Remember, when they say there's a small chance of planetary collision, they're really just relating the lack of precision they have in their knowledge of the positions, velocities, and mass distribution of said planets. If they knew them precisely, they could precisely predict their future positions.
False. Typical 19th century thinking, but in fact, true randomness does exist in nature. Determinism is false, and even perfect knowledge of the state of affairs today does not give on the ability to precisely predict future states.
Does anyone think our species will even be around in a billion years?
I don't think our species is going to be around in a thousand years. I give it less than 50/50 chance of still being here in two hundred years. Not being here in a hundred years is a significant possibility.
I mean that's a long time for some kind of disaster that whipes out mankind. Disease, virus, nuclear war, zombie outbreak, etc.
Possible, but highly unlikely.
However, if mankind was still around hopefully we would have other planetary colonies to seek refuge.
I'm pretty sure that by the time our descendants are engaging in those kinds of activities, Homo sapiens will be a history. I don't see our species continuing to exist more than a few generations beyond the discovery of genetic engineering.
So I don't this is really news.
If you think any of what you said or I said here is at all relevant to the question, you've utterly misunderstood what was newsworthy about the article. It has nothing at all whatsoever to do with how long we survive or what the odds are. It's about the advances in science that enabled the computation. The article is not at all about the future. It's about what was recently accomplished.
But I don't see this as as big enough a deal to justify a Slashdot article.
You are perfectly free, on the internets, to not read anything that doesn't interest you. If you're a logical, rational person, you don't, and you certainly don't go on to comment on those pages that don't interest you telling the people who post them that they shouldn't have since they don't interest you. Amazingly, you are not, in fact, the center of the universe. Whether you personally find something interesting or significant has no bearing on whether other people should or shouldn't post it.
That would be the opposite of recent trends. Name one failing company that we've taken anything away from, rather than poured huge amounts into? The worse you perform, the more we pour in.
As I recall, the conventional wisdom was NATO would go nuclear. We didn't have sufficient conventional ground forces to meet an all-out Soviet assault. Even if we had better tanks, we didn't have enough of them, etc. Our defense of western Europe rested on nuclear deterrence.
It's also not terribly effective. Given a choice, I'd rather my enemy is using chemical weapons than bullets. I'll happily put on a gas mask and breathe easy knowing I'm not going to get shot.
If the "aggressor" has no chance of injury or death, what's the point in resisting?
In the face of overwhelming military superiority (a virtually unlimited supply of kill-bots, operated by people safely located thousands of miles away), there is no fight. And, with no fight, there are no casualties on either side.
...
Given the evidence of the last two decades, I must say this might be the single more stupid statement I've ever seen posted.
Your enemies don't care about your overwhelming military superiority. And they know you're fooling yourself if you think there's no chance of injury or death on your side. Your people sitting in bunkers operating drones may not be killed or injured, but their kids at the shopping mall will die just as easily as ever when the bomb goes off.
Doesn't Dark Matter "weigh as much as a thousand suns"? What are people doing handling it like it's nothing?
This statement doesn't make any sense. Feathers weigh as much as a thousand suns, assuming you have enough of them. A piece of lead can weigh less than a piece of popcorn. The statement "dark matter weighs as much as a thousand suns" is nonsensical, well, unless you mean that literally, in which case it's far too light to account for the things its supposed to account for. Dark matter weighs as much as billions and billions of galaxies. How much does a small quantity of it weigh? Well, a gram of it weighs one gram, I'm pretty sure...
One thing I've noticed is the "preview" option here appears to use a different stylesheet than the actual post. "Preview" basically tells you how you post isn't going to look, you just kinda have to imagine what it will look like based on past experience...
I watched the first couple episodes and stopped. Finally, over a month later and after a couple of episodes had already expired on Hulu, and another was about to expire, I decided to watch it and found it was actually good. And they got better after that. The problem is, I expect most people watched the first couple of episodes and stopped before the show actually started any signs at all of being any good. It's actually quite good, but it takes a while to get there...
When have we seen any real innovation? It is like we got to Word and everything stopped.
That would be because Word 4.0 for Mac did everything a word processor ever needs to do and did it well.
Than and most WP programs have become these huge monster applications that do more than 99% of their users need.
That would be because people insisted on "innovation" when the software was already complete.
Okay, there's one thing that could have been added at that stage that would have been an improvement: optional plugins. Then those 1% of users who have a specialized need only they require could add a plugin that does that, without clogging up the app for everyone and not having to get every specialized feature other people in the 1% category need. Instead, all that crap got thrown into the main app.
The thing is, they DIDN'T see a black hole swallowing a star. They saw a massive burst of radiation. But they describe NOT what they actually observed, but their interpretation of what they observed instead.
Um, no, you're factually wrong here. They DO describe what they actually observed. They then go on to speculate on possible causes, and clearly label this as "conjecture".
We are in the earliest stages of undesrtanding how the universe works.
Wow! You already know how the universe works?
(Note: In order to gauge how far along you are in a process, journey, etc., you must know the destination. You don't know how far you are along in a trip unless you know where it ends. Unless you know what the end-state is of our understanding of the universe, it's impossible to make any credible statement about how far along we are. To know that we're "in the earliest stages" rather than "in the last stages", you must already know how it's going to play out in the end.)
Basically correct, but people have seen the other side of the moon directly. Only about 30 people all told, but they have seen it.
Or so they say...;)
Re:Did they invent C too?
on
Unix Turns 40
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I really, really want to say that Ken and Dennis invented C to make unix but I'm not completely sure. I could look it up, but I'm interested to hear what people have to say here. I mean, they're the K&R of the original C book, right?
No. The 'R' in "K&R" is indeed Dennis Ritchie, but the 'K' is Brian Kernighan.
I see a number of people have answered, but none have giving a simple and straightforward explanation to what's wrong with your question.
Simply put: Unix does not store your password. If you've been told Unix stores your password encrypted somewhere, someone was glossing over the details to the point of making false statements. People can't reverse the process of decrypting your password because your password isn't stored there to begin with.
If you want to know what is actually stored, follow the previous advice about looking up hashing algorithms. Quick a dirty answer: when you first type in your password, a hashing algorithm is run over it and a hash code is produced, which is stored. When it prompts anyone for your password, it doesn't know the correct answer, but whatever answer anyone gives, it runs through the same hashing algorithm and sees if it produces the same result. The odds of two different strings producing the same hash result vary with the algorithm but it can be something like 1 in 2^160.
But the short answer is, your password cannot be decrypted because it wasn't encrypted and stored to begin with. There's nothing to decrypt.
Ah, Mario returns to its roots. One of the most compelling gameplay elements of the original Mario Bros. was knocking an enemy back right-side up as your friend attempted to get it. XD
Actually, if we're talking about Mario Bros, that's multiple players, not alternating players.
Multiple players is not something new. It was a standard feature of Pong and Tank in the early 70's. Naturally, it was also a common feature of early home consoles, well before GP's Super Nintendo came along. I remember many a fine day kicking sibling ass in front of the black & white in the basement (there was no point connecting those consoles to the fancy color TV, and mom wanted to be able to actually watch TV from time to time).
More to the point though, E3 and PAX have different goals. E3 tries to generate press for it's exhibitors. PAX tries to generate enjoyment for it's attendees....
The problem comes when one notes that generating enjoyment for attendees (and thus drawing huge numbers of them) is quite possibly the single most effective tactic for generating press for the exhibitors. With PAX, it's the primary goal, whereas with E3, it's just a means to the actual end, but it's irrelevant whether its a direct or indirect goal, the fact remains PAX will become more successful at both at this rate.
And that's without even considering the breakdown of centralized media and the rise of the blogosphere as an important place to "generate press", a trend that makes the rise of PAX and the fall of E3 even more likely to mean PAX will be more successful at achieving E3's goal, even if it's not PAX's primary goal.
Slashdot Mirror
*nods* It was indeed a right-winger that derided someone for being a member of the "reality-based community"...
Remember, when they say there's a small chance of planetary collision, they're really just relating the lack of precision they have in their knowledge of the positions, velocities, and mass distribution of said planets. If they knew them precisely, they could precisely predict their future positions.
False. Typical 19th century thinking, but in fact, true randomness does exist in nature. Determinism is false, and even perfect knowledge of the state of affairs today does not give on the ability to precisely predict future states.
They will resemble us about as much as we resemble field mice.
I would call that a gross underestimate. We'll have much more in common with field mice than we will with those future beings...
Does anyone think our species will even be around in a billion years?
I don't think our species is going to be around in a thousand years. I give it less than 50/50 chance of still being here in two hundred years. Not being here in a hundred years is a significant possibility.
I mean that's a long time for some kind of disaster that whipes out mankind. Disease, virus, nuclear war, zombie outbreak, etc.
Possible, but highly unlikely.
However, if mankind was still around hopefully we would have other planetary colonies to seek refuge.
I'm pretty sure that by the time our descendants are engaging in those kinds of activities, Homo sapiens will be a history. I don't see our species continuing to exist more than a few generations beyond the discovery of genetic engineering.
So I don't this is really news.
If you think any of what you said or I said here is at all relevant to the question, you've utterly misunderstood what was newsworthy about the article. It has nothing at all whatsoever to do with how long we survive or what the odds are. It's about the advances in science that enabled the computation. The article is not at all about the future. It's about what was recently accomplished.
But I don't see this as as big enough a deal to justify a Slashdot article.
You are perfectly free, on the internets, to not read anything that doesn't interest you. If you're a logical, rational person, you don't, and you certainly don't go on to comment on those pages that don't interest you telling the people who post them that they shouldn't have since they don't interest you. Amazingly, you are not, in fact, the center of the universe. Whether you personally find something interesting or significant has no bearing on whether other people should or shouldn't post it.
That would be the opposite of recent trends. Name one failing company that we've taken anything away from, rather than poured huge amounts into? The worse you perform, the more we pour in.
Yeah, the last honest politician was Walter Mondale. Check the electoral map from 1984 to see why no one's tried that since...
As I recall, the conventional wisdom was NATO would go nuclear. We didn't have sufficient conventional ground forces to meet an all-out Soviet assault. Even if we had better tanks, we didn't have enough of them, etc. Our defense of western Europe rested on nuclear deterrence.
Chem has a tendency to blow back in your face
It's also not terribly effective. Given a choice, I'd rather my enemy is using chemical weapons than bullets. I'll happily put on a gas mask and breathe easy knowing I'm not going to get shot.
If the "aggressor" has no chance of injury or death, what's the point in resisting?
In the face of overwhelming military superiority (a virtually unlimited supply of kill-bots, operated by people safely located thousands of miles away), there is no fight. And, with no fight, there are no casualties on either side.
...
Given the evidence of the last two decades, I must say this might be the single more stupid statement I've ever seen posted.
Your enemies don't care about your overwhelming military superiority. And they know you're fooling yourself if you think there's no chance of injury or death on your side. Your people sitting in bunkers operating drones may not be killed or injured, but their kids at the shopping mall will die just as easily as ever when the bomb goes off.
Doesn't Dark Matter "weigh as much as a thousand suns"? What are people doing handling it like it's nothing?
This statement doesn't make any sense. Feathers weigh as much as a thousand suns, assuming you have enough of them. A piece of lead can weigh less than a piece of popcorn. The statement "dark matter weighs as much as a thousand suns" is nonsensical, well, unless you mean that literally, in which case it's far too light to account for the things its supposed to account for. Dark matter weighs as much as billions and billions of galaxies. How much does a small quantity of it weigh? Well, a gram of it weighs one gram, I'm pretty sure...
One thing I've noticed is the "preview" option here appears to use a different stylesheet than the actual post. "Preview" basically tells you how you post isn't going to look, you just kinda have to imagine what it will look like based on past experience...
I watched the first couple episodes and stopped. Finally, over a month later and after a couple of episodes had already expired on Hulu, and another was about to expire, I decided to watch it and found it was actually good. And they got better after that. The problem is, I expect most people watched the first couple of episodes and stopped before the show actually started any signs at all of being any good. It's actually quite good, but it takes a while to get there...
When have we seen any real innovation? It is like we got to Word and everything stopped.
That would be because Word 4.0 for Mac did everything a word processor ever needs to do and did it well.
Than and most WP programs have become these huge monster applications that do more than 99% of their users need.
That would be because people insisted on "innovation" when the software was already complete.
Okay, there's one thing that could have been added at that stage that would have been an improvement: optional plugins. Then those 1% of users who have a specialized need only they require could add a plugin that does that, without clogging up the app for everyone and not having to get every specialized feature other people in the 1% category need. Instead, all that crap got thrown into the main app.
The thing is, they DIDN'T see a black hole swallowing a star. They saw a massive burst of radiation. But they describe NOT what they actually observed, but their interpretation of what they observed instead.
Um, no, you're factually wrong here. They DO describe what they actually observed. They then go on to speculate on possible causes, and clearly label this as "conjecture".
We are in the earliest stages of undesrtanding how the universe works.
Wow! You already know how the universe works?
(Note: In order to gauge how far along you are in a process, journey, etc., you must know the destination. You don't know how far you are along in a trip unless you know where it ends. Unless you know what the end-state is of our understanding of the universe, it's impossible to make any credible statement about how far along we are. To know that we're "in the earliest stages" rather than "in the last stages", you must already know how it's going to play out in the end.)
Basically correct, but people have seen the other side of the moon directly. Only about 30 people all told, but they have seen it.
Or so they say... ;)
I really, really want to say that Ken and Dennis invented C to make unix but I'm not completely sure. I could look it up, but I'm interested to hear what people have to say here. I mean, they're the K&R of the original C book, right?
No. The 'R' in "K&R" is indeed Dennis Ritchie, but the 'K' is Brian Kernighan.
I see a number of people have answered, but none have giving a simple and straightforward explanation to what's wrong with your question.
Simply put: Unix does not store your password. If you've been told Unix stores your password encrypted somewhere, someone was glossing over the details to the point of making false statements. People can't reverse the process of decrypting your password because your password isn't stored there to begin with.
If you want to know what is actually stored, follow the previous advice about looking up hashing algorithms. Quick a dirty answer: when you first type in your password, a hashing algorithm is run over it and a hash code is produced, which is stored. When it prompts anyone for your password, it doesn't know the correct answer, but whatever answer anyone gives, it runs through the same hashing algorithm and sees if it produces the same result. The odds of two different strings producing the same hash result vary with the algorithm but it can be something like 1 in 2^160.
But the short answer is, your password cannot be decrypted because it wasn't encrypted and stored to begin with. There's nothing to decrypt.
Ah, Mario returns to its roots. One of the most compelling gameplay elements of the original Mario Bros. was knocking an enemy back right-side up as your friend attempted to get it. XD
Still, Joust was a lot more fun...
Actually, if we're talking about Mario Bros, that's multiple players, not alternating players.
Multiple players is not something new. It was a standard feature of Pong and Tank in the early 70's. Naturally, it was also a common feature of early home consoles, well before GP's Super Nintendo came along. I remember many a fine day kicking sibling ass in front of the black & white in the basement (there was no point connecting those consoles to the fancy color TV, and mom wanted to be able to actually watch TV from time to time).
At which point, they could just drop it and hold press conferences at PAX.
More to the point though, E3 and PAX have different goals. E3 tries to generate press for it's exhibitors. PAX tries to generate enjoyment for it's attendees. ...
The problem comes when one notes that generating enjoyment for attendees (and thus drawing huge numbers of them) is quite possibly the single most effective tactic for generating press for the exhibitors. With PAX, it's the primary goal, whereas with E3, it's just a means to the actual end, but it's irrelevant whether its a direct or indirect goal, the fact remains PAX will become more successful at both at this rate.
And that's without even considering the breakdown of centralized media and the rise of the blogosphere as an important place to "generate press", a trend that makes the rise of PAX and the fall of E3 even more likely to mean PAX will be more successful at achieving E3's goal, even if it's not PAX's primary goal.
Well, yes, just as an entertainment news segment on TV might explain what a "MacGuffin" is but assume they don't need to explain what "Hollywood" is.
Yeah, most people know a lot less about other people than they think they do, and know a lot less about themselves than they know about other people.