I was going to make up some really great exploit about Chuck Norris and post it as a comment. But then I realized that Chuck Norris had already spoofed the accounts of many/. regulars and had wittily added all appropriate Chuck Norris exploits as comments. What is unclear, is whether or not Chuck Norris created this topic and all comments with a roundhouse kick, or if he only anticipated when it would be created.
Sorry, I think you missed my point. I wasn't really dissing the eye per say. In fact, I rather appreciate my own. I was only pointing out that biology tends to reach local optima at which point further improvements become impossible. Whereas the fields of engineering thrive on completely new ideas being added which break out of local optima.
Case in point, you pointed out that mammalian eyes focus by slight deformation rather than moving two lenses. Liquid lenses are now on the horizon, and they should offer similar capabilities. What takes billions of years to evolve can be used as a model for engineering with rapid integration.
It is likely that we will eventually become technologically capable of producing something brain-like. Once that happens, it is likely that we will be able to use what we've already learned as well as the models for how a brain can work that mother nature came up with to produce something every bit as capable.
This isn't to say that we'll produce something with the same power signature or that is as small any time soon. But, per my original point, once we do reach this phase of technology, it is highly likely that the new brain will be inferior in some (or many) features and superior in a few. However, the things that the artificial brain is worse at will decline in number over time. This is what has happened in virtually every scientific field and every technology over time. The only real issues I think we can take are whether Kurzweil is right that it will be exponential, and whether or not his timeline is within the bounds of reason.
There are two great issue with being an intelligent life-form. 1) Humans are constantly terrified that some greater intelligence will harm them (god and aliens in that order). 2) Continuation of #1, we don't have any slightly lesser intelligences which we ourselves can lord over. I think #2 might help explain our problem with #1.
So, the answer is simple. We plant the moon with primitive life, which we have specially modified to encourage mutation. We then carefully craft that life until it begins to form intelligence, at which point we leave well enough alone, but still monitor them. The moment they begin to ask the big questions, like is there any other life in space, we show up and lord over them how much more advanced we are. That's pretty much my plan.
If this had happened a few years ago when I got married, I would have had reason to demand a diamond as well. "But I want to do quantum calculations really really bad!"
Of course, 3 mos her salary vs 3 mos my salary would have bought me about as much diamond quantum computing as I got at the time anyways. Se la vi.
A lot of comments have been harping on Kurzweil for making worthless predictions that are too far out to be worth examining. In other words, they want to just be left alone.
But I think there is fundamental value in such futurist thought, even if essentially none of it pans out, and even if what does work out is late. Most of the people that really create things tend to be very focused on their own domain. Thinkers like Kurzweil tend to branch out, look at many domains, and then provide imaginings about how those domains might be combined.
I think this is essentially the process for progress in the world we live in today. Perhaps 100 years ago, someone could research just radio waves and come up with a great idea for a radio device. Now, things are more integrated and complicated than ever.
So in short, even if nothing he predicts comes about, the fact that it inspires is perhaps valuable enough.
As a rule of thumb, biology evolves towards local optimums. The process can produce impossibly complex, elaborate, and brilliant solutions to problems, but we can always produce a more optimal solution through engineering.
Consider the human eye, which was long thought to be impossibly complex (and perhaps proof of creation). One thing jumps out at me about it. It's not so great. The image comes through upside down and backwards, it's got a blind spot, and it essentially loses the ability to differentiate color in dim light. Additionally, it's fragile and frequently does not focus correctly.
I think it's a flaw to assume that either A) the artificial brains we do produce will actually work exactly like real brains but with transistors instead of neurons and B) that what the brain does is anything like optimal. My hunch is that we'll find that brains work really well for certain problems as is, like coordinating muscles. And we'll learn that they are actually incredibly poorly designed for other capabilities, like rational thought. In essence, consider what evolved first and is most widespread. Those features of the brain are probably pretty robust. Contrast with more recent developments, those features are probably less robust.
What's funny is reading the posts of some of those richer-than-FSM types that frequent there. FSM...Freaking Super Man? You expect me to believe these people are richer-than-freaking-superman?
I worked on a project that was using "Executable UML". Executable UML by the way is what happens when some numb-nuts looked at UML and said to themselves "Hey! In certain circumstances, this stuff can be used as a high level abstraction prior to writing code." They thought that sounded like a great thing, so they did the only rational thing to follow. They hacked together a programming language that almost could be used to write actual code in UML.
Of course, it had some limitations...like even though it compiled to C++, it ran slower than the Ruby running in an interpreter written in Python, which is itself running on an interpreter written in Smalltalk, which is running in another interpreter written in Smalltalk (since Smalltalk always runs on itself).
It also had the limitation of not being able to actually do anything at all. People complain when Java can't produce "native looking graphics", or if any interpreted language doesn't have direct access to ports when they need them. Imagine instead, a language with no direct access to anything. Want to connect to a socket, you'll need to link to C++ code for that. Want a GUI, you'll need C++ code. Want to write to a file, write some C++ code. Want to write to the console (seriously), then write some freaking C++ code. If 80% of your real code is still in C++, and the rest runs at sloth speed, it's not hard to call the Executable UML solution a solution at all.
So far, the issue has been with the pseudo code language they used to tie the pieces together, but in my experience UML is not suitable for fully designing a project either. If you fill out each of your classes completely, how many can you look at at a time? In my experience, you can only put about four classes on the screen at a time. Anything more and you've got to overlap the diagrams to a degree that it becomes unreadable. Until I get a 75' monitor, this is going to be a problem. Yes, if I could see everything all at once I might be able to visualize a complex problem more fully in UML, but since I can't, it doesn't do any good. This is the real reason UML has little future. It is excellent for diagramming simple constructs. If you read Gang of Four, their ideas are all concise and easily written in UML. But if you want to build a full system, UML is too bulky. A text based synopsis of each class would probably be more valuable, and could probably be mostly generated automatically.
So in summary. UML is a cripple trying to climb a ladder to the moon.
Solid State Drives for computers? They aren't really out of beta! What would you call an iPhone or iPod Touch? 10 years ago, these are top of the line computers in your pocket. Of course, they are a little crippled by Apple, but the point is SSD is in all sorts of real computers. Unless you only count it as a computer if it has a keyboard attached.
We are far past the point where the average consumer cares very much about capacity. What do you think they are going to do with 2 terabytes? Unless you are talking about someone who is frequently downloading movies and the like, I don't see how they would use that content. OK, there are probably a handful of people who are doing their own hi-def video editing or processing the output of large sensor arrays, but in what would do you define these guys as "most consumers?"
The reality is SSD doesn't have to come anywhere near the price of hard drives. It just needs to provide enough capacity (256-512 GB today) at a reasonable price. If you tell a consumer they can get a regular old hard drive, or pay 10% more for a SSD that doesn't fail when dropped and runs way faster, a lot of regular consumers will pony up for that.
You can't just compare different markets. As another poster said, you can buy CD-R for less than a penny each. What you are referring to is how record companies have used the lower medium price to make an even larger profit off of the content.
However, how does an oligopoly selling copyrighted content compare to a commodity market? Basic economics tells you they don't, and you can count on one of two things happening. A) SSD prices fall in line with hard drives. Or B) hard drive capacity moves beyond the needs of most consumers and SSD takes up that niche while being only marginally more expensive per GB than hard drives.
Given that many filesystems are designed specifically with the spinning magnetic disk in mind, what open source filesystems are out there that will work to the advantages of solid state storage? Has anyone started thinking about that one as something to address before the major switches start taking place?
No, no one has even considered that yet. I'll alert the academic world while you clue in the industry. While you've got those chaps on the line, there are a few other topics I wanted to bring up that probably nobody has considered.
Did they notice we don't have enough oil?
It's been hot this spring, maybe someone should get on that.
Sometimes when I travel I can't watch YouTube. We need this fixed!
It seems like we ought to have some way to get into space by climbing a line or something, rather than using those big rocket engines.
It'd be really awesome if we could modify plant and animal life genetically so that it would taste better, grow faster, and be more nutritious.
If these "academic world" and "industry" could solve my problems I'd be super psyched. Cheers.
This is moving in the right direction. Organic lasers are clearly the correct direction. In time, humanity will finally reach its ultimate goal; that of genetically engineering itself to grow lasers at several strategically chosen body parts. And no, I'm not referring to eye lasers.;)
Great! In addition to artificially creating cancer (see asbestos, nanotubes, smoking, nuclear fission, tanning booths, cell phones, etc.) we can now create artificial cancer.
Cancer by the way is when a cell begins growing and dividing uncontrollably. Such cells have a higher metabolism.
This entire story is bullocks, and your analysis is accurate. We aren't talking about a trivial error here. The models were spitting out obviously false results, and Moody's (and everyone else) gladly accepted those bad results. For at least 3+ years now, several analysts have pointed out ratings were too high and that they didn't pass the "smell test". If Moody's is not responsible for their models, then why shouldn't I write some half-assed model of my own, demonstrate to lenders how in the short term it will make them money, and then when I get caught, just point out that I never claimed my models were accurate.
Actually, that's not a bad idea.
To put it in a language slashdotters will understand.
1. Invent model.
2. Lie about model's accuracy.
3. (Sell model)???
4. Profit.
All we need to do is build nanobots out of nanotubes, which can capture rogue nanotubes in your lungs and incorporate them. Eventually, the nanobot will grow so large, it will cause discomfort and you'll cough it out. Then it's time to implant another.
In a bold statement, actor Harrison Ford is claiming that his new Indiana Jones 4 follow up is a "significant archeological achievement". His unbridled excitement stems from years of "work".
"Fortunately for fans, the man is back with wide-eyed, reins-off enthusiasm of his own future work. [...] In Ford's own words, 'I think it's such a significant scientific achievement that it will be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.'"
Me: "ok, but you said not everything it flags there is a bug, right?"
Him: "Yes, you need to actually look at them and see if they're bugs or not."
Me: "Then what sense does it make to generate charts based on wholesale counting
entities which may, or may not be bugs?"
Him: "Well, you can use the charts to see, say, a trend that you have less
of them over time, so the project is getting better."
Me: "But they may or may not be actual bugs. How do you know if this week's
mix has more or less actual bugs than last weeks, regardless of what the
total there is?"
Him: "Well, yes, you need to actually look at them in turn to see which are actual bugs."
Me: "But that's not what the tool counts. It counts a total which includes an
unknown, and likely majority, number of false positives."
Him: "Well, yes."
Me: "So what use is that kind of a chart then?"
Him: "Well, you can get a line or bar graph that shows how much progress
is made in removing them."
Your next line is:
Me: "So you're selling us a tool that generates a lot of false warnings
and a measurement on how much unnecessary extra work we've done to
eliminate the false warnings. Wouldn't it make more sense not to use
the tool in the first place and spend that time actually fixing real bugs?"
To work this question must be asked with the near-hypnotized manager watching. Meh, I would respond with a second graph based on the first one titled "Static Code Analysis Warnings Before/After This Consultant Was Hired." It would show the warnings produced by the tool one week before your org started using it vs the warnings each week since the consultant was hired.
Maybe that would be enough to convince him that a more warnings from the tool does not necessarily mean he'll keep his job.
If Intel's ATOM takes off, it will be on the merits of the processor and not on its x86 compatibility. Besides, x86 was a terrible architecture from the get-go. There's something mildly hilarious about the fact that it became the dominant instruction set in Desktop PCs across the world. I for one think this might be an excellent migration path for the industry. Let the mobile industry settle on a non-x86 processor. Then develop all the necessary software for that processor (lightweight OS, web browser, etc). Then produce an amped up version of that chip for laptops/desktops. Voila, we bootstrap the software that is needed to sell a chip, and we end up with a significantly more efficient platform than anything we'll ever see with x86.
The only real significance of the halting problem is to demonstrate that there can be some pretty absurd programs out there. It is not an indictment of static analyses. Nor is it an excuse to have less than total confidence in the correctness of your code. Nuts to that. The true significance of the halting problem is to demonstrate that a class of problem exists for which no solution can ever be provided even with infinite computation. Such a solution justifies the "it's good enough" approach to hard problems, which has proven essential to producing workable solutions in many domains. For instance, the one we are talking about, where you might be able to find some errors but certainly not all of them.
Slashdot Mirror
So, one question. Why can't we make lighter cars and give them more complex (efficient) drive lines? Isn't that the best of both worlds?
I was going to make up some really great exploit about Chuck Norris and post it as a comment. But then I realized that Chuck Norris had already spoofed the accounts of many /. regulars and had wittily added all appropriate Chuck Norris exploits as comments. What is unclear, is whether or not Chuck Norris created this topic and all comments with a roundhouse kick, or if he only anticipated when it would be created.
Tag Line: This summer, experience paper cuts that really smart!
Sorry, I think you missed my point. I wasn't really dissing the eye per say. In fact, I rather appreciate my own. I was only pointing out that biology tends to reach local optima at which point further improvements become impossible. Whereas the fields of engineering thrive on completely new ideas being added which break out of local optima.
Case in point, you pointed out that mammalian eyes focus by slight deformation rather than moving two lenses. Liquid lenses are now on the horizon, and they should offer similar capabilities. What takes billions of years to evolve can be used as a model for engineering with rapid integration.
It is likely that we will eventually become technologically capable of producing something brain-like. Once that happens, it is likely that we will be able to use what we've already learned as well as the models for how a brain can work that mother nature came up with to produce something every bit as capable.
This isn't to say that we'll produce something with the same power signature or that is as small any time soon. But, per my original point, once we do reach this phase of technology, it is highly likely that the new brain will be inferior in some (or many) features and superior in a few. However, the things that the artificial brain is worse at will decline in number over time. This is what has happened in virtually every scientific field and every technology over time. The only real issues I think we can take are whether Kurzweil is right that it will be exponential, and whether or not his timeline is within the bounds of reason.
There are two great issue with being an intelligent life-form. 1) Humans are constantly terrified that some greater intelligence will harm them (god and aliens in that order). 2) Continuation of #1, we don't have any slightly lesser intelligences which we ourselves can lord over. I think #2 might help explain our problem with #1.
So, the answer is simple. We plant the moon with primitive life, which we have specially modified to encourage mutation. We then carefully craft that life until it begins to form intelligence, at which point we leave well enough alone, but still monitor them. The moment they begin to ask the big questions, like is there any other life in space, we show up and lord over them how much more advanced we are. That's pretty much my plan.
If this had happened a few years ago when I got married, I would have had reason to demand a diamond as well. "But I want to do quantum calculations really really bad!"
Of course, 3 mos her salary vs 3 mos my salary would have bought me about as much diamond quantum computing as I got at the time anyways. Se la vi.
A lot of comments have been harping on Kurzweil for making worthless predictions that are too far out to be worth examining. In other words, they want to just be left alone.
But I think there is fundamental value in such futurist thought, even if essentially none of it pans out, and even if what does work out is late. Most of the people that really create things tend to be very focused on their own domain. Thinkers like Kurzweil tend to branch out, look at many domains, and then provide imaginings about how those domains might be combined.
I think this is essentially the process for progress in the world we live in today. Perhaps 100 years ago, someone could research just radio waves and come up with a great idea for a radio device. Now, things are more integrated and complicated than ever.
So in short, even if nothing he predicts comes about, the fact that it inspires is perhaps valuable enough.
As a rule of thumb, biology evolves towards local optimums. The process can produce impossibly complex, elaborate, and brilliant solutions to problems, but we can always produce a more optimal solution through engineering.
Consider the human eye, which was long thought to be impossibly complex (and perhaps proof of creation). One thing jumps out at me about it. It's not so great. The image comes through upside down and backwards, it's got a blind spot, and it essentially loses the ability to differentiate color in dim light. Additionally, it's fragile and frequently does not focus correctly.
I think it's a flaw to assume that either A) the artificial brains we do produce will actually work exactly like real brains but with transistors instead of neurons and B) that what the brain does is anything like optimal. My hunch is that we'll find that brains work really well for certain problems as is, like coordinating muscles. And we'll learn that they are actually incredibly poorly designed for other capabilities, like rational thought. In essence, consider what evolved first and is most widespread. Those features of the brain are probably pretty robust. Contrast with more recent developments, those features are probably less robust.
I worked on a project that was using "Executable UML". Executable UML by the way is what happens when some numb-nuts looked at UML and said to themselves "Hey! In certain circumstances, this stuff can be used as a high level abstraction prior to writing code." They thought that sounded like a great thing, so they did the only rational thing to follow. They hacked together a programming language that almost could be used to write actual code in UML.
Of course, it had some limitations...like even though it compiled to C++, it ran slower than the Ruby running in an interpreter written in Python, which is itself running on an interpreter written in Smalltalk, which is running in another interpreter written in Smalltalk (since Smalltalk always runs on itself).
It also had the limitation of not being able to actually do anything at all. People complain when Java can't produce "native looking graphics", or if any interpreted language doesn't have direct access to ports when they need them. Imagine instead, a language with no direct access to anything. Want to connect to a socket, you'll need to link to C++ code for that. Want a GUI, you'll need C++ code. Want to write to a file, write some C++ code. Want to write to the console (seriously), then write some freaking C++ code. If 80% of your real code is still in C++, and the rest runs at sloth speed, it's not hard to call the Executable UML solution a solution at all.
So far, the issue has been with the pseudo code language they used to tie the pieces together, but in my experience UML is not suitable for fully designing a project either. If you fill out each of your classes completely, how many can you look at at a time? In my experience, you can only put about four classes on the screen at a time. Anything more and you've got to overlap the diagrams to a degree that it becomes unreadable. Until I get a 75' monitor, this is going to be a problem. Yes, if I could see everything all at once I might be able to visualize a complex problem more fully in UML, but since I can't, it doesn't do any good. This is the real reason UML has little future. It is excellent for diagramming simple constructs. If you read Gang of Four, their ideas are all concise and easily written in UML. But if you want to build a full system, UML is too bulky. A text based synopsis of each class would probably be more valuable, and could probably be mostly generated automatically.
So in summary. UML is a cripple trying to climb a ladder to the moon.
Mod parent up.
We are far past the point where the average consumer cares very much about capacity. What do you think they are going to do with 2 terabytes? Unless you are talking about someone who is frequently downloading movies and the like, I don't see how they would use that content. OK, there are probably a handful of people who are doing their own hi-def video editing or processing the output of large sensor arrays, but in what would do you define these guys as "most consumers?"
The reality is SSD doesn't have to come anywhere near the price of hard drives. It just needs to provide enough capacity (256-512 GB today) at a reasonable price. If you tell a consumer they can get a regular old hard drive, or pay 10% more for a SSD that doesn't fail when dropped and runs way faster, a lot of regular consumers will pony up for that.
You can't just compare different markets. As another poster said, you can buy CD-R for less than a penny each. What you are referring to is how record companies have used the lower medium price to make an even larger profit off of the content.
However, how does an oligopoly selling copyrighted content compare to a commodity market? Basic economics tells you they don't, and you can count on one of two things happening. A) SSD prices fall in line with hard drives. Or B) hard drive capacity moves beyond the needs of most consumers and SSD takes up that niche while being only marginally more expensive per GB than hard drives.
I don't even use a tape deck anymore. When I started listening to these things called audio CDs around 2005, I realized I couldn't go back!
- Did they notice we don't have enough oil?
- It's been hot this spring, maybe someone should get on that.
- Sometimes when I travel I can't watch YouTube. We need this fixed!
- It seems like we ought to have some way to get into space by climbing a line or something, rather than using those big rocket engines.
- It'd be really awesome if we could modify plant and animal life genetically so that it would taste better, grow faster, and be more nutritious.
If these "academic world" and "industry" could solve my problems I'd be super psyched. Cheers.Great! In addition to artificially creating cancer (see asbestos, nanotubes, smoking, nuclear fission, tanning booths, cell phones, etc.) we can now create artificial cancer.
Cancer by the way is when a cell begins growing and dividing uncontrollably. Such cells have a higher metabolism.
This entire story is bullocks, and your analysis is accurate. We aren't talking about a trivial error here. The models were spitting out obviously false results, and Moody's (and everyone else) gladly accepted those bad results. For at least 3+ years now, several analysts have pointed out ratings were too high and that they didn't pass the "smell test". If Moody's is not responsible for their models, then why shouldn't I write some half-assed model of my own, demonstrate to lenders how in the short term it will make them money, and then when I get caught, just point out that I never claimed my models were accurate.
Actually, that's not a bad idea.
To put it in a language slashdotters will understand.
1. Invent model.
2. Lie about model's accuracy.
3. (Sell model)???
4. Profit.
All we need to do is build nanobots out of nanotubes, which can capture rogue nanotubes in your lungs and incorporate them. Eventually, the nanobot will grow so large, it will cause discomfort and you'll cough it out. Then it's time to implant another.
What!?! Are you trying to suggest that holding a napkin over your mouth/nose with a rubber band won't prevent all gaseous osmosis?
There goes my plan for a suicide pact where all the members simply put on a face mask and tried to breath.
Maybe that would be enough to convince him that a more warnings from the tool does not necessarily mean he'll keep his job.
A guy can dream can't he?