...And quickly get sued for trademark infringement. The smart ones, the ones who opened Davidson's Wiggly Whizney, which sounds very little like "Disney", then start trumpeting all over the place that their copyright terms are forever, and pointing out how stupid it is of the legal system to do this. They will be promptly ignored.
Not even sure I can buy an mp3 encoder that will work under Linux, I might be wrong.
I don't know if you can buy an mp3 encoder that works under linux either---but I know you can download LAME, which will do the trick nicely. And yes, Flac support would be very nice.
That is a big bummer, but there is a part that I don't really understand: why did FMC turn him down? From Armadillo's news:
At the time, I also still thought it was going to be reasonably easy to deal with FMC once they realized we were a serious customer making >$100,000 orders.
Our Degussa sales rep was ready to sell to us, but once it went to their legal department, we hit the same wall as with FMC. We have made in-person visits to their corporate offices, and we are just finishing up a full presentation for FMC and Degussa about our company, our plans, and why it is in their best interest to sell us peroxide, but there is no firm list of actions that we can take that will guarantee a proper response from them.
Now, what is FMC doing turning down offers from solid customers who want to make orders in excess of $100000? Would it cost them an unacceptable amount to produce that much fuel if armadillo aerospace dropped the deal for some reason, or something like that?
Well, DUH! It brings you closer to your customers and lets you integrate solutions with legacy systems, with a lower TCO for a greater ROI!
I mean, everybody knows! It's in all those magazine advertisements! Plus, I hear it has lots of XML in it.
Re:A (hopefully) unbiased opinion on Perl v. Pytho
on
Python in a Nutshell
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· Score: 2
For python, I think that the tutorial was meant to be read (and, if you forget all that dictionaries and tuples can do, to be referred to), and the library reference is pretty good for quick reference.
plus 900-1000 more useless crap like scripting.. Who the hell needs to script anything in a WORD PROCESSOR??
Emacs developers do. I wrote a programming language a while back (it was complete shit), and I wrote a short simple emacs mode for editing the scripts. Scripting made this possible, and it didn't slow emacs down too much.
I do agree that games have a good excuse for their bloat. Operating systems don't, office productivity apps don't.
If the faster processors can run these programs with sufficient speed, and they can fit comfortably onto computers, then why worry too much about bloat? Sure, you should try using good algorithms and optimizing inner loops, but making the whole thing faster just doesn't matter much, so you can do things like garbage collection, scripting, and lots of other handy things.
Speaking as someone who has 128k internet at home, I can say with some authority that while it isn't nearly as fast as I would like it to be (Internet2 would be nice), it is one hell of a lot better than dialup access, even with a 56k "turbo" (as AOL once hilariously put it) modem.
I fold them all the time! Protein folding is a natural part of physiology, remember.
Perhaps there can be a market in cheap computers with older parts so that older chips don't go away too fast for more expensive ones. I think having bulk buyers (schools, businesses, etc.) would be good for a business like that.
There are some problems that seem to be able to soak up as much processor power as we can throw at them and still want more. Cryptography is a big drain on CPU, and as the CPU power goes up, so will the size of keys, and so will the power demands of cryptography. Simulations for various things seem mired in complexity; the more clock cycles you can spare for fluid dynamics calculations for that new space shuttle replacement that they've been thinking about, the better. Simulating protein folding takes a lot of time for even our fastest computers. Realtime raytracing would be great for games.
The people who made VisiCalc had to worry about fitting the program on tiny computers; people making spreadsheets now don't, and we can use lots of graphics, features, higher level languages, maybe embed python/tcl/scheme/whatever, and generally have a lot of fun. The VisiCalc programmers actually thought about how much memory the character screen would take.
use uberstrict; use all_warnings; use diagnostics_and_repair;
print ~"Hello, world!"~
A database access shouldn't be necessary (at least, not necessary for the programmer to do). I don't know if the ~"foo"~ would conflict with any other perl semantics, but what I mean for it to stand for is translation, however that would be accomplished.
I'd certainly agree that python should be called a hybrid language; it's as big a mixture of things as you're likely to find short of perl. And sure, C++ is partly OO but not fully. One thing though: python's syntax for lambdas is rather ugly. They don't have the capabilities of full-fledged functions, and that turns me off a bit. I really don't know what do do about it though. Until then, I'll just use lambdas, list comrehensions, and local functions.
For some more elaboration on the "day care for teens" position, here's an article that you may find interesting. (You may have seen it already; it was on slashdot a while back).
Hear hear. It sounds like a neat idea, and a great machine to be an idiot savant's idiot savant. But I don't think it will have as big an impact as the sensationalistic articles make it out to be. It's cool though.
I'm not a real computer scientist either, but I think that Von Neumann came up with the basic model of computers that we take for granted today. For example, a processor that accesses memory, and does instructions in a linear sequence, or something like that.
The implication is that we are approaching a transition to some seriously wacked out computer designs. I look forward to seing what these people are coming up with. DNA computers, for example, have a different model of computation.
I really had no idea that there were four of these Great Observatories, since the only one I've ever heard about is the Hubble telescope. Perhaps radio telescopes and other things outside of the visible spectrum don't sound as exciting.
I like the idea of space telescopes---but I also like the idea of better earth based telescopes, since I think that they're going to be the most practical until we get a space elevator or something. We can make stars stop shimmering with adaptive optics, and we can get the resolving power of a telescope with a mirror a mile wide with interferometry, which would be impractical to build in space. Long vacuum-filled pipes between telescopes and mirrors aligning the light waves to be in phase are, to me, just as exciting as a single "great observatory"; moreso, perhaps, since the interferometric observatories can be constructed more cheaply (and so it will be easier for astronomers to get time on them).
This "real diamonds vs. artificial diamonds" debate really annoys me. I'm sure this doesn't bother DeBeers, but it seems to me that if you need special equipment and/or highly trained people to tell the difference, then the difference is so small it doesn't matter. Screw DeBeers.
A funny thing is, Google isn't a portal. Yet it seems to be a better portal than Yahoo is. If you want to search, that's easy. If you want shopping, you can look at Froogle, which has the same sort of visually spare and usable interface that everybody likes about Google. If you want newsgroups, go to Google Groups. Then there's the image search, cache, et cetera.
I just don't see how Yahoo can compete.
Re:Mr Darwin, is that you?
on
Legacy-Free PCs
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· Score: 2, Informative
From the dictionary:
evolution n 1: a process in which something passes by degrees to a more advanced or mature stage; "the development of his ideas took many years"; "the evolution of Greek civilization"; "the slow development of her skill as a writer" [syn: development] 2: the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms [syn: phylogeny, phylogenesis]
Evolution is not just applicable to living things. Where do you think Darwin got the name?
In one of his books (I think it was called something like "Scratch and Claw Your Way to the Top"), Dave Barry gave "Commander Taco" as an example of a name of a low class restaurant. I think that may have something to do with it.
The movie was good, but the episodes have more variety. The movie, I think, tried to be serious and funny, but I find that it's nicer when one or the other prevails. Compare Jupiter Jazz to Cowboy Funk; in one you have some very serious stuff, in the other you have a hilarious cowboy named Andy.
What I'm saying is, see the movie. But if you want some real fun, see the series too.
Slashdot Mirror
...And quickly get sued for trademark infringement. The smart ones, the ones who opened Davidson's Wiggly Whizney, which sounds very little like "Disney", then start trumpeting all over the place that their copyright terms are forever, and pointing out how stupid it is of the legal system to do this. They will be promptly ignored.
I don't know if you can buy an mp3 encoder that works under linux either---but I know you can download LAME, which will do the trick nicely. And yes, Flac support would be very nice.
How odd, and how seemingly tailormade for the music industry. You pay for copyright violations, but you still don't get to commit them.
Screw the law, I say. If you pay, I'd say you have a moral right to rip/burn/share.
At the time, I also still thought it was going to be reasonably easy to deal with FMC once they realized we were a serious customer making >$100,000 orders.
Our Degussa sales rep was ready to sell to us, but once it went to their legal department, we hit the same wall as with FMC. We have made in-person visits to their corporate offices, and we are just finishing up a full presentation for FMC and Degussa about our company, our plans, and why it is in their best interest to sell us peroxide, but there is no firm list of actions that we can take that will guarantee a proper response from them.
Now, what is FMC doing turning down offers from solid customers who want to make orders in excess of $100000? Would it cost them an unacceptable amount to produce that much fuel if armadillo aerospace dropped the deal for some reason, or something like that?
Well, DUH! It brings you closer to your customers and lets you integrate solutions with legacy systems, with a lower TCO for a greater ROI!
I mean, everybody knows! It's in all those magazine advertisements! Plus, I hear it has lots of XML in it.
I just don't see the problem.
Emacs developers do. I wrote a programming language a while back (it was complete shit), and I wrote a short simple emacs mode for editing the scripts. Scripting made this possible, and it didn't slow emacs down too much.
I do agree that games have a good excuse for their bloat. Operating systems don't, office productivity apps don't.
If the faster processors can run these programs with sufficient speed, and they can fit comfortably onto computers, then why worry too much about bloat? Sure, you should try using good algorithms and optimizing inner loops, but making the whole thing faster just doesn't matter much, so you can do things like garbage collection, scripting, and lots of other handy things.
Speaking as someone who has 128k internet at home, I can say with some authority that while it isn't nearly as fast as I would like it to be (Internet2 would be nice), it is one hell of a lot better than dialup access, even with a 56k "turbo" (as AOL once hilariously put it) modem.
Now where's the profit in that? You'd need to charge money for your 3117 w4r3ZZ!!!
I fold them all the time! Protein folding is a natural part of physiology, remember.
Perhaps there can be a market in cheap computers with older parts so that older chips don't go away too fast for more expensive ones. I think having bulk buyers (schools, businesses, etc.) would be good for a business like that.
If you get the speed, programs will come.
The people who made VisiCalc had to worry about fitting the program on tiny computers; people making spreadsheets now don't, and we can use lots of graphics, features, higher level languages, maybe embed python/tcl/scheme/whatever, and generally have a lot of fun. The VisiCalc programmers actually thought about how much memory the character screen would take.
A database access shouldn't be necessary (at least, not necessary for the programmer to do). I don't know if the ~"foo"~ would conflict with any other perl semantics, but what I mean for it to stand for is translation, however that would be accomplished.
Remember, 100 years.
I'd certainly agree that python should be called a hybrid language; it's as big a mixture of things as you're likely to find short of perl. And sure, C++ is partly OO but not fully. One thing though: python's syntax for lambdas is rather ugly. They don't have the capabilities of full-fledged functions, and that turns me off a bit. I really don't know what do do about it though. Until then, I'll just use lambdas, list comrehensions, and local functions.
For some more elaboration on the "day care for teens" position, here's an article that you may find interesting. (You may have seen it already; it was on slashdot a while back).
Hear hear. It sounds like a neat idea, and a great machine to be an idiot savant's idiot savant. But I don't think it will have as big an impact as the sensationalistic articles make it out to be. It's cool though.
The implication is that we are approaching a transition to some seriously wacked out computer designs. I look forward to seing what these people are coming up with. DNA computers, for example, have a different model of computation.
I believe the idea here is that any use of the DMCA is a misuse/abuse. Semantically inclined people can argue over this one; I won't.
I like the idea of space telescopes---but I also like the idea of better earth based telescopes, since I think that they're going to be the most practical until we get a space elevator or something. We can make stars stop shimmering with adaptive optics, and we can get the resolving power of a telescope with a mirror a mile wide with interferometry, which would be impractical to build in space. Long vacuum-filled pipes between telescopes and mirrors aligning the light waves to be in phase are, to me, just as exciting as a single "great observatory"; moreso, perhaps, since the interferometric observatories can be constructed more cheaply (and so it will be easier for astronomers to get time on them).
This "real diamonds vs. artificial diamonds" debate really annoys me. I'm sure this doesn't bother DeBeers, but it seems to me that if you need special equipment and/or highly trained people to tell the difference, then the difference is so small it doesn't matter. Screw DeBeers.
I just don't see how Yahoo can compete.
evolution n 1: a process in which something passes by degrees to a more advanced or mature stage; "the development of his ideas took many years"; "the evolution of Greek civilization"; "the slow development of her skill as a writer" [syn: development] 2: the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms [syn: phylogeny, phylogenesis]
Evolution is not just applicable to living things. Where do you think Darwin got the name?
In one of his books (I think it was called something like "Scratch and Claw Your Way to the Top"), Dave Barry gave "Commander Taco" as an example of a name of a low class restaurant. I think that may have something to do with it.
What I'm saying is, see the movie. But if you want some real fun, see the series too.
Or did you mean the events on 9/11/2001?