Your math is perfect, I just checked the calculation. However, I think the Birthday Paradox is not the right angle here. Rather, look at it this way:
If Jack commited a crime, what are the chances that there is someone innocent with a match for Jack's DNA out there?
Well, using your same numbers, the probability is 0,0043%, or 1 in 23,300. So there is a very good (99,9957%) chance that no one in the same (town?) will have the same DNA. And even if there's a DNA match, then there's also a fairly good chance that Jack and his match will have enough of a different profile (race, age, profession, education, criminal history, etc.) that will differentiate them -- or that Jack's Match will have a solid, pristine alibi...
Keep in mind a DNA match should not be an automatic conviction. It can't work like that. Reflect on the "DNA planted at the scene" scenario...
"Is that cloning or theft? Should clones be welcomed or abhorred?"
Easy. Clones should be welcomed.
1) They put innovation pressure on the original, benefiting everybody. 2) They put price pressure on the original, benefiting everybody. 3) They may create a better platform, a better product than the original, benefiting everybody.
Everybody wins. Except when you look at the motivation to create original products in the first place. Will the clones lower the reward and make it less beneficial to be original?
Hardly.
1) A truly original and inovative product will take some time to clone -- there will be a lead, in which user base/fan base/multiplayer communities should create critical mass. 2) Playing it right, the original *will* have goodwill. In other words, all things being fairly equal, people will likely stay with the original. 3) Originality is a scale, not a binary concept. Games are more or less original. Per (2) above, clones will need to compete in originality just like their inspiration did. When each clone out of many tries to be a little more original than the next, they may arrive at a quite original game, per Darwin. This could happen even though they started off at a lower plateau of originality than the concept originator. Think StarCraft. 4) In this sense, everyone is (or must be) original to be relevant. Originality is not at risk.
> It seems to me that this plan would be reliant on people actually wanting to watch the new releases after having seen the previous ones.
No, I don't think you got the point. The point is that this plan would be reliant on people actually wanting to wait to watch the new release in their most preferred format.
I propose the following: (1) People have only one chance to have a first impression of a movie. (2) They can chose what that first impression is. (3) They will chose the one that best satisfies them, within their cost/convenience/quality/social mix (for the occasion).
Therefore, they will pass the chance to watch a movie in a format that robs them the full experience it can give. You know what I am talking about. Any/. reader knows very well how to DL a free copy of a movie, right now, at this moment. He/she can pick between a quick download that will be trasfered to (an can be watched on) their cellphone screen. Or they can get the PSP version. Or the VCD version. Or the DVD version. Or the HD version. Yet... how many/.ers have stopped going to movie theaters because of that?
Myself, I don't have time to watch every movie. And the limited time I have, I will use to watch the best movies in the grandest way (at a movie theater, or at least in HD). I will not be wasting time with bad movies, nor wasting great movies with a tiny screen...
Seems to me you are not working from a definition of a cult, and trying to see if it differentiates Judaico-Christian mainstream religious groups from Scientology. Rather, you are going in the oppostite direction: looking at scientology, trying to find how it is different, and then creating a definition of "cult" based on that.
If you are going to procede like that, might as well say that "Scientology is based on the works of contemporary writer L. Ron Hubbard, while Judaico Christian religions are based on texts which are over 1,000 years old". Or any of several trivial observations like that. But you will be missing the point. Go look at the definition of cult in the dictionary. It has nothing to do with how popular/widespread a religion is, or how old the texts are, or how possessive they are with said texts/revelations.
"Your coach wasn't telling you that some of you stretchers were good, some of you were bad, and little Timmy in the back is the anti-Pele because he can't half-volley from 18."
Exactly my thoughts. And exactly paralell to the fact that, being in Brazil, I cannot download movies/TV programs through my Xbox 360 (which I would gladly pay to do) but I can find pirated DVDs in any street corner. When there is not a paved, accessible road between supply and demand, people will step on the grass.
International is important, but if you notice lots of kindle versions are not available for international regions (why, oh why???). So I'd much rather have WiFi (which can go through proxys, if need be) and *all* texts available for download than to have wireless (which tags me in an international location).
Then again B&N will likely not have as many ebooks as Amazon, though.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome onboard. This is ZX8200-C, your capitain, speaking. Let me congratulate you for being here. This flight marks the beginning of new era in the history of aviation. For the first time, a commercial airplane has no human pilots. This plane will take off, travel to its destination, and land entirelly guided by me, an advanced computer completely free from human error. We are just about to begin our trip. All the doors are sealed, and we are positioning the plane for take off. Drinks will be served shorthly after reaching cruise speed. So please make sure your seats are in the upright position, fasten your seatbelts, relax and enjoy your flight... enjoy your flight... enjoy your flight..."
> The Aztecs were completely outclassed. Four hundred Spaniards defeated over 40,000 Aztecs and other assorted allies in a single battle. That happened before various imported plagues decimated them.
Not four hundred Spaniards. It was 400 hundred spaniards and thousands of local indian allies. The Aztec were a conquering nation, and had several "foreign nations" under their control when the Spaniards came and made a civil war (rebellion of controlled provinces) possible.
The reason why 400 hundred spaniards made such an impact is that they were able to break through aztec lines and open the way for they allies to come through and surround the aztec armies. That, plus the shock impact (obviously) of facing horses, dogs, gunpowder and swords for the first time ever.
Yes it can. Capitalism is the most efficient producer of common and uncommon goods mankind has ever devised. It is also the system most compatible with free choice and democracy. Do you want to move to Cuba? Go ahead...
>Internet would've never had existed if it weren't for the US government.
>It was created in an academic environment, by passionate people that cared about the advance of technolog (indirectly: of mankind).
It was, in fact, created in a military-sponsored environment, by passionate people who cared about the advance of the soviets and the threat of nuclear weapons (indirectly: nationalists).
>Internet advanced quickly, different protocols appeared, once replacing the other (Gopher, SMTP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, NNTP, etc.). Then the companies came. Those set of protocols froze, some began to fade.
Gopher was text-only and superseded by the Web. All of the other protocols you mentioned (SMTP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, NNTP) are still aroud, still relevant, still ported to new systems and kept current. But, even if they werent, are you trying to say that between POP and IMAP we must have both forever?
>Companies didn't care about "what's right".
What is "What's right"? What you think is right? What I think is right? What they think is right?
>They didn't care about advance the network.
Unless it would make them money. Or differentiate their products. Or make them look good to prospective customers. Thinking about it, they did care.
>The HTTP/1.0 -> 1.1 transition took years, and still hasn't finished (e.g. http pipelining). IMAP mail stalled, and got replaced by webmail. Multicast was never deployed at large. Newsgroups got replaced by phpbb.
Water-fueled cars were kept away from the market by big oil companies. HIV virus was created to sell vaccines. Amiga OS was sabotaged by IBM. OS/2 was replaced by Windows. Sinclair computers went out of business. But not all is lost! Blue Mountain Arts is still around!
> Mandatory reading for the guy you responded to and for anyone interested to know why North America and Europe became the most developed societies (...)
I subscribe to your recommendation: the book is excellent.
But I must clarify that the book explains why Europe and Asia (not North America) became home to the most developed societies. The text was inspired by a question from a Borneo (or was it New Guinea) native who asked, essentially: Why did the british arrive, full of technological goods, and found natives walking naked and paddling wooden canoes -- instead of it being the other way around? The same question could have been posed by a Massachussets indian. The author's quest for an answer brought out his great thesis.
North America is advanced, today. But it all happened after trans-oceanic sea travel (that means, post-1500). Once ships started to extend trade lines in all directions, east-west, north and south, above and below the sahara, east and west of the andes, to and from Australia, etc -- geography ceased being the factor it once was.
It was about a year ago that in an unfortunate event a 5-year old brazilian girl called "Isabella" was thrown off a building to her death. The perpetrator, police found out, was either her biological father or his new wife (perhaps both). Isabella became a national celebrity, and was for months the #1 news story in every media. Of course even a few young kids heard about her.
Why did no one think of doing a "Isabella falling off the building" coloring book? Perhaps a "Isabella being pushed through the window by evil step-mother" coloring book would help the young ones deal with it? Genius!
Now: Why would anyone need 500GB in a disk? Then: Why would anyone need more than 640k of RAM? Back when: I think there's a world market for perhaps 5 computers.
>If the judge of the test is a computer, then the test will always be passable by a computer.
You are missing the point. It is not about making a failproof system. And you are stating the obvious. Any conceivable system could be fooled, either with human or computer judges. But the issue here is finding less obtrusive ways to detect spambots, screenscraper scripts, etc... without giving up too much detection efficiency.
Precisely! The only two ocurrences I had of failure in a Solid State media (and I've had Sony MemorySticks, SD, CompactFlash, besides USB drives) was precisely that: The USB connector breaks.
I know this is not the type of failure the original poster had in mind. But USB drives die because either you hit them while they are plugged in (e.g. karate-chop accident, etc...), or because the shiny metal part folds/bends while being manipulated. And when I say "manipulated" that includes "in-the-pocket" damage and being bitten by a three-year old, as I found out.
What it comes down to is range. Having the bulk of your guns available at range is what used to win naval battles.
While I agree with your reference to the Dreadnought (beautifully told in Robert K. Massie's book) I think the power of that concept could be beter explained as: 1) Few, large guns onboard. All the same caliber, all of the longest range you can build. 2) Light armor -- you will keep your ship always beyond the range of opponents. 3) Highest mobility -- you need to outrun all other battleships in order to *stay* in the range where only you can hit.
Building large warships was always a trade-off between armor, guns, and speed. The trade-off was both economic (use the years' steel production for a large number of light-armor, high speed ships, or small numbers of heavy-armor, slower ships?) and physical (pile too much armor and guns, and the ship will become a fixed platform).
The dreadnought design was the "sweet spot" in that mix for a relatively short period of time: roughly between 1900 and 1920, the WWI era. Then came submarines, torpedos, air-carriers, and things stopped being as simples as "having the bulk of your guns available at range".
The challenge lies in economics, not in technological ingenuity. Don't you think these chinese entrepreneurs who hire the cheap labor would fire all those low-wage-earners in a flash if there were a more economical way of assembly (robotical etc)?
Assuming the average communicating civilization has a lifetime of 1,000 years
From what orifice was this number pulled?
"Assuming" means an assumption is being made. And an assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were known to be true. (source). Don't demean it: it is classic tool in science, logic, philosophy, mathematics, etc. So all this fuss about where the assumption is coming from is pointless -- we all know where it comes from.
Why don't you just go ahead and give us *your* assumptions, together with some derived conclusions from it, along the lines of TFA. Using *your* assumptions, what would you say about the Fermi paradox, exactly?
That would certainly be more interesting than pointing the obvious meaning of the word assumption.
> I would not be surprised if USB is around for a long long time
That's what was said about the RS232c interface, Parallel Printer Ports, PCMCIA slots, Firewire connectors, pc game inputs, VGA cables, AGP slots and Scuzzy interfaces not long ago.
The whole point of UAVs is that they are great in assymetrical warfare -- such as what we and our allies (like Israel) are engaged in now and for the foreseeable future.
So, UAV are good to go against guerrilla tactics and terrorism, and not good to destroy, say, tanks and battleships? Nah! It is quite the opposite.
Think of fighting guerrilla wars and terrorism as police work (it is more similar to that than to conventional warfare), and try to imagine how useful would be a UAV to fight the Mob, or that drug dealing gang downtown. Not useful at all, I tell you. Infantry (= soldiers on foot or policemen) are what is most important then.
Now... think of a UAV against heavy, more static and/or concentrated targets such as armored divisions, battleships, even command centers and buildings -- all targets that only present themselves in conventional warfare. That will work much better! Remember the Kamikaze in WWII? As someone pointed out, guided missiles ARE a form of UAV.
Tell me about it. Vista made me buy a new wireless router.
I had a perfectly functioning Liksys BEFW11S4, supporting all my needs for many years. When I bought a laptop which came with Visa -- no luck connecting! After much time searching the internet for help, I came to the conclusion that Vista simply does not work with it, period. Although the BEFW11S4 is a fully standard Wireless-B router. Went out, got a new Linksys, guess the perfectly good old one will end at a landfill, thanks to MS.
Slashdot Mirror
Your math is perfect, I just checked the calculation. However, I think the Birthday Paradox is not the right angle here. Rather, look at it this way:
If Jack commited a crime, what are the chances that there is someone innocent with a match for Jack's DNA out there?
Well, using your same numbers, the probability is 0,0043%, or 1 in 23,300. So there is a very good (99,9957%) chance that no one in the same (town?) will have the same DNA. And even if there's a DNA match, then there's also a fairly good chance that Jack and his match will have enough of a different profile (race, age, profession, education, criminal history, etc.) that will differentiate them -- or that Jack's Match will have a solid, pristine alibi...
Keep in mind a DNA match should not be an automatic conviction. It can't work like that. Reflect on the "DNA planted at the scene" scenario...
...sage to the trunks: long vigorous, strokes, growing up in a crescendo. Golly! It was as enjoyable to them as mas...
"Is that cloning or theft? Should clones be welcomed or abhorred?"
Easy. Clones should be welcomed.
1) They put innovation pressure on the original, benefiting everybody.
2) They put price pressure on the original, benefiting everybody.
3) They may create a better platform, a better product than the original, benefiting everybody.
Everybody wins. Except when you look at the motivation to create original products in the first place. Will the clones lower the reward and make it less beneficial to be original?
Hardly.
1) A truly original and inovative product will take some time to clone -- there will be a lead, in which user base/fan base/multiplayer communities should create critical mass.
2) Playing it right, the original *will* have goodwill. In other words, all things being fairly equal, people will likely stay with the original.
3) Originality is a scale, not a binary concept. Games are more or less original. Per (2) above, clones will need to compete in originality just like their inspiration did. When each clone out of many tries to be a little more original than the next, they may arrive at a quite original game, per Darwin. This could happen even though they started off at a lower plateau of originality than the concept originator. Think StarCraft.
4) In this sense, everyone is (or must be) original to be relevant. Originality is not at risk.
I hope that didn't sound too confusing :-)
> It seems to me that this plan would be reliant on people actually wanting to watch the new releases after having seen the previous ones.
No, I don't think you got the point. The point is that this plan would be reliant on people actually wanting to wait to watch the new release in their most preferred format.
I propose the following:
(1) People have only one chance to have a first impression of a movie.
(2) They can chose what that first impression is.
(3) They will chose the one that best satisfies them, within their cost/convenience/quality/social mix (for the occasion).
Therefore, they will pass the chance to watch a movie in a format that robs them the full experience it can give. You know what I am talking about. Any /. reader knows very well how to DL a free copy of a movie, right now, at this moment. He/she can pick between a quick download that will be trasfered to (an can be watched on) their cellphone screen. Or they can get the PSP version. Or the VCD version. Or the DVD version. Or the HD version. Yet... how many /.ers have stopped going to movie theaters because of that?
Myself, I don't have time to watch every movie. And the limited time I have, I will use to watch the best movies in the grandest way (at a movie theater, or at least in HD). I will not be wasting time with bad movies, nor wasting great movies with a tiny screen...
Seems to me you are not working from a definition of a cult, and trying to see if it differentiates Judaico-Christian mainstream religious groups from Scientology. Rather, you are going in the oppostite direction: looking at scientology, trying to find how it is different, and then creating a definition of "cult" based on that.
If you are going to procede like that, might as well say that "Scientology is based on the works of contemporary writer L. Ron Hubbard, while Judaico Christian religions are based on texts which are over 1,000 years old". Or any of several trivial observations like that. But you will be missing the point. Go look at the definition of cult in the dictionary. It has nothing to do with how popular/widespread a religion is, or how old the texts are, or how possessive they are with said texts/revelations.
"Your coach wasn't telling you that some of you stretchers were good, some of you were bad, and little Timmy in the back is the anti-Pele because he can't half-volley from 18."
LOL
Wish I could mod you up as funny.
Then I guess it should be called a Karma-Killer Koala, nickname KKK...
Exactly my thoughts. And exactly paralell to the fact that, being in Brazil, I cannot download movies/TV programs through my Xbox 360 (which I would gladly pay to do) but I can find pirated DVDs in any street corner. When there is not a paved, accessible road between supply and demand, people will step on the grass.
International is important, but if you notice lots of kindle versions are not available for international regions (why, oh why???). So I'd much rather have WiFi (which can go through proxys, if need be) and *all* texts available for download than to have wireless (which tags me in an international location).
Then again B&N will likely not have as many ebooks as Amazon, though.
Yeah, 'cause in real life, people really do get sucked into their computers all of the time...
You are right they do! Plus, why else would the Onion be making news out of it?
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome onboard. This is ZX8200-C, your capitain, speaking. Let me congratulate you for being here. This flight marks the beginning of new era in the history of aviation. For the first time, a commercial airplane has no human pilots. This plane will take off, travel to its destination, and land entirelly guided by me, an advanced computer completely free from human error. We are just about to begin our trip. All the doors are sealed, and we are positioning the plane for take off. Drinks will be served shorthly after reaching cruise speed. So please make sure your seats are in the upright position, fasten your seatbelts, relax and enjoy your flight... enjoy your flight... enjoy your flight..."
> The Aztecs were completely outclassed. Four hundred Spaniards defeated over 40,000 Aztecs and other assorted allies in a single battle. That happened before various imported plagues decimated them.
Not four hundred Spaniards. It was 400 hundred spaniards and thousands of local indian allies. The Aztec were a conquering nation, and had several "foreign nations" under their control when the Spaniards came and made a civil war (rebellion of controlled provinces) possible.
The reason why 400 hundred spaniards made such an impact is that they were able to break through aztec lines and open the way for they allies to come through and surround the aztec armies. That, plus the shock impact (obviously) of facing horses, dogs, gunpowder and swords for the first time ever.
>Capitalism can't produce common goods.
Yes it can. Capitalism is the most efficient producer of common and uncommon goods mankind has ever devised. It is also the system most compatible with free choice and democracy. Do you want to move to Cuba? Go ahead...
>Internet would've never had existed if it weren't for the US government.
As surely as the airplane would've never had existed if it weren't for the wright brothers.
>It was created in an academic environment, by passionate people that cared about the advance of technolog (indirectly: of mankind).
It was, in fact, created in a military-sponsored environment, by passionate people who cared about the advance of the soviets and the threat of nuclear weapons (indirectly: nationalists).
>Internet advanced quickly, different protocols appeared, once replacing the other (Gopher, SMTP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, NNTP, etc.). Then the companies came. Those set of protocols froze, some began to fade.
Gopher was text-only and superseded by the Web. All of the other protocols you mentioned (SMTP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, NNTP) are still aroud, still relevant, still ported to new systems and kept current. But, even if they werent, are you trying to say that between POP and IMAP we must have both forever?
>Companies didn't care about "what's right".
What is "What's right"? What you think is right? What I think is right? What they think is right?
>They didn't care about advance the network.
Unless it would make them money. Or differentiate their products. Or make them look good to prospective customers. Thinking about it, they did care.
>The HTTP/1.0 -> 1.1 transition took years, and still hasn't finished (e.g. http pipelining). IMAP mail stalled, and got replaced by webmail. Multicast was never deployed at large. Newsgroups got replaced by phpbb.
Water-fueled cars were kept away from the market by big oil companies. HIV virus was created to sell vaccines. Amiga OS was sabotaged by IBM. OS/2 was replaced by Windows. Sinclair computers went out of business. But not all is lost! Blue Mountain Arts is still around!
> Mandatory reading for the guy you responded to and for anyone interested to know why North America and Europe became the most developed societies (...)
I subscribe to your recommendation: the book is excellent.
But I must clarify that the book explains why Europe and Asia (not North America) became home to the most developed societies. The text was inspired by a question from a Borneo (or was it New Guinea) native who asked, essentially: Why did the british arrive, full of technological goods, and found natives walking naked and paddling wooden canoes -- instead of it being the other way around? The same question could have been posed by a Massachussets indian. The author's quest for an answer brought out his great thesis.
North America is advanced, today. But it all happened after trans-oceanic sea travel (that means, post-1500). Once ships started to extend trade lines in all directions, east-west, north and south, above and below the sahara, east and west of the andes, to and from Australia, etc -- geography ceased being the factor it once was.
It was about a year ago that in an unfortunate event a 5-year old brazilian girl called "Isabella" was thrown off a building to her death. The perpetrator, police found out, was either her biological father or his new wife (perhaps both). Isabella became a national celebrity, and was for months the #1 news story in every media. Of course even a few young kids heard about her.
Why did no one think of doing a "Isabella falling off the building" coloring book? Perhaps a "Isabella being pushed through the window by evil step-mother" coloring book would help the young ones deal with it? Genius!
Now: Why would anyone need 500GB in a disk?
Then: Why would anyone need more than 640k of RAM?
Back when: I think there's a world market for perhaps 5 computers.
>If the judge of the test is a computer, then the test will always be passable by a computer.
You are missing the point. It is not about making a failproof system. And you are stating the obvious. Any conceivable system could be fooled, either with human or computer judges. But the issue here is finding less obtrusive ways to detect spambots, screenscraper scripts, etc... without giving up too much detection efficiency.
Precisely! The only two ocurrences I had of failure in a Solid State media (and I've had Sony MemorySticks, SD, CompactFlash, besides USB drives) was precisely that:
The USB connector breaks.
I know this is not the type of failure the original poster had in mind. But USB drives die because either you hit them while they are plugged in (e.g. karate-chop accident, etc...), or because the shiny metal part folds/bends while being manipulated. And when I say "manipulated" that includes "in-the-pocket" damage and being bitten by a three-year old, as I found out.
While I agree with your reference to the Dreadnought (beautifully told in Robert K. Massie's book) I think the power of that concept could be beter explained as:
1) Few, large guns onboard. All the same caliber, all of the longest range you can build.
2) Light armor -- you will keep your ship always beyond the range of opponents.
3) Highest mobility -- you need to outrun all other battleships in order to *stay* in the range where only you can hit.
Building large warships was always a trade-off between armor, guns, and speed. The trade-off was both economic (use the years' steel production for a large number of light-armor, high speed ships, or small numbers of heavy-armor, slower ships?) and physical (pile too much armor and guns, and the ship will become a fixed platform).
The dreadnought design was the "sweet spot" in that mix for a relatively short period of time: roughly between 1900 and 1920, the WWI era. Then came submarines, torpedos, air-carriers, and things stopped being as simples as "having the bulk of your guns available at range".
The challenge lies in economics, not in technological ingenuity. Don't you think these chinese entrepreneurs who hire the cheap labor would fire all those low-wage-earners in a flash if there were a more economical way of assembly (robotical etc)?
Great points. ++ Insightful.
"Assuming" means an assumption is being made. And an assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were known to be true. (source). Don't demean it: it is classic tool in science, logic, philosophy, mathematics, etc. So all this fuss about where the assumption is coming from is pointless -- we all know where it comes from.
Why don't you just go ahead and give us *your* assumptions, together with some derived conclusions from it, along the lines of TFA. Using *your* assumptions, what would you say about the Fermi paradox, exactly?
That would certainly be more interesting than pointing the obvious meaning of the word assumption.
> I would not be surprised if USB is around for a long long time
That's what was said about the RS232c interface, Parallel Printer Ports, PCMCIA slots, Firewire connectors, pc game inputs, VGA cables, AGP slots and Scuzzy interfaces not long ago.
So, UAV are good to go against guerrilla tactics and terrorism, and not good to destroy, say, tanks and battleships? Nah! It is quite the opposite.
Think of fighting guerrilla wars and terrorism as police work (it is more similar to that than to conventional warfare), and try to imagine how useful would be a UAV to fight the Mob, or that drug dealing gang downtown. Not useful at all, I tell you. Infantry (= soldiers on foot or policemen) are what is most important then.
Now... think of a UAV against heavy, more static and/or concentrated targets such as armored divisions, battleships, even command centers and buildings -- all targets that only present themselves in conventional warfare. That will work much better! Remember the Kamikaze in WWII? As someone pointed out, guided missiles ARE a form of UAV.
>I have nothing but grief with the Vista laptop.
Tell me about it. Vista made me buy a new wireless router.
I had a perfectly functioning Liksys BEFW11S4, supporting all my needs for many years. When I bought a laptop which came with Visa -- no luck connecting! After much time searching the internet for help, I came to the conclusion that Vista simply does not work with it, period. Although the BEFW11S4 is a fully standard Wireless-B router. Went out, got a new Linksys, guess the perfectly good old one will end at a landfill, thanks to MS.