Uninitialized memory lines
on
Pet Bugs?
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· Score: 2
I worked on an embedded box that had a problem keeping track of time across reboots; that is, it kept time fine until you rebooted it, and then it reverted to some other wierd time. (Actually the situation was more complex than that, but for brevity...) Anyway, turns out that the problem was that when we tried to read from the hardware clock (which reported time as a series of BCD digits) the memory (or bus or whatever: IANAH(ardware)E(ngineer)) lines which were connected to the bits that were never used, such as the upper two bits of the 10s place of the hour, were high when the box was turned on and were never initialized back to a low state and those bits weren't masked off when we read the time, thus, when we did error checking on the time, it turned out to be invalid.
I'll second that.
On another note (which I have to admit was picked up on my mother), Portman just doesn't carry herself or deliver lines with the nobility and royalty that Carrie Fisher (Leia) did. Portman sounds much less believable like someone who was trained as royalty.
Seriously, though, remember the royal, righteous indignation that Fisher delivered when Darth threatened her planet if she wouldn't reveal the location of the rebel base? Portman has never lived up to that. A great opportunity would've been in Ep I when Quigon-Gin told her (masquarading as the handmaiden) what the queen wanted. Instead of carrying even the royal air that you might expect from someone who attends royalty or one who was elected to a leadership position at a young age, she acted like a scolded child.
Yeah, my bad. In my haste to get the post out there early so as to avoid the -1 redundant, I didn't double check the story to see which report it was that I found dubious. In fact, the Post story is quite believable, while the ITAA report deserves to raise our suspicions.
Please accept my appology for tossing out incorrect information.
The best analogy I've seen for Apple's place in the computer industry is to that of Volkswagon's in the auto industry, especially VW's marketing of the new Bug. Volkwagon makes a cool looking product and then sell it with all services paid; your oil changes and other routine maintenance plus any unscheduled maintenance in the warranty period are part of the cost of the car. Of course this means the vehicle costs more, but plenty of people see it as worth while. This really appeals to people who just want a cool no-hastle vehicle.
Apple sells their products similarly; the various Macs since the iMac have been cool looking, easy to use, no hastle computers. Part of buying a Mac is the cool iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, ietc. software that automagically does everything you bought your new PC for, including uploading your stuff to your mac.com website.
It's all about increasing coolness and decreasing hastle for both VW and Apple.
"In 15 years we could have a dozen cables running full steam putting 50 tons in space every day for even less, including upper middle class individuals wanting a joyride into space. Now I just need the $5 billion," Edwards added.
Doh, should've included this before.
Here's a page that has values for Ackermann's function. It grows fast. The reason that it's so hard to compute is because of the depth of recursion that it requires to solve even a low order problem.
The Ackermann function is the simplest example of a well-defined total function which is computable but not primitive recursive. See the article "A function to end all functions" by Gunter Dötzel, Algorithm 2.4, Oct 1991, Pg 16. The function f(x) = A(x, x) grows much faster than polynomials or exponentials. The definition is:
If x = 0 then A(x, y) = y + 1
If y = 0 then A(x, y) = A(x-1, 1)
Otherwise, A(x, y) = A(x-1, A(x, y-1))
(stolen from http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/Ackerman/AckeWhat.h tml)
Re:Basic of algorithms
on
Deep Algorithms?
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· Score: 4, Informative
(Stolen from http://www.digitale-medien.de/beckert/03_Definitio ns.htm)
Donald E. Knuth gives in his book "The Art of Computer Programming" (1968) five criterias to determine if a process is algorithmic:
The process must be finite
Each step must be clearly defined
The process may have input
The process must have output
The process must be effective
To be finite, the process must end after a predictable number of steps.
Each step must be unambiguous.
The process may require input (parameters) to solve the problem but when complete it must return a result.
The process must demonstrate effectiveness by solving the problem in a "sufficiently basic" manner.
Why would I want a watch were it actually took me a second or two to read the watch?
..Yes I'd get quicker at it, but do I really want a watch with a base 2 output to deal with a base 12 [kinda] time system that I associate with decimal numbers?
Do I really want to have to explain what me watch is to attractive girls at parties?
I'm sorry, sir, but this discussion was clearly entitled "watches for UberGeeks". If you're having to ask about what women would think of this device or are even remotely positing that reading binary digits takes more effort than decimal, clearly you're not an "UberGeek".
And, anyway, everyone (or at least every UberGeek I know) knows that time is base 60 because it is based (haha, oh, sorry, just a little UberGeek humor) on the Babylonian system.
Nevertheless, we already have this--the Java VM and Java language specification. Many languages now compile to Java byte code and can be written to use Java libraries.
Simply out of curiosity because I do not know the answer, what are some langauges that will compile to Java byte code? Can you provide some links?
Microsoft's goal is to have a 'competitively compliant' compiler - meaning it won't be 100% compliant. There are a couple of features of the ANSI/ISO standard (for instance the 'export' keyword as applied to template classes) that won't be implemented because they are considered by Microsoft to be obscure and, at this stage, theoretical.
How can the 'export' keyword be considered anything less than highly useful? It allows template classes to be separated into a header and an implementation file. I've wished more than once that that was implemented.
The GCC take on 'export' is this: Supporting the export keyword is certainly a goal, since it is a very valuable feature, and mandated by the standard.found here
I'm seriously considering becoming a Sun Certified Java Programmer. Of course a major consideration in pursuing it is its career-building value, which, of course, leads to the question:
How helpful have you, O, revered slashdotter, found the SCJP or its many brethren?
I would guess that Ruby doesn't allow the
def function
#stuff
}
syntax because it's not a matching pair (i.e., {...}) like it is with using {...} with blocks. I realize that x...end isn't necessarily a matching pair either, but...
This is pure speculation.
Not to dis your advice to skip class as I've certainly done my fair share of skipping irrelevant lectures, but there are those who find lectures valuable because that is how they learn, i.e., they learn far better by hearing than reading.
Am I the only one who thought it was strange that the article said that the frequency of the pitch used to hack phones was 2600 kHz? That's 2,600,000 Hz. Human hearing tops out around 10,000 Hz, IIRC. 2600 kHz isn't a tone, it's a radio wave, right?
If the story is correct, they have tried to copyright every single possible 11 digit phone number
Well, what you assume is that they also copyrighted all the sequences which have leading zeros. The alternative interpretation is that they copyrighted the shorter sequences which do not have leading zeros.
Or possibily, you meant that they copyrighted every possible 11 digit and shorter number which did not have leading zeros.
<digress/>
Did anyone read the article over at oneworld.org to notice the prominently displayed quote (to the effect of) "You don't shoot down a hijacked airplane?" This quote was being used as an analogy for why the sanctions against Iraq should end.
Perhaps after recent events, that analogy should be reworded.
Last fall I and 2 other guys participated in an ACM programming competition. The allowed editors were VAJ, VAC, vim, and emacs (oh and notepad if you were horribly sad) (oh and you could use Delphi, too). For the small quick algorithm intense work we were doing, using vim configured to compile and debug java was incredibly quick and was certainly an edge in helping us to win. VAJ/VAC is just too bulky for just trying to whip something out and runs alltogther too slowly on a typically underpowered university lab computer, in my experience.
Caveat: Of course most development doesn't happen under the conditions that I described above.
You're right, there are easy ways to do that in Visual Studio as you describe. However, the same functionality that you and the original poster described could easily be had by a single key mapping in an non IDE editor worth its salt.
Example from vim:
nmap <f1> yiw:r!man <c-r>"|grep \#include<cr>
So after sticking in that mapping, hit f1 on a command that's not yours and you'll have the info you were seeking.
Oh, and of course, you could already jump to the definitions of any of your own symbols (in nearly any language, not just the one that your parochial bloated IDE supports;-) ) by pressing CTRL-].
Yes, most good non-IDE editors can easily have more convenience features than an IDE; it simply requieres a little time spent configuring the editor.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked on an embedded box that had a problem keeping track of time across reboots; that is, it kept time fine until you rebooted it, and then it reverted to some other wierd time. (Actually the situation was more complex than that, but for brevity...) Anyway, turns out that the problem was that when we tried to read from the hardware clock (which reported time as a series of BCD digits) the memory (or bus or whatever: IANAH(ardware)E(ngineer)) lines which were connected to the bits that were never used, such as the upper two bits of the 10s place of the hour, were high when the box was turned on and were never initialized back to a low state and those bits weren't masked off when we read the time, thus, when we did error checking on the time, it turned out to be invalid.
On another note (which I have to admit was picked up on my mother), Portman just doesn't carry herself or deliver lines with the nobility and royalty that Carrie Fisher (Leia) did. Portman sounds much less believable like someone who was trained as royalty.
Seriously, though, remember the royal, righteous indignation that Fisher delivered when Darth threatened her planet if she wouldn't reveal the location of the rebel base? Portman has never lived up to that. A great opportunity would've been in Ep I when Quigon-Gin told her (masquarading as the handmaiden) what the queen wanted. Instead of carrying even the royal air that you might expect from someone who attends royalty or one who was elected to a leadership position at a young age, she acted like a scolded child.
Yeah, my bad. In my haste to get the post out there early so as to avoid the -1 redundant, I didn't double check the story to see which report it was that I found dubious. In fact, the Post story is quite believable, while the ITAA report deserves to raise our suspicions.
Please accept my appology for tossing out incorrect information.
concerning the Post report:
I'll believe it when I see it.
This post has been brought to you by the letter K, the number 4, and the letter M?
Apple sells their products similarly; the various Macs since the iMac have been cool looking, easy to use, no hastle computers. Part of buying a Mac is the cool iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, ietc. software that automagically does everything you bought your new PC for, including uploading your stuff to your mac.com website.
It's all about increasing coolness and decreasing hastle for both VW and Apple.
No really, that is the direction that we're going with vision augmentation. There was a slashdot story on it recently.
Doh, should've included this before. Here's a page that has values for Ackermann's function. It grows fast. The reason that it's so hard to compute is because of the depth of recursion that it requires to solve even a low order problem.
- If x = 0 then A(x, y) = y + 1
- If y = 0 then A(x, y) = A(x-1, 1)
- Otherwise, A(x, y) = A(x-1, A(x, y-1))
(stolen from http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/Ackerman/AckeWhat.To be finite, the process must end after a predictable number of steps. Each step must be unambiguous. The process may require input (parameters) to solve the problem but when complete it must return a result. The process must demonstrate effectiveness by solving the problem in a "sufficiently basic" manner.
I'm sorry, sir, but this discussion was clearly entitled "watches for UberGeeks". If you're having to ask about what women would think of this device or are even remotely positing that reading binary digits takes more effort than decimal, clearly you're not an "UberGeek".
And, anyway, everyone (or at least every UberGeek I know) knows that time is base 60 because it is based (haha, oh, sorry, just a little UberGeek humor) on the Babylonian system.
Simply out of curiosity because I do not know the answer, what are some langauges that will compile to Java byte code? Can you provide some links?
Thanks!
How can the 'export' keyword be considered anything less than highly useful? It allows template classes to be separated into a header and an implementation file. I've wished more than once that that was implemented.
The GCC take on 'export' is this:
Supporting the export keyword is certainly a goal, since it is a very valuable feature, and mandated by the standard. found here
How helpful have you, O, revered slashdotter, found the SCJP or its many brethren?
I would guess that Ruby doesn't allow the
def function
#stuff
}
syntax because it's not a matching pair (i.e., {...}) like it is with using {...} with blocks. I realize that x...end isn't necessarily a matching pair either, but...
This is pure speculation.
Gosh, and I thought Microsoft was doing a great deal to support XML. I hadn't heard that they'd packed up early, quit the XML party, and gone home.
Not to dis your advice to skip class as I've certainly done my fair share of skipping irrelevant lectures, but there are those who find lectures valuable because that is how they learn, i.e., they learn far better by hearing than reading.
Actually, that's not entirely true. They used ruby in the scripts they used to format, etc. the text for the "Pragmatic Programmer".
Am I the only one who thought it was strange that the article said that the frequency of the pitch used to hack phones was 2600 kHz? That's 2,600,000 Hz. Human hearing tops out around 10,000 Hz, IIRC. 2600 kHz isn't a tone, it's a radio wave, right?
Well, what you assume is that they also copyrighted all the sequences which have leading zeros. The alternative interpretation is that they copyrighted the shorter sequences which do not have leading zeros.
Or possibily, you meant that they copyrighted every possible 11 digit and shorter number which did not have leading zeros.
<digress/>
Did anyone read the article over at oneworld.org to notice the prominently displayed quote (to the effect of) "You don't shoot down a hijacked airplane?" This quote was being used as an analogy for why the sanctions against Iraq should end.
Perhaps after recent events, that analogy should be reworded.
Last fall I and 2 other guys participated in an ACM programming competition. The allowed editors were VAJ, VAC, vim, and emacs (oh and notepad if you were horribly sad) (oh and you could use Delphi, too). For the small quick algorithm intense work we were doing, using vim configured to compile and debug java was incredibly quick and was certainly an edge in helping us to win. VAJ/VAC is just too bulky for just trying to whip something out and runs alltogther too slowly on a typically underpowered university lab computer, in my experience.
Caveat: Of course most development doesn't happen under the conditions that I described above.
You're right, there are easy ways to do that in Visual Studio as you describe. However, the same functionality that you and the original poster described could easily be had by a single key mapping in an non IDE editor worth its salt.
;-) ) by pressing CTRL-].
Example from vim:
nmap <f1> yiw:r!man <c-r>"|grep \#include<cr>
So after sticking in that mapping, hit f1 on a command that's not yours and you'll have the info you were seeking.
Oh, and of course, you could already jump to the definitions of any of your own symbols (in nearly any language, not just the one that your parochial bloated IDE supports
Yes, most good non-IDE editors can easily have more convenience features than an IDE; it simply requieres a little time spent configuring the editor.