By analogy, if I invoke several theorems and lemmas to do a mathematical proof rather than killing myself by deriving them again, then I must not be having fun because I'm just plugging into magic incantations.
Errrr... no. These "shortcuts" improve productivity for both programmers and mathematicians and that's good. Getting down to nuts and bolts is also good because it promotes understanding.
I've been playing C&C games since Tiberian Sun, and I like Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3 better than the previous games.
You're not going back far enough.
As someone who has played C&C since the original, Tiberian Sun was the worst of the first four games (C&C 1 and 2, RA 1 and 2), so it's not surprising that you might think the new games are better. But you'd be wrong... the other three games are terrific. The feel of C&C1 and RA1 have never been surpassed. I still play RA2, which is also great fun.
Isn't that the point of this outrage? Getting typojacked when you try to go to a genuinely invalid URL?
Actually, no. We've been outraged about that before. It's one thing if I use someone's server and it typojacks me due to a wildcard entry in the name tables. The alleged behavior we're discussing actually prevents* the user from using another nameserver outside of that ISP in order to sidestep the problem. * (well, makes more difficult, requiring tunneling or something like that)
For quite awhile I've had the feeling that DNS will eventually be brokered through P2P/DHTs/etc with digitally signed payloads, and this type of behavior only makes that idea more appropriate.
Re:There's a difference between GIT and SVN
on
Linus on GIT and SCM
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· Score: 1
I think you bring up some good points, although I strongly disagree with you just like this reponse.
The primary fault in your logic is confusing tools with methodologies and policies.
The methodology of having multiple branches that merge in mainline changes as they go along and that have strict quality requirements before merging into mainline is just a good practice. However there is some disagreement about whether CVS, SVN, or a distributed SCM is the best tool for that job. I am of the opinion that distributed is better because I think DSCM features map onto this problem better. Apparently you do not, or are confusing methodology/policy with tools.
Finally, people can always develop things in private. Yes, a DSCM makes that easier, but it's not impossible without it. Having that private work happen is necessary so that developers can inject some basic quality control (such as not breaking the build). The argument against private work quickly gets into a "I want to be big brother" argument which is not a very good one.
The GCC methodologies and policies are good ones, but please don't confuse them with some intrinsic quality of CVS/SVN/centralized SCM. I suggest that most of those methodologies could be done better in a DSCM like Mercurial than they could today in SVN.
I hope I made clear which parts of this post were argument and which were opinion.
I will believe there's not a shortage when I can go to Amazon.com and buy a Wii at MSRP from a mass-market (r)etailer like Amazon themselves or Target, etc (not an individual seller at a higher price).
Maybe this will lead to an emphasis on reducing the time-until-usable-GUI for free Unix-like operating systems... (something worth improving upon, imo)
Are we still trying to prove that the sexes are equal? I'm sorry, they aren't. Male != Female. It is noble to make them indistinguishable by most measures, like compensation (equal pay for equal work) and so forth. Even so, the efforts mentioned in the story summary are too little, too late. What is not already accounted for by genetics ("nature") is well programmed in by external factors (parents/family, education, all other inputs, mainly the cultural ones, i.e. "nurture") long before such programs would make a difference. See what you can do about that if you actually want to be successful (but wait... that's much harder, isn't it?).
Theory: What I think will ultimately be determined is that a great deal of what the sexes are good at and therefore want to do with their lives are already defined by nature... many generations of tuning that made it more desirable for the existing stereotypes to prevail.
I'm not sure this is something I would want to brag about. If you made the system so complex that it was impossible to use to its fullest potential, then why did you make it so complex and/or powerful? Sounds like admitting to a lot of wasted effort.
PostgreSQL it is still missing the SQL:2003 Window Functions that are critical in business reporting, so Oracle and DB2 will still win out for OLAP/data warehouse applications.
I would contest the assertion a different way than the parent post.
It's not like this one particular feature is the only thing holding PostgreSQL back from kicking Oracle and DB2's asses, respectively (even considering just the OLAP/data warehouse applications, as it was phrased).
Far from it. (PostgreSQL lacks many of the advanced features of those products, and is not as fast either.)
Sorry, I know this will be a rehash of what has already been said 10 times over. But, in short, the problems with this (CDs vs. downloadable music)
1. Quality (uncompressed versus highly compressed = degraded quality) 2. DRM 3. Prices not directly comparable due to points 1 and 2 4. Having an actual "thing" 5. Having the booklet
Sorry Sony, you've already lost. Over $59? Yeah, I bought your PS2 but things are looking bleak for your PS3. I'm not sure who's going to kick your ass, but my vote goes towards the Wii. Plus, at this rate Microsoft will beat you as well. Welcome to dead last...
Opinionated and willing to burn karma on this nonsense....
I don't much like sendmail, and there are better alternatives for the overwhelming majority of cases (particularly as far as standard installs go).
Here's hoping that this move by NetBSD is a sign that even more Unix-like operating systems and distributions will take this approach. The time has come for sendmail to be an option, not the default.
Re:I just can't get the hang of vim
on
Vim 7 Released
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· Score: 1
"Tried on and off"? I had problems with this too.
You must immerse yourself in vi, and (gasp) practice its features in increasing levels of difficulty until it becomes second nature. I used to use vanilla editors too, and the difference in text editing efficiency is astounding.
In my opinion, accounting jargon is too difficult for this IT worker. If you buy expensive stuff for your employer and have to forecast when it goes in service, you know what I'm talking about. It's all a matter of perspective.
If I remember correctly, Apple intended to ship GCC 4.0 with Tiger. Currently the 4.0.0 branch of GCC is in phase 3 (the final phase before release). Is Tiger going to have a custom GCC build with some of the 4.0 features (some recent snapshot of the 4.0 branch) like SSA and auto-vectorization, or have they fallen back to the 3.4.x series?
At $249.99, there better be a handful of games I just can't live without. For me, there are none. This changes with the introduction of new titles and price drops on the PSP itself. At $149.99, I could see buying it for only 2-3 games (with the expectation of more).
I want to see the new logo already. They announced the contest about six months ago... how long does it take to choose a logo, even with open source bureaucracy?:)
Isn't this an apples and oranges comparison? (Not that anyone cares, necessarily...)
IIRC, VirtualPC is essentially an emulator. VMWare is actually a virtualization layer that only emulates the hardware interfaces, but the non-privileged application code can run directly on the CPU like it would "natively".
This by itself should explain the speed differences, as well as why VMWare requires x86 hardware to run Windows, while VirtualPC can run on a Mac (which would be impossible given VMWare's design).
I don't quite understand why IBM doesn't want to create something like a G5, only "more serious". I'm sure the pSeries machines are excellent, but if they could just lower the price a bit by dropping some of the enterprise features that drive the price up, they could sell quite a lot of them. For people like myself, it's a chance to use a superior architecture in a not-quite-so-proprietary setting (Apple hardware is very proprietary in some areas). We could benefit from the commodity market for all the standardized components and interconnects (DDR RAM, SATA, PCI-X, PCI Express, AGP, USB, IEEE 1394, whatever) without being forced to buy Apple hardware or pay the MS tax. Commodized G5 system running an open source operating system like Linux or *BSD... that's where it's at.
I know I would like to buy such a machine for myself, and try to convince my employer to buy one for me...
I think that diehard linux people wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole, unless to read the kernel source and borrow the things Solaris is particularly good at (scalability and performance at the high end) by implementing it in the Linux kernel. This would be a major win for Linux, and I feel a loss for Solaris (although they might get a popularity boost from the non-diehard linuxers).
At a certain point, old computers just aren't worth keeping around. My limit right now is about a 200MHz Pentium-MMX. Any older and slower and it just isn't worth keeping around for me. I recently got rid of a 133MHz Pentium that did a halfway decent job at being a firewall, but doing anything else with it took forever. Plus, you have to realize that the computing power per kWH just isn't worth it at that point when less then 10% of the computing power of one of your newer boxes can accomplish the same tasks.
It's more about fitness for a particular purpose. Console controllers are very good for certain kinds of games - platformers, sports games, shooters, etc. I agree that if your universe only consists of FPS, then I think the mouse and keyboard will beat a console's controller (imo). Computers are also well suited for strategy games that involve clicking on units such (both real-time and turn-based).
There's a reason that strategy flourishes on PC and platformers and shooters flourish on consoles.
I have a theory that XP may be "monitoring" the socket calls made by an application to see if it's a "browser." If so, and not by the name of IEXPLORER.EXE, then it preferentially chooses to swap before pages belonging to other processes.
Think about it, OpenBSD has syscall-level permissions, so adding in little hooks like this is nearly trivial, and I wouldn't doubt that such a thing might exist.
I know for a fact that on my XP box at work, with 512 MB of RAM, Mozilla and Firefox sure get swapped out pretty quick...
By analogy, if I invoke several theorems and lemmas to do a mathematical proof rather than killing myself by deriving them again, then I must not be having fun because I'm just plugging into magic incantations.
Errrr... no. These "shortcuts" improve productivity for both programmers and mathematicians and that's good. Getting down to nuts and bolts is also good because it promotes understanding.
Moving on...
I've been playing C&C games since Tiberian Sun, and I like Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3 better than the previous games.
You're not going back far enough.
As someone who has played C&C since the original, Tiberian Sun was the worst of the first four games (C&C 1 and 2, RA 1 and 2), so it's not surprising that you might think the new games are better. But you'd be wrong... the other three games are terrific. The feel of C&C1 and RA1 have never been surpassed. I still play RA2, which is also great fun.
Isn't that the point of this outrage? Getting typojacked when you try to go to a genuinely invalid URL?
Actually, no. We've been outraged about that before. It's one thing if I use someone's server and it typojacks me due to a wildcard entry in the name tables. The alleged behavior we're discussing actually prevents* the user from using another nameserver outside of that ISP in order to sidestep the problem.
* (well, makes more difficult, requiring tunneling or something like that)
For quite awhile I've had the feeling that DNS will eventually be brokered through P2P/DHTs/etc with digitally signed payloads, and this type of behavior only makes that idea more appropriate.
I think you bring up some good points, although I strongly disagree with you just like this reponse.
The primary fault in your logic is confusing tools with methodologies and policies.
The methodology of having multiple branches that merge in mainline changes as they go along and that have strict quality requirements before merging into mainline is just a good practice. However there is some disagreement about whether CVS, SVN, or a distributed SCM is the best tool for that job. I am of the opinion that distributed is better because I think DSCM features map onto this problem better. Apparently you do not, or are confusing methodology/policy with tools.
Finally, people can always develop things in private. Yes, a DSCM makes that easier, but it's not impossible without it. Having that private work happen is necessary so that developers can inject some basic quality control (such as not breaking the build). The argument against private work quickly gets into a "I want to be big brother" argument which is not a very good one.
The GCC methodologies and policies are good ones, but please don't confuse them with some intrinsic quality of CVS/SVN/centralized SCM. I suggest that most of those methodologies could be done better in a DSCM like Mercurial than they could today in SVN.
I hope I made clear which parts of this post were argument and which were opinion.
If I'm not mistaken, Bill Gates has paraded around in recent times saying that "customers want [DRM]"? It's ok to say you're wrong, Bill.
I will believe there's not a shortage when I can go to Amazon.com and buy a Wii at MSRP from a mass-market (r)etailer like Amazon themselves or Target, etc (not an individual seller at a higher price).
Just checked.... you can't (at least in the US).
Maybe this will lead to an emphasis on reducing the time-until-usable-GUI for free Unix-like operating systems... (something worth improving upon, imo)
Are we still trying to prove that the sexes are equal? I'm sorry, they aren't. Male != Female. It is noble to make them indistinguishable by most measures, like compensation (equal pay for equal work) and so forth. Even so, the efforts mentioned in the story summary are too little, too late. What is not already accounted for by genetics ("nature") is well programmed in by external factors (parents/family, education, all other inputs, mainly the cultural ones, i.e. "nurture") long before such programs would make a difference. See what you can do about that if you actually want to be successful (but wait... that's much harder, isn't it?).
Theory: What I think will ultimately be determined is that a great deal of what the sexes are good at and therefore want to do with their lives are already defined by nature... many generations of tuning that made it more desirable for the existing stereotypes to prevail.
I'm not sure this is something I would want to brag about. If you made the system so complex that it was impossible to use to its fullest potential, then why did you make it so complex and/or powerful? Sounds like admitting to a lot of wasted effort.
PostgreSQL it is still missing the SQL:2003 Window Functions that are critical in business reporting, so Oracle and DB2 will still win out for OLAP/data warehouse applications.
I would contest the assertion a different way than the parent post.
It's not like this one particular feature is the only thing holding PostgreSQL back from kicking Oracle and DB2's asses, respectively (even considering just the OLAP/data warehouse applications, as it was phrased).
Far from it. (PostgreSQL lacks many of the advanced features of those products, and is not as fast either.)
Sorry, I know this will be a rehash of what has already been said 10 times over. But, in short, the problems with this (CDs vs. downloadable music)
1. Quality (uncompressed versus highly compressed = degraded quality)
2. DRM
3. Prices not directly comparable due to points 1 and 2
4. Having an actual "thing"
5. Having the booklet
Sorry Sony, you've already lost. Over $59? Yeah, I bought your PS2 but things are looking bleak for your PS3. I'm not sure who's going to kick your ass, but my vote goes towards the Wii. Plus, at this rate Microsoft will beat you as well. Welcome to dead last...
Opinionated and willing to burn karma on this nonsense....
I don't much like sendmail, and there are better alternatives for the overwhelming majority of cases (particularly as far as standard installs go).
Here's hoping that this move by NetBSD is a sign that even more Unix-like operating systems and distributions will take this approach. The time has come for sendmail to be an option, not the default.
"Tried on and off"? I had problems with this too.
You must immerse yourself in vi, and (gasp) practice its features in increasing levels of difficulty until it becomes second nature. I used to use vanilla editors too, and the difference in text editing efficiency is astounding.
You know that the underlying base of Mac OS X is BSD, right?
Not exactly. Strictly speaking, the "underlying base" of Mac OS X is Mach. The inclusion of BSD code was more like a siamese twin implant.
In my opinion, accounting jargon is too difficult for this IT worker. If you buy expensive stuff for your employer and have to forecast when it goes in service, you know what I'm talking about. It's all a matter of perspective.
If I remember correctly, Apple intended to ship GCC 4.0 with Tiger. Currently the 4.0.0 branch of GCC is in phase 3 (the final phase before release). Is Tiger going to have a custom GCC build with some of the 4.0 features (some recent snapshot of the 4.0 branch) like SSA and auto-vectorization, or have they fallen back to the 3.4.x series?
At $249.99, there better be a handful of games I just can't live without. For me, there are none. This changes with the introduction of new titles and price drops on the PSP itself. At $149.99, I could see buying it for only 2-3 games (with the expectation of more).
I want to see the new logo already. They announced the contest about six months ago... how long does it take to choose a logo, even with open source bureaucracy? :)
Isn't this an apples and oranges comparison? (Not that anyone cares, necessarily...)
IIRC, VirtualPC is essentially an emulator. VMWare is actually a virtualization layer that only emulates the hardware interfaces, but the non-privileged application code can run directly on the CPU like it would "natively".
This by itself should explain the speed differences, as well as why VMWare requires x86 hardware to run Windows, while VirtualPC can run on a Mac (which would be impossible given VMWare's design).
I'm surprised that no one is mentioning this.
I don't quite understand why IBM doesn't want to create something like a G5, only "more serious". I'm sure the pSeries machines are excellent, but if they could just lower the price a bit by dropping some of the enterprise features that drive the price up, they could sell quite a lot of them. For people like myself, it's a chance to use a superior architecture in a not-quite-so-proprietary setting (Apple hardware is very proprietary in some areas). We could benefit from the commodity market for all the standardized components and interconnects (DDR RAM, SATA, PCI-X, PCI Express, AGP, USB, IEEE 1394, whatever) without being forced to buy Apple hardware or pay the MS tax. Commodized G5 system running an open source operating system like Linux or *BSD... that's where it's at.
I know I would like to buy such a machine for myself, and try to convince my employer to buy one for me...
I think that diehard linux people wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole, unless to read the kernel source and borrow the things Solaris is particularly good at (scalability and performance at the high end) by implementing it in the Linux kernel. This would be a major win for Linux, and I feel a loss for Solaris (although they might get a popularity boost from the non-diehard linuxers).
At a certain point, old computers just aren't worth keeping around. My limit right now is about a 200MHz Pentium-MMX. Any older and slower and it just isn't worth keeping around for me. I recently got rid of a 133MHz Pentium that did a halfway decent job at being a firewall, but doing anything else with it took forever. Plus, you have to realize that the computing power per kWH just isn't worth it at that point when less then 10% of the computing power of one of your newer boxes can accomplish the same tasks.
Don't give your computer too much credit, now.
It's more about fitness for a particular purpose. Console controllers are very good for certain kinds of games - platformers, sports games, shooters, etc. I agree that if your universe only consists of FPS, then I think the mouse and keyboard will beat a console's controller (imo). Computers are also well suited for strategy games that involve clicking on units such (both real-time and turn-based).
There's a reason that strategy flourishes on PC and platformers and shooters flourish on consoles.
I have a theory that XP may be "monitoring" the socket calls made by an application to see if it's a "browser." If so, and not by the name of IEXPLORER.EXE, then it preferentially chooses to swap before pages belonging to other processes.
Think about it, OpenBSD has syscall-level permissions, so adding in little hooks like this is nearly trivial, and I wouldn't doubt that such a thing might exist.
I know for a fact that on my XP box at work, with 512 MB of RAM, Mozilla and Firefox sure get swapped out pretty quick...