In terms of processor cycles, it takes a LONG time to type any kind of command for the computer to execute. It doesn't mind, it just spins happily, waiting for the end of our slow key presses.
Just as we can interpret input that comes in the form of visual cues, speech, or written words, any future AI is likely to have all of these capabilities as well. And that AI, being built by humans, is going to be well-adapted to human speed. Why would we make AI that was NOT suited to interaction with humans?
Great point. Interestingly, speech recognition is also a massive undertaking for the human brain, we just don't notice, because our brains don't have just one processor, or even eight or sixteen cores, but millions of neurons processing audio data at the same time. It's going to take a while before inexpensive computers can match that kind of processing power.
This assumes that Apple engineers are smart enough to do this intentionally. I suspect the problem is more due to incompetence than evil intent.
Domain registrars are another story. If you've tried lately to renew a domain name registration even with Network Solutions, the original registrar, you'll find it really, really difficult to just renew, without buying some additional service you didn't want. And once you do, good luck trying to get your money back!
"Somehow" makes it sound mysterious and inexplicable. I'd be willing to bet that the truth is far less sensational. I could see a student tech assistant doing something like this on a dare, or a low-skilled admin just clicking OK one too many times, without actually reading the warning message.
You didn't say what industry you were describing. In every industry, experience generally leads towards higher productivity. But in software development, experience often leads to productivity that is orders of magnitude higher. A competent older software engineer can run circles around a younger worker, even if that younger worker puts in lots of hours.
The Idaho stop law just recognizes the actual behavior of bicyclists. This is what all traffic laws are supposed to do anyway. Speed limits, for example, are in most states required to be set according to how fast motorists actually drive.
The only places I've ever seen bicyclists obey stop signs or lights, are in very busy intersections, where they would be crazy to flout the signals. But I admit, when I'm riding my bike around the neighborhood, I don't stop for any stop signs, and you probably don't either.
No doubt. So why didn't YOU take steps to prevent the Heartbleed vulnerability? The same reason everybody else didn't: time. Finding bugs takes time. Sure, you can automate, but that automation also takes time. So we are caught between two desires: 1) the desire to add or improve functionality, and 2) the desire to avoid vulnerabilities. The two desires compete for the amount of time that is available, so it becomes a trade-off.
It's also an arms race. There is real financial incentive for finding vulnerabilities that can be exploited, far more incentive than there is for software authors to prevent exploitation.
Given that it's not FUN to find vulnerabilities, unless you are the guy trying to exploit it, there are always going to be vulnerabilities.
Of course, we should find ways to improve quality control in open source software. But the next Heartblee is going to happen. It's like asking, "How can we prevent crime from happening?" Sure, you can and should take measures to prevent it, but there will always be unexpected loopholes in software, that allow unwanted access.
Anyone who thinks their Internet activity is private...is deluding themselves. If the NSA couldn't keep their activities private, what makes you think YOU can?
As I moved from programmer to team lead to manager to director, I had to delegate more and more of my technical responsibilities to others. As an accomplished programmer, I missed many of my old duties, in which I had excelled. But along the way, I realized that my real value to the company was no longer in the code I could personally write, but in my ability to build a team and help them be successful. I still write code for fun at home, but on the job, I have learned to let others do the hands-on work, even if I KNOW I could do it 5 times faster. I learned that it's less about getting today's programming done quickly, as it is about mentoring others to be able to do it for themselves.
I think the same principles apply to IT, or just about any other profession.
The story of the conversation with the Postmaster General sounds...made up. Oh, I believe that USPS didn't want anything to do with digitizing snail mail. But why would the Postmaster General take this guy as a serious threat? All the USPS had to do was ignore the upstart with an unworkable business plan and wait for it to go away.
Consider: Would snail mail marketers really want a crummy looking photocopy of the original advertising? No way! And documents like bills and agreements were already going totally digital anyway. At the time, money was still hard to send digitally, but banks (at the time) wouldn't have wanted original checks delivered as lousy photocopies.
So USPS didn't buy the plan. The founder of this company couldn't accept failure, so he looked for someone to blame.
Uncle Sam has seen fit to stipulate that all full-time employees must be provided benefits such as health insurance. Full-time is defined as "over 30 hours per week." So guess what? Companies that hire low wage workers limit their hours to less than 30 per week. So now they are WORSE off than they would have been without the law, because they can't make more money by working more hours!
In my 25 years working in IT, none of my passwords, weak or strong, have ever been hacked. Even my teenage sons, who have no idea about password strength, or site security, have never been hacked. And I doubt YOU can point to a single instance of someone hacking YOUR password.
Does password hacking happen? Yes, of course. Should we be careful? Yes. But there are much greater dangers, such as malware (which you no doubt HAVE had a personal brush with).
So if we need to put up with annoying security measures, let's at least focus on the more relevant dangers, rather than forcing us all write down our passwords and stick them to the bottom of our keyboards!
If software were a closed system, you might be able to argue that the number of bugs is finite. But it's not.
For example, if you know what you are doing, you can write code that is immune from SQL injection attacks...today. But SQL will change, and it is possible that in the future, SQL will add a feature, or experience a change, that will introduce a bug into your software that will make it once again possible to inject SQL, using an entirely new approach.
Given the complexity of the interactions between various systems within the computer, and the software being designed, there really IS an infinite potential for bugs.
The author argues that it's taking longer for physicists to receive Nobel Prizes. Maybe it's the Nobel Prize process that's slowing down! Maybe the Nobel Prize committee no longer knows what they are looking for! Maybe the Nobel Prize committee is hamstrung by political correctness. Whatever the reason, how does the length of time it takes to award a Nobel Prize, have anything to do with the actual progress of science???
Scary diseases aren't limited to undiscovered tribes. We have flesh-eating bacteria in the U.S. If you are looking for the sky to fall, you don't have to go to South America. In other words, you might be right, but even if we stayed away from these tribes, we wouldn't necessarily be safer.
How about a third option: alive and part of modern society! It is not an either-or proposition. The thing to do here is figure out what is killing them, and find solutions!
Unfiltered information might make people think, but it certainly doesn't make them smarter. If you have done Google searches for things like conspiracies, alternative medicine, paranormal phenomena, etc., you will find that there is a lot of absolute idiocy out there on that unfiltered Internet.
When it comes to God, only one of the two groups is right: those who believe in God, or those who don't. Neither side seems to me to be doing a lot of THINKING these days, but a whole lot more accusing and finger-pointing.
The people who invented TCP/IP weren't even thinking about security. The network they imagined was one that went between a few buildings on the same campus. Nobody dreamed of the need for security at that point, any more than Alexander Graham Bell was thinking about voice security when he invented the telephone.
Slashdot Mirror
In terms of processor cycles, it takes a LONG time to type any kind of command for the computer to execute. It doesn't mind, it just spins happily, waiting for the end of our slow key presses.
Just as we can interpret input that comes in the form of visual cues, speech, or written words, any future AI is likely to have all of these capabilities as well. And that AI, being built by humans, is going to be well-adapted to human speed. Why would we make AI that was NOT suited to interaction with humans?
Great point. Interestingly, speech recognition is also a massive undertaking for the human brain, we just don't notice, because our brains don't have just one processor, or even eight or sixteen cores, but millions of neurons processing audio data at the same time. It's going to take a while before inexpensive computers can match that kind of processing power.
This assumes that Apple engineers are smart enough to do this intentionally. I suspect the problem is more due to incompetence than evil intent.
Domain registrars are another story. If you've tried lately to renew a domain name registration even with Network Solutions, the original registrar, you'll find it really, really difficult to just renew, without buying some additional service you didn't want. And once you do, good luck trying to get your money back!
"Somehow" makes it sound mysterious and inexplicable. I'd be willing to bet that the truth is far less sensational. I could see a student tech assistant doing something like this on a dare, or a low-skilled admin just clicking OK one too many times, without actually reading the warning message.
You didn't say what industry you were describing. In every industry, experience generally leads towards higher productivity. But in software development, experience often leads to productivity that is orders of magnitude higher. A competent older software engineer can run circles around a younger worker, even if that younger worker puts in lots of hours.
The Idaho stop law just recognizes the actual behavior of bicyclists. This is what all traffic laws are supposed to do anyway. Speed limits, for example, are in most states required to be set according to how fast motorists actually drive.
The only places I've ever seen bicyclists obey stop signs or lights, are in very busy intersections, where they would be crazy to flout the signals. But I admit, when I'm riding my bike around the neighborhood, I don't stop for any stop signs, and you probably don't either.
No doubt. So why didn't YOU take steps to prevent the Heartbleed vulnerability? The same reason everybody else didn't: time. Finding bugs takes time. Sure, you can automate, but that automation also takes time. So we are caught between two desires: 1) the desire to add or improve functionality, and 2) the desire to avoid vulnerabilities. The two desires compete for the amount of time that is available, so it becomes a trade-off.
It's also an arms race. There is real financial incentive for finding vulnerabilities that can be exploited, far more incentive than there is for software authors to prevent exploitation.
Given that it's not FUN to find vulnerabilities, unless you are the guy trying to exploit it, there are always going to be vulnerabilities.
Of course, we should find ways to improve quality control in open source software. But the next Heartblee is going to happen. It's like asking, "How can we prevent crime from happening?" Sure, you can and should take measures to prevent it, but there will always be unexpected loopholes in software, that allow unwanted access.
Anyone who thinks their Internet activity is private...is deluding themselves. If the NSA couldn't keep their activities private, what makes you think YOU can?
Maybe you should consider an Android tablet...Android already does this.
As I moved from programmer to team lead to manager to director, I had to delegate more and more of my technical responsibilities to others. As an accomplished programmer, I missed many of my old duties, in which I had excelled. But along the way, I realized that my real value to the company was no longer in the code I could personally write, but in my ability to build a team and help them be successful. I still write code for fun at home, but on the job, I have learned to let others do the hands-on work, even if I KNOW I could do it 5 times faster. I learned that it's less about getting today's programming done quickly, as it is about mentoring others to be able to do it for themselves.
I think the same principles apply to IT, or just about any other profession.
The story of the conversation with the Postmaster General sounds...made up. Oh, I believe that USPS didn't want anything to do with digitizing snail mail. But why would the Postmaster General take this guy as a serious threat? All the USPS had to do was ignore the upstart with an unworkable business plan and wait for it to go away.
Consider: Would snail mail marketers really want a crummy looking photocopy of the original advertising? No way! And documents like bills and agreements were already going totally digital anyway. At the time, money was still hard to send digitally, but banks (at the time) wouldn't have wanted original checks delivered as lousy photocopies.
So USPS didn't buy the plan. The founder of this company couldn't accept failure, so he looked for someone to blame.
Books are for grad students. Oh wait, you are one!
I hope you plan to become a teacher or professor...if you want to be a computer programmer, it's time to quit school and start working!
Clearly, what we need to do is pass a new law to make it illegal to stow away in a plane's wheel well!
This time, the price increase is less than 15%. The first time around, it was 100%. Big difference!
Uncle Sam has seen fit to stipulate that all full-time employees must be provided benefits such as health insurance. Full-time is defined as "over 30 hours per week." So guess what? Companies that hire low wage workers limit their hours to less than 30 per week. So now they are WORSE off than they would have been without the law, because they can't make more money by working more hours!
In my 25 years working in IT, none of my passwords, weak or strong, have ever been hacked. Even my teenage sons, who have no idea about password strength, or site security, have never been hacked. And I doubt YOU can point to a single instance of someone hacking YOUR password.
Does password hacking happen? Yes, of course. Should we be careful? Yes. But there are much greater dangers, such as malware (which you no doubt HAVE had a personal brush with).
So if we need to put up with annoying security measures, let's at least focus on the more relevant dangers, rather than forcing us all write down our passwords and stick them to the bottom of our keyboards!
Well, Oracle WAS dumb enough to take on the project in the first place!
Worse, that refrigerator and stove will be commandeered to send more spam!
If software were a closed system, you might be able to argue that the number of bugs is finite. But it's not.
For example, if you know what you are doing, you can write code that is immune from SQL injection attacks...today. But SQL will change, and it is possible that in the future, SQL will add a feature, or experience a change, that will introduce a bug into your software that will make it once again possible to inject SQL, using an entirely new approach.
Given the complexity of the interactions between various systems within the computer, and the software being designed, there really IS an infinite potential for bugs.
The author argues that it's taking longer for physicists to receive Nobel Prizes. Maybe it's the Nobel Prize process that's slowing down! Maybe the Nobel Prize committee no longer knows what they are looking for! Maybe the Nobel Prize committee is hamstrung by political correctness. Whatever the reason, how does the length of time it takes to award a Nobel Prize, have anything to do with the actual progress of science???
Scary diseases aren't limited to undiscovered tribes. We have flesh-eating bacteria in the U.S. If you are looking for the sky to fall, you don't have to go to South America. In other words, you might be right, but even if we stayed away from these tribes, we wouldn't necessarily be safer.
How about a third option: alive and part of modern society! It is not an either-or proposition. The thing to do here is figure out what is killing them, and find solutions!
Unfiltered information might make people think, but it certainly doesn't make them smarter. If you have done Google searches for things like conspiracies, alternative medicine, paranormal phenomena, etc., you will find that there is a lot of absolute idiocy out there on that unfiltered Internet.
When it comes to God, only one of the two groups is right: those who believe in God, or those who don't. Neither side seems to me to be doing a lot of THINKING these days, but a whole lot more accusing and finger-pointing.
The people who invented TCP/IP weren't even thinking about security. The network they imagined was one that went between a few buildings on the same campus. Nobody dreamed of the need for security at that point, any more than Alexander Graham Bell was thinking about voice security when he invented the telephone.