Your analogy is flawed. "Should your neighbor be able to build his own chair exactly like yours?" is the question you should be asking.
The difference between your chair and a photograph/essay is that the chair is tangible property while the photograph/essay is intangible property. Now, if you write a book, the content of that book is yours and cannot be taken by someone else who claims it as their own. The individual copies of that book, however (if you choose to sell them) are not yours. If you don't want to distribute copies of your work, fine, but that's not what this is about. Once you start distribution, you can't say "Well, I take that back, I don't want the public to have this work after all."
Oh and to answer your question: no, it probably doesn't self-destruct but it'd probably be replaced since I'd imagine if 1.5% is anywhere near my hypothetical 41 days then that'd put 1.6 billion at about 7.4 yrs.
It's much more likely that the supercomputer is capable of 1.6 billion processor hours per year (or month?) and IBM is gonna be using 1.5% of that capacity. When IBM is done, that 1.5% will be freed up and can be used for something else.
Not to mention that if you are going to shell out for the hardware anyway (i.e. buy a PDA), you could just buy the smartphone outright and not get a 2 year contract...
You apparently don't pull as much weight with your company as I do with mine. A fact that is likely due, in part, to not following (e)stablished spelling practices.
If Joe User cannot create a password that has less than 12 characters, then the Sysadmin *established* (with an 'e' on the front) a policy that is being *enforced*. He doesn't just go around to each employee and teach them what kind of passwords they should make, he tells the system what kind of passwords will be accepted and how often they expire.
What would the implications be if the twitter account was hacked?
What would happen if a solar power cell was hacked? Would you be able to send energy to the sun? Just because something can send or receive something, doesn't mean it can do both. This reads brain waves and sends updates to twitter. It does not receive updates from Twitter and send brain waves.
1) Data is an infinite resource. 2) Transmission capacity is a finite resource.
You are not paying your ISP for the data you receive. The data is not owned by your ISP, it's owned by, for instance, Google. What you are paying for, is the transmission of said data from Google to you. As you can see above, transmission capacity is not infinite. How do we measure this capacity? In bytes per second. So, basically, you can charge by Bytes, you can charge by Seconds, and you can charge by Bytes/Second.
Back in the day, you connected to the internet and you were charged by how long you were connected (back in the dial-up days, before unlimited). That model doesn't work any more. Now you are connected to your computer all day, and you computer communicates with servers in the background, even when you are not on.
Right now, ISPs are charging by Bytes/Second. The problem with this model is that ISPs give 5000 people a 10Mb throttle on a 1Gb pipe (i have no idea of the actual numbers, i'm just saying that they oversell), since they know that each of those people won't be on the internet all day long. So when 1000 of those people are all online at the same time, you get much less than the 10Mb they promised you.
The model I am in favor of is charging by Bytes, and just let the data flow as fast as it can at any given time. You can use as much bandwidth as you can get your hands on, but you will pay for it. ISP will have incentive to upgrade their pipes, because the bigger the pipe, the more data can flow through it and the more money they make. Bandwidth hogs will pay their fair share.
sopssa: Bananas are gross. mdm-adph: I don't see how you can call bananas gross -- they are yellow and smooth and curved. How is that gross? FlyingBishop: He was clearly talking about the taste of bananas.
My point: If I make a vague statement about something that could mean either A or B and A is obviously wrong, then it's pretty safe to assume I'm talking about B. So don't bash me because you assume I'm talking about A. (replace "I" with "sopssa")
First of all "as old as the wind" is just an expression means "really fricken old". It's obviously not meant to be taken literally, so get off your high horse.
Secondly,
If it is discovered, the solution already exists and the problem was solved before wind existed
Just because a solution exists, does not mean you have solved the problem. Think of it this way. You are looking through your telescope at night up at the stars and you notice a new star you have never seen before. You look at all the star-charts you can find and realize that no one has ever documented this star. You've just discovered it.
But you are saying that you did not discover the star, since the star already existed. Of course the solutions already exist for these math problems. However, discovery is the act of documenting an observation (ie, someone has to say "this is the answer"), so while they exist, no one has yet discovered them.
Well, a backhoe does nothing that a shovel couldn't... It's just a lot better at some things (moving lots of dirt). I use wave on a regular basis for project collaboration. One of the best things about wave is that you don't have to respond in a linear fashion. So, this is a conversation that could happen in IRC:
Sally: When I [description of what she did] I get the error message [some random error message] Sally: Also, if I [description of what she did] the program [description of how the program fails] Jack: Well, on that first issue, what happens if you [some thing to try] Jack: And for that second issue.....
With wave, jack can respond directly to each of sally's messages (or even a particular part of a message) so Sally knows exactly what Jack is talking about without Jack having to clarify. As Jack finish up things from his to-do list, he just deletes the threads from the wave, as they are always accessible via Replay (which lets you see all previous states of the wave), keeping the wave nice and clean. And if Sally isn't online when jack deletes something, it will be obvious to her what Jack deleted (it's marked with strikeout, and is removed after the next time she views the wave) when she comes back online so she knows what he's finished.
Not to mention that there are gadgets and robots and waves are embeddable (though the apis are in early stages at the moment).
We aren't talking about a life-saving device here. We are talking about a device that makes communication easier. What happens if it malfunctions? Nothing. If this were a pace-maker, it's a no-brainer. More expensive and more reliable is the way to go. However, it's not.
You are proposing using a $5000 needle and thread, because you are sure that it won't break. I am proposing using a $450 sewing machine and spending $100 to fix it if it breaks.
I suppose we should also say for the phone's plan too, right?
Yep and buy them a car too, because that's just as relevant.
So, you are proposing they spend $5,000 on a specialty "medical" device, instead of the $450 iphone + software combo, because $450 is too much? Huh? This isn't a "I also want an iphone, so my insurance company should pay for it" situation. This is a "I would rather have an iphone (that costs 1/10th the price, by the way) because it works better." It's not the people want both. It's that people want the cheaper iphone as a replacement because it works better.
And by the way... unless you develop cancer, aids, or some other very bad disease, you will NEVER use more money than you give your insurance company. In fact, the only sane reason to have medical insurance is to be protected "just in case." If you are young and healthy (and especially if you are self-employed or don't get employment benefits for whatever reason), insurance is a scam. Just set aside what your insurance premium is, and when you have to go to the emergency room for falling off a ladder, you'll have more than enough to cover it (and you'll realize how much money your insurance company was making off of you) .
If you "Creating a three-laws-safe robot", you are, by definition, not giving the robot free will.
Secondly, you are assuming that within the robot there is some sort of physical override: "if a human is in danger, move these parts until they are no longer in danger;" and in their mind they are dreading the action. First of all, the robot has to determine whether or not they are in danger. This is subjective. They could find some loophole in the code and think "they are not actually in danger right now, the fire is still 3 feet away," if they didn't want to do it.
It's much more likely that instead of a physical override, we would implement "basic instincts." I could, technically, climb on my roof and dive off, head first, onto my driveway. But i'm not going to. Ever. It's not because I physically can't, it's because it's instinct. I don't want to hurt myself. Similarly, if my house caught on fire and my wife and child were inside, and I knew that "[my] chance to survive is almost zero", I would still run in to try to save them. Once again, I don't have to. It's just that my desire to see them live is greater than the desire to see myself live. If I had to sacrifice myself for them, I would in a heartbeat.
That is how you program the three laws into robots. By making them desire to do the 3 laws more than anything else.
Do you frequently decide you need to change you destination after you have started your journey? Most people (including me) don't, especially if they don't know where they are going and they need to use a GPS. For the other 1% of the time, pull into a gas station and save a life.
The difference between this and texting is that texting is way more prevalent.
In terms of cost and "one lone rancher off in a truck" unable to deal with the cattle, I just have to ask: "are these cows branded?" If you can manage to brand them, you can tag them too.
The problem isn't putting the tracking device in the cows, the problem is scanning that tracking device (on each cow) every time that cow is transported anywhere, and then getting that information in the regional database. I agree with you that it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but I've never personally loaded cattle onto a truck by myself, so I'll leave judgment to those experienced in the matter.
Have you tried parsing at a coarser grain than a single sentence?
So, you are saying that your entire post was satirical?
I don't know why anyone believes what is written in a blog without first checking it out.
I thought you were being serious here, but obviously you really think that it is ridiculous to not believe everything you read in the blog.
In a satirical article or book there may sentences that are serious. These are obvious, however, because said article/book is longer than a few sentences and so there is an overall tone. The same goes for a non-satirical article/book. You know the author's sentiment, therefore it is obvious when irony is used. Like I stated in my original post, there is no way to know your actual thoughts on the subject, because no one here knows you.
In your post, you state:
1) People should not believe everything they read in blogs, because bloggers have no standards. 2) People are inherently gullible. 3) Full disclosure is necessary b/c of #2. (you think this is obviously ironic) 4) Hypothetical about when the FTC will overstep their bounds. (obviously ironic)
1 is your opinion. 2 is an unfortunate sentiment I agree with. 3 is poorly constructed irony. 4 is properly executed irony.
It's only irony if it's obvious that what you stated is not even close to what you actually believe. I have absolutely no idea what you actually believe, and you make no indication whatsoever in your post that you are being ironic.
So when will the FTC require all broadcast journalists and commentators to disclose their sources of income?
This is obviously ironic because it is an extreme. However,
so I suppose requiring full disclosure or potential conflicts of interest is necessary
is a view shared by others. If I knew you personally, it might be obvious that this is satirical, however, as a random poster on/.... When I read your post, it seemed to me that you were in support of the FTC regulation, but you were weary of it going further than need be.
Morale of the story: Don't get upset when people misinterpret your poorly constructed attempt at irony.
... and if you are wasting your generator fuel on running you TV so you can see the news instead of hearing it, you can't be that concerned about a disaster either.
Slashdot Mirror
Catholic birth control?
Your analogy is flawed. "Should your neighbor be able to build his own chair exactly like yours?" is the question you should be asking.
The difference between your chair and a photograph/essay is that the chair is tangible property while the photograph/essay is intangible property. Now, if you write a book, the content of that book is yours and cannot be taken by someone else who claims it as their own. The individual copies of that book, however (if you choose to sell them) are not yours. If you don't want to distribute copies of your work, fine, but that's not what this is about. Once you start distribution, you can't say "Well, I take that back, I don't want the public to have this work after all."
http://xkcd.com/474/
Oh and to answer your question: no, it probably doesn't self-destruct but it'd probably be replaced since I'd imagine if 1.5% is anywhere near my hypothetical 41 days then that'd put 1.6 billion at about 7.4 yrs.
It's much more likely that the supercomputer is capable of 1.6 billion processor hours per year (or month?) and IBM is gonna be using 1.5% of that capacity. When IBM is done, that 1.5% will be freed up and can be used for something else.
Not to mention that if you are going to shell out for the hardware anyway (i.e. buy a PDA), you could just buy the smartphone outright and not get a 2 year contract...
You apparently don't pull as much weight with your company as I do with mine. A fact that is likely due, in part, to not following (e)stablished spelling practices.
If Joe User cannot create a password that has less than 12 characters, then the Sysadmin *established* (with an 'e' on the front) a policy that is being *enforced*. He doesn't just go around to each employee and teach them what kind of passwords they should make, he tells the system what kind of passwords will be accepted and how often they expire.
What would the implications be if the twitter account was hacked?
What would happen if a solar power cell was hacked? Would you be able to send energy to the sun? Just because something can send or receive something, doesn't mean it can do both. This reads brain waves and sends updates to twitter. It does not receive updates from Twitter and send brain waves.
A Sitemap?
Alright, so here are a couple of facts.
1) Data is an infinite resource.
2) Transmission capacity is a finite resource.
You are not paying your ISP for the data you receive. The data is not owned by your ISP, it's owned by, for instance, Google. What you are paying for, is the transmission of said data from Google to you. As you can see above, transmission capacity is not infinite. How do we measure this capacity? In bytes per second. So, basically, you can charge by Bytes, you can charge by Seconds, and you can charge by Bytes/Second.
Back in the day, you connected to the internet and you were charged by how long you were connected (back in the dial-up days, before unlimited). That model doesn't work any more. Now you are connected to your computer all day, and you computer communicates with servers in the background, even when you are not on.
Right now, ISPs are charging by Bytes/Second. The problem with this model is that ISPs give 5000 people a 10Mb throttle on a 1Gb pipe (i have no idea of the actual numbers, i'm just saying that they oversell), since they know that each of those people won't be on the internet all day long. So when 1000 of those people are all online at the same time, you get much less than the 10Mb they promised you.
The model I am in favor of is charging by Bytes, and just let the data flow as fast as it can at any given time. You can use as much bandwidth as you can get your hands on, but you will pay for it. ISP will have incentive to upgrade their pipes, because the bigger the pipe, the more data can flow through it and the more money they make. Bandwidth hogs will pay their fair share.
sopssa: Bananas are gross.
mdm-adph: I don't see how you can call bananas gross -- they are yellow and smooth and curved. How is that gross?
FlyingBishop: He was clearly talking about the taste of bananas.
My point: If I make a vague statement about something that could mean either A or B and A is obviously wrong, then it's pretty safe to assume I'm talking about B. So don't bash me because you assume I'm talking about A. (replace "I" with "sopssa")
First of all "as old as the wind" is just an expression means "really fricken old". It's obviously not meant to be taken literally, so get off your high horse.
Secondly,
If it is discovered, the solution already exists and the problem was solved before wind existed
Just because a solution exists, does not mean you have solved the problem. Think of it this way. You are looking through your telescope at night up at the stars and you notice a new star you have never seen before. You look at all the star-charts you can find and realize that no one has ever documented this star. You've just discovered it.
But you are saying that you did not discover the star, since the star already existed. Of course the solutions already exist for these math problems. However, discovery is the act of documenting an observation (ie, someone has to say "this is the answer"), so while they exist, no one has yet discovered them.
Well, a backhoe does nothing that a shovel couldn't... It's just a lot better at some things (moving lots of dirt). I use wave on a regular basis for project collaboration. One of the best things about wave is that you don't have to respond in a linear fashion. So, this is a conversation that could happen in IRC:
Sally: When I [description of what she did] I get the error message [some random error message]
Sally: Also, if I [description of what she did] the program [description of how the program fails]
Jack: Well, on that first issue, what happens if you [some thing to try]
Jack: And for that second issue.....
With wave, jack can respond directly to each of sally's messages (or even a particular part of a message) so Sally knows exactly what Jack is talking about without Jack having to clarify. As Jack finish up things from his to-do list, he just deletes the threads from the wave, as they are always accessible via Replay (which lets you see all previous states of the wave), keeping the wave nice and clean. And if Sally isn't online when jack deletes something, it will be obvious to her what Jack deleted (it's marked with strikeout, and is removed after the next time she views the wave) when she comes back online so she knows what he's finished.
Not to mention that there are gadgets and robots and waves are embeddable (though the apis are in early stages at the moment).
Does IRC do all that?
There is of course a flip side, but don't give me some bullshit Soviet Union/Cuba/China communism argument.
Slavery should be legal, but don't give me some bullshit "Human Rights"/"All men are created equal" argument. See what I did there?
Calling a valid argument "bullshit" doesn't make it any less valid.
We aren't talking about a life-saving device here. We are talking about a device that makes communication easier. What happens if it malfunctions? Nothing. If this were a pace-maker, it's a no-brainer. More expensive and more reliable is the way to go. However, it's not.
You are proposing using a $5000 needle and thread, because you are sure that it won't break. I am proposing using a $450 sewing machine and spending $100 to fix it if it breaks.
I suppose we should also say for the phone's plan too, right?
Yep and buy them a car too, because that's just as relevant.
So, you are proposing they spend $5,000 on a specialty "medical" device, instead of the $450 iphone + software combo, because $450 is too much? Huh? This isn't a "I also want an iphone, so my insurance company should pay for it" situation. This is a "I would rather have an iphone (that costs 1/10th the price, by the way) because it works better." It's not the people want both. It's that people want the cheaper iphone as a replacement because it works better.
And by the way... unless you develop cancer, aids, or some other very bad disease, you will NEVER use more money than you give your insurance company. In fact, the only sane reason to have medical insurance is to be protected "just in case." If you are young and healthy (and especially if you are self-employed or don't get employment benefits for whatever reason), insurance is a scam. Just set aside what your insurance premium is, and when you have to go to the emergency room for falling off a ladder, you'll have more than enough to cover it (and you'll realize how much money your insurance company was making off of you) .
Free will: the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
If you "Creating a three-laws-safe robot", you are, by definition, not giving the robot free will.
Secondly, you are assuming that within the robot there is some sort of physical override: "if a human is in danger, move these parts until they are no longer in danger;" and in their mind they are dreading the action. First of all, the robot has to determine whether or not they are in danger. This is subjective. They could find some loophole in the code and think "they are not actually in danger right now, the fire is still 3 feet away," if they didn't want to do it.
It's much more likely that instead of a physical override, we would implement "basic instincts." I could, technically, climb on my roof and dive off, head first, onto my driveway. But i'm not going to. Ever. It's not because I physically can't, it's because it's instinct. I don't want to hurt myself. Similarly, if my house caught on fire and my wife and child were inside, and I knew that "[my] chance to survive is almost zero", I would still run in to try to save them. Once again, I don't have to. It's just that my desire to see them live is greater than the desire to see myself live. If I had to sacrifice myself for them, I would in a heartbeat.
That is how you program the three laws into robots. By making them desire to do the 3 laws more than anything else.
Do you frequently decide you need to change you destination after you have started your journey? Most people (including me) don't, especially if they don't know where they are going and they need to use a GPS. For the other 1% of the time, pull into a gas station and save a life.
The difference between this and texting is that texting is way more prevalent.
We know when the sun is going to run out of fuel and have pretty accurate theories about what will happen to the solar system when that happens.
Are you from the future?
In terms of cost and "one lone rancher off in a truck" unable to deal with the cattle, I just have to ask: "are these cows branded?" If you can manage to brand them, you can tag them too.
The problem isn't putting the tracking device in the cows, the problem is scanning that tracking device (on each cow) every time that cow is transported anywhere, and then getting that information in the regional database. I agree with you that it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but I've never personally loaded cattle onto a truck by myself, so I'll leave judgment to those experienced in the matter.
Sarcasm is a form of irony.
Have you tried parsing at a coarser grain than a single sentence?
So, you are saying that your entire post was satirical?
I don't know why anyone believes what is written in a blog without first checking it out.
I thought you were being serious here, but obviously you really think that it is ridiculous to not believe everything you read in the blog.
In a satirical article or book there may sentences that are serious. These are obvious, however, because said article/book is longer than a few sentences and so there is an overall tone. The same goes for a non-satirical article/book. You know the author's sentiment, therefore it is obvious when irony is used. Like I stated in my original post, there is no way to know your actual thoughts on the subject, because no one here knows you.
In your post, you state:
1) People should not believe everything they read in blogs, because bloggers have no standards.
2) People are inherently gullible.
3) Full disclosure is necessary b/c of #2. (you think this is obviously ironic)
4) Hypothetical about when the FTC will overstep their bounds. (obviously ironic)
1 is your opinion.
2 is an unfortunate sentiment I agree with.
3 is poorly constructed irony.
4 is properly executed irony.
It's only irony if it's obvious that what you stated is not even close to what you actually believe. I have absolutely no idea what you actually believe, and you make no indication whatsoever in your post that you are being ironic.
So when will the FTC require all broadcast journalists and commentators to disclose their sources of income?
This is obviously ironic because it is an extreme. However,
so I suppose requiring full disclosure or potential conflicts of interest is necessary
is a view shared by others. If I knew you personally, it might be obvious that this is satirical, however, as a random poster on /. ... When I read your post, it seemed to me that you were in support of the FTC regulation, but you were weary of it going further than need be.
Morale of the story: Don't get upset when people misinterpret your poorly constructed attempt at irony.
This is what just happened.
gorta:
I like oranges better than apples, so it's better for me to eat an orange.
tepples:
You are wrong, gorta. Some people like apples better than oranges.
And as for you sig, when was the last time you lost "the cloud" or "the cloud" broke?
... and if you are wasting your generator fuel on running you TV so you can see the news instead of hearing it, you can't be that concerned about a disaster either.