This is slightly off-topic, but can someone please tell me my Intel continues to have so few registers? I have done some assembly work on x86 and it is always such a chore because I spend 75% of the time moving data in and out of registers. I would love to at least be able to do a double for loop without having to move my iterators. It's just so frustrating.
If Intel comes out with a better, cheaper processor tomorrow, don't buy the AMD one, buy the intel one. Their is no point treating a company like a person.
What the grandparent was saying is that it's good to support the underdog for the sake of the future. If Intel comes out with an amazing chip and everyone stops buying AMD, then AMD goes out of business. What happens to development at Intel? It slows. What happens to prices at Intel? They increase. Eventually this will get so bad that it becomes profitable for a second company (which is what happened with AMD in the first place). So, while eventually it works itself out, it sure is hell for the consumer in the middle period.
A great real-world example was the web browser wars of years ago. IE came out as the clear winner. In my opinion, they were the best. As a result, they were pretty much the only web browser out there. Did Microsoft continue to innovate? Of course not! They could make more money by diverting that money towards other products that were in competitive spaces. That's why everyone is switching from IE faster than American youth are gaining weight. How much better things might have been if Netscape had stayed competitive rather than being so soundly beaten.
Patents on business model ideas are not evil. The misuse of these patents once acquired is evil. Unfortunately, the patent system as is forces companies to file for silly patents in order to cover their butts. So the question will be what Google does with the patents now that they have them.
What bothers me about this is that the professor presumes to believe that they have the answer that is best for everyone in their class. She believes that laptops are bad for focusing. They probably are for her. For a number of the students in the class, probably the opposite. For example, when I was in school I would never go to class. I have a tough time learning orally. I found that I did far better by simply reading the material and doing the assignments. Would I argue that we should get rid of lecturers and simply hand out written material? No. Just because this is the best way for me to learn does not mean that everyone should do things this way. I think that one of the most important things I learned in college was how I personally learn best. It is what has aided me the most in my life since.
Pretty Tenuous Argument
on
Sudo vs. Root
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
As far as I can figure, his argument all comes down to someone possibly stealing or guessing your password. Doesn't this problem exist with root as well? I love that his solution is to disable sudo and enable remote login on root. He then says that you should only allow public key authentication. So now we are back to the original problem. If someone obtains the password to an authorized account, they now have non-password root access to any server they want. From there, it's not too hard to setup another public key on the root servers that links to an unprivileged account. Now the user cannot just change their password every week for security, they need to go update all of these keychains. No, I'm afraid this author is horribly wrong. If you want to get rid of the problem of using your own password for doing root work, shut down sudo and use su. Do not under any circumstance enable remote login on root.
In related news, I am so tired of all of these non-news blog entries that keep being put on Slashdot. Give me real news from a reliable source, not some no-name idiot that has no clue what he is talking about. Seriously, we need some sort of blog tag that allows us to immediately identify blog articles and appropriately ignore them.
Realize that the article didn't say that Microsoft Vista was going to put spyware out of business. Rather, it will put anti-spyware software out of business. It's true that spyware will continue to take on new forms. But Vista will probably be updated to handle these new forms in the same way that the current anti-spyware software is constantly being updated. So the question is not whether Vista can beat the spyware companies; it's a question of whether Vista can beat the anti-spyware companies. It's kind of like the old saying that if you and a friend are being chased by a wolf, you only need to be faster than your friend.
No, actually they probably received some special deals from IBM to make ThinkPad the official laptop. That's good business for IBM. Also, am I the only person that wishes the ThinkPad would update its design. I can't stand how IBM laptops look. I'm quite sure the design has not changed since the early 90's.
Another place in which open-source is safer than proprietary is in the case where you do break the license agreement. If you commit some minor indiscretion with OSS software, it's unlikely that anyone is going to come after you. After all, what OSS group has the money or desire to attack people in court for violating their license. The GPL is mainly a good-faith agreement. Let's look at the flip side. If you commit the same minor indiscretion on a piece of commercial software, get ready to be sued off your butt. To many large corporations litigation is an legitimate revenue stream.
Please be aware that I am in no way advocating the violation of the GPL or any other OSS license. But let's be honest, things happen sometimes.
Sorry, didn't explain myself well. I was referring to the fact that a lot of people use Java or Flash instead of DHTML in places where DHTML is far more appropriate. This is especially common in the case of Flash.
I agree that many things that are done in Java need not be done in Java. Flash is actually the most common offender in this category. Unfortunately, DHTML cannot handle anything and everything. Any client application which needs to do intensive processing is not going to be able to be written in DHTML. Of course, you can just make the web-application do everything for you, but why make your servers work so hard when your client has so many free CPU clicks?
I am getting really sick of these articles that are just some dude's crappy, biased blog. It seems that Slashdot has begun to cater more and more to these sorts of half-rate articles. A great example was that article a few days ago that was just some 15-year-old kid talking about how much Windows sucks in comparison to Linux. For heaven's sake Slashdot, give us some real news.
I was in a similar situation where I work. I raised this concern in a meeting and the lawyer made a valid point. He basically said that if we didn't get the patent, someone else eventually would. I am strongly against software patents, but until the playing field is changed, we have to play ball.
By doing business with the PRC in this way Google, and anyone else who does so, sacrifices objective good for profit. Google could easily just say, No, we will not do your dirty work for you, and stay out of China.
Of course, that then means that the people of China are left without any method of using the internet and finding important information that they need to progress as a nation and as a people. While yes, it's a shame that the Chinese government censors political issues. But the vast majority of what people will search for online will not be censored. China is not going to censor someone searching MathWorld. They will not censor finding out information about the white-billed woodpecker. There is a lot of information that the Chinese people need, let's let them have as much as their government will permit them to have.
I must disagree that Family Guy has sold out. I was an avid fan before it was canceled and have remained such ever since. As such, I must say that Family Guy is funnier than ever. The recent episode about the FCC was quite possibly the funniest episode of anything I have seen in a long, long time. Now Simpsons, that's a different matter. They have definitely sold out.
People will probably think I'm lieing, but I don't care. My IDE of choice is and will probably always be VIM. I have tried many IDE's and they all have something nice to offer, but I just can't get past the power of VIM. I can write code so much faster in VIM than I can with any other IDE. I often keep an IDE around for debugging though. The scripting capabilities of VIM, while not as robust as Emacs, are quite extensive and powerful such that you can build scripts to handle most repetitive tasks.
Ideally, it would be nice to run VIM inside of Eclipse or IntelliJ as my editor. Is there such a thing? That could definitely coerce me into using an IDE. I've thought about writing something like this as a plugin for Eclipse but have not bothered to do so. Let me know if anyone knows of such a thing.
That's a little unfair of a comparison. A toilet seat is actually one of the cleanest places in the average house, in regards to bacteria. It gets cleaned regularly and it's only in use for a very small amount of time each day. So it doesn't surprise me in the least bit that keyboards have more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat.
There are Free Software ext2 drivers for all major OSes
The problem is, they don't come pre-installed...
The other problem is that they don't work very well. I had ext2fs installed and anytime I plugged in my iPod it would crash my computer because I guess it would try to read my iPod as ext2. I eventually got sick of uninstalling ext2fs everytime I wanted to sync my iPod and reformatted my LaCie in FAT32. Oh well.
I agree that there is value in pursuing something with fervor as long as said fervor does not become zealousy. A good example is with the Korean fellow recently who falsified results regarding his cloning work. This happens because people want something to be true so bad that when good science says something different, they can't accept it and are forced to falsify data so that the world fits their view/hypothesis. That is not good science.
From the article: "It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
No, it's your job to find out if it's right. I feel that therein lies a big problem with theoretical physics nowadays. They seem to be more interested in proving their new crazy view of the universe than actually finding out what the correct way to view the universe is. Then again, this is not a new problem. It still bothers me though.
I just read through the article and I must say that I am excited. The changes that they are proposing are so awesome. Each one is something that has frustrated me that C++ does not already do. Must of the past changes of C++ have made it much more complicated. They were good changes, but they did make the language more complicated. Apart from concepts, these proposed changes seem to make things simpler. I especially like the "auto" type. What a brilliantly wonderful idea. This is something that I have longed for. I love it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is slightly off-topic, but can someone please tell me my Intel continues to have so few registers? I have done some assembly work on x86 and it is always such a chore because I spend 75% of the time moving data in and out of registers. I would love to at least be able to do a double for loop without having to move my iterators. It's just so frustrating.
If Intel comes out with a better, cheaper processor tomorrow, don't buy the AMD one, buy the intel one. Their is no point treating a company like a person.
What the grandparent was saying is that it's good to support the underdog for the sake of the future. If Intel comes out with an amazing chip and everyone stops buying AMD, then AMD goes out of business. What happens to development at Intel? It slows. What happens to prices at Intel? They increase. Eventually this will get so bad that it becomes profitable for a second company (which is what happened with AMD in the first place). So, while eventually it works itself out, it sure is hell for the consumer in the middle period.
A great real-world example was the web browser wars of years ago. IE came out as the clear winner. In my opinion, they were the best. As a result, they were pretty much the only web browser out there. Did Microsoft continue to innovate? Of course not! They could make more money by diverting that money towards other products that were in competitive spaces. That's why everyone is switching from IE faster than American youth are gaining weight. How much better things might have been if Netscape had stayed competitive rather than being so soundly beaten.
Patents on business model ideas are not evil. The misuse of these patents once acquired is evil. Unfortunately, the patent system as is forces companies to file for silly patents in order to cover their butts. So the question will be what Google does with the patents now that they have them.
What bothers me about this is that the professor presumes to believe that they have the answer that is best for everyone in their class. She believes that laptops are bad for focusing. They probably are for her. For a number of the students in the class, probably the opposite. For example, when I was in school I would never go to class. I have a tough time learning orally. I found that I did far better by simply reading the material and doing the assignments. Would I argue that we should get rid of lecturers and simply hand out written material? No. Just because this is the best way for me to learn does not mean that everyone should do things this way. I think that one of the most important things I learned in college was how I personally learn best. It is what has aided me the most in my life since.
As far as I can figure, his argument all comes down to someone possibly stealing or guessing your password. Doesn't this problem exist with root as well? I love that his solution is to disable sudo and enable remote login on root. He then says that you should only allow public key authentication. So now we are back to the original problem. If someone obtains the password to an authorized account, they now have non-password root access to any server they want. From there, it's not too hard to setup another public key on the root servers that links to an unprivileged account. Now the user cannot just change their password every week for security, they need to go update all of these keychains. No, I'm afraid this author is horribly wrong. If you want to get rid of the problem of using your own password for doing root work, shut down sudo and use su. Do not under any circumstance enable remote login on root.
In related news, I am so tired of all of these non-news blog entries that keep being put on Slashdot. Give me real news from a reliable source, not some no-name idiot that has no clue what he is talking about. Seriously, we need some sort of blog tag that allows us to immediately identify blog articles and appropriately ignore them.
Realize that the article didn't say that Microsoft Vista was going to put spyware out of business. Rather, it will put anti-spyware software out of business. It's true that spyware will continue to take on new forms. But Vista will probably be updated to handle these new forms in the same way that the current anti-spyware software is constantly being updated. So the question is not whether Vista can beat the spyware companies; it's a question of whether Vista can beat the anti-spyware companies. It's kind of like the old saying that if you and a friend are being chased by a wolf, you only need to be faster than your friend.
Oh, I did not realize that Lenovo was making the ThinkPads. Thank-you for the correction.
No, actually they probably received some special deals from IBM to make ThinkPad the official laptop. That's good business for IBM. Also, am I the only person that wishes the ThinkPad would update its design. I can't stand how IBM laptops look. I'm quite sure the design has not changed since the early 90's.
Another place in which open-source is safer than proprietary is in the case where you do break the license agreement. If you commit some minor indiscretion with OSS software, it's unlikely that anyone is going to come after you. After all, what OSS group has the money or desire to attack people in court for violating their license. The GPL is mainly a good-faith agreement. Let's look at the flip side. If you commit the same minor indiscretion on a piece of commercial software, get ready to be sued off your butt. To many large corporations litigation is an legitimate revenue stream.
Please be aware that I am in no way advocating the violation of the GPL or any other OSS license. But let's be honest, things happen sometimes.
Huh? Flash == Java?
Sorry, didn't explain myself well. I was referring to the fact that a lot of people use Java or Flash instead of DHTML in places where DHTML is far more appropriate. This is especially common in the case of Flash.
I agree that many things that are done in Java need not be done in Java. Flash is actually the most common offender in this category. Unfortunately, DHTML cannot handle anything and everything. Any client application which needs to do intensive processing is not going to be able to be written in DHTML. Of course, you can just make the web-application do everything for you, but why make your servers work so hard when your client has so many free CPU clicks?
I am getting really sick of these articles that are just some dude's crappy, biased blog. It seems that Slashdot has begun to cater more and more to these sorts of half-rate articles. A great example was that article a few days ago that was just some 15-year-old kid talking about how much Windows sucks in comparison to Linux. For heaven's sake Slashdot, give us some real news.
No, see there's the problem. Girlfriends WOULD have known this for years if well... you know... *sob* I am so lonely!
I was in a similar situation where I work. I raised this concern in a meeting and the lawyer made a valid point. He basically said that if we didn't get the patent, someone else eventually would. I am strongly against software patents, but until the playing field is changed, we have to play ball.
That was the whole idea. unavailable.google.cn doesn't exist
Actually, you might want to read the article and check out the graph. You will see that clearly the 1970s were NOT the coldest years of the century.
By doing business with the PRC in this way Google, and anyone else who does so, sacrifices objective good for profit. Google could easily just say, No, we will not do your dirty work for you, and stay out of China.
Of course, that then means that the people of China are left without any method of using the internet and finding important information that they need to progress as a nation and as a people. While yes, it's a shame that the Chinese government censors political issues. But the vast majority of what people will search for online will not be censored. China is not going to censor someone searching MathWorld. They will not censor finding out information about the white-billed woodpecker. There is a lot of information that the Chinese people need, let's let them have as much as their government will permit them to have.
I must disagree that Family Guy has sold out. I was an avid fan before it was canceled and have remained such ever since. As such, I must say that Family Guy is funnier than ever. The recent episode about the FCC was quite possibly the funniest episode of anything I have seen in a long, long time. Now Simpsons, that's a different matter. They have definitely sold out.
People will probably think I'm lieing, but I don't care. My IDE of choice is and will probably always be VIM. I have tried many IDE's and they all have something nice to offer, but I just can't get past the power of VIM. I can write code so much faster in VIM than I can with any other IDE. I often keep an IDE around for debugging though. The scripting capabilities of VIM, while not as robust as Emacs, are quite extensive and powerful such that you can build scripts to handle most repetitive tasks.
Ideally, it would be nice to run VIM inside of Eclipse or IntelliJ as my editor. Is there such a thing? That could definitely coerce me into using an IDE. I've thought about writing something like this as a plugin for Eclipse but have not bothered to do so. Let me know if anyone knows of such a thing.
That's a little unfair of a comparison. A toilet seat is actually one of the cleanest places in the average house, in regards to bacteria. It gets cleaned regularly and it's only in use for a very small amount of time each day. So it doesn't surprise me in the least bit that keyboards have more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat.
There are Free Software ext2 drivers for all major OSes
The problem is, they don't come pre-installed...
The other problem is that they don't work very well. I had ext2fs installed and anytime I plugged in my iPod it would crash my computer because I guess it would try to read my iPod as ext2. I eventually got sick of uninstalling ext2fs everytime I wanted to sync my iPod and reformatted my LaCie in FAT32. Oh well.
I agree that there is value in pursuing something with fervor as long as said fervor does not become zealousy. A good example is with the Korean fellow recently who falsified results regarding his cloning work. This happens because people want something to be true so bad that when good science says something different, they can't accept it and are forced to falsify data so that the world fits their view/hypothesis. That is not good science.
From the article:
"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
No, it's your job to find out if it's right. I feel that therein lies a big problem with theoretical physics nowadays. They seem to be more interested in proving their new crazy view of the universe than actually finding out what the correct way to view the universe is. Then again, this is not a new problem. It still bothers me though.
I just read through the article and I must say that I am excited. The changes that they are proposing are so awesome. Each one is something that has frustrated me that C++ does not already do. Must of the past changes of C++ have made it much more complicated. They were good changes, but they did make the language more complicated. Apart from concepts, these proposed changes seem to make things simpler. I especially like the "auto" type. What a brilliantly wonderful idea. This is something that I have longed for. I love it.