There can be only a perfect game for black or white, not both. If there was both a perfect strategy for black and white, and both players new it, who would win? It would lead to a tie, so the strategies wouldn't be perfect.
How about Universal Networking Language? Has anybody heard of it? My father worked in the portuguese part here in Brazil.
With UNL you have an artificial mathematical language -- understandable only by computers (like a criptic HTML). There's work in progress to build EnConverters/DeConverters to the 10 most spoken languages.
This way you could build your site, EnConvert it to UNL, and publish it in the internet. Browsers would have the DeConverters to the user's language. Somebody could also build real-time converters to use in chats.
If I buy a CD I am allowed to listen to an MP3 recorded from that CD; or
If someone gives me a CD, I am also allowed to listen to the MP3.
Suppose this is right -- I guess it is. Now let's suppose I want to share a CD with n friends. Here is my idea: we make a contract, in which I agree to give the CD to the next friend in a list as soon as I own it -- and so on, until the last (n) person gives it to me.
Ok, now each one will have the CD at infinite small time steps; we all have the CD at the same time. If we make a list with people enough, everybody can hear any MP3 in the world.
Sure, they could all work together--but simple game theory predicts they won't.
There's no such thing as that. Game theory can say if it's better to cooperate or not, or what are your chances or how to make your best "moves" to maximize profits. It can't predict anything.
A baby Bill could say, "hey, I will always cooperate with the other baby Bills", or "I'll use the tit-for-tat strategy (do what your opponent made do you in the previous turn)", and it can even predict how much it will win, or how sucessfull will it's strategy be.
But you can't say that they won't work together. Game theory is very simple (although it is very useful) and human nature... well, human nature is very, very complex. You can't say they won't work together.
I once found the script to the last episode, and a comment by the author. I know everyone in/. is a link-a-holic, but I lost it.
Anyway, the author said they didn't know if the last episode would really be the last one, or if the series would continue in the next year.
In this "last episode" (that never went to the air, BTW), the heroes split in two teams, one with the evil guy (I don't know his name in english) and the other with the little good guy (you know who I am talking about).
Yes, the bad guy convinces some of them that he is really good, and that the little one is the bad one. Got it?:)
Well, I'll skip to the end. In the end the help the bad guy to become good, and they discover that the little guy is his father (like a inverse Star Wars) . In fact, the first name thought for the episode was "redemption", but the author thought it would spoil the history, giving away the end.
Do they go back to Earth? Yes and no. Together the little guy with the ex-bad-guy open a portal, and say that they can go back if they want (no strings attached). *But* they also say that there's still a lot to do there, and they can stay and help them fight evil. Their choice?
But how would they know that it *had* gone into an infinite loop? Isn't that the essence of the halting problem?;-)
Simple. They knew because the first step of the loop took 1 second, and each subsequent step n+1 took half the time of n -- so in 2 seconds the program had completed and infinite loop.
If I was stupid enough to actually break my TV due to a commercial the last thing I would do is be willing to admit it in a court of law. Your Honor I'm an idiot please help me now and then help society by making me get a vesectomy.
Thinking about the evolution of our own intelligence, one thing that always sounded strange to me is the fact that our brain was very developed before intelligence appeared. My point is, the Neanderthal man had a brain as big as ours, and didn't use it to the same extent.
Do you think that AI is still in its begining because we still don't have the required "hardware" so that it can really evolute? Do we need (a lot) more powerful computers just to begin playing with "real" AI, e.g., one that can pass the Turing test?
Because that doesn't at all take into account paying the people that created the music, the artists, the engineers, the producers, the graphic design folk that make the album covers and so forth.
Yes, just like when you listen to the music on the radio.
When you are listening to the music on the radio you are paying the electricity -- and you can count the money to buy the radio, too -- but not even a penny goes to all that people you just said.
But why does it work, if music if being freely distributed through the air? Because you listen to the music, you get to know the band, and you buy a CD or go to a show.
Yes, I know, MP3 have a better sound quality than radio, and you can listen to it whenever you want. But, personally, I have bought more CDs after I started to listen to mp3s -- and I have a cd recorder.
Why? Because it's better, and it supports the artist. Yes, I also know that tons of people who download MP3s don't have this conscience. But how many of these would buy CDs in first place if they weren't listening to MP3s?
The CD industry is not losing money with MP3.
The way music is distribted now doesn't work well.
Yes, but it's like democracy -- it's a shit, but it's the best we have.
But in fact I think it works fine: you download a MP3, and if you like it you buy the CD. If you don't have money, you don't buy and listen to the MP3. And perhaps 1% will have the money and won't buy the CD -- but how much money will the CD industry get by adopting this distribution model?
-- Everything I said is false.
Re:This is great but...
on
Netscape 6
·
· Score: 1
...MS added some non-standard utility into IE...
Just for curiosity...
I once had to present a lecture with a friend. He made all the presentation using Powerpoint from MS Office 2000, and gave a copy to me.
"I use Linux", I said. Well, after some messing with Powerpoint he saved the presentation as HTML. We tested it under IE at his house, and everything was great -- and the file (files, actually) was at least 10x smaller.
I went home, turned my computer on, started Nestcape and... all I had was a page with a black background with text in black (I could read it by highlighting it).
I had to edit all the HTML files manually to remove the MS extensions that rendered useless my presentation under Netscape. It should read "save as... IE file", not "save as... html".
No, you're not alone. IMHO, the best word processor ever is TeX -- I can type papers quickly in a old 486 notebook, and still get unbeatable quality when printing them.
TeX, the GIMP, xv and octave make my "office" package. Ill never install StarOffice, MS Office or whatever in my computer.
Slashdot Mirror
He already answered this question in his website, just for curiosity. People can now moderate this question down. :)
--
He clearly said "Its not quite as true with computing problems".
--
Sorry for my angry post -- I just had a bad day.
I won't do a search, I'll take your word for that... :)
--
To email me, subtract my nick from my email address, starting with the second character. (hint: adto.uiuc.edu is wrong)
Dude, you should give US$ 25,00 to the guy who discover your e-mail address.
--
How can these guys be sure all these 300k+ users are pirating music? How many of these kids have the CDs they're downloading?
--
There can be only a perfect game for black or white, not both. If there was both a perfect strategy for black and white, and both players new it, who would win? It would lead to a tie, so the strategies wouldn't be perfect.
--
How about Universal Networking Language? Has anybody heard of it? My father worked in the portuguese part here in Brazil.
With UNL you have an artificial mathematical language -- understandable only by computers (like a criptic HTML). There's work in progress to build EnConverters/DeConverters to the 10 most spoken languages.
This way you could build your site, EnConvert it to UNL, and publish it in the internet. Browsers would have the DeConverters to the user's language. Somebody could also build real-time converters to use in chats.
--
I had an idea. I believe that:
Suppose this is right -- I guess it is. Now let's suppose I want to share a CD with n friends. Here is my idea: we make a contract, in which I agree to give the CD to the next friend in a list as soon as I own it -- and so on, until the last (n) person gives it to me.
Ok, now each one will have the CD at infinite small time steps; we all have the CD at the same time. If we make a list with people enough, everybody can hear any MP3 in the world.
Don't take this seriously, please.
--
I'd like to append a law to Asimov's list:
Opensource all code that runs robots.
Yes, this way they won't spend millions of dollars in their own Genome Project when they aquire consciousness.
--
I use 'Q' as password really often, it is a FAR better password that 'E' or 'W'. Trust me, with 'Q' you are secure, don't be afraid.
Actually, the password is not 'Q' -- it's written backwards, like the MS back door, so it's really 'Q'.
I'm amazed most people didn't perceive this...
It was a joke.
Sure, they could all work together--but simple game theory predicts they won't.
There's no such thing as that. Game theory can say if it's better to cooperate or not, or what are your chances or how to make your best "moves" to maximize profits. It can't predict anything.
A baby Bill could say, "hey, I will always cooperate with the other baby Bills", or "I'll use the tit-for-tat strategy (do what your opponent made do you in the previous turn)", and it can even predict how much it will win, or how sucessfull will it's strategy be.
But you can't say that they won't work together. Game theory is very simple (although it is very useful) and human nature... well, human nature is very, very complex. You can't say they won't work together.
And btw, If I was a moderator I would moderate you down to (Score:-5 Spoiler...) :)
In fact, I used some <spoiler> tags, but I didn't preview my post, and /. ate them.
I once found the script to the last episode, and a comment by the author. I know everyone in /. is a link-a-holic, but I lost it.
:)
Anyway, the author said they didn't know if the last episode would really be the last one, or if the series would continue in the next year.
In this "last episode" (that never went to the air, BTW), the heroes split in two teams, one with the evil guy (I don't know his name in english) and the other with the little good guy (you know who I am talking about).
Yes, the bad guy convinces some of them that he is really good, and that the little one is the bad one. Got it?
Well, I'll skip to the end. In the end the help the bad guy to become good, and they discover that the little guy is his father (like a inverse Star Wars) . In fact, the first name thought for the episode was "redemption", but the author thought it would spoil the history, giving away the end.
Do they go back to Earth? Yes and no. Together the little guy with the ex-bad-guy open a portal, and say that they can go back if they want (no strings attached). *But* they also say that there's still a lot to do there, and they can stay and help them fight evil. Their choice?
Who knows.
The end.
No one reads manuals, anyway -- damn, this joke doesn't fit here in Slashdot. Ill try another forum.
/. /. /.
calo:~$ man
fgets: Is a directory
Error reading man page
No manual entry for
calo:~$
But how would they know that it *had* gone into an infinite loop? Isn't that the essence of the halting problem? ;-)
Simple. They knew because the first step of the loop took 1 second, and each subsequent step n+1 took half the time of n -- so in 2 seconds the program had completed and infinite loop.
If I was stupid enough to actually break my TV due to a commercial the last thing I would do is be willing to admit it in a court of law. Your Honor I'm an idiot please help me now and then help society by making me get a vesectomy.
With this you would also win a Darwin Award.
This translates into a minimum roundtrip speed-of-light latency of 250ms.
Yes, but you can build a wormhole and make the signal go faster than light speed!
"I have a wonderful proof for this theorem, but if I write it in this margin you'll have to pay to be able to read it".
Thinking about the evolution of our own intelligence, one thing that always sounded strange to me is the fact that our brain was very developed before intelligence appeared. My point is, the Neanderthal man had a brain as big as ours, and didn't use it to the same extent.
Do you think that AI is still in its begining because we still don't have the required "hardware" so that it can really evolute? Do we need (a lot) more powerful computers just to begin playing with "real" AI, e.g., one that can pass the Turing test?
Because that doesn't at all take into account paying the people that created the music, the artists, the engineers, the producers, the graphic design folk that make the album covers and so forth.
Yes, just like when you listen to the music on the radio.
When you are listening to the music on the radio you are paying the electricity -- and you can count the money to buy the radio, too -- but not even a penny goes to all that people you just said.
But why does it work, if music if being freely distributed through the air? Because you listen to the music, you get to know the band, and you buy a CD or go to a show.
Yes, I know, MP3 have a better sound quality than radio, and you can listen to it whenever you want. But, personally, I have bought more CDs after I started to listen to mp3s -- and I have a cd recorder.
Why? Because it's better, and it supports the artist. Yes, I also know that tons of people who download MP3s don't have this conscience. But how many of these would buy CDs in first place if they weren't listening to MP3s?
The CD industry is not losing money with MP3.
The way music is distribted now doesn't work well.
Yes, but it's like democracy -- it's a shit, but it's the best we have.
But in fact I think it works fine: you download a MP3, and if you like it you buy the CD. If you don't have money, you don't buy and listen to the MP3. And perhaps 1% will have the money and won't buy the CD -- but how much money will the CD industry get by adopting this distribution model?
--
Everything I said is false.
Just for curiosity...
I once had to present a lecture with a friend. He made all the presentation using Powerpoint from MS Office 2000, and gave a copy to me.
"I use Linux", I said. Well, after some messing with Powerpoint he saved the presentation as HTML. We tested it under IE at his house, and everything was great -- and the file (files, actually) was at least 10x smaller.
I went home, turned my computer on, started Nestcape and... all I had was a page with a black background with text in black (I could read it by highlighting it).
I had to edit all the HTML files manually to remove the MS extensions that rendered useless my presentation under Netscape. It should read "save as... IE file", not "save as... html".
Has anyone noticed a weird thing ? they say that the compressed file will have 5.5 M (compared to 15M the current version). What does this mean ?
That's because they are using a new rendering engine, called... gecko. It's faster and smaller (I think the article says this).
BTW, I still use Netscape 3.0
I mean, if a blind Linux user running this package makes a mistake and formats their C drive, (...)
I think what you really mean here is /dev/hda. :)
(...) then who will they sue for damages? Slackware of course.
But I'm pretty sure that there's a license somewhere -- as in almost all GPLed software -- excluding them from this kind of responsability.
No, you're not alone. IMHO, the best word processor ever is TeX -- I can type papers quickly in a old 486 notebook, and still get unbeatable quality when printing them.
TeX, the GIMP, xv and octave make my "office" package. Ill never install StarOffice, MS Office or whatever in my computer.