Celsius is directly related to Kelvin, just offset so that 0C is the freezing point of water instead of Absolute zero. It's easy to convert between the two, just +/- 273.15 depending on where you're going. 0C - 273.15 is 0K.
I don't think either counts as "Metric" though since there aren't any milikelvins or anything like that, but you can still have a fraction of either if you want more granularity than a single degree.
I believe Fahrenheit has an equivalent called Rankine, whereby 0Ra is absolute zero and the difference between the two is a fixed value, however that does bring the question - what's the point of 0F? What does it represent? Aside from the benefit of having "more" values between boiling and freezing water, is there a benefit to Fahrenheit that Celsius doesn't have?
I disagree that comments should only tell you "why". The "what" is just as important, too. Of course, it really does depend on the situation and how complicated the code is but going by the logic of "if I wanted to know what it was doing, I'd just read the code" doesn't always work, or we'd all just learn ASM and read the OP Codes to figure out how stuff works. Sometimes what the code is doing isn't immediately obvious to everyone - this is something that open source code in particular can benefit from, as any coder of any level can contribute and a master coder's "obvious" code can be completely obfuscated to a novice programmer. By giving a little insight into what the code is doing, along with why its doing it, can be a big help. I'm not saying you have to label every nook and cranny, over-commenting code can sometimes be worse than not commenting it at all, but if you're doing something reasonably complex, or implimenting a particular algorithm that isn't particularly obvious, just leave a note saying what it is. This is a pretty particular debate, as many would argue that if the code isn't self-explanatory/self-documenting then the code is bad, but I think there's more than enough room for a middle ground.
You're confusing Evolution with abiogenesis. A common misunderstanding, but to put it simply (i.e. Without using big words) you're confusing the origin of species with the origin of life. Species is about divergence, why we get so many different things from a common ancestor. Evolution has been proven in the lab numerous times using bacteria cultures, as they reproduce quickly enough to see the divergence within our lifetimes.
Nobody's saying you should go out and get HIV if you happen to be diagnosed with Cancer. Science is all about being careful, taking detailed notes, doing tests, tests and more tests, etc. Sure, mistakes happen but that's why it's important to do as much research as possible into as much as we can. I only have issues with those who condemn something simply because they either don't understand it or are afraid of what it MIGHT do. Computers might one day enslave us, but does that mean we should stop using them? No, but the fact that people are aware of what might happen is good enough because that means we can do something to prevent the "might happens" and ensure the "Desired to happen"*.
*corporate bullshit not withstanding. There'll always be people trying to jump the gun in order to make money, putting everyone's safety at risk - I have no place for them, either.
Anyone that has any kind of issue with this, please pack your things and get out of the civilised world. You don't deserve to live past 30 in a heated home with running water, electrical appliances and the ability to communicate with someone more than 20 feet away.
I never said that he would have seen a less accurate result, I said he would (or may have) have seen a seemingly less accurate result simply due to the fact that different hardware will give slightly different results. In the above example of 4.0 (health) - 4.0 (damage), it's entirely possible that one system would truly calculate 0.0, while another would calculate 0.00000000000000001. The point is, when dealing with floating point numbers if you get 2 different results and are unaware of the complexities of floating point operations, it's a logical conclusion to believe that one may be right and one may be wrong (even though both are technically as right/wrong as each other). I wasn't saying that the AMD system gave an incorrect result, just that it may have appeared to from his perspective. A quick google of "AMD CPU floating point incorrect" would have certainly brought up an article or two detailing a known bug, even though it didn't actually affect him.
However, you raise a point about QuickBasic. If it truly does use software floating point calculations, then the above point is moot. Since it's entirely speculative anyway, it doesn't really matter. All I was doing was demonstrating as to how an inexperienced programmer can come to a certain conclusion through no real fault of their own.
No, you are mistaken because you didn't read my post (or any of the posts above it). We're talking about floating point rounding irregularities that are present in ALL modern processors, not the floating point bug you're referring to.
Except I very much doubt that would solve whatever "problems" this guy was having. As a newbie programmer, it's entirely understandable that he wouldn't know about the fun you can (or can't) have with floating point operations. However, I very much doubt that sheer accuracy was the issue, rather he was probably making assumptions such as 1.0 - 1.0 == 0.0, when in reality the result isn't necessarily exactly 0.0. Considering it's an MMO, he probably had something like "Why is this guy not dying, he has 4 HP left and this attack does exactly 4 damage? Must be a bug!". Really, it doesn't matter a huge amount, if such "accuracy" is important to your game then instead of doing "if(Health is less than 0.0)/* die */", you do something like "if (Health is less than 0.0 + epsilon)/* die */", with "epsilon" being a very small number (such as 0.00000001). The real fun with floats, however, is that each platform does something different. It's possible that the OP ran the game on Intel hardware and got one result (which may have seemed more "correct"), then ran it on an AMD machine and got a different (seemingly less-correct) result - you can see why he naturally jumped to the conclusion that the AMD system had a bug. In reality, chances are both systems were "wrong" anyway, they just happen to use different implementations for floating-point logic. To solve this, once again higher rates of calculations aren't the answer, but rather there's a compiler switch (/fp:strict in VS) that will use the ISO standard floating point model. It's not as fast as the other methods, but you will at least game the same results across different platforms (assuming that CPU has implemented the standard correctly which these days is almost certain).
Pre-Gregorian was the Julian Calendar which WAS just "year % 4 == 0". The 100/400 year exceptions were what the Gregorian Calendar changed. Unless you mean calculating a Julian date from a gregorian date....
Nope. Well, not necessarily - I can't say I know the ins and outs of the ZeuS network but for a system like this, they'll likely sign commands so that only the author can submit them. Sure, you know how to send commands to all the nodes, but without the private signature key, there's no way to send commands they'll accept. And the private key will never be stored on the C&C node that sent the command.
If my understanding is correct, the entire Zeus network now communicates amongst itself. There's no intermediate sites, IRC channels, twitter accounts, etc. This also means that any infected machine can act as the C&C. If that machine gets taken down, all the zeus authors need to do is use another node and keep going. It'll be extremely difficult to trace where the commands are genuinely coming from unless they happen to have access to the C&C server that originally sent the command, then hope that some sort of trail has been left - not an easy task, really
Slashdot Mirror
The same kind of damage loosing your card reader would do to any other. You have a backup, you always have a backup.
Celsius is directly related to Kelvin, just offset so that 0C is the freezing point of water instead of Absolute zero. It's easy to convert between the two, just +/- 273.15 depending on where you're going. 0C - 273.15 is 0K.
I don't think either counts as "Metric" though since there aren't any milikelvins or anything like that, but you can still have a fraction of either if you want more granularity than a single degree.
I believe Fahrenheit has an equivalent called Rankine, whereby 0Ra is absolute zero and the difference between the two is a fixed value, however that does bring the question - what's the point of 0F? What does it represent? Aside from the benefit of having "more" values between boiling and freezing water, is there a benefit to Fahrenheit that Celsius doesn't have?
Yeah I tried that once, it said something had performed an illegal operation and my whole PC shut down!
I just copied this text from another comment:
Whoosh!
Well there's a girl in the video, I'd say that's pretty extraordinary.
Yeah but what's the practical use of those?
I disagree that comments should only tell you "why". The "what" is just as important, too. Of course, it really does depend on the situation and how complicated the code is but going by the logic of "if I wanted to know what it was doing, I'd just read the code" doesn't always work, or we'd all just learn ASM and read the OP Codes to figure out how stuff works.
Sometimes what the code is doing isn't immediately obvious to everyone - this is something that open source code in particular can benefit from, as any coder of any level can contribute and a master coder's "obvious" code can be completely obfuscated to a novice programmer. By giving a little insight into what the code is doing, along with why its doing it, can be a big help. I'm not saying you have to label every nook and cranny, over-commenting code can sometimes be worse than not commenting it at all, but if you're doing something reasonably complex, or implimenting a particular algorithm that isn't particularly obvious, just leave a note saying what it is.
This is a pretty particular debate, as many would argue that if the code isn't self-explanatory/self-documenting then the code is bad, but I think there's more than enough room for a middle ground.
You're confusing Evolution with abiogenesis. A common misunderstanding, but to put it simply (i.e. Without using big words) you're confusing the origin of species with the origin of life. Species is about divergence, why we get so many different things from a common ancestor. Evolution has been proven in the lab numerous times using bacteria cultures, as they reproduce quickly enough to see the divergence within our lifetimes.
Nobody's saying you should go out and get HIV if you happen to be diagnosed with Cancer. Science is all about being careful, taking detailed notes, doing tests, tests and more tests, etc. Sure, mistakes happen but that's why it's important to do as much research as possible into as much as we can.
I only have issues with those who condemn something simply because they either don't understand it or are afraid of what it MIGHT do. Computers might one day enslave us, but does that mean we should stop using them? No, but the fact that people are aware of what might happen is good enough because that means we can do something to prevent the "might happens" and ensure the "Desired to happen"*.
*corporate bullshit not withstanding. There'll always be people trying to jump the gun in order to make money, putting everyone's safety at risk - I have no place for them, either.
Anyone that has any kind of issue with this, please pack your things and get out of the civilised world. You don't deserve to live past 30 in a heated home with running water, electrical appliances and the ability to communicate with someone more than 20 feet away.
Science, people - it's the shizzle.
I never said that he would have seen a less accurate result, I said he would (or may have) have seen a seemingly less accurate result simply due to the fact that different hardware will give slightly different results. In the above example of 4.0 (health) - 4.0 (damage), it's entirely possible that one system would truly calculate 0.0, while another would calculate 0.00000000000000001. The point is, when dealing with floating point numbers if you get 2 different results and are unaware of the complexities of floating point operations, it's a logical conclusion to believe that one may be right and one may be wrong (even though both are technically as right/wrong as each other). I wasn't saying that the AMD system gave an incorrect result, just that it may have appeared to from his perspective. A quick google of "AMD CPU floating point incorrect" would have certainly brought up an article or two detailing a known bug, even though it didn't actually affect him.
However, you raise a point about QuickBasic. If it truly does use software floating point calculations, then the above point is moot. Since it's entirely speculative anyway, it doesn't really matter. All I was doing was demonstrating as to how an inexperienced programmer can come to a certain conclusion through no real fault of their own.
No, you are mistaken because you didn't read my post (or any of the posts above it). We're talking about floating point rounding irregularities that are present in ALL modern processors, not the floating point bug you're referring to.
In any case, there is a different floating-point bug that affected some AMD CPU's as well - http://www.reghardware.com/2006/04/28/amd_opteron_fpu_bug/
Except I very much doubt that would solve whatever "problems" this guy was having. As a newbie programmer, it's entirely understandable that he wouldn't know about the fun you can (or can't) have with floating point operations. However, I very much doubt that sheer accuracy was the issue, rather he was probably making assumptions such as 1.0 - 1.0 == 0.0, when in reality the result isn't necessarily exactly 0.0. Considering it's an MMO, he probably had something like "Why is this guy not dying, he has 4 HP left and this attack does exactly 4 damage? Must be a bug!". /* die */", you do something like "if (Health is less than 0.0 + epsilon) /* die */", with "epsilon" being a very small number (such as 0.00000001).
Really, it doesn't matter a huge amount, if such "accuracy" is important to your game then instead of doing "if(Health is less than 0.0)
The real fun with floats, however, is that each platform does something different. It's possible that the OP ran the game on Intel hardware and got one result (which may have seemed more "correct"), then ran it on an AMD machine and got a different (seemingly less-correct) result - you can see why he naturally jumped to the conclusion that the AMD system had a bug.
In reality, chances are both systems were "wrong" anyway, they just happen to use different implementations for floating-point logic. To solve this, once again higher rates of calculations aren't the answer, but rather there's a compiler switch (/fp:strict in VS) that will use the ISO standard floating point model. It's not as fast as the other methods, but you will at least game the same results across different platforms (assuming that CPU has implemented the standard correctly which these days is almost certain).
There's LOTS of fantastic info on this here: http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game-programmers/floating-point-determinism/
I'd RT it if I could...
If your Penis has joints in it, you've got more serious concerns.
Slashdot's crap filter didn't help.
Pre-Gregorian was the Julian Calendar which WAS just "year % 4 == 0". The 100/400 year exceptions were what the Gregorian Calendar changed.
Unless you mean calculating a Julian date from a gregorian date....
for(int years = 0; years LENTH_OF_UNIVERSE; i++) { /* article */ }
I guess that means I must be in heaven or hell.
Come to think of it, reading the comments on Slashdot does feel a little bit like Purgatory....
You mean you've managed to miss all of the Slashdot stories thus far?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/21/1324246/get-a-glimpse-at-the-raspberry-pi-fedora-remix?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/13/2147203/despite-media-confusion-raspberry-pi-boards-still-on-schedule?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/07/0332248/first-run-of-raspberry-pi-boards-to-be-completed-feb-20th?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/31/203229/why-the-raspberry-pi-wont-ship-in-kit-form?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/01/25/1543239/xbmc-running-on-raspberry-pi?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/17/0014220/raspberry-pi-25-linux-computer-now-in-production-video?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/01/11/1332222/british-schoolchildren-to-get-programming-lessons?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/09/1413253/raspberry-pi-gertboard-in-action?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader
That's just this year.
Who donated to the project?
I think he's actually saying that all male homosexuals aren't racist.
Nope. Well, not necessarily - I can't say I know the ins and outs of the ZeuS network but for a system like this, they'll likely sign commands so that only the author can submit them. Sure, you know how to send commands to all the nodes, but without the private signature key, there's no way to send commands they'll accept. And the private key will never be stored on the C&C node that sent the command.
If my understanding is correct, the entire Zeus network now communicates amongst itself. There's no intermediate sites, IRC channels, twitter accounts, etc.
This also means that any infected machine can act as the C&C. If that machine gets taken down, all the zeus authors need to do is use another node and keep going. It'll be extremely difficult to trace where the commands are genuinely coming from unless they happen to have access to the C&C server that originally sent the command, then hope that some sort of trail has been left - not an easy task, really
What's a "Press Failout"? Is that a deliberate play on "fallout" or an actual fail in itself?