> The international time reference, since the 1950's, has been UTC, and used tuned according to atomic clocks, not the earth's rotation.
By my understanding, and Wikipedia's, you are right and wrong. Atomic clocks *and* the earths rotation are taken into account. I quote the learned tome: UTC:
"UTC is a hybrid time scale: the rate of UTC is based on atomic frequency standards but the epoch of UTC is synchronized to remain close to astronomical UT".
> I still don't understand why someone would need a 64-bit workstation/desktop. What does x86-64 offer you other than the higher price tag?
Geez: you post on Slashdot but you don't know the answer to this. It is obvious that a 64bit processor will run *twice* as fast as a 32bit one.
Re:Waiting for apps isn't annoying, focus stealing
on
GNOME 2.12 Released
·
· Score: 1
> but I'm really, really annoyed that applications steal back the focus when they finally appear. It's so unintiutive and annoying. Then again, all (or at least the ones I know of) OS:es and managers do this, so it's not specific to Gnome.
You need to get yourself a Real WindowManager (TM):-) Try FVWM and use "Style * OverrideGrabFocus".
(I do not use GNOME, but IIRC FVWM does support GNOME.)
For my requirements (basic card, no use for 3D, no gaming, DVI out... (ASUS V9400-X/TD / Nvidia MX4000) the xorg driver "nv" works fine for me. I never bothered to try the nVidia driver.
I think the US proposal does not go far enough: I am a software engineer (yes, our systems support leap seconds by manual entry of the due date) and our job (writing software for satellite ground systems) would be much easier if we had decimal time: 100 seconds/minute, 100 minutes/day, 10 hours/day, 100 days/year etc.
And whilst we are at it can we ditch this miles and pounds nonsense: everyone should use nice, programmer friendly kilometers and kilogrammes.
> Once you're there getting back will cost another hundred million.
No, no, no: you do not understand modern free market capitalism. Once you are there they will inform you that it will cost *2* hundred million to get back, but they will also reminder you that you are within your legal rights *not* to take up their offer of a flight, and you can choose a competing service.
> people would throw out a Windows machine and then replace it with another! Windows machine
I suspect that to 99% of PC buyers "computer" = "Intel PC" = "Windows"; the same as "Internet Explorer" = "the Internet".
So they do not buy a "Windows machine" per se, they buy a "computer". All the PCs in the shop have Windows on them, all (or most) of their friends have Windows so it must be the best !
> Nearly all pre-modernized tribes peoples live with a considerably shorter work week. The Kalahari Bushmen, for example, work on average 12-20 hours per week.
The flip side of the chilled, pre-modernized tribal lifestyle is that, historically speaking, other cultures tend to wipe you out.
All that is left is either extremely marginal land to live on, or a place on, or below, the bottom rung of the ladder of the conquerers.
How did this get modded "Score:4, Funny" ? I am not sure of the authors intent but to my mind (s)he is correctly pointing out the parents use of stereotypes. I would have modded it as Insightfull.
> There is still plenty of reason for hope. All that happened was that the booster failed. We still don't know how the actually sail technology will perform, since the systems are unrelated.
Errrr.. well if 1 booster stage fails, then the chances are that it will/has already fallen back to Earth. AFAIK there is no way a solar sail could pull the craft up into a stable orbit.
> When a sensor on the engine detected that the truck's speed ever went above 35MPH, the light would start blinking. Then the first police car to see it would issue them a speeding ticket.
I know I am days to late on this discussion, but I wonder why this would be a bad idea ?
> However in the software world, the employees are not hamstrung by monetary concerns. Any Joe Programmer can pick up a cheap $200 bare bones PC and a copy of Linux and be programming the next great thing. He doesn't need management to do this.
But that does not mean that Joe/Jane Programmer can make a living out of it which i think is the essence of the power relationship between employer/employee.
IMHO computer professionals have less need of a union for 2 reasons: 1) in general demand for workers exceeds supply and 2) existing employees gain a lot of their worth through the embedded knowledge of that companies products, infrastructure etc (so replacing one worker with another, even with exactly the same skill set and experience can still be very risky.)
> Where is this '5% of its daily sales' fine figure coming from? Every previous article I've seen on this topic, including the one pointed to by this story, says a flat $5 million a day fine.
The ruling states "The Commission has the power to force changes in company behaviour and to impose financial penalties for antitrust violations of up to 10% of their annual turnover worldwide."
> Additionally, I hope it also uses Emacs key bindings.
I would do it the other way around: instead of putting Emacs bindings in Firefox, put the Gecko rendering engine into W3: that would be a sweet thing:-)
Slashdot Mirror
By my understanding, and Wikipedia's, you are right and wrong. Atomic clocks *and* the earths rotation are taken into account. I quote the learned tome: UTC: "UTC is a hybrid time scale: the rate of UTC is based on atomic frequency standards but the epoch of UTC is synchronized to remain close to astronomical UT".
> www.shield.org maintains a database of sources of malicious network traffic.
I guess you mean www.dshield.org (with the 'd' added!)
> If it's a hoax, it's fooled a lot of people.
:-(
Not as many as were fooled by that "There's WMDs in Iraq" story
> I still don't understand why someone would need a 64-bit workstation/desktop. What does x86-64 offer you other than the higher price tag?
Geez: you post on Slashdot but you don't know the answer to this. It is obvious that a 64bit processor will run *twice* as fast as a 32bit one.
> but I'm really, really annoyed that applications steal back the focus when they finally appear. It's so unintiutive and annoying. Then again, all (or at least the ones I know of) OS:es and managers do this, so it's not specific to Gnome.
:-)
You need to get yourself a Real WindowManager (TM)
Try FVWM and use "Style * OverrideGrabFocus".
(I do not use GNOME, but IIRC FVWM does support GNOME.)
> yet you allow a huge, honking unreliable single point of failure that can bring the entire operation to its knees - you
And a single server.
> Yes, nVidia's drivers are closed-source
For my requirements (basic card, no use for 3D, no gaming, DVI out... (ASUS V9400-X/TD / Nvidia MX4000) the xorg driver "nv" works fine for me. I never bothered to try the nVidia driver.
I think the US proposal does not go far enough: I am a software engineer (yes, our systems support leap seconds by manual entry of the due date) and our job (writing software for satellite ground systems) would be much easier if we had decimal time: 100 seconds/minute, 100 minutes/day, 10 hours/day, 100 days/year etc.
And whilst we are at it can we ditch this miles and pounds nonsense: everyone should use nice, programmer friendly kilometers and kilogrammes.
> The EU has no manned program
Half right: we have astronauts but no launch capabilites ! (http://www.esa.int/esaHS/astronauts.html)
> Once you're there getting back will cost another hundred million.
No, no, no: you do not understand modern free market capitalism. Once you are there they will inform you that it will cost *2* hundred million to get back, but they will also reminder you that you are within your legal rights *not* to take up their offer of a flight, and you can choose a competing service.
And I guess you run it on Gentoo ?
> people would throw out a Windows machine and then replace it with another! Windows machine
I suspect that to 99% of PC buyers "computer" = "Intel PC" = "Windows"; the same as "Internet Explorer" = "the Internet".
So they do not buy a "Windows machine" per se, they buy a "computer". All the PCs in the shop have Windows on them, all (or most) of their friends have Windows so it must be the best !
Baaahhhh
Yes "Linux ready" :-)
http://www.clearcube.com/controller/pc_blade.php
Firstly I agree with most of what you say. But:
> Nearly all pre-modernized tribes peoples live with a considerably shorter work week. The Kalahari Bushmen, for example, work on average 12-20 hours per week.
The flip side of the chilled, pre-modernized tribal lifestyle is that, historically speaking, other cultures tend to wipe you out.
All that is left is either extremely marginal land to live on, or a place on, or below, the bottom rung of the ladder of the conquerers.
see also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/4655955.stm
How did this get modded "Score:4, Funny" ? I am not sure of the authors intent but to my mind (s)he is correctly pointing out the parents use of stereotypes. I would have modded it as Insightfull.
What I noticed was the timing of 2 stories as they broke. I have now gone back to see what time they appeared on the BBC news website:
1) GMT 14:20 Pakistan rape acquittals rejected
2) GMT 14:34 Pakistan internet woes hit firms
Guess it was another of those strange coincidences !!
> There is still plenty of reason for hope. All that happened was that the booster failed. We still don't know how the actually sail technology will perform, since the systems are unrelated.
Errrr.. well if 1 booster stage fails, then the chances are that it will/has already fallen back to Earth. AFAIK there is no way a solar sail could pull the craft up into a stable orbit.
> When a sensor on the engine detected that the truck's speed ever went above 35MPH, the light would start blinking. Then the first police car to see it would issue them a speeding ticket.
I know I am days to late on this discussion, but I wonder why this would be a bad idea ?
> If only you didn't need an OS to run the web browser on.
a tions/Phoenix+FirstWare/FirstWare+Connect/default. htm
How about this: http://www.phoenix.com/en/Products/Trusted+Applic
> It won't be long until Indian workers (and foreign workers in India) demand a standard of living that drives up their required salaries.
AFAIK this is already happening: tech. salaries in India shooting up, and Indian firms starting to out-source to Pakistan and China.
> However in the software world, the employees are not hamstrung by monetary concerns. Any Joe Programmer can pick up a cheap $200 bare bones PC and a copy of Linux and be programming the next great thing. He doesn't need management to do this.
But that does not mean that Joe/Jane Programmer can make a living out of it which i think is the essence of the power relationship between employer/employee.
IMHO computer professionals have less need of a union for 2 reasons: 1) in general demand for workers exceeds supply and 2) existing employees gain a lot of their worth through the embedded knowledge of that companies products, infrastructure etc (so replacing one worker with another, even with exactly the same skill set and experience can still be very risky.)
> Where is this '5% of its daily sales' fine figure coming from? Every previous article I've seen on this topic, including the one pointed to by this story, says a flat $5 million a day fine.
? reference=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN &guiLanguage=en
The ruling states "The Commission has the power to force changes in company behaviour and to impose financial penalties for antitrust violations of up to 10% of their annual turnover worldwide."
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do
> Now, if it only did Windows;)
You do not need a robot for that: as a Slashdotter you should know how to clean windows using only the command line:
format c:
> Additionally, I hope it also uses Emacs key bindings.
:-)
I would do it the other way around: instead of putting Emacs bindings in Firefox, put the Gecko rendering engine into W3: that would be a sweet thing