What a crappy summary and crappy article. The wavefunction is no more a real object than any other mathematical function. The statement: "f(x)=x^2 is a real object" has no valid meaning whatsoever. To even call it a theorem is ridiculous. Likewise goes for the wavefunction. It is a tool to model our "real" world. Some models are exact and precisely describe the "real" world. Other models only work under certain assumptions and/or reference frames.
If you actually read the research paper, the authors consider the question of whether a quantum state is a physical property attached to a system. Said another way, do quantum systems actually exist? Or are they purely theoretical? From the article:
"The statistical view of the quantum state is that it merely encodes an experimenter's information about the properties of a system. We will describe a particular measurement and show that the quantum predictions for this measurement are incompatible with this view."
The gist of it is that they have produced a result (didn't read the whole thing to actually figure out what their result was) which relied mainly on three assumptions:
1. "if a quantum system is prepared in isolation from the rest of the universe, such that quantum theory assigns a pure state, then after preparation the system has a well dened set of physical properties"
2. "it is possible to prepare multiple systems such that their physical properties are uncorrelated"
3. "measuring devices respond solely to the physical properties of the systems they measure"
Since their result is incompatible with the statistical view of quantum states, it must due to one of the assumptions above. They don't actually make the claim that quantum states are physical properties (like length, width, height, mass, etc. are). In fact, they conclude with:
"More radical approaches are careful to avoid associating quantum systems with any physical properties at all. The alternative is to seek physically well motivated reasons why the other two assumptions might fail."
All he needs to do is create a new account and tweet about the issue.
"I am moving to a new twitter handle nsert new handle here so please update accordingly if you would like to follow me after this handle is returned to Phonedog"
Problem solved
I know that Blizzard is well known for little jokes and references to the real world... so I couldn't help but notice the connection between the new race and their semblances to a very well known kung-fu fighting panda of the big screen. Any idea if this was the "inspiration" for the expansion?
I was having trouble understanding the title of the summary. Is that really the same as "Conflict between protesters and NYPD occupy Wall Street, and Escalating" ?
People writing the software and researchers aren't necessarily the same group. In fact, I think they're more likely to be two sets with no intersection.
I didn't read the article, but from the quote in the summary, you're mixing up developers with external security analysts (citizens vs entrepreneurs from another place trying to score a buck). But, to get to your point -- you're right, the analysts aren't injecting bugs into the software. However, they are very similar to the rat farmers in the sense that they might not care about the software being bug-free (or the city being clear of rats) and are only interested in the monetary gains.
Unless I missed something in the article, the analogy here makes absolutely no sense. Security researchers aren’t injecting the bugs into software and then “discovering” them. I can’t “breed” a bug into firefox only to turn it in for a profit. Unless they are claiming inside devs are introducing bugs for outside researchers to find and then splitting the profit, which isn’t how I read it (and probably wouldn’t work for too long anyway).
But it turns out that he knows more about security than one would think. Maybe even more than he might think.
Or perhaps not? This comes across as exactly the kind of outsider without a clue looking in type perspective that is described at the start of the article. Sometimes outside perspectives are useful, but this whole article is mostly pointless (besides the interesting story about rat farming).
The only potential point I can see (which they didn’t try to make, so I’m probably imagining it) is that by having these bounty programs, bugs are discovered that otherwise might not have been looked for. Very thin.
You did miss something. The researchers are not injecting bugs. Instead, they are "farming for bugs" in the sense that they (presumably) put the software through a battery of tests (the "breeding" process). His point was that the bounty system was originally to motivate USERS to submit reports (like in S.A. where the point was to encourage citizens turn in rat bodies). Instead, you've now got security researchers who may have absolutely no interest in using the software itself but have a monetary incentive to report bugs. Similarly, the rat farmers have no interest in getting rid of the infestation problem, they're just there to cash in on the rewards.
The difference, however, is that the rat farmers breed the rats, whereas the analysts merely look for bugs (more akin to someone from another geographical region relocating to S.A. so they too can catch rats and turn them in).
The problem with many students today is that their attention span is far too short in the classroom. They are more likely to be distracted by their Facebook updates with a laptop in the classroom than to actually use the laptop for taking notes.
And as already mentioned, technology is just a tool. Unless the instructors can incorporate it into their classrooms without having it misused by the students, these tools will more often than not do more harm than good.
If the parents really cared, they would have never let the situation come to this. You're right, though, that parents are to blame. By not providing discipline at home, and at the same time not allowing schools from disciplining them [1], we've essentially pushed the schools into resorting to the justice system to handle the problem.
[1] When I was in gradeschool, you would get sent to the principal and get spanked if you acted really out of line (e.g. causing a fight). Today, such actions would result in lawsuits from parents.
With lazy teachers, lazy administrators, and the increasingly popular "zero tolerance" policies which are there to cater to the laziness & not to enforce discipline, and with police forces all to happy to use tickets as means of revenue generation, should anyone truly be surprised by this?
When I went to school, it was perfectly normal for the principal to pull out a big paddle and "whoop yo ass" for being out of line. We hardly had misbehaving students (and I grew up in a pretty run down neighborhood -- the school was surrounded by the projects and low-income families).
At some point in history, parents decided that their kid(s) couldn't have possibly been bad, and also did not want their child being disciplined by the schools. And THIS is where the bottom of that slippery slope stops -- with the parents. When parents cannot discipline their own kids, the whole school suffers. It's not too different from grocery shopping and having a kid throw a tantrum in the middle of the school -- it ruins everyone's shopping.
The bottom line is that Google is interested in making money, like any other company. Sure, they could cut off Italy -- but that would also mean cutting off a source of ad revenue. I imagine that it would cost more money to Google (in the long run) to cut off Italy than it would to comply with the ruling. Should it come down it this, I would like to think Google would in fact cut off Italy. On the other hand, I don't think it makes practical business.
Don't forget that they have a much larger population, so they will produce more papers just because there are more people. But as the summary points out, quantity and quality are two different things. In the past, we've seen articles on how competitive people are over there (few top schools, and too large a population = greater competition) to the point where there have been reports of academic dishonesty (not to say that they are the only ones, though).
What is the effect of such a cloud should something go wrong? I cannot help but wonder if perhaps it would be safer and more cost effective if they were to just put a roof over the stadium (could they not do it for half a million dollars)?
Their conclusion is completely off base. Even if their software is 100% accurate, it can only categorize a certain style of writing as having come from a single person (and that's still debatable since it's not too hard to duplicate type-written styles). What if every anonymous writer uses the same script to turn their text into "1337"-speak? The software would not have the ability to match the style to any one person -- it can only conclude that it is very likely that such types of a message was written by the same person/script.
I suppose the game developers are "thinking of the children" in a very perverse sense. When your typical audience is in his teens / early college years -- of course the women with unrealistic proportions are going to be more appealing. The buyers are making their purchases partly based on their hormones at that age.
If merely recording an officer is grounds for a felony, what about instances where police officers are doing something wrong? Take for example, the Rodney King case. Is the person recording the officers beating a man getting a felony because they didn't get the consent of the officers? In this case, it is clear that the officers are doing something wrong. However, what about instances where their behavior might require a second look from a higher-up? In such a case, the recording might actually be useful to rectify misbehaving cops. In sum, who watches the watchers if it's not a felony to record anyone in a uniform?
This week would be an excellent time to put your PS3 up for sale on EBay!
Only if you are European... because if you sell from, say, the United States, then clearly it would be considered an "import" from the perspective of Europe.
I'm curious why Intel would be interested in acquiring an anti-virus company. What assets would be useful to a chip-maker? Do they plan to integrate anti-virus into their chips? Or does having access to McAfee's assets somehow give Intel insight into how to improve the security of personal computing via specially designed chips? Does anyone have any idea why this was a "good move" for Intel?
Sooner or later, governments will finally acknowledge that you simply cannot stop the dispersal of information. Even in countries such as China where there is heavy regulation of media, people still manage to find ways to communicate their ideas -- just not on a large scale as elsewhere in the world. What we are seeing is that the internet may be the key to a future in which governments will no longer be able to censor speech. To disconnect from the internet would be to engage in electronic economic suicide (I am sure that Egypt's e-commerce was considerably hurt by the outage), and to remain connected would mean that sooner or later, the gates to the control center of censorship will crumble from all the tiny cracks created from within.
"3.Ban patents on any genetic sequence or chemical compound found in nature. (so a pharma company that finds a new medicine in a plant in the amazon jungle does not get to claim a patent over that medicine or any genes in the plant responsible for producing that chemical). Chemicals and gene sequences created in a lab would still be eligible for patent protection though. Should it be discovered (and verified) that the complete chemical or genetic sequence does exist in nature and that the occurrence could not have come from the lab-produced version, that evidence would count as prior art and could be used as such under point 1 above."
That means that immediately no pharma company will any longer invest in the extraction, identification, characterization and modification of pharmacologically active compounds from any biological source. This will stop progress, from historical aspirin (originally isolated from tree bark) to recent important innovations in malaria and cancer treatment (artemisinin, taxoles) or pain management (cone snail toxins). A large part of drug research is inspired by what has been found in nature, and if you fear that even if you work with a modified substance somebody might find later that modified compound in some other species, or in minimal previously overlooked concentration, and then you'ld lose you USD 500 Mil development investment nobody is going to take at risk any longer.
It will not stop progress. You assume that all researchers do their research for money. Many are motivated simply by curiosity, others by fame and recognition, etc. In other words, there will still be research that goes on. If anything, it will fuel the competition since anyone else interested in doing similar research will not be hindered by patents. The end result is FASTER progress.
As for your example, someone else finding that same compound MAY mean you giving up on your own development, but at the same time someone else could continue the research and development. In the grand scheme of things, this is progress. This way, you don't have folks sitting on patents and preventing others from pursuing similar/same interests because you don't have the time or resources to move forward with your patent.
Given that we currently honor software patents, I imagine there will be soon a flood of software patents as soon as this gets implemented. Big companies will hire large "think-tanks" to basically come up with as many ideas to file into patents, and then the companies will start rolling out the appropriate applications (if they are inclined) after the fact. So expect to see the patent office even more overburdened if this ever comes true.
The last prize was given to a man (Obama) as a tool to promote peace...
Actually the last prize was given to Liu Xiaobo.
The prize for Obama... I'm mixed. I think his rhetoric and election message was a genuine force for world peace, even though he wasn't president and hadn't done anything policy-wise. He was an advocate for peace, and that message reached and affected a lot of people.
I don't necessarily know that he was the single most significant advocate for peace of the year... but I don't begrudge him the award.
I cannot see how people can remain objective when it comes to considering Wikileaks as a candidate for the peace prize given the political controversy surrounding it.
Given the political nature of peace itself, its hard to imagine that candidates won't be politically controversial from time to time.
I don't begrudge any of the recipients. My gripe is that the prize is not so much about whom is selected for the prize, but how today it's much less about what the recipient has done and how can we recognize what he has done, but much much more about how can we use this prize to leverage some political change. Yes, the prize has always had political undertones, but these days it's as if that's all there is, and the individuals being recognized is more of an afterthought.
Liu Xiaobo - noted for his human rights efforts, but the prize was really to get China to change its policy on human rights. They were hoping to force China's hand because if China were celebrate the prize, they would have to come to terms with Liu Xiaobo's human rights efforts. Instead, they simply blotted him out of the news.
Barack Obama - yes, nice guy with good intentions for world peace, but the real issue was a plea for Obama to stop the ongoing war. It was as if the prize was just a big incentive for him to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
What a crappy summary and crappy article. The wavefunction is no more a real object than any other mathematical function. The statement: "f(x)=x^2 is a real object" has no valid meaning whatsoever. To even call it a theorem is ridiculous. Likewise goes for the wavefunction. It is a tool to model our "real" world. Some models are exact and precisely describe the "real" world. Other models only work under certain assumptions and/or reference frames.
If you actually read the research paper, the authors consider the question of whether a quantum state is a physical property attached to a system. Said another way, do quantum systems actually exist? Or are they purely theoretical? From the article:
"The statistical view of the quantum state is that it merely encodes an experimenter's information about the properties of a system. We will describe a particular measurement and show that the quantum predictions for this measurement are incompatible with this view."
The gist of it is that they have produced a result (didn't read the whole thing to actually figure out what their result was) which relied mainly on three assumptions:
Since their result is incompatible with the statistical view of quantum states, it must due to one of the assumptions above. They don't actually make the claim that quantum states are physical properties (like length, width, height, mass, etc. are). In fact, they conclude with:
"More radical approaches are careful to avoid associating quantum systems with any physical properties at all. The alternative is to seek physically well motivated reasons why the other two assumptions might fail."
The dAmage has already been done -- the moment they decided to due for the account -- regardless of whether they are in the right
You would have to prove that followers were followers of the company and not the guy behind the handle. Good luck with that
All he needs to do is create a new account and tweet about the issue. "I am moving to a new twitter handle nsert new handle here so please update accordingly if you would like to follow me after this handle is returned to Phonedog" Problem solved
I know that Blizzard is well known for little jokes and references to the real world... so I couldn't help but notice the connection between the new race and their semblances to a very well known kung-fu fighting panda of the big screen. Any idea if this was the "inspiration" for the expansion?
I was having trouble understanding the title of the summary. Is that really the same as "Conflict between protesters and NYPD occupy Wall Street, and Escalating" ?
People writing the software and researchers aren't necessarily the same group. In fact, I think they're more likely to be two sets with no intersection.
I didn't read the article, but from the quote in the summary, you're mixing up developers with external security analysts (citizens vs entrepreneurs from another place trying to score a buck). But, to get to your point -- you're right, the analysts aren't injecting bugs into the software. However, they are very similar to the rat farmers in the sense that they might not care about the software being bug-free (or the city being clear of rats) and are only interested in the monetary gains.
Unless I missed something in the article, the analogy here makes absolutely no sense. Security researchers aren’t injecting the bugs into software and then “discovering” them. I can’t “breed” a bug into firefox only to turn it in for a profit. Unless they are claiming inside devs are introducing bugs for outside researchers to find and then splitting the profit, which isn’t how I read it (and probably wouldn’t work for too long anyway).
But it turns out that he knows more about security than one would think. Maybe even more than he might think.
Or perhaps not? This comes across as exactly the kind of outsider without a clue looking in type perspective that is described at the start of the article. Sometimes outside perspectives are useful, but this whole article is mostly pointless (besides the interesting story about rat farming).
The only potential point I can see (which they didn’t try to make, so I’m probably imagining it) is that by having these bounty programs, bugs are discovered that otherwise might not have been looked for. Very thin.
You did miss something. The researchers are not injecting bugs. Instead, they are "farming for bugs" in the sense that they (presumably) put the software through a battery of tests (the "breeding" process). His point was that the bounty system was originally to motivate USERS to submit reports (like in S.A. where the point was to encourage citizens turn in rat bodies). Instead, you've now got security researchers who may have absolutely no interest in using the software itself but have a monetary incentive to report bugs. Similarly, the rat farmers have no interest in getting rid of the infestation problem, they're just there to cash in on the rewards. The difference, however, is that the rat farmers breed the rats, whereas the analysts merely look for bugs (more akin to someone from another geographical region relocating to S.A. so they too can catch rats and turn them in).
The problem with many students today is that their attention span is far too short in the classroom. They are more likely to be distracted by their Facebook updates with a laptop in the classroom than to actually use the laptop for taking notes. And as already mentioned, technology is just a tool. Unless the instructors can incorporate it into their classrooms without having it misused by the students, these tools will more often than not do more harm than good.
If the parents really cared, they would have never let the situation come to this. You're right, though, that parents are to blame. By not providing discipline at home, and at the same time not allowing schools from disciplining them [1], we've essentially pushed the schools into resorting to the justice system to handle the problem. [1] When I was in gradeschool, you would get sent to the principal and get spanked if you acted really out of line (e.g. causing a fight). Today, such actions would result in lawsuits from parents.
With lazy teachers, lazy administrators, and the increasingly popular "zero tolerance" policies which are there to cater to the laziness & not to enforce discipline, and with police forces all to happy to use tickets as means of revenue generation, should anyone truly be surprised by this?
When I went to school, it was perfectly normal for the principal to pull out a big paddle and "whoop yo ass" for being out of line. We hardly had misbehaving students (and I grew up in a pretty run down neighborhood -- the school was surrounded by the projects and low-income families). At some point in history, parents decided that their kid(s) couldn't have possibly been bad, and also did not want their child being disciplined by the schools. And THIS is where the bottom of that slippery slope stops -- with the parents. When parents cannot discipline their own kids, the whole school suffers. It's not too different from grocery shopping and having a kid throw a tantrum in the middle of the school -- it ruins everyone's shopping.
The bottom line is that Google is interested in making money, like any other company. Sure, they could cut off Italy -- but that would also mean cutting off a source of ad revenue. I imagine that it would cost more money to Google (in the long run) to cut off Italy than it would to comply with the ruling. Should it come down it this, I would like to think Google would in fact cut off Italy. On the other hand, I don't think it makes practical business.
Don't forget that they have a much larger population, so they will produce more papers just because there are more people. But as the summary points out, quantity and quality are two different things. In the past, we've seen articles on how competitive people are over there (few top schools, and too large a population = greater competition) to the point where there have been reports of academic dishonesty (not to say that they are the only ones, though).
What is the effect of such a cloud should something go wrong? I cannot help but wonder if perhaps it would be safer and more cost effective if they were to just put a roof over the stadium (could they not do it for half a million dollars)?
Their conclusion is completely off base. Even if their software is 100% accurate, it can only categorize a certain style of writing as having come from a single person (and that's still debatable since it's not too hard to duplicate type-written styles). What if every anonymous writer uses the same script to turn their text into "1337"-speak? The software would not have the ability to match the style to any one person -- it can only conclude that it is very likely that such types of a message was written by the same person/script.
I suppose the game developers are "thinking of the children" in a very perverse sense. When your typical audience is in his teens / early college years -- of course the women with unrealistic proportions are going to be more appealing. The buyers are making their purchases partly based on their hormones at that age.
If merely recording an officer is grounds for a felony, what about instances where police officers are doing something wrong? Take for example, the Rodney King case. Is the person recording the officers beating a man getting a felony because they didn't get the consent of the officers? In this case, it is clear that the officers are doing something wrong. However, what about instances where their behavior might require a second look from a higher-up? In such a case, the recording might actually be useful to rectify misbehaving cops. In sum, who watches the watchers if it's not a felony to record anyone in a uniform?
This week would be an excellent time to put your PS3 up for sale on EBay!
Only if you are European... because if you sell from, say, the United States, then clearly it would be considered an "import" from the perspective of Europe.
I'm curious why Intel would be interested in acquiring an anti-virus company. What assets would be useful to a chip-maker? Do they plan to integrate anti-virus into their chips? Or does having access to McAfee's assets somehow give Intel insight into how to improve the security of personal computing via specially designed chips? Does anyone have any idea why this was a "good move" for Intel?
The machine is 2x as fast as the one I bought last year, has 10Gb I/O, for the same price.
Please have the "analyst" compare my 1989 VW Jetta to today's model for a "ho hum" upgrade...
Actually, if your Jetta is in good condition, it may even be worth a lot more in three years-- in 2014 it'll be considered a classic! =)
Sooner or later, governments will finally acknowledge that you simply cannot stop the dispersal of information. Even in countries such as China where there is heavy regulation of media, people still manage to find ways to communicate their ideas -- just not on a large scale as elsewhere in the world. What we are seeing is that the internet may be the key to a future in which governments will no longer be able to censor speech. To disconnect from the internet would be to engage in electronic economic suicide (I am sure that Egypt's e-commerce was considerably hurt by the outage), and to remain connected would mean that sooner or later, the gates to the control center of censorship will crumble from all the tiny cracks created from within.
"3.Ban patents on any genetic sequence or chemical compound found in nature. (so a pharma company that finds a new medicine in a plant in the amazon jungle does not get to claim a patent over that medicine or any genes in the plant responsible for producing that chemical). Chemicals and gene sequences created in a lab would still be eligible for patent protection though. Should it be discovered (and verified) that the complete chemical or genetic sequence does exist in nature and that the occurrence could not have come from the lab-produced version, that evidence would count as prior art and could be used as such under point 1 above."
That means that immediately no pharma company will any longer invest in the extraction, identification, characterization and modification of pharmacologically active compounds from any biological source. This will stop progress, from historical aspirin (originally isolated from tree bark) to recent important innovations in malaria and cancer treatment (artemisinin, taxoles) or pain management (cone snail toxins). A large part of drug research is inspired by what has been found in nature, and if you fear that even if you work with a modified substance somebody might find later that modified compound in some other species, or in minimal previously overlooked concentration, and then you'ld lose you USD 500 Mil development investment nobody is going to take at risk any longer.
It will not stop progress. You assume that all researchers do their research for money. Many are motivated simply by curiosity, others by fame and recognition, etc. In other words, there will still be research that goes on. If anything, it will fuel the competition since anyone else interested in doing similar research will not be hindered by patents. The end result is FASTER progress.
As for your example, someone else finding that same compound MAY mean you giving up on your own development, but at the same time someone else could continue the research and development. In the grand scheme of things, this is progress. This way, you don't have folks sitting on patents and preventing others from pursuing similar/same interests because you don't have the time or resources to move forward with your patent.
Given that we currently honor software patents, I imagine there will be soon a flood of software patents as soon as this gets implemented. Big companies will hire large "think-tanks" to basically come up with as many ideas to file into patents, and then the companies will start rolling out the appropriate applications (if they are inclined) after the fact. So expect to see the patent office even more overburdened if this ever comes true.
The last prize was given to a man (Obama) as a tool to promote peace...
Actually the last prize was given to Liu Xiaobo.
The prize for Obama... I'm mixed. I think his rhetoric and election message was a genuine force for world peace, even though he wasn't president and hadn't done anything policy-wise. He was an advocate for peace, and that message reached and affected a lot of people.
I don't necessarily know that he was the single most significant advocate for peace of the year... but I don't begrudge him the award.
I cannot see how people can remain objective when it comes to considering Wikileaks as a candidate for the peace prize given the political controversy surrounding it.
Given the political nature of peace itself, its hard to imagine that candidates won't be politically controversial from time to time.
I don't begrudge any of the recipients. My gripe is that the prize is not so much about whom is selected for the prize, but how today it's much less about what the recipient has done and how can we recognize what he has done, but much much more about how can we use this prize to leverage some political change. Yes, the prize has always had political undertones, but these days it's as if that's all there is, and the individuals being recognized is more of an afterthought.
Liu Xiaobo - noted for his human rights efforts, but the prize was really to get China to change its policy on human rights. They were hoping to force China's hand because if China were celebrate the prize, they would have to come to terms with Liu Xiaobo's human rights efforts. Instead, they simply blotted him out of the news.
Barack Obama - yes, nice guy with good intentions for world peace, but the real issue was a plea for Obama to stop the ongoing war. It was as if the prize was just a big incentive for him to do so.