Wrong- lead is both cheaper and more dense than gold: Gold (Au) has an atomic weight of 196.966569(4) g/mol whereas Lead (Pb) has an atomic weight of 207.2(1) âg/mol.
1.25 centimeters- that's half an inch. Perhaps a bit too small yet for use in a monitor- but probably reasonably easy to scale up to the size of a pair of glasses.
Incorporating a camera display on the inside of a pair of glasses would make eye tracking much simpler, and reduce any privacy concerns- Even if someone would be watching along with the video stream being captured by the glasses, all there would be to see would be eye movements.
Who said the simulation had to be pleasant? It's a harsh environment, remember- nobody said living on Mars was going to be 'pleasant'. This is extreme survival- to answer the question whether human life is possible not just in extreme environments on earth, but on another planet altogether. Now, if it's too hot to make for a *realistic* simulation, that's another matter altogether. But if they're going to be complaining that the simulation isn't 'pleasant', human life on other planets is doomed already.
I've written "Growing Better Software" (go grab yourself a free* copy). At first I thought LaTeX would be the way to go, as I was pretty sure I'd need to provide my finished result as PDF. I didn't want to spend a lot of time fiddling with layout, but focus on writing- and this is exactly what LaTeX promises.
I found LaTeX gives you a very convenient way to separate chapters; you can simply have one main file and include the several chapters in there.
However, I found the learning curve rather steep- books are rather complex documents, so there's a LOT to learn before you know all the nooks and crannies. And so, every time I wanted to do something near-trivial, I had to look it up (no, I didn't start by ploughing through a several hundred page manual first- I wanted to focus on writing, after all). Also, I found myself spending too much time correcting syntax errors in my markup, rather than actually writing- I found that worse, in fact, than needing to 'fiddle with the layout'.
I got so tired of doing things in LaTex' convoluted ways that I switched to OpenOffice halfway the project. It worked like a dream- I simply set the page/paragraph/chapter layouts and finally could focus on actually writing. As it turned out, I spent less time fiddling with the layout than previously in LaTex. Having used Word before on 300+ page functional documentation, I also found OpenOffice to be much more stable than Word. Indices, page references etc. were a breeze, as was creating the PDF.
Perhaps the book doesn't look as good as a professionally typeset document- judge for yourself. In any case, for my particular purpose, OO.o worked better for me than LaTeX. Perhaps you need to write a lot of math formulas, in which case LaTeX may suit your specific situation better.
I've heard of easter eggs in MS products ('flight simulator' in excel), Borland products (in Delphi 5, starwars scroller), Lotus Notes (Monty Python team scroller), Apple ('stolen from apple' icon). I've read about of easter eggs on the layout of integrated circuits (DEC?). Just because there's an easter egg hidden somewhere, it doesn't make the software OR hardware company in question any less credible. Bad software (or hardware) does.
Honestly, ZFS seems like it's the holy grail of filesystems. There are a few small issues that might need to be worked out, though it seems as close to "ideal" as you'd ever be able to get.
Depends on the features you need. I for one can see huge benefits in companies using a distributed filesystem across their computers. ZFS doesn't do that, so there's still room for improvement. Oh, and at some point 16 EiB won't be enough anymore.
You got me there - that should have been 99.999% obviously, not 999.99%. Goes to show how easy it is to make mistakes. Thanks for helping me emphasize the point I was trying to make!
These "better languages" are easier to use which allows for less experienced coders to perform the tasks.
I couldn't disagree more. Although automatic garbage collection is nice, this doesn't mean that you'll get "five nines uptime" systems by working with "less experienced" coders.
If you're building a system that must guarantee 999.99% uptime, you wait until your best professionals become available, because it doesn't only involve code. You DON'T give the job to the less experienced ones, no matter how great the programming language. Five nines uptime requires a very robust design and very solid code quality running on a very solid platform which is running on a very solid OS on a very solid infrastructure. You'll want everything to be tested by unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, and whatnot. That involves a whole lot more than 'just' coders, but whoever works on it, they better be good at it.
Anyone knowing a bit about file systems know that being able to restore some data from a drive is a heck of a lot easier than being able to restore file names
Bingo. I've recovered bunches of JPG files for someone, from an accidentally quickformatted hard drive, just by knowing which file format he was after. No, I didn't manage to figure out the original filenames. But he *did* get his photos back.
Occasionally, I also recover audio from drives in Alesis' proprietary HD24 FST format.
In my experience, pro recovery companies have *no clue* how to deal with that FS but will happily charge customers a bucketload for 'analysis'. Alesis typically recommends me for data recovery. So I guess I don't qualify as King of Recovery.
Hell, even proving Bill isn't ACTUALLY equipped with a Borg eye is worth a few million.
Isn't it amazing what they can do with computer graphics nowadays? Even if it cost a few million to edit his Borg eye away, it really looks as if it was never there.
The problem with writing your own book is that it takes time, and lots of it- months to years. Even if you know what you're talking about. But kdawson needs a book now.
Easier said than done. If you use webmail, for instance, the bits that ask for your password may communicate through https- but once you've entered that password, the actual content of your emails is not encrypted when in transit, so it is sensitive to sniffing.
Likewise, most websites that you visit are unencrypted by default- including slashdot.
Cuisine varies so much between regions that I'm really interested to hear how you define "better".
The grandparent poster probably made a judgement based on reputation of the country. In Europe, Belgium has some fabulous beers. France has a huge reputation in wines. When talking about European cuisine, what comes to mind are the italian pastas, French haute cuisine, Swedish smoked salmon, Spanish tapas, and wonderful cheese from all over. Every European country has their specialties, and the differences between those specialties are like day and night.
The average non-American is familiar with exactly two brands of American beer: Budweiser (which sounds very, very German) and Duff. The Californians are known for their wines (and they're good value for money) but we don't see an awful lot of Californian wine over a decade old on the shelves here (whereas I'm sure the opposite is true).
As for American cuisine, the most well-known dishes to the outside world are hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, KFC and Thanksgiving turkey. The burgers, hot dogs and pizza (and the fries with that) aren't even American by origin.
Obviously, this is not the entire picture, and I'm sure that actual US cuisine is a lot more varied than the picture I just painted. But I can see why the grandparent poster thinks Europe has better food and drink.
The article sounds more like a rant than like constructive criticism to me.
You can do a lot about the usability of your software by providing visual clues, making your program look like existing programs and raising CLEAR (parameterized) error messages if you really need to- to name a few things. But the least you can do is ask some non-tech coworkers to take a look at your program and see where they get stuck, then fix it. It's really not that hard.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong- lead is both cheaper and more dense than gold: Gold (Au) has an atomic weight of 196.966569(4) g/mol whereas Lead (Pb) has an atomic weight of 207.2(1) âg/mol.
Can I interest you in an individual copy of my book then? At a markup, of course.
That's 127.543112 kilometers per liter (or roughly 8 times as fuel-efficient as a Joe Average car).
1.25 centimeters- that's half an inch. Perhaps a bit too small yet for use in a monitor- but probably reasonably easy to scale up to the size of a pair of glasses. Incorporating a camera display on the inside of a pair of glasses would make eye tracking much simpler, and reduce any privacy concerns- Even if someone would be watching along with the video stream being captured by the glasses, all there would be to see would be eye movements.
Screenshots can be faked: user@phantom$ But according to this page, it's about 90% unimplemented. Someone please tag the article 'vaporware'.
Who said the simulation had to be pleasant? It's a harsh environment, remember- nobody said living on Mars was going to be 'pleasant'. This is extreme survival- to answer the question whether human life is possible not just in extreme environments on earth, but on another planet altogether. Now, if it's too hot to make for a *realistic* simulation, that's another matter altogether. But if they're going to be complaining that the simulation isn't 'pleasant', human life on other planets is doomed already.
That rock ash still has high mineral content and makes for fertile ground.
Only released recently, it addresses many common problems in everyday software development.
PC vs Mac vs Linux
I've written "Growing Better Software" (go grab yourself a free* copy). At first I thought LaTeX would be the way to go, as I was pretty sure I'd need to provide my finished result as PDF. I didn't want to spend a lot of time fiddling with layout, but focus on writing- and this is exactly what LaTeX promises.
I found LaTeX gives you a very convenient way to separate chapters; you can simply have one main file and include the several chapters in there.
However, I found the learning curve rather steep- books are rather complex documents, so there's a LOT to learn before you know all the nooks and crannies. And so, every time I wanted to do something near-trivial, I had to look it up (no, I didn't start by ploughing through a several hundred page manual first- I wanted to focus on writing, after all). Also, I found myself spending too much time correcting syntax errors in my markup, rather than actually writing- I found that worse, in fact, than needing to 'fiddle with the layout'.
I got so tired of doing things in LaTex' convoluted ways that I switched to OpenOffice halfway the project. It worked like a dream- I simply set the page/paragraph/chapter layouts and finally could focus on actually writing. As it turned out, I spent less time fiddling with the layout than previously in LaTex. Having used Word before on 300+ page functional documentation, I also found OpenOffice to be much more stable than Word. Indices, page references etc. were a breeze, as was creating the PDF.
Perhaps the book doesn't look as good as a professionally typeset document- judge for yourself. In any case, for my particular purpose, OO.o worked better for me than LaTeX. Perhaps you need to write a lot of math formulas, in which case LaTeX may suit your specific situation better.
* as in beer- conditions apply.
I've heard of easter eggs in MS products ('flight simulator' in excel), Borland products (in Delphi 5, starwars scroller), Lotus Notes (Monty Python team scroller), Apple ('stolen from apple' icon). I've read about of easter eggs on the layout of integrated circuits (DEC?). Just because there's an easter egg hidden somewhere, it doesn't make the software OR hardware company in question any less credible. Bad software (or hardware) does.
Depends on the features you need. I for one can see huge benefits in companies using a distributed filesystem across their computers. ZFS doesn't do that, so there's still room for improvement. Oh, and at some point 16 EiB won't be enough anymore.
And Paula Bean?
Goto's aren't always bad. Of course they aren't. But beware the velociraptors.
What about their development site which explains how to build chromium on Windows, MacOS and Linux?
You got me there - that should have been 99.999% obviously, not 999.99%. Goes to show how easy it is to make mistakes. Thanks for helping me emphasize the point I was trying to make!
I couldn't disagree more. Although automatic garbage collection is nice, this doesn't mean that you'll get "five nines uptime" systems by working with "less experienced" coders.
If you're building a system that must guarantee 999.99% uptime, you wait until your best professionals become available, because it doesn't only involve code. You DON'T give the job to the less experienced ones, no matter how great the programming language. Five nines uptime requires a very robust design and very solid code quality running on a very solid platform which is running on a very solid OS on a very solid infrastructure. You'll want everything to be tested by unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, and whatnot. That involves a whole lot more than 'just' coders, but whoever works on it, they better be good at it.
Bingo. I've recovered bunches of JPG files for someone, from an accidentally quickformatted hard drive, just by knowing which file format he was after. No, I didn't manage to figure out the original filenames. But he *did* get his photos back.
Occasionally, I also recover audio from drives in Alesis' proprietary HD24 FST format.
In my experience, pro recovery companies have *no clue* how to deal with that FS but will happily charge customers a bucketload for 'analysis'. Alesis typically recommends me for data recovery. So I guess I don't qualify as King of Recovery.
Isn't it amazing what they can do with computer graphics nowadays? Even if it cost a few million to edit his Borg eye away, it really looks as if it was never there.
The problem with writing your own book is that it takes time, and lots of it- months to years. Even if you know what you're talking about. But kdawson needs a book now.
Of course, his contract may state that leaking company secrets may be punishable by amount X. If you must publish it, do so anonymously.
I suggest you read I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstandings of privacy.
Easier said than done. If you use webmail, for instance, the bits that ask for your password may communicate through https- but once you've entered that password, the actual content of your emails is not encrypted when in transit, so it is sensitive to sniffing. Likewise, most websites that you visit are unencrypted by default- including slashdot.
The grandparent poster probably made a judgement based on reputation of the country. In Europe, Belgium has some fabulous beers. France has a huge reputation in wines. When talking about European cuisine, what comes to mind are the italian pastas, French haute cuisine, Swedish smoked salmon, Spanish tapas, and wonderful cheese from all over. Every European country has their specialties, and the differences between those specialties are like day and night.
The average non-American is familiar with exactly two brands of American beer: Budweiser (which sounds very, very German) and Duff. The Californians are known for their wines (and they're good value for money) but we don't see an awful lot of Californian wine over a decade old on the shelves here (whereas I'm sure the opposite is true). As for American cuisine, the most well-known dishes to the outside world are hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, KFC and Thanksgiving turkey. The burgers, hot dogs and pizza (and the fries with that) aren't even American by origin.
Obviously, this is not the entire picture, and I'm sure that actual US cuisine is a lot more varied than the picture I just painted. But I can see why the grandparent poster thinks Europe has better food and drink.
The article sounds more like a rant than like constructive criticism to me. You can do a lot about the usability of your software by providing visual clues, making your program look like existing programs and raising CLEAR (parameterized) error messages if you really need to- to name a few things. But the least you can do is ask some non-tech coworkers to take a look at your program and see where they get stuck, then fix it. It's really not that hard.