Departing temporarily from a task sounds more like a subroutine than multitasking to me. This is more in line with saying that the brain has an efficient stack mechanism so that it doesn't forget what it was doing.
Yes that seems to be what's going on. It appears to be a type of temporary memory.
We have to take these types of studies with a grain of salt, however, since what they are really measuring is changes in blood flow. While increased blood flow to an area generally means that area is working harder, it tells us nothing about what it's really doing, or if there are other important areas without increased blood flow that are eqally important for the phenomenon.
In any event, this part of my brain seems to be missing. Now what was I doing?
And I've wondered myself, why can't someone come along with something wonderful and great and new; that will change the world (as we see it).
There's a lot of really cool stuff happening out there. One of my favorites is incubating down in Huntsville Alabama. If their stuff does what they say it will, then Time Domain will revolutionize wireless communications and a bunch of other stuff too!
Where life and limb are at stake, the software must be comprehensively tested. In these cases, no programmer should be trusted to have written bug free code. A physician should be liscensed because his actions (or lack thereof) can lead to irreversible loss. On the other hand, software won't lead to such losses until it is unleashed on the public. There are many opertunities to test it before releasing it in a capacity where lives are at stake.
Crap in, crap out, they say. Will a "liscensed" programmer be less likely to create bugs? Perhaps, if the lisensing requirements relate to techniques in minimizing bugs. But it's probably more important to look at a programmer's past projects rather than his certificates when hiring for such a job.
Perhaps the licensing should be used in the context of software testing, becauase when life and limb are at stake, the testing is more important than the programming (because you can't blindly trust anybody's code in these situations). You write your traffic light controller software to meet a spec. You send the code and the spec to the licensed testers (in house, or a specialized testing group) who then run it through a bunch of tests and then certify it as "safe" or "not safe" with an appropriate insurance policy behind it all.
I can see his point... to an extent. This is somewhat near sighted. What does Linus propose? If janitors, bus drivers and the people who work and McDonalds don't think their jobs are interesting they will quite? Because by then people will be more interested in being entertained than staying alive or getting food?
I can't speak for all of these people, but I do believe that they probably do not really find their jobs interesting. What, you ask, can we do about uninteresting repetitive manual labor type jobs? Robots. No wages, no healthcare benefits to pay, work incessantly without complaints, doing exactly as they are told. Nobody should have to work a job that a robot can do unless they are particularly interested.
What makes you think that our society is any better than ancient societies?
We will have robots!
This isn't going to last forever. Some other civilization, thousands, even hundreds, of years later will be completly different... and they won't have Linux (... pitty).
You speak of the coming age of robots, who will one day no longer have a need for humans. Will their positron brains run Linux?
There is too much misguided talk in the media about the culpability of the internet, movies, games, trenchcoats, guns, etc. This is resulting in proposals to counter these specific objects (be they guns, trenchcoats, or computers).
There just isn't enough talk about the actual problem: the unchecked hatred that was brewing in these kids heads. The hatred did not come from the internet, from guns, or from trenchcoats. It came from:
a steady stream of noxious stimuli from other kids (kids are very cruel to eachother)
a lack of conflict resolution and anger management skills.
Kids at school must be better protected from eachother's cruel comments and deeds. If Johnny slugs Kevin or calls him a "freak", then Johnny should have to stand up in front of the class and teachers and explain himself.
It's time for the kids who are dishing out abuse at school to be held accountable. Instead of metal detectors, we need hate detectors. For this to happen, teachers and administration have to stop turning a deaf ear.
Kids should be assigned to work in pairs on month-long assignments with people who are not in their subculture. This will not only teach them teamwork, which is an important skill, but also let them see eachother more as human beings rather than stereotyped enemies.
Once the seeds of hatred have been planted and allowed to grow, then the ready availability of guns and other weapons will lead to disasterous results. No matter how much we try to limit access to weapons or information, or how tight the school fortress is made, inmates - uh, I mean kids, bent on killing will find a way. Just look at prisons - a place where there is no internet access (AFAIK), no pipe bombs or guns for sale, and no trenchcoats. Just plain old hatred.
Computers are probably the utimate tinker toys for guys. I used to like hacking automobiles, but modern cars are now less approachable for weekend mechanics.
I don't think most people hacking GNU code are constantly thinking "must...destroy...Microsoft..". Instead, they are just having fun tapping into the power of computers to accomplish things. Open source puts that power in everybody's hands. The positive feedback loop of open source software and empowered individuals will be hard for Microsoft to break.
Also, it takes quite a while for thermal damage to involve anything deeper than the skin. Even people trapped in burning cars or buildings essentially never have burn damage to underlying fat or muscle (unless they die and remain in a fire for an hour or so).
Yes, but even without damage to fat and muscle, you are still dealing with third degree burns which can easily be fatal if they are large enough or if you are old enough. If you don't die from septic complications, you may wish that you did after you have a look in the mirror.
Also, don't forget that the Dell Server was specifically designed with NT in mind. My optiplex also has a little metal sticker on the front attesting to this fact. If you did the test with servers from a Linux vendor, who has picked well supported components and installed a tuned kernel, and the results will be quite different.
Genetically modified food
on
Gene Leakage
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· Score: 1
One of the reasons for such tight current control on GM plants is we don't know enough about genetics yet. We are at the same stage in genetics as the early explosives people were. They knew it could do wonderful things but were never quite sure what was going to happen, and likewise if you got it wrong you made a very big mess.
And X-Rays. People used to go to department stores and XRay their feet and hands with abandon. Only later did the link between XRay exposure and cancer become evident.
Genetic engineering is not really as simple as drag and drop. It is quite possible that promoting the expression of a desireable gene can lead to unwanted effects, such as expression of a less desireable gene. We have huge gaps in our knowledge of this area. Since the American farmer seems to be reasonably efficient already, there should be no big hurry to plunge head-on into the unknown using everybody who eats as a guinea pig.
How DARE you suggest that programmers might sometimes overreact! Clearly, the entire programming community (which I represent) MUST question both your intelligence and your motives. I have a big dog. I just fed him a bowl of chili. I suggest you WATCH YOUR STEP.
In this case, perhaps you meant to say, WATCH WHERE YOU STEP.
In short, if your goal is only to work a tech job in the computer industry, then you are probably wasting your time and money going to college. As many have mentioned before, anyone with a modicum of intellegence and initiative can read the O'Reily books and support themselves nicely as a sysadmin.
College is worthwile only if you refuse to go about it passively. You must try to go to the best school you can. Then you've got to view the school as a vast array of resources that you are allowed to take advantage of. It really is a time to explore things that aren't necessarily related to you career goals.
I wish both Jesse and Eric the best of luck, but hope that they'll take the opportunity they have and grow up a bit... Software theft and Music theft are still theft... With much of music, and in the game industry, lack of sales (due to pirating) does have a direct impact on the creator/developer.
Yes, true. But think back to your teens (assuming you aren't currently a teenager) - how many of us never copied a friend's LP onto a tape, or never copied a friend's software to hack with?
These guys, with little resources, took their education into their own hands. I think most of what they've done as teenagers can be easily overlooked. Few of us are truely innocent.
Different personalities, but all valuable human beings. The introverted types often have an incredible ability to concentrate on a single task for extended periods of time. There are certain problems that require both technical thinking and good communication skills where extroverted geeks excel.
In my mind, the geek or "hacker" is one who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and delve into the unknown - somebody with an innate need to know how things work - someone with an innate need to create something new and better - someone who questions authority (but not just for the sake of being anti-establishment). The people who fit this description may come from all walks of life, and might be endowed with a variety of different accessory personality traits.
Linux coders are biased against C++, that's why
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Java for EGCS
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· Score: 1
Well, there are several problems with C++ IMHO, but the main problem is that it's much much easier to write inefficient code in it.
True, but I think the better reason a beginner should start first with C rather than C++ is the complexity of C++, and the fact that you really should be comfortable with C before embarking upon C++ (which is essentially C with additional features)
Take, for example, a string class in C++. Many beginners will build a string from characters by concatenating each character to the end of the string (thestring += thechar). This resizes the string on every character added, as a new array is created (1 char bigger), the old data is copied over, and the old char array is deleted - all internally and automatically by the string class. Sure, this is really easy, and that's the problem - the beginner doesn't realize how much inefficiency is going on behind his back.
Any decent implementation will preallocate a small block of memory beyond the end of the string (or array) so that the string (or array) will not have to deallocate and reallocate with each additional character (or array element). Most implementations I've used also let you give the string object a hint about how long you want it to be.
So even though C++ is easier in many respects for beginners (the compiler automatically takes care of reference parameters, automatically determines the data types for outputting and inputting to/from the console, etc.), I still think it's a good idea to learn C first, to understand how things really work, and then to learn C++. Of course, most schools don't agree with me. Oh well
Are schools starting people out with C++? I came to my first Comp Sci class with C under my belt, but was forced to learn Pascal.
..companies just aren't going to make much selling operating systems anymore. Selling support/consulting services yes, but code - no.
I'm no microserf, but I expect MS to look away from the desktop and more towards the small and large:
Get more involved in information appliances and other hardware (witness MS phone, remote-control, Teletubbies doll, etc.)
Push further into the high end database market
Sell bigger integrated business solutions (ecommerce package recently announced). Focus less on the server OS, more on the layered on services that implement the client's business.
Capitalize on research/aquisitions - speech recognition and other AI type projects in the pipeline
They might as well open-source IE, since it isn't going to make them a dime. Maybe then it could be ported to Linux.
will be the killer hardware (or rather "software") for this kind of stuff. Fold it up and stash it in your bag. Millions of little ink droplets in a matrix which can be manipulated to form an arbitary image. Now if only they can get it to market...
Probably the best known spoof artist. Really got going in the 80's by making the lyrics to otherwise braindead songs interesting.
Madonna's "Like a Virgin" -> WA's "Like a Surgeon" M. Jackson's "Beat it" -> WA's "Eat it" and so on.
"Why do you have to be such an angry young man, don't want no Captain Crunch don't want no Raisin Bran. Well don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan, so eat it!"
AOL does have some really high quality stuff under its wing, with smart people working on it. Witness AOLserver, formerly Naviserver before acquisition, which is a fast multithreaded Web server with powerful features (integrated interpreter for TCL, persistent db connections, etc). Managing it through the built in admin pages is a snap.
One of the key developers on the project just left though.....
I love my Psion Series 5. It is the only handheld I've been able to find that combines a great keyboard which I can actually type fast on, with a good battery life and a small enough form factor that I can carry it everywhere. I really have a need to type, thus I still haven't bought a Palm Pilot.
Now if I could run Linux on my Psion, that would be very cool indeed. Of course, the apps that come with the Psion are quite useful and easy to use too - there would definitely be some tradeoffs to loading Linux and losing the built in apps. The built in OPL language is not really fun to hack with, and the optional C/C++ package was a little overpriced last time I checked.
Until then, does anyone know of a Linux utility that can sync with, or otherwise backup files from the Series 5?. I would really like to delete my Win98 partition, and the Psion sync program is the only thing that forces me to keep it
Slashdot Mirror
Yes that seems to be what's going on. It appears to be a type of temporary memory.
We have to take these types of studies with a grain of salt, however, since what they are really measuring is changes in blood flow. While increased blood flow to an area generally means that area is working harder, it tells us nothing about what it's really doing, or if there are other important areas without increased blood flow that are eqally important for the phenomenon.
In any event, this part of my brain seems to be missing. Now what was I doing?
There's a lot of really cool stuff happening out there. One of my favorites is incubating down in Huntsville Alabama. If their stuff does what they say it will, then Time Domain will revolutionize wireless communications and a bunch of other stuff too!
Where life and limb are at stake, the software must be comprehensively tested. In these cases, no programmer should be trusted to have written bug free code. A physician should be liscensed because his actions (or lack thereof) can lead to irreversible loss. On the other hand, software won't lead to such losses until it is unleashed on the public. There are many opertunities to test it before releasing it in a capacity where lives are at stake.
Crap in, crap out, they say. Will a "liscensed" programmer be less likely to create bugs? Perhaps, if the lisensing requirements relate to techniques in minimizing bugs. But it's probably more important to look at a programmer's past projects rather than his certificates when hiring for such a job.
Perhaps the licensing should be used in the context of software testing, becauase when life and limb are at stake, the testing is more important than the programming (because you can't blindly trust anybody's code in these situations). You write your traffic light controller software to meet a spec. You send the code and the spec to the licensed testers (in house, or a specialized testing group) who then run it through a bunch of tests and then certify it as "safe" or "not safe" with an appropriate insurance policy behind it all.
Korean spicy cabbage
Don't forget drug addiction. Take your soma, it will help you relax.
I can't speak for all of these people, but I do believe that they probably do not really find their jobs interesting. What, you ask, can we do about uninteresting repetitive manual labor type jobs? Robots. No wages, no healthcare benefits to pay, work incessantly without complaints, doing exactly as they are told. Nobody should have to work a job that a robot can do unless they are particularly interested.
What makes you think that our society is any better than ancient societies?
We will have robots!
This isn't going to last forever. Some other civilization, thousands, even hundreds, of years later will be completly different ... and they won't have Linux ( ... pitty).
You speak of the coming age of robots, who will one day no longer have a need for humans. Will their positron brains run Linux?
There is too much misguided talk in the media about the culpability of the internet, movies, games, trenchcoats, guns, etc. This is resulting in proposals to counter these specific objects (be they guns, trenchcoats, or computers).
There just isn't enough talk about the actual problem: the unchecked hatred that was brewing in these kids heads. The hatred did not come from the internet, from guns, or from trenchcoats. It came from:
Kids at school must be better protected from eachother's cruel comments and deeds. If Johnny slugs Kevin or calls him a "freak", then Johnny should have to stand up in front of the class and teachers and explain himself.
It's time for the kids who are dishing out abuse at school to be held accountable. Instead of metal detectors, we need hate detectors. For this to happen, teachers and administration have to stop turning a deaf ear.
Kids should be assigned to work in pairs on month-long assignments with people who are not in their subculture. This will not only teach them teamwork, which is an important skill, but also let them see eachother more as human beings rather than stereotyped enemies.
Once the seeds of hatred have been planted and allowed to grow, then the ready availability of guns and other weapons will lead to disasterous results. No matter how much we try to limit access to weapons or information, or how tight the school fortress is made, inmates - uh, I mean kids, bent on killing will find a way. Just look at prisons - a place where there is no internet access (AFAIK), no pipe bombs or guns for sale, and no trenchcoats. Just plain old hatred.
Computers are probably the utimate tinker toys for guys. I used to like hacking automobiles, but modern cars are now less approachable for weekend mechanics.
I don't think most people hacking GNU code are constantly thinking "must ...destroy ...Microsoft..". Instead, they are just having fun tapping into the power of computers to accomplish things. Open source puts that power in everybody's hands. The positive feedback loop of open source software and empowered individuals will be hard for Microsoft to break.
Ah, and 640K of RAM was more than one would ever need ;-)
Yes, but even without damage to fat and muscle, you are still dealing with third degree burns which can easily be fatal if they are large enough or if you are old enough. If you don't die from septic complications, you may wish that you did after you have a look in the mirror.
Please post a reference for this.
Also, don't forget that the Dell Server was specifically designed with NT in mind. My optiplex also has a little metal sticker on the front attesting to this fact. If you did the test with servers from a Linux vendor, who has picked well supported components and installed a tuned kernel, and the results will be quite different.
And X-Rays. People used to go to department stores and XRay their feet and hands with abandon. Only later did the link between XRay exposure and cancer become evident.
Genetic engineering is not really as simple as drag and drop. It is quite possible that promoting the expression of a desireable gene can lead to unwanted effects, such as expression of a less desireable gene. We have huge gaps in our knowledge of this area. Since the American farmer seems to be reasonably efficient already, there should be no big hurry to plunge head-on into the unknown using everybody who eats as a guinea pig.
In this case, perhaps you meant to say, WATCH WHERE YOU STEP.
In short, if your goal is only to work a tech job in the computer industry, then you are probably wasting your time and money going to college. As many have mentioned before, anyone with a modicum of intellegence and initiative can read the O'Reily books and support themselves nicely as a sysadmin.
College is worthwile only if you refuse to go about it passively. You must try to go to the best school you can. Then you've got to view the school as a vast array of resources that you are allowed to take advantage of. It really is a time to explore things that aren't necessarily related to you career goals.
Yes, true. But think back to your teens (assuming you aren't currently a teenager) - how many of us never copied a friend's LP onto a tape, or never copied a friend's software to hack with?
These guys, with little resources, took their education into their own hands. I think most of what they've done as teenagers can be easily overlooked. Few of us are truely innocent.
Different personalities, but all valuable human beings. The introverted types often have an incredible ability to concentrate on a single task for extended periods of time. There are certain problems that require both technical thinking and good communication skills where extroverted geeks excel.
In my mind, the geek or "hacker" is one who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and delve into the unknown - somebody with an innate need to know how things work - someone with an innate need to create something new and better - someone who questions authority (but not just for the sake of being anti-establishment). The people who fit this description may come from all walks of life, and might be endowed with a variety of different accessory personality traits.
True, but I think the better reason a beginner should start first with C rather than C++ is the complexity of C++, and the fact that you really should be comfortable with C before embarking upon C++ (which is essentially C with additional features)
Take, for example, a string class in C++. Many beginners will build a string from characters by concatenating each character to the end of the string (thestring += thechar). This resizes the string on every character added, as a new array is created (1 char bigger), the old data is copied over, and the old char array is deleted - all internally and automatically by the string class. Sure, this is really easy, and that's the problem - the beginner doesn't realize how much inefficiency is going on behind his back.Any decent implementation will preallocate a small block of memory beyond the end of the string (or array) so that the string (or array) will not have to deallocate and reallocate with each additional character (or array element). Most implementations I've used also let you give the string object a hint about how long you want it to be.
So even though C++ is easier in many respects for beginners (the compiler automatically takes care of reference parameters, automatically determines the data types for outputting and inputting to/from the console, etc.), I still think it's a good idea to learn C first, to understand how things really work, and then to learn C++. Of course, most schools don't agree with me. Oh wellAre schools starting people out with C++? I came to my first Comp Sci class with C under my belt, but was forced to learn Pascal.
..companies just aren't going to make much selling operating systems anymore. Selling support/consulting services yes, but code - no.
They might as well open-source IE, since it isn't going to make them a dime. Maybe then it could be ported to Linux.
...but then they started to notice a foul smelling discharge and began to itch.
will be the killer hardware (or rather "software") for this kind of stuff. Fold it up and stash it in your bag. Millions of little ink droplets in a matrix which can be manipulated to form an arbitary image. Now if only they can get it to market...
a wired article about Xerox's efforts
I seem to remember there was an MIT project too, but I can't find the link.
Probably the best known spoof artist. Really got going in the 80's by making the lyrics to otherwise braindead songs interesting.
Madonna's "Like a Virgin" -> WA's "Like a Surgeon"
M. Jackson's "Beat it" -> WA's "Eat it"
and so on.
"Why do you have to be such an angry young man, don't want no Captain Crunch don't want no Raisin Bran. Well don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan, so eat it!"
One of the key developers on the project just left though.....
Thanks!
I love my Psion Series 5. It is the only handheld I've been able to find that combines a great keyboard which I can actually type fast on, with a good battery life and a small enough form factor that I can carry it everywhere. I really have a need to type, thus I still haven't bought a Palm Pilot.
Now if I could run Linux on my Psion, that would be very cool indeed. Of course, the apps that come with the Psion are quite useful and easy to use too - there would definitely be some tradeoffs to loading Linux and losing the built in apps. The built in OPL language is not really fun to hack with, and the optional C/C++ package was a little overpriced last time I checked.
Until then, does anyone know of a Linux utility that can sync with, or otherwise backup files from the Series 5?. I would really like to delete my Win98 partition, and the Psion sync program is the only thing that forces me to keep it