It's not that the compiler needs to be free (it is), it should be part of the standard OS install.
There are two compilers that ship with Windows: C# and Visual Basic. I learnt C# mainly because it was installed on every Windows computer, which is handy if you are working on someone else's system and need to knock up a quick program.
If you need C, but can't handle downloading and installing it then you should probably consider choosing another language as the installation will be the least of your problems!
Gee everyone else figured out a long time ago: give away the compiler.
How is this relevant to this discussion? You are (at least) 8 years too late to be pushing this line - Microsoft has been giving away compilers for a while now.
Maybe this will be a boost for gcc when everyone can see first hand how bad the Microsoft C++ compiler is.
And how bad is the Microsoft C++ compiler? Do you have any specific claims?
No it didn't. Have a look at the graphs that I posted. I estimate that it is using an average 25-30% of the GPU. And remember that this is a highly stressful demo page, and is not an indication of the requirements of a normal website. How do you think that it is supposed to be able to do all that animation without using some CPU & GPU power?
And also: you know what else uses the GPU in Windows 7? Aero, the user interface. That means that if IE 9 uses up too much GPU time, your computer will be just as unresponsive.
Do you know how little Aero actually uses? Even the lowest onboard video chipset can handle Aero's requirements these days. I doubt that the GUI performance would be affected in any noticible way.
Why in gods name should a web browser be using 50% of your CPU in the first place?
Because the webpage in question is a stress tester. It is designed to push your CPU to the limit with outrageous animation that go way beyond what a normal website would do.
Instead of reducing the amount of computation we do in IE to make it faster, let's just look for more processing power instead!
Did you look at the CPU graphs at the end of the article? If you look at the graphs for IE8 and IE9, it shows the CPU usage has been greatly reduced by offloading the tasks to the GPU. It went from 50% CPU usage to an average of 12%.
This is just a better use of the processing power available in the modern computer.
In any case, explaining the mechanism of NDE doesn't eliminate the possibility of something existing for our consciousness beyond the death of the physical body.
But once you explain away NDEs then the only thing in favour of an afterlife is wishful thinking. There is absolutely nothing else that you can point to as evidence for any heaven.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the grandparent says that the compelling NDEs happen during periods of no electrical activity in the brain because most of the NDE research out there says that a period of no electrical activity in the brain occurred during the event.
I don't believe that this is the case. There are an awful lot reports of NDEs from people who have not had anything like a loss of brain activity. Some of them (usually the mild cases) merely faced traumatic, life-threatening events.
The key item being is NO BRAIN ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY. Science, I love you, but dead men dream no dreams, including about the after life. So please explain to me how a brain that is flat line on the monitor is producing, and i quote you "intense hallucinations"
Maybe before anyone explains this to you, you could explain why you think that NDEs happen when there is "no brain electrical activity". What makes you think that NDEs only occur when there is a electroencephalogram flatline? Anyone who has come back from such an experience must have gone through a stage of limited brain functionality both going in and coming out of that state. How do you know when exactly a near death experience occurs?
There is no point us trying to justify a situation that is only your guess about what is happening.
USB was EVERYWHERE even if Microsoft was slow on the uptake.
Well, Microsoft did come out with USB support in Windows 95 in 1997, one year before Apple used it. However, USB peripherals only started appearing around the time Apple started using it. I don't know whether that was just coincidental timing or not, but I have always associated the popularity of USB with Apple forcing it on their users. Personally, I clung on to my ADB and PS/2 keyboards for as long as I could!
Where in the story does it say these sites optimized away from flash solely for the iPad?
You're kidding! Did you even read the summary, let alone the article? For starters, have a look at the title:
How the iPad Is Already Reshaping the Internet (Without Flash)
Or the first paragraph
The iPad doesn't run Flash. If your website uses Flash, it won't play well on the iPad. Turns out, a lot of people want their sites to look pretty on the iPad. So the internet's already starting to look different.
Or how about:
They're launching iPad-tuned homepages that dispense with Flash entirely, with layouts designed to be held in your hand, like the front page of a newspaper, and they're coming out with iPad apps.
And so on. And what of Apple's page on this subject? Well they say that the majority are iPad-ready because they use HTML5 video rather than Flash.
Ask yourself, would the transition happen as quickly w/o Apple's influence, if at all? So it does have something to do with the iPad and part of that is Apples overall stance against Flash.
Obviously I have asked myself that, otherwise I would not have written my original post. And with all the talk of people moving away from Flash, this is the first time I have seen it attributed to the iPad. I have yet to see anything to justify your assertion of the iPad's influence.
There is an amazing lack of information about MeeGo. What are the features? Any screenshots? I was considering the Nokia N900, but I was disappointed to hear that it didn't come with a word processor and spreadsheet like my old Nokia 9300. Will MeeGo fix this?
Honestly, Apple didn't invent this idea any more than they came up with removing floppy drives or adding USB, but as usual, Apple is the catalyst that starts a sea-change in an industry that was slow to happen on its own.
I agree that Apple has changed the computer landscape on many occasions, including your examples and showing the world that computers don't need to be in square beige boxes. But in this case I think the catalyst for change was just having an alternative. AJAX and HTML5 meant that we could do the fancy stuff without having to resort to a plugin. Obviously HTML5 is still pending.
The company that did spur the internet in this direction was Google. Google Maps and Google Docs were great demonstrations as to what can be achieved without Flash. Just as you said about Apple, Google wasn't the first to implement these web applications, but they were the most visible.
No. "Systems that don't support Flash" have always been with us. Given the rise of mobile computing, they are more popular than ever. But to say that the move away from Flash can be attributed to just the iPad (which has only just been released) is stunningly stupid. If they had said it was due to the iPhone, then maybe they could argue the case. It would still be wrong, but slightly less so.
This has nothing to do with the iPad. Once again, Apple is getting the credit for something that was already happening in the industry.
Flash started to get dropped when ad blocking systems became so popular which meant more people were blocking it by default. Also AJAX became the next big buzzword, which meant that a lot of things that people (necessarily) used Flash for could be done using standard Javascript. There just isn't the need for it anymore.
I'm not saying that having more systems that don't support Flash will not be a factor in the decision regarding what technology will be used on a website. But the writing has been on the wall for Flash for quite some time, at least for general website interfaces. Obviously it will still have a use for games (which is why Apple will never support Flash - it bypasses their strict controls).
Guardian Angel: "It looks like you're breaking some commandments!"
Well if cartoons have taught me anything, and I think they have, then an angel hovering over the shoulder is always accompanied by a devil over the other shoulder.
Guardian Devil: "Would you like to do a search for baby photos?"
I'm sure Microsoft should have one devil to spare for us.
It had already gone midnight in New Zealand when this was posted. I assumed that this marked the start of the crap day of/. that is April Fools. Are you saying that there is a chance that it might be true???
I wouldn't mind trying this for a game character that I control, but it will piss me off (even more than it does now) when a character in a film stupidly puts themselves in harms way.
"No, don't go through that door! You're going to get us both shot!"
And on second thoughts, even computer games might be annoying. I certainly wouldn't want to wear the hat accessory when playing Super Mario Brothers.
dude, you can change the default search engine WITHOUT reinstalling the OS!
Yes, but as far as I am concerned, the Bing experiment is still on going. My main system is a laptop, which still has Google as the default. The system I am reinstalling is running the beta of Windows 7, which shuts down every 2 hours as a reminder that it expires soon. The sole purpose of this computer was to test out the new OS, and at the same time why not try a different search engine.
However, the default search doesn't make a big difference to me as I constantly change between Google, Bing, Wikipedia, IMDB and a few custom ones.
I very much doubt that this is Microsoft fiddling with the search results, just like Google isn't being racist because of the results that come up when you enter "michelle obama monkey".
If the Mac page didn't also come up in the top 10 on Google then I might see that you had a point. Or if the sites asking the question about Windows were censored from the results, then you could complain. But all you have found is a particular search that comes up with a seemingly bizarre result. People used to post that examples of that sort of thing about Google, just for a laugh. There is just no proof of any conspiracy.
And in my country Mac question doesn't come up on Bing's first page at all, although there is the Slashdot article on "Why is OSS Commercial Software So Expensive?".
When I first tried Bing I was impressed. The search results pretty spot on, and there wasn't the extra dross that taints Google's results (mostly because people don't know how to game the system yet). It was like Google was when it first started out. However, once I went from my test searches to real world (and more obscure) ones then it would miss the obvious websites.
It has been an interesting experiment, but when I reinstall my system next week, I will be setting Google as the default again. But I won't remove the Bing entry from my search list, as I still prefer it for image searches.
Huh? What has that got to do with what the original poster said?
You do know what party controls New York, right?
Double huh? How did party politics get involved here? It looks like you are some political Eliza-bot that looks for keywords and spews out canned clichés. Actually, that would explain a lot about mainstream political debate.
And yet here in Australia we have have been having records getting broken for the heat. I think the point is that you can't just look at certain parts of the planet and say that is representative of the global climate. What we should be seeing is an increase in the extremes of weather - which is exactly what is being reported here.
So if the parent comment is true, then we are better off due to the anti-abortion crowd.
No. There is nothing to suggest that the work on adult stem cells would not have ended with the same discoveries that we are seeing now. The work on adult cells continued unabated during the embryonic stem cell debate, because the use of a patient's own stem cells will always be given a high priority as it reduces a lot of complications.
Also consider that this research took place outside the US where stem cell research wasn't so restricted. With that in mind, it would seem that the anti-abortion crowd had no affect on this medical breakthrough.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that the compiler needs to be free (it is), it should be part of the standard OS install.
There are two compilers that ship with Windows: C# and Visual Basic. I learnt C# mainly because it was installed on every Windows computer, which is handy if you are working on someone else's system and need to knock up a quick program.
If you need C, but can't handle downloading and installing it then you should probably consider choosing another language as the installation will be the least of your problems!
Gee everyone else figured out a long time ago: give away the compiler.
How is this relevant to this discussion? You are (at least) 8 years too late to be pushing this line - Microsoft has been giving away compilers for a while now.
Maybe this will be a boost for gcc when everyone can see first hand how bad the Microsoft C++ compiler is.
And how bad is the Microsoft C++ compiler? Do you have any specific claims?
Yeah, and it pegged the GPU.
No it didn't. Have a look at the graphs that I posted. I estimate that it is using an average 25-30% of the GPU. And remember that this is a highly stressful demo page, and is not an indication of the requirements of a normal website. How do you think that it is supposed to be able to do all that animation without using some CPU & GPU power?
And also: you know what else uses the GPU in Windows 7? Aero, the user interface. That means that if IE 9 uses up too much GPU time, your computer will be just as unresponsive.
Do you know how little Aero actually uses? Even the lowest onboard video chipset can handle Aero's requirements these days. I doubt that the GUI performance would be affected in any noticible way.
Why in gods name should a web browser be using 50% of your CPU in the first place?
Because the webpage in question is a stress tester. It is designed to push your CPU to the limit with outrageous animation that go way beyond what a normal website would do.
Instead of reducing the amount of computation we do in IE to make it faster, let's just look for more processing power instead!
Did you look at the CPU graphs at the end of the article? If you look at the graphs for IE8 and IE9, it shows the CPU usage has been greatly reduced by offloading the tasks to the GPU. It went from 50% CPU usage to an average of 12%.
This is just a better use of the processing power available in the modern computer.
In any case, explaining the mechanism of NDE doesn't eliminate the possibility of something existing for our consciousness beyond the death of the physical body.
But once you explain away NDEs then the only thing in favour of an afterlife is wishful thinking. There is absolutely nothing else that you can point to as evidence for any heaven.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the grandparent says that the compelling NDEs happen during periods of no electrical activity in the brain because most of the NDE research out there says that a period of no electrical activity in the brain occurred during the event.
I don't believe that this is the case. There are an awful lot reports of NDEs from people who have not had anything like a loss of brain activity. Some of them (usually the mild cases) merely faced traumatic, life-threatening events.
The key item being is NO BRAIN ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY. Science, I love you, but dead men dream no dreams, including about the after life. So please explain to me how a brain that is flat line on the monitor is producing, and i quote you "intense hallucinations"
Maybe before anyone explains this to you, you could explain why you think that NDEs happen when there is "no brain electrical activity". What makes you think that NDEs only occur when there is a electroencephalogram flatline? Anyone who has come back from such an experience must have gone through a stage of limited brain functionality both going in and coming out of that state. How do you know when exactly a near death experience occurs?
There is no point us trying to justify a situation that is only your guess about what is happening.
USB was EVERYWHERE even if Microsoft was slow on the uptake.
Well, Microsoft did come out with USB support in Windows 95 in 1997, one year before Apple used it. However, USB peripherals only started appearing around the time Apple started using it. I don't know whether that was just coincidental timing or not, but I have always associated the popularity of USB with Apple forcing it on their users. Personally, I clung on to my ADB and PS/2 keyboards for as long as I could!
Where in the story does it say these sites optimized away from flash solely for the iPad?
You're kidding! Did you even read the summary, let alone the article? For starters, have a look at the title:
How the iPad Is Already Reshaping the Internet (Without Flash)
Or the first paragraph
The iPad doesn't run Flash. If your website uses Flash, it won't play well on the iPad. Turns out, a lot of people want their sites to look pretty on the iPad. So the internet's already starting to look different.
Or how about:
They're launching iPad-tuned homepages that dispense with Flash entirely, with layouts designed to be held in your hand, like the front page of a newspaper, and they're coming out with iPad apps.
And so on. And what of Apple's page on this subject? Well they say that the majority are iPad-ready because they use HTML5 video rather than Flash.
Ask yourself, would the transition happen as quickly w/o Apple's influence, if at all? So it does have something to do with the iPad and part of that is Apples overall stance against Flash.
Obviously I have asked myself that, otherwise I would not have written my original post. And with all the talk of people moving away from Flash, this is the first time I have seen it attributed to the iPad. I have yet to see anything to justify your assertion of the iPad's influence.
There is an amazing lack of information about MeeGo. What are the features? Any screenshots? I was considering the Nokia N900, but I was disappointed to hear that it didn't come with a word processor and spreadsheet like my old Nokia 9300. Will MeeGo fix this?
Honestly, Apple didn't invent this idea any more than they came up with removing floppy drives or adding USB, but as usual, Apple is the catalyst that starts a sea-change in an industry that was slow to happen on its own.
I agree that Apple has changed the computer landscape on many occasions, including your examples and showing the world that computers don't need to be in square beige boxes. But in this case I think the catalyst for change was just having an alternative. AJAX and HTML5 meant that we could do the fancy stuff without having to resort to a plugin. Obviously HTML5 is still pending.
The company that did spur the internet in this direction was Google. Google Maps and Google Docs were great demonstrations as to what can be achieved without Flash. Just as you said about Apple, Google wasn't the first to implement these web applications, but they were the most visible.
Disagree with yourself much?
No. "Systems that don't support Flash" have always been with us. Given the rise of mobile computing, they are more popular than ever. But to say that the move away from Flash can be attributed to just the iPad (which has only just been released) is stunningly stupid. If they had said it was due to the iPhone, then maybe they could argue the case. It would still be wrong, but slightly less so.
This has nothing to do with the iPad. Once again, Apple is getting the credit for something that was already happening in the industry.
Flash started to get dropped when ad blocking systems became so popular which meant more people were blocking it by default. Also AJAX became the next big buzzword, which meant that a lot of things that people (necessarily) used Flash for could be done using standard Javascript. There just isn't the need for it anymore.
I'm not saying that having more systems that don't support Flash will not be a factor in the decision regarding what technology will be used on a website. But the writing has been on the wall for Flash for quite some time, at least for general website interfaces. Obviously it will still have a use for games (which is why Apple will never support Flash - it bypasses their strict controls).
Guardian Angel: "It looks like you're breaking some commandments!"
Well if cartoons have taught me anything, and I think they have, then an angel hovering over the shoulder is always accompanied by a devil over the other shoulder.
Guardian Devil: "Would you like to do a search for baby photos?"
I'm sure Microsoft should have one devil to spare for us.
Please let it be an early April Fools' Day joke.
It had already gone midnight in New Zealand when this was posted. I assumed that this marked the start of the crap day of /. that is April Fools. Are you saying that there is a chance that it might be true???
You know that they use their fist in Super Mario Brothers...not their head to smash the bricks.
Well I wouldn't know. I'm a Giana Sisters man myself!
I wouldn't mind trying this for a game character that I control, but it will piss me off (even more than it does now) when a character in a film stupidly puts themselves in harms way.
"No, don't go through that door! You're going to get us both shot!"
And on second thoughts, even computer games might be annoying. I certainly wouldn't want to wear the hat accessory when playing Super Mario Brothers.
dude, you can change the default search engine WITHOUT reinstalling the OS!
Yes, but as far as I am concerned, the Bing experiment is still on going. My main system is a laptop, which still has Google as the default. The system I am reinstalling is running the beta of Windows 7, which shuts down every 2 hours as a reminder that it expires soon. The sole purpose of this computer was to test out the new OS, and at the same time why not try a different search engine.
However, the default search doesn't make a big difference to me as I constantly change between Google, Bing, Wikipedia, IMDB and a few custom ones.
I very much doubt that this is Microsoft fiddling with the search results, just like Google isn't being racist because of the results that come up when you enter "michelle obama monkey".
If the Mac page didn't also come up in the top 10 on Google then I might see that you had a point. Or if the sites asking the question about Windows were censored from the results, then you could complain. But all you have found is a particular search that comes up with a seemingly bizarre result. People used to post that examples of that sort of thing about Google, just for a laugh. There is just no proof of any conspiracy.
And in my country Mac question doesn't come up on Bing's first page at all, although there is the Slashdot article on "Why is OSS Commercial Software So Expensive?".
When I first tried Bing I was impressed. The search results pretty spot on, and there wasn't the extra dross that taints Google's results (mostly because people don't know how to game the system yet). It was like Google was when it first started out. However, once I went from my test searches to real world (and more obscure) ones then it would miss the obvious websites.
It has been an interesting experiment, but when I reinstall my system next week, I will be setting Google as the default again. But I won't remove the Bing entry from my search list, as I still prefer it for image searches.
Teacher unions are evil. End of story.
Huh? What has that got to do with what the original poster said?
You do know what party controls New York, right?
Double huh? How did party politics get involved here? It looks like you are some political Eliza-bot that looks for keywords and spews out canned clichés. Actually, that would explain a lot about mainstream political debate.
And yet here in Australia we have have been having records getting broken for the heat. I think the point is that you can't just look at certain parts of the planet and say that is representative of the global climate. What we should be seeing is an increase in the extremes of weather - which is exactly what is being reported here.
So if the parent comment is true, then we are better off due to the anti-abortion crowd.
No. There is nothing to suggest that the work on adult stem cells would not have ended with the same discoveries that we are seeing now. The work on adult cells continued unabated during the embryonic stem cell debate, because the use of a patient's own stem cells will always be given a high priority as it reduces a lot of complications.
Also consider that this research took place outside the US where stem cell research wasn't so restricted. With that in mind, it would seem that the anti-abortion crowd had no affect on this medical breakthrough.
And yet his name will probably live forever on a No Fly List. Still, no harm done to you anyway.