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GeekNights 071029 - CPU Architectures

RymRym
edited October 2007 in Technology
Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss CPU architectures such as x86 in an easy-to-understand way. In the news, Scott achieves fleeting Internet fame with a blog post about Linux device drivers, and Ubuntu may well be destroying your hard drive.
Scott's Thing - The Last Duet on Earth

Rym's Thing - Space Wolf
The Source - Graham Annable

Comments

  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    Good point on the linux driver thing. I would so love my fingerprint reader to make things simpler but a patch I need is no longer available.
  • ThaedThaed
    Scott, what kind of flash drive did you get? I seriously want one of those.
  • HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
    edited October 2007
    Why is my backspace key mapped to "previous browser page"???

    I just wrote a huge ass post and while trying to delete some of the content my browser backed up and I lost it all!!!!!!!

    I was highlighting some text and hit backspace to delete it and my browser backed up a page, losing everything!!! I am so pissed right now.
    Post edited by HMTKSteve on
  • AprecheApreche
    edited October 2007
    Why is my backspace key mapped to "previous browser page"???

    I just wrote a huge ass post and while trying to delete some of the content my browser backed up and I lost it all!!!!!!!

    I was highlighting some text and hit backspace to delete it and my browser backed up a page, losing everything!!! I am so pissed right now.
    That's the default keyboard shortcut for "back" in most browsers. If you are focused on a text box, it will backspace. If you are focused on the page itself, it will backspace.
    Scott, what kind of flash drive did you get? I seriously want one of those.
    I bought one of these. It won't do you any good unless you have the same laptop as I do. It's a 1.8" hard drive with a Toshiba connector. In your normal laptop will you need to find a normal drive.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • xenomousexenomouse
    I was aware of your blog, but I never bothered reading too much of it. I glanced at it today and found your entry on blame. It's similar to some stuff I've heard before, but I like your concise version of it. Humility is widely regarded as something negative or shameful, but I think it has something to do more with your philosophy of blame - willingness to accept what's yours.


    Maybe if we change our thinking on this low level we can makethe world a better place.Reports of your being jaded have been greatly exaggerated - you're a big, old softy! :)
  • xenomousexenomouse
    I was highlighting some text and hit backspace to delete it and my browser backed up a page, losing everything!!! I am so pissed right now.Whenever I'm writing a large post, I edit it all in a text editor first and then paste it into the text field. Then I have a copy if something goes wrong.
  • SymmetrySymmetry
    Nice job there. As CPU architecture is something of an area of expertice of mine I was expecting to be cringing a lot, but you really didn't get anything important wrong. A few minor addenda though.

    The real reason that everybody way back in the day was in favor or CISC was that instruction bandwidth was a much bigger obstacle to performance back then. By using more complex instructions, you had to transmit fewer of them to get the same amount of work done. In fact, many Cray supercomputers were designed with a single big processer surrounded by a bunch of sub-processors who had the job of just keeping the guy in the middle fed properly. Oh, and you got the acronym right at the end, its Reduced Instruction Set Computing.

    Its totally true that if you're just trying to get your program to work correctly you can afford to not pay any attention at all to the underlying architecture. On the other hand, knowing about how caching works, or just the basics about superscalar architectures and out of order execution can teach you a lot about what you have to worry about and what you don't have to worry about when you're trying to make your code run as quickly as possible. Its not something you need to know in order to program, but I really think any budding CS major or software engineer would do well to take a course on modern computer architecture.
  • navelfluffnavelfluff
    I was highlighting some text and hit backspace to delete it and my browser backed up a page, losing everything!!! I am so pissed right now.
    Whenever I'm writing a large post, I edit it all in a text editor first and then paste it into the text field. Then I have a copy if something goes wrong.
    I sometimes do that too, but usually I just press CTRL+A+C a lot. If something fucks up I just paste the text back in.

    Also, I use Opera. Navigating back to the editing page usually brings the text back. I'm not sure if this actually is a special feature in Opera, but I've noticed that this approach tends to work on my own PC using Opera, and not when I'm using some other machine with IE or Firefox.
  • xenomousexenomouse
    Also, I use Opera. Navigating back to the editing page usually brings the text back. I'm not sure if this actually is a special feature in Opera, but I've noticed that this approach tends to work on my own PC using Opera, and not when I'm using some other machine with IE or Firefox.It doesn't work in FireFox, but I think it's because FireFox honors the "no-cache" directive and redraws the page each time you navigate to it, whether or not you've used the back/forward buttons on the browser. If you're on a page that doesn't have the "no-cache" directive, it stores the data in a text field, even if you accidentally navigate away.
  • ......
    Why is my backspace key mapped to "previous browser page"???

    I just wrote a huge ass post and while trying to delete some of the content my browser backed up and I lost it all!!!!!!!

    I was highlighting some text and hit backspace to delete it and my browser backed up a page, losing everything!!! I am so pissed right now.
    Ah, happens to me to (when in Windows, backspace != back in Firefox for Linux apparently (highly annoying imo)), if you use Firefox you can just click on the forward button. Depending on the forum your post will still be there.
  • Linkigi(Link-ee-jee)Linkigi(Link-ee-jee)
    Odd. I've done that a few times, and it works for other forums, but for some reason it doesn't work on this forum. Is there an explanation for that?
  • xenomousexenomouse
    Odd. I've done that a few times, and it works for other forums, but for some reason it doesn't work on this forum. Is there an explanation for that?See my note about "no-cache" a couple posts up.
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