This is complete crap. I'm a Linux user, not a fanboy, so maybe that's why I read the article and can see it for what it was.
It was the European People's Party (aka, "Christian Democrats") that had some WAY over-zealous advocates harassing MPEs. Yes, that's an accurate word, "harassing." I believe it's accurate because of you read the article (and the poster clearly didn't), the EPP rep. APOLOGIZED for the extreme behavior of its zealots.
Joachim WUERMELING (D), for the EPP-ED group, broadly supported the rapporteur, and he alluded to the technical and legal difficulties surrounding the issue. He regretted the sometimes personal and irrational lobbying that had taken place.
He apologized because they were out of control. Showing up at an MPEs residence and hurling insults at them on their front door step in the name of OSS (or whatever) isn't "lobbying." It's harassment. Plain and simple.
Arlene McCarthy regrettably added that in all the years that she had been an MEP, she had not been treated in such an aggressive manner. She said she and her staff had been bullied and harassed.
And they were bullied. Hurling invectives in the name of OSS is still rude and over the top. Contrary to what/. readers believe, acting like an idiot isn't restricted to the folks from Redmond...
We have a nice VoIP system in the CS building at Stanford. When routers dump, people now lose the ability to work on their machines and to use the phones. It's an amazing thing to see productivity drop off so dramatically all at once. It used to be that when the power went out, for instance, and it was still light outside, people just shifted gears. They caught up on phone calls, returned voicemails, etc. Now, the world shuts down.
VoIP would be a great idea if it *didn't* utilize the same networks and have the same power requirements of those same networks. I rue the day I lost my hard PSTN land line. (And I love my cell phone... I'm not speaking as a luddite.)
Putting all your eggs in one basket may be cheaper, and it may be more efficient for a while, but it sure does suck to lose all services to the next blaster worm to come along...
The poster offers an interesting interpretation of the results, but only his/her comments support Ogg Vorbis in this case. The numbers tell a completely different story.
The analysis presented leads us to one conclusion: use Lame 128. It's strictly better than all other options. Do not use FhG MP3. Easy.
If you're willing to slip to 4th best encoder, then consider Ogg Vorbis. 4TH BEST. That's hardly the rosey picture painted in the article.
Also, don't be deceived by the "confidence intervals" shown in the graph. They're all drawn to the same widths for each set! At best, this is an approximation. At worst, the author is simply using a program that draws in some uniform (and meaningless) bars. Fear graphs.
I, too, fear that the invasive nature of out of control tracking may get us into trouble, but I think many posts so far are off the mark. A large number of posters have roughly said that we should "put the money to better use." However, there's real value to the homeless themselves from tracking.
First, an analogy. Think of devoting resources to the homeless as energy spent on optimizing a solution. You cannot rightly assess where to place the effort, or the impact of an optimization, without profiling. Tracking is like profiling. In order to best allocate resources, and to respond to individual level crises, we need information about the conditions that the homeless face everyday. AND they conditions they face over time! And the conditions they face as groups and as individuals.
All of this information is vital to both assessment and aid.
I live in Santa Cruz, CA. It has recently been named the most expensive community to live in in the US. We have the largest rich-poor gap of any community. And as a resident, I can assure you that we have one of the highest rates of homelessness, as well. Residents responding to surveys indicate almost 10% have been homeless in the last year. However, our "hidden homeless" are many more.
Santa Cruz is a great place to be homeless. There is fantastic weather, excellent community outreach, and an active and robust homeless commuity seeking to better its lot. But no one would claim that the "best place to be homeless" is in any way shape or form better than simply not being homeless.
In order to best meet the needs of the homeless, they need to be understood. Understanding comes through data, experience, and knowledge. And this can come, in part, from tracking. Yes, yes, we track the migrations of animals and birds and even insects. And based on that data, we have designated certian species "protected", "endangered", etc... in an attempt to help. Without at least an effort to broaden our understanding, we cannot help to the maximal extent. We track children's progress through schools with standardized tests, too. We don't do it to debase them; we do it to help where help is most needed.
So, yes, we must be careful. But tracking can be a tool to help the homeless. Do not reject the tool outright! Just ensure that it is used appropriately.
How could the parent get modded up as "insightful"?! At best, for the humor-challenged, it could be seen as a pretty meager attempt to secure "funny".
Of course Microsoft will produce white papers that show Microsoft winning! Why would they possibly do otherwise? They're a *company*, not a *charity*. Besides, it should be seen as the highest form of flattery that Linux warrants so much of their time and energy. It means that Linux is at least making an impression.
Maybe by taking Microsoft seriously for once, rather than spouting some glib "Microsoft is going to show themselves winning" tripe, you would see that these sorts of comparisons benefit Linux. Microsoft *may* be able to fudge a little, but direct, fact-based comparisons will put a spotlight on Linux failures. And give us some needed attention to boot.
Guess how long it'll take take the Linux folks to solve any "problem" that Microsoft graciously points out? Not long. How is that a loss for Linux? Seems like it makes Linux stronger *exactly* where MS sees a temporary weakness.
The parent does exactly what MS has learned doesn't work: relying on emotion and FUD. I wish there was a -1, uninsightful.
The point is *not* to hijack the bus and crash it into anything. Who wants to commandeer a bus, of all things? It's hardly an effective weapon.
On the other hand, ask any Israeli why you search the bus. Take off your 9/11 blinders: terrorism isn't about killing people with vehicles. It's about instilling TERROR. Imagine what happens when they blow up a "bus in the middle of Missouri". It never was about hijacking; that was just a means to an end.
But I could never see the justification in buying items with real money. I mean its a freakin game, as soon as it becomes so important to me that I'll spend $100 for an imaginary sword I hope that somebody is kind enough to snuff me out.
But you're paying the upfront and the monthly fee to PLAY the game already?! Why is it a big leap of logic to then pay a little more for in-game items?
Get real. It's certainly viewable (animations and all) in MS' IE. I know IS is not free (as in speech), but FUD (or ignorance) about it hurts just as much as anything else.
I know I will be in the minority here, but if you don't like the credit check, why are you still fighting for the job? Is it the kind of place you still want to work? Admittedly, a credit check is a pretty random thing, but there's nothing that says it cannot be a condition of employment. Should they have it? I think not. Can they demand it? Absolutely.
The decision is simple: how badly do you want this job? Let that answer guide your decision. And if you take they job, and despise the policy, work to change it from within...
The cynic in me says "Poster has bad credit." Apparently you've already accepted the position, though, so the check doesn't stop you from getting the job. Be pleased you have one.
I bet there's money to be made if someone can come up with cheaper means of settling such disputes.
How damnably ironic can Timothy be (without trying to be)? The whole point of the $1000 fee is that there's money to be made. You know how much money? Right about $1000, minus expenses. *sigh*
The reality is, the $1000 fee goes towards two main purposes, neither of which is profit. The first is to cover a relatively expensive process (yes, flame on, I know that you would arbitrate and manage claims for free). The second reason is to provide a barrier to entry. "Barrier to entry" sounds evil to most knee-jerk thinkers, but this one is a good barrier. Trust me, I would file claims against every company I didn't like in the world if the fee was only $1. I would have fun with the system. So would everyone else. The $1000 price tag makes me think a bit more before I challenge for a domain name that is "rightfully" mine.
Btw, I am dating myself with the griping about JIT versus purely interpreted and all that, but there is something important here! I decided that my first post was decidedly unclear, and that I should actually profile the dang that and get some real numbers.
The almabench program spends a lot of time in library routines that the author has no control over, and aren't always written the same way that they are in FORTRAN/C/C++. For instance, almabench makes 5,844,000 calls to java.lang.Math.asin(D), which then calls java.lang.StrictMath.asin(D) 5,844,000 times. The same is true of the 11,688,000 calls to atan2()... they're also passed along to StrictMath (only abs() is called as many times as atan2()). The beauty of writing java code is *not* knowing that these sorts of things are going on, no? For best *performance*, however, we have to work a little harder.
I really enjoyed the following paper on using some OO programming-style optimizations coupled with a smart runtime to get almost identical FORTRAN and Java performance for linpack: linpack9.
A look there will validate the other comment about why OO designs can unecessarily kill performance and why the study's author should have used a JIT with identical libraries for math functions rather than Math.X(). Comparing otherwise is like comparing apples and oranges, or even Apples(r) and BillG.
I'm hardly a Java junky, but I've spent a lot of time recently with the language and I've heard a lot of complaints from my peers about Java being slow. Most of the time, just like this author, they're wrong! Java isn't slow, but sometimes you do have to program more thoughtfully to make Java fast.
First things first, though. No one would ever claim that JDK 1.4 is the ultimate Java speed demon. Even the "HotSpot" in server mode is going to be slow if your code isn't written well. But the author fails to do any profiling, and fails to give anyone even a hint as to why Java doesn't perform well. But I shouldn't get on him about his coding, or lack of profiling... neither issue is the reason his test showed Java to be slow.
The real problem: Firs, I'll cut him some slack for not profiling. However, I won't cut him any slack for using an interpreter instead of a JIT compiler. Java's been shown time and time again to be as fast as FORTRAN/C++ when using a good compiler, rather than an interpreter. *sigh* When will the madness end? A 0.07 second query to Google should explain that one to even a novice. Java IS fast. Interpreted byte-code is slow. Java != interpreted byte code; Java is a language.
Anyway, here's a link to a weak, biased, and not so rigorous argument backing up that statement. But, it's an easy read for Java newbies, so I'll risk posting it anyway: Java is Fast for Dummies(tm)
Before I launch into a wildly enthusiastic discussion of DLP, I just want to point out one amusing problem with Plasma TVs. They wont work over 6200 feet of elevation, which is where much of the soutwest US lives. I live at 7000 feet. bummer.
Pretty much none of the Southwestern US is at 7,000 feet... or 6,200 feet for that matter. I'm from the Rockies. Denver, the "Mile High City", is a nice and tidy 5,280 feet at the capital steps. I went to school in Laramie, WY... home of the "highest law school in the country" (referring to elevation, of course). Laramie is at 7,200 foot, nestled comfortably in the Rocky Mountains.
Even if what you're saying is correct about the 6,200 feet limit (and I really doubt it is, given your grasp of elevation), still far less than 1% of the US population could possibly be affected.
It's a nice idea, but the main reason that ISA-to-PCI is not a solution out there already is a simple one: physical contraints of the system. An ISA-to-PCI adapter would not fit in any standard chassis and still have enough room to mount the ISA card. The IDE-to-SCSI solution leverages the fact that there's room to move in a case; drives tend not to be tight fits, unlike cards.
That being said, if you find a good one someday, let me know! I have more ISA data acquisition cards in the lab than I can shake a stick at, and they're not cheap.
For better or worse (almost certainly worse), spammers will target this sort of medium with a fury. It's a medium for open *audio* transmissions... it's like telemarketing, sans feedback.
Hopefully there will be an additional decision metric that allows users to selectively change their rankings for messages that they've listened to. If I like something, I want to give it a +1 regardless of which ID it came from! Then again, spammers want the capability to do the same thing.
I know this parent was modded up as +Funny, but it's actually +Informative. "Rock and chisel" are the best thing we have, and there's a real trend toward using it more. Take a look at Norsam's HD-Rosetta. It's an etched nickel plate designed to last for thousands of years. Vive la Rock & Chisel!
I give him about 2 days before being slapped with a lawsuit for patent infringement. And then Lego towns all across the Midwest will pass laws preventing them from riding on sidewalks (at the behest of Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler).
Slashdot Mirror
Um, what is there that this guy *doesn't* like? I guess he didn't mention Commodore Basic...
It was the European People's Party (aka, "Christian Democrats") that had some WAY over-zealous advocates harassing MPEs. Yes, that's an accurate word, "harassing." I believe it's accurate because of you read the article (and the poster clearly didn't), the EPP rep. APOLOGIZED for the extreme behavior of its zealots.
He apologized because they were out of control. Showing up at an MPEs residence and hurling insults at them on their front door step in the name of OSS (or whatever) isn't "lobbying." It's harassment. Plain and simple.
And they were bullied. Hurling invectives in the name of OSS is still rude and over the top. Contrary to what
"Separation of concerns" should sink VoIP.
We have a nice VoIP system in the CS building at Stanford. When routers dump, people now lose the ability to work on their machines and to use the phones. It's an amazing thing to see productivity drop off so dramatically all at once. It used to be that when the power went out, for instance, and it was still light outside, people just shifted gears. They caught up on phone calls, returned voicemails, etc. Now, the world shuts down.
VoIP would be a great idea if it *didn't* utilize the same networks and have the same power requirements of those same networks. I rue the day I lost my hard PSTN land line. (And I love my cell phone... I'm not speaking as a luddite.)
Putting all your eggs in one basket may be cheaper, and it may be more efficient for a while, but it sure does suck to lose all services to the next blaster worm to come along...
The poster offers an interesting interpretation of the results, but only his/her comments support Ogg Vorbis in this case. The numbers tell a completely different story.
The analysis presented leads us to one conclusion: use Lame 128. It's strictly better than all other options. Do not use FhG MP3. Easy.
If you're willing to slip to 4th best encoder, then consider Ogg Vorbis. 4TH BEST. That's hardly the rosey picture painted in the article.
Also, don't be deceived by the "confidence intervals" shown in the graph. They're all drawn to the same widths for each set! At best, this is an approximation. At worst, the author is simply using a program that draws in some uniform (and meaningless) bars. Fear graphs.
Doesn't it work for any non-palindromic sequence?
I, too, fear that the invasive nature of out of control tracking may get us into trouble, but I think many posts so far are off the mark. A large number of posters have roughly said that we should "put the money to better use." However, there's real value to the homeless themselves from tracking.
First, an analogy. Think of devoting resources to the homeless as energy spent on optimizing a solution. You cannot rightly assess where to place the effort, or the impact of an optimization, without profiling. Tracking is like profiling. In order to best allocate resources, and to respond to individual level crises, we need information about the conditions that the homeless face everyday. AND they conditions they face over time! And the conditions they face as groups and as individuals.
All of this information is vital to both assessment and aid.
I live in Santa Cruz, CA. It has recently been named the most expensive community to live in in the US. We have the largest rich-poor gap of any community. And as a resident, I can assure you that we have one of the highest rates of homelessness, as well. Residents responding to surveys indicate almost 10% have been homeless in the last year. However, our "hidden homeless" are many more.
Santa Cruz is a great place to be homeless. There is fantastic weather, excellent community outreach, and an active and robust homeless commuity seeking to better its lot. But no one would claim that the "best place to be homeless" is in any way shape or form better than simply not being homeless.
In order to best meet the needs of the homeless, they need to be understood. Understanding comes through data, experience, and knowledge. And this can come, in part, from tracking. Yes, yes, we track the migrations of animals and birds and even insects. And based on that data, we have designated certian species "protected", "endangered", etc... in an attempt to help. Without at least an effort to broaden our understanding, we cannot help to the maximal extent. We track children's progress through schools with standardized tests, too. We don't do it to debase them; we do it to help where help is most needed.
So, yes, we must be careful. But tracking can be a tool to help the homeless. Do not reject the tool outright! Just ensure that it is used appropriately.
How could the parent get modded up as "insightful"?! At best, for the humor-challenged, it could be seen as a pretty meager attempt to secure "funny".
Of course Microsoft will produce white papers that show Microsoft winning! Why would they possibly do otherwise? They're a *company*, not a *charity*. Besides, it should be seen as the highest form of flattery that Linux warrants so much of their time and energy. It means that Linux is at least making an impression.
Maybe by taking Microsoft seriously for once, rather than spouting some glib "Microsoft is going to show themselves winning" tripe, you would see that these sorts of comparisons benefit Linux. Microsoft *may* be able to fudge a little, but direct, fact-based comparisons will put a spotlight on Linux failures. And give us some needed attention to boot.
Guess how long it'll take take the Linux folks to solve any "problem" that Microsoft graciously points out? Not long. How is that a loss for Linux? Seems like it makes Linux stronger *exactly* where MS sees a temporary weakness.
The parent does exactly what MS has learned doesn't work: relying on emotion and FUD. I wish there was a -1, uninsightful.
The point is *not* to hijack the bus and crash it into anything. Who wants to commandeer a bus, of all things? It's hardly an effective weapon.
On the other hand, ask any Israeli why you search the bus. Take off your 9/11 blinders: terrorism isn't about killing people with vehicles. It's about instilling TERROR. Imagine what happens when they blow up a "bus in the middle of Missouri". It never was about hijacking; that was just a means to an end.
But you're paying the upfront and the monthly fee to PLAY the game already?! Why is it a big leap of logic to then pay a little more for in-game items?
www.globe.gov
A good site that kids all over the world that has kids doing real science.
Good times, good times.
(.mng, currently viewable only in Mozilla)
Get real. It's certainly viewable (animations and all) in MS' IE. I know IS is not free (as in speech), but FUD (or ignorance) about it hurts just as much as anything else.
I know I will be in the minority here, but if you don't like the credit check, why are you still fighting for the job? Is it the kind of place you still want to work? Admittedly, a credit check is a pretty random thing, but there's nothing that says it cannot be a condition of employment. Should they have it? I think not. Can they demand it? Absolutely.
The decision is simple: how badly do you want this job? Let that answer guide your decision. And if you take they job, and despise the policy, work to change it from within...
The cynic in me says "Poster has bad credit." Apparently you've already accepted the position, though, so the check doesn't stop you from getting the job. Be pleased you have one.
If an SMS message is lost on the network, does it make a custom ringtone?
I bet there's money to be made if someone can come up with cheaper means of settling such disputes.
How damnably ironic can Timothy be (without trying to be)? The whole point of the $1000 fee is that there's money to be made. You know how much money? Right about $1000, minus expenses. *sigh*
The reality is, the $1000 fee goes towards two main purposes, neither of which is profit. The first is to cover a relatively expensive process (yes, flame on, I know that you would arbitrate and manage claims for free). The second reason is to provide a barrier to entry. "Barrier to entry" sounds evil to most knee-jerk thinkers, but this one is a good barrier. Trust me, I would file claims against every company I didn't like in the world if the fee was only $1. I would have fun with the system. So would everyone else. The $1000 price tag makes me think a bit more before I challenge for a domain name that is "rightfully" mine.
They've always been honest about their release date, and posted it openly since day 1. It's not their fault if the public can't read properly:
Duke Nukem Forever
Btw, I am dating myself with the griping about JIT versus purely interpreted and all that, but there is something important here! I decided that my first post was decidedly unclear, and that I should actually profile the dang that and get some real numbers.
The almabench program spends a lot of time in library routines that the author has no control over, and aren't always written the same way that they are in FORTRAN/C/C++. For instance, almabench makes 5,844,000 calls to java.lang.Math.asin(D), which then calls java.lang.StrictMath.asin(D) 5,844,000 times. The same is true of the 11,688,000 calls to atan2()... they're also passed along to StrictMath (only abs() is called as many times as atan2()). The beauty of writing java code is *not* knowing that these sorts of things are going on, no? For best *performance*, however, we have to work a little harder.
I really enjoyed the following paper on using some OO programming-style optimizations coupled with a smart runtime to get almost identical FORTRAN and Java performance for linpack: linpack9.
A look there will validate the other comment about why OO designs can unecessarily kill performance and why the study's author should have used a JIT with identical libraries for math functions rather than Math.X(). Comparing otherwise is like comparing apples and oranges, or even Apples(r) and BillG.
I'm hardly a Java junky, but I've spent a lot of time recently with the language and I've heard a lot of complaints from my peers about Java being slow. Most of the time, just like this author, they're wrong! Java isn't slow, but sometimes you do have to program more thoughtfully to make Java fast.
First things first, though. No one would ever claim that JDK 1.4 is the ultimate Java speed demon. Even the "HotSpot" in server mode is going to be slow if your code isn't written well. But the author fails to do any profiling, and fails to give anyone even a hint as to why Java doesn't perform well. But I shouldn't get on him about his coding, or lack of profiling... neither issue is the reason his test showed Java to be slow.
The real problem: Firs, I'll cut him some slack for not profiling. However, I won't cut him any slack for using an interpreter instead of a JIT compiler. Java's been shown time and time again to be as fast as FORTRAN/C++ when using a good compiler, rather than an interpreter. *sigh* When will the madness end? A 0.07 second query to Google should explain that one to even a novice. Java IS fast. Interpreted byte-code is slow. Java != interpreted byte code; Java is a language.
Anyway, here's a link to a weak, biased, and not so rigorous argument backing up that statement. But, it's an easy read for Java newbies, so I'll risk posting it anyway: Java is Fast for Dummies(tm)
Pretty much none of the Southwestern US is at 7,000 feet... or 6,200 feet for that matter. I'm from the Rockies. Denver, the "Mile High City", is a nice and tidy 5,280 feet at the capital steps. I went to school in Laramie, WY... home of the "highest law school in the country" (referring to elevation, of course). Laramie is at 7,200 foot, nestled comfortably in the Rocky Mountains.
Even if what you're saying is correct about the 6,200 feet limit (and I really doubt it is, given your grasp of elevation), still far less than 1% of the US population could possibly be affected.
I decided to forego the keen opportunity of spamming "FIRST POST!" Instead, I grabbed a mirror, so others can read it after the
mirror
'Tis the season to be giving, and I can't afford the cash to keep Mandrake afloat... this is all I've got to give!
It's a nice idea, but the main reason that ISA-to-PCI is not a solution out there already is a simple one: physical contraints of the system. An ISA-to-PCI adapter would not fit in any standard chassis and still have enough room to mount the ISA card. The IDE-to-SCSI solution leverages the fact that there's room to move in a case; drives tend not to be tight fits, unlike cards.
That being said, if you find a good one someday, let me know! I have more ISA data acquisition cards in the lab than I can shake a stick at, and they're not cheap.
For better or worse (almost certainly worse), spammers will target this sort of medium with a fury. It's a medium for open *audio* transmissions... it's like telemarketing, sans feedback.
Hopefully there will be an additional decision metric that allows users to selectively change their rankings for messages that they've listened to. If I like something, I want to give it a +1 regardless of which ID it came from! Then again, spammers want the capability to do the same thing.
*sigh*
I know this parent was modded up as +Funny, but it's actually +Informative. "Rock and chisel" are the best thing we have, and there's a real trend toward using it more. Take a look at Norsam's HD-Rosetta. It's an etched nickel plate designed to last for thousands of years. Vive la Rock & Chisel!
(And no, not all CAD/CAM happens on intel boxes, actually SGI has this market cornered, guess where OpenGL comes from?)
Actually, current SGI boxes have Intel(tm) inside. For better or worse, it's been that way for a LONG time now.
Captain Nemo, I've always respected what you've done under the sea. You've made it safe from Nazis and Mermen alike!
All hail Nemo, Captain of Nautilus!
I give him about 2 days before being slapped with a lawsuit for patent infringement. And then Lego towns all across the Midwest will pass laws preventing them from riding on sidewalks (at the behest of Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler).