since the scriptures mention other special creatures
That really depends on how you interpret certain scriptures. It's certainly the marjority-held view. But it's not the only view.
but they can never incite their zealot followers to embrace the tranquillity, harmony, sanctity of life, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, and passiveness that pretty much all of the major religions are based on
This is a "3, Insightful"??? You've got to be kidding me. Slashdotters, we've hit a new low. I've seldom heard a more narrow-minded sweeping stereotype. And there it is modded Insightful in all of it's bigotted glory.
Wholly dismissing the beliefs of millions of people simply because your deem them to be unnecessary doesn't sound much different than what the oh-so-hated fundamentalists do. But actually it sounds much more simliar to what Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, did to enslave the minds of their nations.
Yes, let's wipe out all metaphysical philosophy. It's worked so well in the past.
I think we have a law now that cigarette machines are only allowed in adult only areas like bars to keep the kids away from them.
Remember that those types of laws are determined locally. Usually by the county or city. I live in Wisconsin, and as far as I know there are few legal restrictions on where you can and can't smoke, and where you can and can't have ciagarette machines. Mostly it's up to the property owners.
However, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke. Being in a smoky room for more than 10 minutes causes my throat to tighten and get scratchy, and my eyes to itch and get red. And if I'm in a smoky room for more than an hour, I'll have cold-like symptoms for several days afterward.
So whenever people take advantage of that wonderful "freedom" to smoke anywhere they want, it causes people like me to suffer. And there's nothing we can do about it.
Needless to say, I'm all for outlawing smoking in any sort of public place. In your house? Fine. Outside where the air flows freely? Fine. Beyond that, you're infringing on other people's freedoms, in my opinion.
Like I said, "hyperbole gone out of control".
Maybe my comment could have been left unsaid, as I was in an irritable mood this morning. But I don't think it warranted labelling as "Flamebait". I didn't insult anyone. Everything I said was a fact, not a biased opinion. I think the typical partisan political/. post is more "Flamebait" than what I said. If anything, it was "Offtopic".
Good parenting doesn't start durring the trouble years, it starts day 0.
So true. In fact, there's a theory in child psychology (although not championed much nowadays) that if you haven't instilled certain things (such as respect for others, for you, and for the boundaries you set) in your child by the age of 14, it's too late and you just have to hope they figure it out for themselves eventually.
Of course I completely agree with you. But there's a growing attitude in America that you shouldn't ever have to make sacrifices. Just a couple of weeks ago I heard a lady on NPR talking about how she felt it was completely unreasonable that a career might need to be sacrificed in order to properly raise a child. There was no perception that it takes more than monetary support and the occasional chauferring to raise a well-developed child. This is embodied by another quote I heard on NPR, from one of the hosts, defending the fact that his children were very well-raised. His defense: one cum laude graduate and two magna cum laude graduates. Sorry buddy, but academic achievement does not equate to balanced and well-developed individual.
When we finally wipe IEs non-standard display of HTML and CSS from the internet
Newsflash: Firefox's rendering isn't 100% correct either. Which makes it really fun as a web developer to try and get both IE and Firefox to display your site how you want it to look while still being standard compliant.
the claimed "100 trillion" lost every year in software piracy
Either you've misread or mistyped that number, or it's hyperbole gone out of control. $100 trillion is more than 9 times the GDP of the U.S. (which itself is almost twice the total GDP of the second and third richest nations in the world). In fact, $100 trillion dollars might even be more than the GDP of the entire Earth. So it's quite unlikely that that number is anywhere even close to realistic.
Well, if the embryo wasn't made in the first place, then there's no way it could become another screaming baby anywhere, let alone your favorite theator.
I do think there's an inherent difference between making embryos explicitly with the intention of killing them and using them for research, compared to making embryos with the intention of allowing infertile couples to have children, and giving the ones that would otherwise die unused to the researchers.
Although that brings to light the question of whether fertility clinics are "ethical" either.
1) I'd be willing to bet a majority of the rat-rights people are peace-nick lefties, not right-wing nut-jobs.
2) The general concensus, as far as I've read, is that at the beginning of the universe, before atoms had formed, there were subatomic particles, and a whole heckuva a lot of electromagnetic waves (a.k.a. light, for the physics-challenged). And that was hundreds of thousands of years before any stars formed.
Okay, I see. That makes perfect sense. Obviously a Singleton isn't ideal for every "save-data" situation. But even in your situation, I could imagine a Singleton might be used to manage the config objects, rather than directly storing the config data. Tell the Singleton which user's data you need and it comes back with the config object for that user.
In addition to the things that arkanes lists, there is also the fact that in C++ a properly coded reference-counting Singleton does not need to take up program memory except when you are using it. One static method is used to grab the instance of the class and another to free it. When all references are freed, the Singleton can clean up its instance and not take up memory. This allows your program data to remain properly modularized without also keeping a conslidated copy except during the actual process of saving or loading.
I believe that in order to model "any physical computation device" you're going to need many many more states
A state-machine is much more than just states. It's also the logic that dictates state-transitions. So for the FSM to be complex enough to be useful, the state transition logic will take up much more space than the actual state itself.
30 bits may very well be enough to store the state of a system. But depending on how the bits represent the states, the transition logic may be more or less complex. For example, tying state representation closely to actual state variables will simplify code. I.e. if the bits essentially just acted as flags for different situations, it's simple to check those flags specifically and act accordingly. However, then you'd be restricted to monitoring only 30 (or less) unique aspects of the system with the 30 available bits. To get the most use of out of the state memory, you would need to remove this restriction. So every 30-bit combination would be a completely unique state, and flipping one bit (a minor change to state-representation) wouldn't necessarily mean a minor change to the actual state of the device. To deal with this, your logic would need to essentially become a big case statement:
if state = 101010101010101010101010101010 then ... else if state = 001010101010101010101010101010 then ... else if... end if
It's the infamous code-size/state-size/code-speed tradeoff. You can't have all three be optimal at the same time.
How old were you when you first made this assessment? Seriously. I too have a high opinion of things I liked in my childhood that today I find lacking
Technology-dependent things like video games and special-effects-laden movies need to be compared with things from their own era, never the present. So the fact that you find it lacking today says something about today's games, but it might say absolutely nothing about its actualy quality relative to other games at the time it was released.
Example: Star Wars is unarguably a classic trilogy and one of the first great multi-film epics. But there aren't many people under 18 who actually think the original Star Wars movies are worth watching. (Please don't flame if you are and do, because I said "not many", not "none". Plus we are all nerds here, and so not a representative sample.) But its lack of appreciation today says nothing about it's significance back when it came out.
P.S. The original Tomb Raider was largely well-rated, and more recently made 1up.com's Essential 50.
That's a question of management. If Google so chooses, they can have anyone who has the ability rotate in and out of that 10%. Problems would arise with those who just don't have that ability.
I don't think it'll exactly be a problem, but I agree it can't possibly continue indefinitely to be the nice bed of roses that Google wants it to be. Not everyone has the ability to work on the cool stuff, and I doubt even Google can completely avoid employing codemonkeys. And some of the codemonkeys are likely to get envious of the tasks given to more able developers/designers. There's not much that can be done about that because it's a personality conflict rather than a business issue: they're perfectly good at what they're doing, but want to be doing something for which they are not ideal.
So anyways, I guess agree there will be morale issues, but I doubt it will be with the employees providing Google's bread-and-butter.
Simple: don't employ people who refuse to work on anything that isn't "exciting" or "interesting".
If I worked at Google I would view their 10% as a perk, and be very grateful for it. Most companies will have you working 100% of the time on stuff that is not exactly exciting or interesting, or even necessarily mentally stimulating.
You do realize, do you not, that the earth's magnetic fields has flipped countless times in the past?
I do. But AFAIK, for as long as humans have known at least generally how magnets work, it has not changed. Also, this response was quite insightful, but as I later responded, it still does not explain the quotes.
At least on Windows, Firefox has Java enabled by default, and also the "allow web sites to install software" option. If you don't turn those off, you're be vulnerable to a lot of stuff. I have both off. When I need to install a Firefox update, extension, or theme, I just turn on "allow installs" to do it, then turn it back off. Same for making use of Java applets that I trust.
Okay, I'm gonna be nitpicky here... Why in the world is the word "south", within quotation marks in the post?
Any planet with a magnetic field will have a south pole (and a north pole, of course), which will probably be on the rotational axis of the planet, and which will not necessarily point the same direction in 3-space as Earth's south pole. The linked story doesn't make a distinction. And a quick Google search shows that none of the major science news outlets have put the "south" in quotes, or made any note that it might not actually be the magnetic south pole. So, why would the poster feel it's necessary to throw in the quotes? A failed attempt at being clever?
First is the fact that we in the US may think that the act of "hijacking" (maybe that's strong a word) a search for your competitor to bring up ads to your own brand is a little shady, but it's probably not illegal here. It's kind of like a JC Penny's employee standing outside Boston Store and telling people on their way in to go to Penny's instead. I don't remember for sure from my business law class if that's legal or not, but I think so. And it's still shady, IMO.
Second is the fact that Google isn't the infringer. The company placing the ad is. But Google is effectively an "accomplice". And since they're the ones with the deep pockets, they're the ones that get sued. First rule of litigation: Sue the deep pockets!
I use Firefox (v1.0) exclusively, and load up slashdot several times per day, yet I have only encountered the bug maybe 3 times since the release of v1.0. Who are these people that see it all the time, and what are they doing with their computers?
Slashdot Mirror
I'll tell you where God came from when you tell me what happened before the Big Bang.
since the scriptures mention other special creatures That really depends on how you interpret certain scriptures. It's certainly the marjority-held view. But it's not the only view.
but they can never incite their zealot followers to embrace the tranquillity, harmony, sanctity of life, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, and passiveness that pretty much all of the major religions are based on
This is a "3, Insightful"??? You've got to be kidding me. Slashdotters, we've hit a new low. I've seldom heard a more narrow-minded sweeping stereotype. And there it is modded Insightful in all of it's bigotted glory.
Wholly dismissing the beliefs of millions of people simply because your deem them to be unnecessary doesn't sound much different than what the oh-so-hated fundamentalists do. But actually it sounds much more simliar to what Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, did to enslave the minds of their nations.
Yes, let's wipe out all metaphysical philosophy. It's worked so well in the past.
Trip Hawkins is not with EA anymore.
I think we have a law now that cigarette machines are only allowed in adult only areas like bars to keep the kids away from them.
Remember that those types of laws are determined locally. Usually by the county or city. I live in Wisconsin, and as far as I know there are few legal restrictions on where you can and can't smoke, and where you can and can't have ciagarette machines. Mostly it's up to the property owners.
However, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke. Being in a smoky room for more than 10 minutes causes my throat to tighten and get scratchy, and my eyes to itch and get red. And if I'm in a smoky room for more than an hour, I'll have cold-like symptoms for several days afterward.
So whenever people take advantage of that wonderful "freedom" to smoke anywhere they want, it causes people like me to suffer. And there's nothing we can do about it.
Needless to say, I'm all for outlawing smoking in any sort of public place. In your house? Fine. Outside where the air flows freely? Fine. Beyond that, you're infringing on other people's freedoms, in my opinion.
Like I said, "hyperbole gone out of control". Maybe my comment could have been left unsaid, as I was in an irritable mood this morning. But I don't think it warranted labelling as "Flamebait". I didn't insult anyone. Everything I said was a fact, not a biased opinion. I think the typical partisan political /. post is more "Flamebait" than what I said. If anything, it was "Offtopic".
So true. In fact, there's a theory in child psychology (although not championed much nowadays) that if you haven't instilled certain things (such as respect for others, for you, and for the boundaries you set) in your child by the age of 14, it's too late and you just have to hope they figure it out for themselves eventually.
Of course I completely agree with you. But there's a growing attitude in America that you shouldn't ever have to make sacrifices. Just a couple of weeks ago I heard a lady on NPR talking about how she felt it was completely unreasonable that a career might need to be sacrificed in order to properly raise a child. There was no perception that it takes more than monetary support and the occasional chauferring to raise a well-developed child. This is embodied by another quote I heard on NPR, from one of the hosts, defending the fact that his children were very well-raised. His defense: one cum laude graduate and two magna cum laude graduates. Sorry buddy, but academic achievement does not equate to balanced and well-developed individual.
Newsflash: Firefox's rendering isn't 100% correct either. Which makes it really fun as a web developer to try and get both IE and Firefox to display your site how you want it to look while still being standard compliant.
the claimed "100 trillion" lost every year in software piracy
Either you've misread or mistyped that number, or it's hyperbole gone out of control. $100 trillion is more than 9 times the GDP of the U.S. (which itself is almost twice the total GDP of the second and third richest nations in the world). In fact, $100 trillion dollars might even be more than the GDP of the entire Earth. So it's quite unlikely that that number is anywhere even close to realistic.
I do think there's an inherent difference between making embryos explicitly with the intention of killing them and using them for research, compared to making embryos with the intention of allowing infertile couples to have children, and giving the ones that would otherwise die unused to the researchers.
Although that brings to light the question of whether fertility clinics are "ethical" either.
Two things, from someone fairly "center":
1) I'd be willing to bet a majority of the rat-rights people are peace-nick lefties, not right-wing nut-jobs.
2) The general concensus, as far as I've read, is that at the beginning of the universe, before atoms had formed, there were subatomic particles, and a whole heckuva a lot of electromagnetic waves (a.k.a. light, for the physics-challenged). And that was hundreds of thousands of years before any stars formed.
Okay, I see. That makes perfect sense. Obviously a Singleton isn't ideal for every "save-data" situation. But even in your situation, I could imagine a Singleton might be used to manage the config objects, rather than directly storing the config data. Tell the Singleton which user's data you need and it comes back with the config object for that user.
Could you explain the situation a bit more? I'm not clear on what scenario you're describing, and why a Singleton is not appropriate for the scenario.
In addition to the things that arkanes lists, there is also the fact that in C++ a properly coded reference-counting Singleton does not need to take up program memory except when you are using it. One static method is used to grab the instance of the class and another to free it. When all references are freed, the Singleton can clean up its instance and not take up memory. This allows your program data to remain properly modularized without also keeping a conslidated copy except during the actual process of saving or loading.
A state-machine is much more than just states. It's also the logic that dictates state-transitions. So for the FSM to be complex enough to be useful, the state transition logic will take up much more space than the actual state itself.
30 bits may very well be enough to store the state of a system. But depending on how the bits represent the states, the transition logic may be more or less complex. For example, tying state representation closely to actual state variables will simplify code. I.e. if the bits essentially just acted as flags for different situations, it's simple to check those flags specifically and act accordingly. However, then you'd be restricted to monitoring only 30 (or less) unique aspects of the system with the 30 available bits. To get the most use of out of the state memory, you would need to remove this restriction. So every 30-bit combination would be a completely unique state, and flipping one bit (a minor change to state-representation) wouldn't necessarily mean a minor change to the actual state of the device. To deal with this, your logic would need to essentially become a big case statement:It's the infamous code-size/state-size/code-speed tradeoff. You can't have all three be optimal at the same time.
Technology-dependent things like video games and special-effects-laden movies need to be compared with things from their own era, never the present. So the fact that you find it lacking today says something about today's games, but it might say absolutely nothing about its actualy quality relative to other games at the time it was released.
Example: Star Wars is unarguably a classic trilogy and one of the first great multi-film epics. But there aren't many people under 18 who actually think the original Star Wars movies are worth watching. (Please don't flame if you are and do, because I said "not many", not "none". Plus we are all nerds here, and so not a representative sample.) But its lack of appreciation today says nothing about it's significance back when it came out.
P.S. The original Tomb Raider was largely well-rated, and more recently made 1up.com's Essential 50.
I don't think it'll exactly be a problem, but I agree it can't possibly continue indefinitely to be the nice bed of roses that Google wants it to be. Not everyone has the ability to work on the cool stuff, and I doubt even Google can completely avoid employing codemonkeys. And some of the codemonkeys are likely to get envious of the tasks given to more able developers/designers. There's not much that can be done about that because it's a personality conflict rather than a business issue: they're perfectly good at what they're doing, but want to be doing something for which they are not ideal.
So anyways, I guess agree there will be morale issues, but I doubt it will be with the employees providing Google's bread-and-butter.
If I worked at Google I would view their 10% as a perk, and be very grateful for it. Most companies will have you working 100% of the time on stuff that is not exactly exciting or interesting, or even necessarily mentally stimulating.
I do. But AFAIK, for as long as humans have known at least generally how magnets work, it has not changed. Also, this response was quite insightful, but as I later responded, it still does not explain the quotes.
At least on Windows, Firefox has Java enabled by default, and also the "allow web sites to install software" option. If you don't turn those off, you're be vulnerable to a lot of stuff. I have both off. When I need to install a Firefox update, extension, or theme, I just turn on "allow installs" to do it, then turn it back off. Same for making use of Java applets that I trust.
Still doesn't explain the quotes though.
Saturn's "south" pole is warm
Okay, I'm gonna be nitpicky here... Why in the world is the word "south", within quotation marks in the post?
Any planet with a magnetic field will have a south pole (and a north pole, of course), which will probably be on the rotational axis of the planet, and which will not necessarily point the same direction in 3-space as Earth's south pole. The linked story doesn't make a distinction. And a quick Google search shows that none of the major science news outlets have put the "south" in quotes, or made any note that it might not actually be the magnetic south pole. So, why would the poster feel it's necessary to throw in the quotes? A failed attempt at being clever?
Second is the fact that Google isn't the infringer. The company placing the ad is. But Google is effectively an "accomplice". And since they're the ones with the deep pockets, they're the ones that get sued. First rule of litigation: Sue the deep pockets!
I use Firefox (v1.0) exclusively, and load up slashdot several times per day, yet I have only encountered the bug maybe 3 times since the release of v1.0. Who are these people that see it all the time, and what are they doing with their computers?