Their characteristics are very different from other types of rechargeables. Alkalines have no memory effect -- in fact, they like being recharged from part-full, and last much longer this way than if fully discharged.
So whether they're suitable depends very much on how you use them. I use them in my handheld computer; I set the battery monitor to remind me when they get below about half-way. This works really well; it means that I get plenty of warning to change them, and don't get caught out with flat batteries. Also, alkaline batteries generally have a larger capacity than other rechargeable types, and can be much cheaper.
OTOH, they're not so good for devices which need a very long battery life, or which don't give any indication of battery charge. You can also get problems with some types of battery leaking slightly when recharged -- I haven't found this dangerous, but it can corrode the recharger's terminals slightly, leading to contact problems.
In short: well worth trying if your intended usage is suitable. Oh, and pretty much any alkaline batteries are suitable, not just the Rayovacs. (I know Duracell, Energizer, EverReady &c claim they're not rechargeable, but then their sales would plummet if they did!) I find that the top-of-the-range Duracells are best; although the extra cost isn't really worth it if you're just using them once, for recharging they last for many more charge cycles, which makes them more economical in the long run.
is is better enough to replace perl? What about python.
It would only need to be good enough to coexist. Is it worth learning instead of either of those? For example, I know a little Perl (and don't want to know much more), and no Python; should I look at Ruby instead? How do they compare?
Not to mention the need to spend money on email systems (hardware, software, networks, &c) to collect, transport, store, and present perhaps many times the volume of genuine email.
Another thing people hereabouts seem to forget is that people receive different quantities of spam. Even a newbie could cope with one spam message a week. All but the clueless could handle one a day. Most people would be mildly annoyed by one an hour, but not debilitated. One a minute, though, would tax most people, and even a hardcode techie would be hard pushed to cope with one a second. It's all a matter of degree, and some suffer more than others.
Says the dictionary. (You know, the big book that defines words?) My Oxford and both Chambers give it, and I'd be surprised if the other major ones don't.
OT, but I'd just like to congratulate you on a rare correct usage of 'begs' in this context. Keep up the good work!
(For those who don't know, to 'beg' a question is to assume it in a circular argument, not just to raise or avoid answering it.)
Oh, and as for OS X, it's just as much a Unix as FreeBSD is - which AIUI is to all practical purposes, though legally not. Either way, it's a great OS.
This brief dialogue will spawn a completely off-topic thread of which dozens participate, most likely on the terrible ills of the neanderthal US legal system as compared to those of the enlightened European nations.
At which point I will pick up on errors of grammar (such as 'of which dozens participate') and spelling ('neanderthal' should be capitalised), which will itself spawn a long thread of alternate pedantry and abuse. I may even take the opportunity to launch a tirade on the sorry state of your country's educational system, how much better the standards of English are in my country, and what a sad reflection it is on techies today that they don't even care about good English...
It's true, and not just in the animation world too.
I was listening to the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker commentary to their film Top Secret!, on why they felt that film was less successful than their previous one, Airplane!, despite probably having more jokes. The reason: Airplane! was well-plotted, with a strong classical structure; Top Secret!'s plot was more of an excuse to get from scene to scene.
Well, judging from the comments, I'm glad I stopped reading at the "spoilers" line... so I've no idea what the book's about, but I do know that at least one person thinks it's worth reading!
Anyway, when will./ers start reviewing books that are available online? I read a lot, but it's ages since I read any fiction on dead trees. Why aren't there any reviews of stuff that's available in electronic form (in an open format, that I can read on my Psion)?
Interesting stuff, but one aspect worries me: they talk a lot about corporate victims of copyright infringement, but very little about private individual victims. One paragraph tacked on the end of the answer to question 1, to be precise. Later on, when answering question 4, they speak only of corporate victims.
Maybe this is an unfair inference from a relatively short discussion, but they seem to be assuming that copyright infringement mostly occurs against companies, that material copyrighted by private individuals generally doesn't get infringed. This may or may not be true, but it's a worrying implication. As mentioned in question 1, copyright by private individuals is very important to a huge amount of Open Source software, and we need to know that the authorities will treat it just as seriously as copyright by corporations. In fact, even more so considering its greater difficulty of assigning monetary values to infringement.
It probably depends on the lecturer. If he/she is simply going to dictate or write up his/her notes, with no comments or thought, then an online presentation will probably be more useful. However, some lecturers work things out as they go, and it can be very useful to see their thought processes (especially if they make mistakes!). Some are very interactive, gearing what they present to the reaction they get. Some explain far more out loud than ends up on the boards/notes. And a few (very few) are simply good presenters, who are worth watching simply for interest or enjoyment. All of these would lose something in the transition to a web site.
That sounds a little unfair to the dynamic equivalence method.
The problem is that a literal word-for-word translation can be very misleading: different languages don't just have different words for things; they have different idioms, constructions, allusions, and thought patterns. This is especially true of things written two or four millennia ago, in a culture completely outside most of our experiences.
Dynamic equivalence is more than just a paraphrase: it aims to be a thought-for-thought translation, yielding a result that puts exactly the same thoughts into your head as the original language would have done to its intended audience. This is why the NIV and others are properly called translations, not paraphrases.
My favourite is the New Living Translation (NLT); it's intended to be as readable as the Living Bible (which was a paraphrase), but as accurate as the NIV. I find it really speaks to me; even compared to the NIV I found nuances and motivations &c much clearer. Well worth a look. (Disclaimer: I've no connection &c &c)
It's one of the many versions you can see at the Bible Gateway, another useful site.
Yeah, well, that's what I was taught when I was very young, but here in the UK everyone's used the US (billion=1,000,000,000) system for ages.
The difference is that we'd always put 'and' in after the hundreds:
Three hundred
and forty undecillion,
two hundred and eighty-two decillion,
three hundred and sixty-six nonillion,
nine hundred and twenty octillion,
nine hundred and thirty-eight septillion,
four hundred and sixty-three sextillion,
four hundred and sixty-three quintillion,
three hundred and seventy-four quadrillion,
six hundred and seven trillion,
four hundred and thirty-one billion,
seven hundred and sixty-eight million,
two hundred and eleven thousand,
four hundred and fifty-six.
US long numbers just sound like a sequence of separate numbers to me: two hundred, forty, one thousand, fifty-two, six, three hundred, seven...
I guess the advantage of the 'British' system is that it can cope more easily with very very very large numbers; the US system can cope more easily with fairly small ones. But since we tend to use exponential notation for the really big ones anyway, the US system is probably more useful for everyday use. (Much as it pains me to admit it!)
...for us. So of course they're going to spin this one out as long as they possibly can. Come on, you can't be naive enough to think that they're not going to capitalise on the fear, uncertainty and doubt they're generating for a long as humanly possible?
If/when this gets to court, no-one's quite sure what will happen. (There have been lots of arguments that they won't have a single limb to stand on, but I haven't seen any genuine legal advice, and of course in the long run the only arguments that matter will be those made in court.)
But until then, it's quite obvious what's happening: as long as they can claim to 'own' Linux, however implausibly, then some corporate users will get nervous. Some are likely to pay up in the full knowledge that the claim's probably not valid, just to cover themselves. And, in the now-traditional step 3, SCO will profit. Right now it doesn't matter that there might be no truth at all in any of those claims; what matters is simply whether SCO can scare people into thinking there's even a tiny a chance there might be.
SCO must know full well that as soon as they identify the questionable code, even if it's completely kosher, a week or two later we could have rewritten it and be (supposedly) safe. That's why they won't identify it for as long as possible, probably not until it gets to court. Again, it doesn't matter that this looks bad for them in court; they seem interested only in delaying that stage for as long as possible and extracting the most cash from nervous CTOs until then.
BTW, maybe someone can answer a few questions: why is this copyright award a big surprise? Weren't we sure of the copyright situation before now? And if the award is genuine, what does that mean for Linux? Or the BSDs?
Your points are valid, but assume that Linux won't really grow; in particular, that it won't grow beyond those techies who already know about it, and their immediate family and (trusting) friends.
So far, that's probably not too far from the truth; but many folks expect or want it to spread farther. Shelf space is valuable advertising space, at the least; if people buying M$ products &c can see that Linux is a 'real product', with a large shiny box and everything, and that XYZ Computer Store is stocking it, then that gives it a certain cachet and respectability that may help it grow beyond the spotty-geeks-and-illegal-downloads that some are trying to tarnish it with...
It also makes it much easier for those who aren't on broadband, which includes a sizeable number of techies, as well as a much larger number of non-techies.
Re: OO techniques are seldom fully understood
on
Head First Java
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Very true. OO isn't just a way of programming, it's a way of thinking about problem-solving and about complex systems. Java's good for it not just because it has a good implementation of OO principles, but also because the (huge) standard library is generally well thought out, and some parts are a masterclass in good OO design. Using it introduces you to some powerful OO techniques, and encourages you to use them yourself.
My way of thinking about objects is to consider them as little people. Each person has a job to do, and does it single-mindedly; but they're simple folk, and so you should never give them more to think about or remember than they need to do their jobs. Each one should be a good team member: they should be polite to the other objects, do exactly what they say they will, as efficiently as they can, tidy up after themselves, be as quiet as possible, and not get in the other objects' way.
This analogy may look strange, but it seems to work for me! Especially when it comes to decomposing a problem into objects and determining their roles and responsibilities. When coding, I just think "If I was this object, what would I do? What would I need to know to do it? How should I communicate with the other objects around me?"
Another recommendation here, too. Thinking in Java is by someone who really seems to understand the language. It doesn't just explain the syntax, like so many others; it explains the philosophy, the concepts, the whys of the language (after which the syntax is relatively easy).
After working through it, you'll be able to write true Java programs, rather than just writing C (or whatever) programs in Java.
There was even a version for the BBC Micro called RAM WARS! (In The Micro User magazine - listing and full article (PDF) both online). Ah, that brings back memories...
Good point -- concentrating on graphics to the detriment of the story is indeed a real risk. (LOTR I felt only went too far at one point, but to preserve the suspense I won't mention which:)
Conversely, I suspect that the main reason that Toy Story did so well is because, despite the amazing graphics, they worked very hard on the story; everything you see is designed to tell and support the story.
I was thinking yesterday that a story is to a film what a melody or vocal line is to a piece of music: it's one aspect amongst many (structure, themes, cinematography or graphics, mood, &c/structure, harmonies, texture and instrumentation, rhythm, &c), but it's the one that most people concentrate on and are mostly aware of. You can do without it, but then you're into the avant garde, and few people will bother. OTOH, the other elements are also important, but people often won't notice if they're not right, or will perceive it as a problem with the story/tune.
'Strue. When I use my GPS, I wedge it next to my speedometer on the dash, and only glance down to it occasionally and momentarily. (Probably no more than I do the speedo at other times.) It's still a distraction, though.
How long will it be before we see head-up displays for things like that? If implemented well, this would eliminate two problems: the looking down, and the refocusing (which, depending on your eyes, may be more of a limiting factor). The technology has been around for decades, and can't be any harder for people to get used to than the dash was.
Indeed. Overlays isn't the problem here; the problem is that of effectively unauthorised and unexpected changes to running applications. Maybe that problem could be dealt with under some existing legislation -- maybe fraud, or passing off, or unauthorised access, or something?
In any case, how many times have we seen new legislation that was intended to cover one particular problem being drafted so badly (intentionally or not) as to fail to cover the target and instead cover a wide range of morally-acceptable things? Can anyone say DMCA? And that's not the only one.
the few bands capable of putting together a truly good epic CD will still do this
And how do they get capable, if they're never given the chance? By Dark Side, they'd had several albums' worth of experience and practice. I can't see Tubular Bells making it in a singles' chart.
Of course, it was still a problem, even then. Would anyone ever have heard of The War Of The Worlds if it hadn't had the radio-friendly Forever Autumn? Oxygene too had its single-length part to get it noticed, and even The Wall probably wouldn't have achieved quite such legendary status with out Another Brick in the Wall part 2 (one of the least likely Christmas Number 1s ever...)
An industry that presupposes that its customers are freeloaders and thieves doesn't deserve to have any customers.
s/its customers/some of its customers/
In which case, that's the entire vending machine industry out, then. Along with most of the banking and financial industry. Just about all the retail industry (with those security tags). The hotel industry (otherwise guests' rooms wouldn't need keys). The car industry (all those keys, alarms, and immobilisers). In fact, just about every industry everywhere!
Not that there aren't valid arguments against copy-protected CDs &c, of course, but./ers do seem to overstate the case a little.
Slashdot Mirror
Their characteristics are very different from other types of rechargeables. Alkalines have no memory effect -- in fact, they like being recharged from part-full, and last much longer this way than if fully discharged.
So whether they're suitable depends very much on how you use them. I use them in my handheld computer; I set the battery monitor to remind me when they get below about half-way. This works really well; it means that I get plenty of warning to change them, and don't get caught out with flat batteries. Also, alkaline batteries generally have a larger capacity than other rechargeable types, and can be much cheaper.
OTOH, they're not so good for devices which need a very long battery life, or which don't give any indication of battery charge. You can also get problems with some types of battery leaking slightly when recharged -- I haven't found this dangerous, but it can corrode the recharger's terminals slightly, leading to contact problems.
In short: well worth trying if your intended usage is suitable. Oh, and pretty much any alkaline batteries are suitable, not just the Rayovacs. (I know Duracell, Energizer, EverReady &c claim they're not rechargeable, but then their sales would plummet if they did!) I find that the top-of-the-range Duracells are best; although the extra cost isn't really worth it if you're just using them once, for recharging they last for many more charge cycles, which makes them more economical in the long run.
Another one that gets mentioned is "Out of sight, out of mind" which gets reverse-translated into "Invisible idiot".
It would only need to be good enough to coexist. Is it worth learning instead of either of those? For example, I know a little Perl (and don't want to know much more), and no Python; should I look at Ruby instead? How do they compare?
Didn't think so...
Another thing people hereabouts seem to forget is that people receive different quantities of spam. Even a newbie could cope with one spam message a week. All but the clueless could handle one a day. Most people would be mildly annoyed by one an hour, but not debilitated. One a minute, though, would tax most people, and even a hardcode techie would be hard pushed to cope with one a second. It's all a matter of degree, and some suffer more than others.
Says the dictionary. (You know, the big book that defines words?) My Oxford and both Chambers give it, and I'd be surprised if the other major ones don't.
(For those who don't know, to 'beg' a question is to assume it in a circular argument, not just to raise or avoid answering it.)
Oh, and as for OS X, it's just as much a Unix as FreeBSD is - which AIUI is to all practical purposes, though legally not. Either way, it's a great OS.
At which point I will pick up on errors of grammar (such as 'of which dozens participate') and spelling ('neanderthal' should be capitalised), which will itself spawn a long thread of alternate pedantry and abuse. I may even take the opportunity to launch a tirade on the sorry state of your country's educational system, how much better the standards of English are in my country, and what a sad reflection it is on techies today that they don't even care about good English...
I was listening to the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker commentary to their film Top Secret!, on why they felt that film was less successful than their previous one, Airplane!, despite probably having more jokes. The reason: Airplane! was well-plotted, with a strong classical structure; Top Secret!'s plot was more of an excuse to get from scene to scene.
Anyway, when will ./ers start reviewing books that are available online? I read a lot, but it's ages since I read any fiction on dead trees. Why aren't there any reviews of stuff that's available in electronic form (in an open format, that I can read on my Psion)?
Maybe this is an unfair inference from a relatively short discussion, but they seem to be assuming that copyright infringement mostly occurs against companies, that material copyrighted by private individuals generally doesn't get infringed. This may or may not be true, but it's a worrying implication. As mentioned in question 1, copyright by private individuals is very important to a huge amount of Open Source software, and we need to know that the authorities will treat it just as seriously as copyright by corporations. In fact, even more so considering its greater difficulty of assigning monetary values to infringement.
It probably depends on the lecturer. If he/she is simply going to dictate or write up his/her notes, with no comments or thought, then an online presentation will probably be more useful. However, some lecturers work things out as they go, and it can be very useful to see their thought processes (especially if they make mistakes!). Some are very interactive, gearing what they present to the reaction they get. Some explain far more out loud than ends up on the boards/notes. And a few (very few) are simply good presenters, who are worth watching simply for interest or enjoyment. All of these would lose something in the transition to a web site.
The problem is that a literal word-for-word translation can be very misleading: different languages don't just have different words for things; they have different idioms, constructions, allusions, and thought patterns. This is especially true of things written two or four millennia ago, in a culture completely outside most of our experiences.
Dynamic equivalence is more than just a paraphrase: it aims to be a thought-for-thought translation, yielding a result that puts exactly the same thoughts into your head as the original language would have done to its intended audience. This is why the NIV and others are properly called translations, not paraphrases.
My favourite is the New Living Translation (NLT); it's intended to be as readable as the Living Bible (which was a paraphrase), but as accurate as the NIV. I find it really speaks to me; even compared to the NIV I found nuances and motivations &c much clearer. Well worth a look. (Disclaimer: I've no connection &c &c)
It's one of the many versions you can see at the Bible Gateway, another useful site.
The difference is that we'd always put 'and' in after the hundreds:
US long numbers just sound like a sequence of separate numbers to me: two hundred, forty, one thousand, fifty-two, six, three hundred, seven...I guess the advantage of the 'British' system is that it can cope more easily with very very very large numbers; the US system can cope more easily with fairly small ones. But since we tend to use exponential notation for the really big ones anyway, the US system is probably more useful for everyday use. (Much as it pains me to admit it!)
If/when this gets to court, no-one's quite sure what will happen. (There have been lots of arguments that they won't have a single limb to stand on, but I haven't seen any genuine legal advice, and of course in the long run the only arguments that matter will be those made in court.)
But until then, it's quite obvious what's happening: as long as they can claim to 'own' Linux, however implausibly, then some corporate users will get nervous. Some are likely to pay up in the full knowledge that the claim's probably not valid, just to cover themselves. And, in the now-traditional step 3, SCO will profit. Right now it doesn't matter that there might be no truth at all in any of those claims; what matters is simply whether SCO can scare people into thinking there's even a tiny a chance there might be.
SCO must know full well that as soon as they identify the questionable code, even if it's completely kosher, a week or two later we could have rewritten it and be (supposedly) safe. That's why they won't identify it for as long as possible, probably not until it gets to court. Again, it doesn't matter that this looks bad for them in court; they seem interested only in delaying that stage for as long as possible and extracting the most cash from nervous CTOs until then.
BTW, maybe someone can answer a few questions: why is this copyright award a big surprise? Weren't we sure of the copyright situation before now? And if the award is genuine, what does that mean for Linux? Or the BSDs?
OIC; fair enough. (On the rare occasions I visit computer shops, I never go near the software anyway.)
So far, that's probably not too far from the truth; but many folks expect or want it to spread farther. Shelf space is valuable advertising space, at the least; if people buying M$ products &c can see that Linux is a 'real product', with a large shiny box and everything, and that XYZ Computer Store is stocking it, then that gives it a certain cachet and respectability that may help it grow beyond the spotty-geeks-and-illegal-downloads that some are trying to tarnish it with...
It also makes it much easier for those who aren't on broadband, which includes a sizeable number of techies, as well as a much larger number of non-techies.
My way of thinking about objects is to consider them as little people. Each person has a job to do, and does it single-mindedly; but they're simple folk, and so you should never give them more to think about or remember than they need to do their jobs. Each one should be a good team member: they should be polite to the other objects, do exactly what they say they will, as efficiently as they can, tidy up after themselves, be as quiet as possible, and not get in the other objects' way.
This analogy may look strange, but it seems to work for me! Especially when it comes to decomposing a problem into objects and determining their roles and responsibilities. When coding, I just think "If I was this object, what would I do? What would I need to know to do it? How should I communicate with the other objects around me?"
After working through it, you'll be able to write true Java programs, rather than just writing C (or whatever) programs in Java.
There was even a version for the BBC Micro called RAM WARS! (In The Micro User magazine - listing and full article (PDF) both online). Ah, that brings back memories...
Conversely, I suspect that the main reason that Toy Story did so well is because, despite the amazing graphics, they worked very hard on the story; everything you see is designed to tell and support the story.
I was thinking yesterday that a story is to a film what a melody or vocal line is to a piece of music: it's one aspect amongst many (structure, themes, cinematography or graphics, mood, &c/structure, harmonies, texture and instrumentation, rhythm, &c), but it's the one that most people concentrate on and are mostly aware of. You can do without it, but then you're into the avant garde, and few people will bother. OTOH, the other elements are also important, but people often won't notice if they're not right, or will perceive it as a problem with the story/tune.
How long will it be before we see head-up displays for things like that? If implemented well, this would eliminate two problems: the looking down, and the refocusing (which, depending on your eyes, may be more of a limiting factor). The technology has been around for decades, and can't be any harder for people to get used to than the dash was.
In any case, how many times have we seen new legislation that was intended to cover one particular problem being drafted so badly (intentionally or not) as to fail to cover the target and instead cover a wide range of morally-acceptable things? Can anyone say DMCA? And that's not the only one.
And how do they get capable, if they're never given the chance? By Dark Side, they'd had several albums' worth of experience and practice. I can't see Tubular Bells making it in a singles' chart.
Of course, it was still a problem, even then. Would anyone ever have heard of The War Of The Worlds if it hadn't had the radio-friendly Forever Autumn? Oxygene too had its single-length part to get it noticed, and even The Wall probably wouldn't have achieved quite such legendary status with out Another Brick in the Wall part 2 (one of the least likely Christmas Number 1s ever...)
s/its customers/some of its customers/
In which case, that's the entire vending machine industry out, then. Along with most of the banking and financial industry. Just about all the retail industry (with those security tags). The hotel industry (otherwise guests' rooms wouldn't need keys). The car industry (all those keys, alarms, and immobilisers). In fact, just about every industry everywhere!
Not that there aren't valid arguments against copy-protected CDs &c, of course, but ./ers do seem to overstate the case a little.