I haven't tried any others, so I can't compare, but my Icy Box has given me no trouble at all. It's FireWire (may be USB2 as well); it has no fan, but it has grille sides so that air can flow through. I use it for backups and a bit of off-line storage, so it's not running for more than a few hours at a time, but I haven't noticed any heat problems.
So many programmers seem to have this massive blind spot about existing code, about reading and understanding other people's code. And in some ways that's more difficult than writing your own code; it's certainly not something that I see discussed much.
Yes, of course it's important to write good code. But in most cases, you won't be starting from scratch; you'll be working on an existing system. And I don't know about anyone else, but I find it extremely hard to get going when the source code for a big system is dumped on me. Even if it's well organised, well designed, and well coded (which few are).
So maybe the course should include something about that? How to find your way around a big system, how to work out what it's doing and how it's organised, how to decide where your changes should go, how to make them safely without screwing other things up, how to test them.
And, just as importantly, the less technical side of this: how to become involved in the open source community, how to get involved in a particular project, how to make and submit patches, how to discover and fit in with existing style/patterns/standards, how to get buy-in for big or highly-visible changes, how to explain your ideas so that they can be understood (i.e. not just "Well, it's *obvious* that my way is best!").
Most of these issues also apply to proprietary code, of course, but some are much more important when there's no company structure to resolve conflicts or direct the work.
Also, as Acius said, having a real example to wotk with may well help. Especially if it's a small one that people can actually follow and/or contribute to in a reasonable amount of time.
Television viewing has been steadily declining amongst the American public since the year 2000.
...
So while Americans may be relying too much on their television for information, the fact is that they're doing so less now than at any other time in history
There has always been ripp, er, borrowing in that sort of popular music. For example, did anyone notice that one of the Spice Girls' most popular songs is based on the old Howard Jones track 'Things Can Only Get Better'?
Desktop Manager works fine here (10.4.2). Not had any trouble I can attribute to it. (Not had any trouble at all, really.)
Not that I don't believe you; just that your experience may not be representative. Maybe you have some other system problems causing your application crashes? Anything relevant in the system log (/var/log/system.log) or in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter?
IKWYM about managing windows. People rave about Exposé, but it doesn't hit the spot for me either. Desktop Manager's by far the best method I've seen, but there's still room for improvement.
Also note that when EB has errors, they might get corrected in the next edition, out next year. Or maybe the one after that. If you can persuade them to.
Whereas with Wikipedia, you can correct it yourself. In a couple of minutes.
It probably depends on the type of music. I listen to a wide range of stuff; I find that Bach, Vivaldi, or earlier actually helps me concentrate; whereas modern stuff tends not to -- especially if there's a strong beat. I also tend to find instrumental stuff better to code to than vocal/choral.
Of course, it also depends on what you're trying to do -- and what you like!
I wonder if it's a cultural thing. Here in the UK, I've never even seen anywhere with cubicles. (All I know about them is from Dilbert cartoons...) I've mostly worked for financial companies, and I've always been in large, open-plan offices; I know someone who works for part of the civil service, and there he says it's all 2-person offices.
I don't think open-plan spaces need be such a pain, either. Admittedly, I've nothing to compare to, but when it's a very relaxed and casual environment (like my current place), the team spirit and fun probably makes up for the distraction. Plus it's quite common to sit there listening to an iPod or whatever, if you need to concentrate.
So yes, office environment may well be an indicator of time to move on, but you need to see it relative to the culture you're in.
An interesting system. Still, in the modern Unix environment, how would it handle shell scripts? (Or Perl, awk, Python, Ruby, whatever.)
Presumably, another method of attack on such systems would be to write out source code, and then arrange to call the compiler on it to get your executable...?
If you're not sure of the basics, then learn them: read a book, or find a music teacher. There are probably some good resources online, too, of course.
But once you know what the notation means, then it's just a matter of practice. Lots of it! Spend time on your own, note-bashing; attend lots of rehearsals (especially if you're the only voice on your part, coz that forces you to work it out for yourself); get a friend or two to help if necessary.
I speak from experience here. Ever since I was little, sight-reading and sight-singing was always my weak spot; a few years ago I joined an early music group, singing stuff in 5 or 6 parts with one voice to a part. And all the others were good: we'd go through books of stuff, singing pieces only once, unaccompanied, at full speed, in the original languages (mostly Italian, French, Latin, or German), with all the dynamics, ornaments, and other subtleties. Leaving me bobbing along in their wake, desperately trying to keep up. Believe me, after a few months of that, my sight-singing had improved tremendously!
Reading music is like reading text: the more you do, the easier it gets. And singing is the same. (Those are two different skills, I think, but closely related, and practising works for them both.)
Oh, and be thankful you're a bass; tenor is harder! (I'm a baritone, so I sing both; it depends upon the style of music, of course, but in general bass is noticeably easier.)
There is a 'dark side' of the moon -- it just means 'lacking knowledge' rather than 'lacking light'.
It's exactly the same 'dark' as in the 'dark ages'. Lots of interesting stuff probably happened then, we just don't know very much about it. And until the first probe orbited the moon, we didn't know anything about its far side, either. Now, of course, we know more, but AIUI still far less than the Earth-visible side. So calling it the 'dark side' is still probably justified. Except to those who can't see any meaning other than the literal...
use wikipedia as a resource rather than a "source" - [not] cite it in papers but [...] as a resource for finding other sources of information and for finding out basic background info.
Yep. AIUI, what's copyrighted is the particular edition: the layout, preface, footnotes, index, editorial decisions about exactly what material to include, any corrections, tweaks to punctuation, typefaces, etc. Basically, everything that's done in between the author writing it and the page being printed.
For music publishing, the details differ -- layout is a much more creative process, for example -- but the principle is the same. A publisher might decide to use an alternative reading of some notes that are tricky to sing/play or where the manuscript is unclear; he/she might reorder the parts of a work, relegate some to an appendix, or include other material; he/she might include extra suggestions (dynamics, phrasing, fingering, articulation, tempo), split or join staves, or even transpose the whole piece into a new key.
This all adds up to a significant creative effort, so I don't find it unreasonable that it can be copyrighted. (You are of course still free to make your own edition from out-of-copyright sources.)
Ah, but iPod size (like most media size) grows exponentially; whereas (at the same bitrate) a music collection's growth will be much closer to linear. So the iPod is bound to be big enough before too long.
(FWIW, my 60GB iPod holds about half of my music collection. All it would take is one more HD-size doubling, and I'd be a happy bunny!)
To make a decent mug of tea, you need water that's actually boiling*, not merely a bit warm. So we tea drinkers are used to handling near-boiling drinks. You wouldn't catch any of us splashing it about and then wondering where all those blisters are coming from...
(* Both George Orwell and Douglas Adams have written about making tea, stressing this point -- the latter suggesting that the reason most Americans prefer coffee is that they've never had a good cup of tea, for this very reason!)
My own favourite, in case anyone's still reading, is chai, a spicy Indian tea. Here is one good place to find it. (Disclaim, disclaim.)
All the modern *color* iPods (starting with the iPod Photo models) can do video based upon the abilities built into the chipset. Apple just hasn't enabled it. For video podcasts, I can't see why Apple won't enable it.
All iPods since 3G have been able to do high-quality stereo recording, based upon the abilities built into the chipset. Apple just hasn't enabled it (apart from low-quality mono recording using an expensive add-on). I can't see why Apple won't enable that -- but they won't!
"We don't need templates!"... a decade or so later, people are eating their words
Worth pointing out that since C has a singly-rooted object tree -- everything is a subclass of java.lang.Object -- the need for generics was much less pressing than in C++.
Also that Java's generics are rather different from C++'s templates: they're simple, don't duplicate any code, and are extensible without recompiling. Whereas I see templates more as a sort of metacompiler that just happens to let you do generic stuff as well...
Yes, I'm quite sure that Ebooks in their present form aren't suitable for you. But how can you assume that everyone has the same needs, restrictions, and requirements as you?
I, for example, have been reading much more off the screen of my 5mx than off paper for the last few years. In terms of convenience, for me, it beats paper hands down -- my 5mx lives in my trouser pocket, whereas paperbacks would have to be carried separately. I find the screen comfortable enough to read from, and my CF card holds the equivalent of about 3 bookcases full, so I'm unlikely to have read it all in the near future. I don't have to worry about bookmarks, and the backlight means I can read in bed with the lights off. Battery life isn't a problem -- even with the heavy use mine gets, a pair of AAs lasts 20-30 hours (probably more if I was only using it to read books). I can search, and cut'n'paste the text. I can even edit it (e.g. anglicising the spelling).
Of course, most people don't carry such a gadget around with them, so this method wouldn't apply to them; but it works very well for me, thank you.
...of a UKian, this story is fascinating. Mainly because I've never heard of any of these product names (nor even some of the shop names), which makes the story read a little like a comic novel!
Seriously, I find it interesting how US culture seems so keen to embrace branding, product names (especially ones), slogans, etc. Over here, we still tend to use generic names more often than not. For example, if I need to blow my nose, I reach for a box of tissues, not a box of Kleenex -- even if they're made by that company. (In fact, the nearest box is branded, er, 'Londis Ultrabalm', so the latter would actually be wrong!)
What intrigues me is why people complain about the big corporations, about their intrusive advertising and sales methods, and yet seem happy not just to go along with them, but to do half their work for them...
Case in point: I'm a software developer. [fx: pause for gasps of surprise and shock from the Slashdot audience.] Right now I'm working on the front-end for a large financial system. It's only a plain window-based GUI, but last week I found myself working on a bit of trivial animation for it. Only it wasn't moving smoothly, so I reworked the speed curve. And ended up working out some splines, and doing a few pages of calculus...
Now, this was hardly essential stuff. But maths does turn out handy in unexpected places, from photography to virtual reality, and from mortgage payments to gambling.
And of course, part of the reason to teach maths isn't really the numbers and formulas -- it's the practice in analysing situations, in understanding the underlying principles and being able to solve them mathematically, which is just as valuable in real life. (And, unfortunately, exams aren't necessarily the best way of motivating or testing that.)
The story is the genius of the Pixar product, the CGI gives it believability.
I think there's a bit of both going on here.
Yes, yes, the genius is in the storytelling, and that ought to be completely separate from the quality of the animation.
But... my impression is that when people are pushing the envelope in one direction, attempting something that's never been possible before, it often seems to affect the whole project. I'm sure you can think of great, genre-defining movies, albums, books, gadgets, TV programmes -- often, they remain impressive after umpteen successors and imitators, have appeared, even when those successors have better technology/knowledge/facilities at their disposal.
There's something about pushing up against limitations and trying something genuinely new that spills over into other areas. You can't restrict that raw creativity and ingenuity.
Toy Story would probably have been as successful with the same storytelling but mediocre animation. But if the animation had been mediocre then I don't think the storytelling would have been the same -- the buzz from the originality of the animation probably lifted it too.
(But then, I'm not in Pixar, so this is all speculation.)
While volume levels on busy streets and public transport may have increased a bit, I think they've been loud for decades -- it's just that we're becoming more aware of it. With a sound source such as an MP3 player or Walkman or whatever, you have a reference level to compare to.
There are four ways of dealing with not being able to hear your music over the ambient noise:
Turn the music up to cover it. It's the obvious reaction, but while it may give a good listening experience, it risks permanent hearing loss.
Keep the music at a safe level -- and be unable to hear much of it.
Don't listen to music at all in noisy conditions. Safe, but fairly drastic.
Use isolating earphones, which block out much of the external noise and let you hear the music at a safe level. This is the solution I use!
(There are also 'noise cancelling' earphones, which try to reduce external noise by playing the inverse; but IME they only cancel a proportion of the noise, and fail completely at high noise levels.)
You're probably thinking of big, heavy, expensive form-fitting over-the-ear types, which tend not to be good for mobile listening -- but there are also small in-ear types which sit in your ear canal, and that's what I have. They're made of silicone, moulded to my own ears, and extremely comfortable; they also block out a huge proportion of outside noise, so I can listen at a much lower level than the train noise and still hear lots of detail. They have high-quality audiophile drivers, and the seal gives them great bass response too. They were pricey, but worth it to me both for providing a great listen and for saving my hearing. (These are the makers; I've no connection other than as a very satisfied customer, disclaim, disclaim.) I've also starting using 'em on stage for in-ear monitoring, where they do just as good a job.
They don't have to be custom-made; I believe Etymotic do some good off-the-shelf ones, though the fit won't be as comfortable nor the isolation as good. But please, people, if you listen to music in noisy conditions and value your hearing, do look into something like this. It can improve your listening both now and in the long-term!
And if you had to commute over six times that distance, like I do?
I'm pleased a bike works out for you, but it's not practical for everyone. Luckily, I can do my bit for the environment (and my peace of mind) by taking the train to work. Not everyone can do that, either, though. So cars are justified in some circumstances.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, of course it's important to write good code. But in most cases, you won't be starting from scratch; you'll be working on an existing system. And I don't know about anyone else, but I find it extremely hard to get going when the source code for a big system is dumped on me. Even if it's well organised, well designed, and well coded (which few are).
So maybe the course should include something about that? How to find your way around a big system, how to work out what it's doing and how it's organised, how to decide where your changes should go, how to make them safely without screwing other things up, how to test them.
And, just as importantly, the less technical side of this: how to become involved in the open source community, how to get involved in a particular project, how to make and submit patches, how to discover and fit in with existing style/patterns/standards, how to get buy-in for big or highly-visible changes, how to explain your ideas so that they can be understood (i.e. not just "Well, it's *obvious* that my way is best!").
Most of these issues also apply to proprietary code, of course, but some are much more important when there's no company structure to resolve conflicts or direct the work.
Also, as Acius said, having a real example to wotk with may well help. Especially if it's a small one that people can actually follow and/or contribute to in a reasonable amount of time.
Erm... so any time up to 1999 was prehistoric?
Not that I don't believe you; just that your experience may not be representative. Maybe you have some other system problems causing your application crashes? Anything relevant in the system log (/var/log/system.log) or in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter?
IKWYM about managing windows. People rave about Exposé, but it doesn't hit the spot for me either. Desktop Manager's by far the best method I've seen, but there's still room for improvement.
Whereas with Wikipedia, you can correct it yourself. In a couple of minutes.
Of course, it also depends on what you're trying to do -- and what you like!
I don't think open-plan spaces need be such a pain, either. Admittedly, I've nothing to compare to, but when it's a very relaxed and casual environment (like my current place), the team spirit and fun probably makes up for the distraction. Plus it's quite common to sit there listening to an iPod or whatever, if you need to concentrate.
So yes, office environment may well be an indicator of time to move on, but you need to see it relative to the culture you're in.
Presumably, another method of attack on such systems would be to write out source code, and then arrange to call the compiler on it to get your executable...?
If you're not sure of the basics, then learn them: read a book, or find a music teacher. There are probably some good resources online, too, of course.
But once you know what the notation means, then it's just a matter of practice. Lots of it! Spend time on your own, note-bashing; attend lots of rehearsals (especially if you're the only voice on your part, coz that forces you to work it out for yourself); get a friend or two to help if necessary.
I speak from experience here. Ever since I was little, sight-reading and sight-singing was always my weak spot; a few years ago I joined an early music group, singing stuff in 5 or 6 parts with one voice to a part. And all the others were good: we'd go through books of stuff, singing pieces only once, unaccompanied, at full speed, in the original languages (mostly Italian, French, Latin, or German), with all the dynamics, ornaments, and other subtleties. Leaving me bobbing along in their wake, desperately trying to keep up. Believe me, after a few months of that, my sight-singing had improved tremendously!
Reading music is like reading text: the more you do, the easier it gets. And singing is the same. (Those are two different skills, I think, but closely related, and practising works for them both.)
Oh, and be thankful you're a bass; tenor is harder! (I'm a baritone, so I sing both; it depends upon the style of music, of course, but in general bass is noticeably easier.)
It's exactly the same 'dark' as in the 'dark ages'. Lots of interesting stuff probably happened then, we just don't know very much about it. And until the first probe orbited the moon, we didn't know anything about its far side, either. Now, of course, we know more, but AIUI still far less than the Earth-visible side. So calling it the 'dark side' is still probably justified. Except to those who can't see any meaning other than the literal...
So, just like every other encyclopaedia, then?
For music publishing, the details differ -- layout is a much more creative process, for example -- but the principle is the same. A publisher might decide to use an alternative reading of some notes that are tricky to sing/play or where the manuscript is unclear; he/she might reorder the parts of a work, relegate some to an appendix, or include other material; he/she might include extra suggestions (dynamics, phrasing, fingering, articulation, tempo), split or join staves, or even transpose the whole piece into a new key.
This all adds up to a significant creative effort, so I don't find it unreasonable that it can be copyrighted. (You are of course still free to make your own edition from out-of-copyright sources.)
(FWIW, my 60GB iPod holds about half of my music collection. All it would take is one more HD-size doubling, and I'd be a happy bunny!)
(* Both George Orwell and Douglas Adams have written about making tea, stressing this point -- the latter suggesting that the reason most Americans prefer coffee is that they've never had a good cup of tea, for this very reason!)
My own favourite, in case anyone's still reading, is chai, a spicy Indian tea. Here is one good place to find it. (Disclaim, disclaim.)
All iPods since 3G have been able to do high-quality stereo recording, based upon the abilities built into the chipset. Apple just hasn't enabled it (apart from low-quality mono recording using an expensive add-on). I can't see why Apple won't enable that -- but they won't!
Worth pointing out that since C has a singly-rooted object tree -- everything is a subclass of java.lang.Object -- the need for generics was much less pressing than in C++.
Also that Java's generics are rather different from C++'s templates: they're simple, don't duplicate any code, and are extensible without recompiling. Whereas I see templates more as a sort of metacompiler that just happens to let you do generic stuff as well...
Yes, I'm quite sure that Ebooks in their present form aren't suitable for you. But how can you assume that everyone has the same needs, restrictions, and requirements as you?
I, for example, have been reading much more off the screen of my 5mx than off paper for the last few years. In terms of convenience, for me, it beats paper hands down -- my 5mx lives in my trouser pocket, whereas paperbacks would have to be carried separately. I find the screen comfortable enough to read from, and my CF card holds the equivalent of about 3 bookcases full, so I'm unlikely to have read it all in the near future. I don't have to worry about bookmarks, and the backlight means I can read in bed with the lights off. Battery life isn't a problem -- even with the heavy use mine gets, a pair of AAs lasts 20-30 hours (probably more if I was only using it to read books). I can search, and cut'n'paste the text. I can even edit it (e.g. anglicising the spelling).
Of course, most people don't carry such a gadget around with them, so this method wouldn't apply to them; but it works very well for me, thank you.
Seriously, I find it interesting how US culture seems so keen to embrace branding, product names (especially ones), slogans, etc. Over here, we still tend to use generic names more often than not. For example, if I need to blow my nose, I reach for a box of tissues, not a box of Kleenex -- even if they're made by that company. (In fact, the nearest box is branded, er, 'Londis Ultrabalm', so the latter would actually be wrong!)
What intrigues me is why people complain about the big corporations, about their intrusive advertising and sales methods, and yet seem happy not just to go along with them, but to do half their work for them...
Case in point: I'm a software developer. [fx: pause for gasps of surprise and shock from the Slashdot audience.] Right now I'm working on the front-end for a large financial system. It's only a plain window-based GUI, but last week I found myself working on a bit of trivial animation for it. Only it wasn't moving smoothly, so I reworked the speed curve. And ended up working out some splines, and doing a few pages of calculus...
Now, this was hardly essential stuff. But maths does turn out handy in unexpected places, from photography to virtual reality, and from mortgage payments to gambling.
And of course, part of the reason to teach maths isn't really the numbers and formulas -- it's the practice in analysing situations, in understanding the underlying principles and being able to solve them mathematically, which is just as valuable in real life. (And, unfortunately, exams aren't necessarily the best way of motivating or testing that.)
I think there's a bit of both going on here.
Yes, yes, the genius is in the storytelling, and that ought to be completely separate from the quality of the animation.
But... my impression is that when people are pushing the envelope in one direction, attempting something that's never been possible before, it often seems to affect the whole project. I'm sure you can think of great, genre-defining movies, albums, books, gadgets, TV programmes -- often, they remain impressive after umpteen successors and imitators, have appeared, even when those successors have better technology/knowledge/facilities at their disposal.
There's something about pushing up against limitations and trying something genuinely new that spills over into other areas. You can't restrict that raw creativity and ingenuity.
Toy Story would probably have been as successful with the same storytelling but mediocre animation. But if the animation had been mediocre then I don't think the storytelling would have been the same -- the buzz from the originality of the animation probably lifted it too.
(But then, I'm not in Pixar, so this is all speculation.)
There are four ways of dealing with not being able to hear your music over the ambient noise:
- Turn the music up to cover it. It's the obvious reaction, but while it may give a good listening experience, it risks permanent hearing loss.
- Keep the music at a safe level -- and be unable to hear much of it.
- Don't listen to music at all in noisy conditions. Safe, but fairly drastic.
- Use isolating earphones, which block out much of the external noise and let you hear the music at a safe level. This is the solution I use!
(There are also 'noise cancelling' earphones, which try to reduce external noise by playing the inverse; but IME they only cancel a proportion of the noise, and fail completely at high noise levels.)You're probably thinking of big, heavy, expensive form-fitting over-the-ear types, which tend not to be good for mobile listening -- but there are also small in-ear types which sit in your ear canal, and that's what I have. They're made of silicone, moulded to my own ears, and extremely comfortable; they also block out a huge proportion of outside noise, so I can listen at a much lower level than the train noise and still hear lots of detail. They have high-quality audiophile drivers, and the seal gives them great bass response too. They were pricey, but worth it to me both for providing a great listen and for saving my hearing. (These are the makers; I've no connection other than as a very satisfied customer, disclaim, disclaim.) I've also starting using 'em on stage for in-ear monitoring, where they do just as good a job.
They don't have to be custom-made; I believe Etymotic do some good off-the-shelf ones, though the fit won't be as comfortable nor the isolation as good. But please, people, if you listen to music in noisy conditions and value your hearing, do look into something like this. It can improve your listening both now and in the long-term!
I'm pleased a bike works out for you, but it's not practical for everyone. Luckily, I can do my bit for the environment (and my peace of mind) by taking the train to work. Not everyone can do that, either, though. So cars are justified in some circumstances.
(SUVs are justified in far fewer, of course.)