No discussion of the future is complete without a discussion of the impact of Earth's limited resources on humanity and few short stories strip this concept to the bare bones than the good Doctor's story about a teenage girl who surprises her brother by stowing away on his rescue mission to deliver life saving vaccine to a distant planet not knowing that there is only enough fuel aboard to make the course corrections needed to reach the planet with her brother and the vaccines aboard and no extra mass. None. In the precise limited future, her mass, small as it is, is far more than even the worst anticipable problems in flight would require in terms of extra fuel margins. The story and its conclusion open the door to any number of avenues of thematic discussion.
Also recommended by Asimov is Nightfall. It discusses the impact of a sudden paradigm shift in a society's fundemental belief system that appears in an incontrovertible and destabilizing manner.
Ender's Game has a short story version, by Orson Scott Card. Ethics of war.
By having a national strike. The entire US disconnects broadband and cable tv services until prices go down and service promises and flexibility go up with transparency about real time data flow rates.
Kids want quality games. My son (age 11) very much wanted a Wii U for Christmas, and got what he asked for, in part because he had so many Wii games for the original system.
Unfortunately, he was disappointed with the Mario style games that came with his unit and the other new games because:
1) They were too cartoonish and not much of a "Visual effects" improvement, cf the gaming possible in the iPhone 5;
2) The ideas in them were old hat and most of the "new" games seemed liked releases for the Wii hastily repackaged and modified for the Wii U.
3) Nintendo does not seem to be making games that are different enough to hold his interest.
Nintendo's Mario and all of the originals even with new levels and powers are too much of the same old thing. Those who grew up with them may find them nostalgic but today's kids have no sense of nostalgia. They want a sense of reward for their gamesmanship and most of the games don't give you that.
Further, Nintendo made a huge mistake when they did not make his Wii Mii's transferable and useable with new games. Yes, he can use them with his old Wii Games but why couldn't they figure out that kids who had spent hours customizing 50 or more Mii's might not want to use them on a supposedly superior system. That's really what turned him off at the start. What a no-brainier too!
That's the problem with a gaming system designed by grandparents who think the same old thing will do. I'd bet some young guys at Nintendo brought some of these things up and were shouted down. Or worse.
But it's not all bad, it's the only TV remote control we have that's too big to lose! And it's rechargeable!
There really should be a term for the common practice of creating a flawed statement, ascribing it to someone, and then using it to make them look bad.
Foxnewsy?
The issue of generating random numbers using any means other than physically drawing objects blindly from a container, with or without replacement is problematic.
Spreadsheets may have improved their algorithms for generating random numbers but in the '80's and '90's they were at best "pseudo random numbers" which became clear if you had to use them to draw say a random sample of bus or rail one-way trips from a route or system schedule to meet FTA (formerly UMTA) sampling requirements.
When testing the use of automated methods it became clear that the generators were highly dependent on the time the sample was drawn and if you just did all the calculations of say 1,024 random numbers at once, you could see the way the seed moved through the cells as it calculated each consecutive random number.
Ways around this, such as not looking at the screen hitting the calc key for each cell at "random" times then recording those times were tested and this improved results. But using computers to provide results that were both entirely automated and appeared truly random remained elusive. But I've been out of it for more than a decade, I'm sure things have improved with the incredible calculation speeds available today. Or have they?
But the reason there were always two, highly trained, regularly tested, drilled with no idea of whether or not the actions they were taking were a drill or not was because that envelope with the correct code would never be opened unless it was an actual war scenario. There were supposedly multiple envelopes to chose from and the incoming signal determined which one was to be opened, presumably with targeting instructions. But if the code was incorrect, turning the firing keys would do nothing.
The go/no go decision had nothing to do with whether the code given looked "right" it had to do with whether procedures were being followed correctly. Source: War Games
One of the major points of the film was the warning about what could happen if we let all people involved stop thinking. After WWII we did not allow the excuse "I was just following orders." After a nuclear holocaust it is important to remember that the world that manages to survive may not be very forgiving either of a nation that initiates a nuclear war for whatever reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Re: mob named "Clippy". Heard that name was discarded in favor of "Jar Jar Clinks"...
No discussion of the future is complete without a discussion of the impact of Earth's limited resources on humanity and few short stories strip this concept to the bare bones than the good Doctor's story about a teenage girl who surprises her brother by stowing away on his rescue mission to deliver life saving vaccine to a distant planet not knowing that there is only enough fuel aboard to make the course corrections needed to reach the planet with her brother and the vaccines aboard and no extra mass. None. In the precise limited future, her mass, small as it is, is far more than even the worst anticipable problems in flight would require in terms of extra fuel margins. The story and its conclusion open the door to any number of avenues of thematic discussion. Also recommended by Asimov is Nightfall. It discusses the impact of a sudden paradigm shift in a society's fundemental belief system that appears in an incontrovertible and destabilizing manner. Ender's Game has a short story version, by Orson Scott Card. Ethics of war.
I suggest the strike be scheduled for the Ides of March, March 15th 2014.
By having a national strike. The entire US disconnects broadband and cable tv services until prices go down and service promises and flexibility go up with transparency about real time data flow rates.
I'm sticking with VHS! O.0
Kids want quality games. My son (age 11) very much wanted a Wii U for Christmas, and got what he asked for, in part because he had so many Wii games for the original system. Unfortunately, he was disappointed with the Mario style games that came with his unit and the other new games because: 1) They were too cartoonish and not much of a "Visual effects" improvement, cf the gaming possible in the iPhone 5; 2) The ideas in them were old hat and most of the "new" games seemed liked releases for the Wii hastily repackaged and modified for the Wii U. 3) Nintendo does not seem to be making games that are different enough to hold his interest. Nintendo's Mario and all of the originals even with new levels and powers are too much of the same old thing. Those who grew up with them may find them nostalgic but today's kids have no sense of nostalgia. They want a sense of reward for their gamesmanship and most of the games don't give you that. Further, Nintendo made a huge mistake when they did not make his Wii Mii's transferable and useable with new games. Yes, he can use them with his old Wii Games but why couldn't they figure out that kids who had spent hours customizing 50 or more Mii's might not want to use them on a supposedly superior system. That's really what turned him off at the start. What a no-brainier too! That's the problem with a gaming system designed by grandparents who think the same old thing will do. I'd bet some young guys at Nintendo brought some of these things up and were shouted down. Or worse. But it's not all bad, it's the only TV remote control we have that's too big to lose! And it's rechargeable!
Schrodinger's! Bang! The cat may be alive but I just shot my auto-correct gremlin and killed him dead, I think.
SchrÃdinger's! My darn autocorrect has a half-wit of 0!
...that Cheshire cat of SchrÃdinger's from the quantum cradle to the quantum grave, which may be side by side, or not!
I thought they were still more afraid of our lawyers...
Foxnausea? Foxnaughtia?
There really should be a term for the common practice of creating a flawed statement, ascribing it to someone, and then using it to make them look bad. Foxnewsy?
The issue of generating random numbers using any means other than physically drawing objects blindly from a container, with or without replacement is problematic. Spreadsheets may have improved their algorithms for generating random numbers but in the '80's and '90's they were at best "pseudo random numbers" which became clear if you had to use them to draw say a random sample of bus or rail one-way trips from a route or system schedule to meet FTA (formerly UMTA) sampling requirements. When testing the use of automated methods it became clear that the generators were highly dependent on the time the sample was drawn and if you just did all the calculations of say 1,024 random numbers at once, you could see the way the seed moved through the cells as it calculated each consecutive random number. Ways around this, such as not looking at the screen hitting the calc key for each cell at "random" times then recording those times were tested and this improved results. But using computers to provide results that were both entirely automated and appeared truly random remained elusive. But I've been out of it for more than a decade, I'm sure things have improved with the incredible calculation speeds available today. Or have they?
But the reason there were always two, highly trained, regularly tested, drilled with no idea of whether or not the actions they were taking were a drill or not was because that envelope with the correct code would never be opened unless it was an actual war scenario. There were supposedly multiple envelopes to chose from and the incoming signal determined which one was to be opened, presumably with targeting instructions. But if the code was incorrect, turning the firing keys would do nothing. The go/no go decision had nothing to do with whether the code given looked "right" it had to do with whether procedures were being followed correctly. Source: War Games One of the major points of the film was the warning about what could happen if we let all people involved stop thinking. After WWII we did not allow the excuse "I was just following orders." After a nuclear holocaust it is important to remember that the world that manages to survive may not be very forgiving either of a nation that initiates a nuclear war for whatever reason.
It Marx's all the way down!!!!!
It Marx' all the way down!!!!!