I don't think it is that IBM is wary of Crusoe, they are just assessing customer demand before they go into production with the chip. One thing the article stressed was that IBM wants to wait and see what the demand is before producing machines other than prototypes with the chip.
This book sounds good. I like a work that explores philosophical issues in a story-telling setting. There are a lot of unknowns and great debates about all kinds of things and it is so much more pleasant to get into the issues in an entertaining manner, like with a novel, than to read dry philosophical texts. This brings these issues to people who might not normally think about them and forces thought.
Go to the UK and you don't have to worry about the language barrier. I don't know much about Internet availability in homes or anything, but I was just visiting Scotland a couple weeks ago and saw the internet everywhere. They have these Internet stores around town and in the airports where you go in and pay so much per hour or minute to use the computers there. It looked like they had decent equipment. I don't remember the prices though.
Of course with any foreign country the hard part is probably getting a work visa. Most have laws that say something like companies can only hire foreigners if there is no "local" who can do the job.
The up side is that if this bozo can sucker all those investors into giving him big bucks, SO CAN YOU with your GOOD idea. If you've got a hot idea and are thinking of starting an internet company, now is the time. I suspect the VC's will wise up at some point and then it will be hard to get the cash even for legit start-up-wannabes.
I too would really have liked to hear about what the next book will be, even if it was only a hint.
The claim on interview questions is that the highest moderated ones will be chosen, but as I recall, there is always the proviso that the questions can be edited. Does any editing actually take place? It seems like it would be a good idea for one of the slashdot folks to go through the questions, take out the duplicate ones, etc., even if they were moderated high.
There is actually an interesting distinction that does not come through in moderating interview questions. The distinction is between a question that we really want to ask the interviewee, and a post that is just interesting/funny/whatever and thus should be moderated highly so others can read it. Maybe a good idea would be adding a moderation category like "ASK THIS!" for interview stories only. Then we can have funny or other posts moderated highly to read, but separate them from the questions we really want asked. Sorry for being mostly off topic, but I wanted to comment on this.
This story reminded me of a friend I had who as part of applying for a government job, underwent a lie detector test. When asked about his drug history, he answered honestly that he has never done drugs, however the test came back saying he was lying. It is known that lie detectors are an imprecise technology - what happens when they are wrong? How much weight is given to their results?
Of course this all is part of the larger issue of a situation where an innocent person is wrongly accussed of something. What is their recourse? Sometimes even when things are cleared up, others' impressions of the person will remain tainted.
There are two issues that come into play here. I would bet that a password is more secure than the typing rhythm identifier. However, the music companies are not worried about the same type of security that individuals are worried about, so passwords are not as good of a solution for them. They are worried about users knowingly compromising their security by giving out the password to friends so that they can listen to the music too. There is no way a user can "give out" the way they type a sentence.
As to the typing rhythm method of security, it is probably not as secure because the technology is imprecise. It has to allow for variations in a single users typing patterns so it will be at least a little fuzzy. Most likely, there are other people who have similar typing patterns and could "break in" to some users account. The thing is that it is coincidental as to what human beings would happen to have similar typing rhythms. It is not something someone can give out to their friends, so the music companies are safe.
For one thing, there is not much atmosphere on Mars to begin with. Will there be enough carbon dioxide to be converted into the thick oxygen-rich atmosphere that the astronauts are used to on earth? I understand that the whole planet would not be converted, only some kind of air-tight living quarters for the human beings.
The second issue I see that needs to be resolved before manned Mars mission could occur is how to make food and water. As the article states,
Carrying all the water, oxygen and food needed to support astronauts on such a voyage would be impossible, so most of it would have to be produced on the planet.
Being able to produce oxygen is only one step of the way. Will the astronauts take over plants and animals to eat? That seems feasible, but how will they make water? I think manned Mars missions are still a ways in the future but this oxygen machine is a step in the right direction!
I like this idea. We know from experience (ie, sci-fi writers of the past) that some of the things they write do become reality. Many writers don't just make stuff up out of their head. Or while they may do that for an initial idea, they do the research, learn about technologies, and try to make things as realistic as possible. So we could definitely get some good ideas for realistic future technologies from sci-fi writers.
And boy what a fun job! Read sci-fi books all day and take notes on the coolest technologies.
Definitely some questions as to how the online legal form works. Napster had to have something like that though. Just as they are trying to stay out of legal trouble by banning the people Metallica wants them to ban, they need to allow recourse for those people they are banning. As Napster states, they have no way of verifying that the people on Metallica's list did indeed infringe copyrights. Napster could get into further legal trouble by banning users who did nothing wrong and were merely misidentified by Metallica as doing something illegal. So they have that online form that allows users to get access back to their accounts if they "state under penalty of perjury" that their account access was blocked by mistake.
Actually, 0.139% is not much of a contribution to a project, which is what the original poster questioned. Orbiten looked at approximately 25 million lines of code, and 3149 identifiable projects. That's 7939 lines per project on average, and thus 0.139% is only 11 lines of code.
However, those 11 lines may have been the most important 11 lines in the project!
It stands for Collaboration of Australia and Nippon for a Gamma Ray Observatory in the Outback. (Nippon == Japan, the two countries are collaborating on the project.)
The outback strikes me as a good place to have a telescope. Certainly the surroundings will be sufficiently dark, with no lights from nearby civilization.
Check out IBM's Special Needs Systems Guidelines. It has info on software accessibility, hardware accessibility, web accessibility, etc, with lots of good info and links to other resources as well.
It reads aloud the title of windows as your mouse moves over them
Using a mouse when you can't see the screen seems difficult. Do you just move it around until you happen to get it over the thing you want?
Where I work our products have to be accessible and we use the Self Voicing Kit Technology for Java to test. I have not played with it much, but my understanding is when, for example, a dialog pops up, it will read the whole dialog to you.
The project doing this is OMNI (Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet). Check out their web page, it sounds like a cool project.
This is definitely the way to go IMO. It will allow easier access to satellites or whatever in space and when this kind of thing becomes more common, the general public will be able to perhaps interact with satellites over the internet from their own computer.
That doesn't say that the comments are copyrighted by their authors, only that each author owns their own comment. It is up to each author if they want to copyright their comment or not.
Good points. The only dangers they mention in the article are communication jamming or capture of a JEDI unit by the enemy. Those are legit concerns as well, and they address them by saying Eubank thinks future soldiers can prevent the enemy from acquiring the JEDI software. That is putting a lot of faith in "future soldiers." They do mention that the units can be erased in an emergency, but I would guess that there is not always time for that when one is being captured...
Sounds similar to this open source thing I keep hearing about...:)
Really though, it is always good to share knowledge. This will give amateur astronomers and anyone interested access to data that would otherwise take a very long time to obtain, or that they may not have been able to obtain on their own at all. This provides the possibility of new things being discovered, and more research being done more easily.
I wonder why they chose to make him drive a stick shift as opposed to an automatic. He could have one less leg! I know manual transmission cars are more common in Europe, but they have automatics there too and I would think that with a complicated project like this, going with an automatic might be a better idea. Of course the hardest part is not shifting gears, it is navigating in traffic, avoiding obstacles, knowing when to brake, etc, but an automatic would be one less thing for Klaus' creators to worry about.
I don't think it is illegal to lend a movie to a friend to watch. It gets into a sticky area however if you lend them a personal copy you made and you still have the original (or vice versa), so that you both have the movie and could potentially watch it at the same time. The copy is allowed, but should only be used if the original becomes faulty.
I have to agree. There is a huge difference between someone with a degree in computer science and someone who took a weekend class at ECPI to get certified in . Both could consider themselves IT professionals though.
I haven't had a chance to read the article yet (link won't load...) but I have to wonder, if there really isn't a shortage, does the government know about this? I know a lot of IT companies will hire foriegn IT people and because of the supposed shortage it is easy to get them the visas they need.
I wonder then how much of the movie has already been filmed. Filming over an actor's life seems like a risky thing. What if the actor quits or dies? What if 5 years into it you come up with a GREAT scene you want to add but the actor needs to be young again?
In any case, I will be seeing this movie when it comes out. It may not be what Kubrick originally envisioned (Speilberg said he was going to add some of his own ideas), but it could still be a good movie.
The interactions in classes, doing group projects, is also missing. Social interaction is important, but even more so to being successful in a job is interactions with peers, co-workers, etc. It's one thing to be able to socialize with someone, but it is something slightly different to be able to work well together with others. That is what would really be missing from a completely online education.
Sure, there could still be group projects with participants collaborating remotely, and that is a good thing to be able to do too, but in person interactions are just as important to a good education.
I also have to wonder about some classes, like Public Speaking. I took that class in college and I don't see how it could be done online. Even with live video conferencing, it's just not the same as being in the same room as your audience.
Yes, the article mentions the Microsoft case and that many of Bill Gates' personal communications were allowed to be used as evidence.
The article also mentions a case where Microsoft benefited from this law. During a battle with Netscape, Microsoft was able to obtain emails from the mailing list Netscape employees used to vent frustrations by bashing their own bosses and company.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think it is that IBM is wary of Crusoe, they are just assessing customer demand before they go into production with the chip. One thing the article stressed was that IBM wants to wait and see what the demand is before producing machines other than prototypes with the chip.
This book sounds good. I like a work that explores philosophical issues in a story-telling setting. There are a lot of unknowns and great debates about all kinds of things and it is so much more pleasant to get into the issues in an entertaining manner, like with a novel, than to read dry philosophical texts. This brings these issues to people who might not normally think about them and forces thought.
Of course with any foreign country the hard part is probably getting a work visa. Most have laws that say something like companies can only hire foreigners if there is no "local" who can do the job.
The up side is that if this bozo can sucker all those investors into giving him big bucks, SO CAN YOU with your GOOD idea. If you've got a hot idea and are thinking of starting an internet company, now is the time. I suspect the VC's will wise up at some point and then it will be hard to get the cash even for legit start-up-wannabes.
The claim on interview questions is that the highest moderated ones will be chosen, but as I recall, there is always the proviso that the questions can be edited. Does any editing actually take place? It seems like it would be a good idea for one of the slashdot folks to go through the questions, take out the duplicate ones, etc., even if they were moderated high.
There is actually an interesting distinction that does not come through in moderating interview questions. The distinction is between a question that we really want to ask the interviewee, and a post that is just interesting/funny/whatever and thus should be moderated highly so others can read it. Maybe a good idea would be adding a moderation category like "ASK THIS!" for interview stories only. Then we can have funny or other posts moderated highly to read, but separate them from the questions we really want asked. Sorry for being mostly off topic, but I wanted to comment on this.
Of course this all is part of the larger issue of a situation where an innocent person is wrongly accussed of something. What is their recourse? Sometimes even when things are cleared up, others' impressions of the person will remain tainted.
As to the typing rhythm method of security, it is probably not as secure because the technology is imprecise. It has to allow for variations in a single users typing patterns so it will be at least a little fuzzy. Most likely, there are other people who have similar typing patterns and could "break in" to some users account. The thing is that it is coincidental as to what human beings would happen to have similar typing rhythms. It is not something someone can give out to their friends, so the music companies are safe.
The second issue I see that needs to be resolved before manned Mars mission could occur is how to make food and water. As the article states,
Being able to produce oxygen is only one step of the way. Will the astronauts take over plants and animals to eat? That seems feasible, but how will they make water? I think manned Mars missions are still a ways in the future but this oxygen machine is a step in the right direction!And boy what a fun job! Read sci-fi books all day and take notes on the coolest technologies.
Definitely some questions as to how the online legal form works. Napster had to have something like that though. Just as they are trying to stay out of legal trouble by banning the people Metallica wants them to ban, they need to allow recourse for those people they are banning. As Napster states, they have no way of verifying that the people on Metallica's list did indeed infringe copyrights. Napster could get into further legal trouble by banning users who did nothing wrong and were merely misidentified by Metallica as doing something illegal. So they have that online form that allows users to get access back to their accounts if they "state under penalty of perjury" that their account access was blocked by mistake.
However, those 11 lines may have been the most important 11 lines in the project!
It stands for Collaboration of Australia and Nippon for a Gamma Ray Observatory in the Outback. (Nippon == Japan, the two countries are collaborating on the project.)
The outback strikes me as a good place to have a telescope. Certainly the surroundings will be sufficiently dark, with no lights from nearby civilization.
Check out IBM's Special Needs Systems Guidelines. It has info on software accessibility, hardware accessibility, web accessibility, etc, with lots of good info and links to other resources as well.
Using a mouse when you can't see the screen seems difficult. Do you just move it around until you happen to get it over the thing you want?
Where I work our products have to be accessible and we use the Self Voicing Kit Technology for Java to test. I have not played with it much, but my understanding is when, for example, a dialog pops up, it will read the whole dialog to you.
This is definitely the way to go IMO. It will allow easier access to satellites or whatever in space and when this kind of thing becomes more common, the general public will be able to perhaps interact with satellites over the internet from their own computer.
That doesn't say that the comments are copyrighted by their authors, only that each author owns their own comment. It is up to each author if they want to copyright their comment or not.
Good points. The only dangers they mention in the article are communication jamming or capture of a JEDI unit by the enemy. Those are legit concerns as well, and they address them by saying Eubank thinks future soldiers can prevent the enemy from acquiring the JEDI software. That is putting a lot of faith in "future soldiers." They do mention that the units can be erased in an emergency, but I would guess that there is not always time for that when one is being captured...
Really though, it is always good to share knowledge. This will give amateur astronomers and anyone interested access to data that would otherwise take a very long time to obtain, or that they may not have been able to obtain on their own at all. This provides the possibility of new things being discovered, and more research being done more easily.
I wonder why they chose to make him drive a stick shift as opposed to an automatic. He could have one less leg! I know manual transmission cars are more common in Europe, but they have automatics there too and I would think that with a complicated project like this, going with an automatic might be a better idea. Of course the hardest part is not shifting gears, it is navigating in traffic, avoiding obstacles, knowing when to brake, etc, but an automatic would be one less thing for Klaus' creators to worry about.
I don't think it is illegal to lend a movie to a friend to watch. It gets into a sticky area however if you lend them a personal copy you made and you still have the original (or vice versa), so that you both have the movie and could potentially watch it at the same time. The copy is allowed, but should only be used if the original becomes faulty.
I have to agree. There is a huge difference between someone with a degree in computer science and someone who took a weekend class at ECPI to get certified in . Both could consider themselves IT professionals though.
I haven't had a chance to read the article yet (link won't load...) but I have to wonder, if there really isn't a shortage, does the government know about this? I know a lot of IT companies will hire foriegn IT people and because of the supposed shortage it is easy to get them the visas they need.
In any case, I will be seeing this movie when it comes out. It may not be what Kubrick originally envisioned (Speilberg said he was going to add some of his own ideas), but it could still be a good movie.
Sure, there could still be group projects with participants collaborating remotely, and that is a good thing to be able to do too, but in person interactions are just as important to a good education.
I also have to wonder about some classes, like Public Speaking. I took that class in college and I don't see how it could be done online. Even with live video conferencing, it's just not the same as being in the same room as your audience.
The article also mentions a case where Microsoft benefited from this law. During a battle with Netscape, Microsoft was able to obtain emails from the mailing list Netscape employees used to vent frustrations by bashing their own bosses and company.