How's it possible that, on Slashdot of all sites, *I*, of all people, need to tell you that IP packets do not necessarily come from the address inscribed in their headers?
The meteor intensities mentioned are not for a "normal" Leonid shower, such as this. The meteor storms with intensities in the hunderds have a period of 33 years; the previous storm occured on and around 2002. By now the storm is twindling to a normal Leonid shower -- which is still one of the most amazing yearly sights for a meteor spotter.
Expect dozes of meteors per hour, and you won't feel so disappointed:)
> Firefox is the most unstable program in common use. Some of the most serious bugs, like the CPU hogging bug, > are more than 4 years old. So it's great that the Firefox team is getting some help. They need it.
I've been running Firefox beta 2 since it was made available, and it seems to me that the cpu/memory hogging bugs have been fixed. At least the beta2 has been both more stable and less memory-hungry than just about any version since phoenix/firebird.
... you have a tail rotor mounted perpendicular to the main rotor, which drives the mechanism that orients the windmill. If the wind isn't blowing at the mill directly from the front, it causes the small rotor to turn, turning the mill into the wind...
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the Dutch must have been smoking even back then:-). Comparing your description with a simple tail flap, I fail too see *any* justification for adding all those moving parts...
My first interpretation was that the bulb on the light-pole simply blew up, and the resulting flash either messed the CCD to produce the streak (I've seen many similar artefacts on digital photos), or perhaps the streak is a kind of lens flare.
Aaron AC:) I was there, using your software. When the rumor spread that DKBTrace was in limbo me and my friend back then where geniously worried -- even though we liked Polyray and Vivid, we felt that DKBTrace was still the only right direction simply because of the capabilities of your SDL. Man, when the news got out about your testamenting the codebase to this team... Well let's just say that I was waiting for POV-Ray more than I anticipated Metallica's new album! Then POV-Ray v0.5b hit the sites... well, I think the POV-Ray Hall of Fame and the current gathering of both ray-tracing developers and artists speaks for itself.
I myself have been using POV-Ray sporadically all this time, when not for personal recreation then for professional scientific visualization and sometimes even as a test platform for (3D) programming -- the SDL has gotten so/very/ mature.
(remember what a breakthrough QEMM-386 plus DESQview was?)
oh, do i ever. i fell instantly so in love with desqview that i had to to install it on my trusty PC/XT with no extra RAM. no exaggeration, the setup was more stable than the windowses of ten years later; i had SBBS (later Waffle) running as one task and general dossynes as others. later, when i got a 486-33 i naturally had desqview on it, running windows 3.0/3.1 inside it to avoid the constant crashing. i don't think i ever installed desq/X though... from Waffle i learned the beauty of unix and tried linux 0.98. and stuck with it.
For me, this was a delightful benchmark, as I've been considering 'moving on' on the file system department for over a year now. The inconsistency of the graph layout is amusing and makes the results unnecessarily difficult to decipher, but all the data I was looking for was right there for me to pick up on the first read.
Ext2 is out of the picture because it's not journalling and ext3's only merit seems to be that I've first hand experience of its stability. The choice between JFS, Reiser and XFS would pose a grave problem if it weren't for the CPU utilization graph that causes the blocks to fall in favor of JFS, for I'm upgrading a P3/800 Thinkpad. And the idea of running an IBM file system on an IBM amuses me.
... Einstein referred to it as his greatest mistake.
Einstein was a silly old joker and people are generally missing his point by quoting primarily these 'god does not throw dice'-oneliner's he'd probably forgotten before the end of the sentence. But I digress.
If the model demands something the existence of which we are completely unable to verify, shouldn't we be questioning the model?
That depends on the model:) Compare with the search for the Higgs boson for example -- the previous round of particle accelerators was able to conclude that the Higgs boson cannot be found with those equipment. So now they are building bigger ones, even as they cannot be certain that the new (amazingly expensive) accelerators WILL find the Higgs'. So why continue the search, why not scrap the model instead because so far there's no proof of it being the correct one? Because the Higgs model is so elegant, it makes so much more sense than many/most of the competitors that it remains worth pursuing, especially as the other models wouldn't be any easier/cheaper to verify/falsify.
Doesn't the very fact that there's all this "missing" matter indicate that perhaps our understanding is flawed?
Of course it does, but what are you driving at?
Our understanding is flawed, in the sense that we don't know which of the many candidates, or a combination of them, is the correct one for accounting to the 'missing' matter, which we know to exist by studying the motions of galaxies and assuming that the galaxies are governed by the same physics as a yo-yo.
But hey, at least we have candidates; and at least our models and theories are so darn accurate and applicable that we can even know about the 'missing' mass.
And anyways, you basically don't scrap a model for a lack of a better one. In fact, the only way a better model or theory can come into existence is by interpreting the best current model as a 'true' model for reality, and then checking for problems.
There are certain attributes that make a person be scientific, and these attributes cause both the interest in science and a lack of religiosity.
Wow. That's a lot like I used to see things when I was twenty. I don't think there's any substance to what you're saying however.
I'd say something like: there are certain attributes that make a person be curious and these attributes cause both the interest in science and interest in religion stir up at various times, sometimes even simultaneously.
Science stems from a curiosity towards nature, a seemingly infinite search for explanations for what our senses tell us. The senses, however, are not the whole story, and our best quantifiable science even says so. And this is where we inevitably take the leap to the realm of religious kind of thinking. And it's okay! A truly scientific line of reasoning should not discount a "religious" thought based on its origin or present unproveability only.
I haven't seen an atheist who didn't believe in something -- most believe in science with equal fervor and closed-mindedness to some who believe in bible. They know that they have the right, therefore good, knowledge; and anyone who's sceptical has to be wrong and therefore a witch. But a mind that thinks in terms of good and bad is a corrupt mind.
The way us with scientific background tend to overlook the opinion of all the others is the saddest statement of where our science has really gone. In my opinion, a good scientists has above all an open mind, clear thinking and a solid knowledge of what has already happened and been found out. Often scientists have the latter two but lack the first.
Doesn't matter. The point is, one day there will be quantum computers running Shor's algorithm to factorize all the siblings of Avogadro's number in the background when simultaenously determining your average happiness. That day RSA will fall, and quantum cryptography is the solution that lets people have at least the same level of security in the quantum computer era as RSA is providing now.
but now the long term future of humanity depends on nuclear energy.
Say what?
I thought the long term future of humanity depended on how we are going to solve some trivial little problems like over-consumption of resources to over-produce energy and consequentially pollution; overpopulation; inequality of our social, political and economical environments regardless of population size;...
I don't see how nuclear energy solves any of those problems, especially if you're suggesting that we should release even MORE energy than today.
I can see how those problems could be at least approached by scaling _down_ on practically any- and everything the so-called modern man is taking for granted. Scale down on energy production to scale down on wasteful consumption. Scale down on junk production 'cause we really aren't so fucked up in our minds yet that we couldn't live without our disposable cellphones. Scale down on pre-produced entertainment so our minds won't GET that fucked up. Scale down on selfishness because honestly, do we really think we've deserved all THAT?
Oh, don't mind me. Just keep the ball rolling and we'll all have a Really Cool Time really soon now.
After all, everyone's loving it. No?
Offtopic, I know, but isn't that just the way with this shit every time, every where? Yet notice how my rant allows frame dragging research to continue -- people certainly aren't taking that for granted;-)...
Especially with photon calculation speedups among other improvements in the beta release of POV-Ray v3.6, it would be interesting to do a comparison between the two photon models...
Lets face it, faster is better. If I could copy a whole DVD in a minute, I'd still prefer the solution the let me copy it in a second.
Back when CD-recorders started gaining those X's in their model designations and my trashbins subsequently filled up with failed cd-recordables I got so scared of the 'fast cd-burning' that I'm still often selecting the 2x or 4x option, if I'm in no hurry.
Routinely, I have a Thinkpad T21 (P3/800,256M) running a 2.6 kernel with simultaneous povray, xmms (oggs) and xmame (psychic5) processes in the userspace, with Firefox etc idling in the background. The kernel may take a few seconds to figure out the proper scheduling for these processes that are either CPU hogs (povray) or require a stable throughput (xmms, xmame), but after that it just keeps on going smoothly. If I want to switch to a browser, I have it up immediately.
Things weren't bad with Linux v2.4, but the new kernel has really made me feel like I've upgraded my hardware. All this combined with the VERY mature applications that have been released during the past year have got me seriously reconsidering that PowerBook dream. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Gnome...
Not true. The point of the article is Ultra Deep Field imagery. Doing this requires focusing on a single point in space for long periods of time (In this case, 11.3 days) While not theoretically impossible to accomplish on earth, this would require building nearly identical telescopes worldwide and then coordinating their exposures to account for the rotation of the earth and then adapting for more variables than I have the patience to explain. For all practical purposes this is not going to happen in our lifetimes
This is misguided information. First of all, you could do a month long exposure with your backyard telescope simply by exposing the photographic plate only during nighttime. Put a lid on the telescope during days and continue the next night -- no special network of telescopes required.
However, this would fail for *any* kind of ground-based optical instrumentation after an exposure of roughly 12 hours due to the scattering of various light sources in the atmosphere. This includes the light from all the stars up there that you just can't turn off.
In short, yes, an extra-terrestial telescope is necessary for imaging of this kind, but not for the reasons you name.
The only two games that get much coverage on/. seem to be Quake, Doom3, and Unreal(x).
Perhaps because both engines run on The Three Platforms AND are seriously utilized by third party game developers. Following iD/Epic is a handy way of following where games (or at least some genres) are going. I guess it also helps that Carmack & Sweeney are Linux-loving uber-geeks;-)
Slashdot Mirror
How's it possible that, on Slashdot of all sites, *I*, of all people, need to tell you that IP packets do not necessarily come from the address inscribed in their headers?
some people, you just can't reason with.
--
The meteor intensities mentioned are not for a "normal" Leonid shower, such as this.
:)
The meteor storms with intensities in the hunderds have a period of 33 years; the previous
storm occured on and around 2002. By now the storm is twindling to a normal Leonid
shower -- which is still one of the most amazing yearly sights for a meteor spotter.
Expect dozes of meteors per hour, and you won't feel so disappointed
> Firefox is the most unstable program in common use. Some of the most serious bugs, like the CPU hogging bug, > are more than 4 years old. So it's great that the Firefox team is getting some help. They need it.
I've been running Firefox beta 2 since it was made available, and it seems to me that the
cpu/memory hogging bugs have been fixed. At least the beta2 has been both more stable and
less memory-hungry than just about any version since phoenix/firebird.
Just my 2c...
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the Dutch must have been smoking even back then :-). Comparing your description with a simple tail flap, I fail too see *any* justification for adding all those moving parts ...
> The *momentum from the tech crowd* just wouldn't be there.
What?
(my emphasis)
My first interpretation was that the bulb on the light-pole simply blew up, and the resulting flash either messed the CCD to produce the streak (I've seen many similar artefacts on digital photos), or perhaps the streak is a kind of lens flare.
Anarchism.
It works for *all* the rest of nature.
Aaron AC :) I was there, using your software. When the rumor spread that DKBTrace was in limbo me and my friend back then where geniously worried -- even though we liked Polyray and Vivid, we felt that DKBTrace was still the only right direction simply because of the capabilities of your SDL. Man, when the news got out about your testamenting the codebase to this team... Well let's just say that I was waiting for POV-Ray more than I anticipated Metallica's new album! Then POV-Ray v0.5b hit the sites ... well, I think the POV-Ray Hall of Fame and the current gathering of both ray-tracing developers and artists speaks for itself.
/very/ mature.
:)
I myself have been using POV-Ray sporadically all this time, when not for personal recreation then for professional scientific visualization and sometimes even as a test platform for (3D) programming -- the SDL has gotten so
Thank You! That's all I'm trying to say
Firstly, this is just the kind of hacker gimmick I can't seem to resist.
Secondly, Firefox displays both images perfectly.
Thirdly, ***FIREFOX*** DISPLAYS BOTH IMAGES PERFECTLY.
(remember what a breakthrough QEMM-386 plus DESQview was?)
... from Waffle i learned the beauty of unix and tried linux 0.98. and stuck with it.
oh, do i ever. i fell instantly so in love with desqview that i had to to install it on my trusty PC/XT with no extra RAM. no exaggeration, the setup was more stable than the windowses of ten years later; i had SBBS (later Waffle) running as one task and general dossynes as others. later, when i got a 486-33 i naturally had desqview on it, running windows 3.0/3.1 inside it to avoid the constant crashing. i don't think i ever installed desq/X though
For me, this was a delightful benchmark, as I've been considering 'moving on' on the file system department for over a year now. The inconsistency of the graph layout is amusing and makes the results unnecessarily difficult to decipher, but all the data I was looking for was right there for me to pick up on the first read.
Ext2 is out of the picture because it's not journalling and ext3's only merit seems to be that I've first hand experience of its stability. The choice between JFS, Reiser and XFS would pose a grave problem if it weren't for the CPU utilization graph that causes the blocks to fall in favor of JFS, for I'm upgrading a P3/800 Thinkpad. And the idea of running an IBM file system on an IBM amuses me.
Nice and useful benchmark!
Einstein was a silly old joker and people are generally missing his point by quoting primarily these 'god does not throw dice'-oneliner's he'd probably forgotten before the end of the sentence. But I digress.
If the model demands something the existence of which we are completely unable to verify, shouldn't we be questioning the model?
That depends on the model
Doesn't the very fact that there's all this "missing" matter indicate that perhaps our understanding is flawed?
Of course it does, but what are you driving at?
Our understanding is flawed, in the sense that we don't know which of the many candidates, or a combination of them, is the correct one for accounting to the 'missing' matter, which we know to exist by studying the motions of galaxies and assuming that the galaxies are governed by the same physics as a yo-yo.
But hey, at least we have candidates; and at least our models and theories are so darn accurate and applicable that we can even know about the 'missing' mass.
And anyways, you basically don't scrap a model for a lack of a better one. In fact, the only way a better model or theory can come into existence is by interpreting the best current model as a 'true' model for reality, and then checking for problems.
There are issues with things like global illumination models that are difficult, inefficient or even impossible to do with distributed computing.
They talk about the greatest nation on earth, civilization, and defending the democracy, but don't know how to vote?
There are certain attributes that make a person be scientific, and these attributes cause both the interest in science and a lack of religiosity.
Wow. That's a lot like I used to see things when I was twenty. I don't think there's any substance to what you're saying however.
I'd say something like: there are certain attributes that make a person be curious and these attributes cause both the interest in science and interest in religion stir up at various times, sometimes even simultaneously.
Science stems from a curiosity towards nature, a seemingly infinite search for explanations for what our senses tell us. The senses, however, are not the whole story, and our best quantifiable science even says so. And this is where we inevitably take the leap to the realm of religious kind of thinking. And it's okay! A truly scientific line of reasoning should not discount a "religious" thought based on its origin or present unproveability only.
I haven't seen an atheist who didn't believe in something -- most believe in science with equal fervor and closed-mindedness to some who believe in bible. They know that they have the right, therefore good, knowledge; and anyone who's sceptical has to be wrong and therefore a witch. But a mind that thinks in terms of good and bad is a corrupt mind.
The way us with scientific background tend to overlook the opinion of all the others is the saddest statement of where our science has really gone. In my opinion, a good scientists has above all an open mind, clear thinking and a solid knowledge of what has already happened and been found out. Often scientists have the latter two but lack the first.
mod this AC up.
Is quantum crypto provably flawed?
Doesn't matter. The point is, one day there will be quantum computers running Shor's algorithm to factorize all the siblings of Avogadro's number in the background when simultaenously determining your average happiness. That day RSA will fall, and quantum cryptography is the solution that lets people have at least the same level of security in the quantum computer era as RSA is providing now.
but now the long term future of humanity depends on nuclear energy.
...
;-) ...
Say what?
I thought the long term future of humanity depended on how we are going to solve some trivial little problems like over-consumption of resources to over-produce energy and consequentially pollution; overpopulation; inequality of our social, political and economical environments regardless of population size;
I don't see how nuclear energy solves any of those problems, especially if you're suggesting that we should release even MORE energy than today.
I can see how those problems could be at least approached by scaling _down_ on practically any- and everything the so-called modern man is taking for granted. Scale down on energy production to scale down on wasteful consumption. Scale down on junk production 'cause we really aren't so fucked up in our minds yet that we couldn't live without our disposable cellphones. Scale down on pre-produced entertainment so our minds won't GET that fucked up. Scale down on selfishness because honestly, do we really think we've deserved all THAT?
Oh, don't mind me. Just keep the ball rolling and we'll all have a Really Cool Time really soon now.
After all, everyone's loving it. No?
Offtopic, I know, but isn't that just the way with this shit every time, every where? Yet notice how my rant allows frame dragging research to continue -- people certainly aren't taking that for granted
Especially with photon calculation speedups among other improvements in the beta release of POV-Ray v3.6, it would be interesting to do a comparison between the two photon models...
Lets face it, faster is better. If I could copy a whole DVD in a minute, I'd still prefer the solution the let me copy it in a second.
Back when CD-recorders started gaining those X's in their model designations and my trashbins subsequently filled up with failed cd-recordables I got so scared of the 'fast cd-burning' that I'm still often selecting the 2x or 4x option, if I'm in no hurry.
Routinely, I have a Thinkpad T21 (P3/800,256M) running a 2.6 kernel with simultaneous povray, xmms (oggs) and xmame (psychic5) processes in the userspace, with Firefox etc idling in the background. The kernel may take a few seconds to figure out the proper scheduling for these processes that are either CPU hogs (povray) or require a stable throughput (xmms, xmame), but after that it just keeps on going smoothly. If I want to switch to a browser, I have it up immediately.
Things weren't bad with Linux v2.4, but the new kernel has really made me feel like I've upgraded my hardware. All this combined with the VERY mature applications that have been released during the past year have got me seriously reconsidering that PowerBook dream. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Gnome
Oh, and my wireless config went like 1-2-3.
Not true. The point of the article is Ultra Deep Field imagery. Doing this requires focusing on a single point in space for long periods of time (In this case, 11.3 days) While not theoretically impossible to accomplish on earth, this would require building nearly identical telescopes worldwide and then coordinating their exposures to account for the rotation of the earth and then adapting for more variables than I have the patience to explain. For all practical purposes this is not going to happen in our lifetimes
This is misguided information. First of all, you could do a month long exposure with your backyard telescope simply by exposing the photographic plate only during nighttime. Put a lid on the telescope during days and continue the next night -- no special network of telescopes required.
However, this would fail for *any* kind of ground-based optical instrumentation after an exposure of roughly 12 hours due to the scattering of various light sources in the atmosphere. This includes the light from all the stars up there that you just can't turn off.
In short, yes, an extra-terrestial telescope is necessary for imaging of this kind, but not for the reasons you name.
The only two games that get much coverage on /. seem to be Quake, Doom3, and Unreal(x).
;-)
Perhaps because both engines run on The Three Platforms AND are seriously utilized by third party game developers. Following iD/Epic is a handy way of following where games (or at least some genres) are going. I guess it also helps that Carmack & Sweeney are Linux-loving uber-geeks
Yup, especially given that what we know of the mass and radius of the cosmos indicates that the cosmos itself is very close to being a black hole.
And still, the majority of physicists thinks that parallel universes are just a flight of fancy