I suspect that this comment is an unfortunate example of what Microsoft has been able to achieve by including an old JVM into its Windows distribution. I realize I cannot change your opinion of Java at this point but I strongly recommend trying a 1.4.x JVM. Sun has done wonders with the technology and that shouldn't be diminished by the fact that Microsoft has been trying to hide Java from a common Windows user.
Shows like Firefly give bad name to scifi genre. I've seen every episode of the show except for the pilot and everyone of them was a shameless ripoff of a 50's spaghetti western show dressed up as scifi. It is difficult to translate good science fiction literature to film and even more difficult to translate it to TV series because the best scifi (IMHO) deals with a new ideas and how these ideas shape the environment and behavior of people. I consider books by Neal Stephenson or Vernor Vinge to be in this category -- they are popularly known as hard scifi. The other end of the spectrum are the books that use unusual setting like space ships or exotic planets to suspend disbelief in order to expose fundamental and unchanging elements of human behavior by putting characters into unlikely situations. Solaris which is coming out on big screen is allegedly this kind of a movie. Succeeding in this category requires a truly gifted director who can get the most out of actors and the human elements of the script.
I think it is an interesting symbolism that Carmack is involved in design of rockets for cheap access to space.
In many science fiction books there are two trends for the near future (there are a lot more but these are two major ones). Distopia is typically presented by heavily cybernetic society where the humanity is not really concerned about space. The other trend, is diametrically opposite with humanity focused on space exploration.
Carmack is in a sense a protagonist of future distopia as a designer of cybernetic worlds that are becoming increasingly important to our society (graphics acceleration business, success of 3D animation, even the debates over the impact of the violence in video games). People like Carmack working on rockets is a sign that our future does not have to be a choice between space and cyberspace.
Just to pour some oil into the computer scientists vs. electrical/computer engineers contest -- computer scientists have been designing and implementing asynchronous logic since early 1950. These days it is called multithreaded programming and is used in practically any serious software application. Take that you ECE majors.
that our fellow Slashdotter/Linux nut/3D guru John Carmack isn't launching his XPrize contender. For those who are not following his adventures in amateur rocketry, a few years back he started a company called Armadillo Aerospace which is a hobby project of sorts. They have created prototypes for hydrogen peroxide powered landers and are working on a suborbital launch in a near future.
Re:So let me get this straight.
on
Wolframania
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· Score: 1
Saying that Wolfram's book is focused on promoting cellular automata as the way to describe the universe is a gross underestimation of its ideas. From the first few chapters he makes a point to highlight the _equivalence_ of CA and existing mathematical constructs. The real kicker of the book is that using the analysis historically applied to the CA, we can demonstrate previously ignored features of the existing mathematical models.
All right, so now that we know we got water on Mars its obvious we gotta get there ASAP. The question is how do we do it? Short-term there are two major alternatives for propelling a rocket to Mars: chemical or nuclear fuel. Chemical is what we are using right now for the space shuttle and satellite launches. The problem with chemical fuel is that it is not as efficient as nuclear powered rockets in terms of the time it takes to travel between Earth and Mars. I am sure someone who's got better memory than I can post the exact numbers in the comments. Building a vehicle that would send a colony to Mars is not easy task, from what I've read NASA would have to build something or at least assemble parts in orbit. Unfortunately Joe Public has a major problem with nuclear -- he is scared shitless that if we have something nuclear circling the globe it will crash on Earth spreading radiation.
This is the point of my argument -- build a nuclear propelled rocket but assemble it in Moon's orbit which would provide safety in case of problems. I don't think anyone would complain if we accidentaly nuke the Moon since it a dead rock anyway. At the same time a base on the Moon would make for a good location for the people working on the construction of the rocket. Especially if US can put a base on the Moon before Chinese get there.
I am not sure that quantum computation can solve an arbitrary NP problem in O(n) time, but if I understand it correctly you still get the effect of non-deterministic search in a space limited by the number of particles in coherent quantum state. As the article points out the incentives to develop even something close P time solution of NP are huge. So the race to build a reliable and scalable quantum computer is on.
The article kept on mentioning that the cable would have to be hooked up to a satellite on a geostationary orbit. Correct me if my physics aren't right, but wouldn't the structure of the string itself be enough to keep it straight? By analogy you can swing a string round keeping it straight even when it does not have a weight at the end of it. This possibility appears to be a function of the rigidity of string.
Maxwells treatment of speed governors can only be considered a founding paper on cybernetics in retrospect. He didn't have any concept of applying his physics to control of complex systems. Suggesting that Maxwell is a founder of cybernetics is as bold of a statement as saying that Descartes developed calculus because he could differentiate functions.
Maxwell invented information theory? Hello, what about Claude Shannon? Are you suggesting "father of information theory" (Haykin 2000) was a plagiarist?
I think it is an interesting symbolism that Carmack is involved in design of rockets for cheap access to space.
In many science fiction books there are two trends for the near future (there are a lot more but these are two major ones). Distopia is typically presented by heavily cybernetic society where the humanity is not really concerned about space. The other trend, is diametrically opposite with humanity focused on space exploration.
Carmack is in a sense a protagonist of future distopia as a designer of cybernetic worlds that are becoming increasingly important to our society (graphics acceleration business, even Columbine). People like Carmack working on rockets is a sign that our future does not have to be a choice between space and cyberspace.
I'd take the risk of saying that computer science or specifically the ideas of information theory and computation are the fundamental ideas of the universe. If you get an immediate desire to throw up after reading those words I suggests taking a look at "The Bit and the Pendulum" by Tom Siegfried. There was a review recently in NY Times if you wanna search for it. This isn't as wacky as it sounds if you consider the experiments where the speed of light was changed under the restriction of allowing zero information to be carried by that light.
People don't seem to get this -- 128 bit per color for on the board processing! How do you configure your monitor output is entirely up to you. It doesn't matter if you change your settings to output a sampled down equivalent of the color, what matters is the ability of the graphics programmer to perform multipass operations on the color components of the pixels. That includes all your RGBs, alpha blending, pixel shading, etc. Don't forget to consider the error in calculations.
Coolest thing I've heard about GeForce 3 is from Tim Sweeney - the guy who made Unreal engine. In the last PC Gamer he said that the card is essentially feature complete for the purpose of creating photo-realistic realtime graphics. Now all they need to make realistic looking graphics is 128bits for color and a few orders of magnitude of the speed improvement.
No legal basis? So are you implying that I simply should be able to take your ideas and say that they are mine? Reprint your books and publications and put my name on them? That is the basis of my arguments - the content creator should be able to choose what happens to his/her work.
I know that this will get moderated to flaimbait as soon as it will get posted but I don't think that this is a big deal.
I think that everyone would agree that the content creator should have the last word over how his content should be used. The copy protection scheme in question gives an option to the creator of not copy protecting the content. The advocates of Napster and free content in general claim that freedom of copying the content is ultimately beneficial to the content creators in digital world. Assuming that this idea is true, they have nothing to fear - authors will simply choose not to copy protect their work and distribute it freely. Which implies that people won't use copy-protection.
Alright, suppose Napster II becomes a reality and due to some magic, groundbreaking encryption the system survives long enough to function. Why should I share files (music that I paid for) with million other subscribers who I don't even know? If incredibly smart music companies think that I will agree to make my PC a free distribution channel for their music they are very, very wrong.
First of all, there is only one American on Alpha so he is in minority when the other guys want to watch the Russian DVDs. Second of all, Bill Shepard the American dude speaks and understands Russians well enough to watch Russian movies. As a matter of fact, they watched a classic Russian movie before going to Alpha.
When I was 18, I used to work as a software engineer in a small company. I started as an intern in the company at age of 16 and worked my way up from tech. support. That summer the company hired a couple of interns and I was assigned to give them work on various projects.
Working with those guys and seeing how they interacted with their other managers was an experience. I think that was the time when I realized how much I learned in those two years at the company. - No matter how beneficial is your suggestion, managers will never accept it if you present it in a manner that says "I am the smart ass, I know this better than you do and that is why it should be the way I see it." - There are plenty of good ideas that excite the hacker in us, but for any company the first and foremost is profit and the projects that interest a programmer aren't a priority. If you want to enjoy your work, join a company that works on the things that spark your interest.
I think that only experience can give you the sense for politics and economics within the company and any ideas that are really true for this frame of reference and are presented correctly will be accepts regardless of age.
And "Microsoft is leading the charge with.Net," said Miller. "Linux is not leading anything, it is simply providing a 'free' operating system."
This is what bothers me about the future of Linux. What happens if the market changes and the OS isn't an issue anymore? This what has already happened on relatively small level with web browsers and might happen of a much larger level with something in 2-5 years. As a company Microsoft is capable of reinventing itself to adjust to new customer demands. Who would lead the charge in the Linux or the open-source community to create entirely new products?
Whoa, three people claiming to have invented the radio. Good thing that we can tell our children that all the credit for invention of the Internet goes to Al Gore alone.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that this comment is an unfortunate example of what Microsoft has been able to achieve by including an old JVM into its Windows distribution. I realize I cannot change your opinion of Java at this point but I strongly recommend trying a 1.4.x JVM. Sun has done wonders with the technology and that shouldn't be diminished by the fact that Microsoft has been trying to hide Java from a common Windows user.
Shows like Firefly give bad name to scifi genre. I've seen every episode of the show except for the pilot and everyone of them was a shameless ripoff of a 50's spaghetti western show dressed up as scifi. It is difficult to translate good science fiction literature to film and even more difficult to translate it to TV series because the best scifi (IMHO) deals with a new ideas and how these ideas shape the environment and behavior of people. I consider books by Neal Stephenson or Vernor Vinge to be in this category -- they are popularly known as hard scifi. The other end of the spectrum are the books that use unusual setting like space ships or exotic planets to suspend disbelief in order to expose fundamental and unchanging elements of human behavior by putting characters into unlikely situations. Solaris which is coming out on big screen is allegedly this kind of a movie. Succeeding in this category requires a truly gifted director who can get the most out of actors and the human elements of the script.
I think it is an interesting symbolism that Carmack is involved in design of rockets for cheap access to space.
In many science fiction books there are two trends for the near future (there are a lot more but these are two major ones). Distopia is typically presented by heavily cybernetic society where the humanity is not really concerned about space. The other trend, is diametrically opposite with humanity focused on space exploration.
Carmack is in a sense a protagonist of future distopia as a designer of cybernetic worlds that are becoming increasingly important to our society (graphics acceleration business, success of 3D animation, even the debates over the impact of the violence in video games). People like Carmack working on rockets is a sign that our future does not have to be a choice between space and cyberspace.
Are you hiring?
Just to pour some oil into the computer scientists vs. electrical/computer engineers contest -- computer scientists have been designing and implementing asynchronous logic since early 1950. These days it is called multithreaded programming and is used in practically any serious software application. Take that you ECE majors.
that our fellow Slashdotter/Linux nut/3D guru John Carmack isn't launching his XPrize contender. For those who are not following his adventures in amateur rocketry, a few years back he started a company called Armadillo Aerospace which is a hobby project of sorts. They have created prototypes for hydrogen peroxide powered landers and are working on a suborbital launch in a near future.
Saying that Wolfram's book is focused on promoting cellular automata as the way to describe the universe is a gross underestimation of its ideas. From the first few chapters he makes a point to highlight the _equivalence_ of CA and existing mathematical constructs. The real kicker of the book is that using the analysis historically applied to the CA, we can demonstrate previously ignored features of the existing mathematical models.
Building a vehicle that would send a colony to Mars is not easy task, from what I've read NASA would have to build something or at least assemble parts in orbit. Unfortunately Joe Public has a major problem with nuclear -- he is scared shitless that if we have something nuclear circling the globe it will crash on Earth spreading radiation.
This is the point of my argument -- build a nuclear propelled rocket but assemble it in Moon's orbit which would provide safety in case of problems. I don't think anyone would complain if we accidentaly nuke the Moon since it a dead rock anyway. At the same time a base on the Moon would make for a good location for the people working on the construction of the rocket. Especially if US can put a base on the Moon before Chinese get there.
I am not sure that quantum computation can solve an arbitrary NP problem in O(n) time, but if I understand it correctly you still get the effect of non-deterministic search in a space limited by the number of particles in coherent quantum state. As the article points out the incentives to develop even something close P time solution of NP are huge. So the race to build a reliable and scalable quantum computer is on.
The article kept on mentioning that the cable would have to be hooked up to a satellite on a geostationary orbit. Correct me if my physics aren't right, but wouldn't the structure of the string itself be enough to keep it straight? By analogy you can swing a string round keeping it straight even when it does not have a weight at the end of it. This possibility appears to be a function of the rigidity of string.
Maxwells treatment of speed governors can only be considered a founding paper on cybernetics in retrospect. He didn't have any concept of applying his physics to control of complex systems. Suggesting that Maxwell is a founder of cybernetics is as bold of a statement as saying that Descartes developed calculus because he could differentiate functions.
Maxwell invented information theory? Hello, what about Claude Shannon? Are you suggesting "father of information theory" (Haykin 2000) was a plagiarist?
I think it is an interesting symbolism that Carmack is involved in design of rockets for cheap access to space.
In many science fiction books there are two trends for the near future (there are a lot more but these are two major ones). Distopia is typically presented by heavily cybernetic society where the humanity is not really concerned about space. The other trend, is diametrically opposite with humanity focused on space exploration.
Carmack is in a sense a protagonist of future distopia as a designer of cybernetic worlds that are becoming increasingly important to our society (graphics acceleration business, even Columbine). People like Carmack working on rockets is a sign that our future does not have to be a choice between space and cyberspace.
I'd take the risk of saying that computer science or specifically the ideas of information theory and computation are the fundamental ideas of the universe. If you get an immediate desire to throw up after reading those words I suggests taking a look at "The Bit and the Pendulum" by Tom Siegfried. There was a review recently in NY Times if you wanna search for it. This isn't as wacky as it sounds if you consider the experiments where the speed of light was changed under the restriction of allowing zero information to be carried by that light.
People don't seem to get this -- 128 bit per color for on the board processing! How do you configure your monitor output is entirely up to you. It doesn't matter if you change your settings to output a sampled down equivalent of the color, what matters is the ability of the graphics programmer to perform multipass operations on the color components of the pixels. That includes all your RGBs, alpha blending, pixel shading, etc. Don't forget to consider the error in calculations.
Coolest thing I've heard about GeForce 3 is from Tim Sweeney - the guy who made Unreal engine. In the last PC Gamer he said that the card is essentially feature complete for the purpose of creating photo-realistic realtime graphics. Now all they need to make realistic looking graphics is 128bits for color and a few orders of magnitude of the speed improvement.
Math haters rejoice! Theory of prime number is now illegal under Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
What do they mean by web bugging?
There is no legal basis for this.
No legal basis? So are you implying that I simply should be able to take your ideas and say that they are mine? Reprint your books and publications and put my name on them? That is the basis of my arguments - the content creator should be able to choose what happens to his/her work.
I know that this will get moderated to flaimbait as soon as it will get posted but I don't think that this is a big deal.
I think that everyone would agree that the content creator should have the last word over how his content should be used. The copy protection scheme in question gives an option to the creator of not copy protecting the content. The advocates of Napster and free content in general claim that freedom of copying the content is ultimately beneficial to the content creators in digital world. Assuming that this idea is true, they have nothing to fear - authors will simply choose not to copy protect their work and distribute it freely. Which implies that people won't use copy-protection.
Alright, suppose Napster II becomes a reality and due to some magic, groundbreaking encryption the system survives long enough to function. Why should I share files (music that I paid for) with million other subscribers who I don't even know? If incredibly smart music companies think that I will agree to make my PC a free distribution channel for their music they are very, very wrong.
First of all, there is only one American on Alpha so he is in minority when the other guys want to watch the Russian DVDs. Second of all, Bill Shepard the American dude speaks and understands Russians well enough to watch Russian movies. As a matter of fact, they watched a classic Russian movie before going to Alpha.
When I was 18, I used to work as a software engineer in a small company. I started as an intern in the company at age of 16 and worked my way up from tech. support. That summer the company hired a couple of interns and I was assigned to give them work on various projects.
Working with those guys and seeing how they interacted with their other managers was an experience. I think that was the time when I realized how much I learned in those two years at the company.
- No matter how beneficial is your suggestion, managers will never accept it if you present it in a manner that says "I am the smart ass, I know this better than you do and that is why it should be the way I see it."
- There are plenty of good ideas that excite the hacker in us, but for any company the first and foremost is profit and the projects that interest a programmer aren't a priority. If you want to enjoy your work, join a company that works on the things that spark your interest.
I think that only experience can give you the sense for politics and economics within the company and any ideas that are really true for this frame of reference and are presented correctly will be accepts regardless of age.
And "Microsoft is leading the charge with .Net," said Miller. "Linux is not leading anything, it is simply providing a 'free' operating system."
This is what bothers me about the future of Linux. What happens if the market changes and the OS isn't an issue anymore? This what has already happened on relatively small level with web browsers and might happen of a much larger level with something in 2-5 years. As a company Microsoft is capable of reinventing itself to adjust to new customer demands. Who would lead the charge in the Linux or the open-source community to create entirely new products?
Whoa, three people claiming to have invented the radio. Good thing that we can tell our children that all the credit for invention of the Internet goes to Al Gore alone.