It's a NUMERIC solution, not an ALGEBRAIC solution.
Abel's proof showed that polynomials with a degree higher than 4 could not be solved algebraically (i.e through a finite number of additions, subtractions, multiplications, etc.). Abel's proof did no say it was impossible to solve the equations (indeed, numerical solutions to these equations are solved regularly).
This is similar to how some integral equation solutions cannot be expressed in simple terms. However numerical answers are rather easy to obtain (even easier with a computer):).
The method presented is a simpler way to find the roots of polynomial equations numerically by treating it like a power series (x, x^1, x^2,...,x^n) and applying standard differential techniques.
You're definition is very narrow. Tyranny does not mean death. Tyranny is represented by any entity threatening punishement in order to accomplish its own gains.
People aren't "whining" because they can't get free tunes. People are whining because a multi-billion dollar media conglomorate group are targeting and suing everyday people who cannot affor to fight back, even if they are innocent. So through "threatening", they extort what in comparison ios a smaller amount of money as opposed to the amount of money it would take for someone to hire a lawyer and fight them.
In the US legal system, you don't necesarily have to win, you just have to last the longest.
"Fuel cells, meh, they have their place. But accident safety with a hydrogen bomb under your hood is an interesting diversion from the subject in itself..."
You know, I'm getting fed up with all the uneducated drivel I hear about how dangerous hydrogen is. You'd think, like this poor person, that you are carrying a nuclear detonation device in your car with hydrogen fuel.
Let's compare the explosive power of hydrogen to the explosive power of gasoline. One cup of gasoline contains the same explosive power as one stick of dynamite. Now one cup of hydrogen has significantly less explosive power than dynamite. Hydrogen has a slower reaction rate as well, making hydrogen more of a flame than an explosion. Notice, for example, the Hindenburg did not explode. The hydrogen did burn, but had the ship been inflated with vaporized gasoline there would have been a rather large blast killing everybody in the air and on the ground.
Hydrogen actually has other advantages as well. At room temperature and pressures it is a gas, while gasoline is a liquid. If a hydrogen tank cracked, the pressures needed to store it would force the tank dry in a matter of seconds. Hydrogen disperses quickly in the atmosphere, and burns off quickly so a devastating accident would not burn for more than a couple of seconds (you'd see a very brief ball of orange flame). Gasoline on the other hand, acts more like napalm. It's liquid at regular temps and atmospheric pressure, so it has no problems spilling and leaking everywhere. If it catches fire, it burns quite well and for quite a while. So hope you don't have any on you. Not to mention if there is a pocket or two of vaporized gasoline you may get some explosive results.
Gasoline is a far more dangerous material, not to mention toxic (hydrogen gas is non-toxic). But hydrogen would be piss poor in a combustion engione because, as noted above, it doesn't pack the same kick as gasoline. Using hydrogen in fuel cells is a better way to go. No combustion necessary.
Now I'm sure someone will bring up the challenger disaster and say "See, hydrogen is bad!". That's not accurate. It wasn't the hydrogen that was the problem, but the LOX (liquid oxygen). LOX is highly explosive,and that's what made the really big boom. You can have a room full of hydrogen, but it won't ignite without a supply of oxygen.
I think a big step in getting hydrogen into public acceptance would be an education campaign. Maybe then people will get rid of their all-consuming fears about the evil exploding hydrogen tanks.
Once the public accepts it and receives correct information, maybe change will happen at a faster rate.
~X~
"Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."
OpenGL and other graphics api's are what I was refering to, i.e I never said write to the metal doing modern PC graphics. On consoles, possibly but you have to weigh the costs of doing so. Writing to the metal with modern graphics cards is difficult if not impossible due to the lack of low-level docs.
I have looked at JOGL, and many other GL to java bindings in the past. The fundamental problem with these are that they are what the are: Bindings. Underneath they are still using a JNI bridge to the native DLL which carries a not-so-insignificant overhead. I've had to deal with JNI performance issues on several projects. But you don't need to take my word for it, there is plenty of information regarding JNI and performance on the web.
You're also taking my words out of context. There is a trade-off for speed vs. maintainability. In most cases, you can write a good 90% of your project using C++/Java/C#/ whatever because objects like GUI interfaces aren't usually speed critical. I'm refering to the last 10% that usually is speed critical. RTOS's and 3-D games have such "performance-critical" components and in that case you want native speed.
So to counter your two arguments.
1. An INTERPERATED instruction will never match the speed of a machine code instruction on a PC, unless there is a hardware JVM. Therefore, in raw cycles, the same code written in java will be slower than the equivalent code in a compiled language. With JIT, some code may perform at the same level, but overall the compiled language will always get ahead. In most cases though, no one is going to notice a millisecond of difference.
2. There are a number of instances where you do want every last cycle of performance. RTOS's, video games (console and PC), video card drivers (in fact, just about any hardware drivers), satellite communication software, space probes, guidance systems, flight navigational systems, etc. etc. etc. . Direct access to hardware is not one of Java's strong suits.
I'm not saying java is a slow bloated pile. I've used java many times in projects. It does have it's place, especially if you need to run the same program on various OS's. I've found it quite useful, and the mass of libraries out there make it very convenient for prototyping.
For a large portion of projects, java is just as good (and in some cases better) than any language. But like all tools, it has it's advantages and disadvantages. Java has its place, but there are certain projects I would not use it for.
There are reasons why Doom 3 was not written in java.
~X~
Java is fine as long as you use it for what it was defined for.
You probably wouldn't want to use it for high-performance graphics for example, but it's great for developing most standard apps.
If you really need to eek out the last nanosecond of performance, do not use java. Java will never be able to match the speed of writing to the metal. But I don't see why you wouldn't want to use it for a client-server app where nanosecond performance isn't critical.
Java is a programming tool just like any other. Only a fool throws out a tool merely on the basis of not knowing how to use it.
Or painters. I mean really, when you get down to it it's just mixing paint and brushing it on a canvas. It's skilled repitition, but no more so than drafting or car repair.
Or musicians. I mean really, when you get down to it 's just mixing a bunch of notes together into some coherent beat. It's skilled repition but no more so than drafting or car repair.
The bulk of everything is repitition. Life is repitition. It's what you do with it that makes it unique.
I don't see you chastising music bands of doing skilled repitition, nor novel writers.
There a seven themes for a play. There are thousands of plays. Yet, I don't think Shakespear et al. manufactured their plays on an assembly line.
Programming is an art and a skill, like playing an instrument or painting a scene. Our instrumentation is just a little different.
United States of America? Been a few years since I heard our country called that. I believe you are refering to the Corporate Conglomorates of America.
It's pointless to keep up the charade. Why don't they just come out and say that the corporations control the government and get it over with. Who do they think they're fooling anyway?
Oh...The 300 million people that they cower in fear behind the shield of terrorism and placate with the shiny box with pictures on it.
Each ridiculous IP law passed brings this country one step closer to self-destruction.
*sigh* The corporations will keep greasing palms. Eventually they will get what they want. And then, they will all die as they realize the very laws the bought to give them essentially free profits also prevents any and all innovation. They may even take the government with it. No terrorism necessary, though I do believe corporations already use terrorism to get what they want (SCO, RIAA, etc.).
I'll continue my boycotts. I'll continue to vote. I'll continue to hope that the people will wake up and see what's going on right under their noses. Maybe that will happen when people suddenly realize they can no longer record the SuperBowl.
So let me get this straight. You're saying that it should be a crime to call someone names?
You're kidding right?
What about letters to the editor, opinions, etc. etc..
If I think G.W is an utter moron who's running this country into the ground, I shouldn't say anything because it might hurt his feeling?
This is the INTERNET. This is a PUBLIC FORUM. If you don't like what someone is saying IGNORE THEM or FIGHT BACK.
Some people didn't like what this guy did or was doing. They called him on it. Some responses were probably a little immature. GET OVER IT!
For fucks sake what kind of precedant is this setting. I've had people say not so nice things about me on the internet. So what? It happens. Not everyone you come across is going to like you or what you do. Imagine some big corporation suing you for posting a bad review about their product. What would your reaction be to that?
"(Don't something like 70% of engineers wear glasses?)."
Yep. Our intellectual developement increases to comepnsate for our abysmal abilities to anything athletic (kinda hard to have good hand-eye coordination when you can't see your hand).:)
~X~
"It was a joke people. Laugh. I said laugh!"
Some of the best money I've ever spent. Right now I have 20/15 in one eye and 20/25 in the other (slight residual astigmatism).
May vision was bad before. And I mean BAD. I was almost legally blind. Anything beyond about 6 inches in front of my face was a complete blur. And you can't imagine the feeling you have when you crush your coke bottle glasses and toss them in the trash.:)
My onyly negative was that for some reason, Some of the anesthetic drops missed my cornea in my left eye. So when that blade cut, it was kinda painful. But I can't complain with the results.
Keep in mind though, it is not a miracle cure all. When you have bad vision (like me) you may still have to wear glasses (most likely ata reduced perscription.
But like I said, it was well worth the money to be freed from having to put on glasses just to get out of bed.
Terrorist 1: So do I get to suicide bomb today? Do I?!? Do I?!?!
Terrorist 2: No. The cellular service isn't down.
Terrorist 1: Awwwwwww I never get to be the bomb!
Terrorist 2: Cheer up, little guy! You never know...Hey Look!
Terrorist 1: What?!?! What's going on?
Terrorist 2: The cellular service just went down! You see? Now you can blow yourself up in the name of !
Terrorist 1: Hoooray! Hooray!
The Department of Homeland Stupidity is the biggest friggin' joke going in America. At least Hitler's SS had some creative reason's to start trampling rights.
How the hell is this information going to help a terrorist? Terrorist are not spur of the moment. They plan. Just like any other paramilitary self-righteous group of assholes on the planet.
Knowing that cell coverage is out in an area would only be useful to them if they did it themselves.
Conversely, knowing where cell coverage is operational would be good for them if they wanted to detonate a bomb from afar.
I can't believe grown human beings are making these decisions...and people go along with it!
This is almost as silly as not letting homosexuals have equal rights....oh....yeah.
I hope I'm not the only person who is sick of hearing 9/11 this and terrorism that. It's as bad as "we must do in the name of the children" arguments.
9/11. It happened, it sucked, GET THE FUCK OVER IT ALREADY! Our continued pre-occupation with it and terrorism is destructive to the fabric of this nation. One doesn't need much more than the patriot act for proof, although plenty more exists where that came from.
I've read the beast known as the Patriot Act. It's a great document if you like the executive branch wiping it's collective ass with the constitution.
The thing that is both sad and funny about it is it won't stop terrorism. It won't even slow it down. All it really does is grant unchecked powers or rubber-stamped powers.
The language is vague at best. It's loaded with subjective terms like "reasonable", with no further limits or description on what reasonable is.
You can be searched, monitored, investigated, and arrested WITHOUT DUE PROCESS. The best part is that they don't have to tell you. And they can hold you for an INDISCRIMINATE AMOUNT of time, without a lawyer or trial if the circumstances are "sufficient" (another term that is used without further explanation). And, as many of us know, if you do bring anything related to the Patriot act to trial, you can't even say anything about it without incurring a heavy penalty. It's a federal offense, go directly to jail for 5 years. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not attempt to invoke any constitutional rights.
And to anyone who says "we'll if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear", here's a big fuck you. What does the government declare wrong. Is my writing this on slashdot wrong? Is me saying the Patriot Act reflects the sesspool our system is becoming wrong? I don't know about everyone else but after all the lies, half-truths, and outright deceit that has come out of the government in the last 3 years I really don't want THEM deciding what is right and wrong.
The Patriot Act WILL NOT give anyone any security. It will not make you safe from terrorist. And it will not make the US a better place.
Why? Let's think of of it in computer terms. Terrorism is like P2P. P2P has no central server. There is no centralized location. In order to take down a P2P network you would have to take down all the "peers". This, as I'm sure many know, is practically impossible, as the peer could be anywhere at anytime.
Need more examples? Look at Israel and Chechenya. Those countries are practically under martial law and terrorists STILL ATTACK SUCCESFULLY. This should tell congress, and Americans in general something. No matter how many freedoms are stripped away and no matter how many insane powers are granted, you will not stop a dedicated terrorist, foriegn or domestic.
The only thing the Patriot Act ensures is that our constitutional rights have been compromised. Bush and co. also want to eliminate the sunset clause and extend/add more abilities for the government to trounce the constitution with. You thought Patriot 2 was dead? It's being passed piecemeal, under the radar by having sections added to other bills in congress.
I'm tired of all this stealth crap. Why don't they just repeal ammendments and get it over with. The government should just stop pretending that the great document known as the Constitution even has any meaning anymore.
Write letters and vote. I do both. Despite my lack of faith now, I still hang on to a glimmer of hope that we can make difference. We have to try something before we end up like the sheeple in 1984.
~X~
Question To Ponder: "Why did Jeb Bush declare a state of emergency for two years on September 7,2001?"
Oh yes it does!
Noxious chemical toxins released into the air in mass quantities is consider a chemical weapon!
The WMD have been found! It is in his pants!
Get thee to Git-mo infidel pagan anti-american terroist swine!
~X~
It seems that you don't understand the concepts of risk and probability.
You never have a "certain probability". All you have is probability. Probability is a best guess in cases such as this since there are numerous factors to take into consideration.
72 lbs. of plutonium re-entering the atmosphere BY ITSELF without shielding would cause insignificant damage at best. It would be vaporized and scattered in the upper atmosphere, where cosmic radiation would rapidly turn most particles into unstable elements that breakdown even faster.
In fact, the chances of said particles reaching the surface of the earth is minimal. And even if it did, we are talking fractions of microcuries at best.
BUT IT WILL DAMAGE THE ENVIRONMENT! 36 kg of plutonium vs. 6.14X10^24 kg of Earth? With the way people make radiation sound, you'd think it was magical death wraith just waiting to be set loose on the poor undefended Earth.
And while we're talking about probabilities, I think you should be more concerned with your fellow drivers than an errant space probe. You're far more likely to die in a car crash than any sort of radioactive accident, least of all from a space probe.
To put it in perspective, you have a risk when you take a shower in the morning. There's a risk that you could slip, crak your head and die. The risk is small, but it's there. Does this mean you shouldn't take showers? Do you do a risk/cost analysis everytime you step in the shower? Do you have life insurance, a will, savings, etc. for anyone left behind? Do you estimate how much a funeral will cost? What taxes will be due? How much lawyers will cost? What about your job? The cost it would take to replace you? The list goes on. And this is all just based on you taking a shower.
Do you trully know your risk/cost? I doubt it. It's not possible to know all the repercussions of your demise because no one can predict the future. If you were smart though, you would be prepared as you could be for such a thing and you'd go on living your life and taking showers.
You're just one person. NASA has hundreds who run computer simulations, analysis, environmental impacts, emergency scenarios, etc. . The probe was launched in 1997, but they were probably testing the hell out of it for at least a decade. And NASA has been doing this since the 60's.
They are not infalliable, but they have numbers to back up their claims. And I would take a 100 scientist recommendation over an elitest snob.
So much DIDN'T survive. A large amount of species ceased to exist. The ones that did survive repopulated, diversified, and spread to give us what we have today.
Even at that time some species of both plants and animals had hibernating/survival traits that allowed them to weather the storm. Dinosaurs were not one of them.
Survival? Realize the magnitude of an impact that could produce a crater that size.
Massive global earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, a shock wave many times the speed of sound and essentially a wall of fire incinerating everything in it's path for many miles, absolute disruption of global weather patterns, fallout, etc... etc...
Use one of the asteroid simulators. Even if you were on the other side of the planet you'd get 10+ magnitude earthquake along with a hefty shockwave more than strong enough to rip apart any remaining structures still standing. I'm not talking about crumbling. I'm talking about steel girders being smashed into splinters.
We could unleash all nuclear weapons at the same time in one spot and we wouldn't even get close to the energy an impact like this would unleash.
No, an impact like that would pretty much scour the surface of the planet. Maybe through sheer luck some very small number of humans would survive. They would be the unlucky ones, as there would be nothing left.
Life would survive and evolve out of this as it always does, but humans would become extinct along with a large number of other life forms.
Think of it this way. The RIAA/MPAA say that when you buy a cd/movie, you don't own the content. You just own a liscense to the content.
Fine. Okay. So if my disc dies, does that mean the liscense dies with it? Or do I still have that liscense? If I still have it, should I be able to get a new disc for free? If not, then I should be able to make back-up copies in case the discs are destroyed.
Similar case. You've paid for the service. You got the content. You should be able to use it any way you want in the privacy of your own home. You're not selling it or redistributing it. So why the hell should a media company tell you what you can and can not do with something you recorded from a transmission you paid for?
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but there's also another factor that makes fusion inherently safe.
The plasma, even without the "heat", is highly corrosive. It's raw particles, which means if it ever did touch the walls it would disintegrate a very very very thin (like a few atoms of thickness) part of it. If the reactor somehow blew open, the plasma would quickly react with the atmosphere and vanish.
The amount of plasma being used is very very small. The whole thing could spontaneously shatter and all that would happen is a pretty light show that lasts a fraction of second.
You're missing a fundamental concept of biological evolution.
Evolution happens by mutation. Often, these mutations are environmentally caused. Sometimes by some weird random genetic crossing. It doesn't matter. The point is that out of a field of (insert weed here), it's more than likely that at least one will survive. It might not be happy, but it'll survive.
Now, it reproduces. Whatever allowed it to survive has now populated the field. Kill them again. More will survive, most will die off. Again, these stronger ones reproduce.
After a few years, through environmental and random mutations, you now have a superweed.
The same thing is what's driving why anti-bacterial agents aren't that great, and why bacterial infections are getting harder to kill.
More on topic, I would be very wary if I were a Canadian right now. If something like this can go through, just imagine what's going to happen next. Doctors will patent surgical procedures, and any doctor who performs it will need to pay a royalty.
What's going to stop drug companies from patenting cures to deadly diseases? Oh...uh...yeah.
I sent something along a similar vein to NASA about Olympus Mons on Mars. My hypothesis was a massive object slammed into what is now the Marines Planum area of Mars, litteraly punching a hole into the surface and triggering a massive volcanic eruption on the other side of the planet.
The hole sealed over and the lack of tectonic movement let it heal over practically undisturbed. As for the rest of the planet, the impact would have caused complete devastation. The energy could have vaporized most of any significant amount of water into space. Any atmosphere would have been in a very bad shape after this impact. In fact, Phobos and Diemos could have been remnants from such an impact.
But like I said, it's all hypothesis. I also have a hypothesis that the "hotspot" that continuously creates the Hawiaan islands is caused by the remnants of the Yucatan meteor. Less beleivable though.
~X~
"One slife form's end is another life form's beginning."
"But, assuming he's not a terrorist, why did this student want to know about the underground tunnels?"
Replace "underground tunnels" with anything else, and you realize exactly how inane this question is.
The point is you shouldn't be investigated just because you want some information. You don't see FBI questioning bio majors or chem majors at colleges, do you? (Not happening yet but if this terorism BS keeps up then maybe they'll imprison them).
There's no good information or bad information. There's just information. The problems arise when you start introducing people.
If I want to learn about something or want to know something, it's nobody's god damn business other than my own. You don't tell the government when you learn a new programming language, even though you could write viruses in it. You don't tell the government where you're going when you buy a car, even though you could use it to smuggle explosives.
Your stand-point on this issues is chilling to say the least. Do you actually want to provide a reason to big brother everytime you want some information? Do you want to file a report everytime you search the web for fertilizer?
"I haven't used a debugger in years; print statements are the only debugging tool I need."
You shouldn't limit your options. For instance, I can guarantee that I can find a fix a bug with a debugger faster than using printline's when dealing with cross-language projects. Like using Java's JNI to talk with native dll's, for example. The error could be somewhere on the java side or the C++ side. It could be the object on the C++ side, the converter to a Java object, the way the object is being used on the java side, etc. etc.. When you need to see a bunch of data simultaneously, a debugger is the way to go.
Need I mention assembler? Much easier to look at the registers and stack in a debugger.:)
I'm not saying that printlines are bad, because I use them frequently for quick to moderate debugging. But when I need to examine large objects, functions, etc. I bring out the debugger.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a NUMERIC solution, not an ALGEBRAIC solution.
:).
:)
Abel's proof showed that polynomials with a degree higher than 4 could not be solved algebraically (i.e through a finite number of additions, subtractions, multiplications, etc.). Abel's proof did no say it was impossible to solve the equations (indeed, numerical solutions to these equations are solved regularly).
This is similar to how some integral equation solutions cannot be expressed in simple terms. However numerical answers are rather easy to obtain (even easier with a computer)
The method presented is a simpler way to find the roots of polynomial equations numerically by treating it like a power series (x, x^1, x^2,...,x^n) and applying standard differential techniques.
Pretty cool if you ask me.
~X~
"Basically IBM has nailed SCO in a box that they can't get out of."
I believe it is called a coffin.
~X~
You're definition is very narrow. Tyranny does not mean death. Tyranny is represented by any entity threatening punishement in order to accomplish its own gains.
People aren't "whining" because they can't get free tunes. People are whining because a multi-billion dollar media conglomorate group are targeting and suing everyday people who cannot affor to fight back, even if they are innocent. So through "threatening", they extort what in comparison ios a smaller amount of money as opposed to the amount of money it would take for someone to hire a lawyer and fight them.
In the US legal system, you don't necesarily have to win, you just have to last the longest.
~X~
"Fuel cells, meh, they have their place. But accident safety with a hydrogen bomb under your hood is an interesting diversion from the subject in itself..." You know, I'm getting fed up with all the uneducated drivel I hear about how dangerous hydrogen is. You'd think, like this poor person, that you are carrying a nuclear detonation device in your car with hydrogen fuel. Let's compare the explosive power of hydrogen to the explosive power of gasoline. One cup of gasoline contains the same explosive power as one stick of dynamite. Now one cup of hydrogen has significantly less explosive power than dynamite. Hydrogen has a slower reaction rate as well, making hydrogen more of a flame than an explosion. Notice, for example, the Hindenburg did not explode. The hydrogen did burn, but had the ship been inflated with vaporized gasoline there would have been a rather large blast killing everybody in the air and on the ground. Hydrogen actually has other advantages as well. At room temperature and pressures it is a gas, while gasoline is a liquid. If a hydrogen tank cracked, the pressures needed to store it would force the tank dry in a matter of seconds. Hydrogen disperses quickly in the atmosphere, and burns off quickly so a devastating accident would not burn for more than a couple of seconds (you'd see a very brief ball of orange flame). Gasoline on the other hand, acts more like napalm. It's liquid at regular temps and atmospheric pressure, so it has no problems spilling and leaking everywhere. If it catches fire, it burns quite well and for quite a while. So hope you don't have any on you. Not to mention if there is a pocket or two of vaporized gasoline you may get some explosive results. Gasoline is a far more dangerous material, not to mention toxic (hydrogen gas is non-toxic). But hydrogen would be piss poor in a combustion engione because, as noted above, it doesn't pack the same kick as gasoline. Using hydrogen in fuel cells is a better way to go. No combustion necessary. Now I'm sure someone will bring up the challenger disaster and say "See, hydrogen is bad!". That's not accurate. It wasn't the hydrogen that was the problem, but the LOX (liquid oxygen). LOX is highly explosive,and that's what made the really big boom. You can have a room full of hydrogen, but it won't ignite without a supply of oxygen. I think a big step in getting hydrogen into public acceptance would be an education campaign. Maybe then people will get rid of their all-consuming fears about the evil exploding hydrogen tanks. Once the public accepts it and receives correct information, maybe change will happen at a faster rate. ~X~ "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."
OpenGL and other graphics api's are what I was refering to, i.e I never said write to the metal doing modern PC graphics. On consoles, possibly but you have to weigh the costs of doing so. Writing to the metal with modern graphics cards is difficult if not impossible due to the lack of low-level docs. I have looked at JOGL, and many other GL to java bindings in the past. The fundamental problem with these are that they are what the are: Bindings. Underneath they are still using a JNI bridge to the native DLL which carries a not-so-insignificant overhead. I've had to deal with JNI performance issues on several projects. But you don't need to take my word for it, there is plenty of information regarding JNI and performance on the web. You're also taking my words out of context. There is a trade-off for speed vs. maintainability. In most cases, you can write a good 90% of your project using C++/Java/C#/ whatever because objects like GUI interfaces aren't usually speed critical. I'm refering to the last 10% that usually is speed critical. RTOS's and 3-D games have such "performance-critical" components and in that case you want native speed. So to counter your two arguments. 1. An INTERPERATED instruction will never match the speed of a machine code instruction on a PC, unless there is a hardware JVM. Therefore, in raw cycles, the same code written in java will be slower than the equivalent code in a compiled language. With JIT, some code may perform at the same level, but overall the compiled language will always get ahead. In most cases though, no one is going to notice a millisecond of difference. 2. There are a number of instances where you do want every last cycle of performance. RTOS's, video games (console and PC), video card drivers (in fact, just about any hardware drivers), satellite communication software, space probes, guidance systems, flight navigational systems, etc. etc. etc. . Direct access to hardware is not one of Java's strong suits. I'm not saying java is a slow bloated pile. I've used java many times in projects. It does have it's place, especially if you need to run the same program on various OS's. I've found it quite useful, and the mass of libraries out there make it very convenient for prototyping. For a large portion of projects, java is just as good (and in some cases better) than any language. But like all tools, it has it's advantages and disadvantages. Java has its place, but there are certain projects I would not use it for. There are reasons why Doom 3 was not written in java. ~X~
Java is fine as long as you use it for what it was defined for.
You probably wouldn't want to use it for high-performance graphics for example, but it's great for developing most standard apps.
If you really need to eek out the last nanosecond of performance, do not use java. Java will never be able to match the speed of writing to the metal. But I don't see why you wouldn't want to use it for a client-server app where nanosecond performance isn't critical.
Java is a programming tool just like any other. Only a fool throws out a tool merely on the basis of not knowing how to use it.
~X~
I couldn't tell if you were making fun of SCO or doing A G.W. Bush imitation.
~X~
"My advice is never keep anything that comes from an asshole."
Or painters. I mean really, when you get down to it it's just mixing paint and brushing it on a canvas. It's skilled repitition, but no more so than drafting or car repair.
Or musicians. I mean really, when you get down to it 's just mixing a bunch of notes together into some coherent beat. It's skilled repition but no more so than drafting or car repair.
The bulk of everything is repitition. Life is repitition. It's what you do with it that makes it unique.
I don't see you chastising music bands of doing skilled repitition, nor novel writers.
There a seven themes for a play. There are thousands of plays. Yet, I don't think Shakespear et al. manufactured their plays on an assembly line.
Programming is an art and a skill, like playing an instrument or painting a scene. Our instrumentation is just a little different.
You need a better argument.
~X~
"Yes I fed the troll!"
United States of America? Been a few years since I heard our country called that. I believe you are refering to the Corporate Conglomorates of America.
It's pointless to keep up the charade. Why don't they just come out and say that the corporations control the government and get it over with. Who do they think they're fooling anyway?
Oh...The 300 million people that they cower in fear behind the shield of terrorism and placate with the shiny box with pictures on it.
Each ridiculous IP law passed brings this country one step closer to self-destruction.
*sigh* The corporations will keep greasing palms. Eventually they will get what they want. And then, they will all die as they realize the very laws the bought to give them essentially free profits also prevents any and all innovation. They may even take the government with it. No terrorism necessary, though I do believe corporations already use terrorism to get what they want (SCO, RIAA, etc.).
I'll continue my boycotts. I'll continue to vote. I'll continue to hope that the people will wake up and see what's going on right under their noses. Maybe that will happen when people suddenly realize they can no longer record the SuperBowl.
~X~
"Circular logic makes the world go 'round."
So let me get this straight. You're saying that it should be a crime to call someone names?
.
:P
You're kidding right?
What about letters to the editor, opinions, etc. etc.
If I think G.W is an utter moron who's running this country into the ground, I shouldn't say anything because it might hurt his feeling?
This is the INTERNET. This is a PUBLIC FORUM. If you don't like what someone is saying IGNORE THEM or FIGHT BACK.
Some people didn't like what this guy did or was doing. They called him on it. Some responses were probably a little immature. GET OVER IT!
For fucks sake what kind of precedant is this setting. I've had people say not so nice things about me on the internet. So what? It happens. Not everyone you come across is going to like you or what you do. Imagine some big corporation suing you for posting a bad review about their product. What would your reaction be to that?
Oh...and you're a big fucking pussy. Sue me.
~X~
"(Don't something like 70% of engineers wear glasses?)." Yep. Our intellectual developement increases to comepnsate for our abysmal abilities to anything athletic (kinda hard to have good hand-eye coordination when you can't see your hand). :)
~X~
"It was a joke people. Laugh. I said laugh!"
Some of the best money I've ever spent. Right now I have 20/15 in one eye and 20/25 in the other (slight residual astigmatism).
:)
May vision was bad before. And I mean BAD. I was almost legally blind. Anything beyond about 6 inches in front of my face was a complete blur. And you can't imagine the feeling you have when you crush your coke bottle glasses and toss them in the trash.
My onyly negative was that for some reason, Some of the anesthetic drops missed my cornea in my left eye. So when that blade cut, it was kinda painful. But I can't complain with the results.
Keep in mind though, it is not a miracle cure all. When you have bad vision (like me) you may still have to wear glasses (most likely ata reduced perscription.
But like I said, it was well worth the money to be freed from having to put on glasses just to get out of bed.
~X~
Well with all those terrorists out there...
Terrorist 1: So do I get to suicide bomb today? Do I?!? Do I?!?!
Terrorist 2: No. The cellular service isn't down.
Terrorist 1: Awwwwwww I never get to be the bomb!
Terrorist 2: Cheer up, little guy! You never know...Hey Look!
Terrorist 1: What?!?! What's going on?
Terrorist 2: The cellular service just went down! You see? Now you can blow yourself up in the name of !
Terrorist 1: Hoooray! Hooray!
The Department of Homeland Stupidity is the biggest friggin' joke going in America. At least Hitler's SS had some creative reason's to start trampling rights.
How the hell is this information going to help a terrorist? Terrorist are not spur of the moment. They plan. Just like any other paramilitary self-righteous group of assholes on the planet.
Knowing that cell coverage is out in an area would only be useful to them if they did it themselves.
Conversely, knowing where cell coverage is operational would be good for them if they wanted to detonate a bomb from afar.
I can't believe grown human beings are making these decisions...and people go along with it!
This is almost as silly as not letting homosexuals have equal rights....oh....yeah.
~X~
I support Bush as much as I support terrorism.
I hope I'm not the only person who is sick of hearing 9/11 this and terrorism that. It's as bad as "we must do in the name of the children" arguments.
9/11. It happened, it sucked, GET THE FUCK OVER IT ALREADY! Our continued pre-occupation with it and terrorism is destructive to the fabric of this nation. One doesn't need much more than the patriot act for proof, although plenty more exists where that came from.
I've read the beast known as the Patriot Act. It's a great document if you like the executive branch wiping it's collective ass with the constitution.
The thing that is both sad and funny about it is it won't stop terrorism. It won't even slow it down. All it really does is grant unchecked powers or rubber-stamped powers.
The language is vague at best. It's loaded with subjective terms like "reasonable", with no further limits or description on what reasonable is.
You can be searched, monitored, investigated, and arrested WITHOUT DUE PROCESS. The best part is that they don't have to tell you. And they can hold you for an INDISCRIMINATE AMOUNT of time, without a lawyer or trial if the circumstances are "sufficient" (another term that is used without further explanation). And, as many of us know, if you do bring anything related to the Patriot act to trial, you can't even say anything about it without incurring a heavy penalty. It's a federal offense, go directly to jail for 5 years. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not attempt to invoke any constitutional rights.
And to anyone who says "we'll if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear", here's a big fuck you. What does the government declare wrong. Is my writing this on slashdot wrong? Is me saying the Patriot Act reflects the sesspool our system is becoming wrong? I don't know about everyone else but after all the lies, half-truths, and outright deceit that has come out of the government in the last 3 years I really don't want THEM deciding what is right and wrong.
The Patriot Act WILL NOT give anyone any security. It will not make you safe from terrorist. And it will not make the US a better place.
Why? Let's think of of it in computer terms. Terrorism is like P2P. P2P has no central server. There is no centralized location. In order to take down a P2P network you would have to take down all the "peers". This, as I'm sure many know, is practically impossible, as the peer could be anywhere at anytime.
Need more examples? Look at Israel and Chechenya. Those countries are practically under martial law and terrorists STILL ATTACK SUCCESFULLY. This should tell congress, and Americans in general something. No matter how many freedoms are stripped away and no matter how many insane powers are granted, you will not stop a dedicated terrorist, foriegn or domestic.
The only thing the Patriot Act ensures is that our constitutional rights have been compromised. Bush and co. also want to eliminate the sunset clause and extend/add more abilities for the government to trounce the constitution with. You thought Patriot 2 was dead? It's being passed piecemeal, under the radar by having sections added to other bills in congress.
I'm tired of all this stealth crap. Why don't they just repeal ammendments and get it over with. The government should just stop pretending that the great document known as the Constitution even has any meaning anymore.
Write letters and vote. I do both. Despite my lack of faith now, I still hang on to a glimmer of hope that we can make difference. We have to try something before we end up like the sheeple in 1984.
~X~
Question To Ponder:
"Why did Jeb Bush declare a state of emergency for two years on September 7,2001?"
Oh yes it does! Noxious chemical toxins released into the air in mass quantities is consider a chemical weapon! The WMD have been found! It is in his pants! Get thee to Git-mo infidel pagan anti-american terroist swine! ~X~
I call troll.
It seems that you don't understand the concepts of risk and probability.
You never have a "certain probability". All you have is probability. Probability is a best guess in cases such as this since there are numerous factors to take into consideration.
72 lbs. of plutonium re-entering the atmosphere BY ITSELF without shielding would cause insignificant damage at best. It would be vaporized and scattered in the upper atmosphere, where cosmic radiation would rapidly turn most particles into unstable elements that breakdown even faster.
In fact, the chances of said particles reaching the surface of the earth is minimal. And even if it did, we are talking fractions of microcuries at best.
BUT IT WILL DAMAGE THE ENVIRONMENT! 36 kg of plutonium vs. 6.14X10^24 kg of Earth? With the way people make radiation sound, you'd think it was magical death wraith just waiting to be set loose on the poor undefended Earth.
And while we're talking about probabilities, I think you should be more concerned with your fellow drivers than an errant space probe. You're far more likely to die in a car crash than any sort of radioactive accident, least of all from a space probe.
To put it in perspective, you have a risk when you take a shower in the morning. There's a risk that you could slip, crak your head and die. The risk is small, but it's there. Does this mean you shouldn't take showers? Do you do a risk/cost analysis everytime you step in the shower? Do you have life insurance, a will, savings, etc. for anyone left behind? Do you estimate how much a funeral will cost? What taxes will be due? How much lawyers will cost? What about your job? The cost it would take to replace you? The list goes on. And this is all just based on you taking a shower.
Do you trully know your risk/cost? I doubt it. It's not possible to know all the repercussions of your demise because no one can predict the future. If you were smart though, you would be prepared as you could be for such a thing and you'd go on living your life and taking showers.
You're just one person. NASA has hundreds who run computer simulations, analysis, environmental impacts, emergency scenarios, etc. . The probe was launched in 1997, but they were probably testing the hell out of it for at least a decade. And NASA has been doing this since the 60's.
They are not infalliable, but they have numbers to back up their claims. And I would take a 100 scientist recommendation over an elitest snob.
~X~
So much DIDN'T survive. A large amount of species ceased to exist. The ones that did survive repopulated, diversified, and spread to give us what we have today.
Even at that time some species of both plants and animals had hibernating/survival traits that allowed them to weather the storm. Dinosaurs were not one of them.
~X~
You underestimate by quite a bit.
Survival? Realize the magnitude of an impact that could produce a crater that size.
Massive global earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, a shock wave many times the speed of sound and essentially a wall of fire incinerating everything in it's path for many miles, absolute disruption of global weather patterns, fallout, etc... etc...
Use one of the asteroid simulators. Even if you were on the other side of the planet you'd get 10+ magnitude earthquake along with a hefty shockwave more than strong enough to rip apart any remaining structures still standing. I'm not talking about crumbling. I'm talking about steel girders being smashed into splinters.
We could unleash all nuclear weapons at the same time in one spot and we wouldn't even get close to the energy an impact like this would unleash.
No, an impact like that would pretty much scour the surface of the planet. Maybe through sheer luck some very small number of humans would survive. They would be the unlucky ones, as there would be nothing left.
Life would survive and evolve out of this as it always does, but humans would become extinct along with a large number of other life forms.
Think of it this way. The RIAA/MPAA say that when you buy a cd/movie, you don't own the content. You just own a liscense to the content.
Fine. Okay. So if my disc dies, does that mean the liscense dies with it? Or do I still have that liscense? If I still have it, should I be able to get a new disc for free? If not, then I should be able to make back-up copies in case the discs are destroyed.
Similar case. You've paid for the service. You got the content. You should be able to use it any way you want in the privacy of your own home. You're not selling it or redistributing it. So why the hell should a media company tell you what you can and can not do with something you recorded from a transmission you paid for?
~X~
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but there's also another factor that makes fusion inherently safe.
The plasma, even without the "heat", is highly corrosive. It's raw particles, which means if it ever did touch the walls it would disintegrate a very very very thin (like a few atoms of thickness) part of it. If the reactor somehow blew open, the plasma would quickly react with the atmosphere and vanish.
The amount of plasma being used is very very small. The whole thing could spontaneously shatter and all that would happen is a pretty light show that lasts a fraction of second.
~X~
You're missing a fundamental concept of biological evolution.
Evolution happens by mutation. Often, these mutations are environmentally caused. Sometimes by some weird random genetic crossing. It doesn't matter. The point is that out of a field of (insert weed here), it's more than likely that at least one will survive. It might not be happy, but it'll survive.
Now, it reproduces. Whatever allowed it to survive has now populated the field. Kill them again. More will survive, most will die off. Again, these stronger ones reproduce.
After a few years, through environmental and random mutations, you now have a superweed.
The same thing is what's driving why anti-bacterial agents aren't that great, and why bacterial infections are getting harder to kill.
More on topic, I would be very wary if I were a Canadian right now. If something like this can go through, just imagine what's going to happen next. Doctors will patent surgical procedures, and any doctor who performs it will need to pay a royalty.
What's going to stop drug companies from patenting cures to deadly diseases? Oh...uh...yeah.
~X~
"I will cure you're ills for $29.95."
Then I guess that theory is out. :)
I wasn't aware of the age of the islands.
~X~
I sent something along a similar vein to NASA about Olympus Mons on Mars. My hypothesis was a massive object slammed into what is now the Marines Planum area of Mars, litteraly punching a hole into the surface and triggering a massive volcanic eruption on the other side of the planet.
The hole sealed over and the lack of tectonic movement let it heal over practically undisturbed. As for the rest of the planet, the impact would have caused complete devastation. The energy could have vaporized most of any significant amount of water into space. Any atmosphere would have been in a very bad shape after this impact. In fact, Phobos and Diemos could have been remnants from such an impact.
But like I said, it's all hypothesis. I also have a hypothesis that the "hotspot" that continuously creates the Hawiaan islands is caused by the remnants of the Yucatan meteor. Less beleivable though.
~X~
"One slife form's end is another life form's beginning."
"But, assuming he's not a terrorist, why did this student want to know about the underground tunnels?"
Replace "underground tunnels" with anything else, and you realize exactly how inane this question is.
The point is you shouldn't be investigated just because you want some information. You don't see FBI questioning bio majors or chem majors at colleges, do you? (Not happening yet but if this terorism BS keeps up then maybe they'll imprison them).
There's no good information or bad information. There's just information. The problems arise when you start introducing people.
If I want to learn about something or want to know something, it's nobody's god damn business other than my own. You don't tell the government when you learn a new programming language, even though you could write viruses in it. You don't tell the government where you're going when you buy a car, even though you could use it to smuggle explosives.
Your stand-point on this issues is chilling to say the least. Do you actually want to provide a reason to big brother everytime you want some information? Do you want to file a report everytime you search the web for fertilizer?
~X~
"Clues on eBay! Starting bid is $.01!"
"I haven't used a debugger in years; print statements are the only debugging tool I need."
:)
You shouldn't limit your options. For instance, I can guarantee that I can find a fix a bug with a debugger faster than using printline's when dealing with cross-language projects. Like using Java's JNI to talk with native dll's, for example. The error could be somewhere on the java side or the C++ side. It could be the object on the C++ side, the converter to a Java object, the way the object is being used on the java side, etc. etc.. When you need to see a bunch of data simultaneously, a debugger is the way to go.
Need I mention assembler? Much easier to look at the registers and stack in a debugger.
I'm not saying that printlines are bad, because I use them frequently for quick to moderate debugging. But when I need to examine large objects, functions, etc. I bring out the debugger.
~X~