Why are you looking at Microsoft when IE boots faster than FF and MS Office boots faster than OOo?
IE "boots" faster? Do you mean "loads"?
My understanding is that MS Office loads some of its components when Windows starts up, so that it is already partly in memory. I think the same applies to IE (it's "part" of Windows, isn't it?)
Not that I'm claiming that's a bad strategy, necessarily.
Re:Engineering within limits brings great results
on
Where's My 10 Ghz PC?
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· Score: 1
I doubt it will go back that way, we are to the point that they can be sloppy and get a way with it.
In some cases, yeah.
In other cases (not necessarily those that apply to real-life), if you choose a shitty algorithm, it will get bogged down *very* quickly.
For example, if you have an algorithm whose time to run is proportional to "n!" (n factorial), where n is the number of items, then you are in the shit.
In such a case, if you have, say, 30 items, the speed is proportional to 30*29*28...*2*1.
If you add another item, the speed is 31*30*29*...*2*1.
If you add *another* item, the speed is 32*31*30*...*2*1.
So, going from 30 to 32 items has slowed the algorithm down by 31*32 = 992 times!
Imagine adding another ten items. The important implication is this; if you bought a computer 31 times faster than your old one, it would let you run the same program with 31 items instead of 30 (in a fixed amount of time). That's all. Pathetic, isn't it? And this is far from the worst rate of growth.
So; moral is, don't choose lousy algorithms. However, it can sometimes be proven that even the *best* algorithm for a given task is incredibly slow.
Not only that but the skills that used to exist in the older days are dissapearing.. "dont need to know that stuff'..
BTW, this is true Computer Science, as opposed to Software Engineering; which is why seemingly pointless mathematical stuff that "practical" courses don't cover *can* be important. I suspect that understanding stuff in this vein may help practically when it comes to getting the most from concurrency, although this isn't my personal strong point.
Umm they haven't yet found the limits to Hard Drives. Hard Drives are the new chips.
You're planning on upgrading that Pentium-4 with a 1TB hard drive?
Or have you got some seriously fscked (*) up Turing machine thing in mind, with the hard drive replacing the tape?
(*) BTW, I don't know why I'm typoing this; I'm a foe of Profanity Blacklist, so anyone who doesn't want to see swearing isn't going to read it anyway. Actually, "Profanity Blacklist" sounds like some cool motherfucker from a blaxploitation flick.:)
My message was a reply to Vo0k, who said: "Viewing angle?????? That word was unknown before the LCD era. It's a strictly LCD-related problem" (My emphasis)
That was what I replied to. Whilst it may be true that the expression "viewing angle" wasn't common when discussing TVs/CRT monitors, the second sentence implies (IMHO) that the third sentence (in bold) refers to *all* CRTs, not just modern ones. If that's the case, it's wrong.
Even 10 years ago, there were still some pretty curvy CRTs out there (albeit the cheapass 12" and 14" models).
Oh yeah, and it had fake wood-grain on the chipboard sides. Gotta remember the fake wood-grain. Damn, I need to get them an original Atari VCS to go with that TV.
Viewing angle??????
That word was unknown before the LCD era. It's a strictly LCD-related problem [..] CRT has full 180 degrees viewing angle
Let me tell you something. My parents' colour television just celebrated its 22nd birthday (*). When I was younger, I used to prefer sitting on the chair that was beside the TV. Trust me when I say that the curvature of older CRTs *did* limit how far to the side you could view them from. So don't tell me that viewing angle wasn't an issue for CRTs in the old days, or that they all have a 180-degree view.
It was only when I was at their house for Christmas that I realised what a goldfish bowl this thing was.
Other "cool" features include its 21" size, light-grey screen (I'm sure that helped the contrast lots..), front-facing single speaker at the side, 8(!) individual channel buttons (though they were "microtouch" with an LCD display; hi-tech at the time, which shows you how old this TV is). Oh yeah, and mechanical channel-tuning and *no remote control* (you had to buy a more expensive model for that).
Yep. I had a cadre of physicists, engineers, and architects work out where to put my TV in case I wanted to watch it from bed, my desk, or the computer.
Oh wait. No I didn't. I got a flatscreen CRT and put it wherever the hell I wanted.
We can deduce that "wherever the hell I wanted" never included hanging it on your wall, right?
Though I'd be interested to see someone hanging a 36" CRT on his/her wall... "in other news today, an apartment block collapsed, killing 27 people and injuring 35 more. Police believe the cause was a Slashdotter attempting to hang his Sony WegaMegaMuthafucka 50-inch CRT screen on a wall on the second floor, bringing the whole north-facing side of the block down with it."
... take it from JTS, a hard drive company that Atari "merged" with and changed their name to with the Trammiels still in charge, previously coming from Time Warner....
The difference is that from the original Atari, through Warner-ownership, to the Tramiel era, there was continuity. It changed over time, but there was always a connection; the product-line and staff didn't disappear overnight (though, of course, the arcade division, Atari Games, wasn't sold to the Tramiels).
I don't know the details of the JTS deal (and I'm too tired to check it up), but I suspect it had more to do with patents and the like; Atari Corp's computer and games businesses were all but extinct by that time (the Jaguar was a clear failure by that stage- let's face it, if it hadn't been a success with its headstart over the technically superior PS and Saturn, it wasn't going to do it now- and had diverted Atari's resources away from the Falcon and the Lynx- in short, there was nothing worth speaking of left). Even when the merger news broke, I made a comment somewhere that "Atari are dead". *That* was the break in continuity, where any remnants of the 'true' original Atari finally expired.
At any rate, I recall *nothing* from the JTS-era 'Atari'; next I heard was that Hasbro had the name, but rights aside (and didn't the rights to those 'classic' games reside with the now separate "Atari Games", owned by Midway?) there was no connection with the 'old' Atari.
The Infogrames 'Atari' is a name, no more. I don't mind that, I just wish they'd quit screwing around with the logo and revert to the classic design (I've already ranted about this, though).
It says in the article that they acquired Hasbro Interactive (previous owners of the Atari name) in December 2000- so, although the company they acquired owned it before that, 'they' (Infogrames) didn't own the Atari name as such until the end of 2000.
Obviously Hasbro Interactive was part of Hasbro, and I assume it was split off before being sold. (Hasbro's "contribution" to the Atari name was to take all Atari's old games such as Centipede and Pong, and make modern versions of them. I mean, really... if you slap fancy 3D late-90s graphics on Pong, it isn't really ******* Pong anymore, is it?!)
Atari were the 1000lb gorilla before that, so it's happened more than once. In fact, I considered Sega as the "new Atari" in the sense that what had happened to Atari (once seemingly unbreakable company reduced to everything failing).
The SARS
scare was something that happened a short while ago, and people are already lapsing back to bad habits like coughing with their mouths open in public, in my country.
Well, it would help if you mentioned the name of "your" country. I mean, if it was New Zealand or whatever, it might not be that big a deal.
And bear in mind that SARS has died down for now. If it flares up again, people will immediately become paranoid about coughing in public. The question is whether the potential (*current*) risk from SARS is worth changing your whole method of behaviour; generalise this approach to human behaviour in general, and you can see that we implicitly take (and gauge) risks, because otherwise we would become hopelessly bogged down in risk-prevention.
All desktop searches are redundant; well, under Windows at any rate.
Simply use Google, which will have visited the web server on your compromised Windows PC- the same web server that is sharing everything on your hard drive with the rest of the world.
All this talk of Mbits isn't that useful if the company imposes a download quota on you. For example, my Dad was considering getting 'cheap' broadband for roughly the same cost as dial-up. Unfortunately, although you get roughly 750kbps (decent by UK standards), the quota is 1gig/month, which is useless unless you plan on just surfing the web, and downloading a few small items.
I can, and have on occasion, downloaded almost to my limit of 1gig per *day*. Granted, he won't want that much, but speed isn't that meaningful if you can't download much.
For such users, the biggest benefit is probably being 'always connected', which I must admit is at least half the appeal of broadband in the first place.
Now i can post my webcam videos of students giving oral sex at blazing speeds!
Why would students be giving oral sex at blazing speeds anyway? It's not particularly good technique.... or is there some sort of competition to see who can give most blow jobs in an hour?
It's customary for parties like the socialists or labour to give any sort of medals to anyone in the top 50 so they too look cool, young and open minded.
You know, the Queen has got to be the biggest moron in the entire world.
Much as I hate the Royal Family, you can blame the government for the poor choice of candidates. Remember, it's Tony Blair's behind you have to kiss if you want a knighthood. (David Blunkett will probably get something to cheer him up now he's out of a job).
Besides, scientists do 'controversial' things that millions of registered voters might object to, so no awards for them.
Re:All languages are not the same
on
Defining Google
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· Score: 1
Talking of C, however, have you noticed that almost all non-scripting languages seem to use C-like syntax, even down to the (mis-)use of '=' for assignment (damn, I love C, but that's one feature the other languages *shouldn't* have copied; 'becomes equal to', that is, ':=' is far less risk-prone, and to avoid confusion with '!=', they could use 'greater than or less than' instead for inequality. It's not like Java (for example) is 100% syntax-compatible with C anyway.)
Re:This is a new trend
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What do you mean by "learn a language"? You could learn C fairly quickly, but actually using it effectively is another kettle of fish.
And what about Java? Does the "whole language" include all the libraries, packages, etc? Personally, I wouldn't try to learn everything Java had to offer, because it'd take *so* damn long, and a lot of it is quite specialised.
Re:Long intervies processes suck
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 2, Funny
My 15 year old friend was interviewed 3 times for a job a the "love sack" store. They sell bean bag chairs. He would just have been a sales clerk. They called him back for a forth interview but he just blew them off because he was sick of it.
Hmm... I'd be interested to find out how many CDs they sell at those grossly inflated >= 14.00 UKP) price-points; nowadays *and* ten years ago (because I *did* pay that much for a couple ten or so years ago, but would never do that nowadays, and also, I'd like to find out what proportion of their CDs they sell at that price, and who's buying them).
Slashdot Mirror
Why are you looking at Microsoft when IE boots faster than FF and MS Office boots faster than OOo?
IE "boots" faster? Do you mean "loads"?
My understanding is that MS Office loads some of its components when Windows starts up, so that it is already partly in memory. I think the same applies to IE (it's "part" of Windows, isn't it?)
Not that I'm claiming that's a bad strategy, necessarily.
I doubt it will go back that way, we are to the point that they can be sloppy and get a way with it.
In some cases, yeah.
In other cases (not necessarily those that apply to real-life), if you choose a shitty algorithm, it will get bogged down *very* quickly.
For example, if you have an algorithm whose time to run is proportional to "n!" (n factorial), where n is the number of items, then you are in the shit.
In such a case, if you have, say, 30 items, the speed is proportional to 30*29*28...*2*1.
If you add another item, the speed is 31*30*29*...*2*1.
If you add *another* item, the speed is 32*31*30*...*2*1.
So, going from 30 to 32 items has slowed the algorithm down by 31*32 = 992 times!
Imagine adding another ten items. The important implication is this; if you bought a computer 31 times faster than your old one, it would let you run the same program with 31 items instead of 30 (in a fixed amount of time). That's all. Pathetic, isn't it? And this is far from the worst rate of growth.
So; moral is, don't choose lousy algorithms. However, it can sometimes be proven that even the *best* algorithm for a given task is incredibly slow.
Not only that but the skills that used to exist in the older days are dissapearing.. "dont need to know that stuff'..
BTW, this is true Computer Science, as opposed to Software Engineering; which is why seemingly pointless mathematical stuff that "practical" courses don't cover *can* be important. I suspect that understanding stuff in this vein may help practically when it comes to getting the most from concurrency, although this isn't my personal strong point.
Umm they haven't yet found the limits to Hard Drives. Hard Drives are the new chips.
:)
You're planning on upgrading that Pentium-4 with a 1TB hard drive?
Or have you got some seriously fscked (*) up Turing machine thing in mind, with the hard drive replacing the tape?
(*) BTW, I don't know why I'm typoing this; I'm a foe of Profanity Blacklist, so anyone who doesn't want to see swearing isn't going to read it anyway. Actually, "Profanity Blacklist" sounds like some cool motherfucker from a blaxploitation flick.
it just encourages people in the USA to buy CD burners from overseas instead, where the FCC flag won't be implemented, supported or mandated.
Won't that decimate the US DVD player industry, as people rush to buy "Made in China" models instead?
Oh, hang on....
My message was a reply to Vo0k, who said:
"Viewing angle?????? That word was unknown before the LCD era. It's a strictly LCD-related problem" (My emphasis)
That was what I replied to. Whilst it may be true that the expression "viewing angle" wasn't common when discussing TVs/CRT monitors, the second sentence implies (IMHO) that the third sentence (in bold) refers to *all* CRTs, not just modern ones. If that's the case, it's wrong.
Even 10 years ago, there were still some pretty curvy CRTs out there (albeit the cheapass 12" and 14" models).
Oh yeah, and it had fake wood-grain on the chipboard sides. Gotta remember the fake wood-grain. Damn, I need to get them an original Atari VCS to go with that TV.
Viewing angle?????? That word was unknown before the LCD era. It's a strictly LCD-related problem [..] CRT has full 180 degrees viewing angle
:)
Let me tell you something. My parents' colour television just celebrated its 22nd birthday (*). When I was younger, I used to prefer sitting on the chair that was beside the TV. Trust me when I say that the curvature of older CRTs *did* limit how far to the side you could view them from. So don't tell me that viewing angle wasn't an issue for CRTs in the old days, or that they all have a 180-degree view.
It was only when I was at their house for Christmas that I realised what a goldfish bowl this thing was.
Other "cool" features include its 21" size, light-grey screen (I'm sure that helped the contrast lots..), front-facing single speaker at the side, 8(!) individual channel buttons (though they were "microtouch" with an LCD display; hi-tech at the time, which shows you how old this TV is). Oh yeah, and mechanical channel-tuning and *no remote control* (you had to buy a more expensive model for that).
That damn thing is now so old, it's cool.
But it's still a CRT, and you're still wrong.
Yep. I had a cadre of physicists, engineers, and architects work out where to put my TV in case I wanted to watch it from bed, my desk, or the computer. Oh wait. No I didn't. I got a flatscreen CRT and put it wherever the hell I wanted.
We can deduce that "wherever the hell I wanted" never included hanging it on your wall, right?
Though I'd be interested to see someone hanging a 36" CRT on his/her wall... "in other news today, an apartment block collapsed, killing 27 people and injuring 35 more. Police believe the cause was a Slashdotter attempting to hang his Sony WegaMegaMuthafucka 50-inch CRT screen on a wall on the second floor, bringing the whole north-facing side of the block down with it."
The difference is that from the original Atari, through Warner-ownership, to the Tramiel era, there was continuity. It changed over time, but there was always a connection; the product-line and staff didn't disappear overnight (though, of course, the arcade division, Atari Games, wasn't sold to the Tramiels).
I don't know the details of the JTS deal (and I'm too tired to check it up), but I suspect it had more to do with patents and the like; Atari Corp's computer and games businesses were all but extinct by that time (the Jaguar was a clear failure by that stage- let's face it, if it hadn't been a success with its headstart over the technically superior PS and Saturn, it wasn't going to do it now- and had diverted Atari's resources away from the Falcon and the Lynx- in short, there was nothing worth speaking of left). Even when the merger news broke, I made a comment somewhere that "Atari are dead". *That* was the break in continuity, where any remnants of the 'true' original Atari finally expired.
At any rate, I recall *nothing* from the JTS-era 'Atari'; next I heard was that Hasbro had the name, but rights aside (and didn't the rights to those 'classic' games reside with the now separate "Atari Games", owned by Midway?) there was no connection with the 'old' Atari.
The Infogrames 'Atari' is a name, no more. I don't mind that, I just wish they'd quit screwing around with the logo and revert to the classic design (I've already ranted about this, though).
No offence intended, BTW; I was trying to consider why people would behave like that at a basic psychological level.
Incidentally, I almost always cover my mouth in public (or try to stifle the sneeze, though that's not meant to be good for you)...
It says in the article that they acquired Hasbro Interactive (previous owners of the Atari name) in December 2000- so, although the company they acquired owned it before that, 'they' (Infogrames) didn't own the Atari name as such until the end of 2000.
Obviously Hasbro Interactive was part of Hasbro, and I assume it was split off before being sold. (Hasbro's "contribution" to the Atari name was to take all Atari's old games such as Centipede and Pong, and make modern versions of them. I mean, really... if you slap fancy 3D late-90s graphics on Pong, it isn't really ******* Pong anymore, is it?!)
Does this mean that Jean-Michel Jarre won't be doing any more laser lightshows for fear of being bombed by the US military?
He's French, so they'll probably find an excuse to bomb him anyway.
Nintendo & Sega used to own the console market.
Atari were the 1000lb gorilla before that, so it's happened more than once. In fact, I considered Sega as the "new Atari" in the sense that what had happened to Atari (once seemingly unbreakable company reduced to everything failing).
He tries to cross the road, but the crossing is going crazy, so he can't get across!
Did the green man start fighting the red man like they did in Superman III?
The SARS scare was something that happened a short while ago, and people are already lapsing back to bad habits like coughing with their mouths open in public, in my country.
Well, it would help if you mentioned the name of "your" country. I mean, if it was New Zealand or whatever, it might not be that big a deal.
And bear in mind that SARS has died down for now. If it flares up again, people will immediately become paranoid about coughing in public. The question is whether the potential (*current*) risk from SARS is worth changing your whole method of behaviour; generalise this approach to human behaviour in general, and you can see that we implicitly take (and gauge) risks, because otherwise we would become hopelessly bogged down in risk-prevention.
One could make the case that because of the paltry number of nuclear power plant accidents in the US since 1945
You lie! I've seen The Simpsons.
Seriously, I wonder if that show adversely affected the perception of the risks of nuclear power in the minds of the general public. I'll bet it did.
All desktop searches are redundant; well, under Windows at any rate.
Simply use Google, which will have visited the web server on your compromised Windows PC- the same web server that is sharing everything on your hard drive with the rest of the world.
I bet those Linux weenies are jealous now.
All this talk of Mbits isn't that useful if the company imposes a download quota on you. For example, my Dad was considering getting 'cheap' broadband for roughly the same cost as dial-up. Unfortunately, although you get roughly 750kbps (decent by UK standards), the quota is 1gig/month, which is useless unless you plan on just surfing the web, and downloading a few small items.
I can, and have on occasion, downloaded almost to my limit of 1gig per *day*. Granted, he won't want that much, but speed isn't that meaningful if you can't download much.
For such users, the biggest benefit is probably being 'always connected', which I must admit is at least half the appeal of broadband in the first place.
Now i can post my webcam videos of students giving oral sex at blazing speeds!
Why would students be giving oral sex at blazing speeds anyway? It's not particularly good technique.... or is there some sort of competition to see who can give most blow jobs in an hour?
It's customary for parties like the socialists or labour to give any sort of medals to anyone in the top 50 so they too look cool, young and open minded.
You're implying that Tony Blair is a socialist?
Where the *hell* did you get that one from?!
You know, the Queen has got to be the biggest moron in the entire world.
Much as I hate the Royal Family, you can blame the government for the poor choice of candidates. Remember, it's Tony Blair's behind you have to kiss if you want a knighthood. (David Blunkett will probably get something to cheer him up now he's out of a job).
Besides, scientists do 'controversial' things that millions of registered voters might object to, so no awards for them.
Talking of C, however, have you noticed that almost all non-scripting languages seem to use C-like syntax, even down to the (mis-)use of '=' for assignment (damn, I love C, but that's one feature the other languages *shouldn't* have copied; 'becomes equal to', that is, ':=' is far less risk-prone, and to avoid confusion with '!=', they could use 'greater than or less than' instead for inequality. It's not like Java (for example) is 100% syntax-compatible with C anyway.)
What do you mean by "learn a language"? You could learn C fairly quickly, but actually using it effectively is another kettle of fish.
And what about Java? Does the "whole language" include all the libraries, packages, etc? Personally, I wouldn't try to learn everything Java had to offer, because it'd take *so* damn long, and a lot of it is quite specialised.
My 15 year old friend was interviewed 3 times for a job a the "love sack" store. They sell bean bag chairs. He would just have been a sales clerk. They called him back for a forth interview but he just blew them off because he was sick of it.
Why was a bean-bag store hiring programmers for a now obselete computer language anyway?
Hmm... I'd be interested to find out how many CDs they sell at those grossly inflated >= 14.00 UKP) price-points; nowadays *and* ten years ago (because I *did* pay that much for a couple ten or so years ago, but would never do that nowadays, and also, I'd like to find out what proportion of their CDs they sell at that price, and who's buying them).