Everyone's making fun of this, but this really is appalling.
Apple has had nothing but trouble since Steve Jobs died. Just as people predicted.
It shows that modern OS's are so bloated that it is impossible to remove all bugs. OS X and Windows 8 probably contain other similar bugs, but we just haven't found them. I would like to believe that bug-free code is possible. Perhaps Apple need to change their programming paradigms.
If you want true security you need to greatly minimize your operating system and compartmentalise its tasks, so that it can be exhaustively bug-checked. Adding "features" to an operating system simply creates new security holes. We laugh at the Space Shuttle for running on 386's, and there's a bank here that still runs its terminals on OS/2, but there are applications for which code reliability is absolutely paramount. Think of space probes, nuclear weapons, pacemakers...
Richard
I just want to correct this, not to prove how smart I am but because there are novice programmers out there who will learn from this case.
The statement:
Cardiologists commonly communicate electronically with the pacemaker after its insertion to adjust numerous parameters of its function. The pacemaker can also deliver information to the cardiologist about its usage history, battery state, etc.
(Doctor) Richard Cavell
North Korea has perfected the art of tunnelling, and covering up what is going on from eyes in the sky. They need not worry about satellites photographing their secret places. Is that better or worse for us?
Richard
It is true that the "higher" parts of the brain contain memories and personality, etc. But there are some parts of the brain that are much lower and still essential. Take Parkinson's disease. If we could regrow the neurons that degenerate in Parkinson's patients, they'd have a much better quality of life. Even if the new neurons don't work identically to the old ones, the patient is still better off and has not undergone a significant personality change.
I think you're underestimating the significance of this.
A creature such as a lobster can regenerate an entire limb. If you cut a starfish in two, each half will regenerate the missing half so that it becomes two independent starfish. When human flesh heals, it tends to simply fill in the gap with scar tissue rather than replace the missing part. Especially for specialised tissue such as brain and heart tissue, once you've lost it, it's gone for good.
If we can figure out how to make these parts regenerate, then it will revolutionize the treatment of all kinds of illness - stroke, heart attack, amputation, etc.
Richard
Physicists say that there was once a massive explosion of huge quantities of mass and energy in all directions, which emerged from absolutely nothing. So much for the laws of thermodynamics.
Richard
It's only fair, since some plants have evolved the ability to eat the way we do. There's enough sunlight and carbon dioxide for everybody!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant
Richard
Note, by the way, that the legal basis for seizing him is an allegation of rape. The fact that he's publishing unflattering information about the internal workings of Western governments is *not* their stated reason for wanting him.
The inviolability of an embassy is critically important to diplomatic relations. If British police set a precedent here, it will cause embassies around the world to militarize, causing tension. I hope it's just a hollow threat made by some idiot who doesn't understand the situation properly.
Correct, his type is an endocrine tumour that is quite rare and not the usual type. However, we know that Jobs' cancer has spread, he required a liver transplant for it, that he's on immunosuppressive drugs following the liver transplant, etc... He's a sick boy whichever way you look at it.
(Doctor) Richard Cavell
In my experience (I'm a doctor), almost all cancer patients go into denial and will downplay the severity of their symptoms. Steve Jobs is a billionaire, a tech guru, and all that, but he's also a human being. Based on what's publicly known, I'd say that his pancreatic islet cell cancer spread to his liver and that his liver tumour was non-resectable, and now he's ended up with a new liver by way of getting rid of the metastases. He describes his situation as a 'hormone imbalance' because that's one of the consequences of his condition, but the underlying diagnosis is far worse than that.
Bottom line is that he's a very sick man... a cancer patient with a liver transplant has a limited life expectancy, and his role is now going to be figurehead/part time inputter of ideas more than being the day-to-day boss.
Richard
The original CNN story mentions that sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can spot something that the first pair didn't see. Coders and authors will be familiar with the idea. Sometimes you've looked over something and worked on it so much that you can no longer analyse it from the beginning, and it takes someone else to verify one's work. That's why nurses aren't allowed to dispense medicine unless they get another nurse to check that they have selected the right medicine and the right dose and the right patient.
Also, the fact that this patient had a vested interest in making the diagnosis means that she would have examined the slide thoroughly.
(Doctor) Richard Cavell
Perhaps one day there will be a finite number of 'perfect' games which cannot be improved upon, and a computer that is set up to play perfectly is compelled to play one of them.
However, chess is nowhere near played out. The computers in this tournament are still making mistakes that cannot yet be identified as such.
There are two different chess engines in each match-up, so there's enough pseudo-randomness, as you call it, in the differences between the engines, to ensure that these games will be relatively unique.
Apple has found a way to give people what they ought to have - the functionality of a multibutton mouse - while not actually building a mouse with multiple buttons. Is this a silly attempt to not appear to 'give in'?
But, there's no free/open source software for the Revolution at the time of writing, and it's probably going to remain closed-shop enough that open source will never compete with Nintendo itself.
I just don't see it happening. Perhaps Nintendo will release a no-cost development kit, but within the limited lifecycle of the machine, I can't believe that any *decent* games will be homegrown. And so Nintendo will either not release the SDK, or not release the crappy games.
Nintendo has a reputation. It wouldn't want to lose it over some source-forge class projects clogging up the Revolution user interface.
For a commercial developer to sell 5000 copies of a game is woeful. Even if they had no expenses publishing and distributing the game, they aren't going to recoup the expense they put into making it.
Alternatively, there could be a rash of hobbyist games, same as there is for PC. If you like, you can download free games from the Net right now, which are graphically unimpressive and just plain crap.
How would that be good for the Nintendo Revolution?
Let's say that 2 years from now, Intel offers a range of 20 different x86 chips to choose from. Apple's top computer will probably run on the 2nd or 3rd fastest of those chips. It likely will not use the fastest.
But even if it did, 3 months later Intel will put something else in the number one spot and everything else gets bumped down. So that Apple's top computer now packs less CPU power than the fastest Wintel PC.
The same applies to graphics cards and everything else. Wintel-class PCs will *always* run the newest hardware straight out of the box. There will *always* be a Windows driver. Wintel will *always* have the speed crown.
You just can't say the same about Apple, now. Apple isn't going to build a whole new computer every time Intel bumps the speed up by 0.2GHz.
If Apple goes to x86, they will give up all hope of ever matching Wintel for performance. Apple should want to be seen as more elite than the PC architecture. They've been able to hold an audience through the transition from 68k to PPC, and to OSX. Why shouldn't they be able to find a multicore chip, write an emulator for it, and port everything over to it?
Cell for Playstation 3 runs 9 cores at once, allowing for massively parallel computing. It seems to me that multiple cores, or at least hyperthreading, is the new way to obtain a technical advantage over your competitors.
Say what you like about the Wintel architecture, but because it's a set of open standards, it will always be the one where you can plug and play bleeding-edge hardware straight out of the box.
XBox360 will have 3 cores, each dual-threaded. Playstation 3 will have 8 single-threaded cores. Revolution will definitely be multi-cored but it's not confirmed how many.
This means that anyone developing for either of the consoles will be writing multi-threaded applications as standard. If you're not farming out work to other threads, you're letting execution units sit idle!
PC games are currently mostly single-threaded (or at least the distribution of work is uneven so multiple cores aren't used properly). In order for PC games to still have a market in competition with the consoles, multicore chips are going to have to be the minimum specification for the next generation of games.
Firstly, this entire article was obviously written from marketing material. No working and buyable Crossfire hardware currently exists.
Secondly, the setup requires that you buy an ATI-licensed motherboard, which includes their proprietary audio, and so on. Have we now officially reached the point where the graphics hardware is booting and running the CPU, rather than the other way round?
By the way, when 2 cards are installed, the PCI express bus speed gets divided between the two.
What is in-order execution?
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
From TFA...
"both the XBox 360 and the PS3's Cell CPU use "in-order" processing, which, to greatly simplify, means they've intentionally crippled the ability to make clever A.I. and dynamic, unpredictable, wide-open games in favor of beautiful water reflections and explosion debris that flies through the air prettily."
That is more than a simplification. The in-order processing eliminates the transistors used for out-of-order execution, and puts the burden on the compiler writer to avoid dependencies/cache misses.
Some of the extra transistors are used instead on the other cores. Overall, this means way more processing power and should mean better AI... if the programmers can code good AI in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone's making fun of this, but this really is appalling. Apple has had nothing but trouble since Steve Jobs died. Just as people predicted. It shows that modern OS's are so bloated that it is impossible to remove all bugs. OS X and Windows 8 probably contain other similar bugs, but we just haven't found them. I would like to believe that bug-free code is possible. Perhaps Apple need to change their programming paradigms. If you want true security you need to greatly minimize your operating system and compartmentalise its tasks, so that it can be exhaustively bug-checked. Adding "features" to an operating system simply creates new security holes. We laugh at the Space Shuttle for running on 386's, and there's a bank here that still runs its terminals on OS/2, but there are applications for which code reliability is absolutely paramount. Think of space probes, nuclear weapons, pacemakers... Richard
I just want to correct this, not to prove how smart I am but because there are novice programmers out there who will learn from this case. The statement:
/* correction */
if (i = 1) {
is equivalent to:
i = 1;
if (i) {
How does a man meaningfully participate in the Australian Senate when he is permanently outside of the country? Richard
Cardiologists commonly communicate electronically with the pacemaker after its insertion to adjust numerous parameters of its function. The pacemaker can also deliver information to the cardiologist about its usage history, battery state, etc. (Doctor) Richard Cavell
North Korea has perfected the art of tunnelling, and covering up what is going on from eyes in the sky. They need not worry about satellites photographing their secret places. Is that better or worse for us? Richard
It is true that the "higher" parts of the brain contain memories and personality, etc. But there are some parts of the brain that are much lower and still essential. Take Parkinson's disease. If we could regrow the neurons that degenerate in Parkinson's patients, they'd have a much better quality of life. Even if the new neurons don't work identically to the old ones, the patient is still better off and has not undergone a significant personality change.
I think you're underestimating the significance of this. A creature such as a lobster can regenerate an entire limb. If you cut a starfish in two, each half will regenerate the missing half so that it becomes two independent starfish. When human flesh heals, it tends to simply fill in the gap with scar tissue rather than replace the missing part. Especially for specialised tissue such as brain and heart tissue, once you've lost it, it's gone for good. If we can figure out how to make these parts regenerate, then it will revolutionize the treatment of all kinds of illness - stroke, heart attack, amputation, etc. Richard
Physicists say that there was once a massive explosion of huge quantities of mass and energy in all directions, which emerged from absolutely nothing. So much for the laws of thermodynamics. Richard
It's only fair, since some plants have evolved the ability to eat the way we do. There's enough sunlight and carbon dioxide for everybody! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant Richard
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to authorities and the people. Nothing conspiratorial about that.
Note, by the way, that the legal basis for seizing him is an allegation of rape. The fact that he's publishing unflattering information about the internal workings of Western governments is *not* their stated reason for wanting him.
The inviolability of an embassy is critically important to diplomatic relations. If British police set a precedent here, it will cause embassies around the world to militarize, causing tension. I hope it's just a hollow threat made by some idiot who doesn't understand the situation properly.
Correct, his type is an endocrine tumour that is quite rare and not the usual type. However, we know that Jobs' cancer has spread, he required a liver transplant for it, that he's on immunosuppressive drugs following the liver transplant, etc... He's a sick boy whichever way you look at it. (Doctor) Richard Cavell
In my experience (I'm a doctor), almost all cancer patients go into denial and will downplay the severity of their symptoms. Steve Jobs is a billionaire, a tech guru, and all that, but he's also a human being. Based on what's publicly known, I'd say that his pancreatic islet cell cancer spread to his liver and that his liver tumour was non-resectable, and now he's ended up with a new liver by way of getting rid of the metastases. He describes his situation as a 'hormone imbalance' because that's one of the consequences of his condition, but the underlying diagnosis is far worse than that. Bottom line is that he's a very sick man... a cancer patient with a liver transplant has a limited life expectancy, and his role is now going to be figurehead/part time inputter of ideas more than being the day-to-day boss. Richard
The original CNN story mentions that sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can spot something that the first pair didn't see. Coders and authors will be familiar with the idea. Sometimes you've looked over something and worked on it so much that you can no longer analyse it from the beginning, and it takes someone else to verify one's work. That's why nurses aren't allowed to dispense medicine unless they get another nurse to check that they have selected the right medicine and the right dose and the right patient. Also, the fact that this patient had a vested interest in making the diagnosis means that she would have examined the slide thoroughly. (Doctor) Richard Cavell
Perhaps one day there will be a finite number of 'perfect' games which cannot be improved upon, and a computer that is set up to play perfectly is compelled to play one of them.
However, chess is nowhere near played out. The computers in this tournament are still making mistakes that cannot yet be identified as such.
There are two different chess engines in each match-up, so there's enough pseudo-randomness, as you call it, in the differences between the engines, to ensure that these games will be relatively unique.
Richard
Apple has found a way to give people what they ought to have - the functionality of a multibutton mouse - while not actually building a mouse with multiple buttons. Is this a silly attempt to not appear to 'give in'?
Thank you for your reply.
But, there's no free/open source software for the Revolution at the time of writing, and it's probably going to remain closed-shop enough that open source will never compete with Nintendo itself.
I just don't see it happening. Perhaps Nintendo will release a no-cost development kit, but within the limited lifecycle of the machine, I can't believe that any *decent* games will be homegrown. And so Nintendo will either not release the SDK, or not release the crappy games.
Nintendo has a reputation. It wouldn't want to lose it over some source-forge class projects clogging up the Revolution user interface.
For a commercial developer to sell 5000 copies of a game is woeful. Even if they had no expenses publishing and distributing the game, they aren't going to recoup the expense they put into making it.
Alternatively, there could be a rash of hobbyist games, same as there is for PC. If you like, you can download free games from the Net right now, which are graphically unimpressive and just plain crap.
How would that be good for the Nintendo Revolution?
They won't draw, though. They'll fall behind.
Let's say that 2 years from now, Intel offers a range of 20 different x86 chips to choose from. Apple's top computer will probably run on the 2nd or 3rd fastest of those chips. It likely will not use the fastest.
But even if it did, 3 months later Intel will put something else in the number one spot and everything else gets bumped down. So that Apple's top computer now packs less CPU power than the fastest Wintel PC.
The same applies to graphics cards and everything else. Wintel-class PCs will *always* run the newest hardware straight out of the box. There will *always* be a Windows driver. Wintel will *always* have the speed crown.
You just can't say the same about Apple, now. Apple isn't going to build a whole new computer every time Intel bumps the speed up by 0.2GHz.
If Apple goes to x86, they will give up all hope of ever matching Wintel for performance. Apple should want to be seen as more elite than the PC architecture. They've been able to hold an audience through the transition from 68k to PPC, and to OSX. Why shouldn't they be able to find a multicore chip, write an emulator for it, and port everything over to it?
Cell for Playstation 3 runs 9 cores at once, allowing for massively parallel computing. It seems to me that multiple cores, or at least hyperthreading, is the new way to obtain a technical advantage over your competitors.
Say what you like about the Wintel architecture, but because it's a set of open standards, it will always be the one where you can plug and play bleeding-edge hardware straight out of the box.
The Windows 2000 'operating system' includes Internet Explorer, the Java Virtual Machine, Media Player, DirectX, etc...
There are good reasons why Microsoft will want to keep these components updated. Win2K is the most-used operating system among enterprise customers.
If (inevitably) new bugs are found in these bleeding-edge Internet technologies, would Microsoft be willing to let them stay unpatched for evermore?
XBox360 will have 3 cores, each dual-threaded. Playstation 3 will have 8 single-threaded cores. Revolution will definitely be multi-cored but it's not confirmed how many.
This means that anyone developing for either of the consoles will be writing multi-threaded applications as standard. If you're not farming out work to other threads, you're letting execution units sit idle!
PC games are currently mostly single-threaded (or at least the distribution of work is uneven so multiple cores aren't used properly). In order for PC games to still have a market in competition with the consoles, multicore chips are going to have to be the minimum specification for the next generation of games.
Firstly, this entire article was obviously written from marketing material. No working and buyable Crossfire hardware currently exists. Secondly, the setup requires that you buy an ATI-licensed motherboard, which includes their proprietary audio, and so on. Have we now officially reached the point where the graphics hardware is booting and running the CPU, rather than the other way round? By the way, when 2 cards are installed, the PCI express bus speed gets divided between the two.
From TFA...
"both the XBox 360 and the PS3's Cell CPU use "in-order" processing, which, to greatly simplify, means they've intentionally crippled the ability to make clever A.I. and dynamic, unpredictable, wide-open games in favor of beautiful water reflections and explosion debris that flies through the air prettily."
That is more than a simplification. The in-order processing eliminates the transistors used for out-of-order execution, and puts the burden on the compiler writer to avoid dependencies/cache misses.
Some of the extra transistors are used instead on the other cores. Overall, this means way more processing power and should mean better AI... if the programmers can code good AI in the first place.