> At no point in earth's history has climate stood still.
Well, except for the 8,200y event, the climate has stood relatively still in the last 10 millenia. Coincidentally, the time were began to settle, started farming, mining. This whole idiotic civilisation tech-tree thing.
> if people go the way of the dinosaur, then so be it.
You may say, that I'm egoistical, but I find such a prospect in my life-time relatively disturbing.
Pardon? Do you really want to suggest, that you can't sue the government without their explicit permission? I don't live in the US, so maybe I am not to judge. But I thought it was the fundamental right of every citizen to hold the government responsible to the laws laid down by the legislative. It lies in the sole sovereignity of the judical branch to judge whether it is worthwile or not. The executive branch (in other words the government) has no word in it, except in defending itself with its lawyers.
That's separation of powers. Otherwise, the government would be above the law.
Yeah. I was also fairly dissapointed. They have no feeling for development at all.
All the Star Trek "history" at hand, and what do they do? Show technology and species not even seen in TOS. And what about all the species found in TOS? Most begin appear in the 4th season. Previously, there seemed to be more species from later series than from TOS.
And couldn't they do the story without a transporter? Photon torpedoes? Or sub-space communication? Or phaser? Would be starting with a laser be so bad?
Couldn't be space traveling and making contact with new species challenging enough? No, they had to invoke a new earth destroying time-war in a unheard region with unheard species.
That was not a high-speed train (Shinkansen). In the history of the Shinkansen, there has been a single derailment (last year, due to an earthquake), but not a single death.
The previous year, there have been a total of about 1000 train accidents and about 400 deaths nationwide.
> I'm pretty sure that Matlab uses the blas and lapack libraries that are written in good ole Fortran
Well, at least under x86 for the matrix-kernel it relies on ATLAS, which is implemented in C/ASM. Then, I see , there are also libipp*. So, it also relies on Intels IPP. If I'm not mistaken also implemented in C/ASM. Finally, I recognise FFTW, also C.
> but is there really a point to implementing something that less than 1% of players will enjoy.
Yes, when you don't want to compete in the same market as Lineage, WoW, Everquest,....
> When a game has built-in mechanics that cause frustration in most/all of its players, is it really that well designed?
If it is cause of constant frustration, then of course not. However permadeath doesn't have to be the cause of it. The game just has to put a stronger emphasis on non-monster killing parts and maybe less emphasis on leveling.
Imagine that adventuring is not the beginning of your game online but the end: You have travelled the world, researched interesting spells, or build a small community, or become the lord of a small shire. But one day, you become bored of it (and your character) and now your adventuring begins.
Certainly not something for Diablo player, and probably not for 90% of the players online. But maybe more interesting for other. And as I said, why compete with powerhouses like WoW or LineAge?
> [...] when jackass player X loses a character due to server lag and demands retribution.
When, of course, the correct handling for server lag would be an automatic one on the server side. (E.g. pausing the world until the server settles down)
> I could only begin to imagine the tech support headaches stemming from people who have suffered the effects of hardcore play without being prepared to deal with them.
Well, I believe that wouldn't change much. There are already people bickering about every little loss that occur to them and demand that they will be helped.
I believe, however, that losses are necessary to make the gains something worth.
Since basing the date on "Anno Domini", the supposed year of birth of Jesus, would imply the establishment of said person as an relatively important person, I wouldn't bet much on it.
I thought that was why it is accompanied with the "Foot"-icon, because it is a post, which is (also) mocking itself. Just maybe, the sublety is misplaced in this forum. OTOH, maybe I'm reading to much into it.
Nice sig, but it might be in order to credit the source.
I thought white LEDs are usually blue LEDs, which are coated with a scintillator, which converts parts of the blue light to yellow. Wikipedia seems to support my impression.
Regarding efficiency, I refer once more to Wikipedia: "In 2002, 5-watt LEDs were available with efficiencies of 18-22 lumens per watt. [...] In September 2003 a new type of blue LED was demonstrated by the company Cree, Inc. to have 35% efficiency at 20 mA. This produced a commercially packaged white light having 65 lumens per watt at 20 mA, [...]".
- Turbo codes - Advances in Wireless communication - Probabalistic algorithms - Fixed parameter tractability - Various other approximation algorithms - Parallel algorithms - Multidimensional indexing and accessing - P2P - String Matching and indexing algorithms (for genetics) - Quantum computing and algorithms, which (maybe) resulted in a whole new set of complexity classes in complexity theory.
Yes. Most of those fields did exist before. So did the research of DNA exist at least since 1953. Does that make the advances in genetics in the last decade any less fundamental?
Isn't the sequencing possible because of the late advances in CS?
> Believe it or not, they keep mac address databases, any self respecting router will.
ifconfig wlan0 down wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_reset setdefaultmib=true macaddress=$RANDOMMAC ifconfig wlan0 hw ether $RANDOMMAC ifconfig wlan0 up
Re:Mass media distribution
on
The Next Net
·
· Score: 1
25bps for $20? Poor lads. I hope, it is more along the line of 25Mbps.:)
I think it is because the telco-market in the US has been fairly agressive, which didn't leave much room for investments in the future.
The bandwidth we enjoy outside of the U.S is usually the result of previous "investments" in state monopolies. The investment resulted in having a good infrastructure. Overspec'ed, just to telephone with.
Today, years after liberalising the telco-market, the companies can use this infrastructure in place and people don't have to pay as much, since the costs have been already payed. The competition drives the costs even further down.
At least they should be handled similar to trademarks. If a patent is not actively used by either production, research, or at the very least by notifying well known users about the patent, it should be invalidated.
Where is the stimulation, if it slumbers in some folder?
I'm not suggesting that companies have to employ some patent police, which vigorously searches for patent infringements throughout the planet. But if a company sues another for the use of a patented technique some decades after they have published it and are even known to almost every child, I think something is wrong.
And in the latter, I can and have used at least one parser in more than 3 different programming-languages in less than 50 lines, which not only was error-checking and error-reporting, but also handled various natural languages in their abundent encoding transparently.
And now to the features: Did your 50 lines parser error-checking included checking for required fields? Or value-validation? Or realised hierarchies? Or dependencies? Multi-byte character support?
If you'd restrict yourself to the feature-set you usually get from using an INI-style format, so only use the following format in ASCII, like.
<Section
Name0=Value0
Name1=Value1 >
? I guess such a parser could be written with a similar source-footprint.
However, should the need arise for more complex requirements in the configuration file, it would be nice not to be limited by the expressiveness of the INI-syntax, or be required to create some kludge by extending the syntax with the like of
How about being prosecuted in Canada? I understand, that I will prosecuted according to the laws of the country I currently reside and to the laws of the country I am citizen of, as it is my duty to be acquainted with both.
However, I cannot possibly be held responsible for the effects of my actions in every possible country of the world and their respective laws.
To take an extreme example: In China, distributing pornography is a crime, which can be punished with death penalty. Should one maintain a pornographic page, one certainly could affect the Chinese populace. Does that mean one should be extradited to China?
I followed your link and went to the link "data", and selected the first glacial data link I could find.
While the statement "some glaciers are receding, some aren't" is certainly not wrong, as in any year you can certainly find at least one glacier, which hasn't receeded this year.
However, looking at the graph above, I think the statement "glaciers are receeding" paint an fairly accurate picture of the general situation.
Maybe because of the receeding glacier, the coastal lines calves the thinner ice shelves, and only the thicker parts of the glacier remain?
> Global warming would [...]. Global cooling, on the other hand, [...]
What makes that scenario more likely than the reverse? From an Alaskian point of view warmer weather probably means better agriculture. But from an African point of view, I guess the reverse is the case.
Too bad, that the "Little Ice Age" was a relatively local phenomene restricted to parts of the northern hemisphere, and that in the last 50 years there was no raise in solar activity, whereas the global temperature was not.
> Well, that's just shite interface programming. Other apps don't suck 60MB to display a window.
Not necessarily. Write a console application which prints "Hello, world" and waits for a key by "getch()", I'd wager a guess it will consume about 15Mb unminimised, and some kb minimised.
Possible reason: it seems to be an optimisation Windows seems to perform. It increases the working set of an unminimised application in order to make it more performant.
> iTunes is designed to play media files,
No. It was designed create and manage a DB of media-files and synchronise it with a portable media-player, while also providing access to a online-shop. Playing MP3 files is a necessary part of it.
WinAmp 1-2 was designed to play MP3 files.
I admit however, that the comparison with Matlab was a bit exaggerated.
Slashdot Mirror
> At no point in earth's history has climate stood still.
Well, except for the 8,200y event, the climate has stood relatively still in the last 10 millenia. Coincidentally, the time were began to settle, started farming, mining. This whole idiotic civilisation tech-tree thing.
> if people go the way of the dinosaur, then so be it.
You may say, that I'm egoistical, but I find such a prospect in my life-time relatively disturbing.
While your at it: How do you call quoting in verbatim without citing the source?
Sorry, Yoda has a patent on combining Light Sabers and Gummie Berry Juice (tm).
Pardon? Do you really want to suggest, that you can't sue the government without their explicit permission? I don't live in the US, so maybe I am not to judge. But I thought it was the fundamental right of every citizen to hold the government responsible to the laws laid down by the legislative. It lies in the sole sovereignity of the judical branch to judge whether it is worthwile or not. The executive branch (in other words the government) has no word in it, except in defending itself with its lawyers.
That's separation of powers. Otherwise, the government would be above the law.
Yeah. I was also fairly dissapointed. They have no feeling for development at all.
All the Star Trek "history" at hand, and what do they do? Show technology and species not even seen in TOS. And what about all the species found in TOS? Most begin appear in the 4th season. Previously, there seemed to be more species from later series than from TOS.
And couldn't they do the story without a transporter? Photon torpedoes? Or sub-space communication? Or phaser? Would be starting with a laser be so bad?
Couldn't be space traveling and making contact with new species challenging enough? No, they had to invoke a new earth destroying time-war in a unheard region with unheard species.
That was not a high-speed train (Shinkansen).
In the history of the Shinkansen, there has been a single derailment (last year, due to an earthquake), but not a single death.
The previous year, there have been a total of about 1000 train accidents and about 400 deaths nationwide.
Care to compare it to deaths in car accidents?
> I'm pretty sure that Matlab uses the blas and lapack libraries that are written in good ole Fortran
Well, at least under x86 for the matrix-kernel it relies on ATLAS, which is implemented in C/ASM.
Then, I see , there are also libipp*. So, it also relies on Intels IPP. If I'm not mistaken also implemented in C/ASM. Finally, I recognise FFTW, also C.
> but is there really a point to implementing something that less than 1% of players will enjoy.
... .
Yes, when you don't want to compete in the same market as Lineage, WoW, Everquest,
> When a game has built-in mechanics that cause frustration in most/all of its players, is it really that well designed?
If it is cause of constant frustration, then of course not. However permadeath doesn't have to be the cause of it. The game just has to put a stronger emphasis on non-monster killing parts and maybe less emphasis on leveling.
Imagine that adventuring is not the beginning of your game online but the end: You have travelled the world, researched interesting spells, or build a small community, or become the lord of a small shire. But one day, you become bored of it (and your character) and now your adventuring begins.
Certainly not something for Diablo player, and probably not for 90% of the players online. But maybe more interesting for other. And as I said, why compete with powerhouses like WoW or LineAge?
> [...] when jackass player X loses a character due to server lag and demands retribution.
When, of course, the correct handling for server lag would be an automatic one on the server side. (E.g. pausing the world until the server settles down)
> I could only begin to imagine the tech support headaches stemming from people who have suffered the effects of hardcore play without being prepared to deal with them.
Well, I believe that wouldn't change much. There are already people bickering about every little loss that occur to them and demand that they will be helped.
I believe, however, that losses are necessary to make the gains something worth.
> 'The Bible' copyright 134AD,
Since basing the date on "Anno Domini", the supposed year of birth of Jesus, would imply the establishment of said person as an relatively important person, I wouldn't bet much on it.
I thought that was why it is accompanied with the "Foot"-icon, because it is a post, which is (also) mocking itself. Just maybe, the sublety is misplaced in this forum. OTOH, maybe I'm reading to much into it.
Nice sig, but it might be in order to credit the source.
I thought white LEDs are usually blue LEDs, which are coated with a scintillator, which converts parts of the blue light to yellow. Wikipedia seems to support my impression.
Regarding efficiency, I refer once more to Wikipedia: "In 2002, 5-watt LEDs were available with efficiencies of 18-22 lumens per watt. [...] In September 2003 a new type of blue LED was demonstrated by the company Cree, Inc. to have 35% efficiency at 20 mA. This produced a commercially packaged white light having 65 lumens per watt at 20 mA, [...]".
Then, you'll have to wait till Q1 2006 for the Yonah processor.
- Turbo codes
- Advances in Wireless communication
- Probabalistic algorithms
- Fixed parameter tractability
- Various other approximation algorithms
- Parallel algorithms
- Multidimensional indexing and accessing
- P2P
- String Matching and indexing algorithms (for genetics)
- Quantum computing and algorithms, which (maybe) resulted in a whole new set of complexity classes in complexity theory.
Yes. Most of those fields did exist before. So did the research of DNA exist at least since 1953. Does that make the advances in genetics in the last decade any less fundamental?
Isn't the sequencing possible because of the late advances in CS?
25bps for $20? Poor lads. I hope, it is more along the line of 25Mbps. :)
I think it is because the telco-market in the US has been fairly agressive, which didn't leave much room for investments in the future.
The bandwidth we enjoy outside of the U.S is usually the result of previous "investments" in state monopolies. The investment resulted in having a good infrastructure. Overspec'ed, just to telephone with.
Today, years after liberalising the telco-market, the companies can use this infrastructure in place and people don't have to pay as much, since the costs have been already payed. The competition drives the costs even further down.
At least they should be handled similar to trademarks. If a patent is not actively used by either production, research, or at the very least by notifying well known users about the patent, it should be invalidated.
Where is the stimulation, if it slumbers in some folder?
I'm not suggesting that companies have to employ some patent police, which vigorously searches for patent infringements throughout the planet. But if a company sues another for the use of a patented technique some decades after they have published it and are even known to almost every child, I think something is wrong.
And now to the features: Did your 50 lines parser error-checking included checking for required fields? Or value-validation? Or realised hierarchies? Or dependencies? Multi-byte character support?
If you'd restrict yourself to the feature-set you usually get from using an INI-style format, so only use the following format in ASCII, like.?
I guess such a parser could be written with a similar source-footprint.
However, should the need arise for more complex requirements in the configuration file, it would be nice not to be limited by the expressiveness of the INI-syntax, or be required to create some kludge by extending the syntax with the like of
How about being prosecuted in Canada? I understand, that I will prosecuted according to the laws of the country I currently reside and to the laws of the country I am citizen of, as it is my duty to be acquainted with both.
However, I cannot possibly be held responsible for the effects of my actions in every possible country of the world and their respective laws.
To take an extreme example: In China, distributing pornography is a crime, which can be punished with death penalty. Should one maintain a pornographic page, one certainly could affect the Chinese populace. Does that mean one should be extradited to China?
Or Gnome for that matter.
You say gnome+xorg: Is that the number from top or ps, which includes the memory from mmapped I/O devices, like, say, a 128Mb graphics card?
I followed your link and went to the link "data", and selected the first glacial data link I could find.
While the statement "some glaciers are receding, some aren't" is certainly not wrong, as in any year you can certainly find at least one glacier, which hasn't receeded this year.
However, looking at the graph above, I think the statement "glaciers are receeding" paint an fairly accurate picture of the general situation.
The antarctic glaciers, however, are certainly receeding,
> its coastal ice pack is thicker than ever.
Maybe because of the receeding glacier, the coastal lines calves the thinner ice shelves, and only the thicker parts of the glacier remain?
> Global warming would [...]. Global cooling, on the other hand, [...]
What makes that scenario more likely than the reverse? From an Alaskian point of view warmer weather probably means better agriculture. But from an African point of view, I guess the reverse is the case.
Too bad, that the "Little Ice Age" was a relatively local phenomene restricted to parts of the northern hemisphere, and that in the last 50 years there was no raise in solar activity, whereas the global temperature was not.
If you find the latter lacking the expressiveness, go Hungarian,but don't abuse a unportable laxity in certain compiler. The reason should be obvious from the existance of the grandparents post.
> Well, that's just shite interface programming. Other apps don't suck 60MB to display a window.
Not necessarily. Write a console application which prints "Hello, world" and waits for a key by "getch()", I'd wager a guess it will consume about 15Mb unminimised, and some kb minimised.
Possible reason: it seems to be an optimisation Windows seems to perform. It increases the working set of an unminimised application in order to make it more performant.
> iTunes is designed to play media files,
No. It was designed create and manage a DB of media-files and synchronise it with a portable media-player, while also providing access to a online-shop. Playing MP3 files is a necessary part of it.
WinAmp 1-2 was designed to play MP3 files.
I admit however, that the comparison with Matlab was a bit exaggerated.
> 60% itunes (for crying out loud, why does a 5 MB MP3 take 60+ MB of memory to play?)
Two things. First, could it possibly be under Windows? Try minimising it and tell us again.
Next. To put your question differently "Why does Matlab uses 300Mb just to add two numbers?" Because it is intended for more than that?