I came to this conclusion after taking a worthless software engineering class in college. The first semester should be about various project management styles, gathering requirements, using source control, working in teams, contributing to open source, working with large codebases, etc. The second semester should be a sort of independent study with small groups implementing whatever project they came up with in the first course. You won't get any students to do the second semester if they have to implement somebody else's project though. I don't even want to do that when I'm getting paid for it.
I would suggest reading The Black Swan. His basic thesis is that the gaussian methods used to calculate risk in financial markets underestimate the risk by several orders of magnitude. Crashes that happen every couple of decades are considered to be once in a million year occurrences by these methods. He made his money in the crash by betting against this. He assumes that he has no clue when a crash will happen, only that the risk is much greater than the vast majority of the market thinks. Everybody else thinks it will never happen, overextend themselves, and when the crash comes he takes their money. He did it in the 80's too.
I would think that the economic benefit from the creation of a space tourism industry would benefit you. Of course the FAA regulations aren't a direct part of that, but they are a step. So, congratulations! Your tax dollars are at work here and it very well could benefit you and your family.
The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem already shows that with the sampling rate on CDs the original signal can be reconstructed perfectly up to frequencies above human hearing. DVDA sounding superior is almost certainly a placebo effect.
Not exactly. While you're right that the CD sampling rate can perfectly reconstruct a signal up to the limit of human hearing, you forget the fact that those frequencies above 20kHz still interact with the rest of the sound that we perceive. That being said, for the average sound system you are absolutely right about DVD Audio being worthless. And the average person isn't going to drop $3,000 on a surround sound system to hear the tiny difference. Nor should they. The only time I have ever even used DVD Audio is when I was doing a surround sound mix, which to me is the only redeeming feature of the format.
I'll take the bait. When Java was introduced in 1995 almost all compiler research had been on static compilation, such as in C or Fortran. When the popularity of Java started to rise a lot of research effort, such as at IBM, was switched over to Just In Time (JIT) compilers. This was a pretty raw field at the time so the Java was horribly slow compared to C.
Fast forward 11 years and the situation is quite different. I'm not sure about the Java compiler that comes distributed with the SDK, but a JIT compiler and virtual machine from another commerical sourse (I'll just stick with IBM) is now incredibly optimized compared to 1995. Large amounts of research have been done to catch up with the fact that statically compiled languages had a 30+ year headstart. And JIT compiled languages could one day be faster than a statically compiled one due to new dynamic compilation techniques that use system resource data, such as cache misses, collected by the VM to continuously reoptimize portions of the byte code.
I'm not going to say that Java is faster than C (or in this case Perl, a language specifically designed for parsing regular expressions), but the speed gap between the two is constantly closing to the point where it doesn't really matter that much anymore.
Think about what you just said. You'll realise how powerles media and politics are without all the average people.
My point is that not that the issue is insurmountable. It's that it most likely cannot be done with the support of the mass media, which is the only source of information for the average citizen. The average citizen is too indifferent on the issue to go out of their way to educate themselves on it. The average person does not care about the issue and the problem cannot be solved without the masses at this time. The only other viable option that I see is a massive shift in government policy towards regulated media ownership, i.e. you can only own so many media outlets in a market. But that takes a change in our politicians in Washington. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
You're forgetting the fact that most of the major players in the music industry are parts of large media conglomerates that own most of the entertainment and media industry at all levels. They're not going to publicise press releases from an organization that is threatening their business model. I would suggest reading "The Media Monopoly" by Ben Bagdikian. You'll realize just how powerless the average person is to achieve true change in the media or politics.
Relying on the "octopiler" to efficiently map to the Cell architecture seems a bit optimistic and naive.
Currently the "octopiler" sorta-kinda works based on previous reports. It sure doesn't come anywhere near close to using the full potential of the processor. I went to a talk at IBM about the cell, but had to sign the standard non-discloure agreement. All I'll say is that the people writing the compiler for this wish they had some input in the design of the processor.
What about my two perfectly legitimately licensed machines at home that fail the "Windows Genuine Advantage" test every time they update WGA?
I have a new machine that we just put in the recording studio at the radio station I work at. What about the fact that my genuine copy of XP Pro I bought for it fails authentication? I didn't care too much at the time, but I know this isn't an isolated issue. It's not uncommon for legit copies of Windows to do this. I can't wait for the hack around this if it's true. I give it 3 days.
I think the issue is exactly that they don't have to worry about what happened last week if the writers don't want to. That the characters don't have to age. I live in the real world. When I watch TV I don't want reality. I want something different. Something to tickle my imagination. And the surreal world of many cartoons is great for that. A show like Doctor Who doesn't appeal to me as much, because I would much rather pick up a book and supply a much cooler image of a sci-fi world in my own head.
That being said, Futurama isn't the best example to be picking on for nothing ever changing. The series did have an advancing plot and the important events of previous episodes did matter in future ones. Individual events didn't matter as much, but the evolution of the character's relationships to each other definitely progressed based on the events of the show. I also felt it was much better written then other popular cartoons and didn't rely as much on mind-numbing pop-culture references.
But the whole POINT of the "psychedelic" drugs (which turned out mainly to be hallucinogens) was an attempt to increase mental ability - intelligence, creativity, empathy, intuitive pattern-matching, and perhaps obtain access to paranormal abilities (this being before Rhine was debunked).
You have to keep in mind though that while that may have been one of the original driving forces of the culture, it quickly attracted those were simply looking for an escape. Only a small percentage of those doing psychedelic drugs at the time were actually looking to increase their mental ability. And the event that turned many people on to hallucinogenic drugs for the first time was Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, which had very little to do with mental or spiritual enlightenment and much more with just messing with people.
Pure Data (PD) is definitely worth checking out if you're into computer-aided performance. You can get PD for free (it runs on Windows, OSX, and Linux) at http://puredata.info/. Another one to try if you're more into writing actual code is Supercollider. It's an object-oriented music synthesis language based on Smalltalk. I use a Windows build that I get from http://www.sonenvir.at/downloads/sc3/sc3-win/, but it runs better on OSX and it interfaces with Emacs if you like on Linux.
Why do you assume the only things new in Vista is prettier looks? The new Vista Shell (a.k.a. Windows Explorer) actually has lots of (e)volutionary functionality that will finally deprecate the old "files inside folders inside more folders" filesystem-based information management. (I'm talking primarily about the consistent meta-data interfaces&hooks for all kinds of user information).
Unfortunately, it's a lose-lose situation with most Slashdotters. They see pretty screenshots and flame Microsoft for only working on the GUI. Last I checked, I can't test the functionality from a screenshot. If they actually put new functionality in then they'll get flamed for how Linux or OSX already has that or something similar to it. There mind was made up the second they saw the word "Windows" in the title.
Yes abso-flocking-lutley, I want every bug fixed in the software package fixed prior to the software company innovating another payment out of me for a bug fix that is now called a new feature.
Speaking of stifling innovation, this statement would certaintly do that. The average large application has several thousand bugs in the code, most of which the user will never notice. Even NASA, which requires a substantial amount of documentation to change even one line of code in the space shuttle is estimated to have 4 or 5 bugs still left in shuttle code that has been tweaked for over 20 years. By your reasoning we'd still be using the first versions of DOS.
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I came to this conclusion after taking a worthless software engineering class in college. The first semester should be about various project management styles, gathering requirements, using source control, working in teams, contributing to open source, working with large codebases, etc. The second semester should be a sort of independent study with small groups implementing whatever project they came up with in the first course. You won't get any students to do the second semester if they have to implement somebody else's project though. I don't even want to do that when I'm getting paid for it.
I would suggest reading The Black Swan. His basic thesis is that the gaussian methods used to calculate risk in financial markets underestimate the risk by several orders of magnitude. Crashes that happen every couple of decades are considered to be once in a million year occurrences by these methods. He made his money in the crash by betting against this. He assumes that he has no clue when a crash will happen, only that the risk is much greater than the vast majority of the market thinks. Everybody else thinks it will never happen, overextend themselves, and when the crash comes he takes their money. He did it in the 80's too.
I would think that the economic benefit from the creation of a space tourism industry would benefit you. Of course the FAA regulations aren't a direct part of that, but they are a step. So, congratulations! Your tax dollars are at work here and it very well could benefit you and your family.
The Wii dev kit comes in under two grand: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/wii -development-kit-under-2000
Not exactly. While you're right that the CD sampling rate can perfectly reconstruct a signal up to the limit of human hearing, you forget the fact that those frequencies above 20kHz still interact with the rest of the sound that we perceive. That being said, for the average sound system you are absolutely right about DVD Audio being worthless. And the average person isn't going to drop $3,000 on a surround sound system to hear the tiny difference. Nor should they. The only time I have ever even used DVD Audio is when I was doing a surround sound mix, which to me is the only redeeming feature of the format.
I'll take the bait. When Java was introduced in 1995 almost all compiler research had been on static compilation, such as in C or Fortran. When the popularity of Java started to rise a lot of research effort, such as at IBM, was switched over to Just In Time (JIT) compilers. This was a pretty raw field at the time so the Java was horribly slow compared to C.
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Fast forward 11 years and the situation is quite different. I'm not sure about the Java compiler that comes distributed with the SDK, but a JIT compiler and virtual machine from another commerical sourse (I'll just stick with IBM) is now incredibly optimized compared to 1995. Large amounts of research have been done to catch up with the fact that statically compiled languages had a 30+ year headstart. And JIT compiled languages could one day be faster than a statically compiled one due to new dynamic compilation techniques that use system resource data, such as cache misses, collected by the VM to continuously reoptimize portions of the byte code.
And even the overhead of garbage collection may soon be lowered dramatically due to research at the University of Massachusetts http://www.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/f034-hertz.pd
I'm not going to say that Java is faster than C (or in this case Perl, a language specifically designed for parsing regular expressions), but the speed gap between the two is constantly closing to the point where it doesn't really matter that much anymore.
I personally felt that http://i.n.com.com/i/ne/p/2006/726spam_plants04_55 0x550.jpg was a vision sent from the Flying Spaghetti Monster of his Noodleiness. But that's just me.
Think about what you just said. You'll realise how powerles media and politics are without all the average people.
My point is that not that the issue is insurmountable. It's that it most likely cannot be done with the support of the mass media, which is the only source of information for the average citizen. The average citizen is too indifferent on the issue to go out of their way to educate themselves on it. The average person does not care about the issue and the problem cannot be solved without the masses at this time. The only other viable option that I see is a massive shift in government policy towards regulated media ownership, i.e. you can only own so many media outlets in a market. But that takes a change in our politicians in Washington. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
You're forgetting the fact that most of the major players in the music industry are parts of large media conglomerates that own most of the entertainment and media industry at all levels. They're not going to publicise press releases from an organization that is threatening their business model. I would suggest reading "The Media Monopoly" by Ben Bagdikian. You'll realize just how powerless the average person is to achieve true change in the media or politics.
Relying on the "octopiler" to efficiently map to the Cell architecture seems a bit optimistic and naive.
Currently the "octopiler" sorta-kinda works based on previous reports. It sure doesn't come anywhere near close to using the full potential of the processor. I went to a talk at IBM about the cell, but had to sign the standard non-discloure agreement. All I'll say is that the people writing the compiler for this wish they had some input in the design of the processor.
What about my two perfectly legitimately licensed machines at home that fail the "Windows Genuine Advantage" test every time they update WGA?
I have a new machine that we just put in the recording studio at the radio station I work at. What about the fact that my genuine copy of XP Pro I bought for it fails authentication? I didn't care too much at the time, but I know this isn't an isolated issue. It's not uncommon for legit copies of Windows to do this. I can't wait for the hack around this if it's true. I give it 3 days.
I think the issue is exactly that they don't have to worry about what happened last week if the writers don't want to. That the characters don't have to age. I live in the real world. When I watch TV I don't want reality. I want something different. Something to tickle my imagination. And the surreal world of many cartoons is great for that. A show like Doctor Who doesn't appeal to me as much, because I would much rather pick up a book and supply a much cooler image of a sci-fi world in my own head.
That being said, Futurama isn't the best example to be picking on for nothing ever changing. The series did have an advancing plot and the important events of previous episodes did matter in future ones. Individual events didn't matter as much, but the evolution of the character's relationships to each other definitely progressed based on the events of the show. I also felt it was much better written then other popular cartoons and didn't rely as much on mind-numbing pop-culture references.
I wonder if this will affect the 4 movies that are currently being planned. Ride the Walrus!
You have to keep in mind though that while that may have been one of the original driving forces of the culture, it quickly attracted those were simply looking for an escape. Only a small percentage of those doing psychedelic drugs at the time were actually looking to increase their mental ability. And the event that turned many people on to hallucinogenic drugs for the first time was Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, which had very little to do with mental or spiritual enlightenment and much more with just messing with people.
Pure Data (PD) is definitely worth checking out if you're into computer-aided performance. You can get PD for free (it runs on Windows, OSX, and Linux) at http://puredata.info/. Another one to try if you're more into writing actual code is Supercollider. It's an object-oriented music synthesis language based on Smalltalk. I use a Windows build that I get from http://www.sonenvir.at/downloads/sc3/sc3-win/, but it runs better on OSX and it interfaces with Emacs if you like on Linux.
You're my hero. My Windows install started to hate Acrobat a couple of months ago and I've been using Ghostscript with Ghostgum since.
This seems way too good to be true. Anybody with some credible knowledge care to debunk it?
Thank you for proving my point with a vast generalization.
Speaking of stifling innovation, this statement would certaintly do that. The average large application has several thousand bugs in the code, most of which the user will never notice. Even NASA, which requires a substantial amount of documentation to change even one line of code in the space shuttle is estimated to have 4 or 5 bugs still left in shuttle code that has been tweaked for over 20 years. By your reasoning we'd still be using the first versions of DOS.
No years of high school count.