But 255 in base 16 is FF, not 0xFF! And 54 in base 13 doesn't give me an (or rather, the) answer (granted, the answer can be found in the links found). Google doesn't even know 54 in base 10:-)
Somehow I have different expectations than the author about what some search terms should provide:
SEARCH TERM: Microsoft Apple
WA gives a comparison of stock prices. From TFA I conclude that's also what the author expected. I wouldn't expect that. If I were looking for stock prices, I'd add "stock" to the search term. With "Microsoft Apple" I'd expect to get some relations between Microsoft and Apple (where they compete, what the main differences are, maybe a comparison of market shares).
SEARCH TERM: 10 pounds kilograms
WA's interpretation is the most reasonable. After all, it's the standard way to denote multiplications (as in newton meters, ampere seconds or kilowatt hours). It would never have occured to me to omit the "in" even in Google.
Assuming there actually was a "before the big bang". If the beginning of time was at the big bang, then there simply was no time before, so the question of what there was at that time is meaningless.
How can your chauffeur drive you if you don't give him the keys of your car?
Do you also consider it a bad idea to give your personal travel needs into the hands of airlines, train companies, bus companies, taxi drivers etc.? In all those cases you don't own the vehicle, and in most you cannot even freely decide the routes and times of your travel (and even with the taxi, the driver might just not follow your wishes). Probably you have a pilot's license for all your flying needs, and do all your other travel needs by your personal car, right?
Does RMS write mail? He's using other people's mail server's software to provide a service (delivery of his mail), then. Or maybe to get mail from him, I have to have an account on his mail server? But then, I would use his mail server's software as a service, and I'm not supposed to do that!
Also, I guess I shouldn't download Free Software, because I'm always using some server not under my control (be it a web server or an FTP server) to do so.
If you don't pay rent at your storage facility, they auction off your stuff to the highest bidder. It doesn't matter if its furniture or business records.
You mean the backup provider sells your data if you don't pay?
But if the SaaS uses standardized protocols, and you have full access to your data, then if you don't like the desicions of your SaaS provider, you just can take your data and pass it to another SaaS provider, or can just start to do your stuff locally then.
So what you need is
the service running on standardized protocols (so you can easily switch providers)
full access to your data (so you don't lose anything when switching)
A Free implementation of the protocol (so that everyone who wants can set up another server providing the same service).
If those three conditions are satisfied, then SaaS isn't bad at all.
Well, of course everyone here on Slashdot knows that the world cannot end in 2012, because the end of the world will be 2037 when the Unix time wraps over.:-)
And don't you dare to mention 64 bit. Everyone knows that time will always be stored in 32 bit variables.;-)
Probably the Mayan calendar ends 2012 because the massive solar flares interfere with their soothsaying capabilities. They just weren't able to look through that solar flare fog.
Also, doesn't mass increase at non-relativistic speeds?
Well, actually, mass doesn't increase at all with speed, but even if you use the outdated concept of relativistic mass, then nonrelativistic speed is defined as speed where relativistic effects are negligible. So no, there's no mass increase at non-relativistic speeds.
Of course, 0.99c is clearly a relativistic speed anyway.:-)
Actually you'd don't need the Krasnikov tube. The whole civilisation could travel in Bussard Ramjets. Why do it? Why invade countries for gold, oil or slaves when you could stay home and live sustainably?
Simple: Because on earth, about everywhere where ressources are there are also people, nations, etc. So your only chance to get ressources (except for buying, of course) is to invade other countries. OTOH, there are lots of ressources in space which are not on habitable planets, indeed, most are. So there's no reason not to exploit those, too. Only other civilizations which are also advanced enough to exploit those "non-inhabitable ressources" would be a possible war target, because they are the only ones which might get in your way (by themselves exploiting those ressources).
Only after the advanced civilizations have used up all the ressources in space (which are more than on habitable planets), they would get interested enough in the ressources of habitable planets to start a war against those. But until then, they are probably advanced enough that they don't need to: They just use advanced armour, and otherwise simply ignore those lesser civilizations on those planets. Not that those civilizations would likely survive that anyway, but it would just be waste of energy to actively fight against them.
This may do type coercion in your implementation, but the Pascal standard doesn't guarantee it. As I already wrote, it would be legal (although wasteful) for a Pascal compiler to put the fields of different variants just one after the other, e.g. for your TCoerce.sw it would then use exactly the same memory layout as for
type
typeswitch = (asint, aschars);
var
TCoerceReplacement: record
sw: typeswitch;
int: Integer;
chars: packed array[1..4] of char;
end;
The only difference between TCoerce and TCoerceReplacement would then be that with TCoerce the field sw is (at least in theory) always checked before accessing int or chars. Obviously on such an implementation your code won't do what you expect.
Also, a Pascal implementation would be allowed to clear the variant fields whenever you modify the selector, or set them to arbitrary values. In which case you'll also not get 'U' here (well, you also won't get 'U' if you run this on a little-endian platform with 32 bit int and ASCII character set, like the popular 32 bit operating systems running on x86 processors, where the second byte of your int contains 43h corresponding to the ASCII letter 'C', but that's another story:-))
Now in practice your code will likely work (apart from the 0x hex number notation, which is C), because the first option would waste memory and the second option would waste time, but it's not really guaranteed. Indeed, I could imagine that a Pascal compiler in debugging mode could indeed clear the variant memory or set it to some special value, to catch bugs where you access undefined values (after changing the selector field, the values are undefined!).
BTW, a less known fact is that it isn't guaranteed to work for unions in C either, despite the fact that C explicitly demands that all members of the union have the same address; the optimizer may take advantage of this, e.g. consider
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
union foo
{
int i;
char s[4];
} var;
var.i = 3;
var.s[0] = 1;
printf("%d\n", var.i);
return 0; }
You might expect this to either print 1 or some quite large number, depending on the platform. However a standard conforming compiler is allowed to assume that var.i still contains 3, because of the strict aliasing rules, and optimize away the variable completely. Now I doubt that any compiler will optimize this case, because it's just too common (e.g. gcc gives an explicit, documented guarantee that this will not break), but similar things with explicit typecasts do break under certain circumstances (Just google for C strict aliasing to learn more).
(Sorry for the long time to answer; the new index seems to lack the "you have new messages" link, and I just now figured out where to get to the message center; I guess I just should get back to the old index... after finding out how:-))
Standard Pascal does not have UNION. Standard Pascal does have variant records which are basically discriminated unions. That is, there is a field which tells you (and, more importantly, the compiler) which of the union fields are valid, and the generated code actually should check that this discriminator field does indeed have the correct value before accessing the member (but I guess most implementations don't). Also note that the Pascal standard does not guarantee that members belonging to different discriminators are stored at the same location; it would be a legal (although wasteful) implementation to just store them as if they were regular record members, and just add the access checks.
of course you do not have to like it, but if you pick "not doing anything against it", you have no right whatsoever to whine about it, because by doing nothing against it, you ACCEPT it. (by you I don't mean especially you, but everyone doing the above;)
Free speech means I have the right to whine about everything I want. Even if I don't do anything about it. Yes, even if I'm actively promoting it!
Of course it does nothing good for my credibility if I promote something and at the same time whine about it, which means that it is not a good idea to do it. But that doesn't mean I don't have a right to do it.
Well, I guess I should do something against ACs posting such stupid things (after all, maybe someone with power will actually use that nonsense as argument to restrict freedom of speech accordingly). Maybe hacking Slashdot and removing those posts would be a reasonable counter measure?;-)
Not entirely impossible, if you get told when you've reached a blocked IP you can verify whether that IP is actually CP or not.
Except that if the site really happens to contain CP, you'll do a criminal act by just deliberately loading it. And you'll have a hard time to argue that you didn't know that it contained CP.
Oh, and if you curse at a bureaucrat, those worthless sacks of shit of which there are way too many, that's "Beamten Beleidigung" and you can get fined 5000 Euro on their word.
That's a common myth. Indeed the German law doesn't know "Beamtenbeleidigung" (insult of officials), but only "Beleidigung" (insult). That is, in principle it doesn't make a difference if you insult an official or a random person. It's just that insulting an official is much more likely to get you sued.
(IANAL, but I read this in a book written by a lawyer, therefore I consider it correct).
Slashdot Mirror
But 255 in base 16 is FF, not 0xFF! :-)
And 54 in base 13 doesn't give me an (or rather, the) answer (granted, the answer can be found in the links found).
Google doesn't even know 54 in base 10
What if someone points a gun at you and tells you to say "no matter what" or he will shoot you? :-)
Somehow I have different expectations than the author about what some search terms should provide:
SEARCH TERM: Microsoft Apple
WA gives a comparison of stock prices. From TFA I conclude that's also what the author expected. I wouldn't expect that. If I were looking for stock prices, I'd add "stock" to the search term. With "Microsoft Apple" I'd expect to get some relations between Microsoft and Apple (where they compete, what the main differences are, maybe a comparison of market shares).
SEARCH TERM: 10 pounds kilograms
WA's interpretation is the most reasonable. After all, it's the standard way to denote multiplications (as in newton meters, ampere seconds or kilowatt hours). It would never have occured to me to omit the "in" even in Google.
What did you think how the Milky Way was created?
Assuming there actually was a "before the big bang". If the beginning of time was at the big bang, then there simply was no time before, so the question of what there was at that time is meaningless.
Copy and paste some of the document's text into a search machine. If something with about the same wording comes up, it's plagiarized. Simple!
How can your chauffeur drive you if you don't give him the keys of your car?
Do you also consider it a bad idea to give your personal travel needs into the hands of airlines, train companies, bus companies, taxi drivers etc.? In all those cases you don't own the vehicle, and in most you cannot even freely decide the routes and times of your travel (and even with the taxi, the driver might just not follow your wishes). Probably you have a pilot's license for all your flying needs, and do all your other travel needs by your personal car, right?
Does RMS write mail? He's using other people's mail server's software to provide a service (delivery of his mail), then. Or maybe to get mail from him, I have to have an account on his mail server? But then, I would use his mail server's software as a service, and I'm not supposed to do that!
Also, I guess I shouldn't download Free Software, because I'm always using some server not under my control (be it a web server or an FTP server) to do so.
You mean the backup provider sells your data if you don't pay?
But if the SaaS uses standardized protocols, and you have full access to your data, then if you don't like the desicions of your SaaS provider, you just can take your data and pass it to another SaaS provider, or can just start to do your stuff locally then.
So what you need is
If those three conditions are satisfied, then SaaS isn't bad at all.
Well, of course everyone here on Slashdot knows that the world cannot end in 2012, because the end of the world will be 2037 when the Unix time wraps over. :-)
And don't you dare to mention 64 bit. Everyone knows that time will always be stored in 32 bit variables. ;-)
Probably the Mayan calendar ends 2012 because the massive solar flares interfere with their soothsaying capabilities. They just weren't able to look through that solar flare fog.
No, tell him that the sun contains weapons of mass destruction (more exactly, hydrogen bombs).
Oh, and tell the green party that the sun is a nuclear reactor emitting lots of dangerous radiation, and they'll also lobby for switching it off.
Won't someone please think of the children!!??
You're right: We should just use DNS poisoning to block all solar flares.
OK, so we just have to determine the color of the main light-harvesting molecule of extraterrestrial life forms.
And hope that the planet doesn't have an advanced-enough civilization that the main light-harvesting objects on it are solar cells. :-)
Well, actually, mass doesn't increase at all with speed, but even if you use the outdated concept of relativistic mass, then nonrelativistic speed is defined as speed where relativistic effects are negligible. So no, there's no mass increase at non-relativistic speeds.
Of course, 0.99c is clearly a relativistic speed anyway. :-)
Simple: Because on earth, about everywhere where ressources are there are also people, nations, etc. So your only chance to get ressources (except for buying, of course) is to invade other countries. OTOH, there are lots of ressources in space which are not on habitable planets, indeed, most are. So there's no reason not to exploit those, too. Only other civilizations which are also advanced enough to exploit those "non-inhabitable ressources" would be a possible war target, because they are the only ones which might get in your way (by themselves exploiting those ressources).
Only after the advanced civilizations have used up all the ressources in space (which are more than on habitable planets), they would get interested enough in the ressources of habitable planets to start a war against those. But until then, they are probably advanced enough that they don't need to: They just use advanced armour, and otherwise simply ignore those lesser civilizations on those planets. Not that those civilizations would likely survive that anyway, but it would just be waste of energy to actively fight against them.
But Coke was replaced by Gooke Beta. With personalized taste, based on your past Google searches.
This may do type coercion in your implementation, but the Pascal standard doesn't guarantee it. As I already wrote, it would be legal (although wasteful) for a Pascal compiler to put the fields of different variants just one after the other, e.g. for your TCoerce.sw it would then use exactly the same memory layout as for
The only difference between TCoerce and TCoerceReplacement would then be that with TCoerce the field sw is (at least in theory) always checked before accessing int or chars. Obviously on such an implementation your code won't do what you expect.
Also, a Pascal implementation would be allowed to clear the variant fields whenever you modify the selector, or set them to arbitrary values. In which case you'll also not get 'U' here (well, you also won't get 'U' if you run this on a little-endian platform with 32 bit int and ASCII character set, like the popular 32 bit operating systems running on x86 processors, where the second byte of your int contains 43h corresponding to the ASCII letter 'C', but that's another story :-))
Now in practice your code will likely work (apart from the 0x hex number notation, which is C), because the first option would waste memory and the second option would waste time, but it's not really guaranteed. Indeed, I could imagine that a Pascal compiler in debugging mode could indeed clear the variant memory or set it to some special value, to catch bugs where you access undefined values (after changing the selector field, the values are undefined!).
BTW, a less known fact is that it isn't guaranteed to work for unions in C either, despite the fact that C explicitly demands that all members of the union have the same address; the optimizer may take advantage of this, e.g. consider
You might expect this to either print 1 or some quite large number, depending on the platform. However a standard conforming compiler is allowed to assume that var.i still contains 3, because of the strict aliasing rules, and optimize away the variable completely. Now I doubt that any compiler will optimize this case, because it's just too common (e.g. gcc gives an explicit, documented guarantee that this will not break), but similar things with explicit typecasts do break under certain circumstances (Just google for C strict aliasing to learn more).
(Sorry for the long time to answer; the new index seems to lack the "you have new messages" link, and I just now figured out where to get to the message center; I guess I just should get back to the old index ... after finding out how :-))
Standard Pascal does not have UNION. Standard Pascal does have variant records which are basically discriminated unions. That is, there is a field which tells you (and, more importantly, the compiler) which of the union fields are valid, and the generated code actually should check that this discriminator field does indeed have the correct value before accessing the member (but I guess most implementations don't). Also note that the Pascal standard does not guarantee that members belonging to different discriminators are stored at the same location; it would be a legal (although wasteful) implementation to just store them as if they were regular record members, and just add the access checks.
A peaceful mind?
of course you do not have to like it, but if you pick "not doing anything against it", you have no right whatsoever to whine about it, because by doing nothing against it, you ACCEPT it. (by you I don't mean especially you, but everyone doing the above ;)
Free speech means I have the right to whine about everything I want. Even if I don't do anything about it. Yes, even if I'm actively promoting it!
Of course it does nothing good for my credibility if I promote something and at the same time whine about it, which means that it is not a good idea to do it. But that doesn't mean I don't have a right to do it.
Well, I guess I should do something against ACs posting such stupid things (after all, maybe someone with power will actually use that nonsense as argument to restrict freedom of speech accordingly). Maybe hacking Slashdot and removing those posts would be a reasonable counter measure? ;-)
You forgot: We are the descendants of the people on Ark B.
Not entirely impossible, if you get told when you've reached a blocked IP you can verify whether that IP is actually CP or not.
Except that if the site really happens to contain CP, you'll do a criminal act by just deliberately loading it. And you'll have a hard time to argue that you didn't know that it contained CP.
That's a common myth. Indeed the German law doesn't know "Beamtenbeleidigung" (insult of officials), but only "Beleidigung" (insult). That is, in principle it doesn't make a difference if you insult an official or a random person. It's just that insulting an official is much more likely to get you sued.
(IANAL, but I read this in a book written by a lawyer, therefore I consider it correct).