I see a bright future for this Mr Osmani... in the internet fraud business. He's already shown his talent for overstatement and con artistry. This story would sound so believeable to someone who has no clue about how the 'net works. I doubt he has much in the way of programming skills, though.
I once tried using C++ STL for a programming competition. Had to write a simple HTML parser. I wrote the thing and it gave me a tonne of indeciferable error messages. Spent the rest of my time trying to track them down. It always felt like I'd have the thing done in a few minutes, but it turned out I had no idea what I had done wrong.
...so I never moved on to other questions, and got a terrible score. I now hate STL with a passion. (Actually I don't use C++ anymore...)
A typical extraction facility that could extract all current carbon dioxide emissions would require only an area of one square yard per person in the developed world.
Okey... Change that to a meter^2/person (so we can use metric, a REAL measuring system. Just like language wars, eh? Guess where I'm from.) Say 500 million people in the developed world (this number depends less on the population than what you call 'devoloped').
500 Mil m^2 = 500 km^2 = square 22 km (36 miles) on a side.
That would be a rather large plant. Construction costs wouldn't be aided by the fact that the article suggests building it in the middle of nowhere. Why do I get the impression that the oil companies would lobby their way out of having to pay for it?
There've been something like 10-20 conspiracy themed episodes out of the 109 they've shown. (I know, I have them ALL on DivX. Seriously, I'm an addict.) And conspiracy-heavy eps tend to have other themes mixed in with them, so its not just a complete X-Files rip-off. (Though I will admit the show became more 'political' than 'exploratory'.)
The latex-clad babe (I think they're referring to Anise) showed up in all of three episodes back in the middle of the 4th season. In general I've been happy with their limited use of sex symbols. At least Anise had some realistic premise for being sexy, unlike, say, Seven of Nine.
They killed off the Daniel Jackson character on the 2nd last ep of the 5th season. That's the season that just finished. So there's been all of one episode without Michael Shanks in it. Not quite a lot of time for anyone to abandon the show.
The character they're planning on replacing him with (Jonas Quinn, played by Corin Nemic) is almost like Jackson. Not the 'hunk' that the Wired article suggests. He's intelligent, moral, with sense of wonder... They may have some trouble making him different from Daniel.
Yes, Daniel has been under-used as of late. Though he has had episodes where he's focused, in the others he tends to be sidelined. And him leaving will be a hard hit. Jonas/Corin has big shoes to fill. But I think the article's exagerating the situation just a little.
In conclusion... I think they're mostly banging on about nothing.
Wow.. I was on Alex's website just yesterday. I noticed the link to the Super I-Ching sister site, and was browsing around it a bit.
From what I picked up, I-Ching is more a method of telling the future than conversing with the supernatural. Then again, I think the idea is that seeing the future and talking to God are kinda the same thing.
As you may be aware, Alex's main claim to fame is that he is the purveyor of the eternal life rings. These cheat death by stopping or even reversing aging. However, they can't protect from accidents, some diseases, being shot (how I'm glad I'm not American...) That's where I-Ching comes in. If you can see the future, you can avoid being shot or whatever. So you need both the rings and I-Ching to really be immortal. They complement each other nicely.
I-Ching is performed by throwing coins or something. (I wasn't really clear on this.) The results, as well as the time/date/year (on Beijing time) and maybe some other variables, go through a complex analysis. Future events, as well as vagely the time and place they will occur, come out. Those who are better at I-Ching will be able to figure out more. Oh yeah, and when I say complex, I mean it. It looks like learning Java was easier than learning I-Ching. There's 5 elements and hexagrams and bonding and lines and more fun than I can handle.
The most interesting part is how logical it is. It might not be backed up by properly controlled scientific evidence, but the method itself really makes sense if you let it make sense. It's just like getting answers from a complex physics equation.
So here's the moral of the story, children: Just because it makes sense to you, doesn't make it correct. People who can use this lesson include: Politicians (Tax cuts create jobs! The economists say so, I understand it, it must be true!) Almost anyone who argues about anything (Yes, that includes you. And me.) Alex Chiu, the subject of the day. This can actually be used to understand his website. He wrote something down. It made sense to him, so now he doesn't understand that it might not be true.
Wow! This must be the first piece of software whose release schedule moved *up* since the beginning of time:)
However... Does this mean that it'll be buggy? One problem with console games is they can't release patches. Have to get it right the first time. I can see why they would want to release it before Xmas (especially after bleeding money with the FF movie... ) But I hope business decisions don't result in a game of diminished quality.
(Wait... Why do I care? I can't afford a PS2 anyway:(... )
Last I heard, sending stuff into space costs thousands per kilogram. A few 4"x6" flags aren't going to make a big difference; a few thousand will. I couldn't find a total weight of all this junk on the linked site, but I'd think it'd be a few kilos at least.
Why is cash-strapped NASA doing this? Just for the fun of it? Or are the $thousands insignificant in its $billions budget? Or are they getting extra $ from elsewhere?
So the Kallisys Reflexive License was the one turned down due to insufficient discussion... Right?
(It was apparently submitted for application but never approved). Somebody confirm please, me curious:)
You know the theory that all the dumb ppl having way more kids drags down the average IQ? It looks like it now has weight. That is bad.
I'm getting a mental picture of all the less-than-intellectual induhviduals from high school... Then thinking that that'll be most of the ppl in the future. Scary.
Of course, intelligence does seem to be increasing, so the dumb-stud theory must be counterbalanced by something.
But just to be sure, all us smart ppl better start reproducing like bunnies;-)
Um, couldn't help but notice... The flight's to Athens (beginning of joke) yet the announcer said they were going to Boston (about half way through). I suppose humans can make errors too;-)
But seriously, I don't have any fears about fully automated flights. Concerns, yes. Ie, I'm fine as long as they code it right, As opposed to some ppl who'd freak out at the thought of not having a human pilot.
If anyone hasn't noticed, humans aren't designed to fly. A computer system specially designed to do this would eventually be more skillful.
I'm especially interested in having cars that drive themselves. This could add a real safty factor, seeing as 95% of autos are driven by poorly skilled drivers. It seems western society has forgotten that we place ourselves in mortal danger every time we hit the road...
... the first guy to chip a rock in interesting shapes and call it art must've been a laughingstock. Everybody *knows* art is the deer paintings on the cave walls...
Funny, I was just thinking the other day how *stupid* PDF's 'security' features are. I mean, come on, did Adobe think that nobody would ever be able to hack their format?
As it is, it's worse than insecure. By making it impossible for the casual user to change the document, it *looks* unchangeable. So if some newbie comes across a changed doc, they'd assume it came from its original source.
If they want an unchangeable format, what they need is digital signatures, embeded in the document. That way you're guaranteed the document hasn't changed since its author last touched it. You'd think Adobe could think of that. They do have some real security features - password protection - but, as far as I can see (I have Reader open right now) not a word about digital signatures.
Such things might have been descussed in the link, too bad its/.'d. Have to come back later...
Yes...
Maybe a better situation for this thought experiment would be:
We've just met a new alien society. They have approx. 50's technology. Earth, as a sign of good will, decides to teach them how to make a modern computer industry. How would we teach so as to avoid the pitfalls we've fallen in to?
Of course, that synario would generate debate as to whether it was ethical to plunge a society into an information age all at once...
So, how would we answer the question? Make fewer assumptions about the systems staying the same? (Hard disk logical cyl/head/sect numbers come to mind). Or make it easier to change these assumptions later?
Remembering, too, that these assumptions allow optimizations - and any early computers need all the optimization we can throw at them. It took every ounce of strength an early DOS system had to bring up a C:/> !!
Yeah, but M$ got kicked off Java by the Sun lawsuit. Now they want to develop their own competing technology. And since M$ makes it, it *must* be better;-)
But really, Java sucks. It has lots of great features, but when you get down to it, it's simply slow and bulky. In school they're trying to teach us to program using the least time/space resources possible - in Java. How ironic.:)
I'm supposed to have a job in Corel's Linux dept. come January!
That'd be nice... "Yeah, we did hire you, but that division was sold last Thursday. How'd you like to sweep up the empty offices instead?"
Sure, the political system is *way* out of date and we're ready to change. But most people are too lazy to bother to change anything. Besides, they're being fed 'the system is good!' by those in it, and chances are they haven't bothered forming their own opinions.
There is also the problem of forming a better system. Many people have died in the cause of overthrowing a government, only to have another as bad or worse come in its place. (Russia circa 1917 comes to mind.) Overthrowing a government is easy compared to finding a better system to replace it.
Then there's the ever-present greed that leads people to grab whats best for right now, not thinking of their or their countries (groups,
whatever) future.
Of course, we have progressed from tribal to monarch to democratic governments... er, make that semi-democratic... so there is hope for change. But just because its time for change doesn't mean change will come.
Also about the two parties... From a Canadian perspective, American politics looks *so* stupid. The same two parties since the violent birth of the nation, and those as different as beige and eggshell. Add one god-like ego at the top and more checks and balances than an accountant sees in a lifetime. Of course, the Canadian system isn't much better. But slightly.
Re:Technocratic Party - not a bad idea
on
GEEK Unions?
·
· Score: 1
Here in Canada we have the Green party (Environmentalists) and the Natural Law Party (whackos). I think a technological party, though it wouldn't get to power, would get more votes than the Green.
I've thought of having a technological platform party before. It's a good idea! Definately would rack in Geek votes. We could put our URL on the signs! In the last election, there was only one guy that had a URL, and it was printed on his signs in super-small print.
They use the term Ethical Hacker for a totally different thing than our Hacker. I think that when most people see Ethical Hacker, they think of a cracker who's seen the light and now cracks into systems for good, not destruction. That's totally different from hacking as we call it.
I don't exactly want to insult the Harmony developers, but... Harmony's just STUPID! If you're that obsessed with having free software, go over to Gnome, don't waste your time recreating something that's already pretty good.
Slashdot Mirror
I see a bright future for this Mr Osmani... in the internet fraud business. He's already shown his talent for overstatement and con artistry. This story would sound so believeable to someone who has no clue about how the 'net works. I doubt he has much in the way of programming skills, though.
... perhaps they should try to solve the problem of slashdotted websites ...
It wasn't ACM... it was the 2000 canadian computing competition (for high school; put on by UWaterloo)
I once tried using C++ STL for a programming competition. Had to write a simple HTML parser. I wrote the thing and it gave me a tonne of indeciferable error messages. Spent the rest of my time trying to track them down. It always felt like I'd have the thing done in a few minutes, but it turned out I had no idea what I had done wrong.
...so I never moved on to other questions, and got a terrible score. I now hate STL with a passion. (Actually I don't use C++ anymore...)
Okey... Change that to a meter^2/person (so we can use metric, a REAL measuring system. Just like language wars, eh? Guess where I'm from.) Say 500 million people in the developed world (this number depends less on the population than what you call 'devoloped').
500 Mil m^2 = 500 km^2 = square 22 km (36 miles) on a side.
That would be a rather large plant. Construction costs wouldn't be aided by the fact that the article suggests building it in the middle of nowhere. Why do I get the impression that the oil companies would lobby their way out of having to pay for it?
Some points on this article...
There've been something like 10-20 conspiracy themed episodes out of the 109 they've shown. (I know, I have them ALL on DivX. Seriously, I'm an addict.) And conspiracy-heavy eps tend to have other themes mixed in with them, so its not just a complete X-Files rip-off. (Though I will admit the show became more 'political' than 'exploratory'.)
The latex-clad babe (I think they're referring to Anise) showed up in all of three episodes back in the middle of the 4th season. In general I've been happy with their limited use of sex symbols. At least Anise had some realistic premise for being sexy, unlike, say, Seven of Nine.
They killed off the Daniel Jackson character on the 2nd last ep of the 5th season. That's the season that just finished. So there's been all of one episode without Michael Shanks in it. Not quite a lot of time for anyone to abandon the show.
The character they're planning on replacing him with (Jonas Quinn, played by Corin Nemic) is almost like Jackson. Not the 'hunk' that the Wired article suggests. He's intelligent, moral, with sense of wonder... They may have some trouble making him different from Daniel.
Yes, Daniel has been under-used as of late. Though he has had episodes where he's focused, in the others he tends to be sidelined. And him leaving will be a hard hit. Jonas/Corin has big shoes to fill. But I think the article's exagerating the situation just a little.
In conclusion... I think they're mostly banging on about nothing.
From what I picked up, I-Ching is more a method of telling the future than conversing with the supernatural. Then again, I think the idea is that seeing the future and talking to God are kinda the same thing.
As you may be aware, Alex's main claim to fame is that he is the purveyor of the eternal life rings. These cheat death by stopping or even reversing aging. However, they can't protect from accidents, some diseases, being shot (how I'm glad I'm not American...) That's where I-Ching comes in. If you can see the future, you can avoid being shot or whatever. So you need both the rings and I-Ching to really be immortal. They complement each other nicely.
I-Ching is performed by throwing coins or something. (I wasn't really clear on this.) The results, as well as the time/date/year (on Beijing time) and maybe some other variables, go through a complex analysis. Future events, as well as vagely the time and place they will occur, come out. Those who are better at I-Ching will be able to figure out more. Oh yeah, and when I say complex, I mean it. It looks like learning Java was easier than learning I-Ching. There's 5 elements and hexagrams and bonding and lines and more fun than I can handle.
The most interesting part is how logical it is. It might not be backed up by properly controlled scientific evidence, but the method itself really makes sense if you let it make sense. It's just like getting answers from a complex physics equation.
So here's the moral of the story, children: Just because it makes sense to you, doesn't make it correct. People who can use this lesson include:
Politicians (Tax cuts create jobs! The economists say so, I understand it, it must be true!)
Almost anyone who argues about anything (Yes, that includes you. And me.)
Alex Chiu, the subject of the day. This can actually be used to understand his website. He wrote something down. It made sense to him, so now he doesn't understand that it might not be true.
</rant> ;-)
Wow! This must be the first piece of software whose release schedule moved *up* since the beginning of time :)
:(... )
However... Does this mean that it'll be buggy? One problem with console games is they can't release patches. Have to get it right the first time. I can see why they would want to release it before Xmas (especially after bleeding money with the FF movie... ) But I hope business decisions don't result in a game of diminished quality.
(Wait... Why do I care? I can't afford a PS2 anyway
Last I heard, sending stuff into space costs thousands per kilogram. A few 4"x6" flags aren't going to make a big difference; a few thousand will. I couldn't find a total weight of all this junk on the linked site, but I'd think it'd be a few kilos at least.
Why is cash-strapped NASA doing this? Just for the fun of it? Or are the $thousands insignificant in its $billions budget? Or are they getting extra $ from elsewhere?
So the Kallisys Reflexive License was the one turned down due to insufficient discussion... Right? :)
(It was apparently submitted for application but never approved). Somebody confirm please, me curious
You know the theory that all the dumb ppl having way more kids drags down the average IQ? It looks like it now has weight. That is bad.
;-)
I'm getting a mental picture of all the less-than-intellectual induhviduals from high school... Then thinking that that'll be most of the ppl in the future. Scary.
Of course, intelligence does seem to be increasing, so the dumb-stud theory must be counterbalanced by something.
But just to be sure, all us smart ppl better start reproducing like bunnies
Um, couldn't help but notice... The flight's to Athens (beginning of joke) yet the announcer said they were going to Boston (about half way through). I suppose humans can make errors too ;-)
But seriously, I don't have any fears about fully automated flights. Concerns, yes. Ie, I'm fine as long as they code it right, As opposed to some ppl who'd freak out at the thought of not having a human pilot.
If anyone hasn't noticed, humans aren't designed to fly. A computer system specially designed to do this would eventually be more skillful.
I'm especially interested in having cars that drive themselves. This could add a real safty factor, seeing as 95% of autos are driven by poorly skilled drivers. It seems western society has forgotten that we place ourselves in mortal danger every time we hit the road...
... the first guy to chip a rock in interesting shapes and call it art must've been a laughingstock. Everybody *knows* art is the deer paintings on the cave walls...
...but doesn't almost everyone on Slashdot not trust code signed by 'Microsfot Corporation' already??? ;-)
As it is, it's worse than insecure. By making it impossible for the casual user to change the document, it *looks* unchangeable. So if some newbie comes across a changed doc, they'd assume it came from its original source.
If they want an unchangeable format, what they need is digital signatures, embeded in the document. That way you're guaranteed the document hasn't changed since its author last touched it. You'd think Adobe could think of that. They do have some real security features - password protection - but, as far as I can see (I have Reader open right now) not a word about digital signatures.
Such things might have been descussed in the link, too bad its /.'d. Have to come back later...
We've just met a new alien society. They have approx. 50's technology. Earth, as a sign of good will, decides to teach them how to make a modern computer industry. How would we teach so as to avoid the pitfalls we've fallen in to?
Of course, that synario would generate debate as to whether it was ethical to plunge a society into an information age all at once...
So, how would we answer the question? Make fewer assumptions about the systems staying the same? (Hard disk logical cyl/head/sect numbers come to mind). Or make it easier to change these assumptions later?
Remembering, too, that these assumptions allow optimizations - and any early computers need all the optimization we can throw at them. It took every ounce of strength an early DOS system had to bring up a C:/> !!
Corel's Wordperfect is most popular among the legal community... I wonder if M$'s legal team is using it? ;-)
Yeah, but M$ got kicked off Java by the Sun lawsuit. Now they want to develop their own competing technology. And since M$ makes it, it *must* be better ;-)
:)
But really, Java sucks. It has lots of great features, but when you get down to it, it's simply slow and bulky. In school they're trying to teach us to program using the least time/space resources possible - in Java. How ironic.
I'm supposed to have a job in Corel's Linux dept. come January! That'd be nice... "Yeah, we did hire you, but that division was sold last Thursday. How'd you like to sweep up the empty offices instead?"
Sure, the political system is *way* out of date and we're ready to change. But most people are too lazy to bother to change anything. Besides, they're being fed 'the system is good!' by those in it, and chances are they haven't bothered forming their own opinions. There is also the problem of forming a better system. Many people have died in the cause of overthrowing a government, only to have another as bad or worse come in its place. (Russia circa 1917 comes to mind.) Overthrowing a government is easy compared to finding a better system to replace it. Then there's the ever-present greed that leads people to grab whats best for right now, not thinking of their or their countries (groups, whatever) future. Of course, we have progressed from tribal to monarch to democratic governments ... er, make that semi-democratic ... so there is hope for change. But just because its time for change doesn't mean change will come.
Also about the two parties... From a Canadian perspective, American politics looks *so* stupid. The same two parties since the violent birth of the nation, and those as different as beige and eggshell. Add one god-like ego at the top and more checks and balances than an accountant sees in a lifetime. Of course, the Canadian system isn't much better. But slightly.
Here in Canada we have the Green party (Environmentalists) and the Natural Law Party (whackos). I think a technological party, though it wouldn't get to power, would get more votes than the Green.
I've thought of having a technological platform party before. It's a good idea! Definately would rack in Geek votes. We could put our URL on the signs! In the last election, there was only one guy that had a URL, and it was printed on his signs in super-small print.
They use the term Ethical Hacker for a totally different thing than our Hacker.
I think that when most people see Ethical Hacker, they think of a cracker who's seen the light and now cracks into systems for good, not destruction. That's totally different from hacking as we call it.
I don't exactly want to insult the Harmony developers, but... Harmony's just STUPID! If you're that obsessed with having free software, go over to Gnome, don't waste your time recreating something that's already pretty good.