Give the machine a decent nudge to the left or the right. The ball will continue to follow a path with its original inertia. You just move the playing field so that the ball isn't dead center.
Pinball is physical. Playing it like a video game is a sure way to lose.
First off, let me say that I agree with you about Java not being slow. It's quick enough to write emulators on that run reasonably well. And those are notoriously computation and speed intensive. But I have to take exception with this statement:
All the benchmarks are showing Java exceeding C++ performance and giving C a run for its money
Java can never give C a run for its money. C takes in C files and outputs assembly code. Java takes in java files and outputs java bytecode, which is interpreted by a virtual machine. It can never approach C in terms of speed.
The only thing that has a chance of being faster than C is hand-crafted assembly. And that being done by someone who knows more optimizations than the compiler. Possible, but unlikely.
Good examples of people who could pull off this feat are the demo-scene folks from the 1980's in the Amiga scene. They were better than compilers. Other than that, I don't know of any others.
I don't trust most people to program in C. It's great if can do it well, but for every person who CAN do it well there are 3 who only think they can.
And as time marches on, that ratio will only get worse. People who pick up a primary language that has garbage collection will be seriously handicapped if they ever need to write in a language that doesn't have it.
That means people who do down-to-the-wire systems work will someday become as rare as hen's teeth. And it will always be necessary to have these folks around.
I haven't written a line of code in C or C++ since I started with C#
That says nothing about those languages. All that says anything about is your job.
I write drivers, so I could make the opposite statement. Doesn't say anything about the relative merits of one language versus another though. All it says is that I'm in an environment where C makes more sense.
In summary: A hammer is best when your problem is a nail, and a screwdriver is best when your problem is a screw.
It's just slightly higher level. A C compiler outputs assembly code - that's the whole point of a C compiler. Think of C as the worlds greatest macro processor for assembly.
That's why most compilers have some sort of ASM pragma - so you can inject your assembly into the code if you feel the compiler is doing a poor job of it.
That's also why you'll never find a faster language. And that's why it'll never go away.
One of the great joys of being this age is listening to people your age whine.
I don't blame you though. We got all the cool games, bought houses before the bubble, got jobs before the dot-com crash, had gas cheap enough to have a pastime called cruising (that's were you simply drive just for pleasure)...and we got all the good music.
Your games are pretty, but not nearly as playable. Houses are now in the quarter-million range commonly - good luck paying that off. New cars can easily run 30k. Gas will be $4 a gallon by the end of the summer, so you're going to be home a lot. As for music, the thumping crap you have to force yourself to like if you're going to be cool is more like electronic artillery rather than anything musical. I only hope that continual exposure to high decibel low frequency bass causes sterility by jangling your balls into non-functionality.
Kids today are screwed. And I actually feel pretty bad about it - except in your case.
The rest of us are using the term 'impossible' in a manner that could be interchanged with 'believed to be impossible'
We don't understand the universe entirely yet - how can we have the unmitigated ego to say FTL is impossible?
We don't know what the dark matter is. We don't know where the dark energy is. We don't understand the Pioneer anomaly. In short, there's a lot we don't know about the nature and the structure of the universe and travel through it. But somehow, with all these gaps in our knowledge we're so sure FTL is impossible?
Nonsense.
The only thing we are certain of is that we don't know it all yet. So FTL could still be out there. Saying it's impossible is foolish.
I took an intro to C class to pad my hours one semester. I was one credit short of full time and needed a 1 credit class.
The TA was an idiot. He taught the class so far over everyone's head nobody had the first clue what to do. And it was an intro class. But, I knew though. I actually did know how to program in C already. I was taking the class as a gimmie.
I wound up teaching the class in the hallway. I'd show up a half an hour early and help these poor people this uber-leet jackass left hanging out to dry.
Not to open up a tired old can of worms, but I drive a Prius.
Why?
Because I don't like spending my money on gasoline. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it doesn't have as good a return on investment as a small diesel car.
But you have to let the market know that people want these things, or they'll never happen. We want cleaner alternatives.
Kudos to everyone who is putting solar on their homes. Early adopters are often times the visionaries that make good things become available to the rest of the world.
I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.
Currently, we're still innocent until proven guilty. Your statement here pretty much defines why an IP address is not the same thing as a person.
Let's say file sharing activity comes from a given IP address. Is it the person who bought the account? A friend's laptop computer? Your neighbor who's mooching off of your wifi? Is your PC part of a botnet?
And that's the problem with "differing degrees". Your IP address can be guilty as hell without you personally doing anything wrong.
The problem with your analogy is that breaking and entering, growing pot, and kidnapping are all crimes provable through existing forensics.
An IP address may or may not be a person - it's still being decided. Therefore you're breaking into a home and discovering a crime - but somehow nobody knows who's home it is. That's where your analogy breaks down.
In a former life I evaluated apps for PC's for a medium sized business (1000 people world wide)and I cant tell you the number of times I was told that an app was 'MUST HAVE', right up until I told them that the SQL server (plus admin time) required and the maintenance costs(plus support costs) and the licensing would cost them $XXXXX at which point they would come back and say never mind.
I've worked for those sorts. Yeah, you do see that sometimes.
But the IT group at my place actually were inhibiting us - it was not a fallacy of scope. We're a development team. We write software. If we can't keep up on the latest patches and updates from Microsoft, then that *is* inhibiting us. There is no cost-benefit analysis - all of this was "must have". And by must have, I mean we actually had to have it. Not "would have liked to have it." Essential. For real. No kidding. If I can't install patches, my builds aren't current and the customer won't want them. If I can't install SVN, I can't get into the archive where their current code is. Essential.
Is letting users manage their own PCs an IT time-saver or time bomb waiting to happen?
It's a good idea if your users have a clue. It's a bad idea if they don't. It entirely depends on the users.
In my shop we're all coders, so that plan would work. In fact it's vital to our work. Originally we were locked down and had to have an admin install pretty much anything we wanted to use. IT became an inhibitor rather than a helper. They eventually had to lift the ban. The policy was in the way.
On the other side of the coin, I've also held IT positions managing users. Giving some of my former customers the keys would have been an immediate disaster. In that case a lockdown was a lifesaver.
...the conventional silicon chip has no longer than four years left to run... [R]esearchers speculate that the silicon chip will be unable to sustain the same pace of increase in computing power and speed as it has in previous years.
Does not equal this statement:
Hardware: The Death of the Silicon Computer Chip
What the first statement means is that they may have found something faster than silicon chips. That doesn't mean that silicon will suddenly "go away" just because it cannot maintain Moore's law predictions.
Hell - do you think they're going to put some uber carbon nanotube processor in your TV remote or your microwave oven control panel? Silicon cpu chips have *plenty* of uses other than high end mainframes. They're damn useful - that's why they're everywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Courtesy of the Phoenix Projekt. It's got Max Raabe doing the cover, a flaming tuba, dancers...the works. Turn this one up - you'll love it. =)
Standard Disclaimer: Not a member of Phoenix Projekt. Not a rickroll. Void where prohibited. If bleeding persists see a doctor.
Give the machine a decent nudge to the left or the right. The ball will continue to follow a path with its original inertia. You just move the playing field so that the ball isn't dead center.
Pinball is physical. Playing it like a video game is a sure way to lose.
But not in response to what I typed. I think the reason why you disagree with my post so much is that you didn't read it very closely.
This statement shows an extreme ignorance of how the Virtual Machine functions.I made no claims about the virtual machine - I only made claims about the compiler:
Java takes in java files and outputs java bytecode, which is interpreted by a virtual machine.And this:
THAT is why hotspot is capable of kicking C++ up between its ears.Has nothing to do with my post you responded to. Find a single instance of me mentioning C++.
Best laugh of the day - thank you. =)
Hey, you've given me an idea though. You know what would be even faster? Now...don't stop me until you hear me out, okay?
If Java is faster than C, we should rewrite the Java VM...in Java! Interpreted code running in an interpreter...that is *also* interpreted!
Just think of the speed increase! It would be like using uranium to fuel the space shuttle! Awesome multiplied by awesome.
First off, let me say that I agree with you about Java not being slow. It's quick enough to write emulators on that run reasonably well. And those are notoriously computation and speed intensive. But I have to take exception with this statement:
All the benchmarks are showing Java exceeding C++ performance and giving C a run for its moneyJava can never give C a run for its money. C takes in C files and outputs assembly code. Java takes in java files and outputs java bytecode, which is interpreted by a virtual machine. It can never approach C in terms of speed.
The only thing that has a chance of being faster than C is hand-crafted assembly. And that being done by someone who knows more optimizations than the compiler. Possible, but unlikely.
Good examples of people who could pull off this feat are the demo-scene folks from the 1980's in the Amiga scene. They were better than compilers. Other than that, I don't know of any others.
And as time marches on, that ratio will only get worse. People who pick up a primary language that has garbage collection will be seriously handicapped if they ever need to write in a language that doesn't have it.
That means people who do down-to-the-wire systems work will someday become as rare as hen's teeth. And it will always be necessary to have these folks around.
That says nothing about those languages. All that says anything about is your job.
I write drivers, so I could make the opposite statement. Doesn't say anything about the relative merits of one language versus another though. All it says is that I'm in an environment where C makes more sense.
In summary: A hammer is best when your problem is a nail, and a screwdriver is best when your problem is a screw.
It's just slightly higher level. A C compiler outputs assembly code - that's the whole point of a C compiler. Think of C as the worlds greatest macro processor for assembly.
That's why most compilers have some sort of ASM pragma - so you can inject your assembly into the code if you feel the compiler is doing a poor job of it.
That's also why you'll never find a faster language. And that's why it'll never go away.
It's strange, isn't it? That a man who spends his time currently as a philanthropist cannot understand people donating their time to free software.
Apparently it's only charity if you can spend it.
Aww, did I hit a sensitive spot? There there. It's ok, men cry too. Men cry too.
Here, have a copy of Madden 07 and a Ludacris cd to make you feel better.
One of the great joys of being this age is listening to people your age whine.
I don't blame you though. We got all the cool games, bought houses before the bubble, got jobs before the dot-com crash, had gas cheap enough to have a pastime called cruising (that's were you simply drive just for pleasure)...and we got all the good music.
Your games are pretty, but not nearly as playable. Houses are now in the quarter-million range commonly - good luck paying that off. New cars can easily run 30k. Gas will be $4 a gallon by the end of the summer, so you're going to be home a lot. As for music, the thumping crap you have to force yourself to like if you're going to be cool is more like electronic artillery rather than anything musical. I only hope that continual exposure to high decibel low frequency bass causes sterility by jangling your balls into non-functionality.
Kids today are screwed. And I actually feel pretty bad about it - except in your case.
We don't understand the universe entirely yet - how can we have the unmitigated ego to say FTL is impossible?
We don't know what the dark matter is. We don't know where the dark energy is. We don't understand the Pioneer anomaly. In short, there's a lot we don't know about the nature and the structure of the universe and travel through it. But somehow, with all these gaps in our knowledge we're so sure FTL is impossible?
Nonsense.
The only thing we are certain of is that we don't know it all yet. So FTL could still be out there. Saying it's impossible is foolish.
I took an intro to C class to pad my hours one semester. I was one credit short of full time and needed a 1 credit class.
The TA was an idiot. He taught the class so far over everyone's head nobody had the first clue what to do. And it was an intro class. But, I knew though. I actually did know how to program in C already. I was taking the class as a gimmie.
I wound up teaching the class in the hallway. I'd show up a half an hour early and help these poor people this uber-leet jackass left hanging out to dry.
You sound like him.
This bears repeating.
Not to open up a tired old can of worms, but I drive a Prius.
Why?
Because I don't like spending my money on gasoline. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it doesn't have as good a return on investment as a small diesel car.
But you have to let the market know that people want these things, or they'll never happen. We want cleaner alternatives.
Kudos to everyone who is putting solar on their homes. Early adopters are often times the visionaries that make good things become available to the rest of the world.
Only two things in life are unavoidable, death and _________.
If you figure out a way around one or the other, please post it. I am interested.
Just have Kurt write a letter to them too.
Bravo. Just fucking bravo.
to differing degrees
Currently, we're still innocent until proven guilty. Your statement here pretty much defines why an IP address is not the same thing as a person.
Let's say file sharing activity comes from a given IP address. Is it the person who bought the account? A friend's laptop computer? Your neighbor who's mooching off of your wifi? Is your PC part of a botnet?
And that's the problem with "differing degrees". Your IP address can be guilty as hell without you personally doing anything wrong.
The problem with your analogy is that breaking and entering, growing pot, and kidnapping are all crimes provable through existing forensics.
An IP address may or may not be a person - it's still being decided. Therefore you're breaking into a home and discovering a crime - but somehow nobody knows who's home it is. That's where your analogy breaks down.
The gene for ruthlessness, aka the "mean gene" has been known since the early 1980's.
Full story here.
I've worked for those sorts. Yeah, you do see that sometimes.
But the IT group at my place actually were inhibiting us - it was not a fallacy of scope. We're a development team. We write software. If we can't keep up on the latest patches and updates from Microsoft, then that *is* inhibiting us. There is no cost-benefit analysis - all of this was "must have". And by must have, I mean we actually had to have it. Not "would have liked to have it." Essential. For real. No kidding. If I can't install patches, my builds aren't current and the customer won't want them. If I can't install SVN, I can't get into the archive where their current code is. Essential.
I didn't use the word lightly.
It's a good idea if your users have a clue. It's a bad idea if they don't. It entirely depends on the users.
In my shop we're all coders, so that plan would work. In fact it's vital to our work. Originally we were locked down and had to have an admin install pretty much anything we wanted to use. IT became an inhibitor rather than a helper. They eventually had to lift the ban. The policy was in the way.
On the other side of the coin, I've also held IT positions managing users. Giving some of my former customers the keys would have been an immediate disaster. In that case a lockdown was a lifesaver.
This statement:
...the conventional silicon chip has no longer than four years left to run... [R]esearchers speculate that the silicon chip will be unable to sustain the same pace of increase in computing power and speed as it has in previous years.Does not equal this statement:
Hardware: The Death of the Silicon Computer ChipWhat the first statement means is that they may have found something faster than silicon chips. That doesn't mean that silicon will suddenly "go away" just because it cannot maintain Moore's law predictions.
Hell - do you think they're going to put some uber carbon nanotube processor in your TV remote or your microwave oven control panel? Silicon cpu chips have *plenty* of uses other than high end mainframes. They're damn useful - that's why they're everywhere.
I'd be more surprised if the site launched and everyone found out it was entirely on the up-and-up.