Companies are tied to particular computer manufacturers and must pay for bad tailor-made software that can often be bought for a small fraction of the price off the shelf. Japan's hardware revolution offers a chance to change all this. First, though, the Japanese will have to get the software right, too.
Instead, they can be tied to a particular software manufacturer, and pay for bad rehashes of old technology that can be had for free off the Net. First, though, the Japanese will have to start changing thier desktop backgrounds, downloading e-mail viruses and sending each other useless, overly-formatted memos in proprietary formats. Then they will lead the world in IT efficiency.
"We don't know if it is possible to build a normal personality out of millions of little pieces. This experiment will tell us how reasonable the idea is," Epstein added.
I predict that the result will be about as useful as Congress.
You are to be considered innocent, unless proven guilty. If I am being tracked by a camera, I am NOT being considered innocent.
And what about that cop that sits on the side of the road with that RADAR device. If I am doing nothing wrong, then I am a law-abiding citizen and I fully object to the RADAR just watching me to make sure. As a law-abiding citizen, they have no ethical right to follow me around just because it's possible that I may do something illegal.
And how about that cop just standing on the street corner watching people go by. If I am doing nothing wrong, then I am a law-abiding citizen and I fully object to the EYES just watching me to make sure. As a law-abiding citizen, they have no ethical right to LOOK AT me [...] just because it's possible that I may do something illegal.
Really people, this society has used technology to increase the productivity of every citizen's job. The police force is just one more industry that can be made more efficient with technology. Consider that people with outstanding arrest warrants TEND TO BE CRIMINALS. Then consider that criminals TEND TO COMMIT CRIMES. I don't consider it a bad thing that 1 policeman can do a better job than 10 and do it less obtrusively. It keeps my taxes down; furthermore, the less secure that a car thief feels, the more secure I feel.
Do you ever consider that in all those mistopian movies where the evil police forces track down the hero with cameras that they IGNORE a whole lot of people? If there is a point to debate, it is not what technology the police use to track criminals, but what criteria classifies someone as a criminal. As always, the hard questions are social, not technological.
Linus specifically said that the important kind of messages are the ones that are displayed when something isn't working properly,
You see, the problem is that software often doesn't KNOW when something isn't working properly. The software cannot know unless the developer either:
1)predicts every possible failure case or,
2)checks the inputs at every function call (which will slow your 1000GHz Fitztanium to 8086 speeds)
Version numbers are also important. If you show me your/var/log/messages and I happen to notice that you're running the 2yr old ReiserFS code with the security hole, I'll tell you and you will be happy. But because there isn't a problem, ReiserFS doesn't ever say anything and you get cracked.
Bootup messages are a very important standard that has become an invaluable troubleshooting tool. Even know that something DOES work is good information when troubleshooting. Linus should leave it alone. If I don't wanna see "ReiserFS is brought to you by MP3.com", I'll either modify it (I do have the source), or I'll use IBM's JFS.
Come on. Little competitive shit like this most definitely IS a problem when a large segment of an industry looks at your 'road map' for what to do next. The point is not that this behavior is illegal or that it violates the anti-trust act. The point is that it is a tactic, and it is a tactic they're using now. It is a tactic that has served Microsoft very well. I picked one example of this tactic off the top of my head. If you want the full list, read a history book that's not written by Bill Gates.
I reiterate. By the time this case finishes, MS won't care about the outcome. They'll pay the measly $100M(US) fine and won't even blink at it. It'll be written off as cost of doing business. Meanwhile, they will have moved on to bigger fish, control of the Internet. They want a piece of every monetary transaction that occurs across the net. In a couple of years (after the bigger fish is netted), they will throw the desktop market to Linux zealots like yesterday's gnawed bone.
But first they have to net the big fish, and for that they need to keep the desktop locked up just a little longer. Endless circles of appeals serve to do just that.
Several people have correctly stated that the ruling was vacated versus being overturned. While this is true, it matters little.
Microsoft has always played delaying tactics while they bring other guns into play. For instance, when OS/2v4 shipped with voice recognition software, MS execs went on record as saying that it was just a toy and not ready for the real world (despite others and myself doing a lot of useful work with it). Meanwhile, they are investing boat loads of money into voice recognition software.
Gates has simply taken a page from Kirk's play book. If you can't win under the rules, change the rules.
The ruling has been vacated. How long will it take for another judge to be selected? How long until that judge has reviewed all the documents and issued a ruling? How long before that ruling takes effect? YEARS!! And by the time it's played out, Microsoft won't care because we'll all have been long since forced into paying them to authenticate our Internet accounts through their.NET servers in order to even register to vote.
I can see the seen on that yacht last year like it was yesterday:
Gates: Look, Thomas, I mean,...uhh, Mr. Jackson, sir. You're retiring in a few years, right? Government service hasn't been all that lucrative for you. I'm not asking for you to throw the case. I'm just asking for you to say a couple things that would cast a shadow on the decision.
Jackson: I will not have you get away scott free, Gates.
Gates:You know we're guilty. We know we're guilty. Hell, everybody knows we're guilty. Your finding of facts were rock solid. There is no way we're going to win this case. All we're asking you to do is make a couple comments so that the Appeals Court will have the case reviewed a little longer. We're trying to get out of the OS business. That should make you happy. We just need a little more time...
Jackson stares at the floor, deep in thought...
Sarcasm mode on: Will computers continue to get faster? Will we someday have lightbulbs in every room of the house? Will everyone who wants one be able to afford an automobile one day?
Well, it'll be a few years before we're able to play color video games on our personal computers, but when we do the arcade games will really rock!!
Sarcasm mode off:
Really? What kind of sensless 'wow-computers-are-getting-faster' is this? The article actually makes sense and is interesting. It explains how computers are getting faster. It's the silly, so-called 'editoralizing' that stoopid.
In my experience, in universities Office is not the killer app; Endnote is.
What is Endnote? What is your experience that makes you conclude that Endnote is a killer app for universities (outside of your own)? From my experience, this would be an app specific to your university, but if the DoD adopted it, you bet your bloody tax dollars that every Fortune 500 company would quickly learn about it.
A very large entity that has a lot of sway over what a lot of other very large entities use has chosen to go with an open standard. This is important. Can you even guess at how many outdated, dilapidated, and otherwise useless systems are kept in place just to be able to do DOD contracting? Hell, defence contracting is the only reason Ada exist today.
My biggest beef against Microsoft (and yes, I see this as a blow against Microsoft), is their forced upgrade cycle that is made a hurricane by the careful manipulation of the network effects. This reign them in a bit. A corporation that wants to work with the USDOD MUST use DOD forms and formats. Just ask ANYONE who has EVER dealt with DOD contract compliance how picky the inspectors can be and how easy it is to lose a contract over something silly like incompatible font sizes and you will get more than your ears can hold.
If Microsoft tries to force upgrades with incompatible document formats, they will either put in special features for the DOD, or the DOD will throw them out. Then all the corporations will be submitting docs in StarOffice format. And when the CIOs see the cost savings without the need to retrain or track liscences they'll skip the next forced upgrade. Look for M$ stock to start tanking.
The art critics there claimed that computer-generated art was not a 'fine art' but more of a graphic design, regardless of the quality of the work. I've noticed something about so-called 'artist' and their attitude toward the marketplace. They always like to see themselves as being superior to the average person, as if the they're the embodiment of intellectual refinement.
For instance, I was listening to talk radio a couple weeks ago. The head of the local opera group was being interviewed and taking questions from callers under the premise "Justify Yourself". The host was inviting people who took public money and having them justify to the public why they should recieve that money. The cost for a seat at the opera was $17, and the opera received $40,000 from the city. By raising the cost of a ticket to $21, the opera would not be reliant on the city for anything. They would be totally self-sufficient. The interviewee kept going back to how the opera 'enriches' the community, and that the community should 'give something back'. I don't like the opera (yes, I've attended, and it sucked), so I don't see how they've given anything back to me, but that's not the point.
The point is that in my view, the interviewee was reluctant to give up the grant from the city not because it would cause the opera company to go under, but because he would then feel like a 'commercial' entity as opposed to an 'artistic' one. He couldn't then walk around with his nose in the air and feel himself above all the 'wage slaves' masses, 'cause he would be one of them. You can forget that the vast majority of the companies income was from ticket sales, it only takes a small grant from a 'higher source' that allows him to 'follow his dream' as opposed to 'working for the man'. With the untethered money from the government, he can be a free spirit that is not sullied by commercial interest.
I see the same dynamic at work here. Art professors who claim that graphic design is not art? Fuck them!! Some of the most beautiful art I've seen has been in advertisements. Coca Cola is one company that has done an excellent job of making their advertisements very artistic. Just look at the number of commercials that had different genres of music, but all had the underlying Coca Cola jingle. Just beautiful in my opinion. But of course, to the low-paid college professor, these can't be art, because to be art the artist must be living in a rat infested motel while starving.
If their argument is that your work isn't 'art' because it's done on a computer, which is a tool for 'graphic design', then what they are saying is that your work looks like something that people pay money for. Take thier derission with pride. Do your classwork in whatever medium they ask it to be done in, and get your good grades. Continue being creative on your computer in your free time. Then look forward to a life of eating well in your own nice, rat-free kitchen while doing what you like after graduation. In other words, laugh at their haughty asses.
This treaty is just silliness that will die of its own accord if one of the implications is that USians have to abide by Chinese laws. Isn't it a crime in China to criticize the Chinese government? (if not in China, it is the law in some countries. Singapore).
How long do you think the big media conglomerates would put up with shit like that? (And we all know who really run this country don't we?)
Not to be rude and post a reply to my own comment, but the "Turing Test" would be valid in my eyes if it said, "A computer is intelligent when an average person can not tell whether is a computer or another person today, when they could easily make the distinction yesterday."
The definition I prefer is: "A human engineered machine that is able to improve its performance of a task over time."
That sort of relieves us of the reliance on the "Turing Test" which should be called the "Turing Guess". You can measure performance at a task and compare that with yesterdays performance. A normal program will do basically the same every time unless someone changes it or the setup. A AI system will adapt itself. With the "Turing Guess", you have someone sitting down and saying "this is real" and someone else arguing that "naah, its just a computer."
If you know an objects initial state, you can compute where it's been. This is not the same as putting it back in it's initial state.
If you add 43 to a register, you've had to drain the capacitance from some circuits and charge up others. The capacitance charge is drained to ground, and you will have to expend energy to move those electrons (or some others) back to Vcc. Sorry, no way around that with modern electronics.
Reversible algorithms make make some times of computing efficient, but not in the 'energy' efficient sense.
Imagine, on the other hand, that the government spends the money it intends to spend on its Rube Goldberg projects and instead diverts that spending to, say, energy-efficiency research or industry tax credits that encourage air conditioner manufacturers to build more efficient models.
No, my argument was not about market forces. You read/. too much. My argument was about convincing people that you're spending money wisely. Think of it this way:
Government We're spending money on a missile defense system to protect you from Sadam Hussien.
People Yeah!YEAH! Tax us again!.
Government We're spending money on tax credits that encourage big business to spend less of their money on air conditioning.
People You're doing what! But big business doesn't pay enough taxes as it is! Why can't you cut the tax on gasoline instead? Stop giving business tax cuts and give me a tax cut!
On the other hand, it would be cool to attach a little wire to this thing and have it run around my torso and limbs just under the surface of the skin. Voila! My very own subdermal chain mail! That would be very cool.
Damn. Here I am, afraid to let a guy stick me with a needle for a tattoo, and you go on about letting a robot drag wire under your skin. DAMN! That would have to hurt, especially after the little sucker turned a corner and tried to drag the wire with it. OUCH!
but we can't build more efficient cars and air conditioners
There is only so much you can do with $X. People are only willing to pay $X for product Y. Then there is the tradeoff:
cheap
efficient
reliable
choose any two. We can make a much more efficent AC if you can talk the whole country (USian bias) into putting a 5yr engineering effort into building YOU one. If you are able to do it, I'd like you to be my friend 8*)
Note that the article said "legally blind". I once worked as a security guard with man who was legally blind! Think about it for a minute and you will see that this will help some people who have to wear thick glasses, but the fact is that this device shines light onto the retina. The eye still has to pick up the light and send it to the brain. It won't give sight to people without it, it will only improve the sight of those who only have a little (not that that is a bad thing 8*)
A thousand leg worm snaking through the grass as businesses spin back and forth trying to keep up while spiders drop on thier head. It would be much easier for them to dodge the spiders if they weren't trying to keep up with that snake in the grass Microsoft.
I think financial wisdom must follow a different thought pattern.
It does. Most people call the thought pattern "blind luck". Most technical people call investing a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess). Face it, investing is no more scientific than betting on sports contest. There are some pretty good indicators that some companies are going to win, but everyone is looking at the same indicators which drives the price of that companies stock higher. Betting (investing) on a 'long shot' will provide better payoffs if that company/team wins, but there's a reason that it's called a long shot.
The best thing I've found to do with my money is to spend it. My kids won't have a big inheritance, and both of us will have to work our asses off to get them through college (why do kids today think they shouldn't have to work while in college is beyond me). But when I'm gone they'll have a lot of fond memories of all the fun we had spending money in the good times, and I won't have to worry about anyone trying to come get their stuff during the bad times ('cause it won't be there). Reckless? Yes, but I've dug ditches before and I can do it again.
Make enough laws and then everyone's a criminal. Then you don't have to worry about things like due process and reasonable cause. The police are free to harass whomsoever they damn well please.
Did you hear that they made it illegal to smother a child to death with blankets in Colorado? Now, what would we do without those thoughtful politicians to help us? Doubtless, this law will be used at some point in the future to arrest a political dissident for tucking his/her kids in bed at night.
Traffic laws have a purpose and are useful, but like so many other things they get bastardized by the politicos. Studies are revealing that town that install those red-light cameras are not shortening the length that the yellow-light stays on. The bastards don't have the balls to tell people that they can't have everything in the world without someone paying for it and then either raise taxes or cut 'services', so they try to raise money by making people 'criminals'.
Whenever you hear that politicians are quarreling instead of 'getting things done' or 'going about the nations business', drop to one knee and thank whatever diety you pray to. Personally, I think they should pull the air-conditioners out of the Congressional Building and all the state legislature buildings. That way the bastards would go home in the summer and have less time to think up ways to fuck us all.
Um...excuse me. CD-Rs don't have an aluminum layer.
CD production tutorial:
Mass produced CDs are made like LP were. A master 'die' is made that is used to press an image that becomes the copy. In the case of CDs, the image is pressed into some aluminum foil which is then covered with more plastic to protect it. LPs were just platic disks that were stamped directly. In both cases, the master 'dies' were/are precision machine parts that are VERY expensive to produce (but their cost are amortized over thousands or hundreds of thousands of parts)
CDR work by having a laser burn a shiny substance sandwiched between two layers of plastic (Both sides are generally clear, but this is because it's cheaper to keep one type of plastic on hand.) When you burn the shiny stuff, it don't shine no mo'.
The advantage of the press is that CDs can be produce at the rate of hundreds or thousands per hour, whereas an 8X burner still takes 10min or so to burn a CD full of data. The advantage of a CD burner is cost (of course).
The point here is that if this was RIAA's plan, they have shot themselves in the foot. CDs that I've burn have no aluminum layer. One more reason to make my own CDs from Napster theft 8*)
BTW, does this now mean that my computer can have a fungus problem as well as viruses? And if I have fungus, will Gold Bond help?
So? Maybe then content providers will concentrate on building efficients sites as opposed to making screen sized GIFs so that they can get "just the right look" in IE.
Second, if everyone has a fast connection, that does not necessarily lead to a server getting hit more often. What it will mean is that a person can get in and out faster. This leads to shorter queues. It is possible that a faster connection can lead to a more efficient web farm, since there will be fewer request sitting in an output queue waiting on an ACK so that it can send more packets.
Of course, in the real world, a faster connection means that I can and will look at more things in a set time period. But if I served 1000 customers/hr all using modems, and then everyone switched to OC-48 overnight, I most likely will still only server 1000 customers/hr.
Slashdot Mirror
Companies are tied to particular computer manufacturers and must pay for bad tailor-made software that can often be bought for a small fraction of the price off the shelf. Japan's hardware revolution offers a chance to change all this. First, though, the Japanese will have to get the software right, too.
Instead, they can be tied to a particular software manufacturer, and pay for bad rehashes of old technology that can be had for free off the Net. First, though, the Japanese will have to start changing thier desktop backgrounds, downloading e-mail viruses and sending each other useless, overly-formatted memos in proprietary formats. Then they will lead the world in IT efficiency.
(newer | glitzy) != more_efficient
"We don't know if it is possible to build a normal personality out of millions of little pieces. This experiment will tell us how reasonable the idea is," Epstein added.
I predict that the result will be about as useful as Congress.
You are to be considered innocent, unless proven guilty. If I am being tracked by a camera, I am NOT being considered innocent.
And what about that cop that sits on the side of the road with that RADAR device. If I am doing nothing wrong, then I am a law-abiding citizen and I fully object to the RADAR just watching me to make sure. As a law-abiding citizen, they have no ethical right to follow me around just because it's possible that I may do something illegal.
And how about that cop just standing on the street corner watching people go by. If I am doing nothing wrong, then I am a law-abiding citizen and I fully object to the EYES just watching me to make sure. As a law-abiding citizen, they have no ethical right to LOOK AT me [...] just because it's possible that I may do something illegal.
Really people, this society has used technology to increase the productivity of every citizen's job. The police force is just one more industry that can be made more efficient with technology. Consider that people with outstanding arrest warrants TEND TO BE CRIMINALS. Then consider that criminals TEND TO COMMIT CRIMES. I don't consider it a bad thing that 1 policeman can do a better job than 10 and do it less obtrusively. It keeps my taxes down; furthermore, the less secure that a car thief feels, the more secure I feel.
Do you ever consider that in all those mistopian movies where the evil police forces track down the hero with cameras that they IGNORE a whole lot of people? If there is a point to debate, it is not what technology the police use to track criminals, but what criteria classifies someone as a criminal. As always, the hard questions are social, not technological.
Linus specifically said that the important kind of messages are the ones that are displayed when something isn't working properly,
/var/log/messages and I happen to notice that you're running the 2yr old ReiserFS code with the security hole, I'll tell you and you will be happy. But because there isn't a problem, ReiserFS doesn't ever say anything and you get cracked.
You see, the problem is that software often doesn't KNOW when something isn't working properly. The software cannot know unless the developer either:
1)predicts every possible failure case or,
2)checks the inputs at every function call (which will slow your 1000GHz Fitztanium to 8086 speeds)
Version numbers are also important. If you show me your
Bootup messages are a very important standard that has become an invaluable troubleshooting tool. Even know that something DOES work is good information when troubleshooting. Linus should leave it alone. If I don't wanna see "ReiserFS is brought to you by MP3.com", I'll either modify it (I do have the source), or I'll use IBM's JFS.
Come on. Little competitive shit like this most definitely IS a problem when a large segment of an industry looks at your 'road map' for what to do next. The point is not that this behavior is illegal or that it violates the anti-trust act. The point is that it is a tactic, and it is a tactic they're using now. It is a tactic that has served Microsoft very well. I picked one example of this tactic off the top of my head. If you want the full list, read a history book that's not written by Bill Gates.
I reiterate. By the time this case finishes, MS won't care about the outcome. They'll pay the measly $100M(US) fine and won't even blink at it. It'll be written off as cost of doing business. Meanwhile, they will have moved on to bigger fish, control of the Internet. They want a piece of every monetary transaction that occurs across the net. In a couple of years (after the bigger fish is netted), they will throw the desktop market to Linux zealots like yesterday's gnawed bone.
But first they have to net the big fish, and for that they need to keep the desktop locked up just a little longer. Endless circles of appeals serve to do just that.
Several people have correctly stated that the ruling was vacated versus being overturned. While this is true, it matters little.
.NET servers in order to even register to vote.
...uhh, Mr. Jackson, sir. You're retiring in a few years, right? Government service hasn't been all that lucrative for you. I'm not asking for you to throw the case. I'm just asking for you to say a couple things that would cast a shadow on the decision.
Microsoft has always played delaying tactics while they bring other guns into play. For instance, when OS/2v4 shipped with voice recognition software, MS execs went on record as saying that it was just a toy and not ready for the real world (despite others and myself doing a lot of useful work with it). Meanwhile, they are investing boat loads of money into voice recognition software.
Gates has simply taken a page from Kirk's play book. If you can't win under the rules, change the rules.
The ruling has been vacated. How long will it take for another judge to be selected? How long until that judge has reviewed all the documents and issued a ruling? How long before that ruling takes effect? YEARS!! And by the time it's played out, Microsoft won't care because we'll all have been long since forced into paying them to authenticate our Internet accounts through their
I can see the seen on that yacht last year like it was yesterday:
Gates: Look, Thomas, I mean,
Jackson: I will not have you get away scott free, Gates.
Gates:You know we're guilty. We know we're guilty. Hell, everybody knows we're guilty. Your finding of facts were rock solid. There is no way we're going to win this case. All we're asking you to do is make a couple comments so that the Appeals Court will have the case reviewed a little longer. We're trying to get out of the OS business. That should make you happy. We just need a little more time...
Jackson stares at the floor, deep in thought...
Why does mr_gerbik have panties to throw at the monitor?
Sarcasm mode on:
Will computers continue to get faster? Will we someday have lightbulbs in every room of the house? Will everyone who wants one be able to afford an automobile one day?
Well, it'll be a few years before we're able to play color video games on our personal computers, but when we do the arcade games will really rock!!
Sarcasm mode off:
Really? What kind of sensless 'wow-computers-are-getting-faster' is this? The article actually makes sense and is interesting. It explains how computers are getting faster. It's the silly, so-called 'editoralizing' that stoopid.
What is Endnote? What is your experience that makes you conclude that Endnote is a killer app for universities (outside of your own)? From my experience, this would be an app specific to your university, but if the DoD adopted it, you bet your bloody tax dollars that every Fortune 500 company would quickly learn about it.
My biggest beef against Microsoft (and yes, I see this as a blow against Microsoft), is their forced upgrade cycle that is made a hurricane by the careful manipulation of the network effects. This reign them in a bit. A corporation that wants to work with the USDOD MUST use DOD forms and formats. Just ask ANYONE who has EVER dealt with DOD contract compliance how picky the inspectors can be and how easy it is to lose a contract over something silly like incompatible font sizes and you will get more than your ears can hold.
If Microsoft tries to force upgrades with incompatible document formats, they will either put in special features for the DOD, or the DOD will throw them out. Then all the corporations will be submitting docs in StarOffice format. And when the CIOs see the cost savings without the need to retrain or track liscences they'll skip the next forced upgrade. Look for M$ stock to start tanking.
I've noticed something about so-called 'artist' and their attitude toward the marketplace. They always like to see themselves as being superior to the average person, as if the they're the embodiment of intellectual refinement.
For instance, I was listening to talk radio a couple weeks ago. The head of the local opera group was being interviewed and taking questions from callers under the premise "Justify Yourself". The host was inviting people who took public money and having them justify to the public why they should recieve that money. The cost for a seat at the opera was $17, and the opera received $40,000 from the city. By raising the cost of a ticket to $21, the opera would not be reliant on the city for anything. They would be totally self-sufficient. The interviewee kept going back to how the opera 'enriches' the community, and that the community should 'give something back'. I don't like the opera (yes, I've attended, and it sucked), so I don't see how they've given anything back to me, but that's not the point.
The point is that in my view, the interviewee was reluctant to give up the grant from the city not because it would cause the opera company to go under, but because he would then feel like a 'commercial' entity as opposed to an 'artistic' one. He couldn't then walk around with his nose in the air and feel himself above all the 'wage slaves' masses, 'cause he would be one of them. You can forget that the vast majority of the companies income was from ticket sales, it only takes a small grant from a 'higher source' that allows him to 'follow his dream' as opposed to 'working for the man'. With the untethered money from the government, he can be a free spirit that is not sullied by commercial interest.
I see the same dynamic at work here. Art professors who claim that graphic design is not art? Fuck them!! Some of the most beautiful art I've seen has been in advertisements. Coca Cola is one company that has done an excellent job of making their advertisements very artistic. Just look at the number of commercials that had different genres of music, but all had the underlying Coca Cola jingle. Just beautiful in my opinion. But of course, to the low-paid college professor, these can't be art, because to be art the artist must be living in a rat infested motel while starving.
If their argument is that your work isn't 'art' because it's done on a computer, which is a tool for 'graphic design', then what they are saying is that your work looks like something that people pay money for. Take thier derission with pride. Do your classwork in whatever medium they ask it to be done in, and get your good grades. Continue being creative on your computer in your free time. Then look forward to a life of eating well in your own nice, rat-free kitchen while doing what you like after graduation. In other words, laugh at their haughty asses.
This treaty is just silliness that will die of its own accord if one of the implications is that USians have to abide by Chinese laws. Isn't it a crime in China to criticize the Chinese government? (if not in China, it is the law in some countries. Singapore).
How long do you think the big media conglomerates would put up with shit like that? (And we all know who really run this country don't we?)
Not to be rude and post a reply to my own comment, but the "Turing Test" would be valid in my eyes if it said, "A computer is intelligent when an average person can not tell whether is a computer or another person today, when they could easily make the distinction yesterday."
The definition I prefer is: "A human engineered machine that is able to improve its performance of a task over time."
That sort of relieves us of the reliance on the "Turing Test" which should be called the "Turing Guess". You can measure performance at a task and compare that with yesterdays performance. A normal program will do basically the same every time unless someone changes it or the setup. A AI system will adapt itself. With the "Turing Guess", you have someone sitting down and saying "this is real" and someone else arguing that "naah, its just a computer."
See: Perpetual motion machine.
If you know an objects initial state, you can compute where it's been. This is not the same as putting it back in it's initial state.
If you add 43 to a register, you've had to drain the capacitance from some circuits and charge up others. The capacitance charge is drained to ground, and you will have to expend energy to move those electrons (or some others) back to Vcc. Sorry, no way around that with modern electronics.
Reversible algorithms make make some times of computing efficient, but not in the 'energy' efficient sense.
Ummm. Having a woody 24/7. Wait. No thanks. I have that now 8*)
No, my argument was not about market forces. You read
Government We're spending money on a missile defense system to protect you from Sadam Hussien.
People Yeah!YEAH! Tax us again!.
Government We're spending money on tax credits that encourage big business to spend less of their money on air conditioning.
People You're doing what! But big business doesn't pay enough taxes as it is! Why can't you cut the tax on gasoline instead? Stop giving business tax cuts and give me a tax cut!
You see, it's not about market forces.
Damn. Here I am, afraid to let a guy stick me with a needle for a tattoo, and you go on about letting a robot drag wire under your skin. DAMN! That would have to hurt, especially after the little sucker turned a corner and tried to drag the wire with it. OUCH!
There is only so much you can do with $X. People are only willing to pay $X for product Y. Then there is the tradeoff:
- cheap
- efficient
- reliable
choose any two. We can make a much more efficent AC if you can talk the whole country (USian bias) into putting a 5yr engineering effort into building YOU one. If you are able to do it, I'd like you to be my friend 8*)A thousand leg worm snaking through the grass as businesses spin back and forth trying to keep up while spiders drop on thier head. It would be much easier for them to dodge the spiders if they weren't trying to keep up with that snake in the grass Microsoft.
It does. Most people call the thought pattern "blind luck". Most technical people call investing a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess). Face it, investing is no more scientific than betting on sports contest. There are some pretty good indicators that some companies are going to win, but everyone is looking at the same indicators which drives the price of that companies stock higher. Betting (investing) on a 'long shot' will provide better payoffs if that company/team wins, but there's a reason that it's called a long shot.
The best thing I've found to do with my money is to spend it. My kids won't have a big inheritance, and both of us will have to work our asses off to get them through college (why do kids today think they shouldn't have to work while in college is beyond me). But when I'm gone they'll have a lot of fond memories of all the fun we had spending money in the good times, and I won't have to worry about anyone trying to come get their stuff during the bad times ('cause it won't be there). Reckless? Yes, but I've dug ditches before and I can do it again.
Did you hear that they made it illegal to smother a child to death with blankets in Colorado? Now, what would we do without those thoughtful politicians to help us? Doubtless, this law will be used at some point in the future to arrest a political dissident for tucking his/her kids in bed at night.
Traffic laws have a purpose and are useful, but like so many other things they get bastardized by the politicos. Studies are revealing that town that install those red-light cameras are not shortening the length that the yellow-light stays on. The bastards don't have the balls to tell people that they can't have everything in the world without someone paying for it and then either raise taxes or cut 'services', so they try to raise money by making people 'criminals'.
Whenever you hear that politicians are quarreling instead of 'getting things done' or 'going about the nations business', drop to one knee and thank whatever diety you pray to. Personally, I think they should pull the air-conditioners out of the Congressional Building and all the state legislature buildings. That way the bastards would go home in the summer and have less time to think up ways to fuck us all.
CD production tutorial:
Mass produced CDs are made like LP were. A master 'die' is made that is used to press an image that becomes the copy. In the case of CDs, the image is pressed into some aluminum foil which is then covered with more plastic to protect it. LPs were just platic disks that were stamped directly. In both cases, the master 'dies' were/are precision machine parts that are VERY expensive to produce (but their cost are amortized over thousands or hundreds of thousands of parts)
CDR work by having a laser burn a shiny substance sandwiched between two layers of plastic (Both sides are generally clear, but this is because it's cheaper to keep one type of plastic on hand.) When you burn the shiny stuff, it don't shine no mo'.
The advantage of the press is that CDs can be produce at the rate of hundreds or thousands per hour, whereas an 8X burner still takes 10min or so to burn a CD full of data. The advantage of a CD burner is cost (of course).
The point here is that if this was RIAA's plan, they have shot themselves in the foot. CDs that I've burn have no aluminum layer. One more reason to make my own CDs from Napster theft 8*)
BTW, does this now mean that my computer can have a fungus problem as well as viruses? And if I have fungus, will Gold Bond help?
Second, if everyone has a fast connection, that does not necessarily lead to a server getting hit more often. What it will mean is that a person can get in and out faster. This leads to shorter queues. It is possible that a faster connection can lead to a more efficient web farm, since there will be fewer request sitting in an output queue waiting on an ACK so that it can send more packets.
Of course, in the real world, a faster connection means that I can and will look at more things in a set time period. But if I served 1000 customers/hr all using modems, and then everyone switched to OC-48 overnight, I most likely will still only server 1000 customers/hr.