Eh...not likely for quite some time
on
Artificial Ethics
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· Score: 4, Informative
J.Pitrat...advocates the use of some bootstrapping techniques common for software developers. He contends that without a conscious, reflective, meta-knowledge based system AI would be virtually impossible to create. Only an AI systems could build a true Star Trek style AI.
Bah. Speaking as an engineer and a (~40-year) programmer:
Odds are extremely good for beyond human AI, given no restrictions on initial and early form factor. I say this because thus far, we've discovered nothing whatsoever that is non-reproducible about the brain's structure and function, all that has to happen here is for that trend to continue; and given that nowhere in nature, at any scale remotely similar to the range that includes particles, cells and animals, have we discovered anything that appears to follow an unknowable set of rules, the odds of finding anything like that in the brain, that is, something we can't simulate or emulate with 100% functional veracity, are just about zero.
Odds are downright terrible for "intelligent nanobots", we might have hardware that can do what a cell can do, that is, hunt for (possibly a series of) chemical cues and latch on to them, then deliver the payload -- perhaps repeatedly in the case of disease-fighting designs -- but putting intelligence into something on the nanoscale is a challenge of an entirely different sort that we have not even begun to move down the road on; if this is to be accomplished, the intelligence won't be "in" the nano bot, it'll be a telepresence for an external unit (and we're nowhere down *that* road, either -- nanoscale sensors and transceivers are the target, we're more at the level of Look, Martha, a GEAR! A Pseudo-Flagellum!)
The problem with hand-waving -- even when you're Ray Kurzweil, whom I respect enormously -- is that one wave out of many can include a technology that never develops, and your whole creation comes crashing down.
FIRST - there is no claim for an observable amount of matter in the D(-1) state. It isn't "microscopic amounts" - for "microscopic" means "visible in a microscope". Do the math, fellow NBF visionaries: 2.3 picometers... if it were a lattice compound... would be about 440^3 units per cubic nanometer, or 440,000^3 (about 85E15 or 85 quadrillion atoms in a cubic micrometer box. Nothing doing. They're measuring the energy (~600eV) spectroscopically, from the FRAGMENTS of the supposed union. This is not a union-of-deuterons lasting nanoseconds, or microseconds, or milliseconds, or seconds. No, these are the fragments that lasted just long enough for the D(-1) state to hold together in a laser beam for ATTOSECONDS. (That's what those little "as" annotations are on their viewgraph).
SECOND, while it is nice to foster the conjecture that such matter IF microscopically attainable, IF stable enought to survives the time-of-flight from source to fusion reactor, IF the energy-cost-of-production is far less than the increased odds (and useful energy return) of the attendant fusion exists... THEN it is a great and wonderful thing.
THIRD, single D(-1) pseudonucleons may well exist for nanoseconds per KURT9's thesis, but again... nanoseconds is very much too short for deeply sub-relativistic ballistic particles to traverse a source (the laser-and-"compression" chamber) to the fusion reaction chamber. Even if they only exist as single diatomic particles, lifetimes have to be raised at least into the microseconds. For practical energy production in the reactor proper (let's say, 250 MW thermal), 4.88E20 diatomic Rydberg nucleons would have to be created (assuming 3.23MeV per fusion of D(-1) to get to 4He)... and remembering that 4He is the least likely product produced.
FOURTH (per last part of Third), the 2D + 2D = 4He reaction is well known to be very improbable in a single step, since there are LOWER ENERGY intermediate products that bleed off the excited spin-state fusion reaction (one of the key 'first principles' of fusion physics). Per the excellent if brief article in WikiPedia,
50%... D + D = T + p 50%... D + D = 3He + n
Researching further, D + D = 4He occurs about one in a dozen million fusion reactions nominally.
FIFTH, summing goatse.cx guy's "facts" together and this looks like yet another fruitless (for fusion) avenues of research. There is only hope, and not a shred of evidence that the D(-1) Rydberg CAN be made in 1E20 nucleons/second quantities, no reference to the overall energy-of-formation, no evidence that the diatoms can exist for more than attoseconds, nothing but speculative wishes that such a material holds promise to D+D=4He reactions (which is just an uber-popular topic, anyway). Therefore, it gets a 3 star SnakeOil award, coupled with 2 stars for the actual science, the novelty of the discovery, and the fine department of Physics at Gothenberg for letting these two obviously talented, and quite frankly queer, researchers have their limelight.
So, in summary, I have to say: "Sorry, dude, I just don't think it'll work."
There's been talk about NVIDIA's Ion since late last year when news first broke of the ultra small form factor platform. At the time, NVIDIA's tiny Atom-powered prototype system wasn't even called Ion yet, but images of the minuscule motherboard that would eventually be used in the reference platform had already surfaced and the community was buzzing with interest. One of the major concerns with most netbooks and nettops was their relatively weak integrated graphics solutions, and Ion would potentially address that concern.
Around the time when Ion was first announced, there was some scuttlebutt that Intel "disapproved" of the platform and that the company wouldn't sell OEMs Atom processors separately, without pairing them to an accompanying Intel chipset. Those rumors were soon squashed, however, because Intel does in fact sell Atom processors independent of a chipset. Although, I think it's still pretty safe to say Intel isn't exactly thrilled with Ion's existence. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Ion though, the platform is moving closer to public availability. I actually took a look at NVIDIA's Ion reference system a couple of months back and in I stated that "I want one - preferably sooner than later".
NASA got awesome mileage out of this vehicle... considerably more than was initially expected- over 7700 meters!
Bah on your 7.7k meters;I demand nothing less than total disambiguation. We need sufficient variation in measurement to make sure that the sense of each number is clear. I shouldn't have to depend on context to infer what you mean. If you reply to this post and call me "slipshod," I want to know that you are referring to the sloppy, careless reasoning of my post, and not to the looseness of my footwear (for which I propose to the new substitute "slipshoed"). Likewise, trademarks using common words will be disambiguated from the meaning of those words - popular word game Scrabble would need to be renamed, as this spelling is already in use by at least four other meanings, each of which will need its own variation anyhow. We can keep "scrabble" for "to scratch or scrape," but make subtle changes to the rest; "scragble" for "to struggle toward a goal," "scrubble" for "to climb over" (as over rubble!) and the sense "to scribble" should simply be eliminated, as "scribble" is already too close to "scrabble" anyway and might as well be handled as a variant of pronunciation. The game itself might be renamed B-3, after the second letter in the alphabet and its point value in the game (A-1 having been used for the tasty steak sauce and several thousand local plumbing, towing, and other services companies vying for the first spot in the telephone directory, each of which will celebrate its uniqueness with a new, never-before-seen name). Each town with the same name as another will also need to be reborn under a new moniker (surely a cause for revelry in the Midways, Fairviews, and Oak Groves [nwlink.com] of the world!). Finally, each of us whose name unfortunately coincides with that of another, shall have to make the tiniest of adjustments, on a first-come, first-served basis; thus, the eldest John Smith on record shall keep his spelling, while the next shall have to be subtly altered (Johnn Smith), and the next altered only the tiniest bit (Jahnn Smith), and so on (Djahnne Pschmiythe). For completeness, the birth and death certificates, tax and census records, and headstones or memorial plaques of some few billions of our ancestors shall likewise need to be "tweaked," possibly according to some fractal algorithm in cases where no living relatives can recommend how John might have preferred it, if only he'd taken the opportunity.
Yes, the Big Brother in Orwell's 1984 has specific definitions, but in reference/example/metaphor, people apply abstractions and generalizations that are not necessarily definitive of the original context.
This is only partially true. Education will delay your earnings. However, given the current environment, your earnings may be delayed anyway.
More important, and I've had this conversation again and again with decision makers, is that the Master's degree is the new Bachelor's degree.
In the US, and in much of the English speaking world, university degrees are becoming more common. A Master's is a signal that you have put in extra effort, basically.
We recently hired a helpdesk position, and the HR drones were requiring a Master's. While this is an extreme example of HR going crazy, it doesn't change the fact that, before any calls, before any interviews, the non-Master's people were thrown out.
So to return to the post I am replying to, while you might benefit from earnings now, you might not, and in future, you will definitely want the second degree if you plan to earn anything.
For the first job, though, it probably isn't necessary, and taking a couple years off from school to see what the 'real world' is all about isn't a bad idea. It will also, if the degree means more to you than a sheet of paper, make the Master's program more useful to you, because you might have a better idea of why the stuff matters.
Linux *is* awesome, but not ready for the masses who don't have an IT staff to tweak their image. Linux is vexing to those who support the idea of open source, but don't have the time or skill to navigate the endless FAQs needed to complete simple tasks (play DVD's, etc..). The key points of a netbook is ease, portability and its "appliance: nature. If there were a way to develop an instant on environment and purpose optimize the device a la kindle, then that's great. However, windows will rule until an easy GUI is developed that does not require a background in technology to use. The first poster is right, there is definitely some intellectual laziness out there, but I'd also argue that there are people without time to learn an OS during late night camel lights/sierra nevada fueled geek sessions. The iLife suite is a POS, but it's easy to learn and use, and that's one reason why apple has been so successful. If pcs were marketed solely to technology-inclined people, it would be a different story. Do you really think Joe the Plumber would be able to burn ubuntu isos and learn to use linux without getting frustrated?
There are several varieties of "wild boar" (at least in N. America). Some are viscous.
MUHUWHAHAHAHA! I have teh Slashdot Ads Disabled checked to over POwer Nine-Thoussssaaandddd!
In all seriousness: Get Chrome and lose a really nice set of wooden blocks? Ya, computer users can really relate to wooden blocks. The best that can be said about this ad is Google apparently didn't have to pay for it. But that doesn't make it a bargain. Meh, whadddya I know, I have AdBlock+. Haven't seen an ad on Slashdot for ages. So, really, who gives a flying fuck?
=Smidge=
Re:Frankly, I was disappointed
on
Reviews: Star Trek
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· Score: 0, Troll
As usual, Smidge207 stole this review [rottentomatoes.com] from someone else and should be modded down accordingly.
Negative, Ghost-Rider I *did* write that review at IMDB.
It's amazing that after all this time Microsoft still believe they can win the fight against piracy. As long as there is someone that builds anti-piracy measures in there will be people willing to hack around and take them out. Equal and opposite forces. Look at the iPhone for example; it took very little time for people with no previous knowledge of the device to have a working solution for jailbreaking the phone and installing pirated apps. MS needs to come up with viable solutions instead of crippling the user's experience.
Oh, shit, that's right, we're talking about Microsoft. Never mind; carry on with Ubuntu installs.;-)
This movie was definitely the best (least cheezy) movie made from the star trek franchise. That being said, I have a few qualms
Bah, turn in your geek card. Now. Yes, the story is a bit convoluted, but I think a lot of that is necessary for the reboot they wanted to accomplish. There is a lot of story telling in there, but it's sprinkled around and not played up in most parts. If you're looking carefully, you see it in several spots.
Maybe I was just not distracted because I haven't seen a lot of the other shows that these actors played in, thus I was not experiencing the "Agent Smith" phenomenon.
I thought Spock was well done, very much in line with what I remember of Spock from TOS, Vulcan with enough Human in him to drive him in ways other Vulcans could never grasp. Kirk was very much a young bulldog just coming into his prime, full of testosterone and bravado, but with enough brains to see what no one else seemed to be able to.
This doesn't tear apart the foundations of Star Trek so much as it sweeps aside most everything built on those foundations: Honor, fear in the face of death, duty in the face of insurmountable odds, there is no such thing as a "no win" solution--those are still there. Even when beings die by the planet-load (Hopefully that's not too much of a spoiler), all is not lost and with perseverance, the good guys can still win and the universe can still be saved.
=Smidge=
Thrilling adventure with great characters, FTW!!
on
Reviews: Star Trek
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· Score: 0
I'm a fan of "Star Trek", but not obsessive, having read only one "Star Trek" novel, owning no merchandise and only TOS in its entirety on DVD. I abhor "Voyager" but like every other Trek series, including "Enterprise" although nearly all of that show's especially good episodes are in the fourth season. My favorite remains TOS for its unforgettable characters, performances and stories, as well as the sense of camaraderie aboard the Enterprise.
I hope I've established my feelings on Trek (after all there are Trekkers who think "The Motion Picture" is the best Trek film, and a lot of people seem to like "Nemesis") and what I truly value in it. As long as it wasn't overwhelmingly dumb I didn't require any sort of truly thoughtful sci-fi in this film, nor did I expect it. What I desired, what I can say with a deep, deep sigh of relief, I got, is a film brimming with confidence, energy, a sense of adventure, a suitably emotional story for the film's main characters, and, thank heavens, superb characterization.
Using a plot device bring Nero, our Romulan villain played by Eric Bana, and Nimoy's Old Spock into the film, the writers Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman maintain canon. While Trekkers will whinge about many things here no more canon contradiction happens here than in the Trek series following TOS. Instead of merely rebooting the series entirely and creating an entirely separate canon, the writers have fairly deftly worked this film into the existing Star Trek universe. It's an alternate (not mirror) universe story done well. A great deal to enjoy for Trekkers with throwbacks to the originals but there's also a lot to satisfy summer movie-goers. It's a very, very fast-paced film, the action scenes are exhilarating (and you can actually keep track of them), and there's a great deal of humor
It sounds almost unbelievable but they've actually managed to pull it off: they've made a "Star Trek" film which is a Trek film through and through and yet will still draw a bigger audience than any of the previous films, and moreover satisfy that audience. The film has been compared to "Iron Man" in more than one review the similarities are clear. Both films feature excellent dialogue and hard-core gay sex that culminate in swift, clever characterization, a minimum of laborious exposition, and also have a common flaw: a rushed plot which overall is almost a side plot. The only reboot to truly escape this pitfall thus far is "Casino Royale", which successfully told a very tight story and also consistently developed Bond as a character. Bana is menacing enough and his ship is well-designed but overall he's no Khan or Chang and was much better-written in the Countdown prequel comic than in the film itself. There are also a series of massive contrivances to get everything where it needs to be which will have viewers rolling their eyes, but even these are handled well by the script, which is smooth and fast as opposed to clunky and sterile. Plus, they're necessary for this origin story not to be a typical boring origin story and become what it is.
The partnership of director Abrams and cinematographer Mindel will annoy some people with their deliberate use of lens flares as well as shaky cam in scenes (not in a Greengrass or worse, Peter Berg style, but merely a slightly unstable camera), but overall I found it to be consistently involving and thrilling to watch, with good visual storytelling throughout. I also quite enjoyed the homosexual undertones throughout the film. There was gratuitous gay sex between Bones and Pine which was *fabulous*. It's not quite on par with Nicholas Meyer's attempts for me but still good, and interesting. The score by Michael Giacchino suffers from familiarity and a lack of individual identity, but works well with the film itself.
Chris Pine is absolutely terrific as Kirk, doing so much more than a Shatner impression and creating something of his own character (and it is, after all, an alternate Kirk) while absolutely nailing several of the trademark attitudes and behavior of the K
I'm afraid it's a big thumbs-down. Before I begin, I should fess up to being a dedicated Star Trek fan and Trekkie for nearly 15 years. And as to my viewership of the current output of the JJ Abrams/Bad Robot stable, I thought LOST Seasons 1 was amazing, and have stuck with the show despite a huge drop in quality. Fringe, co-created by Abrams, Alex Kurtzmann and Roberto Orci, has the dubious distinction of being pretty much the only TV show on which I gave up, mainly because I couldn't stomach such appalling writing. As the credits rolled on this Trek film, and listed Orci and Kurtzmann as writers, it all made a disappointing kind of sense, as these three guys have never met a contrived and incoherent plot they didn't love.
Unfortunately, 'contrived' and 'incoherent' describes the plot of this movie all too accurately. I will freely admit that there's a lot of stuff that I found annoying specifically because I am a Trekkie, but there are also fundamental flaws in the movie as a piece of cinema, with the plot being a prime example. It's badly-conceived and poorly written in the worst possible way, with people acting out of character, and to be honest, stupidly, in order to set up a chain of unbelievable events to keep the plot limping along. A good plot should not depend on shoehorned and forced events, and characters should be consistent, instead of acting merely to service the plot.
The science is woeful. I know we have to cut movies some slack, Star Trek was noted for being pretty accurate with the real-world science they used, but that's certainly not the case here.
Now to what annoyed me, as a Trekkie. Abrams has stated that he was never a fan of the original Trek, and man, does it show. He and the writers have only a passing familiarity with basic stuff like the command structure of a starship. It seems that, if the captain wishes it, lowly cadets who haven't even graduated from the academy yet, can be promoted to command positions, leap-frogging an entire crew of officers. At one point, I found myself wondering, 'Who the hell is the second officer, and where are they?' And as characters we know will be the main crew arrive on board and automatically take charge of their departments, it raises the question, who exactly was the senior staff when they shipped out? There's a same-sex romantic relationship between two main characters, that I thought was highly implausible and unbelievable, for two major reasons. I can't say any more without revealing the identity of the characters, but you'll know it when you hit it.
A major event occurs that will have a profound effect on both the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant, which I was not down with at all. It felt like Abrams attempting to demonstrate that nothing and no one is safe in his new shiny version of Trek.
The portrayal of the Vulcans was pretty inconsistent. While Zachary Quinto is good as Spock, the elder Vulcans are much too emotional. In one scene, a Vulcan chats away as if he's human. Ironically, the dialogue concerns the repression of emotion. And I'm pretty sure another Vulcan elder smiled at one point.
Simon Pegg does the best he can as Scotty, but writing that role as comic relief was a terrible mistake. The humour in general is very hit and miss. Trek was never about ridiculous comedy in the midst of a crisis. The funniest parts are what they lifted directly from classic Trek, for example McCoy bitching about Spock and his 'goddamn Vulcan mind'.
And as the last negative point, they also changed the iconic 'Space...the final frontier' speech. Two small changes - 'continuing mission' to 'on-going mission', and 'strange new life' to 'strange new lifeforms' - but they add nothing to the speech, and merely serve to again show that nothing is sacred when JJ Abrams is at the helm. Only hardcore fans will even notice those changes, so it's like a secret little 'Up yours' to the fans. The fans that he claims he doesn't need. The same fans that kept Star Trek going for the last 40 years.
While I admire people fighting the good fight, this is EXACTLY what makes court so dicey. If you get some judge with his head up the RIAA's ass and you are going to lose no matter how good your case is. The PROPER thing to do in a case like this is to have both parties agree on who examines the drive. One more thing, five days doesn't seem like a lot of time to examine a tech report for improprieties.
Oh. My. God. In the era of Web 2.0, it appears that Slashdot has Jumped The Shark. The question now, is when did this happen? I remember in the early 2000s, Slashdot was THE geek website, but something has changed and it appears they have lost the magic. I mean, seriously, Hobbits??!
I therefore decided, today, to cancel my account (Smidge207) take them off of my RSS Reader, and cancel my Time Warner broadband "service". I am off the grid; I am off the 'net as of today. I am a free man, now; I own my own mind. I have piece of mind, now. I am free. Lordy, lordy I am free. See, the thing is, Taco, I find your stories trite, boring and dare I say, irrelevant to IT.
So the questions of the day are:
When was the exact day, and, what was the exact story, that caused Slashdot to jump the shark? What is your best bet to the cause of their demise?
This is just my opinion, and I am sure each and ever person that uses RSS at some point has made the same decision about another website. If you get angry easily you might not want to read the rest of this post:
1. I am 32, openly homosexual, and I have outgrown any interest in the usual stories that appear on Slashdot. A specific example is this story, about a "Coup" attempt in an Apple Underground User Group. I have absolutely zero interesting in ever reading something like this for the rest of my life.
I felt violated by Rob Malda's minions by reading something that stupid today, and I will admit it may be because of my age, and due to the fact that I now have a wonderful husband (RMS) and a fucking life.
2. I never really participated in the community much, I only read stories, and as I mentioned the stories are getting very bad. Terrible one should say.
3. I am bored of the terms, "Troll", "Trolling", and "Dvork", they make my skin crawl just like it would make my skin crawl to hear someone use the terms, "Your playa hatin", or "Give me the bling, bling", "Smidge is a sock-puppet troll faggot" or "Far out man". These terms are so commonly used on Slashdot that it is impossible to avoid them and the only possible alternative is to never read anything on Slashdot.
4. Slashdot played an interesting role in the early 2000's, as it was a human funneled aggregator for news stories. As technology has progressed, a different model of story submission has started to thrive and it does not require a select group of humans to filter which stories are good and which stories are not good. I believe the model that Digg, Reddit, and DZone use are far superior to the method of story submission and approval that Slashdot uses.
I feel that the method that Slashdot uses is a dying art, and the very poor quality of stories suggests that the human element responsible for editorial content is either very young, or not very good.
5. RSS Readers have changed the way people read technology and other news, and it has caused people to stop having a "home page" anymore. People now have the ability to create their own custom filters and get their own news in anyway they see fit. The role of Slashdot as the only aggregator for IT news has ended. Given a choice, I would much rather use RSS than the editorial process at Slashdot to get news stories.
6. As evidenced by the responses to MY WELL THOUGHT-OUT POSTS JUST TODAY, it is quite impossible to have a discussion with some outspoken members of the Slashdot community. I call out Eldavojohn in particular. It would take a large amount of patience, time and energy that I, frankly, am not willing to part with, to discuss why I am "liar, hypocrite, troll, etc". It is just not interesting to me, and even if it was I would probably need to quit my job just to respond full time to the complaints.
If you feel the urge to yell at me, please remember this is just my opinion and I am very sure other people feel very differently. I do not have the time to discuss the matter anymore due to work and personal obligations, but thank you to the people that did re
The question isn't whether 7 is faster, it's whether it's faster on shitty hardware.
Agreed. Running XP wasn't that stable when it was first released, and it didn't even support all my hardware, Vista does, but since my system is just enough to be considered usable with the aero interface I decided to use Vista. I know that as soon as the first service pack comes out for vista a lot of problems will be addressed, but why should we have to wait for that? I could run linux only, but it is more useful as a backup system since most of my favorite apps run in windows, like office. I don't choose to use a windows emulator in linux to run my windows programs, because that just seems obsurd. I really don't understand why OS's such as OSx and xgl linux can run on hardware that aero won't run on. It just doesnt make sense why microsoft doesn't produce a nice graphical OS that supports more standard workstations, but it does if you think about how much more hardware people are going to have to purchase if they want aero running smoothly on par with OSx or XGL. Microsoft just needs to realize that it is digging a hole for itself while more people realize how smooth and beautiful XGL or OSx run with half the amount of $ spent. For the price of a really nice vista system with aero you could have a system running OSx and another running XP and linux with XGL.
Bah. Whether Windows 7 ends up 'faster' will have everything to do with the final version, and not the beta versions. Too many times in the past, Microsoft has released promising betas and release candidates, and delivered a hopeless mess, so Windows 7 benchmarks have little validity at this point.
A beta like this tends to attract more nerd-boys with faster specced systems than mainstream users. They kept the 'old' graphics driver because their system was stable for all of the time preceding the beta. They end up with the newest graphics driver with the beta and get what seems like a big improvement in performance.
They had a fragmented Windows partition with a hundred million hooks to nowhere in the registry. They install a fresh new beta on a freshly formatted partition. WOW! What an improvement! They install it on that second hard drive that happens to be newer/better than the one they were booting the previous OS from. Relatively few people are installing a fresh XP partition and patching it up with the best drivers, then installing a Windows 7 partition along-side it on the same drive. And of course it's going to be somewhat faster than Vista. All they gotta do is strip out the DRM and get a boost. Of course, they might have to put the DRM right back in again the week before they ship, because of the contracts they signed with various media outlets.
Slashdot Mirror
J.Pitrat...advocates the use of some bootstrapping techniques common for software developers. He contends that without a conscious, reflective, meta-knowledge based system AI would be virtually impossible to create. Only an AI systems could build a true Star Trek style AI.
Bah. Speaking as an engineer and a (~40-year) programmer:
Odds are extremely good for beyond human AI, given no restrictions on initial and early form factor. I say this because thus far, we've discovered nothing whatsoever that is non-reproducible about the brain's structure and function, all that has to happen here is for that trend to continue; and given that nowhere in nature, at any scale remotely similar to the range that includes particles, cells and animals, have we discovered anything that appears to follow an unknowable set of rules, the odds of finding anything like that in the brain, that is, something we can't simulate or emulate with 100% functional veracity, are just about zero.
Odds are downright terrible for "intelligent nanobots", we might have hardware that can do what a cell can do, that is, hunt for (possibly a series of) chemical cues and latch on to them, then deliver the payload -- perhaps repeatedly in the case of disease-fighting designs -- but putting intelligence into something on the nanoscale is a challenge of an entirely different sort that we have not even begun to move down the road on; if this is to be accomplished, the intelligence won't be "in" the nano bot, it'll be a telepresence for an external unit (and we're nowhere down *that* road, either -- nanoscale sensors and transceivers are the target, we're more at the level of Look, Martha, a GEAR! A Pseudo-Flagellum!)
The problem with hand-waving -- even when you're Ray Kurzweil, whom I respect enormously -- is that one wave out of many can include a technology that never develops, and your whole creation comes crashing down.
I love this discussion. :-)
=Smidge=
I hear you can be arrested for taking pictures of an open 'fridge's innards. ;-)
=Smidge=
FIRST - there is no claim for an observable amount of matter in the D(-1) state. It isn't "microscopic amounts" - for "microscopic" means "visible in a microscope". Do the math, fellow NBF visionaries: 2.3 picometers ... if it were a lattice compound ... would be about 440^3 units per cubic nanometer, or 440,000^3 (about 85E15 or 85 quadrillion atoms in a cubic micrometer box. Nothing doing. They're measuring the energy (~600eV) spectroscopically, from the FRAGMENTS of the supposed union. This is not a union-of-deuterons lasting nanoseconds, or microseconds, or milliseconds, or seconds. No, these are the fragments that lasted just long enough for the D(-1) state to hold together in a laser beam for ATTOSECONDS. (That's what those little "as" annotations are on their viewgraph).
SECOND, while it is nice to foster the conjecture that such matter IF microscopically attainable, IF stable enought to survives the time-of-flight from source to fusion reactor, IF the energy-cost-of-production is far less than the increased odds (and useful energy return) of the attendant fusion exists ... THEN it is a great and wonderful thing.
THIRD, single D(-1) pseudonucleons may well exist for nanoseconds per KURT9's thesis, but again ... nanoseconds is very much too short for deeply sub-relativistic ballistic particles to traverse a source (the laser-and-"compression" chamber) to the fusion reaction chamber. Even if they only exist as single diatomic particles, lifetimes have to be raised at least into the microseconds. For practical energy production in the reactor proper (let's say, 250 MW thermal), 4.88E20 diatomic Rydberg nucleons would have to be created (assuming 3.23MeV per fusion of D(-1) to get to 4He) ... and remembering that 4He is the least likely product produced.
FOURTH (per last part of Third), the 2D + 2D = 4He reaction is well known to be very improbable in a single step, since there are LOWER ENERGY intermediate products that bleed off the excited spin-state fusion reaction (one of the key 'first principles' of fusion physics). Per the excellent if brief article in WikiPedia,
50% ... D + D = T + p ... D + D = 3He + n
50%
Researching further, D + D = 4He occurs about one in a dozen million fusion reactions nominally.
FIFTH, summing goatse.cx guy's "facts" together and this looks like yet another fruitless (for fusion) avenues of research. There is only hope, and not a shred of evidence that the D(-1) Rydberg CAN be made in 1E20 nucleons/second quantities, no reference to the overall energy-of-formation, no evidence that the diatoms can exist for more than attoseconds, nothing but speculative wishes that such a material holds promise to D+D=4He reactions (which is just an uber-popular topic, anyway). Therefore, it gets a 3 star SnakeOil award, coupled with 2 stars for the actual science, the novelty of the discovery, and the fine department of Physics at Gothenberg for letting these two obviously talented, and quite frankly queer, researchers have their limelight.
So, in summary, I have to say: "Sorry, dude, I just don't think it'll work."
=smudge=
There's been talk about NVIDIA's Ion since late last year when news first broke of the ultra small form factor platform. At the time, NVIDIA's tiny Atom-powered prototype system wasn't even called Ion yet, but images of the minuscule motherboard that would eventually be used in the reference platform had already surfaced and the community was buzzing with interest. One of the major concerns with most netbooks and nettops was their relatively weak integrated graphics solutions, and Ion would potentially address that concern.
Around the time when Ion was first announced, there was some scuttlebutt that Intel "disapproved" of the platform and that the company wouldn't sell OEMs Atom processors separately, without pairing them to an accompanying Intel chipset. Those rumors were soon squashed, however, because Intel does in fact sell Atom processors independent of a chipset. Although, I think it's still pretty safe to say Intel isn't exactly thrilled with Ion's existence. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Ion though, the platform is moving closer to public availability. I actually took a look at NVIDIA's Ion reference system a couple of months back and in I stated that "I want one - preferably sooner than later".
Well, the wait is almost over...!
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NASA got awesome mileage out of this vehicle... considerably more than was initially expected- over 7700 meters!
Bah on your 7.7k meters;I demand nothing less than total disambiguation. We need sufficient variation in measurement to make sure that the sense of each number is clear. I shouldn't have to depend on context to infer what you mean. If you reply to this post and call me "slipshod," I want to know that you are referring to the sloppy, careless reasoning of my post, and not to the looseness of my footwear (for which I propose to the new substitute "slipshoed"). Likewise, trademarks using common words will be disambiguated from the meaning of those words - popular word game Scrabble would need to be renamed, as this spelling is already in use by at least four other meanings, each of which will need its own variation anyhow. We can keep "scrabble" for "to scratch or scrape," but make subtle changes to the rest; "scragble" for "to struggle toward a goal," "scrubble" for "to climb over" (as over rubble!) and the sense "to scribble" should simply be eliminated, as "scribble" is already too close to "scrabble" anyway and might as well be handled as a variant of pronunciation. The game itself might be renamed B-3, after the second letter in the alphabet and its point value in the game (A-1 having been used for the tasty steak sauce and several thousand local plumbing, towing, and other services companies vying for the first spot in the telephone directory, each of which will celebrate its uniqueness with a new, never-before-seen name). Each town with the same name as another will also need to be reborn under a new moniker (surely a cause for revelry in the Midways, Fairviews, and Oak Groves [nwlink.com] of the world!). Finally, each of us whose name unfortunately coincides with that of another, shall have to make the tiniest of adjustments, on a first-come, first-served basis; thus, the eldest John Smith on record shall keep his spelling, while the next shall have to be subtly altered (Johnn Smith), and the next altered only the tiniest bit (Jahnn Smith), and so on (Djahnne Pschmiythe). For completeness, the birth and death certificates, tax and census records, and headstones or memorial plaques of some few billions of our ancestors shall likewise need to be "tweaked," possibly according to some fractal algorithm in cases where no living relatives can recommend how John might have preferred it, if only he'd taken the opportunity.
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Two words, son: ass pennies.
*snaps salute* Carry on.
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Yes, the Big Brother in Orwell's 1984 has specific definitions, but in reference/example/metaphor, people apply abstractions and generalizations that are not necessarily definitive of the original context.
Mod parent up DoublePlus Good!
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It's sleek, informative and minimalist. 2-thumbs up, would buy again!
w:q ;-)
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This is only partially true. Education will delay your earnings. However, given the current environment, your earnings may be delayed anyway.
More important, and I've had this conversation again and again with decision makers, is that the Master's degree is the new Bachelor's degree.
In the US, and in much of the English speaking world, university degrees are becoming more common. A Master's is a signal that you have put in extra effort, basically.
We recently hired a helpdesk position, and the HR drones were requiring a Master's. While this is an extreme example of HR going crazy, it doesn't change the fact that, before any calls, before any interviews, the non-Master's people were thrown out.
So to return to the post I am replying to, while you might benefit from earnings now, you might not, and in future, you will definitely want the second degree if you plan to earn anything.
For the first job, though, it probably isn't necessary, and taking a couple years off from school to see what the 'real world' is all about isn't a bad idea. It will also, if the degree means more to you than a sheet of paper, make the Master's program more useful to you, because you might have a better idea of why the stuff matters.
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Linux *is* awesome, but not ready for the masses who don't have an IT staff to tweak their image. Linux is vexing to those who support the idea of open source, but don't have the time or skill to navigate the endless FAQs needed to complete simple tasks (play DVD's, etc..). The key points of a netbook is ease, portability and its "appliance: nature. If there were a way to develop an instant on environment and purpose optimize the device a la kindle, then that's great. However, windows will rule until an easy GUI is developed that does not require a background in technology to use. The first poster is right, there is definitely some intellectual laziness out there, but I'd also argue that there are people without time to learn an OS during late night camel lights/sierra nevada fueled geek sessions. The iLife suite is a POS, but it's easy to learn and use, and that's one reason why apple has been so successful. If pcs were marketed solely to technology-inclined people, it would be a different story. Do you really think Joe the Plumber would be able to burn ubuntu isos and learn to use linux without getting frustrated?
There are several varieties of "wild boar" (at least in N. America). Some are viscous.
Jesus....really?
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Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing. -- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4
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This is not a troll.
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MUHUWHAHAHAHA! I have teh Slashdot Ads Disabled checked to over POwer Nine-Thoussssaaandddd!
In all seriousness: Get Chrome and lose a really nice set of wooden blocks? Ya, computer users can really relate to wooden blocks. The best that can be said about this ad is Google apparently didn't have to pay for it. But that doesn't make it a bargain. Meh, whadddya I know, I have AdBlock+. Haven't seen an ad on Slashdot for ages. So, really, who gives a flying fuck?
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As usual, Smidge207 stole this review [rottentomatoes.com] from someone else and should be modded down accordingly.
Negative, Ghost-Rider I *did* write that review at IMDB.
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The parent post needs to be modded down. He stole it from here [slashdot.org]. Check the timestamps.
Fuck you.
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Negative, Ghost-Rider I *did* write that review at IMDB.
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It's amazing that after all this time Microsoft still believe they can win the fight against piracy. As long as there is someone that builds anti-piracy measures in there will be people willing to hack around and take them out. Equal and opposite forces. Look at the iPhone for example; it took very little time for people with no previous knowledge of the device to have a working solution for jailbreaking the phone and installing pirated apps. MS needs to come up with viable solutions instead of crippling the user's experience.
Oh, shit, that's right, we're talking about Microsoft. Never mind; carry on with Ubuntu installs. ;-)
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This movie was definitely the best (least cheezy) movie made from the star trek franchise. That being said, I have a few qualms
Bah, turn in your geek card. Now. Yes, the story is a bit convoluted, but I think a lot of that is necessary for the reboot they wanted to accomplish. There is a lot of story telling in there, but it's sprinkled around and not played up in most parts. If you're looking carefully, you see it in several spots.
Maybe I was just not distracted because I haven't seen a lot of the other shows that these actors played in, thus I was not experiencing the "Agent Smith" phenomenon.
I thought Spock was well done, very much in line with what I remember of Spock from TOS, Vulcan with enough Human in him to drive him in ways other Vulcans could never grasp. Kirk was very much a young bulldog just coming into his prime, full of testosterone and bravado, but with enough brains to see what no one else seemed to be able to.
This doesn't tear apart the foundations of Star Trek so much as it sweeps aside most everything built on those foundations: Honor, fear in the face of death, duty in the face of insurmountable odds, there is no such thing as a "no win" solution--those are still there. Even when beings die by the planet-load (Hopefully that's not too much of a spoiler), all is not lost and with perseverance, the good guys can still win and the universe can still be saved.
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I'm a fan of "Star Trek", but not obsessive, having read only one "Star Trek" novel, owning no merchandise and only TOS in its entirety on DVD. I abhor "Voyager" but like every other Trek series, including "Enterprise" although nearly all of that show's especially good episodes are in the fourth season. My favorite remains TOS for its unforgettable characters, performances and stories, as well as the sense of camaraderie aboard the Enterprise.
I hope I've established my feelings on Trek (after all there are Trekkers who think "The Motion Picture" is the best Trek film, and a lot of people seem to like "Nemesis") and what I truly value in it. As long as it wasn't overwhelmingly dumb I didn't require any sort of truly thoughtful sci-fi in this film, nor did I expect it. What I desired, what I can say with a deep, deep sigh of relief, I got, is a film brimming with confidence, energy, a sense of adventure, a suitably emotional story for the film's main characters, and, thank heavens, superb characterization.
Using a plot device bring Nero, our Romulan villain played by Eric Bana, and Nimoy's Old Spock into the film, the writers Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman maintain canon. While Trekkers will whinge about many things here no more canon contradiction happens here than in the Trek series following TOS. Instead of merely rebooting the series entirely and creating an entirely separate canon, the writers have fairly deftly worked this film into the existing Star Trek universe. It's an alternate (not mirror) universe story done well. A great deal to enjoy for Trekkers with throwbacks to the originals but there's also a lot to satisfy summer movie-goers. It's a very, very fast-paced film, the action scenes are exhilarating (and you can actually keep track of them), and there's a great deal of humor
It sounds almost unbelievable but they've actually managed to pull it off: they've made a "Star Trek" film which is a Trek film through and through and yet will still draw a bigger audience than any of the previous films, and moreover satisfy that audience. The film has been compared to "Iron Man" in more than one review the similarities are clear. Both films feature excellent dialogue and hard-core gay sex that culminate in swift, clever characterization, a minimum of laborious exposition, and also have a common flaw: a rushed plot which overall is almost a side plot. The only reboot to truly escape this pitfall thus far is "Casino Royale", which successfully told a very tight story and also consistently developed Bond as a character. Bana is menacing enough and his ship is well-designed but overall he's no Khan or Chang and was much better-written in the Countdown prequel comic than in the film itself. There are also a series of massive contrivances to get everything where it needs to be which will have viewers rolling their eyes, but even these are handled well by the script, which is smooth and fast as opposed to clunky and sterile. Plus, they're necessary for this origin story not to be a typical boring origin story and become what it is.
The partnership of director Abrams and cinematographer Mindel will annoy some people with their deliberate use of lens flares as well as shaky cam in scenes (not in a Greengrass or worse, Peter Berg style, but merely a slightly unstable camera), but overall I found it to be consistently involving and thrilling to watch, with good visual storytelling throughout. I also quite enjoyed the homosexual undertones throughout the film. There was gratuitous gay sex between Bones and Pine which was *fabulous*. It's not quite on par with Nicholas Meyer's attempts for me but still good, and interesting. The score by Michael Giacchino suffers from familiarity and a lack of individual identity, but works well with the film itself.
Chris Pine is absolutely terrific as Kirk, doing so much more than a Shatner impression and creating something of his own character (and it is, after all, an alternate Kirk) while absolutely nailing several of the trademark attitudes and behavior of the K
I'm afraid it's a big thumbs-down. Before I begin, I should fess up to being a dedicated Star Trek fan and Trekkie for nearly 15 years. And as to my viewership of the current output of the JJ Abrams/Bad Robot stable, I thought LOST Seasons 1 was amazing, and have stuck with the show despite a huge drop in quality. Fringe, co-created by Abrams, Alex Kurtzmann and Roberto Orci, has the dubious distinction of being pretty much the only TV show on which I gave up, mainly because I couldn't stomach such appalling writing. As the credits rolled on this Trek film, and listed Orci and Kurtzmann as writers, it all made a disappointing kind of sense, as these three guys have never met a contrived and incoherent plot they didn't love.
Unfortunately, 'contrived' and 'incoherent' describes the plot of this movie all too accurately. I will freely admit that there's a lot of stuff that I found annoying specifically because I am a Trekkie, but there are also fundamental flaws in the movie as a piece of cinema, with the plot being a prime example. It's badly-conceived and poorly written in the worst possible way, with people acting out of character, and to be honest, stupidly, in order to set up a chain of unbelievable events to keep the plot limping along. A good plot should not depend on shoehorned and forced events, and characters should be consistent, instead of acting merely to service the plot.
The science is woeful. I know we have to cut movies some slack, Star Trek was noted for being pretty accurate with the real-world science they used, but that's certainly not the case here.
Now to what annoyed me, as a Trekkie. Abrams has stated that he was never a fan of the original Trek, and man, does it show. He and the writers have only a passing familiarity with basic stuff like the command structure of a starship. It seems that, if the captain wishes it, lowly cadets who haven't even graduated from the academy yet, can be promoted to command positions, leap-frogging an entire crew of officers. At one point, I found myself wondering, 'Who the hell is the second officer, and where are they?' And as characters we know will be the main crew arrive on board and automatically take charge of their departments, it raises the question, who exactly was the senior staff when they shipped out? There's a same-sex romantic relationship between two main characters, that I thought was highly implausible and unbelievable, for two major reasons. I can't say any more without revealing the identity of the characters, but you'll know it when you hit it.
A major event occurs that will have a profound effect on both the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant, which I was not down with at all. It felt like Abrams attempting to demonstrate that nothing and no one is safe in his new shiny version of Trek.
The portrayal of the Vulcans was pretty inconsistent. While Zachary Quinto is good as Spock, the elder Vulcans are much too emotional. In one scene, a Vulcan chats away as if he's human. Ironically, the dialogue concerns the repression of emotion. And I'm pretty sure another Vulcan elder smiled at one point.
Simon Pegg does the best he can as Scotty, but writing that role as comic relief was a terrible mistake. The humour in general is very hit and miss. Trek was never about ridiculous comedy in the midst of a crisis. The funniest parts are what they lifted directly from classic Trek, for example McCoy bitching about Spock and his 'goddamn Vulcan mind'.
And as the last negative point, they also changed the iconic 'Space...the final frontier' speech. Two small changes - 'continuing mission' to 'on-going mission', and 'strange new life' to 'strange new lifeforms' - but they add nothing to the speech, and merely serve to again show that nothing is sacred when JJ Abrams is at the helm. Only hardcore fans will even notice those changes, so it's like a secret little 'Up yours' to the fans. The fans that he claims he doesn't need. The same fans that kept Star Trek going for the last 40 years.
I'm going to finish with the
While I admire people fighting the good fight, this is EXACTLY what makes court so dicey. If you get some judge with his head up the RIAA's ass and you are going to lose no matter how good your case is. The PROPER thing to do in a case like this is to have both parties agree on who examines the drive. One more thing, five days doesn't seem like a lot of time to examine a tech report for improprieties.
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Oh. My. God. In the era of Web 2.0, it appears that Slashdot has Jumped The Shark. The question now, is when did this happen? I remember in the early 2000s, Slashdot was THE geek website, but something has changed and it appears they have lost the magic. I mean, seriously, Hobbits??!
I therefore decided, today, to cancel my account (Smidge207) take them off of my RSS Reader, and cancel my Time Warner broadband "service". I am off the grid; I am off the 'net as of today. I am a free man, now; I own my own mind. I have piece of mind, now. I am free. Lordy, lordy I am free. See, the thing is, Taco, I find your stories trite, boring and dare I say, irrelevant to IT.
So the questions of the day are:
When was the exact day, and, what was the exact story, that caused Slashdot to jump the shark? What is your best bet to the cause of their demise?
This is just my opinion, and I am sure each and ever person that uses RSS at some point has made the same decision about another website. If you get angry easily you might not want to read the rest of this post:
1. I am 32, openly homosexual, and I have outgrown any interest in the usual stories that appear on Slashdot. A specific example is this story, about a "Coup" attempt in an Apple Underground User Group. I have absolutely zero interesting in ever reading something like this for the rest of my life.
I felt violated by Rob Malda's minions by reading something that stupid today, and I will admit it may be because of my age, and due to the fact that I now have a wonderful husband (RMS) and a fucking life.
2. I never really participated in the community much, I only read stories, and as I mentioned the stories are getting very bad. Terrible one should say.
3. I am bored of the terms, "Troll", "Trolling", and "Dvork", they make my skin crawl just like it would make my skin crawl to hear someone use the terms, "Your playa hatin", or "Give me the bling, bling", "Smidge is a sock-puppet troll faggot" or "Far out man". These terms are so commonly used on Slashdot that it is impossible to avoid them and the only possible alternative is to never read anything on Slashdot.
4. Slashdot played an interesting role in the early 2000's, as it was a human funneled aggregator for news stories. As technology has progressed, a different model of story submission has started to thrive and it does not require a select group of humans to filter which stories are good and which stories are not good. I believe the model that Digg, Reddit, and DZone use are far superior to the method of story submission and approval that Slashdot uses.
I feel that the method that Slashdot uses is a dying art, and the very poor quality of stories suggests that the human element responsible for editorial content is either very young, or not very good.
5. RSS Readers have changed the way people read technology and other news, and it has caused people to stop having a "home page" anymore. People now have the ability to create their own custom filters and get their own news in anyway they see fit. The role of Slashdot as the only aggregator for IT news has ended. Given a choice, I would much rather use RSS than the editorial process at Slashdot to get news stories.
6. As evidenced by the responses to MY WELL THOUGHT-OUT POSTS JUST TODAY, it is quite impossible to have a discussion with some outspoken members of the Slashdot community. I call out Eldavojohn in particular. It would take a large amount of patience, time and energy that I, frankly, am not willing to part with, to discuss why I am "liar, hypocrite, troll, etc". It is just not interesting to me, and even if it was I would probably need to quit my job just to respond full time to the complaints.
If you feel the urge to yell at me, please remember this is just my opinion and I am very sure other people feel very differently. I do not have the time to discuss the matter anymore due to work and personal obligations, but thank you to the people that did re
The question isn't whether 7 is faster, it's whether it's faster on shitty hardware.
Agreed. Running XP wasn't that stable when it was first released, and it didn't even support all my hardware, Vista does, but since my system is just enough to be considered usable with the aero interface I decided to use Vista. I know that as soon as the first service pack comes out for vista a lot of problems will be addressed, but why should we have to wait for that? I could run linux only, but it is more useful as a backup system since most of my favorite apps run in windows, like office. I don't choose to use a windows emulator in linux to run my windows programs, because that just seems obsurd. I really don't understand why OS's such as OSx and xgl linux can run on hardware that aero won't run on. It just doesnt make sense why microsoft doesn't produce a nice graphical OS that supports more standard workstations, but it does if you think about how much more hardware people are going to have to purchase if they want aero running smoothly on par with OSx or XGL. Microsoft just needs to realize that it is digging a hole for itself while more people realize how smooth and beautiful XGL or OSx run with half the amount of $ spent. For the price of a really nice vista system with aero you could have a system running OSx and another running XP and linux with XGL.
Why, my dear little poo, is this the case?
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Bah. Whether Windows 7 ends up 'faster' will have everything to do with the final version, and not the beta versions. Too many times in the past, Microsoft has released promising betas and release candidates, and delivered a hopeless mess, so Windows 7 benchmarks have little validity at this point.
A beta like this tends to attract more nerd-boys with faster specced systems than mainstream users. They kept the 'old' graphics driver because their system was stable for all of the time preceding the beta. They end up with the newest graphics driver with the beta and get what seems like a big improvement in performance.
They had a fragmented Windows partition with a hundred million hooks to nowhere in the registry. They install a fresh new beta on a freshly formatted partition. WOW! What an improvement! They install it on that second hard drive that happens to be newer/better than the one they were booting the previous OS from. Relatively few people are installing a fresh XP partition and patching it up with the best drivers, then installing a Windows 7 partition along-side it on the same drive. And of course it's going to be somewhat faster than Vista. All they gotta do is strip out the DRM and get a boost. Of course, they might have to put the DRM right back in again the week before they ship, because of the contracts they signed with various media outlets.
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Actually, I *did* write that review on Amazon.
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