"I've got to ask you," I say. "How long do you envision this rule of the universe to be?"
"I'm guessing it's really very short."
"Like how long?"
"I don't know. In Mathematica, for example, perhaps three, four lines of code."
"Four lines of code?"
"That's what I'm guessing..."
Heh - I definitely know where you are coming from. The noise generated by traders clamoring onto hot stocks is enormous, but not insurmountable.
This statistical harvesting process works and actually pays the bills - check out HSX Research, the for-pay service we offer. HSX can predict (generally) what kinds of people who are going to go see a movie and how much the movie will gross.
This is definitely one of the weirder forms of business I have participated in and may even make the game less exciting than it could be. But selling marketing data helps keep the HSX game running and the HSX staffers employed.
This article is right on, especially with regard to tapping your game players for help in regulating and busting cheaters.
At the Hollywood Stock Exchange simulated stock market, there have been problems with cheaters for many years. HSX cheaters - called "manipulators" and "shills" - use information tactics and coordinated buying and selling patterns to dishonestly make HSX dollars.
Internally we have an "SEC", which consists of individuals who seek out cheating patterns in the trading data. We also get suggestions from players as to who may be cheating and how they are able to cheat. HSX Traders that are "guilty" of manipulation are fined according to set procedures.
One of the most interesting cases of cheating was when we received an AIM transcript of real-time cheating behavior. It read like someting out of "Wall Street", except with lots of net slang. We busted them and fined their accounts (after an investigation and due process, of course).
Despite the "threat" that cheating poses to the "civility" of a game community, cheaters and the interesting tactics that they use no doubt make online games more interesting. I often ponder about how to better design game play which can harness the criminal instincts of simulated market manipulators (for the betterment of the game).
As cool as this sounds, I do not think that unleashing 1980's style "media raiders" onto the trading community will ever happen at HSX. HSX trades are transformed into marketing data used by movie production studios, hence requiring us to ensure that game play is fair, and, generally, that trades reflect the real media preferences of HSX traders.
"Otherwise, it's just an interesting treatise that may inspire more meaningful work by others who are more willing to work within the establishment and processes of the mainstream scientific world (not to say that those outside it CAN'T do excellent work, just that I'm not sure if Wolfram can). "
There's a good chance that Wolfram is attempting to do much more than provide support for the work of others (although that is certain to occur). The sheer number of axioms, the amount of supporting "data", and the numerous instructions to build supporting "instruments" (via his software) leads me to that conclusion.
Thomas Kuhn proposed that mainstream science is based on an ongoing process of shattering and creating scientific worldviews. I would say that that the most meaningful work is performed by people who are able to support a new theory with new data and cause a paradigm shift.
Copernicus, using the latest instruments and the latest data acquired from those instruments, argued that it is the Sun at the center of the solar system (and not the Earth as most scientists in his era argued). I think that Wolfram is trying to be a Copernicus as opposed to a Hawking. So the real question here is: what is Wolfram getting at with this book? Well, he probably is not done yet.
On a lighter note, we can't blame such talented (and often obsessed) individuals for perceiving everything within the context of their paradigm - especially when it could lead to more software sales;)
"The ironic part is whether the digitized versions will last/be usable longer then the clay tablets."
This statement got me thinking. It would be an interesting project to connect some sort of laser-etching (or even type-hammering) device to a computer so that Project Gutenberg text can be transferred to thin, metal sheets. These sheets could be specially treated for corrosion. The process could be nearly completely automated, with a binding and packaging step to ensure long-term survival of the information.
You would need to put a considerable amount of time and expense into designing and building the process, but in the end you would create an archive for historians far into the future.
"The examples you gave are more individualistic removal of enemies from within an area already under control of the perpetrator. The attack in Alderaan was a military attack using a 'weapon on mass destruction' on an enemy civilian target. Maybe a better comparison would be Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden."
The areas targeted for mass destruction during World War II were not under control of the Allies. They were still under control by the original agressors of WWII.
Although they were surrounded, Germany and Japan insisted that they did not have to surrender and allow the civilized world "reformat" their political and social systems. Although what the Allies had to do was a horrible sin in of itself, the Allies would have wrathed just as much destruction upon Japan and Germany without using mass destruction "from above".
Lacking the advantages of "sudden" mass destruction, there would have been a much greater loss to the winners of the war, and the war would have taken on more of the qualities of WWI that ended up causing WWII.
Case 1:
Slow mass destruction + far more casualties to the victors (if any clear victors emerge at all)
Case 2:
Sudden mass destruction + capitulation
Which was the worse scenario? Which would have been more likely to bring a lasting peace to the world? It was a horrible choice to make and, while I mourn the destruction and suffering, I have the upmost respect and gratitude for the leaders that chose Case 2 in 1944 and 1945.
Modeling, as in other fields, is forming a simplified representation of reality which assists in the understanding of reality (and often modeling even distorts this understanding). In the world of software development, I would say that modeling is a conceptual architecture that can help developers organize the work.
When I'm modeling a new project, people will notice diagrams and other scribblings on my desk as I attempt to work out how all of the basic utilities, resources, and user interfaces of an application will work together.
Oracle is not Enron. And paranoid shareholders that are collectively worth trillions of dollars will not let Enrons happen any more. Weazels of the same ilk as the leaders of Enron are moving on to find new ways to strike it rich, just like they always do.
While Oracle may have a highly aggressive sales force and may be overcompensating certain employees with common stock (among other sins), this does not mean that they have made the monumenatal mistakes made by the leaders of Enron.
For example, Enron had thousands of partnerships that exposed the company to liabilities that were not described in its financial statements. Worse, these partnerships were used to create artificial revenue streams using accounting techniques such as booking revenue that was far off in the future (and improbable at that). This kind of activity is horrible, and it destroys companies like Enron and puts people like Michael Milken in jail.
Until we hear that Oracle has been booking millions in artificial revenue and things of that sort, please do not play the fearsome "Enron card".
Re:... but are just a small step, not giant leap
on
Web Services
·
· Score: 2
I agree with you that XML and SOAP are merely forms of grammar in the bigger scheme of things. They are just layers in something which is still "under construction" (I can still see that animated.gif construction dude...shudder).
Check out this recent W3C submission by HP called WSCL: http://www.w3.org/TR/wscl10/.
The XML Schema spec improved upon DTD in a big way (mainly by "xmlizing" the description and adding input and output data types). But it was not nearly enough. WSCL extends this API-describing capability by describing the entire architecture of an interactive web service.
Once services out there make use of WSCL things will get somewhat more interesting. Now I'm sounding like Linus in the pumpkin patch again...
My accounting teacher got pissed at me last year when I opined that the "goodwill assets" are often what a company overpaid for some other company. He called it the "keys to the business" and said that it was something of value.
I think that this can only be true if the keys were bought for a reasonable price. TW shareholders got ripped off because they gave away the keys of the business for too little tangible value (in the form of new AOL shares). TW shareholders got greedy in approving that merger and, if they did not unload their new AOL stock quickly, lost out big time in that deal.
Financial leaders such as the CFO and the CEO need to apply engineering principles to the financial aspects of the companies they are responsible for. How is that tall buildings structurally fail far less often than the corporations that contain them? Shareholders also need to analyze financial statements and the decisions that they vote on (especially mergers) in the same way.
Web services really do matter
on
Web Services
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While there is a great deal of hype surrounding web services, this group of technologies is going to dominate how the internet is used in the next few years.
It has been an ordeal to get web sites to interact usefully without an end-user clicking on a web page. One big problem is trust. An other is protocol. Sites have so many different ways to get information and to submit information. Worse, site administrators have different ideas about how to make various forms of raw data available to others. Exactly where it is to be found is but one stumbling point, much less how it is structured.
With stuctured data in the form of web services readily available, and clear protocols as to the use of a site's structured data, there will be a lot more interaction between sites and developers of sites.
Most importantly, web services will allow users and sites to become more alike and on more equal ground. This is a powerful change that is already upon us in the form of web sites like slashdot.org and early web services like Napster.
"If authors make less money, there will be fewer books. I would rather the authors get the money than the post office."
I would rather that more books get read. An author (much like an open-source software engineer) earns more than money from their efforts. They make a difference.
I'm convinced that just about every function of the modern computer (save the ui and the cooling system) will be moved into silicon.
While it will be some time before solid state memory for the home PC becomes practical (and needed), this is but one stop on our journey to a slab computer.
Collection was the hard part, but only because it was time consuming as opposed to expensive. If we could identify a bank account with enough funds held by the company, the bank would have to honor the judgement and pay us. The company was complicated and was doing business under several shell organizations with their own accounts. It was possible to find these accounts, but the main partner decided at that point to move on with life.
Some business partners and I had a contractual disagreement with a company several years ago (they mistakenly thought that they did not have to pay for some work that we did for them). After several collections attempts, we decided to take the matter to small claims.
We did not make use of a lawyer, even though we were facing a moderately large company. Amazingly, they failed to appear (perhaps they did not take us seriously) and the judge awarded the full amount to us.
While we want to make sure people can express themselves and make interesting uses of technology, how in the world are the various security systems going to deal with people "embedded" with weapons and even bombs?
The web spawned document simulation fiction (of which "The Company Therapist" is an example), fan fiction, hyperlink fiction ("choose your own adventure"), and nebular fiction (browse your way from site to site and figure it all out). While these are all interesting ways to tell a story, they really do not hold a candle to a book.
It would be great to see some of this work actually make it into a book - in the form of a story with narration.
"The issue for us will not be which system of exclusive control--the government or the market--should govern a given resource, but whether that resource should be controlled or free."
Slashdot Mirror
From Steven Levy's recent Wired article:
"I've got to ask you," I say. "How long do you envision this rule of the universe to be?"
"I'm guessing it's really very short."
"Like how long?"
"I don't know. In Mathematica, for example, perhaps three, four lines of code."
"Four lines of code?"
"That's what I'm guessing..."
This statistical harvesting process works and actually pays the bills - check out HSX Research, the for-pay service we offer. HSX can predict (generally) what kinds of people who are going to go see a movie and how much the movie will gross.
This is definitely one of the weirder forms of business I have participated in and may even make the game less exciting than it could be. But selling marketing data helps keep the HSX game running and the HSX staffers employed.
- James
At the Hollywood Stock Exchange simulated stock market, there have been problems with cheaters for many years. HSX cheaters - called "manipulators" and "shills" - use information tactics and coordinated buying and selling patterns to dishonestly make HSX dollars.
Internally we have an "SEC", which consists of individuals who seek out cheating patterns in the trading data. We also get suggestions from players as to who may be cheating and how they are able to cheat. HSX Traders that are "guilty" of manipulation are fined according to set procedures.
One of the most interesting cases of cheating was when we received an AIM transcript of real-time cheating behavior. It read like someting out of "Wall Street", except with lots of net slang. We busted them and fined their accounts (after an investigation and due process, of course).
Despite the "threat" that cheating poses to the "civility" of a game community, cheaters and the interesting tactics that they use no doubt make online games more interesting. I often ponder about how to better design game play which can harness the criminal instincts of simulated market manipulators (for the betterment of the game).
As cool as this sounds, I do not think that unleashing 1980's style "media raiders" onto the trading community will ever happen at HSX. HSX trades are transformed into marketing data used by movie production studios, hence requiring us to ensure that game play is fair, and, generally, that trades reflect the real media preferences of HSX traders.
- James
For every famous scientist like Netwon there must be one or more fellows like Leibniz.
There's a good chance that Wolfram is attempting to do much more than provide support for the work of others (although that is certain to occur). The sheer number of axioms, the amount of supporting "data", and the numerous instructions to build supporting "instruments" (via his software) leads me to that conclusion.
Thomas Kuhn proposed that mainstream science is based on an ongoing process of shattering and creating scientific worldviews. I would say that that the most meaningful work is performed by people who are able to support a new theory with new data and cause a paradigm shift.
Copernicus, using the latest instruments and the latest data acquired from those instruments, argued that it is the Sun at the center of the solar system (and not the Earth as most scientists in his era argued). I think that Wolfram is trying to be a Copernicus as opposed to a Hawking. So the real question here is: what is Wolfram getting at with this book? Well, he probably is not done yet.
On a lighter note, we can't blame such talented (and often obsessed) individuals for perceiving everything within the context of their paradigm - especially when it could lead to more software sales ;)
This statement got me thinking. It would be an interesting project to connect some sort of laser-etching (or even type-hammering) device to a computer so that Project Gutenberg text can be transferred to thin, metal sheets. These sheets could be specially treated for corrosion. The process could be nearly completely automated, with a binding and packaging step to ensure long-term survival of the information.
You would need to put a considerable amount of time and expense into designing and building the process, but in the end you would create an archive for historians far into the future.
The areas targeted for mass destruction during World War II were not under control of the Allies. They were still under control by the original agressors of WWII.
Although they were surrounded, Germany and Japan insisted that they did not have to surrender and allow the civilized world "reformat" their political and social systems. Although what the Allies had to do was a horrible sin in of itself, the Allies would have wrathed just as much destruction upon Japan and Germany without using mass destruction "from above".
Lacking the advantages of "sudden" mass destruction, there would have been a much greater loss to the winners of the war, and the war would have taken on more of the qualities of WWI that ended up causing WWII.
Case 1:
Slow mass destruction + far more casualties to the victors (if any clear victors emerge at all)
Case 2:
Sudden mass destruction + capitulation
Which was the worse scenario? Which would have been more likely to bring a lasting peace to the world? It was a horrible choice to make and, while I mourn the destruction and suffering, I have the upmost respect and gratitude for the leaders that chose Case 2 in 1944 and 1945.
exchanging gluons...
</Sinatra>
Modeling, as in other fields, is forming a simplified representation of reality which assists in the understanding of reality (and often modeling even distorts this understanding). In the world of software development, I would say that modeling is a conceptual architecture that can help developers organize the work.
When I'm modeling a new project, people will notice diagrams and other scribblings on my desk as I attempt to work out how all of the basic utilities, resources, and user interfaces of an application will work together.
Caffeinee p
Quake
Code
Caffeine
Quake
Code
Sle
Oracle is not Enron. And paranoid shareholders that are collectively worth trillions of dollars will not let Enrons happen any more. Weazels of the same ilk as the leaders of Enron are moving on to find new ways to strike it rich, just like they always do.
While Oracle may have a highly aggressive sales force and may be overcompensating certain employees with common stock (among other sins), this does not mean that they have made the monumenatal mistakes made by the leaders of Enron.
For example, Enron had thousands of partnerships that exposed the company to liabilities that were not described in its financial statements. Worse, these partnerships were used to create artificial revenue streams using accounting techniques such as booking revenue that was far off in the future (and improbable at that). This kind of activity is horrible, and it destroys companies like Enron and puts people like Michael Milken in jail.
Until we hear that Oracle has been booking millions in artificial revenue and things of that sort, please do not play the fearsome "Enron card".
I agree with you that XML and SOAP are merely forms of grammar in the bigger scheme of things. They are just layers in something which is still "under construction" (I can still see that animated .gif construction dude...shudder).
Check out this recent W3C submission by HP called WSCL: http://www.w3.org/TR/wscl10/.
The XML Schema spec improved upon DTD in a big way (mainly by "xmlizing" the description and adding input and output data types). But it was not nearly enough. WSCL extends this API-describing capability by describing the entire architecture of an interactive web service.
Once services out there make use of WSCL things will get somewhat more interesting. Now I'm sounding like Linus in the pumpkin patch again...
- James
My accounting teacher got pissed at me last year when I opined that the "goodwill assets" are often what a company overpaid for some other company. He called it the "keys to the business" and said that it was something of value.
I think that this can only be true if the keys were bought for a reasonable price. TW shareholders got ripped off because they gave away the keys of the business for too little tangible value (in the form of new AOL shares). TW shareholders got greedy in approving that merger and, if they did not unload their new AOL stock quickly, lost out big time in that deal.
Financial leaders such as the CFO and the CEO need to apply engineering principles to the financial aspects of the companies they are responsible for. How is that tall buildings structurally fail far less often than the corporations that contain them? Shareholders also need to analyze financial statements and the decisions that they vote on (especially mergers) in the same way.
- James
More theft proof.
- James
Just don't run over someone's foot with these on.
- James
While there is a great deal of hype surrounding web services, this group of technologies is going to dominate how the internet is used in the next few years.
It has been an ordeal to get web sites to interact usefully without an end-user clicking on a web page. One big problem is trust. An other is protocol. Sites have so many different ways to get information and to submit information. Worse, site administrators have different ideas about how to make various forms of raw data available to others. Exactly where it is to be found is but one stumbling point, much less how it is structured.
With stuctured data in the form of web services readily available, and clear protocols as to the use of a site's structured data, there will be a lot more interaction between sites and developers of sites.
Most importantly, web services will allow users and sites to become more alike and on more equal ground. This is a powerful change that is already upon us in the form of web sites like slashdot.org and early web services like Napster.
I would rather that more books get read. An author (much like an open-source software engineer) earns more than money from their efforts. They make a difference.
I'm convinced that just about every function of the modern computer (save the ui and the cooling system) will be moved into silicon.
While it will be some time before solid state memory for the home PC becomes practical (and needed), this is but one stop on our journey to a slab computer.
I will have to nix my plans to build a double-decker luxury executive bus to take me to work.
Collection was the hard part, but only because it was time consuming as opposed to expensive. If we could identify a bank account with enough funds held by the company, the bank would have to honor the judgement and pay us. The company was complicated and was doing business under several shell organizations with their own accounts. It was possible to find these accounts, but the main partner decided at that point to move on with life.
Some business partners and I had a contractual disagreement with a company several years ago (they mistakenly thought that they did not have to pay for some work that we did for them). After several collections attempts, we decided to take the matter to small claims.
We did not make use of a lawyer, even though we were facing a moderately large company. Amazingly, they failed to appear (perhaps they did not take us seriously) and the judge awarded the full amount to us.
It works.
While we want to make sure people can express themselves and make interesting uses of technology, how in the world are the various security systems going to deal with people "embedded" with weapons and even bombs?
- James
The web spawned document simulation fiction (of which "The Company Therapist" is an example), fan fiction, hyperlink fiction ("choose your own adventure"), and nebular fiction (browse your way from site to site and figure it all out). While these are all interesting ways to tell a story, they really do not hold a candle to a book.
It would be great to see some of this work actually make it into a book - in the form of a story with narration.
Why in the world is it has it been so hard to find a more, er, inspiring color.
http://www.spectator.org/AmericanSpectatorArticles /Lessig/Control.htm