And here we are again with another round of confusion over bits, bytes, baud, b and B.
The story itself says "bytes per second" while the slashdot header says "bps" and many posters say "baud". Since there is so little infomation in the yahoo story, it is very hard to tell who is confused, but obviously someone is wrong. Bits are not bytes and neither is a baud (although a baud _can_ be a bit/sec). Does anyone have anything closer to a primary source so we can sort this out?
I have to relate this short little story (which is nearly completely off topic) about modem speeds. A friend of mine, much more comptuer literate than I at the moment, who is soon to be working in silicon vally, once explained to me why I wasn't getting the full 28kB/s out of my 28.8kb/s modem: "Oh, there is just transmission overhead, you shouldn't use AOL." I swallowed that, we switched to enteract, and I imagined that my downloads got faster, not that they ever got as fast as I thought they should. Now, of course, we both know a lot better than that, but let it be a lesson to any of you who think that the average person pays attention to the difference between B and b.
Right... and that is why I am complaining. The article uses GB/sec and "gigabit per second" to mean the same thing, which is wrong and misleading. It should be GB and gigabyte OR Gb and gigabit (which is the more likely option).
b = bit B = byte
Slashdot articles routinly use these interchangably, leading to long discussion threads about whether the new hard drive (for instance) really has a capacity of 800GB or only 100GB (800Gb). This is a waste of everyone's time.
Ok, while I disagree with your point in general, I will concede that it is the meaning of a sentance that makes the most difference. However, a trailing adjective/adverb that modifies nothing is a problem anyone can be justified complaining about. This is why it bothers us when we see stories that have sentances that just
Re:why it dosn't work
on
Silicon Hell
·
· Score: 2
beacuse your an idiot and you didn't made the link realitive.
Should read:
Because you're an idiot and you didn't made the link absolute.
Not true. Do you remember those stupid "bunch of things, each move you have to take some, the last to take one loses" games?
If both players have full knowledge of the game, the first (or the second, depending on the exact rules) always wins.
Re:how to determine the perfect game of chess
on
Solving Chess?
·
· Score: 2
Too bad. However, if there were an infinite number of monkies, they would have no need for canabalism, since they would finish immediatly (or rather, the amount of time it takes a single monkey to type it perfectly from beginning to end).
I would like to see a derivation of this number. Could you please explain or link to one? (I just don't like accepting bare numbers as truth without any backing, I am not trying to be nasty here.)
While creating a program and system that could handle a perfect game of chess would also allow it to be the best chess player possible, I do not believe that quality of game play is the objective here. Since the goal is to _solve_ the game, that is, know every posible move and determine who wins when both sides are aware of these moves, reaching this goal is theoretically within reach for the game of chess. On the other hand, we cannot possibly hope to solve the game of Go in the near future, because it is so much more complex.
If the ultimate goal is to solve both games, chess should be the first to be tackled, _because_ it is easier. Sure, people shouldn't stop writing Go programs, but they also should realize that the goal of Go programs at this point in the history of computing is to play better, not to solve the game.
Well, because I don't feel very socially concious right now, I will choose to justify this with an answer.
beginning here I assume you are serious Please note that when I said you weren't insightful, this wasn't an insult, it simply meant that you didn't have any of those thoughts by yourself, i.e. "insight." You were, however, informative, but you only got one point for that. This is what happens when you give the average slashdotter the choice between two long words that start with 'i' and have the same effect to the score. Noting that you are not a native English speaker, I apologize for "maybe he is just dumb". Incidentally, I meant my post to read "Maybe he was trying to make a point about how the English use of the letters "ph" is stupid," hence ridiculing you and the English language equally, but I ommitted some words, oh well.
From here I assume that you may be joking Since my post included a complaint about space being wasted with "moderate this up" and "moderate this down" comments (moderators, morons that they are, can do their own job, goddammit), it's funny that you include just this in your reply.
backslashdot? I wonder if that is registered.../me does a quick check Nope, can't find backslashdot.org: Non-existent host/domain.
Darn.
What do you hope to gaim with this post anyway? If it is interesting, it doesn't matter if it is bleeding edge news, just sit back, learn and let learn.
ahh yes, that was funny. Especially because I am doing my physics homework right now.
Maybe he was trying to make a point about the English use of the letters "ph" and maybe he is just dumb, but he did get the stuff right.
On the other hand, reiterating information that can be found elsewhere with little difficulty is one of the key methods of karma whoring, so I don't think he really deserves credit.
On another hand somewhere, he got moderated up 3 times for "insightful" when he had no insight. Hey, moderation is stupid, it makes me post things like this that no one wants to read, but I think my sig should make that clear. So kudos to you for brightening my problem set tonight, but I won't tell the moderators to bump you up, because I hate it when people waste space to say that.
Yup, this post was definity off-topic. Heaven forbid that someone should reply to a troll asking how he can aviod seeing the troll without waiting for a discussion explicity meant for this kind of discussion. I mean, come on people!
Ok, Mr AC: The first thing you can do is set your threshold at 0, this will filter out most blatent trolls while letting most legit comments thru. Of course, your personal -1 is a testament to when this won't work, but hey, it is a start. The second thing you can do is to simply not read the comments and recognize that September isn't over and it isn't going to end anytime soon. (Huh?)
Um, I can't find any plutonium that emits He-3, maybe you ought to check a table before making such claims.
Also, there is no way that fusing He-3 gets you water and hyrogen. What it does get you (when you do He-3 + H-2) is a proton (i.e. a hyrdogen nucleus) which can be chemically burned to form water at the expense of your breathing oxygen. Not a good deal for long term space travel.
I highly doubt that He-3 + He-3 fusions gets you oxygen. If you think that it does, please show me a source.
I am not sure if you think that you can actually store antimatter inside buckyballs or not, so many pardons if I seem patronizing.
If you had an atom of, say, anti-He-4 inside a molecule of C60, the positron cloud of the He would very quickly interact with the electron cloud of the carbon atoms (i.e. before you can blink 4 electrons will have annihilated with 4 positrons). Additionally, I would guess that not long after that the bare anti-He nucleus would either be forcefully ejected or annihilated by a carbon nucleus. Not a very practical storage arrangement.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmmm, sarcasm, yes. Ouch.
while(buisness)coutchar(7);
What do you mean by "Three sizes cover everything"?
Note to story poster: The first two words of the headline are invisible unless highlighted in light mode due to the color tag.
<FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">Book Reviews</FONT>
Note to story poster: The first two words of the headline are invisible unless highlighted in light mode due to the color tag. (Netscape, Win98)
<FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">Book Reviews</FONT>
annoying...
Note to story poster: The first two words of the headline are invisible unless highlighted in light mode due to the color tag. (Netscape, Win98)
<FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">Book Reviews</FONT>
And here we are again with another round of confusion over bits, bytes, baud, b and B.
The story itself says "bytes per second" while the slashdot header says "bps" and many posters say "baud". Since there is so little infomation in the yahoo story, it is very hard to tell who is confused, but obviously someone is wrong. Bits are not bytes and neither is a baud (although a baud _can_ be a bit/sec). Does anyone have anything closer to a primary source so we can sort this out?
Is there anything that can be said about this that isn't utterly obvious? Happy troll watching!
I have to relate this short little story (which is nearly completely off topic) about modem speeds. A friend of mine, much more comptuer literate than I at the moment, who is soon to be working in silicon vally, once explained to me why I wasn't getting the full 28kB/s out of my 28.8kb/s modem: "Oh, there is just transmission overhead, you shouldn't use AOL." I swallowed that, we switched to enteract, and I imagined that my downloads got faster, not that they ever got as fast as I thought they should. Now, of course, we both know a lot better than that, but let it be a lesson to any of you who think that the average person pays attention to the difference between B and b.
Right... and that is why I am complaining. The article uses GB/sec and "gigabit per second" to mean the same thing, which is wrong and misleading. It should be GB and gigabyte OR Gb and gigabit (which is the more likely option).
b = bit
B = byte
Slashdot articles routinly use these interchangably, leading to long discussion threads about whether the new hard drive (for instance) really has a capacity of 800GB or only 100GB (800Gb). This is a waste of everyone's time.
Will you people STOP abbreviating gigabit as GB? PLEASE?? Everyone is going to immediatly think this wire is 8 times faster than it is.
Ok, while I disagree with your point in general, I will concede that it is the meaning of a sentance that makes the most difference. However, a trailing adjective/adverb that modifies nothing is a problem anyone can be justified complaining about. This is why it bothers us when we see stories that have sentances that just
beacuse your an idiot and you didn't made the link realitive.
Should read:
Because you're an idiot and you didn't made the link absolute.
Not true. Do you remember those stupid "bunch of things, each move you have to take some, the last to take one loses" games?
If both players have full knowledge of the game, the first (or the second, depending on the exact rules) always wins.
Too bad. However, if there were an infinite number of monkies, they would have no need for canabalism, since they would finish immediatly (or rather, the amount of time it takes a single monkey to type it perfectly from beginning to end).
I would like to see a derivation of this number. Could you please explain or link to one? (I just don't like accepting bare numbers as truth without any backing, I am not trying to be nasty here.)
Thanks.
While creating a program and system that could handle a perfect game of chess would also allow it to be the best chess player possible, I do not believe that quality of game play is the objective here. Since the goal is to _solve_ the game, that is, know every posible move and determine who wins when both sides are aware of these moves, reaching this goal is theoretically within reach for the game of chess. On the other hand, we cannot possibly hope to solve the game of Go in the near future, because it is so much more complex.
If the ultimate goal is to solve both games, chess should be the first to be tackled, _because_ it is easier. Sure, people shouldn't stop writing Go programs, but they also should realize that the goal of Go programs at this point in the history of computing is to play better, not to solve the game.
Well, because I don't feel very socially concious right now, I will choose to justify this with an answer.
beginning here I assume you are serious
Please note that when I said you weren't insightful, this wasn't an insult, it simply meant that you didn't have any of those thoughts by yourself, i.e. "insight." You were, however, informative, but you only got one point for that. This is what happens when you give the average slashdotter the choice between two long words that start with 'i' and have the same effect to the score.
Noting that you are not a native English speaker, I apologize for "maybe he is just dumb". Incidentally, I meant my post to read "Maybe he was trying to make a point about how the English use of the letters "ph" is stupid," hence ridiculing you and the English language equally, but I ommitted some words, oh well.
From here I assume that you may be joking
Since my post included a complaint about space being wasted with "moderate this up" and "moderate this down" comments (moderators, morons that they are, can do their own job, goddammit), it's funny that you include just this in your reply.
your?
backslashdot? I wonder if that is registered... /me does a quick check
Nope, can't find backslashdot.org: Non-existent host/domain.
Darn.
What do you hope to gaim with this post anyway? If it is interesting, it doesn't matter if it is bleeding edge news, just sit back, learn and let learn.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
ahh yes, that was funny. Especially because I am doing my physics homework right now.
Maybe he was trying to make a point about the English use of the letters "ph" and maybe he is just dumb, but he did get the stuff right.
On the other hand, reiterating information that can be found elsewhere with little difficulty is one of the key methods of karma whoring, so I don't think he really deserves credit.
On another hand somewhere, he got moderated up 3 times for "insightful" when he had no insight. Hey, moderation is stupid, it makes me post things like this that no one wants to read, but I think my sig should make that clear. So kudos to you for brightening my problem set tonight, but I won't tell the moderators to bump you up, because I hate it when people waste space to say that.
No.....
/. instead of doing my problem set?
The correct spelling is "Fist Prost"
But it's all Crappy Of Choices anyway.
Why am I posting on
Yup, this post was definity off-topic. Heaven forbid that someone should reply to a troll asking how he can aviod seeing the troll without waiting for a discussion explicity meant for this kind of discussion. I mean, come on people!
Ok, Mr AC: The first thing you can do is set your threshold at 0, this will filter out most blatent trolls while letting most legit comments thru. Of course, your personal -1 is a testament to when this won't work, but hey, it is a start. The second thing you can do is to simply not read the comments and recognize that September isn't over and it isn't going to end anytime soon. (Huh?)
Read "unlikely" as "impossible" and yes. At least in any sense useful for this discussion.
Um, I can't find any plutonium that emits He-3, maybe you ought to check a table before making such claims.
Also, there is no way that fusing He-3 gets you water and hyrogen. What it does get you (when you do He-3 + H-2) is a proton (i.e. a hyrdogen nucleus) which can be chemically burned to form water at the expense of your breathing oxygen. Not a good deal for long term space travel.
I highly doubt that He-3 + He-3 fusions gets you oxygen. If you think that it does, please show me a source.
I am not sure if you think that you can actually store antimatter inside buckyballs or not, so many pardons if I seem patronizing.
If you had an atom of, say, anti-He-4 inside a molecule of C60, the positron cloud of the He would very quickly interact with the electron cloud of the carbon atoms (i.e. before you can blink 4 electrons will have annihilated with 4 positrons). Additionally, I would guess that not long after that the bare anti-He nucleus would either be forcefully ejected or annihilated by a carbon nucleus. Not a very practical storage arrangement.