It is something that appears as both. It has not yet been modelled accurately. The same applies to other elementary particles, such as electrons.
I understand it intuitively but I cannot yet produce a written theory about it :)
(Or perhaps I only think that I understand. My brain is very good at forming clouds of information that appear to make sense even if it is missing pieces.)
Are you proud of the almost philosophical elements of the FAQs and other areas of the main site (especially the "Cheat FAQ" and parts like that)?
Yes, I am proud of the parts of those articles that I wrote. It has been exciting; there is rarely chance for me to write content like that.
That's cool; those FAQs were basically the main things that attracted me to this site (more than the actual movies, ironically).
One more...D. Bq.:
What are the basic specs of your most used PC?
Yes, I am proud of the parts of those articles that I wrote. It has been exciting; there is rarely chance for me to write content like that.
That's cool; those FAQs were basically the main things that attracted me to this site (more than the actual movies, ironically).
That is very interesting to hear. I'm glad.
mr_roberts_z wrote:
What are the basic specs of your most used PC?
AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+ running at 1566 MHz and with 1 GB of RAM; Gentoo Linux operating system; three IDE disks at 20 GB, 120 GB and 200 GB sizes; an optical mouse, a very bare IBM keyboard and an Acer AL1714 TFT display.
Rridgway wrote:
Double posting
When one's post handles two different topics, it is recommended to post two posts instead, so that if a need arises to split the topic, it can be done without having to edit posts afterwards.
AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+ running at 1566 MHz and with 1 GB of RAM; Gentoo Linux operating system; three IDE disks at 20 GB, 120 GB and 200 GB sizes; an optical mouse, a very bare IBM keyboard and an Acer AL1714 TFT display.
Wow, quite modest for the founder of TASVids..heheh
Last one >_<.
D. Bq.:
Did you know anyone currently on this site before you actually made the site?
Did you know anyone currently on this site before you actually made the site?
I knew Nach (barely) and Warp. Also some other people I knew before have posted here, but not very actively.
Re: modest desktop; I don't play games, so I don't need a heavy-duty desktop. The only thing I would need a good 3D accelerator card now would be Mupen64 AVI encodings.
When I need processing power, I've got that in the server.
The Free Software Foundation's Campaign for Free BIOS page insinuates that it is actually unethical to run proprietary software on a computer. What are your thoughts about this?
Okay, I finally thought of something I want to ask you. You are evidently intelligent (what with the Mensa test and all) and interested in many things. Still your education is only limited to the second degree. Your CV says you have studied for 1 year in a third degree school, EVTEK. What made you quit? Have you never desired to learn more about something or is self-learning the only way you can learn? Are you not intrigued by the idea of being taught things by people who are the best in their field? This baffles me, because for me, studying in a university is the best thing that ever happened to me.
I was unofficially officially not a member anymore, but this has got to be the funniest thing I have ever seen!
I'm not sure what you mean!
Deep Loner wrote:
ⒶHow many e-mails/private forum messages do you typically get in a day?
ⒷHow many NON-SPAM e-mails/private forum messages do you typically get in a day?
ⒸWhat was the eventual outcome with the Google Ads fiasco? Particularly, what does "not exactly" mean here?
ⒹAny luck reducing referrer spam?
ⒺWhat are your thoughts on Trusted (some say Trecherous) Computing?
ⒻHow do you like your coffee?
ⒼThe Free Software Foundation's Campaign for Free BIOS page insinuates that it is actually unethical to run proprietary software on a computer. What are your thoughts about this?
ⒽAny questions for me? ; )
Ⓐ TASvideos related, about 0.1 per a day by average. Counting all, about 300.
Ⓑ Counting all except work related, about 0.3 per day by average.
Ⓒ I added tasvideos.org into our company's Google Adsense account. It has worked out without a hitch.
Ⓓ The referrer spam campain ceased eventually by itself. I expect it to start again some day. My workaround is to automatically IP-ban accesses that use obviously a bogus referrer, such as someone attempting to link to my CSS. With IP-ban the referrer is added to a tamporarily blacklist file which I manually sift and add to a permanent blacklist. Unfortunately, Google Images referrers also sometimes get to that list.
Ⓔ I lack firsthand experience, but I find it alarming if such technology is used on consumer products. Since early childhood I have considered it to be within my rights to reverse-engineer thoroughly what I possess. Attempts to circumvent that defy my sense of justice.
Ⓕ I drink at most one cup of coffee a day, but it goes without sugar, with milk.
Ⓖ I like to be independent. In computer things, if someone has the power to one-sidedly decide that something which they offer me now they don't want to offer anymore, I find it unfair. With proprietary software, such things are always a possibility: Proprietary software puts your computer under the whim of the software manufacturer without giving you a chance to influence. I do find that unethical. However, there is no practical possibility to avoid that with BIOS today, so I must accept it, with a protest.
Ⓗ If I think of any, I'll let you know. :)
Still your education is only limited to the second degree. Your CV says you have studied for 1 year in a third degree school, EVTEK. What made you quit?
Problems maintaining the rhythm of day required for successful studies.
I had skin problems (rash) that made it difficult for me to sleep, and my tendency to code late at nights did not help either. I also did not integrate well with the other students.
I actually went to the entrance exam of that same school this year, but after being accepted, I did not join, because I realized that I'm not going to get to study interesting stuff right away, instead I would need to do those stupid physics calculations for a year and more and consume lots of paper. Didn't attract.
The path to university studies hasn't been clear for me. I didn't go to "lukio", which nevertheless seems to be the minimum requirement to many things.
Joined: 12/26/2006
Posts: 256
Location: United States of America
Bisqwit wrote:
Deep Loner wrote:
I was unofficially officially not a member anymore, but this has got to be the funniest thing I have ever seen!
I'm not sure what you mean!
I mean that when I saw the "Ask Fabian" and "Ask Bisqwit" threads, I simply cracked up! It is simply one of the funniest things I have ever seen posted in an internet forum! It's one of those things where LOL can actually be taken literally. Maybe it's irrationality on my part; I don't know.
Another question: I remember that you have (had?) some kind of tile/sprite identifier program that you used to make the cool animated .gifs of Racoon Mario jumping around. Could that idea eventually be expanded into an efficient 8/16-bit video game video codec?
And doesn't this commitment to answer everybody's questions kind of make you a slave to them? : )
Another question: I remember that you have (had?) some kind of tile/sprite identifier program that you used to make the cool animated .gifs of Racoon Mario jumping around. Could that idea eventually be expanded into an efficient 8/16-bit video game video codec?
It's the exceptions that doom the idea.
X264 is a very good general-purpose video codec, and it does adequate motion detection.
Deep Loner wrote:
And doesn't this commitment to answer everybody's questions kind of make you a slave to them? : )
Ⓔ I lack firsthand experience, but I find it alarming if such technology is used on consumer products. Since early childhood I have considered it to be within my rights to reverse-engineer thoroughly what I possess. Attempts to circumvent that defy my sense of justice.
You don't even have to consider it because Finnish law gives you the undisputed right to reverse engineer programs. It even explicitly says that an usage license stating otherwise has no effect on this right.
(Of course right to reverse engineer does not give rights to use pirated software nor to break copyright.)
D. Bq.:
1. Do you have anyone from the TASVideos forums on Skype, and if so, do you talk to them with audio and/or webcam?
2. If you had to choose one TASer who's no longer around anymore to have come back, who would it be?
3. About how much does this site cost to keep up per month? (Excluding stuff like new hardware costs and repairs)
4. What do you think was the most controversial...(and why?)
a) topic on the site?
b) movie made on the site/community?
5. Many people on this forum seem to be Finnish. Have you ever met a single one in person?
6. How many movies have you seen across the net that originate from this site without any information regarding how it was made or where it comes from? (eg, omg guy beats super mario borthesr in 12 mins lolol)
I realise these are all pretty boring questions, but virtually all of them have been on my mind for a while.
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
Note: I'm not purposely trying to sound condescending, although maybe I do.
Dear Bisqwit,
Bisqwit wrote:
(...) it is my understanding that until the child is old enough to make consciously a choice that they know is not good, they are pure and eligible to get to heaven.
Isn't that be a rather dangerous belief? Earlier in the post, you said you didn't know if this is true, but it's just that there was this mother who murdered her children for precisely this reason. Since she was already going to hell, she believed she was doing a good deed and the best thing for her children, ensuring them an eternity of happiness in heaven by killing them. Even if her children did get to heaven, did she do a good thing or a bad thing?
Dear Bisqwit,
If faith and the real world (ie hard evidence) contradict each other, is it possible the real world is wrong?
Dear Bisqwit,
Do you believe I will literally burn in hell for all eternity, or is hell more of a "symbolic" thing? As far as I know, I'm a good person, yet I believe there is no god. (strong atheism)
No more questions for now.
Dear Bisqwit,
I am not a programmer and only have a basic understanding of binary and hexidecimal, but I notice that 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 all are very popular numbers. However, 1024 is the next number that seems to be important. Why doesn't 512 get the same amount of attention as the others?
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
arkiandruski wrote:
I am not a programmer and only have a basic understanding of binary and hexidecimal, but I notice that 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 all are very popular numbers. However, 1024 is the next number that seems to be important. Why doesn't 512 get the same amount of attention as the others?
Not to hijack this question, but those are all exponential powers of 2. 512 is important, as in "the 512MB RAM I added to my PC made it that much better."
Also, 1024 is the technological version of 1000, where 1000m = 1km and 1024B = 1KB.
... but I notice that 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 all are very popular numbers. However, 1024 is the next number that seems to be important. Why doesn't 512 get the same amount of attention as the others?
Not to hijack this question, but those are all exponential powers of 2. 512 is important, as in ...
I interpreted the question as "Why is 512 not as popular as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 1024?" (arkiandruski and I do know they are powers of 2).
n bits can represent 2^n different things. For 1≤n≤8:
- the 2^n are just the powers of 2 from 2 to 256.
- an n-bit field can be stored in a byte, since a byte is 8 bits.
However for 512=2^9 corresponds to 9 bits, which requires 2 bytes (16 bits) with 7 bits to spare. It is awkward to implement such structure, which is why specs hardly cover 9-bit fields (therefore 512 different things), which is why the number doesn't seem popular.
1024 is popular only because it is within 24 of a power of 10, as Zurreco pointed out already.
P.S. 512 is 1000 in octal, though, so if octal becomes popular, so would 512.
Dear Bisqwit,
I am not a programmer and only have a basic understanding of binary and hexidecimal, but I notice that 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 all are very popular numbers. However, 1024 is the next number that seems to be important. Why doesn't 512 get the same amount of attention as the others?
I found the question of the popularity of numbers rather fascinating so I wrote a quick script to use google to search for the number of occurrences of a number from 1-1500 and plotted the results on a graph. I might extend this to 10000 later.
EDIT Excel maxes out at 3200 points for some reason... so this is it. I completely didnt see the popularity of the usage of years in dates.
Some interpretations:
1) We get sharp drop offs in popularity at 30 60 markers dues to use in times. Another drop off at 100 due to percents I suppose.
2) Round numbers are more popular than non round as expected, from 0-100 multiples of 10 are popular as well as multiples of 100 later on.
3) 1024 is indeed more popular than 512 for reasons FractalFusion mentioned probably.
The real shocker is that 16 is more popular than 8 for some odd reason!
Anyone have any theories why? Probably because 16 = 2^4 and 4 itself is a power of 2, but still 8 is the number of bits found in a byte which I thought would make it popular... ohh well.
Hmmm 264 is also remarkably uncommon (falls well below the trend line). Odd.
This signature is much better than its previous version.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Bisqwit wrote:
mr_roberts_z wrote:
2. Did you come up with the idea of NESVids having an IRC channel? If not, who did (there's probably a thread in the General forum talking about it from years ago, but I couldn't find it)?
2) No, I wasn't the person who came up with it. Maybe it was Nach? I'm only 80% certain it was him.
Shortly after you started NESvideos, I noticed you wrote on your homepage some IRC channels you hung out at, and kept 'pestering' you about TAS stuff in those channels, such as discussing new submissions, your various attempts at Castlevania etc...
I told you more than once, that I think you should get a channel for NESvideos so we can discuss stuff in real time. Your response was that for the time being, a forum was responsive enough.
Then the forum started getting more people, and another person or two asked if there was an IRC channel, at which point you created one for us on Enterthegame.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Ⓖ I like to be independent. In computer things, if someone has the power to one-sidedly decide that something which they offer me now they don't want to offer anymore, I find it unfair. With proprietary software, such things are always a possibility: Proprietary software puts your computer under the whim of the software manufacturer without giving you a chance to influence. I do find that unethical. However, there is no practical possibility to avoid that with BIOS today, so I must accept it, with a protest.
Dear Bisqwit,
how could they decide to stop offering you anything based on a closed source bios? there are no forced upgrades, so what'll work now will in theory work forever, or at least until material breakdown.
Unless of course they added an expiration timer or something, but they could easily hardwire the thing. How will the open source bios protect you from that?
How can open source software protect you from a network interface card that's abusing DMA capabilities to sniff your RAM and send suspicious information directly over the network? Actually listening to the outgoing packets should allow the NIC to detect your IP/gateway/DNS, so it's a feasible attack.
What I'm getting at: you're completely under the whim of the hardware manufacturers anyway, and nothing can change that. Unless an explicitly stated feature stops working within the guarantee period you can't do much but replace the part and avoid the company in question. You can neither recompile your hardware nor re-print the die.
Now since you'll have to trust your motherboard vendor to deliver a working product anyway, why don't you trust him to give you a working bios as well?
I can completely understand the issues about hardware specifications, i.e. having the possibility to use the operating system/software you want and still be able to aquire or write drivers. Or to change drivers to better suit your needs.
I just don't see the point outside of the operating system's domain, i.e. open sourcing BIOS or Firmware. Your thoughts?
Also, since phpBB was mentioned: have you taken a look at phpBB3 yet? It's probably infeasible to upgrade the heavily modified tasvideos forum, but are there any features in phpBB3 you'd like to have here?
Some interpretations:
1) We get sharp drop offs in popularity at 30 60 markers dues to use in times. Another drop off at 100 due to percents I suppose.
2) Round numbers are more popular than non round as expected, from 0-100 multiples of 10 are popular as well as multiples of 100 later on.
3) 1024 is indeed more popular than 512 for reasons FractalFusion mentioned probably.
The real shocker is that 16 is more popular than 8 for some odd reason!
Anyone have any theories why? Probably because 16 = 2^4 and 4 itself is a power of 2, but still 8 is the number of bits found in a byte which I thought would make it popular... ohh well.
Hmmm 264 is also remarkably uncommon (falls well below the trend line). Odd.
