Let a = 0.999... then we can multiply both sides by ten yielding 10a = 9.999... then subtracting a (which is 0.999...) from both sides we get 10a — a = 9.999... — 0.999... which reduces to 9a = 9 and thus a = 1.
(First, note there is an ellipsis, suggesting there are a lot more 9s after the decimal point...)
When he multiplies by 10, he's trying to add 1 more significant digit, so everything zeros out, but he is really only shifting the significant digits over, meaning for any N decimal places in (a = 0.999...), you've got one less digit to the right of the decimal point to work with when using 10a. 10a - a = 8.999... not 9.
I'm on an up-to-date Fedora 12 system, and the proprietary driver seg faults. It compiles fine, and it loads... but X just crashes and leaves me with a black screen. Now I'm using the 'nv' driver in all it's crappiness. Being a work computer (with a geforce 6000 series card), I can't really justify fiddling with it all day, when I have more important stuff to work on. I love linux, and feel crippled in a Windows or Mac machine, but c'mon... when will Linux be ready for the average user? Maybe some day when work is slow, I can try it again, but right now it seems like a time-sucking black hole, and I miss my wobbly windows.
You do need them for theoretical computer science, and in turn, you need theoretical computer science to invent something new that you could program. Most programmers don't do theoretical work themselves, and most theoretical computer scientists don't finish their software;-) It's a completely different type of job.
I'd have to agree with this. The programmers I work with have probably never written a quick_sort() routine in their life, but surely they write code that implements a sorting routine somewhere.
We're in an age where, "There's an API for that!" and a complete newbie can jump in and make a program that functions fairly well. Not to mention the consumer base is progressively becoming content with mediocrity, especially when it comes to programs.
Finding people who can program in assembly language, or C is probably getting more difficult. Are they needed? Of course, but not nearly much as the many high-level coders that we need today.
Today, coders can get away with nested if/then/else structures that run 70+ levels deep, because it works, and computers are fast enough to where speed is negligible until a user complains about it, and only THEN is it addressed.
Ask around and see what coders today say about Big-O notation or memory management. They just don't need to care about those things any more.
Actually, for proper "Russian Reversal" grammar, you need to make the subject singular (without articles), then fix the verb, and "you" has to be all caps, italicized and followed by exactly two exclamation points. Wikipedia
So it would correctly be: "In Soviet Russia, new overlord welcomes YOU!!"
That would be awesome. Then my online friends can maintain their habit of saying, "EST" and be correct 66% of the time instead of only 33% of the time. Trying to get people to type "EDT" is annoyingly futile.
Let's say it chose 80% of your available memory by default.
Scenario 1: You need gimp to edit something you just rendered in a 3D animation package. The 3d animation package, which you're still using, is already taking up 80% of your available memory. Gimp's view of 80% would be much smaller than any of us would want to allocate to it. (You'd probably end up tweaking your 3D software's settings, since it brilliantly predicted that you weren't going to run any other programs simultaneously.)
Scenario 2: You don't have anything else open, and have the most memory you'll ever have available in your operating system at any given time. Picking 80% of the available memory turns your machine that can run gimp, with barely enough room for anything else without closing gimp every time you need to run another memory-intensive application.
Gimp works with 256MB of RAM. I use gimp a lot, and have never had any problems with the default settings. Like any good program, there _is_ a setting that you can change. Just set it. I'm sure there are settings in photoshop that people tweak depending on their needs. Why should gimp be any different, or the developers derided for it?
You can't expect a program to know your average available memory during typical computer usage upon start-up, when it can't predict other applications that may be launched while it is running. Just like your car doesn't try to predict when you're turning and enable your turn signals.
Bottom line is the default settings are "sane" enough for anyone wanting to try out gimp. It runs perfectly fine with 256MB of RAM, and if someone is serious about giving gimp a try for the long-haul, they'll read manuals, poke around through the settings, and actually READ the installation windows. People who have already decided to hate something make mountains out of mole hills.
I wonder how many people complained when their brand new TV defaulted to channel 3, and they couldn't see anything without having to hit a button or turn a knob. How annoying that must have been to have to choose the channel that gave you the shows you actually WANTED to see.
Y'know, I just did a quick google image search for professional arm wrestlers, and it seems to me that the elbow pad on that arcade game is on the wrong side of the mechanical arm. Maybe that is why people are breaking their arms...
mashup -- This suggests overtones of "we just threw some crap together, and it actually worked."
WYSIWYG -- When I heard someone pronouce this, It was like fingernails on a chalkboard...
ur -- Is this for "your" ? give me a break.
u -- for "you" -- how hard is it to type 2 more characters?
wizard -- For me, there's nothing magical about installing software.
orz -- Annoying only if people pronounce it. Otherwise, I prefer the alternative: JTO
I can't think of any more. If I had time to play any MMORPG these days, I'm sure I'd have twice the size of that list.
I used to swear so much at the stupid things that photoshop did (probably seem quite logical to design people) - like the fact that the version of photoshop that I was using would shorten the filename for no discernable reason. After a while I found that there was an option to switch of this fantastic behavious (it was to maintain compatability between Windows and Macs), but it had to be set for each file.
Features like that come from being a developer with some suit standing behind you with a whip. For such a powerful and professional tool, you'd think it would refrain from trying to read your mind. Sure, that feature would have to have a default value, one way or the other...but in the open source world, if a developer picked an idiotic default value like that, he wouldn't only hear about it from the community of developers, he'd be changing it posthaste.
what was wrong with launching with Magician Lord, Baseball Stars and Nam-1975?!
Personally, I loved Magician Lord and especially the Neo Geo system, but I think the $650 system and $200 games were the real killer of the Neo Geo. When I was in Babbage's, (The store) I saw Neo Geo Games that were the same price as a Super Nintendo system. It was unfortunately a no-brainer for most consumers.
I wouldn't be able to get used to that keyboard. I hate the "L" shaped ENTER key, and I specifically look for keyboards without it. I would definitely hate having programming the two keys that reside where my one row, two-column wide ENTER key should be. Yuck. Neat keyboard from an artistic standpoint, but it's not something I'd want to use.
What amazes me, is how much complaining and whining I heard from people when Sony revealed the prices of the Playstation 3 systems. Customers are obviously willing to pay $2,000 for a unit. Maybe Sony and Microsoft will wake up, and when they release their subsequent system, charge the arm and leg the systems are going to actually be selling for. Only this time, they'll make some money. People will still complain, but they'll also still be buying. Samsung's blu-ray player isn't going to be $1,000 forever. Sony should use the same pricing model for video game systems. Adjust the price according to demand. Heck, a Sony Blu-ray burner for your PC costs more than a Playstation 3. They should have hired the guy who priced the Blu-ray burner to come up with the price for the Playstation 3.
These launches always remind me of the "Game Slave 2" episode of Invader Zim.
I just thought of something... (Actually, I had to go to bed first...and THEN realize this)
The IP addresses you put into the domain-named files have to be authoritative name servers.
So, whatever you get from a 'host -t ns slashdot.org' has to be in the "slashdot.org" file, etc.
Make sure you use IP addresses, and not the hostnames for obvious reasons. OK, back to bed...
I imagine dnscache (djbdns recursive name server) could do this.
I'd try deleting all the entries in/var/services/dnscache/root/servers/@, and adding files named as the domains you want to look up, containing only the IP address(es) of the name servers you want to forward to.
Nuking that @ file appears to give you the NXDOMAIN error like you desire:
[root@blah servers]# cat/dev/null > @ [root@blah servers]# svc -h/var/services/dnscache [root@blah servers]# host www.monster.com 192.168.1.1 Using domain server 192.168.1.1: Host not found, try again.
If you have a name server to forward to, say at "192.168.1.2" you just need to do the following:
Yeah, but it'll take the "South Korean physicists" 6 more years to figure that out too. I made a perl script called ebaysniper back in January of 2001. It worked like a charm, and was in retaliation to being out-bid from a sniper. This story being tagged as "Duh" is spot-on!
I hate that reboot reminder. I used to drag the pop-up window to the bottom right of the screen, where you only see a few pixel-height of the window, and I can make it "go away". But, didn't they change it recently so it has a 60 second countdown or something? Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Another example of how Windows interrupts people who are trying to actually USE the computer.
It helps to have a goal. I don't know how many people I've seen install linux without a reason to. Have a goal like, "I want to set up a linux SMB file server," or "I want to burn a CD in linux." It helps to have a goal, so you know when you've accomplished a step in "learning" linux. You learn better when you have a light at the end of the tunnel, otherwise you'll hit a few hurdles and give up thinking, "Meh, I don't know what I was going to do anyway."
Oh, and there's ample documentation for linux these days. And if you find yourself recompiling the kernel, then chances are you're tackling a larger task than you should be for a beginner. I'm well versed in linux, and I haven't had to recompile a kernel in a few years.
As for Windows vs. linux, I'd much rather debug a problem in linux. I don't know how many times I've tried to fix a broken Windows 2003 Server problem, and not find anything in their useless "event viewer." Give me actual log files. Give me utilities like 'strace'. Design a standard location to put configuration options. Having to right-click on everything to find the option you need, only to find out it's hiding under 3 icons, one of 5 tabs, then another button is rediculous.
In unix, it's either in the service's installation directory, or in/etc. Heck, the man page usually tells you where the configuration files are.
I'm an admin. I prefer linux. Compared to Windows, everything just makes more sense.
Here's a typical day's routine that perpetuates my windows frustration:
1. I arrive at work, and take my laptop out of my backpack.
2. I connect the ethernet cable into the wall jack.
3. I boot up, login, and start SSH'ing and web browsing with a 1Gbps connection.
4. About 10 seconds later, my laptop tells me "There are wireless networks available."
5. I think to myself, "I don't care. I'm already connected to the network, thanks."
6. The "chat bubble" doesn't go away as quick as I'd like.
7. I go to click the tiny [X] box in the corner, only to miss-click and bring up the list of wireless networks instead.
8. At about step 5 I have stopped working, and started fighting with the user interface. This isn't how computers are supposed to work.
I don't even want to admit how long it took me to find the option to turn off the annoying, "You have unused items on your desktop" notificaion.
Windows has its purposes and uses, but when it breaks, and I have to try to fix it... it annoys me to no end. Thank goodness Google is there to ease the pain. They'll help you with linux too, of course.
Seriously... I want to know what Slashdot reader double-clicks on ANYTHING in a web page. My father, or mother-in-law, sure. But Slashdot users? C'mon... we all know better.
As for the article: Cool idea. Too flashy for my taste. I prefer the authentice DDR arrows, and I'd like the arrows to light up when pressed. I really found the steel frame to be the most interesting. From the looks of the welding job, I'm not sure I'm ready to use a welding torch.
Also, people need to make sure they put some type of shock absorbing feet under the "arcade" style pads if they're going to be playing on a concrete slab. I tried playing down in my basement, as opposed to my living room with a wooden sub-floor above a crawlspace, and I gotta say, "It didn't feel too good."
Whats the point, when your running OS X? -- That's "...you're running..." ...and this lets do that. -- "...lets THEM do that?" Don't be stupid. Please. -- Agreed.
And yes, some people need to use Windows for work. Those people shouldn't be buying Macintosh computers. In my opinion, the OS is what Macintosh has always been about. Why buy a Mac if you're going to run Windows on it? Somebody used an automobile analogy, and I'd have to agree. This makes as much sense as buying a Corvette and putting a Cobalt's engine in it. Go buy an HP laptop, paint it white, glue an Apple sticker on it, and save yourself a few bucks.
Slashdot Mirror
"It became first launch..."
This totally made my day, and I couldn't continue reading it without a Russian accent.
Let a = 0.999... then we can multiply both sides by ten yielding 10a = 9.999... then subtracting a (which is 0.999...) from both sides we get 10a — a = 9.999... — 0.999... which reduces to 9a = 9 and thus a = 1.
(First, note there is an ellipsis, suggesting there are a lot more 9s after the decimal point ...)
When he multiplies by 10, he's trying to add 1 more significant digit, so everything zeros out, but he is really only shifting the significant digits over, meaning for any N decimal places in (a = 0.999...), you've got one less digit to the right of the decimal point to work with when using 10a. 10a - a = 8.999... not 9.
I'm on an up-to-date Fedora 12 system, and the proprietary driver seg faults. It compiles fine, and it loads ... but X just crashes and leaves me with a black screen. Now I'm using the 'nv' driver in all it's crappiness. Being a work computer (with a geforce 6000 series card), I can't really justify fiddling with it all day, when I have more important stuff to work on. I love linux, and feel crippled in a Windows or Mac machine, but c'mon ... when will Linux be ready for the average user? Maybe some day when work is slow, I can try it again, but right now it seems like a time-sucking black hole, and I miss my wobbly windows.
You don't need math skills for programming work.
You do need them for theoretical computer science, and in turn, you need theoretical computer science to invent something new that you could program. Most programmers don't do theoretical work themselves, and most theoretical computer scientists don't finish their software ;-) It's a completely different type of job.
I'd have to agree with this. The programmers I work with have probably never written a quick_sort() routine in their life, but surely they write code that implements a sorting routine somewhere.
We're in an age where, "There's an API for that!" and a complete newbie can jump in and make a program that functions fairly well. Not to mention the consumer base is progressively becoming content with mediocrity, especially when it comes to programs.
Finding people who can program in assembly language, or C is probably getting more difficult. Are they needed? Of course, but not nearly much as the many high-level coders that we need today.
Today, coders can get away with nested if/then/else structures that run 70+ levels deep, because it works, and computers are fast enough to where speed is negligible until a user complains about it, and only THEN is it addressed.
Ask around and see what coders today say about Big-O notation or memory management. They just don't need to care about those things any more.
Ah... But does it run Linux?
Good question, but all I want to know is, "Will it blend?"
http://www.shorewall.net/ - Once you use it, you'll never go back.
In Soviet Russia, the new overloards welcome you!
Actually, for proper "Russian Reversal" grammar, you need to make the subject singular (without articles), then fix the verb, and "you" has to be all caps, italicized and followed by exactly two exclamation points. Wikipedia
So it would correctly be: "In Soviet Russia, new overlord welcomes YOU!!"
Glad to be of assistance. :)
How is the gang world going to prepare for a battle between the Crips and the Crip's ?
That would be awesome. Then my online friends can maintain their habit of saying, "EST" and be correct 66% of the time instead of only 33% of the time. Trying to get people to type "EDT" is annoyingly futile.
"...and social skills are more important..."
I think you just narrowed down your gaming community to English teachers and slashdot readers.
Allucarrd: I have sword 4 sell!!!!
* System: Your social skill has decreased 5 points.
Yeah, it's called a matrix STACK for a reason.
Let's say it chose 80% of your available memory by default.
Scenario 1: You need gimp to edit something you just rendered in a 3D animation package. The 3d animation package, which you're still using, is already taking up 80% of your available memory. Gimp's view of 80% would be much smaller than any of us would want to allocate to it. (You'd probably end up tweaking your 3D software's settings, since it brilliantly predicted that you weren't going to run any other programs simultaneously.)
Scenario 2: You don't have anything else open, and have the most memory you'll ever have available in your operating system at any given time. Picking 80% of the available memory turns your machine that can run gimp, with barely enough room for anything else without closing gimp every time you need to run another memory-intensive application.
Gimp works with 256MB of RAM. I use gimp a lot, and have never had any problems with the default settings. Like any good program, there _is_ a setting that you can change. Just set it. I'm sure there are settings in photoshop that people tweak depending on their needs. Why should gimp be any different, or the developers derided for it?
You can't expect a program to know your average available memory during typical computer usage upon start-up, when it can't predict other applications that may be launched while it is running. Just like your car doesn't try to predict when you're turning and enable your turn signals.
Bottom line is the default settings are "sane" enough for anyone wanting to try out gimp. It runs perfectly fine with 256MB of RAM, and if someone is serious about giving gimp a try for the long-haul, they'll read manuals, poke around through the settings, and actually READ the installation windows. People who have already decided to hate something make mountains out of mole hills.
I wonder how many people complained when their brand new TV defaulted to channel 3, and they couldn't see anything without having to hit a button or turn a knob. How annoying that must have been to have to choose the channel that gave you the shows you actually WANTED to see.
Y'know, I just did a quick google image search for professional arm wrestlers, and it seems to me that the elbow pad on that arcade game is on the wrong side of the mechanical arm. Maybe that is why people are breaking their arms...
Podcast is my #1 hated Internet word..
Others:
mashup -- This suggests overtones of "we just threw some crap together, and it actually worked."
I can't think of any more. If I had time to play any MMORPG these days, I'm sure I'd have twice the size of that list.WYSIWYG -- When I heard someone pronouce this, It was like fingernails on a chalkboard...
ur -- Is this for "your" ? give me a break.
u -- for "you" -- how hard is it to type 2 more characters?
wizard -- For me, there's nothing magical about installing software.
orz -- Annoying only if people pronounce it. Otherwise, I prefer the alternative: JTO
Personally, I loved Magician Lord and especially the Neo Geo system, but I think the $650 system and $200 games were the real killer of the Neo Geo. When I was in Babbage's, (The store) I saw Neo Geo Games that were the same price as a Super Nintendo system. It was unfortunately a no-brainer for most consumers.
I wouldn't be able to get used to that keyboard. I hate the "L" shaped ENTER key, and I specifically look for keyboards without it. I would definitely hate having programming the two keys that reside where my one row, two-column wide ENTER key should be. Yuck. Neat keyboard from an artistic standpoint, but it's not something I'd want to use.
What amazes me, is how much complaining and whining I heard from people when Sony revealed the prices of the Playstation 3 systems. Customers are obviously willing to pay $2,000 for a unit. Maybe Sony and Microsoft will wake up, and when they release their subsequent system, charge the arm and leg the systems are going to actually be selling for. Only this time, they'll make some money. People will still complain, but they'll also still be buying. Samsung's blu-ray player isn't going to be $1,000 forever. Sony should use the same pricing model for video game systems. Adjust the price according to demand. Heck, a Sony Blu-ray burner for your PC costs more than a Playstation 3. They should have hired the guy who priced the Blu-ray burner to come up with the price for the Playstation 3.
These launches always remind me of the "Game Slave 2" episode of Invader Zim.
I just thought of something... (Actually, I had to go to bed first...and THEN realize this) The IP addresses you put into the domain-named files have to be authoritative name servers. So, whatever you get from a 'host -t ns slashdot.org' has to be in the "slashdot.org" file, etc. Make sure you use IP addresses, and not the hostnames for obvious reasons. OK, back to bed...
I imagine dnscache (djbdns recursive name server) could do this.
/var/services/dnscache/root/servers/@,
/dev/null > @ /var/services/dnscache
... etc.
I'd try deleting all the entries in
and adding files named as the domains you want to look up, containing only
the IP address(es) of the name servers you want to forward to.
Nuking that @ file appears to give you the NXDOMAIN error like you desire:
[root@blah servers]# cat
[root@blah servers]# svc -h
[root@blah servers]# host www.monster.com 192.168.1.1
Using domain server 192.168.1.1:
Host not found, try again.
If you have a name server to forward to, say at "192.168.1.2" you just need to do
the following:
echo 192.168.1.2 > monster.com
echo 192.168.1.2 > google.com
echo 192.168.1.2 > slashdot.org
Yeah, but it'll take the "South Korean physicists" 6 more years to figure that out too. I made a perl script called ebaysniper back in January of 2001. It worked like a charm, and was in retaliation to being out-bid from a sniper. This story being tagged as "Duh" is spot-on!
I hate that reboot reminder. I used to drag the pop-up window to the bottom right of the screen, where you only see a few pixel-height of the window, and I can make it "go away". But, didn't they change it recently so it has a 60 second countdown or something? Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Another example of how Windows interrupts people who are trying to actually USE the computer.
It helps to have a goal. I don't know how many people I've seen install linux without a reason to. Have a goal like, "I want to set up a linux SMB file server," or "I want to burn a CD in linux." It helps to have a goal, so you know when you've accomplished a step in "learning" linux. You learn better when you have a light at the end of the tunnel, otherwise you'll hit a few hurdles and give up thinking, "Meh, I don't know what I was going to do anyway."
Oh, and there's ample documentation for linux these days. And if you find yourself recompiling the kernel, then chances are you're tackling a larger task than you should be for a beginner. I'm well versed in linux, and I haven't had to recompile a kernel in a few years.
As for Windows vs. linux, I'd much rather debug a problem in linux. I don't know how many times I've tried to fix a broken Windows 2003 Server problem, and not find anything in their useless "event viewer." Give me actual log files. Give me utilities like 'strace'. Design a standard location to put configuration options. Having to right-click on everything to find the option you need, only to find out it's hiding under 3 icons, one of 5 tabs, then another button is rediculous.
In unix, it's either in the service's installation directory, or in /etc. Heck, the man page usually tells you where the configuration files are.
I'm an admin. I prefer linux. Compared to Windows, everything just makes more sense.
Here's a typical day's routine that perpetuates my windows frustration:
1. I arrive at work, and take my laptop out of my backpack.
2. I connect the ethernet cable into the wall jack.
3. I boot up, login, and start SSH'ing and web browsing with a 1Gbps connection.
4. About 10 seconds later, my laptop tells me "There are wireless networks available."
5. I think to myself, "I don't care. I'm already connected to the network, thanks."
6. The "chat bubble" doesn't go away as quick as I'd like.
7. I go to click the tiny [X] box in the corner, only to miss-click and bring up the list of wireless networks instead.
8. At about step 5 I have stopped working, and started fighting with the user interface. This isn't how computers are supposed to work.
I don't even want to admit how long it took me to find the option to turn off the annoying, "You have unused items on your desktop" notificaion.
Windows has its purposes and uses, but when it breaks, and I have to try to fix it ... it annoys me to no end. Thank goodness Google is there to ease the pain. They'll help you with linux too, of course.
Seriously... I want to know what Slashdot reader double-clicks on ANYTHING in a web page. My father, or mother-in-law, sure. But Slashdot users? C'mon... we all know better. As for the article: Cool idea. Too flashy for my taste. I prefer the authentice DDR arrows, and I'd like the arrows to light up when pressed. I really found the steel frame to be the most interesting. From the looks of the welding job, I'm not sure I'm ready to use a welding torch. Also, people need to make sure they put some type of shock absorbing feet under the "arcade" style pads if they're going to be playing on a concrete slab. I tried playing down in my basement, as opposed to my living room with a wooden sub-floor above a crawlspace, and I gotta say, "It didn't feel too good."
Don't be stupid. Please. -- Agreed.
And yes, some people need to use Windows for work. Those people shouldn't be buying Macintosh computers. In my opinion, the OS is what Macintosh has always been about. Why buy a Mac if you're going to run Windows on it? Somebody used an automobile analogy, and I'd have to agree. This makes as much sense as buying a Corvette and putting a Cobalt's engine in it. Go buy an HP laptop, paint it white, glue an Apple sticker on it, and save yourself a few bucks.