From the article:
When I got home in the wee hours of the morning, I found that I had already started to receive hateful e-mails from the "Donahue" dittoheads.
"You are obviously not a mother trying to raise teenagers you stupid freaking moron idiot."
"I'd like to take that stupid X Box and crack that moron from MIT over the head with it."
"By the way, Moron, get a shave."
It's not video games that make the occasional, random kid violent... it's having parents with hypocritical attitudes like that that make kids violent. Can anyone be that illogical and clueless? **Boggle**
Violent video games are bad, but threatening a real person in real life (ok, via email) is OK?
Just when I thought I had the tiniest shred of hope for humanity... I am sad now.
Or, perhaps, you can teach your kids that this is just a game, it's not real, you should never do these things in real life, but it can be fun to pretend!
The ability to distinguish reality from fantasy is an important life skill. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of adults are completely incapable of making the distinction, and I'm a whole lot more worried about them than I am about the kids.
Assuming of course that monkeys are purely random. The key arrangement, number of monkey hands, and physical constraints of the keys that can or must be hit in a single "bang" reduce the randomness. It should be entirely possible that monkeys banging on a keyboard can only produce a fixed arrangement of patterns, which may or may not include any particular piece or collection of literature.
I've always thought this was a bad example of randomness, but then I believe that monkeys banging on keyboards is more or less deterministic, so perhaps I'm just being too pedantic.:-)
I used to do this with my old Sound Blaster cards - the things were so poorly shielded and picked up so much noise from the processor (and hard drive and bus and I don't know what else) that I could tell when the program had crashed just by listening to the noise. If it was quiet, that usually meant something was very wrong.:-)
A few years ago, they only updated the date. They changed the number on my most recent card because they added some digits, no idea if they're going to change it next time.
The point was less about my CC specifically, and more about "which numbers have I sent across the 'net that I'd rather nobody know?" I'm sure there are a few, from vital things to personal information that is supposed to be confidential.
I can agree with that to some degree - we have an algorithm which, given sufficient run time, play chess flawlessly. The main problem is that there are way too many possible calculations to run it flawlessly on current hardware within the lifetime of the universe. And you'd need to use most of the matter in the universe (give or take) to store the complete results. Brute force can only win until somebody else brute forces deeper.
On the other hand, we barely have the remotest clue (and that's being generous) of how to create an artificial intelligence algorithm to simulate human conversation. (I would personally argue that the term "artificial intelligence" is more or less meaningless, which compounds the problem somewhat.) But, we can at least be sure that human-brain-compatible hardware can run it in real time.
Basically, the hardware and software problems for each problem are quite different, but both are still pretty hard.
Hmm... you know, I've been thinking... if anyone actually saves some of those packets floating around on the 'net, it my be possible to decrypt ALL of them in that time frame. In other words, even if it's encrypted, be aware that it may not be secure for the remainder of your life, perhaps much, much less. I wonder if I'll have the same credit card numbers in 15 years. Alternatively, I wonder if anybody will think about this more than a year before it's possible.
Another interesting case where it's faster to wait for the hardware than to start chugging away with what we've got right now.
Very interesting what volunteers have accomplished in less then four years, when it took how long to get the original out? Seven years or something?:-)
people in this community are afraid of is the continual insistence that clicking through a bunch of menu items is easier than (and absolutely must replace) simply typing 'make'
I don't know about that, I just press F7 (Visual Studio).
The logic behind winmodems was to reduce the hardware costs and drive down the prices. The logic behind winmodems was to reduce the hardware costs and drive down the prices.
That may be true... but of course, if prices stay the same but this reduces manufacturing costs, then profits go up.
The rest of us on the main trunk will never see that effect that professor A had on the past, since history has already been written for us. Professor A has been lost forever since he will be living in the history he has created.
So, basically, there's no way for him to come back and tell us that it worked? It would take some pretty [brave | crazy | stupid] people to step into that machine, not knowing if they were going to travel in time or just disappear, or if they did travel in time that they would actually end up on the surface of [the | an] Earth, rather than stranded in space or appearing underground.
I can just imagine all of the alternate Earths, having major issues of time travellers falling from the sky or appearing waist-deep in the pavement because nobody can go back to debug the system.:-)
They're suggesting people have used thumbs so often that they are more skilled with using thumbs than index fingers. Not a mutation.
In other words, touch-typing vs. hunt-and-peck. Wow, I'm shocked. Well, I am shocked that presumably intelligent people would a) study this and b) think the conclusion was amazing.
And, if we (conservatively) assume an average song length of 2.5 minutes, that's 666 * 2.5 = 1665 minutes of songs to listen to a day. With 1440 minutes in a day, I'd love to get ahold of whatever time-distorting device they are using to actually listen to all of those mp3s.
Stargate plays, or played, on Global. I don't know if it still does because I've got fed up with this conspiracy crap mixed in with repeats, but it used to be on Monday at 8 or 9 PM on Global TV here in BC.
I watched it there and then for over a year, then it disappeared... since then, the time has changed every week according to the listings, but has never been on when it was listed.
Don't know if they're trying to kill it or the listings are wrong. It sucks anyway.
and I can't really distinguish a difference between 30 and 60.
Film is at 24. You can't tell because motion blur due to the filming process makes everything looks smooth. Computer games don't blur at all (in general) so things look really jerky when the camera is panning quickly. Increasing the framerate doesn't eliminate this, but it helps quite a bit. It still depends on how fast the camera is panning.
As a side note to this, the rate of film is more obvious when you start seeing pans during fully CG scenes - the motion blur isn't as good as actualy photography. I noticed some really nasty jerking motion during some of the pans in LOTR.
When is this show on anyway? I used to watch it every week, but I've reset my VCR 4 times based on the TV listings and it's never on when it's supposed to be.
This was only one of two shows that I ever watched regularly, but I didn't even know Shanks had left the cast - I think I got half of that episode on tape, but they must have screwed with the schedule then too because it got cut off just after the opening credits...
Anyway, the meandering point I was coming to is: for a show that is (was?) produced in Vancouver, it's impossible to find it here even if you're looking for it. I don't doubt that ratings have dropped with that sort of thing going on.
One more excellent show swirling in the bowl because somebody had to make changes for the sake of change, rather than to make things better... the need to "put one's mark" on something to justify their position/existence will be the end of us all.
Depends on whether you consider your own "fear" reaction to be something other than a simple "circuit" tripping in your brain... this is not perhaps "reasoned fear," but how often is fear in humans well reasoned?
Yes, except in this case, nothing odd is happening, and it's not handling an error, it just skips over a single block of code that could be enclosed in a single "else" block.:-)
Not to show any disrespect to John - I'm a game / rendering programmer myself, and I would by lying if I said I wasn't envious of his skill and drive. I just thought it was funny that the first thing I stumbled across was a classic example of "for the love of God, never do this!"
Some day, some day I will stop reading/. all day and surpass id...:-)
My SO can pick up a remote control, figure it our without the manual, and operate the TV, VCR, and Hi-Fi.
My SO uses her computer almost every waking hour, navigates the desktop with no problem, plays Age of Empires a LOT and writes her own AI scripts for it... and has often asked me to turn the TV on or off or turn the volume down because she's not sure how to work the remote control.
<shrug>
(Sometimes I think she's just messing with me, but you never know.)
Slashdot Mirror
Warren Spector (Ultima Underworlds, System Shock, Deus Ex) is working on a Theif III, and a Deus Ex 2
:-)
Given his complaint of sequilitis, I don't think that's going to make him feel any better at all.
From the article:
When I got home in the wee hours of the morning, I found that I had already started to receive hateful e-mails from the "Donahue" dittoheads.
"You are obviously not a mother trying to raise teenagers you stupid freaking moron idiot."
"I'd like to take that stupid X Box and crack that moron from MIT over the head with it."
"By the way, Moron, get a shave."
It's not video games that make the occasional, random kid violent... it's having parents with hypocritical attitudes like that that make kids violent. Can anyone be that illogical and clueless? **Boggle**
Violent video games are bad, but threatening a real person in real life (ok, via email) is OK?
Just when I thought I had the tiniest shred of hope for humanity... I am sad now.
Or, perhaps, you can teach your kids that this is just a game, it's not real, you should never do these things in real life, but it can be fun to pretend!
The ability to distinguish reality from fantasy is an important life skill. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of adults are completely incapable of making the distinction, and I'm a whole lot more worried about them than I am about the kids.
Assuming of course that monkeys are purely random. The key arrangement, number of monkey hands, and physical constraints of the keys that can or must be hit in a single "bang" reduce the randomness. It should be entirely possible that monkeys banging on a keyboard can only produce a fixed arrangement of patterns, which may or may not include any particular piece or collection of literature.
:-)
I've always thought this was a bad example of randomness, but then I believe that monkeys banging on keyboards is more or less deterministic, so perhaps I'm just being too pedantic.
I used to do this with my old Sound Blaster cards - the things were so poorly shielded and picked up so much noise from the processor (and hard drive and bus and I don't know what else) that I could tell when the program had crashed just by listening to the noise. If it was quiet, that usually meant something was very wrong. :-)
A few years ago, they only updated the date. They changed the number on my most recent card because they added some digits, no idea if they're going to change it next time.
The point was less about my CC specifically, and more about "which numbers have I sent across the 'net that I'd rather nobody know?" I'm sure there are a few, from vital things to personal information that is supposed to be confidential.
I can agree with that to some degree - we have an algorithm which, given sufficient run time, play chess flawlessly. The main problem is that there are way too many possible calculations to run it flawlessly on current hardware within the lifetime of the universe. And you'd need to use most of the matter in the universe (give or take) to store the complete results. Brute force can only win until somebody else brute forces deeper.
On the other hand, we barely have the remotest clue (and that's being generous) of how to create an artificial intelligence algorithm to simulate human conversation. (I would personally argue that the term "artificial intelligence" is more or less meaningless, which compounds the problem somewhat.) But, we can at least be sure that human-brain-compatible hardware can run it in real time.
Basically, the hardware and software problems for each problem are quite different, but both are still pretty hard.
15 - 20 years until they're broken...
Hmm... you know, I've been thinking... if anyone actually saves some of those packets floating around on the 'net, it my be possible to decrypt ALL of them in that time frame. In other words, even if it's encrypted, be aware that it may not be secure for the remainder of your life, perhaps much, much less. I wonder if I'll have the same credit card numbers in 15 years. Alternatively, I wonder if anybody will think about this more than a year before it's possible.
Another interesting case where it's faster to wait for the hardware than to start chugging away with what we've got right now.
Well, then you need a write-only head. :-)
Very interesting what volunteers have accomplished in less then four years, when it took how long to get the original out? Seven years or something? :-)
You've obviously been exposed to technology we would like to steal, you're hired.
Oh right, the dot-com boom is over. Oh well.
people in this community are afraid of is the continual insistence that clicking through a bunch of menu items is easier than (and absolutely must replace) simply typing 'make'
I don't know about that, I just press F7 (Visual Studio).
The logic behind winmodems was to reduce the hardware costs and drive down the prices. The logic behind winmodems was to reduce the hardware costs and drive down the prices.
That may be true... but of course, if prices stay the same but this reduces manufacturing costs, then profits go up.
The rest of us on the main trunk will never see that effect that professor A had on the past, since history has already been written for us. Professor A has been lost forever since he will be living in the history he has created.
:-)
So, basically, there's no way for him to come back and tell us that it worked? It would take some pretty [brave | crazy | stupid] people to step into that machine, not knowing if they were going to travel in time or just disappear, or if they did travel in time that they would actually end up on the surface of [the | an] Earth, rather than stranded in space or appearing underground.
I can just imagine all of the alternate Earths, having major issues of time travellers falling from the sky or appearing waist-deep in the pavement because nobody can go back to debug the system.
They're suggesting people have used thumbs so often that they are more skilled with using thumbs than index fingers. Not a mutation.
In other words, touch-typing vs. hunt-and-peck. Wow, I'm shocked. Well, I am shocked that presumably intelligent people would a) study this and b) think the conclusion was amazing.
And, if we (conservatively) assume an average song length of 2.5 minutes, that's 666 * 2.5 = 1665 minutes of songs to listen to a day. With 1440 minutes in a day, I'd love to get ahold of whatever time-distorting device they are using to actually listen to all of those mp3s.
Stargate plays, or played, on Global. I don't know if it still does because I've got fed up with this conspiracy crap mixed in with repeats, but it used to be on Monday at 8 or 9 PM on Global TV here in BC.
I watched it there and then for over a year, then it disappeared... since then, the time has changed every week according to the listings, but has never been on when it was listed.
Don't know if they're trying to kill it or the listings are wrong. It sucks anyway.
and I can't really distinguish a difference between 30 and 60.
Film is at 24. You can't tell because motion blur due to the filming process makes everything looks smooth. Computer games don't blur at all (in general) so things look really jerky when the camera is panning quickly. Increasing the framerate doesn't eliminate this, but it helps quite a bit. It still depends on how fast the camera is panning.
As a side note to this, the rate of film is more obvious when you start seeing pans during fully CG scenes - the motion blur isn't as good as actualy photography. I noticed some really nasty jerking motion during some of the pans in LOTR.
When is this show on anyway? I used to watch it every week, but I've reset my VCR 4 times based on the TV listings and it's never on when it's supposed to be.
This was only one of two shows that I ever watched regularly, but I didn't even know Shanks had left the cast - I think I got half of that episode on tape, but they must have screwed with the schedule then too because it got cut off just after the opening credits...
Anyway, the meandering point I was coming to is: for a show that is (was?) produced in Vancouver, it's impossible to find it here even if you're looking for it. I don't doubt that ratings have dropped with that sort of thing going on.
One more excellent show swirling in the bowl because somebody had to make changes for the sake of change, rather than to make things better... the need to "put one's mark" on something to justify their position/existence will be the end of us all.
Well, my son and I will sleep better tonight knowing that NORAD can survive the Slashdot effect!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Hmm...
Depends on whether you consider your own "fear" reaction to be something other than a simple "circuit" tripping in your brain... this is not perhaps "reasoned fear," but how often is fear in humans well reasoned?
Yes, except in this case, nothing odd is happening, and it's not handling an error, it just skips over a single block of code that could be enclosed in a single "else" block. :-)
/. all day and surpass id... :-)
Not to show any disrespect to John - I'm a game / rendering programmer myself, and I would by lying if I said I wasn't envious of his skill and drive. I just thought it was funny that the first thing I stumbled across was a classic example of "for the love of God, never do this!"
Some day, some day I will stop reading
I thought it looked almost exactly like typical CS code, actually not too different from my style.... until I saw line 577 in ref_gl/gl_light.c:
:-)
:-)
"store:"
WTF? Search "store"....
Line 488:
"goto store;"
And the style Nazi in me went: NNNOOOOOOOO!
This must be a remnant of something, an "else" would have sufficed.
My SO can pick up a remote control, figure it our without the manual, and operate the TV, VCR, and Hi-Fi.
My SO uses her computer almost every waking hour, navigates the desktop with no problem, plays Age of Empires a LOT and writes her own AI scripts for it... and has often asked me to turn the TV on or off or turn the volume down because she's not sure how to work the remote control.
<shrug>
(Sometimes I think she's just messing with me, but you never know.)
Well, since there's NO WAY you could have copied it, because it is COPY PROTECTED, there's no reason they shouldn't accept a return.
:-)