As a software engineer at a US defense contractor, I would expect that this thing would "go crazy" (where go crazy means enter a state of unpredictable operation) due to a bug at some point. I've never written software for industrial equipment, but I would imagine it is constructed and tested more rigorously than software for a complex weapon system such as a semi-autonomous ground vehicle. So at any time the software can suffer from memory corruption due to a coding error, and we can't rule out the possibility (even though it is miniscule) that this memory corruption will trigger some operation that result in the weapon being fired.
So until we start using more formal methods and such to build this complex software, we're just going to have to deal with this possibility.
I think it's ridiculous to patent any type of music, art, or any method for creating music or art. I believe what's happening here is the patent also describes all sorts of ludicrous technical uses for this (e.g. computer converts DNA to a song, injecting dissonance if there is a problem, play the song and have a doctor listen for dissonance to it to see if there are any problems). What the folks at the patent office won't understand is that if there is some indirect reasoning that can be done on the DNA using music as an intermediate form, then you could almost certainly just perform that reasoning directly on the structure of the DNA (e.g. computer analyzes DNA, if there is some problem in the DNA, the computer goes "bing").
Those technology and business graduate degrees are probably mostly for people with full time jobs. Their employer pays the cost of the education, so the tuition can be much more expensive. I would imagine this effect probably skews the averages and accounts for much of the difference cited in the article.
This is nothing new. People have been controlling computers with their brain for over a decade. Let me know when the computer can directly put information inside the brain. That is the *real* advance we need.
Also. WTF? The person does math and the computer moves a train? That is totally backwards from the way it should be.
It's not like the school can't just run an internal internet of their own where they control 100% of the content used on it!
Good news! Next week your school district is going to vote on whether they should hire more IT staff so they can make their own controlled internet. All it will take is a small increase to your property taxes.
Get real. Using the internet is a valuable skill that children in school should learn, but creating a completely controlled environment will be too expensive. The best we can reasonably hope for is a public internet connection and a horribly configured/maintained proxy. We're just going to have to deal with the occasional child being accidentally exposed to material that his/her parents find objectionable. But really, is anyone ever really "injured" by information?
We saw the ultimate failure at Viginia Tech - Students hid under desks and tried to flee - from a single assailant. Far fewer lives would have been lost if they'd done the same thing flight 93 had done - attacked back.
The problem with "attacking back" is that one person has to decide to attack back, and he has to go first. That person is almost certainly going to die. Each individual has a much higher chance of survival by hiding and evading. I imagine this is why this behavior is more common than groups of people fighting back in these situations.
I totally agree with this. Your mom doesn't want to see the pictures on a digital frame any more than she want to view them on a computer. Teach her how to use one of those web sites that allows you to send in digital photos and they mail you prints. Target has a great one that allows you to pick up the prints in the store.
I think we should first be concerned about the math that is taught in secondary schools in the U.S. If we are considering computer science to be just as important as physics, literature, etc (which I believe it is), then we should teach more discrete math so students have a better background. It bothers me that advanced high school students can spend 4 years on algebra, geometry, and calculus, and they only get a basic treatment of set theory, with little or no number theory, logic, etc. I bet most high school graduates wouldn't even recognize something as being math if it didn't have numerals and/or a coordinate system.
So I think we should replace a year of advanced algebra/pre-cal/calculus with a year of logic and discrete math in secondary schools.
Thompson just amended his action again yesterday to include the bagger at his supermarket who constantly places his bread at the bottom of the bag, causing it to be slightly crushed.
Slashdot Mirror
As a software engineer at a US defense contractor, I would expect that this thing would "go crazy" (where go crazy means enter a state of unpredictable operation) due to a bug at some point. I've never written software for industrial equipment, but I would imagine it is constructed and tested more rigorously than software for a complex weapon system such as a semi-autonomous ground vehicle. So at any time the software can suffer from memory corruption due to a coding error, and we can't rule out the possibility (even though it is miniscule) that this memory corruption will trigger some operation that result in the weapon being fired. So until we start using more formal methods and such to build this complex software, we're just going to have to deal with this possibility.
I think it's ridiculous to patent any type of music, art, or any method for creating music or art. I believe what's happening here is the patent also describes all sorts of ludicrous technical uses for this (e.g. computer converts DNA to a song, injecting dissonance if there is a problem, play the song and have a doctor listen for dissonance to it to see if there are any problems). What the folks at the patent office won't understand is that if there is some indirect reasoning that can be done on the DNA using music as an intermediate form, then you could almost certainly just perform that reasoning directly on the structure of the DNA (e.g. computer analyzes DNA, if there is some problem in the DNA, the computer goes "bing").
Those technology and business graduate degrees are probably mostly for people with full time jobs. Their employer pays the cost of the education, so the tuition can be much more expensive. I would imagine this effect probably skews the averages and accounts for much of the difference cited in the article.
This is nothing new. People have been controlling computers with their brain for over a decade. Let me know when the computer can directly put information inside the brain. That is the *real* advance we need.
Also. WTF? The person does math and the computer moves a train? That is totally backwards from the way it should be.
Good news! Next week your school district is going to vote on whether they should hire more IT staff so they can make their own controlled internet. All it will take is a small increase to your property taxes.
Get real. Using the internet is a valuable skill that children in school should learn, but creating a completely controlled environment will be too expensive. The best we can reasonably hope for is a public internet connection and a horribly configured/maintained proxy. We're just going to have to deal with the occasional child being accidentally exposed to material that his/her parents find objectionable. But really, is anyone ever really "injured" by information?
Check out my new song: I IV V I I now own the copyright on that sequence of chords. Anyone who uses them from now on has to pay me a licensing fee.
I totally agree with this. Your mom doesn't want to see the pictures on a digital frame any more than she want to view them on a computer. Teach her how to use one of those web sites that allows you to send in digital photos and they mail you prints. Target has a great one that allows you to pick up the prints in the store.
I think we should first be concerned about the math that is taught in secondary schools in the U.S. If we are considering computer science to be just as important as physics, literature, etc (which I believe it is), then we should teach more discrete math so students have a better background. It bothers me that advanced high school students can spend 4 years on algebra, geometry, and calculus, and they only get a basic treatment of set theory, with little or no number theory, logic, etc. I bet most high school graduates wouldn't even recognize something as being math if it didn't have numerals and/or a coordinate system. So I think we should replace a year of advanced algebra/pre-cal/calculus with a year of logic and discrete math in secondary schools.
Thompson just amended his action again yesterday to include the bagger at his supermarket who constantly places his bread at the bottom of the bag, causing it to be slightly crushed.
Now all we need is a translator that will turn Bush-speak into understandable English.