Something Random

[timwhit]

Is there a x86_64 version of Firefox for Windows?

 

[ddrueding]

Not that I can see, but I wouldn't try to complicate my life like that, anyway. Is your Firefox instance consuming 4GB of RAM?

 

[LunarMist]

I was about to ask why a 64-bit browser is needed.

 

[timwhit]

How is it more complicated? There are other reasons to run the 64 bit version than just memory consumption.

 

[Chewy509]

Is there a x86_64 version of Firefox for Windows?

http://www.mozilla-x86-64.com/

http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Firefox: Download

But be aware that most plug-ins don't work either... So forget flash, etc...

 

[Chewy509]

I was about to ask why a 64-bit browser is needed.

cU2 648i7 IS 83773r 7H4N 328i7, s0 j00 WILl 83 0wn3d.

 

[timwhit]

http://www.mozilla-x86-64.com/

http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Firefox: Download

But be aware that most plug-ins don't work either... So forget flash, etc...

I'll just stick with the x86 version on Windows.

I've been running the x86_64 version of Firefox in Linux since August, never had a problem installing any extensions.

 

[Chewy509]

I'll just stick with the x86 version on Windows.

I've been running the x86_64 version of Firefox in Linux since August, never had a problem installing any extensions.

Sorry I meant binary plug-ins don't work, like java, flash, etc. (The important ones for most people). However normal add-ins available from mozilla's website all tend to work fine.

 

[timwhit]

Sorry I meant binary plug-ins don't work, like java, flash, etc. (The important ones for most people). However normal add-ins available from mozilla's website all tend to work fine.

Gotcha. There are 64 bit versions of Java and Flash (beta) though, so I don't think that would be a major problem. The computer came with the 32 and 64 bit versions of Java preinstalled.

I run the x86_64 version of Flash in Linux and have never had a problem with it.

I'm still not buying the argument that the x86 version is "good enough," because it won't ever use >4GB of memory anyways. When you get mainstream software that is compiled x86 for Windows, it's probably i386 compatible. I believe most x86 software is still not compiled i686. I have to believe there have been a few instructions added since 1985 that would benefit you. Even i686 is the same instruction set used since the Pentium Pro came out in 1995.

 

[Chewy509]

I'm still not buying the argument that the x86 version is "good enough," because it won't ever use >4GB of memory anyways. When you get mainstream software that is compiled x86 for Windows, it's probably i386 compatible. I believe most x86 software is still not compiled i686. I have to believe there have been a few instructions added since 1985 that would benefit you. Even i686 is the same instruction set used since the Pentium Pro came out in 1995.

The only advantage to running x86 over x64, is that pointers are 32bit on x86, while they are 64bit on x64 platforms, which means less space is needed for the same memory based instructions. (You can fit more code in L1/L2/L3 caches).

AFAIK, Visual Studio 2010 now defaults to i686, but not makes no use of MMX/SSE, etc, unless you enable those options. FPU has been enabled by default, since Win2K made the Pentium the minimum CPU.

GCC will default to what-ever it was told to, during it's own build stage. (commonly i386, i686 or amd64).

ICC will default to i686 or amd64, depending on the OS.

And SunStudio defaults to i686 or amd64 depending on what it is told.

The instructions that made the biggest impact are the conditional move instructions (cmov reg,reg), introduced with the Pentium Pro, as it reduces the number of branches in code, and the reliance on the branch predictor to get it right. (A bad branch prediction can cost up to several hundred or thousand of cycles due to caches misses and TLB reloads).

However only a few general purpose instructions have been added since the Pentium Pro however (hence why i686 is the standard on most Linux distributions and Solaris 10). The only recent ones, have to do with virtualisation, and a few TLB/cache hint instructions. So in some respect, using settings greater than i686 yields very little improvement, except when you know you can take advantage of MMX/SSE, and often SSE code is still hand-crafted and not left to a compiler.

PS. AMD64 = x64 + SSE2 only. SSSE3 and above have to be enable by compile time options.

 

[Chewy509]

Also, be aware that for a lot of legacy application written in C/C++, a lot of those applications have been made difficult to port of other architectures of different pointer sizes, (eg move from x86 to x64, or SPARC32 to SPARC64) as the &%&^%&% programmer used "int" to store the pointer, rather than "void *".

This was extremely common where Windows is involved, simply because Windows only ran in 32bit mode. (Even NT4 for MIPS, PowerPC and Alpha ran in 32bit mode). It's only more recently, with x64 versions of Windows becoming more common are we seeing programmers who focus on Windows platform get with the ball game.

On the UNIX side of the fence, never been too much of a problem in that regard, as it has been common that code had to run on a multitude of different architectures, not just the one it was developed for. (It was common for SYSV code to be running on 16bit, 32bit and 64bit machines).

 

[ddrueding]

Just happened to be at my desk at 10PM, when something on a secondary monitor caught my eye. Live surveillance video of one of our locations, and it looked like a guy jumping the fence. Call the boss, drive over there myself. No sign of a person, but I've blocked in his car. While camping out the car, waiting for the sheriff, I see a corner of a truck just outside the lot stop for 30 seconds before he takes off tires squealing. The would-be theif may have escaped, but his car and all it's belongings (laptop, etc) are now with the Sheriff.

This is the first positive experience I've had with any Sheriff, so I thought I'd post it.

 

[Howell]

No concern for firearms and bodily harm?

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Back in the day at the pistol club, it was alarmed and no guns or ammo were stored but sometimes a few young bogans would try to get in for the grog (had to keep adding bars to windows). When the alarm went off the monitoring company would call the police and one other lucky chap, usually it was a guy that lived closer in. There's a big boom gate and a lesser gate that had to be unlocked for the cops to drive in.

So picture it: 2AM, and I'm going in with the .45, cops are hanging back in no rush. Fair enough, I knew the building layout. Fortunately there was no need for a discharge They were long gone.

Given the state of mind of many criminals in the US (I'm never going back to jail, you'll never take me alive), venturing forth unarmed was probably a little high risk. Now if you were driving down in one of the Caterpillars.....just imagine you were in a tank or demo derby.

 

[CougTek]

This is the first positive experience I've had with any Sheriff, so I thought I'd post it.

Did you tell the sheriff it was the first positive experience you've had with law enforcement? I would (well, I think, since it never happened to me).

 

[ddrueding]

Back in the day at the pistol club, it was alarmed and no guns or ammo were stored but sometimes a few young bogans would try to get in for the grog (had to keep adding bars to windows). When the alarm went off the monitoring company would call the police and one other lucky chap, usually it was a guy that lived closer in. There's a big boom gate and a lesser gate that had to be unlocked for the cops to drive in.

So picture it: 2AM, and I'm going in with the .45, cops are hanging back in no rush. Fair enough, I knew the building layout. Fortunately there was no need for a discharge They were long gone.

Given the state of mind of many criminals in the US (I'm never going back to jail, you'll never take me alive), venturing forth unarmed was probably a little high risk. Now if you were driving down in one of the Caterpillars.....just imagine you were in a tank or demo derby.

I'm not particularly concerned. While the armed robberies make the news, the vast majority of these idiots don't even bring the right tools to steal what they came for without damaging it. Further, the odds of whomever was out there being able to hit the Maglite (which was 3 feet from where I was standing) in a couple shots is low.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Looking at potentially going to Vermont, no licensing needed, for open or concealed carry. And amazingly enough, no mass murders. An armed society is a polite society.

 

[Mercutio]

I used to live in a place where gangbangers would shoot at each other in the courtyard of my apartment complex. I saw the local Kwik-ee-Mart robbed while I was sitting at a red light.

I realize my life was in danger from a ricochet or a large caliber bullet and a thin wall, but in all the time I was in that "dangerous" situation, I never saw any reason to own or use a firearm.

Gun nuts like to talk about all the times a firearm could have saved somebody's life, but for every story like that, there's a story about some idiot who left his gun out for his five year old to play with, or having a gun stolen that was later used in a crime.

I can understand wanting to be able to protect your home. Fine. Get a shotgun or a rifle. From my time in one of the rougher places that a person might live in this country, it is my informed opinion that handguns turn morons into bigger morons, escalate violent situations and cause far more problems than they solve.

Blah blah, NRA responsible gun owner blah blah. Don't care. Even if you're the guy who keeps a lock on his gun and only takes it sport shooting on Sundays, you still understand that for every person like you there are 10 idiots who think they're Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood, and they're walking around with a penis substitute just waiting for the confirmation of their paranoid delusions to start blowing away whomever it is they think are undesirable.

I had a student last month that I asked not to ever come back to classes because he kept pulling out the Glock he kept tucked in his waistband and showing it to other students, cocking and uncocking it and demonstrating how quickly he could draw his gun. He also said he thought there were guys who were going to jump him in our parking lot (my office is in a wooded area around two miles from anything like civilization, in a cul de sac, and the only cars in our parking lot belonged to the people in class that night). I felt less safe just knowing that this jerkass was allowed to have a gun in the first place, let alone a loaded weapon that he kept taking out to place with, and a concealed carry permit.

Anyway, fuck handguns and the people who have them.

 

[Pradeep]

I realize my life was in danger from a ricochet or a large caliber bullet and a thin wall, but in all the time I was in that "dangerous" situation, I never saw any reason to own or use a firearm.

Gun nuts like to talk about all the times a firearm could have saved somebody's life, but for every story like that, there's a story about some idiot who left his gun out for his five year old to play with, or having a gun stolen that was later used in a crime.

I can understand wanting to be able to protect your home. Fine. Get a shotgun or a rifle. From my time in one of the rougher places that a person might live in this country, it is my informed opinion that handguns turn morons into bigger morons, escalate violent situations and cause far more problems than they solve.

Blah blah, NRA responsible gun owner blah blah. Don't care. Even if you're the guy who keeps a lock on his gun and only takes it sport shooting on Sundays, you still understand that for every person like you there are 10 idiots who think they're Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood, and they're walking around with a penis substitute just waiting for the confirmation of their paranoid delusions to start blowing away whomever it is they think are undesirable.

I had a student last month that I asked not to ever come back to classes because he kept pulling out the Glock he kept tucked in his waistband and showing it to other students, cocking and uncocking it and demonstrating how quickly he could draw his gun. He also said he thought there were guys who were going to jump him in our parking lot (my office is in a wooded area around two miles from anything like civilization, in a cul de sac, and the only cars in our parking lot belonged to the people in class that night). I felt less safe just knowing that this jerkass was allowed to have a gun in the first place, let alone a loaded weapon that he kept taking out to place with, and a concealed carry permit.

Anyway, fuck handguns and the people who have them.

These threads never go well when it gets down to pro/anti-gun, but let me address a few points nonetheless:

Clearly if you have issues with projectiles potentially entering your house thru the walls no firearm on earth is going to protect you. I would suggest a deep underground bunker, or at least a basement.

A rifle in the close quarters of a house is not ideal, I will take the reduced swing time and radius of a pistol with hollow points. Not to mention the ballistic risk a rifle bullet offers when discharged indoors, it could easily end up in your neighbors house.

Available statistics show that your claim that for each "gun saved my life or lives of others" story that there is a reciprocal "I gave my baby a loaded .45 to suckle on because she spat out her dummy" is false.

Over half the households in the USA have at least one gun inside. There's 100s of millions of them here. It's actually more like, for every 10,000 law abiding gun owners who use them for legal self defense, hunting, target shooting, there's one crazy nutter that may go crazy.

Just as we don't ban driving because a tiny proportion of the population drinks and drives and may end up killing innocents, we don't ban guns because a tiny proportion of the population can't control their impulses. At least that's how it works in the US. Without the 2nd Amendment the place would be a gun owners ghost town like the UK.

BTW in regards to your student pulling out his pistol in class, simple thing to do if there is a next time is to call the cops. At the very least his permit will be revoked. I thought you lived in an area where it was almost impossible to get a CCW? Or is that just in Chicago limits itself?

 

[Mercutio]

I'm in Indiana, not Chicago. I think Chicago has the right idea.

It can be pointed out that it's possible to have a country full of firearms and not have a major issue with gun violence, but this isn't that country, so I'm all about controlling and restricting handguns (particularly handguns). As far as I'm concerned we as a nation have already proven that we're not responsible enough to have the privilege.

 

[Pradeep]

Do you think the criminals (say felons who are already prohibited by law from possessing any firearm) will follow any new laws regarding gun laws? The point is it is already illegal, and they do it anyway. Further restrictive laws only truly effect those that the law is meant to protect, the innocent law abiding person.

It is clear the the US is a nation of individuals,, in 50 different states, and it is unlikely we will go down a Euro-socialist path in the foreseeable future. Perhaps in isolated areas on the East coast etc, but in general the nanny state is met with suspicion.

 

[Stinker]

The average dairy cow produces 148 pounds of manure per day.

 

[Mercutio]

Do you think the criminals (say felons who are already prohibited by law from possessing any firearm) will follow any new laws regarding gun laws?

I don't give a shit about criminals. They're criminals. They'll get caught and they'll be punished. I have sincere reservations about the responsibility and judgment of people who are presently legal handgun owners.

 

[Pradeep]

So your concern is for the tens of millions of CCW permit holders that live in almost every State? Don't you think it's odd that there is so very few stories of a permit holder going berserk with a pistol? The facts are that the permit holders are exceptionally law abiding as compared to the "Average" criminality in a population.

I guess it must just be a difference in environments, I can accept that there is horrible gun crime in inner cities, yet appreciate target shooting for the zen like state it permits. I don't see how hating on one affects the outcome of the other?

 

[Mercutio]

So your concern is for the tens of millions of CCW permit holders that live in almost every State? Don't you think it's odd that there is so very few stories of a permit holder going berserk with a pistol?

I do not trust the judgment of a person who feels the need to carry around a firearm in public. Legal concealed carry just enables people who have some paranoid gun-nut fantasy to live in whatever delusional world they're in that they think they need a handgun everywhere they go.

I'm not immediately worried that somebody who has a gun is going to use it on me , but I know accidents happen, crimes of passion happen, mistakes in judgement are made, people get drunk, guns get stolen and that violence has a tendency to escalate.

I don't trust that legal gun owners have received proper training, that they can hit a target, that they'll secure it properly or that they are people who can adequately judge when a firearm should be drawn or used in the first place.

 

[timwhit]

On the north side of Chicago there was a spat of muggings last summer. The perpetrators would sneak up on people (mostly young men) from behind and punch them or knock them down, give them a mild beating and then steal their cell phones and wallets. From the stories I read there were never any guns involved in any of these cases. Well, everyone on the newspaper sites and any person I talked to with a conservative take stated that if these people were armed and if concealed carry were legal the criminals would be dead, paralyzed, etc.

The problem with this logic is that it's ridiculous. Here are some more likely outcomes.

1. The person getting mugged has a handgun. The perpetrators notice this and steals the gun. Now he is out of his cell phone, wallet, and gun. Also, a criminal now has a gun.
2. The person getting mugged has a handgun. The perpetrators notice this, steal the gun, and then shoot the person to ensure they aren't caught. Now, he is out of his cell phone, wallet, gun, and maybe life. Criminal now has a gun.

Well, why wouldn't the person getting mugged use the handgun on the perpetrator you might wonder? That's simple, these were crimes of surprise. The people targeted were not paying any attention. They either had headphones on, were texting, or were drunk. Either way, they had no chance to defend themselves. Especially, when there are 3 or 4 people beating and robbing you.

 

[MaxBurn]

Wow, I don't get that at all.

 

[Handruin]

The average dairy cow produces 148 pounds of manure per day.

Nice subtle way to stop the gun/vs anti gun debate. :rotfl: I'm not getting involved in this one.

 

[timwhit]

Nice subtle way to stop the gun/vs anti gun debate. :rotfl: I'm not getting involved in this one.

No one has even stooped to name calling or invoking Godwin's Law yet.

 

[Pradeep]

Well, why wouldn't the person getting mugged use the handgun on the perpetrator you might wonder? That's simple, these were crimes of surprise. The people targeted were not paying any attention. They either had headphones on, were texting, or were drunk. Either way, they had no chance to defend themselves. Especially, when there are 3 or 4 people beating and robbing you.

If you are carrying concealed you need to maintain situational awareness. Wearing headphones or being drunk would be two things where you would be being reckless to carry. Just leave it in the safe at home if you are out for drinks. That's the law. Just like you can't carry into an establishment that sells liqour, schools, post offices etc.

 

[ddrueding]

If you are carrying concealed you need to maintain situational awareness. Wearing headphones or being drunk would be two things where you would be being reckless to carry. Just leave it in the safe at home if you are out for drinks. That's the law. Just like you can't carry into an establishment that sells liqour, schools, post offices etc.

Even without the gun, situational awareness would have likely kept you safe on it's own.

 

[Handruin]

No one has even stooped to name calling or invoking Godwin's Law yet.

There was some mention of "fuck handguns and the people who have them." among other various strong indirect insinuations that gun owners are idiots, etc.

 

[Mercutio]

strong indirect insinuations that gun owners are idiots, etc.

I don't support ownership of handguns to begin with, but then there's this special class of people who deserve as much scorn and disgust as I can possibly communicate.

I'll be direct: I think people who carry handguns in public are largely some combination of stupid and/or paranoid.

Those are not characteristics I want to associate with people who are allowed legal access to deadly weapons.

 

[Handruin]

I certainly don't share as harsh an opinion as yours, but thanks for letting us know how you feel.

 

[Stereodude]

I don't support ownership of handguns to begin with, but then there's this special class of people who deserve as much scorn and disgust as I can possibly communicate.

I'll be direct: I think people who carry handguns in public are largely some combination of stupid and/or paranoid.

Those are not characteristics I want to associate with people who are allowed legal access to deadly weapons.

But yet the people you call to protect you from criminals when a crime is being perpetrated against you have guns. Why is it ok for the police to use and possess guns as a deterrent, but not everyday citizens?

 

[Handruin]

I would hope the argument for police is that they go through training and a more rigorous background screening before being allowed to carry such weapon. I know there are lots of news and videos of police screwing up but the hope is that they are trained and recognized to be carrying. If they screw up, they are no longer allowed.

 

[BingBangBop]

Guns have one redeeming virtue: They allow competitors to easily win a Darwin award.

Guns don't kill people, stupid people do. With millions of guns out there, there really need to be far more (millions?) Darwin awards given than are.

Eugenics is a good thing! The NRA is a good practitioner but they could be much better by supporting make-it-yourself home bomb kits.

 

[timwhit]

Even without the gun, situational awareness would have likely kept you safe on it's own.

Most likely.

When I walk around the area where I live I don't use headphones, talk on the phone, or text. This probably does more for my safety than a handgun ever would. There's an added benefit that I will be more likely to avoid getting hit by a vehicle (which happens quite a bit in crowded areas).

 

[timwhit]

There was some mention of "fuck handguns and the people who have them." among other various strong indirect insinuations that gun owners are idiots, etc.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Though it wasn't directed at any specific person on this forum.

I would hope the argument for police is that they go through training and a more rigorous background screening before being allowed to carry such weapon. I know there are lots of news and videos of police screwing up but the hope is that they are trained and recognized to be carrying. If they screw up, they are no longer allowed.

Looks like you joined the debate anyways.

 

[Handruin]

You're right, I guess I did. Mercutio's strong stance and loudly voiced opinion is sometimes my proverbial florescent light to a fly. I just can't stay away.