Well, everyone is cheering for 64 bit, and with good reason. IA-64, Alphas, Sparcs, all run at enormous speeds and utterly annihilate IA-32 machines. Of course, there are always the problems of general market penetration. I am still waiting for the day when I can use a 64 bit machine for something other than just a server. (I wants Unreal!:) But here is my main point. First there was 16 bit. Then 32. Then 64. And, of course, there are a few 128 bit machines floating around. My question is, why not just blow it all away with a grand 256 bits? By this I don't mean 256 bit instructions, but a 256 bit wide bus, 256 bit integer processing capabilities, 256 bit vector-style bulk integer computations, etc... I don't see any reason for this not to happen. It doesn't require us to break any quantum limits or develop any new fab processes. It's just a bigger design. Oh, and on a side note. Does the Alpha support the predicate processing type that IA-64 has? Or is that a unique feature?
Heh... What these so-called coalitions aren't realizing is that they are damning themselves not only morally, but economically, in the long term. They have a cushy position as CD retailers and other businesses which are currently booming. Thus, they act conservatively in trying to stifle technologies that threaten their positions. However, at some point, they will realize (as they did when they went from cassettes to CDs) that there are media out there that can make them more money via new technologies. However, the piles of laws they wish to create will then come back and haunt them as they try to use the internet for their business.
I think the whole Doubleclick issue has been blown way out of proportion. I, personally, don't see anything wrong with targeted advertising. Building a database of names and desires is one thing (it is a Bad Thing (tm)), but what is wrong with storing an anonymous cookie on your computer? If I will have to see banner ads, I don't think I would mind not seeing the same one all the time and looking at ads for stuff I might actually want (Yes, I have clicked on banner ads, boo-hoo, I must be evil) That having been said, I think a privacy board to keep things restricted and anonymous would be a good thing. After all, there was a scare with Doubleclick a while ago - they went too far with the database idea. But too many people complain about the cookie like it's some sort of bar code tattoo or something.
Everyone on Slashdot should do this. First, mirror the comments, like I did: http://www.mbhs.edu/~akhripin/ Next, write a letter to your representative. This is a nescessary component of any long-term action against the DMCA. Here is the letter I sent: I would like to bring your attention to numerous problems that have occured as a result of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA, 1998.) Although the intent of the act, to help protect copyrighted information in the digital age, is very important, the law gives too much power to corporations over citizens that, as I have recently seen, even surpasses first amendment rights. The specific, pressing issue that has arisen is about a news discussion site slashdot.org. During the discussion of Microsoft's release of certain technical specifications under very stringent legal conditions, some users posted links to the specifications posted online. Others posted a method of surpassing the End User Licence Agreement that one normally has to agree to before viewing. Microsoft has requested that the comments containing the allegedly illegal infromation be removed. In other words, they are asking the free and open discussion board, which explicitly states that it is not responsible for the content of user comments, to censor its content. Although posting explicit copies of copyrighted material is and always was illegal, some, the issues with regards to linking and circumventing are far more important. Microsoft has every right to go after the sites where the text is posted, however, it should not have a right to stifle people who reference that text. That is an attack on free speech. As to the methods of circumvention of the security screen that Microsoft put on top of the specifications, that is a blockage of free speech as well. It amounts to Microsoft attempting to stop a review of their security methods. If I wrote a security program with a gaping flaw and tried to stop people from criticizing it, I would be doing the same thing Microsoft is doing right now. If Microsoft desires to stop people from circumventing the agreement, they should improve their program, and not try to hinder free discussion thereof. Now, although nothing has yet happened in regards to Microsoft's request to have the site censored, theyare undoubtedly planning to proescute under the DMCA if their demands are not meant. If you wish to preserve freedom of speech and free discussion, please, support a drastic revision of the DMCA that does not so radically stifle individual interests in the interest of corporations.
Yes, I forgot to put the 1 on the front.:P Anyway, that is still finite. Oh, and I did not mention the very well-known feedback mechanism between inductive coils and voltage.
Some people might complain that gravity should not be counted twice. Some have said that this would result in an infinite loop that would cause an infinite field. However, this is not nescessarily true as anybody who has looked at a geometric series can say. What I am referring to is: (1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+...) ad inifinitum actually adds up to 2, and not infinity. The Greeks had that problem in their philosophical discussions. In addition, there are many examples of such recursive feedback mechanisms in other fields. Biological models typically experience them. Chemical models have to deal which such things all the time. Physicists who study resonanse and vibrations have to account for vibration feedback in all their calculations.
Although 3-Com may be persuaded to open up the specs for the hardware, the possibility of outside support is slim. The problem lies in several areas. First of all, how many other people who are interested in writing OSS have this rather expensive equipment? You need to have it in order to update it. Second, and more importantly, who would want to? As I understand, open source drivers/hardware support is written when somebody needs to use some peice of it under Linux. Thus, only those in your situation would really want to work on the project. And, as in the first point, how many of them are there?
Although the popularity of open source among engineers is pleasing, this is not a step in the right direction. Open source software should be embraced by managers as well as engineers. This is because of a commonly pointed out flaw in GNU and Linux and other OSS (though some won't call it that) Many complain that OSS is just for techie geeks and will never hit the mainstream. Thus, the engineers are the expected crowd - they've been using open source for a while, and want to use it at work. If OSS is to make real progress, it has to be accepted by somebody other than techies.
Both of these media have very important differences. While they both store digital video, which is a Good Thing (tm), the similarities end there. Tape media, as everyone knows, needs to be rewound and fast-forwarded, etc... This is not nearly as convenient as several-millisecond seek times on a disk. This will also make it impossible to use the possibility of interactive media that DVD's and other disks allow. Not only that, but what about computer interfacing? DVD's can store both data and media, a very important distinction. However, DVHS has some critical advantages as well. Properly developed, tape can store hundreds of times more data than a disk. (Think of the 100GB bakup tapes the size of an audio cassette.) Additionally, you can record MPEGs onto DVHS, while writing DVD's is expensive and hard (and the MPAA doesn't want you to do it;) )
I've tried Perl and Java servlets, and I've learned something very important. Perl might be fine for guestbooks, custom pages, and a few other things, but it just doesn't cut it for making web-based programs. The strategy I now adopt is to either make the entire program in C, or, if I need to have a complicated interface with lots of string parsin, have a bare-bones perl script call the C program. Interpreted languages are alluring, but don't expect any real performance out of them. Additionally, if a perl-enabled web page has a large load, it is probably better to have several preprocessed copies available, if at all possible. The main problem is, that as computers get faster, people expect more and more idealized programming models from them. This leads to scripts and various good-looking multi-threaded O-O, but negates the speed advantages we gain from faster processors. Back to the basics, I say, with C, will give much better performance. Of course, if you don't care about performance, anything else will do fine. Perl is good for string/file processing; Java servlets are good for a few other types of more logic-oriented operations.
Before this can happen, we must first realize what human consciousness is and why it is what it is. Sure we understand a bit more about neurotransmitters, but that is like knowing about electrons and trying to build a universe. Until we can understand how the mental neural network works, we cannot make one. All you who tout genetic algorithms, tout no more - until you can give me a good way to compare two products and determine which one is more "conscious" than the other.
I have always warned people about Sun Microsystems. Many cheered Sun as it nobly battled against Microsoftian oppression and supposedly supported open standards. But Sun and Microsoft are part of the same family - arrogant coorporations that want things done their way and only their way. Case in point, Java. Sun championed the language and its open standards against MS. However, one can see the true nature of their ideas in their abuse of the truly open Blackdown code. Sun, just like MS, sees a new world order where they determine how computing gets done. Their vision is simply different from MS's. Sun: Young Sauron to MS's Morgoth.
Heh.... being in the aforementioned program, I have every experience with such students. However, the question is of teachers, and not of students, though arrogant students to piss me off seriously. I always try to keep an open mind.
I am afraid not much can be done. In my high school experience, I have been blessed with a few good CS teachers, but that is because I am in a special program. Outside, I have not seen/one/ good CS teacher. CS teachers are generally either conservative or foolish. The conservatives rever what they used in college, often something along the lines of Fortran. They are inflexible, and refuse to hear anything that goes against their ideas. The foolish are followers of some particular trend. Some follow Java like zombies, others check up on every Visual Basic trend they see. Anything that does not follow this trend is bad and wrong, because what they do is obviously the right way. If you are blessed and have a CS teacher that does neither, you have a chance. Otherwise, you are pretty much out of luck. Dealing with arrogant teachers is nearly impossible.
The biggest flaw in the film is not the technical detail or all that stuff. It is the basic premise of the movie. Nobody has mentioned this, so I have to say it. MTM attempts to present an answer to the origin of life on Earth. The answer it presents, in such high and mighty terms "500 mil years ago, an explosion of life....and nobody knew why. And now we do" (dramatic music.) OK, that is just bad. Not just scientifically, but philosophically. This doesn't answer any questions about the origins of life! It just confounds them! Now we have to find out where/Martian/ life came from. This arrogant attempt at philosophy is what angered me most about the movie.
Might I ask you to provide these so called glaring flaws in the Matrix? I am sure there a few, but nevertheless, orders of magnitude less than this crap.
If you follow the recent discussions on linuxl-kernel, you'll probably know this already, but to those of you who don't, the 2.3.4[2+] have some performance problems due to imbalances of some of the new modifications made to the system. The pipe performance has shrunk considerably, and only today was a possible optimization fix posted by Martin Schenk on the list. Anyway, just thought it was important to point out that 2.3.x is not nearly done yet, there are lots of problems to work out.
I have considered FPGA's numerous times. However, they are useless for any real processor purpose. They consume more power and are slower. In addition, you cannot nearly put as much stuff on them. 1 mil is nothing when it comes to modern processors, esp. ones with on-chip caches. No, to make real, production quality chips that are state-of-the-art and that people would actually buy for performance, you definetly need a fab. At least until FPGA's get ten times faster and more compact.
That's just plain dumb. To compile an OS from the source, you need a compiler (also free.) To make a chip, especially something modern like Crusoe, you need tens of millions of dollars worth of fab equipment. You are Metcalfing.
This has put Linux ahead of Macrosloth. They don't have much for IA 64, so the Linux community must act. The distributions, especially, should work on recompiling, etc... on the IA 64 achitecture as soon as possible.
Before I begin, I have to say that I want to strangle that judge for his sillyness. But there are beleivable reasons for what he says. Software can be considered speech, but it can also be considered an invention of some sort. If one accepts that a peice of software is basically the same as a mechanical or electronic device, then all our nightmares come true. Not only does the DMCA quite logical then, but so are a lot of other things. Software patents and a number of other things become quite reasonable. However, even with/mechanical devices/ reverse engineering is possible. Thus, the DMCA, assisted by imbecile judges like this one, gives two kinds of protection to Evil Software and Media Companies (TM). The patent protection of mechanical and electronic devices with the copyright and reverse engineering control of written material. It is indeed a dark day.
Several posts bounced around the idea of AIO on Linux. While AIO has been around long before NT, it has not yet been implemented in Linux. Being thre reader of the Linux Kernel mailing list, I think I can offer some input. An idea has been posted that all read calls return immediately - the actual hardware work would be done when the application actually accessed a particular page of data. Memory allocation (on Linux, not NT, btw) already works this way - pages are allocated only when actually accessed. As for signal-based AIO, there is a library out (can't remember the name) that handles the waiting for the program.
This article clearly illustrates that the Hollywood portrayal of the NSA is often wrong, but how many people actually trust movies? I don't. But the fact remains that the NSA is a top secret government agency; just because it doesn't come in with guns blazing doesn't mean that they are a harmless bunch of nerds. Personally, I am more interested in the rumors of 'information analysis,' the allegations that the NSA spies on internal and external communications - of everyone. Although such a mass-scale operation is hard to envision, I believe that it may hold a grain of truth - Big Brother could be watching, some of the people, some of the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, everyone is cheering for 64 bit, and with good reason. IA-64, Alphas, Sparcs, all run at enormous speeds and utterly annihilate IA-32 machines. :)
Of course, there are always the problems of general market penetration. I am still waiting for the day when I can use a 64 bit machine for something other than just a server. (I wants Unreal!
But here is my main point. First there was 16 bit. Then 32. Then 64. And, of course, there are a few 128 bit machines floating around. My question is, why not just blow it all away with a grand 256 bits? By this I don't mean 256 bit instructions, but a 256 bit wide bus, 256 bit integer processing capabilities, 256 bit vector-style bulk integer computations, etc... I don't see any reason for this not to happen. It doesn't require us to break any quantum limits or develop any new fab processes. It's just a bigger design.
Oh, and on a side note. Does the Alpha support the predicate processing type that IA-64 has? Or is that a unique feature?
Heh...
What these so-called coalitions aren't realizing is that they are damning themselves not only morally, but economically, in the long term.
They have a cushy position as CD retailers and other businesses which are currently booming. Thus, they act conservatively in trying to stifle technologies that threaten their positions. However, at some point, they will realize (as they did when they went from cassettes to CDs) that there are media out there that can make them more money via new technologies. However, the piles of laws they wish to create will then come back and haunt them as they try to use the internet for their business.
I think the whole Doubleclick issue has been blown way out of proportion. I, personally, don't see anything wrong with targeted advertising. Building a database of names and desires is one thing (it is a Bad Thing (tm)), but what is wrong with storing an anonymous cookie on your computer?
If I will have to see banner ads, I don't think I would mind not seeing the same one all the time and looking at ads for stuff I might actually want (Yes, I have clicked on banner ads, boo-hoo, I must be evil)
That having been said, I think a privacy board to keep things restricted and anonymous would be a good thing. After all, there was a scare with Doubleclick a while ago - they went too far with the database idea. But too many people complain about the cookie like it's some sort of bar code tattoo or something.
Everyone on Slashdot should do this.
First, mirror the comments, like I did:
http://www.mbhs.edu/~akhripin/
Next, write a letter to your representative. This is a nescessary component of any long-term action against the DMCA.
Here is the letter I sent:
I would like to bring your attention to numerous problems that have occured as a result of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA, 1998.) Although the intent of the act, to help protect copyrighted information in the digital age, is very important, the law gives too much power to corporations over citizens that, as I have recently seen, even surpasses first amendment rights.
The specific, pressing issue that has arisen is about a news discussion site slashdot.org. During the discussion of Microsoft's release of certain technical specifications under very stringent legal conditions, some users posted links to the specifications posted online. Others posted a method of surpassing the End User Licence Agreement that one normally has to agree to before viewing. Microsoft has requested that the comments containing the allegedly illegal infromation be removed. In other words, they are asking the free and open discussion board, which explicitly states that it is not responsible for the content of user comments, to censor its content. Although posting explicit copies of copyrighted material is and always was illegal, some, the issues with regards to linking and circumventing are far more important. Microsoft has every right to go after the sites where the text is posted, however, it should not have a right to stifle people who reference that text. That is an attack on free speech.
As to the methods of circumvention of the security screen that Microsoft put on top of the specifications, that is a blockage of free speech as well. It amounts to Microsoft attempting to stop a review of their security methods. If I wrote a security program with a gaping flaw and tried to stop people from criticizing it, I would be doing the same thing Microsoft is doing right now. If Microsoft desires to stop people from circumventing the agreement, they should improve their program, and not try to hinder free discussion thereof.
Now, although nothing has yet happened in regards to Microsoft's request to have the site censored, theyare undoubtedly planning to proescute under the DMCA if their demands are not meant. If you wish to preserve freedom of speech and free discussion, please, support a drastic revision of the DMCA that does not so radically stifle individual interests in the interest of corporations.
Yes, I forgot to put the 1 on the front. :P
Anyway, that is still finite. Oh, and I did not mention the very well-known feedback mechanism between inductive coils and voltage.
Some people might complain that gravity should not be counted twice. Some have said that this would result in an infinite loop that would cause an infinite field. However, this is not nescessarily true as anybody who has looked at a geometric series can say. What I am referring to is: (1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+...) ad inifinitum actually adds up to 2, and not infinity. The Greeks had that problem in their philosophical discussions. In addition, there are many examples of such recursive feedback mechanisms in other fields. Biological models typically experience them. Chemical models have to deal which such things all the time. Physicists who study resonanse and vibrations have to account for vibration feedback in all their calculations.
Although 3-Com may be persuaded to open up the specs for the hardware, the possibility of outside support is slim.
The problem lies in several areas. First of all, how many other people who are interested in writing OSS have this rather expensive equipment? You need to have it in order to update it. Second, and more importantly, who would want to?
As I understand, open source drivers/hardware support is written when somebody needs to use some peice of it under Linux. Thus, only those in your situation would really want to work on the project. And, as in the first point, how many of them are there?
Although the popularity of open source among engineers is pleasing, this is not a step in the right direction.
Open source software should be embraced by managers as well as engineers. This is because of a commonly pointed out flaw in GNU and Linux and other OSS (though some won't call it that)
Many complain that OSS is just for techie geeks and will never hit the mainstream. Thus, the engineers are the expected crowd - they've been using open source for a while, and want to use it at work.
If OSS is to make real progress, it has to be accepted by somebody other than techies.
Both of these media have very important differences. While they both store digital video, which is a Good Thing (tm), the similarities end there. ;) )
Tape media, as everyone knows, needs to be rewound and fast-forwarded, etc... This is not nearly as convenient as several-millisecond seek times on a disk.
This will also make it impossible to use the possibility of interactive media that DVD's and other disks allow.
Not only that, but what about computer interfacing? DVD's can store both data and media, a very important distinction.
However, DVHS has some critical advantages as well. Properly developed, tape can store hundreds of times more data than a disk. (Think of the 100GB bakup tapes the size of an audio cassette.) Additionally, you can record MPEGs onto DVHS, while writing DVD's is expensive and hard (and the MPAA doesn't want you to do it
I've tried Perl and Java servlets, and I've learned something very important. Perl might be fine for guestbooks, custom pages, and a few other things, but it just doesn't cut it for making web-based programs.
The strategy I now adopt is to either make the entire program in C, or, if I need to have a complicated interface with lots of string parsin, have a bare-bones perl script call the C program.
Interpreted languages are alluring, but don't expect any real performance out of them.
Additionally, if a perl-enabled web page has a large load, it is probably better to have several preprocessed copies available, if at all possible.
The main problem is, that as computers get faster, people expect more and more idealized programming models from them. This leads to scripts and various good-looking multi-threaded O-O, but negates the speed advantages we gain from faster processors.
Back to the basics, I say, with C, will give much better performance.
Of course, if you don't care about performance, anything else will do fine. Perl is good for string/file processing; Java servlets are good for a few other types of more logic-oriented operations.
Before this can happen, we must first realize what human consciousness is and why it is what it is. Sure we understand a bit more about neurotransmitters, but that is like knowing about electrons and trying to build a universe.
Until we can understand how the mental neural network works, we cannot make one.
All you who tout genetic algorithms, tout no more - until you can give me a good way to compare two products and determine which one is more "conscious" than the other.
I have always warned people about Sun Microsystems. Many cheered Sun as it nobly battled against Microsoftian oppression and supposedly supported open standards. But Sun and Microsoft are part of the same family - arrogant coorporations that want things done their way and only their way.
Case in point, Java. Sun championed the language and its open standards against MS. However, one can see the true nature of their ideas in their abuse of the truly open Blackdown code.
Sun, just like MS, sees a new world order where they determine how computing gets done. Their vision is simply different from MS's.
Sun: Young Sauron to MS's Morgoth.
Heh.... being in the aforementioned program, I have every experience with such students. However, the question is of teachers, and not of students, though arrogant students to piss me off seriously. I always try to keep an open mind.
I am afraid not much can be done. In my high school experience, I have been blessed with a few good CS teachers, but that is because I am in a special program. Outside, I have not seen /one/ good CS teacher.
CS teachers are generally either conservative or foolish. The conservatives rever what they used in college, often something along the lines of Fortran. They are inflexible, and refuse to hear anything that goes against their ideas.
The foolish are followers of some particular trend. Some follow Java like zombies, others check up on every Visual Basic trend they see. Anything that does not follow this trend is bad and wrong, because what they do is obviously the right way.
If you are blessed and have a CS teacher that does neither, you have a chance. Otherwise, you are pretty much out of luck. Dealing with arrogant teachers is nearly impossible.
The biggest flaw in the film is not the technical detail or all that stuff. It is the basic premise of the movie. Nobody has mentioned this, so I have to say it. /Martian/ life came from.
MTM attempts to present an answer to the origin of life on Earth. The answer it presents, in such high and mighty terms "500 mil years ago, an explosion of life....and nobody knew why. And now we do" (dramatic music.)
OK, that is just bad. Not just scientifically, but philosophically. This doesn't answer any questions about the origins of life! It just confounds them! Now we have to find out where
This arrogant attempt at philosophy is what angered me most about the movie.
Might I ask you to provide these so called glaring flaws in the Matrix? I am sure there a few, but nevertheless, orders of magnitude less than this crap.
the act is right here! go ahead and read!
If you follow the recent discussions on linuxl-kernel, you'll probably know this already, but to those of you who don't, the 2.3.4[2+] have some performance problems due to imbalances of some of the new modifications made to the system. The pipe performance has shrunk considerably, and only today was a possible optimization fix posted by Martin Schenk on the list. Anyway, just thought it was important to point out that 2.3.x is not nearly done yet, there are lots of problems to work out.
I have considered FPGA's numerous times. However, they are useless for any real processor purpose. They consume more power and are slower. In addition, you cannot nearly put as much stuff on them. 1 mil is nothing when it comes to modern processors, esp. ones with on-chip caches. No, to make real, production quality chips that are state-of-the-art and that people would actually buy for performance, you definetly need a fab. At least until FPGA's get ten times faster and more compact.
That's just plain dumb. To compile an OS from the source, you need a compiler (also free.) To make a chip, especially something modern like Crusoe, you need tens of millions of dollars worth of fab equipment. You are Metcalfing.
This has put Linux ahead of Macrosloth. They don't have much for IA 64, so the Linux community must act. The distributions, especially, should work on recompiling, etc... on the IA 64 achitecture as soon as possible.
Before I begin, I have to say that I want to strangle that judge for his sillyness. But there are beleivable reasons for what he says. /mechanical devices/ reverse engineering is possible. Thus, the DMCA, assisted by imbecile judges like this one, gives two kinds of protection to Evil Software and Media Companies (TM). The patent protection of mechanical and electronic devices with the copyright and reverse engineering control of written material.
Software can be considered speech, but it can also be considered an invention of some sort. If one accepts that a peice of software is basically the same as a mechanical or electronic device, then all our nightmares come true.
Not only does the DMCA quite logical then, but so are a lot of other things. Software patents and a number of other things become quite reasonable.
However, even with
It is indeed a dark day.
There is only one thing to keep a woman yours:
Oral sex and lots of it.
Several posts bounced around the idea of AIO on Linux. While AIO has been around long before NT, it has not yet been implemented in Linux. Being thre reader of the Linux Kernel mailing list, I think I can offer some input. An idea has been posted that all read calls return immediately - the actual hardware work would be done when the application actually accessed a particular page of data. Memory allocation (on Linux, not NT, btw) already works this way - pages are allocated only when actually accessed. As for signal-based AIO, there is a library out (can't remember the name) that handles the waiting for the program.
This article clearly illustrates that the Hollywood portrayal of the NSA is often wrong, but how many people actually trust movies? I don't. But the fact remains that the NSA is a top secret government agency; just because it doesn't come in with guns blazing doesn't mean that they are a harmless bunch of nerds.
Personally, I am more interested in the rumors of 'information analysis,' the allegations that the NSA spies on internal and external communications - of everyone. Although such a mass-scale operation is hard to envision, I believe that it may hold a grain of truth - Big Brother could be watching, some of the people, some of the time.