Ahhh, Lim Kit Siang... For the Malaysian politician whose opinion I respect, the front page of his site always struck me as an unfortunate 'own goal'. An image declares 'Lim Kit Siang - for Malaysia', and the reader is invited to read his blog in one of two languages: English or Chinese. No mention of the official language of Malaysia.
As for Teresa Kok, titling her site 'Sassy MP' seems a little out of touch to me - wouldn't 'Hawt MP' be more contemporary?
Yes, a big step. And that fellow who is often mentioned in the local media, got his name mentioned here today too! I was so surprised I almost soiled my keyboard. As an example of Malaysian politics today, he is without a doubt the finest. His column in the New Straits Times was instrumental in cementing my opinion of that publication. Reasonable people everywhere can only hope that the government will follow his example and guarantee the future they truly deserve. Gather your wits, UMNO youth, and show the electorate what you really think!
Dawkins is...famous for being a vocal advocate of his atheism
Not in my world he isn't. In my world he's famous for being an excellent scientist and captivating author. He has been writing marvellous books about science since 1976. I admire him for taking the stand he has with the "God Delusion", but it is far from being his best book. If you're only ever going to read one Dawkins book, go for any of the others.
It's Malaysia. The population is racially profiled by the government. The government is Malay, other races are welcome in Malaysia, as long as they "don't cause trouble, la". They got a nasty surprise in the recent elections and almost lost their 50-year majority. Malay=muslim, by government decree: you are free to worship any government-approved religion, as long as you're not Malay, in which case, you don't have a choice. Traditional media in Malaysia is government controlled. Government propaganda = licence. Criticism = no licence.
They blamed Internet-savvy opposition politicians for the recent election results. 60% of the Malaysian population goes to mosques, by government decree. That's a great reason to have high-definition, streaming government media, right there.
Many years ago, when I decided to go Linux on the desktop, I gave a presentation that I wrote in Java3D. It was about higher-dimension cellular automata and crystalline computing. I only did it that way because I was frustrated by an early version of Impress. It was mostly black, with all the action happening in primary colours, all zooming and winking, with call-outs orbiting points of interest.
At the end of the presentation I asked for questions. After I'd asked again, someone tore their attention away from the still-performing presentation and asked "What did you say?".
I heard that they were going to harmonise traffic across the EU, so the UK would eventually drive on the right, too. As I understand it, the new rules affect Heavy Goods Vehicles from 2011, with light vans and private cars having to move across by 2013.
This simulation is bread and butter work in the field of cellular automata, since donkey's years ago. There's a simulation here:
Yatches are so 21st century. Me, I'm typing this with my left hand, can't lift the right, wrist is weighed down with my new Oulti-Function, Cviator / Fxplorer, ~warovski fiamond encrusted Zatch, eitch.
The lock just holds up the person with the key. Some years ago I often hired cars from a family car rental firm that operated near a rough housing estate. They always reminded me that if I was a little late (after closing time), that I should bring the car back for opening time the next morning. Cars left outside their offices overnight would have their fuel emptied by the low-technology method of banging a nail into the bottom of the tank. Necessity is the mother of invention.
An emotive issue this one, everybody loves to go fast, right?
Speed limits are not just to protect drivers from themselves. Vehicle speeds are also an environmental problem - not a 'oh noes think of teh poor treees' one, but a human environment problem. Faster vehicles = more noise outside and inside. Faster vehicles = higher concentrations of exhaust fumes and brake dust. Faster vehicles = less time to cross the road. Faster vehicles = "don't play outside" instead of "watch out for cars". Faster vehicles = "Get a fireman with a shovel and a hose" instead of "A fireman will cut you out soon". For every km/h increase in speed (furlongs per candle-inch, whatever) a thousand people's lives are made very slightly worse.
Some people are safer at higher speeds. I'm sure there are statistics from insurers that will back this up. If I dimly recall articles I've read, if you're a young man (and you are reading/., right?) you're more likely to be speeding, dead, in hospital, throwing yourself on the mercy of the court, etc. Simple laws are the only ones that work, so thanks to young men, we all have to drive slower.
Someone (maybe GP?) said "you're probably breaking the law by 1-5mph". That's the nail's head right there. It's not rocket science - look at your speedo from time to time. How accurately can you control your vehicle's speed? Subtract the maximum error from the speed limit for the stretch of road you're on and you can satisfy yourself you're not breaking the law. Aim for the limit, and you are committing a pre-meditated crime. You'll be the slowest vehicle you can see (except for in your rear view mirror) but you'll be the only one not looking for blue lights or speed traps. Try it - you might even grow to like it.
I was young once, and got speeding fines. Now I'd like to go a little faster, but stay within the law. But I can't - young men FTW!
You are being watched by people who are not there. And you have no idea what they're thinking or doing, even while they can watch your every move. It's a completely one-sided relationship where the other side has all the power. That's pr0n!
Nobody should be allowed to watch a space that they do not own (ie. a public space) without being physically present. No pr0n? WTF are you doing on/.?
I've been doing something similar for years. I have a 15" laptop for when I absolutely have to use a PC on the move, but at home it sits on top of a plastic storage box on top of a middling-size Mouser carton on my desk. Next to it there's a 17" LCD on top of a carton a kettle came in, with a few pieces of cardboard to get the top of the screen to line up with the top of the laptop screen.
I think I started doing that when I read a posture guide from digital, and set my VT220 up on boxed VMS manuals. If digital says that's the best way, it must be true. If they hadn't been so good at doing everything right, they would probably still be making money...
As for a lap desk, I won't be happy with my laptop until I can get the screen up to face level while the keyboard stays at lap level. Maybe when they get the weight of the monitor down a bit further...
You might have hit the nail on the head for me - digging out the manual that came with the motherboard, I see the P4S800-MX SE's Sis Real256E integrated graphics has "a maximum 64MB shared memory". I can completely give up on this right now, after perhaps fixing what looks like a dodgy BIOS setting (lspci reports 128MB for the Display Adapter).
What caused me to submit the article was first the disappointing result when I tried this technique (with clear reason now, thanks), but more importantly the often-claimed "superior performance" of VRAM as swap. It was even in the wikipedia article for Virtual memory.
Does anybody get superior performance from Video RAM as swap? If nothing else, the replies here will at least balance out the claims made elsewhere.
Doh! Not enough information, obviously. I was as interested in other people's experiences, but since there's a great deal of interesting replies that wonder what the hardware is: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661FX/M661FX/M661MX Host (rev 11) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS AGP Port (virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. SiS Real 256E (ASUS P5S800-VM motherboard)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR-
And I'm sorry if it was misleading, the desktop is only a couple of years old since purchase, but it's one I assembled from parts and the large number of problems I've had with it would not lead you to infer Intelligent Design.
Mine too. About 8 years ago. At first I was worried that I'd be bothered every few days to answer difficult questions about dockyard bombings before I was born, but I never was. It was simple paranoia. I don't know if the UK's Rehabilitation of Offenders Act has a provision for removal of DNA records from the database. I don't really care. I can't recall having an opinion on the subject prior to my DNA being recorded. Yes, soon after I was afraid, but in my case my fear never materialised. Now my DNA being on record is of no interest to me at all. It can be used to identify me, but as an average height, average build, short-dark-haired, occasional jeans, trainer, and blouson-jacket wearing man who occasionally goes out late at night, I feel less at threat from my DNA being recorded than I do from my brand of footwear being known. Even if I do get the call, I'll be "helping the police with their enquiries", in exactly the way I would if a suspect had left a similar-looking footprint, or had used a similar-looking car, or looked uncannily like me.
My story's a sample of one, but hey, collect enough of these, and maybe you'll be able to construct some meaningful theory. As a DNA-recorded UK citizen, I think this judge's proposal sounds great. Thanks, I'll be here all week.
Reactive? Stopgap? Insightful? I've got to stop reading slashdot.
Every society has nutters, both permanent and occasional. But some societies have nutters with guns.
I don't think anybody is in the slightest bit interested in the link between guns and 'the desire to kill another' (one other). The facility to mow innocents down like wheat should be denied to all.
'Guided' missiles are a good example. Landmines are machines that kill without command from a human. Autonomous killing machines are very convenient. If you don't want to risk harm to your own soldiers, they're great! If you want to avoid criticism or legal action from closer to home, they're great - there's a smoking gun, but nobody was holding it.
Asimov's laws were great for stories, because they weren't laws, they were more like 'morals' for robots. As far as I remember, the Laws were never externally imposed, resulting in punishments for the robots. I thought the whole point of those stories was to illustrate how an apparently workable set of internal rules could lead to all sorts of undesirable behaviour.
It's futile to search for an internal law to make robots safe. It doesn't work for humans, won't work for robots.
This claim is bullshit. I think you mean "wrong". But thanks for the peer review, and for the link. You're right, the oldid tag does go some way to making Wikipedia a better source. Reading further about the page history, it seems any templates, variables or images referred to by the historical page will be current (not necessarily the same as when the page was viewed by the student). There is some guidance on that page for making a more reliable source. It mentions uploading the file, but I'm only making a superficial effort to cover my embarrassment at not doing proper research the first time...
I saw that document at wikipedia while looking for information about how long they keep history. That page mentions 'permanently reference' and 'history is kept for some time' (italics mine). I couldn't find a promise to preserve history anywhere. I'm giving up now, as the problem of preserving historical documents is not only wikipedia's. And it seems the oldid tag would at least make wikipedia sources 'unmodifiable', so far as text goes, for the duration of most student assignment marking.
I would happily believe the average reference that had once made into a paper publication is likely to have a longer life than one that had only ever existed on wikipedia, but again, I haven't done my research...
As an occasional lecturer and tutor, I would much rather students cited primary research published in an unmodifiable format. Paper encyclopaedias (woah, check out the diphthong from firefox) may not be primary research, but they are at least unmodifiable, so long as the student sufficiently identifies the revision. Secondary sources are acceptable when there is nothing better available. Since wikipedia is neither unmodifiable nor primary research, then the only justification I can see for a student citing an article there is that the original sources are unavailable to them.
The availability of scientific papers is highly variable. I have experienced a great deal of disparity between University libraries. At some, almost every book and publication I looked for was available. At others, the only option is to ask for an inter-library loan. For students on short deadlines or in large classes, this is an utterly inadequate system. As an examiner of student work, the overriding requirement for me is that students clearly identify which is their work and which is not. The quality of sources must be judged against the opportunity the student had to obtain them.
Whether you're older or younger than 14, you can visit different libraries and observe the range of access to original research. Believing that it's the same for everybody is a sign of poor research.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahhh, Lim Kit Siang... For the Malaysian politician whose opinion I respect, the front page of his site always struck me as an unfortunate 'own goal'. An image declares 'Lim Kit Siang - for Malaysia', and the reader is invited to read his blog in one of two languages: English or Chinese. No mention of the official language of Malaysia.
As for Teresa Kok, titling her site 'Sassy MP' seems a little out of touch to me - wouldn't 'Hawt MP' be more contemporary?
Yes, a big step. And that fellow who is often mentioned in the local media, got his name mentioned here today too! I was so surprised I almost soiled my keyboard. As an example of Malaysian politics today, he is without a doubt the finest. His column in the New Straits Times was instrumental in cementing my opinion of that publication. Reasonable people everywhere can only hope that the government will follow his example and guarantee the future they truly deserve. Gather your wits, UMNO youth, and show the electorate what you really think!
News to me. Driving instructors always told me it meant 'stop if you can'. Here's a page that makes it even simpler: Arrive Alive
It's Malaysia. The population is racially profiled by the government. The government is Malay, other races are welcome in Malaysia, as long as they "don't cause trouble, la". They got a nasty surprise in the recent elections and almost lost their 50-year majority. Malay=muslim, by government decree: you are free to worship any government-approved religion, as long as you're not Malay, in which case, you don't have a choice. Traditional media in Malaysia is government controlled. Government propaganda = licence. Criticism = no licence.
They blamed Internet-savvy opposition politicians for the recent election results. 60% of the Malaysian population goes to mosques, by government decree. That's a great reason to have high-definition, streaming government media, right there.
Many years ago, when I decided to go Linux on the desktop, I gave a presentation that I wrote in Java3D. It was about higher-dimension cellular automata and crystalline computing. I only did it that way because I was frustrated by an early version of Impress. It was mostly black, with all the action happening in primary colours, all zooming and winking, with call-outs orbiting points of interest.
At the end of the presentation I asked for questions. After I'd asked again, someone tore their attention away from the still-performing presentation and asked "What did you say?".
Maybe you should have been +5 Funny, but not +4 Insightful.
An FPGA might very well be able to do very little. See Adrian Thompson's page, especially his 1990s work on evolving FPGA circuits.
'An FPGA' could be a very limited device.
You lie, surely?
I heard that they were going to harmonise traffic across the EU, so the UK would eventually drive on the right, too. As I understand it, the new rules affect Heavy Goods Vehicles from 2011, with light vans and private cars having to move across by 2013.
This simulation is bread and butter work in the field of cellular automata, since donkey's years ago. There's a simulation here:
http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~helbing/RoadApplet/
Or maybe there isn't, since I just installed Ubuntu, but there's a plugin download box that suggests there is.
Yatches are so 21st century. Me, I'm typing this with my left hand, can't lift the right, wrist is weighed down with my new Oulti-Function, Cviator / Fxplorer, ~warovski fiamond encrusted Zatch, eitch.
The lock just holds up the person with the key. Some years ago I often hired cars from a family car rental firm that operated near a rough housing estate. They always reminded me that if I was a little late (after closing time), that I should bring the car back for opening time the next morning. Cars left outside their offices overnight would have their fuel emptied by the low-technology method of banging a nail into the bottom of the tank. Necessity is the mother of invention.
An emotive issue this one, everybody loves to go fast, right?
/., right?) you're more likely to be speeding, dead, in hospital, throwing yourself on the mercy of the court, etc. Simple laws are the only ones that work, so thanks to young men, we all have to drive slower.
Speed limits are not just to protect drivers from themselves. Vehicle speeds are also an environmental problem - not a 'oh noes think of teh poor treees' one, but a human environment problem. Faster vehicles = more noise outside and inside. Faster vehicles = higher concentrations of exhaust fumes and brake dust. Faster vehicles = less time to cross the road. Faster vehicles = "don't play outside" instead of "watch out for cars". Faster vehicles = "Get a fireman with a shovel and a hose" instead of "A fireman will cut you out soon". For every km/h increase in speed (furlongs per candle-inch, whatever) a thousand people's lives are made very slightly worse.
Some people are safer at higher speeds. I'm sure there are statistics from insurers that will back this up. If I dimly recall articles I've read, if you're a young man (and you are reading
Someone (maybe GP?) said "you're probably breaking the law by 1-5mph". That's the nail's head right there. It's not rocket science - look at your speedo from time to time. How accurately can you control your vehicle's speed? Subtract the maximum error from the speed limit for the stretch of road you're on and you can satisfy yourself you're not breaking the law. Aim for the limit, and you are committing a pre-meditated crime. You'll be the slowest vehicle you can see (except for in your rear view mirror) but you'll be the only one not looking for blue lights or speed traps. Try it - you might even grow to like it.
I was young once, and got speeding fines. Now I'd like to go a little faster, but stay within the law. But I can't - young men FTW!
Git off my road!
The iPod is so dead.
I've been doing something similar for years. I have a 15" laptop for when I absolutely have to use a PC on the move, but at home it sits on top of a plastic storage box on top of a middling-size Mouser carton on my desk. Next to it there's a 17" LCD on top of a carton a kettle came in, with a few pieces of cardboard to get the top of the screen to line up with the top of the laptop screen.
I think I started doing that when I read a posture guide from digital, and set my VT220 up on boxed VMS manuals. If digital says that's the best way, it must be true. If they hadn't been so good at doing everything right, they would probably still be making money...
As for a lap desk, I won't be happy with my laptop until I can get the screen up to face level while the keyboard stays at lap level. Maybe when they get the weight of the monitor down a bit further...
You might have hit the nail on the head for me - digging out the manual that came with the motherboard, I see the P4S800-MX SE's Sis Real256E integrated graphics has "a maximum 64MB shared memory". I can completely give up on this right now, after perhaps fixing what looks like a dodgy BIOS setting (lspci reports 128MB for the Display Adapter).
What caused me to submit the article was first the disappointing result when I tried this technique (with clear reason now, thanks), but more importantly the often-claimed "superior performance" of VRAM as swap. It was even in the wikipedia article for Virtual memory.
Does anybody get superior performance from Video RAM as swap? If nothing else, the replies here will at least balance out the claims made elsewhere.
Doh! Not enough information, obviously. I was as interested in other people's experiences, but since there's a great deal of interesting replies that wonder what the hardware is:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661FX/M661FX/M661MX Host (rev 11)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS AGP Port (virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. SiS Real 256E (ASUS P5S800-VM motherboard)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR-
And I'm sorry if it was misleading, the desktop is only a couple of years old since purchase, but it's one I assembled from parts and the large number of problems I've had with it would not lead you to infer Intelligent Design.
Mine too. About 8 years ago. At first I was worried that I'd be bothered every few days to answer difficult questions about dockyard bombings before I was born, but I never was. It was simple paranoia. I don't know if the UK's Rehabilitation of Offenders Act has a provision for removal of DNA records from the database. I don't really care. I can't recall having an opinion on the subject prior to my DNA being recorded. Yes, soon after I was afraid, but in my case my fear never materialised. Now my DNA being on record is of no interest to me at all. It can be used to identify me, but as an average height, average build, short-dark-haired, occasional jeans, trainer, and blouson-jacket wearing man who occasionally goes out late at night, I feel less at threat from my DNA being recorded than I do from my brand of footwear being known. Even if I do get the call, I'll be "helping the police with their enquiries", in exactly the way I would if a suspect had left a similar-looking footprint, or had used a similar-looking car, or looked uncannily like me.
My story's a sample of one, but hey, collect enough of these, and maybe you'll be able to construct some meaningful theory. As a DNA-recorded UK citizen, I think this judge's proposal sounds great. Thanks, I'll be here all week.
Reactive? Stopgap? Insightful? I've got to stop reading slashdot.
Every society has nutters, both permanent and occasional. But some societies have nutters with guns.
I don't think anybody is in the slightest bit interested in the link between guns and 'the desire to kill another' (one other). The facility to mow innocents down like wheat should be denied to all.
'Guided' missiles are a good example. Landmines are machines that kill without command from a human. Autonomous killing machines are very convenient. If you don't want to risk harm to your own soldiers, they're great! If you want to avoid criticism or legal action from closer to home, they're great - there's a smoking gun, but nobody was holding it.
Asimov's laws were great for stories, because they weren't laws, they were more like 'morals' for robots. As far as I remember, the Laws were never externally imposed, resulting in punishments for the robots. I thought the whole point of those stories was to illustrate how an apparently workable set of internal rules could lead to all sorts of undesirable behaviour.
It's futile to search for an internal law to make robots safe. It doesn't work for humans, won't work for robots.
It's okay - my mum has every Slim Whitman album there ever was.
All we need is a record player... we're dead.
As an occasional lecturer and tutor, I would much rather students cited primary research published in an unmodifiable format. Paper encyclopaedias (woah, check out the diphthong from firefox) may not be primary research, but they are at least unmodifiable, so long as the student sufficiently identifies the revision. Secondary sources are acceptable when there is nothing better available. Since wikipedia is neither unmodifiable nor primary research, then the only justification I can see for a student citing an article there is that the original sources are unavailable to them.
The availability of scientific papers is highly variable. I have experienced a great deal of disparity between University libraries. At some, almost every book and publication I looked for was available. At others, the only option is to ask for an inter-library loan. For students on short deadlines or in large classes, this is an utterly inadequate system. As an examiner of student work, the overriding requirement for me is that students clearly identify which is their work and which is not. The quality of sources must be judged against the opportunity the student had to obtain them.
Whether you're older or younger than 14, you can visit different libraries and observe the range of access to original research. Believing that it's the same for everybody is a sign of poor research.
They said: Hu2's house? Ren2's house!