There's a whole difference between how you store your data (punch card, magnetic type or harddisk), or whom you give your data. Maybe you don't care if your data is analyzed to allow for more personalized marketing (you think they wouldn't do that? Think again!). I do care.
Oh, and do you think you'll be able to run adblock on ChromeOS? Surely not (or if yes, then only a version which doesn't block Google/Doubleclick ads).
If you have infinite trust in Google, you probably deserve no better. I use Google for searches (Cookie blocked, of course) and for Google maps, and I'm watching videos on YouTube. But that's it. I don't have nor want a gmail account. I don't use Google apps. I block Google Analytics (if you want usage statistics, analyze your own server's log files, those contain all the relevant information; I don't want to leave a web browsing profile at Google).
I vote for systems with a negative number of instructions!:-) You just tell the computer what not to do, and the computer does something which you didn't forbid.
If you make a one-instruction CPU, then the obvious choice of instruction would be DWIM. Note that with that instruction you could restrict yourself to one-instruction codes without losing generality, which should greatly simplify the processor design (for example, you need no instruction queue; indeed, you can spare the whole instruction reading circuit, because you know what instruction you'd read anyway).
I'd also consider it cheating. I can also invent a one-instruction computer, where the one instruction is a move immediate instruction. The move instruction moves a byte-sized value into a "command register" which does different things depending on the value of the byte you load into it and the current state of the machine. Indeed, since there's just one instruction, and it always has a single one-byte operand, I just don't encode the instruction itself, I just put all the operands into memory, one after another. And I define the state machine so that the actions are exactly the same as the actions of an x86 interpreting those bytes as separate instructions. Therefore I can avoid doing an implementation myself; I can just use a stock x86 processor as proof of concept.
They don't disable installing the plugins, they disable installing them the wrong way. And of course, you can always get the Firefox source and disable the check, if you really want.
Well, that's what my computer already does: When it's on, it's hungry (it continuously needs to get new energy). When it's not hungry, it's off, and then it will completely ignore me, with the exception of the power switch, which will immediately make it hungry again. If it doesn't get food, i.e. electric power, it will even ignore the power switch.
If there will ever an electronic brain, those were indeed all steps toward it. And if there will never be an electronic brain, those may still have been steps toward it. Just that you make steps toward something doesn't mean you reach it. It doesn't even imply that you can reach it. I easily can make a step towards the sun when it is on the horizon. I'll never reach it that way, though.
But then, nature had no working brain to copy from (note that since all computers work on logic, and logic just derives from how certain parts of our brain work, even the very first computers copied something we learned from our own brains).
With one 8-bit byte per character, it needs 40 bits (5 characters * 8 bits). However, since all five characters are in the ASCII character set, which is just 7 bit, 35 bits should suffice. Now, of course there are also encodings possible where exactly 32 bits are needed; but then, I counter with an encoding where "M" is 00, "e" is 01, "o" is 100, "w" is 101, "!" is 110, and all other characters have encodings starting with 111. That makes just 13 bits for "Meow!" Unless you restrict your encoding to only have those 5 characters, you cannot get any shorter, at least when encoding all characters separately. But then, who tells me that this is necessary? Therefore I now introduce the "cat encoding": The bit 0 stands for the string "Meow!" which anything else is encoded with bit sequences starting with 1.
So I finally conclude: You need just one bit for "Meow!"
Oops, I just notice that I replaced 114 by 116, so subtract 256 from the factor. But then, by looking again at the summary, the 114 is also wrong; it was 144 TBytes, so add 3840.
That is, it has exactly 18432 times as much memory as your computer.
What in the world is wrong with me? I must be getting senile. I've done this math like five times now and keep getting different answers. I think I need to re-learn how to type numbers into a calculator.
Or you have to learn to do math without a calculator.
1 TByte = 2^40 Bytes. 8 GByte = 2^33 Bytes
So 116 TByte/8GByte are 116*2^7 Bytes. Since 2^7 is 128, it's a factor of 116*128. 100*128 = 12800 16*128 = 2^(4+7) = 2048 So 116*128 = 14848
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There's a whole difference between how you store your data (punch card, magnetic type or harddisk), or whom you give your data. Maybe you don't care if your data is analyzed to allow for more personalized marketing (you think they wouldn't do that? Think again!). I do care.
Oh, and do you think you'll be able to run adblock on ChromeOS? Surely not (or if yes, then only a version which doesn't block Google/Doubleclick ads).
If you have infinite trust in Google, you probably deserve no better. I use Google for searches (Cookie blocked, of course) and for Google maps, and I'm watching videos on YouTube. But that's it. I don't have nor want a gmail account. I don't use Google apps. I block Google Analytics (if you want usage statistics, analyze your own server's log files, those contain all the relevant information; I don't want to leave a web browsing profile at Google).
In other words, I should trust them with all my data. And probably be tied in forever. No thanks.
I vote for systems with a negative number of instructions! :-)
You just tell the computer what not to do, and the computer does something which you didn't forbid.
If you make a one-instruction CPU, then the obvious choice of instruction would be DWIM. Note that with that instruction you could restrict yourself to one-instruction codes without losing generality, which should greatly simplify the processor design (for example, you need no instruction queue; indeed, you can spare the whole instruction reading circuit, because you know what instruction you'd read anyway).
I'd also consider it cheating. I can also invent a one-instruction computer, where the one instruction is a move immediate instruction. The move instruction moves a byte-sized value into a "command register" which does different things depending on the value of the byte you load into it and the current state of the machine. Indeed, since there's just one instruction, and it always has a single one-byte operand, I just don't encode the instruction itself, I just put all the operands into memory, one after another. And I define the state machine so that the actions are exactly the same as the actions of an x86 interpreting those bytes as separate instructions. Therefore I can avoid doing an implementation myself; I can just use a stock x86 processor as proof of concept.
Oh, and I overlooked one detail in your post: No, it was mot mine. It was the one of ColdWetDog.
Whoosh!
Hint: Look at the first letters of "obviously old originals". Anything special about them?
Who cares about obviously old originals?
Boeing's directed-energy weapons...Shoots Down Airplanes
I see a conflict of interest here.
Why? Every shot-down airplane has to be replaced.
The heat which boils away the paint surely also destroys the reflective properties of the material beyond.
Maybe one advantage is that you don't see it coming until it strikes, so you simply cannot react.
... the only thing left is to mount them on sharks.
They don't disable installing the plugins, they disable installing them the wrong way.
And of course, you can always get the Firefox source and disable the check, if you really want.
Well, that's what my computer already does: When it's on, it's hungry (it continuously needs to get new energy). When it's not hungry, it's off, and then it will completely ignore me, with the exception of the power switch, which will immediately make it hungry again. If it doesn't get food, i.e. electric power, it will even ignore the power switch.
If there will ever an electronic brain, those were indeed all steps toward it. And if there will never be an electronic brain, those may still have been steps toward it. Just that you make steps toward something doesn't mean you reach it. It doesn't even imply that you can reach it. I easily can make a step towards the sun when it is on the horizon. I'll never reach it that way, though.
I just looked into my /bin directory, and there it was: An executable clearly named "cat"!
But then, nature had no working brain to copy from (note that since all computers work on logic, and logic just derives from how certain parts of our brain work, even the very first computers copied something we learned from our own brains).
With one 8-bit byte per character, it needs 40 bits (5 characters * 8 bits). However, since all five characters are in the ASCII character set, which is just 7 bit, 35 bits should suffice. Now, of course there are also encodings possible where exactly 32 bits are needed; but then, I counter with an encoding where "M" is 00, "e" is 01, "o" is 100, "w" is 101, "!" is 110, and all other characters have encodings starting with 111. That makes just 13 bits for "Meow!"
Unless you restrict your encoding to only have those 5 characters, you cannot get any shorter, at least when encoding all characters separately. But then, who tells me that this is necessary? Therefore I now introduce the "cat encoding": The bit 0 stands for the string "Meow!" which anything else is encoded with bit sequences starting with 1.
So I finally conclude: You need just one bit for "Meow!"
Oops, I just notice that I replaced 114 by 116, so subtract 256 from the factor.
But then, by looking again at the summary, the 114 is also wrong; it was 144 TBytes, so add 3840.
That is, it has exactly 18432 times as much memory as your computer.
What in the world is wrong with me? I must be getting senile. I've done this math like five times now and keep getting different answers. I think I need to re-learn how to type numbers into a calculator.
Or you have to learn to do math without a calculator.
1 TByte = 2^40 Bytes.
8 GByte = 2^33 Bytes
So 116 TByte/8GByte are 116*2^7 Bytes. Since 2^7 is 128, it's a factor of 116*128.
100*128 = 12800
16*128 = 2^(4+7) = 2048
So 116*128 = 14848
All they're going to do is put lead in it...
Well, how else would they become the leading nation in space?
Add another 300 years! :-)
But, she's right! It's because of all the dihydrogen monoxide in the water! Take away the DHMO, and there will be no rainbow at all! :-)
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1447230&cid=30132024