Computer vision is also the 'classic' application of neural networks. It's the one you'll find used as an example in most textbooks, and an area where neural networks work particually well.
Why would you want the end product to be capable of learning? It'd just be a support nightmare when they learn incorrectly.
The benefit of hardware is in speed and power usage, which in turn enables the use of much larger networks allowing for improved classification accuracy and more complex training. If you're doing mass-production, then a discrete NN-accelerator chip in conjunction with a cheap processor might also be cheaper than the high-end processor needed to run the net in software.
Train once on the supercomputer. Then just write the trained weights into the processors for mass-production. Great for industrial production line tasks, where you need to be able to detect defective items on a high-speed conveyor belt.
A lot of neural network use is in the unglamorous side of machine vision. Things like classifying apples on a high-speed conveyor belt as 'round' or 'dented' and triggering an actuator to knock the dented ones into a bin. If you're doing that for fifty apples a second, that's a lot of processing power. Which is the more practical option: A couple of tesla cards in a PC drawing a kilowatt of power, or a neural net accelerator chip that can do the job on a few percent of the power, in less space and at lower component cost?
That someone is De Beers. That company basically *is* the international diamond market.
Smallish diamonds aren't that rare, no. The price is kept artificially high. The ridiculously huge ones are, though. The ones only affordable by royalty and the mega-rich. Still, if they want to spend their wealth buying pieces of shiny rock, let them.
Industrial diamonds cannot be made in large, flawless sizes. But there aren't any industrial uses for large sizes, either. So the availability of industrial diamond has little impact on the gemstone industry.
I have the same hobby, except that most of my comments either don't make it through moderation, or are swiftly deleted. I'm very polite about it, no profanity or insults. It must just be that we frequent different sites.
Try onenewsnow.com. There's no shortage of comments referring to president 'Ombongo,' but comments questioning their frequent abuse of statistics or one-sided presentation of the news never seem to get shown.
Most news sites enforce some standard of ideological purity in order to keep the trollage levels down, so the comments turn into an effective echo chamber. Especially the US sites, with their liberals-vs-conservatives political divide.
I imagine that on large neural network applications (thinking machine vision and such) it might make sense to train the network using a conventional computer or even supercomputer for the big ones, then copy the trained network into a purpose-designed chip (some form of FPGA) to save space and power.
An the in-car navigation can serve up some sponsored search results, too. They could even make arrangements with radio stations to perform advert substitution - the station sends the time and duration of adverts to google, and when listening the car radio can transparently dub them over with new adverts custom-targetted at the car occupents. As those adverts are targetted, they'd be worth a lot more than untargetted broadcasts.
That's just appealing to the audience. The US market loves to see their country as the good guys.
Us Europeans are often annoyed by American WWII films, which give the impression that the Hitler was on the verge of taking over until the almighty Americans swept in and single-handidly defeated the Nazi menace. U-571 is a particually blatant example - the movie is based on the real events surrounding the capture of a German enigma machine by British forces, but the movie version substitutes American forces and the US navy. Understandably, the British are rather upset that the studio stole credit for a pivotal moment in the war and claimed the US was responsible for a victory they actually had nothing to do with - the film even earned a personal condemnation from the prime minister.
It's no secret that the US military has a close relationship with hollywood at times. They loan military hardware for use as props, in return for assurances that the movies will portray them in a good way. This isn't a shadowy backroom dealing - a few minutes googling will show it's all done out in the open. There is even a small department within the Pentagon, the Film Liaison Office, dedicated to the task.
So is it possible that someone pressured the studios involved (Principly Dreamworks) to make sure that Assange was shown in a suitably scoundral-like manner? I'm not talking about anything serious like threats of jail for no-cooperating, just a reminder that studios which insult the military or lend support to wanted enemies of the state are not going to be getting any of those oh-so-useful support agreements in future. 'If you make Assange look good, don't come to us next time you want to film scenes on an aircraft carrier.'
There you go, asserting. You still miss the point. What gives the UN the power to proclaim human rights? Only the authority of their members. What gives them the authority? And so on. It's an endless chain. Even if you resort to something nebulous like 'consent of the governed,' what makes consent of the governed any better of a basis than any other? There closest thing you can ever find to a solid ground is the threat of force used to enforce any law.
Actually, they are. You can assert all you want that your concept of human rights is 'higher' than everyone else, but you can still only justify that by your own culture.
Morality is like money: It exists, but only because people believe it exists. The belief creates it as a system of rules, even though there is no physical reality to the concept.
This is why the UAE is trying to kick-start a world-leading financial industry. Their plan is to throw oil money into getting it started, so once the oil money runs out they'll have a new service industry ready to take over.
Slashdot Mirror
But this is an office encryption system. Users are stupid, so they can't keep their own key - they'd forget the passphrase, or not keep a backup copy.
Because the 'guilty' will inevitable turn out to be the assistant backup deputy programmer.
"Credit travels upwards, blame travels downwards. That's just the way it works." - PHB
Look at the price of hard drives and memory on their site. That's not nickle and dime, they are taking the whole dollar.
All stories about radiation not intended for a specialist audience should measure radiation levels in 'bananas/year.'
In the PC space, there are still only two real players in the field. I'll be excited when someone can challenge the ATI/AMD-nVidia duopoly.
Unless your college roommate's father was a former Chinese national. Two degrees from potential espionage? No job.
"Checked. Still no weapons of mass destruction."
"Damnit... switch to a lower resolution and try again!"
Computer vision is also the 'classic' application of neural networks. It's the one you'll find used as an example in most textbooks, and an area where neural networks work particually well.
Why would you want the end product to be capable of learning? It'd just be a support nightmare when they learn incorrectly.
The benefit of hardware is in speed and power usage, which in turn enables the use of much larger networks allowing for improved classification accuracy and more complex training. If you're doing mass-production, then a discrete NN-accelerator chip in conjunction with a cheap processor might also be cheaper than the high-end processor needed to run the net in software.
Train once on the supercomputer. Then just write the trained weights into the processors for mass-production. Great for industrial production line tasks, where you need to be able to detect defective items on a high-speed conveyor belt.
Power consumption, speed and possibly cost.
A lot of neural network use is in the unglamorous side of machine vision. Things like classifying apples on a high-speed conveyor belt as 'round' or 'dented' and triggering an actuator to knock the dented ones into a bin. If you're doing that for fifty apples a second, that's a lot of processing power. Which is the more practical option: A couple of tesla cards in a PC drawing a kilowatt of power, or a neural net accelerator chip that can do the job on a few percent of the power, in less space and at lower component cost?
That someone is De Beers. That company basically *is* the international diamond market.
Smallish diamonds aren't that rare, no. The price is kept artificially high. The ridiculously huge ones are, though. The ones only affordable by royalty and the mega-rich. Still, if they want to spend their wealth buying pieces of shiny rock, let them.
Industrial diamonds cannot be made in large, flawless sizes. But there aren't any industrial uses for large sizes, either. So the availability of industrial diamond has little impact on the gemstone industry.
I have the same hobby, except that most of my comments either don't make it through moderation, or are swiftly deleted. I'm very polite about it, no profanity or insults. It must just be that we frequent different sites.
Try onenewsnow.com. There's no shortage of comments referring to president 'Ombongo,' but comments questioning their frequent abuse of statistics or one-sided presentation of the news never seem to get shown.
Of course we supported him. Did you see the other guy?
Most news sites enforce some standard of ideological purity in order to keep the trollage levels down, so the comments turn into an effective echo chamber. Especially the US sites, with their liberals-vs-conservatives political divide.
I imagine that on large neural network applications (thinking machine vision and such) it might make sense to train the network using a conventional computer or even supercomputer for the big ones, then copy the trained network into a purpose-designed chip (some form of FPGA) to save space and power.
And nothing of value will be lost.
An the in-car navigation can serve up some sponsored search results, too. They could even make arrangements with radio stations to perform advert substitution - the station sends the time and duration of adverts to google, and when listening the car radio can transparently dub them over with new adverts custom-targetted at the car occupents. As those adverts are targetted, they'd be worth a lot more than untargetted broadcasts.
That's just appealing to the audience. The US market loves to see their country as the good guys.
Us Europeans are often annoyed by American WWII films, which give the impression that the Hitler was on the verge of taking over until the almighty Americans swept in and single-handidly defeated the Nazi menace. U-571 is a particually blatant example - the movie is based on the real events surrounding the capture of a German enigma machine by British forces, but the movie version substitutes American forces and the US navy. Understandably, the British are rather upset that the studio stole credit for a pivotal moment in the war and claimed the US was responsible for a victory they actually had nothing to do with - the film even earned a personal condemnation from the prime minister.
It's no secret that the US military has a close relationship with hollywood at times. They loan military hardware for use as props, in return for assurances that the movies will portray them in a good way. This isn't a shadowy backroom dealing - a few minutes googling will show it's all done out in the open. There is even a small department within the Pentagon, the Film Liaison Office, dedicated to the task.
So is it possible that someone pressured the studios involved (Principly Dreamworks) to make sure that Assange was shown in a suitably scoundral-like manner? I'm not talking about anything serious like threats of jail for no-cooperating, just a reminder that studios which insult the military or lend support to wanted enemies of the state are not going to be getting any of those oh-so-useful support agreements in future. 'If you make Assange look good, don't come to us next time you want to film scenes on an aircraft carrier.'
There you go, asserting. You still miss the point. What gives the UN the power to proclaim human rights? Only the authority of their members. What gives them the authority? And so on. It's an endless chain. Even if you resort to something nebulous like 'consent of the governed,' what makes consent of the governed any better of a basis than any other? There closest thing you can ever find to a solid ground is the threat of force used to enforce any law.
Actually, they are. You can assert all you want that your concept of human rights is 'higher' than everyone else, but you can still only justify that by your own culture.
Morality is like money: It exists, but only because people believe it exists. The belief creates it as a system of rules, even though there is no physical reality to the concept.
The two states where it is now legal so long as you don't grow enough to draw the attention of the FBI.
This is why the UAE is trying to kick-start a world-leading financial industry. Their plan is to throw oil money into getting it started, so once the oil money runs out they'll have a new service industry ready to take over.