There is an extra issue here:
For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
Microsoft aren't trying to be efficient at making software. They're too busy making money.
The Cenral Theme of Look to Windward
on
Look to Windward
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· Score: 1
The Culture is a technological Utopia, in which death has lost its sting. How does such a civilisation relate to death?
Banks has touched on this issue in previous Culture novels, but here he gives it a fuller treatment from an extraordinary array of perspectives. This is what makes SciFi such a wonderful genre: the ability to play themes out on a grander stage, and look at things from a completely alien point of view.
Two slight disappointments:
1) The Chelgrain (not sure about the spelling... it's a while since I read it) are human's wearing furry suits. Banks probably had his reasons for doing this, but I still found myself wishing for something a little more exotic.
2) As I said earlier, Banks has already touched on this theme (eg. State of the Art), so Look to Windward doesn't seem quite as fresh as some of his earlier novels.
With all due respect, you seem to have completely missed the point.
The more standards there are, the more trouble and inconvenience is caused. For example, look at the plethora of different standards for graphics files, many of which have more-or-less identical functionality but are, nevertheless, incompatible. Annoying, isn't it?
If we had the same situation with P2P then you would find that, eventually, a few common standards would emerge. This would be a natural result of everybody's desire to be P2P compatible with everybody else (otherwise, what's the point?), meaning that as soon as one standard is perceived to be more popular, EVERYBODY would start using it.
This method of standard formation leads to inefficiency because:
1) There is a good chance that the standard(s) that everybody adopts isn't the best one. (eg MP3)
2) If you start off backing the wrong standard, then you've lost a lot of money. (Did you buy Betamax?)
3) Because of the risks involved with uncertain standards, investment in the technology will get off to a slow start.
Point 2 is the reason why the industry is busy trying to sort out the standards NOW, before we hit these problems. IIRC, Sony and Philips agreed to adopt common standards, for pretty much these reasons, when they realised that they were developing rival versions of the Compact Disc.
Of course, there is another reason why, in this case, the industry wants to set the standards: they won't develop the best one, they'll develop the most profitable one. IMNSHO it's best left in the hands of the geeks.
You're right to pull me up over my earlier comments; I was quite arrogant, although IMHO the little twerp deserved it. Nevertheless, since I have stated a position, I feel honour bound defend it:
Firstly, although C makes solving Physics & Engineering problems a lot easier, AFAIK the question is always in R, the answer is always in R, and it could, in principle, have been solved in R. (Excepting, of course, those who are exploring the frontiers of Theoretical Physics.)
Secondly, just because the Mathematics works, doesn't mean it's true. Alright, that's a little facetious, but turn that on it's head: Why should Mathematics be so good at describing the Physical universe? Although your Tip of the Day is supported by the likes of Einstein's blunder and Maxwell's superlatively brilliant insight, I believe that, unless we are going to just cite anecdotes at each other, we need a philosophical basis. ("Science, separated from Philosophy, is the opium of the suburbs.") The problem is, unless we can make some headway with the question of why Mathematics is such a powerful tool, I don't really know where we can start.
Of course, if you really want to go that way, don't forget that if we modify the number axioms to include i, we must let all the rest of C in too. Particles with complex mass...? Scary.
--
I'm not one to name drop, but don't hang around while Dr Hawking has his elevenses.
The principle is something like this: It is possible to store thousands of 2-D images in a 3-D crystal using holographic techniques. Point your laser beam at a different angle to store/retrieve a different image. Each of these images is stored throughout the crystal.
The really cool bit is this: Suppose you have a picture archive stored in the crystal, and you want to find a picture that looks a bit like X. Simply shine an image of X into the crystal, and beams of light shoot out of it that point in the direction of the laser beam that was used to store the image. The stronger the resemblance, the brighter the beam. Instant archive searching, through the magic of quantum mechanics.
Furthermore, this technology works. Prototypes have been built.
Moderate that loser as flamebait. The only reason I'm responding to this is in case somebody actually believes him.
Tachyons are a tentative hypothesis, and I don't think anybody believes that they exist. They are particles with imaginary mass (i.e. their mass is equal to the square root of a negative number.) A tachyon with no kinetic energy would be moving at infinite speed. As their energy increases, they slow down, and the lower limit on their speed is the speed of light.
Ordinary everyday particles with real mass are called tardons, and particles that move at the speed of light are called luxons. It all has a nice symmetry to it...
I've been trying to remember what little I know of General Relativity to show how this works, but have failed. If anybody else is interested, perhaps they could educate us all on this subject?:-)
I'm a refugee from the Mathematics course at Cambridge, England. It was too tough for me, but I stuck around long enough to appreciate the sort of insight and analytical tools that a "real" Mathematician wields. IMHO, the only discipline that comes close is Physics.
Having said that, I dimly recall one exception. I wish I could remember the details, but it involved somebody who was asked to write a computer program to help analyse a particularly knotty conjecture. The guy who wrote the program came up with some pretty nifty shortcuts, and eventually used the insight that he'd obtained to prove the conjecture.
Oxford (and Cambridge) University are run on a collegiate system. Each college functions as an independent institution, although they share many teaching resources. A couple of examples from Cambridge:
New Hall College has been technically bankrupt for about ten years.
Trinity College is one of the richest institutions in the country. If I remember rightly, it is #3 landowner after the church and the crown.
Oh great; everyone's a lawyer now. I don't mean any disrespect to all the people who've posted on this topic, but aren't we moving a little bit outside our area of competence?
Legal academics have been arguing about how justice should be administered since time immemorial. Whole libraries have been filled with their theses. But now, they need ponder no more, because we have The Answer. Slashdot has spoken!
Imagine the scene in the USPTO. An overworked, underpaid trainee patent clerk has just finished scrutinising the design for a revolutionary mousetrap, and then he spots this on top of his in-pile. He looks at it, doublechecks, and looks at it again. Five minutes later, his supervisor returns from the coffee machine, and finds his young charge laid prostrate, and still suffering from fits of helpless giggles. "Let me guess." he asks, as he sips his capuccino. "Perpetual motion? Time travel? Lead into gold?" "No, even better," the young man manages to gasp between convulsions of hilarity, "a hyperwave transmitter." After calming his trainee down, the supervisor explains to him how to process such applications. "We shall accept this patent." "What? But it's crazy! It can't work! It's just a bunch of..." "I know that! So what's the harm in accepting it?" "What?" "Well think about it. Do you imagine how much trouble this applicant could cause if we reject this one? So where's the harm in humouring him? Just stamp it approved, file it away, and we have one happy lunatic and one patent that can't be challenged because it never made sense in the first place. That way, everybody's happy." "But won't that just encourage him?" "And that's the beauty of it! The thought of seeing another one of these is what gets me out of bed in the morning. And just consider how quick and easy it is to deal with. The more of these you get, the better your productivity bonus." "Ahh, I see. I think I'm going to like this job after all!" "Don't count on it."
Another way of looking at this is that, although the light seems to travel faster than light, the _information_ in the signal can only travel as fast as light. The faster the light, and the further it travels, the more information is lost due to random quantum effects. Nature is subtle and cruel.:-)
Re:Maybe they are owned by the share holders
on
R.I.P. Iridium
·
· Score: 1
The Russians don't have any of the US Foreign aid money. It's all been siphoned off by the politicians/mafia/oligarchy.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an extra issue here: For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
Microsoft aren't trying to be efficient at making software. They're too busy making money.
The Culture is a technological Utopia, in which death has lost its sting. How does such a civilisation relate to death?
Banks has touched on this issue in previous Culture novels, but here he gives it a fuller treatment from an extraordinary array of perspectives. This is what makes SciFi such a wonderful genre: the ability to play themes out on a grander stage, and look at things from a completely alien point of view.
Two slight disappointments:
1) The Chelgrain (not sure about the spelling... it's a while since I read it) are human's wearing furry suits. Banks probably had his reasons for doing this, but I still found myself wishing for something a little more exotic.
2) As I said earlier, Banks has already touched on this theme (eg. State of the Art), so Look to Windward doesn't seem quite as fresh as some of his earlier novels.
With all due respect, you seem to have completely missed the point.
The more standards there are, the more trouble and inconvenience is caused. For example, look at the plethora of different standards for graphics files, many of which have more-or-less identical functionality but are, nevertheless, incompatible. Annoying, isn't it?
If we had the same situation with P2P then you would find that, eventually, a few common standards would emerge. This would be a natural result of everybody's desire to be P2P compatible with everybody else (otherwise, what's the point?), meaning that as soon as one standard is perceived to be more popular, EVERYBODY would start using it.
This method of standard formation leads to inefficiency because:
1) There is a good chance that the standard(s) that everybody adopts isn't the best one. (eg MP3)
2) If you start off backing the wrong standard, then you've lost a lot of money. (Did you buy Betamax?)
3) Because of the risks involved with uncertain standards, investment in the technology will get off to a slow start.
Point 2 is the reason why the industry is busy trying to sort out the standards NOW, before we hit these problems. IIRC, Sony and Philips agreed to adopt common standards, for pretty much these reasons, when they realised that they were developing rival versions of the Compact Disc.
Of course, there is another reason why, in this case, the industry wants to set the standards: they won't develop the best one, they'll develop the most profitable one. IMNSHO it's best left in the hands of the geeks.
You're right to pull me up over my earlier comments; I was quite arrogant, although IMHO the little twerp deserved it. Nevertheless, since I have stated a position, I feel honour bound defend it:
Firstly, although C makes solving Physics & Engineering problems a lot easier, AFAIK the question is always in R, the answer is always in R, and it could, in principle, have been solved in R. (Excepting, of course, those who are exploring the frontiers of Theoretical Physics.)
Secondly, just because the Mathematics works, doesn't mean it's true. Alright, that's a little facetious, but turn that on it's head: Why should Mathematics be so good at describing the Physical universe? Although your Tip of the Day is supported by the likes of Einstein's blunder and Maxwell's superlatively brilliant insight, I believe that, unless we are going to just cite anecdotes at each other, we need a philosophical basis. ("Science, separated from Philosophy, is the opium of the suburbs.") The problem is, unless we can make some headway with the question of why Mathematics is such a powerful tool, I don't really know where we can start.
Of course, if you really want to go that way, don't forget that if we modify the number axioms to include i, we must let all the rest of C in too. Particles with complex mass...? Scary.
--
I'm not one to name drop, but don't hang around while Dr Hawking has his elevenses.
The principle is something like this: It is possible to store thousands of 2-D images in a 3-D crystal using holographic techniques. Point your laser beam at a different angle to store/retrieve a different image. Each of these images is stored throughout the crystal.
The really cool bit is this: Suppose you have a picture archive stored in the crystal, and you want to find a picture that looks a bit like X. Simply shine an image of X into the crystal, and beams of light shoot out of it that point in the direction of the laser beam that was used to store the image. The stronger the resemblance, the brighter the beam. Instant archive searching, through the magic of quantum mechanics.
Furthermore, this technology works. Prototypes have been built.
That was a special case. A lot of biochemists were asking themselves "why didn't I think of that first"?
Moderate that loser as flamebait. The only reason I'm responding to this is in case somebody actually believes him.
:-)
Tachyons are a tentative hypothesis, and I don't think anybody believes that they exist. They are particles with imaginary mass (i.e. their mass is equal to the square root of a negative number.) A tachyon with no kinetic energy would be moving at infinite speed. As their energy increases, they slow down, and the lower limit on their speed is the speed of light.
Ordinary everyday particles with real mass are called tardons, and particles that move at the speed of light are called luxons. It all has a nice symmetry to it...
I've been trying to remember what little I know of General Relativity to show how this works, but have failed. If anybody else is interested, perhaps they could educate us all on this subject?
I'm afraid that I mostly disagree...
I'm a refugee from the Mathematics course at Cambridge, England. It was too tough for me, but I stuck around long enough to appreciate the sort of insight and analytical tools that a "real" Mathematician wields. IMHO, the only discipline that comes close is Physics.
Having said that, I dimly recall one exception. I wish I could remember the details, but it involved somebody who was asked to write a computer program to help analyse a particularly knotty conjecture. The guy who wrote the program came up with some pretty nifty shortcuts, and eventually used the insight that he'd obtained to prove the conjecture.
- Assume that there are finite primes.
- It is possible to multiply all of these primes, and add one to it. This new number exists.
- This number does not have any of the other primes as a factor, so it doesn't exist. (Prime factor theorum.)
- Contradiction.
QEDPoint of fact:-
Oxford (and Cambridge) University are run on a collegiate system. Each college functions as an independent institution, although they share many teaching resources. A couple of examples from Cambridge:
New Hall College has been technically bankrupt for about ten years.
Trinity College is one of the richest institutions in the country. If I remember rightly, it is #3 landowner after the church and the crown.
> Nobody ever got fired for buying IB^H^HMicrosoft.
Come to think of it, if you buy M$, the IT department seems to GROW!!
Oh great; everyone's a lawyer now. I don't mean any disrespect to all the people who've posted on this topic, but aren't we moving a little bit outside our area of competence?
Legal academics have been arguing about how justice should be administered since time immemorial. Whole libraries have been filled with their theses. But now, they need ponder no more, because we have The Answer. Slashdot has spoken!
Okay, maybe I'm jaded and cynical. So sue me.
"Democracy would appear to be the worst conceivable form of government... until one considers the alternatives."
- Winston Churchill
(Paraphrased, because I can't be bothered to look up the original.)
Imagine the scene in the USPTO. An overworked, underpaid trainee patent clerk has just finished scrutinising the design for a revolutionary mousetrap, and then he spots this on top of his in-pile. He looks at it, doublechecks, and looks at it again. Five minutes later, his supervisor returns from the coffee machine, and finds his young charge laid prostrate, and still suffering from fits of helpless giggles. "Let me guess." he asks, as he sips his capuccino. "Perpetual motion? Time travel? Lead into gold?" "No, even better," the young man manages to gasp between convulsions of hilarity, "a hyperwave transmitter." After calming his trainee down, the supervisor explains to him how to process such applications. "We shall accept this patent." "What? But it's crazy! It can't work! It's just a bunch of..." "I know that! So what's the harm in accepting it?" "What?" "Well think about it. Do you imagine how much trouble this applicant could cause if we reject this one? So where's the harm in humouring him? Just stamp it approved, file it away, and we have one happy lunatic and one patent that can't be challenged because it never made sense in the first place. That way, everybody's happy." "But won't that just encourage him?" "And that's the beauty of it! The thought of seeing another one of these is what gets me out of bed in the morning. And just consider how quick and easy it is to deal with. The more of these you get, the better your productivity bonus." "Ahh, I see. I think I'm going to like this job after all!" "Don't count on it."
Another way of looking at this is that, although the light seems to travel faster than light, the _information_ in the signal can only travel as fast as light. The faster the light, and the further it travels, the more information is lost due to random quantum effects. Nature is subtle and cruel. :-)
The Russians don't have any of the US Foreign aid money. It's all been siphoned off by the politicians/mafia/oligarchy.