A magazine I subscribe to included in this month's issue a free 35 song sample from eMusic.com.
Interesting. thejazz currently have the same offer. When I clicked on it it turned out to be nothing to do with thejazz. Anyone logging into eMusic can get this offer. But I closed the browser window as soon as I saw eMusic is a subscription service.
The people employing the programmers think the programmer should use the least resources necessary for the task assigned. Since people buy software as long as their current system doesn't make it painfully slow to use, the programmer's time is more judiciously spent fixing bugs or writing another bloated product than optimizing something that runs fast enough.
I kind of agree, but the situation is not nearly as black-and-white as you appear to be suggesting. Clean, efficient, code is usually much easier to debug and maintain, and has less bugs to start with. There is a commonly perceived view that efficient code is obscure and hard to follow, but this is a bit of a straw man - it can be in extreme cases, but bloated code is often much harder to follow. Well-designed code can be a joy to read. OK, maybe I should get out more...
It's intended to make people wonder what it means, so it worked;-)
It is a response really to those who associate 'faith' in the context of religion (and Christianity in particular) as something that is unreasoned, based on no evidence, blind, believing something you know not to be true, etc. That's very strange, because in other arenas of life 'faith' is to do with trust, and trust is usually earned. You don't normally put your faith in someone unless you have some past experience of them being faithful (trustworthy) and a reasonable expectation that they will continue to be faithful in the future. I'm a Christian, and I think that faith in God (by the more 'every day' definition - i.e. based on experience, not the strawman definition of it being blind) is quite a rational and reasonable thing.
The software should use the least resources necessary for the task assigned.
I can't think of any case where you would want to use 'all the resources it can' (except perhaps stress-testing something).
Of course, if the task exceeds the resource then you will end up using all the resources available. Maybe that is the case with some games. It shouldn't be the case for day-to-day word processing.
For me the upgrade will probably be worth it just to get Time Machine. (Not that I have important keynote presentations...)
The main thing for me is that it must cope gracefully with using a removable disk as the backup volume. I'm expecting it to keep limited numbers of older file versions on the internal disk, and dump these to the removable one whenever I connect it, doing all this in the background without any user intervention (other than plugging in the firewire connector of course). Fingers crossed...
can you clarify that statement because all I'm seeing is "As the light passes through...
This camera was described on the recent BBC Digital Planet programme on the BBC World Service. They explained in the program that (a random) half of the mirrors are 'on' at any one time.
Having said that, I agree that the sensor still needs very good sensitivity and noise properties, because to disentangle the multiple images, some of the maths will involve subtracting one image from another, and that will amplify the noise. I wouldn't be surprised if the net result was the same as if only one mirror was on at a time (leaving aside of course the main point of the camera which is to only record as much information as will go into the final compressed image).
The question is, can a single large detector be a million times better in terms of sensitivity/noise than a million small detectors? Maybe...
What an EULA is to disallow some uses of the software, something you are otherwise free to do under copyright law.
That's not actually true in some countries. I believe (but IANAL) that here in the UK, loading a program into memory is treated as 'copying' that program and is therefore subject to copyright law. So copyright law effectively prevents you even from using software, since for all practical purposes it is impossible to run a program without loading it.
I'm fully convinced by the arguments and evidence for climate change, but it is important to understand that a single abnormal year doesn't provide credible evidence. There are fluctuations in temperature every year. You have to look at the bigger picture.
Regarding silencing those who still think climate change is a myth: Ignorance flourishes when debate is stifled. This is one reason why we have religious extremists, and why seemingly ordinary people join their numbers. As a general rule, if religion is taught in schools at all, it is taught very badly. (Here in the UK most schools do have religious education classes, but my opinion of them is that they could be done a lot better.) This leaves people ill-equipped to make informed decisions later in life about whether they are being told the truth or lies about a particular religion.
The same argument could be applied to climate change and science in general. Teach people how to think, question, and evaluate ideas, and they will start to make better decisions.
The source code is the blueprint/architectural plan/schematic.
The incoherent ramblings of marketing/sales/etc and the software specifications are the equivalent of the initial meeting with the architect saying we want 20 stories and a south-facing balcony on each external wall.
The current state of technology in regards to human imagination makes it many times easier to think up of good ideas or improvements for computer software than it takes to create or implement them.
Hmm. I don't think that is generally true. While it might be true in a few cases, in my own experience of developing software the hardest part is not the implementation, but coming up with really good ideas.
Implementation of ideas in software is generally not especially difficult. (I know, sweeping generalisation!) The bits that take time, that derail the process, are when you are half way through an implementation and suddenly ask "What do we do about X? It's not mentioned in the design." If the idea is less than great, there may be no obvious answer, or 'right' way to do it. You then end up either making a horrible kludge, or going back and making major changes to the design, refactoring, throwing away great swathes of code. (Guess which usually happens.)
It takes an extraordinary amount of foresight and insight to come up with an idea that is fully consistent both internally and with all of the related existing software infrastructure.
I wonder whether Firefox's RefreshBlocker add-on would prevent this annoyance? I haven't often run into the problem myself, so I can't say I've tried it.
Found this link for GreyCstoration which sounds similar to what the parent mentions. This isn't a wavelet technique, but it seems to produce quite good results. But I'm always very skeptical of any claim to restore detail not in the original image - in this case it seems to rely on the idea of
locally smooth the image preferably along the image structures
which can give the subjective impression of improving detail, but only because that is what our brains expect to see in a sharp image.
Does anyone have a link to code doing wavelet-based scaling techniques, especially a GIMP plugin?
The trouble is though that in my experience, ISPs don't put that kind of detail into the small print of the contract, and I certainly don't like the idea of going to the courts. If you can really be bothered, have a look at the story of my battle with my previous ISP for an example of what is likely to happen when you try to complain in exactly this situation.
I think it is perhaps you who needs to read what I wrote, this time with a more open mind.
(It's not about you - you may well run your own private email server where you have no responsibilities to any other users. I don't care. What you missed is that those of us who oppose the use of RBLs are not in general the senders of blocked emails. Mostly, we are those who are trying to receive emails that are being blocked on our behalfs by high-handed ISPs and administrators. So arguing about whether or not it is the right of the sender to expect his email to enter your private server is completely backwards. I stand by my post.)
What the hell are you talking about? It's quite the opposite -- barring private contracts you have no implicit right to send e-mail to any mail server
You've got it exactly backwards. If I have an agreement for a service that includes email, I have a right to expect that any email sent to me can reach my account. It is not the rights of the sender that are being infringed, it is the rights of the recipient.
Is it the right of the owner of a mail server freely to accept or refuse messages at will?
My answer is that it may not be. It is not, for example, if he has an responsibility to provide an email service to others.
Is it his right to define whatever rules he wishes for the acceptance or rejection of email?
See above.
Is there anybody in the world who has the right to order him to do otherwise?
Perhaps. The people he provides email accounts for?
I get sick of the arrogant attitude of certain administrators that they can do what the hell they like, and if users don't like it they can get an account elsewhere. Most of the time spam blocking policies and their likely consequences are not even public knowledge, and the users don't know they are likely to be suffering collateral damage.
Control over spam rejection policies should reside in the hands of the users, not the administrators.
Don't take it personally - sorry if I was offensive. This argument always comes down to a value judgement over the (dis)merits of spam getting through versus legitimate mail not getting through. Different people quite rightly have different opinions.
The argument along the lines "If there is no better way of blocking spam, we'll just have to use RBLs" is flawed, because it only begs the question. (i.e. it assumes that the 'correct' judgement is to accept blocking of legitimate mail as a price worth paying for reducing spam.)
My point was that the only person qualified to decide whether collateral damage is a price worth paying is the intended recipient of the email. ISPs and system administrators should not be making this decision on their users'/customers' behalf, and especially not without telling them.
Personally, I think 'Shut up and take your spam' is a better solution than RBLs and collateral damage, because it puts control in the hands of the recipient where it belongs. It's far from ideal, but it is probably the best we have. That's my own value judgement.
What exactly is an RBL operator supposed to do about large server parks that simply do not give a shit about the spammers residing on their network?
The original post explained why the end does not justify the means. You 'counter' it by insisting that since you can't think of anything better the end does justify the means. Welcome to rational debate.
Not that I'm blaming you - and you did say that you don't use RBLs anymore.
Perhaps since there is no 'rational' answer to this question of priorities, the best solution is to let the people who are affected by the collateral damage - i.e. the email recipients - decide on their priorities for themselves.
I don't think anyone who administers email on behalf of others should use SORBS. If you use the SORBS lists to block email, some legitimate email will be blocked. You can only really justify use of SORBS in this way if everyone affected understands and is happy with this situation.
I object to SORBS on ideological grounds - that its fee for delisting is about as close as you can get to extortion without actually breaking the law.
It is also frighteningly easy to get listed. They look after a number of 'secret' spam-trap addresses. They operate a 'three strikes and you are out' policy with these trap addresses. That is, on the third instance of a server sending an email to a SORBS spam-trap address, that server will be blacklisted. Blacklisting is permanent if you don't pay the delisting fee.
The usual argument is that server administrators are responsible for preventing their servers from being used for spam. That's all very well, but if a malicious (or just stupid) user sent just three emails to SORBS spam-trap addresses, that server will be blacklisted immediately. No 'if's, no 'but's. How is an administrator expected to prevent that?
In summary, I would recommend everyone to steer well clear of SORBS, unless used strictly as part of a scoring system. If you do use SORBS, make sure that everyone affected understands the consequences of collateral damage and is happy that some legitimate emails to them will be blocked.
Large ISPs that block emails using SORBS are being totally irresponsible.
In immediate practical terms it probably doesn't matter, but I have to say I have difficulty understanding why they wouldn't make it a Universal Binary.
It is not as if they would have to maintain two versions of the code. The primary area where you have to be careful when writing cross-processor code is in binary interfaces (e.g. binary file formats) where you must use endian-safe methods of writing multi-byte words. But this is just good practise anyway.
In fact, building and running code on a variety of platforms is a great way to uncover coding errors.
But I suppose Adobe might have coded some critical sections of Premiere in x86 assembler and these would have to be rewritten for other processor types.
Slashdot Mirror
It's intended to make people wonder what it means, so it worked ;-)
It is a response really to those who associate 'faith' in the context of religion (and Christianity in particular) as something that is unreasoned, based on no evidence, blind, believing something you know not to be true, etc. That's very strange, because in other arenas of life 'faith' is to do with trust, and trust is usually earned. You don't normally put your faith in someone unless you have some past experience of them being faithful (trustworthy) and a reasonable expectation that they will continue to be faithful in the future. I'm a Christian, and I think that faith in God (by the more 'every day' definition - i.e. based on experience, not the strawman definition of it being blind) is quite a rational and reasonable thing.
The software should use the least resources necessary for the task assigned.
I can't think of any case where you would want to use 'all the resources it can' (except perhaps stress-testing something).
Of course, if the task exceeds the resource then you will end up using all the resources available. Maybe that is the case with some games. It shouldn't be the case for day-to-day word processing.
For me the upgrade will probably be worth it just to get Time Machine. (Not that I have important keynote presentations...)
The main thing for me is that it must cope gracefully with using a removable disk as the backup volume. I'm expecting it to keep limited numbers of older file versions on the internal disk, and dump these to the removable one whenever I connect it, doing all this in the background without any user intervention (other than plugging in the firewire connector of course). Fingers crossed...
Having said that, I agree that the sensor still needs very good sensitivity and noise properties, because to disentangle the multiple images, some of the maths will involve subtracting one image from another, and that will amplify the noise. I wouldn't be surprised if the net result was the same as if only one mirror was on at a time (leaving aside of course the main point of the camera which is to only record as much information as will go into the final compressed image).
The question is, can a single large detector be a million times better in terms of sensitivity/noise than a million small detectors? Maybe...
I'm fully convinced by the arguments and evidence for climate change, but it is important to understand that a single abnormal year doesn't provide credible evidence. There are fluctuations in temperature every year. You have to look at the bigger picture.
Regarding silencing those who still think climate change is a myth: Ignorance flourishes when debate is stifled. This is one reason why we have religious extremists, and why seemingly ordinary people join their numbers. As a general rule, if religion is taught in schools at all, it is taught very badly. (Here in the UK most schools do have religious education classes, but my opinion of them is that they could be done a lot better.) This leaves people ill-equipped to make informed decisions later in life about whether they are being told the truth or lies about a particular religion.
The same argument could be applied to climate change and science in general. Teach people how to think, question, and evaluate ideas, and they will start to make better decisions.
Here in the UK at least, the terms and conditions of the major ISPs are so vague as to be completely useless in this kind of dispute.
The source code is the blueprint/architectural plan/schematic.
The incoherent ramblings of marketing/sales/etc and the software specifications are the equivalent of the initial meeting with the architect saying we want 20 stories and a south-facing balcony on each external wall.
Three Essays by Jack W Reeves.
The Source Code Is The Design.
Implementation of ideas in software is generally not especially difficult. (I know, sweeping generalisation!) The bits that take time, that derail the process, are when you are half way through an implementation and suddenly ask "What do we do about X? It's not mentioned in the design." If the idea is less than great, there may be no obvious answer, or 'right' way to do it. You then end up either making a horrible kludge, or going back and making major changes to the design, refactoring, throwing away great swathes of code. (Guess which usually happens.)
It takes an extraordinary amount of foresight and insight to come up with an idea that is fully consistent both internally and with all of the related existing software infrastructure.
I wonder whether Firefox's RefreshBlocker add-on would prevent this annoyance? I haven't often run into the problem myself, so I can't say I've tried it.
Does anyone have a link to code doing wavelet-based scaling techniques, especially a GIMP plugin?
You are spot on there.
The trouble is though that in my experience, ISPs don't put that kind of detail into the small print of the contract, and I certainly don't like the idea of going to the courts. If you can really be bothered, have a look at the story of my battle with my previous ISP for an example of what is likely to happen when you try to complain in exactly this situation.
I think it is perhaps you who needs to read what I wrote, this time with a more open mind.
(It's not about you - you may well run your own private email server where you have no responsibilities to any other users. I don't care. What you missed is that those of us who oppose the use of RBLs are not in general the senders of blocked emails. Mostly, we are those who are trying to receive emails that are being blocked on our behalfs by high-handed ISPs and administrators. So arguing about whether or not it is the right of the sender to expect his email to enter your private server is completely backwards. I stand by my post.)
That's not an argument against putting choice in the hands of the recipient though.
See above.Perhaps. The people he provides email accounts for?
I get sick of the arrogant attitude of certain administrators that they can do what the hell they like, and if users don't like it they can get an account elsewhere. Most of the time spam blocking policies and their likely consequences are not even public knowledge, and the users don't know they are likely to be suffering collateral damage.
Control over spam rejection policies should reside in the hands of the users, not the administrators.
Don't take it personally - sorry if I was offensive. This argument always comes down to a value judgement over the (dis)merits of spam getting through versus legitimate mail not getting through. Different people quite rightly have different opinions.
The argument along the lines "If there is no better way of blocking spam, we'll just have to use RBLs" is flawed, because it only begs the question. (i.e. it assumes that the 'correct' judgement is to accept blocking of legitimate mail as a price worth paying for reducing spam.)
My point was that the only person qualified to decide whether collateral damage is a price worth paying is the intended recipient of the email. ISPs and system administrators should not be making this decision on their users'/customers' behalf, and especially not without telling them.
Personally, I think 'Shut up and take your spam' is a better solution than RBLs and collateral damage, because it puts control in the hands of the recipient where it belongs. It's far from ideal, but it is probably the best we have. That's my own value judgement.
If those spam-trap addresses became public knowledge, one could have a lot of 'fun' with them.
If an ISP uses SORBS to block incoming mail, it would be easy to get that ISP onto its own block-list. All it takes is three emails...
The original post explained why the end does not justify the means. You 'counter' it by insisting that since you can't think of anything better the end does justify the means. Welcome to rational debate.
Not that I'm blaming you - and you did say that you don't use RBLs anymore.
Perhaps since there is no 'rational' answer to this question of priorities, the best solution is to let the people who are affected by the collateral damage - i.e. the email recipients - decide on their priorities for themselves.
I don't think anyone who administers email on behalf of others should use SORBS. If you use the SORBS lists to block email, some legitimate email will be blocked. You can only really justify use of SORBS in this way if everyone affected understands and is happy with this situation.
I object to SORBS on ideological grounds - that its fee for delisting is about as close as you can get to extortion without actually breaking the law.
It is also frighteningly easy to get listed. They look after a number of 'secret' spam-trap addresses. They operate a 'three strikes and you are out' policy with these trap addresses. That is, on the third instance of a server sending an email to a SORBS spam-trap address, that server will be blacklisted. Blacklisting is permanent if you don't pay the delisting fee.
The usual argument is that server administrators are responsible for preventing their servers from being used for spam. That's all very well, but if a malicious (or just stupid) user sent just three emails to SORBS spam-trap addresses, that server will be blacklisted immediately. No 'if's, no 'but's. How is an administrator expected to prevent that?
In summary, I would recommend everyone to steer well clear of SORBS, unless used strictly as part of a scoring system. If you do use SORBS, make sure that everyone affected understands the consequences of collateral damage and is happy that some legitimate emails to them will be blocked.
Large ISPs that block emails using SORBS are being totally irresponsible.
(You can read a bit more about my battle with NTL here, for what its worth.)
In immediate practical terms it probably doesn't matter, but I have to say I have difficulty understanding why they wouldn't make it a Universal Binary.
It is not as if they would have to maintain two versions of the code. The primary area where you have to be careful when writing cross-processor code is in binary interfaces (e.g. binary file formats) where you must use endian-safe methods of writing multi-byte words. But this is just good practise anyway.
In fact, building and running code on a variety of platforms is a great way to uncover coding errors.
But I suppose Adobe might have coded some critical sections of Premiere in x86 assembler and these would have to be rewritten for other processor types.
Except this isn't an image.