The guy I know said it more or less means "I support law enforcement" and that you have to know the right people to come by one. Which reminds me of a sticker I saw on the back of a junker as I was driving south on Wake Forest Rd. where it merges into Capital Blvd. The sticker said
[small]Officer, will this sticker which says[/small]
[huge]I support law enforcement[/huge]
[small]stop you from pulling me over for speeding?[/small]
I've also wondered if the sticker I described is related to the blue square sticker with a yellow = symbol on it.
Here in Raleigh you see stickers all over cars with 3 horizontal lines of equal size: black-blue-black. The silly things are pervasive. (Oh, yeah, anyone know where I can get one? A friend of mine tells me it keeps cops from giving him a ticket when he's speeding...)
FORTRAN is definitely an old language but old does not necessarily mean bad. It still has place in many scientific and engineering circles because it has been thoroughly debugged and tested. Would your trust your local nuclear power plant software if it was Perl? Python? Java? C++? I wouldn't. There is a reason that most code for calculating nuclear plant fuel assembly concentration and positon is written in FORTRAN--and it's not because of a love of old, perceivedly sluggish, languages.
Besides which, just because we have more hardware to throw at a problem does not mean that that is the optimal approach. That very point of view is the reason that computer hardware gets ever faster but the operating systems and software don't. It's a symptom of the Microsoft school of coding: throw more hardware at a problem and that will fix it. 640k^h^h^h^h256M of memory is all you'll ever need.
I don't think either point is valid. If you want to argue based on security, memory issues, etc., fine. Age of a language and the fact that it runs efficiently are really bad reasons to attack it, however.
You guys can play it or not, but it won't affect the sales of the CD since Clear Channel (among others no doubt) is playing it all over the place (and having interviews with her and yadda yadda yadda)
Might I ask how you got your WinTV card to work under Linux? Ever since I switched from the Red Hat 6.x series to the 7.x series, mine has been completely unusable^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcrappy. Attempting to use it seems to cause erratic behavior up to and including system lockup. I didn't change the card position on the board, didn't change anything but the OS. I finally broke down and put it into my Win98 box (where it works, sorta, except that it conflicts with the IRQ for power management, meaning that system doesn't like to wake up when it goes to sleep).
I had a monstor Supermicro 750A case with associated fans, plus two double-sized fans on each Celeron processor. The result was a fairly loud and steady buzz. The first few nights sleeping in the same room was difficult. The next year and a half or so, it was impossible to sleep if they weren't running (it just sounded unearthly quiet). I've got a (quiter) Antec case now with (smaller, quieter) fans on P3 chips. I've adjusted, but it's still wierd sleeping without my server running.
That sounds like a great idea...at first. I thought I was the cleverest guy on earth when I went to the store a few days after getting my Palm III and got a GoType! keyboard so I could take notes at college.
For my comp sci classes it wasn't bad...particularly for code (it was actually readable:} ). However, it was next to useless for statistics (try to format a table of results using the tab key...HAH).
Somehow I managed that quarter to get all my notes into the device via the keyboard, without completely using up my RAM. The kicker came at the end of the quarter. I'd put each day's notes in a separate text file, with classes organized as categories. This served a couple purposes. First, there is (was) a limitation on the size of the text file. Second, I could quickly locate notes for a particular day. The unexpected problem at the end of the quarter was how to remove them all from the Palm. It took forever to click the menus to delete them.
For all my technical knowledge, I'm still a three-finger-and-thumb typist. I don't type all that fast or well. I've also been using a Palm device for about 3 years.
I'd still rather use the keyboard than the stylus. Why? Even with grafiti, the Palm doesn't consistently recognize my scrawl...certainly not as quickly or accurately as my poor typing.
It really doesn't take a really computer literate person to figure out an alphabetic keyboard. You push the 'A' key and an 'a' appears. You push 'Shift' and 'A' and you get an 'A'. Is it really that much more accurate, fast, or intuitive to make a '^' shaped mark on a Palm?
Granted, this is from my POV...YMMV. However, I know what I'm doing on both devices, and I consistently have trouble entering characters via grafiti that I would have no problem getting in via hunt-and-peck on a keyboard.
I feel wierd toting a Sony Vaio, two cell phones, and a HandEra 330 with 1 GB disk drive around town, just because of the cost of the menagerie. (I don't care what people think about how I look...)
I'd feel really uncomfortable with an expensive head-mounted display, various sensors, etc. It's not likely that someone on the street will stick me up for my arms or feet, but expensive electronics certainly are more likely to invite that sort of behavior.
Far too many people here gripe about stories that they submitted not being posted for months...and then being attributed to someone else. Why not have a for-fee posting service? For example, I have a really cool story, but/. editors don't want to post it. So I pay/. $10 (or whatever, depends on how badly I want it posted), and they put it up on the site. Even better, they could auction slots on the page for each day.
Moreover, if you'd read some of the other posts, you'd notice that only a fraction of the system is being used for the email server, and that as a vm. The rest is running other odd apps. Of course, what I'm curious about is if you can fileshare between the mainframe and the vm on the mainframe...
For the Mars rover they used aerial maps and rover surveillance to examine the terrain before exploring. They'd program a detailed path, send it to the revoer, the rover would explore, and then report back. All this was for less than a 30 minute ping time, of course, but the principle still holds IMHO. Of course, on Europa we don't have underwater maps, but I think we could take sonar readings, relay those back, and apply the same exploratory cycle as used on Mars.
The big question I have is how you land the large assembly needed to land on the surface, bore through the ice, release the subs, and still have room for control gear for subs, and lander, not to mention on-planet reception gear for the lander as well as storage and off-planet transmitting and reception gear. This is particularly true with NASA's "faster, cheaper, better" program.
I don't own the originals anymore (darned magnets and video tapes), but I'm of the same mind. Then again, I had a time stomaching midichlorians in Episode I. Ah well...
Slashdot Mirror
The guy I know said it more or less means "I support law enforcement" and that you have to know the right people to come by one. Which reminds me of a sticker I saw on the back of a junker as I was driving south on Wake Forest Rd. where it merges into Capital Blvd. The sticker said
[small]Officer, will this sticker which says[/small]
[huge]I support law enforcement[/huge]
[small]stop you from pulling me over for speeding?[/small]
I've also wondered if the sticker I described is related to the blue square sticker with a yellow = symbol on it.
Here in Raleigh you see stickers all over cars with 3 horizontal lines of equal size: black-blue-black. The silly things are pervasive. (Oh, yeah, anyone know where I can get one? A friend of mine tells me it keeps cops from giving him a ticket when he's speeding...)
I can't say how many since the site was slashdotted by the time I tried to get page 3.
then they sue you too
Since you seem to have so many ideas on what a language should do (as long as it isn't English), perhaps you could design the ultimate language?
I've used plenty of late-version software that is arguably worse than the previous version...I believe that's called de-evolution :)
FORTRAN is definitely an old language but old does not necessarily mean bad. It still has place in many scientific and engineering circles because it has been thoroughly debugged and tested. Would your trust your local nuclear power plant software if it was Perl? Python? Java? C++? I wouldn't. There is a reason that most code for calculating nuclear plant fuel assembly concentration and positon is written in FORTRAN--and it's not because of a love of old, perceivedly sluggish, languages.
Besides which, just because we have more hardware to throw at a problem does not mean that that is the optimal approach. That very point of view is the reason that computer hardware gets ever faster but the operating systems and software don't. It's a symptom of the Microsoft school of coding: throw more hardware at a problem and that will fix it. 640k^h^h^h^h256M of memory is all you'll ever need.
I don't think either point is valid. If you want to argue based on security, memory issues, etc., fine. Age of a language and the fact that it runs efficiently are really bad reasons to attack it, however.
You guys can play it or not, but it won't affect the sales of the CD since Clear Channel (among others no doubt) is playing it all over the place (and having interviews with her and yadda yadda yadda)
(I'm curious, but too cheap to go buy the disc)
If his service was truly that bad, why didn't he contact the BBB? That's why they exist, after all.
Try bouncing the beam off the ceiling? Works for my RCA (my speaker assortment blocks my line-of-sight from couch to IR port on the TV).
Might I ask how you got your WinTV card to work under Linux? Ever since I switched from the Red Hat 6.x series to the 7.x series, mine has been completely unusable^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcrappy. Attempting to use it seems to cause erratic behavior up to and including system lockup. I didn't change the card position on the board, didn't change anything but the OS. I finally broke down and put it into my Win98 box (where it works, sorta, except that it conflicts with the IRQ for power management, meaning that system doesn't like to wake up when it goes to sleep).
I had a monstor Supermicro 750A case with associated fans, plus two double-sized fans on each Celeron processor. The result was a fairly loud and steady buzz. The first few nights sleeping in the same room was difficult. The next year and a half or so, it was impossible to sleep if they weren't running (it just sounded unearthly quiet). I've got a (quiter) Antec case now with (smaller, quieter) fans on P3 chips. I've adjusted, but it's still wierd sleeping without my server running.
I still prefer my HandEra 330, though. Unless color is a big thing for you, I think the 330 is the ultimate Palm device right now :)
That sounds like a great idea...at first. I thought I was the cleverest guy on earth when I went to the store a few days after getting my Palm III and got a GoType! keyboard so I could take notes at college.
:} ). However, it was next to useless for statistics (try to format a table of results using the tab key...HAH).
For my comp sci classes it wasn't bad...particularly for code (it was actually readable
Somehow I managed that quarter to get all my notes into the device via the keyboard, without completely using up my RAM. The kicker came at the end of the quarter. I'd put each day's notes in a separate text file, with classes organized as categories. This served a couple purposes. First, there is (was) a limitation on the size of the text file. Second, I could quickly locate notes for a particular day. The unexpected problem at the end of the quarter was how to remove them all from the Palm. It took forever to click the menus to delete them.
For all my technical knowledge, I'm still a three-finger-and-thumb typist. I don't type all that fast or well. I've also been using a Palm device for about 3 years.
I'd still rather use the keyboard than the stylus. Why? Even with grafiti, the Palm doesn't consistently recognize my scrawl...certainly not as quickly or accurately as my poor typing.
It really doesn't take a really computer literate person to figure out an alphabetic keyboard. You push the 'A' key and an 'a' appears. You push 'Shift' and 'A' and you get an 'A'. Is it really that much more accurate, fast, or intuitive to make a '^' shaped mark on a Palm?
Granted, this is from my POV...YMMV. However, I know what I'm doing on both devices, and I consistently have trouble entering characters via grafiti that I would have no problem getting in via hunt-and-peck on a keyboard.
I feel wierd toting a Sony Vaio, two cell phones, and a HandEra 330 with 1 GB disk drive around town, just because of the cost of the menagerie. (I don't care what people think about how I look...)
I'd feel really uncomfortable with an expensive head-mounted display, various sensors, etc. It's not likely that someone on the street will stick me up for my arms or feet, but expensive electronics certainly are more likely to invite that sort of behavior.
Far too many people here gripe about stories that they submitted not being posted for months...and then being attributed to someone else. Why not have a for-fee posting service? For example, I have a really cool story, but /. editors don't want to post it. So I pay /. $10 (or whatever, depends on how badly I want it posted), and they put it up on the site. Even better, they could auction slots on the page for each day.
Maybe he really wants to waste power *and* has plenty of time trying to make it y2k compliant :}
Moreover, if you'd read some of the other posts, you'd notice that only a fraction of the system is being used for the email server, and that as a vm. The rest is running other odd apps. Of course, what I'm curious about is if you can fileshare between the mainframe and the vm on the mainframe...
I'd rather it preferred polyester :)
For the Mars rover they used aerial maps and rover surveillance to examine the terrain before exploring. They'd program a detailed path, send it to the revoer, the rover would explore, and then report back. All this was for less than a 30 minute ping time, of course, but the principle still holds IMHO. Of course, on Europa we don't have underwater maps, but I think we could take sonar readings, relay those back, and apply the same exploratory cycle as used on Mars.
The big question I have is how you land the large assembly needed to land on the surface, bore through the ice, release the subs, and still have room for control gear for subs, and lander, not to mention on-planet reception gear for the lander as well as storage and off-planet transmitting and reception gear. This is particularly true with NASA's "faster, cheaper, better" program.
I think the .com bubble proves that. :}
All they gotta do is scrape addresses from /. :)
I don't own the originals anymore (darned magnets and video tapes), but I'm of the same mind. Then again, I had a time stomaching midichlorians in Episode I. Ah well...