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>Contrary to a minority of Quebecer's wishes

(cough), a difference of only 50,000 Quebecers is a really, really, really, big minority. As in, what it takes to get Bush elected type of minority. Had I hindsight, myself and 49,999 Canadians would have found it worth their time to move there for a short while to get them the hell outta Canada.

If Canada were the US we'd be rid of that annoying wart. Doctor, bust out the Compound U already!

Mix those facts in with a liberal splash of our once second-in-command party being a group intent on breaking Quebec from Canada along with Bill 101 outlawing English Free Speech in Quebec public schools (a RIGHT guaranteed to ALL CANADIANS by the charter) and I, for one, after that, refer to Quebec as a separate country also. I mean, WTF do they keep that "I will remember the time you damn British beat us" license plate motto for? Because they prefer to use "tough love"?

Fuck 'em, eh? Most Quebecers are assholes, and I fairly judge that by the fact they keep electing a separatist majority government for themselves, over, and over, and over again.

Oh, and for those who aren't convinced, how about this? Only *TOTAL* assholes try to turn a known burial ground into a golf course. At least the original inhabitants of Canada have better manners.

We don't need them, and they DEFINATELY don't want us.

[It was worth the karma]

It may be true that most schools around your parts own papers that students write but here in Canada, this is generally (though not always) not true. Certainly, this is not true at the University of Alberta (which unfortunately also often uses turnitin.com). At the UofA, undergrads entirely own the copyright of the work they produce while a student, even work they submit to a professor for a class. I specifically had to inquire about this while I was an undergrad.

At the University of Alberta which also forces students to use turnitin.com, the drafted policy adopted by the university makes it quite clear that undergrads (haven't looked into this for grad students) entirely own the copyright on papers they submit to their professors. So while there is nothing stopping the UofA from changing their policy, this is how it currently sits. By forcing the students to use turnitin.com, they are essentially going against the policy they have established and are in fact requiring that students assign copyright to a commercial entity (turnitin.com).

I strongly suspect McGill has a similar problem.

Check youre windows, you will find they are larger at the bottom as it drips.

Here at the University of Alberta (Canada) the reasearch department does a wide variety of reasearch. Skimming through the various webpages, I had difficulty finding even one that was obviously connected to the military.
Basically, the short answer is no.
I did however, recently see a very interesting presentation on an AI project called ScriptEase. It is a program to reduce programming requirements abd ease module design for the game Neverwinter Nights. It is funded by Bioware (the company that produced Neverwinter Nights and which is based here in Edmonton.)
I guess it depends on where you live. I would be interested to hear from more people in other countries on this issue.

Here at the University of Alberta (Canada) the reasearch department does a wide variety of reasearch. Skimming through the various webpages, I had difficulty finding even one that was obviously connected to the military.
Basically, the short answer is no.
I did however, recently see a very interesting presentation on an AI project called ScriptEase. It is a program to reduce programming requirements abd ease module design for the game Neverwinter Nights. It is funded by Bioware (the company that produced Neverwinter Nights and which is based here in Edmonton.)
I guess it depends on where you live. I would be interested to hear from more people in other countries on this issue.

Here at the University of Alberta (Canada) the reasearch department does a wide variety of reasearch. Skimming through the various webpages, I had difficulty finding even one that was obviously connected to the military.
Basically, the short answer is no.
I did however, recently see a very interesting presentation on an AI project called ScriptEase. It is a program to reduce programming requirements abd ease module design for the game Neverwinter Nights. It is funded by Bioware (the company that produced Neverwinter Nights and which is based here in Edmonton.)
I guess it depends on where you live. I would be interested to hear from more people in other countries on this issue.

Look up the Notwithstanding Clause in the Canadians Constitution before you do, mmmkay?

has any drunk driving accident victim sued the bar which sold them the drink?

Yes. (fifth story down)

Chinook is called the World Champion of Checkers, though usually they say Man-Machine world champion.

In our time, we are accustomed to forklifts and cars "out-performing" us and so we take no special notice. We are now on the verge of machines beating us at our own game so to speak. Probably they will have a first and only machine as the chess world champion, then it will be been there, done that and the people who like to play people will continue on as before and the programmers who like to out program other programmers will continue on as before.

The world chess champion will ALWAYS be a human, not a machine.

The world checkers champion is a machine Why not chess? Why not a forklift? There can be separate champions for "human" and "world".

C= Wlog2(1+S/N)

S= kEb/T

(Eb/N0)>= (lim as nmax->0){log2(((2^nmax)-1)/nmax)}

How can you voluntarily sign on to a law? Does that imply I can opt out of the laws I don't like?

Emacs is a great O/S. But what it needs is a good text editor.

It does have a good text editor, vi.

Most of these Eula's are unenforceable anyway.

Really? Are you a lawyer? How did you reach that decision? What country are you discussing when you say that?

For Canada, you're quite wrong. There have been cases and EULAs have been upheld.

In the US, it's more questionable. There have been judgements either way, but from my reading of this article it would apear that they are more likely enforceable than not. The ProCD case is pretty damning from the POV of the average consumer. You don't even need to be able to read the license before agreeing to it as long as you can return the software afterward. Isn't that fun?

There are exceptions. The license cannot violate the law, nor can it be "unconscionable" (yeah, there's a term that'll be fun to define, just like "pornography"). The appellate court's ruling is not binding except inside of it's perview, and even then only specifically to Wisconsin. But it's apparantly a well regarded Federal appellate court and its decision is going to be cited/referred to in any other cases regarding EULAs.

IANAL. But I'm at least willing to do a Google search rather than spout my opinion on this kind of thing. I find most of the more absurd T&C's in EULAs to be "unconscionable", as I'm sure many /.ers do, but that doesn't mean it's going to hold water in court.

Here are my spam stats, generated with Rob Park's excellent mboxstats:

Jul 01, 2003 102
Jul 02, 2003 84
Jul 03, 2003 83
Jul 04, 2003 87
Jul 05, 2003 64
Jul 06, 2003 62
Jul 07, 2003 81
Jul 08, 2003 95
Jul 09, 2003 73
Jul 10, 2003 90
Jul 11, 2003 88
Jul 12, 2003 84
Jul 13, 2003 77
Jul 14, 2003 110
Jul 15, 2003 122
Jul 16, 2003 112
Jul 17, 2003 84
Jul 18, 2003 112
Jul 19, 2003 103
Jul 20, 2003 83
Jul 21, 2003 92
Jul 22, 2003 89
Jul 23, 2003 103
Jul 24, 2003 86
Jul 25, 2003 91
Jul 26, 2003 90
Jul 27, 2003 66
Jul 28, 2003 98
Jul 29, 2003 92
Jul 30, 2003 95
Jul 31, 2003 98
Aug 01, 2003 97
Aug 02, 2003 93
Aug 03, 2003 66
Aug 04, 2003 83
Aug 05, 2003 80
Aug 06, 2003 76
Aug 07, 2003 107
Aug 08, 2003 85
Aug 09, 2003 59
Aug 10, 2003 63
Aug 11, 2003 75
Aug 12, 2003 63
Aug 13, 2003 68
Aug 14, 2003 71
Aug 15, 2003 58
Aug 16, 2003 75
Aug 17, 2003 63
Aug 18, 2003 51
Aug 19, 2003 34
Aug 20, 2003 62
Aug 21, 2003 60
Aug 22, 2003 66
Aug 23, 2003 67
Aug 24, 2003 64
Aug 25, 2003 65

There's no getting around it -- the quantity of spam that has decreased in the past couple of weeks.

Note that the corpus is my UCE folder for my primary e-mail address. I do not use any RBLs to block, but I do use SpamAssassin to filter, and then I hand-review my UCE folder daily, weeding out viruses and the occasional legitimate message.

-Waldo Jaquith

In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. Sorry about that.

C'mon up to Canada for your education. The tuition is about half (or less) of what it is in the states, if you're gay you can get married, and we're about to decriminalize marijuana.

Better yet, you don't have to pay to see our rankings:

1 Toronto
2 Queen's
*3 McGill
*3 Western
5 UBC
6 Montreal
7 Alberta
8 Sherbrooke
9 Ottawa
10 McMaster
11 Dalhousie
12 Saskatchewan
13 Laval
14 Calgary
15 Manitoba

Gaim's position in this matter is reasonable (M$ can view the source if it feels like it), then there is at least a chance they will allow Gaim to keep compatibility.

First of all: Using the term M$ makes you look childish at best.

Secondly, Microsoft is the same company that called the GPL viral, and communist (in case you hadn't noticed). The chances of them turning around on this issue are slim to none.

MSN Messenger is one of Windows' main selling points... :rolleyes:

There's a reason that there's no linux port for the official MSN Messenger client. Hint: It's the same reason there's no linux port of Internet Explorer, Outlook, or Office, either. You're right, people don't buy Windows just for MSN Messenger, but it's an added value thing: MS has nothing to gain by allowing people who don't use windows to use Messenger. If it was only possible to use MSN on Windows, Gates would be a happy, happy man. It would be just one more reason for people not to switch away from Windows. It's all about proprietary lock-in.

Well I happen to use Gaim with Windows at work, because I like it better than MSN Messenger.

And I happen to use Gaim with Linux at home, because I like it better than any other IM client I've tried. What's your point?

Frankly, I'm just hoping for a time when there is only one IM protocol, and that IM clients can compete on features/usability, not protocols (much like email clients or web browsers). Preferably the Jabber protocol could fill this role.

the results have generally been regarded as disasterous - most notably a rise in power bills for both domestic and industrial consumers that topped out at well over double. the power rate increase resulted in less disposable consumer income and increased cost of doing business in the province and was regarded as an election-killer by the current administration.

so they spent their way out of it to the the tune of $2.3 billion. that was direct subsidies to rate payers. of course the whole subsidy was a charade since those same rate payers were going to pay for their "subsidies" in income tax increases or reduced social spending in other areas. clearly a case of cutting you a cheque with your own money.

so who got rich? the power companies. same service, same power, more money.

bottom line: electricity is a necessity. like water, or the police service. it is a completely inelastic commodity and privatizing it is only encouraging the new power overlord (since there is, really, only one major power provider... a monopoly) to charge the maximum the market will bear and damn the consequences.

source here: here

You mean that I've been typing on this binary keyboard, and a better, if not superior design has been around since the invention of the typewriter?!

I don't know how to feel just now..

Hey! You're from Austrailia? Do you know Karen? She's a friend of mine, lives in Queensland.

Oh yea, get used to question like that from North Americans.

Does anyone know how passports originated?

Another excellent bit Canadian law is from the Constitution Act, 1867 , which in part grants Parliament the power to make laws for the 'peace, order, and good government' of Canada. It sounds to me to be an excellent set of goals for legislators in any nation. It also implies a great deal of trust in elected officials--'good government' is a very open-ended guiding priciple--balanced nicely by the protections afforded by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Oh, and before I forget, the Roshambo Programming Contest is hosted by the University of Alberta, the same university responsible for the above poker AI article.

They've also created the world's best checkers player, human or machine. Chinook utilized a distributed computing solution for mapping and optimizing its checkers stratagy back in 1989. IIRC from the talk Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer gave on it, this distributed network accounted for 80-90% of the Internet traffic between the United States and Canada in its day :)

Oh, and before I forget, the Roshambo Programming Contest is hosted by the University of Alberta, the same university responsible for the above poker AI article.

They've also created the world's best checkers player, human or machine. Chinook utilized a distributed computing solution for mapping and optimizing its checkers stratagy back in 1989. IIRC from the talk Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer gave on it, this distributed network accounted for 80-90% of the Internet traffic between the United States and Canada in its day :)

This reminds me of strategies for programming Ro-Sham-Bo (Rock, Scissors, Paper). The "safest" strategy would be to randomly choose rock, scissors, or paper every time. Your winning percentage would approach 50%, but so would your opponent's. Ah, but if you're competing against other pairs of players, and they're all following that strategy, then it's just dumb luck who will win. For there to be any point to the competition, you have to assume your opponent has some non-random strategy, such that you could beat it and get >50% wins if you could figure out what it was. Of course, your opponent is making the same assumptions about you. And so begins a world of strategies on how to make your opponent think you're being predictable, when you're really just fooling him into making a choice you can predict. Of course, if your opponent knows you're fooling him, he will then know you're intention and gain the advantage. And so on and so on (similarities to the Iocaine Powder sequence from the Princess Bride are more than coincidence).

I just wanted to point that out as a counter to the posts advocating a purely statistical approach in which the program folds anything not likely to win. In the optimal case (there is no house rake, no ante, and no bluffing) it is as interesting as flipping a coin to see who wins. And even a small amount of bluffing will cause it to lose.

These are people who post things which can be totally fabricated, simply regurgitations of the information available, bashing individuals or companies unpopular among Slashdot readers, or any other form of redundant or pointless contribution for the purpose of collecting "karma." This is described in more detail below, but suffice it to say that those individuals who consider collecting karma to be a status symbol need to get out more, and make some friends in meatspace.

This seems to be beta quality code. Thus you might want to try Secure NFS via SSH Tunnel, which provides, accoding to the author Secure NFS (SNFS) via SSH2 tunneling of UDP datagrams, as suggested in the SSH FAQ.

This seems to be beta quality code. Thus you might want to try Secure NFS via SSH Tunnel, which provides, accoding to the author Secure NFS (SNFS) via SSH2 tunneling of UDP datagrams, as suggested in the SSH FAQ.

My CS department has an old (at least I hope so) version of fvwm as the default WM with a particularily horrid colour scheme. I've heard the reason is to force the students to delve into the config files so avoid going insane.

It covers various ethical dilemmas (as I imagine Engineers do), and as someone else mentioned, goes over some of the more disastrous software creations. If you're interested, such lists usually include the Therac 25 (rollover bug, improper software re-use), the London Ambulance Service (Their newly-ordered, lowest-bidder Computer Aided Dispatch system caused massive problems), and the Ariane 5 rocket (overflow/improper error handling).

OTOH, I agree with you that people should know the conseqences (and likelyhood) of failure, as they clearly don't. There are loads examples on RISKS of people having laser surgery, needing some computerized medical device, and seeing gross examples that those using them have literally no idea the devices are misconfigured, warning of possible malfuctions, etc.

It covers various ethical dilemmas (as I imagine Engineers do), and as someone else mentioned, goes over some of the more disastrous software creations. If you're interested, such lists usually include the Therac 25 (rollover bug, improper software re-use), the London Ambulance Service (Their newly-ordered, lowest-bidder Computer Aided Dispatch system caused massive problems), and the Ariane 5 rocket (overflow/improper error handling).

OTOH, I agree with you that people should know the conseqences (and likelyhood) of failure, as they clearly don't. There are loads examples on RISKS of people having laser surgery, needing some computerized medical device, and seeing gross examples that those using them have literally no idea the devices are misconfigured, warning of possible malfuctions, etc.

BTW, I am self-taught. I find it almost scary how much more I know about computer science than the computer scientists do. I'll mention a simple datastructure (hashtable, b-tree, anything!) and watch the eyes of degree holders gloss over.

Where are these schools they're graduating from? I go to the University of Alberta and I learned hash tables in 1st year and b-trees this year and consider both to be fairly simple concepts. I believe the institution makes a huge difference. Normally I would guess that colleges and technical institutes would have a better change of turning out code monkeys than a real University but the people you mentioned have Masters degrees. That being said I think even here it might be possible to get through without knowing code. Past 1st year there aren't any lab exams and although they compare assignments I wonder if some people could get through by obsficating other peoples code. Either way what institutions did these people come from? It would be interesting to know the different quality of education that different places are giving.

We had a 80 - 90% drop-or-transfer rate from the first computer science course in first year to the graduating class. Our first computer class had 434 students in the first semester. Some additional students, perhaps as many as 200, didn't take it until second semester, however. The population of my graduating class was around 60.

Of course, most of these students ended up transferring into arts or engineering or something similar. I believe as many as 60% of all first year students at my post-secondary school return for second year.

This is a good idea except many schools restrict how long you have from the time you take your first course to the time you take your last course. My school restricts this to eight years for an undergrad term. Given the average salary for a person without post-secondary education here in Canada, it is unlikely you could make enough working half time to pay for school.

Are you kidding? There's a great editor for EMACS!

I believe that Richard Stallman wrote most of the original GNU C compiler, although it was derived partly from a portable optimizer from a 1978 Univeristy of Arizona research project.

"GNU `diff' was written by Mike Haertel, David Hayes, Richard Stallman, Len Tower, and Paul Eggert."

"GNU Make was written by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath."

"Richard Stallman was the original author of GDB, and of many other GNU programs."

I'm glad someone's helping the mice out there. We on the other hand will keep curing humans.

I'm glad someone's helping the mice out there. We on the other hand will keep curing humans.

I'm a student at the University of Alberta, and I have one of these OneCards.

There are various machines around that let you deposit money onto your OneCard, but there is no "university-approved network" of stores that accept the OneCard as payment.

The OneCard is primarily used for borrowing books from the library, and for operating the photocopiers/printers on campus, and there is exactly one vending machine on campus that allows you to pay with your OneCard.

As for people living in residence who have meal plans (like me), there's a separate card for that, provided by Aramark. To get into our dorms, we have keys. Laundry is coin-operated. The OneCard has absolutely nothing to do with the on-campus residences.

For most finals and midterms, we're required to show our onecards and/or driver's licenses as photo ID, but the OneCards aren't swiped through a card reader or anything, it's just photo ID, nothing more.

There are restricted areas on campus that you can access by swiping your OneCard and punching in a secret code, but as a first year undergrad, I don't have access to any of those places so I can't say what it's like (though for most of the places that aren't top-secret nuclear research facilities, it's almost trivially easy to get in by walking in when somebody else walks out -- we're friendly here in Canada, generally we hold the door open for people we don't know).

So, if you're a student at a school that uses Blackboard, do you feel more secure now that the DMCA has tried to stop you from learning about its security flaws?

Gee, I dunno. This is Canada, there is no DMCA here (as far as I know, anyway). Hopefully some Canadian security researcher will hear about this, and continue the research here...

The University of Alberta has an excellent internship program, with over 90% placement. You can see a list of placements for this year here. The companies offering internships to U of A students include IBM, RedHat, Electronic Arts, various municipal/provincial/federal government organizations, as well as a ton of smaller companies. I will be starting my internship this May with Statistics Canada. It is a 16 month placement, so all the credit is earned at one position. This is in contrast to the more traditional multiple 4-8 month placements seen mostly in engineering. The 16 month term allows a student to really get involved in the project. Overall, I think the U of A has an excellent program set up that will leave the graduates who choose to take part in the program ahead of the field in terms of experience.

The University of Alberta has an excellent internship program, with over 90% placement. You can see a list of placements for this year here. The companies offering internships to U of A students include IBM, RedHat, Electronic Arts, various municipal/provincial/federal government organizations, as well as a ton of smaller companies. I will be starting my internship this May with Statistics Canada. It is a 16 month placement, so all the credit is earned at one position. This is in contrast to the more traditional multiple 4-8 month placements seen mostly in engineering. The 16 month term allows a student to really get involved in the project. Overall, I think the U of A has an excellent program set up that will leave the graduates who choose to take part in the program ahead of the field in terms of experience.

The University of Alberta has an excellent internship program, with over 90% placement. You can see a list of placements for this year here. The companies offering internships to U of A students include IBM, RedHat, Electronic Arts, various municipal/provincial/federal government organizations, as well as a ton of smaller companies. I will be starting my internship this May with Statistics Canada. It is a 16 month placement, so all the credit is earned at one position. This is in contrast to the more traditional multiple 4-8 month placements seen mostly in engineering. The 16 month term allows a student to really get involved in the project. Overall, I think the U of A has an excellent program set up that will leave the graduates who choose to take part in the program ahead of the field in terms of experience.

For Computing Science I am obligated to plug my employer at the University of Alberta. It's actually a pretty good CS program (we are sort of rivals with Waterloo).
As a bonus, the undergraduate student group has been Slashdotted twice in the past three months (modded paper shredder and Valentine's Day form letter). I'm one of the admins for the undergrad labs, and yes our web server coped just fine thank you very much.

For Computing Science I am obligated to plug my employer at the University of Alberta. It's actually a pretty good CS program (we are sort of rivals with Waterloo).
As a bonus, the undergraduate student group has been Slashdotted twice in the past three months (modded paper shredder and Valentine's Day form letter). I'm one of the admins for the undergrad labs, and yes our web server coped just fine thank you very much.

Am I missing anything important here?

Yes. Remember that alpha-beta prunes exponentially. With optimal move ordering, it will reduce the number of nodes for a search to depth d from b**d to b**(d/2). Consider a game like chess, where the average branching factor is around 10 or so. Thus, to search to a depth of 12 without alpha-beta requires something like 1e12 nodes. To search to a depth of 12 with alpha-beta requires examining 1e6 nodes, as in your example. Note that if you miss even one good early prune, you could easily search an extra 1e10 or more nodes: that means that all of your 1e4 processors would be doing wasted work the whole time, and you would take just as long as your sequential opponent! The situation gets worse as the search gets deeper you need an number of processors exponential in the search depth to keep up.

In short, while it should be better to examine more boards than one during a given timestep, this is only true if you can find more than one board worth examining during this timestep. Standard minimax alpha-beta is inherently sequential: study the algorithm carefully, and you will be convinced of this.

For more information on parallel game tree search, hit the U. Alberta Games Group web site.

Game tree search is a very well understood problem and most top programs use some version of a null-window negascout (ID-DFS) with opening and closing databases. The most black magic in these systems is in their heuristic evaluation functions.

Backgammon programs used to compete at only a moderate level until Gerald Tesauro's TD-gammon (and predecessors). I wonder if there will ever be a breakthrough of equal proportions in chess? If so, humans would have very little change against computers (I hate to say never, because of absolute freaks like Marion "I am programmed by God" Tinsley).

chess is nice, but most progresses in chess have been due to speed increases in hardware and optimizations, hence allowing the computer to overpower the human with depth of search. On top of that, the evaluation functions are rather primitive, with lots of factors, but fail rather miserably without a great depth of search. New developments such as Logistello's statistical forward alpha cutoff called multiprobcut is the interesting development, IMHO

chess is nice, but most progresses in chess have been due to speed increases in hardware and optimizations, hence allowing the computer to overpower the human with depth of search. On top of that, the evaluation functions are rather primitive, with lots of factors, but fail rather miserably without a great depth of search. New developments such as Logistello's statistical forward alpha cutoff called multiprobcut is the interesting development, IMHO

It may be a bit far out, but here goes :-) There are basic metaphors underlying much of human thinking. For example, ideas like "up is good, down is bad" or "time is a commodity that can be spent or saved"... Major scientific discoveries are hypothesized to influence such basic metaphors and thus all thinking. A relatively new example is relativity theory. An older example is the switch to the heliocentric model. I think chaos theory is a strong source of new metaphors entering all areas of human thought. Here is an author who extensively uses fractals and chaos theory metaphors in education research.