I use Perl when I have a task suited for Perl, Java when it better suits a task.
as i see it, the problem is exactly here. some people are so insanely zealous for their language of choice that they can't see beyond one simple fact: their language of choice may not be the choice language for their task.
and i can see that the 8,000+ character SQL query i wrote for MySQL last week could have been very much simplified by replacing large portions of it with stored procedures. it's a feature i could have used, but it wasn't necessary.
of course, the query itself is a maintenance nightmare, and that's the way i like it. it was a contract job, so they'll *HAVE* to come back to me if they need to update it or move it to another platform.
that said, i'm wishing i would have had the opportunity to learn how to use SPs. the query on its own was an incredible learning experience for me, and i can truthfully say in job interviews that i can do amazing things in SQL if needbe.
i can see where SPs have their place. i can also see the arguments against them quite clearly. in fact, i would go so far as to say that if portability is at all your goal, reduce your SQL code to the bare minimum, dynamically generate them and never touch SPs. not all databases support SPs, and of those that do, not all support the same standard subset. MySQL and PostgreSQL are prime examples: MySQL has no support in the current releases, and PostgreSQL supports Python and Ruby, which few (if any) other databases support.
(for those curious, the query i'm specifically talking about was designed to generate the Calendar section of a local periodical. i chose to do it entirely in SQL both to strengthen my SQL skills and to stress my knowledge, abilities, and my locally installed MySQL server. so, the query returns four fields: the calendar category [exhibits, film, community, etc.], the event date [of the form "[THU|FRI|SAT|SUN|MON|TUE|WED|THU] xx{(, | - )([:DAY:]|[:MONTH:]) xx}"], the event title, and description. needless to say, the date field quickly became quite monolithic and complex, but i had a hell of a lot of fun doing it, and learned a great deal about MySQL, Apache [which i had to reconfigure twice to be able to use phpMyAdmin to test the query], and the SQL language itself. i'm a better programmer because of it. mainly because i know never to do shit like that again. ^_^)
a friend of mine is holding out for a Treo with Bluetooth support. he says he doesn't want to carry around all the cables all the time, so bluetooth is his answer.
personally, i find these fancy phones rather distasteful. every month, some company comes out with a new cellular phone that has all these widgets and doo-dads and massive color screens...
but since what we've got now is basically a gunch of hand-held game systems with IM and SMS and all that stuff.... starting with Motorola's flip phones as a base, what i want out of a current cell phone (before i will consider buying one) is this: * tri-band GSM. i don't want to be locked into one provider for each area i go to, or for each country i visit. i want the freedom to use my phone where i want, when i want, on whatever network is available, and pay one bill. * standard web connectivity at no extra charge, with some basic web tools like SSH and a graphical browser (like Opera). (and by extension, it would need a good, low-power color display - OLED, maybe? not too big. and i say i want free web connectivity for one and only one reason: a WAP "hotspot" will not always be available. period.) * consumer-ready, free, and open development kit. i don't want to pay $1,000 for a dev package that i might use once to develop a program i'd rather give away anyway.
and at this point, i'm reaching for more ideas. i don't want a phone that does absolutely everything. a phone should be just that. a phone. it should just work when i need it to work. it doesn't need to be burdained by all of these useless features i don't want anyway.
if i need PDA functions, i've got a PDA. if i need a high-end portable game system, i can get the Nintendo DS or something.
if i want to watch movies or listen to music, i'll just grab the PowerBook and go.
i don't need all this cruft in one package. i just want something that works, is wireless, and gives me the features i need, not the features i may want.
the XML document it links to appears to be an XML conversion of a system.nfo file. other companies need identical information to provide their services.
honestly, it doesn't look all that bad unless the IP address is actually assosciated with the GUID.
the question of whether the user's resolution is 800x600 or 1024x768 is irrelevant. i use 1920x1200 myself, but still keep my browser about the same size as if my monitor were set to 800x600. i just prefer it that way.
that said, what i want to see more of is that websites start to scale with my browser size. if more people used relative dimensions for sites, then i could set my browser to whatever size i want for viewing that site, and it would scale to fill my browser whatever its size may be. that's the onf the things i love about slashdot - it fits my screen be it 640x480 or higher.
however, on that same note, slashdot is still unusable on my PDA. why? because it only fits on 640x480 or bigger.
still, using percentages for widths and ems, exs, or percentages for heights is ideal if you want to maintain layout, because i've found that some users configure their UA to use miniature font sizes and small text areas need to adjust to fit them. so i've also started using relative units for my font size.
but in the case of a PDA, it's better to serve a simpler, smaller style sheet to make those users happy and keep the hits coming.
because, that's what it's all about isn't it? getting hits. nothing else really matters to the web designer.
Randall states that CS students don't learn assembly language anymore, or that if they do, they aren't being taught well. I have to disagree.
in my local community college, the CS course involves C, C++, Pascal, and Visual Basic. that's it. of course, it' s jsut a community college. so, i checked into several larger colleges in the US: i don't know of any in the northwestern or midwest US that offer systems programming ouside their Soft. Eng> courses or before the fourth year in CS.
someone PLEASE tell me of a college in Washington state has a CS course that includes Assembly or systems programming! i'm moving there next month and i'd like to go back to college.
but my point was that kiddie stuff isn't all there is - that there are a lot of non-pr0n Anime that are inappropriate for children.
thing is, Anime covers so many different genres and themes that most of them never make it to the US and must be imported or fan-subtitled. the examples i gave are several of the shows that have been released in the US, on VHS and DVD.
the bits you're referring to are the execute permission for segment descriptors.
the NX bit operates at page level - within segments. it is bit 63 of the Page-Translation-Table entry, and is only available in PAE mode. it is enabled by the NXE bit of the EFER ("Extended Feature Enable Register"). and it applies to all execution rings.
I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but my main issue with anime is the extremely low signal to noise ratio. Whoever is making most of the crap I see on Adult Swim doesn't deserve more than $500/month. There is SO much junk anime out there that it simply isn't worth my time to look for good stuff, and in fact it's not even worth my time to consider the genre worthwhile.
so don't watch CN. the stuff CN shows appeals to the majority of their audience. that's what people watch, so that's what they show.
as another post mentions, Noir is a good adult show. some others from my collection:
Serial Experiments Lain - a very dark techno-drama. the ending is something most kids couldn't handle psychologically.
Noir - assassins seeking answers about their past. quite bloody and violent.
Neon Genesis Evangelion - also a violent series. they make a concerted effort to make it light-hearted about half-way through, but the end quickly becomes quite intense, and "End of Evangelion" could not get any ratign other than R. it's too bloody, too violent, and too psychologically intense.
Grave of the Fireflies - post-WWII story of orphans in Japan. no kiddie stuff here, either. from the get-go, you deal with the fire-bombings and a lot of death.
Ghost in the Shell - another intensely violent movie. an action thriller.
Millennium Actress - purely a psychological trip. too confusing for kids to enjoy, but light-hearted enough to get a PG.
Perfect Blue - from the same guy that did Millennium Actress, but it's more psychologically intense. some violence, and featuring a non-x-rated sex scene (she's an actress) and nudity (a photo shoot).
Mahoromatic - a great deal of nudity and only one quite perverted character. very fun and light-hearted, but the constant titties and Shikijou-sensei's constant and overly lewd comments make it inappropriate for children. it's not pr0n.
Gunslinger Girl - recently aired on Japanese TV. very violent series about cybernetically enhanced schoolgirls.
Voices of a Distant Star - short sci-fi movie dealing with distant relationships from a whole new perspective.
there are Anime for every genre, and some that cover so many genres that they can't be called anything but unique. Ranma 1/2, for example (by the same lady that brought us Inu Yasha), is what i call an "action drama romantic comedy". there's a lot of nudity in it, but the pure wittiness of it brings no end to the fun. (what's not funny about a boy that turns into a girl when wet and has to deal with a dozen people that literally both love and hate him? it's a love polygon so complex it would give soap opera directors brain hemorrages.)
there's the unusual movies (Metropolis), and the shows so odd they're fun (Those Who Hunt Elves). and there are non-pr0n shows that appeal to the perverts in us (Steel Angel Kurumi).
look around and give something a chance. there are several Anime databases out there that have all the information you need to learn about shows. and there are a lot of Anime out there that you might enjoy. read summaries and find something that appeals to you. then rent it or download it and see it for yourself.
please don't judge all Anime because of a dozen or so sour series.
Pokemon, DragonBall, Yugioh!, and many others do seem quite devoid of story and laking in decent animation quality.
but there are a lot of gems: Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, and Kiki's Delivery Service are all excellent movies not by virtue of their origin, but by their direction, production, and yes, their stories. Metropolis (though somewhat lacking in what most would consider "good animation", including myself) is a compelling movie simply on the virtue of its philosphical points. Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress are movies directed with a style very much on par with Memento and Fight Club. and Millennium Actress has amazing art to boot.
i believe the Japanese culture is so interesting to the geek mind because of the passion they have for putting precision into their art. Anime is elevated in Japanese culture to the level of what we might elevate Monet's or Picasso's art. Manga is a mainstay of Japan's youth.
i love their culture for precisely the same reason i'm so intrigued by so many cultures around the world - like the Voodoo religion in Haiti, the Buddhist Monks of the Tibetan and southeast asian areas, the Hindi of India - PASSION.
they've ignited in themselves a spark of passion for what they live for - for what they do. they have a passion that i lack and seek. they have something i want. i want to rekindle passion and faith in my own life.
that's why i've spent the last several years slowly and carefully teaching myself Japanese. i want to know why they have the passion i've been looking for.
sorry. i guess i've become a little passionate about this.
i didn't buy it and don't consider myself a trekkie. but i have followed enough of the show to know that they traditionally have done a fairly decent job of keeping the timeline on track.
it's not my fault i had the Chronology right here in front of me!
i live in Idaho. as such, the only access i would have to the series is by satellite TV - which isn't all that cheap. digital cable is much preferred here. so, everyone in town that i know (which is most of the town, btw) has either never seen the show because they don't get it on TV or isn't a trekkie at all.
if Enterprise hadn't been handed to UPN, it would most definitely have more viewership. as it is, though, you have to know someone with satellite TV that carries UPN or you have to know someone who works at a TV station. (i knew someone - but he got fired, probably for using the station's satellite feed for recording Enterprise and DS9.)
limiting your audience is never good for a TV show. now i have to download it one episode at a time. (though i have to wait for someone to actually get around to making an encode.)
my copy of "Star Trek Chronology" (second ed.) lists the date of birth you gave. however, it says in 2263:
James Kirk is promoted to captain of the Starship Enterprise and meets Christopher Pike, who is promoted to fleet captain.
Conjecture. In "The Menagerie, part I" (TOS), Kirk said he met Pike once prior to that episode, when the latter was promoted to fleet captain.
it then says that in 2264:
Captain James Kirk, in command of the original U.S.S. Enterprise, embarks on an historic five-year mission of exploration.
Date is conjecture: Assumes "Where No Man Has Gone Before" took place 13 months and 12 days into the mission, per one conjectural theory for stardates. (The episode was set on stardate 1312.) This system of determining stardates was not used in later episodes, but is at least useful for pegging the start of Kirk's mission in relation to that episode. This is also reasonably consistent with Captain Harriman's line in Star Trek Generations, that the Enterprise-B, launched in late 2293, was the first enterprise in 30 years without Kirk in command.
and for context, the editor's note for "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (TOS) (stardate 1312.4, in 2265):
Date is conjecture: Assumes the episode was six months to a year prior to Star Trek's first season. This is to allow sufficient time to account for the costume and set changes between this pilot episode and the series.
now i find this quite confusing. seeing as the authors are Michael and Denise Okuda, i tend to hold this book in high regard as to its accuracy. it certainly has no lack of detail, either. because of that, i find the descrepancy between it and the star trek website a little unsettling.
my favorite for a long time was Jones WhoopAss. now that Jones has phased that drink out for "Energy", it's my preferred energy drink, right in front of Red Bull. i was honestly surprised there was no mention of it.
i honestly don't see why the future is so written in stone as being "relational databases."
BeFS has all of the capability that a relational database has in a hierarchical arrangement with POSIX properties.
i don't see any need for anything more powerful than that.
what is it about relational databases that makes it so critically important? why isn't BeFS good enough for you? (as a side note, have you read the book?)
the current shader code is very, very slow. that's why such a huge boost is expected. but if you use -useff you'll see how fast the engine is. it's actually not all that hot on its own. it's the shaders that make it so interesting.
but know this, mods: i've known for quite a while how complete this stuff has been. the only reason they haven't launched it before now is because of the frustration they were experiencing with MGS.
Slashdot Mirror
as i see it, the problem is exactly here. some people are so insanely zealous for their language of choice that they can't see beyond one simple fact: their language of choice may not be the choice language for their task.
and i can see that the 8,000+ character SQL query i wrote for MySQL last week could have been very much simplified by replacing large portions of it with stored procedures. it's a feature i could have used, but it wasn't necessary.
of course, the query itself is a maintenance nightmare, and that's the way i like it. it was a contract job, so they'll *HAVE* to come back to me if they need to update it or move it to another platform.
that said, i'm wishing i would have had the opportunity to learn how to use SPs. the query on its own was an incredible learning experience for me, and i can truthfully say in job interviews that i can do amazing things in SQL if needbe.
i can see where SPs have their place. i can also see the arguments against them quite clearly. in fact, i would go so far as to say that if portability is at all your goal, reduce your SQL code to the bare minimum, dynamically generate them and never touch SPs. not all databases support SPs, and of those that do, not all support the same standard subset. MySQL and PostgreSQL are prime examples: MySQL has no support in the current releases, and PostgreSQL supports Python and Ruby, which few (if any) other databases support.
(for those curious, the query i'm specifically talking about was designed to generate the Calendar section of a local periodical. i chose to do it entirely in SQL both to strengthen my SQL skills and to stress my knowledge, abilities, and my locally installed MySQL server. so, the query returns four fields: the calendar category [exhibits, film, community, etc.], the event date [of the form "[THU|FRI|SAT|SUN|MON|TUE|WED|THU] xx{(, | - )([:DAY:]|[:MONTH:]) xx}"], the event title, and description. needless to say, the date field quickly became quite monolithic and complex, but i had a hell of a lot of fun doing it, and learned a great deal about MySQL, Apache [which i had to reconfigure twice to be able to use phpMyAdmin to test the query], and the SQL language itself. i'm a better programmer because of it. mainly because i know never to do shit like that again. ^_^)
a friend of mine is holding out for a Treo with Bluetooth support. he says he doesn't want to carry around all the cables all the time, so bluetooth is his answer.
personally, i find these fancy phones rather distasteful. every month, some company comes out with a new cellular phone that has all these widgets and doo-dads and massive color screens...
but since what we've got now is basically a gunch of hand-held game systems with IM and SMS and all that stuff.... starting with Motorola's flip phones as a base, what i want out of a current cell phone (before i will consider buying one) is this:
* tri-band GSM. i don't want to be locked into one provider for each area i go to, or for each country i visit. i want the freedom to use my phone where i want, when i want, on whatever network is available, and pay one bill.
* standard web connectivity at no extra charge, with some basic web tools like SSH and a graphical browser (like Opera). (and by extension, it would need a good, low-power color display - OLED, maybe? not too big. and i say i want free web connectivity for one and only one reason: a WAP "hotspot" will not always be available. period.)
* consumer-ready, free, and open development kit. i don't want to pay $1,000 for a dev package that i might use once to develop a program i'd rather give away anyway.
and at this point, i'm reaching for more ideas. i don't want a phone that does absolutely everything. a phone should be just that. a phone. it should just work when i need it to work. it doesn't need to be burdained by all of these useless features i don't want anyway.
if i need PDA functions, i've got a PDA. if i need a high-end portable game system, i can get the Nintendo DS or something.
if i want to watch movies or listen to music, i'll just grab the PowerBook and go.
i don't need all this cruft in one package. i just want something that works, is wireless, and gives me the features i need, not the features i may want.
the XML document it links to appears to be an XML conversion of a system .nfo file. other companies need identical information to provide their services.
honestly, it doesn't look all that bad unless the IP address is actually assosciated with the GUID.
i was talking about the main page, and on PDAs that don't have Opera or PocketIE available. namely, my Palm-ased PDA.
the question of whether the user's resolution is 800x600 or 1024x768 is irrelevant. i use 1920x1200 myself, but still keep my browser about the same size as if my monitor were set to 800x600. i just prefer it that way.
that said, what i want to see more of is that websites start to scale with my browser size. if more people used relative dimensions for sites, then i could set my browser to whatever size i want for viewing that site, and it would scale to fill my browser whatever its size may be. that's the onf the things i love about slashdot - it fits my screen be it 640x480 or higher.
however, on that same note, slashdot is still unusable on my PDA. why? because it only fits on 640x480 or bigger.
still, using percentages for widths and ems, exs, or percentages for heights is ideal if you want to maintain layout, because i've found that some users configure their UA to use miniature font sizes and small text areas need to adjust to fit them. so i've also started using relative units for my font size.
but in the case of a PDA, it's better to serve a simpler, smaller style sheet to make those users happy and keep the hits coming.
because, that's what it's all about isn't it? getting hits. nothing else really matters to the web designer.
the last time i used Lotus WordPro from the SmartSuite Millennium Edition. on a 386. running Windows 95.
it literally took 1/4 second to respond to a single keystroke. yet i typed constantly on it. i put up with it. why?
because Dad was using the damn Pentium.
i still think OpenOffice doesn't respond fast enough to my keystrokes. so nyeh.
in my local community college, the CS course involves C, C++, Pascal, and Visual Basic. that's it. of course, it' s jsut a community college. so, i checked into several larger colleges in the US: i don't know of any in the northwestern or midwest US that offer systems programming ouside their Soft. Eng> courses or before the fourth year in CS.
someone PLEASE tell me of a college in Washington state has a CS course that includes Assembly or systems programming! i'm moving there next month and i'd like to go back to college.
which is true, and i whole-heartedly agree.
but my point was that kiddie stuff isn't all there is - that there are a lot of non-pr0n Anime that are inappropriate for children.
thing is, Anime covers so many different genres and themes that most of them never make it to the US and must be imported or fan-subtitled. the examples i gave are several of the shows that have been released in the US, on VHS and DVD.
the bits you're referring to are the execute permission for segment descriptors.
the NX bit operates at page level - within segments. it is bit 63 of the Page-Translation-Table entry, and is only available in PAE mode. it is enabled by the NXE bit of the EFER ("Extended Feature Enable Register"). and it applies to all execution rings.
so don't watch CN. the stuff CN shows appeals to the majority of their audience. that's what people watch, so that's what they show.
as another post mentions, Noir is a good adult show. some others from my collection:
there are Anime for every genre, and some that cover so many genres that they can't be called anything but unique. Ranma 1/2, for example (by the same lady that brought us Inu Yasha), is what i call an "action drama romantic comedy". there's a lot of nudity in it, but the pure wittiness of it brings no end to the fun. (what's not funny about a boy that turns into a girl when wet and has to deal with a dozen people that literally both love and hate him? it's a love polygon so complex it would give soap opera directors brain hemorrages.)
there's the unusual movies (Metropolis), and the shows so odd they're fun (Those Who Hunt Elves). and there are non-pr0n shows that appeal to the perverts in us (Steel Angel Kurumi).
look around and give something a chance. there are several Anime databases out there that have all the information you need to learn about shows. and there are a lot of Anime out there that you might enjoy. read summaries and find something that appeals to you. then rent it or download it and see it for yourself.
please don't judge all Anime because of a dozen or so sour series.
i'll admit that a lot of Anime seems this way.
Pokemon, DragonBall, Yugioh!, and many others do seem quite devoid of story and laking in decent animation quality.
but there are a lot of gems:
Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, and Kiki's Delivery Service are all excellent movies not by virtue of their origin, but by their direction, production, and yes, their stories.
Metropolis (though somewhat lacking in what most would consider "good animation", including myself) is a compelling movie simply on the virtue of its philosphical points.
Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress are movies directed with a style very much on par with Memento and Fight Club. and Millennium Actress has amazing art to boot.
i believe the Japanese culture is so interesting to the geek mind because of the passion they have for putting precision into their art. Anime is elevated in Japanese culture to the level of what we might elevate Monet's or Picasso's art. Manga is a mainstay of Japan's youth.
i love their culture for precisely the same reason i'm so intrigued by so many cultures around the world - like the Voodoo religion in Haiti, the Buddhist Monks of the Tibetan and southeast asian areas, the Hindi of India - PASSION.
they've ignited in themselves a spark of passion for what they live for - for what they do. they have a passion that i lack and seek. they have something i want. i want to rekindle passion and faith in my own life.
that's why i've spent the last several years slowly and carefully teaching myself Japanese. i want to know why they have the passion i've been looking for.
sorry. i guess i've become a little passionate about this.
hey now.
i didn't buy it and don't consider myself a trekkie. but i have followed enough of the show to know that they traditionally have done a fairly decent job of keeping the timeline on track.
it's not my fault i had the Chronology right here in front of me!
about those ratings....
i live in Idaho. as such, the only access i would have to the series is by satellite TV - which isn't all that cheap. digital cable is much preferred here. so, everyone in town that i know (which is most of the town, btw) has either never seen the show because they don't get it on TV or isn't a trekkie at all.
if Enterprise hadn't been handed to UPN, it would most definitely have more viewership. as it is, though, you have to know someone with satellite TV that carries UPN or you have to know someone who works at a TV station. (i knew someone - but he got fired, probably for using the station's satellite feed for recording Enterprise and DS9.)
limiting your audience is never good for a TV show. now i have to download it one episode at a time. (though i have to wait for someone to actually get around to making an encode.)
we're almost due for the Romulan Wars. maybe Kirk will play a Romulan that helps start the war?
or maybe he plays a human that brings about the Romulan Wars?
("Star Trek Chronology" 2nd ed. places the Romulan Wars in 2156. Enterprise 3rd season ends in 2154.)
my copy of "Star Trek Chronology" (second ed.) lists the date of birth you gave. however, it says in 2263:
it then says that in 2264:
and for context, the editor's note for "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (TOS) (stardate 1312.4, in 2265):
now i find this quite confusing. seeing as the authors are Michael and Denise Okuda, i tend to hold this book in high regard as to its accuracy. it certainly has no lack of detail, either. because of that, i find the descrepancy between it and the star trek website a little unsettling.
anyone care to comment on this?
my favorite for a long time was Jones WhoopAss. now that Jones has phased that drink out for "Energy", it's my preferred energy drink, right in front of Red Bull. i was honestly surprised there was no mention of it.
is Jones really that underground?
i honestly don't see why the future is so written in stone as being "relational databases."
BeFS has all of the capability that a relational database has in a hierarchical arrangement with POSIX properties.
i don't see any need for anything more powerful than that.
what is it about relational databases that makes it so critically important? why isn't BeFS good enough for you? (as a side note, have you read the book?)
more importantly, when do i get to play bejeweled on the built-in communications device?
and yet, Linux 2.6 is still usable on my HP Vectra 386/25n. Windows 95 is completely unresponsive.
on the other hand, my K6-III 450 is running Linux 2.6 as well... but Windows XP won't even install.
5 years ago, i bought a K6-III 450 with 64MB of RAM (which i later brought up to 192MB) with an i740-based video card (later GeForce 2 GTS)
now, i run an Athlon XP 2100+ with 512MB of DDR RAM, with a GeForce FX 5900 NU.
i can just barely eek out a few frames in Halo, and they expect me to upgrade for Longhorn?
wow, i must *really* be holding back the average. my K6-III 450 really feels inadequate now.
I hereby bequeath all my posessions to crackers.
just try and get my passwords, bitches.
the current shader code is very, very slow. that's why such a huge boost is expected. but if you use -useff you'll see how fast the engine is. it's actually not all that hot on its own. it's the shaders that make it so interesting.
i had a feeling i'd be modded down.
but know this, mods: i've known for quite a while how complete this stuff has been. the only reason they haven't launched it before now is because of the frustration they were experiencing with MGS.