"Google had a net income of $721 million, according to TFA. Microsoft's net income last quarter was $2.83"
Yeah, but Google is a usefull tool. Nothing Microsoft makes works properly.
Micrisoft has been around since the 1970s. Google's been around, what, five years? I've never seen any computer company make so many huge errors in judgement and forcasting as MS, their sheer size and lock-in saves them but this won't last forever.
And few companies, if any, have matched google usefullnes and rapid ascention to a verb.
"Google this"
"windows... uh, they break".
Sorry Bill. You don't get a verb.
The only thing poor Bill does right is give money away and his most recent one of a third of a billion for an aids vaccine is right on and should be enough to justify buying windows even if you don't do it. And he deserves credit fot parlaying basic into something as big as it is now. But I still think it was luck more than any thing else.
The 250 mile range is almost a non-starter though. It'll get relegated to "commuter car" or "city car". I have to drive 300 miles one way next week. I'm supposed to stop in the middle for 4 hours while this thing charges at a non-existant 220V 70A charger?
How bout a little (bio)diesel generator so you could have the option of charging while you drive. I doubt one small enough not to be stupid would not make electricity as fast as it's used but it should extend the range enough to be useful.
I also worry, frankly, about the lack of noise. How many times, as a kid, did you hear a car coming and get out of the way? Sure you can see it too, but anything else that helps you aviod a human-vehicular collision is a good thing. And this is a car that can get to 60 in 3 seconds? I have a bad feeling this fuckker is gonna kill people with its silence.
"Good point, which is exactly why movie rental places are still doing good business"
Here's the irony. Despite protestations that videotape would kill the movie business there are now SO MANY available for cheap (like, a buck) that it's not unusual around here we take back movies we still haven't seen despite the fact they've been here for the several days of the rental period. Maybe if we didn't rent 10-15 a week it would probably help I suppose.
"People who are good at C will insist that they can code something as quickly as anyone else can code the same thing in a higher level language. Well, maybe. I got my own awakening when I watched two students struggling to write something in C that they could have written in ten lines of Basic (it was a while ago).
In the embedded world, programming DSPs is a wonderful example. We used to write assembly code for the parts that had to be fast because we could get tighter code than a compiler could produce. Now the tools are so good that even good programmers are better off letting the tools do the work.
So, is there any point writing in a low level language, even where speed matters? I don't think. In any event, it will take longer to write the code. It just doesn't seem like a winning proposition"
I would never say it's jut as quick to write stuff in C. But I will say the code runs faster and you can support higher loads than if it was written in something else.
A 10 line basic program isn't a good example. Rewrite, say, Apache, or a unix kernel in something besides C (or assembler) and watch it suck, bad.
There's a reason all the important stuff is in C. I should have thought this was obvious. What should be obvious too is that it doesn't all need to be in C. The 80/20 rule applies someplace, the config/startup struff in, say, Apache dosn't really matter what it's written in. Use LISP and it wouldn't matter. But the task spawning and http sevice parts damn well better be in C. Even better in Asselbler but here portability goes out the door.
C may not be perfect but it's less imperfect than anything else. It's about the optimal compromise between portability and speed.
"I disagree. I think software sucks because software engineers don't understand programming"
A programmer that understands assembler and understands how the cpu works will always have a competative advantage to one that doesn't in any language. To quote Andrea Frankel from a couple of decades back oft quoted in cookie files "Always hire a programmer that knows assembler no matter what language they're writing in"
The flip side is any programmer who REALLY understand programming will know what the machine is doing.
Most modern client side software is just SO BAD it makes me gag. The server side stuff is still, for the most part, pretty good. Except for the MS garbage.
Hello world should be 20 bytes or so, not 7 MB. Christ...
"I've been programming professionally for over 20 years, and for those 20 years, the argument is that computers are now fast enough to allow high level languages and we don't need those dirty nasty assemblers and low level languages."
The "appeal to an expert" fallacy?"
No, a fact. An empirical observation. I've seen the same thing but over 30 years, not 20. In the PDP-11/20 era you wrote assembler, period. Somewhere in the 11/45 to 11/34 era it was actually not stupid to use C all of a sudden. (C did exist in the 11/20 era)
Keep in mind parts of AltaVista were in Assembler. If you want to optimize stuff real good like you use assembler or go fish. One cannot say the original cluster AV ran on wasn't "fast enough" but, fastest != fast enough.
"What was true 20 years ago is still true today, well written code in a low level language tailored to how the computer actually works will always be faster than a higher level environment."
It also means that portability becomes ever harder, as well as adaptability to new hardware."
I've done a very large amount of what you're describing and from where I sit I can not agree with your guess.
"The problem with computer science today is that the professors are "preaching" a hypothetical computer with no limitations. Suggesting that "real" limitations of computers are somehow unimportant."
With the trend towards VM's and virtualization, that "hypothetical" computer comes ever closer."
Oh please. I've been hearing this for 25 years. It's no more a practical real world truth than it was then.
(clears throat) I was the second person to use gcc. Keep in mind though it didn't start as gcc: DECUS-C begat GCC and DECUS C became so when Dave Conroy donated the RSX-11M C compiler he wrote to DECUS. We couldn't get a UNIX licence and we had to use RSX. I worked with Dave at Teklogix in the late 70's and Vik Sondi and I were the only people besides Dave that used it while he was writing it. Back then PDP-11's were the entire universe and since of course dmr wrote C for the same machine it translated very very well. God I miss that instruction set, the last decent one ever made. But I digress.
We would compile a module then look over the assembly code. If we didn't like the code it produced (for the robotics crap we were doing) we'd change the source... or bug Dave.
C was meant to be a shorthand for Assembly. It really helps if you keep this in mind and write very simple C or know somewhat what the compiler it likely to spit out. Some of the C I've seen makes me fucking cringe frankly. Dan Benrstine gets it. Nicest C code I've ever seen. I'm digressing again, aren't I?
Yet, golly, there sure is a lot of C. Little things like all of unix and all the server software running this here intarweeb.
Nobody is more surprised that C is still going as strong as it is as dmr. He's happy.
Will C be around forever? Probably. RPG still is, and it's bloody useless. C may be replaced at some point when something better comes along. I don't expect to see this in my lifetime. And I'm only in my 40s (just).
"Obesity has only become a problem within the last hundred years or so"
"Heart disease has increased because of a recent increase in saturated and trans-fats in our diet."
"Asthma is mostly caused by pollution"
None of these are true. The cultivation of grains and starchy tubers is what caused it. Morbid obesity, most often seen in the US, is a result of overyly processed foods of the wrong type.
"No, if you want to be healthier, cut down on red meat, more fiber(whole fruit and whole veggies, not juice). Check out the other postnig, check out Google Scholar search. So defensive, and I think much of the health benefit can be translated to a meat eating diet, I'm not trying to convert, I'm just saying you can be healthier."
There was a studt done quite recently by the American Cancer and American heart associations over a 10 year period with 40,000 poeple. I'm too hot and lazy to google it right now; I'm sure you can find it.
The control group ate normally, the other group was on a low fat high fibre diet.
Which group had a lower incidence of cancer and heart disease? Neither, they were EXACTLY the same. They were, to say the least, not expecting this.
"Oopsie" one wonk was heard to say.
Now they think perhaps a Mediterranean diet (garlic, olve oil) might help. Oh, duh, state of the art 1976 thinking.
Are hamburgers bad for you? Yeah but it's the bun not the meat that hurts you.
I've lost track of the number of hollow eyed unhealthy vegitarians I've seen.
Bollocks. I tried it and it felt like, as Owsley says "my body was dying".
Why are eskimos that only eat meat and fat able to survive?
Why so we have slashing canine teeth? They're not for chewing grass.
Why did the incidence of obesity, diabetes and heart disease suddenly skyrocket around the time man changed from a hunter gatherer to an agricultural society and the introduction of grains and dairy into our diets?
I hear this on the CBC 4 years ago and the paleodietician going on about it said he tried a "caveman" diet and got back down to his high school waist size and any anything he wanted as long as it was meat. I tried it too with the same result. He claimes there's an enzyme in grains that inhibits proper digestion of fats. My cholesterol stupid low and all I eat it meat and fat. If I eat any wheat I feel like utter crap to the point that one bowl of shredded what and I have flu-like symptoms that last for about 12 hours. Low carb is silly. No-carb seems to work, ar least for me.
"Has Tim Horten's changed in the past 12 years or so?"
Yeah. In two words: "Ice Cap".
Never mind you can walk into any Starbucks and order "iced coffee, sweet" and dump their half-and-half into it and it's better and cheaper.
Be careful. Both are highly addictive. And caffeinated. Highly. Not That I'd drink them. No. No sirre. No way. I'm going to go clean the house now. Then rebuild my transmission. They're really good. Did I mention they're caffeinated? Highly.
"Hello Paypal this is google. Can you please put a link to our payment system?"
"What? No. Fuck off".
"But, we have a link to yours!"
"Huh? Ok. Fuck off".
"Maybe we'll take out all references to Paypal if you won't reciprocate"
"We'll sue. Fuck off".
"So, that's a no?"
Once you let judges have a say in how and what Google has in it's index you open a real can of worms and how hard would it be for some very good attorney and some very bad judge to decide that indeed the nature of the web is cooperation and reciprocal links and Google should have a link to it from paypal OR the Goog gets to take out Paypal if they won't reciprocate.
Slashdot Mirror
"If I was even remotely connected to the group that finally provides indesputable proof of cold fusion, I'd hide and keep running."
You just saw _Syriana_ too huh?
Scary. Very very scary.
"Google had a net income of $721 million, according to TFA. Microsoft's net income last quarter was $2.83"
Yeah, but Google is a usefull tool. Nothing Microsoft makes works properly.
Micrisoft has been around since the 1970s. Google's been around, what, five years? I've never seen any computer company make so many huge errors in judgement and forcasting as MS, their sheer size and lock-in saves them but this won't last forever.
And few companies, if any, have matched google usefullnes and rapid ascention to a verb.
"Google this"
"windows... uh, they break".
Sorry Bill. You don't get a verb.
The only thing poor Bill does right is give money away and his most recent one of a third of a billion for an aids vaccine is right on and should be enough to justify buying windows even if you don't do it. And he deserves credit fot parlaying basic into something as big as it is now. But I still think it was luck more than any thing else.
Your shit just don't work, Bill.
The 250 mile range is almost a non-starter though. It'll get relegated to "commuter car" or "city car". I have to drive 300 miles one way next week. I'm supposed to stop in the middle for 4 hours while this thing charges at a non-existant 220V 70A charger?
How bout a little (bio)diesel generator so you could have the option of charging while you drive. I doubt one small enough not to be stupid would not make electricity as fast as it's used but it should extend the range enough to be useful.
I also worry, frankly, about the lack of noise. How many times, as a kid, did you hear a car coming and get out of the way? Sure you can see it too, but anything else that helps you aviod a human-vehicular collision is a good thing. And this is a car that can get to 60 in 3 seconds? I have a bad feeling this fuckker is gonna kill people with its silence.
Damn cool car though. Me want.
"I am left wondering if this car is involved in an accident if the batteries will vent"
Worse, this is an ELECTRIC car being built in ENGLAND. Think about it.
Nobody say the L-word. Just don't say it.
"Yes, I'm aware of Nucular, Hydro, Wind, Tidal, Natrual Gas. Doesn't matter. Coal is the most popular choice today."
Not here in Canada. And it will be phased out alltogether by 2009. Ironically we have 1% of all the worlds coal.
The real problem with this stuff is people that have been given it track the sun all day.
"Good point, which is exactly why movie rental places are still doing good business"
Here's the irony. Despite protestations that videotape would kill the movie business there are now SO MANY available for cheap (like, a buck) that it's not unusual around here we take back movies we still haven't seen despite the fact they've been here for the several days of the rental period.
Maybe if we didn't rent 10-15 a week it would probably help I suppose.
But the problem isn't just with netflix.
"People who are good at C will insist that they can code something as quickly as anyone else can code the same thing in a higher level language. Well, maybe. I got my own awakening when I watched two students struggling to write something in C that they could have written in ten lines of Basic (it was a while ago).
In the embedded world, programming DSPs is a wonderful example. We used to write assembly code for the parts that had to be fast because we could get tighter code than a compiler could produce. Now the tools are so good that even good programmers are better off letting the tools do the work.
So, is there any point writing in a low level language, even where speed matters? I don't think. In any event, it will take longer to write the code. It just doesn't seem like a winning proposition"
I would never say it's jut as quick to write stuff in C. But I will say the code runs faster and you can support higher loads than if it was written in something else.
A 10 line basic program isn't a good example. Rewrite, say, Apache, or a unix kernel in something besides C (or assembler) and watch it suck, bad.
There's a reason all the important stuff is in C. I should have thought this was obvious. What should be obvious too is that it doesn't all need to be in C. The 80/20 rule applies someplace, the config/startup struff in, say, Apache dosn't really matter what it's written in. Use LISP and it wouldn't matter. But the task spawning and http sevice parts damn well better be in C. Even better in Asselbler but here portability goes out the door.
C may not be perfect but it's less imperfect than anything else. It's about the optimal compromise between portability and speed.
"I disagree. I think software sucks because software engineers don't understand programming"
A programmer that understands assembler and understands how the cpu works will always have a competative advantage to one that doesn't in any language. To quote Andrea Frankel from a couple of decades back oft quoted in cookie files "Always hire a programmer that knows assembler no matter what language they're writing in"
The flip side is any programmer who REALLY understand programming will know what the machine is doing.
Most modern client side software is just SO BAD it makes me gag. The server side stuff is still, for the most part, pretty good. Except for the MS garbage.
Hello world should be 20 bytes or so, not 7 MB. Christ...
"I've been programming professionally for over 20 years, and for those 20 years, the argument is that computers are now fast enough to allow high level languages and we don't need those dirty nasty assemblers and low level languages."
The "appeal to an expert" fallacy?"
No, a fact. An empirical observation. I've seen the same thing but over 30 years, not 20. In the PDP-11/20 era you wrote assembler, period. Somewhere in the 11/45 to 11/34 era it was actually not stupid to use C all of a sudden. (C did exist in the 11/20 era)
Keep in mind parts of AltaVista were in Assembler. If you want to optimize stuff real good like you use assembler or go fish. One cannot say the original cluster AV ran on wasn't "fast enough" but, fastest != fast enough.
"What was true 20 years ago is still true today, well written code in a low level language tailored to how the computer actually works will always be faster than a higher level environment."
It also means that portability becomes ever harder, as well as adaptability to new hardware."
I've done a very large amount of what you're describing and from where I sit I can not agree with your guess.
"The problem with computer science today is that the professors are "preaching" a hypothetical computer with no limitations. Suggesting that "real" limitations of computers are somehow unimportant."
With the trend towards VM's and virtualization, that "hypothetical" computer comes ever closer."
Oh please. I've been hearing this for 25 years. It's no more a practical real world truth than it was then.
"This is exactly what I've been saying over and over, why I think that e.g. Fortran is better than C in many respects."
There's things you DON'T want to do in FORTRAN that are easy in C and vice versa. String manipulation and matrix inversion come to mind.
People still use FORTRAN? What happened to WATFIV-S ?
That's the cure thing about FORTRAN. There's so many to choose from. There's only one C.
"Will we ever leave C behind? "
(clears throat) I was the second person to use gcc. Keep in mind though it didn't start as gcc: DECUS-C begat GCC and DECUS C became so when Dave Conroy donated the RSX-11M C compiler he wrote to DECUS. We couldn't get a UNIX licence and we had to use RSX. I worked with Dave at Teklogix in the late 70's and Vik Sondi and I were the only people besides Dave that used it while he was writing it. Back then PDP-11's were the entire universe and since of course dmr wrote C for the same machine it translated very very well. God I miss that instruction set, the last decent one ever made. But I digress.
We would compile a module then look over the assembly code. If we didn't like the code it produced (for the robotics crap we were doing) we'd change the source... or bug Dave.
C was meant to be a shorthand for Assembly. It really helps if you keep this in mind and write very simple C or know somewhat what the compiler it likely to spit out. Some of the C I've seen makes me fucking cringe frankly. Dan Benrstine gets it. Nicest C code I've ever seen. I'm digressing again, aren't I?
Yet, golly, there sure is a lot of C. Little things like all of unix and all the server software running this here intarweeb.
Nobody is more surprised that C is still going as strong as it is as dmr. He's happy.
Will C be around forever? Probably. RPG still is, and it's bloody useless. C may be replaced at some point when something better comes along. I don't expect to see this in my lifetime. And I'm only in my 40s (just).
"Cow-orker is wrong. I can't remember off the top of my head how to do it, but it's easy (if you know how)"
I still remember how to do this with Amiga EA Dpaint III from 1986. Houston, I think you have a problem.
"Sure, such a name already exists: call it the "GNU Image Manipulation Program."
Thank you Captain Obvious.
One fumble fingered boss filling out a requisition for a "GIMP Suite" and it's all over, baby.
I blame open source for the development of the interent.
"Google's corporate search appliance has been around for how many years? "
Sure, you know that. I know that. Apparanly the bright sparks in MS-land still don't know.
God those guys are fucking dumb.
"Obesity has only become a problem within the last hundred years or so"
"Heart disease has increased because of a recent increase in saturated and trans-fats in our diet."
"Asthma is mostly caused by pollution"
None of these are true. The cultivation of grains and starchy tubers is what caused it. Morbid obesity, most often seen in the US, is a result of overyly processed foods of the wrong type.
"No, if you want to be healthier, cut down on red meat, more fiber(whole fruit and whole veggies, not juice). Check out the other postnig, check out Google Scholar search. So defensive, and I think much of the health benefit can be translated to a meat eating diet, I'm not trying to convert, I'm just saying you can be healthier."
There was a studt done quite recently by the American Cancer and American heart associations over a 10 year period with 40,000 poeple. I'm too hot and lazy to google it right now; I'm sure you can find it.
The control group ate normally, the other group was on a low fat high fibre diet.
Which group had a lower incidence of cancer and heart disease? Neither, they were EXACTLY the same. They were, to say the least, not expecting this.
"Oopsie" one wonk was heard to say.
Now they think perhaps a Mediterranean diet (garlic, olve oil) might help. Oh, duh, state of the art 1976 thinking.
Are hamburgers bad for you? Yeah but it's the bun not the meat that hurts you.
I've lost track of the number of hollow eyed unhealthy vegitarians I've seen.
"Yes vegetarianism is good for health"
Bollocks. I tried it and it felt like, as Owsley says "my body was dying".
Why are eskimos that only eat meat and fat able to survive?
Why so we have slashing canine teeth? They're not for chewing grass.
Why did the incidence of obesity, diabetes and heart disease suddenly skyrocket around the time man changed from a hunter gatherer to an agricultural society and the introduction of grains and dairy into our diets?
I hear this on the CBC 4 years ago and the paleodietician going on about it said he tried a "caveman" diet and got back down to his high school waist size and any anything he wanted as long as it was meat. I tried it too with the same result. He claimes there's an enzyme in grains that inhibits proper digestion of fats. My cholesterol stupid low and all I eat it meat and fat. If I eat any wheat I feel like utter crap to the point that one bowl of shredded what and I have flu-like symptoms that last for about 12 hours. Low carb is silly. No-carb seems to work, ar least for me.
See also the essay on this on thebear.org
"Tell that to Australia."
I'm reallly not worried about a neo arctic luxury food that is really easily caught.
"Can you please give me an example of a technology NOT vulnerable to governmental interference?"
You may wish to compare and contrast the evolution of the domain namespace and the usenet namespace.
This has been tried before. I beta tested a "bone fone" a decade or more ago.
They simply don't work that well. Waste of time.
If they did work they'd be ubiquitous by now.
"Has Tim Horten's changed in the past 12 years or so?"
Yeah. In two words: "Ice Cap".
Never mind you can walk into any Starbucks and order "iced coffee, sweet" and dump their half-and-half into it and it's better and cheaper.
Be careful. Both are highly addictive. And caffeinated. Highly. Not That I'd drink them. No. No sirre. No way. I'm going to go clean the house now. Then rebuild my transmission. They're really good. Did I mention they're caffeinated? Highly.
"They won't take google's money but they will take Canadian Tire money"
I'm glad you said that. What kind of fucked up company recognizes Canadian Tire money but not Google?
What's next, Tim Horton's stored value cards?
"Hello Paypal this is google. Can you please put a link to our payment system?"
"What? No. Fuck off".
"But, we have a link to yours!"
"Huh? Ok. Fuck off".
"Maybe we'll take out all references to Paypal if you won't reciprocate"
"We'll sue. Fuck off".
"So, that's a no?"
Once you let judges have a say in how and what Google has in it's index you open a real can of worms and how hard would it be for some very good attorney and some very bad judge to decide that indeed the nature of the web is cooperation and reciprocal links and Google should have a link to it from paypal OR the Goog gets to take out Paypal if they won't reciprocate.
Stupidist lawsuit. Ever.