I hope by "states" you mean nation-states or countries, because the last time I checked Canada wasn't a state. Although I'm afraid to think about what'll happen to Alberta once you guys really start running out of oil...
Since when did people become "resources". "We're going to need some more resources assigned to this problem." We're people dammit, not tables and chairs!
I'm very familiar with this phenomenon. It happens to me at least once a day. Even on a cloudy day if I look toward a bright spot in the sky I can make myself sneeze. It's especially easy if I'm going from inside to outside. I've even had it happen from very bright artificial light.
Well, today was my last day with a company that I've been with for 4.5 years. Before that I was with a startup for about 1.5 years. I'm 25. I've known since I was around 7 or so that I wanted to get into programming. The startup company was a fluke, but it was a trial-by-fire introduction into the corporate world or wheeling and dealing and on-the-spot, impress-the-possible-investor situations. Since then I've worked for 4.5 years with a services company, starting out installing hardware, and moving on up through every facet of large corporate network management and administration. Software solutions, large-scale migrations, etc. I've always know that I want to get into programming, so why have I been doing these other jobs? I think most people get sidetracked by their impatience. They want to start coding now! I want a long, rewarding career. I didn't want to code for 80 hours a week and be burned out by the time I turned 25. Instead I've built up a lot of experience in how IT works in large companies. Now that I'm starting a programming job on Monday I have years of experience to know how program requirements and design choices will actually affect the people that use the programs. I know that the last 4.5 years will not get me a programming job but they will show that I know how to function in a large corporate environment. I think that is something that a lot of IT people don't realize. A valuable programmer is one that understands how the business works, not one that is stuck in a closet somewhere coding inside a black box and trying to make everyone conform to his data structures.
If you take a long-term approach to your career you can avoid getting caught up in the "now! now! now!" attitude. Take some time to think about the skills and experience that will help you down the road. And it's not learning a new scripting language, it's understanding how to add value to a business.
I remember rendering the included Chess scene on a 386DX33 and it took almot 72 hours at the resolution and quality that we selected. Later, when my parents bought a spiffy brand-new Pentium 100 it took 15 minutes!
Does anyone else remember POV smacking them in the head with Moore's Law?
I'd have to say that The Family Guy is funnier than the Simpsons or Futurama right now. It is fresher in every way, animation, humour, pop-culture ripping, relentless cynicism. Doesn't anyone else agree?
I can understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree that the only real AI research is in machine learning. For example, is Cyc considered AI? After all it is taught ('programmed') all that it knows by people. Even hardware/software that learns is initially designed and/or programmed with some sort of basic structure. I don't see a big difference here. Is it a matter of degree? For example, if I could tell Honda's Asimo, "Go down to the corner, and buy me a newspaper." and have it figure out the rest (using GPS to determine where it is, etc, etc). Does that make it more AI than if I just tell it to go upstairs? Or is learning the important part? So that perhaps if we gave the robot an empty neural net and then trained it on how to not fall over, instead of giving it some pre-determined "not-falling-over" program, perhaps that would be closer to your idea of AI?
No worries about flaming, I've been online long enough...
I posted the links because the article talked about robotics (i.e., Cog, Lego Mindstorms). I'm not sure who is the judge of what is and is not AI, but apparently these Honda robots do have a large amount of autonomous behaviour. From what I've read and the movies I've watched they can walk up and down stairs, stand on one leg, and correct their balance when pushed, all without any specific, step-by-step instructions. These sort of basic systems seem like an important part of android functionality. If we can consider expert systems with fuzzy logic, or natural language processing (very far removed from the grand questions of consciousness) as research in AI then surely we can include implementing basic bodily and environmental feedback systems.
I'm not commenting on the ideas presented in the article, just dispelling one of the hundred daily pieces of FUD we are all used to seeing (from all sides of every issue). Cringely says, "The only e-mail activity on my PC should be initiated by me, personally. Nothing else should access my address book or send out messages without my express permission. Microsoft will of course reject the idea, mostly because it will fail the "increase market share litmus test." My answer is, "Microsoft, if you do not take responsibility for locking down your APIs, it will become obvious to the public and become a detriment to your market share." I'm pretty sure that the default behaviour of Outlook 2000 (and I assume XP) is to prompt the user for confirmation if another application tries to use the APIs to send email. At least this has been my experience when trying to use a VB app I developed that sends email messages as part of the workflow process. Every time it tries to send an email Outlook asks me if I want to allow it and for how long (up to 10 minutes). Even saying yes to this dialog I still have to confirm it every time the application tries to send an email. Of course this brings up another question, how do we register (presumably securely) legitimate applications to have access to the required APIs? Anyways, this is MS-centric, but still food for thought.
I think the important part of that is: "as a tribute to the early days of CFNY". I believe that CFNY is owned by the same company that owns Q107 and Y95. They have become just another homogenized hit-selling company. If you want to hear real quality, non-corporate radio there is always the fantastic CBC, or tune into any local college or university station (check out 93.3 or 101.5 if you're near Hamilton, I can't remember the UofT station). 93.3 also streams online at http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca/.
Most places still run IIS 4 on NT 4.0, either because of proven stability, laziness, compatibility issues, or sheer inertia (which I guess could also be laziness.) Still a hell of a lot of servers, though.
This is certainly the case where I work. See, with load-balancing, and extreme over-provisioning (or maybe recognition that MS solutions consume hardware at a rate aproaching 8-sideways), we have probably nearly 100 NT servers now. With the recent economic downturn, it is pretty much a given that we will be sticking with the status-quo for probably the remainder of the year. That means running servers with NT 4.0 SP 6a (since apparently SP7 is only available in orbit), with the associated software (IIS 4, etc).
I lost many many hours to this fine game. Now as I learn more about astronomy I'm constantly reminded of this game. Looking at any list of the nearest stars makes me remember all of the ports that were easily accessible. I'm working from memory here, but this game let you zoom from a full galactic view all the way down to individual planets. Pretty impressive to see on my 386SX/16.
I'm burning karma faster than a mir on re-entry, but I just had to say that I'm glad that some object, process, or idea has been given my name. You wouldn't believe the newspaper clippings I've collected about this whole "chad" fiasco. The political cartoons ("Dance of Satan's Chads", "Chad for brains") have been very self-affirming. Not-to-mention the wonderful phrases like "swinging-door chad" or "pregnant chad". My name has been embedded in the consciousness of America forever. I can laugh at this even more because I'm Canadian and we always get a kick out of laughing at you silly people south of us.
Chad.
Weee! Bring it on. I have enough karma in real life that I will gladly donate some of the electronic variety.
Looks like you've taken the first step. Getting a link on Slashdot. Now all you've got to do is sit back and watch the gravy train come in (or watch your servers buckle under the load)! 8^)
Admin1: "uh, Dood ? Where's my server?"
Admin2: "dood..like...wheres your server?"
Admin1: "DOOD...Wheres my server?"
Admin2: "Man..where is your server ?"
(Apologizes to the people from "Dude, Where's my car?")
I don't think you need to apologize to the people from "Dude, Where's My Car?". I think they need to apologize to us...
I don't know about you but I lose a little respect for people that insult their audience. I guess we're all stupid enough to give him our money but not smart enough to understand that it's fiction?
On my camping trip last summer I stopped at Science North in Sudbury where this detector lives. They had an exhibit showing the special rail car that was made to take Stephen Hawking down to the SNO for the "grand opening" or some such ceremony. It was a custom made enclosed steel car and wouldn't you know it, I can't find a picture of it anywhere on the Internet. It is at least mentioned here.
Slashdot Mirror
>Searched the web for Office.
>Results 1 - 10 of about 78,600,000. Search took 0.10 seconds.
>Start sending the letters!
Hey, at $400 a copy that's $31,440,000,000 in lost revenues! Damn pirates...
I've always enjoyed Greg Egan's's stories. They often deal with bizarre post-Singularity-type themes.
Does anyone else think it's sad that we've got a Perl story on Slashdot and the souce is a Yahoo! page?
operations in 19 states, including Canada
I hope by "states" you mean nation-states or countries, because the last time I checked Canada wasn't a state. Although I'm afraid to think about what'll happen to Alberta once you guys really start running out of oil...
Since when did people become "resources". "We're going to need some more resources assigned to this problem." We're people dammit, not tables and chairs!
I'm very familiar with this phenomenon. It happens to me at least once a day. Even on a cloudy day if I look toward a bright spot in the sky I can make myself sneeze. It's especially easy if I'm going from inside to outside. I've even had it happen from very bright artificial light.
How many other people experience this?
If you take a long-term approach to your career you can avoid getting caught up in the "now! now! now!" attitude. Take some time to think about the skills and experience that will help you down the road. And it's not learning a new scripting language, it's understanding how to add value to a business.
My two cents anyways...
I remember rendering the included Chess scene on a 386DX33 and it took almot 72 hours at the resolution and quality that we selected. Later, when my parents bought a spiffy brand-new Pentium 100 it took 15 minutes!
Does anyone else remember POV smacking them in the head with Moore's Law?
My first computer was a bucket full of rocks. You should have seen how excited I was when we got the expansion bucket!
I'd have to say that The Family Guy is funnier than the Simpsons or Futurama right now. It is fresher in every way, animation, humour, pop-culture ripping, relentless cynicism. Doesn't anyone else agree?
No worries about flaming, I've been online long enough...
My two cents anyways...
I couldn't help but wonder if these 9" x 2" vacuum tubes were compensating for feelings of inadequacy...
This is certainly the case where I work. See, with load-balancing, and extreme over-provisioning (or maybe recognition that MS solutions consume hardware at a rate aproaching 8-sideways), we have probably nearly 100 NT servers now. With the recent economic downturn, it is pretty much a given that we will be sticking with the status-quo for probably the remainder of the year. That means running servers with NT 4.0 SP 6a (since apparently SP7 is only available in orbit), with the associated software (IIS 4, etc).
Ah well, it makes life interesting at least. 8^)
I lost many many hours to this fine game. Now as I learn more about astronomy I'm constantly reminded of this game. Looking at any list of the nearest stars makes me remember all of the ports that were easily accessible. I'm working from memory here, but this game let you zoom from a full galactic view all the way down to individual planets. Pretty impressive to see on my 386SX/16.
Chad.
Weee! Bring it on. I have enough karma in real life that I will gladly donate some of the electronic variety.
Admin2: "dood..like...wheres your server?"
Admin1: "DOOD...Wheres my server?"
Admin2: "Man..where is your server ?"
(Apologizes to the people from "Dude, Where's my car?")
I don't think you need to apologize to the people from "Dude, Where's My Car?". I think they need to apologize to us...
Would it still be called a peak if they didn't collapse shortly afterward?