That's what you get when you leave your garbage in orbit!... I dunno what they were thinking.
As with most issues in the space program, this is not as simple as it sounds. The debris in question is an old Soviet-era rocket booster, which travels into orbit along with whatever payload it's carrying. Unless some action is taken, it will circle the earth for hundreds of years until the extremely rareified upper atmosphere creates enough drag to bring it down. In order to remove these objects from orbit, you would have to install a retro-rocket system to bring it down on command, which would introduce complexity and cost quite a lot of weight. The debris has to come down somewhere, and if the de-orbiting device malfunctions, it will come down over Chicago rather than some isolated patch of the Pacific. Furthermore, most of the debris that people are worried about are not huge boosters, but tiny rice-grain-sized specs, which are impossible to track and account for.
Firstly, an affirmative answer to the NP=P? conjecture only means that there is a solution to every NP-complete problem in P. That is, there exists a solution for every NP-complete problem that is O(n^d), where d is a constant integer. If d > 3, the solution would be practically infeasible anyway. Furthermore, even with an O(n) problem, this only means that the computational complexity approaches C*n in the limit of large n, where C is some constant. If C has to be arbitrarily large, or there exists a large constant additive factor in any potential solution, again the solution is infeasible.
Furthermore, the security of public key cryptography does not rely on NP!=P. It is not known whether the discrete-log and integer factoring problems are in NP (I think... correct me if that's wrong). In fact, some CS researchers believe public key cryptography to be insecure, since some brilliant person could come up with a feasible factoring algorithm tomorrow, without requiring that NP=P.
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To access our SPAM LAWSUIT SERVICE, send a $50 (US) cheque or money order to: Secret Illegal Account, Cayman Islands Holding Corporation, Grand Cayman. Don't miss out on your chance to CASH IN on SPAM!
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In essence, is not this the same as file compression? The amount of information is the same
(for those, who remember, what Bit is).
It is more than merely compression. The received data is compressed, which saves transmission time, but this technology is already well known (and the company isn't claiming a compression rate better than entropy, or anything else silly). The innovation here is the elimination of acknowledgement or ARQ packets. I'm speculating here, but it looks like they are encoding the data by transforming a file into a huge "codeword" -- when the codeword is transmitted, the receiver waits for enough packets to correctly decode the codeword, which results in the recovery of the file. There's no need for ARQ or TCP because transmitting extra codeword elements will automatically correct any errors incurred in transmission.
are you saying that Canada has a communist government?
Well, at least it's a one party state. However, regardless of any open source movement in "leftist" Canada, it should be pointed out that about five years ago, the Canadian government signed a contract to use Microsoft Office exclusively, thereby screwing Ottawa-based Corel.
I agree that academia tends to support open source software, which has several reasons, in my experience. Firstly, academics are accustomed to peer review, and are comfortable with the notion that inspection by an independent expert tends to improve research. Secondly, academics' livelihoods depends directly on the scientific and not the commercial significance of their work. Most academics have an awareness that their salary is paid for by the generosity of government and industry, who (usually) don't expect anything specific in return; this leads to a desire to give something tangible back (such as the software that results from a research project). Finally, it is usually true that the software produced by academics is not important in itself; instead, it is the idea behind the software that academics want to promulgate; releasing the source code is the quickest way to spreading this idea.
Personally, I release my simulation software in the hope that another researcher continuing my work won't have to waste six months writing his/her own software from scratch.
Yes, but it's more like the crank physicist argument. People laughed at and persecuted Einstein; people are laughing at and persecuting me; therefore, my ideas are equally significant to Einstein's. Just replace Paine with Einstein and you have the essence of the article.
This has got to be a first. I thought you weren't supposed to take any legal advice given on Slashdot; but here's a real, live lawyer asking for it. Did the world end while I was in the john?
Why isn't a Linux company signing up (like RedHat)? That would give the project a little more clout in terms of a clearly defined software platform... rather than, say, "Liberty Alliance for Windows", which would have to compete with a passport icon already on the desktop.
If there are other lifeforms out there, what are the
chances that they would be on the same technological level as us?
Even if they had something more advanced than radio waves (whatever that might be), certainly they would realize that RF is a cheap, simple, robust solution to certain problems -- such as, say, navigational beacons. Even on Earth, with GPS and other hi-tech navigational aids governing the waterways, we still use lighthouses to say "stay away" in the clearest possible language.
Fermi's objection to the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations goes something like this: It should take a spacefaring civilization about 1-10 million years to colonize a space the size of the galaxy, even without faster than light travel (the idea is exponential growth -- we send two colonies, then they send two colonies each, and so on). Since 10 million years is short with respect to the amount of time the galaxy has existed (10 billion years) and the amount of time that life has existed on Earth (4 billion years), there should be evidence of colonization everywhere, even if there is as few as one advanced civilization. So, where is everybody?
I'd like to know if the book discusses this. Many SETI researchers are approaching the conclusion that humanity is the most advanced form of life in our own galaxy, at least.
Microsoft invents Customer Feedback
on
Windows XP Embedded
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
That perception, Microsoft says, is precisely
why everyone on the development team of its Talisker embedded operating system now
logs hours every week, chatting about the OS in news groups, checking out "bug reports"
on a dedicated Web site and meeting with users face-to-face at "plugfests," where they
discuss Talisker programming experiences.
Congrats to Microsoft for inventing
web basedbug tracking. Truly this is a great day for software.
I can't help but to point out the thick irony of RMS, on the one hand, arguing that open source software is all about freedom over power, and on the other hand, running for the GNOME board of directors to restrict the freedom of users to use GNOME with closed-source software, thereby maintaining power over what he sees as "his" project.
I like this family discount idea. If I wrote to somebody at freebsd.org and asked for a family license, do you think they would give me $10 to install FreeBSD on each additional computer in my home?
After 7 years of Voyager
and now the godawful Enterprise,
In the immortal words of Bart Simpson:
Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain?...
They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for
free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe
them.
Octave is a matrix manipulation package, released under GPL - basically a clone of MATLAB. It has scripting capabilities, which allow development of simulation software.
My last move I said "fuck it" and shipped it all regular mail.
I sent a computer (system unit only) across the country using the postal service, in original packing, and it arrived just fine -- cost around $15 from Ontario to Alberta. The only problem (according to the recipient) was that there was nobody home on delivery, so the posties left it on the front porch, fully exposed to the elements, wildlife, and unsavoury characters.
Now, I don't think I'd consign a brand new machine to the postal service, but it worked well for me...
Re:same reason we still run gasoline engines.....
on
Clockless Chips
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Actually, I bet there would at least some marketing cachet associated with a "clockless" chip. Remember a decade ago when CD player DACs went from 16 bits to 18 or 20 bits, then suddenly the coolest thing going was a "1 bit" DAC (i.e., a delta modulator)? The buying public will tend to go for whatever marketing decides is trendy.
The reason why asynchronous logic hasn't hit store shelves yet probably has to do more with implementational difficulties than marketing. I was taught synchronous logic design for my EE degree -- it's easier to design something when you know that results in remote parts of the chip are synchronized to the clock.
When you looked at a timing plot for a circuit, it was usually pretty easy to debug because some parts of the circuit were clearly taking too long to execute their tasks -- and the solution was equally straightforward, decrease the clock speed. Designing for asynchronous circuits is probably much harder, since tentative results can screw things up. Furthermore, it's hard to imagine how some design techniques such as pipelining can work in an asynchronous environment.
Do his arguments hold up to strong discussion? Not really, but at least they
provoke the discussion.
Isn't that the dictionary definition of a troll?
Adams is smug
on
God's Debris
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I haven't read this book. However, Adams exposed his "serious writer" persona in the last section of "Dilbert Future", in which he talked about his personal observations on science and humanity. I found this section the weakest of the book -- it was poorly thought out and scarcely researched. Furthermore, Adams' smug writing style needs to be offset by humor in order to avoid seeming arrogant. Many of his claims about physics in "Dilbert Future" are easily disproven by anyone who can think critically. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this one.
When I arrived at my current place of work, I admitted to knowing a few linux hacks. Suddenly I'm the sysadmin, in addition to my real job. Now I get to spend hours and hours helping newbies configure their systems, cut ethernet cables, and clean up the carnage when we get hacked.
Don't make the same mistake I did. Never admit to sysadmin knowledge, or you will be marked for life.
Slashdot Mirror
That's what you get when you leave your garbage in orbit! ... I dunno what they were thinking.
As with most issues in the space program, this is not as simple as it sounds. The debris in question is an old Soviet-era rocket booster, which travels into orbit along with whatever payload it's carrying. Unless some action is taken, it will circle the earth for hundreds of years until the extremely rareified upper atmosphere creates enough drag to bring it down. In order to remove these objects from orbit, you would have to install a retro-rocket system to bring it down on command, which would introduce complexity and cost quite a lot of weight. The debris has to come down somewhere, and if the de-orbiting device malfunctions, it will come down over Chicago rather than some isolated patch of the Pacific. Furthermore, most of the debris that people are worried about are not huge boosters, but tiny rice-grain-sized specs, which are impossible to track and account for.
Firstly, an affirmative answer to the NP=P? conjecture only means that there is a solution to every NP-complete problem in P. That is, there exists a solution for every NP-complete problem that is O(n^d), where d is a constant integer. If d > 3, the solution would be practically infeasible anyway. Furthermore, even with an O(n) problem, this only means that the computational complexity approaches C*n in the limit of large n, where C is some constant. If C has to be arbitrarily large, or there exists a large constant additive factor in any potential solution, again the solution is infeasible.
Furthermore, the security of public key cryptography does not rely on NP!=P. It is not known whether the discrete-log and integer factoring problems are in NP (I think ... correct me if that's wrong). In fact, some CS researchers believe public key cryptography to be insecure, since some brilliant person could come up with a feasible factoring algorithm tomorrow, without requiring that NP=P.
They would only arrive slightly faster. There are simulated annealing algorithms that solve the problem in O(n) with good (but suboptimal) solutions.
Actually this is probably a sign of things getting back to normal: a Dimitry Sklyarov story and a Gary Condit story running in the same week.
I mean, this is great for Dimitry, but it seemed like a perfect case to test the DMCA against the First Amendment.
Dear Friend,
This message could CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Are you tired of a go-nowhere job and a clogged inbox? You can make THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FAST by SUING SPAMMERS! Our patented technique is GUARANTEED to GET YOU RICH using anti-spam laws that only our experts know about!!!
Steve D., of Omaha, Nebraska, writes: "I couldn't believe that I could actually MAKE MONEY FAST by SUING SPAMMERS! Now I make $10,000 a month just for receiving spam. You guys are great!"
To access our SPAM LAWSUIT SERVICE, send a $50 (US) cheque or money order to: Secret Illegal Account, Cayman Islands Holding Corporation, Grand Cayman. Don't miss out on your chance to CASH IN on SPAM!
PS. This is a one-time mailing. To be removed from future mailings, please go to http://www.ha-ha-ha-up-yours.com and click "Remove".
In essence, is not this the same as file compression? The amount of information is the same (for those, who remember, what Bit is).
It is more than merely compression. The received data is compressed, which saves transmission time, but this technology is already well known (and the company isn't claiming a compression rate better than entropy, or anything else silly). The innovation here is the elimination of acknowledgement or ARQ packets. I'm speculating here, but it looks like they are encoding the data by transforming a file into a huge "codeword" -- when the codeword is transmitted, the receiver waits for enough packets to correctly decode the codeword, which results in the recovery of the file. There's no need for ARQ or TCP because transmitting extra codeword elements will automatically correct any errors incurred in transmission.
are you saying that Canada has a communist government?
Well, at least it's a one party state. However, regardless of any open source movement in "leftist" Canada, it should be pointed out that about five years ago, the Canadian government signed a contract to use Microsoft Office exclusively, thereby screwing Ottawa-based Corel.
Personally, I release my simulation software in the hope that another researcher continuing my work won't have to waste six months writing his/her own software from scratch.
Yes, but it's more like the crank physicist argument. People laughed at and persecuted Einstein; people are laughing at and persecuting me; therefore, my ideas are equally significant to Einstein's. Just replace Paine with Einstein and you have the essence of the article.
Physicists succeed where psychics fail.
Sure, but can it tell me whether my wife is cheating on me? Or that I will meet a mysterious stranger after a journey of great distance?
This has got to be a first. I thought you weren't supposed to take any legal advice given on Slashdot; but here's a real, live lawyer asking for it. Did the world end while I was in the john?
Why isn't a Linux company signing up (like RedHat)? That would give the project a little more clout in terms of a clearly defined software platform ... rather than, say, "Liberty Alliance for Windows", which would have to compete with a passport icon already on the desktop.
If there are other lifeforms out there, what are the chances that they would be on the same technological level as us?
Even if they had something more advanced than radio waves (whatever that might be), certainly they would realize that RF is a cheap, simple, robust solution to certain problems -- such as, say, navigational beacons. Even on Earth, with GPS and other hi-tech navigational aids governing the waterways, we still use lighthouses to say "stay away" in the clearest possible language.
Fermi's objection to the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations goes something like this: It should take a spacefaring civilization about 1-10 million years to colonize a space the size of the galaxy, even without faster than light travel (the idea is exponential growth -- we send two colonies, then they send two colonies each, and so on). Since 10 million years is short with respect to the amount of time the galaxy has existed (10 billion years) and the amount of time that life has existed on Earth (4 billion years), there should be evidence of colonization everywhere, even if there is as few as one advanced civilization. So, where is everybody?
I'd like to know if the book discusses this. Many SETI researchers are approaching the conclusion that humanity is the most advanced form of life in our own galaxy, at least.
That perception, Microsoft says, is precisely why everyone on the development team of its Talisker embedded operating system now logs hours every week, chatting about the OS in news groups, checking out "bug reports" on a dedicated Web site and meeting with users face-to-face at "plugfests," where they discuss Talisker programming experiences.
Congrats to Microsoft for inventing web based bug tracking. Truly this is a great day for software.
I can't help but to point out the thick irony of RMS, on the one hand, arguing that open source software is all about freedom over power, and on the other hand, running for the GNOME board of directors to restrict the freedom of users to use GNOME with closed-source software, thereby maintaining power over what he sees as "his" project.
I like this family discount idea. If I wrote to somebody at freebsd.org and asked for a family license, do you think they would give me $10 to install FreeBSD on each additional computer in my home?
After 7 years of Voyager and now the godawful Enterprise,
In the immortal words of Bart Simpson:Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain? ...
They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for
free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe
them.
Octave is a matrix manipulation package, released under GPL - basically a clone of MATLAB. It has scripting capabilities, which allow development of simulation software.
My last move I said "fuck it" and shipped it all regular mail.
I sent a computer (system unit only) across the country using the postal service, in original packing, and it arrived just fine -- cost around $15 from Ontario to Alberta. The only problem (according to the recipient) was that there was nobody home on delivery, so the posties left it on the front porch, fully exposed to the elements, wildlife, and unsavoury characters.
Now, I don't think I'd consign a brand new machine to the postal service, but it worked well for me ...
Actually, I bet there would at least some marketing cachet associated with a "clockless" chip. Remember a decade ago when CD player DACs went from 16 bits to 18 or 20 bits, then suddenly the coolest thing going was a "1 bit" DAC (i.e., a delta modulator)? The buying public will tend to go for whatever marketing decides is trendy.
The reason why asynchronous logic hasn't hit store shelves yet probably has to do more with implementational difficulties than marketing. I was taught synchronous logic design for my EE degree -- it's easier to design something when you know that results in remote parts of the chip are synchronized to the clock. When you looked at a timing plot for a circuit, it was usually pretty easy to debug because some parts of the circuit were clearly taking too long to execute their tasks -- and the solution was equally straightforward, decrease the clock speed. Designing for asynchronous circuits is probably much harder, since tentative results can screw things up. Furthermore, it's hard to imagine how some design techniques such as pipelining can work in an asynchronous environment.
Do his arguments hold up to strong discussion? Not really, but at least they provoke the discussion.
Isn't that the dictionary definition of a troll?
I haven't read this book. However, Adams exposed his "serious writer" persona in the last section of "Dilbert Future", in which he talked about his personal observations on science and humanity. I found this section the weakest of the book -- it was poorly thought out and scarcely researched. Furthermore, Adams' smug writing style needs to be offset by humor in order to avoid seeming arrogant. Many of his claims about physics in "Dilbert Future" are easily disproven by anyone who can think critically. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this one.
When I arrived at my current place of work, I admitted to knowing a few linux hacks. Suddenly I'm the sysadmin, in addition to my real job. Now I get to spend hours and hours helping newbies configure their systems, cut ethernet cables, and clean up the carnage when we get hacked.
Don't make the same mistake I did. Never admit to sysadmin knowledge, or you will be marked for life.