One of the main complaints that I've heard is regarding DARPA's restructuring of research funding. This is from speeches from professors who I've known and worked with to the agencies that have funded their activities.
To be brief, DARPA has started on a research track that seeks periodic milestones, which is fine if you're in a production model, developing artifacts such as specific programs and specific products, but is terrible for fundamental research. Part of fundamental research is finding a new avenue and testing it out, and, sometimes, that avenue doesn't bear fruit in the short term. This is part of what fundamental research is about. You can research computational complexity in the long-term, but we probably won't have an answer to P ?= NP next year.
Also, the milestones introduce a certain level of uncertainty. You can't take a 6-month grant and a 2-year postdoc. You have to be able to guarantee that that postdoc can work for the full 2-years on the research that they are there to pursue. In short, this is not the way to run a laboratory, but it is the way that the current funding structure mandates that you run one. Extend this to consider tenure for professors!
As a PhD student, I can certainly say that more NSF fellowships would be great. If I get mine in the Spring, I'll be very happy. That is a significant pay raise that would make my life easier, and it also will take some financial burden off of my school and my department. Still, PhDs need jobs when we leave school. I see a number of my peers leaving academia for the world of high-finance, which is great for their pocketbooks, but not for science. I'm sure that, if there were more funding for fundamental science, that more PhDs would stay in science, rather than leaving for more certain futures in other fields.
For what? Two acres and a three car garage. Yay American dream.I own two cars and used to drive an hour to work from a beautiful home with both an attached and detached garage in a nice suburban area. This was until I returned to graduate school, where I generally walk from place to place or use university transportation. I'm not quite sure why people who wish to live the lifestyle that you are condemning should be denied it or why some people are so outraged that they would pursue it. Two acres and a three car garage aren't such bad things.
Also, slugging is far more popular than parking at a metro stop in my experience, which only seems to be popular if you're already fairly close to one. Though, I agree, having more stops, and having them further out, would be nice.
How about getting those lightning fast matrix operations onto the CPU? I always hear about people building application-specific tweaks by reprogramming their algorithm into a shader language. I imagine that there is far more fertile soil for innovation here than some lame combined C/GPU.
hammered away into anti-gay, christian centric whored out to any group that wants type of thing
As an Eagle Scout, I'm incredibly offended by your comment. You couldn't actually be further from the truth. Boy Scouts is a little slow in changing, but that doesn't mean that it purposefully teaches exclusion and hate.
Somehow I doubt that they would bother modifying the kernel. That sounds like an invitation to trouble.
Probably, they'd toss together a fairly normal distribution with stripped down support for application software and and easy installer for the Oracle database.
Going the extra mile, knowing that they have some rather large government clients, they might also try to implement the fixes for any IAVAs that they can by default.
I think that it will be interesting to see papers coming out of this group. Perhaps they'll all be group written, with the entire front page consumed by authors' names, affiliations, and email addresses.
They could indeed develop a proprietary GUI without modifying the kernel at all. The kernel code is entirely separate from the GUI code, aside from a few drivers, and they can inject propietary drivers and taint the kernel.
The short answer is, yeah, it's incorrect, and it is a little alarming to read, but people are probably overreacting with their responses to this one.
It's worth noting that Quasi does serve a purpose, it's just not the one that the headline would make you think it is. Quasi was developed by the Entertainment Technologies Center at CMU. To the best of my knowledge, from reading their promotional material, they're interested in making things like Quasi, that are entertaining, not in solving problems regarding language acquisition, and developing human-competitive artificial intelligence.
That's not to say that none of that plays a role. One can easily imagine that a robot designed to make proper eye contact with crowds would be more life-like than one that does not. However, since Quasi has lights for eyes, and therefore has no pupils to aim, that requirement seems to be largely obviated.
I've thought about the possibility of entertainment robots that learn from their enviroment though... what if pranksters run up to it trying to teach it profanities?
But at that point you're using the social networking functionality of the site because you can jump to your friends page, and those friends pages of your friends, and so on and so forth, walking around the graph looking at the friends pages of your friends.
Even if you didn't want it, it's there... any complete solution to the problem of duplicating LJ's functionality would require supplementing this functionality. That's all that I was saying.
I don't think that that would get ET here any more quickly.
Assuming that ET has an entirely different physiology, the would be aliens would have to be into humans through an extension of zoophilia or perhaps develop a form of xenophilia. (Is this the correct prefix when talking about ETs?)
Social networking isn't just a trendy marketing buzzword. Theorists are actually interested in models that are based on social networks, IE, the karate club graph, the Milgram experiment, and people looking at the graphs produced by facebook and other social networking sites.
By setting up profiles that link you to your other friends, you are helping to produce such a graph, whether you like it or not. I used the term "social network" to capture the larger picture of what the site is and does, not to sound nifty by throwing out some marketing buzzwords.
If all that you really want to do is run a blog, I suggest that you get WordPress, it's superior to LiveJournal for that function anyway. That would be why I specified the solution in the manner that I did. I also specified Facebook over running your own copy of LiveJournal because most of the value in the two sites, in my mind, is captured by the existing social network. You, however, may feel that a site with no existing users is commensurate.
It's not like LiveJournal is strapping their users to chairs and tattooing advertisement on their foreheads. If you're that vehemently against this, you could
1) Use facebook to social network 2) Use blogger 3) User the facebook notes feature to aggregate your blog in (if blogger is supported... if it isn't you could use the facebook API)
Of course, facebook uses ads on their site...
Also, it's not a step towards ads embedded in your LJ. If you want all of the features, you either pony up some cash or get ads embedded (I don't think that the "sponsored" level gets as much as the paid level).
Who cares? Start a similar service. There's no patent preventing you from doing so to the best of my knowledge.
The article said that the White House pushed the Pentagon to limit discussion of the matter to one line in their report acknowledging the capability for political reasons. It doesn't sound as if the US is deaf to the notion of China's rights in this respect.
So, what I want to know is why you think that the US has responded in a manner that questions this right?
Unless you're asking why the US put the satellite up there to begin with, which is simply asinine. Countries spy on each other, it's a fact of life. There are Chinese spies in the US and we know about them too.
The difference between you and China is that despite the obviously aggressive nature of Chinese spy activity, they have an army and diplomatic relations with the US. You on the other hand, have neither.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the main complaints that I've heard is regarding DARPA's restructuring of research funding. This is from speeches from professors who I've known and worked with to the agencies that have funded their activities.
To be brief, DARPA has started on a research track that seeks periodic milestones, which is fine if you're in a production model, developing artifacts such as specific programs and specific products, but is terrible for fundamental research. Part of fundamental research is finding a new avenue and testing it out, and, sometimes, that avenue doesn't bear fruit in the short term. This is part of what fundamental research is about. You can research computational complexity in the long-term, but we probably won't have an answer to P ?= NP next year.
Also, the milestones introduce a certain level of uncertainty. You can't take a 6-month grant and a 2-year postdoc. You have to be able to guarantee that that postdoc can work for the full 2-years on the research that they are there to pursue. In short, this is not the way to run a laboratory, but it is the way that the current funding structure mandates that you run one. Extend this to consider tenure for professors!
As a PhD student, I can certainly say that more NSF fellowships would be great. If I get mine in the Spring, I'll be very happy. That is a significant pay raise that would make my life easier, and it also will take some financial burden off of my school and my department. Still, PhDs need jobs when we leave school. I see a number of my peers leaving academia for the world of high-finance, which is great for their pocketbooks, but not for science. I'm sure that, if there were more funding for fundamental science, that more PhDs would stay in science, rather than leaving for more certain futures in other fields.
Whoops. You're right. I only kind of skimmed it.
The article fails to mention that the IIT's are among the best schools in the world. It's not all bleak.
For what? Two acres and a three car garage. Yay American dream.I own two cars and used to drive an hour to work from a beautiful home with both an attached and detached garage in a nice suburban area. This was until I returned to graduate school, where I generally walk from place to place or use university transportation. I'm not quite sure why people who wish to live the lifestyle that you are condemning should be denied it or why some people are so outraged that they would pursue it. Two acres and a three car garage aren't such bad things.
Also, slugging is far more popular than parking at a metro stop in my experience, which only seems to be popular if you're already fairly close to one. Though, I agree, having more stops, and having them further out, would be nice.
How about getting those lightning fast matrix operations onto the CPU? I always hear about people building application-specific tweaks by reprogramming their algorithm into a shader language. I imagine that there is far more fertile soil for innovation here than some lame combined C/GPU.
No, it's just a status thing. Much like having green lasers when they first came out.
hammered away into anti-gay, christian centric whored out to any group that wants type of thing
As an Eagle Scout, I'm incredibly offended by your comment. You couldn't actually be further from the truth. Boy Scouts is a little slow in changing, but that doesn't mean that it purposefully teaches exclusion and hate.
Ahh, the redundant fifth or sixth post. Brilliant.
Plus movies made after video games aren't exactly destined to become classics.
Ahh, whoops.
evaporate (sublimate?)
Evaporate or vaporize. Sublimate is in the opposite direction.
Evaporate - liquid to gas
Vaporize - solid to gas
Condense - gas to liquid
Sublimate - gas to solid
Somehow I doubt that they would bother modifying the kernel. That sounds like an invitation to trouble.
Probably, they'd toss together a fairly normal distribution with stripped down support for application software and and easy installer for the Oracle database.
Going the extra mile, knowing that they have some rather large government clients, they might also try to implement the fixes for any IAVAs that they can by default.
They might want to play video games.
One of the most masterful reinterpretations of the end of 2010 is this: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182038 &cid=15049398
ALL THESE WORLD ARE BELONG TO YOU EXCEPT EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO SET YOU DOWN THERE
USE THEM TOGETHER
IN TIME MAKE YOUR PEACE
HA HA HA HA
I think that it will be interesting to see papers coming out of this group. Perhaps they'll all be group written, with the entire front page consumed by authors' names, affiliations, and email addresses.
I would mod you up, but I just had to chime in personally (sorry) to say that I agree.
They could indeed develop a proprietary GUI without modifying the kernel at all. The kernel code is entirely separate from the GUI code, aside from a few drivers, and they can inject propietary drivers and taint the kernel.
The short answer is, yeah, it's incorrect, and it is a little alarming to read, but people are probably overreacting with their responses to this one.
I was about to say something about that.
It's worth noting that Quasi does serve a purpose, it's just not the one that the headline would make you think it is. Quasi was developed by the Entertainment Technologies Center at CMU. To the best of my knowledge, from reading their promotional material, they're interested in making things like Quasi, that are entertaining, not in solving problems regarding language acquisition, and developing human-competitive artificial intelligence.
That's not to say that none of that plays a role. One can easily imagine that a robot designed to make proper eye contact with crowds would be more life-like than one that does not. However, since Quasi has lights for eyes, and therefore has no pupils to aim, that requirement seems to be largely obviated.
I've thought about the possibility of entertainment robots that learn from their enviroment though... what if pranksters run up to it trying to teach it profanities?
But at that point you're using the social networking functionality of the site because you can jump to your friends page, and those friends pages of your friends, and so on and so forth, walking around the graph looking at the friends pages of your friends.
Even if you didn't want it, it's there... any complete solution to the problem of duplicating LJ's functionality would require supplementing this functionality. That's all that I was saying.
I don't think that that would get ET here any more quickly.
Assuming that ET has an entirely different physiology, the would be aliens would have to be into humans through an extension of zoophilia or perhaps develop a form of xenophilia. (Is this the correct prefix when talking about ETs?)
Social networking isn't just a trendy marketing buzzword. Theorists are actually interested in models that are based on social networks, IE, the karate club graph, the Milgram experiment, and people looking at the graphs produced by facebook and other social networking sites.
By setting up profiles that link you to your other friends, you are helping to produce such a graph, whether you like it or not. I used the term "social network" to capture the larger picture of what the site is and does, not to sound nifty by throwing out some marketing buzzwords.
If all that you really want to do is run a blog, I suggest that you get WordPress, it's superior to LiveJournal for that function anyway. That would be why I specified the solution in the manner that I did. I also specified Facebook over running your own copy of LiveJournal because most of the value in the two sites, in my mind, is captured by the existing social network. You, however, may feel that a site with no existing users is commensurate.
It's not like LiveJournal is strapping their users to chairs and tattooing advertisement on their foreheads. If you're that vehemently against this, you could
1) Use facebook to social network
2) Use blogger
3) User the facebook notes feature to aggregate your blog in (if blogger is supported... if it isn't you could use the facebook API)
Of course, facebook uses ads on their site...
Also, it's not a step towards ads embedded in your LJ. If you want all of the features, you either pony up some cash or get ads embedded (I don't think that the "sponsored" level gets as much as the paid level).
Who cares? Start a similar service. There's no patent preventing you from doing so to the best of my knowledge.
The article said that the White House pushed the Pentagon to limit discussion of the matter to one line in their report acknowledging the capability for political reasons. It doesn't sound as if the US is deaf to the notion of China's rights in this respect.
So, what I want to know is why you think that the US has responded in a manner that questions this right?
Unless you're asking why the US put the satellite up there to begin with, which is simply asinine. Countries spy on each other, it's a fact of life. There are Chinese spies in the US and we know about them too.
The difference between you and China is that despite the obviously aggressive nature of Chinese spy activity, they have an army and diplomatic relations with the US. You on the other hand, have neither.
Perhaps all other sections on Slashdot should be suffixed ", Online" as well :-)
So... this happened online apparently?
Ohh, on the line at the airport. Not online, as in on the Internet.