This is a follow up to a previous program that was predicting them after they struck. Just last year they managed to predict the 1906 San Francisco Quake with amazing accuracy, and results like that are money in the bank for further research.
The word "legacy" keeps popping up in correlation with mainframes, and this is really why most of them are still around - legacy code that no one wants to re-do for other systems. However, new applications are typically being written for scalable, multi-component architectures, not mainframes. The reasons for keeping the legacy systems are obvious: cost of conversion, proven correctness, etc. However, I still think the scalability and reliability (e.g.: redundancy, resource pooling, load balancing, etc.) of NoW (Networks of Workstations) will in time push both the mainframe and nearly anachronistic programming language Cobol out the door. It's a simple matter of economics: it costs less to design, construct, implement, maintain and re-tool the different components of a distributed system as opposed to that of a mainframe.
I agree that technological advances have been based largely on financially driven concepts. However, much of this was built on free underlying technologies: TCP/IP, HTML, HTTP, etc. Without these, it is doubtful that the technology we see today would even exist. It is the ways and means of strengthening and restructuring of the backbone that will either encourage or prohibit future growth.
Just the unauthorized presence in a machine is enough if the company wants to prosecute. All you have to do is 'alter a file', right? You know, like a log or history file? That's all it takes.
Taken in completely good spirits - your completely non-flamable response is greatly appreciated. NP-Complete is solvable in NP, but it cannot be proven whether the problem is verifiable in P or not. This was the allusion I was making - the fact that it cannot be proven one way or another, not just that it was difficult (or not) in the first place. I do agree that people tend to associate NP with extremely difficult problems, whether this is true or not.:)
...there are only two kinds of scientific theories: those that are demonstrably false, and those that are not yet demonstrably false.
Well, yeah - that's why they are theories and not laws. The same sort of argument is made by fundamentalists against the "Theory" of Evolution. It can't be proven. It's only a theory (so let's go back to something infinitely less provable/disprovable such as the divine). Theories are meant to be correct in so much as there is overwhelming evidence toward their ideas.
The book appears to make some good points, however. (Just from the synopsis provided.) The infinitude of random factors that may cause market fluctuations makes prediction completely (probably?) intractable. In CS lingo, it would appear to be NP-Complete.;)
It's because, on radar, they look just like stealth nuclear missles - at least until the little parachute pops open, but by then it's DEFCON5 anyway....
I imagine it's because they might be used to disperse chemical agents, though the best I was ever capable of was dispering little model rocket parts.
the article cites Segway's price, low speed and tightened spending in the corporate world
...equals early sales and then - nada. So I can spend thousands of dollars to go as fast as I normally do only to put up with the annoyance of having to store the thing when I arrive at my destination? Super. Let me get my checkbook.
What they really need is a performance boost... Take the auto industry. We spend billions each year buying cars that go a bazillion miles an hourt (despite the 65 MPH speed limit) and rugged SUVs that can climb mountains just so we can can feel safe picking up the groceries. I say put a high performance chip in there, some racing stripes, steel spikes to ward off pesky lo-tech pedestrians and some oversized rims - then you're looking at something to feature in the next Vin Deisel film.;)
It's no secret that the most commonly searched item on the internet is pronography. Only once has this top ranking ever been dethroned - September 11, 2001. It returned to the top spot shortly thereafter. So, by examining web logs, we will find that - year after year - we are all interested in pornography. While this is likely the case, it is also a trapping of the medium through which the research is being conducted. You'll excuse my complete lack of surprise.
The whole issue of 'flair' and the office issues are really one and the same: it's all about being ra-ra-ra for a company that is much less ra-ra-ra in return. It's all 'smile pretty and join the team or you're outta here' - no matter how much you detest its inanity.
On a similar note there are stories about a temperature-sensing implantable microchip...
Yeah, I saw one at Rite Aid just the other day. It's called a digital thermometer and you implant it for 30 seconds - lo and behold it tells you your body temperature. Why would physically (ie: surgically) implanting a device be of any greater benefit?
The NoW (Network of Workstations) approach has been on ongoing trend over the last few years as the throughput achieved by an N distinct processors connected by a high speed network is nearly as good (and sometimes better) than an N processor mainframe. All this comes at a cost that is much less than that of a mainframe. In Google's case, it is the volume that is the problem, and not necessarily the complexity of the tasks presented. Thus, Google (and many other companies) can string together a whole bunch of individual servers (each with their own memory and disk space so there is no memory contention - another advantage over the mainframe approach) quite (relatively) cheaply and get the job done by load balancing across the available servers. Replacement and upgrades - yes, eventually to the 64 chips - can be done iteratively so as to not impact service, etc. Lots of advantages...
Here is a link to a seminal paper on the issue if you are interested: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/anderson94case.html
Slashdot Mirror
Note that if you read the sentence carefully, there is nothing that said the fridge itself was the cause of the odor!
"AN OFFICE WORKER cleaning a fridge full of rotten food CREATED A SMELL so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital..."
I'm pretty sure every office has one of those guys...
...if your goal is to punish your customers for being mainstream music listners... (sic)
Hey - now you're on to something!
The apostrophe is a trojan that launches an attack against the recently announced IE security hole if you send the article to a GMail account.
... because we all know that no really good concept in computing has ever come out of Berkeley. ;)
... because I keep forgetting to go to the gym.
...before they strike.
This is a follow up to a previous program that was predicting them after they struck. Just last year they managed to predict the 1906 San Francisco Quake with amazing accuracy, and results like that are money in the bank for further research.
Alas, it could not even filter out their own mass email...
I think they just need to locate the airplane spec and set autoclip=off.
It's not a bug, it's digital rights management preventing illegal file sharing!
Using an Intel-based TinyOS and TinyDB, multiple sensing devices monitor grape micro climates and help determine irrigation and frost patterns.
Now, if they had only used AMD chips, the increased heat alone would have obviated the need to check for frost patterns!
The word "legacy" keeps popping up in correlation with mainframes, and this is really why most of them are still around - legacy code that no one wants to re-do for other systems. However, new applications are typically being written for scalable, multi-component architectures, not mainframes.
The reasons for keeping the legacy systems are obvious: cost of conversion, proven correctness, etc. However, I still think the scalability and reliability (e.g.: redundancy, resource pooling, load balancing, etc.) of NoW (Networks of Workstations) will in time push both the mainframe and nearly anachronistic programming language Cobol out the door. It's a simple matter of economics: it costs less to design, construct, implement, maintain and re-tool the different components of a distributed system as opposed to that of a mainframe.
Culler's paper on NoW is a classic.
I agree that technological advances have been based largely on financially driven concepts. However, much of this was built on free underlying technologies: TCP/IP, HTML, HTTP, etc. Without these, it is doubtful that the technology we see today would even exist. It is the ways and means of strengthening and restructuring of the backbone that will either encourage or prohibit future growth.
Just the unauthorized presence in a machine is enough if the company wants to prosecute. All you have to do is 'alter a file', right? You know, like a log or history file? That's all it takes.
Taken in completely good spirits - your completely non-flamable response is greatly appreciated. NP-Complete is solvable in NP, but it cannot be proven whether the problem is verifiable in P or not. This was the allusion I was making - the fact that it cannot be proven one way or another, not just that it was difficult (or not) in the first place. I do agree that people tend to associate NP with extremely difficult problems, whether this is true or not. :)
...there are only two kinds of scientific theories: those that are demonstrably false, and those that are not yet demonstrably false.
;)
Well, yeah - that's why they are theories and not laws. The same sort of argument is made by fundamentalists against the "Theory" of Evolution. It can't be proven. It's only a theory (so let's go back to something infinitely less provable/disprovable such as the divine). Theories are meant to be correct in so much as there is overwhelming evidence toward their ideas.
The book appears to make some good points, however. (Just from the synopsis provided.) The infinitude of random factors that may cause market fluctuations makes prediction completely (probably?) intractable. In CS lingo, it would appear to be NP-Complete.
So it is! Mia culpa.
It's because, on radar, they look just like stealth nuclear missles - at least until the little parachute pops open, but by then it's DEFCON5 anyway....
I imagine it's because they might be used to disperse chemical agents, though the best I was ever capable of was dispering little model rocket parts.
the article cites Segway's price, low speed and tightened spending in the corporate world
...equals early sales and then - nada. So I can spend thousands of dollars to go as fast as I normally do only to put up with the annoyance of having to store the thing when I arrive at my destination? Super. Let me get my checkbook.
;)
What they really need is a performance boost... Take the auto industry. We spend billions each year buying cars that go a bazillion miles an hourt (despite the 65 MPH speed limit) and rugged SUVs that can climb mountains just so we can can feel safe picking up the groceries. I say put a high performance chip in there, some racing stripes, steel spikes to ward off pesky lo-tech pedestrians and some oversized rims - then you're looking at something to feature in the next Vin Deisel film.
It's no secret that the most commonly searched item on the internet is pronography. Only once has this top ranking ever been dethroned - September 11, 2001. It returned to the top spot shortly thereafter. So, by examining web logs, we will find that - year after year - we are all interested in pornography. While this is likely the case, it is also a trapping of the medium through which the research is being conducted. You'll excuse my complete lack of surprise.
The whole issue of 'flair' and the office issues are really one and the same: it's all about being ra-ra-ra for a company that is much less ra-ra-ra in return. It's all 'smile pretty and join the team or you're outta here' - no matter how much you detest its inanity.
Did you get the memo about the TPS report?
On a similar note there are stories about a temperature-sensing implantable microchip...
Yeah, I saw one at Rite Aid just the other day. It's called a digital thermometer and you implant it for 30 seconds - lo and behold it tells you your body temperature. Why would physically (ie: surgically) implanting a device be of any greater benefit?
... this coming when we are nearing war with Iraq and simultaneous with the release of Command and Conquer Generals? Coincidence? I think not!
The NoW (Network of Workstations) approach has been on ongoing trend over the last few years as the throughput achieved by an N distinct processors connected by a high speed network is nearly as good (and sometimes better) than an N processor mainframe. All this comes at a cost that is much less than that of a mainframe. In Google's case, it is the volume that is the problem, and not necessarily the complexity of the tasks presented. Thus, Google (and many other companies) can string together a whole bunch of individual servers (each with their own memory and disk space so there is no memory contention - another advantage over the mainframe approach) quite (relatively) cheaply and get the job done by load balancing across the available servers. Replacement and upgrades - yes, eventually to the 64 chips - can be done iteratively so as to not impact service, etc. Lots of advantages...
Here is a link to a seminal paper on the issue if you are interested:
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/anderson94case.html
Just think of all the mp3s and movies we can legally download from top secret Iraqi sites!
Was there a crumb topping?