I don't see a problem with this. MSN (Messenger) costs lots to run. They want to increase their market share so to get more value for money - and if they were in a monopoly position in the IM market this would bea very bad thing. However, they're not the number one player - they are just trying to be. If they think that this will help them achieve that, then that's their perogative.
Personally, I think this is a good thing. It will help drive torward a interoperable standard for IM - not playing catchup with AOL and MSN "standards." Otherwise, we risk being in a situation in a few years similar to where we are with Word doucments now.
I have to use "Oracle Time" which is the most horrible piece of time reporting software ever invented. It's so complicated, I seriously suggested having a charge code in it for the purposes of filling out ones time. It really does take about 20 minutes to fill out a timecard properly.
Although I'm going to get flamed for this, Microsoft Project Central is an absolute godsend - easy to input time from, and you can collect the stats from team members to go into your Project plans easily and efficiently.
For better or for worse it is probably more expedient to store HTML or text files until the tools mature and XML becomes better understood by the rank and file.
What makes you think content providers for web sites are capable of writing HTML, or even using Dreamweaver? Don't you think they might try to format the page if using plain text... and if they are using plain text how on earth do you seperate a title from a paragraph, or use italics or bold? I know, you make them write something around the title to make it be a title... something along the lines of a title tag? -- Looks oddly like XML:)
Seriously, though -- when managing large amounts of content, structured data is the way to go... whether it is stored in an RDBMS or XML. Either way, the content writer should not know what they are doing (technically)... a very simple word processor tool can given to them where they can define what their content looks like.
f he's sending 240 million emails a day and getting 1-2 percent return, even if he only make a few dollars off each sale that's a profit in the order of billions a year.
Perhaps 99.9% of those replies are from mail servers whi report that a particular mailbox does not exist any more?
No, they don't say Talxon on the, they say Telxon. And, Symbol bought them out anyway.
Symbol don't have *any* Linux based handsets, the newest ones are PocketPC/WinCE.NET based. PalmOS is a dog on those kind of devices, and the rest of the market is DOS.
No, it's nothing to do with that. Out HTML is written to standards, and checked for that. A product test must be done using the target platform -- this is extremely costly for a system which has a massive number of "pages" a user can see. Having to test this in multiple browsers on multiple platforms woudl cost hundreds of thousands and take lots of time.
We have to certify against IE6, and nothing else since it is the target platform. If the client wants to use another browser, at very least they will have to do another usability test and possibly raise a change request for any arising defects. Although I'm sure things would work with other browsers, contractually this is not an obligation... and thus it does not make sense to test against anything other than the target platform -- in this case, IE.
This is true, especially since the entire point of using an html based interface on a local app is portability...
It may be for someone, but not me. I am on a team which is developing an application which will be tested against IE6 *only* because this is the supported browser of the company who will use our product. We are not using a browser based interface for portability, we are using it so we can easily rollout changes without having to touch a single machine on of the 40,000 users will access our application with.
It's called NetCentric computing, it needs browsers, but it's got nowt to do with portability. I'm sure portability helps some people, but not when you've got a known userbase who you *know* use IE.
But because the entire tree cannot be searched, the search needs to be cut short at certain points and the position evaluated. This involves knowledge about chess, understanding why a position is good or bad, and knowing which branches of the search tree are fruitless. This seems to me to be perfect for AI research.
I don't agree, simply because it is a finite feature space that is being explored and there is a clearly defined optimal route to it... it's just searching for that route that is the hard part. All chess playing computers are doing is searching, albeit a highly specialised search. And, although important to AI, searching itself is not really considered AI in it's own right -- throw in some learning, game strategy and you might convince me... but a search in itself is nothing remarkable -- especially since the hieristics will likely be programmed in by the programmer, not learned by the chess program.
Well, when computers will learn to understand English, that would not be considered an AI task anymore, would it?:)
It most certianly would. Do you think that just once you've learned how to do something, that it suddenly becomes a trivial task? It doesn't... it stays non-trivial but you are able to do it.
I thank you for a most pleasant exchange of ideas. I've now had 2 such experiences here. You've got a new fan in your zoo. I've been posting anonymously because I think I moderated in this discussion.
Why, thank you. It was as good for me as it was for you:-)
As far as a hierarchal base for knowledge goes, maybe it seems like there is a hierarchy because we're looking for a hierarchy, or any well organized way, to pigeon hole the nature of knowledge.
Sounds very much like human nature -- trying to fit something not understood into the realm of what is understood, producing something that looks kind of right. Very interesting. Perhaps like those ink blot pictures, you see what you are looking for.
If knowledge were hierarchical, one would be able to present said hierarchy. Since you can't, it's not.
You are indeed correct, I can't:-) I would argue that there is a hierarchical base for knowledge, it just breaks off the further up the tree you get. Incremental learning must take place before independant thought can take place, so in that sense there is certainly a degree of hierarchy, I think.
Sure -- rational people understand that a person's has a hierarchical structure where a complex concept depend on a number of simple concepts. Without the lower, more simple concepts, the higher concepts have no meaning since they can't be understood.
So, knowledge is hierarchial only insofar that simple addition and subtraction pave the way for more complex algebra... knowing algebra without knowing addition and subtraction would give algebra no meaning.
However, this doesn't account for leaps of thought where entire planes of thinking are bypassed... and nor does it account for mad people (always a tricky one in AI) , especially mad geniuses!
I agree with you. After studying AI as an undergrad for 4 years, I came to the conclusion that carrying out well defined tasks is not a subject matter for AI. Chess rules are extremely well defined, and as such all that is being carried out is a search - this is not AI.
Learning to understand English is altogether different -- Language has a very complex set of very loosely defined rules which change over time, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Understanding English is very much an AI task.
The problem is knowedge, and how it should be represented -- with Chess you just need a big calculator and present as much of the game (projected) as possible. There is no such way to do this with language... a much more complex representation with much more hueristic knowledge is required, and this is where AI starts coming in. Natural language processing is a very tricky field, one which I won't even pretend I understand, and in my opinion nobody quite does... Chomsky probably coming closest, but then again I'd disagree with him on many points!!
Give them a cheaper alternative with the same capabilities and they will bail out faster than you can say 'Geronimo'.
But there isn't anything close to Oracle when it comes to availability/reliability etc. And, even if there was IT managers would not go for it for some years because it's not proven in the enterprise. Oracle is so embedded into management brains, and it's reputation is well deserved.
If you want to cluster Oracle, use Oracle RAC (Real Application Clusters). It's based on Parallel Server so is mature enough to put forward for consideration... and even then it might be eschewed from above. Cheap databases are not going to ring the bells of the people with the say-so simply because Oracle (and DB2 etc) are proven over the years, and the cost of losing your data because you went for the cheap option is going to lose your company a lot of money, and you your job!
Technically better, cheaper and all those good things does not mean better for a business. Databases are predominantly used for *business*, and as such a *business* reason it used when choosing one over another, not technical reasons.
I'd love to see the drunken rabble at around 2AM in major cities trying to figure out how to operate these things when they can barely figure out how to operate their arms at that time.
They only have to operate a phone. I use Zingo every now and then, you just phone the number and you get put through to the nearest cabbie. It's as simple as that. No special GPS units for the passenger (they're for the system to work out where the cab is, they work out where you are from your mobile phone). So, even drunkenly I can get a cab using Zingo as long as the cabbie can understand my slurs!
Anyway, AC never paid AA, they paid Andersen Worldwide.
AA's second consulting division was small (which was, actually going to be called Andersen Consulting once they were allowed use the name again), and basically incapable of doing a whole lot. They were certinaly not involved in cooking the books - you can bet your life it was the AA tax division and not audit nor consulting that got the firm in trouble over Enron. How on earth could a consulting firm cover up billions?! That is simply not their role, that is the tax accountants.
has Mozilla been invaded by refugees from Arthur Andersen?
Unlikely... Uncle Arthur's firm was a tax/audit/accounting firm. You're probably thinking of it's old sister firm, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture -- for whose consultants this kind of language is second nature:)
In reality, this kind of talk is great when you're trying to sell change to someone, but when you've giving your product away you don't need to worry about your customer!
Another possible feature addition that we're discussing is to allow subscribers to post during this window.
But this would mean 2 things:
(1) If a story gets pulled, lots of comments could already be posted. This would be pretty annoying if you had spent some time posting.
(2) Moderation is biased torwards early posters, and as such it would provide a disincentive for non-subscribers to post, thereby reducing the amount of discussion. This could be a good thing, since subscribers (hopefully!) provide more worthwhile reading.
NASA *is* funding this already
on
The Space Elevator
·
· Score: 5, Informative
If the space elevator is feasible right now for only US$6 billion (less than half of NASA's annual budget), why aren't we building one ASAP and preparing to retire the shuttles?
NASA already is funding this kind of research. They have already invested $600,000 into Seattle-based company High Lift Systems, according to a BBC article.
Sounds to me the right thing to do -- invest in other companies to do the ground work, and see if it really is viable. If not they go bust -- Oh well. If it goes well, then great!
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I think this is a good thing. It will help drive torward a interoperable standard for IM - not playing catchup with AOL and MSN "standards." Otherwise, we risk being in a situation in a few years similar to where we are with Word doucments now.
Although I'm going to get flamed for this, Microsoft Project Central is an absolute godsend - easy to input time from, and you can collect the stats from team members to go into your Project plans easily and efficiently.
Singapore is a country, you fool! It's capital is also called Singapore... but it most certainly a country.
And the Vatican City is a country, usually referred to as "The Holy See" in UN terms.
David.
Umm... Yes... Why wouldn't it?
Please don't tell me you thought Singapore was not a country...
Are you American, by chance?
Have you never heard or GPRS? The "P" is for "Packet"
Two words... Cell Broadcast. *Every* GSM network has it, they may choose not to use it though but it's been there for over 10 years.
Any 2G WAP capable phone on the Orange network in the UK can do this. I can find my nearest pub, curry house or cashpoint.
All of those things you meantion can be done on 2.5G.
David.
It's the market leader for a reason.
What makes you think content providers for web sites are capable of writing HTML, or even using Dreamweaver? Don't you think they might try to format the page if using plain text... and if they are using plain text how on earth do you seperate a title from a paragraph, or use italics or bold? I know, you make them write something around the title to make it be a title... something along the lines of a title tag? -- Looks oddly like XML
Seriously, though -- when managing large amounts of content, structured data is the way to go... whether it is stored in an RDBMS or XML. Either way, the content writer should not know what they are doing (technically)... a very simple word processor tool can given to them where they can define what their content looks like.
Perhaps 99.9% of those replies are from mail servers whi report that a particular mailbox does not exist any more?
No, they don't say Talxon on the, they say Telxon. And, Symbol bought them out anyway.
Symbol don't have *any* Linux based handsets, the newest ones are PocketPC/WinCE.NET based. PalmOS is a dog on those kind of devices, and the rest of the market is DOS.
We have to certify against IE6, and nothing else since it is the target platform. If the client wants to use another browser, at very least they will have to do another usability test and possibly raise a change request for any arising defects. Although I'm sure things would work with other browsers, contractually this is not an obligation... and thus it does not make sense to test against anything other than the target platform -- in this case, IE.
It's called NetCentric computing, it needs browsers, but it's got nowt to do with portability. I'm sure portability helps some people, but not when you've got a known userbase who you *know* use IE.
Thought provoking, indeed!
You are indeed correct, I can't
I would argue that there is a hierarchical base for knowledge, it just breaks off the further up the tree you get. Incremental learning must take place before independant thought can take place, so in that sense there is certainly a degree of hierarchy, I think.
So, knowledge is hierarchial only insofar that simple addition and subtraction pave the way for more complex algebra... knowing algebra without knowing addition and subtraction would give algebra no meaning.
However, this doesn't account for leaps of thought where entire planes of thinking are bypassed... and nor does it account for mad people (always a tricky one in AI) , especially mad geniuses!
Learning to understand English is altogether different -- Language has a very complex set of very loosely defined rules which change over time, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Understanding English is very much an AI task.
The problem is knowedge, and how it should be represented -- with Chess you just need a big calculator and present as much of the game (projected) as possible. There is no such way to do this with language... a much more complex representation with much more hueristic knowledge is required, and this is where AI starts coming in. Natural language processing is a very tricky field, one which I won't even pretend I understand, and in my opinion nobody quite does... Chomsky probably coming closest, but then again I'd disagree with him on many points!!
D.
Doesn't the Tube (London Underground) already have one?
If you want to cluster Oracle, use Oracle RAC (Real Application Clusters). It's based on Parallel Server so is mature enough to put forward for consideration... and even then it might be eschewed from above. Cheap databases are not going to ring the bells of the people with the say-so simply because Oracle (and DB2 etc) are proven over the years, and the cost of losing your data because you went for the cheap option is going to lose your company a lot of money, and you your job!
Technically better, cheaper and all those good things does not mean better for a business. Databases are predominantly used for *business*, and as such a *business* reason it used when choosing one over another, not technical reasons.
They only have to operate a phone. I use Zingo every now and then, you just phone the number and you get put through to the nearest cabbie. It's as simple as that. No special GPS units for the passenger (they're for the system to work out where the cab is, they work out where you are from your mobile phone). So, even drunkenly I can get a cab using Zingo as long as the cabbie can understand my slurs!
Manhole Covers are round so they can't fall down the manhole. Simple.
:)
Standard lateral thinking interview question
Anyway, AC never paid AA, they paid Andersen Worldwide.
AA's second consulting division was small (which was, actually going to be called Andersen Consulting once they were allowed use the name again), and basically incapable of doing a whole lot. They were certinaly not involved in cooking the books - you can bet your life it was the AA tax division and not audit nor consulting that got the firm in trouble over Enron. How on earth could a consulting firm cover up billions?! That is simply not their role, that is the tax accountants.
Nice try, though.
Unlikely... Uncle Arthur's firm was a tax/audit/accounting firm. You're probably thinking of it's old sister firm, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture -- for whose consultants this kind of language is second nature
In reality, this kind of talk is great when you're trying to sell change to someone, but when you've giving your product away you don't need to worry about your customer!
(1) If a story gets pulled, lots of comments could already be posted. This would be pretty annoying if you had spent some time posting.
(2) Moderation is biased torwards early posters, and as such it would provide a disincentive for non-subscribers to post, thereby reducing the amount of discussion. This could be a good thing, since subscribers (hopefully!) provide more worthwhile reading.
NASA already is funding this kind of research. They have already invested $600,000 into Seattle-based company High Lift Systems, according to a BBC article.
Sounds to me the right thing to do -- invest in other companies to do the ground work, and see if it really is viable. If not they go bust -- Oh well. If it goes well, then great!