scheme works well when such discontinuity is acceptable, but probably wouldn't work when trying to provide a seamless experience.
Contrast this to the skill base of the coders working on Linux. What are the requirements necessary to start hacking away on Linux? You won't find someone mistaking '=' for '==' at Microsoft.
Nearly every one of Microsoft's coders are A-list. They don't have to hire anything less. Even if there are many more, most of Linux's coders are B-list at best--students, part-timers, hackers, sysadmins, webmasters, tech support guys. Sure, these guys have the heart, but that doesn't mean they have the chops.
It's easy to be seduced by the common assumption that there is a large group of dedicated, top-shelf engineers out there working day-in, day-out on all areas of Linux, but that's only half-fantasy at best. Sure, there are some greats out there, but the more likely reality is a) they're few in number compared to the legions of paid employees at Microsoft (all of which we know are directly contributing, full-time), and b) many of them work on the stuff they *want* to do, rather than the stuff that *has* to be done. In some cases this translates to fitting the right people to the right job. Regardless, the result is the same: it leaves areas of Linux neglected by the best engineers.
I think there is also the problem of peer-to-peer connections from a security point of view. Hacking a naive player's machine would be quite easy for a directly-connected, semi-sophisticated player.
Actually, as I understand (from an interview with David Byrne), an artist is legally able to perform a cover of another artist's song once the original artist has publicly performed the work. In other words, the artist gets first crack at it, but after that, it's up for grabs. Assuming this is the case, could we consider Al's use of the original music as simply a cover?
Maybe Atari's downfall was hastened because of their inability to see video game culture taken over by hordes of people just like them: mouth-breathing, pimply-faced, adolescent male dweebs in O.P. shorts.
Actually I do know. Whatever tool someone last used is what they consider the best tool for the job, especially when they don't have experience with lots of different tools. It takes intellectual honesty to admit that your favorite tool isn't always the best tool for the job, and it takes a fair amount of experience and detachment to reach that point.
At last we agree. I'd no more use Java to write an OS than I'd use C to write a real-world application.