Fighter jet engines rely on accelerating a _small_ mass of air a lot.
Commercial jet engines rely on accclerating a _large_ mass of air a little.
And shock intensity at ground level is crazy math. Yeah, everyone that has responded so far has brought up various aspects of it (speed, shape of vehicle, etc) but there are some weird things that happen, too. Like when a couple F-15s a hundred miles off the Oregon coast all accelerated through mach together and blew out windows on the shore.
And while a number of people here state that a shockwave is stronger the faster a craft is moving, this is not really true. In fact, the highest SPL (sound pressure levels) for an F15 are at around mach 0.95 - 1.05. The shockwave is at its most 'dirty' in this regime - essentially not ALL of the craft is actually moving supersonic, and you get a whole bunch of shockwaves interferring and producing local maxima.
mmm, realizing that looks like I am denigrating my co-workers; quite the opposite. Smart programmers are far more dangerous than average coders, and I'd have to say that I'm at the lower end of the talent pool in my office.
I disagree in the general sense, but can agree for specific cases.
Clever tricks are to be avoided in large infrastructure programs, which is what java is designed for. Yes, one could use LISP and end up with 25% of the code for some random large project, but the maintenance costs would more than double. The verbosity of Java is, in part, what makes it so good as a 'big code' language. Some might say 'enterprise', but that word has no meaning for me any longer. Funny what happens when marketing starts abusing a word.
Scripting languages are generally small to mid sized code bases. Someone laughably pointed to Digg as a 'big project done in Ruby' ( IIRC ). Sure, it handles a hell of a lot of users... but the complexity of the code behind digg is pathetically low.
Any language that is not strongly typed becomes a major pain in the ass around version 3.0, for a many-developer (more than 2? Three? Probably depends on the individuals) project. Even strongly typed with cowboy programmers can be a pain. God forbid I have to look at some of the Javascript code I have written five years from now. Even with comments it will be easier to re-write most of it. On the other hand, sometimes I DREAM of what I could do in Java if Java would only let me do some of the things I can do in Javascript... then I realize what my CO-WORKERS would be doing, and I stop and consider exactly how glad I am THEY can't.
As with all things, it depends;~) Working with Java all day long, all week long, it is very readable for me (duh, one would HOPE!). But I always have to slow down a LOT to deal with the Javascript, which is arguably simpler. Because of a number of design choices in JS, reading even well written JS requires your FULL attention. Java? Eh, no more concentration than the logic behind the code requires.
Eight letter function names? You obviously haven't worked with any FORTRAN developers. Four letters for function names, 2 for variables. Five and three if your file is more than 2500 lines long.
I can joke about it now, but it took years of recovery.
Smart-assedness aside, your point is dead on. Self-commenting code is here to stay, and with it comes 120+ column widths.
Personally I edit HTML and derivatives with no line wrap. Part of this is throwback to the days when JSP had no whitespace directive though, so hard to say if it is wise or just... crotchety geezerdom.
You probably shouldn't be annoyed with Opera, because IIRC there ARE only 9 mouse buttons.... as per the USB HID spec.
I won't swear that this is true, but I'm pretty sure. Totally from memory here.
I prefer mouse gestures over mouse button shortcuts any day. Personally I use StrokeIt ( http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/ ) on my windows boxes so that I can use gestures in any prog, but whatever floats your boat. I have a 10 button mouse with scroll wheel, all mapped to custom features in my IDE... so it isn't like I've never tried the button route before.
Not being fan boy or flaming you. I like Opera a lot, I use it everyday, I would be pissed if I had to switch to Firefox or IE for my daily needs, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
And as a dev, I don't code for Opera. I want to, but the sad fact is that you have to pick your browsers; there is a standard, but nobody (NOBODY) implements it in full. Worse, everybody implements a different subset of the standard. So ALL web coding (of any significance) is customized to the browsers that the developers chose to focus on.
Points out what's wrong with the nut-jobs who think the world can be run off of butterflies and rainbows
On the other hand, if we'd invested the bajillions of dollars that we spent on fusion into power from butterflies, I bet we'd have power from butterflies.
Rainbows are a little harder...
Flap little butterfly! Daddy needs a hurricane!
(it's a joke. laugh. Mis-applying chaos theory for fun and profit since, erm, just second or two ago.)
And yes, it can. Though if you set up the equation directly all the 89 will tell you is 'true' or 'false'. That is, if the equation is explicitly true, or explicitly false. If it is only true for a range of values you can solve for those values.
Any problem in the book, except those explicitly stated so as to force the student to do the steps, can be solved in one line on the TI-89.
Word problems must of course be interpreted.
The point is not that the calculator can do the COURSE, but that if you are using math taught IN the course in the context of a secondary problem, the TI-89 can do the math for you. Once you learn how to ask it.
But once you learn how to ask the calculator, you stop doing that math. Then you start forgetting exactly how to do that math.
Again, the CURRENT course is not the issue; no professor would allow you to turn in homework showing no steps. And you are right, few students could make the calculator spit out an answer without understanding the underlying problem. It is the ability to so completely seperate oneself from previous courses that I would warn about.
I'll have to look at the unit handling for the HP. I can't imagine that the TI-89 is as bad at it as you think, as it too will carry all units through pretty much all calculations. Except for some of the fun ones. I recall that the 89 will do units in vector calculations though.
All my professors were sticklers for units. And true enough, in engineering if you aren't tracking units you are a fool; if your units are wrong, there's a 100% chance that the rest of the answer is too;~)
There is no difference in high level courses with users of similar intelligence. I used RPN for a while, wrote a parser etc, and like it just fine. If I used my calculator for simple one or two step equations, it would be great. But pretty print wins the day when you start getting equations which spit back answers which will reach across an entire page, in tiny print, even abbreviating 'sin(x)cos(y)(sin(z)' as 'SxCySz' (imagine the x,y and z as subscript).
I honestly have no idea how good HPs are at pretty print now. I bought the '89 when it came out. Because of the algebraic solver and the pretty print.
That said, reference my other post on this thread: too much computing power at hand can burn you later.
Spoken like someone who is clueless as to how students will actually use their calculators.
The TI-89 can do anything taught in a math course well into a 300 level course, possibly four hundred. The only thing my TI-89 could not do during pursuit of my degree was quaternion rotation sequences. It can do them now. As well as space-3 and body-3 rotations about arbitrary axis.
I will go on the record as saying that I regret having so much power at my fingertips. Working many of the problems which I wrote programs for would have helped me retain a better understanding of the material itself. Was much of it grunt work? Sure. Should I have used my calculator anyway? No.
Working the derivatives and integrals by hand makes you remember them better. What they look like, typical values at particular points. Punching the equation into the calculator and getting an answer *even if it is only a small part of the actual problem* reduces drastically your ability to spot an error in any given step in a larger calculation.
Numerical anaylsys becomes a joke on the TI-89/92. It's like having MatLab in your pocket. Hell, it is far easier to use than Matlab, cheaper, and uses an algebraic solver by default (IIRC it is an expensive add on for MatLab). It also gives the correct answer for solutions involving negative zero, unlike some of the other math packages. I've wished that I had an adapter that would let me use my desktop pc and monitor, with the 89 as the keyboard and math engine.
The classes where you need such computing power almost always involve computer based homework. Very few professors in any college or any course will assign homework that assumes you have a super powerful calculator. A graphing calculator, sure, but even that tapers off to zero for junior level and above course work. Not even sure about sophmore level, for engineering; I recall most of my graphs being done in Matlab or excel plots of data dumped from other sources.
So, restated: knowing how to work a problem is not enough. If you are teaching your students that it is, I believe that you are doing them a major disservice. Being so familiar with the problem that one can spot a mistake right in the middle of it, while focused on actually solving the problem, with nothing more than a pencil and basic scientific calculator at hand.. that is knowing enough. And that requires paying attention to every step along the way.
The GP is right: using technology to do all the stuff that isn't 'core' to what you are working on at the time will kill you when everything goes imaginary and your calculator chokes. Suddenly all that stuff you shortcut your way through becomes vitally important.
Fixed! Or broken, depending on ones point of view.
Mental process was producing the limits, whilst the fingers tried to finish a different line of thought on their own.
So total days which are ambiguous: 12*12 - 12 = 132, out of 365 => 36%
I propose a simple solution, which I think I will start using. Instead of dd/mm/yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy, the delimiter after 'day' shall always be a pipe char ( '|' ) for the 'slash' notation, or a tilde ( '~' ) for the 'dash' notation. If this format is adopted slowly and by common usage, rather than being forced into use, it stands a good chance of becoming prevalent.
So mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy become mm/dd|yyyy and mm-dd~yyyy, while dd/mm/yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy becomes dd|mm/yyyy and dd~mm-yyyy.
Simple.
11|12/2000 is the 11th day of the 12th month. 11/12|2000 is the 12th day of the of the 11th month.
Tilde and pipe are rather neglected characters, compared to most others. Neither are typical escape characters, so that is a bonus.
It was. Once. Now a 2X4 is 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" Which is 38 mm x 89 mm.
As for dates, the fact that the entire planet is standardized on two different formats would be bad enough by itself. But no, we had to add in the fact that neither format contains enough information to describe a unique date with out knowing the format which was used for a full third of the year (any date where the day is less than 12). 12/12/2000 is when?
Cancelling an account should never take more than a few keystrokes and a button click. Maybe two clicks, the second one being a verification -- but if you've ever watched support handle confirmation screens, you know they aren't going to look at them anyway.
This is what admins are FOR: writing the backend code in the DB (and elsewhere) which ensures that, yes, when a user cancels their account, all traces of them are either removed, or the account is put into a 'hold' status if there are things like (as you said) e-mail addresses to worry about.
And no, there should NOT be cancellation charges on ANY service. Ever. None. Zero.
That is what long term contracts are for. If I say I want one year of service, then I pay for one year of service. Even if I cancel after a month. If the company offers me PART of my money back, cool! I think we are on the same page there in a way - a lot of people see a 50 dollar early termination fee as hideous, even though they are actually getting out of, say, 9 months of a 40 dollar per month service. I just despise situations where I *have* to sign a contract, and I have no power to negotiate and nobody else offers shorter terms.
And yes, I've been an admin at a company that had to deal with such. No, it wasn't shockingly difficult to create the system for dealing with this. Though, I admit it was made easier by the fact that, by law, we had to retain most of the information, and thus didn't have to do much more than null out CC#s and put the user in the inactive bin.
Personally, I'd like to see a law that states 'Cancelling may not be any more difficult than creating.' Four clicks to create? Four clicks to cancel. Big bold 'Create Account' button?... You get the idea. If you can create an account via the web, you can damned well figure out how to cancel one.
You must use context to interprete meaning, and if you have no context upon which to make a logical assumption, attempt to gain some. An illogical assumption would be: 'I don't really understand this, so this poster is a moron'.
There exist 2D CAD drafting software, and 3D CAD software.
The human eye, interpreting 3D on a 2D screen vs. isographic views (2D on a 2D screen).
There are indeed 3D output devices: they are called models. You can even print small ones directly from 3D CAD programs now using those nifty epoxy based 'printers'. Holographic projection has existed for at least a decade, in a form that is affordable enough to use in business... if it were actually useful enough to make it worthwhile anyway.
The 3D input devices that do exist, for use in CAD, are generally crap. Nice to have, I'm sure, but the are generally little more than a large mouse ball that lets you rotate your model about the current pick-point.
I've never heard that signing was an exhausing form of communication. If indeed it is, for certain individuals, perhaps they should get off their asses and work out a bit?
And we use 2D interfaces to design 3D environments BECAUSE we don't have any 3D interface devices. The author extended the logical argument exactly backwards, essentially saying 'We don't have 3D interface devices because we use a 2D environment to design'. Wrong. Hell, it isn't even true that we use 2D CAD for 3D; much of what is done in CAD today IS done in a fully 3D environment. Catia? ProE? Yeah, you jump to 2D to create pic-points, but much of the real work is done in the 3D editor. The Joint Strike Fighter simply would not exist as such without 3D modeling (provided by Catia, IIRC). They modeled the ability of tools to get to every nut and bolt, the time it would take for (3?) mechanics to replace an engine, and certainly far more.
Imagine being able to sculpt a 3D model like clay, using both hands. A 3D workbench beside the virtual hands which allows you to zoom in and out (letting you sculpt a massive structural column as if it were the size of your thumb), select shaping tools. When you want to 'save' a piece of a model you 'set it on a shelf', which you can reach for later when you need it.
Now go fuck with Blender. Yeah, Blender is sweet... but really, which would you prefer?
Personally I belive that using hand gestures and 'interaction motion' (sculpting, etc) would reduce the strain placed on the human body from sitting in almost exactly the same position for 1/2 or more of the waking day.
Where's the irony? An A/C unit is simply a heat pump facing the wrong direction.
Anyway. Adding to your point: even electric heat is generally designed to deliver the heating effect to areas where it is most useful. As opposed to heating your ceiling.
Even it everything broke even, CF bulbs are nearly cheap enough (if not ARE cheap enough) to offset the cost of replacing the 5 or six incandecent bulbs which would be required in the CF's place (in terms of lifespan). Not to mention saving the hassle of breaking out ladders for those of us with high ceilings.
Dear christ people. The company that is willing to lay down major bucks and risk far, far more by fighting for patent reform, and everyone assumes that they WANT a patent on 'emote flags', or whatever the hell else they patent.
M$ certainly has a lot of patents that they really, really like. Some of them are even rather important in industry. I doubt this is one of them. This is called a defensive patent: 'I have the patent, it was approved, nobody else can get it and sue me later'.
The USPTO created this situation by deciding that the courts should be the ones to decide patent validity. Grow up and blame the right people.
Pop-up/under blockers are only so effective. The can, no matter what, be circumvented -- and often are.
How many times have you clicked on a link in a site to have a pop-up appear? Legit? Not? You have the option to approve every single freak'n time... or just use the block-on-load/close blockers (Opera has the options 'unwanted' which will only open pops when you click on a link or a button, I don't know about others).
The decrease in the attempts to utilize these more obviously invasive ads comes from somewhere; either the ads are not all that successful... or?? It is NOT because of blockers though, at least not directly.
Personally, I want a piece of software which will detect large amounts of flashing/motion in a rectangular area on my webscreen. Upon detection said software should first write a few lines to my hosts file, blocking both the company linked to as well as the adserver. After, it will run a whois, find the owners of all sites concerned, and send a commando unit to kill them and all progeny.
so about 800kW for one of these puppies. Give or take.
800kW / 480V = 1667 Amps (typical input voltage for a building is 480, IIRC)
Average home service: 200Amp @ 480V (max available, not average usage)
So it isn't even as much power as 10 homes are theoretically capable of pulling. Realistically, it is probably as much juice as around 30 homes use.
Not that much power, in otherwords. Enough that they would proabbly have to call in the local power company to 'improve' the service to any building that they drop one of these babies in, but not even remotely near impossible in any city.
Also, fun comparison, it is less than the amount of energy generated by one average wind-turbine in the Coachella Valley, CA
Ladies and gents: Aluminum foil may not work for head-gear, but it will work just dandy for covering an RFID tag.
Tag == 100% wrapped.
Head != 100% wrapped (one would hope)
Aluminum foil is conductive. That and complete coverage is all you need for a faraday cage.
There are like 30 posts already that act like it won't work: it will. Want to test it? Wrap your walkman in foil and try to listen to FM. Freqs are different for RFID (probably), but it doesn't matter.
Take care not to touch the ant. of the radio to the foil though, or you may actually improve reception;~)
I hate matlab, although I can admit that it does have its uses. But to say that I should use matlab simply because I have 32K (or even 64K) rows of data is... a bad generalization.
If I need a spreadsheet, I need a spreedsheet. If I need matlab, I need matlab.
10, 100, 10-million rows, it doesn't matter. It is the TYPE of analysis which should drive the choice of software, NOT the amount of data.
A modern comp. can easily handle a few hundred thousand rows of data for typical spreadsheet ops.
Slashdot Mirror
Completely off :~D
But it is important to note that sound pressure levels are proportional to the veloctiy of the fluid raised to the FOURTH power (v^4).
It is why an F15 engine is so, so much louder than, say, a 777 engine, which actually produces far more thrust.
777 = [GE90 = 127,900 lbf] * 2.
F15 = [Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 turbofan engines with afterburners = 14,500 lbf] * 2
Fighter jet engines rely on accelerating a _small_ mass of air a lot.
Commercial jet engines rely on accclerating a _large_ mass of air a little.
And shock intensity at ground level is crazy math. Yeah, everyone that has responded so far has brought up various aspects of it (speed, shape of vehicle, etc) but there are some weird things that happen, too. Like when a couple F-15s a hundred miles off the Oregon coast all accelerated through mach together and blew out windows on the shore.
And while a number of people here state that a shockwave is stronger the faster a craft is moving, this is not really true. In fact, the highest SPL (sound pressure levels) for an F15 are at around mach 0.95 - 1.05. The shockwave is at its most 'dirty' in this regime - essentially not ALL of the craft is actually moving supersonic, and you get a whole bunch of shockwaves interferring and producing local maxima.
mmm, realizing that looks like I am denigrating my co-workers; quite the opposite. Smart programmers are far more dangerous than average coders, and I'd have to say that I'm at the lower end of the talent pool in my office.
I disagree in the general sense, but can agree for specific cases.
;~) Working with Java all day long, all week long, it is very readable for me (duh, one would HOPE!). But I always have to slow down a LOT to deal with the Javascript, which is arguably simpler. Because of a number of design choices in JS, reading even well written JS requires your FULL attention. Java? Eh, no more concentration than the logic behind the code requires.
Clever tricks are to be avoided in large infrastructure programs, which is what java is designed for. Yes, one could use LISP and end up with 25% of the code for some random large project, but the maintenance costs would more than double. The verbosity of Java is, in part, what makes it so good as a 'big code' language. Some might say 'enterprise', but that word has no meaning for me any longer. Funny what happens when marketing starts abusing a word.
Scripting languages are generally small to mid sized code bases. Someone laughably pointed to Digg as a 'big project done in Ruby' ( IIRC ). Sure, it handles a hell of a lot of users... but the complexity of the code behind digg is pathetically low.
Any language that is not strongly typed becomes a major pain in the ass around version 3.0, for a many-developer (more than 2? Three? Probably depends on the individuals) project. Even strongly typed with cowboy programmers can be a pain. God forbid I have to look at some of the Javascript code I have written five years from now. Even with comments it will be easier to re-write most of it. On the other hand, sometimes I DREAM of what I could do in Java if Java would only let me do some of the things I can do in Javascript... then I realize what my CO-WORKERS would be doing, and I stop and consider exactly how glad I am THEY can't.
As with all things, it depends
Cheers
Eight letter function names? You obviously haven't worked with any FORTRAN developers. Four letters for function names, 2 for variables. Five and three if your file is more than 2500 lines long.
I can joke about it now, but it took years of recovery.
Smart-assedness aside, your point is dead on. Self-commenting code is here to stay, and with it comes 120+ column widths.
Personally I edit HTML and derivatives with no line wrap. Part of this is throwback to the days when JSP had no whitespace directive though, so hard to say if it is wise or just... crotchety geezerdom.
You probably shouldn't be annoyed with Opera, because IIRC there ARE only 9 mouse buttons.... as per the USB HID spec.
I won't swear that this is true, but I'm pretty sure. Totally from memory here.
I prefer mouse gestures over mouse button shortcuts any day. Personally I use StrokeIt ( http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/ ) on my windows boxes so that I can use gestures in any prog, but whatever floats your boat. I have a 10 button mouse with scroll wheel, all mapped to custom features in my IDE... so it isn't like I've never tried the button route before.
Not being fan boy or flaming you. I like Opera a lot, I use it everyday, I would be pissed if I had to switch to Firefox or IE for my daily needs, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
And as a dev, I don't code for Opera. I want to, but the sad fact is that you have to pick your browsers; there is a standard, but nobody (NOBODY) implements it in full. Worse, everybody implements a different subset of the standard. So ALL web coding (of any significance) is customized to the browsers that the developers chose to focus on.
Rainbows are a little harder...
Flap little butterfly! Daddy needs a hurricane!
(it's a joke. laugh. Mis-applying chaos theory for fun and profit since, erm, just second or two ago.)
MMmm, proofs. I miss proofs.
And yes, it can. Though if you set up the equation directly all the 89 will tell you is 'true' or 'false'. That is, if the equation is explicitly true, or explicitly false. If it is only true for a range of values you can solve for those values.
Any problem in the book, except those explicitly stated so as to force the student to do the steps, can be solved in one line on the TI-89.
Word problems must of course be interpreted.
The point is not that the calculator can do the COURSE, but that if you are using math taught IN the course in the context of a secondary problem, the TI-89 can do the math for you. Once you learn how to ask it.
But once you learn how to ask the calculator, you stop doing that math. Then you start forgetting exactly how to do that math.
Again, the CURRENT course is not the issue; no professor would allow you to turn in homework showing no steps. And you are right, few students could make the calculator spit out an answer without understanding the underlying problem. It is the ability to so completely seperate oneself from previous courses that I would warn about.
I'll have to look at the unit handling for the HP. I can't imagine that the TI-89 is as bad at it as you think, as it too will carry all units through pretty much all calculations. Except for some of the fun ones. I recall that the 89 will do units in vector calculations though.
;~)
All my professors were sticklers for units. And true enough, in engineering if you aren't tracking units you are a fool; if your units are wrong, there's a 100% chance that the rest of the answer is too
There is no difference in high level courses with users of similar intelligence. I used RPN for a while, wrote a parser etc, and like it just fine. If I used my calculator for simple one or two step equations, it would be great. But pretty print wins the day when you start getting equations which spit back answers which will reach across an entire page, in tiny print, even abbreviating 'sin(x)cos(y)(sin(z)' as 'SxCySz' (imagine the x,y and z as subscript).
I honestly have no idea how good HPs are at pretty print now. I bought the '89 when it came out. Because of the algebraic solver and the pretty print.
That said, reference my other post on this thread: too much computing power at hand can burn you later.
Spoken like someone who is clueless as to how students will actually use their calculators.
The TI-89 can do anything taught in a math course well into a 300 level course, possibly four hundred. The only thing my TI-89 could not do during pursuit of my degree was quaternion rotation sequences. It can do them now. As well as space-3 and body-3 rotations about arbitrary axis.
I will go on the record as saying that I regret having so much power at my fingertips. Working many of the problems which I wrote programs for would have helped me retain a better understanding of the material itself. Was much of it grunt work? Sure. Should I have used my calculator anyway? No.
Working the derivatives and integrals by hand makes you remember them better. What they look like, typical values at particular points. Punching the equation into the calculator and getting an answer *even if it is only a small part of the actual problem* reduces drastically your ability to spot an error in any given step in a larger calculation.
Numerical anaylsys becomes a joke on the TI-89/92. It's like having MatLab in your pocket. Hell, it is far easier to use than Matlab, cheaper, and uses an algebraic solver by default (IIRC it is an expensive add on for MatLab). It also gives the correct answer for solutions involving negative zero, unlike some of the other math packages. I've wished that I had an adapter that would let me use my desktop pc and monitor, with the 89 as the keyboard and math engine.
The classes where you need such computing power almost always involve computer based homework. Very few professors in any college or any course will assign homework that assumes you have a super powerful calculator. A graphing calculator, sure, but even that tapers off to zero for junior level and above course work. Not even sure about sophmore level, for engineering; I recall most of my graphs being done in Matlab or excel plots of data dumped from other sources.
So, restated: knowing how to work a problem is not enough. If you are teaching your students that it is, I believe that you are doing them a major disservice. Being so familiar with the problem that one can spot a mistake right in the middle of it, while focused on actually solving the problem, with nothing more than a pencil and basic scientific calculator at hand.. that is knowing enough. And that requires paying attention to every step along the way.
The GP is right: using technology to do all the stuff that isn't 'core' to what you are working on at the time will kill you when everything goes imaginary and your calculator chokes. Suddenly all that stuff you shortcut your way through becomes vitally important.
haha, yes. Oops!
11/12/2000.
Fixed! Or broken, depending on ones point of view.
Mental process was producing the limits, whilst the fingers tried to finish a different line of thought on their own.
So total days which are ambiguous: 12*12 - 12 = 132, out of 365 => 36%
I propose a simple solution, which I think I will start using. Instead of dd/mm/yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy, the delimiter after 'day' shall always be a pipe char ( '|' ) for the 'slash' notation, or a tilde ( '~' ) for the 'dash' notation. If this format is adopted slowly and by common usage, rather than being forced into use, it stands a good chance of becoming prevalent.
So mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy become mm/dd|yyyy and mm-dd~yyyy, while dd/mm/yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy becomes dd|mm/yyyy and dd~mm-yyyy.
Simple.
11|12/2000 is the 11th day of the 12th month. 11/12|2000 is the 12th day of the of the 11th month.
Tilde and pipe are rather neglected characters, compared to most others. Neither are typical escape characters, so that is a bonus.
Use it today! Make me famous tomorrow.
A 2x4 is not a 2"x4".
It was. Once. Now a 2X4 is 1-1/2" x 3-1/2"
Which is 38 mm x 89 mm.
As for dates, the fact that the entire planet is standardized on two different formats would be bad enough by itself. But no, we had to add in the fact that neither format contains enough information to describe a unique date with out knowing the format which was used for a full third of the year (any date where the day is less than 12). 12/12/2000 is when?
Say what? You have to be kidding.
Cancelling an account should never take more than a few keystrokes and a button click. Maybe two clicks, the second one being a verification -- but if you've ever watched support handle confirmation screens, you know they aren't going to look at them anyway.
This is what admins are FOR: writing the backend code in the DB (and elsewhere) which ensures that, yes, when a user cancels their account, all traces of them are either removed, or the account is put into a 'hold' status if there are things like (as you said) e-mail addresses to worry about.
And no, there should NOT be cancellation charges on ANY service. Ever. None. Zero.
That is what long term contracts are for. If I say I want one year of service, then I pay for one year of service. Even if I cancel after a month. If the company offers me PART of my money back, cool! I think we are on the same page there in a way - a lot of people see a 50 dollar early termination fee as hideous, even though they are actually getting out of, say, 9 months of a 40 dollar per month service. I just despise situations where I *have* to sign a contract, and I have no power to negotiate and nobody else offers shorter terms.
And yes, I've been an admin at a company that had to deal with such. No, it wasn't shockingly difficult to create the system for dealing with this. Though, I admit it was made easier by the fact that, by law, we had to retain most of the information, and thus didn't have to do much more than null out CC#s and put the user in the inactive bin.
Personally, I'd like to see a law that states 'Cancelling may not be any more difficult than creating.' Four clicks to create? Four clicks to cancel. Big bold 'Create Account' button?... You get the idea. If you can create an account via the web, you can damned well figure out how to cancel one.
Anway, enough late night rambling,
Funny, I've seen plenty of sign, and even learned a little. What additional context or meaning do you add by signing from above your head?
You must use context to interprete meaning, and if you have no context upon which to make a logical assumption, attempt to gain some. An illogical assumption would be: 'I don't really understand this, so this poster is a moron'.
There exist 2D CAD drafting software, and 3D CAD software.
The human eye, interpreting 3D on a 2D screen vs. isographic views (2D on a 2D screen).
There are indeed 3D output devices: they are called models. You can even print small ones directly from 3D CAD programs now using those nifty epoxy based 'printers'. Holographic projection has existed for at least a decade, in a form that is affordable enough to use in business... if it were actually useful enough to make it worthwhile anyway.
The 3D input devices that do exist, for use in CAD, are generally crap. Nice to have, I'm sure, but the are generally little more than a large mouse ball that lets you rotate your model about the current pick-point.
I agree.
I've never heard that signing was an exhausing form of communication. If indeed it is, for certain individuals, perhaps they should get off their asses and work out a bit?
And we use 2D interfaces to design 3D environments BECAUSE we don't have any 3D interface devices. The author extended the logical argument exactly backwards, essentially saying 'We don't have 3D interface devices because we use a 2D environment to design'. Wrong. Hell, it isn't even true that we use 2D CAD for 3D; much of what is done in CAD today IS done in a fully 3D environment. Catia? ProE? Yeah, you jump to 2D to create pic-points, but much of the real work is done in the 3D editor. The Joint Strike Fighter simply would not exist as such without 3D modeling (provided by Catia, IIRC). They modeled the ability of tools to get to every nut and bolt, the time it would take for (3?) mechanics to replace an engine, and certainly far more.
Imagine being able to sculpt a 3D model like clay, using both hands. A 3D workbench beside the virtual hands which allows you to zoom in and out (letting you sculpt a massive structural column as if it were the size of your thumb), select shaping tools. When you want to 'save' a piece of a model you 'set it on a shelf', which you can reach for later when you need it.
Now go fuck with Blender. Yeah, Blender is sweet... but really, which would you prefer?
Personally I belive that using hand gestures and 'interaction motion' (sculpting, etc) would reduce the strain placed on the human body from sitting in almost exactly the same position for 1/2 or more of the waking day.
Tell that to a guy I knew who lit a smoke when he woke up one morning and had the air light on fire.
Valve failed on an old gas range. Super rare yes. But it DOES happen.
Since he was asleep when the leak started, his nose had plenty of time to choose to ignore the gas smell.
Oh, and yes, driving is WAAAYYY more dangerous. I like cooking on gas, personally.
Sadly, few people have heat pumps.
Ironically, many people have A/C.
Where's the irony? An A/C unit is simply a heat pump facing the wrong direction.
Anyway. Adding to your point: even electric heat is generally designed to deliver the heating effect to areas where it is most useful. As opposed to heating your ceiling.
Even it everything broke even, CF bulbs are nearly cheap enough (if not ARE cheap enough) to offset the cost of replacing the 5 or six incandecent bulbs which would be required in the CF's place (in terms of lifespan). Not to mention saving the hassle of breaking out ladders for those of us with high ceilings.
Dear christ people. The company that is willing to lay down major bucks and risk far, far more by fighting for patent reform, and everyone assumes that they WANT a patent on 'emote flags', or whatever the hell else they patent.
M$ certainly has a lot of patents that they really, really like. Some of them are even rather important in industry. I doubt this is one of them. This is called a defensive patent: 'I have the patent, it was approved, nobody else can get it and sue me later'.
The USPTO created this situation by deciding that the courts should be the ones to decide patent validity. Grow up and blame the right people.
Hint, it isn't M$. This time.
Pop-up/under blockers are only so effective. The can, no matter what, be circumvented -- and often are.
How many times have you clicked on a link in a site to have a pop-up appear? Legit? Not? You have the option to approve every single freak'n time... or just use the block-on-load/close blockers (Opera has the options 'unwanted' which will only open pops when you click on a link or a button, I don't know about others).
The decrease in the attempts to utilize these more obviously invasive ads comes from somewhere; either the ads are not all that successful... or?? It is NOT because of blockers though, at least not directly.
Personally, I want a piece of software which will detect large amounts of flashing/motion in a rectangular area on my webscreen. Upon detection said software should first write a few lines to my hosts file, blocking both the company linked to as well as the adserver. After, it will run a whois, find the owners of all sites concerned, and send a commando unit to kill them and all progeny.
But thats just me.
5000 CPU * .1kW /cpu = 500kW
/disk = 20kW
1 petabyte * 1 disk / 500GB = 2000 disks
2000 disks * 0.010kW
other overhead: guesstimate 15%
520kW * 1.15 ~= 600kW
Cooling: takes 1 watt to remove 3watts
600 / 3= 200
so about 800kW for one of these puppies. Give or take.
800kW / 480V = 1667 Amps (typical input voltage for a building is 480, IIRC)
Average home service: 200Amp @ 480V (max available, not average usage)
So it isn't even as much power as 10 homes are theoretically capable of pulling. Realistically, it is probably as much juice as around 30 homes use.
Not that much power, in otherwords. Enough that they would proabbly have to call in the local power company to 'improve' the service to any building that they drop one of these babies in, but not even remotely near impossible in any city.
Also, fun comparison, it is less than the amount of energy generated by one average wind-turbine in the Coachella Valley, CA
Being psuedo-geek is 'cool' and sells shit. Which is to say, the geek is now a demographic to be marketed to.
Sitting and home and coding or working out physics problems for fun is just as rare as it has always been.
Ladies and gents: Aluminum foil may not work for head-gear, but it will work just dandy for covering an RFID tag.
;~)
Tag == 100% wrapped.
Head != 100% wrapped (one would hope)
Aluminum foil is conductive. That and complete coverage is all you need for a faraday cage.
There are like 30 posts already that act like it won't work: it will. Want to test it? Wrap your walkman in foil and try to listen to FM. Freqs are different for RFID (probably), but it doesn't matter.
Take care not to touch the ant. of the radio to the foil though, or you may actually improve reception
32K rows (signed).
I hate matlab, although I can admit that it does have its uses. But to say that I should use matlab simply because I have 32K (or even 64K) rows of data is... a bad generalization.
If I need a spreadsheet, I need a spreedsheet. If I need matlab, I need matlab.
10, 100, 10-million rows, it doesn't matter. It is the TYPE of analysis which should drive the choice of software, NOT the amount of data.
A modern comp. can easily handle a few hundred thousand rows of data for typical spreadsheet ops.