usually it seems that it's the prosecutors trying to railroad the police... not into fabricating evidence, per se, but "looking real hard" for "anything they can come up with".
I always thought that's what happened with George Bush and the search for WMDs in Iraq. The intelligence guys tried really really hard to provide evidence for what he wanted them to find. After the invasion, all the evidence was deemed to be crap (or "faulty" or "less reliable than thought").
it appears that China is playing chess to our checkers
China is not playing chess, they are playing GO (wei chi in Chinese). They have the entire playing field in view and it's huge - both the real world and the board game in the analogy. In chess you have straight forward tactics and what amounts to simple strategies to achieve relatively short term goals - like isolate a pawn or pin down a piece (the king for a win). With GO the game is literally about controlling territory - vast regions or lots of small ones, it doesn't matter - quantity is the only thing that matters. It's a game of world domination.
Is that their goal? I don't know, it's just a better way to play the game.
This is the free market in action. Would you rather the White House block the sale?
It's a relatively free market here in the US. There is no such thing in China. There is no way a foreign company could buy a bankrupt company in China. They don't even let you do business there without a lot of concession which may involve allowing a Chinese competitor to make your product for their local market while you're allowed to export your shit out of the country. There's also the recent clamp down on export of some raw materials (rare earths) in order to bring their own manufacturers up to speed (Look at the price of NdFeB magnets over the last couple years). Also, the government over there is funding a lot of companies - this one may be partially state owned - I don't recall. Then there's the (lack of) regulatory environment over there which further tilts the playing field. So while it's a free market over here, it's anything but free over there. They view our openness with large grins.
If you view money as wealth you're an idiot. Warren Buffet views ones wealth as how much of the physical and economic world one "owns" - in that light the Chinese are gradually buying America with it's own money, while we have a bunch of dip-shits walking around saying "free market". Nothing good can come of this.
The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue.
Nope. The political angle has been apparent for quite some time - I figured it was an attempt to stop the developing world from advancing. Say to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage. But prior to the politicization there were the ever conflicting reports just like we see today:
sea levels to rise almost a meter more than present over the next century, but past dire warnings of stronger storms or more frequent droughts won't pan out.
Remember the record hurricane season that was going to be the new norm due to climate change? How about the collapse of the ice shelves in Antarctica that later later started growing - oh, melting will be at the north pole and MORE ice will form at the south. I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again. At least that is more consistent with the ice cores (looks like we're due for glaciation to start within 1000 years). One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.
Just b'cos Android is based on Linux doesn't mean that Android apps have to be GPLed.
Nobody said that. The point was that many of the most popular apps appear to be GPLed software without meeting the requirements of the GPL. It has nothing to do with android itself. I have not taken a look at the list, but that is my interpretation of the comment.
There was a question on stack overflow a while back where someone asked "what feature do you hate about your favorite language?" or something to that effect. Nice because it didn't ask to slam other languages, but to criticise a favorite. In the responses I learned some quirks of C and C++ (you know, 10[a] instead of a[10] type stuff), IIRC there wasn't much said about Python. But the endless stream of shit people said about PHP left me wondering how such an abomination ever came to be. I can't remember any of them but just concluded I was lucky to never use it.
I'm now having a vague memory about numeric types not existing or something utterly stupid like that, but I honestly don't remember and don't want to.
People who abuse time off should be fired, but I havent ever actually met one of these people.
That seems to be the root of the problem. Employers don't want to say how many sick days you're allowed because people will treat them as extra vacation days and use them as such. It's hard or impossible to make a hard and fast rule, so they often don't. That doesn't mean they want you coming in with the flu.
Aren't in the US sick leaves taken from your holiday ?
Not where I work. Not at my last job. Not at the one before that. Not at the one before that. We actually have a separate charge number for sick vs paid vacation. Check your own time tracking system to be sure. Don't just make assumptions and then complain about it.
That's a common misconception. I never hesitate to stay home if I'm really sick and feel that I may make others sick. I feel free to use the "sick" or just plain "absent" option in our time tracking system (that's why it's there - duh). I have never had anyone question my sick days at any employer. I only use that when I'm actually sick, and fortunately that's only been between 0 and say 6 days in a given year, but I have never had anyone question it. Sure, if someone is abusing it and claiming sickness when they're not, or taking a day of because of a minor cold, perhaps they should get fired. But don't confuse actual illness with being a bad employee, your boss wont - they don't want to catch that shit you've got either.
While I agree the his GPL is necessary statement is a bit crap, this:
Everyone uses BSD's back scratcher, GPL's back scratcher stays a niche tool for GPL fanboys who continue to be befuddled by the fact that it isn't the year of the Linux desktop.
Is also crap. When is an open source BSD on the desktop going to happen? How about BSD on a smartphone?
Just sayin' each license has its place and uses. I still don't understand why there are so many others. BSD and GPL pretty much cover the two main philosophies, everything else seems to want to be some kind of sneaky open-source-except-for-we-who-can-take-it-closed.
For performance you never call an function to execute virtual instructions. The best way today seems to be load a byte, use it as an index into a jump table and jump. You make that operation a macro and put it at the end of every virtual instruction. It eliminates the central loop which is really strange.
One person suggested to me that the byte-code be replaced with the addresses normally found in the jump table. Then you could use a stack pointer as the virtual machines instruction pointer and just execute a RETurn instruction to do: fetch, decode (they're pre-decoded), increment, and jump. The problems with that are 1) you need to do the translation (address substitution) which means problems with dynamic code (or similar) and 2) You need an extra stack pointer in the host processor - otherwise function calls in the emulator or interrupts will overwrite the decoded instructions on the virtual machine. Neat thought though, 1 instruction for all that decoding. And it also means every instruction emulation function would end with RETurn. Weird.
I didn't mean that type of virtual machine;-) I meant like the Java Virtual Machine, the Python interpreter, the.net Virtual Machine. For interpreted programming languages and emulators. This is important since Android apps run on the Dalvik VM.
Support for full virtual machines is nice too, but not so needed for tablets or phones at this point in time.
0) A proper MMU and at least 1Meg of cache
1) 64bit - If not, there will be a need for yet another version at some point. Just do this.
2) Double precision floating point in hardware (for + - * / and preferably rsqrt)
3) GCC support.
4) LLVM support
5) LLVM-Pipe for OpenGL support
6) It would be nice if some instructions were optimized for running virtual machines.
I haven't looked into what makes sense for #6, but with all the VMs around it would be nice to have them run efficiently.
A higher share price (for the same number of shares, obviously) makes it easier for the company to get more money though. They can issue new stock or more likely be able to borrow more money.
No it doesn't. Issuing new shares dilutes the stock and the price will change almost over night to reflect that change. The selling of the new shares will still bring in money, but this is independent of the price - almost. The amount of dilution required to bring in a particular amount of money will depend on the valuation of the company. But short term IIRC this doesn't work anyway because the company will probably have to do a vote on issuing new shares which will take some time and will not be able to benefit from a short-term market manipulator.
They mention that the Calcium Perchlorate may be an energy source. How about using it to manufacture rocket fuel on mars? It's similar to other oxidizers used in solid fuel rockets. Wouldn't it be strange if the fuel for a return-to-earth trip could be manufactured right there from materials lying right there on the planet surface? Or am I totally smoking something?
If you're in favor of "mandatory internet ID" as the summary says, what form should that take? I have been an advocate of fixed IP addresses for everyone, but would something like that be sufficient? I realize there may be issues with mobile devices, but in principle does a fixed IP come close to what you're in favor of? Or is it something much more complex?
I could invent a missile guidance system on my own and it probably would suck. If I got a job at General Dynamics and invented a missile guidance system, then there is an argument there.
And that's why the employer should make you sing something that claims all inventions "related to the work you do for them". Or perhaps "related to the products of the company". This could be a reasonable argument for the agreement to over reach into your personal life. However, it's important that they define what they consider their business. I once worked for someone who thought anything with a micro controller fell within their business, and that's totally unwarranted. They considered their business something like "making electronic stuff".
Personally I have signed many of these things. Some are what I'd call close to perfect, some have the right intent with marginal wording, and some aim for various level of over reach. I haven't seen a need for the law to change further toward an employers interest.
If it automatically belongs to the employer, they'll hire some low-end attorneys (law school interns?) and patent anything and everything that comes to mind. Right now some developer has to think something is a good idea to get a patent. If every PHB on earth can patent what the employees do, you're in for a flood of seriously horrible stuff hitting the patent office.
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds like a business opportunity.
I always thought that's what happened with George Bush and the search for WMDs in Iraq. The intelligence guys tried really really hard to provide evidence for what he wanted them to find. After the invasion, all the evidence was deemed to be crap (or "faulty" or "less reliable than thought").
China is not playing chess, they are playing GO (wei chi in Chinese). They have the entire playing field in view and it's huge - both the real world and the board game in the analogy. In chess you have straight forward tactics and what amounts to simple strategies to achieve relatively short term goals - like isolate a pawn or pin down a piece (the king for a win). With GO the game is literally about controlling territory - vast regions or lots of small ones, it doesn't matter - quantity is the only thing that matters. It's a game of world domination.
Is that their goal? I don't know, it's just a better way to play the game.
It's a relatively free market here in the US. There is no such thing in China. There is no way a foreign company could buy a bankrupt company in China. They don't even let you do business there without a lot of concession which may involve allowing a Chinese competitor to make your product for their local market while you're allowed to export your shit out of the country. There's also the recent clamp down on export of some raw materials (rare earths) in order to bring their own manufacturers up to speed (Look at the price of NdFeB magnets over the last couple years). Also, the government over there is funding a lot of companies - this one may be partially state owned - I don't recall. Then there's the (lack of) regulatory environment over there which further tilts the playing field. So while it's a free market over here, it's anything but free over there. They view our openness with large grins.
If you view money as wealth you're an idiot. Warren Buffet views ones wealth as how much of the physical and economic world one "owns" - in that light the Chinese are gradually buying America with it's own money, while we have a bunch of dip-shits walking around saying "free market". Nothing good can come of this.
Nope. The political angle has been apparent for quite some time - I figured it was an attempt to stop the developing world from advancing. Say to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage. But prior to the politicization there were the ever conflicting reports just like we see today:
Remember the record hurricane season that was going to be the new norm due to climate change? How about the collapse of the ice shelves in Antarctica that later later started growing - oh, melting will be at the north pole and MORE ice will form at the south. I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again. At least that is more consistent with the ice cores (looks like we're due for glaciation to start within 1000 years). One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.
Nobody said that. The point was that many of the most popular apps appear to be GPLed software without meeting the requirements of the GPL. It has nothing to do with android itself. I have not taken a look at the list, but that is my interpretation of the comment.
There was a question on stack overflow a while back where someone asked "what feature do you hate about your favorite language?" or something to that effect. Nice because it didn't ask to slam other languages, but to criticise a favorite. In the responses I learned some quirks of C and C++ (you know, 10[a] instead of a[10] type stuff), IIRC there wasn't much said about Python. But the endless stream of shit people said about PHP left me wondering how such an abomination ever came to be. I can't remember any of them but just concluded I was lucky to never use it.
I'm now having a vague memory about numeric types not existing or something utterly stupid like that, but I honestly don't remember and don't want to.
That seems to be the root of the problem. Employers don't want to say how many sick days you're allowed because people will treat them as extra vacation days and use them as such. It's hard or impossible to make a hard and fast rule, so they often don't. That doesn't mean they want you coming in with the flu.
Not where I work. Not at my last job. Not at the one before that. Not at the one before that. We actually have a separate charge number for sick vs paid vacation. Check your own time tracking system to be sure. Don't just make assumptions and then complain about it.
That's a common misconception. I never hesitate to stay home if I'm really sick and feel that I may make others sick. I feel free to use the "sick" or just plain "absent" option in our time tracking system (that's why it's there - duh). I have never had anyone question my sick days at any employer. I only use that when I'm actually sick, and fortunately that's only been between 0 and say 6 days in a given year, but I have never had anyone question it. Sure, if someone is abusing it and claiming sickness when they're not, or taking a day of because of a minor cold, perhaps they should get fired. But don't confuse actual illness with being a bad employee, your boss wont - they don't want to catch that shit you've got either.
Is he suffering from withdraw from all those drugs he does?
Yep, I don't know why browser creators don't consider this information leakage a significant bug.
Here's a nice XKCD to check first: that may shed some light
Similar applies to who has seen what movies. Still, I see your point.
Is also crap. When is an open source BSD on the desktop going to happen? How about BSD on a smartphone?
Just sayin' each license has its place and uses. I still don't understand why there are so many others. BSD and GPL pretty much cover the two main philosophies, everything else seems to want to be some kind of sneaky open-source-except-for-we-who-can-take-it-closed.
For performance you never call an function to execute virtual instructions. The best way today seems to be load a byte, use it as an index into a jump table and jump. You make that operation a macro and put it at the end of every virtual instruction. It eliminates the central loop which is really strange.
One person suggested to me that the byte-code be replaced with the addresses normally found in the jump table. Then you could use a stack pointer as the virtual machines instruction pointer and just execute a RETurn instruction to do: fetch, decode (they're pre-decoded), increment, and jump. The problems with that are 1) you need to do the translation (address substitution) which means problems with dynamic code (or similar) and 2) You need an extra stack pointer in the host processor - otherwise function calls in the emulator or interrupts will overwrite the decoded instructions on the virtual machine. Neat thought though, 1 instruction for all that decoding. And it also means every instruction emulation function would end with RETurn. Weird.
I didn't mean that type of virtual machine ;-) I meant like the Java Virtual Machine, the Python interpreter, the .net Virtual Machine. For interpreted programming languages and emulators. This is important since Android apps run on the Dalvik VM.
Support for full virtual machines is nice too, but not so needed for tablets or phones at this point in time.
But they keep telling us warmer is going to be catastrophic. ;-)
Isn't that just a = (b&mask) | (c& ~mask) ?
Off the top of my head:
0) A proper MMU and at least 1Meg of cache
1) 64bit - If not, there will be a need for yet another version at some point. Just do this.
2) Double precision floating point in hardware (for + - * / and preferably rsqrt)
3) GCC support.
4) LLVM support
5) LLVM-Pipe for OpenGL support
6) It would be nice if some instructions were optimized for running virtual machines.
I haven't looked into what makes sense for #6, but with all the VMs around it would be nice to have them run efficiently.
No it doesn't. Issuing new shares dilutes the stock and the price will change almost over night to reflect that change. The selling of the new shares will still bring in money, but this is independent of the price - almost. The amount of dilution required to bring in a particular amount of money will depend on the valuation of the company. But short term IIRC this doesn't work anyway because the company will probably have to do a vote on issuing new shares which will take some time and will not be able to benefit from a short-term market manipulator.
Since someone is letting him use slashdot as a blog - for things he admits changing his mind on in under week.
They mention that the Calcium Perchlorate may be an energy source. How about using it to manufacture rocket fuel on mars? It's similar to other oxidizers used in solid fuel rockets. Wouldn't it be strange if the fuel for a return-to-earth trip could be manufactured right there from materials lying right there on the planet surface? Or am I totally smoking something?
If you're in favor of "mandatory internet ID" as the summary says, what form should that take? I have been an advocate of fixed IP addresses for everyone, but would something like that be sufficient? I realize there may be issues with mobile devices, but in principle does a fixed IP come close to what you're in favor of? Or is it something much more complex?
And that's why the employer should make you sing something that claims all inventions "related to the work you do for them". Or perhaps "related to the products of the company". This could be a reasonable argument for the agreement to over reach into your personal life. However, it's important that they define what they consider their business. I once worked for someone who thought anything with a micro controller fell within their business, and that's totally unwarranted. They considered their business something like "making electronic stuff".
Personally I have signed many of these things. Some are what I'd call close to perfect, some have the right intent with marginal wording, and some aim for various level of over reach. I haven't seen a need for the law to change further toward an employers interest.
If it automatically belongs to the employer, they'll hire some low-end attorneys (law school interns?) and patent anything and everything that comes to mind. Right now some developer has to think something is a good idea to get a patent. If every PHB on earth can patent what the employees do, you're in for a flood of seriously horrible stuff hitting the patent office.