You can tell this is marketting spin for one reason -
Why do they offer a choice of processor?
There is only one criterion for the CPU of this device. Is it powerful enough to do the job asked of it. The answer is yes for both processors.
If you go for the more powerful processor, what do you physically gain. You get geek bragging rights, and you get a smaller bank account, that's all.
However, I think it's good that it's been done, if competitors in that kind of market think that they want to try this kind of device too it can only bee good for the consumer as prices drop through competition and free (as in market!) market forces.
Remember, Linux good, IBM bad.
Hmm, no that's not right.
OS/2, ah, ah, there's a MS link - OS/2 was what NT was going to be before they fell out and MS had to write their own NT, (using guys from Digital instead)
I'll start again.
Remember, Linux good, MS Windows-related bad.
THL.
(Who thinks that IBM's CSet++ on OS/2 was the best development system and UI class library he's ever encountered)
(aiming squarely at the funny/informative/off-topic/shut-up-cynical-bastar d split) --
Stacker came out at the same time as DOS 5.0. It was in DR-DOS 6, IIRC. MS after trying to steal the idea and having their wrists slapped, put the inferior TroubleSpace into DOS 6.02 IIRC.
The idea itself is ancient.
Helsinki University were looking into these things in the 70s (so an old Finnish mate tells me), and the common algorithms now used, LS{77,78,SS,W,several others} were developed with this precisely application in mind. (and slow comms links too)), also date from the 70s (77, and 78 are a dead give-away).
Compressed FSs have always had this problem. The best solution that people have comeup with is one that we have already implemented - caches.
In particular, the hairy writing to disk stage (where the compressions and on-the-fly construction of dictionary etc. takes place) only needs to be done on file closure.
For some files, such as those that are frequently opened for writing, it's perfectly possible to have backgrounded compression. Basically you don't compress the file until a later point in time, you store it uncompressed on the hard disk and mark it as such. It's a seperate house-keeping job to actually compress the files (when they are 'stable' for some heuristically defined stability function (e.g. closed >10 seconds ago, or yesterday, or whatever))
Another helpful technique is to chunk the files, so that you only ever have to seek from the nearest chunk boundary. This simply shrinks the amount of data that suffers from the seek problem, and often (though _not_ always) reduces the compression ratio. (e.g. a large executable could possibly be made smaller, as the code and initialised data could end up in different chunks, and the compression model could only need to adapt to one type of data.)
Note, however, that we are not talking about _a_ compression plug-in. We are talking about compression _plug-ins_ (i.e. plural). You can chose your plug-in depending on the requirements.
e.g. A FS for infrequent writes and frequent whole-file reads, such as a document management server, and could use a 'slow' compression, fast decompression, no-seek algorithm.
From purely personal opinion, I believe with current HD transfer rates giving the CPU the decompression task is a better than reading bigger files. However, I'd not swear to that until I've played around with it and tested it thoroughly, with all my favourite file types. (I tend to have 500MB highly-compressible log files from what I do, so this really pushed my buttons!)
You forgot
* Invert - learn to read documents backwards...
* Fade - You didn't need _all_ of the data did you?
* Rotate - Put data on the next sector to the one the FS headers say it's on.
* Merge - Great if you're short of space.
Given that it's only as stable as the weaker of
- ReiserFS itself
- The provider of the plug-in.
and that ReiserFS itself is stable, you do have to be careful with your choice of plug-in.
If you care about your files be as careful about your plug-ins as you are about the manufacturer of your brake-disks, or your gas oven, say.
No-one will _force_ you to use any particular plug-in, you simply have to look for advocacy stories, and make sure you're not on the bleeding edge.
Nothing.
The virtual machine is unable to stop itself from being descheduled, and unable to exceed its prior hard disk allocation.
It's bulletproof.
OK, you can probably steal.1% of the CPU to waste on your own n-th complexity infinite recursion loops (whatever that virus did, if you remember - I don't)).
However, the other 999 users won't even notice you doing this.
OK, if it's/that/ necessary, do they prefix or postfix discalimers like that on every telephone call that they make too?
Hmmm, 2 words a second, 1000 words, 500 seconds...
The Judge needs counselling, or at least training into not coming over as if he thinks he's god.
Example -
Sullivan: [half a sentence]--
Judge: -- but [something]
or
Judge: -- but [something else]
or
Judge: Is it?
or
...
I know that the judge is probably trying to cut through the BS, but still I thought he came over not too well. That could be because to my color-blind eyes this case is black and white, and the judge _hasn't_ cut through enough MPAA BS yet.
If you believe the marketing literature from the censorware companies then yes, it does work already.
If you look at the definition of 'obscene' you'll see that in includes the clause 'with no artistic merit'. If humans can't agree to what has 'artistic merit' how the hell can a glorified thermostat[*] decide.
THL.
[* for the uninitiated that's a Strong AI reference which actually destroys my own argument!]
It wasn't supposed to be fair. I was trying to 'shortcircuit' any argument that said 'but we do more useful things with our fuel'.
To final point:
Yeah, but _those_ graphs on their own say that the Ukraine doesn't pollute much. Nothing could be further from the truth. The _nuclear_ power has absolutely devastated the topography there due to someof the world's worst pollution. (Though the N.E. Kola peninsula still takes the prize probably). One must add together all the relevent factors.
I agree with you, I just wanted to approach things from a different view for variety's sake.
Sweden and its neighbours Finland and Norway have fairly low emissions, true, but they are (in population terms) quite small. The UK has an even lower CO2 emission per capita. However, if you look _east_, then you see really low emissions - Hungary and Poland, for example. Almost the entirity of Europe has a pollution per capita level of 50% of that of the US.
Of course weighting countries by population is only one way of doing it, if you were to measure pollution/GNP, then it would shift the balance considerably. However, that's a rather abstract measure, but the US could use it to justify their use of energy.
This is all from
http://www.grida.no/db/maps/collection/climate6/ in dex.htm
However, if you ask those who've been publishing information on the 'web' for the longest, say CERN, NASA, university of Darmstadt, etc. etc. they'll tell you that Unices are the _standard_ operating system for web services, and _not_ the _alternative_.
I believe that over about 1 year ago (maybe a bit more) Apache _was_ considered fast. It was used as one of the strongest pro-Apache arguments. This _hurt_ MS, and they responded in the completely predictable way - they pulled out all the stops to try to get IIS not just up-to-speed, but _faster_.
I would guess that there are more eyes looking at Apache source code than IIS, so I hope that Apache can work out where their weakness is.
The net effect is that _competition_ will have been good for both parties (or good for the _customers_ of both parties). Without Apache, IIS would be as slow as a dog.
"
in the end the programmer cannot describe his work (his art) in english.
"
He _can_, but it's just not the most efficient way of unambiguously getting across all the finer details. The 'half way' point of pseudo-code is often used in order to try to express the ideas in a computer-language-independent way, for example.
The most appropriate description vastly depends on the amount of detail required. e.g. "use a doubly not singly linked list" would be a perfect piece of programmer communication in some situations, far more concise than actual code.
There's a weak implication that to be caught in posession of said items at the time of such a crime implies premeditation, or/mens rea/ (latin for something like 'guilty mind')
see http://www.butterworths.com.au/legalwords/html/000 964.htm
Of course, I could have just got back from fixing my aunt's plumbing, and on the spur of the moment decided to break and enter her neighbour, so the implication is not strictly always valid.
I also always prefer to moderate up. However, I want to prefer to moderate those who are prepared to put their name to what they say, those who are not be ashamed of what they believe.
A wise AC will still get upmodded, the contents _are_ more important than the envelope used.
I also tend to prefer the 3-liners to the treatises, personally.
For example earlier there was a "Nietzsche knew nothing about evolution and molecular biology" post. That was all - the perfect length for its payload. If I hadn't already posted, I've have given that +1 on the spot, whether it was AC or not.
THL.
--
Re:The Eventual Downfall of Every Man
on
Coder on the Cross
·
· Score: 2
"
Unfortunately, you've confounded "natural" and "moral." Thanks for playing, though.
"
'confused'?
I have to back up sql*kitten here. I think he's fully aware of the fact that our view of morals is an introspective one applied by humans onto humans, and that they cannot be directly applied to tha natural living world. (Or the non-living either!)
If we were to anthropomorphise the lions briefly, then their view on killing antelopes would be their morals. They would also view our behaviour as 'nature'. OK, let's stop that anthropomorphising immediately, I don't like making such a projection.
It appears you are saying "from a fixed point of view, these two things are different". sql*kitten is perhaps saying "these things are different, but by changing ones point of view they can be made equivalent"? You're both agreed that they are different.
However, I can't concur completely with Nietzsche's "will to power" quote. I believe that the "will to power" has evolved as a succesful trait in very many creatures. I don't believe it's universal or even evolutionarily necessary. Nietzsche is perhaps over-anthropomorphising here.
If you trly on the backdrop as your interface to your mouse menus, then you do not want to waste that space by covering it with icons. OK, there's plenty of backdrop, but that's why it's such a good place to put menus, and that's why it's a shame to waste it with icons. (you see, I've inverted the 'waste' comment!)
'Tog' has written some interesting articles on mouse-use and user interface features http://www.asktog.com/menus/designMenu.html
On the assumtion that the backdrop has a large area (aided by the region next to the borders being free), then I claim the following sequence:
- find some backdrop
- press user-prefered button
- drag to favourite program from short list (or pie!)
- let go
is more time-efficient than:
- find icon correxponding to required program
- click user-prefered button
Note - some people do not _prefer_ the time efficient method, and that's fine - primarily you've _got_ to be happy with your interface.
For example - I don't like pie menus, I like lists, even though it has been shown that pies are often more time-effiecient.
However, I think we are all agreed that the ability to chose completely different user interface styles to suit your own preferences is a 'good thing'.
The auto-detection of binary payloads used to be flawed. One could trawl for pr0n on Dejanews by searching for something along the lines of
'> begin'. i.e. _quoted_ uuencoded images.
You didn't get much, and it required a few lines of sed/awk/perl/whatever, but there was certainly more than zero binary stuff on it.
Slashdot Mirror
You can tell this is marketting spin for one reason -
Why do they offer a choice of processor?
There is only one criterion for the CPU of this device. Is it powerful enough to do the job asked of it. The answer is yes for both processors.
If you go for the more powerful processor, what do you physically gain. You get geek bragging rights, and you get a smaller bank account, that's all.
However, I think it's good that it's been done, if competitors in that kind of market think that they want to try this kind of device too it can only bee good for the consumer as prices drop through competition and free (as in market!) market forces.
THL.
--
Remember, Linux good, IBM bad.
r d split)
Hmm, no that's not right.
OS/2, ah, ah, there's a MS link - OS/2 was what NT was going to be before they fell out and MS had to write their own NT, (using guys from Digital instead)
I'll start again.
Remember, Linux good, MS Windows-related bad.
THL.
(Who thinks that IBM's CSet++ on OS/2 was the best development system and UI class library he's ever encountered)
(aiming squarely at the funny/informative/off-topic/shut-up-cynical-basta
--
Stacker came out at the same time as DOS 5.0. It was in DR-DOS 6, IIRC. MS after trying to steal the idea and having their wrists slapped, put the inferior TroubleSpace into DOS 6.02 IIRC.
The idea itself is ancient.
Helsinki University were looking into these things in the 70s (so an old Finnish mate tells me), and the common algorithms now used, LS{77,78,SS,W,several others} were developed with this precisely application in mind. (and slow comms links too)), also date from the 70s (77, and 78 are a dead give-away).
THL.
--
Very good post. You ask all the right questions.
Compressed FSs have always had this problem. The best solution that people have comeup with is one that we have already implemented - caches.
In particular, the hairy writing to disk stage (where the compressions and on-the-fly construction of dictionary etc. takes place) only needs to be done on file closure.
For some files, such as those that are frequently opened for writing, it's perfectly possible to have backgrounded compression. Basically you don't compress the file until a later point in time, you store it uncompressed on the hard disk and mark it as such. It's a seperate house-keeping job to actually compress the files (when they are 'stable' for some heuristically defined stability function (e.g. closed >10 seconds ago, or yesterday, or whatever))
Another helpful technique is to chunk the files, so that you only ever have to seek from the nearest chunk boundary. This simply shrinks the amount of data that suffers from the seek problem, and often (though _not_ always) reduces the compression ratio. (e.g. a large executable could possibly be made smaller, as the code and initialised data could end up in different chunks, and the compression model could only need to adapt to one type of data.)
Note, however, that we are not talking about _a_ compression plug-in. We are talking about compression _plug-ins_ (i.e. plural). You can chose your plug-in depending on the requirements.
e.g. A FS for infrequent writes and frequent whole-file reads, such as a document management server, and could use a 'slow' compression, fast decompression, no-seek algorithm.
From purely personal opinion, I believe with current HD transfer rates giving the CPU the decompression task is a better than reading bigger files. However, I'd not swear to that until I've played around with it and tested it thoroughly, with all my favourite file types. (I tend to have 500MB highly-compressible log files from what I do, so this really pushed my buttons!)
I do go on sometimes...
THL.
--
Hot-diggetty man, I need mod points _now_!
You forgot
* Invert - learn to read documents backwards...
* Fade - You didn't need _all_ of the data did you?
* Rotate - Put data on the next sector to the one the FS headers say it's on.
* Merge - Great if you're short of space.
THL.
--
Given that it's only as stable as the weaker of
- ReiserFS itself
- The provider of the plug-in.
and that ReiserFS itself is stable, you do have to be careful with your choice of plug-in.
If you care about your files be as careful about your plug-ins as you are about the manufacturer of your brake-disks, or your gas oven, say.
No-one will _force_ you to use any particular plug-in, you simply have to look for advocacy stories, and make sure you're not on the bleeding edge.
THL.
--
Nothing.
.1% of the CPU to waste on your own n-th complexity infinite recursion loops (whatever that virus did, if you remember - I don't)).
The virtual machine is unable to stop itself from being descheduled, and unable to exceed its prior hard disk allocation.
It's bulletproof.
OK, you can probably steal
However, the other 999 users won't even notice you doing this.
THL.
--
That got +4 and
a) 'Hindu' ain't a language.
b) 'fitta' is Swedish for pussy, cipa sure ain't.
Jeez.
THL
--
How? Under what law? What precedent cases have there been?
You can hardly expect people to believe a single wishy-washy sentence.
THL.
--
OK, if it's /that/ necessary, do they prefix or postfix discalimers like that on every telephone call that they make too?
Hmmm, 2 words a second, 1000 words, 500 seconds...
THL.
--
I think the Judges have not too much patience with the MPAA los^Wawyers too - the first exchange between them:
"
Judge: Well, it isn't precisely. There's no - you can't make fair use of navigational systems but you can make fair use of copyrighted material.
"
I translate that as:
"
Judge: You're a plonker, now cut the BS.
"
Amen to that.
THL.
--
The Judge needs counselling, or at least training into not coming over as if he thinks he's god.
Example -
Sullivan: [half a sentence]--
Judge: -- but [something]
or
Judge: -- but [something else]
or
Judge: Is it?
or
...
I know that the judge is probably trying to cut through the BS, but still I thought he came over not too well. That could be because to my color-blind eyes this case is black and white, and the judge _hasn't_ cut through enough MPAA BS yet.
THL.
--
If you believe the marketing literature from the censorware companies then yes, it does work already.
If you look at the definition of 'obscene' you'll see that in includes the clause 'with no artistic merit'. If humans can't agree to what has 'artistic merit' how the hell can a glorified thermostat[*] decide.
THL.
[* for the uninitiated that's a Strong AI reference which actually destroys my own argument!]
--
To first 2 points:
It wasn't supposed to be fair. I was trying to 'shortcircuit' any argument that said 'but we do more useful things with our fuel'.
To final point:
Yeah, but _those_ graphs on their own say that the Ukraine doesn't pollute much. Nothing could be further from the truth. The _nuclear_ power has absolutely devastated the topography there due to someof the world's worst pollution. (Though the N.E. Kola peninsula still takes the prize probably). One must add together all the relevent factors.
I agree with you, I just wanted to approach things from a different view for variety's sake.
THL.
--
Sweden and its neighbours Finland and Norway have fairly low emissions, true, but they are (in population terms) quite small. The UK has an even lower CO2 emission per capita. However, if you look _east_, then you see really low emissions - Hungary and Poland, for example. Almost the entirity of Europe has a pollution per capita level of 50% of that of the US.
/ in dex.htm
Of course weighting countries by population is only one way of doing it, if you were to measure pollution/GNP, then it would shift the balance considerably. However, that's a rather abstract measure, but the US could use it to justify their use of energy.
This is all from
http://www.grida.no/db/maps/collection/climate6
THL.
--
"
:-)
If it had been Apache, BIND, sendmail, or something, it would be here just the same.
"
Impossible! Hasn't every line of sendmail been rewritten twice already?
THL.
--
However, if you ask those who've been publishing information on the 'web' for the longest, say CERN, NASA, university of Darmstadt, etc. etc. they'll tell you that Unices are the _standard_ operating system for web services, and _not_ the _alternative_.
THL.
--
I believe that over about 1 year ago (maybe a bit more) Apache _was_ considered fast. It was used as one of the strongest pro-Apache arguments. This _hurt_ MS, and they responded in the completely predictable way - they pulled out all the stops to try to get IIS not just up-to-speed, but _faster_.
I would guess that there are more eyes looking at Apache source code than IIS, so I hope that Apache can work out where their weakness is.
The net effect is that _competition_ will have been good for both parties (or good for the _customers_ of both parties). Without Apache, IIS would be as slow as a dog.
THL.
--
You're about right with that 1m figure, they say 20% of IIS is IIS5 (and there are 5.6m IIS hosts)
One company that wasn't too lazy to upgrade
(according to Netcraft):
The site www.eeye.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
I hope eEye are bitter that they spent money on that rubbish and are now having to debug the stuff!
THL.
--
"
in the end the programmer cannot describe his work (his art) in english.
"
He _can_, but it's just not the most efficient way of unambiguously getting across all the finer details. The 'half way' point of pseudo-code is often used in order to try to express the ideas in a computer-language-independent way, for example.
The most appropriate description vastly depends on the amount of detail required. e.g. "use a doubly not singly linked list" would be a perfect piece of programmer communication in some situations, far more concise than actual code.
Horses for courses...
THL.
--
There's a weak implication that to be caught in posession of said items at the time of such a crime implies premeditation, or /mens rea/ (latin for something like 'guilty mind')
0 964.htm
see http://www.butterworths.com.au/legalwords/html/00
Of course, I could have just got back from fixing my aunt's plumbing, and on the spur of the moment decided to break and enter her neighbour, so the implication is not strictly always valid.
THL.
--
I also always prefer to moderate up. However, I want to prefer to moderate those who are prepared to put their name to what they say, those who are not be ashamed of what they believe.
A wise AC will still get upmodded, the contents _are_ more important than the envelope used.
I also tend to prefer the 3-liners to the treatises, personally.
For example earlier there was a "Nietzsche knew nothing about evolution and molecular biology" post. That was all - the perfect length for its payload. If I hadn't already posted, I've have given that +1 on the spot, whether it was AC or not.
THL.
--
"
Unfortunately, you've confounded "natural" and "moral." Thanks for playing, though.
"
'confused'?
I have to back up sql*kitten here. I think he's fully aware of the fact that our view of morals is an introspective one applied by humans onto humans, and that they cannot be directly applied to tha natural living world. (Or the non-living either!)
If we were to anthropomorphise the lions briefly, then their view on killing antelopes would be their morals. They would also view our behaviour as 'nature'. OK, let's stop that anthropomorphising immediately, I don't like making such a projection.
It appears you are saying "from a fixed point of view, these two things are different". sql*kitten is perhaps saying "these things are different, but by changing ones point of view they can be made equivalent"? You're both agreed that they are different.
However, I can't concur completely with Nietzsche's "will to power" quote. I believe that the "will to power" has evolved as a succesful trait in very many creatures. I don't believe it's universal or even evolutionarily necessary. Nietzsche is perhaps over-anthropomorphising here.
THL.
--
If you trly on the backdrop as your interface to your mouse menus, then you do not want to waste that space by covering it with icons. OK, there's plenty of backdrop, but that's why it's such a good place to put menus, and that's why it's a shame to waste it with icons. (you see, I've inverted the 'waste' comment!)
'Tog' has written some interesting articles on mouse-use and user interface features http://www.asktog.com/menus/designMenu.html
On the assumtion that the backdrop has a large area (aided by the region next to the borders being free), then I claim the following sequence:
- find some backdrop
- press user-prefered button
- drag to favourite program from short list (or pie!)
- let go
is more time-efficient than:
- find icon correxponding to required program
- click user-prefered button
Note - some people do not _prefer_ the time efficient method, and that's fine - primarily you've _got_ to be happy with your interface.
For example - I don't like pie menus, I like lists, even though it has been shown that pies are often more time-effiecient.
However, I think we are all agreed that the ability to chose completely different user interface styles to suit your own preferences is a 'good thing'.
Happy clicking,
THL.
--
The auto-detection of binary payloads used to be flawed. One could trawl for pr0n on Dejanews by searching for something along the lines of
'> begin'. i.e. _quoted_ uuencoded images.
You didn't get much, and it required a few lines of sed/awk/perl/whatever, but there was certainly more than zero binary stuff on it.
THL.
--