(Note: I stole this argument from somewhere, but can't find the exact quote or reference.)
Here it is:
For chess, for example, if we take the effective branching factor to be 16 and the effective depth to be 100, then the number of branches in an exhaustive survey of chess possibilities would be on the order of 10^120 -- a ridiculously large number. In fact, if all the atoms in the universe had been computing chess moves at picosecond speeds since the big bang (if any), the analysis would be just getting started.
Artificial Intelligence, 3rd edition, Patrick Henry Winston.
There are something like 10^120 positions (nodes in the search space) (source: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Jackson) and something like 10^78 atoms in the universe (source: The Little Book of the Big Bang, Hogan).
So if every atom in the universe could do one chess position per say, nanosecond (10^-9 seconds), and had been computing since the Big Bang (15 billion years ago), the computation would still be in its earliest stages.
(Note: I stole this argument from somewhere, but can't find the exact quote or reference.)
A similar idea that I've been playing around with and seems to work is to use ccache and put the cache on a network drive.
That way, if someone has already built the file you're about to build, it's just a copy. Even better is if you have a continous build script caching results ahead of time for you.
Seriously, Katz, doesn't journalistic integrity mean anything to you anymore?
Not to defend Jon or anything, but he really isn't a journalist... more of a pundit*. Therefore, he really isn't supposed to have integrity in the first place.
(* Pundit in the new, cynical defintion of the word, not the classical "learned man" definition)
That *is* something to be concerned about. It's just not a good enough reason to reject it out of hand.
Well, if you have any sort of ideals, it is.
However with the volume of "free" users that BK will gain from this, it will be in their best interest to serve the community well if for no other reason than the SQA they'll get out of it.
What the hell does this mean? They owe absolutely nothing to the "free" class of users.
It's the idea that the idea of using BK should be disregarded out of hand because BK is not totally free that seems like throwing what might be the baby out with the bathwater.
No. It's called remaining ideologically pure, or, in more vulgar terms, "sticking to your guns".
Yet, how does that stated view of commercial software jibe with his beligerent response to the idea of Linus using BitKeeper?
Why do people have such a hard time understanding this?
RMS believes there are certain freedoms, listed at www.gnu.org, that must be met before a software package may be called "free". In English it is unfortuante that "free" has two meanings: in Latin, they are "libre" and "gratis".
The issues is not, never has been, nor never will be about the issue of cost (gratis). The issue is about liberty/freedom.
BitKeeper doesn't even come close to satisfying the requirements for being free (libre), regardless of its cost. Hence RMS' problem with it.
News flash: nobody gives a damn about anything anymore.
Overly pessimistic? Perhaps. But so long as Joe Sixpack (to borrow a Monty Burns-ism) has 70 channels of pap to keep him pacified and everything is generally "ok", nobody cares about anything.
Government is passing laws that encroach and in some cases obliterate my rights? Who cares, as long as I get my MTV and my car still runs.
So, it's a common enough usage that it's in the dictionary that I just pillaged and plundered;)
As was so well put by Orwell in 1984, controlling language is nine-tenths the battle; seeing this bodes well for the copyright monopolists and not-so-well for those of us who believe in the free marketplace of ideas.
You decide that you will not use Product A at all, because copying it is morally, ethically and legally wrong. If it's not worth $10 to you, then why would you want a copy?
The idea, end-to-end control of what you see, read, and hear, and how you pay for it, will never die so long as the corrupt copyright/patent system that exists today and the governments/corporations that support them exist.
DivX failed. If this one fails, they will surely try, try again, so long as there are pennies to be squeezed and rights and freedoms to be bought.
Bart's lines in episode 9F01 "Homer the Heretic" say:
I will not defame New Orleans
This after many (including the mayor, apparently) from New Orleans were upset about the way the city was portrayed in episode 8F18 "A Streetcar Named Marge":
New Orleans!
Home of pirates, drunks and whores
New Orleans!
Tacky overpriced souvenir stores
If you want to go to hell, you should tak a trip
To the Sodom and Gommorrah of the Mississip'.
New Orleans!
Stinking rotten vomitting vile
New Orleans!
Putrid brackish maggotty foul
New Orleans!
Crummy lousy rancid and rank
New Orleans!
Nobody has a sense of humour these days.
Re:People have too much time on their hands
on
GameBoy Web Server
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I detect a hint of sarcasm.
If all you can see is he learned about writing web servers for GBA, and you think this is not a very marketable skill, then you are very myopic.
I prefer to look at it this way: the guy probably learned a fair bit about embedded programming (on a very constrained system no less), along with networking.
The Next Big Thing for console games (disclaimer: I work for EA) is going to be to get them online and networked.
Hmmm.... put those two together, and I'll bet even you can figure out where I'm going with this....
Slashdot Mirror
Here it is:
Artificial Intelligence, 3rd edition, Patrick Henry Winston.There are something like 10^120 positions (nodes in the search space) (source: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Jackson) and something like 10^78 atoms in the universe (source: The Little Book of the Big Bang, Hogan).
So if every atom in the universe could do one chess position per say, nanosecond (10^-9 seconds), and had been computing since the Big Bang (15 billion years ago), the computation would still be in its earliest stages.
(Note: I stole this argument from somewhere, but can't find the exact quote or reference.)
Now I have yet another thing to play around and waste time with... :)
That way, if someone has already built the file you're about to build, it's just a copy. Even better is if you have a continous build script caching results ahead of time for you.
It has worked pretty well for me so far.
You need some serious counselling. Please click here.
for now.
ccache does pretty much that, except a little more "locally". I can imagine moving the cache that this thing uses out to some network (or something).
The real problem is network latency... it would be faster to compile an individual file than it would be to do a cache lookup/copy over the network.
Thanks for the correction. Stupid French, wish I had never learned that language.
(* Pundit in the new, cynical defintion of the word, not the classical "learned man" definition)
RMS believes there are certain freedoms, listed at www.gnu.org, that must be met before a software package may be called "free". In English it is unfortuante that "free" has two meanings: in Latin, they are "libre" and "gratis".
The issues is not, never has been, nor never will be about the issue of cost (gratis). The issue is about liberty/freedom.
BitKeeper doesn't even come close to satisfying the requirements for being free (libre), regardless of its cost. Hence RMS' problem with it.
I hope these words were small enough for you.
Mandrake Cooker users can install it with a simple /usr/sbin/urpmi metacity.
Overly pessimistic? Perhaps. But so long as Joe Sixpack (to borrow a Monty Burns-ism) has 70 channels of pap to keep him pacified and everything is generally "ok", nobody cares about anything.
Government is passing laws that encroach and in some cases obliterate my rights? Who cares, as long as I get my MTV and my car still runs.
This is the most apathetic generation ever.
(Yes, I know what apologia really means).
Why do I get the feeling that this story will spell the end of the Great Blackout?
DivX failed. If this one fails, they will surely try, try again, so long as there are pennies to be squeezed and rights and freedoms to be bought.
Oh wait... never mind...
If all you can see is he learned about writing web servers for GBA, and you think this is not a very marketable skill, then you are very myopic.
I prefer to look at it this way: the guy probably learned a fair bit about embedded programming (on a very constrained system no less), along with networking.
The Next Big Thing for console games (disclaimer: I work for EA) is going to be to get them online and networked.
Hmmm.... put those two together, and I'll bet even you can figure out where I'm going with this....