Pretty close. "It" is not an it but a "they". TeX is the engine that does the work of producing ".dvi" files (which are usually dvips'd to ".ps" files). It is a macro-driven programming environment developed by Don Knuth to format text and mathematics in a very controlled, reproducible, efficient manner (the actual processing engine is tiny by today's standards). TeX is also commonly used to refer to "Plain TeX", a format that supplements TeX's primitive (built-in) commands with enough to typeset nice-looking paragraphs, equations, etc, while still remaining flexible enough to tempt TeX hackers (who, me?) to do really strange stuff. LaTeX is a more restrictive TeX format that implements a lot more stuff by default, but is much harder to customise without breaking the built-in stuff.
Okay, that's the one paragraph requested - now a bit more background:
To quote Knuth [from the preface of the TeXbook]:
... a new typeseting system intended for the creation of beautiful books---and especially for books that contain a lot of mathematics. By preparing a manuscript in TeX format, you will be telling a computer exactly how the manuscript is to be transformed into pages whose typographic quality is comparable... etc.
For a mathematician (e.g. me) and anyone wanting to write research articles/books/lecture notes with more than half an equation, TeX is a godsend, as it does mathematics unbelievably well. It can be typed from a keyboard (rodent-free) is fast and efficient to input, and the restriction of tex input files to the uncontroversial 3/8 of ascii makes tex source compact and portable. It is especially useful for international collaborative papers and travelling academics/grad students/postdocs (just need a text editor & one of a few dozen tex engines).
Like Linux, TeX is open source (not "free" in the GPL sense, but Knuth does allow free code forks, such as Omega, pdftex, etex some of which are GPL) and has hoards of evangelists who think that $\TeX \ge \SeX$.
Of course, your opinion of TeX will depend on whether you
Write any substatial documents
use any equations in those documents
have spent the last 20 years hanging out for the long-awaited volume 4 (?) of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming
I may try it. More importantly, it may convince some of my win-centric colleagues to give it a go. (I probably wouldn't use it day-to-day, though - my preference for a gui consists mostly of a stack of xterms and dvi/ps/pdf/img viewers for whatever I am hacking up at the time.)
Actually, there is no applied magnetic field in a rail gun. The current through the loop made by the two rails & the slug (poor little gastropod) creates a magnetic field orthogonal to the plane of the loop. This field repels itself (sorta) which ends up pushing the only moveable bit of the circuit outwards.
I can't remember enough physics to figure out whether it is the magnetic flux density or the derivative thereof which is leads to the force. Basically, you have to dump a shitload of current into the the thing from some big capacitors, which gives both I and dI/dt big.
Maglev is completely different. AFAICR, Maglev is what you get if you "straighten out" the cylindrical interface between coils and magnets in the rotor of an electric motor, making them planar.
(shrug) I wouldn't have thought that would make any difference, but I take your point about memory access, cache hits, etc being critical. (Even with cache-challenged Celerons.*) This is how I see it, in a nutshell:
The time-intensive bit is the initial sorting of the two halves, using an n log(n) sorting algorithm. As these are done independently, the only shared resources are.... the memory and bus!
So (in a simplistic and naive sense) the hypothetical algorithm scales to at most p processors, where 1/p is the proportion of bus bandwidth (or any shared resource) used in the non-parallel case. Pretty obvious, eh? In this case, p could be increased through faster bus or bigger cache.
It looks like I have learned something today. It is a pity that it is of no real use to me. 8-)
Sorting does (almost) scale. If you start with your favourite order n log n algorithm (such as merge sort), you can then split your list in half, sort each half (a processor each), then merge the two.
If the original serial algorithm takes kn log(n) units of time, then the parallel step takes roughly half that, since k(n/2) log(n/2) = k(n/2) (log(n)-log(2)) ~ kn log(n)/2, and the final merge takes time proportional to n, which is small compared to kn log(n)/2 (insignificant, for large n).
So the total time taken is roughly half the original time.
every user has a small number of parameters associated derived from their global and/or recent history, in the range -1 to 1. The categories would be based on the moderation categories. This gives a point in an n-dimensional cube
ACs have 0 on everything, or some other default
Newbies have another default (or maybe can choose one of several profiles)
Each posting to/. also gives a point in n-dimensional space, depending on the poster's profile and subsequent moderation.
The filters applied to/. sessions apply to the dot product (sorry, IANAnonmathematician) of the story and the logged in user. In effect, this "tilts the playing field" in the direction of the user.
How will this help?
People with a good history of insightful posts will gain filters attuned to insightfulness.
People who flood/. with drivel which no-one reads nor cares about will only get weak filters.
People with strongly negative scores will get "inverted" filters that they will have to set to "-5" to see the good stuff. They can happily engage in pissing wars in their own little private corner of the n-dimensional/. universe.
An advantage of this is simplicity - dot product is easy to compute, and it needn't be a float value - just rescale an integer value.
Some drawbacks:
ACs would get no filters, or maybe only weak filters
Humorous posters would only see humorous postings (etc) A possible fix would be to allow users to weaken a component of their filter - e.g. a humorist could choose not to include "humour" in their filter.
Research funded by medical charities competes with research funded by drug companies.
Food aid competes with local suppliers in recipient countries.
Public Universities (==charities in many countries) compete with other educators.
Your average FSF programmer participates in for-profit ventures. You don't see FSF programmers competing for IT contracts and submitting zero cost bids in competition with local contractors.
The FSF has as its stated purpose the compete restructuring of an entire element of our economy. Why do some programmers undervalue the proprietary system they espouse that they feel it can't coexist with this collaborative movement? Is there a deep-seated inferiority complex so ingrained in these people such that they feel their perceived rightful place in society must be supported by secrets, and, if necessary, lies? Sad.
My point? Both Freed and Proprietary approaches have strength and weaknesses, so it should be a matter of "you do your thing and let others do theirs". If (unlike me) you believe FSF or others will achieve their ultimate goal of making proprietary software obsolete then you had better do something about putting yourself in a position to take advantage of it. I doubt whinging about it on/. won't stop it.
I agree totally - I thought the original article was a total piss-take on the whole OS comparison thing. It was remarkably incoherent in its logic. (Is 60's heritage good or bad??) So yes, it's a troll, quite a sophisticated one, but a troll nonetheless.
Re:How to patch your kernel.
on
Linux 2.2.10
·
· Score: 1
Go for the full tarball - the jump 2.0.36 to 2.2.0 was not really diff'able, as too much stuff changed (changes that were built up thru the 2.1.*'s).
As a quick indication of what you would be in for if a patch did exist:
so if (say) around half the 2.0.36 stuff was reused, the diff would contain ~3.5M of stuff to be diff'd out and ~10M of stuff to be diff'd in. This would make your patch ~13.5M. Better to have a nice shiny new kernel for the same dload.
Minor disclaimer I don't pretend to be an expert on diff --recursive, so I may be wrong in a trivial way.
I agree - there is no reason not to accept mainstream.hacker==slashdot.cracker && mainstream.hacker==slashdot.haxor So use "code hacker" or "C hacker" or "linux kernel hacker" or "webpage hacker" or "unauthorised access hacker", and be aware that mainstream hacks (Journo's) will not make much of a distinction. Folk who grok will figure from context.
I play string bass in a Jazz band. I describe myself as one of "bassist", "string bass player", "upright bass player", "double bassist", etc depending on context and audience. I don't flame people who don't get it first time.
that was legible. (I think we have stumbled on a way to tell the hackeren apart from the rest, even though a decent moniker eludes us.) (-8 ^D
Re:Windows NT cmd shell does not require quotes.
on
John Carmack on Linux
·
· Score: 1
Geez, this is getting OT...
This would involve a hack to a *sh not linux or a unix. It could even be done with a script for commands such as cd, but for other commands, what does something like rm program files mean? (think of the fun & games this could cause in established scripts and makefiles)
Who types file names anyway?
andrew@frey/~ > cd Pro[tab] andrew@frey/~ > cd Program\ Files andrew@frey/Program Files >
and several million hours saved worldwide for fs non-gurus like myself. When can we burn the rescue disks?
Lets hope it all comes together in an acceptable way. If/when it does, what a gift for humanity!! (or at least the short fat flippered version thereof)
Hands up all those who have alias mroe more or even alias mroe less (modulo shell syntax).
Actually, this is due to alternating LRLR on a QWERTY, a more common error for MHz touchtypists. Given this, mcirosoft.com is a likely mistype, which, of course, is registered. It offers a redirection, plus a plug for another product.
Re:No, HotSpot produces faster code than C or C++
on
The Desktop Wars
·
· Score: 1
C outdated?
please, pull up a shell and type ls/usr/src/linux/*/*/*.c or even better cat/usr/src/linux/*/*/*.c (I'm not dissing java - my experience with it is limited to a few hundred lines for web applets)
Nice observation maggie -- there is yet another level of self-reference embedded in geb(egb). That is, there can be no algorithm for determining whether a given Turing Machine (or wetware) will halt when operating on a given input (or book).
This is not incompatible (i.e. it fails to avoid being not incompatible) with our valuable grey stuff being Turing-equivalent. Un/fortunately it is not a proof.
Actually, the way I read geb (in my teens) was a bit like a TM, shuttling backwards and forwards, with each transition altering my internal state. I did get to the end then. I wonder if my thirtysomething TM program will halt?
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, that's the one paragraph requested - now a bit more background:
To quote Knuth [from the preface of the TeXbook]:
For a mathematician (e.g. me) and anyone wanting to write research articles/books/lecture notes with more than half an equation, TeX is a godsend, as it does mathematics unbelievably well. It can be typed from a keyboard (rodent-free) is fast and efficient to input, and the restriction of tex input files to the uncontroversial 3/8 of ascii makes tex source compact and portable. It is especially useful for international collaborative papers and travelling academics/grad students/postdocs (just need a text editor & one of a few dozen tex engines).Like Linux, TeX is open source (not "free" in the GPL sense, but Knuth does allow free code forks, such as Omega, pdftex, etex some of which are GPL) and has hoards of evangelists who think that $\TeX \ge \SeX$.
Of course, your opinion of TeX will depend on whether you
See www.tug.org for more info.
I may try it. More importantly, it may convince some of my win-centric colleagues to give it a go. (I probably wouldn't use it day-to-day, though - my preference for a gui consists mostly of a stack of xterms and dvi/ps/pdf/img viewers for whatever I am hacking up at the time.)
I can't remember enough physics to figure out whether it is the magnetic flux density or the derivative thereof which is leads to the force. Basically, you have to dump a shitload of current into the the thing from some big capacitors, which gives both I and dI/dt big.
Maglev is completely different. AFAICR, Maglev is what you get if you "straighten out" the cylindrical interface between coils and magnets in the rotor of an electric motor, making them planar.
The time-intensive bit is the initial sorting of the two halves, using an n log(n) sorting algorithm. As these are done independently, the only shared resources are .... the memory and bus!
So (in a simplistic and naive sense) the hypothetical algorithm scales to at most p processors, where 1/p is the proportion of bus bandwidth (or any shared resource) used in the non-parallel case. Pretty obvious, eh? In this case, p could be increased through faster bus or bigger cache.
It looks like I have learned something today. It is a pity that it is of no real use to me. 8-)
[ *-yes, this an attempt to stay on-topic ]
If the original serial algorithm takes kn log(n) units of time, then the parallel step takes roughly half that, since
k(n/2) log(n/2) = k(n/2) (log(n)-log(2)) ~ kn log(n)/2,
and the final merge takes time proportional to n, which is small compared to kn log(n)/2 (insignificant, for large n).
So the total time taken is roughly half the original time.
Here is how it could be implemented:
- every user has a small number of parameters associated derived from their global and/or recent history, in the range -1 to 1. The categories would be based on the moderation categories. This gives a point in an n-dimensional cube
- ACs have 0 on everything, or some other default
- Newbies have another default (or maybe can choose one of several profiles)
- Each posting to
/. also gives a point in n-dimensional space, depending on the poster's profile and subsequent moderation. - The filters applied to
/. sessions apply to the dot product (sorry, IANAnonmathematician) of the story and the logged in user. In effect, this "tilts the playing field" in the direction of the user.
How will this help?- People with a good history of insightful posts will gain filters attuned to insightfulness.
- People who flood
/. with drivel which no-one reads nor cares about will only get weak filters. - People with strongly negative scores will get "inverted" filters that they will have to set to "-5" to see the good stuff. They can happily engage in pissing wars in their own little private corner of the n-dimensional
/. universe.
An advantage of this is simplicity - dot product is easy to compute, and it needn't be a float value - just rescale an integer value.Some drawbacks:
Apparantly the m68k port of linux works on MacIIsi's.
All you need is GPS in a NIC. 8-)
<andrew@33.36420S,151.37124E,125>
Your average FSF programmer participates in for-profit ventures. You don't see FSF programmers competing for IT contracts and submitting zero cost bids in competition with local contractors.
The FSF has as its stated purpose the compete restructuring of an entire element of our economy. Why do some programmers undervalue the proprietary system they espouse that they feel it can't coexist with this collaborative movement? Is there a deep-seated inferiority complex so ingrained in these people such that they feel their perceived rightful place in society must be supported by secrets, and, if necessary, lies? Sad.
My point? Both Freed and Proprietary approaches have strength and weaknesses, so it should be a matter of "you do your thing and let others do theirs". If (unlike me) you believe FSF or others will achieve their ultimate goal of making proprietary software obsolete then you had better do something about putting yourself in a position to take advantage of it. I doubt whinging about it on /. won't stop it.
Translation to another stereotype: Hey bro' where you get the idea that Aarstraleeans were such puritanical mo'f'ers?? Chill dude!
I agree totally - I thought the original article was a total piss-take on the whole OS comparison thing. It was remarkably incoherent in its logic. (Is 60's heritage good or bad??) So yes, it's a troll, quite a sophisticated one, but a troll nonetheless.
As a quick indication of what you would be in for if a patch did exist:
linux-2.0.36.tar.gz 7098 Kb Mon Nov 16 00:00:00 1998 Unix Tape Archive
whereas 2.2.10 is
linux-2.2... 13577 Kb Mon Jun 14 05:33:00 1999 Unix Tape Archive
so if (say) around half the 2.0.36 stuff was reused, the diff would contain ~3.5M of stuff to be diff'd out and ~10M of stuff to be diff'd in. This would make your patch ~13.5M. Better to have a nice shiny new kernel for the same dload.
Minor disclaimer I don't pretend to be an expert on diff --recursive, so I may be wrong in a trivial way.
I agree - there is no reason not to accept mainstream.hacker==slashdot.cracker && mainstream.hacker==slashdot.haxor So use "code hacker" or "C hacker" or "linux kernel hacker" or "webpage hacker" or "unauthorised access hacker", and be aware that mainstream hacks (Journo's) will not make much of a distinction. Folk who grok will figure from context.
I play string bass in a Jazz band. I describe myself as one of "bassist", "string bass player", "upright bass player", "double bassist", etc depending on context and audience. I don't flame people who don't get it first time.
.
that was legible. (I think we have stumbled on a way to tell the hackeren apart from the rest, even though a decent moniker eludes us.)
(-8
^D
This would involve a hack to a *sh not linux or a unix. It could even be done with a script for commands such as cd, but for other commands, what does something like rm program files mean? (think of the fun & games this could cause in established scripts and makefiles)
Who types file names anyway?
andrew@frey /~ > cd Pro[tab] /~ > cd Program\ Files /Program Files >
andrew@frey
andrew@frey
^D
^D
and several million hours saved worldwide for
fs non-gurus like myself. When can we burn the
rescue disks?
Lets hope it all comes together in an acceptable way. If/when it does, what a gift for humanity!! (or at least the
short fat flippered version thereof)
Actually, this is due to alternating LRLR on a QWERTY, a more common error for MHz touchtypists. Given this, mcirosoft.com is a likely mistype, which, of course, is registered. It offers a redirection, plus a plug for another product.
please, pull up a shell and type /usr/src/linux/*/*/*.c /usr/src/linux/*/*/*.c
ls
or even better
cat
(I'm not dissing java - my experience with it is limited to a few hundred lines for web applets)
8-) andrew
This is not incompatible (i.e. it fails to avoid being not incompatible) with our valuable grey stuff being Turing-equivalent. Un/fortunately it is not a proof.
Actually, the way I read geb (in my teens) was a bit like a TM, shuttling backwards and forwards, with each transition altering my internal state. I did get to the end then. I wonder if my thirtysomething TM program will halt?
andrew
Where did the troll say s/he installed any software? 8-)
No they probably bought it. How much did Bill pay the Stones for "~[#]Start me up"? ('scuse the feeble ascii-art windows logo)
In a broad Aussie accent (broader than mine) today is close to ``to-die''. Onya moite!