Given enough time, you'll only be able to aproximate pi. That is, it'll never be any closer to the actual pi than just saying "pi". It's not very usefull though. Given infinite would you be able to compute pi? That's just a definition for saying what you already said "i can always get closer to the real pi, but never reach IN time".
Actually, since you can always find a number which is smaller that any other number, there must exist only exist one number that is smalled than every other number (talking about reals).
If such number did not exist, then it would not be the smallest number, so another number must take his place. The smallest number thus must exist and can only be defined as an idea, but not any particular number.
But in any case, we can't compute the number because when we talk about reals, we are defining an infinite set, so of course you will never be able to compute the numbers of the set. So it all boils down to our axioms when we define the rules which we use. And supposedly, we use these systems for mirroring something that actually happens in our universe. And infinity is something we are not made of.
I could think of infinite sets of axioms that would entail infinite teorems infinitely uncomputable "whatevers".
I am 90% sure what I say makes no sense to you or is blatanly wrong, but it may have to do with another problem which is axioms theory (tough it's a relatively old field).
From a neofite I could tell you you don't need to be an expert to know that a compression algorithm is any ruleset that, given a source data, can bring back the original uncompressed version of the compressed data.
Thus, just descrining how to calculate pi up to any number of predefined precision is as valid as any other algorithm for compressing whatever other data you might find. It will only work for PI, and fail miserably for other data, but that's a different story all together.
The fact is PI can anly be understood in a compressed manner. You can NEVER operate on the uncompressed version of PI, unless you live in a infinite time-space world which, unluckly, is not our universe.
So, yes, PI can be used because we know it's compressed version. Even more, we only know how to calculate PI and what is PI, but we'll probably never know the uncompressed version of PI.
Pi would not compress at all, given it's an infinitely long number.
Thus, reproducing the original only takes an infinite number of known operations. Gratend, you can't compress pi. Or you can say you can, but what you can never do is see finish uncompressing it in finite time.
This brings us back to patterns or celular automata or the like. Can complexity arise from patterns? I mean, does pattern X originate from a finite set of rules, or is just noise?
You can't really compress white (for example) noise, but you can compress pi. In fact, the math we know is already that, a compression mechanism that encapsulates the actual irrational number, though everybody knows how to turn Pi into a supposedly infinite string of decimals.
What really matters is what chipset would the OEM have used if this cheapo chipset wasn't arround. If the OEM are the really cheap ones, they will probably use this to replace the old savage chipsets and the likes. If it's a "second-cheapest" OEM they will probably be using ATI bottom line chipsets.
So, people buying the cheapest motherboards on earth are benefiting. And that includes many of my friends or people I know.
Yes, they can try to buy a separate ATI card, or go for a better motherboard with more decent card, but at least you have a basic right there in your cheapo initial buy. If you never make it to buy the radeon 9500, then at least you have something (that is in fact faster than ANY card of two years ago).
I mean, people that buy latest-greatest are paying $300 for the privilege of running the cards the rest of the world have two years ahead (Not saying it's not worth, but time is the key here, not crap/cool). At some point I payed extra to have it BEFORE (couldn't wait, Voodoo could really do things no other could do) but I do not feel so pressed now. So welcome back Trident!
Re:There is third-party software that does work...
on
IDE RAID Examined
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· Score: 2
Looks more convenient i'd say:)... but once you learn dd, it becomes your bitch forever. That's what I like under Linux, once you master more and more utils, they generaly stay there and are always updated and refined.
But under Windows you can get things done faster (only that you always need to find utils and lack the proper knoledge which the app encapsulates).
I'd say for are fairly good solutions. Depends on tastes and lon term value you are seeking.
I run a server and have been lucky enough not to have to upgrade anything except SSL. It's fairly stable, and requirement because I live far away from our server.
In my laptop, I use Linux mostly (99,9%). I like the fact that it never crashes, but the mosre important thing I like is nobody is forcing me to upgrade in any way. I am not afraid of command line utils, and find them very usefull.
I am a happy user. The conversion was painfull (effort needed) but rewarding. I can use VNC to access my sisters Windows desktop (she needs autocad), or access GUI apps on my server as well as local apps. There is nothing that makes me want to use Windows as a desktop. I want to use some Windows applications and like some Windows features, but the Linux advantages far outweight it.
I mean, don't just use or try Linux because it's cheaper. Use it because it's better, more flexible and you learn things that will not change with the next forced upgrade. I mean, have you invested in learning Visual Basic? Or Office macro (which version of the macros?). All that knoledge will go to the sink now. You are much better off knowing Windows (but not the propietary stuff that may change any second) and the rest of the open standard (real programming languages, real generic porpuse scripting language, etc.)
All in all, why should my desktop be controlled by Windows? It's not even a multiuser OS in a desktop sense! That means you lock one PC for one user at a time (try having multiple remote desktops for multiple users at the same time under windows, you can't except with Citrix or other hacks).
The end user who will keep Star Office is the one who would've pirated MS Office. In short, SUN loses no money and Microsoft loses market share (adoption).
Corporate clients? Star Office will be deleted faster than you can say, "Do we REALLY need to pay for a similar office suit?!"
Joe Blow who will use Star Office will make a difference. When you go to work, you use what they tell you to use, and you like it, or start looking for another job. Joe Blow certainly won't be in any position to tell the IT staff what office suite everyone should be using.
As for the suits, no one ever got fired saving them money, eh? Not to mention the fact that MS Office kicks the living shit out of all pockets. In a sea of their crap, Office is the one thing that Microsoft made into a profit jewel.
The second prong to combat the hordes of rival office suites would be for Microsoft to simply slash the price of MS Office.
They can't, and they want. If they are selling it at that price it's because it maximizes their revenues. If they lower it, how much more office sales do you think they will add to they already high 95% market share?
Do the math. For example, suppose a price drop of 30% gets them a 2% increase in sales:
That's called price elasticity, and at 95% market share they'd even be better of rising the Office prices even if losing more market share.
NOW, what the monopolist wants to do is price discrimination. That is, harvest the demand curve. If you can pay $1000 per office, we'll try to charge you that. If you can pay $100 (student?) we'll charge you that. If you can't or will not pay us (usually home users) then "pirate it", and we'll look the other way arround. We'll charge you when you are ready and we make sure NO money goes to our competitors (this last only works for 0 marginal cost products, like software).
It really is pretty easy, if you don't let them do price discrimination and disallow the practice of "looking the other way arround" when their products are pirated, then competition is restored.
The trial makes it hard for them to do price discrimination. We only need them to enforce the payment on ALL users, not just big companies or people willing to pay whatever is they max revenue price.
The day you load up windows and there is NO way you can run Office without paying $300 you will start looking at SO as a real blessing.
No, the problem is WHO accesses that information based on WHAT CRITERIA. "Total information awareness" for whom? I agree we need that, but in a fair way. For instance, a good place to start in making all income statements and finantial information about everyone publicly available. No more undisclosed owners. Everyone should be able to tell exactly who owns what, and who that "what" owns in a serial chain.
Until then, it's just "Total information control" from some bozos that may use it for whatever means they feel like in addition than national security.
The real truth of all this my naive friend is that terrorist will easily hide themselves while every mayor mom and dad and little company X or Y will be disclosing all their information to "the goverment" (and we do know these don't run the US) while the terrorist keep all their security glad thanking the US laws for giving americans a false sense of security.
Terrorist only need to use a one time pad to pass a message and our goverment can't do anything to stop them.
At $200 you reach 80% of the population every two months or so. With $1000 you reach 10% every 6 months or so.
I mean, no matter how good your product may be, if it's not fighting in the $200 and under price tag, most people will not be able to afford it. Even if 10000^10000 times faster, it's still innacesible.
Of course, up until now these people could only get a used PC, or they had to make a mayor effort or do with less computers that they wanted or have a friend that custom built them one as cheap as possible.
The $200 lines opens up a huge market. "Hey, I have $200, why not buy this new PC?".
Re:Can you recommend some software to me?
on
IDE RAID Examined
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· Score: 2
Now that I think about it, parted doesn't want to touch NT partitions:( (though it may copy them if he wanted to, he can't be sure they will be bootable, so they don't allow that. I am not sure). But take a look at, it may be still be usefull:
You could always use dd and operate on the raw devices (both hdds accessed as raw block devices, unmounted of course).
Re:Windows XP will not copy the registry file.
on
IDE RAID Examined
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· Score: 2
I think that since you are copying partitions there is no problem at all. You are NOT copying individual files, you are not even accessing the filesystem so it doesn't matter if it's NTFS5, 6 or 9.
Re:Drive reliability/backups are major factors
on
IDE RAID Examined
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· Score: 2
Are you sure it was not a power suplly problem? Some times it happens that some power supplies cannot deliver enough power for the spinup of all disks at startup. And that depends on the HD brands also.
When you tries plugging them directly to the motherboard, did you try having all of them plugged at the same time?
Re:Promise controllers are quirky.
on
IDE RAID Examined
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· Score: 2
Why no use a Linux floppy distro for that? You boot from the floppy, and just copy the partitions over with parted or something like that.
Do you _need_ to boot from CD as a requirement? I am sure you know, but you could load from floppy or loadlin and even if loadlin doesn't work, you could install an older version (Win98?) of Windows and load it from there. In this extreme case, you could initially use the same partition you'd use for Linux for the Win98 install, and go on from there.
I assume you are posting from Lynx or some other terminal. Anyway, fixed rows and columns of text are not intrisically better than any other interface.
A GUI is sometimes unavoidable. Sometimes you need the extra flexibility (ie: to be able to put arbitrary dots on the screen as opposed to having to pick them up in Tetris Like fashion from the character set (pallete?).
GUI and Terminal are complementary (for example, I am better of having 6 terms under a GUI system than having only 1 terminal at a time).
How many Linux distros offer you support on your early 2.0 kernel?
Mhhh....all of them? They wont prevent you from intalling any new kernel, utils or apps. You don't even need a distro, you you hteoretically (and practically) keep updating your 1.0 system up to a 2.6 without a fresh reinstall (if you know what you are doing).
But under Linux, the question is NOT how much longer can you keep running the stupidly old versions of everything, but that the NEW versions are free. So you just stay up to date for free.
On the other hand, if you used for example Windows 98, and you now need to develop for.NET well, you just HAVE to upgrade your OS (and pay the money).
The article assumes you never have to move to a new Windows version. That is not true, you HAVE to, as well as with Linux. The only difference is Windows costs. And since they didn't include them then the figures are all incorrect.
In Brief: you COULD run Win98 for 6 years, but if you NEED to upgrade it costs. Not upgrading is saving the extra bucks of the next Windows but the OS you are using is a piece of crap. In the Linux case, you just use the latest greatest whenever you feel like at no additional cost.
I don't understand. Taxis charge for the travel, and if both parties agree to listen to a radio station, why do you have to pay anything besides the hearing of the ads?
I mean, if both parties used Headsets, should they have to pay?
This confirms me that sufficently advanced capitalisms are just systems to assign and protect the pie to whoever happens to be able to buy more law.
Whah, I don't care, if their citizens tolerate this crap then it's fine for me.
A friend of mine reinstalled our collocated US server from Argentina. That is, he downloaded de specs, built a slackware server cloning all the functionality that we where using, and then partitioned a disk, uploaded the new server version, changed lilo so as to boot the new partition and rebooted (with a lot a failbacks in case something did not work out right).
The computer rebooted fine, and we where very happy. If we didn't have this capabilitie, we'd have to buy a second server because we could not afford either to stay down more than 10 nor to buy a new server.
The server is still up, we didn't need to reboot yet since march. I wish we could afford a second backup server, but i was kind of miraculous to remote install a new server 100% remotely without any assistance.:-p
That's correct. The fall on the empire, but it bleed for centuries after it happened. I know you know, but I think that's what Foundation looks in the first books, a side losing grip and another very slowly emerging.
I don't remember well clearly, I read about this a school (12 years ago or so):)
Psychohistory was mostly deterministic. This is a look and tell solution, a stochastic solution if want to see it that way. They can't predictanything one year ahead, so no, not even close to psychohistory.
Slashdot Mirror
"given enough time"
Given enough time, you'll only be able to aproximate pi. That is, it'll never be any closer to the actual pi than just saying "pi". It's not very usefull though. Given infinite would you be able to compute pi? That's just a definition for saying what you already said "i can always get closer to the real pi, but never reach IN time".
Actually, since you can always find a number which is smaller that any other number, there must exist only exist one number that is smalled than every other number (talking about reals).
If such number did not exist, then it would not be the smallest number, so another number must take his place. The smallest number thus must exist and can only be defined as an idea, but not any particular number.
But in any case, we can't compute the number because when we talk about reals, we are defining an infinite set, so of course you will never be able to compute the numbers of the set. So it all boils down to our axioms when we define the rules which we use. And supposedly, we use these systems for mirroring something that actually happens in our universe. And infinity is something we are not made of.
I could think of infinite sets of axioms that would entail infinite teorems infinitely uncomputable "whatevers".
I am 90% sure what I say makes no sense to you or is blatanly wrong, but it may have to do with another problem which is axioms theory (tough it's a relatively old field).
From a neofite I could tell you you don't need to be an expert to know that a compression algorithm is any ruleset that, given a source data, can bring back the original uncompressed version of the compressed data.
Thus, just descrining how to calculate pi up to any number of predefined precision is as valid as any other algorithm for compressing whatever other data you might find. It will only work for PI, and fail miserably for other data, but that's a different story all together.
The fact is PI can anly be understood in a compressed manner. You can NEVER operate on the uncompressed version of PI, unless you live in a infinite time-space world which, unluckly, is not our universe.
So, yes, PI can be used because we know it's compressed version. Even more, we only know how to calculate PI and what is PI, but we'll probably never know the uncompressed version of PI.
Pi would not compress at all, given it's an infinitely long number.
Thus, reproducing the original only takes an infinite number of known operations. Gratend, you can't compress pi. Or you can say you can, but what you can never do is see finish uncompressing it in finite time.
This brings us back to patterns or celular automata or the like. Can complexity arise from patterns? I mean, does pattern X originate from a finite set of rules, or is just noise?
You can't really compress white (for example) noise, but you can compress pi. In fact, the math we know is already that, a compression mechanism that encapsulates the actual irrational number, though everybody knows how to turn Pi into a supposedly infinite string of decimals.
Mh, what do you mean? It can't stop, all it can do is start to repeat a pattern (whatever the pattern is, it is everything except ramdomness).
There's this BeforeEffect program where as some customer walk to the meeting room at your company and he takes a peak as to what you are using.
.o0(NO MACS? MH..I DON'T LIKE THIS)
GUY (thinking)
Only 100 customers? Must be really big companies :-)
What really matters is what chipset would the OEM have used if this cheapo chipset wasn't arround. If the OEM are the really cheap ones, they will probably use this to replace the old savage chipsets and the likes. If it's a "second-cheapest" OEM they will probably be using ATI bottom line chipsets.
So, people buying the cheapest motherboards on earth are benefiting. And that includes many of my friends or people I know.
Yes, they can try to buy a separate ATI card, or go for a better motherboard with more decent card, but at least you have a basic right there in your cheapo initial buy. If you never make it to buy the radeon 9500, then at least you have something (that is in fact faster than ANY card of two years ago).
I mean, people that buy latest-greatest are paying $300 for the privilege of running the cards the rest of the world have two years ahead (Not saying it's not worth, but time is the key here, not crap/cool). At some point I payed extra to have it BEFORE (couldn't wait, Voodoo could really do things no other could do) but I do not feel so pressed now. So welcome back Trident!
Looks more convenient i'd say :) ... but once you learn dd, it becomes your bitch forever. That's what I like under Linux, once you master more and more utils, they generaly stay there and are always updated and refined.
But under Windows you can get things done faster (only that you always need to find utils and lack the proper knoledge which the app encapsulates).
I'd say for are fairly good solutions. Depends on tastes and lon term value you are seeking.
I run a server and have been lucky enough not to have to upgrade anything except SSL. It's fairly stable, and requirement because I live far away from our server.
root@core:~# uptime
6:29pm up 267 days, 22:54, 1 user, load average: 2.78, 2.18, 1.68
root@core:~#
In my laptop, I use Linux mostly (99,9%). I like the fact that it never crashes, but the mosre important thing I like is nobody is forcing me to upgrade in any way. I am not afraid of command line utils, and find them very usefull.
I am a happy user. The conversion was painfull (effort needed) but rewarding. I can use VNC to access my sisters Windows desktop (she needs autocad), or access GUI apps on my server as well as local apps. There is nothing that makes me want to use Windows as a desktop. I want to use some Windows applications and like some Windows features, but the Linux advantages far outweight it.
I mean, don't just use or try Linux because it's cheaper. Use it because it's better, more flexible and you learn things that will not change with the next forced upgrade. I mean, have you invested in learning Visual Basic? Or Office macro (which version of the macros?). All that knoledge will go to the sink now. You are much better off knowing Windows (but not the propietary stuff that may change any second) and the rest of the open standard (real programming languages, real generic porpuse scripting language, etc.)
All in all, why should my desktop be controlled by Windows? It's not even a multiuser OS in a desktop sense! That means you lock one PC for one user at a time (try having multiple remote desktops for multiple users at the same time under windows, you can't except with Citrix or other hacks).
The end user who will keep Star Office is the one who would've pirated MS Office. In short, SUN loses no money and Microsoft loses market share (adoption).
Corporate clients? Star Office will be deleted faster than you can say, "Do we REALLY need to pay for a similar office suit?!"
Joe Blow who will use Star Office will make a difference. When you go to work, you use what they tell you to use, and you like it, or start looking for another job. Joe Blow certainly won't be in any position to tell the IT staff what office suite everyone should be using.
As for the suits, no one ever got fired saving them money, eh? Not to mention the fact that MS Office kicks the living shit out of all pockets. In a sea of their crap, Office is the one thing that Microsoft made into a profit jewel.
The second prong to combat the hordes of rival office suites would be for Microsoft to simply slash the price of MS Office.
They can't, and they want. If they are selling it at that price it's because it maximizes their revenues. If they lower it, how much more office sales do you think they will add to they already high 95% market share?
Do the math. For example, suppose a price drop of 30% gets them a 2% increase in sales:
Added revenue: 2% * (100%-30%) * old_office_sales
Lost revenue: (100%-30%) * old_office_sales
That's called price elasticity, and at 95% market share they'd even be better of rising the Office prices even if losing more market share.
NOW, what the monopolist wants to do is price discrimination. That is, harvest the demand curve. If you can pay $1000 per office, we'll try to charge you that. If you can pay $100 (student?) we'll charge you that. If you can't or will not pay us (usually home users) then "pirate it", and we'll look the other way arround. We'll charge you when you are ready and we make sure NO money goes to our competitors (this last only works for 0 marginal cost products, like software).
It really is pretty easy, if you don't let them do price discrimination and disallow the practice of "looking the other way arround" when their products are pirated, then competition is restored.
The trial makes it hard for them to do price discrimination. We only need them to enforce the payment on ALL users, not just big companies or people willing to pay whatever is they max revenue price.
The day you load up windows and there is NO way you can run Office without paying $300 you will start looking at SO as a real blessing.
No, the problem is WHO accesses that information based on WHAT CRITERIA. "Total information awareness" for whom? I agree we need that, but in a fair way. For instance, a good place to start in making all income statements and finantial information about everyone publicly available. No more undisclosed owners. Everyone should be able to tell exactly who owns what, and who that "what" owns in a serial chain.
Until then, it's just "Total information control" from some bozos that may use it for whatever means they feel like in addition than national security.
The real truth of all this my naive friend is that terrorist will easily hide themselves while every mayor mom and dad and little company X or Y will be disclosing all their information to "the goverment" (and we do know these don't run the US) while the terrorist keep all their security glad thanking the US laws for giving americans a false sense of security.
Terrorist only need to use a one time pad to pass a message and our goverment can't do anything to stop them.
At $200 you reach 80% of the population every two months or so. With $1000 you reach 10% every 6 months or so.
I mean, no matter how good your product may be, if it's not fighting in the $200 and under price tag, most people will not be able to afford it. Even if 10000^10000 times faster, it's still innacesible.
Of course, up until now these people could only get a used PC, or they had to make a mayor effort or do with less computers that they wanted or have a friend that custom built them one as cheap as possible.
The $200 lines opens up a huge market. "Hey, I have $200, why not buy this new PC?".
Now that I think about it, parted doesn't want to touch NT partitions :( (though it may copy them if he wanted to, he can't be sure they will be bootable, so they don't allow that. I am not sure). But take a look at, it may be still be usefull:
g nu.org/manual/parted-1.6.1/html_mono/p arted.html1 /html_mono/p arted.html#SEC71
http://www.gnu.org/software/parted
http://www.
http://www.gnu.org/manual/parted-1.6.
You could always use dd and operate on the raw devices (both hdds accessed as raw block devices, unmounted of course).
I think that since you are copying partitions there is no problem at all. You are NOT copying individual files, you are not even accessing the filesystem so it doesn't matter if it's NTFS5, 6 or 9.
Are you sure it was not a power suplly problem? Some times it happens that some power supplies cannot deliver enough power for the spinup of all disks at startup. And that depends on the HD brands also.
When you tries plugging them directly to the motherboard, did you try having all of them plugged at the same time?
Why no use a Linux floppy distro for that? You boot from the floppy, and just copy the partitions over with parted or something like that.
It's even easy to use with a nice console gui.
Do you _need_ to boot from CD as a requirement? I am sure you know, but you could load from floppy or loadlin and even if loadlin doesn't work, you could install an older version (Win98?) of Windows and load it from there. In this extreme case, you could initially use the same partition you'd use for Linux for the Win98 install, and go on from there.
I assume you are posting from Lynx or some other terminal. Anyway, fixed rows and columns of text are not intrisically better than any other interface.
A GUI is sometimes unavoidable. Sometimes you need the extra flexibility (ie: to be able to put arbitrary dots on the screen as opposed to having to pick them up in Tetris Like fashion from the character set (pallete?).
GUI and Terminal are complementary (for example, I am better of having 6 terms under a GUI system than having only 1 terminal at a time).
How many Linux distros offer you support on your early 2.0 kernel?
.NET well, you just HAVE to upgrade your OS (and pay the money).
Mhhh....all of them? They wont prevent you from intalling any new kernel, utils or apps. You don't even need a distro, you you hteoretically (and practically) keep updating your 1.0 system up to a 2.6 without a fresh reinstall (if you know what you are doing).
But under Linux, the question is NOT how much longer can you keep running the stupidly old versions of everything, but that the NEW versions are free. So you just stay up to date for free.
On the other hand, if you used for example Windows 98, and you now need to develop for
The article assumes you never have to move to a new Windows version. That is not true, you HAVE to, as well as with Linux. The only difference is Windows costs. And since they didn't include them then the figures are all incorrect.
In Brief: you COULD run Win98 for 6 years, but if you NEED to upgrade it costs. Not upgrading is saving the extra bucks of the next Windows but the OS you are using is a piece of crap. In the Linux case, you just use the latest greatest whenever you feel like at no additional cost.
I don't understand. Taxis charge for the travel, and if both parties agree to listen to a radio station, why do you have to pay anything besides the hearing of the ads?
I mean, if both parties used Headsets, should they have to pay?
This confirms me that sufficently advanced capitalisms are just systems to assign and protect the pie to whoever happens to be able to buy more law.
Whah, I don't care, if their citizens tolerate this crap then it's fine for me.
A friend of mine reinstalled our collocated US server from Argentina. That is, he downloaded de specs, built a slackware server cloning all the functionality that we where using, and then partitioned a disk, uploaded the new server version, changed lilo so as to boot the new partition and rebooted (with a lot a failbacks in case something did not work out right).
:-p
The computer rebooted fine, and we where very happy. If we didn't have this capabilitie, we'd have to buy a second server because we could not afford either to stay down more than 10 nor to buy a new server.
The server is still up, we didn't need to reboot yet since march. I wish we could afford a second backup server, but i was kind of miraculous to remote install a new server 100% remotely without any assistance.
That's correct. The fall on the empire, but it bleed for centuries after it happened. I know you know, but I think that's what Foundation looks in the first books, a side losing grip and another very slowly emerging.
:)
I don't remember well clearly, I read about this a school (12 years ago or so)
Must be a good reading, and very inspiring.
Psychohistory was mostly deterministic. This is a look and tell solution, a stochastic solution if want to see it that way. They can't predictanything one year ahead, so no, not even close to psychohistory.