I didn't say I actually drove it in snow:) I tried once, but it's just too small to work. It also has touch of rust here and there, mostly above the left rear wheel. But this doesn't change that I drove it ok the rest of the winter, say up to -5 or -10 in the morning/evening, and the rest of it looks remarkably well (right now it's just been freshly painted too). It's still a good car. The only real problem it's that on longer trips you have to be half-mechanic. For one thing because it's old, but mostly because such skills were expected or at least welcomed in drivers of its time.
Neh, doesn't work that way anymore. You have to intimidate lots of people, and besides there is no way to show to the others that you "accidented" a guy because he voted wrong: only you know how he voted. It may work as a scare tactic, but then it doesn't matter if you actually know how he voted, just spread the rumor.
Also, when choosing a level of paranoia:) you have to keep in mind that the most likely security risk is from an internet exploit.. in which case all the encription in the world isn't worth a damn.
Very very good point! Let's go back to first-generation computers, without all the bells and whistles. Ok, not really go back, just keep the simplicity. Write only machine code, use as much firmware and ROM as possible, and Keep It Simple. If I could play River Raid and Saboteur on a Z-80 machine from a 360k disk on 64k of ram, I'm pretty sure a voting app doesn't need even a whole meg of ram or god knows how many lines of code. Come to think of it, probably most CS students could write one in assembly as a school project. No compiler, no OS, nothing. Just plain old assembly, and a couple of drivers.
Well, one problem I can spot immediately with this setup: it's too cheap. Diebold needs to justify the costs, so it must use latest generation technology. Oh well...
Except the guy behind it is an expert hacker. How far down the investigation would you hit a stolen identity? In other cases it may work, and that's reason enough to try, but this guy is just too good. Not likely he'd have made a mistake.
I used to think as you think... until I came to own a Fiat 850 (vintage '67). I'm not going to discuss performance here: newer cars are, in all ways, better and more confortable. However fiability in anything after '80 that isn't Mercedes (and probably newer Mercedeses too) is laughable. They simply aren't built to last over 10 years. Or more to the point, they're build not last over 10 years.
You're going to tell me that this isn't so important any more, that everybody can afford a new car every 5 years, that confort and power are more important and cars just "evolved" to be less fiable. Well, you're wrong. I can't find any reason why strong, proven metal components are replaced by plastic. After I've seen my 40 year old car start every day, summer or winter for two years, and after I marveled at every part of it beeing way older then me, and still not rusted, not broken, not even worn, it's obvious to me contemporary cars are designed to live short lives.
I'm driving a 2002 Punto now... diesel, confortable, resonably fast. I don't expect it to last over two years without major investments. I like it, but i'm realistic.
Now why did I went on a such off-topic rant? Because what's true for cars is also true for most industries. Why do we need so much faster hardware? Why do we need so much newer software? Except games, who are a different thing, most softwares should have reached maturity by now. Word processors, office, media players, graphic software, IM, all are already well known and, with the kind of effort invested in them, could be almost "perfect". Except there were business reasons not to. Realistic, non-evil business reasons. Easiest example: IM. Compatibility is expensive. Another example: multiple versions. Why pay once, when you can pay 3 times?
I'm not saying we can do anything about it. After all, these are sound, resonable business decisions. Can't even blame the managers who made them. But this doesn't mean we can't be aware.
You guys are crazy, right? I just "upgraded" my computer (meaning I kept the sound board and monitor) for less then $500 and there isn't anything except bleeding edge games that I can't do with it. What else do you spend your money for?! Oh, and that's 500 per two years at least, maybe with $100 per year for bells and whistles.
The only problem with this approach is that it's illegal. And not just in the sense it's "not nice", it's actually risky: one machine in a thousand may get broken, and the owner can sue you. So anything you do you do as a criminal, meaning both risk and absolutely no recognition. I don't think many would do something as difficult for free and completely anonymous. People are just not that altruistic.
The official approach, Automatic Updates, is almost as good. Unfortunately Microsoft's main motivation is to make money, and working software is only a side effect (I don't find anything evil in that btw, MS has done more for IT then any other company). So the system isn't perfect, updates may be late or Automatic Updates may not be enabled. The "virus" way is better because if affects exactly the kind of targets normal trojans do. Bigger the disease, better the cure. It's almost biological in nature.
The problem with this scheme of course is that once they get their machine cleaned out the machine won't be spreading the worm anymore and it will lose out to other worms that have the luxury of staying completely still. Maybe if you let the worm hide for two weeks, and then inform the user...
Why? If the machine gets cleaned means it won't be infected anymore, but the existing software can function very well. That's why a compromised machine is compromised forever: you never know what may be lurking in there.
I'm wondering if this is really an organisation's work. Stock schemes sound like the kind of think that doesn't require clients or large resources. Could be a lone programmer somewhere, making money on his own.
It's not the indians, it's their managers. They could have been eschimos for all you care and if nobody gave them a piece of info they don't have it. Now if you said that setups in india are designed to be cheap and do one thing only as simple as possible, disregarding complications... you'd have a case.
Fate/Stay Night - one example of a game turned anime, succesfuly. Actualy, pretty much all these guy's games end up anime, and nobody complains. Quite the oposite.
Re:One or two percent? That's rich ore.
on
No Ice on the Moon
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· Score: 1
It's economical to extract as in (the cost of processing a ton of ore) > (the price of an ounce) Thing is, the processing costs are WAY up on the moon.
Uh... I got pick last. An you know what I did? Learned programming and linux. Now whoz making the big money? Oh, and later spent a year or so at the gym, so no, i'm not even weak.
The study is correct, it's just what it means is misunderstood. There is no correlation between good/bad happy/unhappy students, only between averages on nations. If a nation is successful in math and has the best students, the overall level will be higher but also most students, for which that level is a bit too much, will be unhappy with it. And since worse students make the majority (gauss curve), the average will be "unhappy".
You just reminded us that smart and wise... hell, even smart and common sense are not going hand in hand. Very well-written comment, modded and all, but you don't seem to notice that you actually agree with the guy: the mensa bulletin is crap and if this were the only thing about mensa it wouldn't be worth a dime. If you saw a magazine full with people making a fool of themselves while trying to look cool, wouldn't you make fun of them? Oh wait, you do. But that doesn't stop you from picking on the guy, doesn't it?:)
Now please don't let this give the impression that I don't think this is a massive waste of time and money, it is, but not because of the reasons you listed (it's a waste because in all likelihood there's nothing there).
So it's either entertaintment or sortof educational - gets children into sciences. No necessarily a waste.
But for the sake of argument I'll pretent to take it seriously:)
Thinking about hostility is _not_ absurd. Evolution, as most people seem to forget, is based on death. It's the weak that die, not the strong that survive. No matter how little we may have in common, things like life and death are likely among them.
Also there the technology necessary to kill a civilisation is much lower then one needed for first contact. Astronomy is a pretty precise science, and either an energy weapon or a slow moving (ion drive) warhead are things we can actually build now. Yes, _we_ could destroy a civilisation light years away.
Yes! Just why I resisted on beta only a couple of minutes. The second I realised the interface wanted to make me think I'm in outlook I switched back and thought with dread at the moment the "beta" will come off.
I don't want to use outlook. Or any other replacement really. I tried, honestly, but it's just not the same as web-based email. I'm used to quality, and I don't intend to go a step down. Using AJAX is a nice touch, and it was to be expected, but outlook is definitely not what I want from a mail app.
:) See? this is exactly what I meant! Any of this may be true but guess what?! i don't care. The only reason you get to say this shit is because wikipedia is famous and wales is a celebrity. Why? because wikipedia is something useful, to lots and lots of people. You know what I do care about? That I can find the Naruto list of story arcs there. Yes, even the fillers. And it's pretty up to date, too.
This emphasises the advantage of guerila forces over conventional ones. Iraq was better equiped, but fought in a conventional style. Serbs on the other hand went much sooner to guerila tactics. Look at how much troble the "insurgents" cause now, years after the main force was considered to be distroyed.
If ever US will fight a war with an equaly powerful enemy they won't do very well in the beginning. For once every US force has a big target painted on it, or at least it does in the context of modern warfare. To find them usually you just have to watch CNN. Plus the reliance on electronic communication, no experience in loosing an engagement (except for the infantery) and the fact that you can google most of the info on its army.
The MPOV sounds like what I was thinking about. I used wikipedia's NPOV only as a well-known example. The important part is having simple, clear guidelines (that work) and respecting them.
The problem is the "that work" part since I can't see any set of rules without its problems. Especialy since in a debate it's expected to use whatever means to win. How long will neutral issue statements resist? Either they'll lean towards a POV, or they'll be contested as leaning, or both. Anyways, I promise I'll take a look at the links you provided. Right now in my timezone it's early morning and I have to go to bed:)
Also I'd like criticise you a bit about hitting on wikipedia. I realise it's not perfect, but it's not supposed to be. It *is* however very useful, and the world is a better place because of it. And yet almost every time it's mentioned it's about a flaw or another. Sounds a bit like "XP is a bad OS" and "Microsoft is evil". None is true, but makes people feel good saying it.
I'm sorry about saying that, especially when your post is way more useful than mine:) No offence?
Oh, and I'm not a wikipedia cultist or anything. Lately I've just used it for finding anime reviews...
Ahh, that is better. Ultimately you end up simulating 16 bilion neurons and some nerv endings, which wou could likely reduce to a bilion or two. The question is however how "big" would be the simulation for a neuron? Is it closer to what we use in neural networks, i.e. a bunch of coeficients, or is it closer to a whole computer? Anyways, i'm glad such questions aren't so retorical anymore, and lots and lots of research goes exactly into this kind of thing. It's gonna be some very interesting 20 years...
no doubt well beyond what's feasible today That'll never be feasible. Unfortunately some things just can't be done. To simulate at molecular level something you need a computer at least as big as that something (computers work at molecular scales, too). How much bigger? Depends on efficiency, but probably a lot. And bigger it gets, more resources it need to do management, bigger it gets and so on. The easiest way is just building a model what you need to simulate. But that would be a copy, and wouldn't tell you anything the original can't.
AI is fortunately a lot easier. Cognitive psycology has made great steps lately, and more important has several steps planned ahead as "necessary research". And the processing power of the brain isn't even that great. It's just that it's such a beowolf cluster that makes it so powerful:) For example reading this text implies lots of small tasks, which performed serially would take quite a lot of time. But fortunately most is done in parralel: basic imaging stuff, shape recognition, pattern regognition, word recognition, meaning etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't say I actually drove it in snow :) I tried once, but it's just too small to work. It also has touch of rust here and there, mostly above the left rear wheel. But this doesn't change that I drove it ok the rest of the winter, say up to -5 or -10 in the morning/evening, and the rest of it looks remarkably well (right now it's just been freshly painted too). It's still a good car.
The only real problem it's that on longer trips you have to be half-mechanic. For one thing because it's old, but mostly because such skills were expected or at least welcomed in drivers of its time.
Neh, doesn't work that way anymore. You have to intimidate lots of people, and besides there is no way to show to the others that you "accidented" a guy because he voted wrong: only you know how he voted.
It may work as a scare tactic, but then it doesn't matter if you actually know how he voted, just spread the rumor.
Also, when choosing a level of paranoia :) you have to keep in mind that the most likely security risk is from an internet exploit.. in which case all the encription in the world isn't worth a damn.
Very very good point! Let's go back to first-generation computers, without all the bells and whistles.
Ok, not really go back, just keep the simplicity. Write only machine code, use as much firmware and ROM as possible, and Keep It Simple. If I could play River Raid and Saboteur on a Z-80 machine from a 360k disk on 64k of ram, I'm pretty sure a voting app doesn't need even a whole meg of ram or god knows how many lines of code. Come to think of it, probably most CS students could write one in assembly as a school project. No compiler, no OS, nothing. Just plain old assembly, and a couple of drivers.
Well, one problem I can spot immediately with this setup: it's too cheap. Diebold needs to justify the costs, so it must use latest generation technology. Oh well...
Except the guy behind it is an expert hacker. How far down the investigation would you hit a stolen identity?
In other cases it may work, and that's reason enough to try, but this guy is just too good. Not likely he'd have made a mistake.
I used to think as you think... until I came to own a Fiat 850 (vintage '67). I'm not going to discuss performance here: newer cars are, in all ways, better and more confortable. However fiability in anything after '80 that isn't Mercedes (and probably newer Mercedeses too) is laughable. They simply aren't built to last over 10 years. Or more to the point, they're build not last over 10 years.
You're going to tell me that this isn't so important any more, that everybody can afford a new car every 5 years, that confort and power are more important and cars just "evolved" to be less fiable. Well, you're wrong. I can't find any reason why strong, proven metal components are replaced by plastic. After I've seen my 40 year old car start every day, summer or winter for two years, and after I marveled at every part of it beeing way older then me, and still not rusted, not broken, not even worn, it's obvious to me contemporary cars are designed to live short lives.
I'm driving a 2002 Punto now... diesel, confortable, resonably fast. I don't expect it to last over two years without major investments. I like it, but i'm realistic.
Now why did I went on a such off-topic rant? Because what's true for cars is also true for most industries. Why do we need so much faster hardware? Why do we need so much newer software? Except games, who are a different thing, most softwares should have reached maturity by now. Word processors, office, media players, graphic software, IM, all are already well known and, with the kind of effort invested in them, could be almost "perfect". Except there were business reasons not to. Realistic, non-evil business reasons. Easiest example: IM. Compatibility is expensive. Another example: multiple versions. Why pay once, when you can pay 3 times?
I'm not saying we can do anything about it. After all, these are sound, resonable business decisions. Can't even blame the managers who made them. But this doesn't mean we can't be aware.
You guys are crazy, right? I just "upgraded" my computer (meaning I kept the sound board and monitor) for less then $500 and there isn't anything except bleeding edge games that I can't do with it. What else do you spend your money for?! Oh, and that's 500 per two years at least, maybe with $100 per year for bells and whistles.
The only problem with this approach is that it's illegal. And not just in the sense it's "not nice", it's actually risky: one machine in a thousand may get broken, and the owner can sue you. So anything you do you do as a criminal, meaning both risk and absolutely no recognition. I don't think many would do something as difficult for free and completely anonymous. People are just not that altruistic.
The official approach, Automatic Updates, is almost as good. Unfortunately Microsoft's main motivation is to make money, and working software is only a side effect (I don't find anything evil in that btw, MS has done more for IT then any other company). So the system isn't perfect, updates may be late or Automatic Updates may not be enabled. The "virus" way is better because if affects exactly the kind of targets normal trojans do. Bigger the disease, better the cure. It's almost biological in nature.
The problem with this scheme of course is that once they get their machine cleaned out the machine won't be spreading the worm anymore and it will lose out to other worms that have the luxury of staying completely still. Maybe if you let the worm hide for two weeks, and then inform the user...
Why? If the machine gets cleaned means it won't be infected anymore, but the existing software can function very well. That's why a compromised machine is compromised forever: you never know what may be lurking in there.
How long will it be before somebody lobotomizes this to just install the anti-virus? Could be a new age in the spam wars...
I'm wondering if this is really an organisation's work. Stock schemes sound like the kind of think that doesn't require clients or large resources. Could be a lone programmer somewhere, making money on his own.
It's not the indians, it's their managers. They could have been eschimos for all you care and if nobody gave them a piece of info they don't have it.
Now if you said that setups in india are designed to be cheap and do one thing only as simple as possible, disregarding complications... you'd have a case.
Fate/Stay Night - one example of a game turned anime, succesfuly. Actualy, pretty much all these guy's games end up anime, and nobody complains. Quite the oposite.
It's economical to extract as in (the cost of processing a ton of ore) > (the price of an ounce)
Thing is, the processing costs are WAY up on the moon.
Uh... I got pick last. An you know what I did? Learned programming and linux. Now whoz making the big money?
Oh, and later spent a year or so at the gym, so no, i'm not even weak.
The study is correct, it's just what it means is misunderstood. There is no correlation between good/bad happy/unhappy students, only between averages on nations. If a nation is successful in math and has the best students, the overall level will be higher but also most students, for which that level is a bit too much, will be unhappy with it. And since worse students make the majority (gauss curve), the average will be "unhappy".
It obviously does, and so does IQ, otherwise they couldn't have possibly found a corelation. Now _what_ exactly each mean...
You just reminded us that smart and wise... hell, even smart and common sense are not going hand in hand. Very well-written comment, modded and all, but you don't seem to notice that you actually agree with the guy: the mensa bulletin is crap and if this were the only thing about mensa it wouldn't be worth a dime. If you saw a magazine full with people making a fool of themselves while trying to look cool, wouldn't you make fun of them? Oh wait, you do. But that doesn't stop you from picking on the guy, doesn't it? :)
Now please don't let this give the impression that I don't think this is a massive waste of time and money, it is, but not because of the reasons you listed (it's a waste because in all likelihood there's nothing there).
:)
So it's either entertaintment or sortof educational - gets children into sciences. No necessarily a waste.
But for the sake of argument I'll pretent to take it seriously
Thinking about hostility is _not_ absurd. Evolution, as most people seem to forget, is based on death. It's the weak that die, not the strong that survive. No matter how little we may have in common, things like life and death are likely among them.
Also there the technology necessary to kill a civilisation is much lower then one needed for first contact. Astronomy is a pretty precise science, and either an energy weapon or a slow moving (ion drive) warhead are things we can actually build now.
Yes, _we_ could destroy a civilisation light years away.
So it's not so absurd to want to be quiet.
Yes! Just why I resisted on beta only a couple of minutes. The second I realised the interface wanted to make me think I'm in outlook I switched back and thought with dread at the moment the "beta" will come off.
I don't want to use outlook. Or any other replacement really. I tried, honestly, but it's just not the same as web-based email. I'm used to quality, and I don't intend to go a step down. Using AJAX is a nice touch, and it was to be expected, but outlook is definitely not what I want from a mail app.
:) See? this is exactly what I meant! Any of this may be true but guess what?! i don't care. The only reason you get to say this shit is because wikipedia is famous and wales is a celebrity. Why? because wikipedia is something useful, to lots and lots of people.
You know what I do care about? That I can find the Naruto list of story arcs there. Yes, even the fillers. And it's pretty up to date, too.
This emphasises the advantage of guerila forces over conventional ones. Iraq was better equiped, but fought in a conventional style. Serbs on the other hand went much sooner to guerila tactics. Look at how much troble the "insurgents" cause now, years after the main force was considered to be distroyed.
If ever US will fight a war with an equaly powerful enemy they won't do very well in the beginning. For once every US force has a big target painted on it, or at least it does in the context of modern warfare. To find them usually you just have to watch CNN. Plus the reliance on electronic communication, no experience in loosing an engagement (except for the infantery) and the fact that you can google most of the info on its army.
The MPOV sounds like what I was thinking about. I used wikipedia's NPOV only as a well-known example.
:)
:) No offence?
The important part is having simple, clear guidelines (that work) and respecting them.
The problem is the "that work" part since I can't see any set of rules without its problems. Especialy since in a debate it's expected to use whatever means to win. How long will neutral issue statements resist? Either they'll lean towards a POV, or they'll be contested as leaning, or both. Anyways, I promise I'll take a look at the links you provided. Right now in my timezone it's early morning and I have to go to bed
Also I'd like criticise you a bit about hitting on wikipedia. I realise it's not perfect, but it's not supposed to be. It *is* however very useful, and the world is a better place because of it. And yet almost every time it's mentioned it's about a flaw or another. Sounds a bit like "XP is a bad OS" and "Microsoft is evil". None is true, but makes people feel good saying it.
I'm sorry about saying that, especially when your post is way more useful than mine
Oh, and I'm not a wikipedia cultist or anything. Lately I've just used it for finding anime reviews...
... some people will definitely want more. And companies will be way more willing to invest once the business model is proven.
Ahh, that is better. Ultimately you end up simulating 16 bilion neurons and some nerv endings, which wou could likely reduce to a bilion or two. The question is however how "big" would be the simulation for a neuron? Is it closer to what we use in neural networks, i.e. a bunch of coeficients, or is it closer to a whole computer?
Anyways, i'm glad such questions aren't so retorical anymore, and lots and lots of research goes exactly into this kind of thing. It's gonna be some very interesting 20 years...
no doubt well beyond what's feasible today
:) For example reading this text implies lots of small tasks, which performed serially would take quite a lot of time. But fortunately most is done in parralel: basic imaging stuff, shape recognition, pattern regognition, word recognition, meaning etc.
That'll never be feasible. Unfortunately some things just can't be done.
To simulate at molecular level something you need a computer at least as big as that something (computers work at molecular scales, too). How much bigger? Depends on efficiency, but probably a lot. And bigger it gets, more resources it need to do management, bigger it gets and so on.
The easiest way is just building a model what you need to simulate. But that would be a copy, and wouldn't tell you anything the original can't.
AI is fortunately a lot easier. Cognitive psycology has made great steps lately, and more important has several steps planned ahead as "necessary research". And the processing power of the brain isn't even that great. It's just that it's such a beowolf cluster that makes it so powerful