What I'm talking about is just an ideal. If I have some sort of task I wish to complete, I want to be able to set the computer to the task without having to reformulate it for the computer's sake. Computer programs should be designed to accomodate as wide a variety of needs as possible (within the scope of their function of course).
The best example of a program that does well in this regard is Mathematica. It allows me to implement a wide variety of algorithms involving a wide variety of mathematical objects and for all of the tasks that I have encountered, I do not have to concern myself with the details of the implementation of these mathematical objects.
The user should never be required to understand aspects of the implimentation unless there is absolutely, positively no other way for them to accomplish their task without doing so.
Of course, these are matters of philosophy, but I feel justified in these opinions since ultimately computers are made to be tools and it should be as easy as possible to use them for whatever we wish.
I'm a math student and I would like to write a text book some day. However, I promise that I will do everything within my power to make it as cheap as possible for the students.
But it has to do with more than marketing. That's just a fortunate coincidence which they are more than happy to make use of. Base 2 measurements are used for RAM because most RAM produced holds a power of 2 number of bytes. This is not true for many other storage devices, including hard disks.
Personally, I think that defining a kilobyte as 1024 bytes is only useful very little of the time. In general it is less convenient than displaying units in terms of the number system that we have been taught to use since we were young.
The ultimate goal of any software designer should be to make the software conform to the user's whims. Too often people lose sight of that and adapt themselves to the computer's arbitrary needs instead.
I'm reminded of something that happened when I was in 5th or 6th grade. Somebody said something about IQ in some sort of class discussion at which point some girl chimed in, "Isn't that your shoe size?"
Well this is a wishlist. It's just a bunch of things people hope to see added. Were you expecting detailed blueprints for the implimentation of all these things?
The only major criticism of the article is that they don't really support the claim that 2.8 is expected to be desktop focused release.
In a setup like this you have one big machine running lots of copies of Linux or some other operating system with each in its own virtual machine. To manage all of this you have z/VM running on top. If I understand correctly, what they are talking about is being able to have Linux serve z/VM's role.
Of course, at least half (possibly all) of this goes way over my head since I'm just a math guy who likes to fool around with computers sometimes.
I'm glad someone else realized that. All they did was just throw a bunch of symbols together without using them to create some sort of coherent message. Symbolism is a means to an end, not something done for its own sake.
I don't know about everyone else, but I can adjust the direction of the stick without even thinking about it. I never found that control scheme to be that hard to get used to.
I was told that IHS stands for Iehus Hominum Salvator (or something along those lines; maybe it was some form of humanus instead for the second word). That's Jesus, savior of men. Either way, claiming that Catholics are pagans is seriously messed up.
What about the story of the golem? It involves the idea of an artificial person that becomes a threat to those who made it and the story predates both of those by a great bit.
Re:I think my form of encryption is better
on
RSA-576 Factored
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· Score: 1
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. It's more like a quantum key exchange and all it does is guarantee that two people have the same random string of bits. You have no control over what that string is. Also, if someone does eavesdrop, you won't have the same string as the person on the other side and so you can't send anything. So basically, a man in the middle attack won't work, but you still won't be able to send anything. You're out of luck until you can send an assassin to inspect the line or something like that.
Yeah, like the way that they changed the buttons on the controllers from being labelled right to left to being labelled left to right.
Oh wait.
(Using one of the few canned jokes I don't totally hate)(I feel like David Spade)
Re:I think my form of encryption is better
on
RSA-576 Factored
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· Score: 5, Informative
The problem of course is that you can't reuse one-time pads (thus the name) otherwise they are subject to certain attacks. So basically, if you deliver a one-time pad to someone, you are using some sort of secure delivery at one point in time to guarantee the ability to send a secure message at some time in the future.
However, quantum cryptography may be able to render the problems of delivering one-time pads obsolete (well, at least for applications where you can get a fiber link between two points or where you have a line-of-sight with the other party). Quantum cryptography is really just a means of giving Alice and Bob the same random string along with a method of detecting eavesdropping (basically, it won't work if someone eavesdrops).
But I don't believe in any of this quantum voodoo. I'm working on the ultimate in security. Curses. Just put a curse on your message so that it kills anyone other than its intended recipient and you can be as insecure in the transmission as you like. Remember, dead men tell no tales.
Man, have I really been rambling on for this long? Sorry, I've been drinking a bit.
You can get away with much shorter key sizes using elliptic curve methods. Currently reccomended sizes are at least 80 bits for a symmetric key and 160 bits for an asymmetric key.
There is no doubt that machines can be built that behave like cells. However, one should be careful not to claim without sufficient evidence that we can make cell-sized machines that do things that no cells can. Cells can't make exact copies of themselves and I don't believe a group of cells working together would have any more luck in completing that task.
Smalley isn't arguing that nano-scale machines are impossible. He's arguing that, without breakthroughs in chemistry beyond what we can currently imagine (ie some manner of "enzymes" not dependent on water or some other liquid), any molecular assembler that depends on the exact placement of individual atoms will suffer from tremendous error rates rendering the likelihood of creating a functional product infinitesimal.
I think Smalley went a bit far in declaring molecular assemblers impossible, but for now I don't think that we even know if the sorts of reaction paths needed exist or not.
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What I'm talking about is just an ideal. If I have some sort of task I wish to complete, I want to be able to set the computer to the task without having to reformulate it for the computer's sake. Computer programs should be designed to accomodate as wide a variety of needs as possible (within the scope of their function of course).
The best example of a program that does well in this regard is Mathematica. It allows me to implement a wide variety of algorithms involving a wide variety of mathematical objects and for all of the tasks that I have encountered, I do not have to concern myself with the details of the implementation of these mathematical objects.
The user should never be required to understand aspects of the implimentation unless there is absolutely, positively no other way for them to accomplish their task without doing so.
Of course, these are matters of philosophy, but I feel justified in these opinions since ultimately computers are made to be tools and it should be as easy as possible to use them for whatever we wish.
I'm a math student and I would like to write a text book some day. However, I promise that I will do everything within my power to make it as cheap as possible for the students.
But it has to do with more than marketing. That's just a fortunate coincidence which they are more than happy to make use of. Base 2 measurements are used for RAM because most RAM produced holds a power of 2 number of bytes. This is not true for many other storage devices, including hard disks.
Personally, I think that defining a kilobyte as 1024 bytes is only useful very little of the time. In general it is less convenient than displaying units in terms of the number system that we have been taught to use since we were young.
The ultimate goal of any software designer should be to make the software conform to the user's whims. Too often people lose sight of that and adapt themselves to the computer's arbitrary needs instead.
I'm reminded of something that happened when I was in 5th or 6th grade. Somebody said something about IQ in some sort of class discussion at which point some girl chimed in, "Isn't that your shoe size?"
I meant to say "The only major criticism that I have of the article is..."
Well this is a wishlist. It's just a bunch of things people hope to see added. Were you expecting detailed blueprints for the implimentation of all these things?
The only major criticism of the article is that they don't really support the claim that 2.8 is expected to be desktop focused release.
I believe they mean something like this.
In a setup like this you have one big machine running lots of copies of Linux or some other operating system with each in its own virtual machine. To manage all of this you have z/VM running on top. If I understand correctly, what they are talking about is being able to have Linux serve z/VM's role.
Of course, at least half (possibly all) of this goes way over my head since I'm just a math guy who likes to fool around with computers sometimes.
No it didn't.
"Call me Ishmael."
I'm glad someone else realized that. All they did was just throw a bunch of symbols together without using them to create some sort of coherent message. Symbolism is a means to an end, not something done for its own sake.
In those situations you just change the camera mode. If the game doesn't have such a feature, then it is indeed broken.
I don't know about everyone else, but I can adjust the direction of the stick without even thinking about it. I never found that control scheme to be that hard to get used to.
I was told that IHS stands for Iehus Hominum Salvator (or something along those lines; maybe it was some form of humanus instead for the second word). That's Jesus, savior of men. Either way, claiming that Catholics are pagans is seriously messed up.
You don't know what you're talking about here. It's time to give up.
Just wait 5 minutes.
Robert Frost once said that writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net.
That said, there are a lot of people who don't understand the point of poetry. One of them wrote this book.
What about the story of the golem? It involves the idea of an artificial person that becomes a threat to those who made it and the story predates both of those by a great bit.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. It's more like a quantum key exchange and all it does is guarantee that two people have the same random string of bits. You have no control over what that string is. Also, if someone does eavesdrop, you won't have the same string as the person on the other side and so you can't send anything. So basically, a man in the middle attack won't work, but you still won't be able to send anything. You're out of luck until you can send an assassin to inspect the line or something like that.
I can see it. I think you must have some form of selective blindness and should see an optometrist immediately!
Yeah, like the way that they changed the buttons on the controllers from being labelled right to left to being labelled left to right.
Oh wait.
(Using one of the few canned jokes I don't totally hate)(I feel like David Spade)
The problem of course is that you can't reuse one-time pads (thus the name) otherwise they are subject to certain attacks. So basically, if you deliver a one-time pad to someone, you are using some sort of secure delivery at one point in time to guarantee the ability to send a secure message at some time in the future.
However, quantum cryptography may be able to render the problems of delivering one-time pads obsolete (well, at least for applications where you can get a fiber link between two points or where you have a line-of-sight with the other party). Quantum cryptography is really just a means of giving Alice and Bob the same random string along with a method of detecting eavesdropping (basically, it won't work if someone eavesdrops).
But I don't believe in any of this quantum voodoo. I'm working on the ultimate in security. Curses. Just put a curse on your message so that it kills anyone other than its intended recipient and you can be as insecure in the transmission as you like. Remember, dead men tell no tales.
Man, have I really been rambling on for this long? Sorry, I've been drinking a bit.
You can get away with much shorter key sizes using elliptic curve methods. Currently reccomended sizes are at least 80 bits for a symmetric key and 160 bits for an asymmetric key.
I would be so utterly screwed by such a system. I am entirely incapable of making my signature look the same way twice.
Math is a science? No my friend, math is an art.
There is no doubt that machines can be built that behave like cells. However, one should be careful not to claim without sufficient evidence that we can make cell-sized machines that do things that no cells can. Cells can't make exact copies of themselves and I don't believe a group of cells working together would have any more luck in completing that task.
Smalley isn't arguing that nano-scale machines are impossible. He's arguing that, without breakthroughs in chemistry beyond what we can currently imagine (ie some manner of "enzymes" not dependent on water or some other liquid), any molecular assembler that depends on the exact placement of individual atoms will suffer from tremendous error rates rendering the likelihood of creating a functional product infinitesimal.
I think Smalley went a bit far in declaring molecular assemblers impossible, but for now I don't think that we even know if the sorts of reaction paths needed exist or not.
Call me when it has a graph theory package.