Its not the installing that takes time, its the downloading...at least for dialup users.
While I suppose I could download my cycles to charity, I choose to sqander them recklessly on optimizing my system. I'm a horrible person aren't I? I must be wasting tens of ones of dollars worth of cycles that could have been used on something else.
Upgrading kde without upgrading distro: emerge --update kde
Same with gnome: emerge --update gnome
I can do glibc, too.
Perhaps your package management system needs work? I just upgraded to KDE 3.0.3 a few days ago with that one command. Sure, it took a while, but so does gnome (installing 2.0.1 as I write this).
I use KDE for one reason, and one reason alone. The "show desktop" button and shortcut. I know it seems wierd, but its the Feature that is important to me. KDE has it, and afaik Gnome doesn't.
Of course, I keep going back to Gnome sometimes, because its faster and smaller. Though if I'm really pressed, its Icewm all the way.
Yes, it does talk about DOM. This book has talked about DOM since about 1999 (they've been releasing them for a while). However, it's a little unclear that this is the case until you realize that all of the functions categorized within include the DOM.
You're right about Mozilla though. I have been under the impression that Netscape and Mozilla both use the Mozilla engine and therefore have roughly equal capabilities. Is this not correct?
Strictly speaking, I guess you could say the comparison I found was between Netscape and IE if you think that referring to Mozilla and Netscape as equivalent in functionality is flawed.
Of course you could run some kind of huge test I guess...I don't know if anybody has done that.
What I did was go get one of those huge books that lists every available CSS markup, every Javascript function, and every HTML tag used by Netscape and IE, (one that listed if the functions work in W3C, NS, and IE).
IE seems, according to my big book (I think its DHTML: Definitive Guide, don't know where it is right now, I just moved) to have the most functions. The relation seems to be this, according to this book: 1) There are few (I didn't see any, though its a really big book) tags supported by both NS and W3C that aren't supported by IE. 2) There are many tags supported by IE which aren't supported by either W3C or NS 3) There are many W3C tags which aren't supported by NS or IE.
Of course, this makes no comparison of other browsers; so I'm just leaning on my own experience there. Personally, IE and NS (and other Mozilla based stuff) have always beat the tar out of anything else, so I didn't check to carefully.
Hmm...well, that tag was available in IE4. I remember hearing reports that DOM spec took the idea from MS, rather than the other way around. And I do like the DOM way; its nice to be able to refer to everything using a system.
But I also remember trying to code that a while back and having Netscape (the only other browser I had at the time) complain about the code. So I looked for another way to do it in NS, and there wasn't one.
The thing I really, REALLY like is their implementation of the "innerhtml" construct (and outer, too, I suppose) in javascript, allowing you to rewrite from scratch ANY tag. That has more recently been added to several other browsers. I think they did that well from the start.
That has made a world of difference for my DHTML quick coding.
Of course, there was a bit of memory leak problem as a result of that...
Have you tried writing advanced web code for multiple browsers?
Here's the basic process: 1) Figure out what you want to do. 2) Learn how to do it by visiting "guru" sites about coding in general. 3) Test it in all the browsers 4) Debug. Eventually, it'll work well under IE (before it works under other browsers). 5) Keep trying on the other browsers. In the mean time, tell everyone your page supports IE.
A good example of such in action would be javascript I wrote for a class I teach: http://mentor.cc.purdue.edu/~wphillip/engr 106/
It works okay in other browsers, but not quite so well as in IE.
Also, check out the compatibility problems with dynapi2. I believe that IE is the only browser they've got everything to work under.
By the way, IE is the most DOM compliant browser (comparing it to NS, Mozilla, Opera, and Links). So don't spread the FUD.
I just want to be able to do as much as possible, as easy as possible when making a webpage. I'm a TA at our local college. The universities official policy is to use Netscape as the main browser because of its integrated mail system (which doesn't screw up as much as outlook does).
However, a lot of instructors who use the web heavily (as in the course I teach, for example), require the use of IE. Why? Because it works more. Its more forgiving of browser errors; it has more built-in features; certificate setup is easier.
Me? I installed Win4lin so that I could continue to use MS. If someone else makes a browser that I can run js animations in just as fast, and that will work as easily with (private) certificates, and has as advanced a parser, I'll switch. And if I am browsing for mere text, I'll use galeon.
But when page displaying must be top-notch, I'll use IE. If everything that MS did was done in another way on another browser that I liked equally (or even other cool things that I liked using), I'd switch. I'd REALLY like to have a reason to cut out microsoft. But they still have the best, IMHO.
Think about this: the reason that people should do things the way Microsoft is doing them is not because Microsoft is doing it, but because Microsoft has implemented some good ideas. Personally, I think they should leave the OS and application businesses to people who know what they're doing, and just make and sell their browser.
Being a musician and scientist myself, I paid heed to those studies. The most famous and conclusive of these was the study of the Mozart effect, which shows that spacial and temporal reasoning increase for about 15 minutes (by a few IQ points) after listening to 15 minutes of Mozart. Similar indications, specifically in spacial and temporal reasoning have resulted from other musical studies. Spacial reasoning is the basis for geometry, and temporal reasoning is most helpful in Physics, especially mechanics. I've never heard of studies in which Math in any way was used to benefit musicians, though it would be nice. My personal theory is that strengthening spacial or temporal reasoning either way will help both music and Mathematics.
Which ones are those? All the ones I keep seeing that are used a lot are more similar to handheld devices - they use a C or C++ compiler, and don't have something super-expensive (in terms of memory and still allowing real-time OS functionality) embedded into them like a JVM.
Wait...your argument doesn't even seem to follow from the previous post. What are you talking about?
Thats right! Completely useless! I don't need the superglue that they used to put my car together, or the weather proof materials they make huge buildings out of, or that make my airplane rides safer and swimming pools last long enough to be worth having. And I wish my computer only had the power of a calculator. All of these things are just worthless crap: technically amazing, but totally useless in practical terms.
And FORGET all the processes we have developed to package and freeze food for long trips as a result of NASA. Refrigeration was good enough, and when people go into the deserts of third world countries, they can just eat raisins and rice.
Do you know why the government started putting much more money (than before that) into Universities after WWII? Because they realized that the atomic bomb was the result of "silly physicists" working in labs on things that were "technically amazing, but totally useless in practical terms." Good ideas abound when there is a way to cultivate them, and sometimes they are very fruitful. Also, necessity (of getting the job done, in this case) is the mother of invention.
urpmi will only deal with stuff in its database ONLINE, you can't add a new package to its database which isn't available online (very easily). In addition, eventually, the package list online changes (when Mandrake goes to the next version), and all of your old rpm installs don't work as libraries with anything new you install, and there's nothing you can do about it but a MAJOR upgrade. Also, currently, it doesn't really do versioning well, that is, you cannot have multiple versions of the same software unless you specify that its something completely different, and that the files go in a different spot on the system, just as rpm doesn't. Also, its not easy to create rpm files; it often takes some work.
urpmi does only one thing better: it keeps a record of a website which lists packages. The problem is not the lack of a wrapper, its the lack of features built into the whole RPM model.
Not all distros have a package management system with all of those features, and I'm not sure all of the ones that do. I only know that Mandrake, my old distro, did not have them, and that Gentoo, my new distro, does.
I know a guy that just used an orange stick to model 3d with the help of a camera. The program ran on a Pentium level processor; the only thing that made it run a little slow was the camera, since he used a cheap one that could only record at 320x240 and 15fps.
I like that idea much better for playing 3d games. We don't use mice. We use SWORDS!
Right! And when we declared independance from Russia, we had to back up our claims with actions! Geeks everywhere have to get down to business. Just like the Mexicans did when declaring independance from Prussia.
We need to get to it. We've got our intelligence, and more importantly, our knowledge of history behind us. We're more prepared than the Canadians were when they broke off from the Klingon Empire.
I hope somebody reads this. Being a longstanding member of a fraternity myself, I must point out that NOT ALL FRATS ARE GREEK, AND NOT ALL ARE BAD!
Keep in mind that the idea of a fraternity is that of a brotherhood. Before fraternities (and actually still), all the monks living together were known as this. And a sorority is likewise a flock of nuns.
That being said, there are three types of fraternities, and you are stereotyping only one of them. These being service, honorary, and social (sometimes you can talk about professional, but I'll put those with honorary, because they work about the same way). Greek fraternities are almost often social and are useful in that they are political machines. There are some LESS social greek fraternities, but it seems that what they have in common is an inward look, that is, the most important thing to the fraternity is the fraternity. I'll agree, they are pretty bad with that view. Of course, I can think of one right now that got around that... Honarary fraternities require that the members meet some form of qualification, such as HKN, which is for electrical and computer engineers. (Getting in is something of an award, and members can often choose to do nothing with the fraternity). They rarely have hazing, and usually have a general purpose of benefitting the profession. Sometimes there are professional chapters of such fraternities (as in industry professionals). Of these, the only one that seems to behave like a social fraternity is the business fraternity, and then only sometimes...draw your own conclusions there.
Last are service fraternities. These are the wierdest. Like social fraternities, there is usually a stronger friendship with fraternity members than with those outside the fraternity, even though they don't have (as many) social functions. Also, most of these are coed, and have less strict requirements for entry. The majority of the entrance into one of these is a trial period to determine if you're willing to work or not. Wierder still, there are usually also coed sororities. I've never heard anything bad about these (except for um...mine. But that's because we know everything about our own fraternities and because we have a big country, and people aren't perfect).
So what was I in? An honorary service fraternity known as Kappa Kappa Psi. We invite outstanding bandmembers to join our ranks, and serve with us (you know, moving band equipment, painting fields...that sort of thing). I'm very glad I did it, and I don't regret any of it. I made a lot of close friends, and I learned a lot about working with people. I probably learned a lot more than I would have had I not joined. By the way, the bad thing? One of our chapters in Alabama got their charter revoked for hazing.
One other thing: when I was in college, there were people who I thought maybe held a grudge against me BECAUSE I was in a fraternity, until they spoke to me (we sometimes wore letters). Be careful with your judgement.
Keep in mind that just because one scientist defends his theory badly doesn't mean the theory is wrong. It merely means that the argument must be thrown out. If you look at the two articles, it seems that those arguments that could be shown to be wrong were thrown out. The article you mention referred only to 38 points of data. The first, however, used over a hundred. Also, he only made the claim that the speed of light has decreased, and did not discuss how, which was the major way that Setterfield was shown wrong. Finally, he gave a lot of verifiable supporting evidence - all known cases where the speed of light was measured using heavenly bodies, and the difference between orbital and atomic clocks, which I would say is the real "proof" of his case.
I am doubtful of his answer. However, your attempt to discredit him leaves more to be desired.
1) Its part of a new add campaign to turn our pee the same color as the soda, but in order to pull it off, we have to drink A LOT.
2) There are lots of diet programs...and soda keeps on selling...coincidence? The diet programs brainwash us into buying more soda so that we need to diet more! And this is just another step!
3) The new soda containers are actually developed for military use. They plan to drop them on enemy forces to cause a mild explosion, covering the enemy with a sticky substance, and leaving them exposed to attack while they take showers.
4) All part of training to make Americans bigger. Bigger food=bigger people, right? We'll be able to take over the world once all Americans are 11 feet tall, and everyone else averages 5'11".
5) The soda gods have decreed it. The will of the soda gods must be obeyed.
Interesting notion, but what makes you so sure? Consider that if we understood the world well enough, we could program a human model of the world into a machine and it wouldn't have to learn at all. Alternatively, if we could simulate the world perfectly, and then have a machine interacte with the world, he would also learn as well as he would in the real world. These arguments are irrefutable, and lead to the next possibility: if we can simulate the world as high as the level of perception of the machine, it can learn from our simulated environment - which may include a scale of time which is much, much slower than our own. "Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream, how would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"
Are you sure? Perhaps you should rephrase, "the currently successful applications don't involve imitation of the hardware."
There are MANY projects to duplicate the hardware - both the topology and chemical make up. However, they don't work a whole lot better than our Von Neumann machines because of latency (and a few other) problems.
I've begun to study A.I. myself and have noticed that the field is very vaguely defined. The name itself suggests some mystical programming that allows a computer to exceed its original capabilities and do the extraordinary, such as gain self-awareness, given a big enough machine.
I'll be more direct. I've noticed that people who consider themselves part of A.I. will work in these broad, sweeping, general areas: expert systems search algorithms nonlinear classifiers (neural nets, SVMs etc.)
Which of these areas do you think holds the key to the most development; which do you think will lead to the greatest breakthoughs, or which OTHER area, if you think I've missed something?
Hmm...interesting concept...defining something using its antonym. I suppose that Windows 98 is a secure operating system because unlike Linux it gets hacked a lot?
Epics are fundamentally incredibly large stories, and Star Wars does fit the bill there. However, they are also so universal that they speak to all generations without change. While I'll agree that people of all ages like Star Wars, and history could eventually call it an epic, for the moment it is definitely contemporary.
The journey to gentoo
on
Debian And WineX
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I'm a former Mandrake user, (mandrake uses apt-get and urpmi, two tools which are nearly identical in functionality). Today I'm a Gentoo user.
Gentoo is by no means stable - you have to maintain the stability yourself. In fact, gentoo is more of a bleeding edge kind of system. They usually have the latest version of whatever someone has written a script for that can be automatically installed (including custom system options, most notablly the -O3 and -fastmath optimizations on C and C++ code). New stuff is available every couple of hours to be recompiled for your system specifically.
The biggest problem with Gentoo right now is reverse dependancy checking - when you uninstall a package, the portage tool (similar to apt-get) doesn't check to see what packages will be broken by this change (forward dependency checking works great). And of course, not all of the code actually works right away. However, its been my experience that the user community is much, much better to work with than any other distro. In previous distributions, if something broke, I'd often have to scour the internet to learn how to fix it. With gentoo, problems are often solved with just a visit to their website.
One more thing - if you really like some package, you can just install it by hand. But its not much more work to make a package (unlike a rpm, for example). In fact, its not much work to edit packages if there are problems. Therefore, its quite possible for users to be developers in this distro. In fact, it seems to be the norm.
I would say that this is part of the problem with code that you might create - you're hiding the implementation section.
The best way to produce the code is to create a clear division between functional elements, a clear division of data elements, and a clear division of implementation and error checking. What I mean by "division" is very dependent upon the language. If you've got an OO language its clearly easier to define the difference between data types using objects than it is in a weakly typed functional language.
However, all of these things can be done with any language. If error checking is taking a lot of space, put it in a separate function, or at the very least put some sort of divider that makes it obvious where the code begins and the debug stuff ends.
The best comment is often well structured code. Comments only make it easier to understand those rare algorithms that can be explained in a non-algorithmic way. (Actually these aren't extremely rare. FFT comes to mind.)
Slashdot Mirror
Its not the installing that takes time, its the downloading...at least for dialup users.
While I suppose I could download my cycles to charity, I choose to sqander them recklessly on optimizing my system. I'm a horrible person aren't I? I must be wasting tens of ones of dollars worth of cycles that could have been used on something else.
Upgrading kde without upgrading distro:
emerge --update kde
Same with gnome:
emerge --update gnome
I can do glibc, too.
Perhaps your package management system needs work?
I just upgraded to KDE 3.0.3 a few days ago with that one command. Sure, it took a while, but so does gnome (installing 2.0.1 as I write this).
I use KDE for one reason, and one reason alone. The "show desktop" button and shortcut. I know it seems wierd, but its the Feature that is important to me. KDE has it, and afaik Gnome doesn't.
Of course, I keep going back to Gnome sometimes, because its faster and smaller. Though if I'm really pressed, its Icewm all the way.
Yes, it does talk about DOM. This book has talked about DOM since about 1999 (they've been releasing them for a while). However, it's a little unclear that this is the case until you realize that all of the functions categorized within include the DOM.
You're right about Mozilla though. I have been under the impression that Netscape and Mozilla both use the Mozilla engine and therefore have roughly equal capabilities. Is this not correct?
Strictly speaking, I guess you could say the comparison I found was between Netscape and IE if you think that referring to Mozilla and Netscape as equivalent in functionality is flawed.
Of course you could run some kind of huge test I guess...I don't know if anybody has done that.
What I did was go get one of those huge books that lists every available CSS markup, every Javascript function, and every HTML tag used by Netscape and IE, (one that listed if the functions work in W3C, NS, and IE).
IE seems, according to my big book (I think its DHTML: Definitive Guide, don't know where it is right now, I just moved) to have the most functions. The relation seems to be this, according to this book:
1) There are few (I didn't see any, though its a really big book) tags supported by both NS and W3C that aren't supported by IE.
2) There are many tags supported by IE which aren't supported by either W3C or NS
3) There are many W3C tags which aren't supported by NS or IE.
Of course, this makes no comparison of other browsers; so I'm just leaning on my own experience there. Personally, IE and NS (and other Mozilla based stuff) have always beat the tar out of anything else, so I didn't check to carefully.
Hmm...well, that tag was available in IE4. I remember hearing reports that DOM spec took the idea from MS, rather than the other way around. And I do like the DOM way; its nice to be able to refer to everything using a system.
But I also remember trying to code that a while back and having Netscape (the only other browser I had at the time) complain about the code. So I looked for another way to do it in NS, and there wasn't one.
The thing I really, REALLY like is their implementation of the "innerhtml" construct (and outer, too, I suppose) in javascript, allowing you to rewrite from scratch ANY tag. That has more recently been added to several other browsers. I think they did that well from the start.
That has made a world of difference for my DHTML quick coding.
Of course, there was a bit of memory leak problem as a result of that...
Have you tried writing advanced web code for multiple browsers?
r 106/
Here's the basic process:
1) Figure out what you want to do.
2) Learn how to do it by visiting "guru" sites about coding in general.
3) Test it in all the browsers
4) Debug. Eventually, it'll work well under IE (before it works under other browsers).
5) Keep trying on the other browsers. In the mean time, tell everyone your page supports IE.
A good example of such in action would be javascript I wrote for a class I teach:
http://mentor.cc.purdue.edu/~wphillip/eng
It works okay in other browsers, but not quite so well as in IE.
Also, check out the compatibility problems with dynapi2. I believe that IE is the only browser they've got everything to work under.
By the way, IE is the most DOM compliant browser (comparing it to NS, Mozilla, Opera, and Links). So don't spread the FUD.
I just want to be able to do as much as possible, as easy as possible when making a webpage. I'm a TA at our local college. The universities official policy is to use Netscape as the main browser because of its integrated mail system (which doesn't screw up as much as outlook does).
However, a lot of instructors who use the web heavily (as in the course I teach, for example), require the use of IE. Why? Because it works more. Its more forgiving of browser errors; it has more built-in features; certificate setup is easier.
Me? I installed Win4lin so that I could continue to use MS. If someone else makes a browser that I can run js animations in just as fast, and that will work as easily with (private) certificates, and has as advanced a parser, I'll switch. And if I am browsing for mere text, I'll use galeon.
But when page displaying must be top-notch, I'll use IE. If everything that MS did was done in another way on another browser that I liked equally (or even other cool things that I liked using), I'd switch. I'd REALLY like to have a reason to cut out microsoft. But they still have the best, IMHO.
Think about this: the reason that people should do things the way Microsoft is doing them is not because Microsoft is doing it, but because Microsoft has implemented some good ideas. Personally, I think they should leave the OS and application businesses to people who know what they're doing, and just make and sell their browser.
Being a musician and scientist myself, I paid heed to those studies. The most famous and conclusive of these was the study of the Mozart effect, which shows that spacial and temporal reasoning increase for about 15 minutes (by a few IQ points) after listening to 15 minutes of Mozart. Similar indications, specifically in spacial and temporal reasoning have resulted from other musical studies. Spacial reasoning is the basis for geometry, and temporal reasoning is most helpful in Physics, especially mechanics.
I've never heard of studies in which Math in any way was used to benefit musicians, though it would be nice. My personal theory is that strengthening spacial or temporal reasoning either way will help both music and Mathematics.
Which ones are those? All the ones I keep seeing that are used a lot are more similar to handheld devices - they use a C or C++ compiler, and don't have something super-expensive (in terms of memory and still allowing real-time OS functionality) embedded into them like a JVM.
Wait...your argument doesn't even seem to follow from the previous post. What are you talking about?
Thats right! Completely useless! I don't need the superglue that they used to put my car together, or the weather proof materials they make huge buildings out of, or that make my airplane rides safer and swimming pools last long enough to be worth having. And I wish my computer only had the power of a calculator. All of these things are just worthless crap: technically amazing, but totally useless in practical terms.
And FORGET all the processes we have developed to package and freeze food for long trips as a result of NASA. Refrigeration was good enough, and when people go into the deserts of third world countries, they can just eat raisins and rice.
Do you know why the government started putting much more money (than before that) into Universities after WWII? Because they realized that the atomic bomb was the result of "silly physicists" working in labs on things that were "technically amazing, but totally useless in practical terms." Good ideas abound when there is a way to cultivate them, and sometimes they are very fruitful. Also, necessity (of getting the job done, in this case) is the mother of invention.
urpmi will only deal with stuff in its database ONLINE, you can't add a new package to its database which isn't available online (very easily). In addition, eventually, the package list online changes (when Mandrake goes to the next version), and all of your old rpm installs don't work as libraries with anything new you install, and there's nothing you can do about it but a MAJOR upgrade. Also, currently, it doesn't really do versioning well, that is, you cannot have multiple versions of the same software unless you specify that its something completely different, and that the files go in a different spot on the system, just as rpm doesn't. Also, its not easy to create rpm files; it often takes some work.
urpmi does only one thing better: it keeps a record of a website which lists packages. The problem is not the lack of a wrapper, its the lack of features built into the whole RPM model.
Not all distros have a package management system with all of those features, and I'm not sure all of the ones that do. I only know that Mandrake, my old distro, did not have them, and that Gentoo, my new distro, does.
I know a guy that just used an orange stick to model 3d with the help of a camera. The program ran on a Pentium level processor; the only thing that made it run a little slow was the camera, since he used a cheap one that could only record at 320x240 and 15fps.
I like that idea much better for playing 3d games. We don't use mice. We use SWORDS!
Right! And when we declared independance from Russia, we had to back up our claims with actions! Geeks everywhere have to get down to business. Just like the Mexicans did when declaring independance from Prussia.
We need to get to it. We've got our intelligence, and more importantly, our knowledge of history behind us. We're more prepared than the Canadians were when they broke off from the Klingon Empire.
Time to go do some good.
I hope somebody reads this.
Being a longstanding member of a fraternity myself, I must point out that NOT ALL FRATS ARE GREEK, AND NOT ALL ARE BAD!
Keep in mind that the idea of a fraternity is that of a brotherhood. Before fraternities (and actually still), all the monks living together were known as this. And a sorority is likewise a flock of nuns.
That being said, there are three types of fraternities, and you are stereotyping only one of them. These being service, honorary, and social (sometimes you can talk about professional, but I'll put those with honorary, because they work about the same way). Greek fraternities are almost often social and are useful in that they are political machines. There are some LESS social greek fraternities, but it seems that what they have in common is an inward look, that is, the most important thing to the fraternity is the fraternity. I'll agree, they are pretty bad with that view. Of course, I can think of one right now that got around that...
Honarary fraternities require that the members meet some form of qualification, such as HKN, which is for electrical and computer engineers. (Getting in is something of an award, and members can often choose to do nothing with the fraternity). They rarely have hazing, and usually have a general purpose of benefitting the profession. Sometimes there are professional chapters of such fraternities (as in industry professionals). Of these, the only one that seems to behave like a social fraternity is the business fraternity, and then only sometimes...draw your own conclusions there.
Last are service fraternities. These are the wierdest. Like social fraternities, there is usually a stronger friendship with fraternity members than with those outside the fraternity, even though they don't have (as many) social functions. Also, most of these are coed, and have less strict requirements for entry. The majority of the entrance into one of these is a trial period to determine if you're willing to work or not. Wierder still, there are usually also coed sororities. I've never heard anything bad about these (except for um...mine. But that's because we know everything about our own fraternities and because we have a big country, and people aren't perfect).
So what was I in? An honorary service fraternity known as Kappa Kappa Psi. We invite outstanding bandmembers to join our ranks, and serve with us (you know, moving band equipment, painting fields...that sort of thing). I'm very glad I did it, and I don't regret any of it. I made a lot of close friends, and I learned a lot about working with people. I probably learned a lot more than I would have had I not joined. By the way, the bad thing? One of our chapters in Alabama got their charter revoked for hazing.
One other thing: when I was in college, there were people who I thought maybe held a grudge against me BECAUSE I was in a fraternity, until they spoke to me (we sometimes wore letters). Be careful with your judgement.
And all the source except the linux kernel, binutils, and grub are online (you only get what you need to get online with the installation CD).
Keep in mind that just because one scientist defends his theory badly doesn't mean the theory is wrong. It merely means that the argument must be thrown out. If you look at the two articles, it seems that those arguments that could be shown to be wrong were thrown out.
The article you mention referred only to 38 points of data. The first, however, used over a hundred. Also, he only made the claim that the speed of light has decreased, and did not discuss how, which was the major way that Setterfield was shown wrong.
Finally, he gave a lot of verifiable supporting evidence - all known cases where the speed of light was measured using heavenly bodies, and the difference between orbital and atomic clocks, which I would say is the real "proof" of his case.
I am doubtful of his answer. However, your attempt to discredit him leaves more to be desired.
1) Its part of a new add campaign to turn our pee the same color as the soda, but in order to pull it off, we have to drink A LOT.
2) There are lots of diet programs...and soda keeps on selling...coincidence? The diet programs brainwash us into buying more soda so that we need to diet more! And this is just another step!
3) The new soda containers are actually developed for military use. They plan to drop them on enemy forces to cause a mild explosion, covering the enemy with a sticky substance, and leaving them exposed to attack while they take showers.
4) All part of training to make Americans bigger. Bigger food=bigger people, right? We'll be able to take over the world once all Americans are 11 feet tall, and everyone else averages 5'11".
5) The soda gods have decreed it. The will of the soda gods must be obeyed.
Of course, you can do this with the much more powerful matlab...for which you can also buy the maple symbolic evaluation engine, I might add.
Plus you can do things OTHER than math with it.
Interesting notion, but what makes you so sure? Consider that if we understood the world well enough, we could program a human model of the world into a machine and it wouldn't have to learn at all. Alternatively, if we could simulate the world perfectly, and then have a machine interacte with the world, he would also learn as well as he would in the real world. These arguments are irrefutable, and lead to the next possibility: if we can simulate the world as high as the level of perception of the machine, it can learn from our simulated environment - which may include a scale of time which is much, much slower than our own. "Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream, how would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"
Are you sure? Perhaps you should rephrase, "the currently successful applications don't involve imitation of the hardware."
There are MANY projects to duplicate the hardware - both the topology and chemical make up. However, they don't work a whole lot better than our Von Neumann machines because of latency (and a few other) problems.
I've begun to study A.I. myself and have noticed that the field is very vaguely defined. The name itself suggests some mystical programming that allows a computer to exceed its original capabilities and do the extraordinary, such as gain self-awareness, given a big enough machine.
I'll be more direct. I've noticed that people who consider themselves part of A.I. will work in these broad, sweeping, general areas:
expert systems
search algorithms
nonlinear classifiers (neural nets, SVMs etc.)
Which of these areas do you think holds the key to the most development; which do you think will lead to the greatest breakthoughs, or which OTHER area, if you think I've missed something?
Hmm...interesting concept...defining something using its antonym. I suppose that Windows 98 is a secure operating system because unlike Linux it gets hacked a lot?
Epics are fundamentally incredibly large stories, and Star Wars does fit the bill there. However, they are also so universal that they speak to all generations without change. While I'll agree that people of all ages like Star Wars, and history could eventually call it an epic, for the moment it is definitely contemporary.
I'm a former Mandrake user, (mandrake uses apt-get and urpmi, two tools which are nearly identical in functionality). Today I'm a Gentoo user.
Gentoo is by no means stable - you have to maintain the stability yourself. In fact, gentoo is more of a bleeding edge kind of system. They usually have the latest version of whatever someone has written a script for that can be automatically installed (including custom system options, most notablly the
-O3 and -fastmath optimizations on C and C++ code). New stuff is available every couple of hours to be recompiled for your system specifically.
The biggest problem with Gentoo right now is reverse dependancy checking - when you uninstall a package, the portage tool (similar to apt-get) doesn't check to see what packages will be broken by this change (forward dependency checking works great). And of course, not all of the code actually works right away. However, its been my experience that the user community is much, much better to work with than any other distro. In previous distributions, if something broke, I'd often have to scour the internet to learn how to fix it. With gentoo, problems are often solved with just a visit to their website.
One more thing - if you really like some package, you can just install it by hand. But its not much more work to make a package (unlike a rpm, for example). In fact, its not much work to edit packages if there are problems. Therefore, its quite possible for users to be developers in this distro. In fact, it seems to be the norm.
I would say that this is part of the problem with code that you might create - you're hiding the implementation section.
The best way to produce the code is to create a clear division between functional elements, a clear division of data elements, and a clear division of implementation and error checking. What I mean by "division" is very dependent upon the language. If you've got an OO language its clearly easier to define the difference between data types using objects than it is in a weakly typed functional language.
However, all of these things can be done with any language. If error checking is taking a lot of space, put it in a separate function, or at the very least put some sort of divider that makes it obvious where the code begins and the debug stuff ends.
The best comment is often well structured code. Comments only make it easier to understand those rare algorithms that can be explained in a non-algorithmic way. (Actually these aren't extremely rare. FFT comes to mind.)