How do you know it's a non-event if you haven't tried it? Vista added a ton of game-related functionality that's not in XP, I'm not talking just about DirectX 10, but the Games folder with box arts, permissions (so you can restrict your kid's user account from playing AO games), and performance measurement.
I think those Vista features are relevant to gamers. Maybe you can argue HOW relevant, but you can't just take it as a given that Windows 7 has nothing for you.
Sure, if you're right, then I guess I was misinformed.
For getting work done, I need and want to use Linux. But since I only use Windows for playing the occasional game, I just can't get excited about XP vs. Vista vs. 7.
All I really care is that I have some environment capable of running Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and maybe some old Might and Magic games. I'm happy regardless of whether it's Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Linux+wine, Cedega, etc.
(Actually, I'm happiest if it's wine or Cedega, because they're way easier to install than Windows and way cheaper. Unfortunately wine / Cedega are a bit of a crapshoot for an arbitrarily-specified game.)
I'd say the original question was badly stated. A better form would be, "Why should we fund a civilian space program, rather than done one or more of the following with the money:
Providing better teacher-student ratios.
Researching renewable energy.
Providing food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, or clothing to the cold.
Researching safer cars and/or better treatments for deadly disease.
Reducing the taxation of people who barely make ends meet as it is. I.e., reduce sales taxes, which even hit those who don't pay income tax.
Don't some operating systems map the kernel's code and data into one end of every process's virtual address space? I believe that's why programs can't readily use the whole 4 GB for their own purposes.
I believe this is remedied by using the x86 PAE extensions, or just by switching to a 64-bit operating system and recompiling your programs as 64-bit programs. (Although I think that on current Intel chips, you still only get something like 48-bit virtual addresses and 36-bit physical addresses.)
Personally, I prefer on-line versions. With hyper-links and video, the content can be greatly enriched.
While I tend to agree with you, there is something nice about holding printed material in your hand and reading that instead of being in front of a screen.
For me, it's the fear of dropping the laptop into the toilet.
Just thinking out loud here, but it seems to me that these vocal, nursing mothers have a bit in common with exhibitionists and nudists:
The broader community is squeamish about how much flesh is shown.
They're at odd with the norms of public behavior in the USA.
Posting the pictures might stoke the desires of the viewer.
So here's the question: Why should nursing mothers be accommodated by changes in Facebook policies, but exhibitionists / nudists not?
I can see some people arguing against exhibitionists posting their pictures, because many people believe that seeing people bump their uglies is bad for kids.
But nursing mothers and non-prurient nudists seem to me to have a great deal in common in this issue. If nursing mothers get their way, should nudists get to post their pictures as well?
I really, really doubt that the language had anything to do with this. In the first place, few languages have user-settable overflow exceptions, and hardware tends not to support it.
Not saying the Zune uses x86, but I believe x86 lets you check for an overflow flag and/or invoke a trap upon overflow.
So my complaint with the choice of C and C++ is that undetected overflow can cause serious bugs many programs, but the language makes it very difficult to write programs that detect the problem at runtime.
In the second, this is a gross failure, and would have been noticed by actual testing procedures. This is almost certainly a case of nobody thinking to test this case, and very likely a case of too many cooks or lack of communication.
Perhaps, but for all we know a test case did actually trigger another bug that sometimes does, sometimes doesn't, lead to the bug referred to in the article. If that sub-bug was related to overflow, and the language in which Zune is written complained very loudly when overflow occurs, then this might not have slipped past QA.
I'm personally of the belief that anybody who uses the phrase "C/C++" as if it were a language name doesn't know enough about either to make informed statements.
I think that's a silly conclusion to draw. In this particular case, when I wrote "C/C++", it was shorthand for "C and/or C++". Because both of those languages fail to deal with overflow, AFAIK. And sometimes programs are written in a combination of C (esp. for the close-to-the-hardware code) and C++ for the higher-level application code. And because I thought it pretty likely that Zune was written in one, or both, of those languages.
Please explain to me how Microsoft bungles such a simple thing. Do they really not test this crap or what?
From the bias of someone about to start my dissertation research in programming languages, I'd say it probably has a lot to do with the language in which the Zune is most likely programmed: C or C++.
When you can get numeric overflow or underflow from adding, multiplying, subtracing, etc. numbers, and the programming language has no standard support for letting you know that that overflow/underflow occurred, you're more likely to run into trouble. Because even if your testing procedures cause the overflow/underflow to occur, it's possible that the consequences of it will go un-noticed by the testing procedures.
I'm personally of the belief that for most modern applications and processor speeds, C/C++ trade away too much runtime and compile-time safety, in order to retain high performance.
8 years ago I had a guy at our company come up to me and tell me he got an email from a girl that said "I love you." He then said, she attached a vbs file to the email and he spent the last 10 minutes trying to get the attachment to work. He said he double clicked on it, ran it from a command prompt and several other ways but couldn't get her "love" program to work for him.
The guy was an IT analyst.
In all fairness, most IT analysts don't know what behavior should be expected from an actual, live woman.
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You can't bullshit a bullshitter.
You're lying.
How do you know it's a non-event if you haven't tried it? Vista added a ton of game-related functionality that's not in XP, I'm not talking just about DirectX 10, but the Games folder with box arts, permissions (so you can restrict your kid's user account from playing AO games), and performance measurement.
I think those Vista features are relevant to gamers. Maybe you can argue HOW relevant, but you can't just take it as a given that Windows 7 has nothing for you.
Sure, if you're right, then I guess I was misinformed.
So... why are you even reading this topic, again? And why did someone mod you up for being off-topic?
Because I thought the non-eventness of the Windows 7 release, from a gamer's perspective, was pertinent to the topic of the Windows 7 release.
For getting work done, I need and want to use Linux. But since I only use Windows for playing the occasional game, I just can't get excited about XP vs. Vista vs. 7.
All I really care is that I have some environment capable of running Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and maybe some old Might and Magic games. I'm happy regardless of whether it's Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Linux+wine, Cedega, etc.
(Actually, I'm happiest if it's wine or Cedega, because they're way easier to install than Windows and way cheaper. Unfortunately wine / Cedega are a bit of a crapshoot for an arbitrarily-specified game.)
Stupid != not wanting to waste mental bandwidth on how to prepare a digital medium for use.
The world is too amazing. and life is too short, for all intelligent person to waste time worrying about that crap.
I'm stunned that Lexus just made me appreciate my crappy Neon.
You'll have to excuse me. I'm need to go protect my ex-wife from identity theft.
Because we can.
That should be more than enough reason.
I'd say the original question was badly stated. A better form would be, "Why should we fund a civilian space program, rather than done one or more of the following with the money:
Don't some operating systems map the kernel's code and data into one end of every process's virtual address space? I believe that's why programs can't readily use the whole 4 GB for their own purposes.
I believe this is remedied by using the x86 PAE extensions, or just by switching to a 64-bit operating system and recompiling your programs as 64-bit programs. (Although I think that on current Intel chips, you still only get something like 48-bit virtual addresses and 36-bit physical addresses.)
Seriously, I'm honestly curious. I'm a huge PC gamer and I run Vista 64-bit.
No offence, but maybe a Wii Fit would be a good investment, then? I'm just sayin...
Personally, I prefer on-line versions. With hyper-links and video, the content can be greatly enriched.
While I tend to agree with you, there is something nice about holding printed material in your hand and reading that instead of being in front of a screen.
For me, it's the fear of dropping the laptop into the toilet.
I'm torn. As a matter of general principle, I think MS has a lot of roosters that I'd like to see coming home to roost. So I'm happy.
OTOH, over the past few years I've had a few decidedly non-evil friends go to work there, and I hate to see anything happen to them.
I guess it's a lot like war: It's hard to decide if/why you should hate the opposing country, when you like many of the individuals that make it up.
why is not Ballmer loosing weight despite of being unable to sit down anywhere?
It's not fat, it's muscle. Peons like us don't realize the weight of a good, executive chair.
Agreed. I'd hate to go into the debate empty-handed.
Let's keep our heads cool. I strongly suggest that we gather more data before recommending a change to the laws.
I would think that the women constrained by modesty and/or an unwillingness to break with societal norms lie outside the population you're describing.
I think that would mostly leave the women with bees in their bonnets to be the ones lifting their shirts at the mall.
Just thinking out loud here, but it seems to me that these vocal, nursing mothers have a bit in common with exhibitionists and nudists:
So here's the question: Why should nursing mothers be accommodated by changes in Facebook policies, but exhibitionists / nudists not?
I can see some people arguing against exhibitionists posting their pictures, because many people believe that seeing people bump their uglies is bad for kids.
But nursing mothers and non-prurient nudists seem to me to have a great deal in common in this issue. If nursing mothers get their way, should nudists get to post their pictures as well?
So you see a pattern in people's behavior? ;)
IE6 has been a curse on web developers for 8 years. Thats like 80 human years. It must die a swift death.
Agreed. Sadly, my bank will probably require IE 6 for about 1 more web developer year.
I really, really doubt that the language had anything to do with this. In the first place, few languages have user-settable overflow exceptions, and hardware tends not to support it.
Not saying the Zune uses x86, but I believe x86 lets you check for an overflow flag and/or invoke a trap upon overflow.
See here and look at the INTO operation.
So my complaint with the choice of C and C++ is that undetected overflow can cause serious bugs many programs, but the language makes it very difficult to write programs that detect the problem at runtime.
In the second, this is a gross failure, and would have been noticed by actual testing procedures. This is almost certainly a case of nobody thinking to test this case, and very likely a case of too many cooks or lack of communication.
Perhaps, but for all we know a test case did actually trigger another bug that sometimes does, sometimes doesn't, lead to the bug referred to in the article. If that sub-bug was related to overflow, and the language in which Zune is written complained very loudly when overflow occurs, then this might not have slipped past QA.
I'm personally of the belief that anybody who uses the phrase "C/C++" as if it were a language name doesn't know enough about either to make informed statements.
I think that's a silly conclusion to draw. In this particular case, when I wrote "C/C++", it was shorthand for "C and/or C++". Because both of those languages fail to deal with overflow, AFAIK. And sometimes programs are written in a combination of C (esp. for the close-to-the-hardware code) and C++ for the higher-level application code. And because I thought it pretty likely that Zune was written in one, or both, of those languages.
It's 2008/2009, right?
Please explain to me how Microsoft bungles such a simple thing. Do they really not test this crap or what?
From the bias of someone about to start my dissertation research in programming languages, I'd say it probably has a lot to do with the language in which the Zune is most likely programmed: C or C++.
When you can get numeric overflow or underflow from adding, multiplying, subtracing, etc. numbers, and the programming language has no standard support for letting you know that that overflow/underflow occurred, you're more likely to run into trouble. Because even if your testing procedures cause the overflow/underflow to occur, it's possible that the consequences of it will go un-noticed by the testing procedures.
I'm personally of the belief that for most modern applications and processor speeds, C/C++ trade away too much runtime and compile-time safety, in order to retain high performance.
I see the bad Zune arising.
Are you sure? I think you might just have a Zune in your eye, like a big pizza pie.
Then pay from memory the music.
Things haven't changed. Sadly, the RIAA / MPAA are still trying hard to develop "pay from memory" technology :(
8 years ago I had a guy at our company come up to me and tell me he got an email from a girl that said "I love you." He then said, she attached a vbs file to the email and he spent the last 10 minutes trying to get the attachment to work. He said he double clicked on it, ran it from a command prompt and several other ways but couldn't get her "love" program to work for him.
The guy was an IT analyst.
In all fairness, most IT analysts don't know what behavior should be expected from an actual, live woman.
Oh noes! What department of Slashdot did this article come from? ...
Hold on - I'll check the signature.