I believe you're discussing a worst case of the algorithm, not the average case. While I'm not sure of how to determine an average case for this sort of thing, I don't think yours is. You're suggesting there's only one process that would be "runnable" in the queue. I don't think this is an assumption you can make.
Again, I'm not sure what the average case for the state of the queue would be, but that's not it.
You raise a good question. Here's a link that might explain a little better than I can.
Your assumption is flawed, though. You seem to be assuming that only one process in the queue is runnable. We can't make that assumption that at any given time there's only one runnable process.
I believe you have a point about the worst case of the algorithm. That's not really relevant here, though. Consider the Quicksort algorithm. It has a nasty worst case - data that's already been sorted. As a matter of fact, the worst case is an O(n^2) and approaches the slowness that is the bubble sort. Despite this well-documented worst case, we say that quicksort is an O(n*log n) algorithm, which is a more typical case.
I believe the worst case of the Ingo scheduler is O(n). If only one process can be run, it indeed has to check n/2 processes on average, and therefore is O(n).
You raise a good question, and figuring out what order an algorithm is, is something I'm not particularly good at. Generally the average case is what matters, but I don't know how you determine what the average case is for the state of processes.
I'm not particularly familiar with the O(1) scheduler, but I know enough about it to give an explanation that I believe is accurate enough.
There are two queues used in the Ingo scheduler. One contains processes that are ready to run. The other contains processes that have already run. The run queue is scanned, and when a process is found that can be run, it is automatically run without scanning the rest of the queue. When the process finishes its time quantum, it is put into the second queue.
When the first queue (the active one) is empty, the queues are switched. This is just done by swapping the pointers to the queues.
This scheduler is O(1) because it runs the first process it can run without scanning the entire queue as an O(n) scheduler would do. That's why it's O(1).
If you want a bit more information on it, search for the "Ingo scheduler" on Google or your other search engine of choice. I don't see any detailed explanations of what happens, but I suspect as the 2.6 kernel goes into wider use, those will come.
A similar project is constantly being discussed in Nevada - that is, the burying of nuclear waste in the Yucca mountains. It might be possible to build a structure to withstand earthquakes, as it's done all the time in California. But the surrounding rock really isn't protection from an earthquake. Another thing I can't help but notice is the description of the mountain. It's made of Granite, which is an igneous rock. That means at one point there was volcanic activity there to build the mountain up. It's entirely possible the potential for volcanic activity still exists. I doubt such a structure could withstand a volcano.
There is a freeware tool for signing applications that will run on the TI-83+. Unfortunately, no such tool exists to sign apps that will run on the TI-89/92+/V200. I believe the pricing scheme of $100 for three signings or $300 for ten signings on the TI-89/92+/V200 is still in effect.
Actually the reason for it is AMS 2.0x forbids the use of assembly language programs in expressions. It is quite useless for an assembly language program to attempt to return a value.
There are hacks which intercept this behavior of the AMS and allow assembly language programs to be in expressions and therefore return values. This is a stupid behavior of the AMS imposed by TI. AMS 1.0x imposed no such restrictions on the usage and behavior of assembly language programs.
So, my statement was quite correct.
Here is some documentation to support what I say here.
Yeah, it will, but there's already pressure on TI to improve their calculators. This came in the form of HP re-entering the graphing calculator market with several new calculators of their own including one which is far more powerful than any other calculator today. This isn't a concern for TI to make a better product, just because they don't charge for upgrades to the AMS (and aren't necessarily losing money if you switch away), because TI still produces the hardware, and because if you want the powerful math features of the TI-89 you still need to use the official AMS.
While a lot of effort is put into producing games, you can bet that if PedroM becomes popular among users that someone will take the time to write some math software for it, too. A lot of work has been done to extend the math functionality on the TI-83+ calculators, such as this application that can do symbolic differentiation and simplification on a calc that doesn't otherwise have this functionality. Just because there's not math software available for PedroM doesn't mean there won't be later. Give it time, this OS has only been released very recently.
With a lot of the new releases of the AMS (TI's operating system), TI has added new restrictions to what developers can do. For example, in AMS 2.03, assembly language programs are limited to 8k. In more recent versions, the limitation is 24k. There is no legitimate reason for this except trying to force developers to write Flash applications. This is significant because you have to pay TI to sign any applications you write if you expect them to run on any calculator. There are many other things that Flash applications can do that assembly language programs can't. These include support for language localization and adding commands to TI-BASIC. Another thing is assembly language programs cannot return values like ordinary functions can.
While many of these restrictions have been fixed through nasty hacks found by developers, some of them cannot be easily fixed if at all.
What's so bad about Flash applications? Because you have to pay TI to sign apps for the TI-89/TI-92+/V200. Most of us developers release our software for free. We don't have the money to pay TI to sign our software.
As of now, these are the biggest advantages of the new OS, besides the fact that you have much more archive memory.
Already, this new OS can make a game programmer's job a lot easier.
TI places a lot of restrictions on what assembly language programs can do. TI encourages programmers to make large software packages into Flash applications. Unfortunately, these applications must be digitally signed by TI. While a program to sign applications has been released as freeware for the TI-83+ calculators, no such signing program has been released for the TI-89/TI-92+/V200. A lot of developers simply don't have the money to buy signings from TI. It's $100 for three signings or $300 for ten signings. A lot of us developers release our software for free and don't want to spend this kind of money just to release our applications for free. Sure, we could charge for them, but most of us don't want to because we'd like free software to continue to dominate the TI community. Anyways, this sort of thing bypasses TI's restrictions on what assembly programs can do.
As someone who works at one of the large community sites about TI calculators, I'm in a position to comment on this.
The OS attempts to be compatible in a lot of ways with the AMS (TI's OS for the 68k calcs) but it really isn't. A lot of the OS such as the math functionality is missing. A lot of assembly programs also rely on hacks to take advantage of the internals of the AMS. These won't work, also.
Another thing is that the majority of assembly programs now are written for AMS 2.0x, but this software only allows for assembly programs written for the old AMS 1.0x. It's somewhat compatible, but is lacking in a lot of ways, too.
The reasons that the compatibility is lacking are that we still haven't documented a lot of functions in the AMS and some features have intentionally been left out for the sake of using less Flash ROM and leaving more of it for the archives. In other places, some speed has been sacrificed for making the OS a lot smaller than the AMS.
It's an interesting project, but at this point, it's more of a proof-of-concept thing than a real replacement for the AMS software. The future of this project, hopefully, will include most of the functionality of the TI-89, including math, but will provide significant advantages over the AMS. For example, the AMS makes a lot of restrictions on the size of assembly language programs and what they can do. These restrictions are gone in PedroM. Also, as I understand, this OS is written in assembly instead of compiled from C like the AMS is. Hopefully this means we can implement the same functionality of the AMS but that runs faster and at a smaller size.
Awhile back, someone made a visit to SCO, signed the NDA, and described their experience. If you read down far enough, the person reporting this inquired about the settlement between AT&T and BSD. SCO claims that parts of this agreement have gone unenforced. At this time, it was speculated by the author of the report that the various BSDs might be next in the line of fire. I suspect, unfortunately, that they might be right.
If this is the case, then all the talk about re-opening a case that closed nine years ago, and if the courts will permit it, isn't relevant. Instead, the case is about whether or not the BSDs are violating the agreement, instead of overturning or modifying the agreement.
Unfortunately, if parts of the agreement between AT&T and BSD haven't been enforced, then it's quite possible SCO could have a legitimate case. Some of the settlement reached is confidential, and as stated by the author, SCO declined to say what terms have not been enforced. So until SCO makes a bigger issue of it, there's really no way to speculate if SCO will win, or what the effect might be on the BSDs.
The article suggests that machines deal in text instead of through colorful GUI windows. This isn't true at all. The computer has no preference between user interfaces; it doesn't make a bit of difference to the machine.
Whether or not I'm adding a switch on the command line or checking a box in some GUI, I'm performing the exact same function - that is, toggling some flag/setting within the program. It's just a different representation. The article suggests that text is the language of computers. This is not true at all. The language of computers is a stream of octets that are interpreted as instructions by the processor. That is the only language the computer actually understands.
I can say for sure that I find the GUI very efficient at times. For example, I do some video editing and converting, and find myself using mencoder (a tool included with mplayer) rather often. There's a LOT of switches at the command line, and often I find myself spending several minutes browsing the manual page to find what switches I need set. And even then, sometimes I find myself turning to Google to find the information I need. I can't help but think that it could be done much more efficiently with a very basic graphical front-end. The CLI isn't always more efficient.
I know, there's many tasks that are better done from the command line. But to say that a user operating a GUI is further removed from the internals of the computer, is just incorrect. Whether or not I'm adding a switch on the command line or checking a box in a GUI, it generally has the same effect.
That's because they only issued a warning saying it was fictional at the beginning and the end of it. There were no warnings while it was playing, so of course people thought it was real.
The sunspot cycle (which takes 11 years) peaked in 2000, yet there's an unusually large amount of activity of late. There was a somewhat intense solar flare a few days ago, and now this one, which is believed to be the third-largest one on record. Are there any explanations for this large amount of activity at what should be a non-peak time?
The difference is that alcohol consumed in moderation isn't really permanently harmful. The effects are temporary, and once the alcohol is out of your body, things are okay. Alcohol is not the same as the illegal drugs we're talking about here. If alcohol is used responsibly, meaning you don't drink and drive, don't drink too much at one time, and you consume it in enough moderation to not become an alcoholic, it's not harmful. And the vast majority of people, I'd bet, consume alcohol responsibly.
When we come to illegal drugs, they are generally more addictive and have greater effects. For example, look at ecstasy. There's countless tales of someone trying it once and then dying from it. Methamphetamine is extremely dangerous, and so is the method of producing it. These are the kinds of drugs that you don't want legalized. And then you have stuff like herion and cocaine, too.
Do you really want this kind of stuff legalized so that anyone in the general public can get it? There are good reasons why these substances are either illegal or tightly controlled by the FDA. And it just isn't hallucinogenic drugs that are controlled substances. The FDA tightly regulates quite a long list of substances that extend far beyond the common illegal drugs.
I know, there's also the people who just want marijuana legalized and say that it's not harmful. While most teens don't actually use marijuana, I'd bet it's still the most common drug used among them. I can say I know quite a few who do smoke it quite often. It's addictive, just like any other drug. It causes a short buzz, but doesn't last that long, so many teens say it's harmless. The fact is, though, that using marijuana often can cause serious problems. One of these is depression. I wonder if the use of marijuana among teens is a factor in the relatively high suicide rate among teens. I don't know of any studies to say this, but it's plausible. Oh, and THC, the "active ingredient" in marijuana stays in the body for several days, and for heavy users, several weeks. It doesn't exit nearly as quickly as alcohol does.
Even marijuana is dangerous enough that it should be regulated.
If we legalize drugs, kids will find ways to get them, just like they can easily get cigarettes and alcohol.
Cigarettes, however, might be even more insidious than alcohol. They don't have the hallucinogenic effect, but nicotine is an addictive drug. They are quite dangerous and the serious health problems associated with smoking are proven and well documented. And yet, I bet most Slashdotters would defend their legality for one reason or another.
The point is that it's not clear cut what drugs should be banned and what shouldn't be. All of them, including alcohol and tobacco. are harmful. But we have to draw the line somewhere. Obviously people will complain about where the line is drawn, and it's somewhat arbitrary, but would things be better if we drew that line somewhere else and legalized worse drugs? Would it be better if we didn't draw the line at all and legalized even the worst of drugs?
Actually, I think Napster has an inherent advantage, that being name recognition. And I think the record companies would actually have an interest in making a deal with them. The reason behind this is they know they need to get into the business of distributing content online. They've been lagging behind in this. Making a deal with a big name like Napster would be a good deal for them.
Mozilla's answer to this patent is that it only mentions interprocess communication. Mozilla loads the plugin into the same memory space as the browser, as I understand it, so they believe they are outside the scope of the patent. Anyways, to answer your question, this issue has already been brought before the Mozilla developers and they've already addressed it for the time being.
The telemarketing companies complain that the DNC list will severely harm their profits. But with some simple and rather obvious reasoning, it's very easy to dispute this claim.
Consider this, if your number is on the DNC list, chances are you weren't likely to buy much from a telemarketer, anyways. What telemarketers assume is the 50 million numbers that are on the list would be every bit as likely to buy from them as the numbers not on the list. I think my scenario is more likely.
I tend to think the people that haven't signed up to the DNC list either aren't really annoyed by telemarketers or they find some of the products useful and would buy from a telemarketer. There's also the people who don't know of the DNC list, but I doubt that accounts for very many people.
So the real effect of this is the people who are willing to buy from the telemarketers are far less likely to sign up for the list.
It was a wise webmaster who said, in response to some clients blocking their banner ads, that he doesn't care. If they block the banner ads, they probably wouldn't click or buy, anyway. It saves him bandwidth.
Along the same lines as his argument, I'd argue that this actually makes telemarketing more efficient. You are more likely to sell your products to someone who would not sign up for the DNC list than to someone who would sign up for it.
Another thing that really annoys me about telemarketers is when they call, they usually show up on my caller ID as UNAVAILABLE. The problem is there are also legitimate callers who show up the same. I think it needs to be mandatory that those conducting phone calls for the purpose of commercial activity (solicited or otherwise) should be required to display their number and business/name on the recipient's caller ID. This means if you're calling someone to try to sell them a product, you can't call anonymously, either.
Even if the DNC list is overturned in court, my idea for requiring them to show their caller ID information is completely constitutional. And anyone who has a caller ID can simply not answer the phone if they don't wish to receive such calls.
Forgive me if I'm being idiotic about this, but relatively recently, the.museum TLD went live. It's just like any other TLD except that domains that don't exist diect you to a page saying the domain doesn't exist and with a couple of links. It's not very different than Verisign's SIteFinder, but there's little to no outcry over this. I'm curious because a lot of the objections about SiteFinder should also be true about the.museum TLD. What's different here?
I agree, there was very good lead time here. Us Slashdot readers, Microsoft, the US government, anti-virus coders, and many others knew and said it was only a matter of time before a worm exploited this hole. And now that it's happening, we shouldn't be surprised. We can get some of an indication of just how serious this worm will be, though, by watching tomorrow during the day and evening. It's already late Friday morning in some parts of Asia. We'll know much better the impact of this worm Friday evening, though, as it'll be Saturday in Europe. If anything particularly serious is going to happen, we'll definitely know it for sure.
And I'm on a Southwestern Bell DSL. Is it just me or are some ISPs now blocking port 135?
In my opinion, it's definitely a good thing that they are, if this is the case. And it appears to be.
Re:Interesting technology
on
NASA's Sensor Web
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· Score: 2, Interesting
This technology isn't as useful in meteorology as it might first seem. Knowing what happens on the ground is only part of the picture.
At least in severe weather, what's going on above the surface is very important. For example, it's important to know if there's wind shear. This is winds moving in significantly different directions or at different speeds at different levels, which leads to rotation. It's very important to severe storms. And it's also very important to know if there's any inversions, such as the cap. For those who don't know, the cap is a layer of warm stable air aloft. When warm rising air in an updraft hits a strong cap, it tends to stop rising, which kills thunderstorm development. If there's a moderate cap, some storms will break through, and if other ingredients are in place, storms can occur. Since the weaker storms can't break through the cap, the energy is saved for powerful ones. A moderate cap is particularly conducive to severe weather. If there's a weak cap or no cap, then the energy is used up quickly and not saved for the most powerful storms.
My point in all of this is knowing what's going on in the upper air is critical to forecasting, and this technology simply won't help you there.
I feel the need to point out to you that many people benefit from Ham radio. I'll probably get modded down for this, but I may as well burn some karma.
Many people appreciate the services provided by the National Weather Service. How many lives are saved by issuing severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings? While I don't know the answer, I'd be willing to bet it's a somewhat large number.
Do you know that the National Weather Service relies on storm spotters to provide them with information about severe weather? That's right, there's some things doppler radar just can't tell you. And do you know how much of that information gets from spotters to the NWS? That's right, it gets there by Ham radio.
And also, consider that many places just don't have internet connectivity. You don't think about it because you live in a wealthy country and you live a good life. But what about South America? What about Africa? What about Asia? It's much less expensive to build a Ham radio than it is to buy the parts for a computer.
Some radio signals reach to every corner of the planet, something the internet and broadband just won't do. It's not the most modern method of communication, but it's still one of the most useful and important.
And I won't even mention that Ham radio is often the first communication link to an area that's been hit by a disaster. Hams often help provide communications in the case of an emergency.
Hopefully you don't still think that only an elite few need or benefit from Ham radio. That's simply not true. In fact, complaining that it's so unfair that you won't have broadband over your powerlines because of Ham radio is far more elitist than any of the pro-Ham comments I've read so far.
Well, then you just use MNG if you need animation. And if you read the linked page, MNG is superior to animated GIFs in a number of ways, one of which is better compression. Another advantage to MNG is it's not necessarily tied to one image format. The individual images can be stored in either PNG or JPEG format.
Personally, I think it's a good thing to have several image formats available with wide support in all browsers. The reason for this is it allows developers to choose which format provides the best results for what they're doing. This means which ones look better and compress better for a certain image. It's definitely a good thing that the patent on GIF is expiring, but it's also a good thing to make sure that PNG doesn't go away, either.
There's nothing about what the outcome of re-evaluating the spectrum. It makes good sense to do so from time to time.
As an amateur radio hobbyist, though, I am hoping that this re-evaluation doesn't mean that we lose more of our frequencies to industry. We've already lost enough. I note that one of the uses of radio listed is national security. In times of disasters and emergencies, it's quite common for ham operators to assist in providing communications.
On the other hand, evaluating the rules to adapt them for the implementation of new technologies is probably a good thing.
I hope that this evaluation is done sensibly and what's best for consumers and amateur operators is taken into account in addition to what's right for industry and government.
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I believe you're discussing a worst case of the algorithm, not the average case. While I'm not sure of how to determine an average case for this sort of thing, I don't think yours is. You're suggesting there's only one process that would be "runnable" in the queue. I don't think this is an assumption you can make.
Again, I'm not sure what the average case for the state of the queue would be, but that's not it.
You raise a good question. Here's a link that might explain a little better than I can.
;-)
Your assumption is flawed, though. You seem to be assuming that only one process in the queue is runnable. We can't make that assumption that at any given time there's only one runnable process.
I believe you have a point about the worst case of the algorithm. That's not really relevant here, though. Consider the Quicksort algorithm. It has a nasty worst case - data that's already been sorted. As a matter of fact, the worst case is an O(n^2) and approaches the slowness that is the bubble sort. Despite this well-documented worst case, we say that quicksort is an O(n*log n) algorithm, which is a more typical case.
I believe the worst case of the Ingo scheduler is O(n). If only one process can be run, it indeed has to check n/2 processes on average, and therefore is O(n).
You raise a good question, and figuring out what order an algorithm is, is something I'm not particularly good at. Generally the average case is what matters, but I don't know how you determine what the average case is for the state of processes.
Anyone care to try to explain this?
I'm not particularly familiar with the O(1) scheduler, but I know enough about it to give an explanation that I believe is accurate enough.
There are two queues used in the Ingo scheduler. One contains processes that are ready to run. The other contains processes that have already run. The run queue is scanned, and when a process is found that can be run, it is automatically run without scanning the rest of the queue. When the process finishes its time quantum, it is put into the second queue.
When the first queue (the active one) is empty, the queues are switched. This is just done by swapping the pointers to the queues.
This scheduler is O(1) because it runs the first process it can run without scanning the entire queue as an O(n) scheduler would do. That's why it's O(1).
If you want a bit more information on it, search for the "Ingo scheduler" on Google or your other search engine of choice. I don't see any detailed explanations of what happens, but I suspect as the 2.6 kernel goes into wider use, those will come.
A similar project is constantly being discussed in Nevada - that is, the burying of nuclear waste in the Yucca mountains. It might be possible to build a structure to withstand earthquakes, as it's done all the time in California. But the surrounding rock really isn't protection from an earthquake. Another thing I can't help but notice is the description of the mountain. It's made of Granite, which is an igneous rock. That means at one point there was volcanic activity there to build the mountain up. It's entirely possible the potential for volcanic activity still exists. I doubt such a structure could withstand a volcano.
There is a freeware tool for signing applications that will run on the TI-83+. Unfortunately, no such tool exists to sign apps that will run on the TI-89/92+/V200. I believe the pricing scheme of $100 for three signings or $300 for ten signings on the TI-89/92+/V200 is still in effect.
Actually the reason for it is AMS 2.0x forbids the use of assembly language programs in expressions. It is quite useless for an assembly language program to attempt to return a value.
There are hacks which intercept this behavior of the AMS and allow assembly language programs to be in expressions and therefore return values. This is a stupid behavior of the AMS imposed by TI. AMS 1.0x imposed no such restrictions on the usage and behavior of assembly language programs.
So, my statement was quite correct.
Here is some documentation to support what I say here.
Yeah, it will, but there's already pressure on TI to improve their calculators. This came in the form of HP re-entering the graphing calculator market with several new calculators of their own including one which is far more powerful than any other calculator today. This isn't a concern for TI to make a better product, just because they don't charge for upgrades to the AMS (and aren't necessarily losing money if you switch away), because TI still produces the hardware, and because if you want the powerful math features of the TI-89 you still need to use the official AMS.
While a lot of effort is put into producing games, you can bet that if PedroM becomes popular among users that someone will take the time to write some math software for it, too. A lot of work has been done to extend the math functionality on the TI-83+ calculators, such as this application that can do symbolic differentiation and simplification on a calc that doesn't otherwise have this functionality. Just because there's not math software available for PedroM doesn't mean there won't be later. Give it time, this OS has only been released very recently.
With a lot of the new releases of the AMS (TI's operating system), TI has added new restrictions to what developers can do. For example, in AMS 2.03, assembly language programs are limited to 8k. In more recent versions, the limitation is 24k. There is no legitimate reason for this except trying to force developers to write Flash applications. This is significant because you have to pay TI to sign any applications you write if you expect them to run on any calculator. There are many other things that Flash applications can do that assembly language programs can't. These include support for language localization and adding commands to TI-BASIC. Another thing is assembly language programs cannot return values like ordinary functions can.
While many of these restrictions have been fixed through nasty hacks found by developers, some of them cannot be easily fixed if at all.
What's so bad about Flash applications? Because you have to pay TI to sign apps for the TI-89/TI-92+/V200. Most of us developers release our software for free. We don't have the money to pay TI to sign our software.
As of now, these are the biggest advantages of the new OS, besides the fact that you have much more archive memory.
Already, this new OS can make a game programmer's job a lot easier.
TI places a lot of restrictions on what assembly language programs can do. TI encourages programmers to make large software packages into Flash applications. Unfortunately, these applications must be digitally signed by TI. While a program to sign applications has been released as freeware for the TI-83+ calculators, no such signing program has been released for the TI-89/TI-92+/V200. A lot of developers simply don't have the money to buy signings from TI. It's $100 for three signings or $300 for ten signings. A lot of us developers release our software for free and don't want to spend this kind of money just to release our applications for free. Sure, we could charge for them, but most of us don't want to because we'd like free software to continue to dominate the TI community. Anyways, this sort of thing bypasses TI's restrictions on what assembly programs can do.
As someone who works at one of the large community sites about TI calculators, I'm in a position to comment on this.
:)
The OS attempts to be compatible in a lot of ways with the AMS (TI's OS for the 68k calcs) but it really isn't. A lot of the OS such as the math functionality is missing. A lot of assembly programs also rely on hacks to take advantage of the internals of the AMS. These won't work, also.
Another thing is that the majority of assembly programs now are written for AMS 2.0x, but this software only allows for assembly programs written for the old AMS 1.0x. It's somewhat compatible, but is lacking in a lot of ways, too.
The reasons that the compatibility is lacking are that we still haven't documented a lot of functions in the AMS and some features have intentionally been left out for the sake of using less Flash ROM and leaving more of it for the archives. In other places, some speed has been sacrificed for making the OS a lot smaller than the AMS.
It's an interesting project, but at this point, it's more of a proof-of-concept thing than a real replacement for the AMS software. The future of this project, hopefully, will include most of the functionality of the TI-89, including math, but will provide significant advantages over the AMS. For example, the AMS makes a lot of restrictions on the size of assembly language programs and what they can do. These restrictions are gone in PedroM. Also, as I understand, this OS is written in assembly instead of compiled from C like the AMS is. Hopefully this means we can implement the same functionality of the AMS but that runs faster and at a smaller size.
Good luck to PpHd. It's a good start.
Awhile back, someone made a visit to SCO, signed the NDA, and described their experience. If you read down far enough, the person reporting this inquired about the settlement between AT&T and BSD. SCO claims that parts of this agreement have gone unenforced. At this time, it was speculated by the author of the report that the various BSDs might be next in the line of fire. I suspect, unfortunately, that they might be right.
If this is the case, then all the talk about re-opening a case that closed nine years ago, and if the courts will permit it, isn't relevant. Instead, the case is about whether or not the BSDs are violating the agreement, instead of overturning or modifying the agreement.
Unfortunately, if parts of the agreement between AT&T and BSD haven't been enforced, then it's quite possible SCO could have a legitimate case. Some of the settlement reached is confidential, and as stated by the author, SCO declined to say what terms have not been enforced. So until SCO makes a bigger issue of it, there's really no way to speculate if SCO will win, or what the effect might be on the BSDs.
The article suggests that machines deal in text instead of through colorful GUI windows. This isn't true at all. The computer has no preference between user interfaces; it doesn't make a bit of difference to the machine.
Whether or not I'm adding a switch on the command line or checking a box in some GUI, I'm performing the exact same function - that is, toggling some flag/setting within the program. It's just a different representation. The article suggests that text is the language of computers. This is not true at all. The language of computers is a stream of octets that are interpreted as instructions by the processor. That is the only language the computer actually understands.
I can say for sure that I find the GUI very efficient at times. For example, I do some video editing and converting, and find myself using mencoder (a tool included with mplayer) rather often. There's a LOT of switches at the command line, and often I find myself spending several minutes browsing the manual page to find what switches I need set. And even then, sometimes I find myself turning to Google to find the information I need. I can't help but think that it could be done much more efficiently with a very basic graphical front-end. The CLI isn't always more efficient.
I know, there's many tasks that are better done from the command line. But to say that a user operating a GUI is further removed from the internals of the computer, is just incorrect. Whether or not I'm adding a switch on the command line or checking a box in a GUI, it generally has the same effect.
That's because they only issued a warning saying it was fictional at the beginning and the end of it. There were no warnings while it was playing, so of course people thought it was real.
The sunspot cycle (which takes 11 years) peaked in 2000, yet there's an unusually large amount of activity of late. There was a somewhat intense solar flare a few days ago, and now this one, which is believed to be the third-largest one on record. Are there any explanations for this large amount of activity at what should be a non-peak time?
The difference is that alcohol consumed in moderation isn't really permanently harmful. The effects are temporary, and once the alcohol is out of your body, things are okay. Alcohol is not the same as the illegal drugs we're talking about here. If alcohol is used responsibly, meaning you don't drink and drive, don't drink too much at one time, and you consume it in enough moderation to not become an alcoholic, it's not harmful. And the vast majority of people, I'd bet, consume alcohol responsibly.
When we come to illegal drugs, they are generally more addictive and have greater effects. For example, look at ecstasy. There's countless tales of someone trying it once and then dying from it. Methamphetamine is extremely dangerous, and so is the method of producing it. These are the kinds of drugs that you don't want legalized. And then you have stuff like herion and cocaine, too.
Do you really want this kind of stuff legalized so that anyone in the general public can get it? There are good reasons why these substances are either illegal or tightly controlled by the FDA. And it just isn't hallucinogenic drugs that are controlled substances. The FDA tightly regulates quite a long list of substances that extend far beyond the common illegal drugs.
I know, there's also the people who just want marijuana legalized and say that it's not harmful. While most teens don't actually use marijuana, I'd bet it's still the most common drug used among them. I can say I know quite a few who do smoke it quite often. It's addictive, just like any other drug. It causes a short buzz, but doesn't last that long, so many teens say it's harmless. The fact is, though, that using marijuana often can cause serious problems. One of these is depression. I wonder if the use of marijuana among teens is a factor in the relatively high suicide rate among teens. I don't know of any studies to say this, but it's plausible. Oh, and THC, the "active ingredient" in marijuana stays in the body for several days, and for heavy users, several weeks. It doesn't exit nearly as quickly as alcohol does.
Even marijuana is dangerous enough that it should be regulated.
If we legalize drugs, kids will find ways to get them, just like they can easily get cigarettes and alcohol.
Cigarettes, however, might be even more insidious than alcohol. They don't have the hallucinogenic effect, but nicotine is an addictive drug. They are quite dangerous and the serious health problems associated with smoking are proven and well documented. And yet, I bet most Slashdotters would defend their legality for one reason or another.
The point is that it's not clear cut what drugs should be banned and what shouldn't be. All of them, including alcohol and tobacco. are harmful. But we have to draw the line somewhere. Obviously people will complain about where the line is drawn, and it's somewhat arbitrary, but would things be better if we drew that line somewhere else and legalized worse drugs? Would it be better if we didn't draw the line at all and legalized even the worst of drugs?
Actually, I think Napster has an inherent advantage, that being name recognition. And I think the record companies would actually have an interest in making a deal with them. The reason behind this is they know they need to get into the business of distributing content online. They've been lagging behind in this. Making a deal with a big name like Napster would be a good deal for them.
Mozilla's answer to this patent is that it only mentions interprocess communication. Mozilla loads the plugin into the same memory space as the browser, as I understand it, so they believe they are outside the scope of the patent. Anyways, to answer your question, this issue has already been brought before the Mozilla developers and they've already addressed it for the time being.
The telemarketing companies complain that the DNC list will severely harm their profits. But with some simple and rather obvious reasoning, it's very easy to dispute this claim.
Consider this, if your number is on the DNC list, chances are you weren't likely to buy much from a telemarketer, anyways. What telemarketers assume is the 50 million numbers that are on the list would be every bit as likely to buy from them as the numbers not on the list. I think my scenario is more likely.
I tend to think the people that haven't signed up to the DNC list either aren't really annoyed by telemarketers or they find some of the products useful and would buy from a telemarketer. There's also the people who don't know of the DNC list, but I doubt that accounts for very many people.
So the real effect of this is the people who are willing to buy from the telemarketers are far less likely to sign up for the list.
It was a wise webmaster who said, in response to some clients blocking their banner ads, that he doesn't care. If they block the banner ads, they probably wouldn't click or buy, anyway. It saves him bandwidth.
Along the same lines as his argument, I'd argue that this actually makes telemarketing more efficient. You are more likely to sell your products to someone who would not sign up for the DNC list than to someone who would sign up for it.
Another thing that really annoys me about telemarketers is when they call, they usually show up on my caller ID as UNAVAILABLE. The problem is there are also legitimate callers who show up the same. I think it needs to be mandatory that those conducting phone calls for the purpose of commercial activity (solicited or otherwise) should be required to display their number and business/name on the recipient's caller ID. This means if you're calling someone to try to sell them a product, you can't call anonymously, either.
Even if the DNC list is overturned in court, my idea for requiring them to show their caller ID information is completely constitutional. And anyone who has a caller ID can simply not answer the phone if they don't wish to receive such calls.
Forgive me if I'm being idiotic about this, but relatively recently, the .museum TLD went live. It's just like any other TLD except that domains that don't exist diect you to a page saying the domain doesn't exist and with a couple of links. It's not very different than Verisign's SIteFinder, but there's little to no outcry over this. I'm curious because a lot of the objections about SiteFinder should also be true about the .museum TLD. What's different here?
I agree, there was very good lead time here. Us Slashdot readers, Microsoft, the US government, anti-virus coders, and many others knew and said it was only a matter of time before a worm exploited this hole. And now that it's happening, we shouldn't be surprised. We can get some of an indication of just how serious this worm will be, though, by watching tomorrow during the day and evening. It's already late Friday morning in some parts of Asia. We'll know much better the impact of this worm Friday evening, though, as it'll be Saturday in Europe. If anything particularly serious is going to happen, we'll definitely know it for sure.
And I'm on a Southwestern Bell DSL. Is it just me or are some ISPs now blocking port 135?
In my opinion, it's definitely a good thing that they are, if this is the case. And it appears to be.
This technology isn't as useful in meteorology as it might first seem. Knowing what happens on the ground is only part of the picture.
At least in severe weather, what's going on above the surface is very important. For example, it's important to know if there's wind shear. This is winds moving in significantly different directions or at different speeds at different levels, which leads to rotation. It's very important to severe storms. And it's also very important to know if there's any inversions, such as the cap. For those who don't know, the cap is a layer of warm stable air aloft. When warm rising air in an updraft hits a strong cap, it tends to stop rising, which kills thunderstorm development. If there's a moderate cap, some storms will break through, and if other ingredients are in place, storms can occur. Since the weaker storms can't break through the cap, the energy is saved for powerful ones. A moderate cap is particularly conducive to severe weather. If there's a weak cap or no cap, then the energy is used up quickly and not saved for the most powerful storms.
My point in all of this is knowing what's going on in the upper air is critical to forecasting, and this technology simply won't help you there.
I feel the need to point out to you that many people benefit from Ham radio. I'll probably get modded down for this, but I may as well burn some karma.
Many people appreciate the services provided by the National Weather Service. How many lives are saved by issuing severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings? While I don't know the answer, I'd be willing to bet it's a somewhat large number.
Do you know that the National Weather Service relies on storm spotters to provide them with information about severe weather? That's right, there's some things doppler radar just can't tell you. And do you know how much of that information gets from spotters to the NWS? That's right, it gets there by Ham radio.
And also, consider that many places just don't have internet connectivity. You don't think about it because you live in a wealthy country and you live a good life. But what about South America? What about Africa? What about Asia? It's much less expensive to build a Ham radio than it is to buy the parts for a computer.
Some radio signals reach to every corner of the planet, something the internet and broadband just won't do. It's not the most modern method of communication, but it's still one of the most useful and important.
And I won't even mention that Ham radio is often the first communication link to an area that's been hit by a disaster. Hams often help provide communications in the case of an emergency.
Hopefully you don't still think that only an elite few need or benefit from Ham radio. That's simply not true. In fact, complaining that it's so unfair that you won't have broadband over your powerlines because of Ham radio is far more elitist than any of the pro-Ham comments I've read so far.
Well, then you just use MNG if you need animation. And if you read the linked page, MNG is superior to animated GIFs in a number of ways, one of which is better compression. Another advantage to MNG is it's not necessarily tied to one image format. The individual images can be stored in either PNG or JPEG format.
Personally, I think it's a good thing to have several image formats available with wide support in all browsers. The reason for this is it allows developers to choose which format provides the best results for what they're doing. This means which ones look better and compress better for a certain image. It's definitely a good thing that the patent on GIF is expiring, but it's also a good thing to make sure that PNG doesn't go away, either.
There's nothing about what the outcome of re-evaluating the spectrum. It makes good sense to do so from time to time.
As an amateur radio hobbyist, though, I am hoping that this re-evaluation doesn't mean that we lose more of our frequencies to industry. We've already lost enough. I note that one of the uses of radio listed is national security. In times of disasters and emergencies, it's quite common for ham operators to assist in providing communications.
On the other hand, evaluating the rules to adapt them for the implementation of new technologies is probably a good thing.
I hope that this evaluation is done sensibly and what's best for consumers and amateur operators is taken into account in addition to what's right for industry and government.