While the source code for the kernel is GPL, the kernel doesn't do a whole lot on it's own. They could use the Linux kernel and basic xwindows, kde, or xfce, and load it to the brim with other proprietary software.
Well, my full sized laptop, with actual spinning platter hard drive, and 14 inch screen only draws around 18 watts. And on a single battery lasts about 2.5 hours. The biggest advantage of the eeePC is the size, and the fact that it's solid state. You could easily get a laptop with a lot more battery life.
A little harsh but I share the same views. In university, I did a lot of console/gui Java apps and C/C++ code. Now for work I'm doing.Net web applications. The programming field is so large that you will be unlikely to be using anything you learned in university in your day-to-day work. What you do learn in university is how to think about software and design, and how other things were designed, so that you can hopefully design a good system yourself (or with a team) one day. Most of the tools themselves won't be directly applicable, but the concepts learned will be directly applicable no matter how much the tools change.
UML is a nice concept. You draw little pictures to make it easier to understand the architecture and behaviour of your system. In university, we had a term for professors who were really pendantic about UML. UML Nazis. Really UML should just be a set of loose rules and semi conventions so that people can get the gist of what your program does. The UML Nazis try to turn it into more of a programming language, where everything is ultra specific, and where using a filled in arrowhead instead of an empty one is punishable by death. Which is the real reason UML died. Too many symbols that look almost, but not quite exactly the same which are supposed to represent different concepts.
They are likely selling those at a loss to get you into the store. It's 21 cent levy on a blank,non-audio, CD. Just the levy on those disks would cost $10.50. I've seen deals like that myself, and often wonder if they are illegal or something, because they cost less than the actual levy. Anyway, like I said, cheaper disks are available, I just had those names easily accesible from a major retailer on disks from the same manufacturer.
Funny thing, in Canada, DVD+-*/%^R's are cheaper than CD-Rs because there is no Levy on DVDs. DVDRs cost around $20 for 50, while blank CDs cost about $40 for 50 (base on same brand from same store, cheaper of both are available).
What is the actual speed increase when using solid state drives. I've seen a couple benchmarks, and most of them point to the solid state being a little faster, but only mildly so. For the price difference, it just doesn't seem to make sense yet. Even if you don't need the extra space. Right now, you'd probably be better off stocking your computer with 3-4 GB of RAM, and just using a plain old hard drive.
The big difference is that when you go on iTunes to buy a song, you have millions of songs to choose from. When you go on Rock Band, you don't get a million songs to choose from. Doing this kind of comparison would be like saying that SMB 3 on Virtual Console outsold used cartridges in game stores. It's a completely different product for a completely different market.
One you're used to the light, your eyes adjust anyway, so does it really matter if the light is exactly white? After wearing orange ski goggles for about 10 minutes, the snow appears white (or grey?) through them. After removing them, everything looks blue.
It's only so noticeable because most incandescent and flourescent tubes are pretty yellow anyway. It's hard to find a really white light bulbs. Once all the lights have a slight blue tinge, it won't even be noticable.
Exactly. The payout for getting someone into space, or near space, isn't directly noticeable. Maybe 20 years down the road trans-oceanic flights will be done at near space altitudes, because of the projects that we do now. But it's not something you can directly make large profits at right now. If you design an efficient light bulb (what's wrong with CFLs and LEDs?), you can immediately bring it to market and sell a lot of units, and make a lot of money. Same goes with a drug to cure cancer. I'm sure there's tons of people trying to do this already. The 20 million doesn't really make that much of a difference, because you stand to make billions if you can solve it and patent it.
I remember trying to help some chemical engineers out with their third year programming assignments for numerical analysis. I didn't understand any of the numerical analysis aspects, and they didn't understand any of the programming aspects. Made for a really frustrating time. Trying to explain to someone how to program something you which you don't understand how it works is very complicated. I don't think I ended up being much help on the assignment, even though I am quite a good programmer. Programming is a very important part of any science. I think it should be mandatory. The scientist who understands the science and understands just a little programming will be able to write a better program than someone who knows how to program but doesn't understand the science.
It's not Simon, because you actually get to see the notes as you have to play them. Simon on the other hand required you to memorize the sequence it played (which often made no musical sense), and be able to keep up. I remember I had a portable Simon, and I actually beat it, because it only had a memory of 20-30 (32??) moves.
In.Net's defence, the Win32 API is a mess and needs a nice clean layer on top of it like.NET, in order for anybody to understand it. If PHP really is a layer of the c posix libraries, then they could also use a nice clean up.
PHP currently offers XML parsers, CURL, database client libs, but it wasn't always that way. You used to have to install 3rd party components to get that stuff done. Eventually they brought that stuff direclty into PHP because so many people were demanding it, but it's still possible to find web hosts that don't support PDO, or some other functionality.
PHP is badly organized, has a long history of importing third party components for what should be included in the base, and is completely inconsistent with itself in many ways. Hasn't caused any problems in popularity for them. I would say by virtue of PHP and all the other popular languagues, that it should be easy to get started (free compilers and runtimes), that it should run on multiple platforms, and that it should be easy to install. Nothing gets you more popularity than millions of newbies trying your tool and being able to get it working that they continue to use it even when they get good, simply because it is what they are used to.
Well, anybody who throws the wiimote at the TV is an idiot also. Doesn't stop people from doing it. Doesn't mean that Nintendo didn't have to design an extra strong wiimote strap, send out silicone controller softeners to everybody, and redesign the restraint/tightening mechanism on the wiimote strap.
I think the game could work equally well with just the WiiMote, possibly even better. Imagine to actually have to release the wiimote and spin it in the air in the appropriate direction to perform a 360 or a back flip. They'd probably get sued when somebody broke something, but tell me that it isn't how a real snowboarding game is. Make it actually hard to do a 720 or 1080. Rather than just go off a large jump and push left, you would actually have to spin the controller and catch it before you hit the ground. Since that would probably never happen, maybe a hard plastic oval ring that fits around your hand, with a horizontal bearing that lets you spin the wiimote perpendicular to your hand. Leave your hand level to the ground to do a 360, or turn your hand to the side to do a back/front flip. That could bring a whole new dimension to the game.
If the code is so insignificant to the size of the data, then why is Google even taking on this project, and why do they think it's so important. Following your logic, having every user download 130K of javascript code is completely insignificant. So this whole exercise is a little pointless. If the size of the code doesn't matter, you might as well host the AJAX libraries yourself in one giant file, and require just have everybody download it.
But isn't the whole point of AJAX to reduce server load by having users do lots of little requests instead of a few large requests? While one large file would compress better than many small files, would one large file compress better than 1/10 of the data actually being sent out because the user didn't need the other 9/10 of the data? You could also optimize the fetching of code by sending a single request to request all the Javascript for a specific action in just one request. Which would contain a bigger section of code and be more easily compressible. My solution isn't finallized, and there could be some tweaking needed. However, there has to be a better solution than sending out your entire AJAX library to every user who visits your page.
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While the source code for the kernel is GPL, the kernel doesn't do a whole lot on it's own. They could use the Linux kernel and basic xwindows, kde, or xfce, and load it to the brim with other proprietary software.
Well, my full sized laptop, with actual spinning platter hard drive, and 14 inch screen only draws around 18 watts. And on a single battery lasts about 2.5 hours. The biggest advantage of the eeePC is the size, and the fact that it's solid state. You could easily get a laptop with a lot more battery life.
Yes, because the brits always use metric measurements for everything. How many stone do you weigh again?
Are the any VM's fast enough to decode video with good sound without skipping?
A little harsh but I share the same views. In university, I did a lot of console/gui Java apps and C/C++ code. Now for work I'm doing .Net web applications. The programming field is so large that you will be unlikely to be using anything you learned in university in your day-to-day work. What you do learn in university is how to think about software and design, and how other things were designed, so that you can hopefully design a good system yourself (or with a team) one day. Most of the tools themselves won't be directly applicable, but the concepts learned will be directly applicable no matter how much the tools change.
UML is a nice concept. You draw little pictures to make it easier to understand the architecture and behaviour of your system. In university, we had a term for professors who were really pendantic about UML. UML Nazis. Really UML should just be a set of loose rules and semi conventions so that people can get the gist of what your program does. The UML Nazis try to turn it into more of a programming language, where everything is ultra specific, and where using a filled in arrowhead instead of an empty one is punishable by death. Which is the real reason UML died. Too many symbols that look almost, but not quite exactly the same which are supposed to represent different concepts.
While they have been installing it on lots of computers as an iTunes update (Apple is evil), I don't think that most people would use it as a browser.
They are likely selling those at a loss to get you into the store. It's 21 cent levy on a blank,non-audio, CD. Just the levy on those disks would cost $10.50. I've seen deals like that myself, and often wonder if they are illegal or something, because they cost less than the actual levy. Anyway, like I said, cheaper disks are available, I just had those names easily accesible from a major retailer on disks from the same manufacturer.
Funny thing, in Canada, DVD+-*/%^R's are cheaper than CD-Rs because there is no Levy on DVDs. DVDRs cost around $20 for 50, while blank CDs cost about $40 for 50 (base on same brand from same store, cheaper of both are available).
What is the actual speed increase when using solid state drives. I've seen a couple benchmarks, and most of them point to the solid state being a little faster, but only mildly so. For the price difference, it just doesn't seem to make sense yet. Even if you don't need the extra space. Right now, you'd probably be better off stocking your computer with 3-4 GB of RAM, and just using a plain old hard drive.
The big difference is that when you go on iTunes to buy a song, you have millions of songs to choose from. When you go on Rock Band, you don't get a million songs to choose from. Doing this kind of comparison would be like saying that SMB 3 on Virtual Console outsold used cartridges in game stores. It's a completely different product for a completely different market.
One you're used to the light, your eyes adjust anyway, so does it really matter if the light is exactly white? After wearing orange ski goggles for about 10 minutes, the snow appears white (or grey?) through them. After removing them, everything looks blue.
It's only so noticeable because most incandescent and flourescent tubes are pretty yellow anyway. It's hard to find a really white light bulbs. Once all the lights have a slight blue tinge, it won't even be noticable.
Exactly. The payout for getting someone into space, or near space, isn't directly noticeable. Maybe 20 years down the road trans-oceanic flights will be done at near space altitudes, because of the projects that we do now. But it's not something you can directly make large profits at right now. If you design an efficient light bulb (what's wrong with CFLs and LEDs?), you can immediately bring it to market and sell a lot of units, and make a lot of money. Same goes with a drug to cure cancer. I'm sure there's tons of people trying to do this already. The 20 million doesn't really make that much of a difference, because you stand to make billions if you can solve it and patent it.
I remember trying to help some chemical engineers out with their third year programming assignments for numerical analysis. I didn't understand any of the numerical analysis aspects, and they didn't understand any of the programming aspects. Made for a really frustrating time. Trying to explain to someone how to program something you which you don't understand how it works is very complicated. I don't think I ended up being much help on the assignment, even though I am quite a good programmer. Programming is a very important part of any science. I think it should be mandatory. The scientist who understands the science and understands just a little programming will be able to write a better program than someone who knows how to program but doesn't understand the science.
What's your opinion of the more advanced electronic drum kits.
It's not Simon, because you actually get to see the notes as you have to play them. Simon on the other hand required you to memorize the sequence it played (which often made no musical sense), and be able to keep up. I remember I had a portable Simon, and I actually beat it, because it only had a memory of 20-30 (32??) moves.
In .Net's defence, the Win32 API is a mess and needs a nice clean layer on top of it like .NET, in order for anybody to understand it. If PHP really is a layer of the c posix libraries, then they could also use a nice clean up.
Works for GPL'd software.
PHP currently offers XML parsers, CURL, database client libs, but it wasn't always that way. You used to have to install 3rd party components to get that stuff done. Eventually they brought that stuff direclty into PHP because so many people were demanding it, but it's still possible to find web hosts that don't support PDO, or some other functionality.
PHP is badly organized, has a long history of importing third party components for what should be included in the base, and is completely inconsistent with itself in many ways. Hasn't caused any problems in popularity for them. I would say by virtue of PHP and all the other popular languagues, that it should be easy to get started (free compilers and runtimes), that it should run on multiple platforms, and that it should be easy to install. Nothing gets you more popularity than millions of newbies trying your tool and being able to get it working that they continue to use it even when they get good, simply because it is what they are used to.
Well, anybody who throws the wiimote at the TV is an idiot also. Doesn't stop people from doing it. Doesn't mean that Nintendo didn't have to design an extra strong wiimote strap, send out silicone controller softeners to everybody, and redesign the restraint/tightening mechanism on the wiimote strap.
I think the game could work equally well with just the WiiMote, possibly even better. Imagine to actually have to release the wiimote and spin it in the air in the appropriate direction to perform a 360 or a back flip. They'd probably get sued when somebody broke something, but tell me that it isn't how a real snowboarding game is. Make it actually hard to do a 720 or 1080. Rather than just go off a large jump and push left, you would actually have to spin the controller and catch it before you hit the ground. Since that would probably never happen, maybe a hard plastic oval ring that fits around your hand, with a horizontal bearing that lets you spin the wiimote perpendicular to your hand. Leave your hand level to the ground to do a 360, or turn your hand to the side to do a back/front flip. That could bring a whole new dimension to the game.
If the code is so insignificant to the size of the data, then why is Google even taking on this project, and why do they think it's so important. Following your logic, having every user download 130K of javascript code is completely insignificant. So this whole exercise is a little pointless. If the size of the code doesn't matter, you might as well host the AJAX libraries yourself in one giant file, and require just have everybody download it.
But isn't the whole point of AJAX to reduce server load by having users do lots of little requests instead of a few large requests? While one large file would compress better than many small files, would one large file compress better than 1/10 of the data actually being sent out because the user didn't need the other 9/10 of the data? You could also optimize the fetching of code by sending a single request to request all the Javascript for a specific action in just one request. Which would contain a bigger section of code and be more easily compressible. My solution isn't finallized, and there could be some tweaking needed. However, there has to be a better solution than sending out your entire AJAX library to every user who visits your page.