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Here are some links :

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/

The obligatory 99-bottles-of-beer-on-the-wall in punched card Analytical Engine assembly language :

http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-babbage's-analytical-machine-79.html

Hmmm, I dare say that's shorter than the C# version, if you remove the comments. Oh and it will run Linux, if you have enough coal and are willing to wait a few years for X to load. ;) (it does have a graphical output device) As for a beowulf cluster, that might help performance, although your interconnect mechanism would probably be pneumatic ie. tubes (that's what the Internet is made of anyway right?) and the cluster size would require a few tens of millions of units. ;)

jdb2

It was originally known not as the God particle but the "Oh my God" particle- As in "Oh my god, that single particle had the kinetic energy of a falling brick!"

More here-
https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/OhMyGodParticle/

-b

"Perhaps the immense number of cards required for the solution of any rather complicated problem may appear to be an obstacle; but this does not seem to be the case. There is no limit to the number of cards that can he used. Certain stuffs require for their fabrication not less than twenty thousand cards, and we may unquestionably far exceed even this quantity."

The Analytical Engine, on the contrary, is not merely adapted for tabulating the results of one particular function and of no other, but for developing and tabulating any function whatever. In fact the engine may be described as being the material expression of any indefinite function of any degree of generality and complexity, such as for instance, F(x, y, z, log x, sin y, x p, &c.), which is, it will be observed, a function of all other possible functions of any number of quantities.

In other words, the jacquard loom could follow a set sequence, but the analytical engine could be programmed to tabulate any mathematical function. That is the brilliance of Babbage's work.

In his Sketch, Babbage lays out the workings of the Analytical Engine, but only Ada's notes point out, in clear language, the true impact of his discovery.

The Analytical Engine, on the contrary, is not merely adapted for tabulating the results of one particular function and of no other, but for developing and tabulating any function whatever. In fact the engine may be described as being the material expression of any indefinite function of any degree of generality and complexity, such as for instance, F(x, y, z, log x, sin y, x p, &c.), which is, it will be observed, a function of all other possible functions of any number of quantities.

In other words, the jacquard loom could follow a set sequence, but the analytical engine could be programmed to tabulate any mathematical function. That is the brilliance of Babbage's work.

In his Sketch, Babbage lays out the workings of the Analytical Engine, but only Ada's notes point out, in clear language, the true impact of his discovery.

Probably rather like a stack of cards with holes punched in them! This site actually has some examples of programs for an analytical engine emulator based on Babbage's specifications:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/cards.html

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/contents.html

Don't forget the 'P' card ('Print the result of the last arithmetic operation performed by the Mill on the Printing Apparatus').

Probably rather like a stack of cards with holes punched in them! This site actually has some examples of programs for an analytical engine emulator based on Babbage's specifications:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/cards.html

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/contents.html

Don't forget the 'P' card ('Print the result of the last arithmetic operation performed by the Mill on the Printing Apparatus').

It's not really google being mistreated that's a cause for concern, you're absolutely right, it's not like they can't afford it.

Let's say, Yahoo works out a deal in a non-neutral world, with Comcast, AT&T, and 2 or 3 others. Google eventually bows to inevitability, and makes the same deal with ISPs.

Then you're in a situation where, to get decent service, you HAVE TO be able to afford that sort of deal. So you've created a barrier to entry for the little guys.

So what I'm worried about is not about google being mistreated, I'm worried about, say, wikisecrets not being able to afford decent service.

Right now we have a remarkably low barrier to entry for publishing on the web. Given concentration of ownership for mainstream media, this is a VERY good thing.

I understand the points you raise about inefficiency, but politics is always a compromise.

I see net neutrality as being a way to keep ISPs (many of who are cable companies) from turning the internet into cable TV.

Take a look at "Digital Imprimatur" by John Walker, for some of the concerns I'm worried about:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/

This utility converts a MIDI file to/from a "human readable" CSV format. http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/midicsv/

I don't know how you can suggest Walker is close to the slashdot ideal considering the man actually works on his diet.

I suspect he's closer to slashdot's ideal than Spolsky.

I guess that was a good troll, because it made it to +5, but it seems kind of weak to me.

One product? Offhand, I can name three separate products which FogCreek ships.

Doubly so because you're comparing it to AutoDesk, which has ... well, there's AutoCAD. I don't know any others. According to the Wikipedia, the first non-AutoCAD product of mention is Revit, which they bought in 2002, after the company was 20 years old.

FogCreek is only 8 years old. Even AutoDesk wasn't paying $133 million for other companies when they were only 8 years old.

I'm not seeing anything particularly useful in "The Autodesk File". Could you point out what parts of it might be of use to us budding CEOs? I like the parts about how they're stocking up on 8" floppy disks and looking at porting to C for the 8086 and 68000. It's a regular blast from the past, but I don't see anything here that's very useful in building my own company.

I guess that was a good troll, because it made it to +5, but it seems kind of weak to me.

One product? Offhand, I can name three separate products which FogCreek ships.

Doubly so because you're comparing it to AutoDesk, which has ... well, there's AutoCAD. I don't know any others. According to the Wikipedia, the first non-AutoCAD product of mention is Revit, which they bought in 2002, after the company was 20 years old.

FogCreek is only 8 years old. Even AutoDesk wasn't paying $133 million for other companies when they were only 8 years old.

I'm not seeing anything particularly useful in "The Autodesk File". Could you point out what parts of it might be of use to us budding CEOs? I like the parts about how they're stocking up on 8" floppy disks and looking at porting to C for the 8086 and 68000. It's a regular blast from the past, but I don't see anything here that's very useful in building my own company.

I'd be more impressed if this were from someone who started up a company that grew. This guy has a little software company with one product, and he's had a little company with one product for, what, ten years now?

For comparison, read The Autodesk File. Autodesk was started with $60K from the founders, never accepted any venture capital, and had revenue of $1.8 billion last year.

High costs of support? Not really. Not more than all the other apps needed to do the same work - where the support costs have to be aggregated to compare realistically.

In over a decade of working with both Domino/Notes and with the Microsoft stack, I have to say I've not seen higher support costs for Notes than for competitors. The biggest "added" day to day cost is actually in the support of ID files - which, if you don't need that level of security, can be seen as a cost as they're not optional (yet).

However, to be honest, the rest of your reply shows you're not going to agree, and will probably pounce upon that with glee thinking you have yet another reason you're right.

For instance, you just implied that a company would use an application that's known to lose data due to fixable flaws - for over a decade. That's nuts, and you know it. Data loss would be unacceptable, and that would be fixed or the application would be replaced. Yet you're using this nonsensical scenario to beat on Notes.

Then you just compared implied that Excel and Access can be used for groupware functions - a position that not even Microsoft would agree with.

Upgrades to Word have broken templates, upgrades to Excel have broken spreadsheets, and upgrades to PowerPoint have... OK. PowerPoint breaks nothing but the spirits of those who have to sit through badly written presentations that it's used for. But still, Office upgrades can break previous documents, and have done so. (See http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/comptoolsExcel.html for a real life example of a medium complexity spreadsheet suffering from this.)

And I'm currently supporting workstations in offshore locations that are running Windows NT 4 and Office 97/2000 - they're inherited from a division of a competitor that we bought out. And we're talking profitable businesses - still running NT4 a year ago. I can assure you that organisations are sadly still using very old versions of Microsoft software in live environments - and software from many other vendors. I'm not picking on Microsoft or anyone else about old versions that their customers are using, as they have very little control over that. It's just a fact of life. It's not commonplace, but it's there and it's painfully expensive to deal with when you find it...

To be honest, all that I've written about so far is technical stuff. Easy to refute, and easy to write about. Unlike this next part.

What worries me most is that you continue this strange, paranoid, frankly almost conspiracy-theory notion that IBM only ship Notes to create consultancy opportunities, and that nobody else in the world could be so evil.

You're not stupid - I can see that. But you have become quite irrational because of your strong feelings. And I'm afraid that not everyone shares those feelings. Feelings this strong aren't the majority, or even a significant minority, at least not in my experience.

You summed it up with this sentence:
"It's not normal for people to hate software with such a passion that they write long-winded posts like this one."

No, it's not.

Your reaction is WAY out of proportion to what is, effectively, a tool you had to use in your job.

It's even less normal for someone to think that a company hates them personally because of software they've selected, which you imply strongly in your last sentence.

I hope you work these problems out. Meanwhile, I'd advise not thinking about Notes too much in the future, as it evidently upsets you rather too much.

To help you, I'll just stop replying now. Sorry to have caused you such pain.

I'll accept that video games are the sole reason we're getting fatter -- if McDonalds accepts that fast food is making us violent. It seems just as logical to me.

Personally, I know why I'm fat (although I'm currently working on that problem). Soft drinks, pure and simple. I used to consume at least 1,000kcal/day of the stuff. At 3500kcal/lb, that adds up fast!

At least I don't smoke -- but as a soda addict, I do sympathize with smokers. It's hard to give up (or even cut back on) something you really enjoy.

reminds me of the univac memories website and how 28, von fastrand's number, influenced univac programming. even after the fastrand disk drive became history, the legacy programs required univac programmers to keep on doing everything in groups of 28 for years afterward.

the fastrand ii was, of course, the next generation or so after the 305 ramac. transistors instead of tubes, it was a 90 megabyte drum that wieghed 2.5 tons. so storage went from 5 MB per ton in 1956 to 35 MB per ton in 1968.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fastrand.html

I wonder if what google fears, long-term, is a scenario like the one alluded to in John Walker's "Digital Imprimatur", combined with a non-neutral net.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/

A scenario whereby Verizon, Comcast, AT & T, et. al. have a shakedown-type operation, if you don't want your customers delayed getting to google, pay extra. The cartel of ISPs collude (or, if no collusion/conspiracy, they all just come to the same conclusion as to what strategy they should pursue) to bugger with anything new google develops, like say a VoIP client etc.

Between the 700mhz spectrum and all the dark fiber that google's been buying, maybe they're doing a contingency plan so that, if necessary, they could do without Verizon/comcast/AT&T et. al.

but the difference is miniscule compared to the effect of just eating everso slightly less. If you can control your eating it's very easy to lose weight with the Hacker's Diet.

From personal, scientifically-measurable experience, I can tell you that gaining and losing weight isn't a matter of 'good calories' or 'bad calories'. It's a matter of calories. Burn more calories than you consume over a period of time, and you will lose weight. Burn fewer calories than you consume over a period of time, and you will gain weight. Yes, it's that simple. I suggest you all put down this claptrap, and read The Hacker's Diet by former AutoCAD developer and AutoDesk VP John Walker. It's done wonders for me.

It is commonly argued that quasi-neutrality precludes large-scale charge separation in space, but quasi-neutrality is an *assumption*. Arguing that space must be charge neutral on some scale is tantamount to declaring that we've reached a conclusion on a metaphysical question.

You'd think that computers would have built-in hardware based RNGs by now. On-board sound, video, network, etc.......where is the radioactive decay RNG? After all, in 1985 plutonium should be available in every corner drugstore.

After I wrote the last post above in the thread, I did a little research on JavaScript implementations of GPG. It turns out that people have gone there before, and there are several working examples.

I wrote a post about it on my blog, but I'll save you and anyone else who might be interested the click and give you the two best examples:

This one is one-way (encrypt only) but is quite fast. It's made for the submission of forms (e.g. "Contact me" on websites) using insecure CGI-to-mail gateways. You can view all the code in your browser, and there are no remote binaries or anything.

That version is based, I believe, on this more general implementation by John Walker (the AutoDesk guy), which does both encryption and decryption of OpenPGP messages right in the browser. Also licensed pretty broadly, I think.

So basically, you could take that JavaScript, and build it into a webmail system: as long as the user had a JS-capable browser, they'd be able to work with encrypted messages without sending any unencrypted data to the server. This is a much more secure model than what I think is used by Hushmail (where the plaintext gets to and from the user via an SSL pipe, but only gets packaged up into a GPG message on the server side). Also, it allows you to keep all your stored messages (Sent Mail, Received Mail, etc.) kept on the server, encrypted to yourself, so that your ISP can't sell you down the river, but you get the convenience of using IMAP.

All you'd need to do, as a user, would be to carry around your private key. Alternately I suppose you could keep an encrypted copy of your private key on the server and then unlock/decrypt it in the browser with a passphrase, but that's much less secure.

There are still a lot of possible attack vectors against such a system (Walker gets into them on his page; basically you constantly have to worry about whether the JS applet has been changed and isn't what you think it is), but it's a hell of a lot better than plaintext or plaintext+SSL.

Actually, NN is not a well-defined term. It's hard to define it in such a way as to suggest that it is not already gone, unless you fork out for a T1, and even then you still don't really have complete neutrality. Most ISPs already do filtering, blocking, keep you firewalled and NAT'ed, and give you "differential" access speeds(which is "preferential shaping based on the source of the data" by the way). The Digital Imprimatur goes into more detail.

The Animal game eventually stopped replicating when there were changes to the Univac filesystem that broke its copy test.

The only way I know of generating truly random numbers (not psudorandom) is hot bits which works on the principle of single radioactive atoms decaying after a perfectly random, in every sense of the word, time. http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/

I don't expect this to be statistically random: they claim it's based on thermal noise. But the startup temperature of a computer does not have that much entropy, so the thermal noise isn't reliable. Just because something's garbage doesn't mean it's statistically random.

You have to trust someone...at least to a point. Google is not trying to steal your content. If you attach a document to email because you're afraid Google will steal it, how many relays does it go through? That's how many other organizations would have the opportunity to steal the content. Trojans, spyware and key loggers can make your own computer vulnerable to snooping. If you keep it on your network storage, you're trusting your sysads and anyone else with access to the file.

And if you're still that worried then encrypt it. For simple text try http://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/ and either use the site or download the javascript and make your own page, put it on SSL and even add a random virtual keyboard if you really want to go all out. Pick a pass phrase you can remember. Simple encryption will prevent casual reading, unless you think Google and the NSA are working together to spy on you...in which case you have bigger problems than /. can help with.

If anyone could ever prove Google snooped or stole content their business would evaporate overnight. They're likely very aware of that concern and probably more sensitive to it than you might imagine. Besides, with the volume of material they store, who has time to sit around and read your stuff?

Some free-as-in-something possibilities that either run on linux or are web-based:

• YourSky - This is a very elaborate and sophisticated web-based service that makes star charts; free as in beer, but not open-source
• PlanetFinder - A java applet I wrote that concentrates on ease of use; good for figuring out what you're seeing with your naked eyes, or for planning observations, e.g., when is Mars going to rise so I can point my telescope at it?
• Stellarium - cool photorealistic planetarium (computer-generated images, as opposed to maps or photos); FOSS
• Celestia - lets you fly around the universe in 3d; FOSS
• Xephem - Sky maps. Free as in beer. Has some really nasty licensing issues. I used to use it a lot, and it worked great, but it's no longer available as a Debian package.

Note that they all do different things. They're not interchangeable.

Notwithstanding the fact that you would need a quantum source for a truly random pad

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits - this page too

Fourmilab's been doing this for years with HotBits. I remember writing an atomic-powered band name generator that used it.

Summing up: While a good pseudorandom algorithm in a computer can make sequences of numbers that seem random, in reality it is deterministic, meaning that there is a system behind it. It's not apparent, it can (should) be very complex, but it exists.

A die, as well, will always be biased. There is no such thing as a perfect cube in real life. The approximation can be good enough for all practical purposes, but it can never be truly random.

Quantom and decay-based randomness is believed to be truly random. There is no "hidden clockwork" or countdown mechanism that decides when an emission from a radioactive nucleus will happen. It just happens when it happens, and yes, it boggles the mind :)

There is no reason why you can't observe emissions and extract randomness from their timing for use by a computer, and this has been done over and over. Have a look at this page for an example: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/

HTH!

HotBits is a true quantum-based Random Number Generator. For details, see How HotBits Works. Hotbits would seem to be at least as good as the RNG discussed in the Slashdot story, and it too is free and online; the main drawback is that you can only get 2k bits at a time.

Atmospheric noise
Lava lamps
Radioactive decay
Entropy

John Walker (AutoDesk founder) has had a true random number generator available for web access for quite a long time. Looks like his site's currently down, but check out www.fourmilab.ch when it's sorted -- in addition to the random number generator he has a number of other cool gadgets and info. available.

Oh, and this line from the FA is priceless: "...is connected to the internet through advanced computer technologies such as computer clusters and GRID network." Don't get too technical on me...

Try: http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/

If you're far enough away to survive the blast, the prompt radiation dosage isn't an issue with normal-size nuclear weapons (not so with really small sub-kiloton blasts though). As long as you get the hell out of Dodge before the fallout arrives (or are lucky enough to be upwind), if you survive the blast and the resulting fires you should be OK. If you want to do the calculations yourself, try this little piece of cold war nostalgia.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/ohmygodpart.html

"Now how many nines did you say, sir?"

More info http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html

I don't know if this is mentioned in the article above (which appears to be slashdotted) but here's a scientist showing the force of gravity by creating a torsion balance using a ladder, fishing line and a few extras including two boules. (Yes, they're spelled 'boules')

Bending spacetime in the basement"

Check out the timelapse movies at the bottom of the page to see gravity in action.

Radioactive decay. Truly random.

Good advice. I've already switched to diet sodas and water whenever possible and started losing weight (though I'm fairly addicted to sweet drinks), but what do you suggest to hold off cravings instead of white flours (bread, etc)?

BTW I recommend this book on dieting I found thanks to Slashdot comments: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html

It's called the Hacker's Diet and although it's pretty basic it helped me in my determination to lose weight so far (I use the included Excel table to chart my moving average weight).

Exactly.

"Gross income" is taxable, as provided for by Section 62 of the Federal Tax Code (http://www.fourmilab.ch/ustax/www/t26-A-1-B-I-63. html). Section 61 of the Code (http://www.fourmilab.ch/ustax/www/t26-A-1-B-I-61. html) defines "gross income" as "all income from whatever source derived," unless that source is specifically excluded.

The power to tax is expansive. Thus, from the federal government's perspective, the question is not whether "virtual income" CAN or even SHOULD be taxed, but rather why virtual income should be excluded from taxation.

Exactly.

"Gross income" is taxable, as provided for by Section 62 of the Federal Tax Code (http://www.fourmilab.ch/ustax/www/t26-A-1-B-I-63. html). Section 61 of the Code (http://www.fourmilab.ch/ustax/www/t26-A-1-B-I-61. html) defines "gross income" as "all income from whatever source derived," unless that source is specifically excluded.

The power to tax is expansive. Thus, from the federal government's perspective, the question is not whether "virtual income" CAN or even SHOULD be taxed, but rather why virtual income should be excluded from taxation.

Newton's law underwent some serious revisiting in 1905 when a chap called Einstein realised that masses are not constant/absolute but in fact relative, and this is why the modern relativistic notation differs quite a bit from the original F=ma. Now if this new guy is not joking (Russian timezones, April 1st, bit early..etc) then not only is our understanding of momentum going to be radically different, but in fact E=mc2 might have to be revisited as well (must read part 10 of this historical paper by Einstein to understand). That happens to be a very ground breaking idea if it were true, and would change lots of things we supposedly know about fundamental physics.

• No price differential based on port or protocol.
• No price differential based on IP source/destination.
• No blocking ports on any connection unless verified abuse.
• No blocking or removal of content unless without court order.
• No recording traffic without notification and/or court order.
• Methods for fair competition for last mile.
• Obey QoS flags for all packets or none.
• Prevent telecomms from catch-22ing communities by not providing service (or providing shitty service) and then attempting to legally block those communities from installing their own infrastructure.
  

Not exactly $250,000, but you should be able to get below $2m by mass production.

I've lost 60 that way (loosely following The Hacker's Diet), and in the course of it I developed a few tricks. For me, I found three kinds of hunger:

1) Peckishness. I just want to chew something. Having a box of sugar-free gum handy really helps with this.

2) Vitamin deficiency. When I first encountered this, I wandered into the kitchen looking for cheese. Man, I just wanted cheese. I felt like a pregnant woman, seriously. I had been cutting out milk, and was probably calcium-deficient. Also, when you eat less, you just get less vitamins. I take a multivitamin with calcium to counteract this kind of hunger, and that works really well.

3) Energy hunger. When it's bad, my head spins and I get really cranky. The weird thing is, this kind of hunger has nothing to do with how many calories you need: it's about rhythms (how long since you ate) and whether your stomach feels empty.

For #3, I look for foods with very low energy density. Happily, many of them tend to be fruits and vegetables, which helps with #2. For example, you can have a huge salad at only 200 kcal with the right dressing, and there are a lot of fantastic vinaigrettes out there. (Kraft's Sun Dried Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Italian come to mind.) Sprinkle some real crumbled bacon and shredded cheese on it for extra taste. Make it easy on yourself: buy everything pre-packaged.

I watch what I drink, mostly just avoiding milk and soda pop. Water is great. Crystal Light (or a knock-off) and Diet Coke are wonderful when you need something sweet. I guzzle something before eating to feel more full with less.

You can do it no matter how cranky you tend to get, if you know some tricks.