Like BIOS updates, kernel revisions and the like, you only update if you need the new features. On the other hand, if nVidia wanted to do 3 releases per year, and release X woudln't be released till feature Z was done, but could be released without feature Z but with feature Y or fix Y that you're after, you'd have to wait.
Release early/often works on the assumption that the user knows when to upgrade. Release rarely-and-when-its-done works on the assumption that the user doesn't John
Given our capability to destroy other species on mass, which all other species lack, it would be well to say that we are the only species that need to worry. John
With all these coming to fruition, it will be possible to really compare the different filesystems that were previously tied to their own operating systems, together with some new ones.
It will be interesting if we get some `cross breeding' between the filesystems once people get to see which features of each give improvements where. John
For example, if we defined [ A equiv B ] iff [ A halts iff B halts ], and put B to be a trivially halting program (i.e. first instruction is halt),
then we have a `solution' to the halting problem.
On the other extremity, one could specify that all side-effects, etc. should be the same, right down to register allocation, what goes where, etc., but then this is [ A equiv B ] iff [ A == B ].
The notation doesn't come from anywhere, but I hope it should be intuitive enough to see the point. It may be possible given some definitions for `functionally equivalent' to give an algorithm that will tell you when two arbitrary programs are functionally equivalent, but it is probably the case that for most definitions,
If his reasoning held up one could, with a little effort, argue that computing (due to the work of Turing, Chruch, etc.) is based upon mathematics which, in turn (due to the work of Russell, Frege, etc.) is based upon logic which, classically speaking, is a branch of philosophy.
Thus everyone is doing philosophy. And indeed, the degree they get for their first bout of postgrad research is a Doctor of Philosophy.
Thus the whole world's turning into a bunch of philosophers.
Even then, we'd go back to the usual subject classifications just to tell people who 'did philosophy' in different areas apart from one another.
Basically, the dependence on computers underlies their importance, and consequently that of mathematics, logic and all the other branches of 'classical science' that computer science/computing-in-general draws its inspiration from.
John
You'd split things into multiple teams doing separate things. For example consider a
simple two team split
One team sorts out how
to get back to some semblance of modern computing.
That is, how to build the first computers by
hand, how to use them to build better ones,
how to implement improved technologies at each step.
Another lot coordinate a large look at the current state of the art in language design, operating system architecture, etc. See what's
good, see what's not, really think about the
question `how would we do it all again with
a free hand?'
They could take the time (whilst still talking
with the bootstrapping people) to think things
through, and have direction ideas, etc. by the
time the bootstrapping guys need it.
Obviously in reality, one would have a more
complicated situation, and that would be
influenced heavily by governments, military,
academia, etc.
and to a less extent the current kings-of-the-hill in the computer business world (free-market
gains would take a lower priority to the
`reconstruction').
John
Their original, and intended use --- to allow the original inventor to recover the costs of development (without patents, competitors can copy at low cost, leaving the originator of a design at a disadvantage). John
It's quite possible to put your graphics card into an unknown state, thus making the display useless (i.e. kernel thinks console is in text mode, but the graphics card disagrees, putting nothing, or some other mess, on the screen).
It would be an idea to have some magic sysrq key combination (that could not be grabbed by any application to reset the graphics state and return you to a text-mode system console).
John
Given that there are programs that work correctly on a 386 but not on a 486 (compack.exe, an executable compressor for MSDOS comes to mind), saying that the PIV is fully 386 compatible indicates that it is not 486/Pentium/PentiumII/etc. compatible.
Similarly, since the PIV doesn't emulate the original Pentium's famous FP bug, the PIV isn't compatible with the Pentium either.
Besides, consider an MMX instruction opcode. Execute it on a 386 and you'll likely get an invalid instruction exception, whereas on an MMX enabled CPU that is rather unlikely!
In short, the 486/P5/P6/etc. do not ALWAYS do the same thing given the SAME opcodes and arguments (i.e. the same binary code to execute).
The point is that the basic instruction set is the same across the processors. They are nearly always the same, but there are exceptions. John
Parsing LaTeX is easier than parsing HTML; LaTeX keywords are escaped with a backslash, and keywords end with a space, or with bracket pairs to define parameters. HTML requires parsing of bra/ket (less than/greater than) pairs, and the attribute values within the first pair. Not much more difficult, but harder than parsing LaTeX.
Not so easy: consider
\begin{document}
\catcode`\@=0
@textbf{Now `at' is also a command character}
\catcode`\a=12
will make a a non-letter character
Basically, you need a markup language that can't redefine itself as it goes along. LaTeX can redefine itself, and would need to be completely rewritten in order to work without it (and probably would need to be seperated from TeX, at which point, XML seems like a wise choice)
John
What he means is that given, say, a specific configuration at step 20495, you can't always determine what the configuration at step 0 is.
Also, you probably coudln't predict, say, if any given block will stay white whilst the counter goes to infinity (such prediction ability plus the above computability result would enable one to solve the halting problem). John
Try throwing around a 10Mb image in GIMP under Linux. Try running and previewing effects on said 10Mb image. Do the same with Photoshop and you'll see the difference. Photoshops memory management and plugin interface is simply far more efficient for larger images. Hopefully GEGL will help. What is worth a look at is how Macromedia Xres handled large images, as I recall it handled 20-100Mb documents with ease when those same images would trouble even Photoshop.
John
If you've written a few hundred pages of document with it, it doesn't matter whether it is a bug -- you've still got to get that report done, and an inexplicable error is a major problem. John
NP means that a solution to a problem can be checked in polynomial time, making it possible to bruteforce the solution.
Barely -- the number of cases to check goes
up as an exponential of the size of the problem (else the problem would surely be in P).
NP complete means that there is no
deterministic algorithm to find such
solution in polynomial time.
No --- if a problem X is NP complete, then
X is in P only if every other NP problem is
also in P. If P=NP then every NP-complete
problem would have a deterministic
algorithm to find a solution in polynomial
time.
Factoring numbers is approximately O(n^0.5) divides; simply divide the number n that you want to factor by all primes less than or equal to sqrt(n).
But n represents the length of
the input. If we work with base 2 then
there are sqrt(2^n)=2^(n/2) divisors
to check, working in base 10 there are
sqrt(10^n)=10^(n/2) divisors.
i.e. factoring the brute force way is
O((2^n)^0.5) not O(n^0.5) and thus is not
a polynomial time algorithm.
John
Re:Huge crytography implications!
on
Does P = NP?
·
· Score: 1
If P=NP, you STILL HAVE TO FIND an efficient polynomial time algorithm for the problem! I suspect that working from one P-time solution to an NP-complete problem will only yield an algorithm with huge polynomial terms. The difficulty in finding such algorithms anyhow will surely mean that such a P-time algorithm will still be hard to improve upon...
John
Re:There are no NP problems, only NP solutions.
on
Does P = NP?
·
· Score: 1
If we have a polynomial time algorithm for verifying a 'guess' at a solution to a problem, then WE KNOW THAT the problem is in NP (whether it was in NP all along is one for the philosophers).
If, further to that, we have a polynomial time algorithm for solving an instance of a given problem, then WE KNOW THAT the problem is in P. Again, whether the problem was in P all along is one for the philosophers.
p.s. don't confuse P and NP with 'polynomial' and 'non-polynomial' John
your insistence that you can live in isolation from the rest of civilisation is a misnomer. We are all on this planet together, whether we like it or not.
As to the 'YOUR farm' point. Many farmers in many countries are NOT ALLOWED to grow cannabis, or other illegal crops. Note the term legal crops. The 'collectives' have decided on what you can grow on your farm.
Besides, is it still yours after you die??
The problem with the view of permanance of possessions is that there isn't really any. You many not own property after you die -- you may only write a will saying which living persons will get it. Possessions are transient. Always. Not everything is owned, and nothing is owned forever. Thus we must ask the question of 'how transient should ownership of software be?'.
That is still a matter of some debate, so don't count it as settled, and don't let your arguments be flawed by using the word 'own' whose meaning depends on the status of the laws under debate. John
When did the people who successfully cracked it start their effort? You forget that in the case of a coordinated effort, that is the time that would count. John
Not quite -- they want to do a radio-dj style voice overlay, over bits you'd like to listen to. Thus it would be like the shareware style 'this is an unregistered demo' message.
They could then spam it around the napster system under the exact name of the original (and whatever other names people are using for it -- make seraching for an actual rip like searching for a needle in a haystack) John
Re:You haven't defended Free Speech until...
on
Freenet 0.3 Released
·
· Score: 1
If the flyers are mailed, and volunteers from the ACLU work for the US postal service, then actively helping is what they are doing! But I don't see them quitting (if there are any)!
Deliberately actively helping, and 'actively' helping without knowing that you are are two different things. John
Slashdot Mirror
Like BIOS updates, kernel revisions and the like, you only update if you need the new features. On the other hand, if nVidia wanted to do 3 releases per year, and release X woudln't be released till feature Z was done, but could be released without feature Z but with feature Y or fix Y that you're after, you'd have to wait.
Release early/often works on the assumption that the user knows when to upgrade. Release rarely-and-when-its-done works on the assumption that the user doesn't
John
Given our capability to destroy other species on mass, which all other species lack, it would be well to say that we are the only species that need to worry.
John
With all these coming to fruition, it will be possible to really compare the different filesystems that were previously tied to their own operating systems, together with some new ones.
It will be interesting if we get some `cross breeding' between the filesystems once people get to see which features of each give improvements where.
John
For example, if we defined [ A equiv B ] iff [ A halts iff B halts ], and put B to be a trivially halting program (i.e. first instruction is halt), then we have a `solution' to the halting problem.
On the other extremity, one could specify that all side-effects, etc. should be the same, right down to register allocation, what goes where, etc., but then this is [ A equiv B ] iff [ A == B ].
The notation doesn't come from anywhere, but I hope it should be intuitive enough to see the point. It may be possible given some definitions for `functionally equivalent' to give an algorithm that will tell you when two arbitrary programs are functionally equivalent, but it is probably the case that for most definitions,
John
If his reasoning held up one could, with a little effort, argue that computing (due to the work of Turing, Chruch, etc.) is based upon mathematics which, in turn (due to the work of Russell, Frege, etc.) is based upon logic which, classically speaking, is a branch of philosophy.
Thus everyone is doing philosophy. And indeed, the degree they get for their first bout of postgrad research is a Doctor of Philosophy.
Thus the whole world's turning into a bunch of philosophers.
Even then, we'd go back to the usual subject classifications just to tell people who 'did philosophy' in different areas apart from one another.
Basically, the dependence on computers underlies their importance, and consequently that of mathematics, logic and all the other branches of 'classical science' that computer science/computing-in-general draws its inspiration from.
John
You wouldn't have the ability to manufacure the complex chips since you'd be stuck to doing it with manual fabs.
John
- One team sorts out how
to get back to some semblance of modern computing.
That is, how to build the first computers by
hand, how to use them to build better ones,
how to implement improved technologies at each step.
- Another lot coordinate a large look at the current state of the art in language design, operating system architecture, etc. See what's
good, see what's not, really think about the
question `how would we do it all again with
a free hand?'
Obviously in reality, one would have a more complicated situation, and that would be influenced heavily by governments, military, academia, etc. and to a less extent the current kings-of-the-hill in the computer business world (free-market gains would take a lower priority to the `reconstruction').They could take the time (whilst still talking with the bootstrapping people) to think things through, and have direction ideas, etc. by the time the bootstrapping guys need it.
John
Their original, and intended use --- to allow the original inventor to recover the costs of development (without patents, competitors can copy at low cost, leaving the originator of a design at a disadvantage).
John
Channel 4 is publically owned, but funds itself through advertising.
John
C4 (unless sold recently) is OWNED by the UK government, but partially finances itself through advertising etc.
John
It's quite possible to put your graphics card into an unknown state, thus making the display useless (i.e. kernel thinks console is in text mode, but the graphics card disagrees, putting nothing, or some other mess, on the screen). It would be an idea to have some magic sysrq key combination (that could not be grabbed by any application to reset the graphics state and return you to a text-mode system console).
John
Your hint appears broken.
Given that there are programs that work correctly on a 386 but not on a 486 (compack.exe, an executable compressor for MSDOS comes to mind), saying that the PIV is fully 386 compatible indicates that it is not 486/Pentium/PentiumII/etc. compatible.
Similarly, since the PIV doesn't emulate the original Pentium's famous FP bug, the PIV isn't compatible with the Pentium either.
Besides, consider an MMX instruction opcode. Execute it on a 386 and you'll likely get an invalid instruction exception, whereas on an MMX enabled CPU that is rather unlikely!
In short, the 486/P5/P6/etc. do not ALWAYS do the same thing given the SAME opcodes and arguments (i.e. the same binary code to execute). The point is that the basic instruction set is the same across the processors. They are nearly always the same, but there are exceptions.
John
\begin{document}
\catcode`\@=0
@textbf{Now `at' is also a command character}
\catcode`\a=12
will make a a non-letter character
Basically, you need a markup language that can't redefine itself as it goes along. LaTeX can redefine itself, and would need to be completely rewritten in order to work without it (and probably would need to be seperated from TeX, at which point, XML seems like a wise choice)
John
What he means is that given, say, a specific configuration at step 20495, you can't always determine what the configuration at step 0 is.
Also, you probably coudln't predict, say, if any given block will stay white whilst the counter goes to infinity (such prediction ability plus the above computability result would enable one to solve the halting problem).
John
Try throwing around a 10Mb image in GIMP under Linux. Try running and previewing effects on said 10Mb image. Do the same with Photoshop and you'll see the difference. Photoshops memory management and plugin interface is simply far more efficient for larger images. Hopefully GEGL will help. What is worth a look at is how Macromedia Xres handled large images, as I recall it handled 20-100Mb documents with ease when those same images would trouble even Photoshop.
John
If you've written a few hundred pages of document with it, it doesn't matter whether it is a bug -- you've still got to get that report done, and an inexplicable error is a major problem.
John
As a possibility, the /. system could convert
<pre>'s from
<pre>
stuff
stuff
stuff
</pre>
into
<br><tt>
stuff<br>
stuff<br>
stuff<br>
</tt><br>
John
You can, however, use 's and
;draw alpha blended circles
's, and 's for example:
ncall cnt,add,(cnt,pix,0:-)
clr xy
cpy WINDOW_SIZE,wh
cpy RGBBLACK,col
ncall pix,fbox,(pix,xy,xy,col,wh,wh:-)
repeat ncall pix,foval,(pix,xy,xy,col,wh,wh:-)
add BLENDINC add 1,xy
sub 2,wh
until wh
Which produces the required result. There will just be line breaking if the window is too small (rather than horizontal scrolling).
John
John
If P=NP, you STILL HAVE TO FIND an efficient polynomial time algorithm for the problem! I suspect that working from one P-time solution to an NP-complete problem will only yield an algorithm with huge polynomial terms. The difficulty in finding such algorithms anyhow will surely mean that such a P-time algorithm will still be hard to improve upon...
John
If we have a polynomial time algorithm for verifying a 'guess' at a solution to a problem, then WE KNOW THAT the problem is in NP (whether it was in NP all along is one for the philosophers). If, further to that, we have a polynomial time algorithm for solving an instance of a given problem, then WE KNOW THAT the problem is in P. Again, whether the problem was in P all along is one for the philosophers. p.s. don't confuse P and NP with 'polynomial' and 'non-polynomial'
John
- 'write' as in write code
- 'MY code'
your insistence that you can live in isolation from the rest of civilisation is a misnomer. We are all on this planet together, whether we like it or not.As to the 'YOUR farm' point. Many farmers in many countries are NOT ALLOWED to grow cannabis, or other illegal crops. Note the term legal crops. The 'collectives' have decided on what you can grow on your farm.
Besides, is it still yours after you die?? The problem with the view of permanance of possessions is that there isn't really any. You many not own property after you die -- you may only write a will saying which living persons will get it. Possessions are transient. Always. Not everything is owned, and nothing is owned forever. Thus we must ask the question of 'how transient should ownership of software be?'.
That is still a matter of some debate, so don't count it as settled, and don't let your arguments be flawed by using the word 'own' whose meaning depends on the status of the laws under debate.
John
When did the people who successfully cracked it start their effort? You forget that in the case of a coordinated effort, that is the time that would count.
John
Not quite -- they want to do a radio-dj style voice overlay, over bits you'd like to listen to. Thus it would be like the shareware style 'this is an unregistered demo' message. They could then spam it around the napster system under the exact name of the original (and whatever other names people are using for it -- make seraching for an actual rip like searching for a needle in a haystack)
John
If the flyers are mailed, and volunteers from the ACLU work for the US postal service, then actively helping is what they are doing! But I don't see them quitting (if there are any)! Deliberately actively helping, and 'actively' helping without knowing that you are are two different things.
John