overtime isn't mandatory, but if you have a deadline, you need to finish your responsibility by then. If you can do it within the normal work hours, then great!
Except that you can't do it within normal work hours, because the deadlines are so tight that everyone has to put in overtime. Call my cynical, but it almost seems as if the deadlines are set deliberately tight in order to get extra work out of everyone.
The implication is "you're contracted for n hours per week, but we nevertheless expect n+7. If you're not doing the extra 7, we want to know why". That was the culture at my previous job (at a multinational). The culture at my current workplace (small start-up) is fortunately much friendlier.
(from "Simpson Tide") "My neck hurts and my ear hurts. I have two owwies."
(can't remember the episode) "I like bushes 'coz they don't have prickers. Unles they do. This one did. Ouch!"
-Stephen
Re:All names in Asterix and Obelix resemble real w
on
Asterix and Mobilix Redux
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
idefix (the dog) from 'idée fixe' (difficult to translate, something like an unchangeable opinion)
In the English-language version, his name is "Dogmatix", which means basically the same thing.
assurancetourix (the chief IIRC)
He's "Vitalstatistix" in the English version.
The great thing about Asterix is that new punning names are made up for every language that the stories are translated into. I've even seen a Welsh-language Asterix book; my father, who is a Welsh speaker, confirmed that the names were still puns in Welsh.
My favourite Asterix name is a Roman soldier I saw in one book called "Poisonus Oystus". Inspired.
-Stephen
This is the difference 'twixt Japanese and US RPGs
on
Infinite Games?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The Japanese style of RPG (e.g. the Final Fantasy series) treats role-playing in an entirely different way. Rather than creating your own character and playing out that role, you play the role of a predetermined character. For such games, scripted stories are very important. The whole point of the game is really to enjoy the story. Japanese RPGs boil down to basically being interactive stories.
As you say, improved AI and non-scripted stories will advance the Western style of role-playing game. However, I don't think it'll they'll have much of an impact on the traditional Japanese story-driven RPGs.
My sister-in-law got a PS2 for Christmas. Her PS1 games spent a whopping total of 60 seconds in the console before being ripped out and replaced with Tekken 4.
My friend got a PS2 for Christmas, and the only game she's played on it so far is Final Fantasy VIII, a PSone game. She didn't own a PSone, and is very glad to have access to the PSone back catalogue as well as the brand spanking new PS2 games.
I use a web server for serving documentation to exactly one person (me), using the Debian dwww and dpkg-www programs. Why would I need big ol' Apache to act as a local documentation server? Little servers like Boa are just what I want.
A more useful real-world example would be an embedded system. Just look at the Apache and Boa memory footprints stated in the article. When memory and storage are both at a premium, Apache is probably not the way to go.
As with anything, one size doesn't fit all. I agree that Apache is a superb piece of software, and is often the ideal solution. But not always.
In the episode "Spock's Brain", when Captain Kirk stuns a caveman with his phaser, the phaser makes a high-pitched squealing noise. However, later in the episode, when Kirk uses the same phaser to stun a woman in a ridiculous costume, it makes an altogether different noise. Please do explain it.
-Stephen (with a little help from Frink: http://www.snpp.com/episodes/BABF01)
Under Gentoo, it takes my machine about 22 seconds to start KDE, whereas under Debian Woody it took about 45. In my book, a 50% decrease in startup time is significant.
50%? Wow! I wouldn't have expected such an increase. Combined with the other poster's observation that his system just feels more responsive, maybe I should think about apt-get source-ing and compiling the apps I use most with CPU-specific optimizations.
Since I don't use KDE (or GNOME; just Sawfish for me, thanks), I'd never have noticed the kind of speedup you observe; the thing I'd most like to speed up on my system is the execution of the/etc/init.d boot scripts; though I imagine that has more to do with disk throughput than binary optimization.
How much of a performance increase is gained by optimizing the "average"[1] application? I don't mean stuff that bangs the CPU, like bzip2, or an MP3 encoder, or whatnot; I mean something interactive like a mail client, which spends most of its time in an idle state, waiting for the user to press a key or click the mouse.
Optimizing the kernel for a particular CPU model is almost certainly a win (I'm not a kernel hacker and don't know how much of a win); but it seems to me that the costs of producing and storing multiple optimized versions of an "average" app probably outweigh the benefits. And since i386 is the lowest common denominator, Debian may as well just continue building for that.
-Stephen
[1]: if indeed there is such a thing as an "average" app.
How are you supposed to know that the easiest way to install Debian is to quit the installation program halfway through?
I cheated and did some research about dselect, apt-get, dpkg etc. before starting the installation. For someone coming to a Debian installation without prior knowledge, you're right, it's a total mystery that there's more than one way to install packages.
(Disclaimer: it's been over a year since I did my Debian install, and my memory is somewhat fuzzy).
The first part of a Debian install, where you make disk partitions, set the hostname etc. is similar enough to a RedHat text-mode install (of which I've done several) that it didn't faze me. I don't think that part of the Debian install is difficult at all.
The difficult part is the second stage of the installation: selecting packages with tasksel/dselect. I took one look at it and just hit "quit". That gave me a base install, with nothing else. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat: I used apt-cdrom/apt-get to install all the rest of the stuff I wanted.
I'm not saying that Joe Average would/should be happy with apt-get from the command line; I'm saying that it's dead easy for someone with only a small amount of Unix/Linux experience to use, and it's much easier than dselect. It's perfectly possible to install Debian without wrestling with dselect.
The big question we have is whether or not evolution is responsible for our presence, and in particular if it is a reasonable and plausible explanation for our existence.
I'd say that the bigger question is: does it actually matter?
Really, what is so important about knowing how we got here? We're here. We all have life. Is it not more important to decide what we're going to do with that life?
I don't know... I guess I just value wisdom and imagination over pure knowledge. I don't expect the generally scientifically-inclined Slashdot readership to agree with me.
I have a FX451M. I love it. It's ancient and falling to pieces; the battery went long ago, and the solar panel isn't sufficient to trigger the reset circuitry, so every time I need to use it I have to get it out of base 14.5 or whatever the confused circuitry has decided to put it in
My Casio fx-115N suffers from the same solar panel malaise as your calculator. It's got to the stage where I have to shine a light directly on the solar panel or it doesn't work. I'm going to either have to replace it, or buy a small torch that I can hold in my teeth while I use it...
I've had it since 1990-ish; it got me through GCSE, A-level, university, and now I like to have it around for performing hex conversions and the like; I could use bc(1), printf(1) etc. to accomplish such simple tasks; but I like my calculator, darnit.
Every single one uses expression evaluation, which makes 'em useless for my purpose.
At school, kids like me had fx-115Ns or similar, and the rich kids with rich parents had graphing calculators with expression evaluation. I'd borrow one sometimes, and always disliked the way I had to press 50% more keys to perform a simple calculation.
What other interesting stereotypes can be turned into landing craft shapes?
Australia: big can of Victoria Bitter. The moon shot could be partly funded by the brewery, in exchange for having the capsule painted in the style of a can of their product.
My stomach always turns when I see l33t Linux pseudo transparant xterm's
So does mine, and I'm one of the people who uses them. As soon as something better comes along, I'll be one of the first adopters.
I want translucent everything, with the partially-obscured lower windows also blurred a little, so the fonts on the lower windows don't get jumbled together with those on the upper windows.
I've wanted extreme translucency ever since I saw the effect on Logan's computer in the first season of Dark Angel. (You know you're a geek when you watch Dark Angel for the tech).
Settling for analogue TV, in the comfort of your own home, with a roof over your head, in a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world, is "suffering"?
I like GTK. I use GTK apps whenever possible, so my environment has a consistent look and feel. (I don't even have the QT libraries installed, and I'd uninstall libXaw if some obscure programs in xbase-clients didn't use it).
Mozilla sticks out like a sore thumb. Galeon gives me all the benefits of Mozilla with none of the UI weirdness.
I semi-agree. I don't like the name, but I do like the format.
I think they should drop the "Ogg" part of the name (which I personally can't read without mentally mapping it onto "egg", and I don't like eggs, either) and just call the format "Vorbis". On its own, "Vorbis" sounds cool.
1. RIAA lackey reads FUD about JPEG viruses; 2. RIAA hires programmers to develop viruses which attach to MP3 files; 3. AV vendors issue press release warning about new MP3 virus; 4. RIAA issues press release stating that this is Yet Another Reason not to download MP3s; 5. Ordinary computer users get scared and purge entire MP3 collections; 6. RIAA execs sit back and laugh evilly.
Here's what I wrote. (I've never written to an MP before, so this is probably rubbish...)
Dear Ms. Griffiths,
I am writing because I am concerned about the amendments to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which have been tabled. Specifically, these amendments will give any government agency, as well as any local authority, the power to demand records from Internet service providers regarding their customers' emails and Web browsing.
I appreciate the need for information to be turned over to government agencies as part of criminal investigations. However, I am troubled by the proposed new powers because they will not require a court order. Combined with the sheer number of people employed by the government and local authorities, the potential for abuse of the system is worrying.
Furthermore, permitting surveillance of the general population erodes the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven - the cornerstone of our justice system. It is almost as if the government considers every member of the population to be a potential criminal who must be monitored.
I have supported the Labour Party throughout my adult life, having been attracted by the party's commitments to equality and fairness for all citizens. The amendments to the RIPA do not fit well with these commitments.
Slashdot Mirror
overtime isn't mandatory, but if you have a deadline, you need to finish your responsibility by then. If you can do it within the normal work hours, then great!
Except that you can't do it within normal work hours, because the deadlines are so tight that everyone has to put in overtime. Call my cynical, but it almost seems as if the deadlines are set deliberately tight in order to get extra work out of everyone.
The implication is "you're contracted for n hours per week, but we nevertheless expect n+7. If you're not doing the extra 7, we want to know why". That was the culture at my previous job (at a multinational). The culture at my current workplace (small start-up) is fortunately much friendlier.
-Stephen
Slashralph: "In Soviet Russia, paste eats YOU!"
-Stephen
(from "Simpson Tide") "My neck hurts and my ear hurts. I have two owwies."
(can't remember the episode) "I like bushes 'coz they don't have prickers. Unles they do. This one did. Ouch!"
-Stephen
idefix (the dog) from 'idée fixe' (difficult to translate, something like an unchangeable opinion)
In the English-language version, his name is "Dogmatix", which means basically the same thing.
assurancetourix (the chief IIRC)
He's "Vitalstatistix" in the English version.
The great thing about Asterix is that new punning names are made up for every language that the stories are translated into. I've even seen a Welsh-language Asterix book; my father, who is a Welsh speaker, confirmed that the names were still puns in Welsh.
My favourite Asterix name is a Roman soldier I saw in one book called "Poisonus Oystus". Inspired.
-Stephen
The Japanese style of RPG (e.g. the Final Fantasy series) treats role-playing in an entirely different way. Rather than creating your own character and playing out that role, you play the role of a predetermined character. For such games, scripted stories are very important. The whole point of the game is really to enjoy the story. Japanese RPGs boil down to basically being interactive stories.
As you say, improved AI and non-scripted stories will advance the Western style of role-playing game. However, I don't think it'll they'll have much of an impact on the traditional Japanese story-driven RPGs.
-Stephen
My sister-in-law got a PS2 for Christmas. Her PS1 games spent a whopping total of 60 seconds in the console before being ripped out and replaced with Tekken 4.
My friend got a PS2 for Christmas, and the only game she's played on it so far is Final Fantasy VIII, a PSone game. She didn't own a PSone, and is very glad to have access to the PSone back catalogue as well as the brand spanking new PS2 games.
-Stephen
I use a web server for serving documentation to exactly one person (me), using the Debian dwww and dpkg-www programs. Why would I need big ol' Apache to act as a local documentation server? Little servers like Boa are just what I want.
A more useful real-world example would be an embedded system. Just look at the Apache and Boa memory footprints stated in the article. When memory and storage are both at a premium, Apache is probably not the way to go.
As with anything, one size doesn't fit all. I agree that Apache is a superb piece of software, and is often the ideal solution. But not always.
-Stephen
I'd personally be more interested in a device that reliably and irrevocably deletes bad memories.
-Stephen
In the episode "Spock's Brain", when Captain Kirk stuns a caveman with his phaser, the phaser makes a high-pitched squealing noise. However, later in the episode, when Kirk uses the same phaser to stun a woman in a ridiculous costume, it makes an altogether different noise. Please do explain it.
-Stephen (with a little help from Frink: http://www.snpp.com/episodes/BABF01)
Under Gentoo, it takes my machine about 22 seconds to start KDE, whereas under Debian Woody it took about 45. In my book, a 50% decrease in startup time is significant.
/etc/init.d boot scripts; though I imagine that has more to do with disk throughput than binary optimization.
50%? Wow! I wouldn't have expected such an increase. Combined with the other poster's observation that his system just feels more responsive, maybe I should think about apt-get source-ing and compiling the apps I use most with CPU-specific optimizations.
Since I don't use KDE (or GNOME; just Sawfish for me, thanks), I'd never have noticed the kind of speedup you observe; the thing I'd most like to speed up on my system is the execution of the
-Stephen
How much of a performance increase is gained by optimizing the "average"[1] application? I don't mean stuff that bangs the CPU, like bzip2, or an MP3 encoder, or whatnot; I mean something interactive like a mail client, which spends most of its time in an idle state, waiting for the user to press a key or click the mouse.
Optimizing the kernel for a particular CPU model is almost certainly a win (I'm not a kernel hacker and don't know how much of a win); but it seems to me that the costs of producing and storing multiple optimized versions of an "average" app probably outweigh the benefits. And since i386 is the lowest common denominator, Debian may as well just continue building for that.
-Stephen
[1]: if indeed there is such a thing as an "average" app.
How are you supposed to know that the easiest way to install Debian is to quit the installation program halfway through?
I cheated and did some research about dselect, apt-get, dpkg etc. before starting the installation. For someone coming to a Debian installation without prior knowledge, you're right, it's a total mystery that there's more than one way to install packages.
-Stephen
(Disclaimer: it's been over a year since I did my Debian install, and my memory is somewhat fuzzy).
The first part of a Debian install, where you make disk partitions, set the hostname etc. is similar enough to a RedHat text-mode install (of which I've done several) that it didn't faze me. I don't think that part of the Debian install is difficult at all.
The difficult part is the second stage of the installation: selecting packages with tasksel/dselect. I took one look at it and just hit "quit". That gave me a base install, with nothing else. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat: I used apt-cdrom/apt-get to install all the rest of the stuff I wanted.
I'm not saying that Joe Average would/should be happy with apt-get from the command line; I'm saying that it's dead easy for someone with only a small amount of Unix/Linux experience to use, and it's much easier than dselect. It's perfectly possible to install Debian without wrestling with dselect.
-Stephen
With cordless mice we called them Neutered Mice. ...tail was cut off..
Aren't cordless mice called "hamsters"?
-Stephen
[Me] :-)
:-)
I guess I just value wisdom and imagination over pure knowledge.
[Tablizer]
Ex-Enron accountant, eh?
*rotfl*
There was a lot of imagination at work there; not so sure about the wisdom though
-Stephen
The big question we have is whether or not evolution is responsible for our presence, and in particular if it is a reasonable and plausible explanation for our existence.
I'd say that the bigger question is: does it actually matter?
Really, what is so important about knowing how we got here? We're here. We all have life. Is it not more important to decide what we're going to do with that life?
I don't know... I guess I just value wisdom and imagination over pure knowledge. I don't expect the generally scientifically-inclined Slashdot readership to agree with me.
*shrugs*
-Stephen
I have a FX451M. I love it. It's ancient and falling to pieces; the battery went long ago, and the solar panel isn't sufficient to trigger the reset circuitry, so every time I need to use it I have to get it out of base 14.5 or whatever the confused circuitry has decided to put it in
My Casio fx-115N suffers from the same solar panel malaise as your calculator. It's got to the stage where I have to shine a light directly on the solar panel or it doesn't work. I'm going to either have to replace it, or buy a small torch that I can hold in my teeth while I use it...
I've had it since 1990-ish; it got me through GCSE, A-level, university, and now I like to have it around for performing hex conversions and the like; I could use bc(1), printf(1) etc. to accomplish such simple tasks; but I like my calculator, darnit.
Every single one uses expression evaluation, which makes 'em useless for my purpose.
At school, kids like me had fx-115Ns or similar, and the rich kids with rich parents had graphing calculators with expression evaluation. I'd borrow one sometimes, and always disliked the way I had to press 50% more keys to perform a simple calculation.
-Stephen
What other interesting stereotypes can be turned into landing craft shapes?
Australia: big can of Victoria Bitter. The moon shot could be partly funded by the brewery, in exchange for having the capsule painted in the style of a can of their product.
-Stephen
My stomach always turns when I see l33t Linux pseudo transparant xterm's
So does mine, and I'm one of the people who uses them. As soon as something better comes along, I'll be one of the first adopters.
I want translucent everything, with the partially-obscured lower windows also blurred a little, so the fonts on the lower windows don't get jumbled together with those on the upper windows.
I've wanted extreme translucency ever since I saw the effect on Logan's computer in the first season of Dark Angel. (You know you're a geek when you watch Dark Angel for the tech).
-Stephen
If you want to suffer go ahead
Settling for analogue TV, in the comfort of your own home, with a roof over your head, in a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world, is "suffering"?
Hmmmm.
-Stephen
I myself use galeon for 100% of my web browsing.
So do I, and the UI is 100% of the reason.
I like GTK. I use GTK apps whenever possible, so my environment has a consistent look and feel. (I don't even have the QT libraries installed, and I'd uninstall libXaw if some obscure programs in xbase-clients didn't use it).
Mozilla sticks out like a sore thumb. Galeon gives me all the benefits of Mozilla with none of the UI weirdness.
-Stephen
I think they should use the animal I'll be reincarnated as instead of these adjectives, so that I'd have Karma: Cow.
Negative karma presumably means reincarnation as CowboyNeal.
-Stephen
I semi-agree. I don't like the name, but I do like the format.
I think they should drop the "Ogg" part of the name (which I personally can't read without mentally mapping it onto "egg", and I don't like eggs, either) and just call the format "Vorbis". On its own, "Vorbis" sounds cool.
-Stephen
1. RIAA lackey reads FUD about JPEG viruses;
2. RIAA hires programmers to develop viruses which attach to MP3 files;
3. AV vendors issue press release warning about new MP3 virus;
4. RIAA issues press release stating that this is Yet Another Reason not to download MP3s;
5. Ordinary computer users get scared and purge entire MP3 collections;
6. RIAA execs sit back and laugh evilly.
-Stephen