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Comments · 647
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The Future of AI?First we'd have to go back to the drawing board with Silicon Chips, to create titanium oxide memristor chips of a similar density to current chips. Then we could start designing these memristor AI circuit. Why are these like the brain? A Memristor decreases its resistance as more current flows through it, like a synpases in the brain strengthen as the stimulated more often. But memristor aren't enough, we still need something to act like a neuron to sum over the inhibitory and stimulatory input synapses and to then fire when a great enough signal is achieved (is this a real neuron?, its the Neuron scientist simulate in Neural Networks, the actual brain could be much cleverer). This still hasn't made something like a brain though. Brain cells grow new synapses attaching to others in its learning process, a chip acting like a brain, would need to do this to, and it isn't at all obvious how to do it. So all in all, where a long way from brain like chips, even if memristor might help.
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Re:Whoa, they invented the maintenance-free plane?If its going to be in the Air all the time, and just circle. Why don't the replace it with a few balloons or Zeppelins as fixed air platform. Surely that would be a lot cheaper in maintenance, pilot time, and not burn any petrol. That said I'm not in favour of mass surveillance, i believe the crime reduction isn't worth the loss of civil privacy and increased taxes.
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Re:Whoa, they invented the maintenance-free plane?If its going to be in the Air all the time, and just circle. Why don't the replace it with a few balloons or Zeppelins as fixed air platform. Surely that would be a lot cheaper in maintenance, pilot time, and not burn any petrol. That said I'm not in favour of mass surveillance, i believe the crime reduction isn't worth the loss of civil privacy and increased taxes.
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Medical Nanorobots
Since we've been dreaming of medical Nanorobots since Rachel Welsh got my (grand)dad hot in Fantastic Voyage. The above robot is hardly the first, nor likely the robot to get into common use. This a by now a small industry on Medical Nanorobots and on how to control or use them, for instance this this paper on Medical Nano Robot Control from my Nanotech Feed @ Feed Distiller.
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Medical Nanorobots
Since we've been dreaming of medical Nanorobots since Rachel Welsh got my (grand)dad hot in Fantastic Voyage. The above robot is hardly the first, nor likely the robot to get into common use. This a by now a small industry on Medical Nanorobots and on how to control or use them, for instance this this paper on Medical Nano Robot Control from my Nanotech Feed @ Feed Distiller.
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Ten years awayI don't believe the ten years away figure. Fuel Cell cars and hydrogen running Internal Combustion engines are available now. We could start building such cars now, for example, this Honda Demo Vehicle the main infrastructure problem, is having hydrogen gas stations.
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The idea those sound funny, and i've been laughing at a lot of the comments here, but chicken feathers are just waste and nearly free, so what could be cheaper to use for a hydrogen tank?
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Fuel Cell Feed | Electric Vehicle Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Ten years awayI don't believe the ten years away figure. Fuel Cell cars and hydrogen running Internal Combustion engines are available now. We could start building such cars now, for example, this Honda Demo Vehicle the main infrastructure problem, is having hydrogen gas stations.
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The idea those sound funny, and i've been laughing at a lot of the comments here, but chicken feathers are just waste and nearly free, so what could be cheaper to use for a hydrogen tank?
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Fuel Cell Feed | Electric Vehicle Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Ten years awayI don't believe the ten years away figure. Fuel Cell cars and hydrogen running Internal Combustion engines are available now. We could start building such cars now, for example, this Honda Demo Vehicle the main infrastructure problem, is having hydrogen gas stations.
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The idea those sound funny, and i've been laughing at a lot of the comments here, but chicken feathers are just waste and nearly free, so what could be cheaper to use for a hydrogen tank?
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Fuel Cell Feed | Electric Vehicle Feed @ Feed Distiller
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UbuntuActually I haven't found i had to reboot ubuntu many times from updates, maybe 4 times a year, after a heavy patch of the Hal or the video drivers. Haven't said that i still haven't upgraded to jaunty. I waited when It was fresh upgrade, then didn't fine the time. Guess i've no excuse now, should be quick, but you have to leave the time, just in case it buggers up your live services.
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Question is Ksplice reliable enough for online servers. I'd rather manually upgrade and be there to fix the systems, than risk a shoody automatic system going down randomly.
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Linux Feed @ Feed Distiller
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UbuntuActually I haven't found i had to reboot ubuntu many times from updates, maybe 4 times a year, after a heavy patch of the Hal or the video drivers. Haven't said that i still haven't upgraded to jaunty. I waited when It was fresh upgrade, then didn't fine the time. Guess i've no excuse now, should be quick, but you have to leave the time, just in case it buggers up your live services.
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Question is Ksplice reliable enough for online servers. I'd rather manually upgrade and be there to fix the systems, than risk a shoody automatic system going down randomly.
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Linux Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Re:ExplosionsExposed to air, and protected by a thin membrane, I should think these would be a little on the explosive side, if the membrane gets damaged and water gets to the lithium, a vigorous reaction, as the chemists says. Still you should see the caesium air battery I built, heavy as a brick and explodes first hint of damp weather.
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Batteries Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Re:ExplosionsExposed to air, and protected by a thin membrane, I should think these would be a little on the explosive side, if the membrane gets damaged and water gets to the lithium, a vigorous reaction, as the chemists says. Still you should see the caesium air battery I built, heavy as a brick and explodes first hint of damp weather.
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Batteries Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Here comes our direct Neural LinkSci-fi has been having human "jacking in" to computer systems, via direct connection to the brain for a while. This technology ought to make that possible, Just how to make the brain cells actually connect themselves in some useful way to the rest of the brain, seems tricky though, and i hope these gene splice brain cells are safe against cancer etc.
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Here comes our direct Neural LinkSci-fi has been having human "jacking in" to computer systems, via direct connection to the brain for a while. This technology ought to make that possible, Just how to make the brain cells actually connect themselves in some useful way to the rest of the brain, seems tricky though, and i hope these gene splice brain cells are safe against cancer etc.
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Battery are the bane of portablesIf the not catching fire and burning user crotches (SONY), there leaking and destroying equipment (any zinc carbide+other), poisoning the environment (Nickel Cadmium). Compared to all that, lies about battery life, seem lucky. Hope the get batteries that work as specified, sometime. If the battery problem was easily solved, we would have all been driving electric cars, some ten years ago.
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Battery are the bane of portablesIf the not catching fire and burning user crotches (SONY), there leaking and destroying equipment (any zinc carbide+other), poisoning the environment (Nickel Cadmium). Compared to all that, lies about battery life, seem lucky. Hope the get batteries that work as specified, sometime. If the battery problem was easily solved, we would have all been driving electric cars, some ten years ago.
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Home brew, meets genomicsProbably the easiest and first, and maybe even the most useful DIY biologist in the yeasts. Creating the best yeast capable of breaking down as must plant matter into alcohol, for biofuels, is a problem which if solved would lead to a multimillion dollar, eco-friendly power source. It not an easy problem, one microbiologist spent 15 years, just adding a gene for breaking down a single wood sugar, xylose. Hopefully it will be easier with modern equipment and genetic knowledge, building a microbe which can digest all the varied sugars in plant pulp would be a big win.
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Bioethanol Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Home brew, meets genomicsProbably the easiest and first, and maybe even the most useful DIY biologist in the yeasts. Creating the best yeast capable of breaking down as must plant matter into alcohol, for biofuels, is a problem which if solved would lead to a multimillion dollar, eco-friendly power source. It not an easy problem, one microbiologist spent 15 years, just adding a gene for breaking down a single wood sugar, xylose. Hopefully it will be easier with modern equipment and genetic knowledge, building a microbe which can digest all the varied sugars in plant pulp would be a big win.
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Bioethanol Feed @ Feed Distiller
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Re:Why is "art" always sex and violence?Art is always sex and violence?, Paintings and drawing hardly ever are sex or violence. Movies are often sex and violence, but there plenty of biopics and storytelling movies which aren't. Games are often violence and rarely sexual, (could be due to interface, you need that mouse hand). Sex, Violence and Death, are of course the strongest emotions a human can feel, so naturally are the most common themes as jaded emotion lead to ever stronger content. Movies, aren't protected as free speech in most countries, the're rated, censors, and there limits to what you can show, so the videogame industry can hardly ask for freedom by comparing itself to the movie industry. The case for media censorship of the games and movie industry is largely based on the monkey see, monkey do argument, that if people see a criminal activity there likely to follow it. Its difficult to argue to people don't copy what they see in the media, they often do. However if the movie/game, is a mortality tale, then it may prevent the crime, by showing the wrong doer getting his/her just doom. That doesn't often happen in games, more kills usually equals winning in games.
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Re:Why is "art" always sex and violence?Art is always sex and violence?, Paintings and drawing hardly ever are sex or violence. Movies are often sex and violence, but there plenty of biopics and storytelling movies which aren't. Games are often violence and rarely sexual, (could be due to interface, you need that mouse hand). Sex, Violence and Death, are of course the strongest emotions a human can feel, so naturally are the most common themes as jaded emotion lead to ever stronger content. Movies, aren't protected as free speech in most countries, the're rated, censors, and there limits to what you can show, so the videogame industry can hardly ask for freedom by comparing itself to the movie industry. The case for media censorship of the games and movie industry is largely based on the monkey see, monkey do argument, that if people see a criminal activity there likely to follow it. Its difficult to argue to people don't copy what they see in the media, they often do. However if the movie/game, is a mortality tale, then it may prevent the crime, by showing the wrong doer getting his/her just doom. That doesn't often happen in games, more kills usually equals winning in games.
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Re:Why is "art" always sex and violence?Art is always sex and violence?, Paintings and drawing hardly ever are sex or violence. Movies are often sex and violence, but there plenty of biopics and storytelling movies which aren't. Games are often violence and rarely sexual, (could be due to interface, you need that mouse hand). Sex, Violence and Death, are of course the strongest emotions a human can feel, so naturally are the most common themes as jaded emotion lead to ever stronger content. Movies, aren't protected as free speech in most countries, the're rated, censors, and there limits to what you can show, so the videogame industry can hardly ask for freedom by comparing itself to the movie industry. The case for media censorship of the games and movie industry is largely based on the monkey see, monkey do argument, that if people see a criminal activity there likely to follow it. Its difficult to argue to people don't copy what they see in the media, they often do. However if the movie/game, is a mortality tale, then it may prevent the crime, by showing the wrong doer getting his/her just doom. That doesn't often happen in games, more kills usually equals winning in games.
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Re:How much will it cost?Very true, the cost is more important, solar power is approaching parity with oil and gas, and is supposed to reach it at 5 cents per watt. The article didn't give the price of the roll up solar cells, so i've no idea how close to that it is, but such advances will steadier push the balance of prices into solars favor, which is to happen expected by 2012.
Solar Power feed @ Feed Distiller
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Re:How much will it cost?Very true, the cost is more important, solar power is approaching parity with oil and gas, and is supposed to reach it at 5 cents per watt. The article didn't give the price of the roll up solar cells, so i've no idea how close to that it is, but such advances will steadier push the balance of prices into solars favor, which is to happen expected by 2012.
Solar Power feed @ Feed Distiller
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Re:Another test at anandtech.comI'm most surprised that AMDs extra two cores didn't give it an advantage in many of the server applications, I know that the Xeons are 4 way superscalar (instructions running in the pipeline in each core) versus AMDs 3 way. So as the article said its only 18 AMD instructions per clock versus 16 intels, instead of 4 versus 3. But this is only for the shorter instructions. 8 core xeons are expected in autumn so any tenuous lead AMD has anywhere in performance is going to disappear fairly soon. But never-mind, AMD still can win on price and expandability. I'm running dual core, dual socket on my server at the moment, so slipping in a couple of new instanbuls or shanghis is a instant double or tripling of power.
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Re:Another test at anandtech.comI'm most surprised that AMDs extra two cores didn't give it an advantage in many of the server applications, I know that the Xeons are 4 way superscalar (instructions running in the pipeline in each core) versus AMDs 3 way. So as the article said its only 18 AMD instructions per clock versus 16 intels, instead of 4 versus 3. But this is only for the shorter instructions. 8 core xeons are expected in autumn so any tenuous lead AMD has anywhere in performance is going to disappear fairly soon. But never-mind, AMD still can win on price and expandability. I'm running dual core, dual socket on my server at the moment, so slipping in a couple of new instanbuls or shanghis is a instant double or tripling of power.
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Lets hope for a safe repairand ten more years of observation from Hubble.
I'm also hoping that the James Webb Telescope, Hubbles inferred younger brother, goes to plan, and gets launched on its target 2003.
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Lets hope for a safe repairand ten more years of observation from Hubble.
I'm also hoping that the James Webb Telescope, Hubbles inferred younger brother, goes to plan, and gets launched on its target 2003.
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Re:Secondary infections
Its been known for a long time, that people with flu, are prone to bacteria and secondary infections, e.g. when flu gets a completion of pneumonia via bacteria. The article didn't mention a mechanism for the weekening of the immune system, perphaps its just that its to busy with the existing flu.
Thats interesting because my 13 year old nephew has just been diagnosed with Fungal Meningitis. He doesn't have any condition which might have suppressed his immune system but I suppose it is possible that a spore got lucky and infected him while he was down with flu.
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Re:Secondary infections
Its been known for a long time, that people with flu, are prone to bacteria and secondary infections, e.g. when flu gets a completion of pneumonia via bacteria. The article didn't mention a mechanism for the weekening of the immune system, perphaps its just that its to busy with the existing flu.
Thats interesting because my 13 year old nephew has just been diagnosed with Fungal Meningitis. He doesn't have any condition which might have suppressed his immune system but I suppose it is possible that a spore got lucky and infected him while he was down with flu.
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Secondary infectionsIts been known for a long time, that people with flu, are prone to bacteria and secondary infections, e.g. when flu gets a completion of pneumonia via bacteria. The article didn't mention a mechanism for the weekening of the immune system, perphaps its just that its to busy with the existing flu.
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Secondary infectionsIts been known for a long time, that people with flu, are prone to bacteria and secondary infections, e.g. when flu gets a completion of pneumonia via bacteria. The article didn't mention a mechanism for the weekening of the immune system, perphaps its just that its to busy with the existing flu.
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Is real but rareThis won't be debunked, its true. Once you look at the feynman diagrams its obviously a possible effect. Trouble is, it will have a very low probability, at each end of the conversion possible you've got two weak force vertices, and one of the heavy 80/90 GeV/c^2 W or Z weak force carriers. So the total amplitude goes as E^2/M_w^2 g_w^4 and square that for a probablity. So for photons that might need to tunnel (optical frequencies about 1eV) you have a tunnelling probability of 10^-18, that so very rare physicists will probably never see it.
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Quantum Mechanics feed at Feed Distiller, come there and make your own feeds
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Wow, thank god for thatSo pleased at the news, losing my eyes, is my number one fear, no eyes = no computers games, no programming, and no porn. Blindness would be sure hell.
Reading the article, is hardly ready for use, so far only tested on rats and pigs. There'll be many years of trials before its ready for use on people. Plus Stem cells have be known to turn cancerous, cancer of the retina, would be quickly fatal, there so close to the brain.
Stem cells have tremendous potential to cure disease and even to reverse the aging process. The next twenty years of research might total change the sad process of aging in human.
Stem cells feed at Feed Distiller
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Wow, thank god for thatSo pleased at the news, losing my eyes, is my number one fear, no eyes = no computers games, no programming, and no porn. Blindness would be sure hell.
Reading the article, is hardly ready for use, so far only tested on rats and pigs. There'll be many years of trials before its ready for use on people. Plus Stem cells have be known to turn cancerous, cancer of the retina, would be quickly fatal, there so close to the brain.
Stem cells have tremendous potential to cure disease and even to reverse the aging process. The next twenty years of research might total change the sad process of aging in human.
Stem cells feed at Feed Distiller
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Re:People are stupid.Much as i'd love humans to have quantum tunnelling brains giving them special powers like in Greg Egans Quanantine. I have to agree with the above, people are stupid explanation.
Quantum Mechanics news feed
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Re:A new city?By 'one incident' do you mean 'Cloud'?
The picture in the articles, had plenty of roof top and stand alone solar panels, although the 75meg unit is presumably a solar thermal system.
Solar Power news feed
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Re:96% percent penetration eh?
I'm not surprised, at all at the degree of penetration, of the netbook market. Given the netbook is aimed at the general public and they aren't very expensive. They'd be a lot cheaper with a linux OS its true. But even now, its only those with technical skills that would use Linux. NetBooks aggregation of Blog item.
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Re:Java Was:C++With writing C++ you have worries about memory management, error managment (exceptions), and multithreading that you simply don't have with Java. So java is a much both a much stronger and easier language.
Java Programming Daily items at FD.
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Re:As much as I'd love to find another Earth...Not surprising your scared for Aliens. But the chance of nearby planet being at a similar level of evolution is very slim. On earth life took, 4 billion years to form civilisation. Yet a space faring race could fill the galaxy in a million years. Not at all sure why you find machine intelligences less scaring than biological ones. Both can chew up resources very quickly. Are the laws of economics different for a robot?
Extra Solar Planetsdaily items at FD.
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The End of TV, (unlikely)I tried giving up Television in a bid to get more work done, living entirely with computers and the real world for entertainment. What happened, instead I played World of war craft, and spent more time drinking in the pub. Not at all sure if I would have got less work done otherwise. But as a work livestyle balance goes, giving up TV didn't work. The difference is TV is a passive medium you don't need to react to if you don't want to, and people need there passive entertainment time, just like they need there sleep. World of Warcraft a even less pointful activity than TV took over. And that productivity experiment (no TV), (which you need to do if your self employed) failed. I need TV in my life, just in limited quantities. Frankly the British generally score couch potato on this, (and seem to have a taste for high pressure drama, that doesn't match with me one bit). The British like it bleak, go figure, the economy news is probably cheering us up. The internet may be big, but googles entire advertising revenue for a year, 20 billion is the size of just two British channels. The internet world wide, is smaller than TV in one middle rank country. The internet can and will grow bigger, but it might never take over TV for leisure. And here by internet I mean the web. The means of transmission don't really matter.
Internet Advertising blog feeds. The blog feed I source that I'm least proud of of. Skim to see what i mean. I want the internet to be a mass of SEO reciprocal links with no care for the readers, slightly less than another war. Yet it somehow needs to exist to run and fund the internet. I think I managed to promote my company without going off topic there. At least that's my hope.
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Re:It will be intresting for sureBeing infrared means it will much better good chance to find exo-planet and asteroid belts. Wonder which of the Herschel or Kepler missions will find more planets.
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Re:It will be intresting for sureBeing infrared means it will much better good chance to find exo-planet and asteroid belts. Wonder which of the Herschel or Kepler missions will find more planets.
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For Gods sake escape those quotesJust escape any quotes in the input and your DBs will be safe from injection. In Java:
String escapeQuotes(String s){
if (s==null){ s=""; }
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
char ch[] = new char[1];
char con[] = new char[3];
con[0] = '%';
for(int i=0;i<s.length();i++){
char c = ch[0] = s.charAt(i);
if (c==0x27 || c==0x60 || c==22 || c=='%'){
int a = c/16;
int b = c-a*16;
con[1] = Character.forDigit(a,16);
con[2] = Character.forDigit(b,16);
sb.append(con);
} else {
sb.append(ch);
}
}
return sb.toString();
}That wasn't difficult, was it now. Did i miss any characters?
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Can a single developer still make money for games?From link, "The color of doom, was created by a team of 16 students over 6 months"
Is it still possible for a single developer to make anything near decent in computer games? Back in the 8-bit days, teenagers could build a game in there room, now its big business.
What about flash games, there much easier right. Flash games feed
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Second Sci-fi favourite planetThats the second sci-fi favourtie star, to be found, to actually have a planet in real life. Slashdot post about Epsilon Erdani less than a month ago.
Its less than fifteen years ago we first found an Extra Solar Planet. But there starting to turn up regularly now. Can't be long before we find our 1st earth like planet. Maybe will build a colony ship before the end of the century.
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The politics of Vampires, Zombies and WerewolfsVampires always traditionally been aristocrats, politically living of the blood of the working man toil (perhaps, sounds a bit to much like Marxist theory to me).
I can't see Zombies representing much politically except the a mass of unthinking people, unconcerned with whats going on around them. If a zombie votes, someone's made them do it (surely?). I wouldn't myself give a Zombie movie a political leaning. If you see a Zombie movie like George Remiro's "Days of the Dead", with supermarkets full of Zombie Shoppers, then you might consider the emptiness of the consumer economy, maybe, but did you also consider that next time you go shopping you're less likely to think about other Shoppers a people with lives, and more like to shoot them a "get out of my way, idiot" insult.
If Vampires are aristocrats, then I guess the working class would be werewolf's, certainly true of say "Underworld" (on TV tonight in the UK, with Kate Berkensale looking good in a leather catsuit). Of course need group really has much control over there Dark Appetites, but somehow the Vampires style, makes then Cool, while a werewolf is just a big angry dog, that was once human.
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Retro games, and the web
I've played retro games quite a bit every now and then going back to old spectrum games, and its fun and nostalgia for me. But it seems that neo-retro games are indeed a fad, a passing phase set by the level of games technologies, that can be presented by a web browser. For instead Flash Games made with adobe flash have a level of graphics and video, very much like the games of 10 or more years ago. Its this technology lag in browsers that leads to the Neo retro feel of the games. And it will change as browser technology approaches the level of GPU power of a model computer.