Lufthansa was offering wireless on their long-haul flights for a while. Not sure if they are still doing it. The cost was around $30 per flight, which seemed a bit steep for the slow internet they offered.
This is a very difficult, unintuitive concept, and it completely abolishes the idea that you can predict human behavior, even though you may be able to reach better and better approximations as you reach larger scales.
How does it remove the possibility of predicting human behavior? Many macroscopic processes (e.g., motions of the celestial bodies) can be predicted very well, despite quantum uncertainty. You would have to argue that human behavior is determined at the quantum level, as Penrose does, not very convincingly, in my view.
You may also consider the fact that uncertainty does not just arise at the quantum level. for example, it is very difficult to predict weather, despite the fact that quantum effects probably have little role in it. It has to do with the fact, that certain systems are very sensitive to the initial conditions and our ability to measure is limited.
Nice point. Excessive gaming should probably be discouraged by parents. I don't know why the government get involved, but then again, the American government seems very interested in the underage booze consumption.
Perhaps you should do a bit of research before posting, so that you don't overexert you sense of sarcasm.
This is funding for all of CS, not just theoretical CS. Most of it is spent on large scale projects, such as supercomputing, grid computing, sensor networks, hardware design, robotics, autonomous systems, Internet II and who knows what else. Not all of it comes from NSF, but it is probably the biggest single contributor.
> Well, maybe we shouldn't be comparing this to science spending, but public works projects?
Public work projects are usually evaluated based on their direct benefits. By that standard fusion will fail miserably as its benefits are decades away from us and are of speculative nature.
> Because money is fluid, and equal. Why complain that limited science dollars aren't being spent on what you consider important, and look at the real problem that we're not spending enough money on science period?
That's exactly my point. Money is equal and $12bln can be spend financing many projects of greater scientific interest and more likely to yield practical results.
> We know we need a cheap, clean, extremely plentiful source of energy.
I seriously doubt that fusion is ever going to be cheap, even if they make it work (which remains to be seen). So far all evidence points to the contrary. Using solar and wind energy is already reasonably cheap. Nuclear energy is also quite cheap, although the problem of nuclear waste has not been completely resolved. Thus I don't see potential benefits as being extremely large.
Frankly, I am more sympathetic to Hubble, which seems very useful from the scientific point of view and also stimulates a lot of interest in science.
Yes, put the costs in the perspective -- the total NSF funding for CS research in the US is of the order of $500mln per year and has been flat for years now. This is funding for a _whole area_ of science and engineering. And you are comparing it to one project, whose scientific benefits are unclear and practical promise is uncertain.
Why do you want to compare this to the war in Iraq and not to levels of funding for other research?
As far as the Apollo project is concerned, the symbolic significance is huge, but as a research project the thing was a flop.
No, it is not a trivial amount of money. Even if it works it will need to work in a commercially feasible way, which at this point seems not just uncertain, but improbable. There is a lot of alternative sources of energy, such as solar energy, tidal waves, geothermal, etc. An investment of that scale would benefit any of them tremendously.
Huge amounts of money have already been sunk in making fusion work over the last 40 years with negligible results. The scientists keep promising and keep getting funded, even though payoff is always 30 years in the future. Such investments would benefit many other areas of science.
Consider also that $12bln is more than twice the budget of NSF (National Science Foundation), which is the primary funding body for all non-medical science in the US!
Slashdot Mirror
Lufthansa was offering wireless on their long-haul flights for a while. Not sure if they are still doing it. The cost was around $30 per flight, which seemed a bit steep for the slow internet they offered.
Yes, quite possibly a long road towards the north-eastern parts of Russia.
I feel compelled to disagree with you.
> Brain activity is electro-chemical, tightly linked to delicate reactions/states.
Many chemical and electrical interactions can be predicted quite accurately.
This is a very difficult, unintuitive concept, and it completely abolishes the idea that you can predict human behavior, even though you may be able to reach better and better approximations as you reach larger scales.
How does it remove the possibility of predicting human behavior? Many macroscopic processes (e.g., motions of the celestial bodies) can be predicted very well, despite quantum uncertainty. You would have to argue that human behavior is determined at the quantum level, as Penrose does, not very convincingly, in my view.
You may also consider the fact that uncertainty does not just arise at the quantum level. for example, it is very difficult to predict weather, despite the fact that quantum effects probably have little role in it. It has to do with the fact, that certain systems are very sensitive to the initial conditions and our ability to measure is limited.
But they are not suing you, they are suing Kaleidoscope.
(Not too say they are justified)
He is making a good point. People get very excited when the opression is of unfamiliar kind but generally do not notice it right in front of them.
Nice point. Excessive gaming should probably be discouraged by parents. I don't know why the government get involved, but then again, the American government seems very interested in the underage booze consumption.
> Can't argue with the RIAA calling themselves a bunch of criminals ... its truth in advertising.
;)
Indeed
Perhaps you can read the article?
What exactly is your point?
Perhaps you should do a bit of research before posting, so that you don't overexert you sense of sarcasm.
This is funding for all of CS, not just theoretical CS. Most of it is spent on large scale projects, such as supercomputing, grid computing, sensor networks, hardware design, robotics, autonomous systems, Internet II and who knows what else. Not all of it comes from NSF, but it is probably the biggest single contributor.
That's a good point. I am not sure where the actual funding is going to come from.
I am too lazy to check it at the moment though
> Well, maybe we shouldn't be comparing this to science spending, but public works projects?
Public work projects are usually evaluated based on their direct benefits. By that standard
fusion will fail miserably as its benefits are decades away from us and are of speculative nature.
> Because money is fluid, and equal. Why complain that limited science dollars aren't being spent on what you consider important, and look at the real problem that we're not spending enough money on science period?
That's exactly my point. Money is equal and $12bln can be spend financing many projects of greater scientific interest and more likely to yield practical results.
> We know we need a cheap, clean, extremely plentiful source of energy.
I seriously doubt that fusion is ever going to be cheap, even if they make it work (which remains to be seen). So far all evidence points to the contrary. Using solar and wind energy is already reasonably cheap. Nuclear energy is also quite cheap, although the problem of nuclear waste has not been completely resolved. Thus I don't see potential benefits as being extremely large.
Frankly, I am more sympathetic to Hubble, which seems very useful from the scientific point of view and also stimulates a lot of interest in science.
Your comparison is totally irrelevant. The funding for ITER is not going to come from the war budget.
I also would like to let you know in confidence, that I have absolutely no power over how the Bush administration spends our tax money.
Yes, put the costs in the perspective -- the total NSF funding for CS research in the US is of the order of $500mln per year and has been flat for years now. This is funding for a _whole area_ of science and engineering. And you are comparing it to one project, whose scientific benefits are unclear and practical promise is uncertain.
Why do you want to compare this to the war in Iraq and not to levels of funding for other research?
As far as the Apollo project is concerned, the symbolic significance is huge, but as a research project the thing was a flop.
No, it is not a trivial amount of money. Even if it works it will need to work in a commercially feasible way, which at this point seems not just uncertain, but improbable. There is a lot of alternative sources of energy, such as solar energy, tidal waves, geothermal, etc. An investment of that scale would benefit any of them tremendously.
Huge amounts of money have already been sunk in making fusion work over the last 40 years with negligible results. The scientists keep promising and keep getting funded, even though payoff is always 30 years in the future. Such investments would benefit many other areas of science.
Consider also that $12bln is more than twice
the budget of NSF (National Science Foundation), which is the primary funding body for all non-medical science in the US!
$12bln is certainly a lot of money for a research project with very uncertain payoff.
What are you talking about? Stantard deviation is going to be on the order of 1 over sqrt(n), which is approximately 20%.
Don't get too excited about these numbers. The whole study is based on 26 examples.
The first job of government is to protect its people. Aggressively when required.
You will be perfectly safe in your jail cell, no doubt.
The point is that you don't. Basically, the idea is that a random projection will preserve most of the information in the image with high probability.
Don't be silly. It is a device to train telemarketers.
60g is roughly the decceleration of hitting a wall at 30 mile/hour.
2000g acceleration would smash you like a bug hitting a windshield whether you are suspended or not.