Yeah, I've done payroll systems, too. You seem to be confusing difficulty of implementation with the speed the calculations could be done once the program's written.
We're talking about a meaningless hypothetical situation. Yeah, if such a program existed, it would certainly save a lot of power. But how much power will be used by all of the development systems, servers, QA environment, staging, etc etc in order to produce the program in the first place? I think you'd lose out in the long run, unless there's a lone genius that can crank out the program in assembly in a week (though in reality it would take probably 20-30 years just to digest all the business rules).
BTW, most large scale payroll systems I know of still run on AS/400's. No java or XML in sight, except for external interfaces.
Opportunity was the rover that got stuck in a dune, took a few weeks to finally get it free. Here's a nice time-lapse movie (MPG) of the rover getting out of the dune. The movie actually spans about 3 weeks.
Opportunity has also been down inside a large crater (endurance crater) and the engineers were worried it might not be able to get back out again.
One of Spirit's 6 wheels has been acting up and drawing too much current, so they decided to disable that wheel and drive that rover backwards, dragging the disabled wheel-- which it has been doing for at least a year I think!
Both rovers have had several spontaneous "cleaning" events that cleared off the dust. It was later confirmed that the dust devil whirlwinds we've seen in pictures from Spirit occasionally hit the rover and blow off the dust.
So? The red cross is a non profit org too, yet somehow they come up with the money to pay its CEO half a million dollars. Being non-profit just means at the end of the day someone goes home with all the cash.
Okay, but that's the Red Cross, not ICANN. Do you know for a fact that any members of ICANN's board are being paid for their work in ICANN? Or is that an assumption based on what another unrelated nonprofit is doing? I honestly don't know because I haven't looked, but if you have the references I'd like to see them.
You can't seriously be suggesting ICANN are doing a good job, can you? It's an undemocratic monumental, expensive, indecisive, grindingly slow moving organisation that does nothing at all about cybersquatters and adds new TLDs purely so you have to buy more versions of your existing domain every time they want a bit more cash?
Since when is it ICANN's responsibility to deal with cybersquatters? As far as I know, that would be an issue to take up with the domain registrar that registered the domain.
Also ICANN is a non-profit org, and whether they "want a bit more cash" has nothing to do with creating new TLD's. The domain registrars, again, would be receiving that income, wouldn't they?
In an enterprise scale project like this, there should be NO direct interaction between the developers and the users. There are probably dozens of developers across multiple systems, and hundreds of users. If the end users are allowed to talk to developers directly, the project is doomed to fail because the development process will turn to utter chaos with no change control. Remember that the users, in this case, are probably dock workers and desk clerks.
This is what project managers and business analysts are for.
Business analysts should be analyzing how the users perform their work, and defining requirements based on that. A good business analyst will know what is good for the user, and will know their processes and roles very well. What the users "want" has nothing to do with it-- as long as the interfaces are usability tested and the users are properly trained on the new software.
The reason this failed was due to organizational and process issues-- it had nothing to do with any particular technology.
Probably an American. They'd look at that date and say "tenth of the twentieth month? WTF?";)
(Just like I keep wondering why everyone's going on about the 9th of November...)
Yeah, the rest of the world has it right... smallest units to largest units. It's more consistent that way. This is also why, in Europe, the complete date and time would be given by (as an example):
56:32:11 20/10/2005 (ss:mm:hh dd/mm/yyyy)
(This is, of course, the current time in the Eastern US daylight time zone)
Howabout the Receptor? I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I'm assuming you might have heard the name since you're into pro audio/recording. If not, it's a stand alone rackmount VST host. It's basically a normal computer, just very specialized. It's a large unit, 2U rackmount, but still very wonderful for live gigs. Since it isn't overly bloated, it can get 1 millisecond latency without a problem even for some of the very large VST collections. Hook it up to an LCD and keyboard/mouse for programming, get it set up, then control it from your keyboard.:)
Boy it's hard to keep up with all the new gadgets... I can definitely see the value in something like this for a performing musician, but everything I do (aside from purely acoustic performance) is in the studio so it wouldn't give me an advantage in my particular circumstance. But I can see how it would be killer for those that need VST's on the stage.
Actually I believe it _is_ flammable and _I_ build race cars out of it. (http://me.unm.edu/~fsae/teams/2005/). However, my mind blanked and I forgot how high the temperature has to be before it will oxidize.
It'll oxidize at a very high temperature, but I think the oxidation stops as soon as the heat source is removed so you won't get a sustainable burn (but I Am Not a Materials Scientist). This may be another reason why it's useful in race cars along with strength and weight. Carbon brake pads don't readily ignite either, right?
At any rate, if anything in a laptop shell gets hot enough to oxidize carbon fiber, you probably have other things to worry about!
Nice cars by the way, those things must have a scary power to weight ratio. And I'm drooling over that Ford GT.
and the problem with your Athlon64/1Gig of memory is that, simply, such machines are pretty bloated for audio work, at least compared to systems running their own kernels..
A general purpose CPU obviously isn't the most efficient processor for dedicated audio work, but it is the most cost effective I think. A dual-core athlon would perform very well while running multiple instances of VST's and effects.
My main problem is the RAM though. Regardless of the architecture, the sheer size of the samples I'm using runs me into the 1GB memory barrier very quickly. I can do direct-from-disk streaming but that increases CPU load. Since most of what I do is sample-based (orchestral type soundtracks) that pretty much defines my requirements for an audio workstation.
What I really could use though is a high quality field recorder and this portable device might work nicely.
I don't think this will sell if it has a lot of niche (pro) features that few people will use, but will add to the cost. However, wouldn't it be nice if it had a midi-over-ethernet implementation in software? And wireless, of course.
I don't think the hardware is powerful enough to run many softsynths, at least not the ones using large sample libraries. I'm barely scraping by with my Athlon64 and 1GB memory-- but then again, GPO and Stormdrum have much heavier requirements than an analog emulating softsynth.
Something the size of a mac mini, with dual-core chip and a lot of ram, would make a great slave PC to use in a studio though. Maybe next year?
Actually, a couple of those allow you to load maps. I made sure of it before I posted. I don't recall which ones offhand, because I've never bothered acquiring a cable for my GPS, but there are ones that load maps.
A couple of those packages have maps, so you can do mapping on your Mac using any GPS as a receiver. All the GPS does is send coordinate data to the Mac, and the computer does all the mapping. However, these programs still don't allow you to upload maps to a mapping GPS. While waypoints and routes are an open format, the maps themselves are proprietary data. For example, to load a map onto a Garmin GPS, you need to use the MapSource software which only runs on Windows. Some GPS units use a memory card (like the Tom-Tom GO300 that I have) and you can just copy the map data to the card on any machine that can mount it as a filesystem... I haven't tried that but it *should* work. But you're still limited to loading prebuilt map libraries.
Having an always-on connection would allow it to update its internal data any time it wanted to.
Hopefully it would also give owners an indication when the robot is issued a patch that puts it in "evil" mode... for example, a light inside its chest that turns from blue to bright red.
The problem is, in addition to changing their service, they are remotely disabling features in the hardware box they sold you. They are stopping you from using a specialty computer you bought by remotely turning off functionality. That is called hacking most of the time.
The second problem is that if you sell a service, especially when you sell a lifetime subscription to that service, it is unethical and probably illegal to remove parts of that service from customers who have already paid.
6. Changes to Your TiVo Service. TiVo may at its discretion and from time to time change, add, or remove features and functionality of the TiVo service or the TiVo DVR without notice. If you are dissatisfied with any such changes to the TiVo service, you may immediately cancel your use of the TiVo service as provided in Section 14 ("Termination of Service"). TiVo reserves the right to discontinue one, some, or all of the features of the TiVo service you receive at any time at its discretion. TiVo may at its discretion discontinue the provision of software updates to certain TiVo DVRs. This means that while other TiVo DVRs may receive continued software updates and functionality; TiVo is not required to provide such updates to your TiVo DVR. Additionally, the level of service TiVo provides may not be the same on each TiVo DVR; a given TiVo DVR may support different features and functionality, and TiVo is under no obligation to provide all features and functionality to your TiVo DVR.
It's actually been over two years since I subscribed to Tivo (through DirecTV) so I don't know if this is a new addition or not. In fact DirecTV probably had its own version. But suffice to say that this is the agreement that (presumably) every Tivo user agreed to when they set up their service initially.
I'm not saying it's necessarily good, but... legally Tivo isn't doing anything that the subscriber hasn't agreed to let them do.
It's like cell-phone companies (to use your example) locking a phone to one service - users have figured out how to unlock many phones, or activate features the carriers do not want you do have.
And the phone carriers aren't supposed to have an issue with that?
In the case of a cable modem, you bought it and can modfy how it does routing as you see fit. Yes you have to pay a monthly service to get a connection through it, but you can still modify the box.
And the cable providers aren't supposed to have an issue with that? Most cable companies will immediately suspend your service if you have modified your modem (which typically involves trying to uncap it).
You can modify your cable modem, cell phone, or Tivo however you want. It's your hardware. That does not mean the service provider is still obligated to provide you with services.
You can't maintain control over things you sold. If you want to maintain control, don't sell it.
So if you purchase your cable modem from your cable provider, you shouldn't have to pay for monthly cable service? It is, after all, your cable modem. You should not have to pay to keep using something that you already own.
If you purchased your cell phone from a cell phone provider, you shouldn't have to pay for monthly service. After all, you own the cell phone.. and now they want more of your money just so you can use it?
Oh wait... in both of those examples, you use the company's resources in order to use the product that you own. Kind of like how you pay Tivo to use their guide service that they maintain and operate.
By the way, you can use Tivo without the guide. It just becomes an expensive digital VCR. But a Tivo without a subscription is still far more useful than a cable modem without a subscription.
Now, since we don't have a time machine, we CANNOT falsify historical evolution.
Sure we can. Just one example off the top of my head...
Evolutionary theory states that wings and forearms evolved from the same structure in vertebrates. Therefore, evolution predicts that no vertebrate fossil will possess separate forearms AND wings (something like pegasus). This is a reasonable prediction because we already have plenty of INvertebrates that have forearms + wings (flying insects for example).
This hypothesis could be falsified by counterexample, i.e. the discovery of a vertebrate fossil that has separate forearms and wings.
Apple wanted the name to convey the fact that it was smaller than "mini." Nano was the best choice.
Other options that were rejected:
"iPod micro" -- micro is overused in the industry "Millipod." -- Sounds like a bug. "iPod milli" -- might be associated with Vanilli "iPod pico" -- reserved for the next generation of really, really, really small players "iPod femto" -- over most people's heads
Seems like kind of a useless feature, but it can save a few seconds of moving the mouse or hitting a key to disable the screensaver, logging in, and then checking your email... only to find out that the slimmie from match.com still hasn't responded to your message.
With this mouse, you could walk by your computer room and glance at the mouse, and know instantly that she is still ignoring you. No effort wasted if you already know you don't have any email.
What makes you think that most parents are qualified to be teachers? In all subjects?
The parents that DO home school their kids probably do so because they know that they are qualified (and probably have some actual classroom teaching experience in the past).
A parent that home schools their child simply for financial reasons, in order to save taxpayer money, may not be giving their child a decent education. Plus, the school bus will still have to run the same route anyway, using essentially the same fuel, regardless of whether the child is on the bus or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I've done payroll systems, too. You seem to be confusing difficulty of implementation with the speed the calculations could be done once the program's written.
We're talking about a meaningless hypothetical situation. Yeah, if such a program existed, it would certainly save a lot of power. But how much power will be used by all of the development systems, servers, QA environment, staging, etc etc in order to produce the program in the first place? I think you'd lose out in the long run, unless there's a lone genius that can crank out the program in assembly in a week (though in reality it would take probably 20-30 years just to digest all the business rules).
BTW, most large scale payroll systems I know of still run on AS/400's. No java or XML in sight, except for external interfaces.
Opportunity was the rover that got stuck in a dune, took a few weeks to finally get it free. Here's a nice time-lapse movie (MPG) of the rover getting out of the dune. The movie actually spans about 3 weeks.
Opportunity has also been down inside a large crater (endurance crater) and the engineers were worried it might not be able to get back out again.
One of Spirit's 6 wheels has been acting up and drawing too much current, so they decided to disable that wheel and drive that rover backwards, dragging the disabled wheel-- which it has been doing for at least a year I think!
Both rovers have had several spontaneous "cleaning" events that cleared off the dust. It was later confirmed that the dust devil whirlwinds we've seen in pictures from Spirit occasionally hit the rover and blow off the dust.
So? The red cross is a non profit org too, yet somehow they come up with the money to pay its CEO half a million dollars. Being non-profit just means at the end of the day someone goes home with all the cash.
Okay, but that's the Red Cross, not ICANN. Do you know for a fact that any members of ICANN's board are being paid for their work in ICANN? Or is that an assumption based on what another unrelated nonprofit is doing? I honestly don't know because I haven't looked, but if you have the references I'd like to see them.
You can't seriously be suggesting ICANN are doing a good job, can you? It's an undemocratic monumental, expensive, indecisive, grindingly slow moving organisation that does nothing at all about cybersquatters and adds new TLDs purely so you have to buy more versions of your existing domain every time they want a bit more cash?
Since when is it ICANN's responsibility to deal with cybersquatters? As far as I know, that would be an issue to take up with the domain registrar that registered the domain.
Also ICANN is a non-profit org, and whether they "want a bit more cash" has nothing to do with creating new TLD's. The domain registrars, again, would be receiving that income, wouldn't they?
In an enterprise scale project like this, there should be NO direct interaction between the developers and the users. There are probably dozens of developers across multiple systems, and hundreds of users. If the end users are allowed to talk to developers directly, the project is doomed to fail because the development process will turn to utter chaos with no change control. Remember that the users, in this case, are probably dock workers and desk clerks.
This is what project managers and business analysts are for.
Business analysts should be analyzing how the users perform their work, and defining requirements based on that. A good business analyst will know what is good for the user, and will know their processes and roles very well. What the users "want" has nothing to do with it-- as long as the interfaces are usability tested and the users are properly trained on the new software.
The reason this failed was due to organizational and process issues-- it had nothing to do with any particular technology.
Probably an American. They'd look at that date and say "tenth of the twentieth month? WTF?" ;)
(Just like I keep wondering why everyone's going on about the 9th of November...)
Yeah, the rest of the world has it right... smallest units to largest units. It's more consistent that way.
This is also why, in Europe, the complete date and time would be given by (as an example):
56:32:11 20/10/2005 (ss:mm:hh dd/mm/yyyy)
(This is, of course, the current time in the Eastern US daylight time zone)
Howabout the Receptor? I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I'm assuming you might have heard the name since you're into pro audio/recording. If not, it's a stand alone rackmount VST host. It's basically a normal computer, just very specialized. It's a large unit, 2U rackmount, but still very wonderful for live gigs. Since it isn't overly bloated, it can get 1 millisecond latency without a problem even for some of the very large VST collections. Hook it up to an LCD and keyboard/mouse for programming, get it set up, then control it from your keyboard. :)
Boy it's hard to keep up with all the new gadgets... I can definitely see the value in something like this for a performing musician, but everything I do (aside from purely acoustic performance) is in the studio so it wouldn't give me an advantage in my particular circumstance. But I can see how it would be killer for those that need VST's on the stage.
Actually I believe it _is_ flammable and _I_ build race cars out of it. (http://me.unm.edu/~fsae/teams/2005/). However, my mind blanked and I forgot how high the temperature has to be before it will oxidize.
It'll oxidize at a very high temperature, but I think the oxidation stops as soon as the heat source is removed so you won't get a sustainable burn (but I Am Not a Materials Scientist). This may be another reason why it's useful in race cars along with strength and weight. Carbon brake pads don't readily ignite either, right?
At any rate, if anything in a laptop shell gets hot enough to oxidize carbon fiber, you probably have other things to worry about!
Nice cars by the way, those things must have a scary power to weight ratio. And I'm drooling over that Ford GT.
and the problem with your Athlon64/1Gig of memory is that, simply, such machines are pretty bloated for audio work, at least compared to systems running their own kernels ..
A general purpose CPU obviously isn't the most efficient processor for dedicated audio work, but it is the most cost effective I think. A dual-core athlon would perform very well while running multiple instances of VST's and effects.
My main problem is the RAM though. Regardless of the architecture, the sheer size of the samples I'm using runs me into the 1GB memory barrier very quickly. I can do direct-from-disk streaming but that increases CPU load. Since most of what I do is sample-based (orchestral type soundtracks) that pretty much defines my requirements for an audio workstation.
What I really could use though is a high quality field recorder and this portable device might work nicely.
Isn't carbon fibre both flammable as well as electrically conductive?
If it was flammable, it would certainly be a very poor choice for constructing race cars.
As for electrical conductivity, it wouldn't be any more of an issue than metal notebook casings which are already widely used.
I don't think this will sell if it has a lot of niche (pro) features that few people will use, but will add to the cost.
However, wouldn't it be nice if it had a midi-over-ethernet implementation in software? And wireless, of course.
I don't think the hardware is powerful enough to run many softsynths, at least not the ones using large sample libraries. I'm barely scraping by with my Athlon64 and 1GB memory-- but then again, GPO and Stormdrum have much heavier requirements than an analog emulating softsynth.
Something the size of a mac mini, with dual-core chip and a lot of ram, would make a great slave PC to use in a studio though. Maybe next year?
No game manufacturer is going to make a game that REQUIRES so much brute-force GPU power to play...that would kill the market.
Duke Nukem Forever.
Actually, a couple of those allow you to load maps. I made sure of it before I posted. I don't recall which ones offhand, because I've never bothered acquiring a cable for my GPS, but there are ones that load maps.
A couple of those packages have maps, so you can do mapping on your Mac using any GPS as a receiver. All the GPS does is send coordinate data to the Mac, and the computer does all the mapping.
However, these programs still don't allow you to upload maps to a mapping GPS.
While waypoints and routes are an open format, the maps themselves are proprietary data. For example, to load a map onto a Garmin GPS, you need to use the MapSource software which only runs on Windows.
Some GPS units use a memory card (like the Tom-Tom GO300 that I have) and you can just copy the map data to the card on any machine that can mount it as a filesystem... I haven't tried that but it *should* work. But you're still limited to loading prebuilt map libraries.
Having an always-on connection would allow it to update its internal data any time it wanted to.
Hopefully it would also give owners an indication when the robot is issued a patch that puts it in "evil" mode... for example, a light inside its chest that turns from blue to bright red.
The second problem is that if you sell a service, especially when you sell a lifetime subscription to that service, it is unethical and probably illegal to remove parts of that service from customers who have already paid.
From the Tivo terms of service:
It's actually been over two years since I subscribed to Tivo (through DirecTV) so I don't know if this is a new addition or not. In fact DirecTV probably had its own version. But suffice to say that this is the agreement that (presumably) every Tivo user agreed to when they set up their service initially.
I'm not saying it's necessarily good, but... legally Tivo isn't doing anything that the subscriber hasn't agreed to let them do.
It's like cell-phone companies (to use your example) locking a phone to one service - users have figured out how to unlock many phones, or activate features the carriers do not want you do have.
And the phone carriers aren't supposed to have an issue with that?
In the case of a cable modem, you bought it and can modfy how it does routing as you see fit. Yes you have to pay a monthly service to get a connection through it, but you can still modify the box.
And the cable providers aren't supposed to have an issue with that? Most cable companies will immediately suspend your service if you have modified your modem (which typically involves trying to uncap it).
You can modify your cable modem, cell phone, or Tivo however you want. It's your hardware. That does not mean the service provider is still obligated to provide you with services.
You can't maintain control over things you sold. If you want to maintain control, don't sell it.
So if you purchase your cable modem from your cable provider, you shouldn't have to pay for monthly cable service? It is, after all, your cable modem. You should not have to pay to keep using something that you already own.
If you purchased your cell phone from a cell phone provider, you shouldn't have to pay for monthly service. After all, you own the cell phone.. and now they want more of your money just so you can use it?
Oh wait... in both of those examples, you use the company's resources in order to use the product that you own. Kind of like how you pay Tivo to use their guide service that they maintain and operate.
By the way, you can use Tivo without the guide. It just becomes an expensive digital VCR. But a Tivo without a subscription is still far more useful than a cable modem without a subscription.
Now, since we don't have a time machine, we CANNOT falsify historical evolution.
Sure we can.
Just one example off the top of my head...
Evolutionary theory states that wings and forearms evolved from the same structure in vertebrates. Therefore, evolution predicts that no vertebrate fossil will possess separate forearms AND wings (something like pegasus). This is a reasonable prediction because we already have plenty of INvertebrates that have forearms + wings (flying insects for example).
This hypothesis could be falsified by counterexample, i.e. the discovery of a vertebrate fossil that has separate forearms and wings.
Apple wanted the name to convey the fact that it was smaller than "mini." Nano was the best choice.
Other options that were rejected:
"iPod micro" -- micro is overused in the industry
"Millipod." -- Sounds like a bug.
"iPod milli" -- might be associated with Vanilli
"iPod pico" -- reserved for the next generation of really, really, really small players
"iPod femto" -- over most people's heads
So "nano" was pretty much all that was left.
Seems like kind of a useless feature, but it can save a few seconds of moving the mouse or hitting a key to disable the screensaver, logging in, and then checking your email... only to find out that the slimmie from match.com still hasn't responded to your message.
With this mouse, you could walk by your computer room and glance at the mouse, and know instantly that she is still ignoring you. No effort wasted if you already know you don't have any email.
Rush Limbaugh is a die-hard Mac user.
:-)
Have a nice day.
From the article:
Infected men were more likely to be aggressive, jealous and suspicious, while women became more outgoing and showed signs of higher intelligence.
I wonder if women will think it's worth it to eat tootsie-rolls out of the litter box in order to take over the world?
What makes you think that most parents are qualified to be teachers? In all subjects?
The parents that DO home school their kids probably do so because they know that they are qualified (and probably have some actual classroom teaching experience in the past).
A parent that home schools their child simply for financial reasons, in order to save taxpayer money, may not be giving their child a decent education.
Plus, the school bus will still have to run the same route anyway, using essentially the same fuel, regardless of whether the child is on the bus or not.
I'd really like to have a low-power multi-core 64 bit chip blazing away in my next iMac.
Intel probably can't even talk about it due to Apple NDA's. Rest assured that the Intel-based mac notebooks will use this technology.
OK, this must mean that about 95% of politicians are psychopaths:
This is only because no sane individual would get into politics in the first place.