If a benchmark could be written that would accurately simulate real world applications, then I'd say let them optomize their hardware/drivers for it. If the benchmark is good enough, then any optomizations made for the benchmark should also cause a performance increase in your genuine applications. Of course, therein lies the trick. Can you make a benchmark that realistic?
I would disagree. In my opinion I owe you nothing, and there is nothing I'm required to do for you. I am free to live my life however I want and to run my company any way I see fit (within legal limits of course). You, on the other hand, have the right to decide whether or not you wish to associate with me or buy products from my company. You do not have the right to impose your will on either my life or my company based on your notions of "social resposibility".
Lemme see...so you are saying that this teacher sucks because her class assignments actually count for something, because she expects her students to be responsible enough to turn their assignments in on time, and because the subject matter was over your head? Dude, it's people exactly like you that changed my mind about becoming a teacher. Everybody bemoans the fact that there aren't enough good teachers in the world, and yet when a teacher tries to hold her students to a higher standard look how she gets treated. College should not be like high school, where students get to pass just so they can "feel good about themselves" or some crap like that. If you can't understand the material in a classroom, how the fsck do you expect to handle it in the real world? If your boss fires you because you blow a project, are you going to bitch that he's "unfairly" making every project count for too much?
Although I wouldn't be so cruel as to suggest lethal injection, a stiff slap upside the head might do you a bit of good.
Re-read the requirements. They're not asking for a complete battle ready exosuit, they're just asking for a machine that can do one or more of the following: 1) Allow the user to carry a heavy load. 2) Reduce the effort expended by a soldier on a long hike, thereby increasing endurance. 3) Allow a person to walk or run faster than normal. 4) Allow a person to lift a heavy object, or do strenuous work with reduced effort. 5) Jump higher and/or further than normal.
Things like armor, weapons, environmental controls, communications, etc., aren't required or requested. DARPA just wants a basic exoskeleton to augment the human body, with a braindead simple way to operate it. Development of the other systems will come later, they're just looking for a base platform to start with.
No, this isn't another GPL zealot screaming "Open-Source Everything!", I've actually got an interesting idea. Why not try an open source style community development project for something like this? I mean, how many hardware hackers here could figure out the electronics needed for this thing? How many programmers here could write the OS and a component style architecture to run it? How many engineers here could come up with efficient actuator designs or durable frames? If a system like this were developed and the military passed it over, then participants could count it as a hell of a learning experience. If the military actually accepted the design and paid out the US$50mil, then the funds could simply be divvied up among the various contributors or even donated to pre-agreed upon charities.
I don't have time to manage a project like this myself, but I would definitely contribute to such a project if somebody were willing to put it together (I've got a complete body cooling/heating system that I designed for a friend who races stock cars. It runs 6 hours on 4 D cell batteries and can maintain a skin temperature of 45F to 80F in a -20F to 130F environment).
Actually, I don't see how anybody's rights are trampled by the FBI simply looking into their activities. Let's look at the relevant parts of the two amendments you quoted here: abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
Hmmm, let say you wanted to stand on a street corner and shout about how the US gov needs to be overthrown and that Washington DC should be bombed. At that point, the FBI is probably going to look into your background to see if you have any ties to terrorist organizations, or if you're simply a wacko blowing off steam. How does this trample your first amendment rights? Now, if they physically dragged you downtown and grilled you for 18 hours I'd say it's pretty obvious that your rights have been trampled, but as long as they didn't interfere with your right to say it, the constitution hasn't been violated.
And now the fourth amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There's one key word in that amendment that makes everything the FBI does legal: Unreasonable. What is unreasonable? More importantly to this discussion, what is reasonable? Unreasonable is fairly obvious. If the FBI walks in your front door and starts looking for documents in your filing cabinets that connect you to Osama Bin Laden, then that's DEFINITELY unreasonable and they'd damned well better have a warrant. But what if they simply looked into the persons past? What if the FBI had suspicions that some Pakistani immigrant had terrorist ties? Would it be unreasonable for them to contact the Pakistani government and request a copy of his criminal record? IMO, the answer is no. That falls under the realm of reasonable. They have a suspicion (but not much else) that someone might be up to no good, so they try to collect some more information to either substantiate or repudiate those suspicions. I not only accept these types of actions by our government, but I'd consider them lax in their duties if they weren't doing it!
I guess it depends on the kind of world you really want to live in. If we were to prevent law enforcement from tracking suspicious people in this country, then we remove the only real tool law enforcement has to prevent terrorist and criminal activites before they happen. Do you REALLY want some guy to be able to fly here from Sudan, buy 1500 pounds of fertilizer, and blow up a building before the FBI can look into him? If you're saying that it's a violation of our rights to have the FBI look into potentially suspicious activities and people, then that's exactly what you're advocating. How important would that terrorists rights be to you if it was YOUR wife or daughter killed in that blast? I would MUCH rather live in a world where the FBI kept tabs on the guy and nailed him before he detonated the bomb. Unfortunately, this is only possible so long as law enforcement has the right to track people who may not have technically broken any laws.
I believe the spot were currently in is euphamistically called "between a rock and a hard place". There's no really happy way out, but our current situation is a heck of a lot better than the alternative.
Like it or not, the compiling of files on ordinary citizens is a neccesary evil in modern times. Look at this example: a guy walks into a ag supply store and buys a bunch of chemicals that could potentially be used to make a bomb. Realistically, there are only four possible uses for those chemicals. 1) fertilizing your garden 2)fertilizing your drugs 3) doing some type of chemical experiment or 4) making a bomb. Now, let's say that the store owner was a little suspicious of the guy (he acted "jumpy" or something), and took down his license plate to give to the FBI. I don't know about you, but IMO it's the FBI's duty to at least look at the guys background and see if he's got any potentially terrorist ties. If he does, they can put a tail on him and possibly stop a crime before it occurs. If he doesn't, then the info should just be filed. Either way, law-abiding citizen or not, this guy just acquired himself his very own FBI file. Now, if a bomb made up of those chemicals goes off six months later, the FBI will already have a record of this guy buying those chemicals and he can be listed as a potential suspect. If nothing ever happens, the worst we've suffered is a little wasted paper.
IMO, most people get way too worked up when they hear about how many citizens the FBI maintains files on. Just because they've got a file on somebody doesn't mean that they're being watched and that their privacy is being invaded...it just means that they've done something that got their attention, and that they've made a note of it in case any problems arise later. No big deal!
This is exactly why I wont be renewing my MCSE certs. The reputation of MCSE's is so low, that it is completely worthless for me to own. How worthless? Well, I don't even list it on my resume! I have found that if I walk into an IT department and identify myself as an MCSE, every eye in the room will roll at me...but if I identify my Cisco and Sun certifications, my skills aren't doubted. Why should I, or anyone else, hold a certification that reduces our credibility? We shouldn't, and I wont.
Something else many MCSE's don't even realize is the number of rights they give up when getting the certification. A couple years ago I was working at a large company which was preparing to upgrade their obsolete WFW/Netware workstations and upgrade the operating software. Because this was a "really big" sale, a MS rep came out to help the company with licensing and deployment issues. In our first meeting the rep asked how we were planning on setting everything up. We explained to him that we were planning on running NT4 Workstation desktops, NT4 server domain controllers, and Solaris based application and database servers. The MS rep asked why we were going to run Solaris and, in front of the company VP, the entire IT staff, and most of the company's high ranking suits, I informed him that our company needed to minimize downtime and that Windows NT simply wasn't reliable enough to base the operations of 6000 employees on. The rep, stunned, just looked at me and asked "But aren't you an MCSE?" I said yes and two weeks later I received a letter from Microsoft stating that my certifications were going to be revoked. When I called Microsoft to vent I was ever so politely informed that "the entire purpose of the MCSE program is to promote the distribution of Microsoft products. If you aren't willing to promote our software, we don't need you". When I pointed out that, of 6500 individual machines, all but ~30 were running NT I was informed that it didn't matter...I was to promote Microsoft only.
Ultimately my certification was saved by my employer. When the company VP heard about my sitation he contacted our MS rep and canceled the entire order! He told the MS sales rep that he wasn't going to allow the company to buy from them if they were going to persecute me for thinking of my employer before Microsoft. MS backed off after that, I kept my cert, and the company bought the software. Still, it goes to show just how underhanded and profit motivated they can be.
I just wish more MCSE's would "get it". MS is not your friend, and you only soil yourself by associating with them. The MCSE is the lowest regarded administrator certification in the industry, not a badge of honor. Stop selling your reputations for BillyG's profit!
You wnat to hear somrthing that truly sucks? There is a very small portion of the population that is allergic to coffee...and I'm one of them. I see all of these Starbucks and drive through coffee shops, and hear people like you talking about their latte's and espresso's, and I'll never know what any of them are actually like.
Well, I realize that we're arguing "what you've read" vs. "what I've read", but IIRC you can see the Great Wall from space...sorta. Here's the deal: At certain times of the day, during certain parts of the year, the Great Wall throws a looong shadow (several hundred feet wide). Now if you are looking at the right place at the right time under immaculately clear skies, your eye can tell that there's something there. At this point a neat and well documented mind trick comes into play: The brain knows that there's supposed to be a wall down there, and it "fills in the gaps" to make it visible. It's not really a mental fabrication, because the mind is just extrapolating from the little bit of information it has. On the other hand, it's not really seeing it either, because it's just under the normal limit of perceptability.
Supposedly this was confirmed by a shuttle crew a number of years ago in an impromptu experiment. Three astronauts who knew the exact location of the wall looked for it as they passed over, and two of them claim to have seen it. Two other astronauts, who didnt know the exact location of the wall, looked until the area went out of view and never saw a thing.
So the correct answer to the question of whether or not the Great Wall is viewable from space is: "It depends on who you ask":)
Despite their claims, these two aren't the first couple to go this route. Several months ago another pair of Quaker's tied the knot in their favorite game. While it was lightly discussed on a few of the messageboards at various Quake sites, it never really made the news pages. Why not? Because that's not what they were looking for! The first couple that did this, did it because they couldn't afford to invite their friends from around the world to their wedding, and in-game ceremony was thought up as an easy way to include everyone. It was a very low-key event, and went off pretty well.
I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that these two people were just looking for some headlines:\
The problem was that the developers hyped the technology before it was ready. Sony's already got a cool head mounted display unit, there's a successor to the VFX1 called the VFX3D on the way (already out?), and this invention is sure to spur a whole slew of new devices. I don't know about $300 (I'd predict more around ~$500 once they're mass prduced), but the day of real VR gaming is nearly here.
Actually, this may help solve the problem you're describing. A few years ago I got the chance to spend a few days playing around with a VFX1 headgear unit (playing Descent no less...yeowch!) I'm not the kind of person that normally gets motion sickness (I love roller coasters, airplanes, and even went skydiving twice), but that thing made me ill. The reason was simple: my eyes told me that I was moving, but my body (primarily the inner ear) kept telling my brain that I was sitting still. When the two senses clashed, the old stomach went into convulsions;) Now I'm not a doctor, but I would assume that synchronizing the visual inputs of a VR headgear unit with the motion inputs of this new device should keep the senses in check enough to overcome the motion sickness problems that VR's faced in the past. By making all of the bodies senses detect movement at the same time I would guess that these problems should dissappear.
But as I said, I'm not a doctor so I could be dead wrong here:)
Well, I doubt I'll be speaking with any of them in the near future, this was a public forum after all:) He did give me his email address though, and invited me to send him a message if anything else came up so I will definitely pass those on to him (a proxy network sounds so obvious...why didn't I think of bringing that up;)
Don't put too much faith in this development though...he's still just one voice in SETI, and his primary job is figuring out new ways of removing radio noise without degrading the original carrier signal. He doesn't have the power to open up S@H by himself, but the fact that we've got someone receptive to the idea on the inside, who also happens to be a skilled programmer, means that there's hope.
I know I'm posting this fairly late in the thread life, but I REALLY hope some of you will find this interesting.
Last night I attended a lecture/discussion by Dr. Kent Cullers, the Signal Detection Group Leader, one of the project managers in the SETI Phoenix Project, and one of the board members of the SETI@Home program (ever see Contact? The blind radio astronomer was modeled after him). After the lecture, I asked Dr. Cullers about this very topic. I told him flat out that I could not understand why a project with as lofty goals as SETI would willingly give a cold shoulder to thousands of potential programmers willing to donate their time towards developing more efficient clients and (potentially) search algorithms. I also told him flat out (in front of 100+ people) that while I've always supported the goals of SETI, their cold shoulder to the OSS community made no sense when you consider their claims of supporting scientific cooperation. His reply was refreshing, honest, and to the point.
The first thing he told me was that, despite public claims to the contrary, security is not SETI@Home's biggest concern. The REAL problem right now is that there is apparently no efficient system in place for transporting large blocks of information from the receiver setup to the SETI@Home hub at Berkeley. I'm not sure how many of you realize this, but SETI@Home is an affiliate of SETI, not a directly controlled part of the organization. He told us that SETI itself has a very large quantity of unprocessed data to sort through, but without the proper infrastructure to get it to the S@H users, there's no easy way to handle them. This IS being worked on though, so don't lose faith yet.
The second thing that he pointed out was that there are people inside of SETI, including HIM (remember, he's on the SETI@Home board), that want to see the client opened up. In fact, he pointed out that this very topic is already on his agenda to be brought up at the next board meeting. You know why he's on our side? Because, in addition to his many other amazing talents, he's a programmer! (yeah, a blind computer programmer...this man has just earned my respect for life). He described the hoops HE has to jump through to get access to the code, and he's a friggin board member! While he couldn't give me any promises, he was MUCH more receptive to the idea than any of the other SETI guys I've seen quoted on Slashdot.
In the meantime, he gave me this suggestion: Apparently a small part of the problem is that Dr. David Anderson, the head of the SETI@Home project, isn't entirely convinced that OSS developers could really bring about any significant improvements. Dr. Cullers stated that the best way he could think of to change Dr. Andersons mind would be to email him suggestions as to possible ways to improve the performance and reliability of the client. According to Dr. Cullers, getting him to open it is simply a matter of impressing on him the fact that we can help, and that we wont just be getting in the way. I realize that some people may have a problem sending coding suggestions to a closed-source project, but according to Dr. Cullers it would definitely help further the cause.
And on one final note, I'd like to tell you all something. I walked away from that lecture with an entirely different take on SETI. They're not a tired old organization desperate for government funding anymore, they've got some cool new projects already underway and in the works for the near future (SETI Optical, new arrays for Phoenix, etc.) Dr. Cullers made a very realistic projection (explaining the math and technology) that Phoenix will have out entire galaxy scanned in less than 50 years (they haven't even really touched it yet). Please remember, SETI has little direct control over SETI@Home, so don't let your poor opinions of the S@H project ruin your views of the entire program. SETI is worthy of our support.
Really? I'd strongly suggest you doublecheck that. In fact, I'd bet that if you look very closely at IRQ's 14 and 15 (on most systems), you'd find that they're being used by...omigod!...a primary and secondary IDE controller!
That's the best you can come up with? The above poster made several very valid points, and you're suggestion (mentioned numerous other places in this discussion) only holds the possibility of solving one of them.
I'm currently typing this on a P2-233/256Mb system running an AHA-2940UW+ four IBM UW drives under WinNT (it's a dual boot system and I needed 3DSMax). Directly behind me is my management ordered "replacement" computer...a dual 400/512Mb system running a Debian/NT dual boot with two IDE drives AND DMA enabled. After doing a real world comparison, I'd much rather work on a SCSI system. Not only does disk thrashing virtually dissappear, but drive to drive and drive to memory file movements just seem faster. If I do a group write of sixty graphics files sourced from 3 different drives to a single drive location, SCSI does it quickly and allows me to continue working while it's transfering files (writing 60 5Mb files takes a little bit of time no matter how fast your drive is:) If I try that on the IDE system, I might as well go get a cup of coffee because I'm not getting any work done until it's through.
After four months of watching their expensive new investments sit here and collect dust (everyone in my office feels this way), management finally got the hint and we're expecting two IBM Ultrastor 72's and an Adaptec 29160 for each machine sometime next week.
Wow, this is off-topic as hell but I just HAVE to respond here...
Sometimes taking away the kids crayons (or spanking their butts) is the best way to deal with this...and it MUST be dealt with. I have two children, ages 5 and 2, and I recently walked into my hallway to find them happily coloring on the walls. Now, I'm not a short tempered person so I didn't flip out or anything...I came up with a SOLUTION! After spending the $1500 to have the damage to the hallway fixed (the walls are spongepainted with pastels and the kids damaged the teak wainscotting), I blew another $2500 to have an unused room at the back of the house converted into an "art room" for their enjoyment. Sealed and treated hardwood flooring replaced the carpet, the walls received a semi-artistic milticolored coating of crayon proof/non-stick paint, and plumbing was run to the room so that a washbasin could be installed (most of the cost btw).
After all of that, do you want to know what happened YESTERDAY? I walked out of my bedroom and found my 5 year old and my 2 year old happily coloring away on the hallway walls again... Can you guess what THEY lost for a month?
And if your wondering if there's any "point" to this, there is. You and your "don't take the crayons" cronies should get off your damned soapboxes and stop telling other people the "right" way to raise their kids. I love my children and am trying my best to raise them to be as creative and free-thinking as possible, but those abilities must be tempered with responsibility and the knowledge that it's not ok to damage someone elses property. While I may cramp their "creativity" by temporarily taking away their crayons (and paint *sigh*), I am teaching them someething much more important.
Saludos mi amigo. Noventa y cinco por ciento de los utilizadores de Slashdot no pueden entender el lenguaje español. Si usted quisiera que los utilizadores aquí entendieran su mensaje, sugeriría que usted fije en inglés. Babelfish del intento la vez próxima.
Yet another moron blindly jumping onto the "videogames are evil" bandwagon. I personally have to wonder how many of these moral and upright citizens have even played a modern video game. Hmmm, lets see...if I shoot a person in Quake they disintegrate into a pile of chunky giblets, if I shoot a person in real like they fall to the ground and scream a lot. Blasting my enemies in Quake requires me to move my mouse over 9 square inches of my mouse pad, firing a real gun accurately requires a hell of a lot more skill. The point of the mayhem in games like Quake and MK is to prove yourself superior to your opponents fighting skills ans enjoy yourself, the point of shooting people is to kill. So I have to ask...where are all of these similarities that people keep talking about?
You can't find any because there aren't any. Video games are just that...games! They are an enjoyable test of skill, not some "train me to be a warrior" digital boot camp. I have been playing so-called violent video games for nearly a decade now and I've never once thought about actually shooting a person. The moralists who keep imposing their views and insisting that we're breeding a generation of killers are overlooking the HUGE psychological leap that has to take place in order to make a normal person switch from shooting pixels to shooting people. The only people likely to make that leap are those whos mental conditions weren't exactly normal in the first place, and society cannot allow itself to be regulated to the point where it's "safe" for it's least stable citizens to lead a normal life.
So out comes that evil word: Accountability. I know it's been said a million times, and will probably be repeated a million more, but people need to start being accountable for their own actions. Parents need to take long, objective, and honest looks at their children before allowing them to play these types of games. If your kid has already been diagnosed with a behavioral disorder DON'T LET THEM PLAY THESE GAMES! It's that simple! If your kid is on medication or seeing a counselor/psychologist for behavioral problems, and that kid goes and shoots 5 people after playing an hour of Quake, it's the parents fault, not the software manufacturers. Parents are the only people who are really qualified to judge their childs day to day mental health and decide if they can handle seeing onscreen violence. If they make a bad choice, or worse yet, choose not to get involved in the choices of their childrens video games at all, then they alone are exclusively responsible for it's consequences. I take reponsibility for my kids. My 5 year old daughter isn't allowed to sit in my home office while I'm playing Quake, she isn't allowed to watch violent movies, and the most disturbing on screen image she's been exposed to is Team Rocket in the Pokemon cartoon. It really takes very little effort for parents to monitor what their children are doing as long as they're willing.
I dunno, this argument reminds me of the parents that took their suicidal son to Yosemite a number of years back, and then tried suing the National Park Service after he jumped off a cliff (claiming that there should have been guards and handrails for chrissake). Children learn by watching their parents, and if parents aren't willing to take responsibility for their children, you can't honestly expect them to grow into responsible adults.
Btw, it was kinda nice to see an MSNBC author research his facts before posting though. Most reporters would just slap up a quicky article claiming that "another credible source" has released new "findings" confirming video game violence. Objective reporting on the Web...I'm impressed!
You know, back in the day this was actually a pretty common thing.
Er, I was doing this as recently as two years ago, and I still know many programmers that make a living this way:) All in all though, this programming style tends to be bad for the programmer. Example: I wrote an inter-office communications program for a local government (DA's) office two years ago for $60,000 (Voicemail/PBX interface, email, network fax, and a bunch of real-time collaboration tools all rolled into one). Today, that same program is in use in about 50 state, county, and local government offices across the US. By my calculations, with a little marketing that program could have made me $750k to 1m+ in the last couple years! But since the client got the rights, they now control its distribution and I don't see a dime off of new installations outside of tech support fees ($150 a pop).
To any newbie programmers thinking of going this route in your career, make sure you maintain some source rights to the programs you're writing! Whether you want to GPL it, publicly release it yourself, or just re-use some of the source later, you'll be happier in the long run if you stick to your guns and walk away from contracts that claim full source ownership. Nothing sucks more than writing an awesome program and then being legally banned from even using it.
I'm sure it happens all the time, but I doubt that people are stealing whole programs. The sticky area of the GPL, and an area that I've personally ventured into, is "micro-theft" of open source code.
Here's an example: About two years ago I was developing an application for a client (who will remain nameless), and the app needed to have some simple word processing abilities (mostly just font support and page formatting abilities). While I got that portion of the application developed properly, there was a kludge in the code that I didn't particularly care for and which was slightly buggy. About 3 weeks after I wrote that portion of the app, I went over to a friends house and found him trying to track down a bug in a GPL'd word processor (which will also remain nameless). Since he had it open anyway, I decided to take a look and see how the author of that program had handled the bit I'd kludged. I liked the way the author had done it and a whopping 15 lines of his code ended up in my program (with just a little bit of editing).
So the question is, did I violate the GPL? What if I had just been "inspired" by his code and re-written a similar bit of code from memory? Could/should I be sued? Can I be forced to open the source? (I actually sold the program and all rights to the client, so I couldn't do that anyway) Where is the "magic line" here?
In case you can't tell, I've been wondering about these things for quite a while but this is really the first opportunity I've seen to bring them up:) What do you guys think? What qualifies as a GPL violation?
There is one minor oversight in that post that I should correct. It is nearly impossible to change a democracy from the outside in any large industrialized country. If buisness owners see you as a threat, their employees (a large percentage of the populace) will consider you a danger to their continued livelyhood. Nobody is going to support changes in government that might cost them their jobs.
I realize that quite a few democracies have failed under external pressure in sparsely populated agrarian countries, but this is usually because there is no popular force to help keep the government in place outside of the governments army. External attempts to change large industrial democracies like the U.S. or Australia are doomed to failure before they even start.
That's simply not true. A democracy is always supported by the majority of the people, and the simple fact that it continues to exist implies that the so-called "silent majority" continues to back it. Therefore, the best way to change (or overthrow) a democracy is from within. Attacking it from the outside will simply undermine popular support and set the majority of the people against you.
A textbook example of this is Adolph Hitler (hey, I don't like the guy, but he makes a good example here). In 1923 he decided that the democratic German government was corrupt and traitorous, and attempted an armed revolution to overthrow it. Can you guess what happened? The people wouldn't support him. Like most people in a democracy, they wanted the government changed, not eliminated. Hitler was caught and imprisoned for treason after the revolution was crushed by German police forces.
After Hitler's release from prison, he again went to work on changing the government, but from the inside. He ran for office himself, and set up many of his supporters to run for various other offices. He used the democratic system to put himself and his supporters in positions of power, and then eliminated the system to keep himself there. By 1933 he had achieved through legislation and propoganda what had failed so miserably when attempted by force. While the Nazi reign was horrible, it does provide a great example of the power of working within the system.
So I agree with the original poster. If you really want to change the system, you need to put some effort into it. Sometimes that means voting, sometimes that means participating in the campaigns of people you support, and sometimes that means running yourself. Our (U.S.) system was designed to put a large amount of power in the hand of the people, but if the people aren't willing to use that power, it's worthless.
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If a benchmark could be written that would accurately simulate real world applications, then I'd say let them optomize their hardware/drivers for it. If the benchmark is good enough, then any optomizations made for the benchmark should also cause a performance increase in your genuine applications. Of course, therein lies the trick. Can you make a benchmark that realistic?
I would disagree. In my opinion I owe you nothing, and there is nothing I'm required to do for you. I am free to live my life however I want and to run my company any way I see fit (within legal limits of course). You, on the other hand, have the right to decide whether or not you wish to associate with me or buy products from my company. You do not have the right to impose your will on either my life or my company based on your notions of "social resposibility".
Lemme see...so you are saying that this teacher sucks because her class assignments actually count for something, because she expects her students to be responsible enough to turn their assignments in on time, and because the subject matter was over your head? Dude, it's people exactly like you that changed my mind about becoming a teacher. Everybody bemoans the fact that there aren't enough good teachers in the world, and yet when a teacher tries to hold her students to a higher standard look how she gets treated. College should not be like high school, where students get to pass just so they can "feel good about themselves" or some crap like that. If you can't understand the material in a classroom, how the fsck do you expect to handle it in the real world? If your boss fires you because you blow a project, are you going to bitch that he's "unfairly" making every project count for too much?
Although I wouldn't be so cruel as to suggest lethal injection, a stiff slap upside the head might do you a bit of good.
Re-read the requirements. They're not asking for a complete battle ready exosuit, they're just asking for a machine that can do one or more of the following:
1) Allow the user to carry a heavy load.
2) Reduce the effort expended by a soldier on a long hike, thereby increasing endurance.
3) Allow a person to walk or run faster than normal.
4) Allow a person to lift a heavy object, or do strenuous work with reduced effort.
5) Jump higher and/or further than normal.
Things like armor, weapons, environmental controls, communications, etc., aren't required or requested. DARPA just wants a basic exoskeleton to augment the human body, with a braindead simple way to operate it. Development of the other systems will come later, they're just looking for a base platform to start with.
No, this isn't another GPL zealot screaming "Open-Source Everything!", I've actually got an interesting idea. Why not try an open source style community development project for something like this? I mean, how many hardware hackers here could figure out the electronics needed for this thing? How many programmers here could write the OS and a component style architecture to run it? How many engineers here could come up with efficient actuator designs or durable frames? If a system like this were developed and the military passed it over, then participants could count it as a hell of a learning experience. If the military actually accepted the design and paid out the US$50mil, then the funds could simply be divvied up among the various contributors or even donated to pre-agreed upon charities.
I don't have time to manage a project like this myself, but I would definitely contribute to such a project if somebody were willing to put it together (I've got a complete body cooling/heating system that I designed for a friend who races stock cars. It runs 6 hours on 4 D cell batteries and can maintain a skin temperature of 45F to 80F in a -20F to 130F environment).
Actually, I don't see how anybody's rights are trampled by the FBI simply looking into their activities. Let's look at the relevant parts of the two amendments you quoted here:
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
Hmmm, let say you wanted to stand on a street corner and shout about how the US gov needs to be overthrown and that Washington DC should be bombed. At that point, the FBI is probably going to look into your background to see if you have any ties to terrorist organizations, or if you're simply a wacko blowing off steam. How does this trample your first amendment rights? Now, if they physically dragged you downtown and grilled you for 18 hours I'd say it's pretty obvious that your rights have been trampled, but as long as they didn't interfere with your right to say it, the constitution hasn't been violated.
And now the fourth amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There's one key word in that amendment that makes everything the FBI does legal: Unreasonable . What is unreasonable? More importantly to this discussion, what is reasonable? Unreasonable is fairly obvious. If the FBI walks in your front door and starts looking for documents in your filing cabinets that connect you to Osama Bin Laden, then that's DEFINITELY unreasonable and they'd damned well better have a warrant. But what if they simply looked into the persons past? What if the FBI had suspicions that some Pakistani immigrant had terrorist ties? Would it be unreasonable for them to contact the Pakistani government and request a copy of his criminal record? IMO, the answer is no. That falls under the realm of reasonable. They have a suspicion (but not much else) that someone might be up to no good, so they try to collect some more information to either substantiate or repudiate those suspicions. I not only accept these types of actions by our government, but I'd consider them lax in their duties if they weren't doing it!
I guess it depends on the kind of world you really want to live in. If we were to prevent law enforcement from tracking suspicious people in this country, then we remove the only real tool law enforcement has to prevent terrorist and criminal activites before they happen. Do you REALLY want some guy to be able to fly here from Sudan, buy 1500 pounds of fertilizer, and blow up a building before the FBI can look into him? If you're saying that it's a violation of our rights to have the FBI look into potentially suspicious activities and people, then that's exactly what you're advocating. How important would that terrorists rights be to you if it was YOUR wife or daughter killed in that blast? I would MUCH rather live in a world where the FBI kept tabs on the guy and nailed him before he detonated the bomb. Unfortunately, this is only possible so long as law enforcement has the right to track people who may not have technically broken any laws.
I believe the spot were currently in is euphamistically called "between a rock and a hard place". There's no really happy way out, but our current situation is a heck of a lot better than the alternative.
Like it or not, the compiling of files on ordinary citizens is a neccesary evil in modern times. Look at this example: a guy walks into a ag supply store and buys a bunch of chemicals that could potentially be used to make a bomb. Realistically, there are only four possible uses for those chemicals. 1) fertilizing your garden 2)fertilizing your drugs 3) doing some type of chemical experiment or 4) making a bomb. Now, let's say that the store owner was a little suspicious of the guy (he acted "jumpy" or something), and took down his license plate to give to the FBI. I don't know about you, but IMO it's the FBI's duty to at least look at the guys background and see if he's got any potentially terrorist ties. If he does, they can put a tail on him and possibly stop a crime before it occurs. If he doesn't, then the info should just be filed. Either way, law-abiding citizen or not, this guy just acquired himself his very own FBI file. Now, if a bomb made up of those chemicals goes off six months later, the FBI will already have a record of this guy buying those chemicals and he can be listed as a potential suspect. If nothing ever happens, the worst we've suffered is a little wasted paper.
IMO, most people get way too worked up when they hear about how many citizens the FBI maintains files on. Just because they've got a file on somebody doesn't mean that they're being watched and that their privacy is being invaded...it just means that they've done something that got their attention, and that they've made a note of it in case any problems arise later. No big deal!
This is exactly why I wont be renewing my MCSE certs. The reputation of MCSE's is so low, that it is completely worthless for me to own. How worthless? Well, I don't even list it on my resume! I have found that if I walk into an IT department and identify myself as an MCSE, every eye in the room will roll at me...but if I identify my Cisco and Sun certifications, my skills aren't doubted. Why should I, or anyone else, hold a certification that reduces our credibility? We shouldn't, and I wont.
Something else many MCSE's don't even realize is the number of rights they give up when getting the certification. A couple years ago I was working at a large company which was preparing to upgrade their obsolete WFW/Netware workstations and upgrade the operating software. Because this was a "really big" sale, a MS rep came out to help the company with licensing and deployment issues. In our first meeting the rep asked how we were planning on setting everything up. We explained to him that we were planning on running NT4 Workstation desktops, NT4 server domain controllers, and Solaris based application and database servers. The MS rep asked why we were going to run Solaris and, in front of the company VP, the entire IT staff, and most of the company's high ranking suits, I informed him that our company needed to minimize downtime and that Windows NT simply wasn't reliable enough to base the operations of 6000 employees on. The rep, stunned, just looked at me and asked "But aren't you an MCSE?" I said yes and two weeks later I received a letter from Microsoft stating that my certifications were going to be revoked. When I called Microsoft to vent I was ever so politely informed that "the entire purpose of the MCSE program is to promote the distribution of Microsoft products. If you aren't willing to promote our software, we don't need you". When I pointed out that, of 6500 individual machines, all but ~30 were running NT I was informed that it didn't matter...I was to promote Microsoft only.
Ultimately my certification was saved by my employer. When the company VP heard about my sitation he contacted our MS rep and canceled the entire order! He told the MS sales rep that he wasn't going to allow the company to buy from them if they were going to persecute me for thinking of my employer before Microsoft. MS backed off after that, I kept my cert, and the company bought the software. Still, it goes to show just how underhanded and profit motivated they can be.
I just wish more MCSE's would "get it". MS is not your friend, and you only soil yourself by associating with them. The MCSE is the lowest regarded administrator certification in the industry, not a badge of honor. Stop selling your reputations for BillyG's profit!
You wnat to hear somrthing that truly sucks? There is a very small portion of the population that is allergic to coffee...and I'm one of them. I see all of these Starbucks and drive through coffee shops, and hear people like you talking about their latte's and espresso's, and I'll never know what any of them are actually like.
:\
A demi-tasse would literally kill me
Well, I realize that we're arguing "what you've read" vs. "what I've read", but IIRC you can see the Great Wall from space...sorta. Here's the deal: At certain times of the day, during certain parts of the year, the Great Wall throws a looong shadow (several hundred feet wide). Now if you are looking at the right place at the right time under immaculately clear skies, your eye can tell that there's something there. At this point a neat and well documented mind trick comes into play: The brain knows that there's supposed to be a wall down there, and it "fills in the gaps" to make it visible. It's not really a mental fabrication, because the mind is just extrapolating from the little bit of information it has. On the other hand, it's not really seeing it either, because it's just under the normal limit of perceptability.
:)
Supposedly this was confirmed by a shuttle crew a number of years ago in an impromptu experiment. Three astronauts who knew the exact location of the wall looked for it as they passed over, and two of them claim to have seen it. Two other astronauts, who didnt know the exact location of the wall, looked until the area went out of view and never saw a thing.
So the correct answer to the question of whether or not the Great Wall is viewable from space is: "It depends on who you ask"
Despite their claims, these two aren't the first couple to go this route. Several months ago another pair of Quaker's tied the knot in their favorite game. While it was lightly discussed on a few of the messageboards at various Quake sites, it never really made the news pages. Why not? Because that's not what they were looking for! The first couple that did this, did it because they couldn't afford to invite their friends from around the world to their wedding, and in-game ceremony was thought up as an easy way to include everyone. It was a very low-key event, and went off pretty well.
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I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that these two people were just looking for some headlines
The problem was that the developers hyped the technology before it was ready. Sony's already got a cool head mounted display unit, there's a successor to the VFX1 called the VFX3D on the way (already out?), and this invention is sure to spur a whole slew of new devices. I don't know about $300 (I'd predict more around ~$500 once they're mass prduced), but the day of real VR gaming is nearly here.
I should have read the whole page before posting this.
:)
From the MotionWare page:
It helps reduce Cyber Sickness by coordinating the visual and vestibular inputs.
Guess that answers the question
Actually, this may help solve the problem you're describing. A few years ago I got the chance to spend a few days playing around with a VFX1 headgear unit (playing Descent no less...yeowch!) I'm not the kind of person that normally gets motion sickness (I love roller coasters, airplanes, and even went skydiving twice), but that thing made me ill. The reason was simple: my eyes told me that I was moving, but my body (primarily the inner ear) kept telling my brain that I was sitting still. When the two senses clashed, the old stomach went into convulsions ;) Now I'm not a doctor, but I would assume that synchronizing the visual inputs of a VR headgear unit with the motion inputs of this new device should keep the senses in check enough to overcome the motion sickness problems that VR's faced in the past. By making all of the bodies senses detect movement at the same time I would guess that these problems should dissappear.
:)
But as I said, I'm not a doctor so I could be dead wrong here
Well, I doubt I'll be speaking with any of them in the near future, this was a public forum after all :) He did give me his email address though, and invited me to send him a message if anything else came up so I will definitely pass those on to him (a proxy network sounds so obvious...why didn't I think of bringing that up ;)
Don't put too much faith in this development though...he's still just one voice in SETI, and his primary job is figuring out new ways of removing radio noise without degrading the original carrier signal. He doesn't have the power to open up S@H by himself, but the fact that we've got someone receptive to the idea on the inside, who also happens to be a skilled programmer, means that there's hope.
I know I'm posting this fairly late in the thread life, but I REALLY hope some of you will find this interesting.
Last night I attended a lecture/discussion by Dr. Kent Cullers, the Signal Detection Group Leader, one of the project managers in the SETI Phoenix Project, and one of the board members of the SETI@Home program (ever see Contact? The blind radio astronomer was modeled after him). After the lecture, I asked Dr. Cullers about this very topic. I told him flat out that I could not understand why a project with as lofty goals as SETI would willingly give a cold shoulder to thousands of potential programmers willing to donate their time towards developing more efficient clients and (potentially) search algorithms. I also told him flat out (in front of 100+ people) that while I've always supported the goals of SETI, their cold shoulder to the OSS community made no sense when you consider their claims of supporting scientific cooperation. His reply was refreshing, honest, and to the point.
The first thing he told me was that, despite public claims to the contrary, security is not SETI@Home's biggest concern. The REAL problem right now is that there is apparently no efficient system in place for transporting large blocks of information from the receiver setup to the SETI@Home hub at Berkeley. I'm not sure how many of you realize this, but SETI@Home is an affiliate of SETI, not a directly controlled part of the organization. He told us that SETI itself has a very large quantity of unprocessed data to sort through, but without the proper infrastructure to get it to the S@H users, there's no easy way to handle them. This IS being worked on though, so don't lose faith yet.
The second thing that he pointed out was that there are people inside of SETI, including HIM (remember, he's on the SETI@Home board), that want to see the client opened up. In fact, he pointed out that this very topic is already on his agenda to be brought up at the next board meeting. You know why he's on our side? Because, in addition to his many other amazing talents, he's a programmer! (yeah, a blind computer programmer...this man has just earned my respect for life). He described the hoops HE has to jump through to get access to the code, and he's a friggin board member! While he couldn't give me any promises, he was MUCH more receptive to the idea than any of the other SETI guys I've seen quoted on Slashdot.
In the meantime, he gave me this suggestion: Apparently a small part of the problem is that Dr. David Anderson, the head of the SETI@Home project, isn't entirely convinced that OSS developers could really bring about any significant improvements. Dr. Cullers stated that the best way he could think of to change Dr. Andersons mind would be to email him suggestions as to possible ways to improve the performance and reliability of the client. According to Dr. Cullers, getting him to open it is simply a matter of impressing on him the fact that we can help, and that we wont just be getting in the way. I realize that some people may have a problem sending coding suggestions to a closed-source project, but according to Dr. Cullers it would definitely help further the cause.
And on one final note, I'd like to tell you all something. I walked away from that lecture with an entirely different take on SETI. They're not a tired old organization desperate for government funding anymore, they've got some cool new projects already underway and in the works for the near future (SETI Optical, new arrays for Phoenix, etc.) Dr. Cullers made a very realistic projection (explaining the math and technology) that Phoenix will have out entire galaxy scanned in less than 50 years (they haven't even really touched it yet). Please remember, SETI has little direct control over SETI@Home, so don't let your poor opinions of the S@H project ruin your views of the entire program. SETI is worthy of our support.
Really? I'd strongly suggest you doublecheck that. In fact, I'd bet that if you look very closely at IRQ's 14 and 15 (on most systems), you'd find that they're being used by...omigod!...a primary and secondary IDE controller!
Whoda thunk it?!?!
That's the best you can come up with? The above poster made several very valid points, and you're suggestion (mentioned numerous other places in this discussion) only holds the possibility of solving one of them.
:) If I try that on the IDE system, I might as well go get a cup of coffee because I'm not getting any work done until it's through.
:)
I'm currently typing this on a P2-233/256Mb system running an AHA-2940UW+ four IBM UW drives under WinNT (it's a dual boot system and I needed 3DSMax). Directly behind me is my management ordered "replacement" computer...a dual 400/512Mb system running a Debian/NT dual boot with two IDE drives AND DMA enabled. After doing a real world comparison, I'd much rather work on a SCSI system. Not only does disk thrashing virtually dissappear, but drive to drive and drive to memory file movements just seem faster. If I do a group write of sixty graphics files sourced from 3 different drives to a single drive location, SCSI does it quickly and allows me to continue working while it's transfering files (writing 60 5Mb files takes a little bit of time no matter how fast your drive is
After four months of watching their expensive new investments sit here and collect dust (everyone in my office feels this way), management finally got the hint and we're expecting two IBM Ultrastor 72's and an Adaptec 29160 for each machine sometime next week.
Long live SCSI!
Wow, this is off-topic as hell but I just HAVE to respond here...
Sometimes taking away the kids crayons (or spanking their butts) is the best way to deal with this...and it MUST be dealt with. I have two children, ages 5 and 2, and I recently walked into my hallway to find them happily coloring on the walls. Now, I'm not a short tempered person so I didn't flip out or anything...I came up with a SOLUTION! After spending the $1500 to have the damage to the hallway fixed (the walls are spongepainted with pastels and the kids damaged the teak wainscotting), I blew another $2500 to have an unused room at the back of the house converted into an "art room" for their enjoyment. Sealed and treated hardwood flooring replaced the carpet, the walls received a semi-artistic milticolored coating of crayon proof/non-stick paint, and plumbing was run to the room so that a washbasin could be installed (most of the cost btw).
After all of that, do you want to know what happened YESTERDAY? I walked out of my bedroom and found my 5 year old and my 2 year old happily coloring away on the hallway walls again... Can you guess what THEY lost for a month?
And if your wondering if there's any "point" to this, there is. You and your "don't take the crayons" cronies should get off your damned soapboxes and stop telling other people the "right" way to raise their kids. I love my children and am trying my best to raise them to be as creative and free-thinking as possible, but those abilities must be tempered with responsibility and the knowledge that it's not ok to damage someone elses property. While I may cramp their "creativity" by temporarily taking away their crayons (and paint *sigh*), I am teaching them someething much more important.
Saludos mi amigo. Noventa y cinco por ciento de los utilizadores de Slashdot no pueden entender el lenguaje español. Si usted quisiera que los utilizadores aquí entendieran su mensaje, sugeriría que usted fije en inglés. Babelfish del intento la vez próxima.
Yet another moron blindly jumping onto the "videogames are evil" bandwagon. I personally have to wonder how many of these moral and upright citizens have even played a modern video game. Hmmm, lets see...if I shoot a person in Quake they disintegrate into a pile of chunky giblets, if I shoot a person in real like they fall to the ground and scream a lot. Blasting my enemies in Quake requires me to move my mouse over 9 square inches of my mouse pad, firing a real gun accurately requires a hell of a lot more skill. The point of the mayhem in games like Quake and MK is to prove yourself superior to your opponents fighting skills ans enjoy yourself, the point of shooting people is to kill. So I have to ask...where are all of these similarities that people keep talking about?
You can't find any because there aren't any. Video games are just that...games! They are an enjoyable test of skill, not some "train me to be a warrior" digital boot camp. I have been playing so-called violent video games for nearly a decade now and I've never once thought about actually shooting a person. The moralists who keep imposing their views and insisting that we're breeding a generation of killers are overlooking the HUGE psychological leap that has to take place in order to make a normal person switch from shooting pixels to shooting people. The only people likely to make that leap are those whos mental conditions weren't exactly normal in the first place, and society cannot allow itself to be regulated to the point where it's "safe" for it's least stable citizens to lead a normal life.
So out comes that evil word: Accountability. I know it's been said a million times, and will probably be repeated a million more, but people need to start being accountable for their own actions. Parents need to take long, objective, and honest looks at their children before allowing them to play these types of games. If your kid has already been diagnosed with a behavioral disorder DON'T LET THEM PLAY THESE GAMES! It's that simple! If your kid is on medication or seeing a counselor/psychologist for behavioral problems, and that kid goes and shoots 5 people after playing an hour of Quake, it's the parents fault, not the software manufacturers. Parents are the only people who are really qualified to judge their childs day to day mental health and decide if they can handle seeing onscreen violence. If they make a bad choice, or worse yet, choose not to get involved in the choices of their childrens video games at all, then they alone are exclusively responsible for it's consequences. I take reponsibility for my kids. My 5 year old daughter isn't allowed to sit in my home office while I'm playing Quake, she isn't allowed to watch violent movies, and the most disturbing on screen image she's been exposed to is Team Rocket in the Pokemon cartoon. It really takes very little effort for parents to monitor what their children are doing as long as they're willing.
I dunno, this argument reminds me of the parents that took their suicidal son to Yosemite a number of years back, and then tried suing the National Park Service after he jumped off a cliff (claiming that there should have been guards and handrails for chrissake). Children learn by watching their parents, and if parents aren't willing to take responsibility for their children, you can't honestly expect them to grow into responsible adults.
Btw, it was kinda nice to see an MSNBC author research his facts before posting though. Most reporters would just slap up a quicky article claiming that "another credible source" has released new "findings" confirming video game violence. Objective reporting on the Web...I'm impressed!
You know, back in the day this was actually a pretty common thing.
:) All in all though, this programming style tends to be bad for the programmer. Example: I wrote an inter-office communications program for a local government (DA's) office two years ago for $60,000 (Voicemail/PBX interface, email, network fax, and a bunch of real-time collaboration tools all rolled into one). Today, that same program is in use in about 50 state, county, and local government offices across the US. By my calculations, with a little marketing that program could have made me $750k to 1m+ in the last couple years! But since the client got the rights, they now control its distribution and I don't see a dime off of new installations outside of tech support fees ($150 a pop).
Er, I was doing this as recently as two years ago, and I still know many programmers that make a living this way
To any newbie programmers thinking of going this route in your career, make sure you maintain some source rights to the programs you're writing! Whether you want to GPL it, publicly release it yourself, or just re-use some of the source later, you'll be happier in the long run if you stick to your guns and walk away from contracts that claim full source ownership. Nothing sucks more than writing an awesome program and then being legally banned from even using it.
I'm sure it happens all the time, but I doubt that people are stealing whole programs. The sticky area of the GPL, and an area that I've personally ventured into, is "micro-theft" of open source code.
:) What do you guys think? What qualifies as a GPL violation?
Here's an example: About two years ago I was developing an application for a client (who will remain nameless), and the app needed to have some simple word processing abilities (mostly just font support and page formatting abilities). While I got that portion of the application developed properly, there was a kludge in the code that I didn't particularly care for and which was slightly buggy. About 3 weeks after I wrote that portion of the app, I went over to a friends house and found him trying to track down a bug in a GPL'd word processor (which will also remain nameless). Since he had it open anyway, I decided to take a look and see how the author of that program had handled the bit I'd kludged. I liked the way the author had done it and a whopping 15 lines of his code ended up in my program (with just a little bit of editing).
So the question is, did I violate the GPL? What if I had just been "inspired" by his code and re-written a similar bit of code from memory? Could/should I be sued? Can I be forced to open the source? (I actually sold the program and all rights to the client, so I couldn't do that anyway) Where is the "magic line" here?
In case you can't tell, I've been wondering about these things for quite a while but this is really the first opportunity I've seen to bring them up
There is one minor oversight in that post that I should correct. It is nearly impossible to change a democracy from the outside in any large industrialized country. If buisness owners see you as a threat, their employees (a large percentage of the populace) will consider you a danger to their continued livelyhood. Nobody is going to support changes in government that might cost them their jobs.
I realize that quite a few democracies have failed under external pressure in sparsely populated agrarian countries, but this is usually because there is no popular force to help keep the government in place outside of the governments army. External attempts to change large industrial democracies like the U.S. or Australia are doomed to failure before they even start.
That's simply not true. A democracy is always supported by the majority of the people, and the simple fact that it continues to exist implies that the so-called "silent majority" continues to back it. Therefore, the best way to change (or overthrow) a democracy is from within. Attacking it from the outside will simply undermine popular support and set the majority of the people against you.
A textbook example of this is Adolph Hitler (hey, I don't like the guy, but he makes a good example here). In 1923 he decided that the democratic German government was corrupt and traitorous, and attempted an armed revolution to overthrow it. Can you guess what happened? The people wouldn't support him. Like most people in a democracy, they wanted the government changed, not eliminated. Hitler was caught and imprisoned for treason after the revolution was crushed by German police forces.
After Hitler's release from prison, he again went to work on changing the government, but from the inside. He ran for office himself, and set up many of his supporters to run for various other offices. He used the democratic system to put himself and his supporters in positions of power, and then eliminated the system to keep himself there. By 1933 he had achieved through legislation and propoganda what had failed so miserably when attempted by force. While the Nazi reign was horrible, it does provide a great example of the power of working within the system.
So I agree with the original poster. If you really want to change the system, you need to put some effort into it. Sometimes that means voting, sometimes that means participating in the campaigns of people you support, and sometimes that means running yourself. Our (U.S.) system was designed to put a large amount of power in the hand of the people, but if the people aren't willing to use that power, it's worthless.