It just occurred to me, they will probably just go with volumes A-M and N-Z, and so I fear that I stand a good chance I would have to change DVDs every two links, on average - under the assumption Murphy was wrong.
If the content would only fit on 2 DVDs (mostly due to media other than text I suppose) I wonder how will they solve the problem of minimizing the number of times users have to change DVDs? Do algorithms exist that will solve this, in reasonable time on reasonable hardware, for something the size of en.wikipedia?
I know I for one would find it incredibly annoying if it turns out I would need to play DJ a lot to go from "Gautama" to "India" to "Bhopal", say, which is precisely the kind of loosely coupled chain I find myself browsing for the fun of it. The links go everywhere, and I would argue the topology is at least as valuable as the content itself..
I expect you could isolate some "clouds" of articles mostly referring to each other, but anyone want to guess as to the percentage of "cross-DVD" links?
I find Iran's position here interesting due to the fact that Islam has a reputation for being hostile to technology -..
You mean their position of being hostile to technology while at the same time developing nuclear programs (plants/bombs, who knows)? Both just can't be true.
They had relatively advanced mathematicians, back in the day when in Europe you were pretty much a wizard if you knew how to work an abacus - or convincingly pretend to.
[..] And I'm not hostile to Islam -- I once shouted "Allahu akbar!" during rush hour at the intersection of Lawrence and Homestead. (I admit, mainly because I thought it was a subversive act.)
Subversion is good - shouting "God willing!" (what?) at the intersection to me says about as much about your opinion of Islam, and seems only slightly more subversive, than admitting "Muhammed Ali sure kicked ass."
let's assume this is a fair test of programming skill, why is it that an Islamic state's team, Sharif University of Technology, beat out not only the top technical university of India (IIT) but all of the US's Ivy League schools -- not just MIT and CalTech
I sure hope I misunderstood you there: do you mean to suggest that "a fair test of programming skill" could not possibly have a winner from an Islamic state? Just so we're clear on this, I don't know whether this competition is fair or not (other posters seem to think not) but why would religion have anything to do with it?
Photoshop CS!!?! Live Motion! and perhaps the most surprising of all, Microsoft's own Virtual PC.
Doesn't surprise me one bit.. MS probably feels that with SP2 out for some time now it is the responsibility of Adobe and Macromedia et al to keep up. Virtual PC, well, if your company pretty much has a monopoly on desktop OS-es I could understand you decide not to assign much priority to a multi-OS tool versus control over everyone's update cycles from on high.
..is such as a disaster to developing countries, how come only the rich white guys in Redmond and SiValley are complaining about it?
What are they doing to help these countries, with their proprietary models? Import employees? Lots of good that'll do their economy. Outsource? Only means more profit (lower wages) flows back to the USofA.
"Use the Schwarz" is getting a whole new meaning. Seriously, go ask the folks in Brazil and Chile where they can stick it.
I'm certainly not a very gifted mathematician, but I'd like to think my grasp on it is at least adequate to make this point: from the proofs I've seen and understood, it seems that while the shorter and more elegant proofs may not strictly be more "truthful" than complicated ugly ones, the important thing is they are so much easier to understand, verify, and explain to others. For instance, I remember being especially charmed by Cantor's diagonal argument and will not forget that particular method of reasoning for the rest of my life.
But maybe there's a point where simple proofs just won't do it; if there were a 4 line proof for Fermat's last conjecture I'm sure someone would have found it before Andrew Wiles proved the thing in something like 80 pages.. In such cases, computer-aided reasoning is really the only way to go, I'd say. It's probably easier to verify a proofchecker than a proof.
I think I see your point. Individual FBI agents are probably very highly skilled.
The problem is that, as an agency, it is their collective duty to enforce bad policies. Increasingly, they are defeating their own purpose and becoming a threat to the very freedoms they supposedly protect. The war on drugs and PATRIOT spring to mind.
"They're only doing their job" is never an argument: unethical practice is not magically justified or even mitigated by being paid for it. If anything I'd say the opposite is in fact true.
And in that regard, the fact that their agents are such able individuals is really just sad: think of what they might accomplish if only they were not busy hatching plans to penetrate my tinfoil hat?
EU: We find that you (MS) are breaking competition laws, and we order you to take these here 26 measures to allow other companies to enter into fair competition. You either take all these steps unconditionally, pay a fine per unit of time of non-compliance, or ultimately could be denied access to the EU market.
MS: Of course we respect your decision and intend to comply fully. Well, almost fully. You see, some of the measures you have ordered would tend to interfere with our monopoly and our capacity to abuse it. We are in a position to negotiate the terms of your punishment, because.. Well, because all your base are belong to us! EU customers are so completely locked in our proprietary formats that they will revolt if you deny them our products!
This is like Don Corleone telling the court: yes, your honour, it's true, I am a mafia don. And I accept your punishment, except if it is too severe I will naturally have to use my position as criminal mastermind and have you whacked.
Me too. Had I not subscribed to Groucho Marx' view of clubs, I would suggest we start one. Of course, Mr Marx himself would have provided the club's motto: I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.
TV broke down on me a few months ago. First couple of days were a bit weird as I realized how much time I had on my hands (I mean, I work full time like the next guy, but at night I was typically in front of the tube for a couple of hours.) Because I could not afford to immediately go out and buy a (decent) new TV, I had to make do for a while - and guess what? I never bought that new TV and feel much better for it. Dramatic as it probably sounds, it changed my life.
I realize I'm wandering pretty far OT here.. But I now have a hard time figuring activities as useless, anti-social, or as damaging to your physical and mental health as watching television - unless of course one is masochist and enjoys precisely this kind of torturous debilitation.
I am genuinely curious: has anyone had a similarly intense experience "tuning out"?
And here I thought the war was over! Oh wait.. Here I thought Iraq would be a sovereign democracy after jan 30 -- so they'll be operated by Iraqis? Oh wait..
No, in fact, let's not wait. Let's say it like it is. This is imperialism at its ugliest. The flimsy arguments for this war have all been torn to shreds. Yes, they've shifted the focus from WMD to ousting the evil tyranny -- very much unlike, of course, those friendly countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, or in the past South Africa, Rumania, Haiti, etc etc, which are merely democratically challenged.
And it seems a lot of US citizens are buying it. Remember folks, invading a country that has not attacked you or poses a clear and present danger is a warcrime. People were executed for the exact same thing after WW2..
It is clear that Iraq was not in any way connected to 911 (almost all terrorists in those planes were Saudis -- it must be a plot by Hussain!) Nor were Saddam and the islamic fundamentalists even on speaking terms (other than a tiny part of Iraq in the north-east, where he did not effectively have control, Saddam prosecuted and murdered islamists as best he could.) It is also clear that Iraq did not pose a clear and present danger. Hell, now they even gave up pretending to look for WMD altogether!
But the ugly truth was, and remains, this war (oh wait, ex-war) is not about spreading democracy. It's not even about spreading capitalism. It's about securing untold fortunes for US corporations. Don't take my word for it; there's some accurate and detailed accounts by Naomi Klein over at No Logo.
I will never understand how people fail to see the economics here..
(1) Lockheed makes bomb.
(2) Pentagon buys bomb (profit!)
(3) Pentagon deploys bomb (boom!)
(4) Haliburton/Bechtel/etc etc repair the damage (profit!)
Unemployment in Iraq is orders of magnitude higher than it used to be -- for instance, cement factories sitting idle because by contract the interim government is obliged to buy American cement. Paul Bremer managed to push many more "temporary laws" like this -- not to be reviewed for 40 years.. It's all just so painfully obvious! At least, to everyone exposed to anything other than US propaganda. And you wonder, "why do they hate us?". *Sigh*.
..But the big corps too. Coincidentally, I tried to remove myself from the iTunes list (which I had accidentally enlisted for when downloading QT) only the find that the unsubscribe-URL "contained no data". Hmm. Double hmm.
Well, forgetting all about those clumsy amateurs like Euler, Gauss, Leibniz, and Turing... Thanks, I guess for the PC, lightbulb and sewing machine. But please, get a clue: America is thought of as incredibly arrogant by something like 90% of the rest of the world. Why, you wonder? Re-read your own post and you'll have an idea.
Now then, in this case it has not so much to do with "hating America" as it has to do with the fact that the bulk of the lobby against P2P is American-based. Both because a lot of the big media corps are American, but also because the *AA is a joke.
Yes, I'd agree. But mostly by extension, I'd venture - little wonder, being a close neighbour, that Canada would seomhow feel it bit sharper and more directly than in Europe.
On the other hand, here in Holland there has been quite some debate about the obligation that everyone at all times be able to produce a valid ID, for a very long time already. It has been pushed for all kinds of reasons, but afaik it never even got close to being passed into law.
Until now. Now, it appears they might actually pass it - and yes, they're using the notion of a "global schism" between cultures and the subsequently projected "global threat" from terrorism, if only implicitly.
Terrorism is nothing but the old bitter-sweet, for centuries of exploitation and genocide. All we need to do is stop that and we'll have nothing to fear. But of course, it's much more convenient for politicians/pundits to not acknowledge those facts and instead abuse the fear it creates in Western society to promote their own agendas.
Travelling through international airports is quite an interesting mix, nowadays, of inducing both a false sense of danger (drastic security) and a false sense of security (your inflatable vest is located..). It would be funny it it weren't so sad.
Just another step in the neocon grand master plan to coerce the entire population of one of the largest countries in the world into believing they are vulnerable. Seriously, get a grip people. You are being scared into submission, literally.
This is all far better conveyed than I could ever manage in the 3-part BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares". And no, it's not a Michael Moore-style rant, tis actually a very very decent piece of investigative journalism that traces the histories of the neoconservatives and the fundamentalist islamists back for decades.
911 was a terrible thing, no doubt about it. But you'll have to see it in perspective. And never let anyone use such a tragedy to take away your freedom unconditionally.
1st of all let me say my physics are, eehm, rather corroded. Nonetheless, perhaps someone can answer me this question: If you build a construction of this magnitude, won't that change the aerodynamics (or whatever they're called in space) of planet Earth, which allow it to remain stable in it's own orbit, around the sun, in the first place?
regards,
EK
So far I haven't read a post that addresses the other side of the matter: You might not even want to overcome the barrier between human and machine readable languages, at least not in some cases. I have some limited knowledge of work by the likes of Chomsky etc., as well as supposedly "culturally neutral" and "unambiguous" languages such as Loglan/Lojban. I feel most people, techies leading the pack, tend to forget that, often, the meaning of language can be effectively tweaked, stressed, or even negated precisely because it's ambiguous or culturally predisposed. Think of all the problems, for instance, that would arise if you want to teach a machine the meaning of sentences like or "Indian summer" or "Poetry in motion".
In general, natural language is to me a wonderful "protocol" because it forces participants to make the
effort of understanding each other's customs, ethics, interrests and interhumane sensitivities. Moreover, the natural language that people speak in some region always reflects that region to some extent, in terms of politics, history or even climate. I'm dutch for instance, but can you understand what I mean by "How a cow catches a rabbit" (which is a literal translation of a Dutch phrase -- guesses anybody?)
The gurus and tech developers should throw the defacto standard philosophy "if it can be automated, automate!" out the window, and face the fact that, whether you like it or not, natural language is in fact a very powerful semantical framework, all in itself - it's "standardized" (vocabularies, dictionaries etc.) "backwards compatible" (languages mostly evolve quite organically) - its practice is just not so readily automated.
The USA really need to get their heads out of their asses, although it's probably nice and cosy up there, too. Thanks to organic fuel, I must admit.
But seriously, these "nuke good, nuke bad" posts are pointless (as long as lobbies in DC are making damn sure that it'll be oil and coal that's a-burning): we're facing two evils, nuclear winter might occur, or carbondic summer will be upon us for sure.
Poor countries don't pollute as much in the first place, but they'll be the first to get wet feet once the rise of the waterline starts causing floods on a global scale. Hell, even top oil-exporting countries are all for drastic action.
It's the USA representatives who are most unwilling at serious international talks, refusing to commit to emission-cutbacks. George Dubya does not seem to be the messiah in this respect, either. Though I despise the deathsentence, I would like to have seen him fry some using solar energy or whatever that while he was campaigning - might have even won over some greenies:)
Research programs regarding prospects of solar-, hydro-, and nuclear power, as well as fullscale recycling schemes, need much more emphasis in terms of grants and budgets if they are to contribute to the turnaround.
regards, EK
PS: Please note I'm no troll, I'm no hippie, I'm just realistic
Actually it wouldn't surprise me if turned out that more people speaking Chinese, or Spanish, than English, if you added 'em all up. It's just that Americans arrogantly refuse to learn how to communicate in other languages, so they think everybody speaks English (and bastardized English, too!). I have heard an American redneck ignorant fuck call a busdriver in Guatemala (where they speak Spanish and practically nobody has money for education) "arrogant" and "stupid" for not speaking English. I mean come on....
And BTW, I study at a Dutch university - all lectures are in dutch and foreign students are expected to learn dutch too - so that part of your post was bull as well.
regards, EK
--
Re:time as a fourth dimension
on
Stop, Light.
·
· Score: 1
Quoting macpeep: If photons move in both the direction of time AND in some 3D spatial direction (with the speed C), then their total speed is HIGHER than C, isn't it?
maybe I'm way off here (I'm not a physicist)but there seems to me to be sort of chicken-or-egg problem here...
Astronomers use spectrum-analysis to figure out the speed and constituants of bodies and regions in space (doppler-effect and all that).
But if gasses, or any matter, that these photons penetrated before reaching earth, influence the speed of these photons, what conclusions can you safely draw?
You don't know exactly what matter the light might have passed (because for now the only way to figure that out is spectral analysis)!
Fantastic! Galactic Bowling! Only I can't help wondering how they plan on actually obtaining the data... Won't an explosion of this magnitude completely destroy the sensor- and communication-equipment? Hell, NASA wasn't even succesful when they tried "cushion"-landing their gear on Mars!
Or are they planning on examining the comet from a distance, after impact? In that case they'd better make some pretty accurate calculations on the trajectory, or else they will only know for a fact that "there's one enormous dented rock out there, somewhere"!
No, this is just targetpractice for triggerhappy NASA.
Now look here: I did not mean to 'scoff at the heriosm and sacrifice it took to save Europe from the real threat of nazi germany', I only meant to point out the arrogant tone ('save your sorry dutch ass') which struck me as typical. NOT FLAMEBAIT: I sincerely thank the entire US Army for saving my sorry ass.
Finally, although this is all getting completely off-topic: Most of our history is not something I'm particularly proud of, but WHO THE HELL ARE YOU to start ranting about slavery / racism? Please remember I'm not posting on behalf of my country or anything, and please please, don't call me a racist, I've really intense opinions on that. Maybe I'll share them with y'all if there's a RELEVANT STORY! Idiot fuckwit, I can handle:) And what's this about taxes, all of a sudden?
(...) have saved your sorry Dutch ass in World War II. And that shut 'em up pretty fast.
Thank you, dear Coward, for illustrating my 'big brother'-argument, I couldn't have dreamed of a better example! It's precisely this type of arrogance that make many Dutchmen - and others, you'd be surprised - somewhat distrustful of US "good intentions".
Slashdot Mirror
Reply to self, bad form, I know.
It just occurred to me, they will probably just go with volumes A-M and N-Z, and so I fear that I stand a good chance I would have to change DVDs every two links, on average - under the assumption Murphy was wrong.
If the content would only fit on 2 DVDs (mostly due to media other than text I suppose) I wonder how will they solve the problem of minimizing the number of times users have to change DVDs? Do algorithms exist that will solve this, in reasonable time on reasonable hardware, for something the size of en.wikipedia?
I know I for one would find it incredibly annoying if it turns out I would need to play DJ a lot to go from "Gautama" to "India" to "Bhopal", say, which is precisely the kind of loosely coupled chain I find myself browsing for the fun of it. The links go everywhere, and I would argue the topology is at least as valuable as the content itself..
I expect you could isolate some "clouds" of articles mostly referring to each other, but anyone want to guess as to the percentage of "cross-DVD" links?
You mean their position of being hostile to technology while at the same time developing nuclear programs (plants/bombs, who knows)? Both just can't be true.
They had relatively advanced mathematicians, back in the day when in Europe you were pretty much a wizard if you knew how to work an abacus - or convincingly pretend to.
[..] And I'm not hostile to Islam -- I once shouted "Allahu akbar!" during rush hour at the intersection of Lawrence and Homestead. (I admit, mainly because I thought it was a subversive act.)
Subversion is good -
shouting "God willing!" (what?) at the intersection to me says about as much about your opinion of Islam, and seems only slightly more subversive, than admitting "Muhammed Ali sure kicked ass."
let's assume this is a fair test of programming skill, why is it that an Islamic state's team, Sharif University of Technology, beat out not only the top technical university of India (IIT) but all of the US's Ivy League schools -- not just MIT and CalTech
I sure hope I misunderstood you there: do you mean to suggest that "a fair test of programming skill" could not possibly have a winner from an Islamic state? Just so we're clear on this, I don't know whether this competition is fair or not (other posters seem to think not) but why would religion have anything to do with it?
Photoshop CS!!?! Live Motion! and perhaps the most surprising of all, Microsoft's own Virtual PC.
Doesn't surprise me one bit.. MS probably feels that with SP2 out for some time now it is the responsibility of Adobe and Macromedia et al to keep up. Virtual PC, well, if your company pretty much has a monopoly on desktop OS-es I could understand you decide not to assign much priority to a multi-OS tool versus control over everyone's update cycles from on high.
..is such as a disaster to developing countries, how come only the rich white guys in Redmond and SiValley are complaining about it?
What are they doing to help these countries, with their proprietary models? Import employees? Lots of good that'll do their economy. Outsource? Only means more profit (lower wages) flows back to the USofA.
"Use the Schwarz" is getting a whole new meaning. Seriously, go ask the folks in Brazil and Chile where they can stick it.
I'm certainly not a very gifted mathematician, but I'd like to think my grasp on it is at least adequate to make this point: from the proofs I've seen and understood, it seems that while the shorter and more elegant proofs may not strictly be more "truthful" than complicated ugly ones, the important thing is they are so much easier to understand, verify, and explain to others. For instance, I remember being especially charmed by Cantor's diagonal argument and will not forget that particular method of reasoning for the rest of my life.
But maybe there's a point where simple proofs just won't do it; if there were a 4 line proof for Fermat's last conjecture I'm sure someone would have found it before Andrew Wiles proved the thing in something like 80 pages.. In such cases, computer-aided reasoning is really the only way to go, I'd say. It's probably easier to verify a proofchecker than a proof.
I think I see your point. Individual FBI agents are probably very highly skilled.
The problem is that, as an agency, it is their collective duty to enforce bad policies. Increasingly, they are defeating their own purpose and becoming a threat to the very freedoms they supposedly protect. The war on drugs and PATRIOT spring to mind.
"They're only doing their job" is never an argument: unethical practice is not magically justified or even mitigated by being paid for it. If anything I'd say the opposite is in fact true.
And in that regard, the fact that their agents are such able individuals is really just sad: think of what they might accomplish if only they were not busy hatching plans to penetrate my tinfoil hat?
IMHO, no offense.
EU: We find that you (MS) are breaking competition laws, and we order you to take these here 26 measures to allow other companies to enter into fair competition. You either take all these steps unconditionally, pay a fine per unit of time of non-compliance, or ultimately could be denied access to the EU market.
MS: Of course we respect your decision and intend to comply fully. Well, almost fully. You see, some of the measures you have ordered would tend to interfere with our monopoly and our capacity to abuse it. We are in a position to negotiate the terms of your punishment, because.. Well, because all your base are belong to us! EU customers are so completely locked in our proprietary formats that they will revolt if you deny them our products!
This is like Don Corleone telling the court: yes, your honour, it's true, I am a mafia don. And I accept your punishment, except if it is too severe I will naturally have to use my position as criminal mastermind and have you whacked.
What am I missing?
TV broke down on me a few months ago. First couple of days were a bit weird as I realized how much time I had on my hands (I mean, I work full time like the next guy, but at night I was typically in front of the tube for a couple of hours.) Because I could not afford to immediately go out and buy a (decent) new TV, I had to make do for a while - and guess what? I never bought that new TV and feel much better for it. Dramatic as it probably sounds, it changed my life.
I realize I'm wandering pretty far OT here.. But I now have a hard time figuring activities as useless, anti-social, or as damaging to your physical and mental health as watching television - unless of course one is masochist and enjoys precisely this kind of torturous debilitation.
I am genuinely curious: has anyone had a similarly intense experience "tuning out"?
No, in fact, let's not wait. Let's say it like it is. This is imperialism at its ugliest. The flimsy arguments for this war have all been torn to shreds. Yes, they've shifted the focus from WMD to ousting the evil tyranny -- very much unlike, of course, those friendly countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, or in the past South Africa, Rumania, Haiti, etc etc, which are merely democratically challenged.
And it seems a lot of US citizens are buying it. Remember folks, invading a country that has not attacked you or poses a clear and present danger is a warcrime. People were executed for the exact same thing after WW2..
It is clear that Iraq was not in any way connected to 911 (almost all terrorists in those planes were Saudis -- it must be a plot by Hussain!) Nor were Saddam and the islamic fundamentalists even on speaking terms (other than a tiny part of Iraq in the north-east, where he did not effectively have control, Saddam prosecuted and murdered islamists as best he could.) It is also clear that Iraq did not pose a clear and present danger. Hell, now they even gave up pretending to look for WMD altogether!
But the ugly truth was, and remains, this war (oh wait, ex-war) is not about spreading democracy. It's not even about spreading capitalism. It's about securing untold fortunes for US corporations. Don't take my word for it; there's some accurate and detailed accounts by Naomi Klein over at No Logo.
I will never understand how people fail to see the economics here..
(1) Lockheed makes bomb.
(2) Pentagon buys bomb (profit!)
(3) Pentagon deploys bomb (boom!)
(4) Haliburton/Bechtel/etc etc repair the damage (profit!)
Unemployment in Iraq is orders of magnitude higher than it used to be -- for instance, cement factories sitting idle because by contract the interim government is obliged to buy American cement. Paul Bremer managed to push many more "temporary laws" like this -- not to be reviewed for 40 years.. It's all just so painfully obvious! At least, to everyone exposed to anything other than US propaganda. And you wonder, "why do they hate us?". *Sigh*.
..But the big corps too. Coincidentally, I tried to remove myself from the iTunes list (which I had accidentally enlisted for when downloading QT) only the find that the unsubscribe-URL "contained no data". Hmm. Double hmm.
Well, forgetting all about those clumsy amateurs like Euler, Gauss, Leibniz, and Turing... Thanks, I guess for the PC, lightbulb and sewing machine. But please, get a clue: America is thought of as incredibly arrogant by something like 90% of the rest of the world. Why, you wonder? Re-read your own post and you'll have an idea.
Now then, in this case it has not so much to do with "hating America" as it has to do with the fact that the bulk of the lobby against P2P is American-based. Both because a lot of the big media corps are American, but also because the *AA is a joke.
Yes, I'd agree. But mostly by extension, I'd venture - little wonder, being a close neighbour, that Canada would seomhow feel it bit sharper and more directly than in Europe.
On the other hand, here in Holland there has been quite some debate about the obligation that everyone at all times be able to produce a valid ID, for a very long time already. It has been pushed for all kinds of reasons, but afaik it never even got close to being passed into law.
Until now. Now, it appears they might actually pass it - and yes, they're using the notion of a "global schism" between cultures and the subsequently projected "global threat" from terrorism, if only implicitly.
Terrorism is nothing but the old bitter-sweet, for centuries of exploitation and genocide. All we need to do is stop that and we'll have nothing to fear. But of course, it's much more convenient for politicians/pundits to not acknowledge those facts and instead abuse the fear it creates in Western society to promote their own agendas.
Travelling through international airports is quite an interesting mix, nowadays, of inducing both a false sense of danger (drastic security) and a false sense of security (your inflatable vest is located..). It would be funny it it weren't so sad.
This is all far better conveyed than I could ever manage in the 3-part BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares". And no, it's not a Michael Moore-style rant, tis actually a very very decent piece of investigative journalism that traces the histories of the neoconservatives and the fundamentalist islamists back for decades.
911 was a terrible thing, no doubt about it. But you'll have to see it in perspective. And never let anyone use such a tragedy to take away your freedom unconditionally.
It does really frustrate me knowing that a very large amount of my taxes gets spent on software that could be obtained for free, or next to nothing.
/dev/null for taxstreams. If only a critical mass of taxpayers/voters realized that...
Yep, it's like
1st of all let me say my physics are, eehm, rather corroded. Nonetheless, perhaps someone can answer me this question: If you build a construction of this magnitude, won't that change the aerodynamics (or whatever they're called in space) of planet Earth, which allow it to remain stable in it's own orbit, around the sun, in the first place?
regards, EK
--
So far I haven't read a post that addresses the other side of the matter: You might not even want to overcome the barrier between human and machine readable languages, at least not in some cases. I have some limited knowledge of work by the likes of Chomsky etc., as well as supposedly "culturally neutral" and "unambiguous" languages such as Loglan/Lojban. I feel most people, techies leading the pack, tend to forget that, often, the meaning of language can be effectively tweaked, stressed, or even negated precisely because it's ambiguous or culturally predisposed. Think of all the problems, for instance, that would arise if you want to teach a machine the meaning of sentences like or "Indian summer" or "Poetry in motion".
In general, natural language is to me a wonderful "protocol" because it forces participants to make the effort of understanding each other's customs, ethics, interrests and interhumane sensitivities. Moreover, the natural language that people speak in some region always reflects that region to some extent, in terms of politics, history or even climate. I'm dutch for instance, but can you understand what I mean by "How a cow catches a rabbit" (which is a literal translation of a Dutch phrase -- guesses anybody?)
The gurus and tech developers should throw the defacto standard philosophy "if it can be automated, automate!" out the window, and face the fact that, whether you like it or not, natural language is in fact a very powerful semantical framework, all in itself - it's "standardized" (vocabularies, dictionaries etc.) "backwards compatible" (languages mostly evolve quite organically) - its practice is just not so readily automated.
regards, EK
--
The USA really need to get their heads out of their asses, although it's probably nice and cosy up there, too. Thanks to organic fuel, I must admit.
:)
But seriously, these "nuke good, nuke bad" posts are pointless (as long as lobbies in DC are making damn sure that it'll be oil and coal that's a-burning): we're facing two evils, nuclear winter might occur, or carbondic summer will be upon us for sure.
Poor countries don't pollute as much in the first place, but they'll be the first to get wet feet once the rise of the waterline starts causing floods on a global scale. Hell, even top oil-exporting countries are all for drastic action.
It's the USA representatives who are most unwilling at serious international talks, refusing to commit to emission-cutbacks. George Dubya does not seem to be the messiah in this respect, either. Though I despise the deathsentence, I would like to have seen him fry some using solar energy or whatever that while he was campaigning - might have even won over some greenies
Research programs regarding prospects of solar-, hydro-, and nuclear power, as well as fullscale recycling schemes, need much more emphasis in terms of grants and budgets if they are to contribute to the turnaround.
regards,
EK
PS: Please note I'm no troll, I'm no hippie, I'm just realistic
--
Actually it wouldn't surprise me if turned out that more people speaking Chinese, or Spanish, than English, if you added 'em all up. It's just that Americans arrogantly refuse to learn how to communicate in other languages, so they think everybody speaks English (and bastardized English, too!). I have heard an American redneck ignorant fuck call a busdriver in Guatemala (where they speak Spanish and practically nobody has money for education) "arrogant" and "stupid" for not speaking English. I mean come on....
And BTW, I study at a Dutch university - all lectures are in dutch and foreign students are expected to learn dutch too - so that part of your post was bull as well.
regards, EK
--
Quoting macpeep: If photons move in both the direction of time AND in some 3D spatial direction (with the speed C), then their total speed is HIGHER than C, isn't it?
:)
you're absolutely right...C++!
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maybe I'm way off here (I'm not a physicist)but there seems to me to be sort of chicken-or-egg problem here...
Astronomers use spectrum-analysis to figure out the speed and constituants of bodies and regions in space (doppler-effect and all that).
But if gasses, or any matter, that these photons penetrated before reaching earth, influence the speed of these photons, what conclusions can you safely draw?
You don't know exactly what matter the light might have passed (because for now the only way to figure that out is spectral analysis)!
regards, EK
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Fantastic! Galactic Bowling! Only I can't help wondering how they plan on actually obtaining the data... Won't an explosion of this magnitude completely destroy the sensor- and communication-equipment? Hell, NASA wasn't even succesful when they tried "cushion"-landing their gear on Mars! Or are they planning on examining the comet from a distance, after impact? In that case they'd better make some pretty accurate calculations on the trajectory, or else they will only know for a fact that "there's one enormous dented rock out there, somewhere"! No, this is just targetpractice for triggerhappy NASA.
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Now look here: I did not mean to 'scoff at the heriosm and sacrifice it took to save Europe from the real threat of nazi germany', I only meant to point out the arrogant tone ('save your sorry dutch ass') which struck me as typical. NOT FLAMEBAIT: I sincerely thank the entire US Army for saving my sorry ass.
:) And what's this about taxes, all of a sudden?
Finally, although this is all getting completely off-topic: Most of our history is not something I'm particularly proud of, but WHO THE HELL ARE YOU to start ranting about slavery / racism? Please remember I'm not posting on behalf of my country or anything, and please please, don't call me a racist, I've really intense opinions on that. Maybe I'll share them with y'all if there's a RELEVANT STORY! Idiot fuckwit, I can handle
EK
(...) have saved your sorry Dutch ass in World War II. And that shut 'em up pretty fast.
Thank you, dear Coward, for illustrating my 'big brother'-argument, I couldn't have dreamed of a better example! It's precisely this type of arrogance that make many Dutchmen - and others, you'd be surprised - somewhat distrustful of US "good intentions".
EK