Clan x86

General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: MyndFyre on February 02, 2006, 09:53:22 PM

Title: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: MyndFyre on February 02, 2006, 09:53:22 PM
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?Feed=FRB&Date=20060202&ID=5470861

(I've been waiting for a good reason to use "ZOMG")

Hahahaha, the IRS needs to *UPGRADE* to Windows!
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: Newby on February 02, 2006, 10:52:39 PM
That's pretty bad, the normal computers can't do numbers that big. Hahahaha.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: GameSnake on February 02, 2006, 10:56:16 PM
QuoteBeing worth $47 billion and the chairman of a multinational corporate behemoth must be a lot harder than it looks. Consider yourselves lucky, folks.
Oh my ass.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 02, 2006, 11:38:24 PM
Quote from: MyndFyrex86] link=topic=4734.msg53573#msg53573 date=1138935202]
Hahahaha, the IRS needs to *UPGRADE* to Windows!

At every (real) place I've ever worked at (government, university, grocery), financial stuff is done on a proprietary system, not on Windows or Linux or anything.  I'm not really sure why, though.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: GameSnake on February 03, 2006, 02:00:41 AM
For extra security reasons i'm guessing?
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 03, 2006, 10:49:22 AM
Not likely. 

Probably because it's so bloody hard to migrate financial data that it just gets left on whatever system it started on. 

But realistically, you don't need a lot of processing power to look after financial stuff, so why bother upgrading?  :)
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: rabbit on February 03, 2006, 06:23:44 PM
Because they are running tape?
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 03, 2006, 06:28:58 PM
So?  If it works, it works. 
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: trust on February 03, 2006, 09:36:24 PM
Quote from: iago on February 03, 2006, 06:28:58 PM
So?  If it works, it works. 

But it obviously isn't working...
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 03, 2006, 09:39:18 PM
In 199,999,999 out of 200,000,000 cases, it works.  I wouldn't consider that important enough to re-do the entire infrastructure. 
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: igimo1 on February 03, 2006, 10:10:39 PM
What's the size of a long? That might have something to do with his incredible fortune and the IRS computers not being able to handle it.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: GameSnake on February 03, 2006, 10:18:39 PM
So I'm wondering how they handled Rockafellar's taxes?(the richest man ever to live, worth ~200 billion)
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: Joe on February 04, 2006, 02:18:16 AM
Quote from: Topaz on February 03, 2006, 10:10:39 PM
What's the size of a long? That might have something to do with his incredible fortune and the IRS computers not being able to handle it.

A VB long or a C++ long? A VB long is a 32-bit value, and a C++ long is the size of a system DWORD, which is 64-bit's in a 32-bit machine, and 128-bits on a 64-bit machine. If you're feeling retro and go back to 16-bits, it'll be 32-bits.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 04, 2006, 03:15:54 AM
Quote from: Topaz on February 03, 2006, 10:10:39 PM
What's the size of a long? That might have something to do with his incredible fortune and the IRS computers not being able to handle it.

The maximum value of a 4-byte value is 4.2 billion, which is probably what they're using if they're having this problem.  And Joe is incorrect, a long (in C) is 4 bytes. I'm not aware of any system where it's not 4 bytes.  A short is 2 bytes, a long is 4 bytes, and an int is dependant on the system it's running on. 

Quote from: GameSnake on February 03, 2006, 10:18:39 PM
So I'm wondering how they handled Rockafellar's taxes?(the richest man ever to live, worth ~200 billion)
I believe (and I could be wrong) that that has been converted (with inflation and stuff).  He wasn't actually worth 200 billion, he was worth the equivalent of 200billion at his time. 

Also, he died in like 1935ish, which was before computers were invented.  So I doubt that they had problems with how the computers calculated his tax. 
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: rabbit on February 04, 2006, 09:31:46 AM
Not to mention that Rockafellar was worth $200 billion USD (present), as opposed to having a few hundred billion in a vault somewhere.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: CrAz3D on February 04, 2006, 10:58:34 AM
Pretty nifty.

Out of curiosity, what is Gates position with Microsoft?...he own it or..
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 04, 2006, 03:07:09 PM
He was the CEO, but he's not anymore.  I think he's still on the board, and possibly still owns the majority of the shares.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: Joe on February 04, 2006, 06:58:46 PM
QuoteA short is 2 bytes, a long is 4 bytes, and an int is dependant on the system it's running on. 

Ew. I was thinking a long was a system DWORD, an int was a system WORD (I was right, woo!), and I a short was a system HWORD.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: MyndFyre on February 04, 2006, 09:23:50 PM
Quote from: Joe on February 04, 2006, 06:58:46 PM
QuoteA short is 2 bytes, a long is 4 bytes, and an int is dependant on the system it's running on. 

Ew. I was thinking a long was a system DWORD, an int was a system WORD (I was right, woo!), and I a short was a system HWORD.

What is a system HWORD?
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: Newby on February 04, 2006, 09:33:10 PM
Half word?
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 05, 2006, 01:02:39 PM
Yeah, a halfword. 

Also keep in mind that Windows and some other OSes misuse the terms 'WORD' and 'DWORD', so they are, overall, pretty meaningless.  You're best off just using int8_t, int16_t, and int32_t, or whatever is defined on your system. 
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: Newby on February 05, 2006, 01:21:18 PM
Quote from: iago on February 04, 2006, 03:07:09 PM
He was the CEO, but he's not anymore.  I think he's still on the board, and possibly still owns the majority of the shares.

He's the CFO.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: Sidoh on February 05, 2006, 02:11:25 PM
He's also the Chief Software Architect.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: MyndFyre on February 06, 2006, 11:23:03 AM
Quote from: iago on February 05, 2006, 01:02:39 PM
Yeah, a halfword. 

Also keep in mind that Windows and some other OSes misuse the terms 'WORD' and 'DWORD', so they are, overall, pretty meaningless.  You're best off just using int8_t, int16_t, and int32_t, or whatever is defined on your system. 

So what do we do when we get to 64-bit computing as the standard?  What's a 16-bit value?  A QWORD (quarter word)?  We already have that, it's quad-word.

I've also never seen a "dh" command in assembly.
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: iago on February 06, 2006, 11:36:08 AM
Quote from: MyndFyrex86] link=topic=4734.msg54144#msg54144 date=1139242983]
Quote from: iago on February 05, 2006, 01:02:39 PM
Yeah, a halfword. 

Also keep in mind that Windows and some other OSes misuse the terms 'WORD' and 'DWORD', so they are, overall, pretty meaningless.  You're best off just using int8_t, int16_t, and int32_t, or whatever is defined on your system. 

So what do we do when we get to 64-bit computing as the standard?  What's a 16-bit value?  A QWORD (quarter word)?  We already have that, it's quad-word.

I've also never seen a "dh" command in assembly.

16 bits would either be a Quarter-WORD (they'd find a way to abbreviate it) or go unused or just be called a int16_t.  You don't really ever HAVE to use terms like "word" and "Dword" in programming, and it's generally a good idea not to, because they aren't consistant across platforms.  But because people incorrectly used them in many cases, they got stuck being unable to change it. 
Title: Re: ZOMG Bill Gates owns the IRS
Post by: rabbit on February 07, 2006, 07:14:11 PM
Like on Bnet Docs.