Foreign travellers coming to the US find this a problem - when one of my friends flew in from Asia, he was not aware of the regulations.
He was taking a transit flight and had a short stop over at domestic terminal. And since it was international baggage, all his suitcases were locked (its mandatory to lock your belongings). Imagine his surprise when he found his bags cut wide open, and all his locks broken.
Quite honestly (and justifiably so), he was pissed. All it would have taken is for them to ask him to open up his bags at the time of boarding - or someone at the baggage check-in could have informed him that he would have to unlock his bags.
He had locks on all his bags destroyed - and the suitcases became quite useless thereafter. Its sheer stupidity, not to mention sheer arrogance on the part of the authorities who violate their privacy without giving a thought.
The probability of an all out nuclear catastrophe happening and wiping us all out is quite minimal - but the consequences make it far less desirable, immaterial of how improbable it is.
Do not get me wrong - I'm all for new technology, and I know how implausible grey-goo really happening is. But then again, there is enough malevolence (and stupidity) in this world for it to happen, and the fact that it may actually happen (as highly improbable as an all out nuclear war is) is the reason its prudent to be careful.
Its like genetic engineering - its awesome, you will enough benefits and unless we get down to studying it, we will never really know. But all it takes is one slight mistake to cause a whole lot of bullshit and set us back really bad.
The point is, you do not need an all out destruction - even a small accident will scare the public enough to bring about legislations which will put back genuine research and badly affect progress - this is what we should be careful of.
If you had read the article, you would have realized that they do not carry arms themselves - they merely assist the guards by carrying equipment and the like into dark and unsafe places. They're primarily built to be surveillance robots, that is all!
It's not just the software being Windows or Linux or whatever - its the hardware too. There is a reason NASA had chosen x86 for a lot of its missions - reliability and hardware dependability.
And quite honestly, I find it really unlikely for any of these things to be running anything close to Windows (if they ever wanted, it would be CE, which again is not really a good option). These things would have to be built for realtime apps, coupled with networking capabilitis and the like and would perhaps be happier running something like QNX.
Or ofcourse, customized Linux/*BSD kernels.
And oh, Naval ships do run Windows within the ship - perhaps not the control centers, but still, a significant chunk of the (active and on-duty) Navy does use Windows.
I completely agree, Mathematics is a language, and people forget how important a language it is - it is the language we speak to understand everything around us.
Just about every science out there needs mathematics, and it is fundamental to almost everything science or engineering (with the exception of perhaps, some branches of biology).
I do not ever remember being scared of mathematics, because I had excellent teachers (and I was taught by my uncle who was a physicist) - I was brought up in an environment where everyone went to grad school, and where education was given the highest priority.
My school days were spent learning interesting and new things, spending time at labs and building stuff for science fairs.
Do not make science and math easier - make the enjoyable. Teach children that careers in sports and entertainment aren't whats going to build spaceships or save lives - its science and engineering.
A little OT, but this reminds me of what one of my professors here calls early innovator problems.
He was at AT&T research labs, where the primary means of communication is based on phone culture - they communicate everything using telephones, and use their phone as we use e-mail.
He would say that it got so bad that nobody would check their e-mails for days on end. For people who've been there a long time, its been so well ingrained that they cannot even think of anything else.
And so, you have these bunch of computer scientists (whom you would expect to use e-mail, but do not) who use only telephones for communication who use only the telephone for communication.
And hence, they had the early innovator problem - they were the earliest to come up with solutions for certain problems, and find it hard to adapt to new technology because of inertia.
I think British Telecom is facing the same problem - despite everything, they have serious issues moving into new technology services, no matter how advanced they are or what percentage of market they actually have - they inherently have issues within that makes them look bad.
Do you know this for a fact? How many years have you been using a 3d GUI?
Yes, I know this for a fact. The research group that I work with has been experimenting with 3d user interfaces for quite a while, and I have usability results to prove it.
Perhaps given the current methods of navigating 3 dimensions.
Ofcourse. I was merely talking about using existing tools to navigate and use 3d interfaces - which was the reason I called it 2.5d.
If tomorrow, you are going to have holographic projectors that will bring out true 3d experience, I have no way of knowing how useful that is - my point was merely to mention that existing tools (mouse, keyboards, 2d monitors and windowed environments) do not provide for a good 3d desktop experience, because they are neither optimal nor convenient, and break certain very basic laws of usability.
I do not deny that 3d environments will be quite useful and what not - I just said they would be unusable, thats all.
Most people have trouble understanding 3 dimensions, let alone use them. You will be surprised at what it takes to design a usable experience - trust me, its what I study.
Yup, it would be quite cool for all the people on TV to watch it, would it not?
But what would happen if the trip did not succeed? And if all the six astronauts died?
Now, if that happened on TV too? It would put back space exploration by *ages* - people would be scared shit.
And that is not a good thing.
Which is why, I hope such projects are not encouraged - they would have scary backlashes. And some moron presidents would use that as a tool and say that since its unsafe, they are going to concentrate on other important things like the war on terror.
*ahem*
Trust me - I sincerely hope this does not take off. Ofcourse, like you said, its quite unlikely that this will too.
Would be cool if it happened, but does not seem like it. This article actually indicates that Green played a role in brokering the deal -
In fact, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said Green played an essential role in Sun's negotiations with Microsoft to come to last week's 10-year, $1.6 billion deal....... Meanwhile, Sun would not disclose where Green was going, but said the company has held the position "for quite a while" for him. Said one source: "He didn't want to leave until the Microsoft deal was done."
And here is the blurb from the ZDNet article -
A Sun representative said Green was instrumental in brokering the company's legal settlement with Microsoft.
The first article also says that Green is planning on doing a startup. Therefore, whatever it was, Green would have definitely received significant amount of compensation for his role.
Which would mean that, him going renegade and helping start something Opensource based on Java would be quite unlikely. When big sums of money are involved, especially with companies like Microsoft, you can be assured that they would have taken due precautions precisely against this kind of thing - especially since he was supposed to testify against them.
On the other hand, he *might* just rally to make Java Opensource - which I believe, is more likely.
I started watching Farscape right from the first show - and one thing that appealed to me was that it had an awesome sense of humour.
While Star Trek has a secure kind of feeling, Farscape is devoid of that. In Star Trek, you have the federation, a set of "values" and you know that they can never lose.
Farscape has none of that - you are a bunch of renegades being hunted, you do not have a "federation" to save you and its more realistic than Star Trek would ever be - the other is ideal, while this is more plausible.
And more than anything, Farscape comes through as being "cool" in a way that is missing in most space operas. And just when you think you have it all figured out, they do something absolutely unexpected (take off a character, introduce new plots, old enemies that join you and the like) and the story twists beautifully.
More than anything, you do not know what is going to happen next - that thrill, combined with cheeky "earth" attitude and a sense of humour makes it one of my most favourite shows ever.
A few days ago, a bunch of us CS grad students at GTech received spam in their ACM addresses telling them that for a small price, a diploma in Internet Programming could be theirs from some random University in Taiwan, located in Mexico:)
Could Google have fooled the newspapers? That would be priceless!
Quite unlikely - because if it turned out to be false, it would end up in Google earning quite a bad reputation. A popular prank where the users look forward to the service only to find that its all a prank would not fly well - and its something google could do without at this point in time.
Besides, for all their cheekiness, this is something big. If you had noticed, the domain name gmail.com is owned by Google.
So, I'm guessing its probably a very cleverly timed release or a very bad prank (if it is one).
Slashdot Mirror
All my snail mail is spam.
:(
Nobody loves me
Foreign travellers coming to the US find this a problem - when one of my friends flew in from Asia, he was not aware of the regulations.
He was taking a transit flight and had a short stop over at domestic terminal. And since it was international baggage, all his suitcases were locked (its mandatory to lock your belongings). Imagine his surprise when he found his bags cut wide open, and all his locks broken.
Quite honestly (and justifiably so), he was pissed. All it would have taken is for them to ask him to open up his bags at the time of boarding - or someone at the baggage check-in could have informed him that he would have to unlock his bags.
He had locks on all his bags destroyed - and the suitcases became quite useless thereafter. Its sheer stupidity, not to mention sheer arrogance on the part of the authorities who violate their privacy without giving a thought.
Bah!
:-p
The only nano I'm okay with is the editor that real men use
ONLY my editor is tiny, mind you!
The probability of an all out nuclear catastrophe happening and wiping us all out is quite minimal - but the consequences make it far less desirable, immaterial of how improbable it is.
Do not get me wrong - I'm all for new technology, and I know how implausible grey-goo really happening is. But then again, there is enough malevolence (and stupidity) in this world for it to happen, and the fact that it may actually happen (as highly improbable as an all out nuclear war is) is the reason its prudent to be careful.
Its like genetic engineering - its awesome, you will enough benefits and unless we get down to studying it, we will never really know. But all it takes is one slight mistake to cause a whole lot of bullshit and set us back really bad.
The point is, you do not need an all out destruction - even a small accident will scare the public enough to bring about legislations which will put back genuine research and badly affect progress - this is what we should be careful of.
Some one hacks one of these things and it opens the front door for them.
Worse - someone hacks into one of these things and has access to your entire network.
Now *that* would be some security breach.
Ofcourse, all that is true if you forget the important part of the text that says -
:)
Availability: Long time to go
Price: N/A
A commercially unavailable robot is not much use for my security plans now, is it?
If you had read the article, you would have realized that they do not carry arms themselves - they merely assist the guards by carrying equipment and the like into dark and unsafe places. They're primarily built to be surveillance robots, that is all!
It's not just the software being Windows or Linux or whatever - its the hardware too. There is a reason NASA had chosen x86 for a lot of its missions - reliability and hardware dependability.
And quite honestly, I find it really unlikely for any of these things to be running anything close to Windows (if they ever wanted, it would be CE, which again is not really a good option). These things would have to be built for realtime apps, coupled with networking capabilitis and the like and would perhaps be happier running something like QNX.
Or ofcourse, customized Linux/*BSD kernels.
And oh, Naval ships do run Windows within the ship - perhaps not the control centers, but still, a significant chunk of the (active and on-duty) Navy does use Windows.
Here are the answers to most of your questions.
Excellent post!
I completely agree, Mathematics is a language, and people forget how important a language it is - it is the language we speak to understand everything around us.
Just about every science out there needs mathematics, and it is fundamental to almost everything science or engineering (with the exception of perhaps, some branches of biology).
I do not ever remember being scared of mathematics, because I had excellent teachers (and I was taught by my uncle who was a physicist) - I was brought up in an environment where everyone went to grad school, and where education was given the highest priority.
My school days were spent learning interesting and new things, spending time at labs and building stuff for science fairs.
Do not make science and math easier - make the enjoyable. Teach children that careers in sports and entertainment aren't whats going to build spaceships or save lives - its science and engineering.
A little OT, but this reminds me of what one of my professors here calls early innovator problems.
:)
He was at AT&T research labs, where the primary means of communication is based on phone culture - they communicate everything using telephones, and use their phone as we use e-mail.
He would say that it got so bad that nobody would check their e-mails for days on end. For people who've been there a long time, its been so well ingrained that they cannot even think of anything else.
And so, you have these bunch of computer scientists (whom you would expect to use e-mail, but do not) who use only telephones for communication who use only the telephone for communication.
And hence, they had the early innovator problem - they were the earliest to come up with solutions for certain problems, and find it hard to adapt to new technology because of inertia.
I think British Telecom is facing the same problem - despite everything, they have serious issues moving into new technology services, no matter how advanced they are or what percentage of market they actually have - they inherently have issues within that makes them look bad.
Just my $0.02
Do you know this for a fact? How many years have you been using a 3d GUI?
Yes, I know this for a fact. The research group that I work with has been experimenting with 3d user interfaces for quite a while, and I have usability results to prove it.
Perhaps given the current methods of navigating 3 dimensions.
Ofcourse. I was merely talking about using existing tools to navigate and use 3d interfaces - which was the reason I called it 2.5d.
If tomorrow, you are going to have holographic projectors that will bring out true 3d experience, I have no way of knowing how useful that is - my point was merely to mention that existing tools (mouse, keyboards, 2d monitors and windowed environments) do not provide for a good 3d desktop experience, because they are neither optimal nor convenient, and break certain very basic laws of usability.
I do not deny that 3d environments will be quite useful and what not - I just said they would be unusable, thats all.
Most people have trouble understanding 3 dimensions, let alone use them. You will be surprised at what it takes to design a usable experience - trust me, its what I study.
3d interfaces will be harder to use than traditional 2d interfaces. Its only the coolness factor, for the most part.
To look for an object, you will have the difficulty increasing exponentially in the third dimension.
Its an extension of Fitts Law - effectively, people are more likely to choose a stable 3d configuration and use it as a 2d interface.
Although, I guess that would entitle you to theoretically call it a 2.5d interface.
Holy Batman!
Dude, you are my new Geek God.
Note to moderators! This should be modded funny.
OMG! Fell off the chair laughing.
Yup, it would be quite cool for all the people on TV to watch it, would it not?
But what would happen if the trip did not succeed? And if all the six astronauts died?
Now, if that happened on TV too? It would put back space exploration by *ages* - people would be scared shit.
And that is not a good thing.
Which is why, I hope such projects are not encouraged - they would have scary backlashes. And some moron presidents would use that as a tool and say that since its unsafe, they are going to concentrate on other important things like the war on terror.
*ahem*
Trust me - I sincerely hope this does not take off. Ofcourse, like you said, its quite unlikely that this will too.
Ah! Slashdot, the only place where Bimbos, Catwalks and Useless will be seen in the same sentence.
:-p
I, for one, can think up several uses for/with them Bimbos
Would be cool if it happened, but does not seem like it. This article actually indicates that Green played a role in brokering the deal -
... ...
In fact, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said Green played an essential role in Sun's negotiations with Microsoft to come to last week's 10-year, $1.6 billion deal.
Meanwhile, Sun would not disclose where Green was going, but said the company has held the position "for quite a while" for him. Said one source: "He didn't want to leave until the Microsoft deal was done."
And here is the blurb from the ZDNet article -
A Sun representative said Green was instrumental in brokering the company's legal settlement with Microsoft.
The first article also says that Green is planning on doing a startup. Therefore, whatever it was, Green would have definitely received significant amount of compensation for his role.
Which would mean that, him going renegade and helping start something Opensource based on Java would be quite unlikely. When big sums of money are involved, especially with companies like Microsoft, you can be assured that they would have taken due precautions precisely against this kind of thing - especially since he was supposed to testify against them.
On the other hand, he *might* just rally to make Java Opensource - which I believe, is more likely.
I started watching Farscape right from the first show - and one thing that appealed to me was that it had an awesome sense of humour.
:)
While Star Trek has a secure kind of feeling, Farscape is devoid of that. In Star Trek, you have the federation, a set of "values" and you know that they can never lose.
Farscape has none of that - you are a bunch of renegades being hunted, you do not have a "federation" to save you and its more realistic than Star Trek would ever be - the other is ideal, while this is more plausible.
And more than anything, Farscape comes through as being "cool" in a way that is missing in most space operas. And just when you think you have it all figured out, they do something absolutely unexpected (take off a character, introduce new plots, old enemies that join you and the like) and the story twists beautifully.
More than anything, you do not know what is going to happen next - that thrill, combined with cheeky "earth" attitude and a sense of humour makes it one of my most favourite shows ever.
So, there!
I know :)
Makes me wonder why we lost to CMU in last year's RoboCup '03.
*tongue in cheek*
On another note, I heard that Tucker was a former F16 pilot - any idea? I should say he is a damn cool guy, though.
Something funny -
:)
A few days ago, a bunch of us CS grad students at GTech received spam in their ACM addresses telling them that for a small price, a diploma in Internet Programming could be theirs from some random University in Taiwan, located in Mexico
Ahh, the irony.
You mean like the Robot Soccer team at GATech? :)
The little guy sure is impressive.
Anyone else think it looked like a mini-me version of Giant Robot?
Especially given all those strange arm movements and waving to the crowd, et al.
The press has always reported what they construe as being the right or wrong, with perspective added as toppings.
Seldom do you see real reporting where the truth is said - bias is like the force - surrounds us and penetrates us with the brutality of perspective.
Hence, you are quite justified in saying that its an art and not a science. Bravo!
*applause*
Could Google have fooled the newspapers? That would be priceless!
Quite unlikely - because if it turned out to be false, it would end up in Google earning quite a bad reputation. A popular prank where the users look forward to the service only to find that its all a prank would not fly well - and its something google could do without at this point in time.
Besides, for all their cheekiness, this is something big. If you had noticed, the domain name gmail.com is owned by Google.
So, I'm guessing its probably a very cleverly timed release or a very bad prank (if it is one).
Unlikely.
:)
Reuters has it covered - I would imagine this accounts for atleast a wee bit of credibility to the report