The standard browser on Unix was XMosaic (possibly also on other operating systems, that I don't know) before Netscape took over. So maybe our browsers would all be Mosaic based.
Mosaic had a feature not found in Netscape, which was the ability to add annotations to web sites (personal ones worked for all web sites, shared ones AFAIK only for those which explicitly supported it). Maybe with Mosaic as dominant browser, Web 2.0 would have come much earlier, and with direct browser support.
I don't think you understand the limits of growth. Exponential growth never goes on forever. And in the case of hydrogen fusion it's not the fuel which will be the limiting factor.
Coins are never minted out of air. They are always minted out of some material (which previously has been mined). With bitcoins, you mine for numbers fulfilling certain mathematical properties. But then, you have to put those numbers into a special form, the bitcoins. In other words, you have to mint the bitcoins.
You may "mine" for some numbers with certain mathematical properties, but those numbers by themselves are not bitcoins. You must convert them into a special form recognized by the BitCoin system. In other words, you must "mint" them. The numbers are the material from which the bitcoins are minted.
"Free energy", when used in a scientific (not pseudo-scientific) context, refers to a thermodynamic quantity, basically an entropy-corrected energy. It doesn't mean "Energy for free".
"Zero energy" means just that, an energy value of zero (depending on the context, it doesn't need to mean the minimal energy, e.g. for bound systems the energy scale is usually taken so that the bound states have negative energy).
Maybe you meant "zero point energy", which is basically the energy of the vacuum. Since effects like the Casimir effect can locally suppress some vacuum fluctuations, some people dream of extracting that energy from the vacuum. But generally the vacuum state is considered the lowest-energy state possible.
Well, thinking of it, in C++ I like the following function template to easily add const to an object's access (to force calling const methods instead of non-const ones; especially for begin/end where those return different iterator types)
Well, Perl has some things which make it harder to learn even for people who know how to program.
For example, you can have a variable $foo (a scalar), and a different variable @foo (an array). Array indexing is done with postfixing [n] (where n is the index). So far, so good. Now, how do you access element 1 of @foo? Well, everyone knowing programming (but not Perl) would of course say: @foo[1], but actually it's $foo[1] because the array element is a scalar. Of course despite having "$foo" inside, it does not access the variable $foo, but the variable @foo.
Yes, languages generally distinguish between presence and absence of whitespace. But Python depends on the amount of whitespace. That's almost as bad as depending on distinguishing tab and space (make, I'm looking at you!).
Here is a set of rules any programming language should IMHO adhere to (those rules of course don't apply inside strings):
1. Except for newline, never depend on the type of whitespace. 2. Two consecutive non-newline whitespace characters are equivalent to a single non-newline whitespace character. 3. A newline character preceded or followed by whitespace is equivalent to just a newline character. 4. Two or more empty lines (including lines which contain whitespace characters, but nothing else) are equivalent to a single empty line (giving empty lines significance at all is not ideal, but acceptable). 5. Empty lines at the beginning or end of a file are always insignificant. 6. If your language depends on the distinction between newline and other whitespace, give a way to escape newline (preferrably by treating it as normal whitespace).
Obviously the conventions differ between countries; in Germany, 300000 has 6 significant digits (there's an official standard saying so, DIN 1333); if you want to write 1 significant digit, you have to write 3*10^5.
It would be so much easier if we just used scientific notation: 3e+5 years
That's not scientific notation, but computer notation. Scientific notation would me 3×10^5 years (actually it would be a raised 5 instead of "^5", but Slashdot doesn't support the sup tag).
It's an investment if you rent it to someone to live in, and expect to make your money (plus some) back from the rent. It's pure speculation if you buy in the hope of selling for more later.
Slashdot Mirror
So when will we get a JavaScript implementation of Flash?
The standard browser on Unix was XMosaic (possibly also on other operating systems, that I don't know) before Netscape took over. So maybe our browsers would all be Mosaic based.
Mosaic had a feature not found in Netscape, which was the ability to add annotations to web sites (personal ones worked for all web sites, shared ones AFAIK only for those which explicitly supported it). Maybe with Mosaic as dominant browser, Web 2.0 would have come much earlier, and with direct browser support.
I don't think you understand the limits of growth. Exponential growth never goes on forever. And in the case of hydrogen fusion it's not the fuel which will be the limiting factor.
Wait, Rossi? Of course it won't work. :-)
While energy cannot be destroyed, it can be rendered useless.
Coins are never minted out of air. They are always minted out of some material (which previously has been mined).
With bitcoins, you mine for numbers fulfilling certain mathematical properties. But then, you have to put those numbers into a special form, the bitcoins. In other words, you have to mint the bitcoins.
You may "mine" for some numbers with certain mathematical properties, but those numbers by themselves are not bitcoins. You must convert them into a special form recognized by the BitCoin system. In other words, you must "mint" them. The numbers are the material from which the bitcoins are minted.
"Free energy", when used in a scientific (not pseudo-scientific) context, refers to a thermodynamic quantity, basically an entropy-corrected energy. It doesn't mean "Energy for free".
"Zero energy" means just that, an energy value of zero (depending on the context, it doesn't need to mean the minimal energy, e.g. for bound systems the energy scale is usually taken so that the bound states have negative energy).
Maybe you meant "zero point energy", which is basically the energy of the vacuum. Since effects like the Casimir effect can locally suppress some vacuum fluctuations, some people dream of extracting that energy from the vacuum. But generally the vacuum state is considered the lowest-energy state possible.
Well, thinking of it, in C++ I like the following function template to easily add const to an object's access (to force calling const methods instead of non-const ones; especially for begin/end where those return different iterator types)
template<typename T> T const& Const(T const& t) { return t; }
I now notice that the comparison is a perfect place to apply it:
if (Const(a) = Const(b)) // error // OK
if (Const(a) == Const(b))
Ah, I see you have a Perl executable named %@$&#@^UGSOWDYRO&F@#L(EGFGP*$TW in your root directory. :-)
And my suspicion is that they chose Perl exactly for that reason, to make their own language, Quorum, stand out.
Well, Perl has some things which make it harder to learn even for people who know how to program.
For example, you can have a variable $foo (a scalar), and a different variable @foo (an array). Array indexing is done with postfixing [n] (where n is the index). So far, so good. Now, how do you access element 1 of @foo? Well, everyone knowing programming (but not Perl) would of course say: @foo[1], but actually it's $foo[1] because the array element is a scalar. Of course despite having "$foo" inside, it does not access the variable $foo, but the variable @foo.
Yes, languages generally distinguish between presence and absence of whitespace. But Python depends on the amount of whitespace. That's almost as bad as depending on distinguishing tab and space (make, I'm looking at you!).
Here is a set of rules any programming language should IMHO adhere to (those rules of course don't apply inside strings):
1. Except for newline, never depend on the type of whitespace.
2. Two consecutive non-newline whitespace characters are equivalent to a single non-newline whitespace character.
3. A newline character preceded or followed by whitespace is equivalent to just a newline character.
4. Two or more empty lines (including lines which contain whitespace characters, but nothing else) are equivalent to a single empty line (giving empty lines significance at all is not ideal, but acceptable).
5. Empty lines at the beginning or end of a file are always insignificant.
6. If your language depends on the distinction between newline and other whitespace, give a way to escape newline (preferrably by treating it as normal whitespace).
Of course that rule fails as soon as you compare two lvalues.
But shouldn't backwards reading read the other strand, i.e. the complements, as well as reversing the order?
Obviously the conventions differ between countries; in Germany, 300000 has 6 significant digits (there's an official standard saying so, DIN 1333); if you want to write 1 significant digit, you have to write 3*10^5.
No, scientific notation is what is used in science. If Wikipedia says something different, it's wrong and should be corrected.
But 300000 years to 6 digits is also an amazing precision.
That's not scientific notation, but computer notation. Scientific notation would me 3×10^5 years (actually it would be a raised 5 instead of "^5", but Slashdot doesn't support the sup tag).
Did you, by chance, see the last three characters of my post?
You honestly think they drafted it themselves? More probably it's mostly drafted by the lobbyists.
You're British, right?
As soon as we have the space elevator, launching into space will be dirt cheap, and the equation will look different! ;-)
Well, I think for the laws in question here, Hollywood would be the correct place.
It's an investment if you rent it to someone to live in, and expect to make your money (plus some) back from the rent. It's pure speculation if you buy in the hope of selling for more later.