Okay, I'll bite. What, exactly, do you have in mind? CMY is basically the negative of RGB (with the added K channel for printing accuracy), and GIMP gives you the flexibility to do pretty much anything with RGB, CMY(K), HSV.
I forget who the company is, but their business sends complete systems with the data, so there's no data transfer downtime other than the FedEx latency.
The "It just works" slogan is representative that Microsoft products will work for something. Microsoft guarantees that all hardware running Microsoft software will always "Just work" as:
Boat anchors
Target practice
Paper weights
Furniture, including bookends, footstools, and coffee tables
"It just works" may or may not apply to:
File storage
Application development
Application platform
Gaming
Multimedia
Use of the Internet
depending on the availability of service packs, updates, and copious bandwidth, as well as other factors (not exclusively including) ambient temperature, the phase of the moon, the average body mass index of Microsoft programmers, and the parity of your score when you reach the flagpole.
Well, there is that whole "Thou shalt not kill" thing... But honestly, what are you getting at? I don't go to this guy's church, I don't send money to his ministry. Am I "tolerating" him by abstaining from sending hate mail?
Then please stand up to them.
Isn't voting for the other guy the American way of "standing up" to politicians that you don't agree with? I could even go further, and tell you how many times I've reamed out my fellow church-goers for party-line Republican voting and blindly believing that Republican == Christian. I've also scolded pastors and other church leadership for using the pulpit to pressure congregations into voting a certain way, convincing them that one candidate is "Godly" and the other is a heathen.
Talk is cheap.
I couldn't agree more. What, pray tell, are you doing, besides making blind accusations of pretension?
I am a proud Christian, and I do not endorse this person. I personally dislike the idea that homosexual couples are barred from the same rights and privileges that my wife and I enjoy. This, however, is not an indication that I approve of homosexual relationships.
Furthermore, I have a problem with politicians who use the bible as a platform for their political agendas. I had a hard time dealing with my fellow church-goers last year at election time because I found both candidates supporting agendas that contained items that were important to me as a Christian. However, I was scowled upon for choosing the agendas that were more important to me as a Christian because of their content, and not because the candidate loudly said, "I'm a Christian, and that's why i'm doing such-and-such." At any rate, I find those people who attempt to maneuver policically under the guise of any religion to be, more often than not, spin doctors and propaganda artists. For this reason, I try (as much as possible) to ignore the professed religions of political officials, and let their actions indicate where their intentions lie. As the Master said, "By their fruits you will know them."
On a side note, the parent's "real christian" argument sounds amazingly similar to the "no true scotsman" logical fallacy.
If CPU speed is irrelevant to processor power, then why do we keep talking about it?
Because the marketing droids need a metric to convince the masses to buy the latest shiny thing. If people used standardized benchmarks on processors (say, SPEC's CINT2000 or CFP2000), then it would be too easy to see the benefits and shortcomings. However, the masses don't really care about any of that, they just want what the TV commercials say is "better."
Just as a would-be car enthusiast thinks that the most important element of an automobile is the engine, and that all performance characteristics are centered upon it, a would-be computer enthusiast would see the CPU (and its clock speed) as the most important element, and the component most worthy of an upgrade whenever possible. However, a wise mechanic, similarly to a wise techie, understands that there are many, many elements to make a machine function optimally. Ignoring an auto's suspension, brakes, aerodynamics, etc. makes an auto less-than-optimal, just as ignoring RAM size and speed, hard disk size and speed, L1 cache size, etc. makes a computer less-than-optimal.
All that being said, however, there's no way that we can expect the unwashed masses to instantly grow a brain and realize that they're being duped by marketing con-artists. We, as the educated, can attempt to educate those close to us, but the truth is that there will most likely always be a separation between the people who can see through the advertising double-speak and those who can't.
For instance: Hummer commercial: An educated person might see through the double-speak and ask, "What about the gas milage?" Intel commercial:
An educated person might ask, "What about the cache size?"
The 'cute' factor would've gotten more funding. Heck, PETA would fund Voyager if we told them that there was a kitten on-board, if anyone remembers this fiasco.
I remember back in the day, when there was a boycotton tuna. Now, it was my understanding that boycotts actually do something to indicate that consumers want a change in the moral practices of a business.
Now, considering what we know of boycotts, it would lead me to believe that saying "fsck you, RIAA!" and downloading music illegally is exactly the wrong thing to do if we want to bring down the RIAA, or get them to change their ways, e.g. price fixing, promoting crap music, etc. If the RIAA promotes crap music, why are you downloading it illegally and listening to it? Quit supporting the RIAA by doing without the music that is backed by the RIAA. Quit going to RIAA-backed concerts, quit buying RIAA-backed CDs, and quit downloading RIAA-backed music! Just like people did without their tuna in the '80s, you can suck it up and do without your Metallica.
All to often, we get places on the web where people don't understand that netspeak, l33+, whatever you want to call it, is inappropriate.
It would be nice if(yes, famous last words, I know), like the "all browsers friendly" banners and such, websites could post a highly-visible standard that says "No l33t here, please." It's just not right to have someone going
in a technical forum or newsgroup. And then they think it's insulting that people can't, and won't, bother to decipher it, and start flaming in noobish.
I'll spare you the trouble - if you are aware of the list below, and do it by default when setting up a system, don't waste your time reading the article.
Oh brother, here we go again. Let me guess, you could probably write a multi-threaded database server that supported fully ATOMIC operations and transactionality, would only need 4K of memory, and would be blazingly fast on a 486SX machine, right? Over-optimization pundits are the worst, even worse than design pattern pundits. This has been discussed [slashdot.org] many times before. Fast, buggy code has zero value.
I couldn't agree more. However, I'm talking about writing code in such a way that makes modification and maintenance easier for the next person, rather than harder. I've maintained too many pieces of crap^H^H^H^H legacy software that would be beautiful things if the previous maintainers would have engineered their modifications and fixes, rather than hacking (sense 1) them.
Most software is slow because of bad coding practices, usually of the following categories:
Someone wrote an elegant and complex solution, and documentation was sparse or nonexistant, leaving the elegant solution utterly wasted whenever maintenance is due: "What the hell was Mel thinking? I've gotta fix all this crap!" Thus, the elegant solution loses its elegance because it's been "fixed to death."
Someone did a quick, lazy fix because they didn't understand the code (often, because of #1): "Ehh... good enough." Of course, this makes the next cycle of maintenance senselessly complex, because it's source code gibberish - the original code plus the code written by someone that didn't know what they were doing. Then consider the next 5 maintenance cycles, all convoluting the code further from the original intent. How can this resultant code be faster?
I'm not talking about over-optimization, I'm talking about writing good code^H^H^H^Hsoftware. It goes beyond just getting the job done. You can whine and call me an "over-optimization pundit," or you can do your part in the software community by writing better software.
As far as threading is concerned, one of the few languages I've dealt with that makes mutexes, semaphores, etc. easy to deal with is Java. Most other languages bury the stuff too deep into the proprietary APIs to make them useful. Consider multithreading in win32. We need better programming languages before we can ever start reaping the benefits of good multithreading hardware.
Furthermore, we need to get rid of lazy programming. I'm tired of watching people write slow, lazy, inefficient (in terms of both memory space AND speed) code, and justify its existence with "it'll run fast on the new über-hyper-monkey-quadruple-bucky processors." Too many times, the problem is that you've got slow code running in every thread. If the code wasn't so damned lazy, programmers would care more about nifty new hardware. We're not even coming close to using our current hardware to capacity. I've got a 1.2GHz processor with 1024Mb of RAM, and my box chugs opening an M$ Word doc?! WTF?!
<soapbox>
Most programming in the world is very similar to the universal statu$ symbol in the U.S.A. - a big gas-guzzling SUV. It's not like Jane the Soccer Mom really needs 300hp to haul her kids and groceries around town. Similarly, we have lots of lazy code out there that doesn't do much of anything but consume resources and pollute the environment. A nifty new processor feature won't be noticed in the computing world because it won't get used anyway, just like Jane the Soccer Mom wouldn't notice 100 more horsepower.
</soapbox>
Believe me, this is ever so often the truth. I can't count the number of times where I thought "WTF was this programmer thinking?" while maintaining legacy code, only to find out that the offending code, after tracing through the authors and check-in logs, was driven solely by a manager cracking the whip for a quick-and-dirty solution.
From someone who's had a hand in dealing with function pointers named StupidSuckingGlobalCallbackFunction, trust me, the subject of this post is very, very, very wrong.
It's not about blazing fast processing or seemingly infinite scalability, it's about simpler design. It takes 11(correct me if I'm wrong) FET items to make an AND gate, whereas it only takes 5 quantum cells. Furthermore, there are ways to make coplanar "wire" crossings. The problem is timing, since a signal has to propogate through a QCA like a set of dominos. There, IMHO, is too much hype surrounding quantum computing.
Slashdot Mirror
Anything involving CMYK
Okay, I'll bite. What, exactly, do you have in mind? CMY is basically the negative of RGB (with the added K channel for printing accuracy), and GIMP gives you the flexibility to do pretty much anything with RGB, CMY(K), HSV.
I forget who the company is, but their business sends complete systems with the data, so there's no data transfer downtime other than the FedEx latency.
...complaining about the state of the patent system. Otherwise, we're all screwed!
Are you sure the slogan's name isn't
It juuuuust works"?
It just works...
<zoom in on fine print...>
The "It just works" slogan is representative that Microsoft products will work for something. Microsoft guarantees that all hardware running Microsoft software will always "Just work" as:
Boat anchors
Target practice
Paper weights
Furniture, including bookends, footstools, and coffee tables
"It just works" may or may not apply to:
File storage
Application development
Application platform
Gaming
Multimedia
Use of the Internet
depending on the availability of service packs, updates, and copious bandwidth, as well as other factors (not exclusively including) ambient temperature, the phase of the moon, the average body mass index of Microsoft programmers, and the parity of your score when you reach the flagpole.
So why do you tolerate them?
Well, there is that whole "Thou shalt not kill" thing... But honestly, what are you getting at? I don't go to this guy's church, I don't send money to his ministry. Am I "tolerating" him by abstaining from sending hate mail?
Then please stand up to them.
Isn't voting for the other guy the American way of "standing up" to politicians that you don't agree with? I could even go further, and tell you how many times I've reamed out my fellow church-goers for party-line Republican voting and blindly believing that Republican == Christian. I've also scolded pastors and other church leadership for using the pulpit to pressure congregations into voting a certain way, convincing them that one candidate is "Godly" and the other is a heathen.
Talk is cheap.
I couldn't agree more. What, pray tell, are you doing, besides making blind accusations of pretension?
I am a proud Christian, and I do not endorse this person. I personally dislike the idea that homosexual couples are barred from the same rights and privileges that my wife and I enjoy. This, however, is not an indication that I approve of homosexual relationships.
Furthermore, I have a problem with politicians who use the bible as a platform for their political agendas. I had a hard time dealing with my fellow church-goers last year at election time because I found both candidates supporting agendas that contained items that were important to me as a Christian. However, I was scowled upon for choosing the agendas that were more important to me as a Christian because of their content, and not because the candidate loudly said, "I'm a Christian, and that's why i'm doing such-and-such." At any rate, I find those people who attempt to maneuver policically under the guise of any religion to be, more often than not, spin doctors and propaganda artists. For this reason, I try (as much as possible) to ignore the professed religions of political officials, and let their actions indicate where their intentions lie. As the Master said, "By their fruits you will know them."
On a side note, the parent's "real christian" argument sounds amazingly similar to the "no true scotsman" logical fallacy.
As well as our:
Funny... I thought internet traffic was supposed to be 2-way.
artifacts steal you!
If CPU speed is irrelevant to processor power, then why do we keep talking about it?
Because the marketing droids need a metric to convince the masses to buy the latest shiny thing. If people used standardized benchmarks on processors (say, SPEC's CINT2000 or CFP2000), then it would be too easy to see the benefits and shortcomings. However, the masses don't really care about any of that, they just want what the TV commercials say is "better."
Just as a would-be car enthusiast thinks that the most important element of an automobile is the engine, and that all performance characteristics are centered upon it, a would-be computer enthusiast would see the CPU (and its clock speed) as the most important element, and the component most worthy of an upgrade whenever possible. However, a wise mechanic, similarly to a wise techie, understands that there are many, many elements to make a machine function optimally. Ignoring an auto's suspension, brakes, aerodynamics, etc. makes an auto less-than-optimal, just as ignoring RAM size and speed, hard disk size and speed, L1 cache size, etc. makes a computer less-than-optimal.
All that being said, however, there's no way that we can expect the unwashed masses to instantly grow a brain and realize that they're being duped by marketing con-artists. We, as the educated, can attempt to educate those close to us, but the truth is that there will most likely always be a separation between the people who can see through the advertising double-speak and those who can't.
For instance:
Hummer commercial: An educated person might see through the double-speak and ask, "What about the gas milage?"
Intel commercial: An educated person might ask, "What about the cache size?"
Ok, sow most pc ... -- joe_user23 says "what does swine have to do with my PC?"
they are still not swallow tech stuff easily -- Zero Wing?
Perhaps the non-techies are having trouble with the bad grammar!!!!
The 'cute' factor would've gotten more funding. Heck, PETA would fund Voyager if we told them that there was a kitten on-board, if anyone remembers this fiasco.
Yeah, I could handle having about a bajillion geek points (hyuck, hyuck).
Yes, and the article is about a day old.
I remember back in the day, when there was a boycott on tuna. Now, it was my understanding that boycotts actually do something to indicate that consumers want a change in the moral practices of a business.
Now, considering what we know of boycotts, it would lead me to believe that saying "fsck you, RIAA!" and downloading music illegally is exactly the wrong thing to do if we want to bring down the RIAA, or get them to change their ways, e.g. price fixing, promoting crap music, etc. If the RIAA promotes crap music, why are you downloading it illegally and listening to it? Quit supporting the RIAA by doing without the music that is backed by the RIAA. Quit going to RIAA-backed concerts, quit buying RIAA-backed CDs, and quit downloading RIAA-backed music! Just like people did without their tuna in the '80s, you can suck it up and do without your Metallica.
It would be nice if(yes, famous last words, I know), like the "all browsers friendly" banners and such, websites could post a highly-visible standard that says "No l33t here, please." It's just not right to have someone going in a technical forum or newsgroup. And then they think it's insulting that people can't, and won't, bother to decipher it, and start flaming in noobish.
Mod parent up. This is why the "UNIX went all to hell, and so will Linux" argument falls apart.
I couldn't agree more. However, I'm talking about writing code in such a way that makes modification and maintenance easier for the next person, rather than harder. I've maintained too many pieces of crap^H^H^H^H legacy software that would be beautiful things if the previous maintainers would have engineered their modifications and fixes, rather than hacking (sense 1) them.
Most software is slow because of bad coding practices, usually of the following categories:
- Someone wrote an elegant and complex solution, and documentation was sparse or nonexistant, leaving the elegant solution utterly wasted whenever maintenance is due: "What the hell was Mel thinking? I've gotta fix all this crap!" Thus, the elegant solution loses its elegance because it's been "fixed to death."
- Someone did a quick, lazy fix because they didn't understand the code (often, because of #1): "Ehh... good enough." Of course, this makes the next cycle of maintenance senselessly complex, because it's source code gibberish - the original code plus the code written by someone that didn't know what they were doing. Then consider the next 5 maintenance cycles, all convoluting the code further from the original intent. How can this resultant code be faster?
I'm not talking about over-optimization, I'm talking about writing good code^H^H^H^Hsoftware. It goes beyond just getting the job done. You can whine and call me an "over-optimization pundit," or you can do your part in the software community by writing better software.good_software != optimized_software
As far as threading is concerned, one of the few languages I've dealt with that makes mutexes, semaphores, etc. easy to deal with is Java. Most other languages bury the stuff too deep into the proprietary APIs to make them useful. Consider multithreading in win32. We need better programming languages before we can ever start reaping the benefits of good multithreading hardware.
Furthermore, we need to get rid of lazy programming. I'm tired of watching people write slow, lazy, inefficient (in terms of both memory space AND speed) code, and justify its existence with "it'll run fast on the new über-hyper-monkey-quadruple-bucky processors." Too many times, the problem is that you've got slow code running in every thread. If the code wasn't so damned lazy, programmers would care more about nifty new hardware. We're not even coming close to using our current hardware to capacity. I've got a 1.2GHz processor with 1024Mb of RAM, and my box chugs opening an M$ Word doc?! WTF?!
<soapbox>
Most programming in the world is very similar to the universal statu$ symbol in the U.S.A. - a big gas-guzzling SUV. It's not like Jane the Soccer Mom really needs 300hp to haul her kids and groceries around town. Similarly, we have lots of lazy code out there that doesn't do much of anything but consume resources and pollute the environment. A nifty new processor feature won't be noticed in the computing world because it won't get used anyway, just like Jane the Soccer Mom wouldn't notice 100 more horsepower. </soapbox>
Believe me, this is ever so often the truth. I can't count the number of times where I thought "WTF was this programmer thinking?" while maintaining legacy code, only to find out that the offending code, after tracing through the authors and check-in logs, was driven solely by a manager cracking the whip for a quick-and-dirty solution.
From someone who's had a hand in dealing with function pointers named StupidSuckingGlobalCallbackFunction, trust me, the subject of this post is very, very, very wrong.
Could you post some links?
Look, people, you'd be a lot less impressed with quantum computing if you actually had an idea of what it does compared to traditional FET technology.
Here are some links that explain a bit about how quantum computers (specifically, Quantum Cellular Automata (QCAs) work:
Beware of PDF
Another PDF
It's not about blazing fast processing or seemingly infinite scalability, it's about simpler design. It takes 11(correct me if I'm wrong) FET items to make an AND gate, whereas it only takes 5 quantum cells. Furthermore, there are ways to make coplanar "wire" crossings. The problem is timing, since a signal has to propogate through a QCA like a set of dominos. There, IMHO, is too much hype surrounding quantum computing.
the >2GB yields negative file size and download speed bug (t3h bug). Looks like it won't happen until v1.1.