Welcome to the 20th century. Everything you need, delivered NOW! Every fix delivered as a quick ingestable pill. Every decision as easy as yes or no.
How long until folks grow up? I don't know. I would like to say I see signs of enlightenment dawning in our civilization, but I can't. I do take some comfort in knowing that, despite our stupidity, we have managed to survive this long.
I think the major problem with business is the mindset that one must have a plan, follow the plan, and everything that isn't in the plan is Evil(tm).
Granted, the operation of any large organization hinges on the ability to make consitent decisions on all levels of management. What get Big Business into trouble is that the scarecely make a decision beyond that of a front-line manager, i.e. reactionary.
I work for a volunteer organization, and am more or less the custodian of the computer equipment. I'm still printing letters envelopes and labels off of an HP 1100 that was purchased back in 1992(?). I periodically have to drop in a new toner. The only major repair was applying a little sticky pad to one of the rollers to correct for a design problem. I'm not kiding, HP mailed us a cardboard frame with a punch of sticky points on the end that we jammed into one of the orafaces to keep the pages from jamming after so many years.
Cute little thing, it's still printing. My only beef is the speed. It prints 4ppm, so a 200 page reports requires the better part of a lunch break.
I really do look like a middle aged dad/geek- regardless of my #insert cool tech gadget here#
But middle aged Dad/Geek is hot an trendy... at least with Middle aged Mom/Spouses and Kid/Cynics.
Just look at the way it makes them laugh. Uncontrollably. When they squirm in public like they don't want to be seen by you, it's because they are jealous. They wish they had one too.
Lalalalala. Life is fun in my world. What color will the sky be today...
I love Linux as much as the next guy, but when push comes to shove I always go with a Vendor's brand Unix on Vendor made hardware. The stuff just plain works, and when it doesn't, you have one number to call.
Or you could just be agnostic and support both. We do at my place. Sure, we give folks a song and dance about why IMAP is soo much better than pop, but you get a few folks on laptops who insist on carrying everything with them.
Of course, once they see that webmail doesn't work right and they discover they can only check their mail from one location, they change. Sure they are a pain in the ass about it, and I get tired of answering the same questions over and over again about "bugs in the server" and "my messages are missing". I think it's when they stop by my office and see the answer to "I checked my mail at home and the messages were gone when I got to the office" scrawled in coffee and blood on the wall behind me, they get the idea that POP is bad.
All except of the CEO. But he only ever checks his email on his laptop.
Did you miss the part about this being the U.S. Navy?
They have 368,000 active duty personnel, 142,000 reservists, and 177,000 civilians. Total: 687000. With standards allowances for safety and growth, you DO need to plan for well over 1 million accounts.
Mr. Simpson: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths. So it's not very useful. Adrian Wapcaplet: Well, that's our selling point! "SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!" Mr. Simpson: What? Adrian Wapcaplet: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES - JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!" Mr. Simpson: For what? Adrian Wapcaplet: Uuuh..."A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!" S: Such as? W: Uhmm...Tying up very small parcels, attatching notes to pigeons' legs, uh, destroying household pests...
It's a contractural thing. They still have to pay the guy who normally would have painted the keys, as well as a supervisor to ensure that the keys don't get painted.
Either that or they take a regular black keyboard, then pay some folk art person to painstakingly remove the letters and replace them with blank caps.
I hate to tell be the one to tell you this, much of the original market for "motion pictures" was porn. Think of all those penny machines with cranks, and remember how much a penny was worth back in the day.
Well actually we would have to score the ability to detect the computer like we would score the ability to detect a tone, or a frequency of light at a given amplitude. In neurology the standard for "thresholds of perception" are usually the point at which 50% of people can detect the sensation and 50% of people cannot.
In this case, a computer will have passed the Turing test if it can fool at least 50% of the people who interrogate it.
In regards to your 10lb hammer analogy, you have some big gaps in your spec. Is it supposed to take one blow from a 10lb hammer, or repeated blows? How many? Is the door allowed to deform? How much?
While there may not be a rational "scientific" reason to test a door with a hammer smaller than 10 lbs, I can give you plenty of irrational engineering tests that would employ one. (Especially if you are testing for fatigue.)
The computer was taught to "think" with chess. I can't remember if joshua offered chess instead
of gtw in the begining of the movie. It defineately offered chess at the end. interesting movie, joshua's "codebreaking" bothered me along with a few other things; but I liked it.
One thing the movie had going for it was the fact the computers were still very much science fiction back in 1982. People had seen them, but they really didn't understand yet what they could and could not do. This was still the day of blue boxes and 300k modems. You also had the real worry of nuclear war breaking out at any time.
Virtually nothing in the movie would be believable if it was set in the modern day. That said, I think an outfit is planning a direct to DVD release which is going to be a Remake or Sequel or Something along those lines, with Joshua hanging out on message boards an pretending to be a human when David stumbles across it. (I only know because some of the shooting is planned for my hometown, Philly, PA)
Find me one reference to "competence" in said paper. He's got lots of stuff about why only digital computers could work in the game. And lots of stuff about balancing the questions so that they aren't too easy or too hard for either man or machine.
But there is not one reference to the intelligence, competance, etc of the questioner. They can be a genious or an idiot. If he or she cannot tell the difference between a person and the machine, the machine is considered intelligent.
Slashdot Mirror
How long until folks grow up? I don't know. I would like to say I see signs of enlightenment dawning in our civilization, but I can't. I do take some comfort in knowing that, despite our stupidity, we have managed to survive this long.
Granted, the operation of any large organization hinges on the ability to make consitent decisions on all levels of management. What get Big Business into trouble is that the scarecely make a decision beyond that of a front-line manager, i.e. reactionary.
Cool by default because it was a movie about hacking before the world at large even knew about hacking (and phreaking, and blue boxes...)
Cute little thing, it's still printing. My only beef is the speed. It prints 4ppm, so a 200 page reports requires the better part of a lunch break.
Hey, my router in the basement is a Dell. Its recycled from a client of mine, and runs ^#$!#$&!@@$%&^!$# ^H[+++Connection Terminated+++]
But middle aged Dad/Geek is hot an trendy... at least with Middle aged Mom/Spouses and Kid/Cynics.
Just look at the way it makes them laugh. Uncontrollably. When they squirm in public like they don't want to be seen by you, it's because they are jealous. They wish they had one too.
Lalalalala. Life is fun in my world. What color will the sky be today...
(Commence self flagration.)
I love Linux as much as the next guy, but when push comes to shove I always go with a Vendor's brand Unix on Vendor made hardware. The stuff just plain works, and when it doesn't, you have one number to call.
Of course, once they see that webmail doesn't work right and they discover they can only check their mail from one location, they change. Sure they are a pain in the ass about it, and I get tired of answering the same questions over and over again about "bugs in the server" and "my messages are missing". I think it's when they stop by my office and see the answer to "I checked my mail at home and the messages were gone when I got to the office" scrawled in coffee and blood on the wall behind me, they get the idea that POP is bad.
All except of the CEO. But he only ever checks his email on his laptop.
They have 368,000 active duty personnel, 142,000 reservists, and 177,000 civilians. Total: 687000. With standards allowances for safety and growth, you DO need to plan for well over 1 million accounts.
I hear Slashdot is going to have a new service. It's news and stuff, but all of the writeups are blank, and all of the links are pre-slashdotted.
Make it look like a real man's keyboard.
Either that or they take a regular black keyboard, then pay some folk art person to painstakingly remove the letters and replace them with blank caps.
"Great. we could do with a bit of color."
That joke is best heard from a concrete reinforced bunker about 60 miles away from the speakers.
I hate to tell be the one to tell you this, much of the original market for "motion pictures" was porn. Think of all those penny machines with cranks, and remember how much a penny was worth back in the day.
Obviously never heard of the concept of "Parties" or "Single's Bars", have you?
In this case, a computer will have passed the Turing test if it can fool at least 50% of the people who interrogate it.
In regards to your 10lb hammer analogy, you have some big gaps in your spec. Is it supposed to take one blow from a 10lb hammer, or repeated blows? How many? Is the door allowed to deform? How much?
While there may not be a rational "scientific" reason to test a door with a hammer smaller than 10 lbs, I can give you plenty of irrational engineering tests that would employ one. (Especially if you are testing for fatigue.)
One thing the movie had going for it was the fact the computers were still very much science fiction back in 1982. People had seen them, but they really didn't understand yet what they could and could not do. This was still the day of blue boxes and 300k modems. You also had the real worry of nuclear war breaking out at any time.
Virtually nothing in the movie would be believable if it was set in the modern day. That said, I think an outfit is planning a direct to DVD release which is going to be a Remake or Sequel or Something along those lines, with Joshua hanging out on message boards an pretending to be a human when David stumbles across it. (I only know because some of the shooting is planned for my hometown, Philly, PA)
(Strange Game...the only way to win is not to play.)
But there is not one reference to the intelligence, competance, etc of the questioner. They can be a genious or an idiot. If he or she cannot tell the difference between a person and the machine, the machine is considered intelligent.
And as we all know, humanity is DYING!
Forget not the power of Yoda. Speak like him and confuse them you will. When in doubt of word order you are, think like an HP calculator you must.