A scheme that optimizes when the various attached clients come on the medium to collect there traffic could well have the power gains described.
But, if you're not always listening to the medium, you're bound to miss some opportunity to receive data. The paper seems to say with some methods, the AP wakes the client, and then transfers to it, possibly queuing multiple packets before waking up the client. I'd expect there to be an increase in latency with a scheme like that, and indeed the article seems to mention that. (But, for what one is doing on a mobile device, it probably won't matter.)
Therefore, to amortize the wake-up cost, PSM clients are made to wake-up less frequently, permitting multiple packets to queue up at the AP. Of course, such queuing introduces latency in PSM packet delivery.
The article then improves upon this method, but I didn't see if they actually did anything to remove the latency. I also didn't read the whole 13 pages of research.
That's not the mantra - the mantra is "If it isn't bleeding out of its eye sockets, dismembered, and is dragging itself about the cubicles moaning like the half dead, half undead zombie piece of software that it is, then don't fix it." It's like telling some poor little kid they're going to the dentist to have their teeth pulled, and watching them kick and moan and scream the whole way. I find myself wondering "just what does IT do?" since it seems to take a planetary alignment just to get something upgraded from version 1.0.0 to version 1.0.1 when version 9.4.7 has been out the door for a decade. As a developer, I could make your computer address you in a British accent, play Mozart to make your baby smarter, and put the toilet seat down after each use, except that those features are only available in Windows XSP2k 128-bit, which we haven't upgraded to yet.
Have we not ha-ha'd ourselves sore in our solitude "ha-ha we're so nerdy we can't get girls". This is not funny -- this is sad. A community that is sorely lacking in female involvement (most of my classes are 5% or less female to male), and we joke about it?
Now, I don't like to brag, but I'm going to defeat your odds. I know girls. I talk to them (gasp). I even have a girlfriend (careful, you're near the edge of the chair there). She's a liberal arts major. (Put the pitchforks and torches down, there's no need) Some of my "geeky" friends have even asked on multiple occaisions how I know so many girls. I despise this stereotype, simply because it never did and never will fit me. Yet I put up with it day in and day out.
Yet, there are (sadly, many) people out there who this does fit. And we find this funny. I don't even know what to say. Stereotypical Nerd: Bathe. Shave. Stand up straight. And diversify your interests. And no, I don't mean "I know threads, sockets, internationalization techniques, and 20 (computer) languages." No, no. Learn to play an instrument, go play a sport, or (if you really want a challenge) learn to dance. If you must talk tech to someone you know is non-technical, put it in English. Their eyes glazing over is a sign you're losing them... or they don't care.
My guess is that companies make the gauges vague on purpose, so that people DON'T try to get too much (false/misleading) information out of them.
Hmm, IBM must be different. My battery displays a percentage, and a "time to depletion". If I ask it, it'll also tell me: Remaining capacity, in Watt*hours, full charge, in Watt*hours, the current from the battery in amps, the voltage, the wattage, the temperature, and the cycle count, the day it was first used, and the capacity it should have had when new. (Along with other details about the battery, such as who made it, when they made it, etc.)
Ooh, a 20 features for Windows 7 article. Flamebait, waiting to happen. Attention MS bashers, you may now fire your weaponry...
I don't particularly hate Windows, I just love Linux. Windows just gets on my nerves. Nonetheless, I just Vista almost all day...
I'll probably end up in Karma hell for the moderation I'll get, but here goes: my list of Vista annoying me.
1) I think is this what people are referring to as "Multiple Desktops" - the Mac calls it "Spaces". This. I want it. I have an app that simulates it in Vista, but come on... (oh! And I should be able to set the hot keys for switching, I should be able to set the backgrounds on each desktop!)
2) Symbolic links. They still suck. When I ask to have one created, I get:
"You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation."
Which is bull. I lack sufficient privileges to... oh wait, create a file. Why do I have to be an admin to create symlinks by default? Why are symlinks not integrated with the GUI? Im. Ple. Ment.
3) IE. My god, can we ever get this right? It still fails at some of the most basic things, like simple tables. Also, when I drop a link onto a tab, I expect it to open in that tab... Fail less.
4) Updates. They bug the crap out of the user. From the death clock to restart your system, to the constant balloons, to the evil placing of updates on the shutdown button, it sucks. Also, why do I need admin privileges to stop updates, but not to start?
5) More Filesystems. Not WinFS - screw that for five minutes - give me support for ext2fs, HFS+, etc., so that I can read media from other systems not running windows.
6) Explorer: Don't start renaming random shit when I hit "New Folder". ("New Folder", and if you type too quickly, it'll rename the wrong item.)
7) Start up time. It's appalling. My ten-year-old-hardware running Linux can pwn Vista in a start up race. AND the Linux side prints out tons of interesting messages like "Reversing polarity on the warp engines" until it gets to the GUI. Where are my Warp Engines, Vista?
8) A GUI. Like. One. Or maybe two. Not the "oh look! new app, new GUI! oh boy!" As a programmer, if the default controls didn't suck so much, and have all these gotchas, it wouldn't be so bad. Partly application developer's fault though, but there is still MS Office.
9) Slideshows. A minor feature, maybe, but it fails. Fades between picture are jerky and clunky, on modern hardware. Google's slide show app on my mother's laptop pwns all over, not only fading smoothly, but doing a Ken Burns effect all the way.
That was fun. Basically, reduce the suck factor. By like, orders of magnitude, if possible. Now is not a bad time to rewrite from scratch. (Er, if there ever was a bad time?) Or at least redo some stuff. Think big. Keep working on Vista, but Windows 7 - break away from the old. Give us the new. And try not to fuck it up this time.
having a list somewhere in the classroom where students' names would be listed with their SSNs I believe there were numerous copies of those in my school...
My elementary school (although I was too young to realize it at the time) used our social security numbers as library IDs. Worse, the last four digits were our passwords (for reading comprehension tests). One kid in the class actually did figure this out, and showed half the class (including me). And this was a third grader.
Fast forward to high school. One fine year, the school decides, IDs for everyone! What was the ID number? You guessed it, SSNs. They were, however, encoded as code 39 barcodes, so they were "obscured" (no excuse). But, you know, every student has a TI-83+, a programmable calculator, and decoding Code 39 is a very easy program to write. (And was written, by numerous students.)
The really damning evidence? The SSNs were only present on student barcodes. Teachers (who did have the IDs) merely had a "*" on theirs.
Now I'm in college. I still have an ID, of course, but finally, it's not my SSN.
Tennessee is a place where the speed limit is legally 70mph, and the people actually do drive 70-75mph. Perhaps things in Iowa are different, but the grandfather's point still stands: 70mph does happen.
First, even if you include the tens of millions of XBoxs, using the grandparent's post, you still have less Windows boxes than Linux boxes. Also, is not the software on a XBox much different from that of a standard Windows PC?
Finally, yes, XBoxes - except the XBox is a relatively sandboxed environment. How easy is it to develop for, how many people do develop for it, and how many XBox users are going to go get homegrown XBox software and run it? (And furthermore, how do you reach those users, and will the not be tech-savvy enough to avoid it?)
Basically, the PC (as opposed to XBox) encounters much more user generated content each day, and between all the software that interprets that data, and more of a chance to screw it up.
Not to mention that assuming he's trying to argue against Windows, the argument blows up in his face when you count the number of CDs the average Linux distro ships on...
I patent it. All random numbers are mine, unless you pay me a random fee.
But to pay a random fee, I must generate a random number to know how much to pay. Since I generated a random number, I must pay royalties for that one too, which entails generating a random number for the random number for the random number.
You seemed to have reached step 3:
PROFIT!!
If ODF becomes a standard and OOXML does not, Microsoft will do one of two things (or both)....
2) Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
That caused the following ugly scenario to play out in my mind:
- Microsoft loses or half loses, ODF becomes standard. OOXML either does or doesn't. (Committees: None of us is as stupid as all of us...)
- Microsoft "implements" ODF. The implementation is (of course) half-assed. (Reminds you of PNGs in IE!)
- MS comes back to "fix" it. The world is gift with a now quarter-assed implementation.
Oh D. F. RIP, I knew thee well.
Seriously though, Microsoft will half-ass ODF if they "implement" it... I just know it.
He's right - American's refusal to take responsibility for many of their actions (including eating) is the culprit - not the chemical makeup of some kind of sugar. When you sue McDonald's because your coffee was hot (Heaven forbid!) - that's a sign. And sadly, that's not an isolated case anymore - you hear of some exceedingly stupid court case, and you're not all that surprised by it.
The real solution is just a good diet - different meats/veggies/etc. in at least dinner, and cooked yourself. That, and at least some movement in a day, and you'll be hard pressed to gain weight. (This means visiting McDonalds when need it, not when you want it...) I eat fast food/restaurant two, maybe three times a month. Lay off the fast food/restaurants, the cokes, and the honey buns, and you'll be fine. Moderation - that's all it takes.
That's the bull in the whole thing. It's the "arrangement". Our school band played Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. A few weeks later, I listened to The Transiberian Orchestra's version of it - and could have sang/hummed along with it, despite never hearing the song. Now, either we have the exact same scores, or little "arranging" was actually done. The score we had was, of course, copyrighted.
Not that the overall issue of protecting property hasn't been brought up before on/.. Patents, same problem, but more visible. For music, you'd have to find the original score (or know what it is as opposed to "arrangements" of it).
It just begins to dawn on you when you see a plastic bag has not one but five patents.
I really should have saved my +3 Mace of Common Sense for this post, instead of my earlier use. I might actually have to frame this post as an example of pure ignorance. Here's some enlightenment, however:
First, I consider myself to live in the south. I'm a born and raised Tennessean. Although I'm not from the deep south, Alabama, Mississippi, etc, I still consider myself a southerner. Now then, one at time:
While most of the Northeast, Mid-West, and Coastal Western States are left-leaning, the South (and the south-west and non-coastal west) has a right-leaning attitude.
Wrong. A closer representation relating geography to political standing would be this: Rural areas are more likely to lean Republic, and urban more likely to lean Democrat. One of the sibling posts was kind enough to link to the Wikipedia map for the 2004 election. It's shaded, however. Look at a map of just who won 2004's election, by county, such as this one. Just the south voting Republican? I think not. Furthmore, I live in a city (indeed, the state capital!), and many of the people I associate with day to day are anything but Republican.
And lots of people live in these states.
Because, as you say, it's such a horrid place. Why would anyone want to live there... Seriously, excuse me? New York is more populus than any sourthern state save Texas. (And California is larger still.) Ignoring the eight digit populations of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. Where do you get the idea that "lots of people live in these states"? Indeed, we have our share of cities, but "lots of people" is exaggerated and ridiculous.
the south has lower salaries, a lower-skilled and less-educated populace, more children per household, more religious tendancies, and a host of other features you could probably guess
Lower salaries - Compared to some places that aren't in the south, a lower cost of living as well. Do I need to look around at my "lower salary" dwelling? Heating, AC, two cars, nice house, nice neighborhood. Not bad, for a "lower salary", I'd say.
lower-skilled and less-educated populace - In a nutshell, you're calling me stupid. Such an argument will win you nothing but hate and resentment fairly quickly. If you're going to may such claims as any of the ones you've made, back them up with reason, personal experience, or citation. In all faith, I would contest your assult on the quality of our education, unfortunately, I'm tempted to agree. However, I have the personal experience to back that argument up, and I can only argue for one school district - the one I attended. While it's quality is lacking, it's an inner city school district, a type not known for its quality regardless of location. My highschool was ranked 23rd in the nation this last go round, up from 43rd last year. Perhaps this coming year they'll improve the rating, again.
more children per household - And this matters because...? We here in any part of the USA enjoy a few things known as freedoms, and if bringing up a larger family is your thing, so be it, should you have the resources to do it. As it happens, while I was born in the south, neither of my parents were - both were from the north. I have three siblings. My parents? Three siblings for one, four for the other, which have since moved and resided happily in all geography regions of the USA - be it south, north, midwest or west.
religious tendancies - I'll take that as a complement. Perhaps a little faith in your life would do you good, as well as learning to love your neighbor. Your southern neighbor.
host of other features you could probably guess - Oh, what a way to end a flaimbait of a post. Let's ju
What will it take to convince you people? Does Cheney have to visit each house in the US personally, pry open the door with his shotgun, be caught shitting in your pillowcase while installing a keylogger on your PC?
See? You answered the question yourself! You too can be visited by Cheney in person. Every Christmas night (and other nights that he just feels like it) he rides Air Force one (really a sleigh with eight reindeer, plus that annoying one with the light pollution on his face) out of the Undisclosed Location (aka, the North Pole, which is secretly a US Military base doubling as an oil drilling facility). The RNC (Radically Norse Creatures, a codename for the elves) aid Bush in the "toy shop", manufacturing the shotgun shells and writing the spyware (and you thought ELF stood for Executable and Linkable Format - ha!) Cheney distributes to all of the Windows PCs of the world. He enters your house through a "series of tubes" (ie, the chimney), whering a black business suit.
This whole deal started from the firing of US Attorneys, remember? (Think back, way back, and get off the email tangent for a second.) If you do remember that, then I ask, so? Quite honestly, I don't care which party is in power - I would have expected them to fire people. Period. You serve at the pleasure of the President, and when Mr. President leaves the office, well, tough. You do too. Granted, yes, these were Bush-appointed, but so what? The position is still at the pleasure of the President, and if he's not happy, neither will you be. Now, we have a (maybe) scandal, that to me is confusing as all heck, just because we can't deal with a nonissue.
Law requires emails sent by officials to be stored or recorded.
If I'm understanding this nonsense correctly, then the problem is not deleted emails. The problem is that there were two emails to choose from: one White House, one RNC. All government-business had to go through the White House one, so it could be logged/recorded, and all political-related through the RNC one, since you can't use government resources for politcal purposes. The RNC, not being a government records keeper, but a political party, is not required to keep emails, and people are not outraged that such has happened, as apperently government officials _might_ have sent email through the RNC accounts that probably should have gone through the White house ones. (What part of "series of tubes" did you miss? You think public officials are... bright?)
Maybe I'm weilding my +3 Mace of Common Sense (it's cursed, sorry!), but I think what we have here is not some political "omfg!" scandal of evilness. To me, this seems like two laws that could be mutually exclusive. Where is the boundry between political and government? What about when political decisions, the voice of the party, etc. influence decisions made in the government? What email do we use when, where do you draw the line, and why do we even give a damn? Some of the same on Slashdot fight to keep everything private all the time. There - I've sacraficed my karma for not defending a liberal point of view. (And isn't this artle posted by... Spam?!?!)
Though, seriously, yes. Next time an election comes around, I request this of the democratic party: Find a real canidate. Someone who we can have an election with, and not look at the ballot and say, "Gawd, both of these choices are shit. Well, that's why the Lord gave us hanging chads! Say, who's this Nader fellow..."
Did it go through the dryer too?
I lost a pair of headphones to the dryer. I suspect the water did no damage, more the fact that the headphones had about 3 or 4 billion twists in the wires. (And the earpieces where in a gigantic knot.) One ear still worked, the other was dead. (And I'd just retired the previous set like two days before, so I was a bit peeved. They cost
That, and I saw a small inflatable raft/bed for a pool. Plastic thing you lay on in the pool. The box advertised that you could play your iPod while in it, and "not get wet". (You're in a pool) (And it didn't seem to protect the iPod in any way, other than keeping it above the water. Next big wave, and that thing is a goner.
While my cable connection doesn't exactly spike to 30s latency, it does disconnect randomly more than I like. You're happily browsing the web one moment, the next Firefox is "Looking up google.com..." and since DNS queries don't take 5+ seconds, you turn around to wait another 30 seconds until the cable modem goes, "Hey! No connection! Reconnecting now..."
I've never hit Comcast's advertised 4Mbps speed downstream. 3Mbps, on a really good day, maybe. 4?, no. (Why I don't see why to pay for the 6Mbps...) Their upstream (something like 400kbps) I've definately hit. Transferring our school movie (~0.5GB) took forever.
I wonder what Comcast's upstream on this "superfast" cable will be...
I've participated on FIRST for two years now, and I'm graduating as a senior. I will miss FIRST so much... it's not just for robotics enthusiasts either. I had no real interest in robotics until I joined a team. In two short years I've learned about wiring, various sensors, what "PWM" stands for and means, and tons of other things. So has everyone else on the team. FIRST is hands on education to the max. And it's fun. To stress the parent's post's point of "Gracious professionalism" - FIRST not only encourages it, FIRST and those competing in FIRST take pride in it. A broken part is no excuse for not competing. Help, parts, info is all available - all you have to do is ask. Teams will tell you everything about their robots, lend you parts, knowledge, even walk over to your team's area to help out, when they could be spending that precious time on their robot.
Everything parent said is nose on. However, I'd like to stress that even teams that don't take advantage of the autonomous period are still building a robot. The Mars Rover is a robot, and it does get human input. Same with the FIRST robots - and it's not as simple as just plugging in a few wires. If you're in highschool, and reading slashdot, I'd definately recommend checking FIRST out, and finding a team near you.
Also, teams are not just highschools (although most are). Our team is an exception here - we encompass the entire county and then some. Anyone who thinks building a 100 lbs robot in six weeks to complete the challenge's of FIRST robotics is easy... well, they're wrong. (I'd love to see more teams in my local area.)
Many of the seniors on our team (including me) have vowed to find and mentor local FIRST teams wherever we go to college. Mostly, you have to be there to understand what FIRST really is. Watch the online videos. Find a team near you, and hang out for a Saturday afternoon - you'll probably be back next week. (We take people from all over the county, and I'm sure school-based teams wouldn't have a problem either.)
But assembly still finds its uses in niche places. Things that need to run as fast as possible get optimized by conversion to assembly along with further tweaking (and then bragged about). OS specific code, bootloaders, or even drivers, might have to be written in assembly (or involve assembly).
My old TI-83+ can, AFAIK, only be programmed in assembly or TI-BASIC (which is slower than dirt). Assembly is blazingly fast by comparision, and is the only choice for more complex applications.
Embedded devices might find more use for assembly as well. I worked on a robot/robotics team for the past few weeks. The first thing that the robot executed was written in assembly. (It setup stack registers, did a few other things that I never quite figure out, and kicked control over to a C function.) OS startup, essentially.
Granted, assembly is being more and more rare, but it still has a place in today's programming.
* Less portable code makes heavy use of API that is already written and tested inside the OS.
The code will have to call system functions sooner or later, portable or not. The point of many libraries out there is providing a standard interface to those functions (while the code in the libraries may vary between platforms to account for those differences).
* Less portable code can therefore be less expensive and quicker to produce. Depending on the circumstance this can be a long term and/or short term benefit.
Wrong. Using third party libraries has saved me time and effort, and allowed my apps to be portable. At the same time, these libraries are much more mature and stable than anything that I could write in a modest amount of time. (Why reinvent the wheel?) Take libcurl, for example. Aids in portability (which with sockets can be not fun) and saves me the time of having to deal with HTTP/other protocols. I also once wrote a library capable of handling big-integers, to calculate 100!. It worked, but the library had so many gotchas it wasn't funny. And it took time. Much less time than it took when I discovered GMP. (And GMP blew my library away in terms of speed/features.)
* Less portable code can be made to execute faster than portable code
This is probably true - however, the difference for many libraries is also probably small. If you're in a small project that needs execution speed, then yes, less portable may indeed be better. (GMP does this) For the majority of projects, however, this is not the case - better algorithms and design.
* Typically the most popular OS in the world is easier to program for by most programmers, thereby allowing everyone that is hired to get up to speed on the project more quickly.
Wrong. A project using common, well known libraries (standard C functions, POSIX, some of the well known libraries mentioned in this thread...) as opposed to platform specific calls that may be unknown to programmers, will be easier to aquaint with. API should be a small barrier in a well organized project.
* Anything that has to do a lot of work with filesystems will need operating system dependant code to be written. There are faster file operation system calls for each specific OS.
You're telling me I should call the Windows dependant calls over my good friend fopen() for speed? If it's file I/O, the system call's speed won't make a difference - I/O with the actual hardware likely will. Even if speed were an issue - then you provide a wrapper. If faster calls are available on a platform, write a wrapper that will call them, but fall back to the standard calls where not available.
* Less portable code can be made smaller in size, by depending on libraries that are only available on a target OS.
This is probably true. However, portable code isn't a free lunch - you've got to pay somewhere. In my experience, it's been mostly in executable size, and less in speed. (wxWidgets adds a lot of bulk to a binary, admittedly.) But to some of us, trading a few hundred kilo's of disk space (cheap by today's standard) for portability is worth it. More space is usually savable not by code, but by data reduction.
Moving forward, I would suggest a language that makes use of garbage collection as your next choice.
Like C++. Oh. Wait. "Bad example". Really, although it isn't built in, I've really never worried about garbage collection too hard. boost::shared_ptr is a wonderful class, and classes help even more. Once I get off my rear an actually use boost/some other scheme, I stop worrying. I don't spend the majority of my time on memory management.
I'm a C programmer, but I started in BASIC. I second BASIC, although I'm one of the "Real Programmers don't use BASIC" type people.
First, BASIC is easy. The only downside is that it lacks some of the more advanced programming concepts - mostly anything that involves a pointer. My worry is that the kids are a tad young: I didn't really start until fifth grade, and it took a long time for me to get to where I am now. (Of course, I didn't have any classes available in middle/high school, which didn't help.) However, once these kids get to a real math class (Algebra, Calculus, etc.), they'll probably be required to get a TI-83+ or similar, and these are programmable with "TI-BASIC". Some highschool kids can pick it up on their own, but while they can understand the language, they lack the theory of how programming works.
I also worry about the math - I didn't know PEMDAS (parenthesis, exponents, multiply, etc.) until sixth grade. (Of course, I was in a regular public school up until then too.) Exponents were easy to pick up, but programming is math like no tomorrow. Different bases, binary operations (AND OR XOR), an order of operations that makes the one taught by high school look like child's play.
Of course, some people stress that programming and "which language" need to be set apart - the concepts should be taught such that another language can be easily learned.
KPL looks interesting, but I know nothing about it. c-jump also looks, er, quite "interesting". HTML is a no - HTML is not a programming language. Teach a language that won't hinder learning (C/C++ is probably not 3-5 friendly), and that'll let you teach programming. Also, teach them about the computer too - don't let them live under the assumption that Windows is the only thing that a PC runs. Show them *nix, Mac, etc. And don't stop at the PC - calculators can be programmed, robots can be programmed, etc.
At any rate, there's a lot to teach! It took me several years to learn what I know - and I'm still counting. However, I regret having no opportunity to have had a mentor - I have no idea what I lack, nor what holes may exist in my knowledge. Classes are good for that. A programming class is certainly a welcomed improvement over the usual "this is how to use MS Word" class (what about Lotus? OpenOffice?). Good luck with such an undertaking!
Slashdot Mirror
But, if you're not always listening to the medium, you're bound to miss some opportunity to receive data. The paper seems to say with some methods, the AP wakes the client, and then transfers to it, possibly queuing multiple packets before waking up the client. I'd expect there to be an increase in latency with a scheme like that, and indeed the article seems to mention that. (But, for what one is doing on a mobile device, it probably won't matter.)
The article then improves upon this method, but I didn't see if they actually did anything to remove the latency. I also didn't read the whole 13 pages of research.
That's not the mantra - the mantra is "If it isn't bleeding out of its eye sockets, dismembered, and is dragging itself about the cubicles moaning like the half dead, half undead zombie piece of software that it is, then don't fix it." It's like telling some poor little kid they're going to the dentist to have their teeth pulled, and watching them kick and moan and scream the whole way. I find myself wondering "just what does IT do?" since it seems to take a planetary alignment just to get something upgraded from version 1.0.0 to version 1.0.1 when version 9.4.7 has been out the door for a decade. As a developer, I could make your computer address you in a British accent, play Mozart to make your baby smarter, and put the toilet seat down after each use, except that those features are only available in Windows XSP2k 128-bit, which we haven't upgraded to yet.
+1 for standing up. I had to not back down in a high-school level class on "Zero is an even number."
Alright. This was modded +5 funny. Why?
Have we not ha-ha'd ourselves sore in our solitude "ha-ha we're so nerdy we can't get girls". This is not funny -- this is sad. A community that is sorely lacking in female involvement (most of my classes are 5% or less female to male), and we joke about it?
Now, I don't like to brag, but I'm going to defeat your odds. I know girls. I talk to them (gasp). I even have a girlfriend (careful, you're near the edge of the chair there). She's a liberal arts major. (Put the pitchforks and torches down, there's no need) Some of my "geeky" friends have even asked on multiple occaisions how I know so many girls. I despise this stereotype, simply because it never did and never will fit me. Yet I put up with it day in and day out.
Yet, there are (sadly, many) people out there who this does fit. And we find this funny. I don't even know what to say. Stereotypical Nerd: Bathe. Shave. Stand up straight. And diversify your interests. And no, I don't mean "I know threads, sockets, internationalization techniques, and 20 (computer) languages." No, no. Learn to play an instrument, go play a sport, or (if you really want a challenge) learn to dance. If you must talk tech to someone you know is non-technical, put it in English. Their eyes glazing over is a sign you're losing them... or they don't care.
(emphasis mine) Huh? The GPL is not a license? I wonder, whatever could the L stand for then?
Hmm, IBM must be different. My battery displays a percentage, and a "time to depletion". If I ask it, it'll also tell me: Remaining capacity, in Watt*hours, full charge, in Watt*hours, the current from the battery in amps, the voltage, the wattage, the temperature, and the cycle count, the day it was first used, and the capacity it should have had when new. (Along with other details about the battery, such as who made it, when they made it, etc.)
Ooh, a 20 features for Windows 7 article. Flamebait, waiting to happen. Attention MS bashers, you may now fire your weaponry...
I don't particularly hate Windows, I just love Linux. Windows just gets on my nerves. Nonetheless, I just Vista almost all day...
I'll probably end up in Karma hell for the moderation I'll get, but here goes: my list of Vista annoying me.
1) I think is this what people are referring to as "Multiple Desktops" - the Mac calls it "Spaces". This. I want it. I have an app that simulates it in Vista, but come on... (oh! And I should be able to set the hot keys for switching, I should be able to set the backgrounds on each desktop!)
2) Symbolic links. They still suck. When I ask to have one created, I get:
"You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation."
Which is bull. I lack sufficient privileges to... oh wait, create a file. Why do I have to be an admin to create symlinks by default? Why are symlinks not integrated with the GUI? Im. Ple. Ment.
3) IE. My god, can we ever get this right? It still fails at some of the most basic things, like simple tables. Also, when I drop a link onto a tab, I expect it to open in that tab... Fail less.
4) Updates. They bug the crap out of the user. From the death clock to restart your system, to the constant balloons, to the evil placing of updates on the shutdown button, it sucks. Also, why do I need admin privileges to stop updates, but not to start?
5) More Filesystems. Not WinFS - screw that for five minutes - give me support for ext2fs, HFS+, etc., so that I can read media from other systems not running windows.
6) Explorer: Don't start renaming random shit when I hit "New Folder". ("New Folder", and if you type too quickly, it'll rename the wrong item.)
7) Start up time. It's appalling. My ten-year-old-hardware running Linux can pwn Vista in a start up race. AND the Linux side prints out tons of interesting messages like "Reversing polarity on the warp engines" until it gets to the GUI. Where are my Warp Engines, Vista?
8) A GUI. Like. One. Or maybe two. Not the "oh look! new app, new GUI! oh boy!" As a programmer, if the default controls didn't suck so much, and have all these gotchas, it wouldn't be so bad. Partly application developer's fault though, but there is still MS Office.
9) Slideshows. A minor feature, maybe, but it fails. Fades between picture are jerky and clunky, on modern hardware. Google's slide show app on my mother's laptop pwns all over, not only fading smoothly, but doing a Ken Burns effect all the way.
That was fun. Basically, reduce the suck factor. By like, orders of magnitude, if possible. Now is not a bad time to rewrite from scratch. (Er, if there ever was a bad time?) Or at least redo some stuff. Think big. Keep working on Vista, but Windows 7 - break away from the old. Give us the new. And try not to fuck it up this time.
My elementary school (although I was too young to realize it at the time) used our social security numbers as library IDs. Worse, the last four digits were our passwords (for reading comprehension tests). One kid in the class actually did figure this out, and showed half the class (including me). And this was a third grader.
Fast forward to high school. One fine year, the school decides, IDs for everyone! What was the ID number? You guessed it, SSNs. They were, however, encoded as code 39 barcodes, so they were "obscured" (no excuse). But, you know, every student has a TI-83+, a programmable calculator, and decoding Code 39 is a very easy program to write. (And was written, by numerous students.)
The really damning evidence? The SSNs were only present on student barcodes. Teachers (who did have the IDs) merely had a "*" on theirs.
Now I'm in college. I still have an ID, of course, but finally, it's not my SSN.
Tennessee is a place where the speed limit is legally 70mph, and the people actually do drive 70-75mph. Perhaps things in Iowa are different, but the grandfather's point still stands: 70mph does happen.
Your counter argument is flawed, if you ask me.
First, even if you include the tens of millions of XBoxs, using the grandparent's post, you still have less Windows boxes than Linux boxes. Also, is not the software on a XBox much different from that of a standard Windows PC?
Finally, yes, XBoxes - except the XBox is a relatively sandboxed environment. How easy is it to develop for, how many people do develop for it, and how many XBox users are going to go get homegrown XBox software and run it? (And furthermore, how do you reach those users, and will the not be tech-savvy enough to avoid it?)
Basically, the PC (as opposed to XBox) encounters much more user generated content each day, and between all the software that interprets that data, and more of a chance to screw it up.
A product named Trixbox is really a box of tricks...
You seemed to have reached step 3:
PROFIT!!
- Microsoft loses or half loses, ODF becomes standard. OOXML either does or doesn't. (Committees: None of us is as stupid as all of us...)
- Microsoft "implements" ODF. The implementation is (of course) half-assed. (Reminds you of PNGs in IE!)
- MS comes back to "fix" it. The world is gift with a now quarter-assed implementation.
Oh D. F. RIP, I knew thee well.
Seriously though, Microsoft will half-ass ODF if they "implement" it... I just know it.
Mod parent up. (Albeit he's an AC)
He's right - American's refusal to take responsibility for many of their actions (including eating) is the culprit - not the chemical makeup of some kind of sugar. When you sue McDonald's because your coffee was hot (Heaven forbid!) - that's a sign. And sadly, that's not an isolated case anymore - you hear of some exceedingly stupid court case, and you're not all that surprised by it.
The real solution is just a good diet - different meats/veggies/etc. in at least dinner, and cooked yourself. That, and at least some movement in a day, and you'll be hard pressed to gain weight. (This means visiting McDonalds when need it, not when you want it...) I eat fast food/restaurant two, maybe three times a month. Lay off the fast food/restaurants, the cokes, and the honey buns, and you'll be fine. Moderation - that's all it takes.
Not that the overall issue of protecting property hasn't been brought up before on
It just begins to dawn on you when you see a plastic bag has not one but five patents.
And I thought that "WabiSabiLabi" was a fairly memorable name. Oh well.
First, I consider myself to live in the south. I'm a born and raised Tennessean. Although I'm not from the deep south, Alabama, Mississippi, etc, I still consider myself a southerner. Now then, one at time:
Wrong. A closer representation relating geography to political standing would be this: Rural areas are more likely to lean Republic, and urban more likely to lean Democrat. One of the sibling posts was kind enough to link to the Wikipedia map for the 2004 election. It's shaded, however. Look at a map of just who won 2004's election, by county, such as this one. Just the south voting Republican? I think not. Furthmore, I live in a city (indeed, the state capital!), and many of the people I associate with day to day are anything but Republican.
Because, as you say, it's such a horrid place. Why would anyone want to live there... Seriously, excuse me? New York is more populus than any sourthern state save Texas. (And California is larger still.) Ignoring the eight digit populations of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. Where do you get the idea that "lots of people live in these states"? Indeed, we have our share of cities, but "lots of people" is exaggerated and ridiculous.
This whole deal started from the firing of US Attorneys, remember? (Think back, way back, and get off the email tangent for a second.) If you do remember that, then I ask, so? Quite honestly, I don't care which party is in power - I would have expected them to fire people. Period. You serve at the pleasure of the President, and when Mr. President leaves the office, well, tough. You do too. Granted, yes, these were Bush-appointed, but so what? The position is still at the pleasure of the President, and if he's not happy, neither will you be. Now, we have a (maybe) scandal, that to me is confusing as all heck, just because we can't deal with a nonissue.
If I'm understanding this nonsense correctly, then the problem is not deleted emails. The problem is that there were two emails to choose from: one White House, one RNC. All government-business had to go through the White House one, so it could be logged/recorded, and all political-related through the RNC one, since you can't use government resources for politcal purposes. The RNC, not being a government records keeper, but a political party, is not required to keep emails, and people are not outraged that such has happened, as apperently government officials _might_ have sent email through the RNC accounts that probably should have gone through the White house ones. (What part of "series of tubes" did you miss? You think public officials are... bright?)
Maybe I'm weilding my +3 Mace of Common Sense (it's cursed, sorry!), but I think what we have here is not some political "omfg!" scandal of evilness. To me, this seems like two laws that could be mutually exclusive. Where is the boundry between political and government? What about when political decisions, the voice of the party, etc. influence decisions made in the government? What email do we use when, where do you draw the line, and why do we even give a damn? Some of the same on Slashdot fight to keep everything private all the time. There - I've sacraficed my karma for not defending a liberal point of view. (And isn't this artle posted by... Spam?!?!)
Though, seriously, yes. Next time an election comes around, I request this of the democratic party: Find a real canidate. Someone who we can have an election with, and not look at the ballot and say, "Gawd, both of these choices are shit. Well, that's why the Lord gave us hanging chads! Say, who's this Nader fellow..."
Did it go through the dryer too?
I lost a pair of headphones to the dryer. I suspect the water did no damage, more the fact that the headphones had about 3 or 4 billion twists in the wires. (And the earpieces where in a gigantic knot.) One ear still worked, the other was dead. (And I'd just retired the previous set like two days before, so I was a bit peeved. They cost
That, and I saw a small inflatable raft/bed for a pool. Plastic thing you lay on in the pool. The box advertised that you could play your iPod while in it, and "not get wet". (You're in a pool) (And it didn't seem to protect the iPod in any way, other than keeping it above the water. Next big wave, and that thing is a goner.
While my cable connection doesn't exactly spike to 30s latency, it does disconnect randomly more than I like. You're happily browsing the web one moment, the next Firefox is "Looking up google.com..." and since DNS queries don't take 5+ seconds, you turn around to wait another 30 seconds until the cable modem goes, "Hey! No connection! Reconnecting now..."
I've never hit Comcast's advertised 4Mbps speed downstream. 3Mbps, on a really good day, maybe. 4?, no. (Why I don't see why to pay for the 6Mbps...) Their upstream (something like 400kbps) I've definately hit. Transferring our school movie (~0.5GB) took forever.
I wonder what Comcast's upstream on this "superfast" cable will be...
I've participated on FIRST for two years now, and I'm graduating as a senior. I will miss FIRST so much... it's not just for robotics enthusiasts either. I had no real interest in robotics until I joined a team. In two short years I've learned about wiring, various sensors, what "PWM" stands for and means, and tons of other things. So has everyone else on the team. FIRST is hands on education to the max. And it's fun. To stress the parent's post's point of "Gracious professionalism" - FIRST not only encourages it, FIRST and those competing in FIRST take pride in it. A broken part is no excuse for not competing. Help, parts, info is all available - all you have to do is ask. Teams will tell you everything about their robots, lend you parts, knowledge, even walk over to your team's area to help out, when they could be spending that precious time on their robot.
Everything parent said is nose on. However, I'd like to stress that even teams that don't take advantage of the autonomous period are still building a robot. The Mars Rover is a robot, and it does get human input. Same with the FIRST robots - and it's not as simple as just plugging in a few wires. If you're in highschool, and reading slashdot, I'd definately recommend checking FIRST out, and finding a team near you.
Also, teams are not just highschools (although most are). Our team is an exception here - we encompass the entire county and then some. Anyone who thinks building a 100 lbs robot in six weeks to complete the challenge's of FIRST robotics is easy... well, they're wrong. (I'd love to see more teams in my local area.)
Many of the seniors on our team (including me) have vowed to find and mentor local FIRST teams wherever we go to college. Mostly, you have to be there to understand what FIRST really is. Watch the online videos. Find a team near you, and hang out for a Saturday afternoon - you'll probably be back next week. (We take people from all over the county, and I'm sure school-based teams wouldn't have a problem either.)
For creating regular applications, probably not.
But assembly still finds its uses in niche places. Things that need to run as fast as possible get optimized by conversion to assembly along with further tweaking (and then bragged about). OS specific code, bootloaders, or even drivers, might have to be written in assembly (or involve assembly).
My old TI-83+ can, AFAIK, only be programmed in assembly or TI-BASIC (which is slower than dirt). Assembly is blazingly fast by comparision, and is the only choice for more complex applications.
Embedded devices might find more use for assembly as well. I worked on a robot/robotics team for the past few weeks. The first thing that the robot executed was written in assembly. (It setup stack registers, did a few other things that I never quite figure out, and kicked control over to a C function.) OS startup, essentially.
Granted, assembly is being more and more rare, but it still has a place in today's programming.
I'm a C programmer, but I started in BASIC. I second BASIC, although I'm one of the "Real Programmers don't use BASIC" type people.
First, BASIC is easy. The only downside is that it lacks some of the more advanced programming concepts - mostly anything that involves a pointer. My worry is that the kids are a tad young: I didn't really start until fifth grade, and it took a long time for me to get to where I am now. (Of course, I didn't have any classes available in middle/high school, which didn't help.) However, once these kids get to a real math class (Algebra, Calculus, etc.), they'll probably be required to get a TI-83+ or similar, and these are programmable with "TI-BASIC". Some highschool kids can pick it up on their own, but while they can understand the language, they lack the theory of how programming works.
I also worry about the math - I didn't know PEMDAS (parenthesis, exponents, multiply, etc.) until sixth grade. (Of course, I was in a regular public school up until then too.) Exponents were easy to pick up, but programming is math like no tomorrow. Different bases, binary operations (AND OR XOR), an order of operations that makes the one taught by high school look like child's play.
Of course, some people stress that programming and "which language" need to be set apart - the concepts should be taught such that another language can be easily learned.
KPL looks interesting, but I know nothing about it. c-jump also looks, er, quite "interesting". HTML is a no - HTML is not a programming language. Teach a language that won't hinder learning (C/C++ is probably not 3-5 friendly), and that'll let you teach programming. Also, teach them about the computer too - don't let them live under the assumption that Windows is the only thing that a PC runs. Show them *nix, Mac, etc. And don't stop at the PC - calculators can be programmed, robots can be programmed, etc.
At any rate, there's a lot to teach! It took me several years to learn what I know - and I'm still counting. However, I regret having no opportunity to have had a mentor - I have no idea what I lack, nor what holes may exist in my knowledge. Classes are good for that. A programming class is certainly a welcomed improvement over the usual "this is how to use MS Word" class (what about Lotus? OpenOffice?). Good luck with such an undertaking!