As a physicist, I sometimes wish I could hear the words 'supermassive black hole' in a professional context without immediately thinking of that catchy song from their new album.
I once had to write a code to solve the 2D Ising model with a Monte Carlo method, in this case basically a simulated annealing algorithm. I eventually realised I could apply it to sudoku solving, but I could only ever get it to solve rows and columns, and then it would get stuck in a fairly ordered solution, but one where more disorder was required to get into a more ordered state. I began to try and add random fluctuations to get it to work, but I eventually abandoned it to work on the actual physics project. It would probably make an interesting exercise for one of you...
I had the idea, after using SETI@Home and similar, that maybe in the distant future, you could sign up to a system of contributing to scientific projects via telepathic link. You would be sitting around watching TV, and suddenly a request would pop into your head for a little bit of equation rearrangement or geometric manipulation. I often half-watch TV while trying to do a Sudoku or something, this is just the logical next step. Admittedly, telepathic link is slightly beyond our current capabilities, but I'm confident it will appear in time for the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Free trade generally benefits large multinational corporations, who can best compete on a global scale (supermarkets, drug companies, etc) while open source benefits everyone who uses great, free software. I fail to see any meaningful comparison.
I would agree that people like the Red Hat CEO sometimes get a bit dogmatic in their 'Open Source is the only way' approach, and that's as bad as the extreme positions held by some advocates of free trade.
We have no idea whether the laws of physics will remain constant from one second to the next, let alone what the outcome of a given experiment will be. However, the popular consensus is that things will carry on much as they were.
For things we don't understand, we look to experts. Most of those experts work at CERN, and unlike the Manhattan project, it isn't classified - wouldn't you expect one of those thousands of people to make some sort of noise if they thought there was a risk of something going wrong?
The BBC is against everyone it doesn't like (the list is long and pointless to this argument), they long ago gave up being impartial. Couldn't you give me just one example? I'm not sure what to do with that comment as it stands.
And being in the UK, you too would resent paying for their propaganda, which is paid for by threat of prison to any non-payer, even if you never watch the BBC and only watch other channels instead - you pay. The question of the license fee is irrelevant to the impartiality or otherwise of the BBC. As it happens, I do live in the UK, and I agree that it's annoying that you have to pay a license fee even if you don't watch the BBC. I don't mind paying myself, but I don't see that changing until they figure out a way to make the BBC channels inaccessible to non-license payers. The alternative would be to fund the BBC from tax, but that really would be unfair on people who don't watch TV.
These days it is far too common to claim that a news organisation that reports things you don't like is biased. Isn't that what China have been doing to every media outlet it can? Who exactly do you think the BBC is against?
Actually, the Riemann hypothesis is pretty important, given that a proof of it would tell us about the distribution of prime numbers, and prime numbers are the wheels which keep e-commerce turning (RSA anyone?)
Also, concerning scientific results which sound like Robert Ludlum novels, my own personal favourite is the Born Approximation - the least popular in the Bourne series.
I'd like to see if the BBC do the same thing with iPlayer downloads. People kind of expect it, I think they're just scared because it hasn't been done, but CBC and BBC seem to me to have quite a lot in common. Also, there's no reason why private companies can't just distribute programmes with adverts in them - I fail to see how that's different from watching them on TV and recording them.
Slashdot Mirror
As a physicist, I sometimes wish I could hear the words 'supermassive black hole' in a professional context without immediately thinking of that catchy song from their new album.
I once had to write a code to solve the 2D Ising model with a Monte Carlo method, in this case basically a simulated annealing algorithm. I eventually realised I could apply it to sudoku solving, but I could only ever get it to solve rows and columns, and then it would get stuck in a fairly ordered solution, but one where more disorder was required to get into a more ordered state. I began to try and add random fluctuations to get it to work, but I eventually abandoned it to work on the actual physics project. It would probably make an interesting exercise for one of you...
http://xkcd.com/463/
They say they received it a little over a year ago...
Physics fans may be interested to know that, according to http://www.longnow.org/views/essays/articles/ArtFeynman.php (Hillis' Physics Today essay) the only programming language Feynman was really familiar with was BASIC.
I had the idea, after using SETI@Home and similar, that maybe in the distant future, you could sign up to a system of contributing to scientific projects via telepathic link. You would be sitting around watching TV, and suddenly a request would pop into your head for a little bit of equation rearrangement or geometric manipulation. I often half-watch TV while trying to do a Sudoku or something, this is just the logical next step. Admittedly, telepathic link is slightly beyond our current capabilities, but I'm confident it will appear in time for the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Free trade generally benefits large multinational corporations, who can best compete on a global scale (supermarkets, drug companies, etc) while open source benefits everyone who uses great, free software. I fail to see any meaningful comparison. I would agree that people like the Red Hat CEO sometimes get a bit dogmatic in their 'Open Source is the only way' approach, and that's as bad as the extreme positions held by some advocates of free trade.
We have no idea whether the laws of physics will remain constant from one second to the next, let alone what the outcome of a given experiment will be. However, the popular consensus is that things will carry on much as they were. For things we don't understand, we look to experts. Most of those experts work at CERN, and unlike the Manhattan project, it isn't classified - wouldn't you expect one of those thousands of people to make some sort of noise if they thought there was a risk of something going wrong?
Does anyone know if they get Slashdot there? In fact, if there's anyone in China reading this it would be great to hear what you think.
These days it is far too common to claim that a news organisation that reports things you don't like is biased. Isn't that what China have been doing to every media outlet it can? Who exactly do you think the BBC is against?
I stand corrected - I had been given the opposite impression.
Actually, the Riemann hypothesis is pretty important, given that a proof of it would tell us about the distribution of prime numbers, and prime numbers are the wheels which keep e-commerce turning (RSA anyone?) Also, concerning scientific results which sound like Robert Ludlum novels, my own personal favourite is the Born Approximation - the least popular in the Bourne series.
I'd like to see if the BBC do the same thing with iPlayer downloads. People kind of expect it, I think they're just scared because it hasn't been done, but CBC and BBC seem to me to have quite a lot in common. Also, there's no reason why private companies can't just distribute programmes with adverts in them - I fail to see how that's different from watching them on TV and recording them.