s/Linux server/Windows desktops/ and vice versa and the same applies to John Doe Windows user.
So why is everyone complaining about Windows but eager to defend such a similar situation in Linux server land?
Wasn't it the OS we blamed on the Windows side? Maybe some answers lie in the interface with which Linux kernels have to be updated on a system, next to just pressing 'install' at windows update?
Assembly languages have been in my CS curriculum's first year (Delft, Netherlands) for years. It was PDP-11 assembler when I started but got changed (fortunately) into PowerPC assembler in '98 orso.
It is used to show the students the inner workings of a computer rather than really teach them the full power of PowerPC assembler, since knowing any assembler language itself is rarely needed in real life.
The inner workings of other programming languages when translated into assembler (function calls, stack, etc) are covered in the second year.
I used to live in a tent, but since i moved to the big city i now have to pay for the locks on the door and shared hallways!
Where my friends could before just walk in, I now am required to spend money making *keys*.
I used to have a bear guard my domain, which could tell friend from foe. But the city leaves me no choice and pay for locks and keys i don't want or need. I can't help other people don't have bears in this city.
I'd laugh so hard if the spammer would sue spamvrij.nl for that. ("they opened all my fanmail!!").
Like they'd stand a chance in court. Even if they'd win, they probably would get nothing more than apologies and their mail from spamvrij.nl. Oh and their face on TV as a notorious spammer.
the choice offered and its arguments are indeed weird:
a) it is a false choice: maybe there exist more options? while we're into the wild options: the existence of God for instance? b) option (1) cannot be dismissed easily: even if the chance of us existing is very small, it is >0 nontheless, and we exist, so it happened. If it didn't happen, we weren't here to question it. Also, the universe as we perceive it is very big, so even a small chance occuring isn't that amazing. c) option (3): can computers as we know it really simulate a human mind, consiousness and all? neural nets seem to be promising for acting like humans given enough CPU power, but if they ever gain consiousness is a very questionable assumption.
isn't your privacy already compromised by the recorded electronic transactions (PIN etc), security camera's about *everywhere*, etc?
The government *already* knows where you spend your money:)
quite possibly, many banknote transactions won't be recorded (markets, smaller shops, etc) nor will a recorded banknote transaction be tied to a person, but to a note.
the NP-hardness and NP-completeness is only defined when you modify the game rules:
* all pieces and their order are known in advance * only a limited number of pieces will fall.. but those rules ain't the ones of your normal Tetris game, in which you only know the next piece and can expect an infinite number of pieces.
So if you write a computer program to play "normal" Tetris, you aren't bothered by those findings since they apply to a game with different rules.
The thing you have to worry about is statistics (where to drop this piece to have the highest chance of winning). And assuming all forms of pieces have a constant chance of appearing, the computer program can probibly aim for some standard structures which have maximum chance.
It still might be NP-hard to do the best move given all the statistics, I don't know. But that doesn't mean it's hard to approximate.. NP-hard doesn't mean hopeless:)
Ofcourse, even numbers are skipped immediately. But as for the rest.. Computers use binary instead of decimals. So for a computer, numbers only end in 1 or 0.
But fortunately, in august last year, scientists from India found a way to test if a number is prime in a really (mathematically speaking) fast way (**). Still, before applying the algorithm they found, it is probably still even faster to first try a couple of frequently occuring cases (dividebility by 2, 3, 5, etc; the computer won't count digits, it will just skip every 2nd, 3rd and 5th number it tries).
Making lookup tables, like other posters already noted, is useless since they would be astronomically huge (between 1 and 2^2048, there are approximately 10^613 primes!(*) if you had every atom in the universe to store them on, you need to store 10^533 primes on each one!).
Besides, a lookup table of previous primes isn't needed. Once you decide the number x is a product of 2 (previous) numbers, you've already found x isn't prime, no matter of the 2 numbers it consists of were prime.
(*) according to Gauss, the number of primes less than x is appoximately x/ln(x).
(**) in O(ln(n)^12). for math/cs people, here is an article with a reference to the paper. (***)
(***) beware, prime testing isn't factorizing. so you can't use this algorithm on the key and get which factors it's made out of; you'll only get the knowledge that it ain't prime (which we already knew).
The question raised is if human intelligence is of the same/kind/ as computer intelligence. I.e. if we build a computer big enough, will it only better *mimic* a human, or will it actually gain understanding about what it's doing? Without understanding, a human can eventually spot the entity as being a computer.
It's like the Chinese Chamber experiment.. you lock an english/chinese translator in a room, and hand him pieces of chinese. He translates them into english.
Now suppose you put a person in that room who doesn't know a thing about either chinese OR english. You give him/all/ relevant material though to make a translation (if you see this, write this, etc). The guy (can) give output of the same quality of that of the real translator. But does he have any clue about what's going on? No. He only replaces a serie of chinese symbols by english (roman) symbols.
The same can be said about machines. They can be made to give the same output on the same input compared to a human being, more and more. But will it ever have a clue or even self-awareness so we can actually create a human being?
Or, in this case, how far do we have to go to fool others into thinking it is a human?
Indeed. Theoretically, they should all do implement the same thing, but in practice, one writes DHTML and tests it in Mozilla AND IE5, only to have customers using IE5.5 complain that it doesn't work (ofcourse they blame you, not IE).
Therefor, keeping your page the same with any IE5+ version and any Mozilla version is just a hell in practice, if not impossible.
$15-20? hmm.. out here in Holland, we have to pay like $20-30, even for popular artists which one would think sell alot and are thus cheaper to produce:).
You only prove my point:) I was only pointing out that there are differences in opinion about free speech. The ruling should be seen in context of the Dutch ideas about it, that's why I gave them; I'm not advocating or enforcing them, even though you feel cornered by them.
There is no need to call us would-be tyrants or fools. Both labelling and discrediting dutchies off-topic (euthanasia, and i've seen drugs and sex too in other threads) are not a proper way to have a discussion, or to prove your point.
well, softdrugs don't kill. guns do (damn right; i rather have a sick fuck walking around stoned with a knife than one walking around with a BFG9000 he bought around the corner).
and making being a prostitute a legal profession allows us to get them pay taxes like everyone else, as well as being able to make a difference between illegal immigrants and legal citizens doing that profession.
and yeah i don't like hyperlinks to basically http://terrorism-howto/howto-derange-german-trains . tml, and i can imagine the german railways like it even less. basically, what's the difference on the web between linking to something and mirroring it? you both provide the user means to aquire information which tells you how to (possibly) kill alot of people.
8. [...] Because Indymedia allows users visiting her website to place information on the internet, she is, like an ISP, but also like a daily newspaper, responsible for the through her means placed publications, be it with limitations inherent to the medium. Because Indymedia knows that some of the links placed on her website lead to the illegal articles, she should have taken countermeasures to prevent the spreading of the illegal information. It doesn't matter if Indymedia, being a press medium, actually claims ownership of the information. The question of which type of hyperlinking was used is irrelevant. The point is Indymedia makes it technologically possible to reach the information. It is also irrelevant that happened indirectly. Also because the site asked users to visit the illegal articles and contained explicit instructions on how to reach them. The fact that the illegal articles will remain on the web even if Indymedia removes her links, doesn't take away the illegal acts of Indymedia. Allowing hyperlinks isn't the issue here. It is about the information one links to. Furthermore, Indymedia said they couldn't remove the links, but do, on their site, claim to be able to remove articles about 'stolen software and fascistic content'.
9. Because the two Radikal-articles are offending to the Deutsche Bahn and can be dangerous for people and objects, the ruling to have Indymedia remove the hyperlinks and thereby making it impossible to reach the articles, is not violating the freedom of speech or freedom of press.
So because once Indymedia knew the links were on it's site, and the links came with instructions on how to reach the articles, which can create life-threatening situations for the DB railroad people, it was in error. Because of the nature of the articles, it can be enforced to remove the links. And also note that the instructions are important. Merely removing the a-href-tag around the URL won't make it legal.
Also note that here in the Netherlands we think differently about freedom of speech (and press) than the US. While Americans are keen on absolute freedom, we dutch put a couple of restrictions on things, like racism and discrimination ofcourse, but also like bringing people to commit violence (like the articles in question).
User: "Ofcourse! Everyone knows hackers get in through security holes. Everyone knows these are present in software you buy (our IT expert told me this; he reads IT news sites you know). So if someone hacks the system, it isn't/my/ fault. I haven't even touched a setting!"
Isn't it proven that it is impossible to solve the halting problem?
Checking if a program won't hang (hanging is a form of bad code, IMHO) does just that.
If you can define a model of computation for which this doesn't apply, but which can carry out any algorithmic process, you are probably a millionaire.
So, "forcing good code" is an illusion for the time being.
Slashdot Mirror
s/Linux server/Windows desktops/ and vice versa and the same applies to John Doe Windows user.
So why is everyone complaining about Windows but eager to defend such a similar situation in Linux server land?
Wasn't it the OS we blamed on the Windows side? Maybe some answers lie in the interface with which Linux kernels have to be updated on a system, next to just pressing 'install' at windows update?
Assembly languages have been in my CS curriculum's first year (Delft, Netherlands) for years. It was PDP-11 assembler when I started but got changed (fortunately) into PowerPC assembler in '98 orso.
It is used to show the students the inner workings of a computer rather than really teach them the full power of PowerPC assembler, since knowing any assembler language itself is rarely needed in real life.
The inner workings of other programming languages when translated into assembler (function calls, stack, etc) are covered in the second year.
Saboteur comes from the french, not the dutch.
I like my weed, whores, whiskey and WMA's legal but guns banned, thank you :)
Greetings from Holland.
It is indeed impossible in general to optimize code 100% (even on known input) because it would solve the halting problem, which is impossible.
well from here in Holland i read "May 11th", since we use dd/mm/yy notation :P
I used to live in a tent, but since i moved to the big city i now have to pay for the locks on the door and shared hallways!
Where my friends could before just walk in, I now am required to spend money making *keys*.
I used to have a bear guard my domain, which could tell friend from foe. But the city leaves me no choice and pay for locks and keys i don't want or need. I can't help other people don't have bears in this city.
You can try and sue SCO over defamation or damaged business in Europe but it won't give you big bucks like it would in the US.
Europe doesn't have this weird culture of sueing for redicilous amounts for stuff for which no pricetag can be supported by solid and sane arguments.
First prove how much you've lost and that it's SCO's fault. *Then* you *might* see some of it back.
I do not hope Europe opens the same doors the US has and copy an insane sueing culture.
I'd laugh so hard if the spammer would sue spamvrij.nl for that. ("they opened all my fanmail!!").
Like they'd stand a chance in court. Even if they'd win, they probably would get nothing more than apologies and their mail from spamvrij.nl. Oh and their face on TV as a notorious spammer.
I'm curious how argument would go for countries which have banned guns, as in, most countries on this globe :)
Should we ban P2P, or does the context-free analogy only work where guns are legal?
The very idea of well-educated and non-poor foreigners being actually against the USA and what it stands is probably unbearable?
the choice offered and its arguments are indeed weird:
a) it is a false choice: maybe there exist more options? while we're into the wild options: the existence of God for instance?
b) option (1) cannot be dismissed easily: even if the chance of us existing is very small, it is >0 nontheless, and we exist, so it happened. If it didn't happen, we weren't here to question it. Also, the universe as we perceive it is very big, so even a small chance occuring isn't that amazing.
c) option (3): can computers as we know it really simulate a human mind, consiousness and all? neural nets seem to be promising for acting like humans given enough CPU power, but if they ever gain consiousness is a very questionable assumption.
isn't your privacy already compromised by the recorded electronic transactions (PIN etc), security camera's about *everywhere*, etc?
:)
The government *already* knows where you spend your money
quite possibly, many banknote transactions won't be recorded (markets, smaller shops, etc) nor will a recorded banknote transaction be tied to a person, but to a note.
so which OS-es do they run? since one would expect diversity there as well then..
quite true!
.. but those rules ain't the ones of your normal Tetris game, in which you only know the next piece and can expect an infinite number of pieces.
:)
the NP-hardness and NP-completeness is only defined when you modify the game rules:
* all pieces and their order are known in advance
* only a limited number of pieces will fall
So if you write a computer program to play "normal" Tetris, you aren't bothered by those findings since they apply to a game with different rules.
The thing you have to worry about is statistics (where to drop this piece to have the highest chance of winning). And assuming all forms of pieces have a constant chance of appearing, the computer program can probibly aim for some standard structures which have maximum chance.
It still might be NP-hard to do the best move given all the statistics, I don't know. But that doesn't mean it's hard to approximate.. NP-hard doesn't mean hopeless
Ofcourse, even numbers are skipped immediately. But as for the rest.. Computers use binary instead of decimals. So for a computer, numbers only end in 1 or 0.
But fortunately, in august last year, scientists from India found a way to test if a number is prime in a really (mathematically speaking) fast way (**). Still, before applying the algorithm they found, it is probably still even faster to first try a couple of frequently occuring cases (dividebility by 2, 3, 5, etc; the computer won't count digits, it will just skip every 2nd, 3rd and 5th number it tries).
Making lookup tables, like other posters already noted, is useless since they would be astronomically huge (between 1 and 2^2048, there are approximately 10^613 primes!(*) if you had every atom in the universe to store them on, you need to store 10^533 primes on each one!).
Besides, a lookup table of previous primes isn't needed. Once you decide the number x is a product of 2 (previous) numbers, you've already found x isn't prime, no matter of the 2 numbers it consists of were prime.
(*) according to Gauss, the number of primes less than x is appoximately x/ln(x).
(**) in O(ln(n)^12). for math/cs people, here is an article with a reference to the paper. (***)
(***) beware, prime testing isn't factorizing. so you can't use this algorithm on the key and get which factors it's made out of; you'll only get the knowledge that it ain't prime (which we already knew).
The question raised is if human intelligence is of the same /kind/ as computer intelligence. I.e. if we build a computer big enough, will it only better *mimic* a human, or will it actually gain understanding about what it's doing? Without understanding, a human can eventually spot the entity as being a computer.
/all/ relevant material though to make a translation (if you see this, write this, etc). The guy (can) give output of the same quality of that of the real translator. But does he have any clue about what's going on? No. He only replaces a serie of chinese symbols by english (roman) symbols.
It's like the Chinese Chamber experiment.. you lock an english/chinese translator in a room, and hand him pieces of chinese. He translates them into english.
Now suppose you put a person in that room who doesn't know a thing about either chinese OR english. You give him
The same can be said about machines. They can be made to give the same output on the same input compared to a human being, more and more. But will it ever have a clue or even self-awareness so we can actually create a human being?
Or, in this case, how far do we have to go to fool others into thinking it is a human?
Indeed. Theoretically, they should all do implement the same thing, but in practice, one writes DHTML and tests it in Mozilla AND IE5, only to have customers using IE5.5 complain that it doesn't work (ofcourse they blame you, not IE).
Therefor, keeping your page the same with any IE5+ version and any Mozilla version is just a hell in practice, if not impossible.
$15-20? hmm.. out here in Holland, we have to pay like $20-30, even for popular artists which one would think sell alot and are thus cheaper to produce :).
can't we just wait for china to make a GPL-ed clone of an intel-pc?
You only prove my point :) I was only pointing out that there are differences in opinion about free speech. The ruling should be seen in context of the Dutch ideas about it, that's why I gave them; I'm not advocating or enforcing them, even though you feel cornered by them.
There is no need to call us would-be tyrants or fools. Both labelling and discrediting dutchies off-topic (euthanasia, and i've seen drugs and sex too in other threads) are not a proper way to have a discussion, or to prove your point.
well, softdrugs don't kill. guns do (damn right; i rather have a sick fuck walking around stoned with a knife than one walking around with a BFG9000 he bought around the corner).
s . tml, and i can imagine the german railways like it even less. basically, what's the difference on the web between linking to something and mirroring it? you both provide the user means to aquire information which tells you how to (possibly) kill alot of people.
and making being a prostitute a legal profession allows us to get them pay taxes like everyone else, as well as being able to make a difference between illegal immigrants and legal citizens doing that profession.
and yeah i don't like hyperlinks to basically http://terrorism-howto/howto-derange-german-train
Here are some pieces of the ruling, (loosily) translated from this version in dutch.:
:))
8. [...] Because Indymedia allows users visiting her website to place information on the internet, she is, like an ISP, but also like a daily newspaper, responsible for the through her means placed publications, be it with limitations inherent to the medium. Because Indymedia knows that some of the links placed on her website lead to the illegal articles, she should have taken countermeasures to prevent the spreading of the illegal information. It doesn't matter if Indymedia, being a press medium, actually claims ownership of the information. The question of which type of hyperlinking was used is irrelevant. The point is Indymedia makes it technologically possible to reach the information. It is also irrelevant that happened indirectly. Also because the site asked users to visit the illegal articles and contained explicit instructions on how to reach them. The fact that the illegal articles will remain on the web even if Indymedia removes her links, doesn't take away the illegal acts of Indymedia. Allowing hyperlinks isn't the issue here. It is about the information one links to. Furthermore, Indymedia said they couldn't remove the links, but do, on their site, claim to be able to remove articles about 'stolen software and fascistic content'.
9. Because the two Radikal-articles are offending to the Deutsche Bahn and can be dangerous for people and objects, the ruling to have Indymedia remove the hyperlinks and thereby making it impossible to reach the articles, is not violating the freedom of speech or freedom of press.
So because once Indymedia knew the links were on it's site, and the links came with instructions on how to reach the articles, which can create life-threatening situations for the DB railroad people, it was in error. Because of the nature of the articles, it can be enforced to remove the links. And also note that the instructions are important. Merely removing the a-href-tag around the URL won't make it legal.
Also note that here in the Netherlands we think differently about freedom of speech (and press) than the US. While Americans are keen on absolute freedom, we dutch put a couple of restrictions on things, like racism and discrimination ofcourse, but also like bringing people to commit violence (like the articles in question).
(I hope my translation isn't too crappy
User: "Ofcourse! Everyone knows hackers get in through security holes. Everyone knows these are present in software you buy (our IT expert told me this; he reads IT news sites you know). So if someone hacks the system, it isn't /my/ fault. I haven't even touched a setting!"
Isn't it proven that it is impossible to solve the halting problem?
Checking if a program won't hang (hanging is a form of bad code, IMHO) does just that.
If you can define a model of computation for which this doesn't apply, but which can carry out any algorithmic process, you are probably a millionaire.
So, "forcing good code" is an illusion for the time being.