According to my wife (a 4th year med-student), pregnancy and birth control that simulates pregnancy (like the pill) reduce a women's risk of ovarian cancer.
Best C reference: K&R (C Programming Language). The binding on mine wore out so I had it spiral bound. Now it lays flat. Should have done it sooner.
Best reference for CS theory: The Art of Computer Programming. Only read this if you're serious about not just coding well, but elegantly in any language. Bonus points if you can keep from getting bogged down in volume 2.
Greatest insight into how large corporations work: The Prince. I read this about once a year to maintain a healthy level of cynicism. Machiavelli's insights are timeless.
There are other great books, but these books are timeless.
Give it time. Once computers are consistently beating the greatest human players, the same clever people who worked so hard on building computer chess players will find new problems to spend their time on. Go will certainly be on of them.
Stating opinion on a controvercial and hotly debated issue as objective fact is the definition of trolling.
Sadly, the content of your post (minus the troll) was actually quite insightful. Next time you have something insightful to say, you'll reach a larger audience if you don't interject unrelated and inflamatory statements that turn off some of your audience.
If the new telescope did everything that Hubble does, then I wouldn't mind. However, the new telescope won't see in the visible spectrum like Hubble does. This makes the new telescope less interesting to me.
I think this project is a good model for how large projects should be handled. They published their design and a roadmap for implementing their design. This makes it easier for a lurker who is watching the project to actually jump in and contribute to it.
At least, it seems that way in theory. Anyone have any idea how responsive the community has been to this project?
I can finish common tasks before I'm even done thinking the thought to do them thanks to muscle memory. It becomes an instinct, a natural response. I've never been as productive with a mouse (too much aiming!).
it would be very naive to ignore the fact that a lot of companies used the threat of moving to Linux solely to get a cheaper discount from Microsoft
This simply demonstrates the fact that Microsoft is threatened by Linux. If Microsoft didn't feel threatened, then there would be no way for a customer to leverage the threat of moving to Linux for getting discounts.
Also, this type of leveraging, even if the customer stays with the Microsoft product, puts price pressure on Microsoft. This can only be a good thing for the customer.
In my opinion, gentoo is a great (meta)distribution for people who want to learn because it doesn't hide anything from you and doesn't do anything without you telling it to. At the same time, it makes the uninteresting parts of managing a machine easy to automate so that I can spend time doing things I find interesting.
Ultimately, I see no qualitative difference between 'emerge foo' and 'tar xvf foo.tar; cd foo; configure -prefix=...; make; make install'. The hard part is knowing what you need, not following the install recipe from the README once you've downloaded the source.
I would suspect that this type of device boots once and then never again, instead hibernating when not in use. If my suspicions are correct, that would mean that for all practical purposes, this type of device will be an instant-on type of device, only rarely requiring actual reboots (largely dependent on the stability of the software and hardware).
I'd argue that most true scripting languages are interpreted rather than compiled
That might have been true at one point, but just in time compilers are becoming more common among languages that have traditionally been called scripting languages. For example, psyco for python.
SCO vs Daimler Chrysler SCO vs AutoZone SCO vs IBM RedHat vs SCO
SCO vs Novell isn't over yet since SCO can resurrect it by properly pleading its case, but even a well plead case looks like it would lose. Just my uneducated take on things legal.
You're saying things like the Start menu, Task bar, System Tray, and Desktop are useless right?
I'm not saying they're useless, just that it is an interruption to me if I have to leave the keyboard to start a program that I need. Also, they take up screen space that is at a premium on my laptop screen.
How about global hot keys, do you get those?
Absolutely. It is trivial to set up hot keys, global or no, in FVWM.
You have to find an open terminal window, switch to it, and type a command with whatever arguments it needs to open in the background.
With a reasonable use of workspaces and, if you desire, hotkeys, there is no searching at all and backgrounding adds a single character to the command line.
Personally, I think that most people use a GUI because they don't have time to memorize the location of every executable they need to use
You set your PATH so that you don't have to memorize locations. All you have to know is the app name.
You seem to have taken all this very personally. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what I said that was so offensive.
You do realize that any graphical tools that run under Gnome or KDE will run just fine under any other window manager, don't you?
I use graphical tools all the time, but I know what tools I use and don't need the WM to provide catagorical menus for me to find what I need. When I need to start xv or ooffice or whatever, I simply start from my xterm (backgrounded, of course so that I don't lose the use of the xterm).
I'm running FVWM with similar results. I quit using Gnome when I realized that any window manager can give me 4 terminal windows at the same time.
My take is that people who use computers as tools avoid using desktop environments like Gnome and KDE because they just get in the way of getting things done. People who use computers as toys seem to like the desktop environments because there's lots to explore and play with.
I don't even have a Masters degree. What the hell are the people who DO have one reading?
Books are mostly useless except as introductions to a topic and leads to papers/authors found in the bibliography (if a book doesn't give references, find a different book).
In general, the first thing I do when I approach a topic is look through the bibliographies of any topical books and papers I find to see if there are any sources that are used by virtually everyone in the field. I then hunt down that source and other papers (hopefully more recent ones) written by the same author(s). From there, I have a starting point in the field and use the list of authors and papers from the bibliography to start my search for any supplimental material I might require.
As you explore a topic, you will find that new papers you discover will more and more often refer to papers and authors you've already discovered. This is a good measure of how thorough your research has been.
I keep whole folders of related articles for future reference.
For example, in order to submit images for revenue processing, we have to convert our beautiful grey-scale images into binary images. In order to get the least ugly result possible, we use some pretty sophisticated and cpu intensive algorithms. On a 2.4GHz Intel processor, conversion takes about 10 seconds per image which means it takes about 8 cpu-hours to convert a typical night's worth of images (4 actual hours thanks to our dual-proc machines). On high volume nights, the extra time can push us past our submission deadline. If we could shave 1 second off of each image, that would move us out of the dangerzone.
That said, for most of what we do, I/O is the real bottleneck.
I like gentoo because it's easy to install (can use any boot media that supports chroot, including another partition), gives me a clean base system without anything I didn't ask for, makes installing and updating software a breeze, and has a community that is active and friendly.
Basically, I like it for all the reasons I like BSD.
Well, you need specialised graphic tools (like Adobe Illustrator), and/or the full version of Acrobat (not just the reader)
This is so not true. I generate pdfs all the time using dvipdfm. I put off learning LaTeX for years because I was so intimidated by it, only to find out recently that it's simpler to learn and use than HTML is.
The website brags that this thing has a whole month of battery life in it's low-power mode. Big fricking deal. I bought my HP in about 1990. I have replaced the batteries in it exactly ONCE.
When I was in college, I ended up changing the batteries in my 48GX about once every three monthes. Now I change the batteries about once a year (still use it daily, but much less intensively).
Slashdot Mirror
Please don't make the mistake of assuming that US foreign policy reflects or is in any way
influenced by the actual opinions of individual Americans.
According to my wife (a 4th year med-student), pregnancy and birth control that
simulates pregnancy (like the pill) reduce a women's risk of ovarian cancer.
Best C reference: K&R (C Programming Language). The binding on mine wore
out so I had it spiral bound. Now it lays flat. Should have done it sooner.
Best reference for CS theory: The Art of Computer Programming. Only read this
if you're serious about not just coding well, but elegantly in any language. Bonus points if
you can keep from getting bogged down in volume 2.
Greatest insight into how large corporations work: The Prince. I read this
about once a year to maintain a healthy level of cynicism. Machiavelli's
insights are timeless.
There are other great books, but these books are timeless.
Give it time. Once computers are consistently beating the greatest human
players, the same clever people who worked so hard on building computer
chess players will find new problems to spend their time on. Go will certainly
be on of them.
I'm not trolling,Windows IS more user friendly
Stating opinion on a controvercial and hotly debated
issue as objective fact is the definition of trolling.
Sadly, the content of your post (minus the troll) was
actually quite insightful. Next time you have something
insightful to say, you'll reach a larger audience if you
don't interject unrelated and inflamatory statements
that turn off some of your audience.
If the new telescope did everything that Hubble does, then I wouldn't mind.
However, the new telescope won't see in the visible spectrum like Hubble does.
This makes the new telescope less interesting to me.
From a pure UI point of view, it is better than multiple desktops and multiple tabs, since they are both examples of modes (which are bad).
Can you elaborate why desktops and tabs are bad from a UI point of view?
I think this project is a good model for how large projects should be handled.
They published their design and a roadmap for implementing their design. This
makes it easier for a lurker who is watching the project to actually jump in
and contribute to it.
At least, it seems that way in theory. Anyone have any idea how responsive the
community has been to this project?
two words: muscle memory
I can finish common tasks before I'm even done thinking the thought to do them
thanks to muscle memory. It becomes an instinct, a natural response. I've never
been as productive with a mouse (too much aiming!).
it would be very naive to ignore the fact that a lot of companies used the threat of moving to Linux solely to get a cheaper discount from Microsoft
This simply demonstrates the fact that Microsoft is threatened by Linux. If
Microsoft didn't feel threatened, then there would be no way for a customer
to leverage the threat of moving to Linux for getting discounts.
Also, this type of leveraging, even if the customer stays with the Microsoft
product, puts price pressure on Microsoft. This can only be a good thing for
the customer.
Links please.
They both have a clean feel that is lacking in the commercial distros.
Also, they both claim to be "BSD inspired" or somesuch.
Even so, I would never have thought of calling them cousins.
In my opinion, gentoo is a great (meta)distribution for people who want to
learn because it doesn't hide anything from you and doesn't do anything without
you telling it to. At the same time, it makes the uninteresting parts of
managing a machine easy to automate so that I can spend time doing things
I find interesting.
Ultimately, I see no qualitative difference between 'emerge foo' and
'tar xvf foo.tar; cd foo; configure -prefix=...; make; make install'.
The hard part is knowing what you need, not following the install recipe
from the README once you've downloaded the source.
I would suspect that this type of device boots once and then never again,
instead hibernating when not in use. If my suspicions are correct, that would
mean that for all practical purposes, this type of device will be an
instant-on type of device, only rarely requiring actual reboots (largely
dependent on the stability of the software and hardware).
I'd argue that most true scripting languages are interpreted rather than compiled
That might have been true at one point, but just in time compilers are becoming
more common among languages that have traditionally been called scripting
languages. For example, psyco for python.
SCO vs Daimler Chrysler
SCO vs AutoZone
SCO vs IBM
RedHat vs SCO
SCO vs Novell isn't over yet since SCO can resurrect it by properly pleading
its case, but even a well plead case looks like it would lose. Just my
uneducated take on things legal.
You're saying things like the Start menu, Task bar, System Tray, and Desktop are useless right?
I'm not saying they're useless, just that it is an interruption to me if I have
to leave the keyboard to start a program that I need. Also, they take up screen
space that is at a premium on my laptop screen.
How about global hot keys, do you get those?
Absolutely. It is trivial to set up hot keys, global or no, in FVWM.
You have to find an open terminal window, switch to it, and type a command with whatever arguments it needs to open in the background.
With a reasonable use of workspaces and, if you desire, hotkeys, there is no
searching at all and backgrounding adds a single character to the command line.
Personally, I think that most people use a GUI because they don't have time to memorize the location of every executable they need to use
You set your PATH so that you don't have to memorize locations. All you have to
know is the app name.
You seem to have taken all this very personally. Perhaps you could enlighten
me as to what I said that was so offensive.
You do realize that any graphical tools that run under Gnome or KDE will
run just fine under any other window manager, don't you?
I use graphical tools all the time, but I know what tools I use and don't need
the WM to provide catagorical menus for me to find what I need. When I need to
start xv or ooffice or whatever, I simply start from my xterm (backgrounded,
of course so that I don't lose the use of the xterm).
Why is this so difficult to understand?
Nope, I use Opera. Opera runs just fine under FVWM.
I'm running FVWM with similar results. I quit using Gnome when I realized that
any window manager can give me 4 terminal windows at the same time.
My take is that people who use computers as tools avoid using desktop
environments like Gnome and KDE because they just get in the way of getting
things done. People who use computers as toys seem to like the desktop
environments because there's lots to explore and play with.
I don't even have a Masters degree. What the hell are the people who DO have one reading?
Books are mostly useless except as introductions to a topic and leads to
papers/authors found in the bibliography (if a book doesn't give references,
find a different book).
In general, the first thing I do when I approach a topic is look through the
bibliographies of any topical books and papers I find to see if there are any
sources that are used by virtually everyone in the field. I then hunt down
that source and other papers (hopefully more recent ones) written by the
same author(s). From there, I have a starting point in the field and use the
list of authors and papers from the bibliography to start my search for any
supplimental material I might require.
As you explore a topic, you will find that new papers you discover will more
and more often refer to papers and authors you've already discovered. This is
a good measure of how thorough your research has been.
I keep whole folders of related articles for future reference.
Hope that helps answer your question.
Image Processing.
For example, in order to submit images for revenue processing, we have to
convert our beautiful grey-scale images into binary images. In order to get
the least ugly result possible, we use some pretty sophisticated and cpu
intensive algorithms. On a 2.4GHz Intel processor, conversion takes about 10
seconds per image which means it takes about 8 cpu-hours to convert a typical night's
worth of images (4 actual hours thanks to our dual-proc machines). On high
volume nights, the extra time can push us past our submission deadline. If we
could shave 1 second off of each image, that would move us out of the dangerzone.
That said, for most of what we do, I/O is the real bottleneck.
I like gentoo because it's easy to install (can use any boot media that
supports chroot, including another partition), gives me a clean base system
without anything I didn't ask for, makes installing and updating software a
breeze, and has a community that is active and friendly.
Basically, I like it for all the reasons I like BSD.
Well, you need specialised graphic tools (like Adobe Illustrator), and/or the full version of Acrobat (not just the reader)
This is so not true. I generate pdfs all the time using dvipdfm.
I put off learning LaTeX for years because I was so intimidated by it,
only to find out recently that it's simpler to learn and use than HTML is.
The website brags that this thing has a whole month of battery life in it's low-power mode. Big fricking deal. I bought my HP in about 1990. I have replaced the batteries in it exactly ONCE.
When I was in college, I ended up changing the batteries in my
48GX about once every three monthes. Now I change the batteries about
once a year (still use it daily, but much less intensively).