I honestly can't recall details of WWI, though the Lusitania - yes, right boat - is a pretty slim excuse IMO.
In WWII, though, any alliance between Germany and Japan was extremely nominal. They basically agreed not to interfere in each others areas, but look how far they are apart and that's not exactly meaningful. I mean, we can't even agree on when the war started. Ask anyone from that region and the standard answer won't be 1939 but 1931 (IIRC) when Japan invaded Manchuria in China.
The US could have perfecly easily fought Japan without any threat at all from Germany. The only real risk was that loans to Britain might have been forefit if Germany had won.
I'm not entering into the debate as to whether the Serbian actions were war crimes or not, simply providing examples here. Oh, I know all about Godwin - I'm claiming a temporary waiver on grounds of legitimate direct comparison.
WWII: Germany invades Poland. In exchange, Britain declares war and attacks Germany. Germany never threatened Britain before this point - indeed, Germany was trying to make peace with Britain and saw her as a natural ally. Later, the US declares war on Germany, despite also having been unthreatened.
WWI: Austria attacks Serbia. Germany acts in support of Serbia and notices that Russia and France (on its east and west borders respectively at that point) are likely to attack Germany as Russia's an ally of Serbia and France of Russia... Britain then goes to help France against German aggression to try and preserve the European balance of power, while some years later the US joins in against Germany.
Thus, there has been a lot of research into engines that can work both as ramjets (subsonic combustion) and scramjets (supersonic combustion).
Little thing, but Ramjets definitely don't produce subsonic thrust. No moving parts, so without a strong compressed air input there's not a whole lot they can do... They're restricted to Mach 2 ish and above, too.
I was trying to find something on Google to back this up - hit Roger Ramjet instead:) Try http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,64186+1+62599,00.html?kw=ramjet instead.
Now, I'm not going to go into the wider argument here. Hoever, you seem to place rather more faith in Occam's Razor than it warrants.
It is a way of establishing _probability_, not _truth_. It's also very definitely limited, as with any information system, in that it can't help you get a complete answer if you don't have all the data.
We may see this way that the Darwin-based theory is more probable (note the distinction - few modern evolutionary scientists would accept Darwin as true now, the game has moved on) - but that's all we have. We can't say it's definitely right.
We can all think of instances in our lives where something has happened for a monumentally improbable reason. That doesn't mean they didn't happen the way they did...
Personally, I think I should be paid for the effort of creating the software, not for the number of coppies of it that get made.
ISWYM, but there seems to be a problem with that argument.
If I produce good IP, it's likely to spread and become popular. If I produce bad IP, it's not that likely that anyone will use it. Note I'm specifying IP rather than anything more specific - as a musician as well as a coder, it applies equally to both.
Now, good IP clearly enriches the knowledgepool of my community - while bad IP doesn't. We can therefore clearly benefit from an incentive to produce better IP.
Some would argue that recognition from and adoration by your community which you would recieve would be sufficient - and for some tasks and some people, it will be. I know I get a kick whenever people react well to my music, or if I see my code in the wild. But that won't always cover it. What about large projects where identifying individuals is impossible? What about the important but unglamorous tasks which people need done but don't tend to appreciate?
To promote good IP, we need more than recognition as a reward. In our current society model, cash seems to be the best way right now. So, we pay people per copy to give them an incentive to produce work which is likely to be more widely copied.
Just IMHO of course, but hopefully you follow the argument.
With a conventional computer, I agree wholeheartedly. In the main, people use them so that they can run bits of software. They don't want to run Windows, they want to run Office and Unreal: Tournament.
With a PDA I'm far less convinced. From what I see, the majority of users treat them, pretty much, as electronic organsers with a backup facility. They already have the diary, the address book, the calculator and the memopad. What more could you want in your pocket?
Note here I'm not saying it's all I want or even need in _my_ pocket - but I'm a computer nerd who's prepared to play and investigate. I also know what's possible. I'm far from convinced any of that is true for the average user - it's just this cute little gadget which sits in their pocket and looks flashier than a diary. Maybe it can even play Tetris or solitaire. Hence Palms win - they look good enough in the shops and they're cheap. Which results in the extra software being written as they get into a larger userbase, some of which includes hackers. Later the hackers may buy them due to the extra software - but that's more due to the Network Effect than greater availability of the relevant tools. You can't get better than 100% availability...
Maybe there's some research out there which can settle this, but from my experience third party software really isn't an issue for the average end user as they don't know there's any for any of them - so what does it matter that there's more for one than another?
Ahh, no. I wasn't trying to suggest that the Christian teachings in the NT don't have any problems with homosexuality... The point here was that Leviticus (which some Christians tend to refer to in this sort of thing for some reason) isn't what we should be looking for.
Nice comment on laws - well put. I remember someone remarking a while back that Kosher was basically sensible hygeine when you're wandering in the desert.
Look at the various Symbian-produced EPOC boxes. Lovely things - I've got a Psion 5 and I'd never go back to a Palm III.
They also come with OPL as standard - I've not played with it much but it's apparently pretty much BASIC. So, well known and pretty simple.
Yet how many people use them?
The argument that availability of programming tools to hackers is the critical factor in success may swing well to a Linux-focussed crowd, but it's wrong I'm afraid. Hackers simply aren't a large enough percentage of the userbase, while most non-hackers don't know how to get the software they've written. Don't believe me? Find a non-techie with a Palm, look at what's on it and be amazed.
The critical factor remains price. How low can you go while still being acceptably usable. Palms are borderline acceptable (IMO) but also very cheap. Psions are orders of magnitude superior and more capable - and come with the apparently critical programming tool preinstalled - yet remain a niche player, largely because they're dearer. You have to play with the things for a while to understand why a Palm isn't as good as a Psion - and why the Psion is genuinely worth the doubled price - but most people won't do that, so buy the Palm.
What still baffles me is why people then buy Palm Vs. Clearly less capable than Psions, you can spot that a mile off. Also a similar cost. Yet I see more Palm Vs than IIIs and m100s as a rule. Weird.
Actually, I'm quite happy to agree with that sort of thing. I'm a Christian myself and don't think overly literal readings of the Bible help anyone. People, remember it's translated from languages we're not always that sure about - you will not find anyone who's a native speaker of Aramaic, 2000 year old Greek and current English, after all.
The reason I was researching this was after a wonderful post from a friend to a mailinglist. I'll copy it below:
Subject: Why can't I own Canadians?
Background: Laura Schlessinger is a US radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that as an observant Orthodox Jew homosexuality is an abominaton according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned in any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a US resident, which was posted on
the Internet:)
Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to follow them.
a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
e) I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill
him myself?
f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my
vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?
i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and
unchanging. Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.
At this point it's normally worth reminding people that Leviticus is part of Old Testament Law and that Christians aren't subject to it, it's mostly there for historical reference...
OK, games we remember. Earliest? Deathchase on a 48k Spectrum. Seriously. Excellent game (if limited by modern standards) and fantastic, fast, pseudo-3D graphics. Track it down on an emulator.
More recent? The Chaos Engine had me hooked for so long it was silly. Brilliant game, I only wish they'd do an FPS with that sort of atmosphere and speed.
PCs? I remember the first time I played Doom and thought a massive 'So what?'. Hated it, still no fan. Looking at PC games from then, compared to Amiga games, I have to say much of the reason it got the reception it did was that it was a tolerable game on the PC (still pretty unusual at that time IME) and was something the Amiga couldn't do. I remember the first time I played Quake, thinking it was better but not much. Got into it after a while, but I have to say I mostly like it for atmosphere rather than gameplay even now.
I remember the first gaming session I had on my own PC vividly. Back then (10/98) it was a powerhouse - 400 MHz, TNT, 128MB RAM. Oops, still that now... Anyway. I loaded SiN onto it first, and that helicopter scene, then running round the bank, absolutely blew my mind. The sound, the graphics, the atmosphere. The whole thing was just incredible. Then Battlezone - oh, I played that demo over and over, I liked it that much. Then I got the game, and I'm still playing it now. Fantastic - if you don't have a copy, track it down.
I'll probably play a lot more games over the years, but if any provokes a reaction as strong as SiN did when I first loaded it up, I'll know it's truly groundbreaking. The only thing that's come close since has been Half-Life...
Surely C suffers from this problem, though? It's possible, IIRC, to (under some circumstances IIRC - I'm not a C expert) write a value of one type to a variable of another directly, while it doesn't check the bounds on an array. Both produce strange errors which aren't that easy to spot as the crash happens when the wrong data is read (could be at pretty much any time) as opposed to when it's written, plain and obvious for all...
If this were the only source of positioning information then I'd agree - hence my comment about approximate data.
This is used to provide a best guess when the GPS signal goes, for whatever reason. It's not going to be used over large distances with lots of junctions - long distances in tunnels are possible but how many tunnels are crawling with subterranean junctions? In that context, it's good enough IMO.
Re: motorway driving - actual common speeds seem to vary hugely in different parts of the country.
I'm used to the south east, M25, M20, southern M1 & M4 in particular. It's agressive, pushy and busy. But rarely much clear 80. Then last weekend I was visiting my parents, who've just moved to Derbyshire. Whoah, do people in the midlands drive fast on the M1! I was being hassled if I was doing less than 85... Far less traffic and it was generally less overtly agressive than around London but the speeds were ridiculous. Made overtaking anyone (56 MPH lorries included) a nuisance because someone would normally sit on my bumper and complain I wasn't going as illegally fast as they wanted to.
Hang on, you're in a car. By law it has a speedo, in all probability it has power steering. So you know the speed of rotation of the wheels from which you can get an approximate speed relative to the ground, and you can calculate the approximate heading of the vehicle. Not perfect but possible and probably good enough considering the likely short distances involved. I've heard of satnav systems using this method to survive in tunnels.
Being serious, this problem has already hit... Not on speed limiters thank goodness but still interesting.
Y'see, there's some satellite navigation systems that use GPS. Some are rather better than others, some are downright daft. One that springs to mind is a car which was being roadtested and went round a roundabout several times without an instruction to leave. The problem was that the exit it wanted was just after a bridge - so not in satellite reception and so it wasn't ever (as far as it thought) in the right place to get the signal. A stupid system but this sort of problem does exist.
This isn't the only reason why I oppose this though. It's unsafe and will cause accidents. Sound counterintuitive? Think about it.
Firstly, GPS isn't that accurate. Where limits change periodically, some drivers are going to have different limiter settings than others in all probability. Everyone's trying to drive on the limiter so people are going to get irritated by those who aren't - or, worse, not bother to check their relative speed on the assumption that 'the computer will handle it'.
Now, think about a computer which will stop you breaking the speed limit. This removes watching your speed from the routine of driving as 'the computer will handle it' again, so watch for skid marks on tighter-than-anticipated corners. Watch for appalling driving in appaling conditions as speed isn't something people think about any more. And watch for ridiculous overtaking maneuvers from people annoyed that the person in front is going 1 MPH below what their limiter would allow them to. Think that's daft? Watch the lorries and coaches on the motorways in Britain. Almost uniformly limited to 56 MPH in a misguided safety campaign. This, in fact, causes extra congestion, pollution and accidents due to the speed differentials and bottlenecking it causes - most of the traffic wants to go far faster and we now have the daft situation of the majority of the traffic often being in the fast lane. Ahh, note to US readers - British highways only allow passing on the right under normal conditions. Works better, think fluid dynamics.
Anyway, back to my original point there. Because they're all constrained but trying to go as fast as possible, the smallest distinction becomes worth fighting over. Except that the vehicles can't exactly fight hard as they're all limited to pretty much the same speed. So, overtaking maneuvers become long and drawn out. Relatively safe - if irritating - on a motorway, very dangerous on a single carriageway road.
Now, let's imagine the main reason at the moment for overtaking on single carriageway roads - vehicles travelling much slower than normal for the class of road. This might be an abnormal load, a more cautious than normal motorist, a faulty vehicle or possibly a cyclist or horse. If they're to be passed, the passing vehicle must drive into a lane routinely occupied by traffic flowing in the opposite direction. If you're going to safely execute such a maneuver, you should be in such a position for as little time as possible - which might actually mean driving above the posted limit in the name of safety... Yes, these roads carry a tiny percentage of the traffic - but account for an awful lot of the accidents. They need too be considered.
Now, let's imagine you're planning such a maneuver. How would your execution be affected by a vehicle which would suddely stop accelerating? Introduces a rather unwelcome variable into the equation and necessitates a driver staring at the speedo when travelling in what is naturally a fairly hazardous manner. Not clever.
Perhaps we want to discourage such actions altogether? Oops, bad idea. Results in congestion which leads to annoyed drivers. Annoyed drivers aren't concentrating as hard as a rule, so are more likely to make stupid mistakes. They also aren't necessarily thinking rationally so are more likely to go for a gap which they wouldn't otherwise look twice at - again, causing an accident.
Imagine if this system fails. Imagine if you're stuck at 30 MPH in a 70 zone - a dangerous bottleneck and rather likely to be hit, very hard, from behind. Or if you're in a 30 zone and the system suddenly decides to allow 70. You're driving on the limiter safe in the knowledge that it will regulate your speed - except that it will suddenly jump you forwards at quite a rate. Equally unpleasant.
Finally, let's look at the group who cause most traffic accidents - young men. A group which I'm a part of, as it happens. Now, we already have a car culture which regards speed limits and current enforcement methods with contempts, and one which readily modifies any and every aspect of a vehicle in order to enhance its performance. These limiters will get hacked out so fast it's not worth thinking about. Make them compulsary for the annual roadworthiness test? People will do what they already do with exhaust gas catalysts and simply keep two components - one legal, one not - and swap them for that one day per year. Introduce spot roadside tests? They'll become switchable - exactly what happened with lowriders when they became illegal and led to car hopping today.
We might think that it would still be an improvement as at least _some_ would have limiters - but you're assuming a competent job was done of hacking the limiter out, against the years of experience with other computer software. Look at cracked games back in the Amiga days - they often had serious problems due to the work done on them. Now, a badly hacked speed limiter could be very dangerous as there's no guarantee it will be permanently or predictably off, or won't have side-effects. Perhaps emissions control will go out of the window, perhaps reliability will go. Modern engines often run rather close to the limits of the possible and rely on computer control to keep them functional. The respectable guys aren't going to touch this work and I can't see we have much guarantee of competence with the back street hackers.
This is being suggested to feed a rather nasty, media-driven public climate in Britain right now. It is a daft and dangerous measure which is risking a lot to appease a section of the population who haven't thought the ideas through properly and should be knocked firmly and squarely on the head.
As an aside, there's no way of reliably retrofitting this to all pre-legislation cars... expect values of older performance cars to go through the roof if this ever gets in.
You don't have to spend hours training you coffee machine.
For that, all you need is command recognition. It's orders of magnitude simpler than dictation and can be done with little or no training.
Listen to ViaVoice's recordings of what it thinks you've said when playing with its correction feature and you'll see just how hard a job transcribing complete, dictated continuous speech with a wide vocabulary really is. Even deciding where one word ends and another begins is far from simple - but that sort of problem is so myuch simpler with a limited vocabulary and no continuous speech requirement. Both of which can be done with that sort of device.
I agree about coughing and, erm, well, thinking, er about what you, er, were trying to say. I always found I needed fair presence of mind to get something readable (especially if formal) down on the page. If you think the above is exaggerated, try dictation software and you'll see what I mean.
I actually find it useful for two conditions - when I'm tired and when I've had a few drinks. Which isn't to imply I'm a drunk or anything:)
Seriously, I find my typing goes noticeably downhill and becomes a serious effort under those conditions, but the dictation (Dragon NaturallySpeaking, FWIW) still works fine. If I need to send an e-mail or something, it's just easier.
It's not something I use most of the time but it's something I'm very glad to have around.
The question was whether it would damage Apple's hardware revenues - and I can't see that it could concievably help them. If you wanted MacOS you'd rapidly become seduced by the cheap boxes. They could refuse to sell MacOS without a licensed box, but that would only result in the CD being copied. Put a software block in and it would be hacked out.
There's then the wider question of whether it would help their overall revenues. I'm personally of the opinion it wouldn't as their hardware revenues would fall while the prime reason people don't buy MacOS machines now - won't run Windows software - would remain. Yes, people like us can dualboot but that't not something most would think of or manage - and we're not that big a market.
If they're running on commodity x86 hardware then hardware sales would go through the floor. Who would buy the expensive (but good) Apple hardware when there was cheaper hardware which did the same job? Doesn't matter if the Apple stuff is better, the man in PC World isn't going to know that so he buys the cheapest. Apple lose out bigtime.
If they're running on their own dedicated x86 hardware (remember here, there's a difference between having an x86 CPU and being IBM PC compatible) then they have to develop that, so they've got a new one-off cost to develop this, along with the same costs to maintain it as they currently have with PPC - except they don't have experience with it so they'd be running slower for a little while. Oh, and they'd lose the current advantage of not having fans, as the x86 CPUs run a lot warmer as a whole than PPC. I can't see they'd go to all this trouble so they could use laptop or Crusoe processors. They'd also then have to move their software over to the new CPU for the second time in recent memory, write all the converters and so on. So they wouldn't have a speed advantage for a couple of years (think upgrade cycles) as it'd be emulated. Not pretty.
All this so they can use different CPUs which have a current speed advantage (which the change would knock out for a while). Could someone possibly explain why this could be a good idea?
I don't agree with your post on any level - but it's actually wrong too.
Channel 4 show Scrapheap Challenge / Junkyard Wars. Yes, the government own them but no, they're not funded through tax. They carry adverts.
Now, I'd argue that the BBC produces substantially better programming (as a rule) than either ITV, Channels 4 or 5 or the various digital channels (and yes, I've had digital / sattelite TV for years) and is consequently well worth the license fee. But, even if you disagree with this on principle for whatever reason, _it_ _doesn't_ _apply_ _to_ _Channel_ _4_!
... and Windows comes with Personal Web Server, which gives you an (admittedly poor) ASP & database facility. Useful for testing when poor decisions from previous staff lumber you with ASP:(
I'm a Pascal (and Pascal derivatives) lover, personally. I don't like C even slightly, I'm afraid. Might be fine for what other people want to do but definitely isn't for what I want to do.
So. My first instinct when I saw this was Ha! More examples of just why C is horrible! You couldn't do this if in Pascal if you tried!
I then thought about the ingenuity of these authors...
So, does any such resource exist for Pascal code? Beyond simply putting the thing as ASCII art and giving it meaningless variable names, neither of which seem truly worthy to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I honestly can't recall details of WWI, though the Lusitania - yes, right boat - is a pretty slim excuse IMO.
In WWII, though, any alliance between Germany and Japan was extremely nominal. They basically agreed not to interfere in each others areas, but look how far they are apart and that's not exactly meaningful. I mean, we can't even agree on when the war started. Ask anyone from that region and the standard answer won't be 1939 but 1931 (IIRC) when Japan invaded Manchuria in China.
The US could have perfecly easily fought Japan without any threat at all from Germany. The only real risk was that loans to Britain might have been forefit if Germany had won.
I'm not entering into the debate as to whether the Serbian actions were war crimes or not, simply providing examples here. Oh, I know all about Godwin - I'm claiming a temporary waiver on grounds of legitimate direct comparison.
WWII: Germany invades Poland. In exchange, Britain declares war and attacks Germany. Germany never threatened Britain before this point - indeed, Germany was trying to make peace with Britain and saw her as a natural ally. Later, the US declares war on Germany, despite also having been unthreatened.
WWI: Austria attacks Serbia. Germany acts in support of Serbia and notices that Russia and France (on its east and west borders respectively at that point) are likely to attack Germany as Russia's an ally of Serbia and France of Russia... Britain then goes to help France against German aggression to try and preserve the European balance of power, while some years later the US joins in against Germany.
Little thing, but Ramjets definitely don't produce subsonic thrust. No moving parts, so without a strong compressed air input there's not a whole lot they can do... They're restricted to Mach 2 ish and above, too.
I was trying to find something on Google to back this up - hit Roger Ramjet instead :) Try http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716 ,64186+1+62599,00.html?kw=ramjet instead.
You seem to be misusing Occam's Razor.
Now, I'm not going to go into the wider argument here. Hoever, you seem to place rather more faith in Occam's Razor than it warrants.
It is a way of establishing _probability_, not _truth_. It's also very definitely limited, as with any information system, in that it can't help you get a complete answer if you don't have all the data.
We may see this way that the Darwin-based theory is more probable (note the distinction - few modern evolutionary scientists would accept Darwin as true now, the game has moved on) - but that's all we have. We can't say it's definitely right.
We can all think of instances in our lives where something has happened for a monumentally improbable reason. That doesn't mean they didn't happen the way they did...
ISWYM, but there seems to be a problem with that argument.
If I produce good IP, it's likely to spread and become popular. If I produce bad IP, it's not that likely that anyone will use it. Note I'm specifying IP rather than anything more specific - as a musician as well as a coder, it applies equally to both.
Now, good IP clearly enriches the knowledgepool of my community - while bad IP doesn't. We can therefore clearly benefit from an incentive to produce better IP.
Some would argue that recognition from and adoration by your community which you would recieve would be sufficient - and for some tasks and some people, it will be. I know I get a kick whenever people react well to my music, or if I see my code in the wild. But that won't always cover it. What about large projects where identifying individuals is impossible? What about the important but unglamorous tasks which people need done but don't tend to appreciate?
To promote good IP, we need more than recognition as a reward. In our current society model, cash seems to be the best way right now. So, we pay people per copy to give them an incentive to produce work which is likely to be more widely copied.
Just IMHO of course, but hopefully you follow the argument.
With a conventional computer, I agree wholeheartedly. In the main, people use them so that they can run bits of software. They don't want to run Windows, they want to run Office and Unreal: Tournament.
With a PDA I'm far less convinced. From what I see, the majority of users treat them, pretty much, as electronic organsers with a backup facility. They already have the diary, the address book, the calculator and the memopad. What more could you want in your pocket?
Note here I'm not saying it's all I want or even need in _my_ pocket - but I'm a computer nerd who's prepared to play and investigate. I also know what's possible. I'm far from convinced any of that is true for the average user - it's just this cute little gadget which sits in their pocket and looks flashier than a diary. Maybe it can even play Tetris or solitaire. Hence Palms win - they look good enough in the shops and they're cheap. Which results in the extra software being written as they get into a larger userbase, some of which includes hackers. Later the hackers may buy them due to the extra software - but that's more due to the Network Effect than greater availability of the relevant tools. You can't get better than 100% availability...
Maybe there's some research out there which can settle this, but from my experience third party software really isn't an issue for the average end user as they don't know there's any for any of them - so what does it matter that there's more for one than another?
Ahh, no. I wasn't trying to suggest that the Christian teachings in the NT don't have any problems with homosexuality... The point here was that Leviticus (which some Christians tend to refer to in this sort of thing for some reason) isn't what we should be looking for.
Nice comment on laws - well put. I remember someone remarking a while back that Kosher was basically sensible hygeine when you're wandering in the desert.
Anyway, nice nattering.
Interesting, but...
Look at the various Symbian-produced EPOC boxes. Lovely things - I've got a Psion 5 and I'd never go back to a Palm III.
They also come with OPL as standard - I've not played with it much but it's apparently pretty much BASIC. So, well known and pretty simple.
Yet how many people use them?
The argument that availability of programming tools to hackers is the critical factor in success may swing well to a Linux-focussed crowd, but it's wrong I'm afraid. Hackers simply aren't a large enough percentage of the userbase, while most non-hackers don't know how to get the software they've written. Don't believe me? Find a non-techie with a Palm, look at what's on it and be amazed.
The critical factor remains price. How low can you go while still being acceptably usable. Palms are borderline acceptable (IMO) but also very cheap. Psions are orders of magnitude superior and more capable - and come with the apparently critical programming tool preinstalled - yet remain a niche player, largely because they're dearer. You have to play with the things for a while to understand why a Palm isn't as good as a Psion - and why the Psion is genuinely worth the doubled price - but most people won't do that, so buy the Palm.
What still baffles me is why people then buy Palm Vs. Clearly less capable than Psions, you can spot that a mile off. Also a similar cost. Yet I see more Palm Vs than IIIs and m100s as a rule. Weird.
Actually, I'm quite happy to agree with that sort of thing. I'm a Christian myself and don't think overly literal readings of the Bible help anyone. People, remember it's translated from languages we're not always that sure about - you will not find anyone who's a native speaker of Aramaic, 2000 year old Greek and current English, after all.
:)
The reason I was researching this was after a wonderful post from a friend to a mailinglist. I'll copy it below:
Subject: Why can't I own Canadians?
Background: Laura Schlessinger is a US radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that as an observant Orthodox Jew homosexuality is an abominaton according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned in any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a US resident, which was posted on
the Internet
Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to follow them.
a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
e) I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill
him myself?
f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my
vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?
i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and
unchanging. Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.
At this point it's normally worth reminding people that Leviticus is part of Old Testament Law and that Christians aren't subject to it, it's mostly there for historical reference...
OK, games we remember. Earliest? Deathchase on a 48k Spectrum. Seriously. Excellent game (if limited by modern standards) and fantastic, fast, pseudo-3D graphics. Track it down on an emulator.
More recent? The Chaos Engine had me hooked for so long it was silly. Brilliant game, I only wish they'd do an FPS with that sort of atmosphere and speed.
PCs? I remember the first time I played Doom and thought a massive 'So what?'. Hated it, still no fan. Looking at PC games from then, compared to Amiga games, I have to say much of the reason it got the reception it did was that it was a tolerable game on the PC (still pretty unusual at that time IME) and was something the Amiga couldn't do. I remember the first time I played Quake, thinking it was better but not much. Got into it after a while, but I have to say I mostly like it for atmosphere rather than gameplay even now.
I remember the first gaming session I had on my own PC vividly. Back then (10/98) it was a powerhouse - 400 MHz, TNT, 128MB RAM. Oops, still that now... Anyway. I loaded SiN onto it first, and that helicopter scene, then running round the bank, absolutely blew my mind. The sound, the graphics, the atmosphere. The whole thing was just incredible. Then Battlezone - oh, I played that demo over and over, I liked it that much. Then I got the game, and I'm still playing it now. Fantastic - if you don't have a copy, track it down.
I'll probably play a lot more games over the years, but if any provokes a reaction as strong as SiN did when I first loaded it up, I'll know it's truly groundbreaking. The only thing that's come close since has been Half-Life...
Y'know, I honestly don't have the details to hand. http://www.biblestudytools.net/ are quite useful for this sort of thing...
Anyway - the point is it prohibits _men_ lying together. No mention of _women_. Nothing.
Actually, pretty much everything sexual in the Bible refers to straight guys.
I was being curious and picky a while ago, so checked. Lesbianism is entirely safe according to Leviticus. No problems whatsoever.
Surely C suffers from this problem, though? It's possible, IIRC, to (under some circumstances IIRC - I'm not a C expert) write a value of one type to a variable of another directly, while it doesn't check the bounds on an array. Both produce strange errors which aren't that easy to spot as the crash happens when the wrong data is read (could be at pretty much any time) as opposed to when it's written, plain and obvious for all...
If this were the only source of positioning information then I'd agree - hence my comment about approximate data.
This is used to provide a best guess when the GPS signal goes, for whatever reason. It's not going to be used over large distances with lots of junctions - long distances in tunnels are possible but how many tunnels are crawling with subterranean junctions? In that context, it's good enough IMO.
Re: motorway driving - actual common speeds seem to vary hugely in different parts of the country.
I'm used to the south east, M25, M20, southern M1 & M4 in particular. It's agressive, pushy and busy. But rarely much clear 80. Then last weekend I was visiting my parents, who've just moved to Derbyshire. Whoah, do people in the midlands drive fast on the M1! I was being hassled if I was doing less than 85... Far less traffic and it was generally less overtly agressive than around London but the speeds were ridiculous. Made overtaking anyone (56 MPH lorries included) a nuisance because someone would normally sit on my bumper and complain I wasn't going as illegally fast as they wanted to.
Never been so glad to get off a motorway.
Hang on, you're in a car. By law it has a speedo, in all probability it has power steering. So you know the speed of rotation of the wheels from which you can get an approximate speed relative to the ground, and you can calculate the approximate heading of the vehicle. Not perfect but possible and probably good enough considering the likely short distances involved. I've heard of satnav systems using this method to survive in tunnels.
Being serious, this problem has already hit... Not on speed limiters thank goodness but still interesting.
Y'see, there's some satellite navigation systems that use GPS. Some are rather better than others, some are downright daft. One that springs to mind is a car which was being roadtested and went round a roundabout several times without an instruction to leave. The problem was that the exit it wanted was just after a bridge - so not in satellite reception and so it wasn't ever (as far as it thought) in the right place to get the signal. A stupid system but this sort of problem does exist.
This isn't the only reason why I oppose this though. It's unsafe and will cause accidents. Sound counterintuitive? Think about it.
Firstly, GPS isn't that accurate. Where limits change periodically, some drivers are going to have different limiter settings than others in all probability. Everyone's trying to drive on the limiter so people are going to get irritated by those who aren't - or, worse, not bother to check their relative speed on the assumption that 'the computer will handle it'.
Now, think about a computer which will stop you breaking the speed limit. This removes watching your speed from the routine of driving as 'the computer will handle it' again, so watch for skid marks on tighter-than-anticipated corners. Watch for appalling driving in appaling conditions as speed isn't something people think about any more. And watch for ridiculous overtaking maneuvers from people annoyed that the person in front is going 1 MPH below what their limiter would allow them to. Think that's daft? Watch the lorries and coaches on the motorways in Britain. Almost uniformly limited to 56 MPH in a misguided safety campaign. This, in fact, causes extra congestion, pollution and accidents due to the speed differentials and bottlenecking it causes - most of the traffic wants to go far faster and we now have the daft situation of the majority of the traffic often being in the fast lane. Ahh, note to US readers - British highways only allow passing on the right under normal conditions. Works better, think fluid dynamics.
Anyway, back to my original point there. Because they're all constrained but trying to go as fast as possible, the smallest distinction becomes worth fighting over. Except that the vehicles can't exactly fight hard as they're all limited to pretty much the same speed. So, overtaking maneuvers become long and drawn out. Relatively safe - if irritating - on a motorway, very dangerous on a single carriageway road.
Now, let's imagine the main reason at the moment for overtaking on single carriageway roads - vehicles travelling much slower than normal for the class of road. This might be an abnormal load, a more cautious than normal motorist, a faulty vehicle or possibly a cyclist or horse. If they're to be passed, the passing vehicle must drive into a lane routinely occupied by traffic flowing in the opposite direction. If you're going to safely execute such a maneuver, you should be in such a position for as little time as possible - which might actually mean driving above the posted limit in the name of safety... Yes, these roads carry a tiny percentage of the traffic - but account for an awful lot of the accidents. They need too be considered.
Now, let's imagine you're planning such a maneuver. How would your execution be affected by a vehicle which would suddely stop accelerating? Introduces a rather unwelcome variable into the equation and necessitates a driver staring at the speedo when travelling in what is naturally a fairly hazardous manner. Not clever.
Perhaps we want to discourage such actions altogether? Oops, bad idea. Results in congestion which leads to annoyed drivers. Annoyed drivers aren't concentrating as hard as a rule, so are more likely to make stupid mistakes. They also aren't necessarily thinking rationally so are more likely to go for a gap which they wouldn't otherwise look twice at - again, causing an accident.
Imagine if this system fails. Imagine if you're stuck at 30 MPH in a 70 zone - a dangerous bottleneck and rather likely to be hit, very hard, from behind. Or if you're in a 30 zone and the system suddenly decides to allow 70. You're driving on the limiter safe in the knowledge that it will regulate your speed - except that it will suddenly jump you forwards at quite a rate. Equally unpleasant.
Finally, let's look at the group who cause most traffic accidents - young men. A group which I'm a part of, as it happens. Now, we already have a car culture which regards speed limits and current enforcement methods with contempts, and one which readily modifies any and every aspect of a vehicle in order to enhance its performance. These limiters will get hacked out so fast it's not worth thinking about. Make them compulsary for the annual roadworthiness test? People will do what they already do with exhaust gas catalysts and simply keep two components - one legal, one not - and swap them for that one day per year. Introduce spot roadside tests? They'll become switchable - exactly what happened with lowriders when they became illegal and led to car hopping today.
We might think that it would still be an improvement as at least _some_ would have limiters - but you're assuming a competent job was done of hacking the limiter out, against the years of experience with other computer software. Look at cracked games back in the Amiga days - they often had serious problems due to the work done on them. Now, a badly hacked speed limiter could be very dangerous as there's no guarantee it will be permanently or predictably off, or won't have side-effects. Perhaps emissions control will go out of the window, perhaps reliability will go. Modern engines often run rather close to the limits of the possible and rely on computer control to keep them functional. The respectable guys aren't going to touch this work and I can't see we have much guarantee of competence with the back street hackers.
This is being suggested to feed a rather nasty, media-driven public climate in Britain right now. It is a daft and dangerous measure which is risking a lot to appease a section of the population who haven't thought the ideas through properly and should be knocked firmly and squarely on the head.
As an aside, there's no way of reliably retrofitting this to all pre-legislation cars... expect values of older performance cars to go through the roof if this ever gets in.
You don't have to spend hours training you coffee machine.
For that, all you need is command recognition. It's orders of magnitude simpler than dictation and can be done with little or no training.
Listen to ViaVoice's recordings of what it thinks you've said when playing with its correction feature and you'll see just how hard a job transcribing complete, dictated continuous speech with a wide vocabulary really is. Even deciding where one word ends and another begins is far from simple - but that sort of problem is so myuch simpler with a limited vocabulary and no continuous speech requirement. Both of which can be done with that sort of device.
I agree about coughing and, erm, well, thinking, er about what you, er, were trying to say. I always found I needed fair presence of mind to get something readable (especially if formal) down on the page. If you think the above is exaggerated, try dictation software and you'll see what I mean.
I actually find it useful for two conditions - when I'm tired and when I've had a few drinks. Which isn't to imply I'm a drunk or anything :)
Seriously, I find my typing goes noticeably downhill and becomes a serious effort under those conditions, but the dictation (Dragon NaturallySpeaking, FWIW) still works fine. If I need to send an e-mail or something, it's just easier.
It's not something I use most of the time but it's something I'm very glad to have around.
Reread the question.
The question was whether it would damage Apple's hardware revenues - and I can't see that it could concievably help them. If you wanted MacOS you'd rapidly become seduced by the cheap boxes. They could refuse to sell MacOS without a licensed box, but that would only result in the CD being copied. Put a software block in and it would be hacked out.
There's then the wider question of whether it would help their overall revenues. I'm personally of the opinion it wouldn't as their hardware revenues would fall while the prime reason people don't buy MacOS machines now - won't run Windows software - would remain. Yes, people like us can dualboot but that't not something most would think of or manage - and we're not that big a market.
I still believe this is a silly idea I'm afraid.
Let's think about this.
If they're running on commodity x86 hardware then hardware sales would go through the floor. Who would buy the expensive (but good) Apple hardware when there was cheaper hardware which did the same job? Doesn't matter if the Apple stuff is better, the man in PC World isn't going to know that so he buys the cheapest. Apple lose out bigtime.
If they're running on their own dedicated x86 hardware (remember here, there's a difference between having an x86 CPU and being IBM PC compatible) then they have to develop that, so they've got a new one-off cost to develop this, along with the same costs to maintain it as they currently have with PPC - except they don't have experience with it so they'd be running slower for a little while. Oh, and they'd lose the current advantage of not having fans, as the x86 CPUs run a lot warmer as a whole than PPC. I can't see they'd go to all this trouble so they could use laptop or Crusoe processors. They'd also then have to move their software over to the new CPU for the second time in recent memory, write all the converters and so on. So they wouldn't have a speed advantage for a couple of years (think upgrade cycles) as it'd be emulated. Not pretty.
All this so they can use different CPUs which have a current speed advantage (which the change would knock out for a while). Could someone possibly explain why this could be a good idea?
No probs - just making the point that you can already do this on a domestic desktop.
I don't agree with your post on any level - but it's actually wrong too.
Channel 4 show Scrapheap Challenge / Junkyard Wars. Yes, the government own them but no, they're not funded through tax. They carry adverts.
Now, I'd argue that the BBC produces substantially better programming (as a rule) than either ITV, Channels 4 or 5 or the various digital channels (and yes, I've had digital / sattelite TV for years) and is consequently well worth the license fee. But, even if you disagree with this on principle for whatever reason, _it_ _doesn't_ _apply_ _to_ _Channel_ _4_!
... and Windows comes with Personal Web Server, which gives you an (admittedly poor) ASP & database facility. Useful for testing when poor decisions from previous staff lumber you with ASP :(
I'm a Pascal (and Pascal derivatives) lover, personally. I don't like C even slightly, I'm afraid. Might be fine for what other people want to do but definitely isn't for what I want to do.
So. My first instinct when I saw this was Ha! More examples of just why C is horrible! You couldn't do this if in Pascal if you tried!
I then thought about the ingenuity of these authors...
So, does any such resource exist for Pascal code? Beyond simply putting the thing as ASCII art and giving it meaningless variable names, neither of which seem truly worthy to me.