It might be helpful for Mr. Boudreau to spend less time 'analyzing' and more time learning the history of the field he is pontificating about - because frankly he really doesn't know what he is talking about. The only difference between his experience in Iraq and past times is that the communications in question (especially between himself and higher echelons) took place via email.
Particularly galling is his statement "Commanders can no longer grab their men by the collars of their flak jackets and direct them toward an objective, because in most cases their men are out of reach and the objective is not a point on the map". Well Mr. Boudreau that hasn't been true since roughly 10000BC when battle got larger than a couple of dozen proto humans scuffling in the mud. It's the whole reason why things like flags and trumpet calls were invented.
There are tons of arguments against guns, such as safety in the home or availability to criminals. But in my mind it comes down to just one thing - The availability of guns to the general public is the last safeguard against tyrrany. It becomes much easier to fight an oppressive government if you have the weapons to do it with.
That's a nice theory, but one that doesn't actually hold much water. I.E. it's a bit of myth making of the part of the Founders, who didn't really want to stress too hard that the British were mostly thrown out of America by a professional army (which the founders Really Hated to have) and the timely intervention of the French.
And let me preempt a few arguments right here - a few of you might ask how a bunch of rag-tag resisters can fight against the most powerful, technologically advanced military in the world? For your answer, take one look at Iraq.
Oh, they're fighting all right. They're just not accomplishing much. (And very little of the fighting is being done with guns anyhow...)
"The 163 pounds of uranium she consumed is estimated to have provided the equivalent power of nearly 29 million gallons of fuel oil."
That just put everything in perspective. For the amount of money you saved
Let's put it completely in perspective - Savannah's core could provide the equivalent energy of 29 million gallons of fuel oil, but that same core costs you as much as 50 million gallons of fuel oil... plus the increased costs of the crew required to operate it, the increased costs of the 'boiler' (reactor) required to 'burn' it... You aren't really saving any money.
With the cost of oil to fire a ship being what it is, the Savannah would have been competitive back in the 70's.
Except that Savannah wasn't competitive back in the 70's, and still wouldn't be today. The Navy estimates that the 'break even' price for an all nuclear fleet is when oil hits $178/bbl... But the Navy can afford the massive upfront capital costs of the reactor and massive ongoing operational costs - commercial operators can't.
Well, his exhibit still doesn't make sense then - because the government doesn't deny anything about those birds either. (Nor do they confirm anything...) "Not saying anything" != "Denial".
Compact Shelving. It's been around for years now and is pretty much standard for archival storage. It can be a pain to operate and slows access down somewhat, but it is extremely space efficient.
Even if you dont find it boring to begin with you really need to ask yourself the question "where will I be in five/ten/twenty years?". For the majority going into software engineering or IT the answer is "prettymuch the same thing I was doing two weeks after I graduated college". You might be better at it and you might be leading a team of people, but you will still be doing about the same thing.
The same could be said of pretty much any career field. IT isn't unique except in its obscene level of self indulgent navel gazing.
Shit, I wish my job was boring. When something breaks it gets so exciting I worry that I'm going to keel over dead.
Lord yes, I used to love boring when I was in the Navy. When there is 300 feet of ocean between you and fresh air, and excitement means an anti-radiation suit or breathing apparatus or hoping to hell a seawater pump actual works at its rated capacity... you learn to appreciate boring like it was a fine wine.
Sure they do without ad income. But they also do it without having to pay salaries, or co location fees, or bandwidth costs... (I know they pay some of those, but they also get a metric buttload of contributions in kind.)
When your costs are lower, and your standard of service (and content) malleable, it is easy to live on a smaller income.
Yes, it will remove that SINGLE ITEM but it will NOT affect the REST of the "recommendations". Because Amazon does NOT utilize that information in their "recommendations".
No, that's a properly working algorithm - because when you 'ignore' only a single item it doesn't know how to weight that individual piece of data. It most certainly does take into account items you ignore and items you give low rating to - but it takes time to train the system.
Epic failure. I've given them 21 pieces of information and they are no closer to finding something I want than they were with the just the 1st piece of information.
If you expect the system to be telepathic (which you seem to), you are bound to be disappointed. The problem isn't Amazon's algorithm, rather the problem is your unwarranted assumption of its capabilities.
It's not just the critics - there is also a certain demographic of AI researchers who move the goal posts in order that their work remains 'pure' and above the hubbub of 'commercial'.
The correct term is "independent agents". Using the term "artificial intelligence" has been a way to get more funding from grant sources who are ignorant of technology.
Actually, it's quite the opposite. "Independent agents" was a term borrowed from AI by web geeks to make their software sexy and buzz word compliant. The two different kinds of independent agents are somewhat related, but only somewhat.
You would THINK that they'd be "intelligent" enough to factor in your REJECTIONS as well as your purchases (and what you've identified as items you already own).
It is, if you enter the rejections on your recommendations page. Amazon has no possible (or reasonable) way of knowing which of the millions of items they offer you don't want. You have to tell them.
Replying to the grandparent:
While it is great that there are algorithms that exist to suggest movies, or books to get...I would hardly consider it to be artificial intelligence. The ability to pick out keywords or genres is something that could have been done more than two decades ago.
That's just the thing - two decades ago algorithms like that used by Netflix and Amazon were done two decades ago and were hailed as great advances in AI.
But the real problem is that what is considered 'Artificially Intelligent' has been a moving target - as soon as a goal has been reached or is about to be reached, new advances in hardware, software, or algorithms moves the bar a few notches further up.
So I don't understand why you say that 8088 based machines were far cheaper than 6800 series machines.
Because you are comparing, to some extent, apples and oranges - the $500 dollar machines didn't come with a monitor.
So I don't understand why you say that 8088 based machines were far cheaper than 6800 series machines. Based on what I remember about prices back then, the CPU didn't seem to be the biggest factor.
It's not just the direct cost of the CPU, it's the cost of the whole chipset, the design of the motherboard, the overall system performance etc... etc... When you compare an equivalently performing 6xxx chip to a 8088 chip, the 6xxx based system is more expensive. Thus IBM went with the 8088.
The 8088 processor was chosen by IBM for the IBM PC specifically to hold personal computing back. The processor series was a very poor choice for a desktop machine.
The 6809 was a far superior chip, good enough that a reasonably convincing Unix clone was available in 1980, the year IBM decided to create the "IBM PC". That was bad from their perspectives, because it would strengthen Unix as a competitor in the midrange business.
Ah yes, the evil conspiracy theory of history.
It's amazing how they continue to flourish even when contrary to the facts... First, an 8088 based machine was far cheaper than 6800 series based machine (a Very Good Thing when designing a low end machine). And second 'IBM' didn't pick anything because the PC group was a little wildcat project upper management all but ignored. It wasn't part of a strategy, it wasn't part of a marketing, etc... etc...
If Microsoft hadn't been the ones, someone else, or more likely several someone elses, would have. And frankly, chances are good that the state of computing in general would be ahead of where we are without Microsoft, because their monopolistic approach has stifled innovation and competition.
Odds are, they exact opposite would have happened. Absent Microsoft and their drive for uniformity - the [IBM compatible] PC world is likely to remain chaotic and fragmented. The likely result is businesses and individuals flock even faster than they were already doing at the time to the one island of stability amid the chaos - Apple.
Who at the time was an even more evil and monopolistic monolith than Microsoft.
In the early 80s there were plenty of smaller players in the marketplace all with interesting products and different ideas. A more natural outgrowth of that which maintained that balance would have been much healthier. And while that probably would have led to a period of incompatibility and lack of standards, the lack of strong defacto standards may well have created a push for more industry standards earlier. By now many of those things that are still needed (standards for document, and multimedia interchange) would have long been settled.
Wishful thinking without a shred of basis in reality.
Although monarchies are now a thing of the past, it was still the only form of government that allowed Europe to survive the endless petty battles and feuds between regional warlords. That constant feuding would have kept us in the dark ages.
Other than the fact that virtually every European monarch indulged in endless petty battles and feuds up until around WWI... sure.
Not to mention, as just one example, the Italian Renaissance occurred during one of the most contentious and war/feud filled eras in Italian History. Mostly because the princes of the various city-states viewed dick waving in the form of having better artists than anyone else as one facet of the competition. This mightsoundfamiliar.
The concept of the monarch as the overlord with the biggest army (and artillery!) to keep everyone in line brought peace to the lands (and at least confined war to overseas where other people's countries/crops/towns/culture got destroyed instead).
Um... European monarchs failed miserably to keep everyone in line, failed miserably at keeping the peace, and didn't even try to keep warfare overseas.
I personally like to be a 'nice guy'. But, in my early years...I would often find myself ending up as the "friend" of the girl, and ended up listening to them go on and on about how much of a jerk this guy or that guy was, yet they still went with and slept with these guys. And, once you are in the friend zone before sleeping with them, you generally never get out of that zone.
Um... So what? Is a women only valuable to you because you can sleep with them? Some of oldest and closest friends are women that I was 'big brother/friend' to back in the day and sat with them through their various crises of the heart and crotch. Back before I was married, if I just wanted to get laid, I just went and hired a hooker. Sex is cheap, friendship is rare.
I tried after all that, to emulate somewhat the actions and attitudes I saw the successful 'assholes' did towards women, and guess what? Yep...I started getting more 'lucky'.
Frankly, that's just sad.
Oh..they may eventually grab the steady, meeker nice guy, and have kids with them because they are stable, but then they will often go out and cheat....with the bad boy they meet and find they are sexually attracted and excited by.
Unless the 'meek stable guy' knows when to turn 'bad boy'... Trust me on this.:):)
Your comments, and those of several others, reminds me of this old joke;
A newly married couple is their hotel room undressing on their wedding night. The man tosses his pants to his wife, and says "put these on". She replies "I can't fit in those!". He answers "that's right, remember who wears the pants in this family!".
She ponders a bit and then hand him her panties and asks him to put them on. "I can't get into these!" he exclaimed.
"That's right, and you aren't going to until your attitude improves."
Your problem with women is that you're a jackass, not that there is something wrong with Western women. You just happened to find an Asian woman willing to put up with you and your biases and stereotypes before you found a Western one.
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It might be helpful for Mr. Boudreau to spend less time 'analyzing' and more time learning the history of the field he is pontificating about - because frankly he really doesn't know what he is talking about. The only difference between his experience in Iraq and past times is that the communications in question (especially between himself and higher echelons) took place via email.
Particularly galling is his statement "Commanders can no longer grab their men by the collars of their flak jackets and direct them toward an objective, because in most cases their men are out of reach and the objective is not a point on the map". Well Mr. Boudreau that hasn't been true since roughly 10000BC when battle got larger than a couple of dozen proto humans scuffling in the mud. It's the whole reason why things like flags and trumpet calls were invented.
That's a nice theory, but one that doesn't actually hold much water. I.E. it's a bit of myth making of the part of the Founders, who didn't really want to stress too hard that the British were mostly thrown out of America by a professional army (which the founders Really Hated to have) and the timely intervention of the French.
Oh, they're fighting all right. They're just not accomplishing much. (And very little of the fighting is being done with guns anyhow...)
Indonesia. The Philippines. Practically all of Africa.
Let's put it completely in perspective - Savannah's core could provide the equivalent energy of 29 million gallons of fuel oil, but that same core costs you as much as 50 million gallons of fuel oil... plus the increased costs of the crew required to operate it, the increased costs of the 'boiler' (reactor) required to 'burn' it... You aren't really saving any money.
Except that Savannah wasn't competitive back in the 70's, and still wouldn't be today. The Navy estimates that the 'break even' price for an all nuclear fleet is when oil hits $178/bbl... But the Navy can afford the massive upfront capital costs of the reactor and massive ongoing operational costs - commercial operators can't.
Well, his exhibit still doesn't make sense then - because the government doesn't deny anything about those birds either. (Nor do they confirm anything...) "Not saying anything" != "Denial".
He's not a journalist, he's a blogger. For bloggers it is all about them.
Compact Shelving. It's been around for years now and is pretty much standard for archival storage. It can be a pain to operate and slows access down somewhat, but it is extremely space efficient.
The same could be said of pretty much any career field. IT isn't unique except in its obscene level of self indulgent navel gazing.
Lord yes, I used to love boring when I was in the Navy. When there is 300 feet of ocean between you and fresh air, and excitement means an anti-radiation suit or breathing apparatus or hoping to hell a seawater pump actual works at its rated capacity... you learn to appreciate boring like it was a fine wine.
Sure they do without ad income. But they also do it without having to pay salaries, or co location fees, or bandwidth costs... (I know they pay some of those, but they also get a metric buttload of contributions in kind.)
When your costs are lower, and your standard of service (and content) malleable, it is easy to live on a smaller income.
No, that's a properly working algorithm - because when you 'ignore' only a single item it doesn't know how to weight that individual piece of data. It most certainly does take into account items you ignore and items you give low rating to - but it takes time to train the system.
If you expect the system to be telepathic (which you seem to), you are bound to be disappointed. The problem isn't Amazon's algorithm, rather the problem is your unwarranted assumption of its capabilities.
It's not just the critics - there is also a certain demographic of AI researchers who move the goal posts in order that their work remains 'pure' and above the hubbub of 'commercial'.
Actually, it's quite the opposite. "Independent agents" was a term borrowed from AI by web geeks to make their software sexy and buzz word compliant. The two different kinds of independent agents are somewhat related, but only somewhat.
Replying to the parent:
It is, if you enter the rejections on your recommendations page. Amazon has no possible (or reasonable) way of knowing which of the millions of items they offer you don't want. You have to tell them.
Replying to the grandparent:
That's just the thing - two decades ago algorithms like that used by Netflix and Amazon were done two decades ago and were hailed as great advances in AI.
But the real problem is that what is considered 'Artificially Intelligent' has been a moving target - as soon as a goal has been reached or is about to be reached, new advances in hardware, software, or algorithms moves the bar a few notches further up.
Even though the particle energy is way lower, the particle density is way higher.
Because you are comparing, to some extent, apples and oranges - the $500 dollar machines didn't come with a monitor.
It's not just the direct cost of the CPU, it's the cost of the whole chipset, the design of the motherboard, the overall system performance etc... etc... When you compare an equivalently performing 6xxx chip to a 8088 chip, the 6xxx based system is more expensive. Thus IBM went with the 8088.
Ah yes, the evil conspiracy theory of history.
It's amazing how they continue to flourish even when contrary to the facts... First, an 8088 based machine was far cheaper than 6800 series based machine (a Very Good Thing when designing a low end machine). And second 'IBM' didn't pick anything because the PC group was a little wildcat project upper management all but ignored. It wasn't part of a strategy, it wasn't part of a marketing, etc... etc...
Odds are, they exact opposite would have happened. Absent Microsoft and their drive for uniformity - the [IBM compatible] PC world is likely to remain chaotic and fragmented. The likely result is businesses and individuals flock even faster than they were already doing at the time to the one island of stability amid the chaos - Apple.
Who at the time was an even more evil and monopolistic monolith than Microsoft.
Wishful thinking without a shred of basis in reality.
Are those the only sentences in your post?
Not to mention that extrapolating from a small sample to an entire nation is what? Duh - stereotyping.
You're not only a jackass, you're an incredibly self centered one.
Nah, I suspect it's just that women can tell you're a jackass.
Um... The UK government has been knighting popular celebrities for years.
Other than the fact that virtually every European monarch indulged in endless petty battles and feuds up until around WWI... sure.
Not to mention, as just one example, the Italian Renaissance occurred during one of the most contentious and war/feud filled eras in Italian History. Mostly because the princes of the various city-states viewed dick waving in the form of having better artists than anyone else as one facet of the competition. This might sound familiar.
Um... European monarchs failed miserably to keep everyone in line, failed miserably at keeping the peace, and didn't even try to keep warfare overseas.
Have you ever actually studied any real history?
Um... So what? Is a women only valuable to you because you can sleep with them? Some of oldest and closest friends are women that I was 'big brother/friend' to back in the day and sat with them through their various crises of the heart and crotch. Back before I was married, if I just wanted to get laid, I just went and hired a hooker. Sex is cheap, friendship is rare.
Frankly, that's just sad.
Unless the 'meek stable guy' knows when to turn 'bad boy'... Trust me on this.
Your comments, and those of several others, reminds me of this old joke;
A newly married couple is their hotel room undressing on their wedding night. The man tosses his pants to his wife, and says "put these on". She replies "I can't fit in those!". He answers "that's right, remember who wears the pants in this family!".
She ponders a bit and then hand him her panties and asks him to put them on. "I can't get into these!" he exclaimed.
"That's right, and you aren't going to until your attitude improves."
Your problem with women is that you're a jackass, not that there is something wrong with Western women. You just happened to find an Asian woman willing to put up with you and your biases and stereotypes before you found a Western one.