> Don't you people understand mathematics and english or something?
Yes and no. Which, mathematically, is "1 & 0", which is "0". So, "no".
I suspect he means a factor of 1/100. If "one hundred times more" is 10000 percent, than 100 times less must be 1%, so that 100 times more than 100 times less than X is X.
There's no point in this, because you're not filling a need. This is like developing a car for the Amish. It's not that they can't get a car, its that they don't want a car. If the COBOL shops had an interest in changing tools, they would have done so some time between 1959 and now.
Someone with a huge pile of COBOL doesn't care about language features, expressibility, or whatever else is out there. If they wanted any of that they would switch. They care about shareholder value and ROI, which dictate that "change nothing" is cheaper than "rewrite everything".
Yes, but D knows what type an object really is most of the time. You don't need to be type intelligent for every object in order to benefit. For unknown areas of memory, you can use conservative semantics. This will prevent some kinds of compacting collectors, but it's not fatal.
In D, you know a lot more about what areas of memory have what type of object. You could do this in C++, but most of the libraries and existing code is not written this way. People who write D libraries know that you can't do GC-unfriendly things. In C++, noone expects a GC to be attached when designing an STL implementation or similar.
I think you misread the purpose of the lists in the article. I think the C/C++ list is not "as opposed to", it's more like "you might be interested in". For example, the speed argument is not "D is fast but C++ is slow", but rather, "you might be working in C++ for speed reasons, D has that too."
I also think part of what makes D so great (IMHO) is that it has learned from years of C++ and Java design and user experience. Some things C++ does well, but some things had consequences that didn't show until years later, especially interactions between C++ features. For what its worth, I'm a big fan of Bjarne's work, but pioneers always make some assumptions that don't pan out, and C++ is stuck with these now. Also, C++ taught the systems programming and mainstream folks about OOP and to think beyond C, which then allowed languages like Java and D to take off. In order to bring these academic ideas into the mainstream, Bjarne had to maintain the old C language assumptions.
Tacking a GC library onto a project using a library is messy. The most common one (Boehm et al) does not work cleanly with classes unless you use their base class above all your designs. No other C++ library does this (but I think they have a custom STL and string class on the Boehm site), so you are forced into a mixed GC + manual situation if you don't code all your own C++ libraries. It works well with C style coding, but if I was writing an OpenGL library in C++, do I require people to link with libgc? They will often not be willing to, since it's kind of disruptive. Plus it's just hard to trust it frankly, since the compiler writers can easily break it with new optimizations (i.e. stack layout changes) and I think they have in the past. Maybe they won't any more (since its gained some visibility) but do you really know for sure?
Templates and TMP are a good thing if they are cleanly done, have a look at D's version. Templates are thought to be too powerful because we don't like to mix power and sloppiness, and meta programming happened after templates were built in C++.
As for associative arrays and strings they can be done in libraries, but D's approach has a lot of benefits. For one thing, using the STL in C++ causes compile speed and error message clarity issues; many optimizations are available when the strings are language rather than library. Also, a lot of syntax becomes ugly in C++, for instance ("abc" + string("def")) doesn't work. In D you can also write a 'switch' using strings as case constants, for instance. Unicode is also much cleaner than in C++. Probably partly because C++ predates the most modern unicode designs.
Delegates are nicer than function pointers, and allow some really cool stuff. Search for "lazy", "opApply" and "foreach" on the D page.
Also, with Java, I converted a Java program into D and it went amazingly smoothly. It worked almost as soon as the syntax errors were fixed, which was mostly minor stuff. It was only a little algorithmic program; I imagine if you use a lot of Java libraries it requires more work.
As related to the unit test stuff, there are interesting semantics concerning invariants used in classes, and how input and output contracts are inherited from parent to subclass.
There are a number of techniques - you could use a liquid (alchohol), charge batteries that are kept in the car, use small batteries that are transferred to the car at the fuel station (i.e. the way propane canisters are rented), or burn solid/gaseous fuels.
In the end it probably comes down to cost. Saying "we need a new liquid" is kind of pointless. We need to know what options are available scientifically, and then choose based on various tradeoffs between the technologies.
This is silly. Do people die playing soccer, other than drunk fans?
Most Americans don't like 'high risk' sports because it's hard to admire someone who is risking death just to get other people to clap for them. Being (in effect) a gladiator is not all that admirable according to the American world view. I'm from USA and I agree with this. Risking death to pull someone out of a burning car -- admirable. Risking death to score a goal - what were you thinking?
Similarly, there are folks in USA who like rap or Brittney Spears, folks in Germany who like Heavy Metal or techno, and a few people in each country who like classical. It is silly to try to group 'all Americans' or 'all Dutch'; if you find that you need to reduce any analysis to this level, then you should switch to a simpler topic.
If you can't understand a 3 course meal, don't put it in a blender to simplify it; analyze a donut instead, and do a good job at a simpler task.
The problem is, instead of starting out looking for reality, you are starting out with a conclusion and asking "how do I get there with these facts".
'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'
The idea that the Democratic party naturally "favors free speech" and the Republican does not, is simple minded. Both parties favor free speech. Both parties "love freedom". People of both parties occassionally bake and eat apple pies. And both parties talk about all of these images and ideas as if they had a patent on them.
The differences between parties are political philosophy, philosophy of government, and cultural identity. "Policy" is boring to most people, emotion sells. So if you can't or wont think on the level of policy, you are left with emotion. In this case, what you believe about which party is "freedom" oriented, against racism, kisses babies, "cares about regular people", defends the little guy, etc. etc. etc, is simply a matter of which side you listen to. The emotional messages of both parties are nearly the same, but most people listen to "their" party. It's sort of a tribal instinct.
Policy: The Republican party is stronger on allowing political free speech (this is why they are considered less politically correct, and why they oppose campaign finance reform, which is ultimately an attempt to regulate political speech.)
Policy: The Democratic party tends to favor "broadening" the definition of free speech to include things like controversial photographic materials, non-word-based self-expression (flag burning, certain kinds of disruptive protests), and other quasi-speech areas.
Don't get caught in the simple-sugars message of nice-people and selfish-people that both parties spin out for people who don't want to think things through. Rule of thumb: If it feels like an "iMac" commercial, it's empty propaganda. If it feels like a credit card bill, or a draft card, its reality.
Forget what the business says. Forget what the politician says. Loyalty from person to person is not the way to think about this. Looking for the hidden agenda is incorrect too. Their words do not affect you -- Look for their actions, which do.
Politicos, business folk, and entertainers, all vary their message to suit their audience. TiVo is not necessarily loyal to customers, true. But they are not loyal to the recording industry either. They appeal to the emotions of both groups. Words are unimportant, look at their policies. (Which are a mixed bag, of course.)
If pleasing the customer makes them money, well then, they're in our pocket as far as that goes. It's our task to make sure our "loyalty" is to the -philosophy- that is in our interest, not to the particular company. Then their loyalty will need to follow that philosophy to survive.
If we are loyal to the "consumer gets the rights" philosophy, and spend accordingly, we -will- have influence. But if we become loyal to TiVo or any other specific brand, our hand is off the rudder again.
As for me, the hard drive upgradeability is what brought me to TiVo and is still a strong factor. When this box fails, I will evaluate the product field anew.
I wondered this too, so I did a web search. I think its the moment when the freshly minted Darth Vader finds out padme is toast and says "Noooooooo!!". The writers take this film moment and do the most predictable, direct thing that everyone is ready for.
I also was annoyed when they crash the half-ship and Obi says "well thats a happy landing".
The writers don't seem to know when to reinforce the existing emotion and when to break it up with humor. Five guys lounging in the "front seat" of a spaceship that ditches on a planet and none seem scared. It was as if they turned to the audience and said "hey it's only a movie".
The asteroid belt has a mass of about 1/10 earth. One alternative to dropping them directly on the surface, is that the asteroids could be accreted into a moon, perhaps using one of the existing moons as a starting point, or joining the existing moons together (by manipulating the velocities of the asteroids. The merged moons, plus asteroidal mass would form a large moon. Lunar tidal effects would heat the planet just as the lunar tides on earth cause friction and release some kinetic energy.
This kinetic heating would be a slower effect, but would not have the "instant heat and violence" of just hitting Mt. Olympus with the rocks. Of course the difficulty level is still pegged at "essentially impossible".
One approach to get this asteroid-pinball started would be to attach solar sails to asteroids -- a small CPU should be enough to control the sails to "brake" the asteroids and spiral their orbit toward mars. (But it would still take an enormous amount of time.)
The results could also be split - use some asteroids to hammer the surface (for heat and to release gasses) and others for moon building.
It escaped, didn't it? If it can make it "over the wall", I'd say it's healthy enough. The only true evidence of survivability is actual survival. Unless you are a puppy or a baby seal, then the secret is to have a face that looks like a human baby.
Note the reflexive conclusion in the article about pollution. A thousand years ago, gullible people might have thought a two headed goat was a sign the world was in danger. But in this enlightened time, we think a three headed frog is a sign that... the earth is in danger. Surprise == fear. See, we get a little smarter every day.
I don't think Gandalf knew the balrog would be there (in the book), although it isn't exactly spelled out, and he certainly had forbodings about Moria.
In the book, Glorfindel saves Frodo at Bruin. I think the reason that Arwen is shifted into this role is to introduce her - Tolkein did not spend a lot of time on the female characters and they wanted Aragorn's love to be a more visible character. Likewise, the scene with the sword that was broken - in the book, Aragorn has the sword that was broken in Bree. In the movie, we do not see it until we see the 'shrine' to it in Rivendell. It becomes a conversation piece, allowing Jackson to reinsert some of the themes that were not shown in Bree and elsewhere.
A lot of the conversation in the book gives interesting background info, and Jackson seems to cut these conversations out and reinsert them elsewhere. In the movie, the action scenes are more actiony and the dialog is swept into the relaxed scenes.
This contributes to the feeling that this all happened very quickly (days instead of months), but probably allows the movie to fit into hours instead of days.
Maybe if you missed a conversation, look for it in the next movie.
Hacker Blevin Witwick said today that all financial records should be put in Win95
servers on the public internet with no data
backup. This is a surprise turnaround from
the usual (e.g. L0pht) hacker position of
cautioning against dangerous and stupid security
moves.
Witwick's warden (er..) handlers say this is
a turning point for witwick, who formerly
opposed government activities that encouraged
crime.
FBI spokesperson C.G.B. Spender (a.k.a. the cigarrette smoking man), said this is an
important first step to making sure that all
citizens have access to military action when
they need it, by creating a situation where
"enforcement alone is not enough."
Congressman
J. Robert Newbie from Wisconsin said this was a
bold move and that "I've never seen anything like
this before!". Spender replied "I have. Burn it!", his herbal cigarette burning fiercely in
his trembling hand.
I have used StegFS and highly recommend it. But for non-encrypted data it has a special feature - it overwrites all deleted files with random bits. Thus, you get enhanced security even if you never open the encrypted levels of the filesystem.
The computer is also very usable even when the encrypted layers are closed, so you don't need to expose yourself by logging into the encrypted layer each time you log into the system.
Slashdot Mirror
> Don't you people understand mathematics and english or something?
Yes and no. Which, mathematically, is "1 & 0", which is "0". So, "no".
I suspect he means a factor of 1/100. If "one hundred times more" is 10000 percent, than 100 times less must be 1%, so that 100 times more than 100 times less than X is X.
There's no point in this, because you're not filling a need. This is like developing a car for the Amish. It's not that they can't get a car, its that they don't want a car. If the COBOL shops had an interest in changing tools, they would have done so some time between 1959 and now.
Someone with a huge pile of COBOL doesn't care about language features, expressibility, or whatever else is out there. If they wanted any of that they would switch. They care about shareholder value and ROI, which dictate that "change nothing" is cheaper than "rewrite everything".
Yes, but D knows what type an object really is most of the time. You don't need to be type intelligent for every object in order to benefit. For unknown areas of memory, you can use conservative semantics. This will prevent some kinds of compacting collectors, but it's not fatal.
In D, you know a lot more about what areas of memory have what type of object. You could do this in C++, but most of the libraries and existing code is not written this way. People who write D libraries know that you can't do GC-unfriendly things. In C++, noone expects a GC to be attached when designing an STL implementation or similar.
I think you misread the purpose of the lists in the article. I think the C/C++ list is not "as opposed to", it's more like "you might be interested in". For example, the speed argument is not "D is fast but C++ is slow", but rather, "you might be working in C++ for speed reasons, D has that too."
I also think part of what makes D so great (IMHO) is that it has learned from years of C++ and Java design and user experience. Some things C++ does well, but some things had consequences that didn't show until years later, especially interactions between C++ features. For what its worth, I'm a big fan of Bjarne's work, but pioneers always make some assumptions that don't pan out, and C++ is stuck with these now. Also, C++ taught the systems programming and mainstream folks about OOP and to think beyond C, which then allowed languages like Java and D to take off. In order to bring these academic ideas into the mainstream, Bjarne had to maintain the old C language assumptions.
Tacking a GC library onto a project using a library is messy. The most common one (Boehm et al) does not work cleanly with classes unless you use their base class above all your designs. No other C++ library does this (but I think they have a custom STL and string class on the Boehm site), so you are forced into a mixed GC + manual situation if you don't code all your own C++ libraries. It works well with C style coding, but if I was writing an OpenGL library in C++, do I require people to link with libgc? They will often not be willing to, since it's kind of disruptive. Plus it's just hard to trust it frankly, since the compiler writers can easily break it with new optimizations (i.e. stack layout changes) and I think they have in the past. Maybe they won't any more (since its gained some visibility) but do you really know for sure?
Templates and TMP are a good thing if they are cleanly done, have a look at D's version. Templates are thought to be too powerful because we don't like to mix power and sloppiness, and meta programming happened after templates were built in C++.
As for associative arrays and strings they can be done in libraries, but D's approach has a lot of benefits. For one thing, using the STL in C++ causes compile speed and error message clarity issues; many optimizations are available when the strings are language rather than library. Also, a lot of syntax becomes ugly in C++, for instance ("abc" + string("def")) doesn't work. In D you can also write a 'switch' using strings as case constants, for instance. Unicode is also much cleaner than in C++. Probably partly because C++ predates the most modern unicode designs.
Delegates are nicer than function pointers, and allow some really cool stuff. Search for "lazy", "opApply" and "foreach" on the D page.
Also, with Java, I converted a Java program into D and it went amazingly smoothly. It worked almost as soon as the syntax errors were fixed, which was mostly minor stuff. It was only a little algorithmic program; I imagine if you use a lot of Java libraries it requires more work.
As related to the unit test stuff, there are interesting semantics concerning invariants used in classes, and how input and output contracts are inherited from parent to subclass.
There are a number of techniques - you could use a liquid (alchohol), charge batteries that are kept in the car, use small batteries that are transferred to the car at the fuel station (i.e. the way propane canisters are rented), or burn solid/gaseous fuels.
In the end it probably comes down to cost. Saying "we need a new liquid" is kind of pointless. We need to know what options are available scientifically, and then choose based on various tradeoffs between the technologies.
Best way to do this is probably market forces.
This is silly. Do people die playing soccer, other than drunk fans?
Most Americans don't like 'high risk' sports because it's hard to admire someone who is risking death just to get other people to clap for them. Being (in effect) a gladiator is not all that admirable according to the American world view. I'm from USA and I agree with this. Risking death to pull someone out of a burning car -- admirable. Risking death to score a goal - what were you thinking?
Similarly, there are folks in USA who like rap or Brittney Spears, folks in Germany who like Heavy Metal or techno, and a few people in each country who like classical. It is silly to try to group 'all Americans' or 'all Dutch'; if you find that you need to reduce any analysis to this level, then you should switch to a simpler topic.
If you can't understand a 3 course meal, don't put it in a blender to simplify it; analyze a donut instead, and do a good job at a simpler task.
The problem is, instead of starting out looking for reality, you are starting out with a conclusion and asking "how do I get there with these facts".
'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'
- "1984", by George Orwell
The differences between parties are political philosophy, philosophy of government, and cultural identity. "Policy" is boring to most people, emotion sells. So if you can't or wont think on the level of policy, you are left with emotion. In this case, what you believe about which party is "freedom" oriented, against racism, kisses babies, "cares about regular people", defends the little guy, etc. etc. etc, is simply a matter of which side you listen to. The emotional messages of both parties are nearly the same, but most people listen to "their" party. It's sort of a tribal instinct.
Policy: The Republican party is stronger on allowing political free speech (this is why they are considered less politically correct, and why they oppose campaign finance reform, which is ultimately an attempt to regulate political speech.)
Policy: The Democratic party tends to favor "broadening" the definition of free speech to include things like controversial photographic materials, non-word-based self-expression (flag burning, certain kinds of disruptive protests), and other quasi-speech areas.
Don't get caught in the simple-sugars message of nice-people and selfish-people that both parties spin out for people who don't want to think things through. Rule of thumb: If it feels like an "iMac" commercial, it's empty propaganda. If it feels like a credit card bill, or a draft card, its reality.
Politicos, business folk, and entertainers, all vary their message to suit their audience. TiVo is not necessarily loyal to customers, true. But they are not loyal to the recording industry either. They appeal to the emotions of both groups. Words are unimportant, look at their policies. (Which are a mixed bag, of course.)
If pleasing the customer makes them money, well then, they're in our pocket as far as that goes. It's our task to make sure our "loyalty" is to the -philosophy- that is in our interest, not to the particular company. Then their loyalty will need to follow that philosophy to survive.
If we are loyal to the "consumer gets the rights" philosophy, and spend accordingly, we -will- have influence. But if we become loyal to TiVo or any other specific brand, our hand is off the rudder again.
As for me, the hard drive upgradeability is what brought me to TiVo and is still a strong factor. When this box fails, I will evaluate the product field anew.
Yes, here's the pubmed entry:
P ubMed&cmd=search&term=Strigiphilus+garylarsoni
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=
I also was annoyed when they crash the half-ship and Obi says "well thats a happy landing". The writers don't seem to know when to reinforce the existing emotion and when to break it up with humor. Five guys lounging in the "front seat" of a spaceship that ditches on a planet and none seem scared. It was as if they turned to the audience and said "hey it's only a movie".
The asteroid belt has a mass of about 1/10 earth. One alternative to dropping them directly on the surface, is that the asteroids could be accreted into a moon, perhaps using one of the existing moons as a starting point, or joining the existing moons together (by manipulating the velocities of the asteroids. The merged moons, plus asteroidal mass would form a large moon. Lunar tidal effects would heat the planet just as the lunar tides on earth cause friction and release some kinetic energy.
This kinetic heating would be a slower effect, but would not have the "instant heat and violence" of just hitting Mt. Olympus with the rocks. Of course the difficulty level is still pegged at "essentially impossible".
One approach to get this asteroid-pinball started would be to attach solar sails to asteroids -- a small CPU should be enough to control the sails to "brake" the asteroids and spiral their orbit toward mars. (But it would still take an enormous amount of time.)
The results could also be split - use some asteroids to hammer the surface (for heat and to release gasses) and others for moon building.
Note the reflexive conclusion in the article about pollution. A thousand years ago, gullible people might have thought a two headed goat was a sign the world was in danger. But in this enlightened time, we think a three headed frog is a sign that ... the earth is in danger. Surprise == fear. See, we get a little smarter every day.
Remember, in an arctic environment, the best place to conserve water is in your squirrel.
You would be killed by a massive burst of croutons.
In the book, Glorfindel saves Frodo at Bruin. I think the reason that Arwen is shifted into this role is to introduce her - Tolkein did not spend a lot of time on the female characters and they wanted Aragorn's love to be a more visible character. Likewise, the scene with the sword that was broken - in the book, Aragorn has the sword that was broken in Bree. In the movie, we do not see it until we see the 'shrine' to it in Rivendell. It becomes a conversation piece, allowing Jackson to reinsert some of the themes that were not shown in Bree and elsewhere.
A lot of the conversation in the book gives interesting background info, and Jackson seems to cut these conversations out and reinsert them elsewhere. In the movie, the action scenes are more actiony and the dialog is swept into the relaxed scenes.
This contributes to the feeling that this all happened very quickly (days instead of months), but probably allows the movie to fit into hours instead of days.
Maybe if you missed a conversation, look for it in the next movie.
It was an ethanol atmosphere....
Witwick's warden (er..) handlers say this is a turning point for witwick, who formerly opposed government activities that encouraged crime.
FBI spokesperson C.G.B. Spender (a.k.a. the cigarrette smoking man), said this is an important first step to making sure that all citizens have access to military action when they need it, by creating a situation where "enforcement alone is not enough."
Congressman J. Robert Newbie from Wisconsin said this was a bold move and that "I've never seen anything like this before!". Spender replied "I have. Burn it!", his herbal cigarette burning fiercely in his trembling hand.
The computer is also very usable even when the encrypted layers are closed, so you don't need to expose yourself by logging into the encrypted layer each time you log into the system.