The only other place that energy might go would be to change the state of some matter. I would guess the CPU and surrounding motherboard are somehow altered by the heat.
I would like to know how much energy is 'wasted' as heat and how much 'disappears'. If most of the 'wasted' energy becomes heat, then is this really only wasteful in the sense that it might be cheaper to heat the building with gas?
I saw adverts last year saying that from a certain date, it would be possible to just tell someone (your provider?) that your phone was stolen, and they could make it useless. Presumably all networks refuse to allow it access.
Is this why I haven't heard of anyone being mugged for their mobile in the last year or so, or did the media just get bored of mentioning it when it happened?
The parent tried to show the difference in speed between a 32-bit and a 64-bit CPU by comparing an Athlon 'Thunderbird' with an Athlon 64, where they had different clock speeds (850Mhz vs. 2000Mhz), a significantly different amount of (possibly different speed) RAM, and different hard disks.
The benefit of open source is that if the original corporation writing the code stops supporting it there may be a community behind the software that will continue to support it as you transition. Also, another company may spring up with the same codebase.
The benefit of open source? Have you never seen a closed source product bought from the original company which developed it? Obviously this isn't guaranteed, but then it isn't with open source, either.
Hmm, second person to miss the point. The point is that most web servers redirect you to the 'correct' location. There is at least one exception: publicfile. It simply says 'access denied' if you forget the slash.
So, if I'm in Windows, and using Firefox, why shouldn't Firefox fix up my lazily-written \\hostname\share\etc UNC path?
So if we're going to be picky about valid URLs, are you saying that a webserver with an HTML file at/foo/index.html should refuse to serve it up when/foo is requested, because the user should have used/foo/ ?
and I'm still in disbelief that there are no alternative readers for Windows given Adobe's piss-poor performance.
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/
Rik
What's so bad about XML?
on
Effective XML
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I give customers a specification showing how I would like data sent to me. They can use the specification to tell them how to store their data, because they can read it. They can check that their data matches the specification, because their machine can read it.
When I receive their data, I can check that it matches the specification, because my machine can read it. If there is something wrong with their data, I can point out where it's broken, because it's human-readable.
Writing specifications is easy. Writing generators and parsers is easy. The tools are ubiquitous. Generation and parsing are usually fast 'enough'. The standards are freely available. Complex data structures may be described. Data may be transformed using a common language based on XML itself.
Yes, I'd like it to be easier to write XML parsing tools. Yes, I'd like it to be easier to write tools which handle XML more efficiently. No, the two points above don't make XML the devil's data encapsulation.
I have a dual Athlon too, and I ripped the second processor out recently. I hardly noticed the difference. I used to use this box for compiling C++, which takes a huge amount of CPU time with gcc. Now I write.NET code, which compiles so quickly that I'm often left wondering if the compile has actually happened.
For general use (web browsing, playing games, listening to music, using office apps) SMP only makes a tiny difference. It makes the apps and the shell feel very slightly less sluggish when you're starting, stopping and switching between applications, but I'm not even slightly tempted to put the second CPU back in.
Over the years, there have been complaints from various developers that it's not possible to distribute free ($) software for Windows using Qt: a license costs an arm and a leg.
Finally Trolltech have corrected this (again - do they mean it this time?) but I fear it may be too late. Qt has always been an excellent development platform, but the grass roots support hasn't grown as it could have.
I'm going to try compiling some of the Qt-based software I wrote, years ago, for Windows, but I've become quite used to exceptions, a useful debugger, reflection and decent testing/coverage tools. I'm not as excited by the prospect as I might once have been.
Escape is very easy to reach on some keyboards. On 'PC' keyboards, however, it's usually a little too far away, being separated from the main block of keys rather than the last key at top left.
If you're unlucky enough to have to use a 'PC' keyboard, you can simply tell Vim to use the '`' key for Escape. Or anything else. Ctrl-[ works already, if you care to use that.
Oh, and remap caps lock to ctrl while you're at it.
What should we use instead of XML to encapsulate RPC calls? Something at least semi-human-readable, please. I don't need to be able to read a graphic image, but I'd like to see the name of the method I'm calling, and at least string and text parameters.
And when someone sends me a bunch of data they want importing into a database, in what format should they send it? I'd like to be able to ensure that their data is correct before giving it to my import routine, and when my validator says there's an error, I'd like to be able to see what's wrong by eye.
Temporary workaround: Switch to 'light' mode in your Slashdot settings. Yes, it's not a fix. IMO Slashdot looks much better (and loads faster) in 'light' mode anyway, so I'm sticking with it.
I did the same with tap water and have tried a couple of times to reproduce it without success. Thanks for reminding me that I may scald myself. I think I'll just savour the memory from now on.
It doesn't happen on either of the two copies of XP that I use. Try running e.g. Word, and then immediately clicking back on the window you were using before. Word should not bring its window to the front. Instead, it should flash its taskbar button, to let you know it's ready.
Slashdot Mirror
The only other place that energy might go would be to change the state of some matter. I would guess the CPU and surrounding motherboard are somehow altered by the heat.
I would like to know how much energy is 'wasted' as heat and how much 'disappears'. If most of the 'wasted' energy becomes heat, then is this really only wasteful in the sense that it might be cheaper to heat the building with gas?
Rik
Mods, see parent.
I saw adverts last year saying that from a certain date, it would be possible to just tell someone (your provider?) that your phone was stolen, and they could make it useless. Presumably all networks refuse to allow it access.
Is this why I haven't heard of anyone being mugged for their mobile in the last year or so, or did the media just get bored of mentioning it when it happened?
Rik
That's nothing, I got 10 metres from the other coast, decided it was too much, and swam back.
The old jokes are the best.
Rik
The parent tried to show the difference in speed between a 32-bit and a 64-bit CPU by comparing an Athlon 'Thunderbird' with an Athlon 64, where they had different clock speeds (850Mhz vs. 2000Mhz), a significantly different amount of (possibly different speed) RAM, and different hard disks.
This was then modded Informative.
WTF?
Rik
The benefit of open source? Have you never seen a closed source product bought from the original company which developed it? Obviously this isn't guaranteed, but then it isn't with open source, either.
Rik
Yes, it's called Bookmarks Synchronizer and is a Firefox extension
Rik
It's not an URI at all. And I think you should take your pills.
Rik
Hmm, second person to miss the point. The point is that most web servers redirect you to the 'correct' location. There is at least one exception: publicfile. It simply says 'access denied' if you forget the slash.
So, if I'm in Windows, and using Firefox, why shouldn't Firefox fix up my lazily-written \\hostname\share\etc UNC path?
Rik
So if we're going to be picky about valid URLs, are you saying that a webserver with an HTML file at /foo/index.html should refuse to serve it up when /foo is requested, because the user should have used /foo/ ?
Rik
Is that a one button remote control they're showing with it?
Rik
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/
Rik
I give customers a specification showing how I would like data sent to me. They can use the specification to tell them how to store their data, because they can read it. They can check that their data matches the specification, because their machine can read it.
When I receive their data, I can check that it matches the specification, because my machine can read it. If there is something wrong with their data, I can point out where it's broken, because it's human-readable.
Writing specifications is easy. Writing generators and parsers is easy. The tools are ubiquitous. Generation and parsing are usually fast 'enough'. The standards are freely available. Complex data structures may be described. Data may be transformed using a common language based on XML itself.
Yes, I'd like it to be easier to write XML parsing tools. Yes, I'd like it to be easier to write tools which handle XML more efficiently. No, the two points above don't make XML the devil's data encapsulation.
Rik
I have a dual Athlon too, and I ripped the second processor out recently. I hardly noticed the difference. I used to use this box for compiling C++, which takes a huge amount of CPU time with gcc. Now I write .NET code, which compiles so quickly that I'm often left wondering if the compile has actually happened.
For general use (web browsing, playing games, listening to music, using office apps) SMP only makes a tiny difference. It makes the apps and the shell feel very slightly less sluggish when you're starting, stopping and switching between applications, but I'm not even slightly tempted to put the second CPU back in.
Rik
Over the years, there have been complaints from various developers that it's not possible to distribute free ($) software for Windows using Qt: a license costs an arm and a leg.
Finally Trolltech have corrected this (again - do they mean it this time?) but I fear it may be too late. Qt has always been an excellent development platform, but the grass roots support hasn't grown as it could have.
I'm going to try compiling some of the Qt-based software I wrote, years ago, for Windows, but I've become quite used to exceptions, a useful debugger, reflection and decent testing/coverage tools. I'm not as excited by the prospect as I might once have been.
Rik
Escape is very easy to reach on some keyboards. On 'PC' keyboards, however, it's usually a little too far away, being separated from the main block of keys rather than the last key at top left.
If you're unlucky enough to have to use a 'PC' keyboard, you can simply tell Vim to use the '`' key for Escape. Or anything else. Ctrl-[ works already, if you care to use that.
Oh, and remap caps lock to ctrl while you're at it.
Rik
Any suggestions for one that is as easy to set up as Skype, has clients for Windows, Linux and MacOS and is open source?
I like gnomemeeting on Linux, but it isn't ported to Windows or MacOS, AFAIK.
Rik
Both are terms for gravitational energy / particles, but the people who use the 'dark' terms don't know it yet.
They'll figure it out eventually.
Rik
Yes, there is. I seem to remember tweaking its implementation a few years ago.
What should we use instead of XML to encapsulate RPC calls? Something at least semi-human-readable, please. I don't need to be able to read a graphic image, but I'd like to see the name of the method I'm calling, and at least string and text parameters.
And when someone sends me a bunch of data they want importing into a database, in what format should they send it? I'd like to be able to ensure that their data is correct before giving it to my import routine, and when my validator says there's an error, I'd like to be able to see what's wrong by eye.
Suggestions?
Temporary workaround: Switch to 'light' mode in your Slashdot settings. Yes, it's not a fix. IMO Slashdot looks much better (and loads faster) in 'light' mode anyway, so I'm sticking with it.
I did the same with tap water and have tried a couple of times to reproduce it without success. Thanks for reminding me that I may scald myself. I think I'll just savour the memory from now on.
& is shorthand for 'et'. It is actually 'et', written all as one character, if you look closely at it.
Rik
It doesn't happen on either of the two copies of XP that I use. Try running e.g. Word, and then immediately clicking back on the window you were using before. Word should not bring its window to the front. Instead, it should flash its taskbar button, to let you know it's ready.
Rik
Doesn't happen in KDE or Windows XP. If you get bored and activate another app, the newly started application's window(s) will appear below it.