For those who don't already know, an editor put together Feynman's lecture notes into a great book, which he used during his famous 1980s lectures. It's worth the $30, if you are interested in computers, computation theory, physics, or you just really like Feynman's stuff. This book is one of those classics that everyone has on their shelf.
In what sense is quantum computing, "infinite computing"? Computing is inherently finite. See typed lambda-calculus, intuitionistic logic, and Curry-Howard isomorphism, if you don't understand why computing means finite.
Now, I anticipating someone bringing up non-terminating Turing machines and untyped recursive lambda-functions as counter examples to my claim... Those don't represent computing! They are nothing more than short-comings of our formal systems. They have no logical meaning. Mathematicians, logicians, and computer scientists have put great effort towards gaining an understanding of computing that weeds out such nonsensical non-constructs.
An effective procedure that doesn't terminate with a result is not an effective procedure. Now, if by "infinite", you mean unbounded, then you have done nothing more than abuse terminology. "Infinity" does not mean the same thing as "unbounded", in a computational sense of the words.
Ok, a 12 or 16 bit color screen, 64MB of ram, a 206mhz CPU - all extremely low power. Throw in the dual PCMCIA expansion and you can hook this thing up wirelessly to the net. I know you kids use gigahertz PCs nowadays, but the 206mhz StrongArm is no pushover, as far as CPUs go. It sips power while cranking through computations (the ARM architecture is highly praised for its elegant design).
Anyway, my point is that this thing is a low end desktop computer, expect that it is also extremely portable and power efficient. Saying that it is just a mobile phone and an address book implies that you have a lack of imagination. You are spoiled by power hungry, heavy polluting desktop PCs, and you have forgotten how to see the possibilities of anything with a sub-gigahertz CPU.
Computing and geeks is about seeing the possibilities of a piece of machinery.
One small correction: Stella is not the NES. Though both use the same CPU, the Stella is the Atari 2600, if I remember correctly. I know Stella is one of the Ataris around the time of the 2600. Anyway, the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) has never been referred to as "Stella".
Ok, right, simple functionality is there. Now lets add more good stuff. The IPAQ can be used as a phone, by using a service like dialpad, along with a Ricochet 128k dedicated wireless modem. Sure, most Palm (and clone) owners are quick to slam any PDA that has more functionality than their Palm Pilot... but I know many people who would love to be able to surf the REAL web (no wap crap) and talk on the phone with one hand held device.
The IPAQ has that functionality, and the upcoming version of the IPAQ will do it even better. If all you want is simple functionality, then get yourself a piece of notebook paper and a pencil. Both together are small and lighter than any PDA. They can both be used to obtain simple useful functionality.
Natural language is a form of communication. You obviously understood what the poster was talking about, so correcting his grammar/spelling was and is pointless.
The way natural languages evolve is through mutations of the language introduced by "incorrect" grammar and spelling. Fighting that makes you look childish.
Does such a thing exist yet? Just imagine a completely free computer, from hardware to software. Sure, it might cost the price of a piece of circuit paper or whatever it will be called and the circuit ink. If the prices of such materials ever approached that of regular deskjet-like ink and paper... we would live in a perfect techie world of free hardware and software, through and through. Costing pennies on the dollar to make another copy.
A printed CPU with a printed flatscreen display, printed speakers, keyboard, pointer device, and a nice install of GNU/Linux. All downloaded from the web. All GPL'ed.
"No, Occam's razor is a rule of thumb used by all scientists."
Unsupported claim.
"It doesn't limit enlightenment."
Anything that limits contemplation could possibly limit enlightenment, for we reach enlightenment through contemplation. Limiting the means can limit the ends.
"it limits speculation on matters before the evidence is there to support them. "
Yes, and this is an example of my above arguement. Limiting speculation on such matters could possibly limit you from looking for complex evidence for phenomenon - forcing over-simplification of your understanding.
"And if you don't think that's a good thing, you need to review some history."
I claim the same, for my arguement, that if you don't think that's a good thing (contemplation of the complex), you need to review some history.
So you have failed at refuting my claim. Here is an example of Occam's Razor at work:
Imagine an apple tree, an apple lying on the ground next to the tree, and a man. The man wants to come up with a theory of how the apple came to be located on the ground below the apple tree. Applying Occam's Razor, the man comes up with the theory that the apple fell out of the above mentioned tree do to the biology of the tree, and the simple physics of gravity.
However, the apple actually came from a young boy who was eating his lunch up the street. The boy's mom usually packs him a lunch every school day, but today, his father packed the lunch, putting in the apple he received in business meeting in far-off country. The boy dropped the apple during lunch time, and one of the school bullies picked it up and threw it down the street, with the apple eventually landing in the street. Just as the apple landed on the street, a street cleaning truck knocked the apple another several yards, landing the fruit under the aforementioned tree.
And so, Occam's Razor failed limited the man's enlightenment. The reason for the apple coming to exist lying on the ground under the tree was actually far more complex than the man's rule of thumb allowed, forcing him to come up with an incorrect theory.
It doesn't take much imagination to think of other cases where Occam's Razor would cause the retardation or even total limiting of enlightenment.
You must be ignorant of: strongly normal evaluation strategies such as lazy evaluation, pure FP, monadic programming, simplicity, and all of the other things that standard Haskell has over standard LISP (yeah, no such thing, but the commonly used varients of LISP).
Haskell is a purely functional programming language, while LISP is not. Haskell code can be far more terse than LISP (because of pattern matching and algebraic data types and lambda notation), so your Pascal to C analogy fails. Haskell is without a doubt, superior to LISP, in the area of functional programming.
Masters have been using the whip for thousands of years, accomplishing the same task as MASER. I mean, why would the owner want to lose livestock, just to keep the livestock under control?
The rulers of a corrupt society must use coercion to govern the people. This is nothing new. James Madison wrote some good literature on such topics. He stuff might be of interest to US of A citizens.
The moderators are obviously ignorant of the theory of computation, as set forth by Alan Turing. The parent post is so blatently wrong, that it makes me believe that the original poster didn't even read Turing's original work.
Ok, moderators, if you don't understand something, DO NOT MOD THE POST!!!
LISP is NOT the lambda-calculus. LISP does not use complete normal order evaluation. LISP is just a programming language, which later started moving more towards advancements already made in computational theory. The original intent of LISP wasn't to make a purely functional programming language (read normal order evaluation language based on the lambda-calculus).
This will probably upset people, but it is more fact than opinion: LISP was and is still a hack. That is why ML and Haskell were made. LISP is not the end-all-be-all functional programming language. It has flaws.
While I see the historical value of LISP, I do believe that it has become obsolete and convoluted over the years. Any sophisticated programmer will see this within a week of using one of the latest and greatest FP languages, such as Haskell or Clean.
Just remember, whenever you see anti-homosexuals, anti-geek, ant-(younameit), remind yourself that it was that type of thinking which killed Alan Turing.
People should be judged on their positive accomplishments alone.
"Occam's Razor" is not a law which is fundamentally obeyed my nature. In fact, nature could end up showing itself to follow the complete opposite, having horribly complex causes for the most basic phenomenon.
"Occam's Razor" is nothing more than a rule of thumb used by some scientists. Adhere to closely to it, and you will only limit your enlightenment.
I bet the Smalltalkers (and other OO-developers) are either laughing or crying at the absurdity of a company patenting Object-Oriented patterns, such as the Model-View-Controller pattern, which is commonly used for this specific type of GUI theming.
Re:Offtopic: DeCSS-related words people get confus
on
The DeCSS Haiku
·
· Score: 1
The poster was making an analogy between MP3 and MP4, with regards to its use by the internet community. Trading music became really popular with the popularity of MP3, and trading movies has become very popular with the advent of MP4 aka DivX.
Thats another thing. Why don't people refer to DivX as MP4? It would make for less confusion.
Slashdot Mirror
For those who don't already know, an editor put together Feynman's lecture notes into a great book, which he used during his famous 1980s lectures. It's worth the $30, if you are interested in computers, computation theory, physics, or you just really like Feynman's stuff. This book is one of those classics that everyone has on their shelf.
In what sense is quantum computing, "infinite computing"? Computing is inherently finite. See typed lambda-calculus, intuitionistic logic, and Curry-Howard isomorphism, if you don't understand why computing means finite.
Now, I anticipating someone bringing up non-terminating Turing machines and untyped recursive lambda-functions as counter examples to my claim... Those don't represent computing! They are nothing more than short-comings of our formal systems. They have no logical meaning. Mathematicians, logicians, and computer scientists have put great effort towards gaining an understanding of computing that weeds out such nonsensical non-constructs.
An effective procedure that doesn't terminate with a result is not an effective procedure. Now, if by "infinite", you mean unbounded, then you have done nothing more than abuse terminology. "Infinity" does not mean the same thing as "unbounded", in a computational sense of the words.
Ok, a 12 or 16 bit color screen, 64MB of ram, a 206mhz CPU - all extremely low power. Throw in the dual PCMCIA expansion and you can hook this thing up wirelessly to the net. I know you kids use gigahertz PCs nowadays, but the 206mhz StrongArm is no pushover, as far as CPUs go. It sips power while cranking through computations (the ARM architecture is highly praised for its elegant design).
Anyway, my point is that this thing is a low end desktop computer, expect that it is also extremely portable and power efficient. Saying that it is just a mobile phone and an address book implies that you have a lack of imagination. You are spoiled by power hungry, heavy polluting desktop PCs, and you have forgotten how to see the possibilities of anything with a sub-gigahertz CPU.
Computing and geeks is about seeing the possibilities of a piece of machinery.
One small correction: Stella is not the NES. Though both use the same CPU, the Stella is the Atari 2600, if I remember correctly. I know Stella is one of the Ataris around the time of the 2600. Anyway, the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) has never been referred to as "Stella".
Ok, right, simple functionality is there. Now lets add more good stuff. The IPAQ can be used as a phone, by using a service like dialpad, along with a Ricochet 128k dedicated wireless modem. Sure, most Palm (and clone) owners are quick to slam any PDA that has more functionality than their Palm Pilot... but I know many people who would love to be able to surf the REAL web (no wap crap) and talk on the phone with one hand held device.
The IPAQ has that functionality, and the upcoming version of the IPAQ will do it even better. If all you want is simple functionality, then get yourself a piece of notebook paper and a pencil. Both together are small and lighter than any PDA. They can both be used to obtain simple useful functionality.
Natural language is a form of communication. You obviously understood what the poster was talking about, so correcting his grammar/spelling was and is pointless.
The way natural languages evolve is through mutations of the language introduced by "incorrect" grammar and spelling. Fighting that makes you look childish.
I am sorry, but this is too good to be true.
What you say!!
Ultra-super-mega-troll 2000, release!
true... true dat
Uhhh... actually, I would have my walls simulate an environment: Playboy Mansion.
Yeah, then we would have to put up with script kiddies writing VBScripts that add unwanted anchovies to those aforementioned pizzas.
Not printable batteries, printable solar cells would make energy free too by converting abundant solar energy to electricity.
Does such a thing exist yet? Just imagine a completely free computer, from hardware to software. Sure, it might cost the price of a piece of circuit paper or whatever it will be called and the circuit ink. If the prices of such materials ever approached that of regular deskjet-like ink and paper... we would live in a perfect techie world of free hardware and software, through and through. Costing pennies on the dollar to make another copy.
A printed CPU with a printed flatscreen display, printed speakers, keyboard, pointer device, and a nice install of GNU/Linux. All downloaded from the web. All GPL'ed.
"No, Occam's razor is a rule of thumb used by all scientists."
Unsupported claim.
"It doesn't limit enlightenment."
Anything that limits contemplation could possibly limit enlightenment, for we reach enlightenment through contemplation. Limiting the means can limit the ends.
"it limits speculation on matters before the evidence is there to support them. "
Yes, and this is an example of my above arguement. Limiting speculation on such matters could possibly limit you from looking for complex evidence for phenomenon - forcing over-simplification of your understanding.
"And if you don't think that's a good thing, you need to review some history." I claim the same, for my arguement, that if you don't think that's a good thing (contemplation of the complex), you need to review some history.
So you have failed at refuting my claim. Here is an example of Occam's Razor at work:
Imagine an apple tree, an apple lying on the ground next to the tree, and a man. The man wants to come up with a theory of how the apple came to be located on the ground below the apple tree. Applying Occam's Razor, the man comes up with the theory that the apple fell out of the above mentioned tree do to the biology of the tree, and the simple physics of gravity.
However, the apple actually came from a young boy who was eating his lunch up the street. The boy's mom usually packs him a lunch every school day, but today, his father packed the lunch, putting in the apple he received in business meeting in far-off country. The boy dropped the apple during lunch time, and one of the school bullies picked it up and threw it down the street, with the apple eventually landing in the street. Just as the apple landed on the street, a street cleaning truck knocked the apple another several yards, landing the fruit under the aforementioned tree.
And so, Occam's Razor failed limited the man's enlightenment. The reason for the apple coming to exist lying on the ground under the tree was actually far more complex than the man's rule of thumb allowed, forcing him to come up with an incorrect theory.
It doesn't take much imagination to think of other cases where Occam's Razor would cause the retardation or even total limiting of enlightenment.
You must be ignorant of: strongly normal evaluation strategies such as lazy evaluation, pure FP, monadic programming, simplicity, and all of the other things that standard Haskell has over standard LISP (yeah, no such thing, but the commonly used varients of LISP).
Haskell is a purely functional programming language, while LISP is not. Haskell code can be far more terse than LISP (because of pattern matching and algebraic data types and lambda notation), so your Pascal to C analogy fails. Haskell is without a doubt, superior to LISP, in the area of functional programming.
Masters have been using the whip for thousands of years, accomplishing the same task as MASER. I mean, why would the owner want to lose livestock, just to keep the livestock under control?
The rulers of a corrupt society must use coercion to govern the people. This is nothing new. James Madison wrote some good literature on such topics. He stuff might be of interest to US of A citizens.
Do the ends justify the means? Maybe so.
The moderators are obviously ignorant of the theory of computation, as set forth by Alan Turing. The parent post is so blatently wrong, that it makes me believe that the original poster didn't even read Turing's original work.
Ok, moderators, if you don't understand something, DO NOT MOD THE POST!!!
LISP is NOT the lambda-calculus. LISP does not use complete normal order evaluation. LISP is just a programming language, which later started moving more towards advancements already made in computational theory. The original intent of LISP wasn't to make a purely functional programming language (read normal order evaluation language based on the lambda-calculus).
This will probably upset people, but it is more fact than opinion: LISP was and is still a hack. That is why ML and Haskell were made. LISP is not the end-all-be-all functional programming language. It has flaws.
While I see the historical value of LISP, I do believe that it has become obsolete and convoluted over the years. Any sophisticated programmer will see this within a week of using one of the latest and greatest FP languages, such as Haskell or Clean.
Just remember, whenever you see anti-homosexuals, anti-geek, ant-(younameit), remind yourself that it was that type of thinking which killed Alan Turing.
People should be judged on their positive accomplishments alone.
"Occam's Razor" is not a law which is fundamentally obeyed my nature. In fact, nature could end up showing itself to follow the complete opposite, having horribly complex causes for the most basic phenomenon.
"Occam's Razor" is nothing more than a rule of thumb used by some scientists. Adhere to closely to it, and you will only limit your enlightenment.
QNX has been around for years, not months.
Actually, they purchased Q-DOS, which stands are Quick and Dirty Operating System. You said it was "QD-DOS", which I am pretty sure is incorrect.
The joke is that the original version of MS-DOS was exactly the same as Q-DOS, with all references to "Q-DOS" replaced by "MS-DOS".
I bet the Smalltalkers (and other OO-developers) are either laughing or crying at the absurdity of a company patenting Object-Oriented patterns, such as the Model-View-Controller pattern, which is commonly used for this specific type of GUI theming.
The poster was making an analogy between MP3 and MP4, with regards to its use by the internet community. Trading music became really popular with the popularity of MP3, and trading movies has become very popular with the advent of MP4 aka DivX.
Thats another thing. Why don't people refer to DivX as MP4? It would make for less confusion.