His argument was more like: "Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation".
That is patent nonsense, though, and if it is better than the caricature of your parent, it is only very barely so. There is no proof, nor even the shadow of a supporting argument, to the idea that humans are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt, for all possible algorithms.
First, only an astonishingly small subset of all algorithms is even intelligible to a human - if a computer was to solve the halting problem for "intelligible" programs, but was not itself "intelligible", how would you go about proving that such a program can't exist? All the proofs I know of imply applying the algorithm to a derivative of itself, but you can't do that if the algorithm does not belong to its own domain. And I see no reason - much to the contrary - to think that the brain is intelligible to itself (maybe the big picture is, but you don't solve the halting problem with an overview of the code).
Second, if you say an algorithm will not halt, how do you think you can be sure, without resorting to formal proofs... which are isomorphic to programs via the Curry–Howard correspondence?
Third, humans often miss rare or fringe cases, leading them to be overconfident in their answers for as long as these cases do not occur. I mean, if humans truly can solve the halting problem, they are not doing a very good job.
And then there is the fact that the halting problem is vastly overstated: by waiting long enough, a Turing machine can come arbitrarily close to solving it. Furthermore, there is a very large number of algorithms that pretty obviously halt/do not halt, for reasons that can be codified. There is nothing at all controversial with the idea that a computer could figure out whether the vast majority of programs halt or not. It just can't work for *everything*, but the idea that humans do is nothing short of laughable.
Ignore my other response it's obviously confused. I think what I was getting at is that Penrose thinks that the very fact we are able to understand the halting problem means thinking cannot be reduced to computation. In any case I don't want to be in the position of trying to defend a position I do not hold so I am going to stop digging myself into a hole now.
"Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation"
This isn't really right. humans are capable of recognizing when SOME algorithms will halt. That isn't very spectacular, computers can do the same. Solving the halting problem would mean being able to recognize whether ANY algorithm will halt without resorting to dumb brute force methods. Humans are limited just as much as computers in this respect.
Tell it to Penrose. I think the issue is more that we can recognize that we can't prove that all algorithms will halt but it's hard to say what he was getting at.
Beyond this, Penrose is refuted by physics. The holographic principle and its near-corollary, the Bekensten bound, guarantees that one cannot build a physical artifact more powerful than a Turin machine (finite number of distinguishable quantum states in a region of finite surface area => there are no arbitrary-precision real numbers in physics in a finite space => no super-Turing machines possible). Indeed, restricting ourselves to artifacts with finite spatial extent, any physical object can at best have the power of a mere linarly bounded automata (though non-deterministic one, due to QM, which is more powerful than its deterministic counterpart, but still less powerful than a Turing machine). Unfortunately, our brain happens to be a physical artifact. The mind is a collection of thought patterns and these directly map to physics by their neural correlates. Penrose's case is just a sad example of wishful thinking, the inability to admit that our minds are too subject to (likely unknowable) limitations, our own analogues of the halting problem.
I hadn't seen this article "refuting" Penrose but it's not particularly interesting or that convincing. It's like a bunch of school boys playing gotcha. I saw this a lot at University. People demonstrating how clever they are but putting nothing forward that is more interesting. That's one of the main reasons philocophy has stagnated over the last 70 years or so but I digress.
I am sure the formal argument is correct but as I am sure you know formalizing informal arguments is tricky business. I'm sure someone will or has quibbled with this formalization. These authors will quibble with the the quibblers and so on ad nauseaum. It's all rather shabby. It's almost not worth trying publish these kinds of papers because they provide nothing substantive to the debate.
As regards your physical argument it's confused from the beginning. Penrose isn't asking for a super-Turing machine, otherwise known as a hypercomputer, because a hypercomputer would have the same problem as a Turing machine. It can't compute the halting problem for hypercomputers of the same complexity class even if it can do so for less complex Turing machines. Penrose is asking for something qualitatively different, not something non-deterministic and not a quantum computer either. It's not clear what he is asking for (which even he admits) but it's not that.
It's interesting that you are so dogmatic about the issue. Are you threatened or jealous by Penrose?
His argument was more like: "Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation".
That is patent nonsense, though, and if it is better than the caricature of your parent, it is only very barely so. There is no proof, nor even the shadow of a supporting argument, to the idea that humans are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt, for all possible algorithms.
First, only an astonishingly small subset of all algorithms is even intelligible to a human - if a computer was to solve the halting problem for "intelligible" programs, but was not itself "intelligible", how would you go about proving that such a program can't exist? All the proofs I know of imply applying the algorithm to a derivative of itself, but you can't do that if the algorithm does not belong to its own domain. And I see no reason - much to the contrary - to think that the brain is intelligible to itself (maybe the big picture is, but you don't solve the halting problem with an overview of the code).
Second, if you say an algorithm will not halt, how do you think you can be sure, without resorting to formal proofs... which are isomorphic to programs via the Curry–Howard correspondence?
Third, humans often miss rare or fringe cases, leading them to be overconfident in their answers for as long as these cases do not occur. I mean, if humans truly can solve the halting problem, they are not doing a very good job.
And then there is the fact that the halting problem is vastly overstated: by waiting long enough, a Turing machine can come arbitrarily close to solving it. Furthermore, there is a very large number of algorithms that pretty obviously halt/do not halt, for reasons that can be codified. There is nothing at all controversial with the idea that a computer could figure out whether the vast majority of programs halt or not. It just can't work for *everything*, but the idea that humans do is nothing short of laughable.
Some or all doesn't matter in this case. It's a quite binary thing. If it can be done at all it is qualitatively different than coming "arbitrarily close". I don't ageee with him for other reasons but "close enough" arguments like yours do not refute his point.
"Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation"
It is not true. Humans can recognize halting in some algorithms; not in all algorithms.
Saying that humans can recognize when an algorithm will halt equals humans recognizing that prime numbers are finite (or infinite), which is a problem not yet solved. This problem is also used to demonstrate the halting problem.
Right. I said "sometimes" in a previous post but got sloppy here. Thanks.
I also read both Hoftstadter and Dennett. The former made a similar mistake to the one you accuse Penrose of making: attaching almost mystical properties to the concept of recursion and the emergence of complexity.
Except that he doesn't. He shows precisely how recursion and self-reference form a basis for the emergence of complexity.
And complexity != consciousness. Next.
Dennett has similar problems, but more than that he has mistaken a model of cognition for a model of conscious experience. He side steps the explanatory gap by simply denying it exists, just as Hoftstadter denies it by promoting the idea that it is simply an emergent property, without being about to explain exactly what the nature of that property actually is.
Wrong again. Dennett demonstrates that there is no explanatory gap. Chalmers and his ilk are left with no ground to stand on.
The reduction of consciousness to cognition, even in an expanded sense, is nonsense, literally. Dennett's course is decisively determined by the Cartesian dualism he rejects.
Indeed, I waded though The Emperors New Mind when it was first published and was very disappointed. As far as I could tell, the argument was something along the lines of "consciousness is mysterious and complex and hopefully non-deterministic. Quantum effects are mysterious and complex and non deterministic. Consciousness is probably a quantum-based phenomenon then".
So I went back to reading Dennett and Hoftstadter.
Then you didn't understand it. His argument was more like: "Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation". It has nothing to do with the non-deterministic nature of quantum mechanics because even non-deterministic outcomes are computable. His speculation about consciousness and quantum mechanics is based on an analogy between the "collapse of the waveform" and thought. Even though the analogy is suggestive, according to Penrose, quantum mechanics cannot fully explain consciousness (because of consciousness's supposed non-computability) and to the extent that it cannot quantum mechanics is incomplete. It's still a crap argument but it's a hell of a lot better than your caricature. Dennett and Hoftstadter are even worse in many ways. They, like Penrose, are stuck on artifacts of theory. Stick with people that know how the brain actually works, like Edelman.
First of all, veto privileges are fairly common in software companies. The best known example of this is at Microsoft.
Secondly, a veto needs to be backed with a well reasoned argument or you aren't likely to be a senior developer at the company for long. Prima donna opinions and attitude aren't going to be tolerated by management or fellow developers.
I agree with your last point though. Product people with a software background aren't likely to request ridiculous features. These typically come through sales who promise customers mind-reading software delivered on a pony.
I have only vetoed once and the feature came back in a later iteration in a much better form and was accepted by the entire team.
If management takes on a more dictatorial stance, they are going to lose their developers. Good developers are like good salespeople in that there are always opportunities out there for them.
Fair enough. I suppose in large part one's perspective depends on where you've worked previously. I have seen just as many instances of engineers coming up with gee-whiz features that can't be sold as sales people promising mind-reading software. From the outside I think google suffers from the gee-whiz problem. Again, there seems to be a happy medium somewhere but it's not easy to find.
First, the "process is killing my creativity" whining and now this "I'm not weird I'm special" self-aggrandizement. Here's the deal. Just like process *can* kill creativity doesn't mean that it will, so also the characteristics of a geek can also lead to success. They can also lead to suicide.
This actually hurts NASA more than China, and as NASA gets hurt and sheds jobs where do you think the best are going to go if they want to get paid? I really do not understand why some in politics are trying to replay the end of the cold war and get the USA to play the part of the crumbling USSR.
Yes, I don't understand how ideology has trumped reality in the United States. I feel politics in this country has steadily become more partisan and ideological because we do not have an external "enemy" any more and we have turned on ourselves instead. We are so self-involved now that we don't see the rest of the world passing us by.
And perhaps the ability for senior developers to veto management decisions on features and functionality.
Right, because senior software engineers know exactly what customers want, right? Those senior software engineers are out there on the front lines with customers every day and know exactly how customers use the software. Oh wait... no, they are holed up in their cubes (or at home) and don't want to be bothered by the external world while writing "creative" code. I get that product people should not be stipulating implementation details or the finer details of designs. Instead they should have a clear cut understanding of the business problem the feature is supposed to solve and have the capacity to recognize when a software engineer's proposed solution is or is not going to solve the problem adequately. I realize a lot of engineering effort gets wasted on useless features but the solution isn't to give engineers the ability to veto features. The solution is to get good product people, preferably ones with a background in software engineering.
This technology should be ready for market in about 13.5 years. Going from 1 ghz to 500 ghz with a doubling every 18 months will take 9 periods. Let's add a few years for developing the tools necessary to mass produce and we are at 15-20 years. Obviously there is no reason to believe that this technology will follow a similar growth curve. It likely will be substantially worse. It's nice to know we have some theoretical headroom but there is even less to get excited about here than when there is the proverbial "3 to 5 years" to reach market.
What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.
If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.
Well, you've got it backwards. Under fascism the government appropriates businesses for political purposes. In America businesses have appropriated the government for financial purposes. I'm not sure what you call it but it's not fascism.
And PLEASE stop using the word fascist in context to every government you don't like or understand.
Please mod parent troll. And PLEASE stop dismissing criticism of every government you like and think you understand just because you don't like or understand the word that is being used to criticize it.
What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.
If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.
Also, corporatism within the context of fascism is different than within the context for capitalism. Corporatism is more literal in fascism. It means to that everything has its place function within the body politic like organs in the human body. Now, I think the analogy sucks but I am not a fascist.
What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.
If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.
Well, you've got it backwards. Under fascism the government appropriates businesses for political purposes. In America businesses have appropriated the government for financial purposes. I'm not sure what you call it but it's not fascism.
That is exactly his problem. He has a deployment environment that's different from this development environment, and he expects them to be the same when they're clearly not. This is quite possibly the stupidest drivel I have ever read, and obviously he's an amateur programmer. If your deployment environment is Linux, then get a Linux box to develop your code. His argument is just as stupid as saying "Windows is unsuitable for developing Linux software". This clown should be catapulted into the sun.
Furthermore, if this guy is a Web developer, then why is he concerned about underlying architectures? Stick with HTML and CSS and leave the heavy coding for the adults.
You don't really need to develop on Linux box as long as you *test* on a linux box. That's what QA environments are for...
The Android train has already left the station and Motorola wants to try and play catch-up with a smartphone OS? One of the most appealing aspect of the Android platform is its very openness. Why would I leave Android for a closed platform when it was such a breath of fresh air to tell Apple and its iPhone to pound sand? Think of Palm's attempt at an Android alternative and the Windows 7 Phone OS is a joke. I should think, Motorola's vast resources would be better spent not trying to re-invent the wheel but to continue to improve it.
One could have said the same about Android with regards to iOS. And Android's vaunted openness seems to be a bit of a bait and switch now that Google has taken a tighter grip on the source.
Motorola was notorious for having the worst user interfaces ever for their phones even while having some of the nicest hardware. They are hardware company and a good one. They suck at software. It's obvious they should stick with what they do best. At the very least this should have been a skunk works project. If it's a hedge against the legal brouhaha surrounding Android they are just making things worse by confusing the market rather than re-assuring folks they have a back-up plan. It makes them look confused rather than prepared. This seems to be a perennial thing with Motorola. Once they start having some success they start to drink the kool-aid and promptly fall flat on their face.
I bet you're the type of person who if I were to tell to "Have a nice day", you could "read between the lines" that I actually said that I hope your everyone in your immediate family gets AIDS and that you should go skydive naked into a field full of cacti.
There's a difference between "reading between the lines" and "making shit up to justify [your] viewpoint".
I bet you're the type of person who if I were to tell to "Have a nice day", you could "read between the lines" that I actually said that I hope your everyone in your immediate family gets AIDS and that you should go skydive naked into a field full of cacti.
There's a difference between "reading between the lines" and "making shit up to justify [your] viewpoint".
Aw, how cute. So naive. From a "news" network whose executives provide political talking points to all of their news reporters? I don't think I'm making anything up. Have a nice day, Sunshine.
Excuse me... would you mind telling me where the "dig" is at the President?
The only passage I see that references our President is "Orion and the companion Ares heavy-lift rocket were part of Constellation, a program cancelled under President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal."
That is a statement of fact. It is in no way biased, skewed or twisted. It's just about as plain a statement as one can make.
But I guess it must be hard to notice these details when you've got to read over such a highly-held nose.
Um, you do realize that selective statement of fact is one of the best ways to manipulate people, right? But given your reaction maybe you don't.
The story could have also said that "President Obama chose to replace the Constellation program with one focused on fostering the development of the technology for accessing Low Earth Orbit in the private sector." But of course that would insinuate that our "Socialist" President actually believes in the ability of the private sector to innovate rather than handing out pork to the industries in various politicians home states. That of course would be counter to their narrative and so they didn't. Instead they give the impression the President gutted the space program. It's not about holding your nose high. It's about being able to read between the lines.
My understanding is that breeder reactors and pebble bed reactors wouldn't have had the problem that hit the plant in Japan. That and breeder reactors have the added benefit of eating nuclear waste over and over until whatever is left might make you sneeze. Maybe I'm completely off on that, but why do we need a new design on this kind of reactor unless it's relatively simple to retrofit older reactors?
Like most engineering problems there are always trade-offs. So while pebble-bed reactors don't have the same problems that the ones in Japan do they have their own problems. Other people have taken the time to post them.
Slashdot Mirror
His argument was more like: "Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation".
That is patent nonsense, though, and if it is better than the caricature of your parent, it is only very barely so. There is no proof, nor even the shadow of a supporting argument, to the idea that humans are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt, for all possible algorithms.
First, only an astonishingly small subset of all algorithms is even intelligible to a human - if a computer was to solve the halting problem for "intelligible" programs, but was not itself "intelligible", how would you go about proving that such a program can't exist? All the proofs I know of imply applying the algorithm to a derivative of itself, but you can't do that if the algorithm does not belong to its own domain. And I see no reason - much to the contrary - to think that the brain is intelligible to itself (maybe the big picture is, but you don't solve the halting problem with an overview of the code).
Second, if you say an algorithm will not halt, how do you think you can be sure, without resorting to formal proofs... which are isomorphic to programs via the Curry–Howard correspondence?
Third, humans often miss rare or fringe cases, leading them to be overconfident in their answers for as long as these cases do not occur. I mean, if humans truly can solve the halting problem, they are not doing a very good job.
And then there is the fact that the halting problem is vastly overstated: by waiting long enough, a Turing machine can come arbitrarily close to solving it. Furthermore, there is a very large number of algorithms that pretty obviously halt/do not halt, for reasons that can be codified. There is nothing at all controversial with the idea that a computer could figure out whether the vast majority of programs halt or not. It just can't work for *everything*, but the idea that humans do is nothing short of laughable.
Ignore my other response it's obviously confused. I think what I was getting at is that Penrose thinks that the very fact we are able to understand the halting problem means thinking cannot be reduced to computation. In any case I don't want to be in the position of trying to defend a position I do not hold so I am going to stop digging myself into a hole now.
"Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation"
This isn't really right. humans are capable of recognizing when SOME algorithms will halt. That isn't very spectacular, computers can do the same. Solving the halting problem would mean being able to recognize whether ANY algorithm will halt without resorting to dumb brute force methods. Humans are limited just as much as computers in this respect.
Tell it to Penrose. I think the issue is more that we can recognize that we can't prove that all algorithms will halt but it's hard to say what he was getting at.
Penrose's argument from Emperor's New Mind and the updated version in Shadows of the Mind has been formally refuted: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.36.260&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Beyond this, Penrose is refuted by physics. The holographic principle and its near-corollary, the Bekensten bound, guarantees that one cannot build a physical artifact more powerful than a Turin machine (finite number of distinguishable quantum states in a region of finite surface area => there are no arbitrary-precision real numbers in physics in a finite space => no super-Turing machines possible). Indeed, restricting ourselves to artifacts with finite spatial extent, any physical object can at best have the power of a mere linarly bounded automata (though non-deterministic one, due to QM, which is more powerful than its deterministic counterpart, but still less powerful than a Turing machine). Unfortunately, our brain happens to be a physical artifact. The mind is a collection of thought patterns and these directly map to physics by their neural correlates. Penrose's case is just a sad example of wishful thinking, the inability to admit that our minds are too subject to (likely unknowable) limitations, our own analogues of the halting problem.
I hadn't seen this article "refuting" Penrose but it's not particularly interesting or that convincing. It's like a bunch of school boys playing gotcha. I saw this a lot at University. People demonstrating how clever they are but putting nothing forward that is more interesting. That's one of the main reasons philocophy has stagnated over the last 70 years or so but I digress.
I am sure the formal argument is correct but as I am sure you know formalizing informal arguments is tricky business. I'm sure someone will or has quibbled with this formalization. These authors will quibble with the the quibblers and so on ad nauseaum. It's all rather shabby. It's almost not worth trying publish these kinds of papers because they provide nothing substantive to the debate.
As regards your physical argument it's confused from the beginning. Penrose isn't asking for a super-Turing machine, otherwise known as a hypercomputer, because a hypercomputer would have the same problem as a Turing machine. It can't compute the halting problem for hypercomputers of the same complexity class even if it can do so for less complex Turing machines. Penrose is asking for something qualitatively different, not something non-deterministic and not a quantum computer either. It's not clear what he is asking for (which even he admits) but it's not that.
It's interesting that you are so dogmatic about the issue. Are you threatened or jealous by Penrose?
His argument was more like: "Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation".
That is patent nonsense, though, and if it is better than the caricature of your parent, it is only very barely so. There is no proof, nor even the shadow of a supporting argument, to the idea that humans are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt, for all possible algorithms.
First, only an astonishingly small subset of all algorithms is even intelligible to a human - if a computer was to solve the halting problem for "intelligible" programs, but was not itself "intelligible", how would you go about proving that such a program can't exist? All the proofs I know of imply applying the algorithm to a derivative of itself, but you can't do that if the algorithm does not belong to its own domain. And I see no reason - much to the contrary - to think that the brain is intelligible to itself (maybe the big picture is, but you don't solve the halting problem with an overview of the code).
Second, if you say an algorithm will not halt, how do you think you can be sure, without resorting to formal proofs... which are isomorphic to programs via the Curry–Howard correspondence?
Third, humans often miss rare or fringe cases, leading them to be overconfident in their answers for as long as these cases do not occur. I mean, if humans truly can solve the halting problem, they are not doing a very good job.
And then there is the fact that the halting problem is vastly overstated: by waiting long enough, a Turing machine can come arbitrarily close to solving it. Furthermore, there is a very large number of algorithms that pretty obviously halt/do not halt, for reasons that can be codified. There is nothing at all controversial with the idea that a computer could figure out whether the vast majority of programs halt or not. It just can't work for *everything*, but the idea that humans do is nothing short of laughable.
Some or all doesn't matter in this case. It's a quite binary thing. If it can be done at all it is qualitatively different than coming "arbitrarily close". I don't ageee with him for other reasons but "close enough" arguments like yours do not refute his point.
"Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation"
It is not true. Humans can recognize halting in some algorithms; not in all algorithms.
Saying that humans can recognize when an algorithm will halt equals humans recognizing that prime numbers are finite (or infinite), which is a problem not yet solved. This problem is also used to demonstrate the halting problem.
Right. I said "sometimes" in a previous post but got sloppy here. Thanks.
I also read both Hoftstadter and Dennett. The former made a similar mistake to the one you accuse Penrose of making: attaching almost mystical properties to the concept of recursion and the emergence of complexity.
Except that he doesn't. He shows precisely how recursion and self-reference form a basis for the emergence of complexity.
And complexity != consciousness. Next.
Dennett has similar problems, but more than that he has mistaken a model of cognition for a model of conscious experience. He side steps the explanatory gap by simply denying it exists, just as Hoftstadter denies it by promoting the idea that it is simply an emergent property, without being about to explain exactly what the nature of that property actually is.
Wrong again. Dennett demonstrates that there is no explanatory gap. Chalmers and his ilk are left with no ground to stand on.
The reduction of consciousness to cognition, even in an expanded sense, is nonsense, literally. Dennett's course is decisively determined by the Cartesian dualism he rejects.
Indeed, I waded though The Emperors New Mind when it was first published and was very disappointed. As far as I could tell, the argument was something along the lines of "consciousness is mysterious and complex and hopefully non-deterministic. Quantum effects are mysterious and complex and non deterministic. Consciousness is probably a quantum-based phenomenon then".
So I went back to reading Dennett and Hoftstadter.
Then you didn't understand it. His argument was more like: "Human are capable of recognizing when an algorithm will halt (or not); computers are not; therefore thought cannot be reduced to computation". It has nothing to do with the non-deterministic nature of quantum mechanics because even non-deterministic outcomes are computable. His speculation about consciousness and quantum mechanics is based on an analogy between the "collapse of the waveform" and thought. Even though the analogy is suggestive, according to Penrose, quantum mechanics cannot fully explain consciousness (because of consciousness's supposed non-computability) and to the extent that it cannot quantum mechanics is incomplete. It's still a crap argument but it's a hell of a lot better than your caricature. Dennett and Hoftstadter are even worse in many ways. They, like Penrose, are stuck on artifacts of theory. Stick with people that know how the brain actually works, like Edelman.
First of all, veto privileges are fairly common in software companies. The best known example of this is at Microsoft.
Secondly, a veto needs to be backed with a well reasoned argument or you aren't likely to be a senior developer at the company for long. Prima donna opinions and attitude aren't going to be tolerated by management or fellow developers.
I agree with your last point though. Product people with a software background aren't likely to request ridiculous features. These typically come through sales who promise customers mind-reading software delivered on a pony.
I have only vetoed once and the feature came back in a later iteration in a much better form and was accepted by the entire team.
If management takes on a more dictatorial stance, they are going to lose their developers. Good developers are like good salespeople in that there are always opportunities out there for them.
Fair enough. I suppose in large part one's perspective depends on where you've worked previously. I have seen just as many instances of engineers coming up with gee-whiz features that can't be sold as sales people promising mind-reading software. From the outside I think google suffers from the gee-whiz problem. Again, there seems to be a happy medium somewhere but it's not easy to find.
First, the "process is killing my creativity" whining and now this "I'm not weird I'm special" self-aggrandizement. Here's the deal. Just like process *can* kill creativity doesn't mean that it will, so also the characteristics of a geek can also lead to success. They can also lead to suicide.
This actually hurts NASA more than China, and as NASA gets hurt and sheds jobs where do you think the best are going to go if they want to get paid? I really do not understand why some in politics are trying to replay the end of the cold war and get the USA to play the part of the crumbling USSR.
Yes, I don't understand how ideology has trumped reality in the United States. I feel politics in this country has steadily become more partisan and ideological because we do not have an external "enemy" any more and we have turned on ourselves instead. We are so self-involved now that we don't see the rest of the world passing us by.
And perhaps the ability for senior developers to veto management decisions on features and functionality.
Right, because senior software engineers know exactly what customers want, right? Those senior software engineers are out there on the front lines with customers every day and know exactly how customers use the software. Oh wait... no, they are holed up in their cubes (or at home) and don't want to be bothered by the external world while writing "creative" code. I get that product people should not be stipulating implementation details or the finer details of designs. Instead they should have a clear cut understanding of the business problem the feature is supposed to solve and have the capacity to recognize when a software engineer's proposed solution is or is not going to solve the problem adequately. I realize a lot of engineering effort gets wasted on useless features but the solution isn't to give engineers the ability to veto features. The solution is to get good product people, preferably ones with a background in software engineering.
This technology should be ready for market in about 13.5 years. Going from 1 ghz to 500 ghz with a doubling every 18 months will take 9 periods. Let's add a few years for developing the tools necessary to mass produce and we are at 15-20 years. Obviously there is no reason to believe that this technology will follow a similar growth curve. It likely will be substantially worse. It's nice to know we have some theoretical headroom but there is even less to get excited about here than when there is the proverbial "3 to 5 years" to reach market.
Hopefully the emergence of the Chinese and others (India?) will fuel a new space race, with bigger ambitions than last time around. Mars maybe?
God, I hope not. I hope we stay on the sidelines and watch the Chinese flush billions of dollars down the toilet to do what we've already done.
He seems to be whining a lot lately about how people are "misusing" his invention.
It's called corporatocracy.
Or Plutocracy.
Please mod parent as troll.
And PLEASE stop using the word fascist in context to every government you don't like or understand.
Please mod parent troll. And PLEASE stop dismissing criticism of every government you like and think you understand just because you don't like or understand the word that is being used to criticize it.
What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.
If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.
Also, corporatism within the context of fascism is different than within the context for capitalism. Corporatism is more literal in fascism. It means to that everything has its place function within the body politic like organs in the human body. Now, I think the analogy sucks but I am not a fascist.
What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.
If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.
Well, you've got it backwards. Under fascism the government appropriates businesses for political purposes. In America businesses have appropriated the government for financial purposes. I'm not sure what you call it but it's not fascism.
That is exactly his problem. He has a deployment environment that's different from this development environment, and he expects them to be the same when they're clearly not. This is quite possibly the stupidest drivel I have ever read, and obviously he's an amateur programmer. If your deployment environment is Linux, then get a Linux box to develop your code. His argument is just as stupid as saying "Windows is unsuitable for developing Linux software". This clown should be catapulted into the sun.
Furthermore, if this guy is a Web developer, then why is he concerned about underlying architectures? Stick with HTML and CSS and leave the heavy coding for the adults.
You don't really need to develop on Linux box as long as you *test* on a linux box. That's what QA environments are for...
The Android train has already left the station and Motorola wants to try and play catch-up with a smartphone OS? One of the most appealing aspect of the Android platform is its very openness. Why would I leave Android for a closed platform when it was such a breath of fresh air to tell Apple and its iPhone to pound sand? Think of Palm's attempt at an Android alternative and the Windows 7 Phone OS is a joke. I should think, Motorola's vast resources would be better spent not trying to re-invent the wheel but to continue to improve it.
One could have said the same about Android with regards to iOS. And Android's vaunted openness seems to be a bit of a bait and switch now that Google has taken a tighter grip on the source.
Motorola was notorious for having the worst user interfaces ever for their phones even while having some of the nicest hardware. They are hardware company and a good one. They suck at software. It's obvious they should stick with what they do best. At the very least this should have been a skunk works project. If it's a hedge against the legal brouhaha surrounding Android they are just making things worse by confusing the market rather than re-assuring folks they have a back-up plan. It makes them look confused rather than prepared. This seems to be a perennial thing with Motorola. Once they start having some success they start to drink the kool-aid and promptly fall flat on their face.
I bet you're the type of person who if I were to tell to "Have a nice day", you could "read between the lines" that I actually said that I hope your everyone in your immediate family gets AIDS and that you should go skydive naked into a field full of cacti.
There's a difference between "reading between the lines" and "making shit up to justify [your] viewpoint".
And in case you want some evidence:
http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-fox-news-memo-reveals-news-division-told-to-echo-gop-talking-point-2010-12
I bet you're the type of person who if I were to tell to "Have a nice day", you could "read between the lines" that I actually said that I hope your everyone in your immediate family gets AIDS and that you should go skydive naked into a field full of cacti.
There's a difference between "reading between the lines" and "making shit up to justify [your] viewpoint".
Aw, how cute. So naive. From a "news" network whose executives provide political talking points to all of their news reporters? I don't think I'm making anything up. Have a nice day, Sunshine.
Excuse me... would you mind telling me where the "dig" is at the President?
The only passage I see that references our President is "Orion and the companion Ares heavy-lift rocket were part of Constellation, a program cancelled under President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal."
That is a statement of fact. It is in no way biased, skewed or twisted. It's just about as plain a statement as one can make.
But I guess it must be hard to notice these details when you've got to read over such a highly-held nose.
Um, you do realize that selective statement of fact is one of the best ways to manipulate people, right? But given your reaction maybe you don't.
The story could have also said that "President Obama chose to replace the Constellation program with one focused on fostering the development of the technology for accessing Low Earth Orbit in the private sector." But of course that would insinuate that our "Socialist" President actually believes in the ability of the private sector to innovate rather than handing out pork to the industries in various politicians home states. That of course would be counter to their narrative and so they didn't. Instead they give the impression the President gutted the space program. It's not about holding your nose high. It's about being able to read between the lines.
My understanding is that breeder reactors and pebble bed reactors wouldn't have had the problem that hit the plant in Japan. That and breeder reactors have the added benefit of eating nuclear waste over and over until whatever is left might make you sneeze. Maybe I'm completely off on that, but why do we need a new design on this kind of reactor unless it's relatively simple to retrofit older reactors?
Like most engineering problems there are always trade-offs. So while pebble-bed reactors don't have the same problems that the ones in Japan do they have their own problems. Other people have taken the time to post them.