Its worked too. Look why happen in the UK when Cameron tried to get support for an intervention.
It hasn't worked. For a start, the lack of UK support for intervention in Syria was multi-faceted and had much more to do with an anti-war sentiment amongst the public following the mishaps of the Iraq war. Also to do with the perceived financial cost when the UK government was on an austerity drive and cutting back on public services. Even then, it was a close vote (285 to 272).
Even after the recent attacks in Paris, the French have vowed a “merciless” response.
If anything, attacks on western countries and interests are emboldening us to get more involved. The attacks are softening the anti-war arguments.
There's also the issue of Linux support, not just to developers, but even the end users. As an end user, I've repeatedly been ignored by Nvidia when submitting detailed bug reports about their drivers, both to the support forum and by e-mailing linux-bugs@nvidia.com. Oh, and even on Twitter. Not even a "thanks, but we're not fixing this". Stone-walled. I won't be making the same mistake next time I buy hardware.
Why is it so wrong to use the proprietary drivers?
Here's an example. I bought a laptop with an Nvidia Quadro FX 3800M specifically for triple-head support (via docking station) and I can't even get dual-head to work properly due to an infinite loop somewhere in the binary drivers when mode-switching. I've done most of the investigation work, even running X through gdb and they're not interested in helping - not even some basic debug symbols.
I've been completely ignored by Nvidia via both of their official support channels: (1) the nvnews.net forum and (2) their linux-bugs@nvidia.com email address touted in their driver README. Even on Twitter.
What options do I have now with a binary driver except to run Windows (where triple-head works fine) or change hardware? I can't imagine why I would ever again support a company that can't even acknowledge my pain with their product, let alone help me to fix the problem myself.
On the contrary, Jeff Hawkins argues that memory and intelligence are very closely linked, in this TED talk. He says that intelligence is prediction, i.e. pattern recognition which needs knowledge to predict. Extending his insights, I guess we could look at the typical knowledge vs. intelligence debate as nurture (learned knowledge) and nature (innate knowledge through evolution, i.e. what we traditionally think of as intelligence).
Those memory-based qualifications aren't useless. They don't provide as detailed knowledge as a degree, so the resulting prediction system isn't as intricate. Yet I argue that they still produce intelligent behaviour, but, of course, relative to more advanced education / training.
I would be curious what the article thinks is so fundamentally wrong with the sockets paradigm.
TFA doesn't say there's anything wrong with the sockets "paradigm". It basically says that the API has performance issues with two use cases (low latency and high bandwidth) and doesn't support multi-homing very well.
Wrt multi-homing, it mostly talks about applications which I'd call mobile IP. Also, it curiously doesn't mention the ability to bind to all addresses as the current (crude) solution to multi-homing.
An opt-out system (or presumed consent) was debated a lot here in the UK in 2008. Due to objections from various sources, our government is trying a "major publicity campaign" to boost the numbers of donors. If that's not successful, we may end up with the system anyway.
Imagine if some company bought the.local and started to be able to randomly answer requests from around the world of millions of potential queries? Yeah, on first thought there ought to be some form of "private domain space" declared. Many people have been using.local.intranet.train etc knowing that these would *never* be registered in the future.
Think about mobile devices. On the correct LAN, the local nameservers always answer these queries because they're configured to be authoritative. However, when away from that LAN, a few well-placed wildcard records would create a nice honeypot.
Surely Slashdot could simply be http://slashdot./ ?:-D I guess the trailing dot might be required to avoid confusing resolvers that append default suffixes...
Agreed ref. the meaning of efficiency.
The main barrier to a total move to the Internet is that the Internet wasn't designed to efficiently (whatever that means) distribute a single file to 10 million people simultaneously. There were attempts at making this efficient, it's just that they didn't scale very well. P2P is really a kludge around the fact that IPv{4,6} multicast isn't deployed across the public internet, for whatever reason (there are many). One of the often-cited reasons for not using multicast is that the RSVP protocol on which it is based requires state to be maintained by every transit router.... I wonder how resource intensive that state is given modern routers with cheap(er) memory and processing power. The BBC might know, given their relatively recent multicast trials across the LINX http://support.bbc.co.uk/multicast/.
There would be a slight efficency loss due to protocol overhead, but that is minor when dealing with large files. I know we've been talking about BitTorrent here, but I think it's important to highlight that the P2P protocols used for TV can be and are different. For live/on-demand content, I think that the protocol overheads will become higher and higher as the buffer size decreases. This is because duplicate packets are sent to a client to offset packet-loss on contended networks.
I think part of the problem might be the fact that Firefox 2 keeps a list of recently closed tabs, and these might be cached which is kind of pointless imo... I've had the same Firefox instance open for the last week, with the 'browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers' setting set to 0 so that it doesn't cache any recent pages. Let's see what this has done...
Firefox 2.0.0.6 has 18 tabs open (including this one) and is using 155,536 KB of virtual memory. I've just closed 17 tabs and now it's using 154,752 KB.
The change to max_total_viewers seems to have made little difference to the amount of long-term memory allocated by Firefox.
I'm surprised this hasn't already taken off for TV I argue that "Internet TV" has already taken off, at least from my perspective in the UK, and some of it with P2P. Of course, you have to be able to agree on what "TV" is now and is going be like in the future; i.e. endless stream of content spoon-fed to you or "on demand" streaming of your choice of show.
For on-demand TV: there's Joost (P2P); BBC iPlayer (client/server); Channel 4 on Demand (client/server); and in the next few years P2P Next (EU funded). I bet there are a lot more systems in the pipeline.
For non-demand *P2P* we have the BBC iPlayer, Sky Anywhere and Channel 4 on Demand (4oD) which all use P2P for download then watch functionality (Kontiki).
P2P file distribution is not efficient. It might appear to be cost efficient from the content producer/distributor's perspective because they're paying less money for bandwidth and server equipment. Yes, there are savings in server and hosting expenses since client/server requires a much larger centralised infrastructure. However, P2P moves the bandwidth costs onto the consumers and their ISPs. Furthermore, P2P is bandwidth inefficient due to its overheads.
Given its inefficiency, we're still seeing huge investment in P2PTV. Not only in commercial services like Joost but also public sector such as the recently announced 14m investment in "P2P Next" by the EU http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7259339.stm. I reckon most of it is fuelled by the perceived cost savings for the broadcaster. However, ISPs are already complaining about the shift in costs, so how long before this investment backfires and the ISPs do something to readdress the balance?
IMHO personality is the single most important aspect of a superstar programmer: everything else about their abilities stems from here. If a person's brain is wired to be good with technical subjects, is intellectually curious, and has the drive/motivation then they have the potential to be one even if they don't yet have the experience (learned skills). Second to this is experience, which can help productivity if it's in the right area. However, a person with little experience (in a specific area or in general) will fall back to their ability to learn (personality, intelligence).
Also, I guess that "superstar" is very dependent on how a person is measured and could be based on goals. One goal might be to meet a deadline by trading code quality. Another might be to spend as long as is necessary to write quality code, where quality is environment dependent: high performance, high maintainability etc etc. However, drive to meet goals and the ones that are important to the person paying the wages, is also a factor of personality.
There are many ways to measure personality/intelligence and a lot of companies do perform psychometric testing, hopefully for the reasons I've mentioned above. OCEAN (personality), Cattell (intelligence) are only two of the many commonly used formal tests. Of course there are less formal performance indicators such as recommendations, first impressions, how well someone articulates their subject. As with everything, YMMV and you have to look at a the combination of a specific person's personality, experience and the environment you'll put them in.
By the way, I agree that overall the whole memory issue is overblown, RAM exists to be used and doesn't help you if its unused.
However, I think the problem is that the Firefox memory footprint usually remains around its peak once reached, even when all but the final tab has been closed. I imagine this is due to heap fragmentation and if so, a lot of memory is wasted. Whatever the reason, it prevents the memory from being used by other applications until Firefox is closed.
Slashdot Mirror
Its worked too. Look why happen in the UK when Cameron tried to get support for an intervention.
It hasn't worked. For a start, the lack of UK support for intervention in Syria was multi-faceted and had much more to do with an anti-war sentiment amongst the public following the mishaps of the Iraq war. Also to do with the perceived financial cost when the UK government was on an austerity drive and cutting back on public services. Even then, it was a close vote (285 to 272).
Even after the recent attacks in Paris, the French have vowed a “merciless” response.
If anything, attacks on western countries and interests are emboldening us to get more involved. The attacks are softening the anti-war arguments.
There's also the issue of Linux support, not just to developers, but even the end users. As an end user, I've repeatedly been ignored by Nvidia when submitting detailed bug reports about their drivers, both to the support forum and by e-mailing linux-bugs@nvidia.com. Oh, and even on Twitter. Not even a "thanks, but we're not fixing this". Stone-walled. I won't be making the same mistake next time I buy hardware.
Why is it so wrong to use the proprietary drivers?
Here's an example. I bought a laptop with an Nvidia Quadro FX 3800M specifically for triple-head support (via docking station) and I can't even get dual-head to work properly due to an infinite loop somewhere in the binary drivers when mode-switching. I've done most of the investigation work, even running X through gdb and they're not interested in helping - not even some basic debug symbols.
I've been completely ignored by Nvidia via both of their official support channels: (1) the nvnews.net forum and (2) their linux-bugs@nvidia.com email address touted in their driver README. Even on Twitter.
What options do I have now with a binary driver except to run Windows (where triple-head works fine) or change hardware? I can't imagine why I would ever again support a company that can't even acknowledge my pain with their product, let alone help me to fix the problem myself.
On the contrary, Jeff Hawkins argues that memory and intelligence are very closely linked, in this TED talk. He says that intelligence is prediction, i.e. pattern recognition which needs knowledge to predict. Extending his insights, I guess we could look at the typical knowledge vs. intelligence debate as nurture (learned knowledge) and nature (innate knowledge through evolution, i.e. what we traditionally think of as intelligence).
Those memory-based qualifications aren't useless. They don't provide as detailed knowledge as a degree, so the resulting prediction system isn't as intricate. Yet I argue that they still produce intelligent behaviour, but, of course, relative to more advanced education / training.
I would be curious what the article thinks is so fundamentally wrong with the sockets paradigm.
TFA doesn't say there's anything wrong with the sockets "paradigm". It basically says that the API has performance issues with two use cases (low latency and high bandwidth) and doesn't support multi-homing very well.
Wrt multi-homing, it mostly talks about applications which I'd call mobile IP. Also, it curiously doesn't mention the ability to bind to all addresses as the current (crude) solution to multi-homing.
An opt-out system (or presumed consent) was debated a lot here in the UK in 2008. Due to objections from various sources, our government is trying a "major publicity campaign" to boost the numbers of donors. If that's not successful, we may end up with the system anyway.
Bear in mind that "mpeg4" is a standard for lots of things, including audio/video and container; not just an older sibling to H264.
H.264 is a standard used for MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), with x264 being an implementation. H264 and MPEG-4 AVC are synonymous.
DivX and XviD are implementations of MPEG-4 Visual, suitable for less powerful devices.
For audio, there's MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC); the modern successor to "MP3" or formally MPEG-1 Layer 3.
Think about mobile devices. On the correct LAN, the local nameservers always answer these queries because they're configured to be authoritative. However, when away from that LAN, a few well-placed wildcard records would create a nice honeypot.
... or http://slash./
Surely Slashdot could simply be http://slashdot./ ? :-D I guess the trailing dot might be required to avoid confusing resolvers that append default suffixes...
Jon
Take, for example, the Joost P2P system which is based on UDP. There are some stats here which show 35% overhead for P2P http://www.joostteam.com/2007/08/14/joost-p2p-protocol-chewing-about-35-of-the-used-bandwidth/.
Firefox 2.0.0.6 has 18 tabs open (including this one) and is using 155,536 KB of virtual memory. I've just closed 17 tabs and now it's using 154,752 KB.
The change to max_total_viewers seems to have made little difference to the amount of long-term memory allocated by Firefox.
Jon
For on-demand TV: there's Joost (P2P); BBC iPlayer (client/server); Channel 4 on Demand (client/server); and in the next few years P2P Next (EU funded). I bet there are a lot more systems in the pipeline.
For non-demand *P2P* we have the BBC iPlayer, Sky Anywhere and Channel 4 on Demand (4oD) which all use P2P for download then watch functionality (Kontiki).
Jon
P2P file distribution is not efficient. It might appear to be cost efficient from the content producer/distributor's perspective because they're paying less money for bandwidth and server equipment. Yes, there are savings in server and hosting expenses since client/server requires a much larger centralised infrastructure. However, P2P moves the bandwidth costs onto the consumers and their ISPs. Furthermore, P2P is bandwidth inefficient due to its overheads.
Given its inefficiency, we're still seeing huge investment in P2PTV. Not only in commercial services like Joost but also public sector such as the recently announced 14m investment in "P2P Next" by the EU http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7259339.stm. I reckon most of it is fuelled by the perceived cost savings for the broadcaster. However, ISPs are already complaining about the shift in costs, so how long before this investment backfires and the ISPs do something to readdress the balance?
IMHO personality is the single most important aspect of a superstar programmer: everything else about their abilities stems from here. If a person's brain is wired to be good with technical subjects, is intellectually curious, and has the drive/motivation then they have the potential to be one even if they don't yet have the experience (learned skills). Second to this is experience, which can help productivity if it's in the right area. However, a person with little experience (in a specific area or in general) will fall back to their ability to learn (personality, intelligence).
Also, I guess that "superstar" is very dependent on how a person is measured and could be based on goals. One goal might be to meet a deadline by trading code quality. Another might be to spend as long as is necessary to write quality code, where quality is environment dependent: high performance, high maintainability etc etc. However, drive to meet goals and the ones that are important to the person paying the wages, is also a factor of personality.
There are many ways to measure personality/intelligence and a lot of companies do perform psychometric testing, hopefully for the reasons I've mentioned above. OCEAN (personality), Cattell (intelligence) are only two of the many commonly used formal tests. Of course there are less formal performance indicators such as recommendations, first impressions, how well someone articulates their subject. As with everything, YMMV and you have to look at a the combination of a specific person's personality, experience and the environment you'll put them in.
However, I think the problem is that the Firefox memory footprint usually remains around its peak once reached, even when all but the final tab has been closed. I imagine this is due to heap fragmentation and if so, a lot of memory is wasted. Whatever the reason, it prevents the memory from being used by other applications until Firefox is closed.
Allocated RAM is no use if it's not being *used*.