And if you're currently participating in a beta then you're breaking your NDA. For some reason, I doubt you're participating in the current beta though -- you'd have a clue then.
But, what is so special about the new Hughes DirecTivo?[...]other than HDTV. Ooo.. A piture that the Sony Tivo still kicks ass over.
First off, the make of the TiVo has absolutely zero impact on the PQ. They're all the same design and components.
That said, the big thing is HD. Your Sony can't do HD. Nor can any other TiVo on the market. This one can. And it'll beat the pants off of your Sony when it comes to PQ because of it. Oh, and it has component and DVI output, which your Sony doesn't. It'll even look better with SD material.
I havn't looked into DirecTV's specs about their broadcast of HDTV, but, I'm guessing it's highly compressed
You're right. You haven't looked into it. DirecTV is now broadcasting all of its HD channels at full bitrate. They were previously doing some bit combing to reduce the bitrate to ~12 Mbps, but they have apparantly stopped that and now HD channels are broadcast at up to 21 Mbps.
How much more bandwidth can you get out of older comm. satelitte? HDTV has about 4x the number of pixels over normal broadcast. You can't support both without giving up something.
The bandwidth is static. They could allocate all of the bandwidth on a transponder to HD -- they'd just carry fewer channels on that transponder. The more HD channels they put on a bird the fewer SD channels they can broadcast (which basically affects how many locals they can broadcast; all the major channels are on the 101 bird anyway. HD is on the 110 and 119 birds). Oh, and they have a new bird going active in January. It'll have enough bandwidth to transmit every single channel they carry in HD. Including the locals. All of the m. It's unknown what they're going to use the new bird for yet, except that it will be HD related.
Oh, other new things about the HD DirecTiVo? Four tuners. Two HD DirecTV and two ATSC. You'll only be able to record from two at a time, but you won't have to worry about whether the signal is coming in OTA or DBS.
Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space?
Sure, and you can still do that. You'll only pay roughly twice as much for a HD plasma screen as you will for a HD DLP. DLP may not be perfect, but I do think it's the best digital display technology out there right now. It's light (our 46" is only 80 lbs (36 kg); our 32" CRT TV is far heavier), they're not flat but they are narrow (ours is only 16" deep), they have no burn-in issues (plasma does), pretty good black levels (best of the digital bunch), great resolution (1280x720 currently), high contrast and brightness (you don't NEED to watch in a pitch black room), and good connectivity (DVI and VGA input!).
Yeah, it's still much more expensive than a RPTV CRT HD set, but I think it's worth it. And, as I mentioned, it's considerably cheaper than plasma.
As for the stand -- it's separate. Don't buy it if you don't like it. Mine is in a huge honking entertainment center, many people buy various stands for them -- with the weight you don't need to worry about whether or not the stand can hold the TV. And, after all, you need somewhere to put the receiver, DVD player, TiVo, etc.
here at work, we have a SQL server running, and it crashes almost daily
And so it's MS's fault that you have an utterly incompetent DBA? There is absolutely no excuse for a database to be folding daily -- not for SQL Server, not for MySQL.
The fact is, SQL Server is as fast or faster than Oracle -- depending on installation, needs, etc. Personally, I prefer Oracle. Or Sybase. They're available on much more robust platforms. I've had no exposure to DB2, so I can't comment on it.
And, frankly, if your CEO's nephew can't manage a SQL Server 2000 installation then do the gene pool a favor and shoot him. It really is that brain dead simple.
MySQL does have stored procedures
No, it doesn't. Period.
Oh, and there is no such thing as "Oracle Stored Procedures". Oracle has a stored procedure language called PL/SQL, but it also supports Java. I've heard mixed reports about which is faster in 9i, but I'd tend toward Java (as much as I dislike the language) because PL/SQL is useless beyond trivial functions (and I do know and use PL/SQL, but sparingly. It does, however, have really nice typing).
Rather than saying MySQL "sucked" (which would have been relatively polite), you dared to compare it to SQL server (which is downright insulting).
Only to those clueless about databases and that hate MS for being MS. I'm a Unix programmer, and prefer Unix to Windows, but I at least try to keep my dislike for MS based in reality -- not incompetence.
Yes, they're doing a great job. But if you think SQL Server stinks nowadays, you haven't looked at a recent version. The admin tools are absolutely amazing, the speed is excellent, and stored procedures are decent (which MySQL still lacks completely).
I didn't say that MySQL "sucks" in comparison. I just said it wasn't up to the level of the major commercial databases. I still wouldn't put MySQL on a heavy use database, while I would Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, or DB2. As such, doing a defect comparison between them isn't exactly apples to apples (especially with no stored procedure support).
Faults per 1000 lines of code may seem like a valid scale, but I think it is indicatory at best, not proof.
It's actually a really miserable scale because of your 3rd point. If they ran the code bases through something like cindent and standardized the code formatting and removed all comments and whitespace then it's a somewhat more valid comparison. I didn't look at the actual research paper -- maybe they did. Odds are, your other two points are valid though.
Additionally, they only say that the commercial code is "comparable". What does that mean (again, maybe answered in the paper)? Do they have roughly the same features? Are the query optimizers of roughly the same quality? Do they support the same platforms? I can't think of a major commercial database that doesn't exceed MySQL in all of these areas (ok, excepting SQL Server which fails on the 3rd only). Maybe it was a minor player in commercial databases. Dunno.
These are the kinds of points that are raised when someone bashes OSS. There's no reason that they shouldn't be raised when the inverse is true as well. MySQL has progressed nicely and is worthy of consideration for light to moderate database loads now, I don't question that. All I'm saying is don't take things at face value.
So, small victory, but the race goes on.
The nice thing is that this is small and succinct -- it's suitable for showing to upper level management. That's a big win IMHO -- because normally the text bites they read are biased against free/open software.
How exactly do they expect people who have never read anything by Asimov to catch on that this is a movie?
I'll admit it's hard to tell from the trailer -- the only tip off (assuming there's no green screen at the start) is the small (C) 2003 TCF at the end. And the fact that it's playing during the trailer section of the movie and not the ads section.
That said, the theater I saw RotK in had one big tip off -- a large cardboard I with "Robot" running down the face and "Will Smith" at the top. I believe there was various and sundry info at the bottom - the website URL, copyright notice, and "coming July 2004" or somesuch. The Will Smith bit is the tip off.
But needless to say, I would have kept my 386sx-16 in service longer then 3 years if it could have addressed more memory.
I had the "advantage" of bypassing the 386SX... I went from my parent's XT straight to a 486DX/25 I bought myself (only computer I've ever bought that I didn't assemble) for $4k when I was a junior in high school. Some people buy cars... I bought a computer. Lasted me through most of college though. Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0 was too slow to use on the XT, so I needed to upgrade.
If i'm not sadly mistaken, the 386sx could only address up to 16megs of memory
Ah... right you are!
Of course, that was a complete non-issue at the time. I mean, who could possibly need more than 16 MB of memory?!?!?:)
I do recall getting my 486DX up to 20MB of memory in the early 90s... there were very few people with more memory at the time, and I only got that much because my MB had 8 DIMM slots (4x4M, 4x512k).
The 386SX was a completely and utterly different chip from the 386DX. The SX only had a 16-bit data path while the DX had a full 32-bit data path. This is not a minor change in the chip or board layout -- in fact, one of the major reasons that Intel released the 386SX was to reduce transition costs from 286 motherboards -- there's considerably less difference between 286 and 386SX than 286 and 386. The 386SX had no feature differences -- it was just slower.
I believe what you're thinking of is 486DX vs 486SX. The 486DX was the first Intel chip (in the 80x86 line) to integrate the FPU onboard. The 486SX didn't have the FPU, or the FPU was disabled post-manufacture (most likely due to failures in the FPU module, while the rest of the chip was fine). This is something that can be done during product test.
The funny thing about that was the poor schmucks who bought a 486SX and then decided they wanted the FPU after all... there was a second processor socket onboard, and when the "FPU" was plugged in it simply disabled the primary CPU completely -- the "FPU" chip was a full fledged 486DX. IIRC, there was another varient where the second CPU sat on top of the first CPU (and disabled it), but I can't recall for sure.
They're on the roadmap for Q1, which would just miss christmas at the earliest.
To be technical, Q1 would just miss this year at the earliest.
That said -- you didn't read the article, did you (feign shocked surprise)? The chips aren't supposed to be out yet according to the roadmap, but they are. You can order them at a reseller near you (they're available cheaper elsewhere, but I like vendors that never, ever give me trouble, ship on time (or ahead of time), and have good return policies) right now and AMD added them to their pricing sheets on Dec 15. So it's an official product that got out ahead of time.
Of course, unless you have someone who stocks them locally you'll be hardpressed to actually get it before Christmas. There's always overnight shipping, but that'll eat a large chunk of the money you're saving over the 3200+.
The bigger question, actually, is "Am I rehireable?".
If the answer is yes, then you have no course of action against them, at least not in most states (certainly not if you're in a right-to-work state). The upside is, if you give them as a reference they can't really bad mouth you. Well, they could, but then they're open to all sorts of lawsuits since they said you were rehireable.
If the answer is no, then you may have a course of action against them. You can't give them as a reference, and if they were contacted (for whatever reason) then that no will impact you. And if they don't have a good reason behind that no (or if the reasons are faulty) then you could claim defamation of character or something. IANAL. Consult one if you think you really have a case. Don't consult one that advertises on TV. A good lawyer will tell you -- for free -- whether or not you have a case. Take their advice. The law in this area varies wildly from state to state, and nobody but a local legal authority can properly guide you.
If you pursue this route, I would not try to get the job back. You've found out the hard way that the people you worked for are intellectual and ethical cretins. Try for a cash settlement, and then find another job.
Taking the job back is almost never the bright idea... simply because there's going to be a ton of resentment on both sides. It'll just turn out poorly in the long run (and probably the short run too).
Intel chips dissipate more heat than AMD does now.
And as for core temperature -- it doesn't matter. Different chips are designed to run at different temperatures. Yeah, they all have (more or less) the same maximum temp, but depending on how you do design you can have different operational temps.
Which, if you add it up, actually amounts to the same price as a Intel processor!
You're dropping $100 on fans? You're seriously overspending. Even if you do, for some ungodly reason, decide that you need to replace the retail fan (which isn't needed unless you're going to overclock or want a quieter HSF), a really nice Zalman or Thermaltake HSF is under $40. Panaflo system fans are under $10 (except the 92 or 120 mm).
AMD are also notorious for their short lived processors that die prematurely due to the excessive overclocking that AMD fanatics live by.
Wow... you overclock the CPU, you shorten the lifespan! Amazing thing that -- running it out of spec is bad. With prices of CPUs nowadays overclocking is for the fanboys that don't have any more of a life than bragging about how fast their system is. Once upon a time (back in the Celeron 300A days) you could get substantial speed boosts by overclocking. Now it's in the single digit percentile range -- if that.
for those of you that want your PC to last longer than a couple of months then Intel is the way to go.
Wow. Really? I guess my AMD Athlon 750 didn't really last me nearly 3 years then. My wife's Athlon 1.33 is, lets see, two years old or more now? My Athlon XP 2.2 should've died long ago, since it's 13 months old. And my file server with an Athlon 1.4 (admittedly, I really should've gone for a Via Eden here, but I was doing a ton of CD ripping initially) is 10 months old.
I guess they'll all fail immediately, since you've said they only last a few months.
Oh, and that must really be hell for AMD too. I mean, look at all those retail boxed processors with 3 year warrantees that they apparantly have to replace every few months.
To repeat what others have said requires education; to challenge it requires brains.
I haven't played EQ in nearly 2 years now, but the hardware requirements consistantly went up (and are still doing so -- I know people who do still play and they buy new hardware just to play).
Probably the most notable change was when Luclin was released. The new graphics core required DX8.1a. You simply could not play if you didn't upgrade. No problem, right? Wrong. Windows95 never received that version of DirectX and so unless you upgraded your OS you couldn't play anymore. No workaround.
Larger areas, larger numbers of people needed for ubermobs, and more detailed models and areas also required hardware upgrades. I started playing EQ on a Celeron 300A w/ dual Voodoo2's. When I quit I was running an Athlon 750 w/ GF2 and it was badly out of date for the game even then.
The F-22 is designated to replace the F-16 in whole. The JSF/F-35 is designated to replace the F-15 and Harrier. Both are completely new designs, with the F-22 incorporating stealth technology (better than the F-117 from what I understand, while having better handling capabilities than any other production plane ever) and the F-35 having a variety of features -- mainly being "cheap" for a modern day military jet and an option for VTOL (required by the Marines). If you want nifty new tech, take a look at the F-22 -- supercruise is significant.
However, for better or worse it seems like we've reached the end of the "bigger and faster" era, and the era of radically new propulsion technologies.
Ramjets and scramjets are perpetually on the design and testing boards... and hey, there's always Project Orion!
If you want to lament faster, then note that we haven't produced any planes that can go faster than the SR-71. Unless you believe the sketchy reports about Aurora.
If you want to lament bigger, then just stop it right now. Airbus's A380 will have a passenger seating of 550 -- larger than the old 747 -- with a greater range (8000 nm vs 7670 nm) and greater speed (0.89 mach vs 0.855). And the sucker weighs over a million pounds on takeoff...
Boeing just announced their intention to build the 7E7 which, while smaller, uses up to 20% less fuel per passanger. That's a pretty significant savings, and is a breakthrough as well.
As far as space goes, take a look at the X-prize. The shuttle was not a breakthrough in space technology. It does allow us to do some things we couldn't do previously (namely bring sats back down w/o burning them up in reentry), but it's much less efficient than the older rocket boosters. The X-prize holds forth the hope of real commercial breakthroughs in space travel.
Yes, I agree, the amount of change between 1970 and now is not nearly as dramatic as the changes between 1940 and 1970. The industry is maturing. Every industry does. I guess I don't see this as an inherently sad event though.
In which case it should be moot under US Patent law since it is neither inobvious nor novel.
Or are you trying to tell me that other programmers have not preformatted data in memory or on disk prior to writing it out -- whether out is a pipe, a socket, a floppy disk, a hard disk, shared memory, or (gasp) an optical disk?
Whoever approved this patent was not an expert in the field, as the PTO is supposed to utilize while vetting patents.
I haven't read the patent. Maybe there's some twists in there that The Register didn't cover (yeah, I'd be shocked at poor "news" out of The Register). But I doubt it.
Applying a well known technique to a new media is not a patentable idea. Please.
4. Stability. You don't buy a console game on its release day, and then go home and download a 1.1 patch.
And you damn well better hope that it's stable and bug free. Because if it isn't -- well, too bad. You can't patch. Xbox changes this for Live games, but not for the majority of games.
6. Glitz. Console games are optimized to their fixed hardware. Halo on my xbox looks just like Halo on your xbox. I never have a friend tell me how awesome a ps2 game is, but find out my ps2 isn't fast enough to play it well.
And it still looks far, far worse than a PC game. You don't have the resolution, you don't have the polygon draw, or the fill rate of even a cheap PC video card. Resolution is a huge issue -- even HDTV resolutions aren't as good as PC resolutions (although ATSC realistically provides good enough resolution, it's still possible to do better on PC). Color depth sucks deeply too (NTSC just plain bites; ATSC is good though).
Playing on a big screen is nice, but you can do that with a PC too. Works best if the TV has VGA or DVI inputs, obviously.
7. Integrity. in online console gaming, it is possible to guarantee that no-one is cheating.
No it's not. SOCOM2 on the PS2 is a perfect example of this. Xbox Live isn't hacked yet, but if you think it won't ever be then you're living in a dream world. Punkbuster, Steam, and other anti-cheat measures have made significant inroads on the PC as well.
8. Return Policy. Should a console game be found to be buggy, or even just not what it was advertised to be -- you can return it.
Really? That's certainly not the policy that was given to me the last few times I bought a console game -- from EB, GameStop, or BestBuy.
the limitations on the product the paying customer faces (in the name of 'copy protection')
Oh that's a laugh. Yes, there are annoying limitations put on games in the name of copy protection. Are you even trying to tell me that it's better in the console world? Last time I checked, all the console makers made it pretty damn well impossible to backup your media without going through some amazing contortions. Sure, it's the same thing in the PC world, but to try and list this as an "advantage" is complete and utter BS.
the costs they deal with
The much discussed costs are BS. My previous PC (Athlon 750 w/ GF2) cost me around $1000 and lasted for nearly 3 years. Every game I bought was $35 or less, and the system was used for far more than just playing games.
If you buy a console when it's brand new then it's about $500 with a memory card and second controller. Each game is $40 or $50 and doesn't drop in price for months or years. Used games are often no more than $5 cheaper than new. It'll last you about 4 years, but since you need a $500 PC as well (if you want to surf the net, do taxes, balance your checkbook, or anything else a PC can do that a console can't) then you're going to come out about even once you factor in game prices. If you're smart, you'll sell games once you're done with them and come out ahead -- but that's about the only way the numbers come better for the consoles once you look at the whole picture.
Oh, and the games probably won't be playable on the next generation console -- the PS2 and Gameboy Advance are the only ones that have broken that mold, but the next generation consoles aren't currently looking compatible (the Xbox2 almost certainly won't be). That's rarely an issue on PCs (yeah, there's ancient DOS games that have problems running under Windows, but there are workarounds available; and that PC can also run the ancient arcade and console ROMs too via emulation).
I'm both a console and a PC gamer. People who try to spouse bullshit about one platform or the other just show how little they know. There are a lot of positives to the console experience, but there's a lot of negatives too -- particularly in the lack of configurability and controls. Certain game genres, like F
I really wish WinKey came with a 32-bit installer. My work PC (Win2k) has lost the ability to run Win16 programs (WoW just hangs), so even though WinKey is 32-bit I can't install the damn thing.
Yes, I've searched for solutions. So has tech ops. Nobody, including MS, seems to know why the WoW subsystem just breaks at times.
My only real bitch with CygWin is that it mangles the hell out of your directory structure, with false roots and whatnot. I understand why it was needed, but it's still ugly. I mostly use it as an X server at home and work anyway. I do most of my work via putty -- only the debugger needs X (neither dbx or gdb work for us, as much as we would like them to).
This would require game makers to seriously rethink how they do copyright control -- obviously SafeDisk and similar protection schemes wouldn't work if you never get physical media.
Of course, there's the issue that not everyone wants to download several gigs worth of data (especially modem users -- yes, there are people who still can't get broadband. One of my coworkers is among them... he's simply too far from the CO).
I suspect for the copyright issue everyone would move to a key authorization system like MS and XP, or to an online registration system like Steam is supposed to offer.
I still think the reality is that the mall stores simply aren't where people go to buy PC games. After all, how many people bought their PCs from a mall store?
I suspect that most people simply don't buy PC Games from EB or GameStop, but instead from CompUSA, BestBuy, or similar.
Why? Because they're cheaper. Almost every game will come out at one of the mall stores for $50 and be available at CompUSA, etc. the same day or a few days later for $40. And they rapidly fall to $30-35 (except for the hottest titles), while the mall stores keep them at $50.
I don't question that console gaming is more popular than PC gaming, but I don't think that's the whole picture here.
I'll take a look for the bits at some point -- what bit size do you suggest? Based on the usage (just putting some wire through) I'd guess ~1/8", which seems insane to have 12-18" long. But I'm hardly the expert here. I have larger bits in longer sizes, but I don't want to cut 1/4" hole into my drywall just to run a lead wire through. Or, more accurately, I don't want to patch it. Especially in rooms with wallpaper or paint-that-I-have-no-color-match-for (yes, I've tried to get color match too, and failed).
The end of the wire gets a pointy chisel shape from cutting it with dikes, and this kinda compacts the wood to the sides as it goes. It'll also go right through drywall or plaster.
What about 2x4's? Which is the real concern come to think of it. I had thought about the above (cutting a sharp point on it using wire cutters... I do have nice Klein tools at least), but didn't think it would be hefty enough to bore through 2x4/plywood. Apparantly untrue though!
I have two places left that I want to put jacks in, and it's just been too much of a PITA to do. My brother-in-law is coming over to help me do some rewiring in the attic though, so they'll probably be tackled at the same time.
Gotcha... although I certainly don't have a drill bit long enough for this -- probably need a 6-8 inch bit to drill from the top of the baseboard down at an angle, through the floorboards. Your original post talks about putting the wire in the chuck, but I really don't see hanger wire drilling through plywood... but maybe I'm wrong.
I've tried to read large bodies of code before. It's damn hard, even if it is documented. And when it isn't documented, your beginning developers don't have a chance.
Hell, try reading your own code after some time.
I know I saw a fortune on this at some point:
XXXX's law: Your own code may as well have been written by someone else after 6 months.
YYYY's corollary: It's more like 6 weeks.
Pretty well true for any large project in my experience -- yeah, I may have a better idea about what it does in a broad sense, but the details? Forget it. I'll go look at the code and get back to you.
Slashdot Mirror
About two years of Beta's now
And if you're currently participating in a beta then you're breaking your NDA. For some reason, I doubt you're participating in the current beta though -- you'd have a clue then.
But, what is so special about the new Hughes DirecTivo?[...]other than HDTV. Ooo.. A piture that the Sony Tivo still kicks ass over.
First off, the make of the TiVo has absolutely zero impact on the PQ. They're all the same design and components.
That said, the big thing is HD. Your Sony can't do HD. Nor can any other TiVo on the market. This one can. And it'll beat the pants off of your Sony when it comes to PQ because of it. Oh, and it has component and DVI output, which your Sony doesn't. It'll even look better with SD material.
I havn't looked into DirecTV's specs about their broadcast of HDTV, but, I'm guessing it's highly compressed
You're right. You haven't looked into it. DirecTV is now broadcasting all of its HD channels at full bitrate. They were previously doing some bit combing to reduce the bitrate to ~12 Mbps, but they have apparantly stopped that and now HD channels are broadcast at up to 21 Mbps.
How much more bandwidth can you get out of older comm. satelitte? HDTV has about 4x the number of pixels over normal broadcast. You can't support both without giving up something.
The bandwidth is static. They could allocate all of the bandwidth on a transponder to HD -- they'd just carry fewer channels on that transponder. The more HD channels they put on a bird the fewer SD channels they can broadcast (which basically affects how many locals they can broadcast; all the major channels are on the 101 bird anyway. HD is on the 110 and 119 birds). Oh, and they have a new bird going active in January. It'll have enough bandwidth to transmit every single channel they carry in HD. Including the locals. All of the m. It's unknown what they're going to use the new bird for yet, except that it will be HD related.
Oh, other new things about the HD DirecTiVo? Four tuners. Two HD DirecTV and two ATSC. You'll only be able to record from two at a time, but you won't have to worry about whether the signal is coming in OTA or DBS.
Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space?
Sure, and you can still do that. You'll only pay roughly twice as much for a HD plasma screen as you will for a HD DLP. DLP may not be perfect, but I do think it's the best digital display technology out there right now. It's light (our 46" is only 80 lbs (36 kg); our 32" CRT TV is far heavier), they're not flat but they are narrow (ours is only 16" deep), they have no burn-in issues (plasma does), pretty good black levels (best of the digital bunch), great resolution (1280x720 currently), high contrast and brightness (you don't NEED to watch in a pitch black room), and good connectivity (DVI and VGA input!).
Yeah, it's still much more expensive than a RPTV CRT HD set, but I think it's worth it. And, as I mentioned, it's considerably cheaper than plasma.
As for the stand -- it's separate. Don't buy it if you don't like it. Mine is in a huge honking entertainment center, many people buy various stands for them -- with the weight you don't need to worry about whether or not the stand can hold the TV. And, after all, you need somewhere to put the receiver, DVD player, TiVo, etc.
here at work, we have a SQL server running, and it crashes almost daily
And so it's MS's fault that you have an utterly incompetent DBA? There is absolutely no excuse for a database to be folding daily -- not for SQL Server, not for MySQL.
The fact is, SQL Server is as fast or faster than Oracle -- depending on installation, needs, etc. Personally, I prefer Oracle. Or Sybase. They're available on much more robust platforms. I've had no exposure to DB2, so I can't comment on it.
And, frankly, if your CEO's nephew can't manage a SQL Server 2000 installation then do the gene pool a favor and shoot him. It really is that brain dead simple.
MySQL does have stored procedures
No, it doesn't. Period.
Oh, and there is no such thing as "Oracle Stored Procedures". Oracle has a stored procedure language called PL/SQL, but it also supports Java. I've heard mixed reports about which is faster in 9i, but I'd tend toward Java (as much as I dislike the language) because PL/SQL is useless beyond trivial functions (and I do know and use PL/SQL, but sparingly. It does, however, have really nice typing).
Rather than saying MySQL "sucked" (which would have been relatively polite), you dared to compare it to SQL server (which is downright insulting).
Only to those clueless about databases and that hate MS for being MS. I'm a Unix programmer, and prefer Unix to Windows, but I at least try to keep my dislike for MS based in reality -- not incompetence.
Yes, but the general public hasn't read his works.
Yes, they're doing a great job. But if you think SQL Server stinks nowadays, you haven't looked at a recent version. The admin tools are absolutely amazing, the speed is excellent, and stored procedures are decent (which MySQL still lacks completely).
I didn't say that MySQL "sucks" in comparison. I just said it wasn't up to the level of the major commercial databases. I still wouldn't put MySQL on a heavy use database, while I would Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, or DB2. As such, doing a defect comparison between them isn't exactly apples to apples (especially with no stored procedure support).
Faults per 1000 lines of code may seem like a valid scale, but I think it is indicatory at best, not proof.
It's actually a really miserable scale because of your 3rd point. If they ran the code bases through something like cindent and standardized the code formatting and removed all comments and whitespace then it's a somewhat more valid comparison. I didn't look at the actual research paper -- maybe they did. Odds are, your other two points are valid though.
Additionally, they only say that the commercial code is "comparable". What does that mean (again, maybe answered in the paper)? Do they have roughly the same features? Are the query optimizers of roughly the same quality? Do they support the same platforms? I can't think of a major commercial database that doesn't exceed MySQL in all of these areas (ok, excepting SQL Server which fails on the 3rd only). Maybe it was a minor player in commercial databases. Dunno.
These are the kinds of points that are raised when someone bashes OSS. There's no reason that they shouldn't be raised when the inverse is true as well. MySQL has progressed nicely and is worthy of consideration for light to moderate database loads now, I don't question that. All I'm saying is don't take things at face value.
So, small victory, but the race goes on.
The nice thing is that this is small and succinct -- it's suitable for showing to upper level management. That's a big win IMHO -- because normally the text bites they read are biased against free/open software.
How exactly do they expect people who have never read anything by Asimov to catch on that this is a movie?
I'll admit it's hard to tell from the trailer -- the only tip off (assuming there's no green screen at the start) is the small (C) 2003 TCF at the end. And the fact that it's playing during the trailer section of the movie and not the ads section.
That said, the theater I saw RotK in had one big tip off -- a large cardboard I with "Robot" running down the face and "Will Smith" at the top. I believe there was various and sundry info at the bottom - the website URL, copyright notice, and "coming July 2004" or somesuch. The Will Smith bit is the tip off.
Perhaps you mean simm sockets
Most likely... it's been a long, long time...
But needless to say, I would have kept my 386sx-16 in service longer then 3 years if it could have addressed more memory.
I had the "advantage" of bypassing the 386SX... I went from my parent's XT straight to a 486DX/25 I bought myself (only computer I've ever bought that I didn't assemble) for $4k when I was a junior in high school. Some people buy cars... I bought a computer. Lasted me through most of college though. Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0 was too slow to use on the XT, so I needed to upgrade.
If i'm not sadly mistaken, the 386sx could only address up to 16megs of memory
:)
Ah... right you are!
Of course, that was a complete non-issue at the time. I mean, who could possibly need more than 16 MB of memory?!?!?
I do recall getting my 486DX up to 20MB of memory in the early 90s... there were very few people with more memory at the time, and I only got that much because my MB had 8 DIMM slots (4x4M, 4x512k).
Argh. No.
The 386SX was a completely and utterly different chip from the 386DX. The SX only had a 16-bit data path while the DX had a full 32-bit data path. This is not a minor change in the chip or board layout -- in fact, one of the major reasons that Intel released the 386SX was to reduce transition costs from 286 motherboards -- there's considerably less difference between 286 and 386SX than 286 and 386. The 386SX had no feature differences -- it was just slower.
I believe what you're thinking of is 486DX vs 486SX. The 486DX was the first Intel chip (in the 80x86 line) to integrate the FPU onboard. The 486SX didn't have the FPU, or the FPU was disabled post-manufacture (most likely due to failures in the FPU module, while the rest of the chip was fine). This is something that can be done during product test.
The funny thing about that was the poor schmucks who bought a 486SX and then decided they wanted the FPU after all... there was a second processor socket onboard, and when the "FPU" was plugged in it simply disabled the primary CPU completely -- the "FPU" chip was a full fledged 486DX. IIRC, there was another varient where the second CPU sat on top of the first CPU (and disabled it), but I can't recall for sure.
They're on the roadmap for Q1, which would just miss christmas at the earliest.
To be technical, Q1 would just miss this year at the earliest.
That said -- you didn't read the article, did you (feign shocked surprise)? The chips aren't supposed to be out yet according to the roadmap, but they are. You can order them at a reseller near you (they're available cheaper elsewhere, but I like vendors that never, ever give me trouble, ship on time (or ahead of time), and have good return policies) right now and AMD added them to their pricing sheets on Dec 15. So it's an official product that got out ahead of time.
Of course, unless you have someone who stocks them locally you'll be hardpressed to actually get it before Christmas. There's always overnight shipping, but that'll eat a large chunk of the money you're saving over the 3200+.
The bigger question, actually, is "Am I rehireable?".
If the answer is yes, then you have no course of action against them, at least not in most states (certainly not if you're in a right-to-work state). The upside is, if you give them as a reference they can't really bad mouth you. Well, they could, but then they're open to all sorts of lawsuits since they said you were rehireable.
If the answer is no, then you may have a course of action against them. You can't give them as a reference, and if they were contacted (for whatever reason) then that no will impact you. And if they don't have a good reason behind that no (or if the reasons are faulty) then you could claim defamation of character or something. IANAL. Consult one if you think you really have a case. Don't consult one that advertises on TV. A good lawyer will tell you -- for free -- whether or not you have a case. Take their advice. The law in this area varies wildly from state to state, and nobody but a local legal authority can properly guide you.
If you pursue this route, I would not try to get the job back. You've found out the hard way that the people you worked for are intellectual and ethical cretins. Try for a cash settlement, and then find another job.
Taking the job back is almost never the bright idea... simply because there's going to be a ton of resentment on both sides. It'll just turn out poorly in the long run (and probably the short run too).
But, AMD's are well known to run extremely hot
Load of crap.
Intel chips dissipate more heat than AMD does now.
And as for core temperature -- it doesn't matter. Different chips are designed to run at different temperatures. Yeah, they all have (more or less) the same maximum temp, but depending on how you do design you can have different operational temps.
Which, if you add it up, actually amounts to the same price as a Intel processor!
You're dropping $100 on fans? You're seriously overspending. Even if you do, for some ungodly reason, decide that you need to replace the retail fan (which isn't needed unless you're going to overclock or want a quieter HSF), a really nice Zalman or Thermaltake HSF is under $40. Panaflo system fans are under $10 (except the 92 or 120 mm).
AMD are also notorious for their short lived processors that die prematurely due to the excessive overclocking that AMD fanatics live by.
Wow... you overclock the CPU, you shorten the lifespan! Amazing thing that -- running it out of spec is bad. With prices of CPUs nowadays overclocking is for the fanboys that don't have any more of a life than bragging about how fast their system is. Once upon a time (back in the Celeron 300A days) you could get substantial speed boosts by overclocking. Now it's in the single digit percentile range -- if that.
for those of you that want your PC to last longer than a couple of months then Intel is the way to go.
Wow. Really? I guess my AMD Athlon 750 didn't really last me nearly 3 years then. My wife's Athlon 1.33 is, lets see, two years old or more now? My Athlon XP 2.2 should've died long ago, since it's 13 months old. And my file server with an Athlon 1.4 (admittedly, I really should've gone for a Via Eden here, but I was doing a ton of CD ripping initially) is 10 months old.
I guess they'll all fail immediately, since you've said they only last a few months.
Oh, and that must really be hell for AMD too. I mean, look at all those retail boxed processors with 3 year warrantees that they apparantly have to replace every few months.
To repeat what others have said requires education; to challenge it requires brains.
Let us know when you get either one.
No.
I haven't played EQ in nearly 2 years now, but the hardware requirements consistantly went up (and are still doing so -- I know people who do still play and they buy new hardware just to play).
Probably the most notable change was when Luclin was released. The new graphics core required DX8.1a. You simply could not play if you didn't upgrade. No problem, right? Wrong. Windows95 never received that version of DirectX and so unless you upgraded your OS you couldn't play anymore. No workaround.
Larger areas, larger numbers of people needed for ubermobs, and more detailed models and areas also required hardware upgrades. I started playing EQ on a Celeron 300A w/ dual Voodoo2's. When I quit I was running an Athlon 750 w/ GF2 and it was badly out of date for the game even then.
The F-22 is designated to replace the F-16 in whole. The JSF/F-35 is designated to replace the F-15 and Harrier. Both are completely new designs, with the F-22 incorporating stealth technology (better than the F-117 from what I understand, while having better handling capabilities than any other production plane ever) and the F-35 having a variety of features -- mainly being "cheap" for a modern day military jet and an option for VTOL (required by the Marines). If you want nifty new tech, take a look at the F-22 -- supercruise is significant.
However, for better or worse it seems like we've reached the end of the "bigger and faster" era, and the era of radically new propulsion technologies.
Ramjets and scramjets are perpetually on the design and testing boards... and hey, there's always Project Orion!
If you want to lament faster, then note that we haven't produced any planes that can go faster than the SR-71. Unless you believe the sketchy reports about Aurora.
If you want to lament bigger, then just stop it right now. Airbus's A380 will have a passenger seating of 550 -- larger than the old 747 -- with a greater range (8000 nm vs 7670 nm) and greater speed (0.89 mach vs 0.855). And the sucker weighs over a million pounds on takeoff...
Boeing just announced their intention to build the 7E7 which, while smaller, uses up to 20% less fuel per passanger. That's a pretty significant savings, and is a breakthrough as well.
As far as space goes, take a look at the X-prize. The shuttle was not a breakthrough in space technology. It does allow us to do some things we couldn't do previously (namely bring sats back down w/o burning them up in reentry), but it's much less efficient than the older rocket boosters. The X-prize holds forth the hope of real commercial breakthroughs in space travel.
Yes, I agree, the amount of change between 1970 and now is not nearly as dramatic as the changes between 1940 and 1970. The industry is maturing. Every industry does. I guess I don't see this as an inherently sad event though.
"You're a loony."
it covers a specific method of creating the image
In which case it should be moot under US Patent law since it is neither inobvious nor novel.
Or are you trying to tell me that other programmers have not preformatted data in memory or on disk prior to writing it out -- whether out is a pipe, a socket, a floppy disk, a hard disk, shared memory, or (gasp) an optical disk?
Whoever approved this patent was not an expert in the field, as the PTO is supposed to utilize while vetting patents.
I haven't read the patent. Maybe there's some twists in there that The Register didn't cover (yeah, I'd be shocked at poor "news" out of The Register). But I doubt it.
Applying a well known technique to a new media is not a patentable idea. Please.
4. Stability. You don't buy a console game on its release day, and then go home and download a 1.1 patch.
And you damn well better hope that it's stable and bug free. Because if it isn't -- well, too bad. You can't patch. Xbox changes this for Live games, but not for the majority of games.
6. Glitz. Console games are optimized to their fixed hardware. Halo on my xbox looks just like Halo on your xbox. I never have a friend tell me how awesome a ps2 game is, but find out my ps2 isn't fast enough to play it well.
And it still looks far, far worse than a PC game. You don't have the resolution, you don't have the polygon draw, or the fill rate of even a cheap PC video card. Resolution is a huge issue -- even HDTV resolutions aren't as good as PC resolutions (although ATSC realistically provides good enough resolution, it's still possible to do better on PC). Color depth sucks deeply too (NTSC just plain bites; ATSC is good though).
Playing on a big screen is nice, but you can do that with a PC too. Works best if the TV has VGA or DVI inputs, obviously.
7. Integrity. in online console gaming, it is possible to guarantee that no-one is cheating.
No it's not. SOCOM2 on the PS2 is a perfect example of this. Xbox Live isn't hacked yet, but if you think it won't ever be then you're living in a dream world. Punkbuster, Steam, and other anti-cheat measures have made significant inroads on the PC as well.
8. Return Policy. Should a console game be found to be buggy, or even just not what it was advertised to be -- you can return it.
Really? That's certainly not the policy that was given to me the last few times I bought a console game -- from EB, GameStop, or BestBuy.
the limitations on the product the paying customer faces (in the name of 'copy protection')
Oh that's a laugh. Yes, there are annoying limitations put on games in the name of copy protection. Are you even trying to tell me that it's better in the console world? Last time I checked, all the console makers made it pretty damn well impossible to backup your media without going through some amazing contortions. Sure, it's the same thing in the PC world, but to try and list this as an "advantage" is complete and utter BS.
the costs they deal with
The much discussed costs are BS. My previous PC (Athlon 750 w/ GF2) cost me around $1000 and lasted for nearly 3 years. Every game I bought was $35 or less, and the system was used for far more than just playing games.
If you buy a console when it's brand new then it's about $500 with a memory card and second controller. Each game is $40 or $50 and doesn't drop in price for months or years. Used games are often no more than $5 cheaper than new. It'll last you about 4 years, but since you need a $500 PC as well (if you want to surf the net, do taxes, balance your checkbook, or anything else a PC can do that a console can't) then you're going to come out about even once you factor in game prices. If you're smart, you'll sell games once you're done with them and come out ahead -- but that's about the only way the numbers come better for the consoles once you look at the whole picture.
Oh, and the games probably won't be playable on the next generation console -- the PS2 and Gameboy Advance are the only ones that have broken that mold, but the next generation consoles aren't currently looking compatible (the Xbox2 almost certainly won't be). That's rarely an issue on PCs (yeah, there's ancient DOS games that have problems running under Windows, but there are workarounds available; and that PC can also run the ancient arcade and console ROMs too via emulation).
I'm both a console and a PC gamer. People who try to spouse bullshit about one platform or the other just show how little they know. There are a lot of positives to the console experience, but there's a lot of negatives too -- particularly in the lack of configurability and controls. Certain game genres, like F
I really wish WinKey came with a 32-bit installer. My work PC (Win2k) has lost the ability to run Win16 programs (WoW just hangs), so even though WinKey is 32-bit I can't install the damn thing.
Yes, I've searched for solutions. So has tech ops. Nobody, including MS, seems to know why the WoW subsystem just breaks at times.
My only real bitch with CygWin is that it mangles the hell out of your directory structure, with false roots and whatnot. I understand why it was needed, but it's still ugly. I mostly use it as an X server at home and work anyway. I do most of my work via putty -- only the debugger needs X (neither dbx or gdb work for us, as much as we would like them to).
This would require game makers to seriously rethink how they do copyright control -- obviously SafeDisk and similar protection schemes wouldn't work if you never get physical media.
Of course, there's the issue that not everyone wants to download several gigs worth of data (especially modem users -- yes, there are people who still can't get broadband. One of my coworkers is among them... he's simply too far from the CO).
I suspect for the copyright issue everyone would move to a key authorization system like MS and XP, or to an online registration system like Steam is supposed to offer.
I still think the reality is that the mall stores simply aren't where people go to buy PC games. After all, how many people bought their PCs from a mall store?
I suspect that most people simply don't buy PC Games from EB or GameStop, but instead from CompUSA, BestBuy, or similar.
Why? Because they're cheaper. Almost every game will come out at one of the mall stores for $50 and be available at CompUSA, etc. the same day or a few days later for $40. And they rapidly fall to $30-35 (except for the hottest titles), while the mall stores keep them at $50.
I don't question that console gaming is more popular than PC gaming, but I don't think that's the whole picture here.
I'll take a look for the bits at some point -- what bit size do you suggest? Based on the usage (just putting some wire through) I'd guess ~1/8", which seems insane to have 12-18" long. But I'm hardly the expert here. I have larger bits in longer sizes, but I don't want to cut 1/4" hole into my drywall just to run a lead wire through. Or, more accurately, I don't want to patch it. Especially in rooms with wallpaper or paint-that-I-have-no-color-match-for (yes, I've tried to get color match too, and failed).
The end of the wire gets a pointy chisel shape from cutting it with dikes, and this kinda compacts the wood to the sides as it goes. It'll also go right through drywall or plaster.
What about 2x4's? Which is the real concern come to think of it. I had thought about the above (cutting a sharp point on it using wire cutters... I do have nice Klein tools at least), but didn't think it would be hefty enough to bore through 2x4/plywood. Apparantly untrue though!
I have two places left that I want to put jacks in, and it's just been too much of a PITA to do. My brother-in-law is coming over to help me do some rewiring in the attic though, so they'll probably be tackled at the same time.
While the poster did say "byte", most decent modern string libraries do store the string length at the beginning, generally in a 16 or 32-bit value.
Take a look at C++'s std::string for a good example. NULL terminated strings are really godawful performance hogs. Avoid them if at all possible.
Gotcha... although I certainly don't have a drill bit long enough for this -- probably need a 6-8 inch bit to drill from the top of the baseboard down at an angle, through the floorboards. Your original post talks about putting the wire in the chuck, but I really don't see hanger wire drilling through plywood... but maybe I'm wrong.
I've tried to read large bodies of code before. It's damn hard, even if it is documented. And when it isn't documented, your beginning developers don't have a chance.
Hell, try reading your own code after some time.
I know I saw a fortune on this at some point:
XXXX's law:
Your own code may as well have been written by someone else after 6 months.
YYYY's corollary:
It's more like 6 weeks.
Pretty well true for any large project in my experience -- yeah, I may have a better idea about what it does in a broad sense, but the details? Forget it. I'll go look at the code and get back to you.