The problem isn't the message itself, it's the messengers.
I agree with that statement, but understood in its widest sense: not just the target audience, also a big proportion of people performing these studies. Finding reliable enough trends to get truly worthy insights into a wide variety of phenomena is certainly possible. The problem is that getting that ideal result in quite a few scenarios is really difficult; it requires lots of knowledge (including high quality information), objectivity and resources which are rarely available.
AI knows if you have skin cancer.
That sentence refers to a goal which is quite likely to be accomplished within pretty high accuracy levels. But the huge number of possible scenarios (different types of cancer, different skins, etc.) and further technical hurdles (automating the reliable analysis of a so big number of images is a quite complex task in itself) are incompatible with the surrounding buzzword, give-me-quick-results, show-me-something-I-can-understand constraints. To not mention the fact that lying (or partially telling the truth or focusing on a very favourable set of conditions or wanting way too much to get good results) is usually quite easy because of the aforementioned gimme-something-quick.
DISCLAIMER: all the aforementioned ideas reflect my impressions about the most common problems in certain areas of expertise. Nothing of this applies to me. I have always been extremely cautious, objective and honest when dealing with these situations. On the other hand, I have never been involved in situations like trying to come up with a reliable way to diagnose cancer.
Note that my comments here are a continuation of a previous discussion. As you can see there, I was a happy Windows 7 user expecting to continue being that way until I discovered that my new hardware wasn't supporting Windows 7; rather than forcibly using Windows 10, I preferred to move to Linux (first time ever on my main computer). So, if you are a Windows 7 user planning to buy new hardware, you should take a look at that other thread + do some pre-research because it might not be supported.
You can thank Intel for that. Not Microsoft. Remember USB 3.0 wasn't even invented yet when Windows 7 was made.
It is a so difficult problem that even Intel (without access to the OS source code) has created its own solution.
Microsoft gets paid by the seat licenses either way so it makes no difference.
Because all what they did before with this stupidly imposing attitude made sense, right? Windows 10 seems to be a good version, perhaps even better than Windows 7; why not letting the product speak for itself? Why trying to force clients by scaring lots of them? Why they had everything on their side to have an excellent medium-/long-term evolution and they did what they did? Perhaps because they got nervous? Because the initial targets weren't met and some manager thought that forcing clients was a better idea than just being patient? A stupid decision. It doesn't make sense; exactly the same than Intel providing ways to use USB 3.0 with Windows 7, but not enabling it in their new machines. In any case and as said, I don't care about the final responsible, the underlying reason was Microsoft's decision of unilaterally imposing Windows 10 to everyone.
Now they swear by 8 year old win 7 and are shocked it's become difficult to use on new hardware.
Not sure if these statements are related to me in any way or not but as far as we had a recent chat on pretty similar lines, I would assume that it is the case and here I go, for me and for my generation:)
Firstly, I am 39 and am not sure whether all the other people of my age feels like I do but am very far away from starting to feel afraid of any kind of innovation. Much less in anything related to computers and software because this is what my work is about; in fact, I am not precisely doing standard stuff but trying always to go a bit further, to innovate. My impression is that software-related people around my age with all what this entails (e.g., relevant amount of work experience, mostly related to software) is everything but scared of change, although the logical behaviour is to not change (only a fool believe that magical, working-perfectly new approaches can compete with actual knowledge, experience and being comfortable with certain conditions). Actually, having a relevant experience is a basic requirement for becoming proficient in the programming/software world, much more now with the increasingly big number of alternatives and higher complexity. In fact, experienced-enough people are usually more opinionated in the sense of objectively criticising/appraising, what might be somehow inconvenient for some theoretically-technical companies which seem to have moved from objective correctness into the fan-based world.
Even by ignoring the experience/background/objectivity aspects, letting fear influence any relevant decisions sounds as a quite stupid behaviour. Assuming that certain person has performed whatever action, not because of a sensible reason, but because of something as childish as fear (to what?! To not knowing how to use increasingly easier formats?!) is almost an insult to that person; it is pretty much the same than arbitrarily calling that person an idiot. I don't know how it was back in your times (from your UID, your nick and the way in which talk, I presume that you are notably older than me), but my generation (the current 40-ers) has grown with computers and technology everywhere (like the younger ones, without the disadvantage of over-saturation and companies/movies trying to indoctrinate them into some kind of fanatic love for a company/product). I have been working on programming/engineering and completely into all this world for over 10 years, but some time before that my behaviour was completely different; people who met me 20 years ago might not even believe my current occupation/knowledge/likenesses; but even back then when I wasn't caring too much about all this, I was systematically surrounded by computers/software and never felt anything even close to fear to use a so idiot-proof piece of software as an operating system.
What I saw the other day when trying to install my Windows 7 copy in my brand new computer wasn't scaring to me. I simply didn't like it. I don't have to like what Microsoft or any other company does. I don't have to be afraid of sharing my honest impression about what I don't like of a company whose products I consume (= I am their client = their everything = my voice has to matter to them, their voice is irrelevant to me). Additionally, if that company delivers the tools which I use in my highly-specialised work (almost my hobby too), where I am an expert, my opinion about their decisions should still be more relevant to them.
I have been using Windows as my primary OS for quite a few years; I have used Linux quite a lot too, but always secondarily, never installed it my main machine, the one I use to perform my work. When I saw the problem I commented the other day, I decided to move to Linux in the same spot: moving to a completely different format without having thought about it even 1 hour before! This
I am currently building a web-domain ranking whose main metric is counting (properly-weighted) backlinks. This has allowed me to have a quite good understanding about another online fake reality, which is likely to also be closely related to these fake news: domains whose sole purpose is to backlink others as a way to improve their visibility. I have found quite a few situations involving various thousands of different domains, repeating the same or similar content or even not content at all and linking to all the other domains in the corresponding fake network. Some times the names are very similar (site1a.com, site1b.com, site1c.com), other times they are pure nonsense (asdfasdf.com, aserrffeff.com, dddeddfsfs.com, asdfasdf.com) and there are even quite elaborate cases (whatever.com, otherhing.com, nothingtodowithothers.com).
These are quite common scenarios and, actually, represent one of the main obstacles for my ranking to deliver accurate enough conclusions. That fact, together with the associated cost/effort and not being precisely easy to be tracked, seems to indicate that this kind of crappy approaches are actually very profitable. I might even say that the current internet reality, formed by search engines, advertisers, investors, users, etc., somehow promotes these behaviours: the prize is high (at least, for those caring just about money) and the eventual punishment virtually inexistent. Fully solving all this seems almost impossible, although more demanding users looking for high-quality, reliable, objective outputs (as opposed to anything, quickly, easily and from anywhere) might certainly help to improve things.
Disney gets to claim THEY made "Snow white" - and all they have to do to get away with it is include "Based on the novel by Hans Christian Anderson" in fine print somewhere in the end credits.
This is a too old example which isn't too compatible with the current situation, mainly when dealing with code and in internet; to not mention the fact the original author was dead long time ago. Additionally, if I was in a situation similar to that myself, I am not sure that I could feel like claiming a lot to Disney, because they did a relevant amount of work on top of the original story.
Let's take as an example one of my public domain codes, a unit-parsing library. If a company develops a new tool and uses that library as the engine for the unit-parsing part, they would have to acknowledge me as the original author. But if they keep evolving the unit-parsing algorithm until making my original code almost irrelevant, they might rightfully stop referring to me at all. I don't think that I should be recognised just by the fact that they took my original idea or even started their development from my library. In fact, this is pretty much the whole point of sharing that library as public domain: being actually used, perhaps as final users or perhaps as inspiration for new developments.
All what I want is my work to be properly appraised and only for as long as it continues being mostly mine. My work isn't just having ideas for new software, but fully developing reliable, adaptable, user-friendly, etc. pieces of software. I think that the distinction between unfairly appropriating of what isn't yours against the evident intention of its original author vs. using that something as expected seems quite clear. Honestly, I don't think that I will ever have serious problems on this front.
Your public domain code is open to same trap. If somebody uses it do build something else
There are certainly lots of people with low-to-no self-respect or decency; perhaps just too shortsighted or dishonest-to-themselves to think that actions on these lines are acceptable. I prefer to not care about all that and to simply be reasonably diligent such that my work can be properly appraised by sensible and knowledgeable people (the aforementioned attitudes are usually common among people with low technical knowledge). There will always be undoubted ways to prove that I am the legitimate author and even what was my original sharing-with-everyone intention. I will not be the one who has to hide anything or try to come up with lies or ways to somehow justify objectively unjustifiable actions. Just the fact of not having that peace of mind (+ eventually having to pay the consequences of their actions) sounds as a quite hard punishment. I will never exchange the fact of feeling extremely proud about all what I do, having to hide nothing and even doing so good things that others want to steal them for anything else; for me and probably for most of people who have ever enjoyed it, this peace of mind is priceless.
What you think you're doing is not what you're actually doing- what you want to do means using a BSD or MIT license at the very least, or maybe even a copyleft license like the GPL.
I am sure about what I am doing: sharing with others what I can share and being consistent with what I would expect from others. What you propose offers pretty much the same level of protection than my approach does. Anyone wanting to play dirty could also act against explicit restrictions of any form of copyright; in that case, you would have the same defence: relying on whatever judicial system is applicable which, theoretically, should favour the correct position. Dishonestly appropriating of public domain seems as bad as breaking specific copyright prohibitions and, as such, should be equally protected. The exact protection of each situation would depend upon what national jurisdiction is applicable to the given problem. But nothing of this concerns me: firstly, because I generate new code quite easily and, in fact, my business is precisely doing such a thing (why I release all my code as public domain, you wonder? This is a self-promotion of my coding skills providing a clear picture for future employers willing to hire me as a programmer); and, secondly, because I am never worried about the eventuality of someone treating me unfairly: I will make whatever decision on a case by case basis by being sure that I did nothing wrong.
Also, releasing something into the public domain means abandoning all rights to it. So rather than ensuring Google can't patent it, he ensured that he has no standing to sue.
I release all my public code into the public domain and everyone can use it as they wish. A different story is people claiming that they are the original authors or trying to arbitrarily restrict their usage. As a public-domain enjoyer, you can only use whatever together with any other person; but you cannot convert what belongs to everyone and was created by someone else in your own.
After seeing the last stupidity about LSD (to improve productivity!!), I do feel like writing a tiny clarification here to somehow account for the specific aspect of stupidity/ignorance which most likely justifies the aforementioned +1 interesting.
Although I don't take any kind of drugs (including soft ones like alcohol or tobacco) since some years ago (never ever at work and I usually post on Slashdot from my office) and was never a heavy user neither tried many/hard ones, I did tried some drugs in the past mainly while being a student; always sporadically, when partying/having nothing relevant to do and by enjoying the experiences (= never felt anything even remotely close to any kind of addition). I did try some hallucinogens and did like them.
Despite my not-too-relevant experience with drugs, I think that my ideas about their most likely effects are quite clear. With hallucinogens, for example, you might get the point of seeing weird shapes/colours, even kind-of-imagining a small inexistent pseudo-reality, but mainly in that specific moment. When the effects disappear you should realise about pretty much everything, like waking up from a dream. Also your willingness to (not) see is also quite important. So, I don't think that it is possible that someone could ever think that some unrealistic craziness on drugs is real; unless that person wants to think/say that it is the case or under extreme conditions like a heavy user.
I am completely against any kind of drug in the work environment, simply because of being completely incompatible with what I consider work (= what I do): performing a demanding-enough engineering/programming work is pretty much the opposite to the relax-prone environment where certain substances are expected to be used. On the other hand, people performing artistic-/ideation-focused tasks might take some advantage from the stress-reduction which might be associated with the consumption of certain substance; but, objectively speaking, the capabilities of that person will be certainly reduced. Anyway, all that isn't applicable to me or to the kind of technical-intensive work environment in which I am looking to be involved; the only drugs which can affect my behaviour are illness, tiredness or similar:)
Modded +1 Interesting! Pffff. Adding one "LOL" (= laughing out loud = I am joking) + answering to an evident joke by evidently extending the ideas in said joke is still too confusing for some people. And I am writing all this despite having fully accepted absolute (online) stupidity!
So, you choose answer #2. This seems also the case with the people who developed this AI: uneducated guesses whose reliability is conditioned by either randomness (0.333 probability of your guesses to be right in each scenario; logically, you can only tell one possible output every time: 1 out of 3) or the highly-constrained essence of the underlying reality (as suggested in other comments, most of people are straight and choosing that option has a higher probability of success than any other alternative). These "solutions" have pretty much the same accuracy than flipping a coin or randomly choosing any of the available alternatives. This is everything but properly understanding the situation and delivering a reliable prediction. There is simply not enough information to understand what is going on and you can do nothing to change that reality.
Input -> Output A -> 1 A -> 2 A -> 3 B -> 4 B -> 5 B -> 6
I can think about the following possible answers to the question "by just looking at this information, can you develop an approach able to predict output from input?":
ANSWER #1. No. There is no way to come up with any methodology delivering even likely-to-be accurate conclusions. If further information is provided, it might be proven that the underlying behaviour might be suitable to be predicted, but certainly not under these conditions.
ANSWER #2. Sure. I can apply methodology X and will certainly know the right answer within a Y range of accuracy.
ANSWER #3. There has to be a way to come up with the solution. I don't have too much knowledge about all this myself, but experts should be able to build something by relying on advanced maths or perhaps AI.
ADDITIONAL CONCERN. This example has nothing to do with what is discussed in the linked article.
I can tell you my position: answer #1 without a single doubt. I would say it right away after having looked at those inputs (which I do consider descriptive enough of what is being discussed here) for some seconds; exactly the same than what I did after just reading the title here. What about you? What would have been your answer or your concerns regarding the relationship of this example with the linked article?
Als like their smooth and smoky Scotch in a quiet bar.
Not all of them. I once met an AI which really enjoyed electronic music and tap water. Its significant other was a quite outgoing toaster with a weirdly deep knowledge about fly-crocodile mating. Curiously, I firstly met that colorful couple in a let's-ban-all-AI meeting organised by a hating-itself robot which I brought to life just for fun. LOL.
When I see ridiculous nonsense like this (just read the title and don't need anything else), the first thing coming to my mind is the surprisingly big number of clueless individuals, completely unaware about that fact, with stupid fears, concerns, expectations, etc. and usually affecting others in the most stupidly arbitrary and unfair way possible. People whose behaviours can be defined with "I don't know about this, but here you have my opinion", "if I see X, it would mean Y, otherwise Z; 100% accurate; will always trust it", "I am not being paid for knowing, but for making decisions", "this cannot be true, otherwise it would have already been done", etc.
Do you know what "proof" means? I'm giving up on you. It's their problem and their prize. They made the rules. You can't change them just because you want to.
Firstly, "proof" has many meanings and implications depending upon the context. Secondly, having something actually delivering it is the best possible proof of something which anyone could ever come up with (isn't it evident?). And thirdly, you are also misunderstanding the prize/rules/proposers: on one hand, you have the proposers of this specific X-queen problem which aren't offering any money and which only want a proof that said problem can be solved (= delivering an actual solution would be the best proof possible); on other hand, you have the prize for the NP-P problem which is $1 million and which is given to anyone proving the (in)equality NP-P. The only linkage between both situations has been done via an error of the aforementioned first party by thinking that the N-queen problem was definitory of the NP-P proof, but it really isn't.
Is seriously so difficult to understand? These aren't too complex concepts. Could you make a tiny effort to just read/comprehend any of my multiple repetitions of basically the same ideas to get it? Anyway, this will be last answer to you because I cannot see the point of explaining (evident) ideas to those not able/willing to understand them.
considering that the non-completion problem has a straightforward and known solution, and yet the completion version is the basis for this mathematical prize, I think you are underestimating the relevance of it.
I think that, when having a clearly-defined, actually-analysable and punctually-criticisable problem/solution, you should better stick to the given conditions. Having some initial minor prejudices seems as a quite sensible behaviour in these situations ("they offer a lot", "these people seem to know what they are talking about", etc.), but this should be it. Expecting whatever final assessment to be based upon so abstract prejudices is very far from ideal; at least, among (even slightly) knowledgeable and keen-on-properly-understanding people. You don't need to guess, to blindly hope or to expect a more less arbitrary outcome when you have access to the given conditions, knowledge and willingness to adequately understand. Anyway, as already commented in my previous post, I think that this conversation has been extended for too long already. Bye.
As explained below, I do get your point, but actually there are no maths involved in this specific situation. This is a simple pattern finding/applying which is very difficult or even impossible to be generalise to any other situation (what the maths contributions would be about). Basically, building an algorithm to allow the given piece of software to efficiently perform the expected actions. This is pure software development and algorithm building; a heterogeneous skill requiring knowledge from different sources (but mostly practice) and usually mastered by people from certain background (scientific, mathematical and similar). But this specific solution has more of common sense and problem-solving skills that maths. In fact, a person with low programming knowledge but relevant chess experience might even have intuitively delivered a quite sound solution.
You have to prove things. Without proofs you're building on a foundation of sand.
It isn't impossible to come with a better proof for anything than an actually tangible solution. It is also impossible to try to use a wrong example to proof what cannot be proven by using said example. Proving that this approach can deliver what the proposal expects is quite straightforward. A different story is to deliver what the proposers were expecting (= this case to be a descriptive example of certain abstraction).
I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm trying to explain the problem. You're approaching it from a programming point of view. That's the wrong point of view.
It is curious because, for me, I am the one explaining you what is going on (completely serious). I understand the (wishful) INTENTION of the proposal. I understand the point which you are trying to defend. But nothing of this is associated with the reality of this specific example. They made a mistake which you don't want to see. They thought that this example was descriptive of a problem, but it really isn't. They thought that any algorithm would have to deal with the huge increase of complexity associated with any combinatorial approach dealing with so many alternatives, but they were wrong! If you face the problem as a pretty basic pattern which is slightly modified with the variation of the conditions (= higher/lower board size), such an eventually wouldn't exist. The algorithm is already extremely fast and has a very low complexity, you can call this whatever you want.
Let me explain it with a clear pseudocode:
A) What they had: LOOP WHILE (i1 < max1) i1++ max2 = geometrical_increase(i1) WHILE (i2 < max2) i2++ END LOOP END LOOP
B) What they were looking for: LOOP WHILE (i1 < max1) i1++ max2 = lower_increase(i1) WHILE (i2 < max2) i2++ END LOOP END LOOP
C) What is actually required: LOOP WHILE (i < max) i++ END LOOP
The prize is being offered for a mathematical proof, not for an algorithm, no matter how clever it might be.
The prize is certainly offered for a mathematical proof, but for a different one: the one generically proving that certain abstraction is true for a wide variety of equivalent situations. There you have maths involved. Solving this specific problem doesn't contribute in absolutely any way to prove/dismiss that abstraction. That's why these guys made a mistake; they assumed that solving this problem would have required to come up with the kind of generic optimisation approach which would have brought some insights in the aforementioned abstraction, but this isn't the case. They should have chosen a different example or adequately defined the conditions under which this one might have been solved. A proposal on the lines of "consider all the possible queen movements and come up with a way to highly reduce the associated complexity" might have done the trick; but they simply asked for solutions for that problem.
I think you underestimate how many people use Facebook on a mobile device with full access to location services - and in 3rd-world countries there are few desktop web site users anyway. They would have a pretty accurate mapping, even if it's not 1:1 per every human.
I don't think so, but cannot sure. I am sure about something though: they want as many people as possible to think that this is the case. Facebook and most of the other big internet-based companies get most of their money from advertisement. Paying for ads is just means to the end of having appealing-to-the-advertiser audience caring about those ads. Anything showing that Facebook actually has valuable insights into potential customers makes them more attractive to advertisers.
From my experience in data management, honesty of big-company claims and even as a customer never getting appealing-to-me ads, I don't think that this is the case. Until I don't start regularly seeing actually-relevant-to-me ads denoting an actual understanding of my personality (even just being compatible with what I expressly tell about myself online), I wouldn't think that all these claims are even slightly true.
It was obvious that the problem wasn't the straightforward placing of queens
As explained, the new conditions (already placed queens) are too relevant as far as they don't affect the main underlying issues here: constant clearly-defined behaviours (movements of the queens; or better: distances between queens to allow a valid position) under regularly varying conditions (+1 queen/column/row). Just by analysing the problem in that way, it is clear that there is a more or less consistent pattern regardless of its complexity. The pure combinatorics/trial-and-error approach tends to be easier to implement and even less error-prone; in fact, I do tend to face the problems in that way under a wide variety of conditions. But here that alternative wasn't an option and trying to find the underlying pattern should have been seen as the only possible alternative.
You either have to prove that it can be solved in polynomial time or prove that it cannot. An algorithm that "works" is not that, even if you find one that never fails. That's not good enough, you have to prove it.
Having an algorithm actually delivering the expected results, whose performance might be easily and accurately measured, isn't good enough; but abstractly defining the complexity of a potential solution (what basically is an indirect way to have a generic impression about the expected performance of the corresponding algorithm) is good enough?! I am not interested in discussing about certain issues, but it seems that there is something there which isn't right.
I think that you are trying to justify what cannot be justified without wanting to see the actual reality. There is no solution for what these people expect as far as they made a mistake (or, at least, didn't define properly the constraints of the potential solution). They thought that this specific example was descriptive of a certain abstraction and, from that mistake, deduced what might be the consequences for said abstraction in case that the problem would be solved. If the $1 million prize was really linked to the actual solution of the proposed problem, it would have been possible (even perhaps rightfully) to argue about whether the prize should be awarded for the proposed pattern-finding approach or not. But the reality is that the prize is actually associated with proving certain abstraction which has nothing to do with this specific problem as proposed ("solve it as you wish").
I am testing different distros and my experience on this front is still too limited to have a worthy opinion. But so far Ubuntu (also tested some of their limited flavours which were precisely that: limited) has shown a quite good behaviour on many fronts. I also got a good impression about CentOS and Debian.
You can thank Intel, not Microsoft for the hardware support.
I am not sure which one is more interested in moving everyone to Windows 10 and which one can/is willing to do what. But well, I honestly don't know, just assumed what sounded as the most logical and compatible-with-last-events option. On the other hand, your nick doesn't seem to indicate that you are precisely an objective person on this front:)
porting.NET core 2 0 to Linux. No it's not Mono but the real thing.
I heard about that. I was also expecting something on these lines since long time ago on account of the Microsoft/.NET behaviour by trying to be as cross-compatible as possible. Although I haven't ever used it, I am reasonably sure about what to expect from the first versions of a so ambitious project, mainly by bearing in mind my experience on how.NET improvements are usually performed. It might become a reliable alternative at some point, but this moment is very unlikely to be any time soon. Personally, I will not start relying on it until after having fully confirmed its dependability. As said, I will be keeping a secondary Windows-based computer mostly to account for issues like.NET developments.
You will find Windows 10 much improved if you must use it.
To be completely honest, I do think that Windows 10 might be quite reliable already. The problem isn't reliability, its pretty good interface and reasonable-compatible-with-previous versions functionalities; for me, it isn't even all this fuzz about telemetry and systematic invasion of privacy (every big company is doing the same; I don't defend it and expect legislators to set some restrictions on this front, but do accept that reality). The real problem with Windows 10 has been this Microsoft bully-like attitude of trying to impose it to their customers. These attitudes are very stupid in every single context, but here it seems even worse: why doing that when you have virtually a monopoly and, presumably, also a good product?! This has been the most stupid and customer-scaring move which I have seen in quite long time. For me, this was the real deal-breaker. A company performing so damaging-to-everyone actions without consequences? No way! Here you have your consequences!
If you turn on accessibility options on under 7 you can opt to upgrade.
I know it. In fact, I have got lots of reminders about it. I had to expressly disable certain updates just avoid the Windows-10 nagging to continue appearing.
virtual machines under it
I use virtual machines too. They are fine for minor tests, mostly to get a feeling about the behaviour in a different OS. For more complex actions or when you spend a relevant amount of time/effort, having the real deal does make a difference. I do prefer to set side-by-side installations than virtual machines when doing something like performing a serious development on the given OS.
I am currently upgrading my main computer. Although I don't use too hardware-intensive software like new games and my usual memory/CPU requirements are acceptably low, I do spend a lot of time in front of the computer and perform a quite demanding job; so, I do want a responsive and reliable hardware. Long story short: I bought a quite powerful computer with Intel i7-7700. I have always been mostly using Windows and even develop on.NET; despite relying on Linux for secondary machines and my webservers, I was always planning to install Windows (at least, in one of the partitions) on this new computer, expected to become my main machine at work.
I got the hardware without OS, installed a paid Windows 7 Professional copy which I have been using for a while and got ready to notably improve my work conditions (I haven't upgraded my main computer in some years; my previous one was quite powerful though). But the whole process was completely different than what I was expecting: everything was behaving really weirdly since the very first moment (mouse/keyword not working properly, everything being too slow and similar weirdnesses; note that I have done tons of fresh installs on these lines with different Windows/Linux versions on different machines and never saw something on these lines) most of the attached drivers didn't work (some of them even provoked the brand-new computer to hang and forced me to unplug it!) by claiming that the expected hardware couldn't be found! I wasn't able to make the graphic card work and this entire process was done with the very-bothering 800*600 resolution in a pretty big monitor! I downloaded many different versions of drivers and hardware-recognising applications (-> the hardware was certainly there) from intel.com. I firstly got quite pissed with the guy selling me the hardware because of thinking that this wasn't what I bought. But then I realised about the problem: that new powerful CPU (including things like the graphic card) was only supporting Windows 10!! I confirmed that assumption firstly with a quick online research (even tried some of the suggestions given in some forums, but nothing worked) and definitively by installing a Linux distro where my new hardware was immediately working as expecting (= marvelously!).
This is the first time after having been using Windows for quite a few years when I cannot install a relatively-recent version of Windows on new hardware!! Technically, I can run that hardware with Windows 7, but it is extremely faulty, slow and with a horrible graphical experience (I could increase the 800*600 resolution but, for my monitor, the higher ones were even worse); so, I can actually not run that new hardware with Windows other than 10 without converting that powerful machine in pure crap. On the other hand, I was able to install any Linux distro and start enjoying all that hardware right away!! I made my decision in that same moment: moving to Linux as my first operation system, certainly the one installed on my main machine. I don't care about all my.NET work or about having gradually got used to relying on tons of Windows-only programs for performing virtually any action. I am still not even sure what I will be doing in all the fronts. I will certainly be relying on Windows, but only on secondary machines and when strictly required (e.g., having to develop something on a.NET language).
Note that I did install Windows 10 when it was firstly released. I tested it during some weeks and even got a pretty good first impression; but it still was too unreliable on exchange of minor visual enhancements and that's why I quickly decided to temporarily move back to Windows 7. Then, I started hearing about all these attempts at forcibly installing Windows 10 (I had to expressly disable the nagging updates on my Windows-7 computer!) and stopped considering the eventuality of trying it again within the short term. And now, I discover that they are trying to force me to use Windows 10 with all
I am not the kind of person who easily jumps to conclusions after a small conversation + minor additional information (e.g., your signature), but I am pretty sure already that your opinion has a very little value for me (and for anyone whose opinion I might consider). You seem the kind of person who can say one thing or right the contrary, by showing exactly the same knowledge and conviction.
i was just kidding before.
Again without being too much into drawing conclusions after a small conversation, I stick to my aforementioned saying-one-thing-or-just-the-contrary-and-for-no-clear-reason-seems-easy-to-you.
your solution in PHP
As said to you, repeated many times in others comments and as some people might automatically deduce from the fact of being two different users (separated by a very relevant UID difference), this is not my code. That code was written by another user who I don't know. I have plainly refer to it as a clear reference to explain my ideas on this front, because I would have written something similar.
is genius
I don't think so. It is a pretty simple algorithm in its preliminary stage (not even properly validated under all the conditions). I also consider the underlying idea pretty simple as far as this was the first approach coming to my mind.
you're one of the few on the right track.
The beauty of an actually working code (or clearly defined ideas about how to proceed to build certain algorithm -> this was my only contribution), as opposed to abstractly talking, lying, blindly guessing, etc., is that it can be easily validated. That code (understood as a preliminary step, which has to be adapted to the actual conditions of the problem, about which I knew later; apparently, some queens were already expected to be in the board) delivers what it is expected to deliver. On the other hand, abstractly talking about the eventual existence of a potential solution and the completely-out-of-proportion consequences of such an event is pretty difficult to be confirmed/dismissed. I was honestly very surprised to find so much people having problems to understand what I thought that was an evident approach to this problem. I thought that most of people here, mainly in a programming-focused discussion, were quite knowledgeable. Well, I guess that having prejudices (even positive ones) isn't too good:)
Slashdot Mirror
The problem isn't the message itself, it's the messengers.
I agree with that statement, but understood in its widest sense: not just the target audience, also a big proportion of people performing these studies. Finding reliable enough trends to get truly worthy insights into a wide variety of phenomena is certainly possible. The problem is that getting that ideal result in quite a few scenarios is really difficult; it requires lots of knowledge (including high quality information), objectivity and resources which are rarely available.
AI knows if you have skin cancer.
That sentence refers to a goal which is quite likely to be accomplished within pretty high accuracy levels. But the huge number of possible scenarios (different types of cancer, different skins, etc.) and further technical hurdles (automating the reliable analysis of a so big number of images is a quite complex task in itself) are incompatible with the surrounding buzzword, give-me-quick-results, show-me-something-I-can-understand constraints. To not mention the fact that lying (or partially telling the truth or focusing on a very favourable set of conditions or wanting way too much to get good results) is usually quite easy because of the aforementioned gimme-something-quick.
DISCLAIMER: all the aforementioned ideas reflect my impressions about the most common problems in certain areas of expertise. Nothing of this applies to me. I have always been extremely cautious, objective and honest when dealing with these situations. On the other hand, I have never been involved in situations like trying to come up with a reliable way to diagnose cancer.
Albert isn't the only name starting with "Al"! Your alphobism is invading my safe space! LOL.
Note that my comments here are a continuation of a previous discussion. As you can see there, I was a happy Windows 7 user expecting to continue being that way until I discovered that my new hardware wasn't supporting Windows 7; rather than forcibly using Windows 10, I preferred to move to Linux (first time ever on my main computer). So, if you are a Windows 7 user planning to buy new hardware, you should take a look at that other thread + do some pre-research because it might not be supported.
You can thank Intel for that. Not Microsoft. Remember USB 3.0 wasn't even invented yet when Windows 7 was made.
It is a so difficult problem that even Intel (without access to the OS source code) has created its own solution.
Microsoft gets paid by the seat licenses either way so it makes no difference.
Because all what they did before with this stupidly imposing attitude made sense, right? Windows 10 seems to be a good version, perhaps even better than Windows 7; why not letting the product speak for itself? Why trying to force clients by scaring lots of them? Why they had everything on their side to have an excellent medium-/long-term evolution and they did what they did? Perhaps because they got nervous? Because the initial targets weren't met and some manager thought that forcing clients was a better idea than just being patient? A stupid decision. It doesn't make sense; exactly the same than Intel providing ways to use USB 3.0 with Windows 7, but not enabling it in their new machines. In any case and as said, I don't care about the final responsible, the underlying reason was Microsoft's decision of unilaterally imposing Windows 10 to everyone.
Of course people here over 40 fear change.
Now they swear by 8 year old win 7 and are shocked it's become difficult to use on new hardware.
Not sure if these statements are related to me in any way or not but as far as we had a recent chat on pretty similar lines, I would assume that it is the case and here I go, for me and for my generation :)
Firstly, I am 39 and am not sure whether all the other people of my age feels like I do but am very far away from starting to feel afraid of any kind of innovation. Much less in anything related to computers and software because this is what my work is about; in fact, I am not precisely doing standard stuff but trying always to go a bit further, to innovate. My impression is that software-related people around my age with all what this entails (e.g., relevant amount of work experience, mostly related to software) is everything but scared of change, although the logical behaviour is to not change (only a fool believe that magical, working-perfectly new approaches can compete with actual knowledge, experience and being comfortable with certain conditions). Actually, having a relevant experience is a basic requirement for becoming proficient in the programming/software world, much more now with the increasingly big number of alternatives and higher complexity. In fact, experienced-enough people are usually more opinionated in the sense of objectively criticising/appraising, what might be somehow inconvenient for some theoretically-technical companies which seem to have moved from objective correctness into the fan-based world.
Even by ignoring the experience/background/objectivity aspects, letting fear influence any relevant decisions sounds as a quite stupid behaviour. Assuming that certain person has performed whatever action, not because of a sensible reason, but because of something as childish as fear (to what?! To not knowing how to use increasingly easier formats?!) is almost an insult to that person; it is pretty much the same than arbitrarily calling that person an idiot. I don't know how it was back in your times (from your UID, your nick and the way in which talk, I presume that you are notably older than me), but my generation (the current 40-ers) has grown with computers and technology everywhere (like the younger ones, without the disadvantage of over-saturation and companies/movies trying to indoctrinate them into some kind of fanatic love for a company/product). I have been working on programming/engineering and completely into all this world for over 10 years, but some time before that my behaviour was completely different; people who met me 20 years ago might not even believe my current occupation/knowledge/likenesses; but even back then when I wasn't caring too much about all this, I was systematically surrounded by computers/software and never felt anything even close to fear to use a so idiot-proof piece of software as an operating system.
What I saw the other day when trying to install my Windows 7 copy in my brand new computer wasn't scaring to me. I simply didn't like it. I don't have to like what Microsoft or any other company does. I don't have to be afraid of sharing my honest impression about what I don't like of a company whose products I consume (= I am their client = their everything = my voice has to matter to them, their voice is irrelevant to me). Additionally, if that company delivers the tools which I use in my highly-specialised work (almost my hobby too), where I am an expert, my opinion about their decisions should still be more relevant to them.
I have been using Windows as my primary OS for quite a few years; I have used Linux quite a lot too, but always secondarily, never installed it my main machine, the one I use to perform my work. When I saw the problem I commented the other day, I decided to move to Linux in the same spot: moving to a completely different format without having thought about it even 1 hour before! This
I am currently building a web-domain ranking whose main metric is counting (properly-weighted) backlinks. This has allowed me to have a quite good understanding about another online fake reality, which is likely to also be closely related to these fake news: domains whose sole purpose is to backlink others as a way to improve their visibility. I have found quite a few situations involving various thousands of different domains, repeating the same or similar content or even not content at all and linking to all the other domains in the corresponding fake network. Some times the names are very similar (site1a.com, site1b.com, site1c.com), other times they are pure nonsense (asdfasdf.com, aserrffeff.com, dddeddfsfs.com, asdfasdf.com) and there are even quite elaborate cases (whatever.com, otherhing.com, nothingtodowithothers.com).
These are quite common scenarios and, actually, represent one of the main obstacles for my ranking to deliver accurate enough conclusions. That fact, together with the associated cost/effort and not being precisely easy to be tracked, seems to indicate that this kind of crappy approaches are actually very profitable. I might even say that the current internet reality, formed by search engines, advertisers, investors, users, etc., somehow promotes these behaviours: the prize is high (at least, for those caring just about money) and the eventual punishment virtually inexistent. Fully solving all this seems almost impossible, although more demanding users looking for high-quality, reliable, objective outputs (as opposed to anything, quickly, easily and from anywhere) might certainly help to improve things.
Disney gets to claim THEY made "Snow white" - and all they have to do to get away with it is include "Based on the novel by Hans Christian Anderson" in fine print somewhere in the end credits.
This is a too old example which isn't too compatible with the current situation, mainly when dealing with code and in internet; to not mention the fact the original author was dead long time ago. Additionally, if I was in a situation similar to that myself, I am not sure that I could feel like claiming a lot to Disney, because they did a relevant amount of work on top of the original story.
Let's take as an example one of my public domain codes, a unit-parsing library. If a company develops a new tool and uses that library as the engine for the unit-parsing part, they would have to acknowledge me as the original author. But if they keep evolving the unit-parsing algorithm until making my original code almost irrelevant, they might rightfully stop referring to me at all. I don't think that I should be recognised just by the fact that they took my original idea or even started their development from my library. In fact, this is pretty much the whole point of sharing that library as public domain: being actually used, perhaps as final users or perhaps as inspiration for new developments.
All what I want is my work to be properly appraised and only for as long as it continues being mostly mine. My work isn't just having ideas for new software, but fully developing reliable, adaptable, user-friendly, etc. pieces of software. I think that the distinction between unfairly appropriating of what isn't yours against the evident intention of its original author vs. using that something as expected seems quite clear. Honestly, I don't think that I will ever have serious problems on this front.
Your public domain code is open to same trap. If somebody uses it do build something else
There are certainly lots of people with low-to-no self-respect or decency; perhaps just too shortsighted or dishonest-to-themselves to think that actions on these lines are acceptable. I prefer to not care about all that and to simply be reasonably diligent such that my work can be properly appraised by sensible and knowledgeable people (the aforementioned attitudes are usually common among people with low technical knowledge). There will always be undoubted ways to prove that I am the legitimate author and even what was my original sharing-with-everyone intention. I will not be the one who has to hide anything or try to come up with lies or ways to somehow justify objectively unjustifiable actions. Just the fact of not having that peace of mind (+ eventually having to pay the consequences of their actions) sounds as a quite hard punishment. I will never exchange the fact of feeling extremely proud about all what I do, having to hide nothing and even doing so good things that others want to steal them for anything else; for me and probably for most of people who have ever enjoyed it, this peace of mind is priceless.
What you think you're doing is not what you're actually doing- what you want to do means using a BSD or MIT license at the very least, or maybe even a copyleft license like the GPL.
I am sure about what I am doing: sharing with others what I can share and being consistent with what I would expect from others. What you propose offers pretty much the same level of protection than my approach does. Anyone wanting to play dirty could also act against explicit restrictions of any form of copyright; in that case, you would have the same defence: relying on whatever judicial system is applicable which, theoretically, should favour the correct position. Dishonestly appropriating of public domain seems as bad as breaking specific copyright prohibitions and, as such, should be equally protected. The exact protection of each situation would depend upon what national jurisdiction is applicable to the given problem. But nothing of this concerns me: firstly, because I generate new code quite easily and, in fact, my business is precisely doing such a thing (why I release all my code as public domain, you wonder? This is a self-promotion of my coding skills providing a clear picture for future employers willing to hire me as a programmer); and, secondly, because I am never worried about the eventuality of someone treating me unfairly: I will make whatever decision on a case by case basis by being sure that I did nothing wrong.
Also, releasing something into the public domain means abandoning all rights to it. So rather than ensuring Google can't patent it, he ensured that he has no standing to sue.
I release all my public code into the public domain and everyone can use it as they wish. A different story is people claiming that they are the original authors or trying to arbitrarily restrict their usage. As a public-domain enjoyer, you can only use whatever together with any other person; but you cannot convert what belongs to everyone and was created by someone else in your own.
After seeing the last stupidity about LSD (to improve productivity!!), I do feel like writing a tiny clarification here to somehow account for the specific aspect of stupidity/ignorance which most likely justifies the aforementioned +1 interesting.
:)
Although I don't take any kind of drugs (including soft ones like alcohol or tobacco) since some years ago (never ever at work and I usually post on Slashdot from my office) and was never a heavy user neither tried many/hard ones, I did tried some drugs in the past mainly while being a student; always sporadically, when partying/having nothing relevant to do and by enjoying the experiences (= never felt anything even remotely close to any kind of addition). I did try some hallucinogens and did like them.
Despite my not-too-relevant experience with drugs, I think that my ideas about their most likely effects are quite clear. With hallucinogens, for example, you might get the point of seeing weird shapes/colours, even kind-of-imagining a small inexistent pseudo-reality, but mainly in that specific moment. When the effects disappear you should realise about pretty much everything, like waking up from a dream. Also your willingness to (not) see is also quite important. So, I don't think that it is possible that someone could ever think that some unrealistic craziness on drugs is real; unless that person wants to think/say that it is the case or under extreme conditions like a heavy user.
I am completely against any kind of drug in the work environment, simply because of being completely incompatible with what I consider work (= what I do): performing a demanding-enough engineering/programming work is pretty much the opposite to the relax-prone environment where certain substances are expected to be used. On the other hand, people performing artistic-/ideation-focused tasks might take some advantage from the stress-reduction which might be associated with the consumption of certain substance; but, objectively speaking, the capabilities of that person will be certainly reduced. Anyway, all that isn't applicable to me or to the kind of technical-intensive work environment in which I am looking to be involved; the only drugs which can affect my behaviour are illness, tiredness or similar
Modded +1 Interesting! Pffff. Adding one "LOL" (= laughing out loud = I am joking) + answering to an evident joke by evidently extending the ideas in said joke is still too confusing for some people. And I am writing all this despite having fully accepted absolute (online) stupidity!
So, you choose answer #2. This seems also the case with the people who developed this AI: uneducated guesses whose reliability is conditioned by either randomness (0.333 probability of your guesses to be right in each scenario; logically, you can only tell one possible output every time: 1 out of 3) or the highly-constrained essence of the underlying reality (as suggested in other comments, most of people are straight and choosing that option has a higher probability of success than any other alternative). These "solutions" have pretty much the same accuracy than flipping a coin or randomly choosing any of the available alternatives. This is everything but properly understanding the situation and delivering a reliable prediction. There is simply not enough information to understand what is going on and you can do nothing to change that reality.
Imagine the following training set:
Input -> Output
A -> 1
A -> 2
A -> 3
B -> 4
B -> 5
B -> 6
I can think about the following possible answers to the question "by just looking at this information, can you develop an approach able to predict output from input?":
ANSWER #1. No. There is no way to come up with any methodology delivering even likely-to-be accurate conclusions. If further information is provided, it might be proven that the underlying behaviour might be suitable to be predicted, but certainly not under these conditions.
ANSWER #2. Sure. I can apply methodology X and will certainly know the right answer within a Y range of accuracy.
ANSWER #3. There has to be a way to come up with the solution. I don't have too much knowledge about all this myself, but experts should be able to build something by relying on advanced maths or perhaps AI.
ADDITIONAL CONCERN. This example has nothing to do with what is discussed in the linked article.
I can tell you my position: answer #1 without a single doubt. I would say it right away after having looked at those inputs (which I do consider descriptive enough of what is being discussed here) for some seconds; exactly the same than what I did after just reading the title here. What about you? What would have been your answer or your concerns regarding the relationship of this example with the linked article?
Als like their smooth and smoky Scotch in a quiet bar.
Not all of them. I once met an AI which really enjoyed electronic music and tap water. Its significant other was a quite outgoing toaster with a weirdly deep knowledge about fly-crocodile mating. Curiously, I firstly met that colorful couple in a let's-ban-all-AI meeting organised by a hating-itself robot which I brought to life just for fun. LOL.
When I see ridiculous nonsense like this (just read the title and don't need anything else), the first thing coming to my mind is the surprisingly big number of clueless individuals, completely unaware about that fact, with stupid fears, concerns, expectations, etc. and usually affecting others in the most stupidly arbitrary and unfair way possible. People whose behaviours can be defined with "I don't know about this, but here you have my opinion", "if I see X, it would mean Y, otherwise Z; 100% accurate; will always trust it", "I am not being paid for knowing, but for making decisions", "this cannot be true, otherwise it would have already been done", etc.
Do you know what "proof" means? I'm giving up on you. It's their problem and their prize. They made the rules. You can't change them just because you want to.
Firstly, "proof" has many meanings and implications depending upon the context. Secondly, having something actually delivering it is the best possible proof of something which anyone could ever come up with (isn't it evident?). And thirdly, you are also misunderstanding the prize/rules/proposers: on one hand, you have the proposers of this specific X-queen problem which aren't offering any money and which only want a proof that said problem can be solved (= delivering an actual solution would be the best proof possible); on other hand, you have the prize for the NP-P problem which is $1 million and which is given to anyone proving the (in)equality NP-P. The only linkage between both situations has been done via an error of the aforementioned first party by thinking that the N-queen problem was definitory of the NP-P proof, but it really isn't.
Is seriously so difficult to understand? These aren't too complex concepts. Could you make a tiny effort to just read/comprehend any of my multiple repetitions of basically the same ideas to get it? Anyway, this will be last answer to you because I cannot see the point of explaining (evident) ideas to those not able/willing to understand them.
considering that the non-completion problem has a straightforward and known solution, and yet the completion version is the basis for this mathematical prize, I think you are underestimating the relevance of it.
I think that, when having a clearly-defined, actually-analysable and punctually-criticisable problem/solution, you should better stick to the given conditions. Having some initial minor prejudices seems as a quite sensible behaviour in these situations ("they offer a lot", "these people seem to know what they are talking about", etc.), but this should be it. Expecting whatever final assessment to be based upon so abstract prejudices is very far from ideal; at least, among (even slightly) knowledgeable and keen-on-properly-understanding people. You don't need to guess, to blindly hope or to expect a more less arbitrary outcome when you have access to the given conditions, knowledge and willingness to adequately understand. Anyway, as already commented in my previous post, I think that this conversation has been extended for too long already. Bye.
It's a math problem. That's how math works
As explained below, I do get your point, but actually there are no maths involved in this specific situation. This is a simple pattern finding/applying which is very difficult or even impossible to be generalise to any other situation (what the maths contributions would be about). Basically, building an algorithm to allow the given piece of software to efficiently perform the expected actions. This is pure software development and algorithm building; a heterogeneous skill requiring knowledge from different sources (but mostly practice) and usually mastered by people from certain background (scientific, mathematical and similar). But this specific solution has more of common sense and problem-solving skills that maths. In fact, a person with low programming knowledge but relevant chess experience might even have intuitively delivered a quite sound solution.
You have to prove things. Without proofs you're building on a foundation of sand.
It isn't impossible to come with a better proof for anything than an actually tangible solution. It is also impossible to try to use a wrong example to proof what cannot be proven by using said example. Proving that this approach can deliver what the proposal expects is quite straightforward. A different story is to deliver what the proposers were expecting (= this case to be a descriptive example of certain abstraction).
I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm trying to explain the problem. You're approaching it from a programming point of view. That's the wrong point of view.
It is curious because, for me, I am the one explaining you what is going on (completely serious). I understand the (wishful) INTENTION of the proposal. I understand the point which you are trying to defend. But nothing of this is associated with the reality of this specific example. They made a mistake which you don't want to see. They thought that this example was descriptive of a problem, but it really isn't. They thought that any algorithm would have to deal with the huge increase of complexity associated with any combinatorial approach dealing with so many alternatives, but they were wrong! If you face the problem as a pretty basic pattern which is slightly modified with the variation of the conditions (= higher/lower board size), such an eventually wouldn't exist. The algorithm is already extremely fast and has a very low complexity, you can call this whatever you want.
Let me explain it with a clear pseudocode:
A) What they had:
LOOP WHILE (i1 < max1)
i1++
max2 = geometrical_increase(i1)
WHILE (i2 < max2) i2++ END LOOP
END LOOP
B) What they were looking for:
LOOP WHILE (i1 < max1)
i1++
max2 = lower_increase(i1)
WHILE (i2 < max2) i2++ END LOOP
END LOOP
C) What is actually required:
LOOP WHILE (i < max) i++ END LOOP
The prize is being offered for a mathematical proof, not for an algorithm, no matter how clever it might be.
The prize is certainly offered for a mathematical proof, but for a different one: the one generically proving that certain abstraction is true for a wide variety of equivalent situations. There you have maths involved. Solving this specific problem doesn't contribute in absolutely any way to prove/dismiss that abstraction. That's why these guys made a mistake; they assumed that solving this problem would have required to come up with the kind of generic optimisation approach which would have brought some insights in the aforementioned abstraction, but this isn't the case. They should have chosen a different example or adequately defined the conditions under which this one might have been solved. A proposal on the lines of "consider all the possible queen movements and come up with a way to highly reduce the associated complexity" might have done the trick; but they simply asked for solutions for that problem.
I think you underestimate how many people use Facebook on a mobile device with full access to location services - and in 3rd-world countries there are few desktop web site users anyway. They would have a pretty accurate mapping, even if it's not 1:1 per every human.
I don't think so, but cannot sure. I am sure about something though: they want as many people as possible to think that this is the case. Facebook and most of the other big internet-based companies get most of their money from advertisement. Paying for ads is just means to the end of having appealing-to-the-advertiser audience caring about those ads. Anything showing that Facebook actually has valuable insights into potential customers makes them more attractive to advertisers.
From my experience in data management, honesty of big-company claims and even as a customer never getting appealing-to-me ads, I don't think that this is the case. Until I don't start regularly seeing actually-relevant-to-me ads denoting an actual understanding of my personality (even just being compatible with what I expressly tell about myself online), I wouldn't think that all these claims are even slightly true.
I meant "(already placed queens) aren't too relevant".
It was obvious that the problem wasn't the straightforward placing of queens
As explained, the new conditions (already placed queens) are too relevant as far as they don't affect the main underlying issues here: constant clearly-defined behaviours (movements of the queens; or better: distances between queens to allow a valid position) under regularly varying conditions (+1 queen/column/row). Just by analysing the problem in that way, it is clear that there is a more or less consistent pattern regardless of its complexity. The pure combinatorics/trial-and-error approach tends to be easier to implement and even less error-prone; in fact, I do tend to face the problems in that way under a wide variety of conditions. But here that alternative wasn't an option and trying to find the underlying pattern should have been seen as the only possible alternative.
You either have to prove that it can be solved in polynomial time or prove that it cannot. An algorithm that "works" is not that, even if you find one that never fails. That's not good enough, you have to prove it.
Having an algorithm actually delivering the expected results, whose performance might be easily and accurately measured, isn't good enough; but abstractly defining the complexity of a potential solution (what basically is an indirect way to have a generic impression about the expected performance of the corresponding algorithm) is good enough?! I am not interested in discussing about certain issues, but it seems that there is something there which isn't right.
I think that you are trying to justify what cannot be justified without wanting to see the actual reality. There is no solution for what these people expect as far as they made a mistake (or, at least, didn't define properly the constraints of the potential solution). They thought that this specific example was descriptive of a certain abstraction and, from that mistake, deduced what might be the consequences for said abstraction in case that the problem would be solved. If the $1 million prize was really linked to the actual solution of the proposed problem, it would have been possible (even perhaps rightfully) to argue about whether the prize should be awarded for the proposed pattern-finding approach or not. But the reality is that the prize is actually associated with proving certain abstraction which has nothing to do with this specific problem as proposed ("solve it as you wish").
Also Ubuntu
I am testing different distros and my experience on this front is still too limited to have a worthy opinion. But so far Ubuntu (also tested some of their limited flavours which were precisely that: limited) has shown a quite good behaviour on many fronts. I also got a good impression about CentOS and Debian.
You can thank Intel, not Microsoft for the hardware support.
I am not sure which one is more interested in moving everyone to Windows 10 and which one can/is willing to do what. But well, I honestly don't know, just assumed what sounded as the most logical and compatible-with-last-events option. On the other hand, your nick doesn't seem to indicate that you are precisely an objective person on this front :)
porting .NET core 2 0 to Linux. No it's not Mono but the real thing.
I heard about that. I was also expecting something on these lines since long time ago on account of the Microsoft/.NET behaviour by trying to be as cross-compatible as possible. Although I haven't ever used it, I am reasonably sure about what to expect from the first versions of a so ambitious project, mainly by bearing in mind my experience on how .NET improvements are usually performed. It might become a reliable alternative at some point, but this moment is very unlikely to be any time soon. Personally, I will not start relying on it until after having fully confirmed its dependability. As said, I will be keeping a secondary Windows-based computer mostly to account for issues like .NET developments.
You will find Windows 10 much improved if you must use it.
To be completely honest, I do think that Windows 10 might be quite reliable already. The problem isn't reliability, its pretty good interface and reasonable-compatible-with-previous versions functionalities; for me, it isn't even all this fuzz about telemetry and systematic invasion of privacy (every big company is doing the same; I don't defend it and expect legislators to set some restrictions on this front, but do accept that reality). The real problem with Windows 10 has been this Microsoft bully-like attitude of trying to impose it to their customers. These attitudes are very stupid in every single context, but here it seems even worse: why doing that when you have virtually a monopoly and, presumably, also a good product?! This has been the most stupid and customer-scaring move which I have seen in quite long time. For me, this was the real deal-breaker. A company performing so damaging-to-everyone actions without consequences? No way! Here you have your consequences!
If you turn on accessibility options on under 7 you can opt to upgrade.
I know it. In fact, I have got lots of reminders about it. I had to expressly disable certain updates just avoid the Windows-10 nagging to continue appearing.
virtual machines under it
I use virtual machines too. They are fine for minor tests, mostly to get a feeling about the behaviour in a different OS. For more complex actions or when you spend a relevant amount of time/effort, having the real deal does make a difference. I do prefer to set side-by-side installations than virtual machines when doing something like performing a serious development on the given OS.
I am currently upgrading my main computer. Although I don't use too hardware-intensive software like new games and my usual memory/CPU requirements are acceptably low, I do spend a lot of time in front of the computer and perform a quite demanding job; so, I do want a responsive and reliable hardware. Long story short: I bought a quite powerful computer with Intel i7-7700. I have always been mostly using Windows and even develop on .NET; despite relying on Linux for secondary machines and my webservers, I was always planning to install Windows (at least, in one of the partitions) on this new computer, expected to become my main machine at work.
.NET work or about having gradually got used to relying on tons of Windows-only programs for performing virtually any action. I am still not even sure what I will be doing in all the fronts. I will certainly be relying on Windows, but only on secondary machines and when strictly required (e.g., having to develop something on a .NET language).
I got the hardware without OS, installed a paid Windows 7 Professional copy which I have been using for a while and got ready to notably improve my work conditions (I haven't upgraded my main computer in some years; my previous one was quite powerful though). But the whole process was completely different than what I was expecting: everything was behaving really weirdly since the very first moment (mouse/keyword not working properly, everything being too slow and similar weirdnesses; note that I have done tons of fresh installs on these lines with different Windows/Linux versions on different machines and never saw something on these lines) most of the attached drivers didn't work (some of them even provoked the brand-new computer to hang and forced me to unplug it!) by claiming that the expected hardware couldn't be found! I wasn't able to make the graphic card work and this entire process was done with the very-bothering 800*600 resolution in a pretty big monitor! I downloaded many different versions of drivers and hardware-recognising applications (-> the hardware was certainly there) from intel.com. I firstly got quite pissed with the guy selling me the hardware because of thinking that this wasn't what I bought. But then I realised about the problem: that new powerful CPU (including things like the graphic card) was only supporting Windows 10!! I confirmed that assumption firstly with a quick online research (even tried some of the suggestions given in some forums, but nothing worked) and definitively by installing a Linux distro where my new hardware was immediately working as expecting (= marvelously!).
This is the first time after having been using Windows for quite a few years when I cannot install a relatively-recent version of Windows on new hardware!! Technically, I can run that hardware with Windows 7, but it is extremely faulty, slow and with a horrible graphical experience (I could increase the 800*600 resolution but, for my monitor, the higher ones were even worse); so, I can actually not run that new hardware with Windows other than 10 without converting that powerful machine in pure crap. On the other hand, I was able to install any Linux distro and start enjoying all that hardware right away!! I made my decision in that same moment: moving to Linux as my first operation system, certainly the one installed on my main machine. I don't care about all my
Note that I did install Windows 10 when it was firstly released. I tested it during some weeks and even got a pretty good first impression; but it still was too unreliable on exchange of minor visual enhancements and that's why I quickly decided to temporarily move back to Windows 7. Then, I started hearing about all these attempts at forcibly installing Windows 10 (I had to expressly disable the nagging updates on my Windows-7 computer!) and stopped considering the eventuality of trying it again within the short term. And now, I discover that they are trying to force me to use Windows 10 with all
holy shit dude you are fucked up.
I am not the kind of person who easily jumps to conclusions after a small conversation + minor additional information (e.g., your signature), but I am pretty sure already that your opinion has a very little value for me (and for anyone whose opinion I might consider). You seem the kind of person who can say one thing or right the contrary, by showing exactly the same knowledge and conviction.
i was just kidding before.
Again without being too much into drawing conclusions after a small conversation, I stick to my aforementioned saying-one-thing-or-just-the-contrary-and-for-no-clear-reason-seems-easy-to-you.
your solution in PHP
As said to you, repeated many times in others comments and as some people might automatically deduce from the fact of being two different users (separated by a very relevant UID difference), this is not my code. That code was written by another user who I don't know. I have plainly refer to it as a clear reference to explain my ideas on this front, because I would have written something similar.
is genius
I don't think so. It is a pretty simple algorithm in its preliminary stage (not even properly validated under all the conditions). I also consider the underlying idea pretty simple as far as this was the first approach coming to my mind.
you're one of the few on the right track.
The beauty of an actually working code (or clearly defined ideas about how to proceed to build certain algorithm -> this was my only contribution), as opposed to abstractly talking, lying, blindly guessing, etc., is that it can be easily validated. That code (understood as a preliminary step, which has to be adapted to the actual conditions of the problem, about which I knew later; apparently, some queens were already expected to be in the board) delivers what it is expected to deliver. On the other hand, abstractly talking about the eventual existence of a potential solution and the completely-out-of-proportion consequences of such an event is pretty difficult to be confirmed/dismissed. I was honestly very surprised to find so much people having problems to understand what I thought that was an evident approach to this problem. I thought that most of people here, mainly in a programming-focused discussion, were quite knowledgeable. Well, I guess that having prejudices (even positive ones) isn't too good :)