lawsuits against people who try to restore what they bought and paid for (when I buy an NVIDIA video card, NVIDIA does NOT get anal over what I do with the video card, when I buy an ASUS motherboard, ASUS does *NOT* get anal over what I do with the motherboard; its *NONE* of Sonys business what I do with the PS3 that *I* paid for and *I* own (and they stopped owning all of it the second *I* paid for it)!
I dare you to find a console that says you own it -- they all come with EULAs that explicitly state otherwise. AFAICT, the PC does not (the games may, but at least I somewhat own the hardware -- much more so than you can a console), and the PC hardware is far more powerful than the consoles, and con be upgraded too -- guess where I do my gaming, not on a device that has a planned EOL date, that's for sure.
Each "table" being a different experience, eg: a football field that plays like foosball (with gophers making holes that "transport" the ball, or a table that tilts as you move the paddles about, each with a different "effect" that could be activated, and "powerups" as well. There was even a "secret" classic Pong game in the stars.
It got less than stellar reviews, but everyone I exposed it to agreed that it was fun to play with. (hmm)
The first level featured Penguins! What's not to like?
The whole point of a president is to be the leader of the armed forces -- all the other law making bullshit is just grandstanding. He can suggest, and sometimes appoint friends, and wish, and but the president can not make laws or actually "change" much. Mostly the president goes along with whatever are the plans of the established system (note: not party-- those too are distractions).
Have you learned nothing from the scholars this recently passed Towel Day? The true purpose of the presidency is to distract the people from how it all really works, and keep them from doing anything effective to change the system. For example see: Ex-Galactic President, Zaphod Beeblebrox, or any recent president of the USA.
So, what you're saying is that them calling this computer a "quantum computer" is a bit like calling my vintage LED wrist-watch an "atomic clock" -- since, technically, it does tell time using atoms, but not in the way you would normally think of a "real" atomic clock.
MeeGo is a Linux-based open source mobile operating system project. Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in the consumer electronics market, MeeGo is designed to act as an operating system for hardware platforms such as netbooks, entry-level desktops, nettops, tablet computers, mobile computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, SmartTV / ConnectedTV, IPTV-boxes, smart phones, and other embedded systems. MeeGo is today hosted by the Linux Foundation.
I've heard about people like you -- there was some sort of un-American stigma attached to those of your ilk, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is...
Seriously. I had just written the automatic string internationalizer last month for a new language & IDE (to be released as FLOSS). You set your locale/language, and the locales/languages you want to support, then as you are coding you can enter a string followed by an 'I' -- then the IDE will automatically build the language table section of the code for you, and depending on the chosen language of the other readers and/or coders they will see the correct text in their language. eg:
greet' = "Good Morning \_. What would you like to do today?"I;
d' = 'Dialog(DLG_MESG);
d.say( interp( greet, user ) );
Behind the scenes (well, at the top of the file, actually ) the language strings get translated and replaced with something like an enum.
// <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc="Internationalized Strings">
__INTL_Good_Morning = core.unique();
core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning, "en", "Good Morning \_. What would you like to do today?" );
core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning, "sp", "Buenos días \_. Qué te gustaría hacer hoy?" );
// </editor-fold> // --- the previous source sans IDE looks like this ---
greet' = core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning );
d' = 'Dialog(DLG_MESG);
d.say( interp( greet, user ) );
// Spanish speaking coders using the IDE would see the line as:
greet' = core.intlStr( "Buenos días \_. Qué te gustaría hacer hoy?"I );
(This is an example, the string tables would contain more languages and can also be exported to a module -- something like a header file +.so)
Each coder is required to input their own API key, and the plugin for translations allows different services to be used.
I was even adding support for variable name translations -- the operators and built in functions, keywords & library names can already be changed when the coder selects a different language pack (with or without IDE).
The language supports full unicode all the way thu the compiler, so variable names don't have to end up like abc_uXXXX_uXXXX_uXXXX as in most C/C++ compilers that support unicode.
Additionally, as the compiler encounters strings that have yet to be internationalized, it can perform the (compile time) translation -- or default to the same known string for every language (emitting a warning) -- Manual Improvements to the translations can also be made (provided that someone knows the target language).
Basically, I wanted to factor out the programmer's native (spoken) language via the token abstraction layer, and enable truly globally collaborative software projects (in your native tongue). I won't be able to without a good translator service + API:-(
FYI, at first the summary had me thinking that "a host of others" meant that other translation platforms would be closing too, but instead it means that Google's other APIs are being terminated.
From TFA:
The Translate API is to be joined in closure by a raft of other interfaces, including those used for books data, blog searches, news searches, image searches, video searches, and the seldom-used Virtual Keyboard API. A full list of APIs affected is available on Google's Code blog.
Yeah, I might be one of the folks that enables users to "abuse" the translation service -- but results are cached, and isn't international collaboration what the translator service is for?! -- I wonder how much this will affect the twangdgtk folks -- I guess we'll have to fall back to just www.freetranslation.com?
Why waste bullets? Use a pneumatic piston at the base of the skull. Still -- no matter where you shoot something, dying is going to hurt unless you destroy the whole brain all at once... I say dynamite strapped to the things' heads are the most humane.
Not to mention we've no shortage of cows... It's not like there are too many whales -- as the stewards of Earth you'd think we'd act like it instead of extincting species for no other reason than because we want to.
A: If a security hole in Android comes out, and a phone can't be patches, people are likely to upgrade or buy a new phone.
Nah, that's not what makes people upgrade. They will upgrade for new features they are denied by the mfgr/carrier's holding back the update. Besides, security conscious individuals are a vanishingly small minority (probably about the same as those who "root" their phones).
If you would like to argue otherwise, ask yourself which is better W7 or XP? Please explain why new hardware comes with new OSs, while much of the corporate world are sticking with the entrenched code-base (although, XP time of death is: 1047 days away).
People want new & shiny, not secure... Any security conscious individual would not run mission critical systems on a whole new OS code-base that hasn't been hammered on for many years (working out many bugs)... One of the reasons to not rewrite everything every few months/years is that the new stuff will have new holes, while the older code has already survived many trials by fire. Sadly, proprietary software allows vendors to force upgrades via dropping support...
If security is the aim, then having source code and an unlocked boot-loader is essential -- There's no faster response to an exploit than patching the flaw yourself as soon as a fix is known; Lucky for locked down ROM / DRM'd software providers: Most users don't care about security.
Only outlaws will incorrectly predict earthquakes.
More importantly, if you artificially create a liability for scientists in a certain field, there will be less scientists willing to work in said field and be held liable, and thus less research and advancements in that field. Do they want less accurate predictions of earthquakes?
Also note: sometimes mass hysteria + earthquake is less dangerous than just the earthquake... Perhaps they wanted to warn everyone, but were secretly advised not to.
You think that Ballmer's position grants him control over the behemoth, but I say he is riding atop a stubborn pachyderm trying to take credit for its good fortune in some times, while drawing attention away from its mistakes and flaws at others.
The internal politics between departments and projects, conflicts in "the mind" of Microsoft, are more of an issue than the jockey flogging the lumbering beast, IMO.
Now, a smaller company, or one with less in-fighting will respond better to their leader's command... Microsoft is neither.
However, the most important issue is to realize that market price directly correlates to how good the general public feels about the company. Many people love Apple products (I am not one of them), but clearly you must see how the general public's perception of Apple differers from that of Microsoft, and is irregardless of these companies actual real world worth. So goes the stock price -- irregardless of the actual worth of the company. (Of course worth is subjective, but stock price is not a good estimate -- it swings wildly even due to rumors or bad press, how can that be directly representative of how much stuff you sell? -- It's not.)
To move stock MS will have to do interesting and exciting things, more like their Kinect and XBox Live -- Not appealing to the desires of the general public makes your stock less appealing. Most people aren't excited about going to a "cloud", or using Word or Excel (even via a cloud).
To put it another way -- I don't usually watch TV, but when I do see it invariably there is an Apple iPhone or iPad commercial -- They show off many interesting applications, and then say: "That cool stuff is what our product is" In other-words: The device is sold by its apps -- most of which they don't even create themselves, they are leveraging their applications to lend them more "worth" in the public's perspective.
It's all about marketing -- I've yet to see a Microsoft commercial where a college kid is playing a game on XBL and says, "Awesome game...". Perhaps then his friend at the PC says, "Thanks, I thought you'd say that", then has a close up on the Windows7 OS, with XNA Game Studio, "Hey, tell me what you think of the sequel" Then cuts to them both playing what was on the PC, on the XBox360 sans controllers using the Kinect. (No -- instead I see a self deprecating commercial about a lonely kid playing movies in the hallway via his W7 notebook while his room-mate gets his fuck on -- this sends the wrong message to hormone crazed college kids -- the market they were targeting via the ad.)
Now that there is some malware for OSX (trojans, really, but so is most MS malware), I would expect to see a parody of Apple's Mac vs PC ads wherein Mac has a cold, and sneezes on PC, then a team of hot nurses replaces PC's coat and leaves in a puff of disinfectant aerosol "You don't have that? That was just the essentials -- Microsoft Security Essentials" -- MS should show off their own AV Offerings Exclusive to MS OSs -- with free versions, available online now, and integrated with the OS.
I've yet to see a Windows commercial showing all the Applications and Games that Windows and/or their phones/tablets have, and trying to sell the tablet/phone/PC as the applications in can run (like Apple does with its tablets & phones).
For a marketing guy like Ballmer -- this should be a piece of cake, yet MS sucks at marketing, pure and simple; This is why the stock price is not higher: The stock market is based on feelings -- how do we make people feel good about having our stock? It's not because he's terrible at selling -- he sold himself as CEO to MS... Knock off the jockey and the horse will finish the race anyway, I don't see how anyone else is going to affect the real worth of MS, but they may find someone who can polish the turd better, so to speak.
TL;DR: Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ex-Galactic President, was elected for his distractive properties, as all heads of state and corporations should be.
I mean, for fuck's sake, give me the vector coordinates and I'll make a shit load of files for everyone who wants to view the data in actual 3D --.blend,.obj,.3ds and several levels for Alien Arena. Hell I have a script that already does this for point clouds (esp. for Kinect) that I can adapt in about 10 minuets. WAD?! (where's all the data?)
Oh sure YOU created a 3D map -- please, no -- you measured the 3D coordinates. Give them to us so we can actually see it -- Oh, I forgot, the purpose of today's research agencies and universities is to charge exorbitant fees for basic knowledge.
The bullshit 3D movies they'll come out with will pale in comparison to the crowd soured galaxy naming/classifying cross reference websites we could make -- if only they weren't Data Nazis. Of course we could suggest more red-shift surveys based on interesting imagines obtained from the Hubble and other telescopes -- Imagine being able to actually map the galaxy by virtually flying around in it, and having beautiful annotated pictures and comments appearing as you approach select parts...
I could reverse engineer their bullshit 2D map, but that would be a waste of time since they have the 3D coordinates they used to plot the map.
Knowledge like this is only of value if it's made free (as in freedom).
I agree. From my own experiments training neural networks inside computers it makes obvious sense to me that 1 billion synapses per square cm in the human brain ought to be enough neural network to account for contentiousness -- in fact fMRI shows that our brains are much like the neural net -- coming to similar decisions after processing a set of inputs, but only being aware of our decision after the network has processed the input set.
Neurons and synapses are far more complex than the simple neural network models myself and others are playing with -- Eventually we'll have the computing power and understanding to closely approximate the operation of human neurons and synapses, at which point we'll be able to begin training true AI -- perhaps sooner if we consider that a lot of our brains functions are not needed for beings that have no true bodies.
I suggest anyone interested in AI also have a look at what we know of ourselves. I don't think we need quantum states to explain the apparently somewhat deterministic behavior of the human mind -- it can be done without resorting to quantum states.
Additionally: Take a scientist from 200 years ago and teach them about quantum physics, then introduce them to a computer with a programming error -- clearly they may try to explain the erratic behavior due to a few logic glitches in the machine code as quantum effects due to computers operating solely via sub-atomic quantum states...
I conversed with them once, generally a smart race -- they started to explain quantum theory in a way I could understand...
So, you see, these fundamental particles or "bits" as you call them -- they can act like waves when many of them represent a sound or other energy state, or they can act like individual units when describing a stationary thing such as an image or vertex, numbers/words etc. These fundamental particles don't exist in the way you and I think of existence, they can be observed from more than one place at a time, and yet sometimes they appear to be in only a single place to us.
The whole universe or "memory bank" as you call it is made of a matrix of space/time interspersed with energy or "RAM size"/time interspersed with bits; The smallest unit of time is what we call plank-time or a "single cycle", as you say. Entropy works on everything by changing the particles of the universe as a function of time, or in your terms, "The Program" works on everything by changing the "bits" in the "Memory Bank" as a function of "processor cycles".
Now, even though a "bit" can be accessed from multiple places at once, a change in the particles state can not be detected at the other location immediately due to the constant limiting factor of the universe -- the speed of light, or "processor speed" as you say -- Nothing is faster than this, no matter how fast an event, or "operation" as you say, occurs, it is limited by the speed of light, or "processing speed" -- You can't actually get to the speed of light though; The closer you get to the speed of light, the harder it is to go any faster, or in your terms, the fewer "instructions" that "operation" takes, the harder it is to remove any more "instructions", to get closer to a single "processor cycle".
The universe is expanding all the time; we say that this is because of dark energy -- it inexplicably draws the parts of the universe farther apart, or "fragments bits" as you say, because there is so much space to extend into -- there is no limit; However your theory that the whole universe stops momentarily when it gets "full", in order to "install more RAM" or space, and thereby only makes it appear to be infinitely expandable, is very strange indeed. Our scientists working on the finite size torus shaped universe theory, where eventually you wind up at the same place again, (or "overflow" as you say), would find this very interesting.
Or maybe I was dreaming of comp-sci in physics class yet again... Was the big bang just a boot up process explaining why everything came from a single electron crossing the first logic gate, resulting in the rapid loading of the entire kernel and all of user-space (our universe), and it's initial memory state (background radiation) still detectable if you read hard enough?
Simple:
A traditional credit card has raised digits and other information on the card itself -- It is not very secure. When you hand your credit card over to the waiter/waitress they can easily snap a pic with their camera phone and sell that data for $2 (wholesale) online.
A magnetic strip bearing credit card has the above insecurities, plus a convenient stripe that can be used to input the information into a computer -- Fake "clone" cards can be created that have the same magnetic signature as your card, and actually, the mag stripe lessens security by giving the clerk a false sense that the card is legit. The clerks don't care anyhow, it's not their money -- As a test I actually use a cloned card printed with the name "Sir Thievey Thiefterson III" and always sign my name as: "This card is Stolen" on all receipts; It's been four years, and still only eight times has my ID been asked for -- at which time I tip the cashier and use my real card.
A near field credit card works via RFID. RFID is not secure. It has no concept of a secret internal state and a challenge response system to authenticate that single (and only that single) transaction. It simply responds to query, any query, with your card info. Once again, we're putting the insecure data that's printed on the outside of the card into a more conveniently readable format, but this time it can also easily be scanned by malicious persons from several hundred feet away by using a Pringles can to shape their antenna's emissions.
None of these data exchange formats have the concept of a secret internal state and a challenge response system to authenticate that single (and only that single) transaction. It takes a computation capable device to provide public key encryption. We solved the problem a long time ago with public / private key pairs -- Google Wallet is a technology that finally uses the solution to the problem of identity theft via "public" card information dissemination. The device and/or application containing the private key (the key itself, even) can itself be locked/unlocked with a pass-phrase.
Note that this is not absolutely secure -- nothing is -- however, it is leaps and bounds more secure than the current dumb "hey here's a plain-text number to get my money" credit card system.
As for traceability -- It's no more traceable than the credit card system, true. It could be made more private by using something in the vein of Bitcoin (there I said it), since it has over a hundred unique account tokens for a given wallet. However, you would need an intermediary to process the transactions on your behalf, and trust them with your identity -- I'm looking at you Google.
In short: The Current Bullshit CC system is Broken as Hell! This is a step in the right direction, get on board or have your identity stolen like a dumbass.
P.S. In 2001 my wallet was stolen from my locker while I was clearing a jam from a trash compactor. I canceled my cards & entire bank account, got new checks & cards, and STILL was fraudulently charged $557.00 via the old canceled bank card three weeks later -- Wells Fargo doesn't care if I followed their security guidelines to the letter and have written proof of such -- they don't care if their agents were the ones that fucked up and didn't take the stolen card off of my name, and it ended up linked to my new account: It's not their money, they don't care (I still "owe" them this money since I refuse to pay for others' mistakes, also, credit reporting companies don't care either).
P.P.S. Cash is still the most secure, but carrying a lot of it is arguably not (Yes, I have been robbed at gunpoint after cashing a large check -- if I had digitally transferred the funds, I would not have lost the money).
Your's truly,
A FOSS Hacker that grew up in the ghettos of H-Town.
How can people not realize that every new technology will go through a phase where everyone implements their own idea before the industry settles on a few good ideas?
So when TFA says, "We urgently need to return to our basics, developing usability guidelines for these systems that are based upon solid principles of interaction design, not on the whims of the company human interface guidelines and arbitrary ideas of developers," you see that as what? Whining? A bad thing?
Jakob Nielsen is one of the leading figures in human-computer interaction. His whole point is that companies and developers don't need to make it all up on the fly, because there have been decades of research conducted already into how people interact with machines and devices. There are plenty of experts, not just Nielsen, who can offer their expertise. The problem is that so far it seems like it's being ignored.
Perhaps -- just maybe -- the case is that the "expert" UI gurus charge too much for the average mobile app developer to employ, especially for a note-keeper or other one-off application.
What I saw: Expert's Gay Sexual Interfaces Are a Step Backwards in Usability
Seriously? LoL
How much practice is required before you're considered an expert at these homo-erotic interfaces?
Is there skill quantization "tool", or perhaps a "Queer Eye" review?
Are the controller's or receptacles aesthetically pleasing?
Do lesbians with optional strap-ons have an advantage over the rest of us?
Are Expert heterosexual interfaces not equally as ridiculous?
I laughed for a good minute before I was disappointed by a second read of the headline...
I think you may be misinterpreting the summary. The precision of their measurements put an upper bound on deviations from perfectly sphericity. The electron can be no more than "the width of a human hair in the solar system" off from being a perfect sphere, or they would have measured it.
So... if the electron is more than ' "the width of a human hair in the solar system" off from being a perfect sphere' they would have measured the human hair instead? Huh, that actually makes sense...
Ah so, it's not completely subjective or wrong; It depends on how you measure it -- "Here that honey?! I'm above average length; It's just that not all of me goes inside you."
Slashdot Mirror
lawsuits against people who try to restore what they bought and paid for (when I buy an NVIDIA video card, NVIDIA does NOT get anal over what I do with the video card, when I buy an ASUS motherboard, ASUS does *NOT* get anal over what I do with the motherboard; its *NONE* of Sonys business what I do with the PS3 that *I* paid for and *I* own (and they stopped owning all of it the second *I* paid for it)!
I dare you to find a console that says you own it -- they all come with EULAs that explicitly state otherwise. AFAICT, the PC does not (the games may, but at least I somewhat own the hardware -- much more so than you can a console), and the PC hardware is far more powerful than the consoles, and con be upgraded too -- guess where I do my gaming, not on a device that has a planned EOL date, that's for sure.
I LOVED the remake Atari made of Pong for the PS1/PC -- Put that on a mobile device it was great fun, IMHO.
Each "table" being a different experience, eg: a football field that plays like foosball (with gophers making holes that "transport" the ball, or a table that tilts as you move the paddles about, each with a different "effect" that could be activated, and "powerups" as well. There was even a "secret" classic Pong game in the stars.
It got less than stellar reviews, but everyone I exposed it to agreed that it was fun to play with. (hmm)
The first level featured Penguins! What's not to like?
The whole point of a president is to be the leader of the armed forces -- all the other law making bullshit is just grandstanding. He can suggest, and sometimes appoint friends, and wish, and but the president can not make laws or actually "change" much. Mostly the president goes along with whatever are the plans of the established system (note: not party-- those too are distractions).
Have you learned nothing from the scholars this recently passed Towel Day? The true purpose of the presidency is to distract the people from how it all really works, and keep them from doing anything effective to change the system. For example see: Ex-Galactic President, Zaphod Beeblebrox, or any recent president of the USA.
So, what you're saying is that them calling this computer a "quantum computer" is a bit like calling my vintage LED wrist-watch an "atomic clock" -- since, technically, it does tell time using atoms, but not in the way you would normally think of a "real" atomic clock.
Not to mention the iron breathing bacteria in blood falls.
Simple: It's the non Apple-trademark infringing version of iPee.
Seriously though: (once again) FTWA
TL;DR: You're on the Internet. Use it.
Oh, you're one of those people.
I've heard about people like you -- there was some sort of un-American stigma attached to those of your ilk, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is...
Seriously. I had just written the automatic string internationalizer last month for a new language & IDE (to be released as FLOSS). You set your locale/language, and the locales/languages you want to support, then as you are coding you can enter a string followed by an 'I' -- then the IDE will automatically build the language table section of the code for you, and depending on the chosen language of the other readers and/or coders they will see the correct text in their language. eg:
greet' = "Good Morning \_. What would you like to do today?"I;
d' = 'Dialog(DLG_MESG);
d.say( interp( greet, user ) );
Behind the scenes (well, at the top of the file, actually ) the language strings get translated and replaced with something like an enum.
__INTL_Good_Morning = core.unique();
core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning, "en", "Good Morning \_. What would you like to do today?" );
core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning, "sp", "Buenos días \_. Qué te gustaría hacer hoy?" );
greet' = core.intlStr( __INTL_Good_Morning );
d' = 'Dialog(DLG_MESG);
d.say( interp( greet, user ) );
greet' = core.intlStr( "Buenos días \_. Qué te gustaría hacer hoy?"I );
(This is an example, the string tables would contain more languages and can also be exported to a module -- something like a header file + .so)
Each coder is required to input their own API key, and the plugin for translations allows different services to be used.
I was even adding support for variable name translations -- the operators and built in functions, keywords & library names can already be changed when the coder selects a different language pack (with or without IDE).
The language supports full unicode all the way thu the compiler, so variable names don't have to end up like abc_uXXXX_uXXXX_uXXXX as in most C/C++ compilers that support unicode.
Additionally, as the compiler encounters strings that have yet to be internationalized, it can perform the (compile time) translation -- or default to the same known string for every language (emitting a warning) -- Manual Improvements to the translations can also be made (provided that someone knows the target language).
Basically, I wanted to factor out the programmer's native (spoken) language via the token abstraction layer, and enable truly globally collaborative software projects (in your native tongue). I won't be able to without a good translator service + API :-(
FYI, at first the summary had me thinking that "a host of others" meant that other translation platforms would be closing too, but instead it means that Google's other APIs are being terminated.
From TFA:
Yeah, I might be one of the folks that enables users to "abuse" the translation service -- but results are cached, and isn't international collaboration what the translator service is for?! -- I wonder how much this will affect the twangdgtk folks -- I guess we'll have to fall back to just www.freetranslation.com?
Why waste bullets? Use a pneumatic piston at the base of the skull. Still -- no matter where you shoot something, dying is going to hurt unless you destroy the whole brain all at once... I say dynamite strapped to the things' heads are the most humane.
Does he grow his own vegetables or kill (harvest/cook) them too? If not, what's the point?
IMHO, just cooking for yourself is enough to obtain an appreciation for what you eat.
Not to mention we've no shortage of cows... It's not like there are too many whales -- as the stewards of Earth you'd think we'd act like it instead of extincting species for no other reason than because we want to.
A: If a security hole in Android comes out, and a phone can't be patches, people are likely to upgrade or buy a new phone.
Nah, that's not what makes people upgrade. They will upgrade for new features they are denied by the mfgr/carrier's holding back the update. Besides, security conscious individuals are a vanishingly small minority (probably about the same as those who "root" their phones).
If you would like to argue otherwise, ask yourself which is better W7 or XP? Please explain why new hardware comes with new OSs, while much of the corporate world are sticking with the entrenched code-base (although, XP time of death is: 1047 days away).
People want new & shiny, not secure... Any security conscious individual would not run mission critical systems on a whole new OS code-base that hasn't been hammered on for many years (working out many bugs)... One of the reasons to not rewrite everything every few months/years is that the new stuff will have new holes, while the older code has already survived many trials by fire. Sadly, proprietary software allows vendors to force upgrades via dropping support...
If security is the aim, then having source code and an unlocked boot-loader is essential -- There's no faster response to an exploit than patching the flaw yourself as soon as a fix is known; Lucky for locked down ROM / DRM'd software providers: Most users don't care about security.
Just buy this terrorist's effects...
Only outlaws will incorrectly predict earthquakes.
More importantly, if you artificially create a liability for scientists in a certain field, there will be less scientists willing to work in said field and be held liable, and thus less research and advancements in that field. Do they want less accurate predictions of earthquakes?
Also note: sometimes mass hysteria + earthquake is less dangerous than just the earthquake... Perhaps they wanted to warn everyone, but were secretly advised not to.
^ FTFY.
Imho, TFS: gtfo FB.
-TTFN
You think that Ballmer's position grants him control over the behemoth, but I say he is riding atop a stubborn pachyderm trying to take credit for its good fortune in some times, while drawing attention away from its mistakes and flaws at others.
The internal politics between departments and projects, conflicts in "the mind" of Microsoft, are more of an issue than the jockey flogging the lumbering beast, IMO.
Now, a smaller company, or one with less in-fighting will respond better to their leader's command... Microsoft is neither.
However, the most important issue is to realize that market price directly correlates to how good the general public feels about the company. Many people love Apple products (I am not one of them), but clearly you must see how the general public's perception of Apple differers from that of Microsoft, and is irregardless of these companies actual real world worth. So goes the stock price -- irregardless of the actual worth of the company. (Of course worth is subjective, but stock price is not a good estimate -- it swings wildly even due to rumors or bad press, how can that be directly representative of how much stuff you sell? -- It's not.)
To move stock MS will have to do interesting and exciting things, more like their Kinect and XBox Live -- Not appealing to the desires of the general public makes your stock less appealing. Most people aren't excited about going to a "cloud", or using Word or Excel (even via a cloud).
To put it another way -- I don't usually watch TV, but when I do see it invariably there is an Apple iPhone or iPad commercial -- They show off many interesting applications, and then say: "That cool stuff is what our product is" In other-words: The device is sold by its apps -- most of which they don't even create themselves, they are leveraging their applications to lend them more "worth" in the public's perspective.
It's all about marketing -- I've yet to see a Microsoft commercial where a college kid is playing a game on XBL and says, "Awesome game...". Perhaps then his friend at the PC says, "Thanks, I thought you'd say that", then has a close up on the Windows7 OS, with XNA Game Studio, "Hey, tell me what you think of the sequel" Then cuts to them both playing what was on the PC, on the XBox360 sans controllers using the Kinect. (No -- instead I see a self deprecating commercial about a lonely kid playing movies in the hallway via his W7 notebook while his room-mate gets his fuck on -- this sends the wrong message to hormone crazed college kids -- the market they were targeting via the ad.)
Now that there is some malware for OSX (trojans, really, but so is most MS malware), I would expect to see a parody of Apple's Mac vs PC ads wherein Mac has a cold, and sneezes on PC, then a team of hot nurses replaces PC's coat and leaves in a puff of disinfectant aerosol "You don't have that? That was just the essentials -- Microsoft Security Essentials" -- MS should show off their own AV Offerings Exclusive to MS OSs -- with free versions, available online now, and integrated with the OS.
I've yet to see a Windows commercial showing all the Applications and Games that Windows and/or their phones/tablets have, and trying to sell the tablet/phone/PC as the applications in can run (like Apple does with its tablets & phones).
For a marketing guy like Ballmer -- this should be a piece of cake, yet MS sucks at marketing, pure and simple; This is why the stock price is not higher: The stock market is based on feelings -- how do we make people feel good about having our stock? It's not because he's terrible at selling -- he sold himself as CEO to MS... Knock off the jockey and the horse will finish the race anyway, I don't see how anyone else is going to affect the real worth of MS, but they may find someone who can polish the turd better, so to speak.
TL;DR: Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ex-Galactic President, was elected for his distractive properties, as all heads of state and corporations should be.
I mean, for fuck's sake, give me the vector coordinates and I'll make a shit load of files for everyone who wants to view the data in actual 3D -- .blend, .obj, .3ds and several levels for Alien Arena. Hell I have a script that already does this for point clouds (esp. for Kinect) that I can adapt in about 10 minuets. WAD?! (where's all the data?)
Oh sure YOU created a 3D map -- please, no -- you measured the 3D coordinates. Give them to us so we can actually see it -- Oh, I forgot, the purpose of today's research agencies and universities is to charge exorbitant fees for basic knowledge.
The bullshit 3D movies they'll come out with will pale in comparison to the crowd soured galaxy naming/classifying cross reference websites we could make -- if only they weren't Data Nazis. Of course we could suggest more red-shift surveys based on interesting imagines obtained from the Hubble and other telescopes -- Imagine being able to actually map the galaxy by virtually flying around in it, and having beautiful annotated pictures and comments appearing as you approach select parts...
I could reverse engineer their bullshit 2D map, but that would be a waste of time since they have the 3D coordinates they used to plot the map.
Knowledge like this is only of value if it's made free (as in freedom).
I agree. From my own experiments training neural networks inside computers it makes obvious sense to me that 1 billion synapses per square cm in the human brain ought to be enough neural network to account for contentiousness -- in fact fMRI shows that our brains are much like the neural net -- coming to similar decisions after processing a set of inputs, but only being aware of our decision after the network has processed the input set.
Neurons and synapses are far more complex than the simple neural network models myself and others are playing with -- Eventually we'll have the computing power and understanding to closely approximate the operation of human neurons and synapses, at which point we'll be able to begin training true AI -- perhaps sooner if we consider that a lot of our brains functions are not needed for beings that have no true bodies.
I suggest anyone interested in AI also have a look at what we know of ourselves. I don't think we need quantum states to explain the apparently somewhat deterministic behavior of the human mind -- it can be done without resorting to quantum states.
Additionally: Take a scientist from 200 years ago and teach them about quantum physics, then introduce them to a computer with a programming error -- clearly they may try to explain the erratic behavior due to a few logic glitches in the machine code as quantum effects due to computers operating solely via sub-atomic quantum states...
I conversed with them once, generally a smart race -- they started to explain quantum theory in a way I could understand...
So, you see, these fundamental particles or "bits" as you call them -- they can act like waves when many of them represent a sound or other energy state, or they can act like individual units when describing a stationary thing such as an image or vertex, numbers/words etc. These fundamental particles don't exist in the way you and I think of existence, they can be observed from more than one place at a time, and yet sometimes they appear to be in only a single place to us.
The whole universe or "memory bank" as you call it is made of a matrix of space/time interspersed with energy or "RAM size"/time interspersed with bits; The smallest unit of time is what we call plank-time or a "single cycle", as you say. Entropy works on everything by changing the particles of the universe as a function of time, or in your terms, "The Program" works on everything by changing the "bits" in the "Memory Bank" as a function of "processor cycles".
Now, even though a "bit" can be accessed from multiple places at once, a change in the particles state can not be detected at the other location immediately due to the constant limiting factor of the universe -- the speed of light, or "processor speed" as you say -- Nothing is faster than this, no matter how fast an event, or "operation" as you say, occurs, it is limited by the speed of light, or "processing speed" -- You can't actually get to the speed of light though; The closer you get to the speed of light, the harder it is to go any faster, or in your terms, the fewer "instructions" that "operation" takes, the harder it is to remove any more "instructions", to get closer to a single "processor cycle".
The universe is expanding all the time; we say that this is because of dark energy -- it inexplicably draws the parts of the universe farther apart, or "fragments bits" as you say, because there is so much space to extend into -- there is no limit; However your theory that the whole universe stops momentarily when it gets "full", in order to "install more RAM" or space, and thereby only makes it appear to be infinitely expandable, is very strange indeed. Our scientists working on the finite size torus shaped universe theory, where eventually you wind up at the same place again, (or "overflow" as you say), would find this very interesting.
Or maybe I was dreaming of comp-sci in physics class yet again... Was the big bang just a boot up process explaining why everything came from a single electron crossing the first logic gate, resulting in the rapid loading of the entire kernel and all of user-space (our universe), and it's initial memory state (background radiation) still detectable if you read hard enough?
How is this different from credit cards?
Simple:
A traditional credit card has raised digits and other information on the card itself -- It is not very secure. When you hand your credit card over to the waiter/waitress they can easily snap a pic with their camera phone and sell that data for $2 (wholesale) online.
A magnetic strip bearing credit card has the above insecurities, plus a convenient stripe that can be used to input the information into a computer -- Fake "clone" cards can be created that have the same magnetic signature as your card, and actually, the mag stripe lessens security by giving the clerk a false sense that the card is legit. The clerks don't care anyhow, it's not their money -- As a test I actually use a cloned card printed with the name "Sir Thievey Thiefterson III" and always sign my name as: "This card is Stolen" on all receipts; It's been four years, and still only eight times has my ID been asked for -- at which time I tip the cashier and use my real card.
A near field credit card works via RFID. RFID is not secure. It has no concept of a secret internal state and a challenge response system to authenticate that single (and only that single) transaction. It simply responds to query, any query, with your card info. Once again, we're putting the insecure data that's printed on the outside of the card into a more conveniently readable format, but this time it can also easily be scanned by malicious persons from several hundred feet away by using a Pringles can to shape their antenna's emissions.
None of these data exchange formats have the concept of a secret internal state and a challenge response system to authenticate that single (and only that single) transaction. It takes a computation capable device to provide public key encryption. We solved the problem a long time ago with public / private key pairs -- Google Wallet is a technology that finally uses the solution to the problem of identity theft via "public" card information dissemination. The device and/or application containing the private key (the key itself, even) can itself be locked/unlocked with a pass-phrase.
Note that this is not absolutely secure -- nothing is -- however, it is leaps and bounds more secure than the current dumb "hey here's a plain-text number to get my money" credit card system.
As for traceability -- It's no more traceable than the credit card system, true. It could be made more private by using something in the vein of Bitcoin (there I said it), since it has over a hundred unique account tokens for a given wallet. However, you would need an intermediary to process the transactions on your behalf, and trust them with your identity -- I'm looking at you Google.
In short: The Current Bullshit CC system is Broken as Hell! This is a step in the right direction, get on board or have your identity stolen like a dumbass.
P.S. In 2001 my wallet was stolen from my locker while I was clearing a jam from a trash compactor. I canceled my cards & entire bank account, got new checks & cards, and STILL was fraudulently charged $557.00 via the old canceled bank card three weeks later -- Wells Fargo doesn't care if I followed their security guidelines to the letter and have written proof of such -- they don't care if their agents were the ones that fucked up and didn't take the stolen card off of my name, and it ended up linked to my new account: It's not their money, they don't care (I still "owe" them this money since I refuse to pay for others' mistakes, also, credit reporting companies don't care either).
P.P.S. Cash is still the most secure, but carrying a lot of it is arguably not (Yes, I have been robbed at gunpoint after cashing a large check -- if I had digitally transferred the funds, I would not have lost the money).
Your's truly,
A FOSS Hacker that grew up in the ghettos of H-Town.
How can people not realize that every new technology will go through a phase where everyone implements their own idea before the industry settles on a few good ideas?
So when TFA says, "We urgently need to return to our basics, developing usability guidelines for these systems that are based upon solid principles of interaction design, not on the whims of the company human interface guidelines and arbitrary ideas of developers," you see that as what? Whining? A bad thing?
Jakob Nielsen is one of the leading figures in human-computer interaction. His whole point is that companies and developers don't need to make it all up on the fly, because there have been decades of research conducted already into how people interact with machines and devices. There are plenty of experts, not just Nielsen, who can offer their expertise. The problem is that so far it seems like it's being ignored.
Perhaps -- just maybe -- the case is that the "expert" UI gurus charge too much for the average mobile app developer to employ, especially for a note-keeper or other one-off application.
What I saw: Expert's Gay Sexual Interfaces Are a Step Backwards in Usability
Seriously? LoL
How much practice is required before you're considered an expert at these homo-erotic interfaces?
Is there skill quantization "tool", or perhaps a "Queer Eye" review?
Are the controller's or receptacles aesthetically pleasing?
Do lesbians with optional strap-ons have an advantage over the rest of us?
Are Expert heterosexual interfaces not equally as ridiculous?
I laughed for a good minute before I was disappointed by a second read of the headline...
Yea... its round, as far as we can tell...
Thanks for the grant.
FTFY.
I think you may be misinterpreting the summary. The precision of their measurements put an upper bound on deviations from perfectly sphericity. The electron can be no more than "the width of a human hair in the solar system" off from being a perfect sphere, or they would have measured it.
So... if the electron is more than ' "the width of a human hair in the solar system" off from being a perfect sphere' they would have measured the human hair instead? Huh, that actually makes sense...
Ah so, it's not completely subjective or wrong; It depends on how you measure it -- "Here that honey?! I'm above average length; It's just that not all of me goes inside you."