A bit of a tangent, but I recall an Asimov story ("The Gods Themselves"?) where this idea was played with.
Basically, people in a universe like ours discover a way to open up a path to a universe where the constants are different. Somehow, this allows them to extract energy. This was all fine and dandy, except that they discover that this "leaks" the different universal constant from the other universe into theirs, eventually causing all of the stars in their universe to destabilize. The solution was to open up another portal to another universe with yet another set of constants to offset the drift.
Part of the story is about the "people" in the universe they are connected to... but I forgot what happened to them.
I second the sentiment. Although in modern desktop proc. implementations, the decode overhead is smaller and smaller portion of the overall die size, it still took time for some engineers to work on those pieces that would not have otherwise been necessary. That, along with all of the funny games to have more than 4 registers (but still trick the software into thinking there's only 4), the anachronistic x87 floating point stack, etc. all require effort from some portion of Intel engineers to drag along in each generation of the design.
As pointed out elsewhere, it's quite telling that the PowerPC alliance, whose desktop processor design effort in terms of people and $$ were dwarfed by Intel's, kept up a pretty good game for a decade or so of being competitive (and being better in some cases.)
>Canada is our FRIEND. Canada has not offered us violence, or a flood of illegal aliens, or a torrent of criminals, or anything worse > than the occasional pot smuggler or draft-dodger haven.
Intel tried the graphics market once... it didn't work out very well as they got buried by nVidia/ATi et. al. in a hurry. It wasn't their "core competency".
I suppose the landscape has changed since then... with AMD owning one of the major players and technological changes.
One of my interesting thought experiments is having Intel buy Nvidia; sort of horizontally merging the two duopolies, but I can't see very far into that future.
I believe the artist is "America": I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It seems good to be out of the rain In the desert, you can't remember your name but there ain't no one for it to give you no pain...
La la la la la la la la... May be a little off since I'm at work and it's from memory.
Actually, almost 10 years ago, there WAS Dragon Naturally Speaking for Mac. I bought it, and its upgrade when it came out. (Unless my brain is totally whacked and it was some other voice recognition package for Mac) It came with a headset in the box, too. I'm sure that version is what that rep was talking about. It's funny... all these comments, and I didn't notice any high-scoring comments pointing out that there already WAS a voice recognition package for Mac years ago.
I remember I paid $10 for a trans-pacific flight back in 2006 to have in-flight internet access. I believe it was co-branded between Boeing and the airline. I also remember they discontinued the service at the end of 2006. So in-flight internet access like this isn't new at all. I guess someone figured that this time, it would be profitable.
Um... the Nuclear in NMR does refer to the nucleus of the atom, at least AFAIK. Where did you read otherwise? In fact, doesn't the thought set off "oh, wait, that can't be right" alarm in your head if you try to think of how a cell nucleus can possibly have magnetic properties?
The Crimson Room (http://www.fasco-csc.com/index_j.php) and its ilk are pretty good. I didn't remember the link, so I found this one via googling. I hope it's correct.
Replace "sane" with "used to Windows". I actually had the opposite problem when I was getting used to Windows. I hand a folder with bunch of files I didn't want, and a folder with the correct files in it. I expected a replace operation (because that's what Windows would do with any other kind of file) but instead I got a folder with a mix of bunch of files I wanted and buch of files I didn't, forcing me to sort through them to figure out which was which.
A merge operation is useful, but from my perspective, it shouldn't be the default.
Um... strong language and accusation there.... However, speaking in the aggregate is somewhat pointless in this case, isn't it? Sure, if you added up all of the unclaimed money across bazillions of organizations, you'd come up with some large total, but unless you went through the records of every single merit-based scholarship granting organization and verified that in every case, they had more scholarships available than granted, your argument isn't meaningful.
In fact, many small organizations only give one such scholarship per academic year, and you only have to find one instance where such grant was ill-gotten to give credence to the original point.
If Johnny applied to "Grandsons of Irish immigrands who like potatos but don't drink Beer" scholarship, but got bumped by Mary who falsified her grades, it doesn't matter that the "Granddaughters of the French revolution who like knitting" fund still had money available after the application deadline.
Except that Amex Blue, which at one point DID offer price protection, has no annual fee. I haven't kept up on all of the amendments to the terms, so maybe they stopped doing that. At least another poster posted something that indicates that they did stop. ah well.
Well, I'm a total newbie in terms of compiler architectures and such, but throwing it out there for the purpose of discussion...
I assume a compiler will parse the source and in the process identify which tokens are key words and literals, and which are programmer-defined identifiers in the code. The spell checker would either use the same algorithm, or latch into that part of the algorithm to get at all of the identifiers. There are two possible word separators in typical code--either capital letters or underscors. (If you have something more bizarre, then I think it's a lost cause). So pass those identifiers through a filter that chops them up at each capital letter or underscore (with some exceptions, say, if the identifier is all caps). So, now you've got a pile of strings which are either oddball programming convention stuff, like "p" and "g" for pointers and globals, and things that should generally be words. The rules can include "toss out single character identifiers", "toss out everything up to first capital or underscore", etc. If you have coding guidelines that enforce variable naming conventions, this should get you most of the way.
Now you have English words that you can pass through your standard spelling engine, possibly with a dictionary tweaked for your field of endeavor to decrease false positves and escapes.
I was reading the Great Microprocessors list and it says AMD already did that back in the K5 days. It had a mode where it can natively execute the RISC-like instructions. Nobody used it, so I don't know whether current gen AMD chips support it.
I think I paid JPY9800 for it, with a different AU plan than the original poster, I presume. I agree it's generally a good phone, but it locks you in just as badly as some of the US phones. My Sony Ericsson T67 (? shoot, I don't remember the exact model) let me use bluetooth to copy MIDI files over to it and use them as ring tones.
As far as I can tell, the W41CA has no way to transfer any kind of audio files to it other than the one supported by their proprietary (and buggy) software. Furthermore, bluetooth is just not catching on in Japan, so syncing contacts is a tedious affair involving the USB cradle and their proprietary software (and only if you have Japanese Windows... Linux/Mac users need not apply).
Also, most Japanese phones don't have input assistance for English text (e.g. T9), so it's tedious to write messages.
I actually don't use the internet features very much, so if I had the choice of somehow using my Sony Ericsson in Japan or the W41CA, I'd ratehr have my Sony Ericcson (assuming hypothetical Japanese input support).
People who modded this informative didn't do their research. Although it's true CCC as a whole is a fairly wealthy area, the article in question appears to be talking about WCCCSD, in areas like Richmond. There is a Night/Day difference between, say Lafayette/Moraga/Orinda and Richmond. Kids can play in the streets past dark in the former, I'm afraid to walk the streets at night in the latter. I also infer from several other comments that the WCCCSD was mismanaged years ago. So please, stop with the "this is a rich disctrict that can afford to pay" comments based on information on the county as a whole. It's a non-sequitur.
Mobo and CPU? Each layer of the PCB was hand engraved out of solid gold by an Italian artisan, laid down on ceramic substrate and baked in a kiln high in the Alps for 40 days. Each via was filled by painstakingly applying gold leaf with the tip of a fur from a baby seal.
Similarly, each silicon wafer was hand etched (under an electron microscope) and assembled by hand. Needless to say, all the hardware is custom. Good luck writing software... all the CPU usage manuals come on illuminated parchment scrolls.
I see... in retrospect, that makes sense. At the time I had a mini-AT mobo in a AT minitower. It wasn't too bad to get in there, but I can easily see it being a lot worse.... but we're veering off topic.
Slashdot Mirror
...oh, and "Frist Post!!!!"
Dang, I wanted to do that for a looong time.
It might make sense for non-emergency lines, but opening up the 911 seems to be asking for trouble with deluge of trivial, non-emergency data.
A bit of a tangent, but I recall an Asimov story ("The Gods Themselves"?) where this idea was played with.
Basically, people in a universe like ours discover a way to open up a path to a universe where the constants are different. Somehow, this allows them to extract energy. This was all fine and dandy, except that they discover that this "leaks" the different universal constant from the other universe into theirs, eventually causing all of the stars in their universe to destabilize.
The solution was to open up another portal to another universe with yet another set of constants to offset the drift.
Part of the story is about the "people" in the universe they are connected to... but I forgot what happened to them.
Probably, not everyone's a software geek. I've synthesized FPGA's, but I've yet to compile a kernel.
About a guy who "telecommutes" via a robot avatar in the office?
Not that this thing isn't interesting on its own.
I second the sentiment. Although in modern desktop proc. implementations, the decode overhead is smaller and smaller portion of the overall die size, it still took time for some engineers to work on those pieces that would not have otherwise been necessary. That, along with all of the funny games to have more than 4 registers (but still trick the software into thinking there's only 4), the anachronistic x87 floating point stack, etc. all require effort from some portion of Intel engineers to drag along in each generation of the design.
As pointed out elsewhere, it's quite telling that the PowerPC alliance, whose desktop processor design effort in terms of people and $$ were dwarfed by Intel's, kept up a pretty good game for a decade or so of being competitive (and being better in some cases.)
That at proper serving temperature, a Mars bar's chocolate covering is harder and colder than the chewy nougat and caramel inside.
>Canada is our FRIEND. Canada has not offered us violence, or a flood of illegal aliens, or a torrent of criminals, or anything worse
> than the occasional pot smuggler or draft-dodger haven.
Cue Celine Dion jokes in 3...2...
That's funny... /. ate my subject, which was "Remember the i740" before I hit "preview"...
Intel tried the graphics market once... it didn't work out very well as they got buried by nVidia/ATi et. al. in a hurry. It wasn't their "core competency".
I suppose the landscape has changed since then... with AMD owning one of the major players and technological changes.
One of my interesting thought experiments is having Intel buy Nvidia; sort of horizontally merging the two duopolies, but I can't see very far into that future.
I believe the artist is "America":
...
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It seems good to be out of the rain
In the desert, you can't remember your name
but there ain't no one for it to give you no pain...
La la la la la la la la
May be a little off since I'm at work and it's from memory.
Actually, almost 10 years ago, there WAS Dragon Naturally Speaking for Mac. I bought it, and its upgrade when it came out. (Unless my brain is totally whacked and it was some other voice recognition package for Mac) It came with a headset in the box, too. I'm sure that version is what that rep was talking about. It's funny... all these comments, and I didn't notice any high-scoring comments pointing out that there already WAS a voice recognition package for Mac years ago.
I remember I paid $10 for a trans-pacific flight back in 2006 to have in-flight internet access. I believe it was co-branded between Boeing and the airline. I also remember they discontinued the service at the end of 2006. So in-flight internet access like this isn't new at all. I guess someone figured that this time, it would be profitable.
I'm only guessing, since I've only read the descriptions (and haven't played the games), but "Postal" and "Carmageddon" were supposed to be like that.
Um... the Nuclear in NMR does refer to the nucleus of the atom, at least AFAIK. Where did you read otherwise? In fact, doesn't the thought set off "oh, wait, that can't be right" alarm in your head if you try to think of how a cell nucleus can possibly have magnetic properties?
The Crimson Room (http://www.fasco-csc.com/index_j.php) and its ilk are pretty good. I didn't remember the link, so I found this one via googling. I hope it's correct.
Replace "sane" with "used to Windows".
I actually had the opposite problem when I was getting used to Windows. I hand a folder with bunch of files I didn't want, and a folder with the correct files in it. I expected a replace operation (because that's what Windows would do with any other kind of file) but instead I got a folder with a mix of bunch of files I wanted and buch of files I didn't, forcing me to sort through them to figure out which was which.
A merge operation is useful, but from my perspective, it shouldn't be the default.
Um... strong language and accusation there.... However, speaking in the aggregate is somewhat pointless in this case, isn't it? Sure, if you added up all of the unclaimed money across bazillions of organizations, you'd come up with some large total, but unless you went through the records of every single merit-based scholarship granting organization and verified that in every case, they had more scholarships available than granted, your argument isn't meaningful.
In fact, many small organizations only give one such scholarship per academic year, and you only have to find one instance where such grant was ill-gotten to give credence to the original point.
If Johnny applied to "Grandsons of Irish immigrands who like potatos but don't drink Beer" scholarship, but got bumped by Mary who falsified her grades, it doesn't matter that the "Granddaughters of the French revolution who like knitting" fund still had money available after the application deadline.
Except that Amex Blue, which at one point DID offer price protection, has no annual fee. I haven't kept up on all of the amendments to the terms, so maybe they stopped doing that. At least another poster posted something that indicates that they did stop. ah well.
Well, I'm a total newbie in terms of compiler architectures and such, but throwing it out there for the purpose of discussion...
I assume a compiler will parse the source and in the process identify which tokens are key words and literals, and which are programmer-defined identifiers in the code. The spell checker would either use the same algorithm, or latch into that part of the algorithm to get at all of the identifiers. There are two possible word separators in typical code--either capital letters or underscors. (If you have something more bizarre, then I think it's a lost cause). So pass those identifiers through a filter that chops them up at each capital letter or underscore (with some exceptions, say, if the identifier is all caps). So, now you've got a pile of strings which are either oddball programming convention stuff, like "p" and "g" for pointers and globals, and things that should generally be words. The rules can include "toss out single character identifiers", "toss out everything up to first capital or underscore", etc. If you have coding guidelines that enforce variable naming conventions, this should get you most of the way.
Now you have English words that you can pass through your standard spelling engine, possibly with a dictionary tweaked for your field of endeavor to decrease false positves and escapes.
I was reading the Great Microprocessors list and it says AMD already did that back in the K5 days. It had a mode where it can natively execute the RISC-like instructions. Nobody used it, so I don't know whether current gen AMD chips support it.
I think I paid JPY9800 for it, with a different AU plan than the original poster, I presume. I agree it's generally a good phone, but it locks you in just as badly as some of the US phones. My Sony Ericsson T67 (? shoot, I don't remember the exact model) let me use bluetooth to copy MIDI files over to it and use them as ring tones.
As far as I can tell, the W41CA has no way to transfer any kind of audio files to it other than the one supported by their proprietary (and buggy) software. Furthermore, bluetooth is just not catching on in Japan, so syncing contacts is a tedious affair involving the USB cradle and their proprietary software (and only if you have Japanese Windows... Linux/Mac users need not apply).
Also, most Japanese phones don't have input assistance for English text (e.g. T9), so it's tedious to write messages.
I actually don't use the internet features very much, so if I had the choice of somehow using my Sony Ericsson in Japan or the W41CA, I'd ratehr have my Sony Ericcson (assuming hypothetical Japanese input support).
People who modded this informative didn't do their research. Although it's true CCC as a whole is a fairly wealthy area, the article in question appears to be talking about WCCCSD, in areas like Richmond. There is a Night/Day difference between, say Lafayette/Moraga/Orinda and Richmond. Kids can play in the streets past dark in the former, I'm afraid to walk the streets at night in the latter. I also infer from several other comments that the WCCCSD was mismanaged years ago. So please, stop with the "this is a rich disctrict that can afford to pay" comments based on information on the county as a whole. It's a non-sequitur.
Mobo and CPU?
Each layer of the PCB was hand engraved out of solid gold by an Italian artisan, laid down on ceramic substrate and baked in a kiln high in the Alps for 40 days. Each via was filled by painstakingly applying gold leaf with the tip of a fur from a baby seal.
Similarly, each silicon wafer was hand etched (under an electron microscope) and assembled by hand. Needless to say, all the hardware is custom. Good luck writing software... all the CPU usage manuals come on illuminated parchment scrolls.
I see... in retrospect, that makes sense. At the time I had a mini-AT mobo in a AT minitower. It wasn't too bad to get in there, but I can easily see it being a lot worse.... but we're veering off topic.