Agreed. Of course, I've never found a computer I couldn't use meaningfully. How much use you can get out of a computer really depends more on you than on the computer. It's a measure of your compentence with the computer. Trying to measure the compentence of a computer isn't meaningful -- it's like trying to measure how competent is that hammer or that screwdriver. Depends on who's using it...
He knows very little about CPU design, if he thinks that the i386 was revolutionary.
The i386 was the single most revolutionary chip in the entire x86 line. I don't know about die process shit, but from a systems programmer perspective, there's very little that distinguishes chips prior to the 286 from one another, and very little that distinguishes chips after the 286 from one another. The Pentium 4 and the 80386 are nearly identical from a programmer's point of view. The 80386 and the 80286 are massively different, and the 80286 and the rarely seen 80186 are massively different. I agree the author doesn't know much, but he apparently knows more about it than you...
Re:can someone explain to me
on
E ~ mc^2
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· Score: 1
When do I really really approach "the speed of light?"
The moment you begin accelerating, you're approaching the speed of light.
When does my increase in mass approach infinity, prohibiting acceleration beyond a given velocity?
If by "approach infinity" you mean get bigger, this happens as soon as you begin accelerating. It's not like you're mass doesn't start to increase until you reach a certain speed -- the moment you get up and walk across the room, your mass increases. When you mass increases, it requires more energy to accelerate, or the same amount of energy yields less acceleration. It will always be positive, so you will never reach a point where you can't go any faster. You'll never reach a point where you're prohibited from accelerating. But you'll always be short of c, and when you accelerate, you'll make the amount that you're short smaller, but you'll never be able to get it to zero.
Is my own frame of reference paramount or inconsequential?
It's paramount to you, it's inconsequential to me...
Why stop at developers? Should anyone care if their operating system becomes "mainstream"?
I ran on a Macintosh for a number of years, back before Apple started trying to "capture marketshare" by cutting prices (and producing cheap pieces of crap). It stopped being my main computer not long after that (although I still use it, it's my mailserver -- 14 years old and still ticking); my next main desktop machine was a Sun SPARCstation. That really never even threatened to become mainstream. Eventually I picked up an Intel machine (had to, someone wanted software written for Windows and good emulators weren't available), been using Intel machines mainly for the last five years, but I've never really gotten into Windows. If it didn't make such a great gaming platform, I wouldn't even have a Windows partition. I could always get a PS/2...
I guess, after all these years, I still haven't figured out why I should give a rat's ass whether the great thundering herd runs the same OS I do. It makes no difference to me...
I think the idea is to make a spacecraft people can live on for a real long time. "Generation ships" as they're called in some SF literature. Of course, if you can make a ship you can live on for generations, you no longer need planets anymore, so they're kind of pointless...
I'm going to call you on this bullshit. How many instances are there where a control surface "fell off" an airplane? This only happens with completely crappy maintenance. An airplane that was that badly maintained is not likely to have a $15,000 BRS chute.
Umm, that's exactly what happened in this case. And it wasn't because the plane wasn't maintained (in fact it had just finished some maintenance, during which it is believed someone failed to tighten the bolts on the control surface in question that fell off in flight).
If Linux had an exploit that allowed someone to ssh into your box, su to root, then fsck your harddrive, and a patch wasn't released yet, would you be pissed off that bugtraq posted the code to exploit the bug?
Yes. However, I would not be pissed if they posted a bug anything like the one being talked about here, which is nothing like the one you describe. It's essentially a "web-trojan" -- it does not allow anyone on the outside to hack into a box, it just allows a user to execute malicious on his or her own system. BIG difference...
And inevitably, at some point in a programmer's career, [...] This actually happened to me quite recently
Statistics hint: Generalizing from a sample size of one is dangerous.
I can add that I too have had to code on systems where assembly was the only option, but a sample size of two isn't much better. I'd quite certain your statement is false...
uClibc is in a state now were it can replace glibc for most programs. It compiles a lot more than just busybox. My 486 laptop runs Linux From Scratch with uClibc as its only libc. Everything in the Linux From Scratch book compiled just fine, as did add-ons like OpenSSL/OpenSSH, joe, nasm, etc. I'd install X if my laptop's HD wasn't a mere 200 MB, part of which is partitioned for another OS...
Check the website for a list of known good programs. It runs a *lot* more than busybox. Thinks that *don't* work under uClibc seem to be the exception these days -- and usually they're bloatware you wouldn't want to run on a minimal system anyway (can you imagine a Java VM on a 40 MHz 486? Yikes...)
I don't think we're doomed if it takes a few weeks or months. I'd be more concerned about it taking a few minutes or worse, a few seconds. First of all, wouldn't a flip of that speed affect the whole planet like a giant EMP (electromagnetic pulse)? Aside from a few hardened pieces of military equipment, this would represent a worldwide destruction of modern technological equipment, wouldn't it? It'd certainly cause a massive disruption of services.
Even if not, I would think a switch in which we have a little time to prepare (all your compasses are going to be wrong in a couple of weeks -- take appropriate steps) would be far less traumatic for us than one that suddenly occured over a few minutes time...
[A] Natural selection is the engine of evolution, not mutation (which merely provides raw material for the engine to run on). An increased rate of mutation doesn't cause any evolution at all in a society where we don't let people just die because they're less healthy. For that matter, it doesn't tend to cause evolution at all unless some catastrophe occurs, leading to...
[B] Significant evolution usually occurs in the aftermath of catastrophe. Killing off the majority of a population is what generally allows new, innovative species to emerge to fill the niches that were occupied by the old species.
Between these two points, it should be obvious that any event that precipitates evolution is likely to be highly detrimental to us and other existing species. Why this would be a good thing in your opinion, or why you would think evolution is a fraud if not, is not quite clear...
You're horribly confused. There is no "official" tree. There's Linus' tree, then there's other people's trees, other organizations' trees, etc. Each person with their own tree is the personally kind of their personal tree.
Open source is nothing like socialism, it's very much like anarchy. Each person is his own king and rules his own domain.
You have no say what does into Linus' tree. No one does but Linus. Likewise, Linus has no say what goes into your tree, should you decide you want one, and you have as much right as Linus to create a Linux tree and run it however you like.
That is what open-source is all about. There is no contradiction here. For anyone at all other than Linus to have any say into what goes into Linus' tree would be contradicting the basic principles of open source. Everyone having input of equal value would be 180 degrees opposed to the whole concept...
Slashdot Mirror
I was going to say something, but as an American of primarily British ancestry, I decided this is actually fairly close to the truth... :)
Not that our system of measurements makes much sense, but they came from an otherwise great source...
It's also badly misnamed -- anyone looking at it from space would be more likely to call it "Water".
Agreed. Of course, I've never found a computer I couldn't use meaningfully. How much use you can get out of a computer really depends more on you than on the computer. It's a measure of your compentence with the computer. Trying to measure the compentence of a computer isn't meaningful -- it's like trying to measure how competent is that hammer or that screwdriver. Depends on who's using it...
The i386 was the single most revolutionary chip in the entire x86 line. I don't know about die process shit, but from a systems programmer perspective, there's very little that distinguishes chips prior to the 286 from one another, and very little that distinguishes chips after the 286 from one another. The Pentium 4 and the 80386 are nearly identical from a programmer's point of view. The 80386 and the 80286 are massively different, and the 80286 and the rarely seen 80186 are massively different. I agree the author doesn't know much, but he apparently knows more about it than you...
The moment you begin accelerating, you're approaching the speed of light.
When does my increase in mass approach infinity, prohibiting acceleration beyond a given velocity?
If by "approach infinity" you mean get bigger, this happens as soon as you begin accelerating. It's not like you're mass doesn't start to increase until you reach a certain speed -- the moment you get up and walk across the room, your mass increases. When you mass increases, it requires more energy to accelerate, or the same amount of energy yields less acceleration. It will always be positive, so you will never reach a point where you can't go any faster. You'll never reach a point where you're prohibited from accelerating. But you'll always be short of c, and when you accelerate, you'll make the amount that you're short smaller, but you'll never be able to get it to zero.
Is my own frame of reference paramount or inconsequential?
It's paramount to you, it's inconsequential to me...
he doesn't *need* to know that there is an english word "print" or that "f" is the first letter of the english word "file"
Actually, the 'f' in "printf" is the first letter of the word "formatted". The first 'f' in "fprintf" does stand for "file", though...
Acid is a lot more entertaining...
Of course it is! All movies, all TV shows, and all books, regardless of genre, are episodes of Sliders. :)
I ran on a Macintosh for a number of years, back before Apple started trying to "capture marketshare" by cutting prices (and producing cheap pieces of crap). It stopped being my main computer not long after that (although I still use it, it's my mailserver -- 14 years old and still ticking); my next main desktop machine was a Sun SPARCstation. That really never even threatened to become mainstream. Eventually I picked up an Intel machine (had to, someone wanted software written for Windows and good emulators weren't available), been using Intel machines mainly for the last five years, but I've never really gotten into Windows. If it didn't make such a great gaming platform, I wouldn't even have a Windows partition. I could always get a PS/2...
I guess, after all these years, I still haven't figured out why I should give a rat's ass whether the great thundering herd runs the same OS I do. It makes no difference to me...
I think the idea is to make a spacecraft people can live on for a real long time. "Generation ships" as they're called in some SF literature. Of course, if you can make a ship you can live on for generations, you no longer need planets anymore, so they're kind of pointless...
Are people still coming up with silly definitions like this? It's been, what, a hundred years since G.E. Moore and the "open question argument"...
Umm, that's exactly what happened in this case. And it wasn't because the plane wasn't maintained (in fact it had just finished some maintenance, during which it is believed someone failed to tighten the bolts on the control surface in question that fell off in flight).
Thanks for the reminder of how depressingly low a human being can sink...
[More likely, technoculture remains below their radar. They'll go after Hollywood before Silicon Valley...]
If only the Atlanteans had thought of this...
Umm, so? Outgoing traffic is almost invariably from a random port > 1024. That's how TCP connections are generally done.
Congrats, you are officially old... ;)
That might be a selling point for some... :)
Yes. However, I would not be pissed if they posted a bug anything like the one being talked about here, which is nothing like the one you describe. It's essentially a "web-trojan" -- it does not allow anyone on the outside to hack into a box, it just allows a user to execute malicious on his or her own system. BIG difference...
Statistics hint: Generalizing from a sample size of one is dangerous.
I can add that I too have had to code on systems where assembly was the only option, but a sample size of two isn't much better. I'd quite certain your statement is false...
Check the website for a list of known good programs. It runs a *lot* more than busybox. Thinks that *don't* work under uClibc seem to be the exception these days -- and usually they're bloatware you wouldn't want to run on a minimal system anyway (can you imagine a Java VM on a 40 MHz 486? Yikes...)
Even if not, I would think a switch in which we have a little time to prepare (all your compasses are going to be wrong in a couple of weeks -- take appropriate steps) would be far less traumatic for us than one that suddenly occured over a few minutes time...
[B] Significant evolution usually occurs in the aftermath of catastrophe. Killing off the majority of a population is what generally allows new, innovative species to emerge to fill the niches that were occupied by the old species.
Between these two points, it should be obvious that any event that precipitates evolution is likely to be highly detrimental to us and other existing species. Why this would be a good thing in your opinion, or why you would think evolution is a fraud if not, is not quite clear...
Open source is nothing like socialism, it's very much like anarchy. Each person is his own king and rules his own domain.
You have no say what does into Linus' tree. No one does but Linus. Likewise, Linus has no say what goes into your tree, should you decide you want one, and you have as much right as Linus to create a Linux tree and run it however you like.
That is what open-source is all about. There is no contradiction here. For anyone at all other than Linus to have any say into what goes into Linus' tree would be contradicting the basic principles of open source. Everyone having input of equal value would be 180 degrees opposed to the whole concept...
;)