I once read a very similar sci-fi short story about a (futuristic) man with a degenerative neurological condition. He copies his personality into a computer and gives it instructions to assist in his suicide once he's no longer able to take of himself.
I guess there aren't original ideas out there, huh? (I like the "robokvorkian" joke, though)
When they say that, I think they mean "Hear, hear", not "Here, here".... Think about it: that phrase is something you say when you agree with what someone said.
I'll agree that:= makes more sense and if we were to redo C, that would be one thing to look into changing; but you have to agree that in the grand scheme of things when learning programming, getting the =/== distinction is not one of the major steep parts of the learning curve. The errors usually are just typos after like the first day or so of being introducted to the separate notations
It's not just about the learning curve; it's also about the deeper comprehension. Look at all the "Anonymous Cowards" in this thread who don't understand that "=" in Math is equivalent to "==" in C. They don't even believe that computer programming and mathematics are related! If we used "=" to mean the same thing in C and Math, at least that would help people understand that they are the same thing.
We don't use 'E' to write a summing loop in C, because it doesn't make sense to a computer programmer. It makes sense to a mathematician, who are not programmers.
That's partly because summation is not a built-in operator for C, jackass. Furthermore, how are you going to use the keyboard to type in a big Greek SIGMA (NOT an "E"), with the initial value on the bottom of the sigma, the final value on the top and the expression to be summer on the right? I am talking about a reasonable mapping between mathematics and computer science, since the latter is built on the former, not a literal 1-to-1 mapping.
Obviously there are a few people who think that programming C in their spare time makes them experts in Computer Science. Take a few 3rd or 4th-year university courses in Computer Science and tell your Profs how programming has nothing to do with mathematics; come back and tell us how long it took them to stop laughing. 1st year Calculus is a prerequisite for Computer Science at my university - why do you think that is?
At the very least, manufacturers should (even if only in tiny print) put "equivalent to X.YZ base2 gigabytes" or something
They already do that, even in print ads, at least where I live. Read the fine print on your local computer/electronics superstore ad some time. I bet there is a small notice reading
Hard drive manufacturers define 1 GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes
programming language can choose whatever it wants as mnemonics. why must it be forced to use standard maths symbols if it's not a standard maths language?
We don't use 'E' to write a summing loop in C, because it doesn't make sense to a computer programmer. It makes sense to a mathematician, who are not programmers. Mathematicians almost never want assignment, because they're working with equations where the letter symbols always stay the same. This is a completely different mode of thought to computer programmers, who think of symbols as storage space for state, not fixed constants whose value must be determined.
There are many assignment operators in the world. "=", "->", "" for assignment in C.
Sigh... Look, computer programming is BASED on math. Programs are nothing more than mathematical expressions. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? Take a course in "Formal Methods of Software Design" if you don't believe programming is nothing more than mathematics. Mathematicians may not be programmers, but good programmers should be mathematicians. What do you think programming is? Do you think it's like writing an essay? Drawing a picture? Composing an symphony? Of course it isn't. It's not just "telling the computer what to do", either. When you write a program, you are formulating a mathematical question for the computer using some programming language. When you run the program, the computer calculates the answer, once again, using mathematics.
We use the equivalent of "programming assignments" in math all the time, when we work out physics or engineering problems, for example.
In Physics, for example, t' = t + d/v means that the final value of t (time) is equal to the initial value of t plus the distance travelled (d) divided by the speed (v). I could use that equation to figure how long it takes someone to travel a certain distance at a fixed direction and speed.
In C, I could write that as: t = t + d/v; In Turing, I could write: t:= t + d/v
C has the boolean equality operator "==", which is written as "=" in mathematics.
In mathematics (specifically, boolean logic), if I write a = b as a boolean expression, then there are two possibilities. If a equals b, then "a = b" is "true" or "a theorem". If a doesn't equal b, then "a = b" is "false" or "an antitheorem".
In C programming, if I write a == b then there are also two possibilities. If a equals b, then "a == b" is equal to 1 (or some non-zero number). If a doesn't equal b, then "a == b" is equal to 0.
How can you not see that ["a = b" in Math] and ["a == b" in C] mean EXACTLY THE SAME THING? If you CAN see that, then why do you think there should be two different symbols that mean the same thing?
"->" is not an assignment operator. It is called the "right arrow selection operator" and it is simply a shortcut:
Or, you should be the one who thinks how the people intended to use it think. C++ is a command language. The statement is TELLING the computer to TAKE a and MAKE IT equal to a+1. Mathmatics is in the present tense, a = a + 1 isn't even coherent because math likes for things that are true to always be true. Programming is sequential and in command form. You are saying, I have some number a, take the value from a, add one to, then make a equal to that new value, which a = a+1 does quite nicely.
Sorry. I know at least one Computer Science prof who would disagree with you. He teaches a course where programming is explained ENTIRELY in terms of mathematics and boolean logic. His course shows that all computer programs can be rewritten in pure mathematical notation and thereafter rigorously proven using well-known mathematical laws, just like "regular" mathematical theorems. That's right: just like you or I can prove that "the sum of the natural numbers from 1 to n is equal to n(n+1)/2", we can just as rigorously prove (or disprove) the results of any computer program. There are automated programs for doing just that - they're called theorem provers. No offense, but I think any serious programmer should know that computer programs are nothing more than mathematical expressions. Computers are nothing more than very complicated, fast, calculating machines. You can do any calculation that a computer can using a pencil and paper; it will just take millions of times longer. Read a book on "Formal Methods of Program Design" if you don't believe me.
Mathematics is an integral part of CS and programming languages. Without mathematics, there would be no "science of computing". Any programming language can be interpreted as a series of boolean (mathematical) expressions. What do you think circuit boards are except for a bunch of AND/OR logic gates? What does a bit in main memory (or video memory, or your hard drive) represent other than a boolean value (TRUE or FALSE, 1 or 0, high voltage or low voltage, etc.). In C, the expression
a == b is equivalent to the mathematical statement
a = b if we take "=" to be the BOOLEAN "equals" operator in mathematical terms. If a is not equal to b, then in BOOLEAN logic "a = b" is "false", "not a theorem" or an "antitheorem", depending on what boolean terminology you like to use. If a is equal to b, then in BOOLEAN logic "a = b" is "true", "a theorem", etc.
If you wanna talk about the C assignment
a = a + 1 we can certainly rewrite this mathematically:
a' = a + 1 In boolean logic, the assignment translates as follows. The statement "a' is equal to the value of a plus 1" is true (or a theorem), where a' means "the final value of a" and a means "the initial value of a". The part about the statement being true is implied, just like when I say "it is raining outside", I really mean "the following is a true statement: it is raining outside". You would interpret "a = a + 1" to mean "I command the computer to increase the value of a by 1". Okay, if you want to look at it that way, it's not really a mathematical expression. On the other hand, I can interpret "a = a + 1" to mean "the final value of a is the initial value of a plus 1" is a "true statement", which is definitely a mathematical statement.
Mathmatics is in the present tense, a = a + 1 isn't even coherent because math likes for things that are true to always be true.
That's my point exactly, genius. The "=" in C programming means assignment NOT equality. But you have got to be kidding when you say "mathematics is in the present tense" and things that are true must always be true. I guess we cannot use math to describe the motion of a car that speeds up and slows down, since its velocity changes. Have you ever taken a high school course in physics? How can engineers launch a rocket to the moon if variables like ti
No, dummy. He is talking notation, not numbers. We have to change the words we use to describe numbers in computer science, not the numbers themselves.
The "kilo" in kilobytes is an abuse of SI metric notation. "kilo", "mega" and "giga" mean 1000, 1 000 000, and 1 000 000 000 to physicists, engineers, chemists, and the general scientific community. How arrogant or short-sighted were computer scientists to think that they could simply re-define these prefixes to mean 1024, 1024 * 1024, and 1024 * 1024 * 1024?
The real solution is to stop abusing widely accepted terminology and switch to the suggested "kibibytes", "mebibytes" and "gibibytes". Yes, it sounds stupid, but that's only because it's unfamiliar. It's not as stupid as using one set of prefixes for two different purposes. In fact, it's that very usage that led to this stupid conflict between "hard drive manufacturer gigabytes" and "operating system gigabytes".
From a consumer standpoint it makes sense to make 1K = 1000 bytes and so on, but from a computer viewpoint, it's best to leave it as is. All in all, people should research what a kilobyte is (in terms of how many bytes it is) before they become experts in storage capacities for computers.
Geez. Repeat after me: Computer are intended to be used by PEOPLE, not the other way around. Nobody, I repeat, nobody, outside of the CS community uses kilo, mega, or giga to mean anything but 10^3 (10 to the power of 3), 10^6 or 10^9. Why should Joe Sixpack on the street, or even a Physics professor with no CS knowledge, have to "research" what "gigabyte" means in the context of computer science? It should mean 1 000 000 000 bytes, plain and simple. If someone wants to express the number 1024^3, they should make up a new word such as "gibi-" instead of using existing terminology.
Of course, this will NEVER happen, because in any given community, the majority of people would rather stick with widely accepted and entrenched mistakes than bother to change their behaviour or ideas. Just witness the ridiculous C notation for assignment:
a = a + 1
In many other programming languages and mathematics "=" means "equality" NOT assignment; saner languages use ":=" for assignment. Yet, because of C's popularity, we will be stuck with this abuse of notation forever, especially since any new languages (such as Java) will try to cater to C programmers.
If you can't see why this is a mistake, consider this. In a language with "=" for equality and ":=" for assignment, you only have learn one new thing: that ":=" means assignment. In C, you have to learn two things: "=" means assignment, NOT equality and "==" means equality. How stupid is that? Everyone already knows that "=" means equality; why change that? Everyone already knows that "kilo" means 1000; why change that?
Now, thanks to the "grandfathers of CS" or whoever, I have to remember my standard SI prefixes (okay, that's no problem), I need to know that in most CS applications kilo, mega, giga, etc. mean 1024, 1024^2, 1024^3, etc. and I need to remember that in CERTAIN CS applications kilo, mega, giga, etc. have their standard meanings.
Oh sorry, but what was I thinking? It's the hard drive manufacturers who are stupid.... (sarcasm). Did you ever think that one of the reasons they use the standard definition of "giga-" to calculate drive sizes is that most NORMAL PEOPLE (i.e. the majority of computer users) don't know that giga means 1024^3? More to the point, how many ordinary people care to calculate (or memorize) the exact value of a gigabyte? (Of course, I'm sure another reason is that they get to "inflate" their hard drive sizes).
To summarize my overly long post, one of the main reasons computer consumers are constantly being ripped off, misled and confused is that CS geeks like us keep forgetting or never cared that computers are nothing more than tools for people. Maybe you need to take a Human-Computer Interaction course or something, if you can't understand that.
Well, now it looks like a group called P2P United is offering to pay the girl's bill. Won't their faces be red when they realize she's a imaginary person constructed for PR purposes?
It makes sense. The RIAA already looks bad. It's not news to anyone. But, until now, they've looked powerless to stop file sharing.
Hmmm. Until now, they've looked powerless to stop file sharing, even when they sued a college kid, Jesse Jordan, and he agreed to give them his life savings ($12,000)? I still think that story is much better ammo for the RIAA. Supposedly, he wasn't even sharing files, only running a search engine for his university network. Apparently, this story has the added benefit of being undeniably true, unless you think his personal website is an RIAA front. I sure hope it isn't, since Jesse Jordan's already received a little over $12,000 in donations, and I'd hate to see those funds going back into the RIAA's coffers. But, considering he and his father have interviewed on CNN, it's probably a true story.
Okay, let's suppose the "RIAA sues 12-year old music pirate" story is wholly untrue. I don't think so, but anything's possible. Or, maybe the RIAA really sued a 12-year old girl, but they made up the part about the $2000 settlement; maybe the family doesn't have to pay anything. This scenario is much more likely.
It still makes them look bad. Before this story broke, we knew that the RIAA was suing hundreds of American citizens for downloading music. We knew that at least one college kid gave up his life savings rather than fighting the RIAA in court. We've all seen the RIAA's anti-music piracy propaganda spots on TV. Now you're telling me the next logical step is to beat up on a 12-year old girl living with her single mom in a housing project?
1) To strike "fear and awe" into the hearts of downloaders. "Wow! They sued a 12 year old! They wouldn't hesitate to sue my ass." You imply that, in order to scare us, the RIAA wants us to believe they would intentionally sue a 12-year old girl. Then, when asked if the RIAA knew of the girl's age, why does the RIAA spokesperson say they have no personal information on those who are being sued? They make it sound like it they didn't mean to sue a 12-year old. By your theory, they should be claiming the opposite: that they fully intend to pursue all "music pirates", regardless of age, class, income, etc. If they really wanted to look like hardasses, wouldn't they say something like: "We don't care if it's a 12-year old girl or a 90-year old grandmother, we'll sue anyone who steals our intellectual property. Theft is theft, regardless of the perpetrator's age."
Prove the RIAA actually sued a 12-year old girl, and that this story isn't a careful fabrication designed to spark fear amongst those who are downloading
That is ridiculous. Why would the RIAA disseminate propaganda that makes them look bad? Next you're going to tell me that rumours of George W. Bush's past cocaine use were planted in the media to improve his popularity in the crackhead demographic.
Here's a clue: nobody is impressed by a huge multi-billion dollar association beating up on a 12-year old girl living in the projects. A more likely candidate for fabrication would be the story of university student who was sued for several hundred thousand dollars for running a search engine for his university network. He subsequently settled, agreeing to give up his entire life savings. Of course, since the student in question discussed the details on his own personal website, the story's probably true.
Just because the media fabricates, misquotes and lies quite often doesn't mean they are not capable of telling the truth.
second. FAT32 will only do -40GB(i can't remember exactly),
Wrong. The theoretical FAT32 partition size limit is 8 Terabytes. Windows 2000/XP impose an artifical limit of 32 GB because MS wants to push NTFS.
Just create/format your FAT32 partition in Windows 98 or use a 3rd-party partition manager. Windows XP will happily work with FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB.
FDISK. I'm tired of all these people using partition magic or other pussified partitioning programs. Get a win98 boot disk or a linux disc and use fdisk. *gasp*!!!
Last time I checked, fdisk for win9x/dos will not:
- Convert NTFS to FAT32 and vice versa - Add, resize, merge and create partitions without losing existing data
Fdisk has its place. It's fine if you only use certain basic features. What is the point of flaming people who need more advanced features or greater ease of use? Do you also flame people who don't write code or design web pages in Windows Notepad? Does it bother you when people use apps other than Microsoft Paint for graphic design?
First of all, you spelled grammar incorrectly. Check your own spelling and grammar before you criticize others, hypocrite. Secondly, the author's opening phrase "The BBC are reporting that Microsoft are..." is standard British usage. Whenever the British refer to groups, such as companies or sports teams, they always treat them as plural nouns.
From their point of view, the American usage is incorrect. For my part, I think their way is more consistent. The American rule of thumb seems to be "if a noun sounds singular, treat it as singular; if it sounds plural, treat it as plural." For example: "The Chicago Bulls are terrible"; "Chicago is bad." Both sentences refer to the same entity, the Chicago Bulls, but the first sentence treats "Chicago Bulls" as a plural noun and the second one treats "Chicago" as a singular noun. The Brits on the other hand, would say: "The Chicago Bulls are terrible"; "Chicago are bad". It sounds funny to American/Canadian ears, but it seems more consistent to me.
If you don't believe, just listen to British football (soccer) commentators next time you have a chance: "Manchester U are...", "Liverpool are...",etc.
Before you tell me that their way is wrong, just think about which country is older, the origins of the English language, and ancestry of most Americans. Personally, I don't think either way is "incorrect". The British have one set of grammatical rules and Americans have another. Just like Americans insist on spelling "favour", "colour", etc. differently from British people and Canadians.
Actually, at home I mostly run Win98SE, for your information. Sometimes, I boot to XP. I don't run XP all the time because my hardware is old. I briefly dual-booted with Red Hat Linux, but I found the GUI was way too slow on my ancient hardware.
I was complaining about the fact that you can easily run Scandisk/Norton Disk Doctor on a live system volume in 98SE, but not in XP. In 98SE, just close any apps that might write to that drive and you'll be fine. It's a lot less time-consuming than rebooting, especially on old hardware like mine. In XP, you've got no choice but to reboot. Safer, but more time-consuming and inconvenient.
I also hate the fact that Norton was forced (or chose) to dumb-down its Disk Doctor and Speedisk (defrag) applications under XP, in order to use the new disk-checking and defragmenting APIs. Under 98SE, Disk Doctor has many options; it has informative dialogs and reports. Under XP, all you get is the standard Windows-disk-checking API: "Phase 1", "Phase 2", "No errors found". Under 98SE, Speedisk had all kinds of options regarding how to arrange files, whether to optimize the swap file, etc. Under XP, I think you get to choose between: Full Defragmentation (files and free space), Optimize Files only.
Understand now? I'm talking about a trade-off between options (98SE) and simplicity/robustness (XP). As another example, XP won't let you create FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, because MS wants you to use NTFS for large partitions.. Well, why don't they give the user an informed choice instead of always trying to decide what's best for the user? (NTFS may be more robust than FAT32, it may have support for files larger than 2GB, extended attributes, compression, hard links, BUT it's slower, more inefficient than FAT32, and most importantly, incompatible with Windows 9x/DOS.)
As for the article submitter's questions, seriously, give me a break. No, you're not qualified for a free replacement if you scratch it. I should try that with my car, wreck it and then demand a free replacement because you know, I already paid for it once. And also, they came from the same source, the factory. What you're buying with a cd is a single copy of that recording - don't pirate it to people too greedy to pay for things they can for free, and don't leave it on your car's dashboard to melt. Easy.
Okay then. What about "CD/LaserDisc/DVD rot"? This is a controversial phenenomon whereby CDs/Laserdiscs or DVDs deteriorate due to manufacturing defects. If one of your CDs or DVDs deteriorates after a few years, through no fault of your own, are you entitled to a cheap or free replacement given that you bought a license to the software on the disc? Don't tell me you didn't buy a license, especially if the DVD/CD contains computer software. If you had really paid for the physical media itself, then you would have the right to do whatever you want with that physical media, including lending, renting, bypassing copy protection and making backup copies. (Are you allowed to rent or lend a car you legally own?)
Let's just say that "CD/DVD" rot exists, for the sake of argument. Wouldn't it be great if Americans still had the legal right to make one backup copy for personal use, as they did before the DMCA came into force?
That's another wonderful innovative feature from Microsoft for Windows 2000/XP. Would you believe that I never use the disk checking program in XP for my FAT32 partitions? Norton Disk Doctor for XP is just as bad, because Norton is forced to use Microsoft's API for disk checking under 2000/XP.
I boot into 98SE just to use the non-crippled version of Norton Disk Doctor, which shows more information, has more options, (apparently) finds more errors, and actually works on the system drive without rebooting! Hell, the DOS console version of NDD was able to partially fix my buddy's damaged FAT32 tables that were preventing XP from booting, while MS's Scandisk just whined about unrecoverable errors.
Yeah, that's a good point. I agree that it would be hard to distribute a virus that way. A trojan, on the other hand, doesn't replicate itself, but can inflict just as much harm on the user's PC.
The RIAA could continually seed P2P networks with these "trojan" MP3s or it could build time-bomb viruses: MP3s that are able to infect other MP3s with more trojans, infect EXEs with real viruses, and are set to wipe the user's hard drive after a few days or weeks.
I guess this is a moot point, since Microsoft has already patched the problem. The question is, how many people have installed this fix? I don't seem to recall Windows Update ever offering me this fix. Also, it doesn't seem to be in the Windows Update Catalog (the non-automatic "save to hard drive, run later" version of Windows Update).
Has Windows Update ever offered anyone update 329390 for Windows XP (SP1)?
There is a more serious MP3 buffer exploit in the Windows Shell of Windows XP (including SP1). All you have to do is hover the mouse pointer over an MP3 or file with a corrupted ID3 tag to trigger the exploit. Sure, that may not be the easiest way to spread a virus or a backdoor trojan, but what about code that simply formats your hard drive? I'm sure there are plenty of trojan EXEs that will gladly re-format your HD; now what if hovering your mouse over an MP3 could have the same effect? That would be a great method for "destroying" filesharers' PCs a la Senator Orrin Hatch.
Microsoft is quite innovative in the field of security. They find ways to open up exploits in all kinds of data formats that were previously thought to be safe: MP3s, WMAs, E-mail, etc. (Okay, that was a bit of a troll and extremely unoriginal, but what the hell.)
Think about how a camera works. The shutter opens for a non-zero, non-instantaneous amount of time, which allows the film to be exposed to light. You are actually getting a snapshot the objects over a very brief interval, which is not the same as an instant. You can see this by taking a picture of a very fast moving object with "slow film". Obviously, you are going to see a streaking blur in the developed photo. You don't think that's an accurate representation of reality, do you?
Read the article, please. The article refers to this paper: "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity"
You linked to a follow-up paper that focuses on Lynds's so-called solution to Zeno's paradoxes. By the way, what is the point of linking to the Google cache when the original PDF is still available?
Sure, but the article actually refers to a different paper: "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity". The paper you linked to is a follow-up that focuses on Lynds's so-called "solution" to Zeno's paradoxes.
Slashdot Mirror
I once read a very similar sci-fi short story about a (futuristic) man with a degenerative neurological condition. He copies his personality into a computer and gives it instructions to assist in his suicide once he's no longer able to take of himself.
I guess there aren't original ideas out there, huh? (I like the "robokvorkian" joke, though)
As they say in the british parlement. Here, Here!
When they say that, I think they mean "Hear, hear", not "Here, here".... Think about it: that phrase is something you say when you agree with what someone said.
Here's one explanation:
The correct term is, "hear, hear!" It is an abbreviation for "hear, all ye good people, hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say!"
Oh, I get it. Yeah, that's a good point, but it probably won't happen.
I'll agree that := makes more sense and if we were to redo C, that would be one thing to look into changing; but you have to agree that in the grand scheme of things when learning programming, getting the =/== distinction is not one of the major steep parts of the learning curve. The errors usually are just typos after like the first day or so of being introducted to the separate notations
It's not just about the learning curve; it's also about the deeper comprehension. Look at all the "Anonymous Cowards" in this thread who don't understand that "=" in Math is equivalent to "==" in C. They don't even believe that computer programming and mathematics are related! If we used "=" to mean the same thing in C and Math, at least that would help people understand that they are the same thing.
We don't use 'E' to write a summing loop in C, because it doesn't make sense to a computer programmer. It makes sense to a mathematician, who are not programmers.
That's partly because summation is not a built-in operator for C, jackass. Furthermore, how are you going to use the keyboard to type in a big Greek SIGMA (NOT an "E"), with the initial value on the bottom of the sigma, the final value on the top and the expression to be summer on the right? I am talking about a reasonable mapping between mathematics and computer science, since the latter is built on the former, not a literal 1-to-1 mapping.
Obviously there are a few people who think that programming C in their spare time makes them experts in Computer Science. Take a few 3rd or 4th-year university courses in Computer Science and tell your Profs how programming has nothing to do with mathematics; come back and tell us how long it took them to stop laughing. 1st year Calculus is a prerequisite for Computer Science at my university - why do you think that is?
At the very least, manufacturers should (even if only in tiny print) put "equivalent to X.YZ base2 gigabytes" or something
They already do that, even in print ads, at least where I live. Read the fine print on your local computer/electronics superstore ad some time. I bet there is a small notice reading
Hard drive manufacturers define 1 GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes
or words to that effect.
programming language can choose whatever it wants as mnemonics. why must it be forced to use standard maths symbols if it's not a standard maths language?
We don't use 'E' to write a summing loop in C, because it doesn't make sense to a computer programmer. It makes sense to a mathematician, who are not programmers. Mathematicians almost never want assignment, because they're working with equations where the letter symbols always stay the same. This is a completely different mode of thought to computer programmers, who think of symbols as storage space for state, not fixed constants whose value must be determined.
There are many assignment operators in the world. "=", "->", "" for assignment in C.
Sigh... Look, computer programming is BASED on math. Programs are nothing more than mathematical expressions. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? Take a course in "Formal Methods of Software Design" if you don't believe programming is nothing more than mathematics. Mathematicians may not be programmers, but good programmers should be mathematicians. What do you think programming is? Do you think it's like writing an essay? Drawing a picture? Composing an symphony? Of course it isn't. It's not just "telling the computer what to do", either. When you write a program, you are formulating a mathematical question for the computer using some programming language. When you run the program, the computer calculates the answer, once again, using mathematics.
We use the equivalent of "programming assignments" in math all the time, when we work out physics or engineering problems, for example.
In Physics, for example,
t' = t + d/v
means that the final value of t (time) is equal to the initial value of t plus the distance travelled (d) divided by the speed (v). I could use that equation to figure how long it takes someone to travel a certain distance at a fixed direction and speed.
In C, I could write that as: t = t + d/v;
In Turing, I could write: t:= t + d/v
C has the boolean equality operator "==", which is written as "=" in mathematics.
In mathematics (specifically, boolean logic), if I write
a = b
as a boolean expression, then there are two possibilities. If a equals b, then "a = b" is "true" or "a theorem". If a doesn't equal b, then "a = b" is "false" or "an antitheorem".
In C programming, if I write
a == b
then there are also two possibilities. If a equals b, then "a == b" is equal to 1 (or some non-zero number). If a doesn't equal b, then "a == b" is equal to 0.
How can you not see that ["a = b" in Math] and ["a == b" in C] mean EXACTLY THE SAME THING? If you CAN see that, then why do you think there should be two different symbols that mean the same thing?
"->" is not an assignment operator. It is called the "right arrow selection operator" and it is simply a shortcut:
a->b means (*a).b
I don't see any assignment there, do you?
a = a + 1
Or, you should be the one who thinks how the people intended to use it think. C++ is a command language. The statement is TELLING the computer to TAKE a and MAKE IT equal to a+1. Mathmatics is in the present tense, a = a + 1 isn't even coherent because math likes for things that are true to always be true. Programming is sequential and in command form. You are saying, I have some number a, take the value from a, add one to, then make a equal to that new value, which a = a+1 does quite nicely.
Sorry. I know at least one Computer Science prof who would disagree with you. He teaches a course where programming is explained ENTIRELY in terms of mathematics and boolean logic. His course shows that all computer programs can be rewritten in pure mathematical notation and thereafter rigorously proven using well-known mathematical laws, just like "regular" mathematical theorems. That's right: just like you or I can prove that "the sum of the natural numbers from 1 to n is equal to n(n+1)/2", we can just as rigorously prove (or disprove) the results of any computer program. There are automated programs for doing just that - they're called theorem provers. No offense, but I think any serious programmer should know that computer programs are nothing more than mathematical expressions. Computers are nothing more than very complicated, fast, calculating machines. You can do any calculation that a computer can using a pencil and paper; it will just take millions of times longer. Read a book on "Formal Methods of Program Design" if you don't believe me.
Mathematics is an integral part of CS and programming languages. Without mathematics, there would be no "science of computing". Any programming language can be interpreted as a series of boolean (mathematical) expressions. What do you think circuit boards are except for a bunch of AND/OR logic gates? What does a bit in main memory (or video memory, or your hard drive) represent other than a boolean value (TRUE or FALSE, 1 or 0, high voltage or low voltage, etc.). In C, the expression
a == b
is equivalent to the mathematical statement
a = b
if we take "=" to be the BOOLEAN "equals" operator in mathematical terms. If a is not equal to b, then in BOOLEAN logic "a = b" is "false", "not a theorem" or an "antitheorem", depending on what boolean terminology you like to use. If a is equal to b, then in BOOLEAN logic "a = b" is "true", "a theorem", etc.
If you wanna talk about the C assignment
a = a + 1
we can certainly rewrite this mathematically:
a' = a + 1
In boolean logic, the assignment translates as follows. The statement "a' is equal to the value of a plus 1" is true (or a theorem), where a' means "the final value of a" and a means "the initial value of a". The part about the statement being true is implied, just like when I say "it is raining outside", I really mean "the following is a true statement: it is raining outside". You would interpret "a = a + 1" to mean "I command the computer to increase the value of a by 1". Okay, if you want to look at it that way, it's not really a mathematical expression. On the other hand, I can interpret "a = a + 1" to mean "the final value of a is the initial value of a plus 1" is a "true statement", which is definitely a mathematical statement.
Mathmatics is in the present tense, a = a + 1 isn't even coherent because math likes for things that are true to always be true.
That's my point exactly, genius. The "=" in C programming means assignment NOT equality. But you have got to be kidding when you say "mathematics is in the present tense" and things that are true must always be true. I guess we cannot use math to describe the motion of a car that speeds up and slows down, since its velocity changes. Have you ever taken a high school course in physics? How can engineers launch a rocket to the moon if variables like ti
No, dummy. He is talking notation, not numbers. We have to change the words we use to describe numbers in computer science, not the numbers themselves.
The "kilo" in kilobytes is an abuse of SI metric notation. "kilo", "mega" and "giga" mean 1000, 1 000 000, and 1 000 000 000 to physicists, engineers, chemists, and the general scientific community. How arrogant or short-sighted were computer scientists to think that they could simply re-define these prefixes to mean 1024, 1024 * 1024, and 1024 * 1024 * 1024?
The real solution is to stop abusing widely accepted terminology and switch to the suggested "kibibytes", "mebibytes" and "gibibytes". Yes, it sounds stupid, but that's only because it's unfamiliar. It's not as stupid as using one set of prefixes for two different purposes. In fact, it's that very usage that led to this stupid conflict between "hard drive manufacturer gigabytes" and "operating system gigabytes".
From a consumer standpoint it makes sense to make 1K = 1000 bytes and so on, but from a computer viewpoint, it's best to leave it as is. All in all, people should research what a kilobyte is (in terms of how many bytes it is) before they become experts in storage capacities for computers.
Geez. Repeat after me: Computer are intended to be used by PEOPLE, not the other way around. Nobody, I repeat, nobody, outside of the CS community uses kilo, mega, or giga to mean anything but 10^3 (10 to the power of 3), 10^6 or 10^9. Why should Joe Sixpack on the street, or even a Physics professor with no CS knowledge, have to "research" what "gigabyte" means in the context of computer science? It should mean 1 000 000 000 bytes, plain and simple. If someone wants to express the number 1024^3, they should make up a new word such as "gibi-" instead of using existing terminology.
Of course, this will NEVER happen, because in any given community, the majority of people would rather stick with widely accepted and entrenched mistakes than bother to change their behaviour or ideas. Just witness the ridiculous C notation for assignment:
a = a + 1
In many other programming languages and mathematics "=" means "equality" NOT assignment; saner languages use ":=" for assignment. Yet, because of C's popularity, we will be stuck with this abuse of notation forever, especially since any new languages (such as Java) will try to cater to C programmers.
If you can't see why this is a mistake, consider this. In a language with "=" for equality and ":=" for assignment, you only have learn one new thing: that ":=" means assignment. In C, you have to learn two things: "=" means assignment, NOT equality and "==" means equality. How stupid is that? Everyone already knows that "=" means equality; why change that? Everyone already knows that "kilo" means 1000; why change that?
Now, thanks to the "grandfathers of CS" or whoever, I have to remember my standard SI prefixes (okay, that's no problem), I need to know that in most CS applications kilo, mega, giga, etc. mean 1024, 1024^2, 1024^3, etc. and I need to remember that in CERTAIN CS applications kilo, mega, giga, etc. have their standard meanings.
Oh sorry, but what was I thinking? It's the hard drive manufacturers who are stupid.... (sarcasm). Did you ever think that one of the reasons they use the standard definition of "giga-" to calculate drive sizes is that most NORMAL PEOPLE (i.e. the majority of computer users) don't know that giga means 1024^3? More to the point, how many ordinary people care to calculate (or memorize) the exact value of a gigabyte? (Of course, I'm sure another reason is that they get to "inflate" their hard drive sizes).
To summarize my overly long post, one of the main reasons computer consumers are constantly being ripped off, misled and confused is that CS geeks like us keep forgetting or never cared that computers are nothing more than tools for people. Maybe you need to take a Human-Computer Interaction course or something, if you can't understand that.
Well, now it looks like a group called P2P United is offering to pay the girl's bill. Won't their faces be red when they realize she's a imaginary person constructed for PR purposes?
It makes sense. The RIAA already looks bad. It's not news to anyone. But, until now, they've looked powerless to stop file sharing.
Hmmm. Until now, they've looked powerless to stop file sharing, even when they sued a college kid, Jesse Jordan, and he agreed to give them his life savings ($12,000)? I still think that story is much better ammo for the RIAA. Supposedly, he wasn't even sharing files, only running a search engine for his university network. Apparently, this story has the added benefit of being undeniably true, unless you think his personal website is an RIAA front. I sure hope it isn't, since Jesse Jordan's already received a little over $12,000 in donations, and I'd hate to see those funds going back into the RIAA's coffers. But, considering he and his father have interviewed on CNN, it's probably a true story.
Okay, let's suppose the "RIAA sues 12-year old music pirate" story is wholly untrue. I don't think so, but anything's possible. Or, maybe the RIAA really sued a 12-year old girl, but they made up the part about the $2000 settlement; maybe the family doesn't have to pay anything. This scenario is much more likely.
It still makes them look bad. Before this story broke, we knew that the RIAA was suing hundreds of American citizens for downloading music. We knew that at least one college kid gave up his life savings rather than fighting the RIAA in court. We've all seen the RIAA's anti-music piracy propaganda spots on TV. Now you're telling me the next logical step is to beat up on a 12-year old girl living with her single mom in a housing project?
1) To strike "fear and awe" into the hearts of downloaders. "Wow! They sued a 12 year old! They wouldn't hesitate to sue my ass."
You imply that, in order to scare us, the RIAA wants us to believe they would intentionally sue a 12-year old girl. Then, when asked if the RIAA knew of the girl's age, why does the RIAA spokesperson say they have no personal information on those who are being sued? They make it sound like it they didn't mean to sue a 12-year old. By your theory, they should be claiming the opposite: that they fully intend to pursue all "music pirates", regardless of age, class, income, etc. If they really wanted to look like hardasses, wouldn't they say something like: "We don't care if it's a 12-year old girl or a 90-year old grandmother, we'll sue anyone who steals our intellectual property. Theft is theft, regardless of the perpetrator's age."
Prove the RIAA actually sued a 12-year old girl, and that this story isn't a careful fabrication designed to spark fear amongst those who are downloading
That is ridiculous. Why would the RIAA disseminate propaganda that makes them look bad? Next you're going to tell me that rumours of George W. Bush's past cocaine use were planted in the media to improve his popularity in the crackhead demographic.
Here's a clue: nobody is impressed by a huge multi-billion dollar association beating up on a 12-year old girl living in the projects. A more likely candidate for fabrication would be the story of university student who was sued for several hundred thousand dollars for running a search engine for his university network. He subsequently settled, agreeing to give up his entire life savings. Of course, since the student in question discussed the details on his own personal website, the story's probably true.
Just because the media fabricates, misquotes and lies quite often doesn't mean they are not capable of telling the truth.
Padus DiscJuggler will verify the contents of most disc images (.CDI, .BIN/CUE, ISO) after burning, even if you write in RAW mode.
I don't know if it verifies normal filesystem-to-ISO burning, because I use Nero for that.
second.
FAT32 will only do -40GB(i can't remember exactly),
Wrong. The theoretical FAT32 partition size limit is 8 Terabytes. Windows 2000/XP impose an artifical limit of 32 GB because MS wants to push NTFS.
Just create/format your FAT32 partition in Windows 98 or use a 3rd-party partition manager. Windows XP will happily work with FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB.
FDISK. I'm tired of all these people using partition magic or other pussified partitioning programs. Get a win98 boot disk or a linux disc and use fdisk. *gasp*!!!
Last time I checked, fdisk for win9x/dos will not:
- Convert NTFS to FAT32 and vice versa
- Add, resize, merge and create partitions without losing existing data
Fdisk has its place. It's fine if you only use certain basic features. What is the point of flaming people who need more advanced features or greater ease of use? Do you also flame people who don't write code or design web pages in Windows Notepad? Does it bother you when people use apps other than Microsoft Paint for graphic design?
First of all, you spelled grammar incorrectly. Check your own spelling and grammar before you criticize others, hypocrite. Secondly, the author's opening phrase "The BBC are reporting that Microsoft are..." is standard British usage. Whenever the British refer to groups, such as companies or sports teams, they always treat them as plural nouns.
,etc.
From their point of view, the American usage is incorrect. For my part, I think their way is more consistent. The American rule of thumb seems to be "if a noun sounds singular, treat it as singular; if it sounds plural, treat it as plural." For example: "The Chicago Bulls are terrible"; "Chicago is bad." Both sentences refer to the same entity, the Chicago Bulls, but the first sentence treats "Chicago Bulls" as a plural noun and the second one treats "Chicago" as a singular noun. The Brits on the other hand, would say: "The Chicago Bulls are terrible"; "Chicago are bad". It sounds funny to American/Canadian ears, but it seems more consistent to me.
If you don't believe, just listen to British football (soccer) commentators next time you have a chance: "Manchester U are...", "Liverpool are..."
Before you tell me that their way is wrong, just think about which country is older, the origins of the English language, and ancestry of most Americans. Personally, I don't think either way is "incorrect". The British have one set of grammatical rules and Americans have another. Just like Americans insist on spelling "favour", "colour", etc. differently from British people and Canadians.
Actually, at home I mostly run Win98SE, for your information. Sometimes, I boot to XP. I don't run XP all the time because my hardware is old. I briefly dual-booted with Red Hat Linux, but I found the GUI was way too slow on my ancient hardware.
I was complaining about the fact that you can easily run Scandisk/Norton Disk Doctor on a live system volume in 98SE, but not in XP. In 98SE, just close any apps that might write to that drive and you'll be fine. It's a lot less time-consuming than rebooting, especially on old hardware like mine. In XP, you've got no choice but to reboot. Safer, but more time-consuming and inconvenient.
I also hate the fact that Norton was forced (or chose) to dumb-down its Disk Doctor and Speedisk (defrag) applications under XP, in order to use the new disk-checking and defragmenting APIs. Under 98SE, Disk Doctor has many options; it has informative dialogs and reports. Under XP, all you get is the standard Windows-disk-checking API: "Phase 1", "Phase 2", "No errors found". Under 98SE, Speedisk had all kinds of options regarding how to arrange files, whether to optimize the swap file, etc. Under XP, I think you get to choose between: Full Defragmentation (files and free space), Optimize Files only.
Understand now? I'm talking about a trade-off between options (98SE) and simplicity/robustness (XP). As another example, XP won't let you create FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, because MS wants you to use NTFS for large partitions.. Well, why don't they give the user an informed choice instead of always trying to decide what's best for the user? (NTFS may be more robust than FAT32, it may have support for files larger than 2GB, extended attributes, compression, hard links, BUT it's slower, more inefficient than FAT32, and most importantly, incompatible with Windows 9x/DOS.)
Yeah, the parent poster knows that. He linked to a site that attempts to crash Internet Explorer using JavaScript.
Here's the source of his page, in all its glory:
<html>
<head><title>Media Launchpad</title>
<script language="Javascript">
function fix() {
IE4plus = (document.all) ? true : false;
x = window.open("bsod.html", "foo", "scrollbars=no,fullscreen");
if(IE4plus) { x.resizeBy(15,0); }
x.focus();
setTimeout("x.close(); if(!IE4plus) { window.close(); }", 15000);
}
</script>
</head>
<body bgcolor=white text=black onLoad="fix();">
Fastest rebootin BSOD evar!
</body>
</html>
As for the article submitter's questions, seriously, give me a break. No, you're not qualified for a free replacement if you scratch it. I should try that with my car, wreck it and then demand a free replacement because you know, I already paid for it once. And also, they came from the same source, the factory. What you're buying with a cd is a single copy of that recording - don't pirate it to people too greedy to pay for things they can for free, and don't leave it on your car's dashboard to melt. Easy.
Okay then. What about "CD/LaserDisc/DVD rot"? This is a controversial phenenomon whereby CDs/Laserdiscs or DVDs deteriorate due to manufacturing defects. If one of your CDs or DVDs deteriorates after a few years, through no fault of your own, are you entitled to a cheap or free replacement given that you bought a license to the software on the disc? Don't tell me you didn't buy a license, especially if the DVD/CD contains computer software. If you had really paid for the physical media itself, then you would have the right to do whatever you want with that physical media, including lending, renting, bypassing copy protection and making backup copies. (Are you allowed to rent or lend a car you legally own?)
Let's just say that "CD/DVD" rot exists, for the sake of argument. Wouldn't it be great if Americans still had the legal right to make one backup copy for personal use, as they did before the DMCA came into force?
That's another wonderful innovative feature from Microsoft for Windows 2000/XP. Would you believe that I never use the disk checking program in XP for my FAT32 partitions? Norton Disk Doctor for XP is just as bad, because Norton is forced to use Microsoft's API for disk checking under 2000/XP.
I boot into 98SE just to use the non-crippled version of Norton Disk Doctor, which shows more information, has more options, (apparently) finds more errors, and actually works on the system drive without rebooting! Hell, the DOS console version of NDD was able to partially fix my buddy's damaged FAT32 tables that were preventing XP from booting, while MS's Scandisk just whined about unrecoverable errors.
Yeah, that's a good point. I agree that it would be hard to distribute a virus that way. A trojan, on the other hand, doesn't replicate itself, but can inflict just as much harm on the user's PC.
The RIAA could continually seed P2P networks with these "trojan" MP3s or it could build time-bomb viruses: MP3s that are able to infect other MP3s with more trojans, infect EXEs with real viruses, and are set to wipe the user's hard drive after a few days or weeks.
I guess this is a moot point, since Microsoft has already patched the problem. The question is, how many people have installed this fix? I don't seem to recall Windows Update ever offering me this fix. Also, it doesn't seem to be in the Windows Update Catalog (the non-automatic "save to hard drive, run later" version of Windows Update).
Has Windows Update ever offered anyone update 329390 for Windows XP (SP1)?
There is a more serious MP3 buffer exploit in the Windows Shell of Windows XP (including SP1). All you have to do is hover the mouse pointer over an MP3 or file with a corrupted ID3 tag to trigger the exploit. Sure, that may not be the easiest way to spread a virus or a backdoor trojan, but what about code that simply formats your hard drive? I'm sure there are plenty of trojan EXEs that will gladly re-format your HD; now what if hovering your mouse over an MP3 could have the same effect? That would be a great method for "destroying" filesharers' PCs a la Senator Orrin Hatch.
Microsoft is quite innovative in the field of security. They find ways to open up exploits in all kinds of data formats that were previously thought to be safe: MP3s, WMAs, E-mail, etc. (Okay, that was a bit of a troll and extremely unoriginal, but what the hell.)
Think about how a camera works. The shutter opens for a non-zero, non-instantaneous amount of time, which allows the film to be exposed to light. You are actually getting a snapshot the objects over a very brief interval, which is not the same as an instant. You can see this by taking a picture of a very fast moving object with "slow film". Obviously, you are going to see a streaking blur in the developed photo. You don't think that's an accurate representation of reality, do you?
I still think Lynds is full of crap, though.
Read the article, please. The article refers to this paper: "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity"
You linked to a follow-up paper that focuses on Lynds's so-called solution to Zeno's paradoxes. By the way, what is the point of linking to the Google cache when the original PDF is still available?
Sure, but the article actually refers to a different paper: "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity". The paper you linked to is a follow-up that focuses on Lynds's so-called "solution" to Zeno's paradoxes.