Find a big Excel spreadsheet and export it in CSV format. Or export a Visio document as an XML file. Or an SVG file. Then open up any of the above in Notepad, or try adding them to a "Compressed Folder."
Autocad files are important in manufacturing, sure. But database records and process documents are important nearly everywhere.
RTFA and/or get a sense of responsibility towards your clients/employers. Among other things, the article talks about how to keep the people from doing business with you from going under if you do.
That doesn't just apply to cancer, either. It applies to diseases like MS, and even simply going out of business.
I'd be inclined to argue that hardware development, from the early days of the PC on, has aimed at mitigating user incompetence.
The introduction of cache to hard drives and hard drive controllers combat head thrashing from using swap too much. The introduction of the Windows key on keyboards makes keyboard shortcuts easier to grasp. The optical mouse makes scraping gunk off little rollers in ball mice unnecessary.
If one takes these arguments to their entirety, each of the above introductions was aimed as a treatment for user incompetence. However, you and I would call them a convenience.
Frankly, I'd like a battery backup+cachedrive to stick between my motherboard and my hard drive. It would be like having a gigabyte drive cache that doesn't get lost when you lose power, but gets written to disk.
Not when an automated antivirus scan kicks in. Your useful throughput from your hard drive drops like a rock, and the system can become unresponsive for hundreds of milliseconds at a time.
That's easily enough to seriously screw up a high-intensity FPS game. When you can't even aim at that sniper you've been trading shots with, you're screwed.
There are many different causes of lag, from network congestion, to I/O limitations on the server and client side. (Ever had an antivirus program start a deep scan in the middle of a match?)
Right now, with the proliferation of antivirus and antispyware software, I could see something designed to alleviate I/O constrictions as being very beneficial to gamers. Perhaps a battery-backup+cachedrive device to chain between the hard disk and the I/O controller. If an application can request that its data be cached, you no longer have to worry about seek times in reading data off the drive. (You could conceivably reduce your RAM and VRAM requirements, too!)
The problem lies more in the protocol that the application uses. Does it allow for prediction, based on ping times? Does it transmit movement information on entities that the player can't see?
If you're going to mess with that datastream, you better be sure the server knows how to deal with the changes.
Well, they're technically counting defects. Most programmers I know would assume that the original coder meant "a==b", and change it. So it's considered bad style. Another possible example would be using strcpy() instead of strncpy(); the latter is more secure than the former.
Whether they counted elements of bad style as defects, I don't know. But they certainly couldn't have been looking at behavioral bugs with an automated source-checking system. That requires a user, or something very well-written posing as a user.
You glazed over an important point: My SSN is already already ties me to every financial institution I do business with. Not to mention the fact that my employers need it for their side of taxes. My mother's SSN is tied into my health insurance.
Identity theft isn't just about stealing someone's credit card, it's stealing the ability to sign up for credit cards in their name.
The guys who said the social security card was a bad idea were right, in a way. With the modern digital America, it's not the card that's the threat to personal privacy and security, it's the component that gives it power, the Social Security Number. Sure, the card can get stolen, lost or destroyed, but that doesn't preclude me from giving my social security number to a financial institution, so long as I have it memorized.
In the long run, though, the RFID implant isn't much different from a Social Security Card. If someone steals your card, they can use the number on it. If someone surrepticiously waves a reader over your hand, they can use the number.
Sure, having a remotely readable identifying device is a personal security threat. But the root security issue that needs to be addressed is in the information layer, not the physical layer. The number is the threat, not the device that stores it. Find an alternative to a simple, copyable number, and you'll have your solution. It's just like computer security measures...if it's something that can be stolen, its effectiveness as a security measure is limited. If it's something that can be copied, it's even more limited. SSNs are part of a system where your passkey can be copied.
The best solution, IMO, is to reduce the number of organizations that depend on the same passkey to identify the user. To start with, why don't we have every major financial institution implement its own ID system? I'm not necessarily talking about a photo ID for every bank, credit union and credit card network. A single smart card that stores any keys I choose would be sufficient.
Oh, and now that I've pointed out that possibility...nobody can go patent it.
You should take an introductory course in either persuasive speaking or persuasive writing.
Knowledge isn't useful when trying to be persuasive unless it can be cited. And citing a study for a quote is more reputable than citing, say, a Slashdot comment. ("But it was rated +5 Insightful!")
You wouldn't be surprised if you knew how many average users blame software for not running fast enough.
IME, the average user isn't knowledgable enough about their computer to know why their programs are running slow. They may have plenty of real-world common sense...but real-world common sense doesn't always translate well into the computer world.
And even once SATA is the default on low-end Dimensions, Presarios and Pavilions, most people won't run RAID.
Heck...Based on what I've seen in a free PC servicing clinic, I'd bet that more than a third of all American PC owners still use something older than Windows XP.
My interpretation of that section was that the DX9 standard would be supported by a separate codebase. I don't think that means DX 9 would be supported by that codebase.
Writable USB mass-storage devices aren't really hot-swappable on Windows or Linux. Both operating systems use filesystem caching to speed up operations on the devices. These caches have to be flushed, usually by unmounting the filesystems, before the device can be removed. So "Click here to safely remove F:" is a necessity either way.
As for speeds compared to hard disk drives, SATA offers a higher theoretical throughput than USB2.0, but the seek times associated with magnetic drives limits this to the point where I get similar performance when comparing my 250GB external drive and my internal 80GB one. Flash memory devices virtually eliminate seek time issues, though. I get better performance with a key fob than I do with a local magnetic drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Not ASCII-Art, ASCII-based file formats.
Find a big Excel spreadsheet and export it in CSV format. Or export a Visio document as an XML file. Or an SVG file. Then open up any of the above in Notepad, or try adding them to a "Compressed Folder."
Autocad files are important in manufacturing, sure. But database records and process documents are important nearly everywhere.
And Floppy disks weren't a security threat?
Seriously, except for images, it's not difficult to fit a *ton* of data on a floppy disk. Just export to an ASCII-based file format, then zip it up.
Some other formats compress pretty well. Access databases, for example.
On Windows, maybe. But what about Linux? And what are the license restrictions for including the exported EXE with other applications?
Some of us are oblivious. Not all of us. Years of practice, starting in high school, allow me to read facial expressions even normal people miss.
Of course, I can't tell if you're joking or not...
The Colbert Report is still on...
RTFA and/or get a sense of responsibility towards your clients/employers. Among other things, the article talks about how to keep the people from doing business with you from going under if you do.
That doesn't just apply to cancer, either. It applies to diseases like MS, and even simply going out of business.
I'd be inclined to argue that hardware development, from the early days of the PC on, has aimed at mitigating user incompetence.
The introduction of cache to hard drives and hard drive controllers combat head thrashing from using swap too much. The introduction of the Windows key on keyboards makes keyboard shortcuts easier to grasp. The optical mouse makes scraping gunk off little rollers in ball mice unnecessary.
If one takes these arguments to their entirety, each of the above introductions was aimed as a treatment for user incompetence. However, you and I would call them a convenience.
Frankly, I'd like a battery backup+cachedrive to stick between my motherboard and my hard drive. It would be like having a gigabyte drive cache that doesn't get lost when you lose power, but gets written to disk.
Even if the PHB understands it, he'll have to defend his decision from every other PHB who hears the argument and doesn't understand it.
The SFLC wrote the paper titled "No Special Risk" ... Wasabi Systems alleged SO violations.
And no surprise...they advertise BSD-based products on their front page. (Not dissing Any of the BSDs, they're cool, IMO.)
OK...so you're smarter than the average gamer. And believe me, I know plenty of "average" gamers.
They don't measure up to the Slashdot norm for technical competence.
Not when an automated antivirus scan kicks in. Your useful throughput from your hard drive drops like a rock, and the system can become unresponsive for hundreds of milliseconds at a time.
That's easily enough to seriously screw up a high-intensity FPS game. When you can't even aim at that sniper you've been trading shots with, you're screwed.
There are many different causes of lag, from network congestion, to I/O limitations on the server and client side. (Ever had an antivirus program start a deep scan in the middle of a match?)
Right now, with the proliferation of antivirus and antispyware software, I could see something designed to alleviate I/O constrictions as being very beneficial to gamers. Perhaps a battery-backup+cachedrive device to chain between the hard disk and the I/O controller. If an application can request that its data be cached, you no longer have to worry about seek times in reading data off the drive. (You could conceivably reduce your RAM and VRAM requirements, too!)
The problem lies more in the protocol that the application uses. Does it allow for prediction, based on ping times? Does it transmit movement information on entities that the player can't see?
If you're going to mess with that datastream, you better be sure the server knows how to deal with the changes.
Well, they're technically counting defects. Most programmers I know would assume that the original coder meant "a==b", and change it. So it's considered bad style. Another possible example would be using strcpy() instead of strncpy(); the latter is more secure than the former.
Whether they counted elements of bad style as defects, I don't know. But they certainly couldn't have been looking at behavioral bugs with an automated source-checking system. That requires a user, or something very well-written posing as a user.
How do you fix a bug of ambiguity? Consider this line of code.
if (a = b) {func()};
Was the purpose to compare a to b, and call func() if true? Or was it to set a to b, and call func() if b was true?
OK, so I skimmed the article. But I didn't see anything in it detailing the new processors. Just drivel about competition and finances.
The geek in me wants more...
Invite-only. So it's no longer "Public".
Thanks, Google...
You glazed over an important point: My SSN is already already ties me to every financial institution I do business with. Not to mention the fact that my employers need it for their side of taxes. My mother's SSN is tied into my health insurance.
Identity theft isn't just about stealing someone's credit card, it's stealing the ability to sign up for credit cards in their name.
The guys who said the social security card was a bad idea were right, in a way. With the modern digital America, it's not the card that's the threat to personal privacy and security, it's the component that gives it power, the Social Security Number. Sure, the card can get stolen, lost or destroyed, but that doesn't preclude me from giving my social security number to a financial institution, so long as I have it memorized.
In the long run, though, the RFID implant isn't much different from a Social Security Card. If someone steals your card, they can use the number on it. If someone surrepticiously waves a reader over your hand, they can use the number.
Sure, having a remotely readable identifying device is a personal security threat. But the root security issue that needs to be addressed is in the information layer, not the physical layer. The number is the threat, not the device that stores it. Find an alternative to a simple, copyable number, and you'll have your solution. It's just like computer security measures...if it's something that can be stolen, its effectiveness as a security measure is limited. If it's something that can be copied, it's even more limited. SSNs are part of a system where your passkey can be copied.
The best solution, IMO, is to reduce the number of organizations that depend on the same passkey to identify the user. To start with, why don't we have every major financial institution implement its own ID system? I'm not necessarily talking about a photo ID for every bank, credit union and credit card network. A single smart card that stores any keys I choose would be sufficient.
Oh, and now that I've pointed out that possibility...nobody can go patent it.
You should take an introductory course in either persuasive speaking or persuasive writing.
Knowledge isn't useful when trying to be persuasive unless it can be cited. And citing a study for a quote is more reputable than citing, say, a Slashdot comment. ("But it was rated +5 Insightful!")
Ever since I got my first 386 in the early 90s, all my computers have had switched-mode power supplies.
Are you sure you're not thinking of the IBM PC, instead of the more modern PC compatible?
You wouldn't be surprised if you knew how many average users blame software for not running fast enough.
IME, the average user isn't knowledgable enough about their computer to know why their programs are running slow. They may have plenty of real-world common sense...but real-world common sense doesn't always translate well into the computer world.
Most people don't have SATA...
And even once SATA is the default on low-end Dimensions, Presarios and Pavilions, most people won't run RAID.
Heck...Based on what I've seen in a free PC servicing clinic, I'd bet that more than a third of all American PC owners still use something older than Windows XP.
You sure?
My interpretation of that section was that the DX9 standard would be supported by a separate codebase. I don't think that means DX 9 would be supported by that codebase.
DX10 will use much faster dynamic link libraries (DLLs), and won't incorporate older versions of DirectX, as is done today.
Well, I guess we'll see a port of WINE and/or WINE derivatives to Windows, for those old games like Total Annihilation. Who'da thunk it?
Writable USB mass-storage devices aren't really hot-swappable on Windows or Linux. Both operating systems use filesystem caching to speed up operations on the devices. These caches have to be flushed, usually by unmounting the filesystems, before the device can be removed. So "Click here to safely remove F:" is a necessity either way.
As for speeds compared to hard disk drives, SATA offers a higher theoretical throughput than USB2.0, but the seek times associated with magnetic drives limits this to the point where I get similar performance when comparing my 250GB external drive and my internal 80GB one. Flash memory devices virtually eliminate seek time issues, though. I get better performance with a key fob than I do with a local magnetic drive.