It is a good thing that UW is offering a course to people applying to Electrical or Computer Engineering. Programming is an important part of those disciplines but cannot be a required course from high school.
The problem is if the choice of C# over C++ hurts the quality of the education.
Note also that over the past decade we have changed from Fortran to C to C++
Ryan C-W
Re:Letting users do things that are otherwise ille
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 1
Good point
Because the GPL (and presumably, other free/open software licenses) lets the user do MORE things that are otherwise illegal (copy and redistribute software)
Whenever you have media that covers a certain market, mainly provides information on upcoming products and hence gets most of its advertising from the same industry this could happen.
In addition to video games you can see it in other entertainment. Also in car magazines or electronics.
You should always make a judgement of the credibility of any information you receive.
Couldn't there also be a Name System where typging a more easily remembered word sequence would look up the number for you.
Then those with porrer memories could use that but the "phone number" would be constant for that site as well.
The car doesn't itself pollute unless the gas in the tanks has different proporations than air, but where does the electricity come from.
If these cars ever became widespread electricity consumption would increase. The environmental-friendliness of the cars would be determined by the source of the power
The amount of CD's they have sold proves nothing. The only way to determine whether or not napster had an adverse efect would be to have an alternate universe in which Napster did not exist, measure CD sales there, and then compare it to our world.
In fact, with the existence of random events, you wo9uld have to have a statistically significant sample size of alternate universes without Napster and another sample groups of our worlds and compare the results of the two groups.
While the law does not provide any "confidentiality" between a reporter and a witness
Doesn't the law allow a journalist to protect his source?
I remember watching on Law & Order an issue like this arose where a biker who wrote stories on a BBS claimed to be a journalist to avoid having to testify in a murder case. While L&O is not a consummate source of legal information I would think it reasonably accurate.
Small animals with small brains will have less intelligence.
As I have heard it the theory is how big an animal's brain is in relation to its body (i.e. how much brain functioning power is left after takling care of necessities like breathing and moving)
I think the best interface is that which is natural to people. I'd like to see a computer display that is like (electronic) paper and I could input a number of ways including writing on the "paper".
Imagine also, a stack of 52 electronic-display cards you could play cards and a computer could calculate probabilities for you based onthe cards it senses in your hand; you could use the cards as cue cards as you prepare for a speech (as notes are displayed on each of them)
Moving from a command line text interface to a graphic interface was an amazing revolution. The creation of a GUI made it more like working on a "desktop". Moving to a physical interface is natural and would be a further advancement.
Here I found links to the home pages of Sebastian Seung and Rahul Sarpeshkar, two guys mentioned in the Yahoo article. A quick look doesn't reveal much specific to this story but, not surprisingly, all there research is in this area.
Until the 80's in Ontario, I think that libel required criminal proceedings where now it would be a civil trial initiated by the plaintiff.
With some brief reading it seems that in the US you are safe to express an opinion; only the assertion of fact has potential to be libel. Then also if the you made the statements in good faith (ui.e. you believed tham to be true) affords some protection.
The second site listed below says that with the 1964 New York Times vs. Sullivan the burden of proof shifted from the defendant to the plaintiff (id est the victim of the alleged libel must prove the assertions to be false)
The mass of a photon is utilized. There are working models of aircraft that are propelled into the air with a laser.
They craft consists of a reflective body which is gyroscopically-stabilized by rotation and is propelled upwards by a laser beam.
It has no other mechanism save for the groundbased laser whose light it reflects and by redirecting the photons(of finite non-zero mass) it gains momentum.
THere are some interesting articles here along a similar line at Nasa's BPP. THey are trying to develop propulsion where you don't have to throw mass out the back end of your craft (i.e. rocket fuel).
Yeah the article isn't too comprehensive about the technical side.
I wonder about an application of this in communication. Say if gravity is part of the physical nature of the world etc. ; does it manifest itself instantaneously (or very quickly) and I could control gravity, couldn't I send gravity waves and a message on such a device to a gravity receiver.
Such communication could be very fast unles changes in gravity are restricted to the speed of light (I don't know).
Y'know a few of their domains are registered by different people but many are still available. SOme shrewd corporation could come in and take advantage of the minions of anti-.com-on-the-web to spread their free advertising.
BTDOYA follower: That's it I'm gonna get these guys by printing out these stickers and pasting them all over.
Many regular people: Hey I wonder if there really is a website at ijusthadarectalexamonline.com
Some sneaky corporation: Thanks a lot for promoting my website sucker.
Safety is a big concern. From what I know of the SkyCar it was made with redundant systems (all but one engine could fail and it could still fly) and control systems that truly fly the plane (so you would just be steering in 3-dimensions essentially). These attempts at a fail-safe air-vehicle might address some of the legal concerns.
Also, aside from the prohibitive cost of purchase it takes a great deal of fuel to fly which means high ongoing costs as well; especially with today's gasoline prices.
Okay, I found this explanation (link at the end): Quantum Computers
The memory of a classical computer is a string of 0s and 1s, and a classical computer can do calculations on only one set of numbers at once. The memory of a quantum computer is a quantum state which can be in a superposition of many different numbers at once. A classical computer is made up of bits, and a quantum computer is made up of quantum bits, or qubits. A quantum computer can do an arbitrary reversible classical computation on all the numbers simultaneously, and also has some ability to produce interference, constructive or destructive, between various different numbers. By doing a computation on many different numbers at once, then interfering the results to get a single answer, a quantum computer has the potential to be much more powerful than a classical computer of the same size.
The most famous example of the extra power of a quantum computer is Peter Shor's algorithm for factoring large numbers. Factoring is an important problem in cryptography; for instance, the security of RSA public key cryptography depends on factoring being a hard problem. Despite much research, no efficient classical factoring algorithm is known.
Shor actually solved a related problem, the discrete log. Suppose we take a number x to the power r and reduce the answer modulo n (i.e., find the remainder r after dividing xr by n). This is straightforward to calculate. It is much more difficult to find the inverse - given x, n, and y, find r such that xr = y (mod n). For factoring, all we need to do is consider y=1 and find the smallest positive r such that xr = 1 (mod n). Shor's quantum algorithm to do this calculates xr for all r at once. Since xl+r = xl (mod n), this is a periodic function with period r. Then when we take the Fourier transform, we will get something that is peaked at multiples of 1/r. Luckily, there is an efficient quantum algorithm for the Fourier transform, so we can then find r.
There are many proposals for how to build a quantum computer, with more being made all the time. The 0 and 1 of a qubit might be the ground and excited states of an atom in a linear ion trap; they might be polarizations of photons that interact in an optical cavity; they might even be the excess of one nuclear spin state over another in a liquid sample in an NMR machine. As long as there is a way to put the system in a quantum superposition and there is a way to interact multiple qubits, a system can potentially be used as a quantum computer. In order for a system to be a good choice, it is also important that we can do many operations before losing quantum coherence. It may not ultimately be possible to make a quantum computer that can do a useful calculation before decohering, but if we can get the error rate low enough, we can use a quantum error-correcting code to protect the data even when the individual qubits in the computer decohere.
My simplistic understanding is that instead of using a transistor to store bits they use certain quantum attributes of atomic particles to store bits of info. One advantage would be that they are very small.
Seriously though...I don't see a huge demand for these things. I agree, while convenient this is really just a novelty. It could however foreshadow future developments.
Do you think that the future is with these devices that record a signal using tv listings info or maybe with TV on demand where say the Simpsons are available for download starting 8pm on sunday and the main storage is at the company site.
I can see the latter way reducing the cost to consumers as the unit would be less complicated. An advantage of the former is that it works with exising cable network.
And just how happy do you think advertisers will be about this idea?
This will just motivate advertisers to find different ways of advertising.
More effective and perhaps insidious advertising is that which is a part of content; either you want to watch the ad because it is entertaining or the brand is promoted as a part of the show you are watching. In both cases you have absorbed the content and was unable to avoid the commercial promotion. This is the future of advertising.
I think considering usage and trademarks is interesting. A company should certainly not be able to co-opt a dictionary word for a trademark.
What about trademarks that are adopted into language. Say in many places kleenex refers to facial tissue band-aid denotes adhesive bandage
Obviously it doesn't work the other way either; Either trademarks and words must be exclusive (i.e. all trademarks cannot be existing words) or they must refer to different subjects (i.e. Coca-Cola can only prevent someone from using "coke" to refer to a carbonated beverage)
Generating opposing magnetic fields each having a plane of maximum force running perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the respective magnetic field;
The Lorentz force is given by Il x B, which means that the magnetic force is due to a current, and in general, circulates about the current flow.
This is true, however there is another consequence of the equation you cite. If there is a current and an independent magnetic field perpendicular the medium of the current will experience a force mutually perpendicular to the first two. (id est: current along x-axis, magnetic field y and then force z) generating heat from a heat source along an axis parallel to the longitudinal axis of the magnetic field;
Unless the heat source is a thin wire, it is difficult to imagine an axial heat source. Heat conduction tends to be uniform, and while I'm not a material scientist, it is difficult for me to think of a material that has non-isotropic heat conduction (ie different depending on direction -- a composite material with fibers might do the trick).
An axial heat source need only be a material with uniform generation in a cylindrical shape. (any heat generating rod will be the hottest at its centre and heat will travel outwards. In the "preferred embodiment of the patent a halogen lamp is suggested as the heat source. In any pure isotropic material heat conduction hsould definitely be uniform. The other component of conduction is the gradient. (net heat transfer is from a hotter area to a cooler area) So the shape of the heat generation could affect it.
Another useful phrase for patents that this one uses is "it is believed". He hasn't gotten this thing to work yet but wants to benefit if someone else does
I think many or the anarchaic slashdotters might be agains tthis new development.
I see it as a good thing if implemented properly (any regulation sucks if mis-implemented)
It makes perfect sense that a company who holds a trademark has a right to the domain of that trademark. However much I might dislike Microsoft; they do have a rigfht to their name.
Where there might be more argument is whether or not a company should have a trademark on common names (like the Apple trademark causing that orchard guy above all those problems). I mean I don't think computer.com should be allowed to be trademarked or anything like that.
This may be old news to many but for some companies Turkmenistan is a popular TLD (.tm) like sony.tm
One of my favorite lines is: "...saying its hasty union was a "stupid mistake" done only to 'gain some national attention.'"
Perhaps it was a dumb mistake; but now they have reversed the mistake and kept the national attention, perhaps they have gained more attention with this "annulment".
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is if the choice of C# over C++ hurts the quality of the education.
Note also that over the past decade we have changed from Fortran to C to C++
Ryan C-W
Because the GPL (and presumably, other free/open software licenses) lets the user do MORE things that are otherwise illegal (copy and redistribute software)
In addition to video games you can see it in other entertainment. Also in car magazines or electronics.
You should always make a judgement of the credibility of any information you receive.
Bb
-- where to go for University of Waterloo news
Couldn't there also be a Name System where typging a more easily remembered word sequence would look up the number for you. Then those with porrer memories could use that but the "phone number" would be constant for that site as well.
If these cars ever became widespread electricity consumption would increase. The environmental-friendliness of the cars would be determined by the source of the power
In fact, with the existence of random events, you wo9uld have to have a statistically significant sample size of alternate universes without Napster and another sample groups of our worlds and compare the results of the two groups.
While the law does not provide any "confidentiality" between a reporter and a witness
Doesn't the law allow a journalist to protect his source?
I remember watching on Law & Order an issue like this arose where a biker who wrote stories on a BBS claimed to be a journalist to avoid having to testify in a murder case. While L&O is not a consummate source of legal information I would think it reasonably accurate.
Can anyone clarify the rights of a journalist?"
Small animals with small brains will have less intelligence.
As I have heard it the theory is how big an animal's brain is in relation to its body (i.e. how much brain functioning power is left after takling care of necessities like breathing and moving)
I think the best interface is that which is natural to people. I'd like to see a computer display that is like (electronic) paper and I could input a number of ways including writing on the "paper".
Imagine also, a stack of 52 electronic-display cards you could play cards and a computer could calculate probabilities for you based onthe cards it senses in your hand; you could use the cards as cue cards as you prepare for a speech (as notes are displayed on each of them)
Moving from a command line text interface to a graphic interface was an amazing revolution. The creation of a GUI made it more like working on a "desktop". Moving to a physical interface is natural and would be a further advancement.
Here I found links to the home pages of Sebastian Seung and Rahul Sarpeshkar, two guys mentioned in the Yahoo article. A quick look doesn't reveal much specific to this story but, not surprisingly, all there research is in this area.
.cc denotes Cocos Islands
This http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm has a list of ccTLD's
Also you can register .cc's at http://www.enic.cc/index.html
If brevity is the soul of wit this will be the wittiest speech ever. Thank-you.
With some brief reading it seems that in the US you are safe to express an opinion; only the assertion of fact has potential to be libel. Then also if the you made the statements in good faith (ui.e. you believed tham to be true) affords some protection.
The second site listed below says that with the 1964 New York Times vs. Sullivan the burden of proof shifted from the defendant to the plaintiff (id est the victim of the alleged libel must prove the assertions to be false)
• FreeAdvice.comLibel And Slander Law
• Libel & Defamation by the News Media
They craft consists of a reflective body which is gyroscopically-stabilized by rotation and is propelled upwards by a laser beam.
It has no other mechanism save for the groundbased laser whose light it reflects and by redirecting the photons(of finite non-zero mass) it gains momentum.
THere are some interesting articles here along a similar line at Nasa's BPP. THey are trying to develop propulsion where you don't have to throw mass out the back end of your craft (i.e. rocket fuel).
I wonder about an application of this in communication. Say if gravity is part of the physical nature of the world etc. ; does it manifest itself instantaneously (or very quickly) and I could control gravity, couldn't I send gravity waves and a message on such a device to a gravity receiver.
Such communication could be very fast unles changes in gravity are restricted to the speed of light (I don't know).
BTDOYA follower: That's it I'm gonna get these guys by printing out these stickers and pasting them all over.
Many regular people: Hey I wonder if there really is a website at ijusthadarectalexamonline.com
Some sneaky corporation: Thanks a lot for promoting my website sucker.
True story.
Also, aside from the prohibitive cost of purchase it takes a great deal of fuel to fly which means high ongoing costs as well; especially with today's gasoline prices.
The memory of a classical computer is a string of 0s and 1s, and a classical computer can do calculations on only one set of numbers at once. The memory of a quantum computer is a quantum state which can be in a superposition of many different numbers at once. A classical computer is made up of bits, and a quantum computer is made up of quantum bits, or qubits. A quantum computer can do an arbitrary reversible classical computation on all the numbers simultaneously, and also has some ability to produce interference, constructive or destructive, between various different numbers. By doing a computation on many different numbers at once, then interfering the results to get a single answer, a quantum computer has the potential to be much more powerful than a classical computer of the same size.
The most famous example of the extra power of a quantum computer is Peter Shor's algorithm for factoring large numbers. Factoring is an important problem in cryptography; for instance, the security of RSA public key cryptography depends on factoring being a hard problem. Despite much research, no efficient classical factoring algorithm is known.
Shor actually solved a related problem, the discrete log. Suppose we take a number x to the power r and reduce the answer modulo n (i.e., find the remainder r after dividing xr by n). This is straightforward to calculate. It is much more difficult to find the inverse - given x, n, and y, find r such that xr = y (mod n). For factoring, all we need to do is consider y=1 and find the smallest positive r such that xr = 1 (mod n). Shor's quantum algorithm to do this calculates xr for all r at once. Since xl+r = xl (mod n), this is a periodic function with period r. Then when we take the Fourier transform, we will get something that is peaked at multiples of 1/r. Luckily, there is an efficient quantum algorithm for the Fourier transform, so we can then find r.
There are many proposals for how to build a quantum computer, with more being made all the time. The 0 and 1 of a qubit might be the ground and excited states of an atom in a linear ion trap; they might be polarizations of photons that interact in an optical cavity; they might even be the excess of one nuclear spin state over another in a liquid sample in an NMR machine. As long as there is a way to put the system in a quantum superposition and there is a way to interact multiple qubits, a system can potentially be used as a quantum computer. In order for a system to be a good choice, it is also important that we can do many operations before losing quantum coherence. It may not ultimately be possible to make a quantum computer that can do a useful calculation before decohering, but if we can get the error rate low enough, we can use a quantum error-correcting code to protect the data even when the individual qubits in the computer decohere.
http://qso.lanl.gov/~gottesma/QComputers.html
My simplistic understanding is that instead of using a transistor to store bits they use certain quantum attributes of atomic particles to store bits of info. One advantage would be that they are very small.
Do you think that the future is with these devices that record a signal using tv listings info or maybe with TV on demand where say the Simpsons are available for download starting 8pm on sunday and the main storage is at the company site.
I can see the latter way reducing the cost to consumers as the unit would be less complicated. An advantage of the former is that it works with exising cable network.
This will just motivate advertisers to find different ways of advertising.
More effective and perhaps insidious advertising is that which is a part of content; either you want to watch the ad because it is entertaining or the brand is promoted as a part of the show you are watching. In both cases you have absorbed the content and was unable to avoid the commercial promotion. This is the future of advertising.
What about trademarks that are adopted into language. Say in many places
kleenex refers to facial tissue
band-aid denotes adhesive bandage
Obviously it doesn't work the other way either;
Either trademarks and words must be exclusive (i.e. all trademarks cannot be existing words) or they must refer to different subjects (i.e. Coca-Cola can only prevent someone from using "coke" to refer to a carbonated beverage)
This is true, however there is another consequence of the equation you cite. If there is a current and an independent magnetic field perpendicular the medium of the current will experience a force mutually perpendicular to the first two. (id est: current along x-axis, magnetic field y and then force z) generating heat from a heat source along an axis parallel to the longitudinal axis of the magnetic field;
An axial heat source need only be a material with uniform generation in a cylindrical shape. (any heat generating rod will be the hottest at its centre and heat will travel outwards.
In the "preferred embodiment of the patent a halogen lamp is suggested as the heat source.
In any pure isotropic material heat conduction hsould definitely be uniform. The other component of conduction is the gradient. (net heat transfer is from a hotter area to a cooler area) So the shape of the heat generation could affect it.
Another useful phrase for patents that this one uses is "it is believed". He hasn't gotten this thing to work yet but wants to benefit if someone else does
I see it as a good thing if implemented properly (any regulation sucks if mis-implemented)
It makes perfect sense that a company who holds a trademark has a right to the domain of that trademark. However much I might dislike Microsoft; they do have a rigfht to their name.
Where there might be more argument is whether or not a company should have a trademark on common names (like the Apple trademark causing that orchard guy above all those problems). I mean I don't think computer.com should be allowed to be trademarked or anything like that.
This may be old news to many but for some companies Turkmenistan is a popular TLD (.tm) like sony.tm
Perhaps it was a dumb mistake; but now they have reversed the mistake and kept the national attention, perhaps they have gained more attention with this "annulment".