When there is competition, those who seek attention turn to the most reliable magnets: sex, calamity, scandal, confrontation.
It's amazing how those seem to be the best seller's among any form of entertainment and this trend seems to continually grow. Back in the '50's and '60's, when movies stars could act, there was no nudity. You couldn't have "horizontal kissing" for the longest time in movies. Today, if there isn't nudity, most don't believe it was a good movie. If you can count the bullets, most of my friends would think it wasn't worth watching.
Why is this the trend? Why does porn run the world while virtues are not interesting anymore? I don't know, but it doesn't seem to me that we are evolving rather that we are going down hill. Watch what you want, I will stick to Jimmy Stewart and Carey Grant with beautiful women like Kathryn Hepburn and Princess Grace. Those movies had class and were actually interesting.
After all, isn't what censoship (as of late) has been all about? I don't make enough money selling 5,000,000 of my albums, I need more money and I think Napster is the reason I didn't sell 5,000,001.
Not that I don't think people have a right to what they want with the stuff they create, I just find it hard to believe that so many people are such pricks about it. I'm sure that Napster also had a little larger effect on the Music industry than that, but you get my point.
Let's take the freelance writer, for example. This is how he makes his money. Writing stuff to see if he can get a newspaper/magazine/tabloid to publish it. If he is successful, he doesn't want it on the net because that should mean more royalties for him. After all, it means more royalties for the publisher through advertising and what have you.
In my opinion, if I purchased the right to use your writing, then I should be able to publish it how I see fit. If that's in newspaper print or HTML should make no difference to me.
My point? Probaly never had one, but it does seem that what is behind this facet of censorship is greed. Money - we all have it, but we all want more.
Finally, somebody figured me out. Damn, what shall I do now? Probably not change a thing. I haven't seen too many here who don't have a sig or something that they saw somewhere else. I guess we'er just not as original as we used to be. I mean, hey, be realistic, how many of the things you right are ideas that you thought up completely on your own? I would venture to guess that most of them come from something that you heard/read/saw somewhere.
By the way, openly admitting that the opening (I don't want to get off on a rant here...) and closing (Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong) are Dennis Miller's, I don't remember the last time he went off on a topic so trivial as this.
Maybe I'm wrong, and you are some unheard of genius who is just waiting too be noticed. I'll hold my breath so you don't have to hold yours.
I tried to make that thing work and it kept failing. anyway...
The fact that we are to a point where we have to declare that we are old enough to hear what we typed, things have gone way too far.
Now I don't wan to get off on a rant here, but it seems as technology increases, so does the desire of everyone to make sure they have no reason to get sued. Personally I don't think the two are related. I think it has more to do with the fact that we have constantly been making more and more laws without enforcing the laws in existance. This leads to more and more lawyers there to interpret and fight the laws while at the same time, twist the laws so that they can make an optimum dollar. Combine that with the fact that most parents in today's society never take responsibility for their children while expecting the greater public to do so and you have a manifistaion such as the one written about here at Bell Labs. If we expect these things to change, we need to take responsibility for ourselves and our loved ones and stop putting the burden on the schools and the rest of society. After all, I want to be able to control what my under-aged children see/read/whatever, not those who think they know what's best for me and mine. But as usual...
I really can't believe what I am seeing. I have seen slippery slopes before, but M$'s seems to be glare ice.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but it seems that Microsft's desire to make money has done nothing but hurt us as a computerized community. When they took control of the market so many years ago, I don't think anynone envisioned their power getting to this level. At first, you only needed liscences per computer, then they wanted you to have Office Liscences per user on that computer. Subscription is nothing new, but M$ is doing whatever they can to make it difficult for the average business.
What will this do? This will, of course, give M$ more money than they have already to throw around in special intrest groups and at software companies so they only have a desire to make and support Windows apart from any other Operating System. Not to mention the burden that will be put on IS manager all over who not only have to keep track of when all of their PC's go off lease in 3 years, but also now the software.
Kudos to M$, they continue to amaze me with their greed. It would just be nice if we could trust them to do the right things with their money.
In closing, I am all for capitalism. I love the idea of using money to make money. The problem is when companies use money to deliberately run others out of business.
This same thing happend to me, although not a parody, there were some similarities.
I was just starting in my career, had passed my CCNA, my RHCE, and I thought I knew it all. I met some guy who was looking for someone with Cisco and Red Hat Linux experience and I thought, "Hey, I really fit that bill!!!" I interviewed with the guy at a local restaurant.(my first hint should have been that I never actually was able to see the office space they had) He asked me what experience I had with Linux to which I naturally responded, "Well, I have my RHCE." Which was similar to the response I had when asked about my Cisco experience.
He sounded all excited and wanted to hire me starting me at a salary that was double what I was already making. I bet you could see the dollar signs in my eyes. He was going to call me in a week and make an offer. A week passed, then two. I called him, and he responded with "Well, I am meeting with some Venture Capital companies this week..." This went on for about a month. In the meantime, the company I was working for was looking to make cut-backs. They had found out somehow that I had interviewed elsewhere and figured I wasn't a team player any longer and I was chosen as one of ten to be let go.
Oh well, things turned out for the best, but that's how a young, naive person could get caught in the dot-com hype. Lesson learned.
I worked for a company where we had to be on call for two weeks about every four months. What showed up on my paycheck was a bonus for whatever the decided amount was whether I was paged or not. When I did get called, it was time + 1/2.
Everyone does it different, but in my opinion if you are expected to not be out of town, or out having a good time with alchohol and the such, you should get a little extra.
Ever since about a week after Google first opened it's doors (so-to-speak) I have switched from Yahoo and never looked back. Then later down the road, Yahoo too switched. They have done an amazing thing for search engines. The web page is simple, and searches are fast. Now they take care of Deja's news groups too. End result, everything Google takes over does great. Maybe they should take over M$? Anyway, I am sure that with their consistant growth that they are going to eventually turn it up to 16,000. You have to love seeing stuff like this.
Maybe I'm just old school, but I fail to see the reasoning for this. I really don't like it when people dress up thier cars/trucks whatever with neon lights, hydraulic shocks, etc. and I think this is just that same step in the nerd direction.
Let's face it, computer hardware is no necessarily eye-appealing (at least not so to me) and I don't want people coming over to my in-house office to look at the guts of such and eyesore.
Applications? Maybe if they make a rack-mountable case.
Of couse, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Good old days gone forever....
on
Surround Lights
·
· Score: 3
What ever happened to the good old days? It seems we can never be happy with what we have. I guess in a culture where technology changes faster than my underwear, I shouldn't be surprised.
I remember when the Atari 1600 (or whatever the number was) came out. That was the greatest thing known to man. Then the first Nintendo came to use and graphics could not get any better than that, and if they could, who would need them, right?
I have to admit that this is all pretty cool, but I miss the days when we used to watch a bug zapper for entertainment. Now we need things to be as realistic as possible without feeling actual pain. Although I imagine that will be next, suits that you wear while playing your FPS game so when you get hit it actually will inflict pain on you.
Personally, I think I am ready to go back to squirrel hunting on the back 40.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
While I do agree with most of your statement, and I believe that the US is the greatest place to live in the world, I fear that in the following comment, we are changing:
The US has contributed greatly to the world, establishing a country granted rights from the people. Not a country that bestows rights to the people.
We may have started out as a country that granted rights from the people, but I believe that we have become more of the other, a country that is bestowing rights to the people. See Report on the Texas Censorware Bill. If you have been reading Slashdot regularly and keeping up with the different laws that are trying to be passed in congress, you have to agree that this is seeming to be more of the pattern.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
No one (other than maybe some Slashdot reader) buys operating systems. People buy applications and then chose the operating system that best runs those applications.
To me, this is the problem. I know that Bob answered this problem too, but some instances come to mind. Most recently, Corel. Microsoft pumped a bunch of money into Corel, and they stated they were no longer going to support Linux. Then Microsoft pulls their money out of Corel, and they are supporting Linux again. If the software is not there, the "higher-ups" in companies will not run out an use Linux just because thier IT department thinks it's a neat solution and it's cheaper.
Please don't get me wrong, I love Linux and I'm an avid Red Hat user. I'm even an RHCE. But if the desktop market is what they are truly hoping to get into, the software must be there too.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I do not believe there should be laws against harming yourself, that's your choice and you should have to also bear the consequences of the actions rather than have a governmental body tell you what you must do (seatbelt laws come to mind here along with motorcycle helmets.)
Please don't think that I intend the following comment as some angry response to something I disagree with, but merely as an addition to the discussion. As a hard-nosed farm boy, I would like to agree with you comment that I have taken the liberty in pasting to my reply. This seems to be the view of Socrates in what is known today as the Ethical Rule of Egoism. This states: "An act is right if it creates a positive balance of consequences for the agent, and an act is wrong if it creates a negative balance of consequences for the agent." In your reply, you only mention the agent. The idiot who does not wear the helmet or doesn't wear the seatbelt. You don't mention the Wife/Kids/Driver of the other car/whatever that are not the agent. This seems to coralate with the selfishness I mentioned in my previous reply. I have a tendancy to agree more with (although not completely with) Budda's idea that an act is right if it creates a positive balance of consequences for everyone except the agent, and an act is wrong if it creates a negative balance of consequences for everyone except the agent.
My point is that there is always more to any situation than "me". Does this apply to the Decrypting of messages and such? I don't know. It's not for me to define. I think that governments go too far in many cases; gun control for example.
I wonder if our grandchildren will recognize the societies as they stand now.
Ask your grandparents if this is these are the societies they saw 25-30 years ago. I guess things change. We become more 'civilized/educated' and we think we now have the answers that they didn't have 25-30 years ago and the cycle continues. In my humble opinion, it's not that we are any more civilized or educated, but simply more selfish.
One of the problems with the EU gov't is they have already decided they know better than 'the people' what is good for them.
I'm not pretending that I know where you are from, but in a comment; I can't see how this differs so much from the society of the U.S. In all actuality, this is the idea of most governing bodies. If you think about it, the only reason for creating laws (which we are so good at here in the U.S.) is to protect "The People" from themselves or from other people.
The only type of government where "The People" would be trusted completely is tre communism which would mean there is no government as well as no private ownership of property (side note). I honestly can say that I don't believe this would work. People are selfish by default and without laws to protect us and each other from the selfishness that exists we would be much worse off than we are today.
Does this mean I think that it isn't going to far? No. Most "politicians" are selfish as well and seek to serve special intrest groups that pump money into their campaign fund. The real problem here in the U.S. is that instead of enforcing the laws that exist, we choose to just make another one. Talk about a catch-22.
Is there an answer? If there is I don't have it. I'm just here to offer my opinion. And as always...
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
That's right. What's funny about this whole thing, is that my dad, who has been in the concrete business for 20+ years figured it out while me, the network engineer and my brother the CS major and Math minor couldn't figure it out. Goes to show you where I'm at I guess.
Although it's not near as complex, as a mind such as mind can't handle such things, it is kind of cool.
Three guys come want to stay in a hotel and pay equal amount each to share a hotel room. When they ask the woman behind the counter what the price is for a single room, she replies that it is 30 dollars. This is to their delight as they will be able to split that very evenly between the three of them. They each give her $10 and are happily on their way to thier room. About an hour later, the woman's boss comes in and asks if anything happened while he was out. She tells him the story of the three men to which he responds be telling her that they paid too much and that the price of the room should have been $25. He tells her to take $5 and give it back to them. In the process of returning the money, she remebers how they all wanted to pay an equal amount. So to make it easy on them, she gave them each $1 back, and kept the remaining $2 for herself.
This is where it get's tricky. They each paid $9 which multiplied by 3 is $27. She kept $2 and when added on to the $27 that they paid is $29. Where did the 30th dollar go?
At first glance, Darwin's ideas on evolution don't seem to have much to do with computers.
I imagine the columnist is referring to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection which he later renounced by saying "The idea that something as complex as the eyeball was produced by natural selection makes me ill."
A computer that evolves may redesign itself in such a way that even its inventors don't know how it's functioning.
This may be true, however I highly doubt that the inventors don't know or couldn't figure out how it is functioning. This always brings to face the idea that computers some day will pass us up and we will be working for them. My only statement to that would be that from the beginning of time, the creation (in the case the "thinking chip") has never been been able to take over the creator (in this case, man).
HAL, after all, was the machine that could think almost as well as a person,...
The key word here is almost. Not to mention that was a science fiction story.
Don't get me wrong, I like the ideas of genetic algorithims and I'm sure they will take us places in computing that we have never been before and fasther than we could have ever imagined. I can't wait to see what the future brings for computing and how things change on the desktop or in the server markets. I just get a little annoyed with the idea that some think this is going to be what takes over the world.
Of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Well, when you think about it, M$ has been following apple including the GUI. That's what it's like when you can't come up with your own ideas. You need to take someone elses and then just learn how to market it better. Such is the philosophy, and has been the philosopy of the King over at Microsoft since the beginning of time.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry guys, I accidently posted this to the wrong article.
Did anyone else notice that this detectives name is the same name as the cop from the movie "Falling Down" with Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall?
Seems strange to me I guess.
Either way, M$ is a bunch of screw-offs.
Did anyone else notice that this is the same name as the detective from the movie "Falling Down" with Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall?
Seems weird to me.
He mentioned some interesting things:
When there is competition, those who seek attention turn to the most reliable magnets: sex, calamity, scandal, confrontation.
It's amazing how those seem to be the best seller's among any form of entertainment and this trend seems to continually grow. Back in the '50's and '60's, when movies stars could act, there was no nudity. You couldn't have "horizontal kissing" for the longest time in movies. Today, if there isn't nudity, most don't believe it was a good movie. If you can count the bullets, most of my friends would think it wasn't worth watching.
Why is this the trend? Why does porn run the world while virtues are not interesting anymore? I don't know, but it doesn't seem to me that we are evolving rather that we are going down hill. Watch what you want, I will stick to Jimmy Stewart and Carey Grant with beautiful women like Kathryn Hepburn and Princess Grace. Those movies had class and were actually interesting.
It seems I am a self-obsessed, cryptic, family password creator. Life is good.
I don't remember creating such a beast. I must have been drunk at that meeting. Oh well, time to buck up and face it...
After all, isn't what censoship (as of late) has been all about? I don't make enough money selling 5,000,000 of my albums, I need more money and I think Napster is the reason I didn't sell 5,000,001.
Not that I don't think people have a right to what they want with the stuff they create, I just find it hard to believe that so many people are such pricks about it. I'm sure that Napster also had a little larger effect on the Music industry than that, but you get my point.
Let's take the freelance writer, for example. This is how he makes his money. Writing stuff to see if he can get a newspaper/magazine/tabloid to publish it. If he is successful, he doesn't want it on the net because that should mean more royalties for him. After all, it means more royalties for the publisher through advertising and what have you.
In my opinion, if I purchased the right to use your writing, then I should be able to publish it how I see fit. If that's in newspaper print or HTML should make no difference to me.
My point? Probaly never had one, but it does seem that what is behind this facet of censorship is greed. Money - we all have it, but we all want more.
First - What is this going to mean to the current processor and bus speeds that are already seemingly "too fast" at 1.7 GHz?
Second - Will they do the same with this new discovery as they did with MCA? It's mine and no one else can have any of it.
Third - What will this do to their stock price tomorrow? (Ah, my sweet portfolio)
Finally, somebody figured me out. Damn, what shall I do now? Probably not change a thing. I haven't seen too many here who don't have a sig or something that they saw somewhere else. I guess we'er just not as original as we used to be. I mean, hey, be realistic, how many of the things you right are ideas that you thought up completely on your own? I would venture to guess that most of them come from something that you heard/read/saw somewhere.
By the way, openly admitting that the opening (I don't want to get off on a rant here...) and closing (Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong) are Dennis Miller's, I don't remember the last time he went off on a topic so trivial as this.
Maybe I'm wrong, and you are some unheard of genius who is just waiting too be noticed. I'll hold my breath so you don't have to hold yours.
I tried to make that thing work and it kept failing. anyway...
The fact that we are to a point where we have to declare that we are old enough to hear what we typed, things have gone way too far.
Now I don't wan to get off on a rant here, but it seems as technology increases, so does the desire of everyone to make sure they have no reason to get sued. Personally I don't think the two are related. I think it has more to do with the fact that we have constantly been making more and more laws without enforcing the laws in existance. This leads to more and more lawyers there to interpret and fight the laws while at the same time, twist the laws so that they can make an optimum dollar. Combine that with the fact that most parents in today's society never take responsibility for their children while expecting the greater public to do so and you have a manifistaion such as the one written about here at Bell Labs. If we expect these things to change, we need to take responsibility for ourselves and our loved ones and stop putting the burden on the schools and the rest of society. After all, I want to be able to control what my under-aged children see/read/whatever, not those who think they know what's best for me and mine. But as usual...
I really can't believe what I am seeing. I have seen slippery slopes before, but M$'s seems to be glare ice.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but it seems that Microsft's desire to make money has done nothing but hurt us as a computerized community. When they took control of the market so many years ago, I don't think anynone envisioned their power getting to this level. At first, you only needed liscences per computer, then they wanted you to have Office Liscences per user on that computer. Subscription is nothing new, but M$ is doing whatever they can to make it difficult for the average business.
What will this do? This will, of course, give M$ more money than they have already to throw around in special intrest groups and at software companies so they only have a desire to make and support Windows apart from any other Operating System. Not to mention the burden that will be put on IS manager all over who not only have to keep track of when all of their PC's go off lease in 3 years, but also now the software.
Kudos to M$, they continue to amaze me with their greed. It would just be nice if we could trust them to do the right things with their money.
In closing, I am all for capitalism. I love the idea of using money to make money. The problem is when companies use money to deliberately run others out of business.
This same thing happend to me, although not a parody, there were some similarities.
I was just starting in my career, had passed my CCNA, my RHCE, and I thought I knew it all. I met some guy who was looking for someone with Cisco and Red Hat Linux experience and I thought, "Hey, I really fit that bill!!!" I interviewed with the guy at a local restaurant.(my first hint should have been that I never actually was able to see the office space they had) He asked me what experience I had with Linux to which I naturally responded, "Well, I have my RHCE." Which was similar to the response I had when asked about my Cisco experience.
He sounded all excited and wanted to hire me starting me at a salary that was double what I was already making. I bet you could see the dollar signs in my eyes. He was going to call me in a week and make an offer. A week passed, then two. I called him, and he responded with "Well, I am meeting with some Venture Capital companies this week..." This went on for about a month. In the meantime, the company I was working for was looking to make cut-backs. They had found out somehow that I had interviewed elsewhere and figured I wasn't a team player any longer and I was chosen as one of ten to be let go.
Oh well, things turned out for the best, but that's how a young, naive person could get caught in the dot-com hype. Lesson learned.
I worked for a company where we had to be on call for two weeks about every four months. What showed up on my paycheck was a bonus for whatever the decided amount was whether I was paged or not. When I did get called, it was time + 1/2.
Everyone does it different, but in my opinion if you are expected to not be out of town, or out having a good time with alchohol and the such, you should get a little extra.
Ever since about a week after Google first opened it's doors (so-to-speak) I have switched from Yahoo and never looked back. Then later down the road, Yahoo too switched. They have done an amazing thing for search engines. The web page is simple, and searches are fast. Now they take care of Deja's news groups too. End result, everything Google takes over does great. Maybe they should take over M$? Anyway, I am sure that with their consistant growth that they are going to eventually turn it up to 16,000. You have to love seeing stuff like this.
Maybe I'm just old school, but I fail to see the reasoning for this. I really don't like it when people dress up thier cars/trucks whatever with neon lights, hydraulic shocks, etc. and I think this is just that same step in the nerd direction.
Let's face it, computer hardware is no necessarily eye-appealing (at least not so to me) and I don't want people coming over to my in-house office to look at the guts of such and eyesore.
Applications? Maybe if they make a rack-mountable case.
Of couse, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
What ever happened to the good old days? It seems we can never be happy with what we have. I guess in a culture where technology changes faster than my underwear, I shouldn't be surprised.
I remember when the Atari 1600 (or whatever the number was) came out. That was the greatest thing known to man. Then the first Nintendo came to use and graphics could not get any better than that, and if they could, who would need them, right?
I have to admit that this is all pretty cool, but I miss the days when we used to watch a bug zapper for entertainment. Now we need things to be as realistic as possible without feeling actual pain. Although I imagine that will be next, suits that you wear while playing your FPS game so when you get hit it actually will inflict pain on you.
Personally, I think I am ready to go back to squirrel hunting on the back 40.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
While I do agree with most of your statement, and I believe that the US is the greatest place to live in the world, I fear that in the following comment, we are changing:
The US has contributed greatly to the world, establishing a country granted rights from the people. Not a country that bestows rights to the people.
We may have started out as a country that granted rights from the people, but I believe that we have become more of the other, a country that is bestowing rights to the people. See Report on the Texas Censorware Bill. If you have been reading Slashdot regularly and keeping up with the different laws that are trying to be passed in congress, you have to agree that this is seeming to be more of the pattern.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
No one (other than maybe some Slashdot reader) buys operating systems. People buy applications and then chose the operating system that best runs those applications.
To me, this is the problem. I know that Bob answered this problem too, but some instances come to mind. Most recently, Corel. Microsoft pumped a bunch of money into Corel, and they stated they were no longer going to support Linux. Then Microsoft pulls their money out of Corel, and they are supporting Linux again. If the software is not there, the "higher-ups" in companies will not run out an use Linux just because thier IT department thinks it's a neat solution and it's cheaper.
Please don't get me wrong, I love Linux and I'm an avid Red Hat user. I'm even an RHCE. But if the desktop market is what they are truly hoping to get into, the software must be there too.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I do not believe there should be laws against harming yourself, that's your choice and you should have to also bear the consequences of the actions rather than have a governmental body tell you what you must do (seatbelt laws come to mind here along with motorcycle helmets.)
Please don't think that I intend the following comment as some angry response to something I disagree with, but merely as an addition to the discussion. As a hard-nosed farm boy, I would like to agree with you comment that I have taken the liberty in pasting to my reply. This seems to be the view of Socrates in what is known today as the Ethical Rule of Egoism. This states: "An act is right if it creates a positive balance of consequences for the agent, and an act is wrong if it creates a negative balance of consequences for the agent." In your reply, you only mention the agent. The idiot who does not wear the helmet or doesn't wear the seatbelt. You don't mention the Wife/Kids/Driver of the other car/whatever that are not the agent. This seems to coralate with the selfishness I mentioned in my previous reply. I have a tendancy to agree more with (although not completely with) Budda's idea that an act is right if it creates a positive balance of consequences for everyone except the agent, and an act is wrong if it creates a negative balance of consequences for everyone except the agent.
My point is that there is always more to any situation than "me". Does this apply to the Decrypting of messages and such? I don't know. It's not for me to define. I think that governments go too far in many cases; gun control for example.
I wonder if our grandchildren will recognize the societies as they stand now.
Ask your grandparents if this is these are the societies they saw 25-30 years ago. I guess things change. We become more 'civilized/educated' and we think we now have the answers that they didn't have 25-30 years ago and the cycle continues. In my humble opinion, it's not that we are any more civilized or educated, but simply more selfish.
One of the problems with the EU gov't is they have already decided they know better than 'the people' what is good for them.
I'm not pretending that I know where you are from, but in a comment; I can't see how this differs so much from the society of the U.S. In all actuality, this is the idea of most governing bodies. If you think about it, the only reason for creating laws (which we are so good at here in the U.S.) is to protect "The People" from themselves or from other people.
The only type of government where "The People" would be trusted completely is tre communism which would mean there is no government as well as no private ownership of property (side note). I honestly can say that I don't believe this would work. People are selfish by default and without laws to protect us and each other from the selfishness that exists we would be much worse off than we are today.
Does this mean I think that it isn't going to far? No. Most "politicians" are selfish as well and seek to serve special intrest groups that pump money into their campaign fund. The real problem here in the U.S. is that instead of enforcing the laws that exist, we choose to just make another one. Talk about a catch-22.
Is there an answer? If there is I don't have it. I'm just here to offer my opinion. And as always...
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The problem is in the wording. It leads you to try and find the wrong solution. Oh well, such is life.
That's right. What's funny about this whole thing, is that my dad, who has been in the concrete business for 20+ years figured it out while me, the network engineer and my brother the CS major and Math minor couldn't figure it out. Goes to show you where I'm at I guess.
Thanks for the reply.
Although it's not near as complex, as a mind such as mind can't handle such things, it is kind of cool.
Three guys come want to stay in a hotel and pay equal amount each to share a hotel room. When they ask the woman behind the counter what the price is for a single room, she replies that it is 30 dollars. This is to their delight as they will be able to split that very evenly between the three of them. They each give her $10 and are happily on their way to thier room. About an hour later, the woman's boss comes in and asks if anything happened while he was out. She tells him the story of the three men to which he responds be telling her that they paid too much and that the price of the room should have been $25. He tells her to take $5 and give it back to them. In the process of returning the money, she remebers how they all wanted to pay an equal amount. So to make it easy on them, she gave them each $1 back, and kept the remaining $2 for herself.
This is where it get's tricky. They each paid $9 which multiplied by 3 is $27. She kept $2 and when added on to the $27 that they paid is $29. Where did the 30th dollar go?
I love that one.
At first glance, Darwin's ideas on evolution don't seem to have much to do with computers.
I imagine the columnist is referring to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection which he later renounced by saying "The idea that something as complex as the eyeball was produced by natural selection makes me ill."
A computer that evolves may redesign itself in such a way that even its inventors don't know how it's functioning.
This may be true, however I highly doubt that the inventors don't know or couldn't figure out how it is functioning. This always brings to face the idea that computers some day will pass us up and we will be working for them. My only statement to that would be that from the beginning of time, the creation (in the case the "thinking chip") has never been been able to take over the creator (in this case, man).
HAL, after all, was the machine that could think almost as well as a person,...
The key word here is almost. Not to mention that was a science fiction story.
Don't get me wrong, I like the ideas of genetic algorithims and I'm sure they will take us places in computing that we have never been before and fasther than we could have ever imagined. I can't wait to see what the future brings for computing and how things change on the desktop or in the server markets. I just get a little annoyed with the idea that some think this is going to be what takes over the world.
Of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Well, when you think about it, M$ has been following apple including the GUI. That's what it's like when you can't come up with your own ideas. You need to take someone elses and then just learn how to market it better. Such is the philosophy, and has been the philosopy of the King over at Microsoft since the beginning of time.