Strive to understand your problem.
Don't try to solve it.
A fully-stated problem
embodies its solution. P=NP?
YES!!! I am in absolute awe. It's the occasional gem such as what you posted that keeps me coming back here these past 10 years.
In just 5 characters, you have managed to communicate you do understand what I expressed. Further, by having given a salient example of a currently unsolved problem in theoretical computer science, you have shown that being unable to solve the problem, provides a solution in being able to state that it cannot be solved. E.g. when a PHB reports an application is running too slow and demands it be made faster, you discover that it CANNOT be made faster - and THAT is the solution.
For those who may not understand what vikstar was referring to, please see: P=NP problem. Here's the wiki summary:
The relationship between the complexity classes P and NP is an unsolved question in theoretical computer science. It is considered to be the most important problem in the field - the Clay Mathematics Institute has offered a $1 million US prize for the first correct proof.
In essence, the P = NP question asks: if 'yes'-answers to a 'yes'-or-'no'-question can be verified quickly, can the answers themselves also be computed quickly? In this context, "quickly" means "in polynomial time".
Consider, for instance, the subset-sum problem, an example of a problem which is easy to verify, but whose answer is believed (but not proven) to be difficult to compute. Given a set of integers, does some nonempty subset of them sum to 0? For instance, does a subset of the set {-2, -3, 15, 14, 7, -10} add up to 0? The answer is YES, though it may take a while to find a subset that does, depending on its size. On the other hand, if someone claims that the answer is "YES, because {-2, -3, -10, 15} add up to zero", then we can quickly check that with a few additions. Verifying that the subset adds up to zero is much faster than finding the subset in the first place. The information needed to verify a positive answer is also called a certificate. So we conclude that given the right certificates, positive answers to our problem can be verified quickly (in polynomial time) and that's why this problem is in NP.
An answer to the P = NP question would determine whether problems like SUBSET-SUM are as easy to compute as to verify. If it turned out P does not equal NP, it would mean that some NP problems are substantially harder to compute than to verify.
The restriction to YES/NO problems doesn't really make a difference; even if we allow more complicated answers, the resulting problem (whether FP = FNP) is equivalent.
Many good comments already. I'd like to add some based on my experiences since 1972.
Background: I was fortunate to be introduced to structured programming early on. I've used, and helped develop/test tools to implement, various coding methodologies (CASE, anyone?) I've worked on operating systems and compilers. Yes, plural on each of those. I've worked at huge multi-nationals and a 3-man startup.
Observations:
I've written crap code. I think it's part of the rite of passage. I did the best I could with what I knew, and when I knew better, I tried to do better.
I've read books and taken courses, but there's no comparison to just diving in and reading LOTS of OTHER PEOPLE's code... and then learning from it.
Attitude is important. There is a HUGE difference between "That's stupid" and "Why did they do THAT?" Be open to be educated.
Be organized. In your thinking, notes, and code. In my experience, bugs tend to congregate at the interfaces. Be it a procedure call or return or in an interrupt handler, I try to keep things as clean as possible. Hacks WILL come back and bite me/others.
Make junk stick out. When I'm pressed for time and know I'm taking a shortcut, I flag it as such. It's easier for me to find a needle in a haystack if I use BIG needles.
Lastly, here is a quotation I found back in the 80's (IIRC from someone at SofTech) and it has guided my thinking ever since:
Strive to understand your problem.
Don't try to solve it.
A fully-stated problem
embodies its solution.
There's a BIG difference in the testing: the human gets no cookies! <grin>
But seriously, I have to admit it is an intriguing test. What I would love to see, though, is another set of test runs which compared chimps with some serious gamers!
Instead of reading a *summary* of a New York Times article, here
it is.
That article mentions high-powered jammers and specifically one restaurant owner who paid $1000 to install one so he could keep his employees working instead of gabbing on their cell phone.
It may be illegal in the USA to actively jam cell-phone signals, but as far as I know, there's no law prohibiting someone from
passively jamming signals; see: Faraday Cage:
Mobile phones and radios may have no reception inside elevators or similar structures. Some traditional architectural materials act as Faraday shields in practice. These include plaster with metal lath, and rebar reinforced concrete. These affect the use of cordless phones and wireless networks inside buildings and houses.
Hmmm, I wonder if aluminum siding would be effective?
The problem, as I see it, is that most of the Senate is insulated from the reality of the problem:
Their government-provided account (blah-blah@senate.gov) is surely highly-filtered to keep out SPAM.
Their staff filters the rest and only forwards the "good stuff".
Thus, for any given senator it's: "Problem? What problem?"
I am curious why the House of Representatives is able to see that there is a problem, but the Senate does not. Could it be that the Representatives are "closer" to the people; are better able to perceive our problems as individuals? IIRC, that was one of the intentions of our having a bicameral legislative branch. Whatever convinced the representatives might be leveraged to help persuade the Senate.
I'd love to see the outcome of a Senator voluntarily publishing their personal e-mail address for harvesting and getting their report on how they liked it.
Note: I am NOT advocating that a staffer anonymously publish any senators' private e-mail addresses -- they have a duty to the Congress to uphold.
I don't think this sort of technology will replace soldiers right out. However, it can be
a great help in certain situations where you don't want to risk soldiers lives.
Agreed. In fact, my first thought when I heard of this: automated supply lines. If (and that is a BIG "if") they can get this to work, AND come up with solid evasive techniques, I could very well see a convoy of these being used to supply troops in the field. It takes a LOT of material to support an army: food, shelter, transport, fuel, parts, etc. Basically, if it wasn't there before, then it had to be transported there. And, if it won't last forever, it will need to be replaced and that means THAT will have to be transported there, too. Once they get cars automated, it's no great leap to imagine a tractor trailer (lorry) being automatically driven, as well.
Another idea: emergency driving. If my vehicle comes under fire, it'd be nice if it could handle the driving for a bit while I duck down and remain protected from the assault. Or, I've come under attack and have been sorely wounded. If I can just get in and press the "take me back home" button, that'd be worth a lot! (Of course, it works the other way, too. It'd be a really handy thing to have if you're a thief!!!)
Sadly, the cynical side of me sees this as being just another tool that a government could use to keep control over its people. The vehicles would just follow orders, no backtalk, easily replaced, and cheaper than humans.
NOTE: I did a quick skim of it and had not seen any empirical evidence of the advance; seems to be entirely theoretical. I don't mean to lessen his accomplishments, but my experience is that reality usually has unforeseen factors. I certainly hope he IS on to something here!!
(*) I didn't know anyone used the <blink> tag any more.:/
... United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton, who is wowing Wall Street with his willingness to examine new ways to wring money out of the carrier [CC], including making economy passengers pay a fee unless they want their luggage to come last off the plane.
Let's think this through for a bit. At first, only a couple of people pay the fee. No biggee, and not much impact. Then someone, whose baggage came off last, notices the "priority tag" or whatever they use to identify the "don't take me off the plane last" tag. So s/he now ponies up for the fee from now on.
Repeat for a few iterations. Now, nearly everybody has paid the fee, and they all come off just as before.
EXCEPT when some poor customer has paid the fee, AND his stuff comes off AFTER someone who did NOT. Guaranteed Upset Passenger.
The real kicker: what happens when someone:
HAS paid the priority fee, AND
UA loses their luggage?
Yep, sure sounds like <sarcasm>great customer service</sarcasm> to me. With increasingly ubiquitous video cameras, all it takes is a couple of postings to YouTube, a few blog posts, and then the REAL FUN begins!
From the summary:
Senator On-Line [CC] will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority. The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party.
So, this would be the Senator On-Line party? Where have I heard
SOL before?;^)
AI is a disaster through-and-through. It never works well. Ever.
Consider hand-writing recognition, autonomous robotics, and game theory, just to name a few of the narrowest, most-well defined (read:easiest) AI applications. AI works well in none of these - at best, it's so-so (like the 95-98% success rates in OCR).
Agreed. But, there's a huge continuum between the current error-prone, manual process and a fully-automated redaction machine.
Now what you have here, with the automatic redacting copier, is that the copier needs to understand the document its reading, and determine which parts to redact. Contextual understanding is *HARD* - it's the same class of problem as automated translation - only harder in this case.
Agreed. But I do see an opportunity here for an automated assistant to the current manual process. In a sense, it's like a context-sensitive lint for English.
Imagine it watching over your shoulder, so to speak, as you start redacting a document. "Oh, he just redacted: 'Reading, Mass' so I'll let 'em know the next time I see that. Consider an incremental search in an editor where it highlights all instances of the string you
are searching for. You still need to actually READ the text, but it helps to at least point out all "words/phrases of interest."
Let's put it another way. Imagine YOU are sitting in front of a PC and manually redacting hundreds of pages of documents. How long before you'd wish there was a way for the system to highlight things you have already told it, TWENTY !!%$%%! TIMES, that should be redacted? You still need to accept the offering, and continue to locate and point out additional words/phrases of interest so it can build its "vocabulary".
Then, for completeness, add a verification pass where you get to see, in context, all accepted and declined redaction suggestions. For additional security or confidence, have another person do the same thing from the same starting point, and then diff the resulting redactions.
Summary: no silver bullet here, but I see it being a very useful and helpful adjunct to an all-manual process.
While comforting the dog immediately post-seizure one evening, I noticed that he felt warm - his entire body was overheated, as though he'd just come in from a long walk on a hot summer day. To me, the obvious thing to do was to crush 10-15 ice cubes, dump them in a ziploc bag and apply it to the crown of his head. The effect was immediate, and amazing. His anxiety and discomfort disappeared immediately, and the "brain chiller" icepack seemed to lessen the severity of any subsequent cluster seizures, and reduce the number of seizures in a cluster (to almost petit mal effect.)
Thanks for that. Wish I'd thought of it many years ago when I dated a woman who had Grand Mal seizures. I only witnessed one,
but it did happen during a hot summer day... hard to watch someone you love struggling and feeling powerless to help.
I understand there are multiple triggers for seizures, so YMMV, but here's something that worked for her and might help others:
She tended to have seizures in the morning, during (or shortly after) getting cleaned up for the day. After several times of
hearing her tell of having a seizure and then asking what she had done / was doing, I noticed a pattern:
happened in the morning (she was NOT a morning person - couldn't concentrate well until 10/11 AM)
before she had breakfast (supply of energy available to her at a minimum)
before she had taken her medications (therapeutic level at a minimum)
after having had a HOT shower (Huh? AHA!)
The hot shower factor gave me an idea. When it's really hot and humid (90 deg F and 90% humidity), it's really hard for me to
concentrate or to have any patience with those about me. It's like I'm already running under load and cannot take much more. Ditto
when I am hungry.
I pointed out to her these common factors I had noticed. She tried changing her schedule around to have a quick bite to eat and her medications first thing in the morning, and to take cooler showers, and it cut her seizures (and "auras" - what she called it before a seizure actually happened) significantly. It's been many years but IIRC it went from 1-2/month to 1/year.
P.S. She was sure to have a seizure in the morning if she had drank the night before; that was above and beyond the factors I listed earlier.
Glad to hear the ice pack worked so well for your dog; I'll keep it in mind for the future!
The article referenced a number of studies investigating a variety of "spiritual experiences", and the increase/decrease in activation of several locations in the brain. The emphasis on spiritual and/or religious "experiences" was an interesting
approach, but the authors point out a difficulty:
Other research problems abound. None of the techniques, for example, can precisely delineate specific brain regions. And it is virtually impossible to find a perfect so-called reference task for the nuns to perform against which to compare the religious experience they are trying to capture. After all, what human experience is just one detail different from the awe and love felt in the presence of God?
I suggest it would be interesting to investigate something for which there IS a control, and for which there is a greater ability to find matching experiences of it:
Flow.
See, especially: religion and spirituality
Disclaimers: IANAN (I am not a neurologist). I DO experience "flow" regularly when writing computer programs. I have had a couple "spiritual experiences" in my life, but do not subscribe to any particular religion, nor do I believe there is some "great power" that reaches down and intervenes in my life, or of anybody else.
Background: When writing computer programs, I regularly experience periods where I lose all sense of what is around me except the task at hand. These periods _feel_ brief, but when I look at the time, invariably an hour or two has passed. If I do get interrupted while in the "flow", there's a feeling of a sudden inrush of external awareness, AND a sense of "dropping" the balls (concepts and interrelationships between them) I was juggling. It's like I can only focus on so many things at once; but, being in the flow, I free my mind of awareness of the "outside" so that I can be aware of more aspects of the program I am working on.
Others have told me they felt this feeling when they were involved in sports -- they could ignore the crowd, all the other inputs and distractions, and become one with the play at hand. Still others have shared with me about having this feeling when they were listening to music. At the same time, they could selectively listen to individual instruments or the whole piece and the interactions between those instruments, all within the flow of the whole composition. Yet others still have told me about playing MMORPGs and how it felt when they became immersed in the game. And, yes, I've heard others use similar terms to describe how it felt for them when they had a "spiritual experience". (My own experience supports that, too.)
Question 1: Could it be that a "spiritual experience", a sensing of God, a feeling of oneness with the universe, etc.... could these be akin to a "flow experience" with respect to something commonly described in religious terms?
Question 2: Are there any researchers here who would like an able and willing volunteer to investigate this? I'd volunteer in a heartbeat to be hooked up to an fMRI, or SPECT, or whatever to see what was going on when I was working on writing a program!!! Given the/. population, I suspect I'm not alone and there would be a large number who would also volunteer for such a study.
Summary: Inquiring minds want to flow!;^)
Thoughts of giving up?
on
Ask Rob Malda
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
When were you most tempted to give up?
Dealing with a bunch of creative, resourceful, tenacious, stubborn, and sometimes outright hostile nerds, I'm sure there were MANY times when you were tempted to just give up on the whole thing. e.g. page-widening trolls; Church of Scientology; Microsoft source code, or even the release of slash code to the community and the barrage of insults.
I'm really glad you held on and persevered, but I'd like to know when you were most tempted to throw in the towel, and even more importantly, I'd like to hear the story around how you held on and kept things going.
I've got a question that has been nagging at me for quite a while and was hoping someone here could phrase an answer in terms a mere mortal could understand.
Why are there so many serial specifications?
We've got, off the top of my head, SCSI, USB, Ethernet, FireWire, and SATA to name a few. I do understand there are different protocols (all the way up from the physical to the application layers). Different applications of these technologies permit some optimizations that might not be applicable in other situations. But, at some point, the underlying technology is fast enough
Still, I can't help but think there should be some common denominator that ALL these communications standards can agree on, and through economies of scale, become universal standard(s). It just seems like people keep re-inventing the wheel with an eye toward THEIR favorite.
I thought we were getting close when they released gigabit Ethernet over UTP (unshielded twisted pair).
can handle distances up to 100 meters
fast data rate (1000 Mbps)
supports lower data rates (100/10 Mbps)
development is underway for 10Gbps, too.
So, for the sake of argument, why not have all of our serial devices just support gigabit Ethernet? Sure, you'd need a hub or switch in your PC to talk to all of the devices, but you already need something similar for the other protocols (USB hub, SCSI controller, etc.). It's a well-known technology with many implementations and is widely available. I'd willingly pay a few more bucks for each device if I could ditch all of these incompatible formats and just standardize on one SET of ports and cables for hooking things to (and within) my PC. And in those cases where a different connector is desired (e.g. for small form-factor devices like a digital camera), let me just get an adapter cable/plug that I can plug into my Ethernet port.
Is there any good, technical reason that is keeping us from having truly UNIVERSAL serial communications?
I've heard they already have plans for their next version! They're going to upgrade the image processing to add scene analysis with an always-on internet connection to a search engine and call them "Googles". <grin>
"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways -- in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict." ...
"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."
and worrisome:
Dr. Ian Malcolm: If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously. [Jurassic Park]
However, while Argonne merely allows the deer to roam freely on its land, Fermilab Bison are actively cultivated by the lab, creating some really fine breeding studs, and acting as a sustainable way of preserving one aspect of the natural "Prairie" that is part of North American history.
And let me guess... they named the first calf a "Higgs Bison"? <grin>
I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's a great opportunity here for an enterprising business to make money by providing insurance against ID theft, IF THEY PAY THE AFFECTED CUSTOMERS!
Summary: Leverage best practices and reward for it AND involve the customer to demand better protection.
Imagine if insurance companies offered a policy that would:
clean up the customer's credit,
reimburse for losses,
AND pay an "inconvenience fee" TO THE CUSTOMER whenever data is lost.
This might play out as follows:
Mary: "Hey Joe! Why are you still dealing with "OldFoo, Inc." after they lost your data? You spent so much time and money trying to get it cleaned up! I just heard that "NewFoo, Inc." has insurance that not only will clean up from any mistake they make, but it will also pay me $100.00 for my inconvenience! Why don't you check it out?"
Joe: Calls up NewFoo, Inc. and gets the scoop on the protection plan.
Mary: "So, did you call?"
Joe: "Sure did, and I'm sure glad I did, too! I just found out that NewFoo underwent a comprehensive security review and got a 3-star rating! Because they put new security measures in place, they will now pay ME up to $1,000.00 if they lose my data!"
Mary: "That's great news! I wonder what the ratings are for the other companies I do business with?"
Joe: "That's easy, all you have to do is go to ID-Theft-Star-Rating.com and look them up!"
Now, insurance companies are not around to lose money. They provide all kinds of risk coverage. They have developed means to assess risk, provide varying amounts of coverage, and charge appropriate premiums to cover those costs. Many will even come out to your site(s), perform a risk assessment, provide recommendations for how to mitigate them, and would offer lower insurance premiums or better coverage (payments) as a result.
For example: I can pay *higher* premiums on my car insurance to increase my coverage. I can pay *lower* premiums if I install a car alarm. Or, I could combine the two to end up with more protection for the same money.
IANAIG (I Am Not An Insurance Guy) so this is surely over-simplified, but I believe it could form a good starting point for discussion. Comments?
Keeping in mind that she does not have much technology experience, what would you suggest I utilize to ease the communication barrier? I remember seeing devices with a number of buttons that say whatever you program it to say, but I can't find these anymore. What other kind of devices are available?
Please accept my heart-felt best wishes for your grandmother's speedy recovery. (My mom was on a respirator for a couple weeks and it was difficult.) I also commend you for being pro-active about trying to find ways to help her.
As a card-carrying nerd, I immediately thought of high-tech solutions to the problem of my Mom's inability to talk. It bothered her and I wanted to find a way so she could TALK. As I ran through one possibility after another, I found that elegance and complexity is not necessary.
K.I.S.S. - We used pens and small pads of paper. The small size (about 5x7 inches) made it easy to hold. The thickness and the backing provided a built-in support to write on. It was
simple to hand back and forth. This worked just fine for us.
I'd also encourage you to ask the hospital staff what they have found effective as well as ask them to seek input from other facilities.
Other ideas (in order of increasing technological complexity:
Yes/No questions Blink/tap once or twice.
Morse Code For starters: Dit=YES Daaah=NO. It'd only cost a few bucks to get a momentary switch, tone generator, speaker, battery holder, and enclosure. (BTW: Good keyers can key faster than text-ers can text.)
There's also text-ing messages and IM-ing (e.g. jabber, AIM) but that's overkill for this. Paper and pens require no batteries, emit no interference to sensitive medical devices, and the hospital could probably provide you with them free of charge.
Ultimately, it boils down to helping her find a way to communicate instead of finding a way to help her "talk". Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
P.S. Some of the most precious times I remember with my mom during her last days was just sitting there and holding her hand. I have found that words are just a convention that allows one person to share what is in their heart and head with another person. Holding hands does that.
FTFS:
Today when major studios and publishers are approached by companies interested in commissioning, say, an employee-training game based on a successful commercial title, more often than not those studios and publishers decline. Even if the interested company is offering $5 million, it's not worth the gamemakers' time to divert engineers from a commercial title likely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.
Okay, I'll bite. What about a text-based interactive fiction game? I spent hours and hours while in college trying to solve adventure. (Aside: Solved it with 350 out of 350 points on May 9, 1977.) Why did I do THAT when I had so many other demands on my time?
Had fun solving puzzles.
Was in competition with classmates.
Kept trying to beat my best score.
Learned different ways to look at things.
So, an IF game with some "rooms" which had "puzzles" to solve would be simple enough to create. To make it playable and enjoyable, well, that's another matter, but even then it's quite doable. (<grin>Some of us nerds DO know how to write!</grin>)
Example: Customer Service Representative (CSR) for an in-house application. Take some cases from the Tier-1 call center "solution scripts". Wrap it up in a day's adventure with incoming calls and a count-up timer for how long it took you to solve particular puzzle(s). Have some notes on a hall-way white board. A "manual" that you find on a table in the corporate library. Get x-amount of points for solving each puzzle. As the game progresses, a user could be given access with a special pass to higher floors in the building where increasingly difficult challenges await. (Take these from Tier-2 call center solutions.) Create some "colorful" customers to highlight different response techniques. (Screaming Sammy, Timid Tom, Newbie Ned, Impulsive Ivan, etc.) You get the idea.
To sum this up, there's an old saw that I believe is apropos here:
Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
$5 million? Sure! I'd like a piece of that! Heck, for JUST $100K, I could *easily* create a "game" in a month or two. AND, it would be easy to extend to other levels and challenges. AND, because it was text-based, it could easily run as an application on a phone or PDA.
Honestly, I think the more impressive stat is the one given in the summary: operating range of -100 to +300 degrees.
Most batteries are only viable in temperatures where water can stay liquid. Were something like this made commercially viable, you could do things like run electric vehicles in the arctic w/o needing to keep the battery warm. (emphasis added)
I would suggest that we could use this to run electric vehicles in space w/o needing to keep the battery warm.
NOTE: By "space" I mean not only the big, empty expanse around us, but also on the Moon, on Mars, etc. Even if the extremes there exceed that of this battery, the energy required to keep this battery within specs would be much less than for our current crop.
IIRC, wasn't one of the big concerns about the Mars landers (Opportunity and Spirit) during the big dust storm that insufficient sunlight would reach the solar cells to power the heater that kept the electronics from freezing? Well, okay, we'd still be left with the need to keep the *electronics* from freezing, but the less power required to keep the batteries warm, the more power would be left for the electronics... right?
Downside: after one of those treatments you'll have a craving for cheese and a fear of cats. Then again, for some people it might not be much of a difference;)
I've found someone who MUST have been treated; he likes dogs and craves cheese. More details here.;^)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't try to solve it.
A fully-stated problem
embodies its solution. P=NP?
YES!!! I am in absolute awe. It's the occasional gem such as what you posted that keeps me coming back here these past 10 years.
In just 5 characters, you have managed to communicate you do understand what I expressed. Further, by having given a salient example of a currently unsolved problem in theoretical computer science, you have shown that being unable to solve the problem, provides a solution in being able to state that it cannot be solved. E.g. when a PHB reports an application is running too slow and demands it be made faster, you discover that it CANNOT be made faster - and THAT is the solution.
For those who may not understand what vikstar was referring to, please see: P=NP problem. Here's the wiki summary:
The relationship between the complexity classes P and NP is an unsolved question in theoretical computer science. It is considered to be the most important problem in the field - the Clay Mathematics Institute has offered a $1 million US prize for the first correct proof.
In essence, the P = NP question asks: if 'yes'-answers to a 'yes'-or-'no'-question can be verified quickly, can the answers themselves also be computed quickly? In this context, "quickly" means "in polynomial time".
Consider, for instance, the subset-sum problem, an example of a problem which is easy to verify, but whose answer is believed (but not proven) to be difficult to compute. Given a set of integers, does some nonempty subset of them sum to 0? For instance, does a subset of the set {-2, -3, 15, 14, 7, -10} add up to 0? The answer is YES, though it may take a while to find a subset that does, depending on its size. On the other hand, if someone claims that the answer is "YES, because {-2, -3, -10, 15} add up to zero", then we can quickly check that with a few additions. Verifying that the subset adds up to zero is much faster than finding the subset in the first place. The information needed to verify a positive answer is also called a certificate. So we conclude that given the right certificates, positive answers to our problem can be verified quickly (in polynomial time) and that's why this problem is in NP.
An answer to the P = NP question would determine whether problems like SUBSET-SUM are as easy to compute as to verify. If it turned out P does not equal NP, it would mean that some NP problems are substantially harder to compute than to verify.
The restriction to YES/NO problems doesn't really make a difference; even if we allow more complicated answers, the resulting problem (whether FP = FNP) is equivalent.
Many good comments already. I'd like to add some based on my experiences since 1972.
Background: I was fortunate to be introduced to structured programming early on. I've used, and helped develop/test tools to implement, various coding methodologies (CASE, anyone?) I've worked on operating systems and compilers. Yes, plural on each of those. I've worked at huge multi-nationals and a 3-man startup.
Observations:
Lastly, here is a quotation I found back in the 80's (IIRC from someone at SofTech) and it has guided my thinking ever since:
Strive to understand your problem.
Don't try to solve it.
A fully-stated problem
embodies its solution.
FYI, here's the video library.
Look closely at two comparable tests:
There's a BIG difference in the testing: the human gets no cookies! <grin>
But seriously, I have to admit it is an intriguing test. What I would love to see, though, is another set of test runs which compared chimps with some serious gamers!
Instead of reading a *summary* of a New York Times article, here it is.
That article mentions high-powered jammers and specifically one restaurant owner who paid $1000 to install one so he could keep his employees working instead of gabbing on their cell phone.
It may be illegal in the USA to actively jam cell-phone signals, but as far as I know, there's no law prohibiting someone from passively jamming signals; see: Faraday Cage:
Mobile phones and radios may have no reception inside elevators or similar structures. Some traditional architectural materials act as Faraday shields in practice. These include plaster with metal lath, and rebar reinforced concrete. These affect the use of cordless phones and wireless networks inside buildings and houses.Hmmm, I wonder if aluminum siding would be effective?
The problem, as I see it, is that most of the Senate is insulated from the reality of the problem:
Thus, for any given senator it's: "Problem? What problem?"
I am curious why the House of Representatives is able to see that there is a problem, but the Senate does not. Could it be that the Representatives are "closer" to the people; are better able to perceive our problems as individuals? IIRC, that was one of the intentions of our having a bicameral legislative branch. Whatever convinced the representatives might be leveraged to help persuade the Senate.
I'd love to see the outcome of a Senator voluntarily publishing their personal e-mail address for harvesting and getting their report on how they liked it.
Note: I am NOT advocating that a staffer anonymously publish any senators' private e-mail addresses -- they have a duty to the Congress to uphold.
Agreed. In fact, my first thought when I heard of this: automated supply lines. If (and that is a BIG "if") they can get this to work, AND come up with solid evasive techniques, I could very well see a convoy of these being used to supply troops in the field. It takes a LOT of material to support an army: food, shelter, transport, fuel, parts, etc. Basically, if it wasn't there before, then it had to be transported there. And, if it won't last forever, it will need to be replaced and that means THAT will have to be transported there, too. Once they get cars automated, it's no great leap to imagine a tractor trailer (lorry) being automatically driven, as well.
Another idea: emergency driving. If my vehicle comes under fire, it'd be nice if it could handle the driving for a bit while I duck down and remain protected from the assault. Or, I've come under attack and have been sorely wounded. If I can just get in and press the "take me back home" button, that'd be worth a lot! (Of course, it works the other way, too. It'd be a really handy thing to have if you're a thief!!!)
Sadly, the cynical side of me sees this as being just another tool that a government could use to keep control over its people. The vehicles would just follow orders, no backtalk, easily replaced, and cheaper than humans.
The slashdot summary and linked articles are rather short on details. A little googling located some details:
NOTE: I did a quick skim of it and had not seen any empirical evidence of the advance; seems to be entirely theoretical. I don't mean to lessen his accomplishments, but my experience is that reality usually has unforeseen factors. I certainly hope he IS on to something here!!
(*) I didn't know anyone used the <blink> tag any more. :/
... United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton, who is wowing Wall Street with his willingness to examine new ways to wring money out of the carrier [CC], including making economy passengers pay a fee unless they want their luggage to come last off the plane.Let's think this through for a bit. At first, only a couple of people pay the fee. No biggee, and not much impact. Then someone, whose baggage came off last, notices the "priority tag" or whatever they use to identify the "don't take me off the plane last" tag. So s/he now ponies up for the fee from now on. Repeat for a few iterations. Now, nearly everybody has paid the fee, and they all come off just as before.
EXCEPT when some poor customer has paid the fee, AND his stuff comes off AFTER someone who did NOT. Guaranteed Upset Passenger.
The real kicker: what happens when someone:
Yep, sure sounds like <sarcasm>great customer service</sarcasm> to me. With increasingly ubiquitous video cameras, all it takes is a couple of postings to YouTube, a few blog posts, and then the REAL FUN begins!
So, this would be the Senator On-Line party? Where have I heard SOL before? ;^)
Not off to the most auspicious start, are they?
Consider hand-writing recognition, autonomous robotics, and game theory, just to name a few of the narrowest, most-well defined (read:easiest) AI applications. AI works well in none of these - at best, it's so-so (like the 95-98% success rates in OCR).
Agreed. But, there's a huge continuum between the current error-prone, manual process and a fully-automated redaction machine.
Now what you have here, with the automatic redacting copier, is that the copier needs to understand the document its reading, and determine which parts to redact. Contextual understanding is *HARD* - it's the same class of problem as automated translation - only harder in this case.Agreed. But I do see an opportunity here for an automated assistant to the current manual process. In a sense, it's like a context-sensitive lint for English.
Imagine it watching over your shoulder, so to speak, as you start redacting a document. "Oh, he just redacted: 'Reading, Mass' so I'll let 'em know the next time I see that. Consider an incremental search in an editor where it highlights all instances of the string you are searching for. You still need to actually READ the text, but it helps to at least point out all "words/phrases of interest."
Let's put it another way. Imagine YOU are sitting in front of a PC and manually redacting hundreds of pages of documents. How long before you'd wish there was a way for the system to highlight things you have already told it, TWENTY !!%$%%! TIMES, that should be redacted? You still need to accept the offering, and continue to locate and point out additional words/phrases of interest so it can build its "vocabulary".
Then, for completeness, add a verification pass where you get to see, in context, all accepted and declined redaction suggestions. For additional security or confidence, have another person do the same thing from the same starting point, and then diff the resulting redactions.
Summary: no silver bullet here, but I see it being a very useful and helpful adjunct to an all-manual process.
Thanks for that. Wish I'd thought of it many years ago when I dated a woman who had Grand Mal seizures. I only witnessed one, but it did happen during a hot summer day... hard to watch someone you love struggling and feeling powerless to help.
I understand there are multiple triggers for seizures, so YMMV, but here's something that worked for her and might help others:
She tended to have seizures in the morning, during (or shortly after) getting cleaned up for the day. After several times of hearing her tell of having a seizure and then asking what she had done / was doing, I noticed a pattern:
The hot shower factor gave me an idea. When it's really hot and humid (90 deg F and 90% humidity), it's really hard for me to concentrate or to have any patience with those about me. It's like I'm already running under load and cannot take much more. Ditto when I am hungry.
I pointed out to her these common factors I had noticed. She tried changing her schedule around to have a quick bite to eat and her medications first thing in the morning, and to take cooler showers, and it cut her seizures (and "auras" - what she called it before a seizure actually happened) significantly. It's been many years but IIRC it went from 1-2/month to 1/year.
P.S. She was sure to have a seizure in the morning if she had drank the night before; that was above and beyond the factors I listed earlier.
Glad to hear the ice pack worked so well for your dog; I'll keep it in mind for the future!
The article referenced a number of studies investigating a variety of "spiritual experiences", and the increase/decrease in activation of several locations in the brain. The emphasis on spiritual and/or religious "experiences" was an interesting approach, but the authors point out a difficulty:
Other research problems abound. None of the techniques, for example, can precisely delineate specific brain regions. And it is virtually impossible to find a perfect so-called reference task for the nuns to perform against which to compare the religious experience they are trying to capture. After all, what human experience is just one detail different from the awe and love felt in the presence of God?I suggest it would be interesting to investigate something for which there IS a control, and for which there is a greater ability to find matching experiences of it: Flow. See, especially: religion and spirituality
Disclaimers: IANAN (I am not a neurologist). I DO experience "flow" regularly when writing computer programs. I have had a couple "spiritual experiences" in my life, but do not subscribe to any particular religion, nor do I believe there is some "great power" that reaches down and intervenes in my life, or of anybody else.
Background: When writing computer programs, I regularly experience periods where I lose all sense of what is around me except the task at hand. These periods _feel_ brief, but when I look at the time, invariably an hour or two has passed. If I do get interrupted while in the "flow", there's a feeling of a sudden inrush of external awareness, AND a sense of "dropping" the balls (concepts and interrelationships between them) I was juggling. It's like I can only focus on so many things at once; but, being in the flow, I free my mind of awareness of the "outside" so that I can be aware of more aspects of the program I am working on.
Others have told me they felt this feeling when they were involved in sports -- they could ignore the crowd, all the other inputs and distractions, and become one with the play at hand. Still others have shared with me about having this feeling when they were listening to music. At the same time, they could selectively listen to individual instruments or the whole piece and the interactions between those instruments, all within the flow of the whole composition. Yet others still have told me about playing MMORPGs and how it felt when they became immersed in the game. And, yes, I've heard others use similar terms to describe how it felt for them when they had a "spiritual experience". (My own experience supports that, too.)
Question 1: Could it be that a "spiritual experience", a sensing of God, a feeling of oneness with the universe, etc. ... could these be akin to a "flow experience" with respect to something commonly described in religious terms?
Question 2: Are there any researchers here who would like an able and willing volunteer to investigate this? I'd volunteer in a heartbeat to be hooked up to an fMRI, or SPECT, or whatever to see what was going on when I was working on writing a program!!! Given the /. population, I suspect I'm not alone and there would be a large number who would also volunteer for such a study.
Summary: Inquiring minds want to flow! ;^)
When were you most tempted to give up?
Dealing with a bunch of creative, resourceful, tenacious, stubborn, and sometimes outright hostile nerds, I'm sure there were MANY times when you were tempted to just give up on the whole thing. e.g. page-widening trolls; Church of Scientology; Microsoft source code, or even the release of slash code to the community and the barrage of insults.
I'm really glad you held on and persevered, but I'd like to know when you were most tempted to throw in the towel, and even more importantly, I'd like to hear the story around how you held on and kept things going.
Jan 11, 1998 (Article #421) from trying links on that page to older articles.
Hmmm, this sounds interesting. Let's give it a try!
Hey! This is great! I feel SO relaxed. Oops. Oh-oh. Oh Noes!!! My dragon she be stumbling!!! I gots to RELAX! RIGHT NOW !!!!!! ARGHHHH!!!!!!!
Doesn't seem to help much. :/
I've got a question that has been nagging at me for quite a while and was hoping someone here could phrase an answer in terms a mere mortal could understand.
Why are there so many serial specifications?We've got, off the top of my head, SCSI, USB, Ethernet, FireWire, and SATA to name a few. I do understand there are different protocols (all the way up from the physical to the application layers). Different applications of these technologies permit some optimizations that might not be applicable in other situations. But, at some point, the underlying technology is fast enough
Still, I can't help but think there should be some common denominator that ALL these communications standards can agree on, and through economies of scale, become universal standard(s). It just seems like people keep re-inventing the wheel with an eye toward THEIR favorite.
I thought we were getting close when they released gigabit Ethernet over UTP (unshielded twisted pair).
So, for the sake of argument, why not have all of our serial devices just support gigabit Ethernet? Sure, you'd need a hub or switch in your PC to talk to all of the devices, but you already need something similar for the other protocols (USB hub, SCSI controller, etc.). It's a well-known technology with many implementations and is widely available. I'd willingly pay a few more bucks for each device if I could ditch all of these incompatible formats and just standardize on one SET of ports and cables for hooking things to (and within) my PC. And in those cases where a different connector is desired (e.g. for small form-factor devices like a digital camera), let me just get an adapter cable/plug that I can plug into my Ethernet port.
Is there any good, technical reason that is keeping us from having truly UNIVERSAL serial communications?
I've heard they already have plans for their next version! They're going to upgrade the image processing to add scene analysis with an always-on internet connection to a search engine and call them "Googles". <grin>
Interesting... (FTA; emphasis added)
"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways -- in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."
...
"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."
and worrisome:
Dr. Ian Malcolm: If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously. [Jurassic Park]See also: "Murphy's Law"
And let me guess... they named the first calf a "Higgs Bison"? <grin>
I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's a great opportunity here for an enterprising business to make money by providing insurance against ID theft, IF THEY PAY THE AFFECTED CUSTOMERS!
Summary: Leverage best practices and reward for it AND involve the customer to demand better protection.
Imagine if insurance companies offered a policy that would:
This might play out as follows:
Mary: "Hey Joe! Why are you still dealing with "OldFoo, Inc." after they lost your data? You spent so much time and money trying to get it cleaned up! I just heard that "NewFoo, Inc." has insurance that not only will clean up from any mistake they make, but it will also pay me $100.00 for my inconvenience! Why don't you check it out?"
Joe: Calls up NewFoo, Inc. and gets the scoop on the protection plan.
Mary: "So, did you call?"
Joe: "Sure did, and I'm sure glad I did, too! I just found out that NewFoo underwent a comprehensive security review and got a 3-star rating! Because they put new security measures in place, they will now pay ME up to $1,000.00 if they lose my data!"
Mary: "That's great news! I wonder what the ratings are for the other companies I do business with?"
Joe: "That's easy, all you have to do is go to ID-Theft-Star-Rating.com and look them up!"
Now, insurance companies are not around to lose money. They provide all kinds of risk coverage. They have developed means to assess risk, provide varying amounts of coverage, and charge appropriate premiums to cover those costs. Many will even come out to your site(s), perform a risk assessment, provide recommendations for how to mitigate them, and would offer lower insurance premiums or better coverage (payments) as a result.
For example: I can pay *higher* premiums on my car insurance to increase my coverage. I can pay *lower* premiums if I install a car alarm. Or, I could combine the two to end up with more protection for the same money.
IANAIG (I Am Not An Insurance Guy) so this is surely over-simplified, but I believe it could form a good starting point for discussion. Comments?
Please accept my heart-felt best wishes for your grandmother's speedy recovery. (My mom was on a respirator for a couple weeks and it was difficult.) I also commend you for being pro-active about trying to find ways to help her.
As a card-carrying nerd, I immediately thought of high-tech solutions to the problem of my Mom's inability to talk. It bothered her and I wanted to find a way so she could TALK. As I ran through one possibility after another, I found that elegance and complexity is not necessary.
K.I.S.S. - We used pens and small pads of paper. The small size (about 5x7 inches) made it easy to hold. The thickness and the backing provided a built-in support to write on. It was simple to hand back and forth. This worked just fine for us.
I'd also encourage you to ask the hospital staff what they have found effective as well as ask them to seek input from other facilities.
Other ideas (in order of increasing technological complexity:
There's also text-ing messages and IM-ing (e.g. jabber, AIM) but that's overkill for this. Paper and pens require no batteries, emit no interference to sensitive medical devices, and the hospital could probably provide you with them free of charge.
Ultimately, it boils down to helping her find a way to communicate instead of finding a way to help her "talk". Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
P.S. Some of the most precious times I remember with my mom during her last days was just sitting there and holding her hand. I have found that words are just a convention that allows one person to share what is in their heart and head with another person. Holding hands does that.
Okay, I'll bite. What about a text-based interactive fiction game? I spent hours and hours while in college trying to solve adventure. (Aside: Solved it with 350 out of 350 points on May 9, 1977.) Why did I do THAT when I had so many other demands on my time?
So, an IF game with some "rooms" which had "puzzles" to solve would be simple enough to create. To make it playable and enjoyable, well, that's another matter, but even then it's quite doable. (<grin>Some of us nerds DO know how to write!</grin>)
Example: Customer Service Representative (CSR) for an in-house application. Take some cases from the Tier-1 call center "solution scripts". Wrap it up in a day's adventure with incoming calls and a count-up timer for how long it took you to solve particular puzzle(s). Have some notes on a hall-way white board. A "manual" that you find on a table in the corporate library. Get x-amount of points for solving each puzzle. As the game progresses, a user could be given access with a special pass to higher floors in the building where increasingly difficult challenges await. (Take these from Tier-2 call center solutions.) Create some "colorful" customers to highlight different response techniques. (Screaming Sammy, Timid Tom, Newbie Ned, Impulsive Ivan, etc.) You get the idea.
To sum this up, there's an old saw that I believe is apropos here:
Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
$5 million? Sure! I'd like a piece of that! Heck, for JUST $100K, I could *easily* create a "game" in a month or two. AND, it would be easy to extend to other levels and challenges. AND, because it was text-based, it could easily run as an application on a phone or PDA.
Any takers?
Honestly, I think the more impressive stat is the one given in the summary: operating range of -100 to +300 degrees.
Most batteries are only viable in temperatures where water can stay liquid. Were something like this made commercially viable, you could do things like run electric vehicles in the arctic w/o needing to keep the battery warm. (emphasis added)
I would suggest that we could use this to run electric vehicles in space w/o needing to keep the battery warm.
NOTE: By "space" I mean not only the big, empty expanse around us, but also on the Moon, on Mars, etc. Even if the extremes there exceed that of this battery, the energy required to keep this battery within specs would be much less than for our current crop.
IIRC, wasn't one of the big concerns about the Mars landers (Opportunity and Spirit) during the big dust storm that insufficient sunlight would reach the solar cells to power the heater that kept the electronics from freezing? Well, okay, we'd still be left with the need to keep the *electronics* from freezing, but the less power required to keep the batteries warm, the more power would be left for the electronics... right?
I've found someone who MUST have been treated; he likes dogs and craves cheese. More details here. ;^)
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to You,
Happy Birthday dear bacteria,
Happy Birthday to You!
(P.S. please don't tell the RIAA I sent this or there might be a fine. ;-)