Every 10 years or so, programming languages take another incremental step. We take the best lessons over the last decade and incorporate them into a new language. Java took the best parts of C and C++, cleaned them up, added a virtual machine, incorporated the best exception handling designs of the time, and standardized a good class library. Java is/was a huge step forward..NET was the next incremental improvement on Java. They added in some of the things that were missing from Java, removed a few over-complications, and made a new class library that incorporated the lessons Sun learned.
Maybe, in another 5-10 years we will see another language emerge. One of these languages will finally become dominant when they design it by committee and make it an ISO standard, like what happened with C++. The problem is, by the time the language makes it through the standardization process, some upstart will already have another language ready.
I'm reading a PDF about Modular Laser Launch and I'm realizing nobody will ever fund this. However! If you had a tracking system that could follow a pinpoint location on a launch vehicle, and a 100MW laser that could continuously fire, then you could take down an incoming ICBM. It seems like this is the way to get this project started. Tell the DOD that the same device that can launch things into space can also destroy them.
This article makes no sense. The writer describes these amazing new super-efficient cars but doesn't say anything about what makes them clean, other than saying that they don't get good gas mileage. Huh? Then he talks about the Toyota Camry Hybrid's 32 mpg as though that was amazing. Then he talks about how these cars can't be sold elsewhere, but doesn't cite the law that says so or give any reason why. There may be a story behind all this, but it isn't in this article.
1) I'm unclear what law Kapersky violated that even allowed them to bring this suit. The closest thing I can find is "[Kapersky] has asked for unspecified monetary damages and an injunction forcing Zone Labs to cease its current classification of the products." but that's not clear enough.
2) The CDA provides protection for "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, and harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."
Why do we need a law that says a user can control what is installed on their computer? That's absurd!
1) I bet it cost more to make that recovery tool user friendly than it does just to ship the dang CDs with the system 2) Why is a new machine creating 6 CDs instead of one DVD?
The problem is that the court system says that LiveJournal is responsible. Naturally, the only way they can deal with the problem is to say that the poster is responsible. Because for some odd reason, the person who actually put the content there is not responsible. LiveJournal is acting to protect themselves from stupid court rulings so naturally, their decision looks equally stupid.
The issue here is that this is not so black-and-white. If I say "try this new application" and link to goatse, then I'm responsible. But if I say "here's good information on raising your child" and I link to information about sexuality and you are offended by it, then you are responsible. If I link to "buy illegal drugs here" then the person who is selling illegal drugs is responsible. If I like to "try this cool app" and the web site is replaced with goatse a year later, then while that company + goatse is responsible, I am the only one who can fix the link. This is all silly though because LiveJournal should never be responsible in any of these cases.
This could do some very bad things: Suppose the FSF uses a fingerprinting method to detect GPL copyright violations then notifies the individual project of the violation, and the copyright holder sues. Is the FSF an evil cartel collusively typing together copyrights?
Hey, you're right! I just went into preferences and set the "right button" to be secondary click. Yaaay! The thing looks like a single solid bar of soap, so I didn't even realize it had a concept or right and left clicking.
Your information is out-of-date. AMD64 has been around since April 2003, and Windows/Linux has been working on since before it left the factory. Actually, all AMD motherboards since that time are 64-bit, even if nobody runs the 64-bit OS's.
Agreed! Everything on a Mac has context menus because it is a good intuitive idea. But then they put the button for it in a non-intuitive place. It was a decision that made sense 15 years ago, and it became a signature trait of Macs, so they are stuck with it for marketing reasons.
One-button mice is a common myth: Mac mice do have two buttons. It's just that they put the second mouse button on the keyboard and labelled it "control".
It has taken my non-computer-literate wife months to remember which key on the keyboard she has to click to get context-sensitive help up. And it is very uncomfortable to do because she has limited desk space. So operations where I can just mouse around and left/right-click on Windows require two hands for her, and she is constantly looking down at the keyboard.
I played Doom 3 with a good surround-sound setup and a group of people watching. People's reactions were stupendous, and it just fed my adrenaline. The key is to play it on a hard setting - the idea is to be afraid, and be cautious - not to be Rambo. There is tension when you have to count your ammo and walk slowly to avoid being surprised.
It also helps to be very comfortable with the controls. I've played FPS's long enough that the controls are extension to my brain. I think forward and my character moves forward. If you look down at the keyboard and have to think about it then it becomes more like watching a play from a distance -- you see the stage, the guy on the light board, etc. You can't get as emotionally involved.
I remember two particular events in the early levels of Doom 3:
1) I approached a staircase in a dark room. You approach the stairs and you hear metal screeching and you barely perceive movement. Then a demon leaps out. It was brilliant: First you hear "something" but are unsure what, then you're eyes perceive movement so you strain to look closer, then something large and frightening appears. It was very "cinematic"
2) Personal involvement can make the game more interesting in ways that would not work in a movie. Example: I returned to a room I was already in and said aloud "okay, I've already been through here and there's no other way in so I'm safe" and I started to run for it. Suddenly, a body falls from the ceiling right in front of me and I look up just in time to see a demon come down and nearly land on me. The adrenaline hits and I managed to duck a fireball and fire a shotgun blast at pointblank range. After that, everyone looked at me and said "nice job" -- That could not have been played out in a movie. If the character said something that obvious everyone would KNOW something is about to happen. And if the character did something superb in response it would be unbelievable. But when it wa the person right there playing the game it went from cheesy and unbelievable to a combination of fully and cool.
I know Doom 3 was not popular since it just re-hashed old concepts, but it was moments like these that made it one of the most fun games I've ever played.
You could do that without trusted computing. Many machines today have boot ROM's and/or special boot partitions on the hard drive. You would just need a small bit of code to let you remotely send a signal to boot from that partition/boot rom. None of this has anything to do with trusted computing - this "feature" they demonstrated is just a side effect that they choose to demonstrate to hide what Trusted Computing is really used for.
It seems like the article is trying to be negative, but if 8% of gamers are on Vista that's actually amazingly good for Microsoft. Especially since I don't know a single soul who uses it except the QA department at my company. That much market penetration for a product that has been bashed and beaten in the press is amazing.
It just goes to show how Microsoft can force people to upgrade by pushing Vista through the manufacturers.
Because not everything is economically or technologically viable that way. If you don't believe me, then I suggest going to a grocery store, removing hot dog roll from the package, and asking them to ring it up. Or try buying a single nail from a hardware store.
I take it you are not into science. Insults will get you nowhere.:)
Science and Nature are perhaps the top two scientific journals in the world, and they both claimed that the Rat Park article was junk science. Its still controversial to this day. I'm not saying anything about rat park's science - I am not qualified to. I just repeated what was said in the article that the parent poster linked to.
Point: Drugs have different addictiveness on different people. Rebuttal: I know one who was into experimentation who died of an overdose. As for your other reply, I never said that different people didn't get addicted in different ways and to different degrees. You seemed to assume that I was making that point, and defended against it. It is obviously not true, and I would not assert that. I suppose the only thing that I disagree with is the arrogant tone of "I can control myself" that I've heard too many times over.
People in a happy environment can be regular recreational users without showing evidence of addiction. This isn't true with methamphetamines (you might say it is true with marijuana though and I wouldn't argue). The only evidence of that is Rat Park, which by the original posters own evidence, was highly flawed. The particular person I was referring to, Kevin McCormick (you can google him - there's tribute pages to him everywhere) claimed he was not addicted either. I have plenty of daily experience with drug addiction. You can't fight addiction - not with brains - not with environmental stimulation - you can't argue with it or use will power against it. It is chemical. It is scientifically verified. And it kills lots of people who "aren't addicts." You can say these people are "anectodal" evidence and site one flawed article after another to the contrary. But the general body of scientific knowledge on this subject does not agree with the original poster's insinuations of control, nor does my anecdotal experience. And my rebuttal of this does not make me "unscientific" and it doesn't meant that the conclusions of these two journals is flawed, or hubris, or conspiracy theory. It's a truth that people wish wasn't true and refuse to accept.
You remind me of the last person I knew who explained to me, in great technical detail, as to why various drugs were not as addictive or dangerous as the government claimed. MIT graduate. Amateur chemist. Genius. Dead of a drug overdose.
The constant CCNA bashing is lame: CCNA is Cisco's lowest level certification. Instead of complaining that CCNAs don't know anything, they should be looking at CCNPs and CCNEs. The CCNE exam is damn tough: It has a large question bank so it is hard to memorize your way through it. It has scenarios instead of just multiple choice. It uses IRT scoring, and automatically adapts to your knowledge level. This test has a reputation for being really tough.
The commission said there were two areas, the glovebox and an old elevator shaft, where the solution potentially could have collected in such a way to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. I am not a physicist, but I don't think that packing enriched uranium into a glovebox could cause a nuclear reaction. With the elevator shaft -- are they imagining something crushing the uranium under great pressure? Is that enough? This sounds very unlikely to me. Nuclear material isn't "explosive" in the typical sense. Can someone qualified chime-in on this?
This is a great example of the kind of truly meaningless politically-based questions that candidates get asked.
Giuliani- Are you running as anything but the 9/11 candidate? That's not really even a question. That's like asking "Are you really as stupid as people think you are" or "How ridiculous do you look?" People vote for idiots because we ask idiotic questions like this. And only figureheads run for office because the only way to look good when asked something like this is to put on a pretty face and have a good voice.
Looks like they used the Buzzword word processor to make the press release:
Though we have not yet announced any intentions to move into the office productivity-software market, considering that we have built this platform that makes it easy to build rich applications that run on both the desktop and the browser, I certainly wouldn't rule anything like that out.'" After running it through my "buzzword" processor, it comes out to:
We might make a word processing program. Most annoying buzzword of the year: platform Previously meant:
A combination of hardware + OS + tools that could produce interoperable applications. Now means:
Any two pieces of software that work together or have the same look and feel
What is odd to me is that I see new stuff written in C all the time for embedded systems, *nix code, drivers, etc. It's odd because C++ is merely language extensions on top of C. There's really no down-side to using C++ at all (queue the thread of trolls telling me how awful OOP is and why C++ forces them to use it). My guess is that the problem is g++: I am currently writing some code for the Nintendo DS, and if I compile it in gcc the code is 100k smaller than when I compile the same thing in g++, even before using the OOP features. I don't know why, but I know other people have reported the same issues. This is perpetuatating the myths that C++ is bloated. Really, we need C++ in a lot of ways but the tools are making it look bad.
Slashdot Mirror
Every 10 years or so, programming languages take another incremental step. We take the best lessons over the last decade and incorporate them into a new language. Java took the best parts of C and C++, cleaned them up, added a virtual machine, incorporated the best exception handling designs of the time, and standardized a good class library. Java is/was a huge step forward. .NET was the next incremental improvement on Java. They added in some of the things that were missing from Java, removed a few over-complications, and made a new class library that incorporated the lessons Sun learned.
Maybe, in another 5-10 years we will see another language emerge. One of these languages will finally become dominant when they design it by committee and make it an ISO standard, like what happened with C++. The problem is, by the time the language makes it through the standardization process, some upstart will already have another language ready.
The game continues forever.
Those are some awesome links.
I'm reading a PDF about Modular Laser Launch and I'm realizing nobody will ever fund this. However! If you had a tracking system that could follow a pinpoint location on a launch vehicle, and a 100MW laser that could continuously fire, then you could take down an incoming ICBM. It seems like this is the way to get this project started. Tell the DOD that the same device that can launch things into space can also destroy them.
Just curious, but what is extreme network neutrality?
This article makes no sense. The writer describes these amazing new super-efficient cars but doesn't say anything about what makes them clean, other than saying that they don't get good gas mileage. Huh? Then he talks about the Toyota Camry Hybrid's 32 mpg as though that was amazing. Then he talks about how these cars can't be sold elsewhere, but doesn't cite the law that says so or give any reason why. There may be a story behind all this, but it isn't in this article.
And take the test at The Political Compass as well.
1) I'm unclear what law Kapersky violated that even allowed them to bring this suit. The closest thing I can find is "[Kapersky] has asked for unspecified monetary damages and an injunction forcing Zone Labs to cease its current classification of the products." but that's not clear enough.
2) The CDA provides protection for "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, and harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."
Why do we need a law that says a user can control what is installed on their computer? That's absurd!
1) I bet it cost more to make that recovery tool user friendly than it does just to ship the dang CDs with the system
2) Why is a new machine creating 6 CDs instead of one DVD?
The problem is that the court system says that LiveJournal is responsible. Naturally, the only way they can deal with the problem is to say that the poster is responsible. Because for some odd reason, the person who actually put the content there is not responsible. LiveJournal is acting to protect themselves from stupid court rulings so naturally, their decision looks equally stupid.
The issue here is that this is not so black-and-white. If I say "try this new application" and link to goatse, then I'm responsible. But if I say "here's good information on raising your child" and I link to information about sexuality and you are offended by it, then you are responsible. If I link to "buy illegal drugs here" then the person who is selling illegal drugs is responsible. If I like to "try this cool app" and the web site is replaced with goatse a year later, then while that company + goatse is responsible, I am the only one who can fix the link. This is all silly though because LiveJournal should never be responsible in any of these cases.
This could do some very bad things: Suppose the FSF uses a fingerprinting method to detect GPL copyright violations then notifies the individual project of the violation, and the copyright holder sues. Is the FSF an evil cartel collusively typing together copyrights?
Hey, you're right! I just went into preferences and set the "right button" to be secondary click. Yaaay! The thing looks like a single solid bar of soap, so I didn't even realize it had a concept or right and left clicking.
(FYI - IMac 17" = Mighty Mouse)
Your information is out-of-date. AMD64 has been around since April 2003, and Windows/Linux has been working on since before it left the factory. Actually, all AMD motherboards since that time are 64-bit, even if nobody runs the 64-bit OS's.
Agreed! Everything on a Mac has context menus because it is a good intuitive idea. But then they put the button for it in a non-intuitive place. It was a decision that made sense 15 years ago, and it became a signature trait of Macs, so they are stuck with it for marketing reasons.
One-button mice is a common myth: Mac mice do have two buttons. It's just that they put the second mouse button on the keyboard and labelled it "control".
It has taken my non-computer-literate wife months to remember which key on the keyboard she has to click to get context-sensitive help up. And it is very uncomfortable to do because she has limited desk space. So operations where I can just mouse around and left/right-click on Windows require two hands for her, and she is constantly looking down at the keyboard.
I played Doom 3 with a good surround-sound setup and a group of people watching. People's reactions were stupendous, and it just fed my adrenaline. The key is to play it on a hard setting - the idea is to be afraid, and be cautious - not to be Rambo. There is tension when you have to count your ammo and walk slowly to avoid being surprised.
It also helps to be very comfortable with the controls. I've played FPS's long enough that the controls are extension to my brain. I think forward and my character moves forward. If you look down at the keyboard and have to think about it then it becomes more like watching a play from a distance -- you see the stage, the guy on the light board, etc. You can't get as emotionally involved.
I remember two particular events in the early levels of Doom 3:
1) I approached a staircase in a dark room. You approach the stairs and you hear metal screeching and you barely perceive movement. Then a demon leaps out. It was brilliant: First you hear "something" but are unsure what, then you're eyes perceive movement so you strain to look closer, then something large and frightening appears. It was very "cinematic"
2) Personal involvement can make the game more interesting in ways that would not work in a movie. Example: I returned to a room I was already in and said aloud "okay, I've already been through here and there's no other way in so I'm safe" and I started to run for it. Suddenly, a body falls from the ceiling right in front of me and I look up just in time to see a demon come down and nearly land on me. The adrenaline hits and I managed to duck a fireball and fire a shotgun blast at pointblank range. After that, everyone looked at me and said "nice job" -- That could not have been played out in a movie. If the character said something that obvious everyone would KNOW something is about to happen. And if the character did something superb in response it would be unbelievable. But when it wa the person right there playing the game it went from cheesy and unbelievable to a combination of fully and cool.
I know Doom 3 was not popular since it just re-hashed old concepts, but it was moments like these that made it one of the most fun games I've ever played.
You could do that without trusted computing. Many machines today have boot ROM's and/or special boot partitions on the hard drive. You would just need a small bit of code to let you remotely send a signal to boot from that partition/boot rom. None of this has anything to do with trusted computing - this "feature" they demonstrated is just a side effect that they choose to demonstrate to hide what Trusted Computing is really used for.
It seems like the article is trying to be negative, but if 8% of gamers are on Vista that's actually amazingly good for Microsoft. Especially since I don't know a single soul who uses it except the QA department at my company. That much market penetration for a product that has been bashed and beaten in the press is amazing.
It just goes to show how Microsoft can force people to upgrade by pushing Vista through the manufacturers.
Can ticker symbols handle extended-ascii or UNICODE? I want my ticket symbol to be ЈẤүẠ♥
Because not everything is economically or technologically viable that way. If you don't believe me, then I suggest going to a grocery store, removing hot dog roll from the package, and asking them to ring it up. Or try buying a single nail from a hardware store.
Science and Nature are perhaps the top two scientific journals in the world, and they both claimed that the Rat Park article was junk science. Its still controversial to this day. I'm not saying anything about rat park's science - I am not qualified to. I just repeated what was said in the article that the parent poster linked to. Point: Drugs have different addictiveness on different people. Rebuttal: I know one who was into experimentation who died of an overdose. As for your other reply, I never said that different people didn't get addicted in different ways and to different degrees. You seemed to assume that I was making that point, and defended against it. It is obviously not true, and I would not assert that. I suppose the only thing that I disagree with is the arrogant tone of "I can control myself" that I've heard too many times over. People in a happy environment can be regular recreational users without showing evidence of addiction. This isn't true with methamphetamines (you might say it is true with marijuana though and I wouldn't argue). The only evidence of that is Rat Park, which by the original posters own evidence, was highly flawed. The particular person I was referring to, Kevin McCormick (you can google him - there's tribute pages to him everywhere) claimed he was not addicted either. I have plenty of daily experience with drug addiction. You can't fight addiction - not with brains - not with environmental stimulation - you can't argue with it or use will power against it. It is chemical. It is scientifically verified. And it kills lots of people who "aren't addicts." You can say these people are "anectodal" evidence and site one flawed article after another to the contrary. But the general body of scientific knowledge on this subject does not agree with the original poster's insinuations of control, nor does my anecdotal experience. And my rebuttal of this does not make me "unscientific" and it doesn't meant that the conclusions of these two journals is flawed, or hubris, or conspiracy theory. It's a truth that people wish wasn't true and refuse to accept.
Also, I think you meant "hubris" not "hybris."
You remind me of the last person I knew who explained to me, in great technical detail, as to why various drugs were not as addictive or dangerous as the government claimed. MIT graduate. Amateur chemist. Genius. Dead of a drug overdose.
Regarding Rat Park -- the Wikipedia article you linked to says it was rejected by the top 2 science journals in the country.
The constant CCNA bashing is lame: CCNA is Cisco's lowest level certification. Instead of complaining that CCNAs don't know anything, they should be looking at CCNPs and CCNEs. The CCNE exam is damn tough: It has a large question bank so it is hard to memorize your way through it. It has scenarios instead of just multiple choice. It uses IRT scoring, and automatically adapts to your knowledge level. This test has a reputation for being really tough.
platform
Previously meant:
A combination of hardware + OS + tools that could produce interoperable applications.
Now means:
Any two pieces of software that work together or have the same look and feel
What is odd to me is that I see new stuff written in C all the time for embedded systems, *nix code, drivers, etc. It's odd because C++ is merely language extensions on top of C. There's really no down-side to using C++ at all (queue the thread of trolls telling me how awful OOP is and why C++ forces them to use it). My guess is that the problem is g++: I am currently writing some code for the Nintendo DS, and if I compile it in gcc the code is 100k smaller than when I compile the same thing in g++, even before using the OOP features. I don't know why, but I know other people have reported the same issues. This is perpetuatating the myths that C++ is bloated. Really, we need C++ in a lot of ways but the tools are making it look bad.