Yesterday, I noticed that "MyYahoo" page was very slow to update when fetching from the ad websites. I use the FireFox AdBlock extension, but that doesn't stop it from running JavaScript that it has to fetch from a 3rd-party site. Because the browser doesn't display the page until the script is fetched, the page appeared very slow, even though I don't see the ads.
I found the PreferenceBar extension really useful. I just unclick the "JavaScript" checkbox, and the pages speed up again. Now, if only I could create a plugin that does site-specific JavaScript blocking...
There's a difference between an implementation and an interface. IMHO, the best interface I've used to a versioning system is Clearcase (VMS is not bad, also). You talk to the versioned entities as files and directories, not as entities in a separate repository/vault. As a tool, Clearcase has many problems, but the basic approach is very user-friendly -- at least for us command-line folks. The Clearmake concept (the ability to use someone else's build-products if they have the same source versions checked out) is also nice. (I really need to look at Katie sometime)
I don't really care what the underlying system is. Ideally, its not something I notice most of the time. I agree with you that versioning is not something I care about at the level of the disk-filesystem. But at the level of a mounted filesystem, I like my files to be versioned. Once I can "mount" my subversion client, I'll be happy. Under that, I just want something works.
So when you say that we don't need versioning at the filesystem level, do you mean as a disk-access layer thing, or a user-mounted-thing level?
The WTO is a voluntary organization. No one forces a country to be a member. Indeed, China had to fight hard to become a member.
In becoming a member, a country explicitly dilutes aspects of its sovereignty. The US senate, in ratifying membership, accepted this loss of sovereignty in exchange for the right to do the same thing to other countries.
If the US government decides that it loses more than it gains from its membership, then it can always leave.
I actually watched this morning's press conference where the "looks like mud, but can't be" quote came up. The scientists were talking about this interesting scraping on the surface (the "magic carpet") where the airbags dragged across it, and noted that it was similar to what has been seen elsewhere (Viking, Pathfinder) but more ductile.
Anyway, the quote was elicited only when one of the reporters there asked "to me it looks like mud, any chance it could be". The reply was that although it might look like mud, it couldn't be, followed by a description of the behavior of fine particles (they can flow, etc.).
I'd say that to use this as a quote that "scientists say" it looks like mud is a bit disingenuous.
Will I be able to get a job over there after the next round of layoffs -- do they have an equivalent of an H1B program? Are there any WTO rules that ensure that the job market really is global? (Has the US argued against such rules, as a form a protectionism?)
It might be simple to create a file will excess detail, but that file will be larger than needed for the small display. Also the small device will need to do additional work to render the complex image vs simple image. Additional work = more energy = shorter battery life.
The carriers are moving to use the same physical layer (plus layers 2,3) of their internal internetworking insfrastructure for both internet and phone traffic. The internet is build from these "internal networks" -- most internet traffic already travels across them. I'd say that the article is correct.
So what happens if you just leave all the kiosks offline and give them all a copy of the master voter registration db? Now you've opened yourself up to voter fraud: you could go from kiosk to kiosk, casting multiple ballots as yourself
Seems to me that you'd solve this problem by pre-distributing some form of physical token that a voter uses to enable their vote to be cast. Ensure that the casting of the the vote and destruction of the token form an atomic operation. Want to be high tech? Use a smart card.
instead of? With a few exceptions, its more likely to be "as well as". Afterall, we wouldn't want the current hour-long shows to last only 45 minutes, would we? </sarcasm>
Slightly disapointing that all the comments so far are negative -- not really bothering to think about the future.
The original internet was based around the principles the original poster suggests. Individual sites provide content, and "pay" for their connectivity by providing a routing service for others.
If you consider a modern city, there is a high density of wireless devices (e.g. phones). Its not too great a stretch to imagine a high density of broadband wireless just a few years from now (e.g. multiple Mhz capacity per sq. meter). This bandwidth could be made available for routing at zero-added cost: people are going to pay for batteries (or other power source) anyway.
With enough overlap of wireless routers, freeloaders, etc. wouldn't be a problem: the routing protocols would naturally avoid devices that don't route efficiently.
The suggestion of high density of available routes is valid for populated areas, but rural areas could have more problems. Who pays for the fat-pipe long-haul links? Contrast a different question: who pays for long-haul physical links (e.g. interstate highways)? Taxes can pay for national networks; international networks could be either pay-to-use, or could be provided as shared costs between states ("we route your traffic if your route ours" treaties). Consider the Channel-Tunnel (England-to-France) as an example of an international link.
So, it seems to me that there are no insumountable technical or economic problems. But the ISPs and telcos will fight hard to prevent it. Such a system would destroy existing business plans, and existing businesses have more money to pay lobyists than potential new businesses. They could probably be successful in restricting the available wireless spectrum, to prevent the necessary density of wireless connectivity, needed for this to work.
Actually, networking speeds are increasing just fine -- perhaps even faster than storage. A few years ago, ethernet was 10baseT: now with have 10gigE. Look at the bandwidth available in the backbones -- in fact, look at the quantity of dark fiber out there: bandwidth that exists, but is unused.
The problem is "the last mile". Connection to residential homes just hasn't kept pace. It may be that wireless, not the telcos, will manage to deliver the bandwidth that you seek.
"The idea that we depend on something that's inherently untrustworthy is very frightening," he says
If something is inherently unreliable then you don't need to fix it: you find ways to live with it. A perfect example of this is the internet itself. TCP is a reliable transport provided over IP, an unreliable internetworking layer.
Make no mistake: IP is explicitly and deliberately unreliable. This keeps it simple, and allows upper layers to choose appropriate quality of service parameters for their application.
How this relates to the issue of unreliable application software is fuzzy: but its pretty obvious that humans have adapted to the reality of the situation: the power-cycling protocol is just one example of the ways in which we cope.
If a situation is life-critical, then I'd be happier knowing that the system is designed to cope with glitches then if the system assumes these glitches have been tested out of existance. Cosmic Rays really do exist, so some level of unreliability is guarenteed!
To succeed, a product needs to attract potential customers, then convince them to buy, and then keep them happy (so that they buy again and make recommendations to others). Everything associated with dot-name fails to do any of these things.
First, you need to get me to come into the store. Where do I go to get a dot-name domain? Google isn't much help, because "name" is a common word. When eventually I constructed appropriate queries I found the initial press releases, but not much else. Oh, I did find a really horrible presentation where you entered your name to be told all the benefits of a dot-name domain, but that boiled down to "the benefit of a dot-name domain is that you have a dot-name domain: would you like to buy one?"
So there was no useful information on the web to help me make a purchase, but fortunately I have a a few friends who recommended various registras. I ended up with register.com, despite their main page "click here to check availability... <click>... congratuations on your decision to buy... <back>". Anyway, my friends advised that the site was OK, once you held you nose and actually bought something.
I understand that there's a difference between domain registration and web hosting. If dot-name is intended for Joe Public, then the techology needs to be explained up front -- it needs a usable user guide. URL forwarding is a lame technology: a dedicated dot-name registrar should probably provide some limited free web space: just to help the newbies. But I digress.
Having got my.name domain, I then started to use it. This might sound strange, but a dot-name domain doesn't work as well as a dot-com domain. Why not? Because many sites have really stupid validation code in their web-forms. Like the old Y2K problem, but less forgivable. On many sites, I enter my email address as "dave@whipp.name", and get told that it is invalid because a TLD must be either 2 or 3 characters. Sounds stupid, is stupid. But its all too common.
So what needs to be done to fix the dot-name? Its needs to be *properly* marketed (no slease), and it needs useful tutorial (not marketing) that describes the process of getting a domain. People need to be comfortable with the process. Money needs to be invested into making the technology work. Perhaps the people running it need to talk to people who are their potential customers -- or at least people who are their customers despite their best efforts to scare us away.
There is a difference between data and information. I read your post and see the opposite conclusion. The fact that the audio file for the information is bigger than the text file (for the same information) suggests that the text file is has a much greater information density.
But Moore's law is not about speed: it's about density. Denser packing leads to smaller chips (smaller is cheaper) and lower power consumption (batteries last longer). So there's still plenty of reasons to miniaturize, even if you keep the current performance.
Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
When I see this type of statement, I think "sure, that might be true".
But the pivotal part of the quote is the word "with". Linux might fail for the phrase to the left of it; but MS likely fails for the phrase to the right.
I'm not actually sure what "professional" means. If it means "proprietry, written for profit, by people paid for that task", then it is irrelevant.
If you want to revert to 5 minutes ago, then provide that feature instead. Current apps just provide "Save", plus a linear undo/redo mechanism. We need to add "revert to time"; then replace "save" with a named-checkpoint feature.
Of course, saving all this history could result in embarasing situations (and big files, but thats less important). When sending the document to another person, you'd probably want to do a "send without history" as the default.
Slashdot Mirror
I found the PreferenceBar extension really useful. I just unclick the "JavaScript" checkbox, and the pages speed up again. Now, if only I could create a plugin that does site-specific JavaScript blocking...
I don't really care what the underlying system is. Ideally, its not something I notice most of the time. I agree with you that versioning is not something I care about at the level of the disk-filesystem. But at the level of a mounted filesystem, I like my files to be versioned. Once I can "mount" my subversion client, I'll be happy. Under that, I just want something works.
So when you say that we don't need versioning at the filesystem level, do you mean as a disk-access layer thing, or a user-mounted-thing level?
In becoming a member, a country explicitly dilutes aspects of its sovereignty. The US senate, in ratifying membership, accepted this loss of sovereignty in exchange for the right to do the same thing to other countries.
If the US government decides that it loses more than it gains from its membership, then it can always leave.
You can read about the new regex syntax in exegesis 5 (and its corresponding apocalypse)
you do know that program size doesnt matter right ? I-cache utilization does matter though. It's not the total size that matters, its the working-set.
Anyway, the quote was elicited only when one of the reporters there asked "to me it looks like mud, any chance it could be". The reply was that although it might look like mud, it couldn't be, followed by a description of the behavior of fine particles (they can flow, etc.).
I'd say that to use this as a quote that "scientists say" it looks like mud is a bit disingenuous.
Will I be able to get a job over there after the next round of layoffs -- do they have an equivalent of an H1B program? Are there any WTO rules that ensure that the job market really is global? (Has the US argued against such rules, as a form a protectionism?)
It might be simple to create a file will excess detail, but that file will be larger than needed for the small display. Also the small device will need to do additional work to render the complex image vs simple image. Additional work = more energy = shorter battery life.
The carriers are moving to use the same physical layer (plus layers 2,3) of their internal internetworking insfrastructure for both internet and phone traffic. The internet is build from these "internal networks" -- most internet traffic already travels across them. I'd say that the article is correct.
Seems to me that you'd solve this problem by pre-distributing some form of physical token that a voter uses to enable their vote to be cast. Ensure that the casting of the the vote and destruction of the token form an atomic operation. Want to be high tech? Use a smart card.
So, how many editions should we expect?
Even nicer it not to do the equality check at all, and use boolean context:
Its shorter, less error prone, and doesn't require stdlib.h to import the definition of NULL.instead of? With a few exceptions, its more likely to be "as well as". Afterall, we wouldn't want the current hour-long shows to last only 45 minutes, would we? </sarcasm>
The original internet was based around the principles the original poster suggests. Individual sites provide content, and "pay" for their connectivity by providing a routing service for others.
If you consider a modern city, there is a high density of wireless devices (e.g. phones). Its not too great a stretch to imagine a high density of broadband wireless just a few years from now (e.g. multiple Mhz capacity per sq. meter). This bandwidth could be made available for routing at zero-added cost: people are going to pay for batteries (or other power source) anyway.
With enough overlap of wireless routers, freeloaders, etc. wouldn't be a problem: the routing protocols would naturally avoid devices that don't route efficiently.
The suggestion of high density of available routes is valid for populated areas, but rural areas could have more problems. Who pays for the fat-pipe long-haul links? Contrast a different question: who pays for long-haul physical links (e.g. interstate highways)? Taxes can pay for national networks; international networks could be either pay-to-use, or could be provided as shared costs between states ("we route your traffic if your route ours" treaties). Consider the Channel-Tunnel (England-to-France) as an example of an international link.
So, it seems to me that there are no insumountable technical or economic problems. But the ISPs and telcos will fight hard to prevent it. Such a system would destroy existing business plans, and existing businesses have more money to pay lobyists than potential new businesses. They could probably be successful in restricting the available wireless spectrum, to prevent the necessary density of wireless connectivity, needed for this to work.
The problem is "the last mile". Connection to residential homes just hasn't kept pace. It may be that wireless, not the telcos, will manage to deliver the bandwidth that you seek.
If something is inherently unreliable then you don't need to fix it: you find ways to live with it. A perfect example of this is the internet itself. TCP is a reliable transport provided over IP, an unreliable internetworking layer.
Make no mistake: IP is explicitly and deliberately unreliable. This keeps it simple, and allows upper layers to choose appropriate quality of service parameters for their application.
How this relates to the issue of unreliable application software is fuzzy: but its pretty obvious that humans have adapted to the reality of the situation: the power-cycling protocol is just one example of the ways in which we cope.
If a situation is life-critical, then I'd be happier knowing that the system is designed to cope with glitches then if the system assumes these glitches have been tested out of existance. Cosmic Rays really do exist, so some level of unreliability is guarenteed!
First, you need to get me to come into the store. Where do I go to get a dot-name domain? Google isn't much help, because "name" is a common word. When eventually I constructed appropriate queries I found the initial press releases, but not much else. Oh, I did find a really horrible presentation where you entered your name to be told all the benefits of a dot-name domain, but that boiled down to "the benefit of a dot-name domain is that you have a dot-name domain: would you like to buy one?"
So there was no useful information on the web to help me make a purchase, but fortunately I have a a few friends who recommended various registras. I ended up with register.com, despite their main page "click here to check availability ... <click> ... congratuations on your decision to buy ... <back>". Anyway, my friends advised that the site was OK, once you held you nose and actually bought something.
I understand that there's a difference between domain registration and web hosting. If dot-name is intended for Joe Public, then the techology needs to be explained up front -- it needs a usable user guide. URL forwarding is a lame technology: a dedicated dot-name registrar should probably provide some limited free web space: just to help the newbies. But I digress.
Having got my .name domain, I then started to use it. This might sound strange, but a dot-name domain doesn't work as well as a dot-com domain. Why not? Because many sites have really stupid validation code in their web-forms. Like the old Y2K problem, but less forgivable. On many sites, I enter my email address as "dave@whipp.name", and get told that it is invalid because a TLD must be either 2 or 3 characters. Sounds stupid, is stupid. But its all too common.
So what needs to be done to fix the dot-name? Its needs to be *properly* marketed (no slease), and it needs useful tutorial (not marketing) that describes the process of getting a domain. People need to be comfortable with the process. Money needs to be invested into making the technology work. Perhaps the people running it need to talk to people who are their potential customers -- or at least people who are their customers despite their best efforts to scare us away.
There is a difference between data and information. I read your post and see the opposite conclusion. The fact that the audio file for the information is bigger than the text file (for the same information) suggests that the text file is has a much greater information density.
Dave.
When I see this type of statement, I think "sure, that might be true".
But the pivotal part of the quote is the word "with". Linux might fail for the phrase to the left of it; but MS likely fails for the phrase to the right.
I'm not actually sure what "professional" means. If it means "proprietry, written for profit, by people paid for that task", then it is irrelevant.
Of course, saving all this history could result in embarasing situations (and big files, but thats less important). When sending the document to another person, you'd probably want to do a "send without history" as the default.
Isn't the south pole known for its massive electrical storms, aka the southern lights? How well does wireless work in these conditions?
America has a similar unelected body but, unlike HoL, it has teeth. Its called the Supreme Court.