05/07   Barbecue Today -- NOT!  Canceled due to lack of sun.
        Happy birthday anyway brg.

5/8     What's the difference between a compiled language and an
        interpreted language?  Advantages of each?
        \_ interpreted programs are executed by yet another program
        (usually a compiled one) and compiled programs are completly
        executed by the computer hardware (the binary is just a bunch of
        machine language instructions that the processor can understand.
        Compiled programs tend to be faster because of less overhead while
        interpreted programs tend to be more portable.  Then there are the
        compiled interpeted languages like java that have both the speed
        and portability advantage.
            \_ What do you mean Java is compiled interpreted?
                \_ Java is normally compiled into JVM bytecode, which is
                   interpreted on machines that don't run on Java processors
                   (i.e. 99.999% of computers that run Java) - it gives
                   portability with a speed tradeoff.
        \_ Any language can be compiled or interpreted, including java.  -tom
        \_ God, please take cs164. This thread could go on forever.

5/7     Whatever happened to the figlet dir?
        \_ /usr/local/share

5/7     Motorola's High-Performance Vector Parallel Processing
        Expansion to the PowerPC Architecture
        http://www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/AltiVec/facts.html --jon
        \_ Is this really going to help, if the CPU can't stream data
           in and out fast enough?  I thought existing CPU's all had
           trouble keeping their units fed, let alone a vector unit. --PeterM
           \_ Real vector units (which this is not) are much more efficient
              at keeping functional units fed for a given memory bandwidth,
              as a vector processor can pipeline memory much more efficiently
              than a cache based machine.  Unfortunately, the vector leinght
              on this proposed ISA is WAY WAY WAY too small for this to work.
           \_ I think that's why it only exists on backside-cache CPUs?
           \_ It'll probably help as much as MMX.  -tom
                   \_ And that's the important thing, isn't it?  Because now
                      future Macs and Mac software can have an "Now optimized
                      for AltiVec(tm)!" sticker on the outside of them,
                      thereby assuring sticker and I-dont-know-what-it-means-
                      but-damn-I-the-consumer-sure-need-it parity with Intel.
                      Macintosh forever!
                      \_ and cdaveb can say, "Oh _yeah_?  But yer PC's don't
                         have _AltiVec_!!  Neener-neener!"
           \_ If you want to read more, MacKido has an article:
                http://www.MacKiDo.com/Dojo/AltiVecVsMMX.html