'Good to start with'? The people of Tibet will not be the first to be freed... There were many cases before that. Just recently, we had East Timor, Cambodia, Kosovo for example.
Effort should be spent on consolidating freedom and democracy in recently freed and/or developing regions. This is a much more practical and productive goal, and it may even help Tibet and other regions like it. Having more prosperous democratic governments might even put more pressure on non-democratic governments like China.
Free peoples? (warning.. may be slightly offtopic)
on
Linux -- Without Unix
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· Score: 1
This may be offtopic, but I'm not a troll, and I think it is worthy discussion because it was mentioned on the site that "Free peoples is even more important than free softwares." -
I agree with this statement, but I do not see why the people of Tibet are so special and why should we invest in our resources on only freeing one group of people?
What about the Chinese people? The people of China are themselves not free, and should be freed from the communist dictatorship. Human rights should be restored to all people in China and not just Tibet! Going even further, then why should only the people of China and Tibet be freed, where there are millions more people held captive to their Government in many other regions all around the world?
Why does a computer science test have to be confined to a language?
1. Because it is easier for the instructor to mark the tests.
2. Because some languages have more high-level features than others eg. Linked lists in LISP, or regular expressions in Perl. What takes 100 lines of code to do in a low-level language may take one line in a higher level language.
3. Instructor may want to teach the class about the specific features of a language, such as type checking, polymorphism, scope and binding. (pseudo-code would be insufficient for this).
I know it sucks when another OS (besides Linux) is mentioned on Slashdot, but all of us Linux fans can deal with it. So please keep your anti-BSD propaganda to yourself..!
Perl, when strictly speaking about the language, is portable.
It is however more specifically designed to be more portable among various UNIX platforms, eg. the inclusion of the fork() function, STDOUT, etc. and thus my opinion is that the standard bread and butter Perl is leaning towards UNIX.
Java on the other hand has no platform specific language constructs. It has neither fork() or STDOUT, nor any other language features that lean to Windows or Unix.
Perl libraries are great, but the trouble is that they are not always portable. This is where the portability issues with perl get ugly, and java really shines. For example, have a look at all the Win-32 modules available on CPAN that do not run on UNIX versions of perl and vice-versa.
With java, the library is always guaranteed to run on one platform (the JVM).
As for java being unportable from 1.1 to 1.2, The difference between 1.1 and 1.2 (in theory) is only the library! So in order to port 1.2 apps to 1.2 all you have to do is download 1.2 libs for your 1.1 JVM. However, if you want to port your app from 1.1 to 1.2 then you do not need to do anything, since 1.2 is backwards compatible.
I'm not saying that Java is better. I believe that both languages have their uses for their own specific tasks, and should be mostly compared for that!
Measuring CPU performance with just one MPEG program is not a good measure of performance, unless you plan to dedicate most of the CPU clock cycles to this program for the rest of the CPUs life!
I would be more interested to see how well the new intel CPU fairs in modern-day benchmarks, such as SPEC. SPEC benchmarks attempt to test CPU performance using a mix of many different *real-world* programs, and also take compiler optimisations into account..
There is a SPEC benchmark for almost anything these days, and I think this one will do Tom nicely:
http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/
9210... the number sounds familiar... Beverly hills 90210 maybe?:)
Anyway, I would like to mention that a new feature has been 'discovered' on some Nokia phone models. The feature is a Police radar detector, (used to catch speeding vehicles) and it can be activated by following these steps:
1. Enter your menu
2. Select settings
3. Select security settings
4. Select closed user group
5. Select on
6. Enter 00000
7. Press ok
Clear back to normal, within a few seconds your phone will display a radar sign with five zero's next to it. It is now activated.
Note: Cell info display needs to be de-activated.
Settings -> Phone Settings -> Cell Info display
The link that is damaged goes into the opposite direction (South East Asia, Middle East and then Europe). The new Southern Cross Cable that came in operation last week goes to the USA.
I think that the Windows vs Linux argument is just like the old argument they had back in the 50's, about cards with punched with square holes v's cards punched with circles.
C has not gotten out of control. Last time I checked it was an ANSI standard, and has remained the same for ages!
As for C compilers, they are not getting bloated, they are only getting better. We know now a lot more about compiler theory than ever before, and thus the source code to a compiler like GCC would be highly organized and structured to deal with the complexity of implementing a modern C compiler. Today's compilers contain many improvements over the old compilers, including better optimization techniques, dynamic link libraries, and so on..
It is just %#@%^$* hard for a programmer to produce optimal code in assembler, since he has to worry about the cache, pipelining and other aspects of modern hardware. This is why assembly source code produced by a modern C compiler is usually faster than source written by a human. Contrast that with your old Amiga C compiler that probably produced dog slow code.
In my opinion, VP Assembly was designed so that it is easier to make compilers for the Virtual Processor. Another advantage is that the programs are smaller in size. The idea is similar to the old VAX instruction set, (where the VAX set has instructions that resemble high level language!) It is a really old idea, and a pitfall I might add.
Portions of the Commodore 64 ROM are copyright by Microsoft. I'm not kidding. Microsoft's 6502 BASIC, which was originally written for Apple II, was intergrated into the C64 ROM.
They also included a nice easter egg in the ROM, but I forgot how to activate it since it was a long time ago...
Dood.. to solve something, you first need to know how to solve it...
You need like a set of steps worked out that when followed, will lead to a solution. It's called an 'algorithm' man! You must first come up with an algorithm, before you can wack it onto a huge Beowulf cluster - and coming up with algorithm is the HARDEST part:(
New digital audio 'standard formats' come out every day. Once a new digital format comes out, it forces the user to throw away the old equipment in favor of new equipment that can support the new format.
The problem is that it doesn't make sence to throw away an older standard just because the older standard has a lower sampling rate!
How about if someone would invent a standard that allows us to change the sample rate / word length at any time we like?
Hey, finding a dead body isn't that much of a feat when going down Everest - there is around 120 corpses that remain there. (source:http://www.everest.simobil.si/eng/everestt rivia.shtml)
This fungi could be put into good use! It can be used to clear space junk..
Eg. A small space scarft could home in on pieces of space junk, and spray it with the fungus colture.. In a few weeks time, the space junk gets eaten, and our astronauts / cosmonuts are safer:)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I am assuming no-one else reads this thread that far, so this reply is only to you.
:)
I am not trying to change anyones mind or damand others to do anything. I'm just trying to understand why Tibet, out of my own personal satisfaction..
You have answerd my question the first time, and there was no need to discuss further.
Anyway, I got your attention so I guess it means that this subject is close to your heart as well
'Good to start with'? The people of Tibet will not be the first to be freed... There were many cases before that. Just recently, we had East Timor, Cambodia, Kosovo for example.
Effort should be spent on consolidating freedom and democracy in recently freed and/or developing regions. This is a much more practical and productive goal, and it may even help Tibet and other regions like it. Having more prosperous democratic governments might even put more pressure on non-democratic governments like China.
This may be offtopic, but I'm not a troll, and I think it is worthy discussion because it was mentioned on the site that "Free peoples is even more important than free softwares." -
I agree with this statement, but I do not see why the people of Tibet are so special and why should we invest in our resources on only freeing one group of people?
What about the Chinese people? The people of China are themselves not free, and should be freed from the communist dictatorship. Human rights should be restored to all people in China and not just Tibet! Going even further, then why should only the people of China and Tibet be freed, where there are millions more people held captive to their Government in many other regions all around the world?
You're on topic, but I belive you missed something while you were reading the article! :)
Scroll to the bottom of the page, and look at the 2nd last item:
The LWN.net Linux Stock Index falls into the 30's, as part of the general disaster in the stock market. It peaked, remember, at 199 in January.
They even include a graph showing how the Linux stock is plummetting!!
Why does a computer science test have to be confined to a language?
1. Because it is easier for the instructor to mark the tests.
2. Because some languages have more high-level features than others eg. Linked lists in LISP, or regular expressions in Perl. What takes 100 lines of code to do in a low-level language may take one line in a higher level language.
3. Instructor may want to teach the class about the specific features of a language, such as type checking, polymorphism, scope and binding. (pseudo-code would be insufficient for this).
4. Platform restrictions / available facilities.
Introduce him to Slashdot, show him this discussion and make him read all the comments. Ask him which comments he likes best, and deal accordingly.
People don't rob banks because the've got the money in their savings account!
Its the other way around - people rob banks because they don't have the money, just like people download from Napster the songs they haven't got!
I know it sucks when another OS (besides Linux) is mentioned on Slashdot, but all of us Linux fans can deal with it. So please keep your anti-BSD propaganda to yourself..!
Perl, when strictly speaking about the language, is portable.
It is however more specifically designed to be more portable among various UNIX platforms, eg. the inclusion of the fork() function, STDOUT, etc. and thus my opinion is that the standard bread and butter Perl is leaning towards UNIX.
Java on the other hand has no platform specific language constructs. It has neither fork() or STDOUT, nor any other language features that lean to Windows or Unix.
Perl libraries are great, but the trouble is that they are not always portable. This is where the portability issues with perl get ugly, and java really shines. For example, have a look at all the Win-32 modules available on CPAN that do not run on UNIX versions of perl and vice-versa.
With java, the library is always guaranteed to run on one platform (the JVM).
As for java being unportable from 1.1 to 1.2, The difference between 1.1 and 1.2 (in theory) is only the library! So in order to port 1.2 apps to 1.2 all you have to do is download 1.2 libs for your 1.1 JVM. However, if you want to port your app from 1.1 to 1.2 then you do not need to do anything, since 1.2 is backwards compatible.
I'm not saying that Java is better. I believe that both languages have their uses for their own specific tasks, and should be mostly compared for that!
Measuring CPU performance with just one MPEG program is not a good measure of performance, unless you plan to dedicate most of the CPU clock cycles to this program for the rest of the CPUs life!
I would be more interested to see how well the new intel CPU fairs in modern-day benchmarks, such as SPEC. SPEC benchmarks attempt to test CPU performance using a mix of many different *real-world* programs, and also take compiler optimisations into account..
There is a SPEC benchmark for almost anything these days, and I think this one will do Tom nicely:
http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/
9210... the number sounds familiar... Beverly hills 90210 maybe? :)
Anyway, I would like to mention that a new feature has been 'discovered' on some Nokia phone models. The feature is a Police radar detector, (used to catch speeding vehicles) and it can be activated by following these steps:
1. Enter your menu
2. Select settings
3. Select security settings
4. Select closed user group
5. Select on
6. Enter 00000
7. Press ok
Clear back to normal, within a few seconds your phone will display a radar sign with five zero's next to it. It is now activated.
Note: Cell info display needs to be de-activated.
Settings -> Phone Settings -> Cell Info display
Here is an article from a newspaper with a bit more background information:
http://www.theage.c om. au/news/20001116/A52971-2000Nov15.html
Lets not jump to any conspiracy theory!
The link that is damaged goes into the opposite direction (South East Asia, Middle East and then Europe). The new Southern Cross Cable that came in operation last week goes to the USA.
You can still use Linux - Just run a virtual Windows 9x using an emulator such as plex86 or vmware!
I think that the Windows vs Linux argument is just like the old argument they had back in the 50's, about cards with punched with square holes v's cards punched with circles.
get the news directly from AMD:
http://www.amd.com/news/prodpr/20161.html
C has not gotten out of control. Last time I checked it was an ANSI standard, and has remained the same for ages!
As for C compilers, they are not getting bloated, they are only getting better. We know now a lot more about compiler theory than ever before, and thus the source code to a compiler like GCC would be highly organized and structured to deal with the complexity of implementing a modern C compiler. Today's compilers contain many improvements over the old compilers, including better optimization techniques, dynamic link libraries, and so on..
It is just %#@%^$* hard for a programmer to produce optimal code in assembler, since he has to worry about the cache, pipelining and other aspects of modern hardware. This is why assembly source code produced by a modern C compiler is usually faster than source written by a human. Contrast that with your old Amiga C compiler that probably produced dog slow code.
In my opinion, VP Assembly was designed so that it is easier to make compilers for the Virtual Processor. Another advantage is that the programs are smaller in size. The idea is similar to the old VAX instruction set, (where the VAX set has instructions that resemble high level language!) It is a really old idea, and a pitfall I might add.
VP Assembly will not replace C...
but what if we are the ones that are outside your peer group? You might be surprised how many of them there exists on Slashdot
Portions of the Commodore 64 ROM are copyright by Microsoft. I'm not kidding. Microsoft's 6502 BASIC, which was originally written for Apple II, was intergrated into the C64 ROM.
They also included a nice easter egg in the ROM, but I forgot how to activate it since it was a long time ago...
Dood.. to solve something, you first need to know how to solve it...
:(
You need like a set of steps worked out that when followed, will lead to a solution. It's called an 'algorithm' man! You must first come up with an algorithm, before you can wack it onto a huge Beowulf cluster - and coming up with algorithm is the HARDEST part
New digital audio 'standard formats' come out every day. Once a new digital format comes out, it forces the user to throw away the old equipment in favor of new equipment that can support the new format.
The problem is that it doesn't make sence to throw away an older standard just because the older standard has a lower sampling rate!
How about if someone would invent a standard that allows us to change the sample rate / word length at any time we like?
Hey, finding a dead body isn't that much of a feat when going down Everest - there is around 120 corpses that remain there. (source:http://www.everest.simobil.si/eng/everestt rivia.shtml)
Its the worlds highest graveyard..
No, you do want the plain text back, because what if a user forgets their password?
Nope.. it says:
"Red Hat 7 Infested With Bugs"
I'm not so sure, but I don't think that Red Hat 7 would be a space station?!
This fungi could be put into good use! It can be used to clear space junk..
:)
Eg. A small space scarft could home in on pieces of space junk, and spray it with the fungus colture.. In a few weeks time, the space junk gets eaten, and our astronauts / cosmonuts are safer
A hash is only one-way encryption, so if you encrypt a password using hash then you will not be able to get the plaintext back!