Thats the one thing that always gets me about RMS, for someone who ostensibly espouses freedom, he doesn't handle dissent very well..... "You are free as long as you do what I tell you to do"
Well, that will be a change from where they are right now, which is losing money. Nintendo is a pretty precarious financial position right now, partly due to the fact that the Wii isn't making them nearly as much money as everyone had predicted and partly by the fact that they are just getting reamed by the yen. While Sony suffers this problem to a certain extent too, Sony is a huge company and able to hold money overseas for longer periods of time and also has a lot of work being done in the US and Europe so they are less susceptible to the strong currency. Nintendo is in the very unenviable position of having most of their operating costs in yen but most of their revenues in dollars and euros......
However: that in no way means you can not give them extra education at home.
Actually in Germany you are EXPECTED to teach them to a certain degree at home. I was amazed at how early kids in Germany got out of school until a German friend told me that their parents(read mothers) are expected to educate them in the afternoons. Of course this doesn't really bode well for kids with busy and/or neglectful then their children suffer and are much less likely to get into Gynasium and beyond......
I doubt they are doing too much R&D on it, they are mainly just manufacturing the CPUs(in small quantities I'm sure) so they don't anger existing customers. They only stopped making 486s in 2007(those most of those were for embedded applications)
Also, just my 2 cents, Itanium didn't fail because compilers couldn't effectively utilize it, it failed because VLIW was an academic experiment that got waaaaaaaaaay out of hand. While compilers certainly could have utilized it better, they cannot violate the fundamental constraint of ensuring at COMPILE TIME that no 2 instructions being executed simultaneously have any data or execution dependencies. Compare that with the superscalar design used by most CPUs today: they can use runtime behavior to predict jumps, data dependencies etc. While backing out an instruction that was partially executed is costly, modern superscalar designs have to do it so rarely that the little bit of performance penalty for such instructions pales in comparison with the gains you get when you execute multiple instructions simultaneously that *might* have a dependency, something VLIW simply cannot do.
Um, that makes no sense. Power consumption on most mobile devices is dominated by the power necessary to run the wireless communications. Streaming bluetooth video(not to mention having to decompress it!) would consume much more bandwidth, and thus much more power, than simply streaming application code and having the device render the picture is going to be more efficient provided the device is capable of rendering the graphics necessary.
Hey shithead, if you are going to mouth off, you should at least read the fucking article and read the fucking post before doing so, OK? It's obvious by your post that you're head is stuck too far up your own asshole to have read either of them. I specifically mention the JIT code in my post, and mention specifically what they wrote in the article. Natively compiled code is going to be optimized differently than JIT compiled code, and those differences are going affect the performance. FUrthermore, the optimizations are going to depend on the VM you are using. You're "counterpoint" proves my point exactly. Before someone of such low intellect tries to master a first year CS course, maybe you should try mastering first grade reading comprehension. Because a dumb fuck such as yourself obviously has shown themselves to be incapable of basic reading and comprehension skills.
It's not just that, people with rich parents rarely ever have to do a large number of chores around the house and whatnot, so they have a lot more spare time. Most rich kids squander that gift, this kid didn't. Man what I wouldn't give to have all that time I spent mowing the lawn, washing dishes, cleaning, doing laundry etc. back when I was a kid.....
There is no such thing as a real "computer language speed test", this is really a test of compilers, environments, VMs/interpreters, and environments. The first question that has to be raised is of course when the program is running on hardware, what "language" is it written in? The hardware sure doesn't give a shit. You can compile almost any language into native code, including VM driven languages such as Java and PERL. Now granted TFA states that they ran their loop 15k times to try to minimize the effect of the load time and run as much JIT compiled code as possible, but that's still not the same as compiling it directly into native code.
Which brings up another point, are they really testing the "programming language"(which is just a bunch of specification and usually implementation hints) or are they testing the compiler/environment they are on. Code compiled with GCC and ran on a Linux box will probably perform differently than code compiled with Microsoft's compiler running on Windows which will behave differently than code compiled with LLVM/CLanger running on OS X...... You can probably say the same thing about Java compilers, I'm assuming they used the Oracle reference javac, but there are other Java compilers out there. How do you test the speed of the "language" when so much of that performance depends on the compiler and environment you are running other?
Which leads into my final point, when does a language stop becoming something written in that language? Although not tested this time, probably the best example of this point is Ada. Anyone who has coded in Ada knows how insanely strict it can be, it constantly does things like bounds checking to ensure that data stored in subtypes is within the bounds of those types. However on most Ada compilers most of these checks can be disabled with just a couple compiler flags. Obviously the resulting code is going to be faster than if you kept the checks in, but does it stop becoming Ada at that point? You can make a similar case for Java and JNI. JNI is completely legal in the Java language specification, but when you use JNI does your program stop being a Java program? Could you have optimized it further by using JNI?
This is merely a test of whatever compilers/VMs they used in whatever environment they ran the code in, nothing more, nothing less.
There is nothing that Windows is technically capable of that other operating systems can't be capable of. The issue of support you mentioned is just an issue of social reorganization, which is really the main problem.M
Well, kinda sorta, Microsoft's OSs are capable of ONE thing that other OSs aren't, or at least aren't great at, and that is implementations of Microsoft's proprietary protocols. This creates a massive amount of lock-in, which is furthered by the fact that Microsoft has refused to implement a large number of open protocols.....
Where I work we are almost exclusively a Mac/Linux shop, and you know what? We have had 0 problems getting those machines to communicate(share files, do single sign on, remote login etc). However with Windows we have had nothing but problems trying to integrate them into the Mac/Linux environment. The reason is simple, Microsoft is abusing it's market position to ensure that using non-Windows systems is as difficult as possible.
But look on the bright side, Windows is dying a slow death. Every year the % of people using that toy of an "OS" is dropping, and it couldn't come too soon. Viva everyone but Microsoft!
Dreamweaver is a tool, not a skill; same as vim, Emacs, Notepad++, Eclipse, or any other editor.
Emacs isn't a tool, it's a sign of either severe masochistic tendencies or a desperate cry for help, because obviously anyone that uses it is a glutton for punishment.
Especially Paypal, I stopped giving them any information after they royally screwed up, fucked me over, then had the audacity to tell me it was my fault. When I first signed up with them I was suckered into giving them my checking account information so I could get like a $5 deposit. Well a few years had passed and I had totally forgotten about that account, I think I had the minimum required to keep the account open. So I go to pay for something that was like $10, and I selected my credit card, I know I selected my credit card because I would have never used that bank account to pay for anything, I knew there was nothing in there.
So despite the fact that I selected the credit card, Paypal decides to use my bank, and when that fails they used the credit card, but here's the thing, they kept on trying to withdraw the money from my account EVERY DAY, and this was AFTER they had already taken it from the credit card. And when I called them up to tell them to stop doing that, they refused, the manager basically called me a liar on the phone.
So I had about $100 in over withdrawal fees for a $10 purchase...fortunately my bank was cool and dropped the fees and blocked paypal from withdrawing any more money. At that point I deleted all my info with paypal, only keeping the account active for when I needed it. And even then I deleted all my credit card info. There are a few places I shop online that only take paypal, and in those events I enter my card info, buy what I need to buy, the immediately delete it again. Before Paypal screwed me over I was a loyal customer, but when management refuses to honor my request with my money when they already had there money and had no reason to try to take anymore, I refuse to give them any more business than I absolutely have to. Paypal sucks.
Depends on how paranoid you are I guess:P One nice thing about the Suica(and Passmo, hayakaken etc) contact-less cards is that they can be anonymous*. You can get them with your name on them, which has the added benefit of getting a replacement with the value still on it, but you can also get them with no name. Which means that wherever the cards are accepted(trains, most convince stores, some restaurants), you can pay for things as anonymously as you can with cash without having to fumble around for a billion coins. Pretty nice system if you ask me.
*(You can only buy the actual card from certain vending machines in the train station, theoretically they could snap a picture of you when you buy the card and use that to track you, but I sincerely doubt they do anything like that).
This guy seems to have never lost his academic mindset, it's not at all surprising, or bad really, that Google is keeping around old technology. Guess what, they have this thing called operations where they pretty much have to be up 24x7 so that they can serve customer requests. They cannot just start dumping infrastructure that:
a) work and
b) they have invested significant amounts of money in
just because some new technology came around. If everybody in industry did that, it would be absolute chaos and nobody would be able to get anything done. This is just as true in computers as it is with steel mills.
Now compare this with academia, where they have no real customer base to speak of. They can constantly push the boundaries, try new technologies, change their infrastructure etc. That seems to be where this guys mindset remains.
Note that I'm not bashing academia as being out of touch with "reality" or anything like that, the entire POINT of academia is to push these boundaries, industry exists to take these advances, combine them with their own, and then deploy them in an operationally efficient manner.
Overpopulation is the reason I have stopped giving to charities except those that advocate birth control. Because you know what, it may sound harsh but there are waaaaaaaaaaaay too many fuckers on this planet already, and if I prevent some from starving/dying of malaria/whatever, all they are going to do is turn around and create more people to starve/die of malaria/whatever. The poorest places in the world are often the places with the highest birth rates, this isn't a coincidence. If you really want to improve people's lives, give them the means to limit the number of kids they have. Then we will see some real improvement.
The ninja analogy is probably more apt than the author intended. The ninja is a warrior who relies on stealth, and often the ones that do the real work in IT don't have time to be "visible" to the boss. So after the "ninja" sneaks into the rival daimyos house at night and kills all his samurai, you can bet there will be someone who hears about this and goes to the master and claims credit for it before the ninja can. And of course when the ninja fails, the same guy will be the screaming and demanding that the ninja commit seppuku(*yes I know seppuku wasn't really a ninja ritual...)
Good IT managers will see these empire builders for what they are, but bad managers(who were probably like that before getting promoted) won't see that. The empire builders don't do any actual work, so they have a lot more time to sit around and scheme ways to take credit and pass blame for the actions of others.
I've pretty much had the exact same experience with them, I think I opened up about 5 tickets with them, only got 1 response worth a damn. In fact, for the one ticket I had to teach the guy what I eventually found out because there was no way he was ever going to be able to solve it on his own.
Pretty much like every tech trend before it, and after it, cloud computing will do a fraction of what it's supporters say it will do, and many times what it's detractors say it cannot do. Just look at pretty much EVERY other tech trend ever.... dot com? Didn't really change how we bought dog food, did change how we shop for a lot of other articles though. Offshore outsourcing? According to a Gartner report in 2003 or thereabouts, right now over 50% of all US IT jobs should be in India and there was predicted to be massive unemployment in the US IT sector, while the detractors said that all the work that went to India will come back because the Indians cannot do it. The truth? Nowhere near what Gartner said, but significantly more work is outsourced than before and isn't coming back, so the detractors were wrong too.
Cloud computing is in a similar position IMO. Of course the owner of one of the biggest clouds on the planet is going to be all gung ho about cloud computing, and of course people whose jobs may be threatened will say it will never work. But if you look in between that, there are some exciting opportunities for the cloud, but also some severe limitations that may never be completely overcome.
Long story short, if someone is telling you "Technology x will do a-z!" and someone else shouts back "Technology x is worthless!", you are better off not believing either of them.
I hope Apple takes this incident to heart and makes one minor, but very significant, change to how their OS(or more specifically, their OS setup process) works: namely that the default user should not have admin privileges! Currently an out of the box Mac will prompt the user to set up an account, and that account will have admin privileges. To actually set up another account the user has to know enough to go into sy
Hopefully in Lion they will, at the very least, explain to users that they should set up a non-admin account to do their everyday computing and only use the admin account when they need to do admin things.....
The best way to fix Microsoft is to go through all the senior execs office and replace their 1998 desk calendars with something a bit more recent.... Seriously based on both ex Microsoft employees testimony and their product line(large numbers of different, incompatible products aimed towards the same market), Microsoft execs don't seem to realize that it's no longer 1998 and they have real external competition. Most Microsoft senior execs seem to be too busy sniping at each other than they are at trying to create something that bests their competitors' products.
Slashdot Mirror
Thats the one thing that always gets me about RMS, for someone who ostensibly espouses freedom, he doesn't handle dissent very well..... "You are free as long as you do what I tell you to do"
Well, that will be a change from where they are right now, which is losing money. Nintendo is a pretty precarious financial position right now, partly due to the fact that the Wii isn't making them nearly as much money as everyone had predicted and partly by the fact that they are just getting reamed by the yen. While Sony suffers this problem to a certain extent too, Sony is a huge company and able to hold money overseas for longer periods of time and also has a lot of work being done in the US and Europe so they are less susceptible to the strong currency. Nintendo is in the very unenviable position of having most of their operating costs in yen but most of their revenues in dollars and euros......
However: that in no way means you can not give them extra education at home.
Actually in Germany you are EXPECTED to teach them to a certain degree at home. I was amazed at how early kids in Germany got out of school until a German friend told me that their parents(read mothers) are expected to educate them in the afternoons. Of course this doesn't really bode well for kids with busy and/or neglectful then their children suffer and are much less likely to get into Gynasium and beyond......
I doubt they are doing too much R&D on it, they are mainly just manufacturing the CPUs(in small quantities I'm sure) so they don't anger existing customers. They only stopped making 486s in 2007(those most of those were for embedded applications)
Also, just my 2 cents, Itanium didn't fail because compilers couldn't effectively utilize it, it failed because VLIW was an academic experiment that got waaaaaaaaaay out of hand. While compilers certainly could have utilized it better, they cannot violate the fundamental constraint of ensuring at COMPILE TIME that no 2 instructions being executed simultaneously have any data or execution dependencies. Compare that with the superscalar design used by most CPUs today: they can use runtime behavior to predict jumps, data dependencies etc. While backing out an instruction that was partially executed is costly, modern superscalar designs have to do it so rarely that the little bit of performance penalty for such instructions pales in comparison with the gains you get when you execute multiple instructions simultaneously that *might* have a dependency, something VLIW simply cannot do.
Um, that makes no sense. Power consumption on most mobile devices is dominated by the power necessary to run the wireless communications. Streaming bluetooth video(not to mention having to decompress it!) would consume much more bandwidth, and thus much more power, than simply streaming application code and having the device render the picture is going to be more efficient provided the device is capable of rendering the graphics necessary.
Hey shithead, if you are going to mouth off, you should at least read the fucking article and read the fucking post before doing so, OK? It's obvious by your post that you're head is stuck too far up your own asshole to have read either of them. I specifically mention the JIT code in my post, and mention specifically what they wrote in the article. Natively compiled code is going to be optimized differently than JIT compiled code, and those differences are going affect the performance. FUrthermore, the optimizations are going to depend on the VM you are using. You're "counterpoint" proves my point exactly. Before someone of such low intellect tries to master a first year CS course, maybe you should try mastering first grade reading comprehension. Because a dumb fuck such as yourself obviously has shown themselves to be incapable of basic reading and comprehension skills.
It's not just that, people with rich parents rarely ever have to do a large number of chores around the house and whatnot, so they have a lot more spare time. Most rich kids squander that gift, this kid didn't. Man what I wouldn't give to have all that time I spent mowing the lawn, washing dishes, cleaning, doing laundry etc. back when I was a kid.....
There is no such thing as a real "computer language speed test", this is really a test of compilers, environments, VMs/interpreters, and environments. The first question that has to be raised is of course when the program is running on hardware, what "language" is it written in? The hardware sure doesn't give a shit. You can compile almost any language into native code, including VM driven languages such as Java and PERL. Now granted TFA states that they ran their loop 15k times to try to minimize the effect of the load time and run as much JIT compiled code as possible, but that's still not the same as compiling it directly into native code.
Which brings up another point, are they really testing the "programming language"(which is just a bunch of specification and usually implementation hints) or are they testing the compiler/environment they are on. Code compiled with GCC and ran on a Linux box will probably perform differently than code compiled with Microsoft's compiler running on Windows which will behave differently than code compiled with LLVM/CLanger running on OS X...... You can probably say the same thing about Java compilers, I'm assuming they used the Oracle reference javac, but there are other Java compilers out there. How do you test the speed of the "language" when so much of that performance depends on the compiler and environment you are running other?
Which leads into my final point, when does a language stop becoming something written in that language? Although not tested this time, probably the best example of this point is Ada. Anyone who has coded in Ada knows how insanely strict it can be, it constantly does things like bounds checking to ensure that data stored in subtypes is within the bounds of those types. However on most Ada compilers most of these checks can be disabled with just a couple compiler flags. Obviously the resulting code is going to be faster than if you kept the checks in, but does it stop becoming Ada at that point? You can make a similar case for Java and JNI. JNI is completely legal in the Java language specification, but when you use JNI does your program stop being a Java program? Could you have optimized it further by using JNI?
This is merely a test of whatever compilers/VMs they used in whatever environment they ran the code in, nothing more, nothing less.
There is nothing that Windows is technically capable of that other operating systems can't be capable of. The issue of support you mentioned is just an issue of social reorganization, which is really the main problem.M
Well, kinda sorta, Microsoft's OSs are capable of ONE thing that other OSs aren't, or at least aren't great at, and that is implementations of Microsoft's proprietary protocols. This creates a massive amount of lock-in, which is furthered by the fact that Microsoft has refused to implement a large number of open protocols.....
Where I work we are almost exclusively a Mac/Linux shop, and you know what? We have had 0 problems getting those machines to communicate(share files, do single sign on, remote login etc). However with Windows we have had nothing but problems trying to integrate them into the Mac/Linux environment. The reason is simple, Microsoft is abusing it's market position to ensure that using non-Windows systems is as difficult as possible.
But look on the bright side, Windows is dying a slow death. Every year the % of people using that toy of an "OS" is dropping, and it couldn't come too soon. Viva everyone but Microsoft!
Dreamweaver is a tool, not a skill; same as vim, Emacs, Notepad++, Eclipse, or any other editor.
Emacs isn't a tool, it's a sign of either severe masochistic tendencies or a desperate cry for help, because obviously anyone that uses it is a glutton for punishment.
ducks
Print a furnace with plastic? You're an idiot, pure and simple.
Both, I think, I've only used cash.
Especially Paypal, I stopped giving them any information after they royally screwed up, fucked me over, then had the audacity to tell me it was my fault. When I first signed up with them I was suckered into giving them my checking account information so I could get like a $5 deposit. Well a few years had passed and I had totally forgotten about that account, I think I had the minimum required to keep the account open. So I go to pay for something that was like $10, and I selected my credit card, I know I selected my credit card because I would have never used that bank account to pay for anything, I knew there was nothing in there.
So despite the fact that I selected the credit card, Paypal decides to use my bank, and when that fails they used the credit card, but here's the thing, they kept on trying to withdraw the money from my account EVERY DAY, and this was AFTER they had already taken it from the credit card. And when I called them up to tell them to stop doing that, they refused, the manager basically called me a liar on the phone.
So I had about $100 in over withdrawal fees for a $10 purchase...fortunately my bank was cool and dropped the fees and blocked paypal from withdrawing any more money. At that point I deleted all my info with paypal, only keeping the account active for when I needed it. And even then I deleted all my credit card info. There are a few places I shop online that only take paypal, and in those events I enter my card info, buy what I need to buy, the immediately delete it again. Before Paypal screwed me over I was a loyal customer, but when management refuses to honor my request with my money when they already had there money and had no reason to try to take anymore, I refuse to give them any more business than I absolutely have to. Paypal sucks.
Depends on how paranoid you are I guess :P One nice thing about the Suica(and Passmo, hayakaken etc) contact-less cards is that they can be anonymous*. You can get them with your name on them, which has the added benefit of getting a replacement with the value still on it, but you can also get them with no name. Which means that wherever the cards are accepted(trains, most convince stores, some restaurants), you can pay for things as anonymously as you can with cash without having to fumble around for a billion coins. Pretty nice system if you ask me.
*(You can only buy the actual card from certain vending machines in the train station, theoretically they could snap a picture of you when you buy the card and use that to track you, but I sincerely doubt they do anything like that).
I dunno, I want the hoverbike, but I do love The Leader and his Movementarians.
This guy seems to have never lost his academic mindset, it's not at all surprising, or bad really, that Google is keeping around old technology. Guess what, they have this thing called operations where they pretty much have to be up 24x7 so that they can serve customer requests. They cannot just start dumping infrastructure that:
a) work and
b) they have invested significant amounts of money in
just because some new technology came around. If everybody in industry did that, it would be absolute chaos and nobody would be able to get anything done. This is just as true in computers as it is with steel mills.
Now compare this with academia, where they have no real customer base to speak of. They can constantly push the boundaries, try new technologies, change their infrastructure etc. That seems to be where this guys mindset remains.
Note that I'm not bashing academia as being out of touch with "reality" or anything like that, the entire POINT of academia is to push these boundaries, industry exists to take these advances, combine them with their own, and then deploy them in an operationally efficient manner.
Or you could attach the name of your arch nemesis to the goatse picture....
Like I am going to take advice from a dude who spent years trapped on a satellite while being forced to watch bad movies.
Overpopulation is the reason I have stopped giving to charities except those that advocate birth control. Because you know what, it may sound harsh but there are waaaaaaaaaaaay too many fuckers on this planet already, and if I prevent some from starving/dying of malaria/whatever, all they are going to do is turn around and create more people to starve/die of malaria/whatever. The poorest places in the world are often the places with the highest birth rates, this isn't a coincidence. If you really want to improve people's lives, give them the means to limit the number of kids they have. Then we will see some real improvement.
It would be a lot cleaner if google supported Hierarchical imap folders in gmail, but they don't. I guess it's the old you get what you pay for.
The ninja analogy is probably more apt than the author intended. The ninja is a warrior who relies on stealth, and often the ones that do the real work in IT don't have time to be "visible" to the boss. So after the "ninja" sneaks into the rival daimyos house at night and kills all his samurai, you can bet there will be someone who hears about this and goes to the master and claims credit for it before the ninja can. And of course when the ninja fails, the same guy will be the screaming and demanding that the ninja commit seppuku(*yes I know seppuku wasn't really a ninja ritual...)
Good IT managers will see these empire builders for what they are, but bad managers(who were probably like that before getting promoted) won't see that. The empire builders don't do any actual work, so they have a lot more time to sit around and scheme ways to take credit and pass blame for the actions of others.
I've pretty much had the exact same experience with them, I think I opened up about 5 tickets with them, only got 1 response worth a damn. In fact, for the one ticket I had to teach the guy what I eventually found out because there was no way he was ever going to be able to solve it on his own.
Pretty much like every tech trend before it, and after it, cloud computing will do a fraction of what it's supporters say it will do, and many times what it's detractors say it cannot do. Just look at pretty much EVERY other tech trend ever.... dot com? Didn't really change how we bought dog food, did change how we shop for a lot of other articles though. Offshore outsourcing? According to a Gartner report in 2003 or thereabouts, right now over 50% of all US IT jobs should be in India and there was predicted to be massive unemployment in the US IT sector, while the detractors said that all the work that went to India will come back because the Indians cannot do it. The truth? Nowhere near what Gartner said, but significantly more work is outsourced than before and isn't coming back, so the detractors were wrong too.
Cloud computing is in a similar position IMO. Of course the owner of one of the biggest clouds on the planet is going to be all gung ho about cloud computing, and of course people whose jobs may be threatened will say it will never work. But if you look in between that, there are some exciting opportunities for the cloud, but also some severe limitations that may never be completely overcome.
Long story short, if someone is telling you "Technology x will do a-z!" and someone else shouts back "Technology x is worthless!", you are better off not believing either of them.
I hope Apple takes this incident to heart and makes one minor, but very significant, change to how their OS(or more specifically, their OS setup process) works: namely that the default user should not have admin privileges! Currently an out of the box Mac will prompt the user to set up an account, and that account will have admin privileges. To actually set up another account the user has to know enough to go into sy
Hopefully in Lion they will, at the very least, explain to users that they should set up a non-admin account to do their everyday computing and only use the admin account when they need to do admin things.....
The best way to fix Microsoft is to go through all the senior execs office and replace their 1998 desk calendars with something a bit more recent.... Seriously based on both ex Microsoft employees testimony and their product line(large numbers of different, incompatible products aimed towards the same market), Microsoft execs don't seem to realize that it's no longer 1998 and they have real external competition. Most Microsoft senior execs seem to be too busy sniping at each other than they are at trying to create something that bests their competitors' products.