The optimal solution for solving a rubik's cube has already been bounded at about 18 moves (look it up).
Only in the worst possible configuration of the cube. 18 moves can't be the lower bound for every cube, because there exist many configurations that can be solved in less than 18. (Like the one you mentioned at 30s) If you'd read the rest of the wiki article you probably just consulted you would have seen that there even configurations that need over 20 moves too.
As for turning the cube then solving it in 4 moves, look at the computer and note a single view of the cube. The machine has to determine the starting point before solving and perhaps one needs to see more than a single face to know enough to solve the cube.
I don't see how this is dishonest and you didn't say why you think it is. Is it because it uses a different algorithm than a human? Newsflash: Man invented the Machine to do things Man couldn't.
They used a few of them in that marvellous fusion of aesthetics and engineering, the Citroën DS. It's a pity that the latest model to bear that name is just another anonymous hatchback. I tried to look at the Citroen site to see if it had any interesting new tech in it but car makers are the absolute limit when it comes to impossible-to-navigate, stupid bloody flash sites.
Speaking as an ME who switched from CS I agree wholeheartedly with the social skills part of your comment. You're also spot on with computers being a means to an end but that might have something to do with the computer part in CS, what? But when it comes to Porsches it's all a matter of taste; personally I think the shape is pleasant enough but the shape isn't designed by an ME. It's a nice bit of design but the pinnacle you're talking about is getting really rear-engined cars to handle as well as they do.
When people say industrial design these days they usually mean the outside appearance (I'm looking at you, Apple). MEs are the ones who actually make things work, usually involving a lot of sniggering at the faaarr-out and totally impractical designs that designers come up with. Rather the same as the difference between the ridiculous crap that's paraded down "fashion" catwalks and what people actually wear.
As an aside, for some reason I noticed the MEs drink a lot more than CS peeps, but that might be down to the perceived social deficiencies.
You have me there; I just assumed that something as major as an amendment would call for a referendum, but a quick look on wikipedia tells me that they don't happen at the national level in the US. The UK isn't much better in practice; we only get democratic goodness when Gordo thinks he can't fail (Switzerland here I come!).
It's probably bad form to mention this but fuck it, Troll? Flamebait?! Is this the normal reaction when an outsider passes comment on US law? Is an Englishman persona non grata here or was my feeble attempt at a concise collective term for the citizens of the US really that bad?
Having read some of the comments below I'd suggest you go a step further and impose criminal penalties for any person or company that surrenders personal information to law enforcement without a warrant.
I may be wrong, but on our side of the pond one of the few cases where an employee can be held individually subject to criminal prosecution is a breach of the Data Protection Act.
I'm not as USian but as an outside observer it seems to me you need a new amendment for the digital age to finally codify the limits on police powers that apply to modern technology.
If we've learnt anything so far, it's that you can't rely on those in charge to care about the spirit of the law.
Re:Not groundbreaking at all, System Shock 2 clone
on
BioShock 2 Released
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· Score: 1
I'm a big fan of this project, partly because it seems a lot simpler than the "superconducting cathedral" approaches but mainly because it's the only approach I've seen that could fit into a building rather than needing one built around it. Along with the DPF project I believe it's also the only one that is actively pursuing p-11B fusion.
Temperature is important if you take it to mean the energy that the particles have; naturally it has nothing to do with the total energy in the reactants. The product of temp., density and pressure is crucial but if the reactants aren't moving fast enough to overcome the coulomb barrier then you won't see fusion happening at all.
Temperature isn't necessarily the best metric to use though, because not all fusion machines have their reactants' energies forming a Maxwellian distribution. Such a device has the reactants all at the same energy, which would render the conventional idea of temperature entirely meaningless.
Coming back to the NIF, it's certainly really cool science - frickin' lasers and all - but the idea of a massive machine like this, which destroys a significant portion of the reaction chamber after each firing doesn't lead me to think of a workable power plant. I'm probably biased towards the Bussard crew, but a handful of SC coils in a vacuum chamber seems a lot more feasible than 200 lasers that have to be fired together with ps precision.
All well and good, but MicroSIM? Why?! What possible need was there for another size card? The credit card-sized ones were obviously too large but you couldn't argue that the space savings in something so much bigger than a phone were worth putting off anyone who already has a SIM.
We have a decent enough understanding of the laws of physics to have a good idea what would be a useful method of communication and what wouldn't be. For example, you list X-rays. But X-rays are much higher energy than radiowaves so are impractical.
For us, perhaps but is there a reason why their higher energy makes them less useful? Do they disperse more readiily?
Lasers, which you also list, only work if you have a very precisely aimed beam. Unfortunately, when you are talking about distance of lightyears, a tiny bit off and your laser would be useless. (Incidentally, for technical reasons a maser rather than a laser would actually probably work better for this purpose). Even if they are using precisely aimed lasers, we won't be able to detect.
Obviously ET probably wouldn't use lasers in their own SETI programme, but using them doesn't mean you aren't sophisticated. Their characteristics will prove handy when you want covert communication too. We probably won't detect a laser/maser message from the stars, but that doesn't suggest that ET can't be using them
Gravity waves are not going to be very good to send signals because they are incredibly hard to detect so even if you had a good way of making them, (which would also potentially lead to other cool stuff like anti-grav tech and potentially warp drive like technology) they would likely be extremely low bandwith. And we would have likely detected them by now in our searches for gravity waves.
Again, just because it's difficult for us doesn't mean it is for them. You suggest that gravity wave tech. would lead to AG and other wonderful things, if that were the case I don't think a gravity wave detector would be too difficult to put together (even easier in space)
It isn't clear how we would go about detecting things like a Dyson sphere so that suggestion is out. There are some potential signs of large scale solar system construction that we can hypothesize. However, of those we could search for, we don't see any of them. Radio waves remain our best hope for finding signs of other civilizations.
Right on. Radio is probably it, and as I understand it a Dyson sphere is going to be very hard to find indeed. Perhaps that's intentional.
Slashdot Mirror
I came here for the hilarious parody of a productive exchange of comments; I barely skimmed TFS!
I suspect I'm not alone in this, what what?
As will I, when I see one that can build other Lego robot masters.
The optimal solution for solving a rubik's cube has already been bounded at about 18 moves (look it up).
Only in the worst possible configuration of the cube. 18 moves can't be the lower bound for every cube, because there exist many configurations that can be solved in less than 18. (Like the one you mentioned at 30s) If you'd read the rest of the wiki article you probably just consulted you would have seen that there even configurations that need over 20 moves too.
As for turning the cube then solving it in 4 moves, look at the computer and note a single view of the cube. The machine has to determine the starting point before solving and perhaps one needs to see more than a single face to know enough to solve the cube.
I don't see how this is dishonest and you didn't say why you think it is. Is it because it uses a different algorithm than a human? Newsflash: Man invented the Machine to do things Man couldn't.
Don't worry, most people rebel against the man in college. Unfortunately only very few keep on doing it.
I doubt it.
1-to-10 says they're all on facebook.
BMW made them over 50 years ago; I'm told they had "interesting" handling.
They're also a lot bigger than a Porsche, and with all the extra weight gyroscopic effects aren't really much of an issue.
Is it a hydraulic accumulator you mean?
They used a few of them in that marvellous fusion of aesthetics and engineering, the Citroën DS. It's a pity that the latest model to bear that name is just another anonymous hatchback. I tried to look at the Citroen site to see if it had any interesting new tech in it but car makers are the absolute limit when it comes to impossible-to-navigate, stupid bloody flash sites.
Speaking as an ME who switched from CS I agree wholeheartedly with the social skills part of your comment. You're also spot on with computers being a means to an end but that might have something to do with the computer part in CS, what? But when it comes to Porsches it's all a matter of taste; personally I think the shape is pleasant enough but the shape isn't designed by an ME. It's a nice bit of design but the pinnacle you're talking about is getting really rear-engined cars to handle as well as they do.
When people say industrial design these days they usually mean the outside appearance (I'm looking at you, Apple). MEs are the ones who actually make things work, usually involving a lot of sniggering at the faaarr-out and totally impractical designs that designers come up with. Rather the same as the difference between the ridiculous crap that's paraded down "fashion" catwalks and what people actually wear.
As an aside, for some reason I noticed the MEs drink a lot more than CS peeps, but that might be down to the perceived social deficiencies.
Good for you! I mean, you could have laid into him/her/it for the h christ bit, but then you probably wouldn't have earned that shiny new +5 funny!
Maybe it was a case of not wanting to wear out the shift key?
You have me there; I just assumed that something as major as an amendment would call for a referendum, but a quick look on wikipedia tells me that they don't happen at the national level in the US. The UK isn't much better in practice; we only get democratic goodness when Gordo thinks he can't fail (Switzerland here I come!).
It's probably bad form to mention this but fuck it, Troll? Flamebait?! Is this the normal reaction when an outsider passes comment on US law? Is an Englishman persona non grata here or was my feeble attempt at a concise collective term for the citizens of the US really that bad?
It's a shame that similar action won't be forthcoming when it comes to the lopsided extradition treaties though.
N.B. These don't apply to all EU member states but are particularly bad with our spineless foreign office.
Having read some of the comments below I'd suggest you go a step further and impose criminal penalties for any person or company that surrenders personal information to law enforcement without a warrant.
I may be wrong, but on our side of the pond one of the few cases where an employee can be held individually subject to criminal prosecution is a breach of the Data Protection Act.
I'm not as USian but as an outside observer it seems to me you need a new amendment for the digital age to finally codify the limits on police powers that apply to modern technology.
If we've learnt anything so far, it's that you can't rely on those in charge to care about the spirit of the law.
He's an English ex-pat.
Like eat up Martha?
Then next time leave the paper attached to the pad, or put a book behind it.
The trick is to roughen the pen rather than the screen.
Because it's a touchscreen. Those aren't new in themselves, but this is apparently the first touch-sensitive one.
No pen.
I'm a big fan of this project, partly because it seems a lot simpler than the "superconducting cathedral" approaches but mainly because it's the only approach I've seen that could fit into a building rather than needing one built around it. Along with the DPF project I believe it's also the only one that is actively pursuing p-11B fusion.
Temperature is important if you take it to mean the energy that the particles have; naturally it has nothing to do with the total energy in the reactants. The product of temp., density and pressure is crucial but if the reactants aren't moving fast enough to overcome the coulomb barrier then you won't see fusion happening at all.
Temperature isn't necessarily the best metric to use though, because not all fusion machines have their reactants' energies forming a Maxwellian distribution. Such a device has the reactants all at the same energy, which would render the conventional idea of temperature entirely meaningless.
Coming back to the NIF, it's certainly really cool science - frickin' lasers and all - but the idea of a massive machine like this, which destroys a significant portion of the reaction chamber after each firing doesn't lead me to think of a workable power plant. I'm probably biased towards the Bussard crew, but a handful of SC coils in a vacuum chamber seems a lot more feasible than 200 lasers that have to be fired together with ps precision.
All well and good, but MicroSIM? Why?! What possible need was there for another size card? The credit card-sized ones were obviously too large but you couldn't argue that the space savings in something so much bigger than a phone were worth putting off anyone who already has a SIM.
It's unlocked but good luck getting a SIM for it.
How do you say "Propaganda" in Chinese?
Quietly.
We have a decent enough understanding of the laws of physics to have a good idea what would be a useful method of communication and what wouldn't be. For example, you list X-rays. But X-rays are much higher energy than radiowaves so are impractical.
For us, perhaps but is there a reason why their higher energy makes them less useful? Do they disperse more readiily?
Lasers, which you also list, only work if you have a very precisely aimed beam. Unfortunately, when you are talking about distance of lightyears, a tiny bit off and your laser would be useless. (Incidentally, for technical reasons a maser rather than a laser would actually probably work better for this purpose). Even if they are using precisely aimed lasers, we won't be able to detect.
Obviously ET probably wouldn't use lasers in their own SETI programme, but using them doesn't mean you aren't sophisticated. Their characteristics will prove handy when you want covert communication too. We probably won't detect a laser/maser message from the stars, but that doesn't suggest that ET can't be using them
Gravity waves are not going to be very good to send signals because they are incredibly hard to detect so even if you had a good way of making them, (which would also potentially lead to other cool stuff like anti-grav tech and potentially warp drive like technology) they would likely be extremely low bandwith. And we would have likely detected them by now in our searches for gravity waves.
Again, just because it's difficult for us doesn't mean it is for them. You suggest that gravity wave tech. would lead to AG and other wonderful things, if that were the case I don't think a gravity wave detector would be too difficult to put together (even easier in space)
It isn't clear how we would go about detecting things like a Dyson sphere so that suggestion is out. There are some potential signs of large scale solar system construction that we can hypothesize. However, of those we could search for, we don't see any of them. Radio waves remain our best hope for finding signs of other civilizations.
Right on. Radio is probably it, and as I understand it a Dyson sphere is going to be very hard to find indeed. Perhaps that's intentional.