> The first biological, self replicating molecules were probably quite fragile and would certainly "die" in extreme environments
Possibly so, but until we know exactly what those molecules were it's probably best not claim so with certainty. They may have actually required some environment that we would consider extreme.
> Sure the only way is to exhaustively search the "chromosome" space for every possibile combination, and computers are good at brute force!
Problem is, the search space grows exponentially with the size of the chromosome. No problem if you have a short chromosome, but brute force is intractable for long chromosomes.
For example, if you are trying to optimize a set of 100 binary parameters for some problem, brute force requires you to evaluate 2^100 combinations.
> Instead of having our own soldiers getting blown up themselves up in Humvees and on foot with mindfields and heralding better prosthetics, why not retrofit some Asimos with killing capabilities and send them instead of human soldiers?
Or <StarTrek>just simulate the war on a computer and have the designated casualties report to the disintegration center.</StarTrek>
> Now that miscellaneous events have succeeded in pushing the war to the back pages
Unfortunately, between tsunami fatigue, upcoming elections, and predictions of escalated violence intended to disrupt those elections, I suspect Iraq is going to start dominating the news again in a week or two.
Supposedly the "average wound" in this war is worse than in any previous war, partly because most of it is done by explosives rather than bullets, partly because of improvements in body armor for the head and torso, and partly because improved medical technology is saving a lot of people who would have just died in any previous war.
BTW, you can see the overall casualty counts (wounds and deaths separately) at globalsecurity.org. (Notice the running-average plots at the bottom, which show the trends.)
> I read those works by Orson Scott Card and they were enough to convince me that I didn't want to read any of his fiction.
I never heard of his essays before now, and didn't know he was a Mormon either, but I already didn't want to read any (more) of his fiction. The original "Ender" short story was entertaining, but it was the old-style short story whose primary point was the clever twist at the end. Expanding it to novel length just turned it into a shaggy dog joke. The Card novels that I've read, including the one about "Alvin", just come across as overdone melodrama for me.
Naturally, YMMV. Lots of Slashdotters seem to like Card's work.
> Grabbing my pocket laser pointer, and a ruler, I can measure a spot of about 3mm at a distance of 1 meter, and 5 mm at a distance of about 15 meters.
Just for fun, let's extend that to 15 miles.
We'll work with the radius, and notice that the radius increases by 1mm every 14 meters (pretending your measurements are exact).
15mi =~ 24,140m; divide by 14 to see how many times the radius increases by 1mm and you get a radius increase of ~1724.3mm at 15mi.
Assuming a circular spread,
A_{1m} = pi * (1.5mm)^2 A_{15mi} = pi * (1.5mm + 1724.3mm)^2 [actually, that's 15mi from the 1m point]
So the intensity per unit area would be reduced by a factor of ~1.3 million at a distance of 15 miles (modulo all my math errors), assuming the intensity is equal everywhere in the area of spread, even for this relatively tight beam. (The angle inside the cone is only ~0.008 degrees.)
Also, if it's a jetliner that flies at high altitudes, wouldn't the windshield be tinted, polarized, or otherwise filtered to protect the pilots against UV and high-altitude sunlight?
> You often hear people come with arguments like 'but God can't exist' or 'we don't need God to explain the universe'.
I don't see how anyone could support the former claim, but I actually agree with the latter.
Partly because arguing otherwise seems to rely on a logical fallacy:
don't know --> God must be the explanation
Also because invoking God doesn't actually explain anything: any universe is compatible with the inscrutable will of an arbitrary and omnipotent being. An "explanation" that can explain everything is no explanation at all. It's like saying:
> This is serious, but not nearly as serious as what I'd like to do to the pointer-equipped, arrested development imbeciles that always seem to show up in the theater where I've just spent $9.50 to see a film. No doubt they think they're really onto something novel as they draw circles around Gollum's head, or perhaps improve Michael Moore's insufferable visage by doodling on it.
I suspect the anti-aircraft use will turn out to be precisely the same sort of idiots, who would never even have thought of it if not for the DoHS announcing it in their continual stream of keep-us-scared "what if" scenarios that you hear about once a week on the news. (This started after the warnings, right? I remember hearing the scaremongering on TV a long time ago, and don't remember any associated news stories about it actually happening.)
The only problem with that notion of whodunnit is how the tracking would be managed. However, the reports tend to be vague on details, so it's not clear (IMO) exactly what sort of control would actually be required for most of these incidents. Nor would I be surprised to discover that the "kiddie underground" chat rooms are abuzz with instructions for how to do it with simple OTS equipment.
At any rate, it will be interesting when the first arrest is made, and we find out who is doing it and why.
> The article refers to the use of private tolls to sustain this. Clearly, these investing businesses have done an analysis and realized that they can profit off this - despite its 'whopping' $175 bn price tag.
There's a big push for toll roads in central Texas right now, including retrofitting tolls on roads already paid for by tax dollars, because there isn't enough pavement and the politicians think they'll be lynched if they even suggest raising taxes.
Whatever else is on his mind, the Texas governer is surely keen on all the Federal highway funds that this project would suck into the state.
Slashdot Mirror
> The first biological, self replicating molecules were probably quite fragile and would certainly "die" in extreme environments
Possibly so, but until we know exactly what those molecules were it's probably best not claim so with certainty. They may have actually required some environment that we would consider extreme.
> Sure the only way is to exhaustively search the "chromosome" space for every possibile combination, and computers are good at brute force!
Problem is, the search space grows exponentially with the size of the chromosome. No problem if you have a short chromosome, but brute force is intractable for long chromosomes.
For example, if you are trying to optimize a set of 100 binary parameters for some problem, brute force requires you to evaluate 2^100 combinations.
> Instead of having our own soldiers getting blown up themselves up in Humvees and on foot with mindfields and heralding better prosthetics, why not retrofit some Asimos with killing capabilities and send them instead of human soldiers?
Or <StarTrek>just simulate the war on a computer and have the designated casualties report to the disintegration center.</StarTrek>
> Now that miscellaneous events have succeeded in pushing the war to the back pages
Unfortunately, between tsunami fatigue, upcoming elections, and predictions of escalated violence intended to disrupt those elections, I suspect Iraq is going to start dominating the news again in a week or two.
Supposedly the "average wound" in this war is worse than in any previous war, partly because most of it is done by explosives rather than bullets, partly because of improvements in body armor for the head and torso, and partly because improved medical technology is saving a lot of people who would have just died in any previous war.
BTW, you can see the overall casualty counts (wounds and deaths separately) at globalsecurity.org. (Notice the running-average plots at the bottom, which show the trends.)
> I read those works by Orson Scott Card and they were enough to convince me that I didn't want to read any of his fiction.
I never heard of his essays before now, and didn't know he was a Mormon either, but I already didn't want to read any (more) of his fiction. The original "Ender" short story was entertaining, but it was the old-style short story whose primary point was the clever twist at the end. Expanding it to novel length just turned it into a shaggy dog joke. The Card novels that I've read, including the one about "Alvin", just come across as overdone melodrama for me.
Naturally, YMMV. Lots of Slashdotters seem to like Card's work.
> One need not be a "homophobe" to feel that marriage is an institution designed to provide for the having and rearing of children.
So, people who are married but don't have kids shouldn't be married?
And those that do have kids should get divorced when the kids grow up and move out?
Maybe the new players can show movies backwards, and they've been watching Robin Hood.
In order to secure our profits, you must go out and buy new hardware.
> He has to say this sort of thing since he's bet the MS farm on DRM and the like.
A year doesn't go by without MS purportedly betting the farm on something.
And no matter how late the product is or how bad they bungle it, they never seem to actually lose their mortgage.
> Grabbing my pocket laser pointer, and a ruler, I can measure a spot of about 3mm at a distance of 1 meter, and 5 mm at a distance of about 15 meters.
Just for fun, let's extend that to 15 miles.
We'll work with the radius, and notice that the radius increases by 1mm every 14 meters (pretending your measurements are exact).
15mi =~ 24,140m; divide by 14 to see how many times the radius increases by 1mm and you get a radius increase of ~1724.3mm at 15mi.
Assuming a circular spread,
A_{1m} = pi * (1.5mm)^2
A_{15mi} = pi * (1.5mm + 1724.3mm)^2 [actually, that's 15mi from the 1m point]
A_{15mi}/A_{1m} = (1725.8mm)^2 / (1.5mm)^2 = (1725.8/1.5)^2 = 1,323,727
So the intensity per unit area would be reduced by a factor of ~1.3 million at a distance of 15 miles (modulo all my math errors), assuming the intensity is equal everywhere in the area of spread, even for this relatively tight beam. (The angle inside the cone is only ~0.008 degrees.)
Also, if it's a jetliner that flies at high altitudes, wouldn't the windshield be tinted, polarized, or otherwise filtered to protect the pilots against UV and high-altitude sunlight?
Also because invoking God doesn't actually explain anything: any universe is compatible with the inscrutable will of an arbitrary and omnipotent being. An "explanation" that can explain everything is no explanation at all. It's like saying:> You often hear people come with arguments like 'but God can't exist' or 'we don't need God to explain the universe'.
I don't see how anyone could support the former claim, but I actually agree with the latter.
Partly because arguing otherwise seems to rely on a logical fallacy:
> A couple in the Hamptons has asked the same group of scientists to determine why socks dissapear in the dryer.
They disappear into the electronic equivalent of a black hole, and re-appear on the internet as sock puppets.
> Radeon 9200SE, 128MB, 498.800 fps with OSS drivers, 532.200 fps with ATI binary drivers
I don't know how the 9200SE stacks up against the 9200 (slower, as I understand it), but I get > 1500 with the 9200 and the ATI drivers.
It did take some work to get everything set right to get that much out of it, though. (Indeed, I still may not have my settings optimized.)
> The rate limiting step here is the ATI video drivers.
Just curious, what is your steady-state FPS for glxgears?
> I think they mean Comet.
Shame on a bunch of Slashdotters for not knowing their Star Trek trivia!
> now we have to worry about the blue wall of death.
No, the idea is to use one node as a dedicated BSOD server, so the rest can stay up all the time.
> Seems to me this is a deliberate leak to create uncertainty in customer's minds and block any adoption of *nix for grid computing.
That, or they're priming consumers to accept the idea that it will take a whole rack of computers to run the next version of Windows.
> Blog is an idiotic term. How about going all the way and just writing 1337 crap like "6106"?
'Cause we're talking about 61095, not 61065.
I forgot to reserve the getaway car!
> This is serious, but not nearly as serious as what I'd like to do to the pointer-equipped, arrested development imbeciles that always seem to show up in the theater where I've just spent $9.50 to see a film. No doubt they think they're really onto something novel as they draw circles around Gollum's head, or perhaps improve Michael Moore's insufferable visage by doodling on it.
I suspect the anti-aircraft use will turn out to be precisely the same sort of idiots, who would never even have thought of it if not for the DoHS announcing it in their continual stream of keep-us-scared "what if" scenarios that you hear about once a week on the news. (This started after the warnings, right? I remember hearing the scaremongering on TV a long time ago, and don't remember any associated news stories about it actually happening.)
The only problem with that notion of whodunnit is how the tracking would be managed. However, the reports tend to be vague on details, so it's not clear (IMO) exactly what sort of control would actually be required for most of these incidents. Nor would I be surprised to discover that the "kiddie underground" chat rooms are abuzz with instructions for how to do it with simple OTS equipment.
At any rate, it will be interesting when the first arrest is made, and we find out who is doing it and why.
> Put some computer-controlled pan-tilted 1000mw lasers on the plane and the runway.
Cheaper to just have the pilots wear blindfolds.
They're already cloning all their scripts.
> and I'm not normally one to gripe about environmental issues unless I'm trying to impress a girl.
Ah, I see you've discovered the old "think how many tadpoles might die if you don't let me unhook your bra!"
> The article refers to the use of private tolls to sustain this. Clearly, these investing businesses have done an analysis and realized that they can profit off this - despite its 'whopping' $175 bn price tag.
There's a big push for toll roads in central Texas right now, including retrofitting tolls on roads already paid for by tax dollars, because there isn't enough pavement and the politicians think they'll be lynched if they even suggest raising taxes.
Whatever else is on his mind, the Texas governer is surely keen on all the Federal highway funds that this project would suck into the state.