"It's not like you can interrogate a squirrel to ask them why his genes are different."
Can you do that to a human? I think that I know the basic mechanisms generating my genome from my parents, but I don't know why they are different.
As I understand it gene changes are not fit a certain problem, but completely random. As a random change may be a change to the better, the survival of the fittest will make this change spread to more individuals in the next generation than a less fit gene.
This does not rule out that the change in birth rate and pregnancy time has been fitter due to a change in the climate. But sience based on correlation is dangerous. It has been used before to "prove" lies.
Google supports thousands of user request sessions, not one huge straight-line serial command sequence. This means that a huge bunch of smaller servers will do the jobb quicker than a big super-server. Not only because of the raw computing power, but due to the parallellalism that is extracted by doing so and the loss of overhead introduced by running too many tasks on one server.
As Intel now loses its backwards compatibility, they also lose their biggest advantage. Sadly, the IA64 will probably lose out to less spectacular, but IA32 compatible designs.
Alpha tried to emulate the x86 earlier and failed. Sadly.
Large simulations (such as this, or car crash simulations, etc.) take days, if not weeks to run.
Since the ECC ram isn't 100% slower (i.e. time of fast memory times two is more than time of ECC memory) there is no need to run it twice.
Anyhow, if the two simulations differ, you'll have to do it a third time to check if you get a match, and still you only know that you are *likely* to have gotten it right. With ECC the chance of getting it right increases.
Yupp, that's a problem. But if only small parts were textured (i.e. the parts that require it), you could use a higher resolution and still save space and performance.
"Two to twelve times each year, a bit in memory gets inappropriately flipped. This can be caused by cosmic rays flying through your RAM or a decay of the minute radioactive isotopes found in your RAM - the impurity need only be a single atom. Most of the time, this flipped bit is unimportant. Maybe it's a flipped bit in unallocated memory, or maybe it just altered the position of a pixel for a fraction of a second. If you're unlucky though, this flipped bit can alter critical data and cause your system to crash. In our situation, a flipped bit could potentially alter our results significantly."
Quoted from the second paragraph of the fourth page.
IF SVG supports raster (pixelbased) graphics, together with the vector graphics (as textures or something), this could be really useful. An ultimate graphics format, the holy grail...
As for not being needed on the desktop. Optimizations are *always* needed and useful. Also, this can finally mean truly resolution independent graphics. Simply know the dpi of your screen and all will always be the same size, independent of grannys old 640x480 and mine 1280x1024...
I have a friend who works as a computer builder (he builds computers according to customers specs). His employer evaluates lots of fun hardware before choosing a supplyer and stuff gets left over. Also, spare parts may go old (1-2 years). These parts (evaluate + spare parts) is what I pick up from time to time. The company saves money by not having to pay for destruction and I get cool hardware.
If you google around a bit, I think that there are quite a few sites concerning this subject. I rember reading a HOWTO about it once.
Know how to ask...
on
Adopt a KDE Geek
·
· Score: 4, Informative
If you know how to ask you can quite easily get ahold of most hardware (except HDDs) from technology companies. As long as you can live with 1-2 years old hardware and some DIY to set things up, you can get most for free.
"One is the idea that we should have the right to control our own individual experience of creative works. When we're in the privacy of our own homes, and we're using DVDs or CDs that we own on the computers that we own, that Hollywood doesn't have a right to tell us how we can use that media."
Sounds like a good attitude to me. I wonder if there would be any impact in Hollywood if this message was repeated enough many times.
"I'll start with who has the worst IP laws, because that's actually the easiest. It's the United States."
This is what happens when you grow a international monopoly on software and recorded entertainment (it isn't a monopoly yet, but bloody close). Happily enough one can see a reaction from (a non-activist) player: the European Union. Several measures are being taken to introduce open source solutions. This is being done both for the lower price, but also since the US has shown bad judgement in the use of the echelon system.
"OK, bear with me. DirectX has been ported through WineX [transgaming.com] to various other platforms. This allows a performance advantage that no other Crossplatform [trolltech.com] GUI [eclipse.org] toolkits [wxwindows.org] can possibly acheive."
Hav you ever tried SDL? Also, today OpenGL tends to give good performance while being (almost) portable.
It depends if you're interested in running a stable system or selling a patched version. I'd say most of the intended audience of the article aren't interested in selling Linux systems, but rather use it. Then the GPL is good, since it makes patches spread thoughout the community.
I'd say that the article misses out on the freedom part of the word free. Not to sound evangilistic, but there is a bias towards free as in no money (but what can one expect from the _financial_ times?).
This pretty much shows that it will be impossible to use cloning (as we know it today) to raise the dead.
However a human teleporter and a little sniffing on the transmission line would probably do the trick. However, the two individuals would not be exposed to the same surroundings and diverge pretty soon.
I'd say 1 (and perhaps 2). Remeber that it is possible to configure Qt to a windows look in a X Windows environment, so I'd go for 1. If you really need to know: read the source or ask trolltech (they are usually friendly and quick to reply).
The communications are usually done using an SAE standard (don't know the number).
As for why you aren't allowed to tinker? SAFETY! Modern cars with faulty electronics are hazardous not only to the driver, but all that happen to be in the vicinity of such a vehicle.
Nice concept, but I wouldn't want to use it in a bus or such. It real life it would crave some sort of gyro to detect movement. Imagine a bus rounding a corner and the text compensating by scrolling. At least it would serve as amusement to the fellow busriders.
Of course there are other solutions, and there is defenently a need for a solution to this problem. I would suggest having touch sensitive sides of the actual PDA. To scroll, simply stroke the side of the PDA (not a wheel, but the side). But there are probably even better solutions to this. I enjoy the peephole approach, but must regrettably say that the problem is to control it (without clicking tiny sliders).
I've only looked at fsm labs' RT linux, where RT processes run in parallel with the linux kernel, instead of on. Not to speak bad about linux, but it is really a server OS (perhaps becoming a desktop one), but for RT tasks, there are better solutions.
What about dying from Linux's bad real time support. Not that windows is better, but is Linux really the ideal OS to run such critical applications on?
"There is one thing that's for sure; AMD has not done a very good job of telling the public exactly what they're capable of from a manufacturing standpoint. Intel has been talking about their manufacturing capabilities for quite some time now and has left the market with the impression that they are the only leader in the x86 manufacturing world. It is a shame because in reality, AMD has quite a few accomplishments of their own to talk about but it's just a matter of getting them to loosen up and let you all in."
It is nice of AMD not to scream about what they can do in their labs, but actually rely on their current products.
It is also hard directing people not stating exactly what it is that they want to do... I think that there is a good collection of demomakers using SDL, thus I point in that direction.
The programming field is so wide that the best way to learn is to evolve, that is why I recommend any wannabies to *learn*, read everything, and be interested.
Slashdot Mirror
"It's not like you can interrogate a squirrel to ask them why his genes are different."
Can you do that to a human? I think that I know the basic mechanisms generating my genome from my parents, but I don't know why they are different.
As I understand it gene changes are not fit a certain problem, but completely random. As a random change may be a change to the better, the survival of the fittest will make this change spread to more individuals in the next generation than a less fit gene.
This does not rule out that the change in birth rate and pregnancy time has been fitter due to a change in the climate. But sience based on correlation is dangerous. It has been used before to "prove" lies.
Google supports thousands of user request sessions, not one huge straight-line serial command sequence. This means that a huge bunch of smaller servers will do the jobb quicker than a big super-server. Not only because of the raw computing power, but due to the parallellalism that is extracted by doing so and the loss of overhead introduced by running too many tasks on one server.
Why don't they name materials better today? What is interesting in the name "Super-black"? Nothing!
I suggest we call it Darkonium or something...
As Intel now loses its backwards compatibility, they also lose their biggest advantage. Sadly, the IA64 will probably lose out to less spectacular, but IA32 compatible designs.
Alpha tried to emulate the x86 earlier and failed. Sadly.
Large simulations (such as this, or car crash simulations, etc.) take days, if not weeks to run. Since the ECC ram isn't 100% slower (i.e. time of fast memory times two is more than time of ECC memory) there is no need to run it twice.
Anyhow, if the two simulations differ, you'll have to do it a third time to check if you get a match, and still you only know that you are *likely* to have gotten it right. With ECC the chance of getting it right increases.
Yupp, that's a problem. But if only small parts were textured (i.e. the parts that require it), you could use a higher resolution and still save space and performance.
RTFA Read The F**king Article!
"Two to twelve times each year, a bit in memory gets inappropriately flipped. This can be caused by cosmic rays flying through your RAM or a decay of the minute radioactive isotopes found in your RAM - the impurity need only be a single atom. Most of the time, this flipped bit is unimportant. Maybe it's a flipped bit in unallocated memory, or maybe it just altered the position of a pixel for a fraction of a second. If you're unlucky though, this flipped bit can alter critical data and cause your system to crash. In our situation, a flipped bit could potentially alter our results significantly."
Quoted from the second paragraph of the fourth page.
IF SVG supports raster (pixelbased) graphics, together with the vector graphics (as textures or something), this could be really useful. An ultimate graphics format, the holy grail...
As for not being needed on the desktop. Optimizations are *always* needed and useful. Also, this can finally mean truly resolution independent graphics. Simply know the dpi of your screen and all will always be the same size, independent of grannys old 640x480 and mine 1280x1024...
Having CLR does not mean having all the classes (such as WinForms). It is still a lock-in from M$'s side.
"That [.Net works with Linux] could be a big breakthrough for Linux..."
At the price of killing Java...
I have a friend who works as a computer builder (he builds computers according to customers specs). His employer evaluates lots of fun hardware before choosing a supplyer and stuff gets left over. Also, spare parts may go old (1-2 years). These parts (evaluate + spare parts) is what I pick up from time to time. The company saves money by not having to pay for destruction and I get cool hardware.
If you google around a bit, I think that there are quite a few sites concerning this subject. I rember reading a HOWTO about it once.
If you know how to ask you can quite easily get ahold of most hardware (except HDDs) from technology companies. As long as you can live with 1-2 years old hardware and some DIY to set things up, you can get most for free.
"One is the idea that we should have the right to control our own individual experience of creative works. When we're in the privacy of our own homes, and we're using DVDs or CDs that we own on the computers that we own, that Hollywood doesn't have a right to tell us how we can use that media."
Sounds like a good attitude to me. I wonder if there would be any impact in Hollywood if this message was repeated enough many times.
"I'll start with who has the worst IP laws, because that's actually the easiest. It's the United States."
This is what happens when you grow a international monopoly on software and recorded entertainment (it isn't a monopoly yet, but bloody close). Happily enough one can see a reaction from (a non-activist) player: the European Union. Several measures are being taken to introduce open source solutions. This is being done both for the lower price, but also since the US has shown bad judgement in the use of the echelon system.
"Qt: Again, doesn't work on the Mac... "
According to trolltech it does.
"OK, bear with me. DirectX has been ported through WineX [transgaming.com] to various other platforms. This allows a performance advantage that no other Crossplatform [trolltech.com] GUI [eclipse.org] toolkits [wxwindows.org] can possibly acheive."
Hav you ever tried SDL? Also, today OpenGL tends to give good performance while being (almost) portable.
It depends if you're interested in running a stable system or selling a patched version. I'd say most of the intended audience of the article aren't interested in selling Linux systems, but rather use it. Then the GPL is good, since it makes patches spread thoughout the community.
I'd say that the article misses out on the freedom part of the word free. Not to sound evangilistic, but there is a bias towards free as in no money (but what can one expect from the _financial_ times?).
This pretty much shows that it will be impossible to use cloning (as we know it today) to raise the dead.
However a human teleporter and a little sniffing on the transmission line would probably do the trick. However, the two individuals would not be exposed to the same surroundings and diverge pretty soon.
http://doc.trolltech.com/3.1/qstyle.html
I'd say 1 (and perhaps 2). Remeber that it is possible to configure Qt to a windows look in a X Windows environment, so I'd go for 1. If you really need to know: read the source or ask trolltech (they are usually friendly and quick to reply).
The communications are usually done using an SAE standard (don't know the number).
As for why you aren't allowed to tinker? SAFETY! Modern cars with faulty electronics are hazardous not only to the driver, but all that happen to be in the vicinity of such a vehicle.
Nice concept, but I wouldn't want to use it in a bus or such. It real life it would crave some sort of gyro to detect movement. Imagine a bus rounding a corner and the text compensating by scrolling. At least it would serve as amusement to the fellow busriders.
Of course there are other solutions, and there is defenently a need for a solution to this problem. I would suggest having touch sensitive sides of the actual PDA. To scroll, simply stroke the side of the PDA (not a wheel, but the side). But there are probably even better solutions to this. I enjoy the peephole approach, but must regrettably say that the problem is to control it (without clicking tiny sliders).
I've only looked at fsm labs' RT linux, where RT processes run in parallel with the linux kernel, instead of on. Not to speak bad about linux, but it is really a server OS (perhaps becoming a desktop one), but for RT tasks, there are better solutions.
What about dying from Linux's bad real time support. Not that windows is better, but is Linux really the ideal OS to run such critical applications on?
"There is one thing that's for sure; AMD has not done a very good job of telling the public exactly what they're capable of from a manufacturing standpoint. Intel has been talking about their manufacturing capabilities for quite some time now and has left the market with the impression that they are the only leader in the x86 manufacturing world. It is a shame because in reality, AMD has quite a few accomplishments of their own to talk about but it's just a matter of getting them to loosen up and let you all in."
It is nice of AMD not to scream about what they can do in their labs, but actually rely on their current products.
It is also hard directing people not stating exactly what it is that they want to do... I think that there is a good collection of demomakers using SDL, thus I point in that direction.
The programming field is so wide that the best way to learn is to evolve, that is why I recommend any wannabies to *learn*, read everything, and be interested.