You use the word alive. From a scientific perspective, I'd rather go with with words conscious or observing. i.e. What brings a collection of inert matter to become conscious of itself?
I suspect (not believe, I'm not going to use the word believe in this debate!) that consciousness has been, & will continue to be, a progressive state. i.e. Even now, humans (if they've evolved from 'the sludge'; something which is more reasonable to me, than a literal interpretation of Genesis) are not fully conscious/aware/perceiving their surroundings to an absolute degree. For instance, nobody is definitely conscious of what someone else is doing, in some other place, tomorrow - until it is observed, honestly communicated, really perceived, made inarguable fact based on no assumptions with regard to the available physical evidence etc.
Likewise, in the context of observation in the quantum theoretical sense, I'll never be able to prove to you that I am conscious in the same way that you are, & vice versa. To think that you are as conscious as I, or vice versa, would be the application of a hidden assumption. All I know is that I observe - & a physical body only allows this from one point of view (a collapsed superposition), at any one time. The physical body is rather limited.
To be alive, is very much a state of mind, as I see it. The testing of this will very likely be equivalent to asking someone to lift themself, with themself. i.e. You'd be asking a mind to be the tester & testee. n.b. I wouldn't use the term alive to definitively mean that some squiggle on a microscope plate is moving itself around the plate, under it's own power. In my observation, a virus behaviour, or even that of a bacteria, for that matter, is closer to the autonomy of a fire than consciousness.
Again, I suspect (!) that any development in the field of artificial intelligence will lead the way in showing us how consciousness, or the state of being alive, occurs (not necessarily the same as being created).
You're not the only one saddened by this; I am too, & I'm not even an American.
I'm wondering how many punches America will have to take before the country stands up, contains itself (instead of lashing out with another war), & reminds the world that twelve moonwalkers, a load of test pilots & guys like Art Arfons & Joe Kittinger are where the real business-end of that Big Frontier is. This is still a part of the American heritage & mindset, & doesn't deserve to go under.
$2m is a good prize, for a backyard fellow of the Arfons mindset, if such a guy would decide to give it a shot. After all, a lander is old tech, now, & should be reverse engineerable, to some degree, quite cheaply. Remember that they're not after a full LEM, but just the technology for testing the lander on planet Earth. NASA would possibly be interested in giving such a person, who comes up with the goods, a pretty solid engineering job/contract, also; for the duration of the Constellation Program (i.e. A long time). After all, the winner would know exactly how to build & rebuild it, & probably even to land the thing.
"Although - I don't know of anything else that can get as much weight to orbit as the shuttle."
Saturn V lifted 118,000kg to LEO, Ares V will be 130,000kg to LEO. The shuttle is a mere 24,400kg to LEO (discounting the mass of the shuttle orbiter, itself).
All would've been outperformed by a maximum-configuration Energia-Vulkan @ 175,000kg to LEO. Frankly, nobody's ever come up with anything like a big enough rocket to really put human spaceflight into gear (i.e. Putting supplies & 20-50 people up, at once). You'd be looking in the range in excess of one kiloton to LEO, for this (i.e. Lifting a mass equivalent to twice the ISS, simultaneously). Just for an idea of scale, this would make any rocket about eight times more massive than a Saturn V, using present engine technology.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, Russian tech is excellent value & often to a higher standard than it's NASA equivalent. Energia-Vulkan would've put Ares V so shame, both on lifting ability &, no doubt, on cost too. A damned shame it was never fully developed, as it would've shown everyone the way forward. The price we pay for finishing off Communism, eh? However, it isn't as though NASA hasn't relied on Russian technology on their own rockets, in the past, either. The RD180 engine design was acquired pretty much straight from Energomash's RD170 & used on an Atlas rocket, just because it had a feedback mechanism to the engine, for unspent fuel, making the engine more efficient; something which NASA engineers hadn't even thought about.
Scotland has two major rivers, the Forth & Clyde. The Forth has a 6m tidal range & the Clyde has about 2m at the mouth of the estuary. Though the daily volume of water may not be as great as some other rivers, the water volume should still be large enough to completely power the electricity requirements for the populations surrounding each river.
Compare to what's planned for the River Mersey (tidal range 8-10m). This may generate a consistent two gigawatts of electricity - about 3x the requirement for the entire Liverpool conurbation (Merseyside).
If ads collapse, then the web goes with it. There is no other viable revenue model.
Wow! That's some statement!:D If I recall from the mists of time (!), the web evolved because of a university-driven non-profit model & not because of adverts.
Maintainers who donated their efforts in the name of free information who stopped contributing because of ads are not logically consistent.
Read this again... "Including adverts in articles negates the purpose of freely given knowledge intended for a non-financial benefit."
Wikipedia is about distributing information around the world for free. Someone who stops working toward that goal because of the enrichment of a third party is irrational, or at least very vindictive.
On the contrary, it's about not being walked all over, as a donor, & making sure that the receiver realises that they should be d**nwell grateful for any helping hand, because in a capital-driven economy, gifts aren't encouraged unless profitable to a third (advertising) party (think Christmas shopping etc.). Wiki agreed to maintain (implied to maintain) the information in a certain way - they are obliged to stick to that. With regard to the 'enrichment of a third party' it'd be likely that the third (advertising) party would be richer than you or I are, already, anyway. Why should they, the advertisers, be entitled to make profit from our charitable donations of information? I have to point this out... Advertiser = not a charitable cause. The uninformed are the charitable cause, hence the gift of information (& maintaining those collected gifts) for those who need to learn!
But the money they spend on Wikipedia could be spent elsewhere, on causes that desperately need the money.
Yet, does somebody like Bill Gates spend the money on Wiki? No. He's got the B&MGF which is already heavily donating towards solving the Malaria problem, for instance, & essentially helping to solve that problem single-handedly. So, would it be more about encouraging the second-tier of potential donors to do their bit (for Wiki)?
Wikipedia can be free and non-profit, while have ads.
I don't trust that to be the case... & once the door is ajar, etc. - been there, seen it in various other ways & it takes more than would otherwise be required, should a different path have been taken, to 'close that box' again. Hence the necessity to choose, very carefully, which path should be taken (trade vs. charitable). Wiki's not done the 'trade' thing in the public domain, so far to my knowledge, hence, they'd be taking a big risk. My apologies for being a grumpy ol' realist.;)
Then we would not need their money, and it can be redirected elsewhere.
The money, that needs to be redirected, is already being redirected elsewhere (see B&MGF/Malaria above), the question is... could the 'gift/donation economy' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy be expanded?* Yes, if the richest people (with non-allocated donatable capital), first, are willing to work towards it. This is no different to growing any other form of economy, just that this one would be non-profit driven, rather, motivated by charity. This would be far more preferable than ad revenues.:)
*n.b. The donors of information aren't explicitly asking any favour of Wiki, but do implicitly require the maintenance of a, presently, shared principle as is implied in Wiki & the info donor's economic unity. i.e. Information charity.
...an advertiser has much to gain by buying an ad.
What, the potential advertiser doesn't already have a website of their own? If people need to consider the area of work of an advertiser, they'd go looking for it of their own accord! The advertiser would be an annoyance to the general user & spoil the non-profit ideal & presentation of Wiki. Anyhow, when was the last time the better-informed web user went on a clickthrough? Once the less competent web users are trained up & 'streetwise', web ads will be profitless, useless & if the potential advertiser really wants to fling money around, they may as well give it away. Ergo, donations only from now on, to save bigger structural trouble later. Ads are sub-Web 2.0.
...if someone else profits off Wikipedia content, I don't care, as long as Wikipedia gets money and the content itself is not affected.
The content would be affected - content would have adverts in it & maintainers would lose interest through the improper profit of others. Including adverts in articles negates the purpose of freely given knowledge intended for a non-financial benefit. In essence, Wiki would be in a breach of contract to their suppliers of donated information. If Wiki wishes to be non-profit, Wiki's got to behave accordingly.
Wikipedia does not need donor's money...
So what have they, recently, been doing asking for it?
...and it is wrong to divert money from worthy causes that will never be able to support themselves, such as Malaria Vaccination
The holder of the money is entitled to disperse their own money or keep it as they see fit, within law. Go & bash Bill Gates et al harder, they've got it to give away.
...to important causes that can support themselves.
Wiki may not be able to look after itself if it genuinely does require the donations that it's recently received. Whether Wiki needs their recent donations, or not, is unknown.
...keeping Wikipedia free of ads is not a worthy cause worth donating to, at least not on the scale of other projects.
People wouldn't be donating to keep Wiki free of ads, but to keep Wiki, itself, free & non-profit.
Once again, the holder of the money is entitled to disperse their own money or keep it as they see fit.
Wikipedia already gives tax breaks to those who donate.
Yes, it does. Wiki needs to promote this to the richer, potential donators.
I fail to see how advertising keeps Wikipedia from being a "proper charitable organization"
Alright then... a "full-time charity".:)
Advertising (for an advertiser which is a profit-making organisation) equates with expecting something in return, rather than as a pure gift/donation. Advertisers would be attempting to profit off the back of viewings of donated/gifted knowledge.
...most charitable foundations use advertising to raise revenue. ...but it's pointless, to the advertiser, if the viewer is blocking the advert. So, the advertiser (who's not getting seen) may as well just donate the money.
2007 CA19 is 4x the diameter of 2004 MN4, yet is about 50x more massive & would, due to velocity, produce an impact of 350x the amount of energy of 2004 MN4 (140,000 Megatons versus 400 Megatons). In theory!
I have to agree. I've just spent a few hours on some articles that I occasionally update. Lo & behold, over the last six months or so, a bunch of IPs playing silly beggars (schoolkids in their lunch break, no doubt) & registered users reverting edits. It's convenient for me to edit without login, though enforced login would hardly be a chore. As suggested earlier, perhaps keep the discussion pages for anonymous users?
Give money to Wiki? I'm not, by any means, rich. My time is the best that I can afford... sorry Jimbo! Though, others should be able to give in return for tax breaks.
I don't like the idea of ads (I'd block them, anyway) & would prefer Wikipedia to be a proper charitable organisation - tax breaks for big donations, etc., to help keep the organisation ticking over.
Slow for big problems?
That's a binary system & it would depend on whether or not you want a 100% probable answer.
An (n) qubit processor can handle an (n) problem (using Shor's algorithm) to 100% probability, not just provide a solution to a high degree of probability. Qubits less than (n) require more runs to produce the correct solution, but will produce the 100% probable answer by deduction from (improving upon each of) the earlier (not 100% probable) solutions, until 100% is achieved, rather than (for the TSP) checking all the possibilities to find the best (shortest) one, as you would with a binary system. Keep on upping the qubits & the big problems become not so big & slow, after all. This requires an exponential increase in performance of binary hardware - not so on quantum hardware.
[I'm going to use qb & QPU as abbreviations.];)
An n=2^128 (128-bit) problem solved to 100% probability should require the following hardware for a relatively quick, 100% probable solution:
2^128 (a number with 30 zeroes) transistor CPU = a ((2x128)+1) 257qb QPU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#The _power_of_quantum_computers
n.b. The Core 2 Quad 'only' has 582million (a number with six zeroes after it) transistors (multiply the entire number by something like a mere twenty for the 80-core), which makes it look pretty feeble versus the D-Wave offering, for quantum-specific applications. If a 17qb QPU can crack an 8-bit encryption, with 100% probability, then it's good to go & is quantum. The problem, as pointed out in the Register article, is decoherence when upping the qubits.
Like the light wave that exits the caesium tube before it went in; the future already exists* (just as the past does) - the boffins've just got to learn to work on it & patiently wait for it to show itself - whatever 'it' turns out to be! As it stands, we've still, yet, to get a decent hold on mastering Time - we don't know how to move backwards & forwards in it, only that we move forwards at 1x Planck Time.
Away from classical mechanics, what I see with QT is that if we can, somehow, create a decoy observer, then a real observer might be able to 'backdoor' any observations. i.e. Create a crossfire & make the Superposition pay attention to something that isn't actually it's 'hunter' (although it might 'think'/spooky-action so). This has the potential to flush it out, break it open, etc., particularly with regard to any temporal implications, I suspect.
If there are higher dimensions, than spacetime, I would expect even any most observable one to be beyond any scale we've actually, humanly entered, so far - likely superuniversal (at least, several experimental craft to followup the Pioneer anomaly?) rather than subatomic. As we're well aware, at the moment, the practitioners are much too far behind the thinkers. The thinkers can afford to slow down, for a while, until we have practical results to build the next ideas upon.
*I understand the idea of 'free will' to be a smokescreen to our worldly circumstances - as we each take the path of least resistance (most economic) for each of our own specific circumstances (including during a person's conflicts of self-interest); like a raindrop down a window, apple falling from a tree, etc.
I agree. If the maths is rigorous & good, then give it breathing space until it's testable - what's the hurry? Why should String theories be bad, even if wrong? If they're wrong, then we'll have those fewer paths to have to choose between. In the meantime, let the equations be what they are. The maths will serve a use (simply by sitting on the shelf, for now) to somebody in the future - if the miseries will allow us, all, to go forth & multiply into that future!
Any of the nay-sayers got a better, with equally conscise maths, idea for pre-'Big Bang'?
[n.b. Forget a 'Matrix' - it discounts Occam's Razor.];)
I absolutely, desperately need iTunes & an iPhone because...?;)
Me? I'm running...
DX9 (XP Home) for games & media creation - on a 5yo motherboard (Jetway V400, if I remember correctly) & HD. This board's had three graphics cards in it's lifetime, so far, & I expect to have a 7600GT AGP on XP drivers for it before the upgrades finish. Fortunately, nVidia for XP is still good to go.
XP Pro for a server, again, a low-spec motherboard.
MacOS 8.5 on a G3 Beige for the Mac-only software, which I use. (When was this made?!)
Kubuntu for *NIX/KDE testing - again on 2002-spec hardware.
What's not important is how new it is, or, necessarily, the price; just that it works for what you want it to do. One combination of boxes isn't necessarily right for everyone. As DoofusOfDeath pointed out, it may be ancient, but it ain't broke through lack of support or DX10/64bit-only software yet, so why 'fix' it?
As you (gig) point out, validly, the naive continue to want to go to the computing equivalent of the front line in a war zone. The rest of us will sit back & wait until it's absolutely necessary!
i.e. Show me the software, which I'd use, which won't run on one of my systems. Where's the OGL, DX9 & 32-bit murdering app which demands the upgrade?
There is no point upgrading. XP's got support for the next six years, I'm in no great hurry for a 64-bit OS & DX10 is pointless until there's games support. Vista does have the distinct feeling of WindowsME about it. Another two year wait? No big deal, Vista got put off for that long, anyway & we all survived. Continued incremental hardware upgrades until XP dies a death, I feel.
There's not enough hardware or software support at the moment to make VistaHP64 (64-bit is a necessity, IMHO, for the ability to utilise 4gb+ of RAM) a viable proposition for me, yet, at least. I see no point in having DX10 (the main reason for gamers to upgrade) if there's a limited choice of games to take advantage of it. Likewise with limited support, at present, for 64-bit drivers. Neither do I like the idea of a full hardware upgrade until SSDs (Solid State Drives, i.e. flash drives) are available, on the SATA2 bus or better, & relatively cheap compared to standard HDDs. Neither the software or hardware for VistaHP64 has come together to make it ready yet. I won't be upgrading for any purpose other than gaming. I'll quite happily leave any webserver & media creation needs to be done on XP &/or Kubuntu for the foreseeable future. For now, I'd rather save up for an AGP 7600GT (for the dual-link DVI & yup, still on the old bus!) & a 2560x1600 Monitor.
C+ would only violate causality if it changed an aspect of known history. Unknown/unviewed history is still in a superposition, therefore can be altered so long as it doesn't affect what we already know!:D
...this means that the particles must 'know' where each other are going to be in 10 years time. This is quite frankly ridiculous!
You're still thinking in three spatial dimensions plus one of time. Start adding extra dimensions to Einstein's 4D & things aren't so ridiculous - extra dimensions will discount, not time itself but, the effect of time. Why do you think 10D & 11D Superstring/M theories have been postulated?
In this way the rule limiting the exchange of information is kept intact and the rules of physics remain unchanged.
Only in Euclidean space. In quantised spacetime, the data is there instantaneously & exchangeable. Any data that isn't exchanged until via Euclidean space is in a superposition, until viewed, and is available for exchange in methods not reliant on Euclidean space.
Indeed. Conquer time travel & the requisite transport method, then the ability to colonise the Universe will be instantaneous. None of this 4% in 10bn years non-sense! The author needs to move their brain up a dimension. What will be difficult is finding the people to populate & explore such an ultra-gigantic area of space & time. That said, if we have time travel (& suitable medical technology), we could always go back & resurrect the 'dead' for our cause (so long as we don't appear to interfere with known history)!
Slashdot Mirror
You use the word alive. From a scientific perspective, I'd rather go with with words conscious or observing. i.e. What brings a collection of inert matter to become conscious of itself?
I suspect (not believe, I'm not going to use the word believe in this debate!) that consciousness has been, & will continue to be, a progressive state. i.e. Even now, humans (if they've evolved from 'the sludge'; something which is more reasonable to me, than a literal interpretation of Genesis) are not fully conscious/aware/perceiving their surroundings to an absolute degree. For instance, nobody is definitely conscious of what someone else is doing, in some other place, tomorrow - until it is observed, honestly communicated, really perceived, made inarguable fact based on no assumptions with regard to the available physical evidence etc.
Likewise, in the context of observation in the quantum theoretical sense, I'll never be able to prove to you that I am conscious in the same way that you are, & vice versa. To think that you are as conscious as I, or vice versa, would be the application of a hidden assumption. All I know is that I observe - & a physical body only allows this from one point of view (a collapsed superposition), at any one time. The physical body is rather limited.
To be alive, is very much a state of mind, as I see it. The testing of this will very likely be equivalent to asking someone to lift themself, with themself. i.e. You'd be asking a mind to be the tester & testee. n.b. I wouldn't use the term alive to definitively mean that some squiggle on a microscope plate is moving itself around the plate, under it's own power. In my observation, a virus behaviour, or even that of a bacteria, for that matter, is closer to the autonomy of a fire than consciousness.
Again, I suspect (!) that any development in the field of artificial intelligence will lead the way in showing us how consciousness, or the state of being alive, occurs (not necessarily the same as being created).
You're not the only one saddened by this; I am too, & I'm not even an American.
I'm wondering how many punches America will have to take before the country stands up, contains itself (instead of lashing out with another war), & reminds the world that twelve moonwalkers, a load of test pilots & guys like Art Arfons & Joe Kittinger are where the real business-end of that Big Frontier is. This is still a part of the American heritage & mindset, & doesn't deserve to go under.
$2m is a good prize, for a backyard fellow of the Arfons mindset, if such a guy would decide to give it a shot. After all, a lander is old tech, now, & should be reverse engineerable, to some degree, quite cheaply. Remember that they're not after a full LEM, but just the technology for testing the lander on planet Earth. NASA would possibly be interested in giving such a person, who comes up with the goods, a pretty solid engineering job/contract, also; for the duration of the Constellation Program (i.e. A long time). After all, the winner would know exactly how to build & rebuild it, & probably even to land the thing.
Step one: Reverse engineer everything that can be found out about the 'Flying Bedstead'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LLRV
"Although - I don't know of anything else that can get as much weight to orbit as the shuttle."
Saturn V lifted 118,000kg to LEO, Ares V will be 130,000kg to LEO. The shuttle is a mere 24,400kg to LEO (discounting the mass of the shuttle orbiter, itself).
All would've been outperformed by a maximum-configuration Energia-Vulkan @ 175,000kg to LEO. Frankly, nobody's ever come up with anything like a big enough rocket to really put human spaceflight into gear (i.e. Putting supplies & 20-50 people up, at once). You'd be looking in the range in excess of one kiloton to LEO, for this (i.e. Lifting a mass equivalent to twice the ISS, simultaneously). Just for an idea of scale, this would make any rocket about eight times more massive than a Saturn V, using present engine technology.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, Russian tech is excellent value & often to a higher standard than it's NASA equivalent. Energia-Vulkan would've put Ares V so shame, both on lifting ability &, no doubt, on cost too. A damned shame it was never fully developed, as it would've shown everyone the way forward. The price we pay for finishing off Communism, eh? However, it isn't as though NASA hasn't relied on Russian technology on their own rockets, in the past, either. The RD180 engine design was acquired pretty much straight from Energomash's RD170 & used on an Atlas rocket, just because it had a feedback mechanism to the engine, for unspent fuel, making the engine more efficient; something which NASA engineers hadn't even thought about.
Scotland has two major rivers, the Forth & Clyde. The Forth has a 6m tidal range & the Clyde has about 2m at the mouth of the estuary. Though the daily volume of water may not be as great as some other rivers, the water volume should still be large enough to completely power the electricity requirements for the populations surrounding each river.
3 28507.ece 1 391.stm
Compare to what's planned for the River Mersey (tidal range 8-10m). This may generate a consistent two gigawatts of electricity - about 3x the requirement for the entire Liverpool conurbation (Merseyside).
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/617
If ads collapse, then the web goes with it. There is no other viable revenue model. :D
;)
:)
Wow! That's some statement!
If I recall from the mists of time (!), the web evolved because of a university-driven non-profit model & not because of adverts.
Maintainers who donated their efforts in the name of free information who stopped contributing because of ads are not logically consistent.
Read this again... "Including adverts in articles negates the purpose of freely given knowledge intended for a non-financial benefit."
Wikipedia is about distributing information around the world for free. Someone who stops working toward that goal because of the enrichment of a third party is irrational, or at least very vindictive.
On the contrary, it's about not being walked all over, as a donor, & making sure that the receiver realises that they should be d**nwell grateful for any helping hand, because in a capital-driven economy, gifts aren't encouraged unless profitable to a third (advertising) party (think Christmas shopping etc.). Wiki agreed to maintain (implied to maintain) the information in a certain way - they are obliged to stick to that. With regard to the 'enrichment of a third party' it'd be likely that the third (advertising) party would be richer than you or I are, already, anyway. Why should they, the advertisers, be entitled to make profit from our charitable donations of information? I have to point this out... Advertiser = not a charitable cause. The uninformed are the charitable cause, hence the gift of information (& maintaining those collected gifts) for those who need to learn!
But the money they spend on Wikipedia could be spent elsewhere, on causes that desperately need the money.
Yet, does somebody like Bill Gates spend the money on Wiki? No. He's got the B&MGF which is already heavily donating towards solving the Malaria problem, for instance, & essentially helping to solve that problem single-handedly. So, would it be more about encouraging the second-tier of potential donors to do their bit (for Wiki)?
Wikipedia can be free and non-profit, while have ads.
I don't trust that to be the case... & once the door is ajar, etc. - been there, seen it in various other ways & it takes more than would otherwise be required, should a different path have been taken, to 'close that box' again. Hence the necessity to choose, very carefully, which path should be taken (trade vs. charitable). Wiki's not done the 'trade' thing in the public domain, so far to my knowledge, hence, they'd be taking a big risk. My apologies for being a grumpy ol' realist.
Then we would not need their money, and it can be redirected elsewhere.
The money, that needs to be redirected, is already being redirected elsewhere (see B&MGF/Malaria above), the question is... could the 'gift/donation economy' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy be expanded?* Yes, if the richest people (with non-allocated donatable capital), first, are willing to work towards it. This is no different to growing any other form of economy, just that this one would be non-profit driven, rather, motivated by charity. This would be far more preferable than ad revenues.
*n.b. The donors of information aren't explicitly asking any favour of Wiki, but do implicitly require the maintenance of a, presently, shared principle as is implied in Wiki & the info donor's economic unity. i.e. Information charity.
...an advertiser has much to gain by buying an ad.
...if someone else profits off Wikipedia content, I don't care, as long as Wikipedia gets money and the content itself is not affected.
...and it is wrong to divert money from worthy causes that will never be able to support themselves, such as Malaria Vaccination
...to important causes that can support themselves.
...keeping Wikipedia free of ads is not a worthy cause worth donating to, at least not on the scale of other projects.
What, the potential advertiser doesn't already have a website of their own? If people need to consider the area of work of an advertiser, they'd go looking for it of their own accord! The advertiser would be an annoyance to the general user & spoil the non-profit ideal & presentation of Wiki. Anyhow, when was the last time the better-informed web user went on a clickthrough? Once the less competent web users are trained up & 'streetwise', web ads will be profitless, useless & if the potential advertiser really wants to fling money around, they may as well give it away. Ergo, donations only from now on, to save bigger structural trouble later. Ads are sub-Web 2.0.
The content would be affected - content would have adverts in it & maintainers would lose interest through the improper profit of others. Including adverts in articles negates the purpose of freely given knowledge intended for a non-financial benefit. In essence, Wiki would be in a breach of contract to their suppliers of donated information. If Wiki wishes to be non-profit, Wiki's got to behave accordingly.
Wikipedia does not need donor's money...
So what have they, recently, been doing asking for it?
The holder of the money is entitled to disperse their own money or keep it as they see fit, within law. Go & bash Bill Gates et al harder, they've got it to give away.
Wiki may not be able to look after itself if it genuinely does require the donations that it's recently received. Whether Wiki needs their recent donations, or not, is unknown.
People wouldn't be donating to keep Wiki free of ads, but to keep Wiki, itself, free & non-profit. Once again, the holder of the money is entitled to disperse their own money or keep it as they see fit.
Wikipedia already gives tax breaks to those who donate.
:)
...most charitable foundations use advertising to raise revenue.
...but it's pointless, to the advertiser, if the viewer is blocking the advert. So, the advertiser (who's not getting seen) may as well just donate the money.
Yes, it does. Wiki needs to promote this to the richer, potential donators.
I fail to see how advertising keeps Wikipedia from being a "proper charitable organization"
Alright then... a "full-time charity".
Advertising (for an advertiser which is a profit-making organisation) equates with expecting something in return, rather than as a pure gift/donation. Advertisers would be attempting to profit off the back of viewings of donated/gifted knowledge.
2007 CA19 is 4x the diameter of 2004 MN4, yet is about 50x more massive & would, due to velocity, produce an impact of 350x the amount of energy of 2004 MN4 (140,000 Megatons versus 400 Megatons). In theory!
I have to agree. I've just spent a few hours on some articles that I occasionally update. Lo & behold, over the last six months or so, a bunch of IPs playing silly beggars (schoolkids in their lunch break, no doubt) & registered users reverting edits. It's convenient for me to edit without login, though enforced login would hardly be a chore. As suggested earlier, perhaps keep the discussion pages for anonymous users?
Give money to Wiki? I'm not, by any means, rich. My time is the best that I can afford... sorry Jimbo! Though, others should be able to give in return for tax breaks.
I don't like the idea of ads (I'd block them, anyway) & would prefer Wikipedia to be a proper charitable organisation - tax breaks for big donations, etc., to help keep the organisation ticking over.
An (n) qubit processor... should read a (2n+1) qubit processor.
Slow for big problems?
n tum/
;)e _power_of_quantum_computers
That's a binary system & it would depend on whether or not you want a 100% probable answer.
An (n) qubit processor can handle an (n) problem (using Shor's algorithm) to 100% probability, not just provide a solution to a high degree of probability. Qubits less than (n) require more runs to produce the correct solution, but will produce the 100% probable answer by deduction from (improving upon each of) the earlier (not 100% probable) solutions, until 100% is achieved, rather than (for the TSP) checking all the possibilities to find the best (shortest) one, as you would with a binary system. Keep on upping the qubits & the big problems become not so big & slow, after all. This requires an exponential increase in performance of binary hardware - not so on quantum hardware.
The Reg article from the other day...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/13/dwave_qua
[I'm going to use qb & QPU as abbreviations.]
An n=2^128 (128-bit) problem solved to 100% probability should require the following hardware for a relatively quick, 100% probable solution: 2^128 (a number with 30 zeroes) transistor CPU = a ((2x128)+1) 257qb QPU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#Th
n.b. The Core 2 Quad 'only' has 582million (a number with six zeroes after it) transistors (multiply the entire number by something like a mere twenty for the 80-core), which makes it look pretty feeble versus the D-Wave offering, for quantum-specific applications. If a 17qb QPU can crack an 8-bit encryption, with 100% probability, then it's good to go & is quantum. The problem, as pointed out in the Register article, is decoherence when upping the qubits.
Like the light wave that exits the caesium tube before it went in; the future already exists* (just as the past does) - the boffins've just got to learn to work on it & patiently wait for it to show itself - whatever 'it' turns out to be! As it stands, we've still, yet, to get a decent hold on mastering Time - we don't know how to move backwards & forwards in it, only that we move forwards at 1x Planck Time.
Away from classical mechanics, what I see with QT is that if we can, somehow, create a decoy observer, then a real observer might be able to 'backdoor' any observations. i.e. Create a crossfire & make the Superposition pay attention to something that isn't actually it's 'hunter' (although it might 'think'/spooky-action so). This has the potential to flush it out, break it open, etc., particularly with regard to any temporal implications, I suspect.
If there are higher dimensions, than spacetime, I would expect even any most observable one to be beyond any scale we've actually, humanly entered, so far - likely superuniversal (at least, several experimental craft to followup the Pioneer anomaly?) rather than subatomic. As we're well aware, at the moment, the practitioners are much too far behind the thinkers. The thinkers can afford to slow down, for a while, until we have practical results to build the next ideas upon.
*I understand the idea of 'free will' to be a smokescreen to our worldly circumstances - as we each take the path of least resistance (most economic) for each of our own specific circumstances (including during a person's conflicts of self-interest); like a raindrop down a window, apple falling from a tree, etc.
I agree. If the maths is rigorous & good, then give it breathing space until it's testable - what's the hurry? Why should String theories be bad, even if wrong? If they're wrong, then we'll have those fewer paths to have to choose between. In the meantime, let the equations be what they are. The maths will serve a use (simply by sitting on the shelf, for now) to somebody in the future - if the miseries will allow us, all, to go forth & multiply into that future!
;)
Any of the nay-sayers got a better, with equally conscise maths, idea for pre-'Big Bang'?
[n.b. Forget a 'Matrix' - it discounts Occam's Razor.]
I absolutely, desperately need iTunes & an iPhone because...? ;)
Me? I'm running...
DX9 (XP Home) for games & media creation - on a 5yo motherboard (Jetway V400, if I remember correctly) & HD. This board's had three graphics cards in it's lifetime, so far, & I expect to have a 7600GT AGP on XP drivers for it before the upgrades finish. Fortunately, nVidia for XP is still good to go.
XP Pro for a server, again, a low-spec motherboard.
MacOS 8.5 on a G3 Beige for the Mac-only software, which I use. (When was this made?!)
Kubuntu for *NIX/KDE testing - again on 2002-spec hardware.
What's not important is how new it is, or, necessarily, the price; just that it works for what you want it to do. One combination of boxes isn't necessarily right for everyone. As DoofusOfDeath pointed out, it may be ancient, but it ain't broke through lack of support or DX10/64bit-only software yet, so why 'fix' it?
As you (gig) point out, validly, the naive continue to want to go to the computing equivalent of the front line in a war zone. The rest of us will sit back & wait until it's absolutely necessary!
i.e. Show me the software, which I'd use, which won't run on one of my systems. Where's the OGL, DX9 & 32-bit murdering app which demands the upgrade?
There is no point upgrading. XP's got support for the next six years, I'm in no great hurry for a 64-bit OS & DX10 is pointless until there's games support. Vista does have the distinct feeling of WindowsME about it. Another two year wait? No big deal, Vista got put off for that long, anyway & we all survived. Continued incremental hardware upgrades until XP dies a death, I feel.
j oying_the_view/1.html
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Good article on the nVidia/Vista driver situation (also applies to MAudio)...
http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/02/10/not_en
It'd be rough justice if Intel knocks nVidia out in the meantime & it's set for the same schedule as the next Windows release...
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=3
There's not enough hardware or software support at the moment to make VistaHP64 (64-bit is a necessity, IMHO, for the ability to utilise 4gb+ of RAM) a viable proposition for me, yet, at least. I see no point in having DX10 (the main reason for gamers to upgrade) if there's a limited choice of games to take advantage of it. Likewise with limited support, at present, for 64-bit drivers. Neither do I like the idea of a full hardware upgrade until SSDs (Solid State Drives, i.e. flash drives) are available, on the SATA2 bus or better, & relatively cheap compared to standard HDDs. Neither the software or hardware for VistaHP64 has come together to make it ready yet. I won't be upgrading for any purpose other than gaming. I'll quite happily leave any webserver & media creation needs to be done on XP &/or Kubuntu for the foreseeable future. For now, I'd rather save up for an AGP 7600GT (for the dual-link DVI & yup, still on the old bus!) & a 2560x1600 Monitor.
C+ would only violate causality if it changed an aspect of known history. Unknown/unviewed history is still in a superposition, therefore can be altered so long as it doesn't affect what we already know! :D
The rough & ready, easy-on-the-eye (!), pictorial version is as follows:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php
...this means that the particles must 'know' where each other are going to be in 10 years time. This is quite frankly ridiculous!
You're still thinking in three spatial dimensions plus one of time. Start adding extra dimensions to Einstein's 4D & things aren't so ridiculous - extra dimensions will discount, not time itself but, the effect of time. Why do you think 10D & 11D Superstring/M theories have been postulated?
In this way the rule limiting the exchange of information is kept intact and the rules of physics remain unchanged.
Only in Euclidean space. In quantised spacetime, the data is there instantaneously & exchangeable. Any data that isn't exchanged until via Euclidean space is in a superposition, until viewed, and is available for exchange in methods not reliant on Euclidean space.
Indeed. Conquer time travel & the requisite transport method, then the ability to colonise the Universe will be instantaneous. None of this 4% in 10bn years non-sense! The author needs to move their brain up a dimension. What will be difficult is finding the people to populate & explore such an ultra-gigantic area of space & time. That said, if we have time travel (& suitable medical technology), we could always go back & resurrect the 'dead' for our cause (so long as we don't appear to interfere with known history)!