>We still don't know how to take a bunch if pixels/voxels/polygons and determine that they are a toilet.
Yes we do. But not if it's noisy, or it's a toilet we haven't programmed the system to recognize, or it's at an angle we left out of the set. Or you're sitting on it.
22 idle hours, or more like 10 hours where the idle cycles aren't interspersed with keystrokes and pr0n downloads, and the BIOS could put the CPU to sleep.
0.3 kWh per day.
Around here, electricity is 8 cents per kWh (your neighborhood really should get yourself a nuke plant; 35c/kWh is for NIMBYs).
2.4 cents per day in additional (*voom*) in order to generate a few dozen extra hits on possible cures for Anthrax, etc.
It takes longer to do that calculation than to earn that 2.4 cents.
Spare CPU cycles are free, for reasonably small values of free.
I'm sure they know what "This spam came from your site, please stop it." means, because after the first ten thousand messages saying the same thing, they might have had someone who does know English read it to them.
The compilers aren't completely done, and they'll never be perfect (cf. any compiler for x86; the bug lists are shocking), but they're good enough for a high-end server chip where the integration engineers know how to talk to the compiler vendor to get bugfixes turned in time for the next rollout compilation.
Ever notice how most modern spam is one-shot? You see one message, then never see that particular ad again? Filtering is too weak a technology to be causing that.
What's profitable is spam that sells spamming, because there's always a sucker out there who thinks "hey, there's all this spam, it must be profitable otherwise it wouldn't happen; now if I can just get my hands on 6 million email addresses..."
Looking around for a signal that has a vanishingly small chance of being found during the existence of the human race is of pretty mickle value compared with adding known results to a database of likely candidates for effective treatments of painful and costly diseases that might just save your life.
Or your sister's. Or your mom's.
But of course, if we find the space aliens, they will bring us the cures for these diseases anyway.
And maybe in return for our contacting them on a nice quality of letterhead, they won't turn us into brood hives for their younglings.
Just fine. He's full of crap. Polished glass works fine as a laser reflector. A nice acrylic clearcoat would do as well. Remember a few years ago there was an infomercial selling a bottled car finish that stopped an argon laser from searing the paint, while the untreated side got fried? Same thing. Not $39.99, not $29.99, but $19.99!
Verizon et al are already armpit-deep in development of broadband infrastructure.
They've already made the decision that they're willing to invest billions in it, because it will make them gobs of money no matter what the regulatory situation.
As soon as digital theaters get big, home digital theaters using the same technology will get big, and pirated perfect digital movie-theater resolution copies of these flicks will be pressed and distributed like Thin Mints.
You won't be able to hear a sinusoidal tone at 48 kHz (the highest frequency recordable at the Nyquist rate of 96=2x48 kHz), but you might detect its effect on non-sinusoidal sounds.
And some of us can hear above 22 kHz, so 44 kHz recordings aren't even adequate theoretically.
Not as though I own the audio equipment to take advantage of these things, but I've been looking, and looking, and looking, and now I figure I'm just confused enough by the ridiculous number of choices in the $5k home-theater system range to buy a $9 pair of earbuds and a used Walkman and go back to my Ian Dury and the Blockheads cassettes.
I don't think it was just an object-oriented technique that almost any SmallTalk program could map to.
The patents talk about having a UI from one application embedded in the UI for another (like an spreadsheet as a widget in a larger form), and having the two apps communicate rationally about it.
That's enough different from inheriting methods on a class-interface in source code that I can see it as a new patent.
Was there a lot of that going on in SmallTalk in the '80s?
Bill Gates' philanthropy is targeted to maximize his "legacy" value.
In a 60 Minutes puff piece he bought last year, he was shown deciding with his wife and his hired fund managers which projects would get how much.
In what is certainly a mistake of PR, he is seen to tell the group that he wants to fund only those projects that will work.
Rather than funding projects that need money to find out if they can work, he wants to be the one to cure whatever disease is already proven to be curable but merely lacking in easily raised resources to get the cure to the masses. He won't survey the nation and lay the track, but he insists on driving the golden spike. He plucks the low-hanging fruit, even though his cherry picker is the tallest.
That attitude from someone with almost unlimited resources makes me sick.
Slashdot Mirror
>We still don't know how to take a bunch if pixels/voxels/polygons and determine that they are a toilet.
Yes we do. But not if it's noisy, or it's a toilet we haven't programmed the system to recognize, or it's at an angle we left out of the set. Or you're sitting on it.
Look up "radial logarithmic mapping".
--Blair
The record industry isn't against digital music, they're against anyone besides themselves making use of it.
Someone with moderator points mod that posting up. Use the No Shit Sherlock tag.
--Balir
Oh man.
Ham and Eggs is the only one I even remember.
That, and the "chocolate" air-hockey pucks.
--Blair
30 watts.
1 CPU.
22 idle hours, or more like 10 hours where the idle cycles aren't interspersed with keystrokes and pr0n downloads, and the BIOS could put the CPU to sleep.
0.3 kWh per day.
Around here, electricity is 8 cents per kWh (your neighborhood really should get yourself a nuke plant; 35c/kWh is for NIMBYs).
2.4 cents per day in additional (*voom*) in order to generate a few dozen extra hits on possible cures for Anthrax, etc.
It takes longer to do that calculation than to earn that 2.4 cents.
Spare CPU cycles are free, for reasonably small values of free.
--Blair
"Ask Sartre some time what that means."
I'm sure they know what "This spam came from your site, please stop it." means, because after the first ten thousand messages saying the same thing, they might have had someone who does know English read it to them.
--Blair
Itanium has been around for nearly two years now.
The compilers aren't completely done, and they'll never be perfect (cf. any compiler for x86; the bug lists are shocking), but they're good enough for a high-end server chip where the integration engineers know how to talk to the compiler vendor to get bugfixes turned in time for the next rollout compilation.
--Blair
Ever notice how most modern spam is one-shot? You see one message, then never see that particular ad again? Filtering is too weak a technology to be causing that.
What's profitable is spam that sells spamming, because there's always a sucker out there who thinks "hey, there's all this spam, it must be profitable otherwise it wouldn't happen; now if I can just get my hands on 6 million email addresses..."
--Blair
Spare CPU cycles are free.
Looking around for a signal that has a vanishingly small chance of being found during the existence of the human race is of pretty mickle value compared with adding known results to a database of likely candidates for effective treatments of painful and costly diseases that might just save your life.
Or your sister's. Or your mom's.
But of course, if we find the space aliens, they will bring us the cures for these diseases anyway.
And maybe in return for our contacting them on a nice quality of letterhead, they won't turn us into brood hives for their younglings.
--Blair
"Dumbass."
One guy is the source of all the spam on the Internet?
I say we've found a perfect target for testing that AC-130 Death Ray.
--Blair
Just fine. He's full of crap. Polished glass works fine as a laser reflector. A nice acrylic clearcoat would do as well. Remember a few years ago there was an infomercial selling a bottled car finish that stopped an argon laser from searing the paint, while the untreated side got fried? Same thing. Not $39.99, not $29.99, but $19.99!
--Blair
Uh, that's 0.25 dB/foot.
That's losing half your power (3 dB) every 12 feet.
--Blair
Verizon et al are already armpit-deep in development of broadband infrastructure.
They've already made the decision that they're willing to invest billions in it, because it will make them gobs of money no matter what the regulatory situation.
--Blair
Yesterday we fixed a bug in Word involving sending documents through Outlook Express by changing a value in a dialog box in Internet Explorer.
At that moment, I knew Bill would win this argument.
Whoopie. The devil proved he's evil.
--Blair
As soon as digital theaters get big, home digital theaters using the same technology will get big, and pirated perfect digital movie-theater resolution copies of these flicks will be pressed and distributed like Thin Mints.
--Blair
Some of your "requirements" aren't language requirements, or even IDE environments.
Some of them are OS requirements, and others could be ORB requirements.
So you've got bigger fish to fry.
--Blair
"Big, boss-sized lunkers from the look of 'em."
Real acoustics.
You won't be able to hear a sinusoidal tone at 48 kHz (the highest frequency recordable at the Nyquist rate of 96=2x48 kHz), but you might detect its effect on non-sinusoidal sounds.
And some of us can hear above 22 kHz, so 44 kHz recordings aren't even adequate theoretically.
Not as though I own the audio equipment to take advantage of these things, but I've been looking, and looking, and looking, and now I figure I'm just confused enough by the ridiculous number of choices in the $5k home-theater system range to buy a $9 pair of earbuds and a used Walkman and go back to my Ian Dury and the Blockheads cassettes.
--Blair
I don't think it was just an object-oriented technique that almost any SmallTalk program could map to.
The patents talk about having a UI from one application embedded in the UI for another (like an spreadsheet as a widget in a larger form), and having the two apps communicate rationally about it.
That's enough different from inheriting methods on a class-interface in source code that I can see it as a new patent.
Was there a lot of that going on in SmallTalk in the '80s?
--Blair
Bill Gates' philanthropy is targeted to maximize his "legacy" value.
In a 60 Minutes puff piece he bought last year, he was shown deciding with his wife and his hired fund managers which projects would get how much.
In what is certainly a mistake of PR, he is seen to tell the group that he wants to fund only those projects that will work.
Rather than funding projects that need money to find out if they can work, he wants to be the one to cure whatever disease is already proven to be curable but merely lacking in easily raised resources to get the cure to the masses. He won't survey the nation and lay the track, but he insists on driving the golden spike. He plucks the low-hanging fruit, even though his cherry picker is the tallest.
That attitude from someone with almost unlimited resources makes me sick.
--Blair
I just took a look at the three patents Kodak is suing Sun over, and, huh?
Sure looks like Kodak claims it invented OLE.
Which, hey, they may have, and Microsoft either licensed or stole it.
What's the real story?
--Blair
35 lousy years.
That's how long ago it was that the 7-segment display seemed like Space:1999 technology.
--Blair
I mean, he's Bill Joy. If he can't knock out a safety-checker for C# units in a couple of weeks, then he's not the Bill Joy we grew up with.
--Blair
This is why MS never has good code. Repairs to released code should always be the priority.
Allowing bugs to carry from one version to the next only doubles the amount of work necessary to maintain them.
But then, Microsoft makes money from people who buy the new version because they think it fixes bugs in the old version.
Someone should sue Microsoft over this.
--Blair
Because by the time we can find another one that is, this one won't be.
--Blair
"Keeping up with the Gbrtlrxzes."
AMD
Lawyer?
Allow?
--Blair