The moment you mention this obvious conflict everyone goes silent... "weird".
Unless of course you assume that every "modern" thinker, whether we're talking atheists, human rights activists,... are really deep, deep cowards out for a quick buck. They attack what they know they can easily get away with (Christianity, Israel, American govt.,...) and which they know will bring them attention. Everything else they don't care about.
And when it comes to an enemy of human rights, atheism, freedom, or whatever that might actually retaliate, there are near-zero opinions on the matter.
Muslims get to claim islam is modern while pushing for paedophilia-rewarding laws in a dozen countries (ie. the right to rape 7-year old girls against their will like their prophet did). The right to kill for religious reasons (whether we're talking insults or apostates, or the many muslim religious genocides). The right to oppress people, religiously, ethnically,... nobody protests.
Is this really the message of "tolerance", the message of "modernity" ? Because it sure as hell looks like it.
So everyone, take heed : "attack people on the street for vague reasons and you will have the support of the media, 'modern thinkers' and you can actually secure preferential treatment before the law".
What they're taking offence with is that this religious war that's being forced by muslims on everyone around the world. You seem to be pushing the same idea. These people take offence that their freedom is being destroyed by muslims, that they are automatically considered enemies, for a variety of reasons. They see that the violence level is slowly expanding to the point where you're taking away their choice to live in peace. Your reasons are moronic with them being Americans, atheists or christians (or traitor muslims), and that the violence level is increasing.
Most of all, they take offence with the obvious future that is being threatened by muslims all around the web and in so many places all around us : that it is a matter of time until the violence escalates to the level where everyone will be forced to defend themselves against these muslim animals.
I realize it is a constant in islam, both in it's disgusting sharia law and it's history, but one has to wonder : why do you morons fight ? There are only 2 outcomes, either you win or you lose. If you win, you get to live in talibanistan, where ridiculous numbers commit suicide for such moronic reasons as being forced to marry, where there is constant endless violence and hopelessness and where there is islam. If you lose, you die (although maybe if you lose against the US that might be avoided). And yes islam promises the plunder of the war, but you must realize that that is a VERY short-lived pleasure. And even if you win, we simply go back to the dark ages. Christianity sets up somewhere far beyond your disgusting religions reach and slowly builds back up to the point the world is worth living in again.
Is beating women and raping children (the islamic prophet did both) worth that much to muslims ? Apparently, yes.
Hell, this is perhaps the one tactical issue America, Russia, India and China agree on : the need to suppress islam's aspirations. What they don't agree with is the method. All but America seem to believe in genocide, given historical trends. Do muslims have the moronic idea you are capable of fighting even one of those ? I would be AMAZED that if open conflict emerges muslims would last a month. You attack America... you might want to read up on how China treats it's enemies. Just ask a few Pakistani, you'll find them around.
So why the will to fight ? Are you truly this moronic ?
So your point, insofar as one exists in that jumbled mess of arbitrary thoughts, is that because he has a secret drug addiction (to which you are privy) it is all right for the state to have him executed?
You seem to say this isn't the case... do you hate islam ? If your answer is "no", why do you bother with arguing at all ?
I ask because this is the choice that freedom of religion is being abused to force. As is plain here, but also in other cases, including some inside the US, freedom of religion is being used as justification for convicting people according to this law system called "islam". (well, I should say freedom of religion is being used as a thin veneer. Threat of direct personal violence is really what's behind it).
My point is that in a matter of half a decade to maybe one and a half decade, this violence will reach the point where freedom of religion dies. And there will be a choice to be made.
Nearly every attack, most likely including this one, was an inside job.
Besides, every bank in the world that isn't American invests ridiculous amounts into security (and fails). American banks, well, they also fail. But American banks are pretty unique in that they will only invest a reasonable amount to prevent fraud going out of control. They will actually not go after every single instance of fraud.
Of course, one of the big screwups exploited this exact "weakness".
That's what the bind 10 egineering manager told the committee of architects. She did this with approval from four other managers. The committee of architects will now present their solution to a conference of engineers, and then they will then choose external parties to be contracted to do the actual programming (and "surprisingly" the cheapest acceptable external party will just happen to have a job at verizon... which is why "corporate features" are so prevalent in Bind). But now... They're "looking for input". Anyone here ever tried to give input to an ISC discussion ? It's a bit like bleeding to death while having your leg slowly feasted on by a pack of hyenas, except of course that it takes 4-5 years for you to die (don't worry, the chances of someone actually having looked at your input in that time frame is minute, after all let's face it : these guys work so fast that features like intergalactic eon-timescales dns support needs to be built in right now. After all, given their decision speeds, it's very unlikely that there will be consensus for another release before we need it). By the time it is obvious just how much input ISC egos can stand you will have a newfound appreciation for bleeding to death : it's fast, and a bleeding leg does not have an ego charlie sheen would describe as "much worse than my mother".
Well, considering the history of socialism, even inside the united states, you can count yourself lucky that bribing people is all they do.
In Europe, we're not quite so lucky. The city of Brussels was blocked entirely 3 days in a row. They even attacked a police station and several streets look like a war zone ("unrelated vandals" is the party line).
Apparently facebook is ("was") paying people for bad-mouthing google. I am not saying that's necessarily the case here, but it's certainly a datapoint to consider.
IP address ownership, sadly, doesn't prove anything. Anyone with a BGP connection can hijack any IP address for large parts of the world. And before you say "but surely Google can prevent this" :
I've been the admin on 3 networks which were IP hijacked now. In two cases it was accidental, in a third case it was not. The situation is bad in North America, seriously disappointing in Western Europe, and beyond outrageous everywhere else. Basically, outside of North America and Europe you can pretty much assume anyone can hijack anything they want. Inside "the West" you have to be a carrier, a transit provider with a few hundred customers. Which sounds good, until you realize there's over 500 such organizations in North America alone.
Here's a hint: it's the one that doesn't defy the goddamned laws of physics.
Assuming that you are the only one with a correct view of the implications of the laws of physics is beyond delusional. The entirety of the human species has this thing called civilization and "denying the reality of the laws of physics" would not be that bad a description of it. This is the purpose of religion, which attempts to do that by changing human nature, and the purpose of science, which attempts to do it by changing the structure of the world surrounding humans. Religion fails at influencing the real world and science fails influencing humans in constructive manner. Somehow the future is something combining both of these, as such an ideology would be unbeatable by both religious people and unbeatable by scientists working to one-up one another. Both concepts, mostly religion but not neglecting science, are the very core of civilization, and they are it's past and it's future.
All sorts of inventions were tried and implemented in support of this. From the wheel, to Jesus, to cars, cities, electricity, computers... you name it. And software is essentially nothing but our latest attempt to rewrite the laws of physics. It's also pretty damned successful at it even today, and if our visions of future software capabilities come true, like replicators and holodecks we will have the ability to trade (hopefully small amounts of) energy for total reality denial. This is the long-term goal of software. This means that it needs to do 2 things. First it needs to create an illusion around a person, or better yet, humanity as a whole, and prevent that person(s) from finding out about the real world. Secondly, it needs to influence the real world to sustain it, so that the machine/program/... creating the illusion is not destroyed by things like lack of energy or any of a million other factors.
Most software attempts to make a tiny, tiny little dent in this goal. Because we have no idea whatsoever how to make this happen, this is only natural. The main task you have as an employee is to move someone else closer to the ideal of a new reality, which boths prevents them from breaking the illusion *and* prevents reality from breaking the illusion. And the big bucks are reserved for those who succeed. Your software failed at this, but you'll get another chance. Everybody everywhere has thus far failed, so that's not exactly a big deal. Since you clearly have your next chance, get to it.
The telling paragraph: "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."
Very short and very ill-attributed paragraph you have there. Here's a more detailed paragraph, also from the BBC, about his treatment :
Professor Hawking was able to feed himself and get in and out of bed until 1974. Until that point he and his wife were able to manage without outside help, but then had to rely on live-in help from one of his research students. In 1980, he changed to a system of community and private nurses, who came in for an hour or two in the morning and evening. This lasted until he caught pneumonia in 1985, and had to have a tracheotomy operation. After this, he needed 24-hour nursing care. Before the operation, his speech had been getting more slurred, so that only a few people who knew him well could understand him. However, he could communicate. He wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary, and gave seminars through an interpreter. The tracheotomy operation removed his ability to speak altogether, and he had to rely on a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer fitted to his wheel chair.
Note also that there is no known treatment (the causes are not known either, nor are the effects. It is not known why ALS patients usually die of pneumonia, aside from extremely general statements pointing out that ALS patients don't cough). Nurses and butlers are the only known form of even mildly effective treatment, and for some reason Hawking lived extremely long even for someone who does have full 24-7 personal care. Also his disease started up extremely late in his life compared to other patients : he got 21 years of near-normal living. And is still not on ventilation support at age 71. You have no idea just how rare it is for ALS patients to breathe on their own at age 25... He is about 10 standard deviations to the right of the bell curve. Are you claiming the NHS is responsible for that ? If so, they're limiting the good version of their care to Hawking alone.
While the NHS probably partially paid for the operations mentioned above, does it really need to be said that care like Hawking received isn't available for all that many people in the UK. It's extremely disingenuous to hold up Hawking's care as an example of an NHS "success". Let's hold up Donald Trump's medical care as an example of the US health care system. Do you think that fair ? If not, why do you get to pull crap like that ?
I actually have a friend that has ALS and trust me, the NHS does not assign someone 24-7 to look after him, never mind additional 2 technical assistants. Essentially, without a knowledgeable butler, he has about 0 chance to survive another 5 years. He will not get one. He's quite okay with that, but that's another matter.
As for statistics : survivability of ALS in the US is 4-5 years while in the UK it's 3-4 years (shows again why Hawking is such a huuuugely exceptional case). Needless to say, both suck and the difference is so small it's probably a measurement error. Especially since the only treatment available is more people actively looking after the patient 24-7-365.
I think most sales and marketing people would say that "real features that would add value" is an ill-defined concept. There is the IT version of it where value is "cool idea of the week". There is also the sales-world definition : "$".
Programmer versus sales usually boils down to that point.
In reality, programmers hate customers. Especially the customers with the "do what I want" syndrome. Salespeople... they're messengers with the message that programmer's worldview is radically wrong.
*Ahem* you don't know a thing about ALS, do you ? He was probably perfectly healthy until 21, at which point 1 diagnosis was (and is) pretty much all that could be done. As for disability aids, those were designed, operated and built by his "employer".
And as far as I believe that house he has as part of his position comes complete with a butler (read : he gets to hire someone for that).
As the article states, the vast majority of people with ALS die within 5 years of diagnosis (and given the symptoms, you will be diagnosed correctly long before you die. Hell, a stone age idiot could probably diagnose you to the point where you knew your prognosis)
The producer is in charge. The producer is looking to maximize profit for themselves.
To have any profit at all they have to do what the customer wants. In your television case, yes, there is confusion over who exactly is the customer. That doesn't change a thing. Television is made to make advertisers pay for viewers. So is Google. Everybody should know that.
Actually providing a "valuable product to the people" is a negative for producers for exactly the same reasons that it is to Negroponte: money/people/resources.
True, but in one case they have to. If Negroponte creates a product that damages people who receive it he is likely to get more money (becasue "clearly" they need more help). If Intel does the same, they're out of business.
I don't know what crackpot biology book you are reading from, but I'd ask for your money back. You are talking about horizontal gene transfer. Yes it's a real event, and yes it has interesting implications of evolution - predominately in bacteria. But it is not a driving force of evolution. If it were there would be much less genetic variation on the planet.
Depends on what you mean by "driving force". In bacteria and assorted prokaryots ? No, not at all. In plants, animals and humans ? Definitely. Without this, higher lifeforms would not evolve. They have neither the numbers nor the generational speed necessary (for prokaryots 100 billion individuals ? That's about a football-sized part of the ocean. Granted, you only count the first 2-3 meters below the surface. Still, that's one hell of a lot of footballs. Likewise a tree trunk is probably home to at least a few trillion prokaryots. Every single tree trunk in the world. They reproduce about once every 2 minutes. There are 6 billion humans reproducing once every 12 years on average. Yet we are not far behind those prokaryots... and we can successfully fight them off (or we wouldn't be here)... please explain why these prokaryots didn't manage to exterminate every last plant and animal millions of years ago ?).
Without lateral gene transfer, it should take the human species > 1 billion years to evolve any new molecule. It is known that in the last 5000 years we've evolved to include almost a dozen new compounds and we sure as hell didn't build them from scratch. With the human lifespan and generation gap (~25 years) that would take a few million years at least, unless there's billions of us living without medical care. Even with billions it would still take hundreds of thousands of years, and regardless of the current situation, human population did not exceed even 100 million until the late middle ages.
We have 12 near-complete and either undamaged or barely damaged viruses in our DNA code. That means they got inserted over the last 10.000 years or less. Modern human history is 170000 years. That is only our species. You could marry a human that lived 170000 years ago and have healthy, normal children (that's what makes them the same species). Naive calculation would suggest a thousand degraded viruses in our DNA.
Yeah, imagine that. The top states that are supporting this : * New York (2x) * Nevada * California * Massachusetts
And the top counties : * Richmond, Virginia * Los Angeles, California (ie. Silicon Valley) (TWICE) * Washington environs, Maryland * Charleston, South Carolina * Boston, Masachusetts
Hey those are the guys who voted in the major SOPA supporters. Representatives are supposed to represent the will of the people... well in theory anyway.
Really sad that the opposition couldn't even take Los Angeles.
Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] $3,502,624 Sen. Charles Schumer [D, NY] $2,648,770 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D, NY] $2,080,651
I wonder how much Obama got... in the beginning of an election year no less. What do you think Obama > Harry Reid or the reverse ?
Weird, weird names on the list though :
* United States Tennis Association * Council of state governments * National Confectioners Association * Major City Chiefs * Let Freedom Ring * Outdoor Industry Association * Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council * Eli Lilly and Company * Center for Individual Freedom * Concerned Women for America * Americans for Tax Reform * Society of Plastics Industry * Beam Global Spirits &Wine
Half of these sound extremely fake. Most of these look like it's VERY unlikely they would get themselves on this list if it didn't gain them money...
Not that I tell myself these guys collectively contributed even 1% of those amounts... very strange names here. Were the pressured into signing this ? There's another collection of names that clearly were pressured to get in there (National Electrical Manufacturers Association , Electronic Components Industry Association)... are these names just an attempt to point "broad support" or ? Weird weird weird.
Interesting though : all but one electronics manufacturers are in the opposing category.../me suspects threats from customers. All think tanks, democrat or republican, are on the opposing side. So clearly both parties are aware of the publicity loss. Lots of the organisations supporting this bill are subsidiaries of other supporters (so the supporter list shoulds be a LOT shorter). WTF is visa doing supporting these guys ?
Some organisations could have contributed more by staying out of it, me thinks : * 4chan * Torrentfreak * Tumblr (let's just say people might think they know why these guys are opposed, and it's not for the right reasons)
And, surprisingly in the "opposing" category (although I must admit this legislation doesn't strike me as conservative, and it doesn't seem like it's supported by the software industry either, it's almost purely privilege grab by the entertainment industry) : * Business Software Alliance (also known as Microsoft) * Brookings Institute * Competitive Enterprise Institute
Well, now we've got both problems of non-commercial production, although really they're both the same problem:
In commercial for-profit ("capitalist" although that's not a perfect match) products the customer is in charge. "In the limit", the product that's made is the one customers want, subject to the limitations the environment provides (ie. laws, like copyright, and technical and economical) limitations. The products made, due to competition are the best that are technically and economically possible, and they are available to all.
Products made by charity, dictatorships, communists... are also all similar : they are what the producer likes to produce, not what the customer wants (historical extremes include: twigs instead of paper/gold money (not kidding), soviet nails (google it), pine needle tea). They are politically motivated and are thus only available to whomever is deemed "worthy" (and it just never happens to be you), or people who use other kinds of motivation to get them (in other words, they'll kill you if you don't produce them. Variations on killing are possible, like burn your house down, or send you to siberia, or kill/kidnap your children like the muslims did,...). Fortunately, these products also suck. The intent, after all, is not the product. Not even indirectly. The intent is making American politicians, who don't use the product and never will, think as good as possible about the product, while making the product itself as worthless as possible. The purpose is PR, as pure as possible, not good products.
The intent of these products is political gain for their producer. The products are not the best possible ones, they're actually the worst possible ones. They must necessarily be as cheap as possible, entirely without considerations like usability. Especially if the people they're given to are not the people were political gain is coming from (e.g. this case : Negroponte gives them to hamas, obviously expects political gain from the democrat party and expects that gain to translate into sponsoring to his "research". It probably will do so. It will also probably damage the chances of Gazan kids, because the product is inferior. That's how it's designed)
Both of these are extremes. In a capitalist society companies might decide to lobby the government thereby changing the environment for both themselves and the competition. Additionally taxes dictate that products that aren't at least x% better than their raw materials don't get made (in practice today, that's somewhere around 2500% in America, more in Europe). In dictatorships/communist countries/... the products produced must still be good enough to prevent a mass-lynching of the dictatorship/party/mullahs/... So both extremes are tempered somewhat towards a middle ground that is the hated imperfection that plagues the human race.
You must understand the incentives here : what is good for Negroponte and what's bad for Negroponte: 1) good : convincing American politicians his product is good (this gains him money/people/resources, these people decide his pay/whether to fire him/...) 2) bad : actually providing a valuable product to the people he claims to help (since this costs him money/people/resources) It is a good thing that he does sell it to Americans, but it would be very bad indeed if he sold it to many Americans, who will then invariably point out how inferior it is, which damages him. Regardless of that, the fact that he sells it in America has a tiny chance of keeping him honest, but... I doubt it. Giving demonstrations, probably with many, many "this feature is coming" statements... that's extremely good business.
That's the choice that's there. Either things like copyright (or some better compromise)/markets/trademarks/... exists and producers stand to gain financially from their customer (and producers is people investing in product/content production, which overlaps but is not identical to "authors"). In this
I think the idea of the question is that A* is not used in practice. Vastly more difficult and subtle algorithms would be used (say highways or advanced grouping). If you can't give the answer to the A* question, what are the chances that you'll be able to use algorithms in the same space that are not documented anywhere ?
If you can give the idea behind A*, give the f and h functions, and tell them your "next to expand" element is the element with lowest f+g, then you rebuild the best path by following the previous_step pointers starting at the destination, I'm sure you've just passed with flying colors.
I'm pretty sure the "double the speed" question is the A* in both start->end and end->start directions optimization, and then watching if any point is touched by both A*'s. This is optimal under the same conditions that the original search is optimal. Shouldn't be too hard.
I also doubt I could do it without making at least one mistake though.
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The moment you mention this obvious conflict everyone goes silent ... "weird".
Unless of course you assume that every "modern" thinker, whether we're talking atheists, human rights activists, ... are really deep, deep cowards out for a quick buck. They attack what they know they can easily get away with (Christianity, Israel, American govt., ...) and which they know will bring them attention. Everything else they don't care about.
And when it comes to an enemy of human rights, atheism, freedom, or whatever that might actually retaliate, there are near-zero opinions on the matter.
Muslims get to claim islam is modern while pushing for paedophilia-rewarding laws in a dozen countries (ie. the right to rape 7-year old girls against their will like their prophet did). The right to kill for religious reasons (whether we're talking insults or apostates, or the many muslim religious genocides). The right to oppress people, religiously, ethnically, ... nobody protests.
Is this really the message of "tolerance", the message of "modernity" ? Because it sure as hell looks like it.
So everyone, take heed : "attack people on the street for vague reasons and you will have the support of the media, 'modern thinkers' and you can actually secure preferential treatment before the law".
What they're taking offence with is that this religious war that's being forced by muslims on everyone around the world. You seem to be pushing the same idea. These people take offence that their freedom is being destroyed by muslims, that they are automatically considered enemies, for a variety of reasons. They see that the violence level is slowly expanding to the point where you're taking away their choice to live in peace. Your reasons are moronic with them being Americans, atheists or christians (or traitor muslims), and that the violence level is increasing.
Most of all, they take offence with the obvious future that is being threatened by muslims all around the web and in so many places all around us : that it is a matter of time until the violence escalates to the level where everyone will be forced to defend themselves against these muslim animals.
I realize it is a constant in islam, both in it's disgusting sharia law and it's history, but one has to wonder : why do you morons fight ? There are only 2 outcomes, either you win or you lose. If you win, you get to live in talibanistan, where ridiculous numbers commit suicide for such moronic reasons as being forced to marry, where there is constant endless violence and hopelessness and where there is islam. If you lose, you die (although maybe if you lose against the US that might be avoided). And yes islam promises the plunder of the war, but you must realize that that is a VERY short-lived pleasure. And even if you win, we simply go back to the dark ages. Christianity sets up somewhere far beyond your disgusting religions reach and slowly builds back up to the point the world is worth living in again.
Is beating women and raping children (the islamic prophet did both) worth that much to muslims ? Apparently, yes.
Hell, this is perhaps the one tactical issue America, Russia, India and China agree on : the need to suppress islam's aspirations. What they don't agree with is the method. All but America seem to believe in genocide, given historical trends. Do muslims have the moronic idea you are capable of fighting even one of those ? I would be AMAZED that if open conflict emerges muslims would last a month. You attack America ... you might want to read up on how China treats it's enemies. Just ask a few Pakistani, you'll find them around.
So why the will to fight ? Are you truly this moronic ?
So your point, insofar as one exists in that jumbled mess of arbitrary thoughts, is that because he has a secret drug addiction (to which you are privy) it is all right for the state to have him executed?
You seem to say this isn't the case ... do you hate islam ? If your answer is "no", why do you bother with arguing at all ?
I ask because this is the choice that freedom of religion is being abused to force. As is plain here, but also in other cases, including some inside the US, freedom of religion is being used as justification for convicting people according to this law system called "islam". (well, I should say freedom of religion is being used as a thin veneer. Threat of direct personal violence is really what's behind it).
My point is that in a matter of half a decade to maybe one and a half decade, this violence will reach the point where freedom of religion dies. And there will be a choice to be made.
Nearly every attack, most likely including this one, was an inside job.
Besides, every bank in the world that isn't American invests ridiculous amounts into security (and fails). American banks, well, they also fail. But American banks are pretty unique in that they will only invest a reasonable amount to prevent fraud going out of control. They will actually not go after every single instance of fraud.
Of course, one of the big screwups exploited this exact "weakness".
They're going to be more agile.
That's what the bind 10 egineering manager told the committee of architects. She did this with approval from four other managers. The committee of architects will now present their solution to a conference of engineers, and then they will then choose external parties to be contracted to do the actual programming (and "surprisingly" the cheapest acceptable external party will just happen to have a job at verizon ... which is why "corporate features" are so prevalent in Bind). But now ... They're "looking for input". Anyone here ever tried to give input to an ISC discussion ? It's a bit like bleeding to death while having your leg slowly feasted on by a pack of hyenas, except of course that it takes 4-5 years for you to die (don't worry, the chances of someone actually having looked at your input in that time frame is minute, after all let's face it : these guys work so fast that features like intergalactic eon-timescales dns support needs to be built in right now. After all, given their decision speeds, it's very unlikely that there will be consensus for another release before we need it). By the time it is obvious just how much input ISC egos can stand you will have a newfound appreciation for bleeding to death : it's fast, and a bleeding leg does not have an ego charlie sheen would describe as "much worse than my mother".
I foresee issues.
Well, considering the history of socialism, even inside the united states, you can count yourself lucky that bribing people is all they do.
In Europe, we're not quite so lucky. The city of Brussels was blocked entirely 3 days in a row. They even attacked a police station and several streets look like a war zone ("unrelated vandals" is the party line).
That's just the last month.
Well google will release a statement, so we'll know a bit more soon.
Well ... That depends, don't you agree ?
Apparently facebook is ("was") paying people for bad-mouthing google. I am not saying that's necessarily the case here, but it's certainly a datapoint to consider.
IP address ownership, sadly, doesn't prove anything. Anyone with a BGP connection can hijack any IP address for large parts of the world. And before you say "but surely Google can prevent this" :
Read this
I've been the admin on 3 networks which were IP hijacked now. In two cases it was accidental, in a third case it was not. The situation is bad in North America, seriously disappointing in Western Europe, and beyond outrageous everywhere else. Basically, outside of North America and Europe you can pretty much assume anyone can hijack anything they want. Inside "the West" you have to be a carrier, a transit provider with a few hundred customers. Which sounds good, until you realize there's over 500 such organizations in North America alone.
Here's a hint: it's the one that doesn't defy the goddamned laws of physics.
Assuming that you are the only one with a correct view of the implications of the laws of physics is beyond delusional. The entirety of the human species has this thing called civilization and "denying the reality of the laws of physics" would not be that bad a description of it. This is the purpose of religion, which attempts to do that by changing human nature, and the purpose of science, which attempts to do it by changing the structure of the world surrounding humans. Religion fails at influencing the real world and science fails influencing humans in constructive manner. Somehow the future is something combining both of these, as such an ideology would be unbeatable by both religious people and unbeatable by scientists working to one-up one another. Both concepts, mostly religion but not neglecting science, are the very core of civilization, and they are it's past and it's future.
All sorts of inventions were tried and implemented in support of this. From the wheel, to Jesus, to cars, cities, electricity, computers ... you name it. And software is essentially nothing but our latest attempt to rewrite the laws of physics. It's also pretty damned successful at it even today, and if our visions of future software capabilities come true, like replicators and holodecks we will have the ability to trade (hopefully small amounts of) energy for total reality denial. This is the long-term goal of software. This means that it needs to do 2 things. First it needs to create an illusion around a person, or better yet, humanity as a whole, and prevent that person(s) from finding out about the real world. Secondly, it needs to influence the real world to sustain it, so that the machine/program/... creating the illusion is not destroyed by things like lack of energy or any of a million other factors.
Most software attempts to make a tiny, tiny little dent in this goal. Because we have no idea whatsoever how to make this happen, this is only natural. The main task you have as an employee is to move someone else closer to the ideal of a new reality, which boths prevents them from breaking the illusion *and* prevents reality from breaking the illusion. And the big bucks are reserved for those who succeed. Your software failed at this, but you'll get another chance. Everybody everywhere has thus far failed, so that's not exactly a big deal. Since you clearly have your next chance, get to it.
The telling paragraph:
"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."
Very short and very ill-attributed paragraph you have there. Here's a more detailed paragraph, also from the BBC, about his treatment :
(source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8009804.stm )
Professor Hawking was able to feed himself and get in and out of bed until 1974.
Until that point he and his wife were able to manage without outside help, but then had to rely on live-in help from one of his research students.
In 1980, he changed to a system of community and private nurses, who came in for an hour or two in the morning and evening.
This lasted until he caught pneumonia in 1985, and had to have a tracheotomy operation.
After this, he needed 24-hour nursing care.
Before the operation, his speech had been getting more slurred, so that only a few people who knew him well could understand him.
However, he could communicate. He wrote scientific papers by dictating to a secretary, and gave seminars through an interpreter.
The tracheotomy operation removed his ability to speak altogether, and he had to rely on a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer fitted to his wheel chair.
Note also that there is no known treatment (the causes are not known either, nor are the effects. It is not known why ALS patients usually die of pneumonia, aside from extremely general statements pointing out that ALS patients don't cough). Nurses and butlers are the only known form of even mildly effective treatment, and for some reason Hawking lived extremely long even for someone who does have full 24-7 personal care. Also his disease started up extremely late in his life compared to other patients : he got 21 years of near-normal living. And is still not on ventilation support at age 71. You have no idea just how rare it is for ALS patients to breathe on their own at age 25 ... He is about 10 standard deviations to the right of the bell curve. Are you claiming the NHS is responsible for that ? If so, they're limiting the good version of their care to Hawking alone.
While the NHS probably partially paid for the operations mentioned above, does it really need to be said that care like Hawking received isn't available for all that many people in the UK. It's extremely disingenuous to hold up Hawking's care as an example of an NHS "success". Let's hold up Donald Trump's medical care as an example of the US health care system. Do you think that fair ? If not, why do you get to pull crap like that ?
I actually have a friend that has ALS and trust me, the NHS does not assign someone 24-7 to look after him, never mind additional 2 technical assistants. Essentially, without a knowledgeable butler, he has about 0 chance to survive another 5 years. He will not get one. He's quite okay with that, but that's another matter.
As for statistics : survivability of ALS in the US is 4-5 years while in the UK it's 3-4 years (shows again why Hawking is such a huuuugely exceptional case). Needless to say, both suck and the difference is so small it's probably a measurement error. Especially since the only treatment available is more people actively looking after the patient 24-7-365.
So "disable" it ... In chrome : ctrl-shift-n + start typing your google search.
done/done
I think most sales and marketing people would say that "real features that would add value" is an ill-defined concept. There is the IT version of it where value is "cool idea of the week". There is also the sales-world definition : "$".
Programmer versus sales usually boils down to that point.
In reality, programmers hate customers. Especially the customers with the "do what I want" syndrome. Salespeople ... they're messengers with the message that programmer's worldview is radically wrong.
but that he owes his life to it many times over.
*Ahem* you don't know a thing about ALS, do you ? He was probably perfectly healthy until 21, at which point 1 diagnosis was (and is) pretty much all that could be done. As for disability aids, those were designed, operated and built by his "employer".
And as far as I believe that house he has as part of his position comes complete with a butler (read : he gets to hire someone for that).
As the article states, the vast majority of people with ALS die within 5 years of diagnosis (and given the symptoms, you will be diagnosed correctly long before you die. Hell, a stone age idiot could probably diagnose you to the point where you knew your prognosis)
Right, of course. Oops. Silicon valley is San Francisco of course.
The producer is in charge. The producer is looking to maximize profit for themselves.
To have any profit at all they have to do what the customer wants. In your television case, yes, there is confusion over who exactly is the customer. That doesn't change a thing. Television is made to make advertisers pay for viewers. So is Google. Everybody should know that.
Actually providing a "valuable product to the people" is a negative for producers for exactly the same reasons that it is to Negroponte: money/people/resources.
True, but in one case they have to. If Negroponte creates a product that damages people who receive it he is likely to get more money (becasue "clearly" they need more help). If Intel does the same, they're out of business.
Tennis isn't an inner sport of the poor.
So ? Basketball is, and it's on there too.
That form of anarchy doesn't exist. Any realistic view would consider your definitions for "anarchy" and "barbarism" as identical.
I don't know what crackpot biology book you are reading from, but I'd ask for your money back. You are talking about horizontal gene transfer. Yes it's a real event, and yes it has interesting implications of evolution - predominately in bacteria. But it is not a driving force of evolution. If it were there would be much less genetic variation on the planet.
Depends on what you mean by "driving force". In bacteria and assorted prokaryots ? No, not at all. In plants, animals and humans ? Definitely. Without this, higher lifeforms would not evolve. They have neither the numbers nor the generational speed necessary (for prokaryots 100 billion individuals ? That's about a football-sized part of the ocean. Granted, you only count the first 2-3 meters below the surface. Still, that's one hell of a lot of footballs. Likewise a tree trunk is probably home to at least a few trillion prokaryots. Every single tree trunk in the world. They reproduce about once every 2 minutes. There are 6 billion humans reproducing once every 12 years on average. Yet we are not far behind those prokaryots ... and we can successfully fight them off (or we wouldn't be here) ... please explain why these prokaryots didn't manage to exterminate every last plant and animal millions of years ago ?).
Without lateral gene transfer, it should take the human species > 1 billion years to evolve any new molecule. It is known that in the last 5000 years we've evolved to include almost a dozen new compounds and we sure as hell didn't build them from scratch. With the human lifespan and generation gap (~25 years) that would take a few million years at least, unless there's billions of us living without medical care. Even with billions it would still take hundreds of thousands of years, and regardless of the current situation, human population did not exceed even 100 million until the late middle ages.
We have 12 near-complete and either undamaged or barely damaged viruses in our DNA code. That means they got inserted over the last 10.000 years or less. Modern human history is 170000 years. That is only our species. You could marry a human that lived 170000 years ago and have healthy, normal children (that's what makes them the same species). Naive calculation would suggest a thousand degraded viruses in our DNA.
Yeah, imagine that. The top states that are supporting this :
* New York (2x)
* Nevada
* California
* Massachusetts
And the top counties :
* Richmond, Virginia
* Los Angeles, California (ie. Silicon Valley) (TWICE)
* Washington environs, Maryland
* Charleston, South Carolina
* Boston, Masachusetts
Hey those are the guys who voted in the major SOPA supporters. Representatives are supposed to represent the will of the people ... well in theory anyway.
Really sad that the opposition couldn't even take Los Angeles.
Just look at these amounts :
Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] $3,502,624
Sen. Charles Schumer [D, NY] $2,648,770
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D, NY] $2,080,651
I wonder how much Obama got ... in the beginning of an election year no less. What do you think Obama > Harry Reid or the reverse ?
Weird, weird names on the list though :
* United States Tennis Association
* Council of state governments
* National Confectioners Association
* Major City Chiefs
* Let Freedom Ring
* Outdoor Industry Association
* Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council
* Eli Lilly and Company
* Center for Individual Freedom
* Concerned Women for America
* Americans for Tax Reform
* Society of Plastics Industry
* Beam Global Spirits &Wine
Half of these sound extremely fake. Most of these look like it's VERY unlikely they would get themselves on this list if it didn't gain them money ...
Not that I tell myself these guys collectively contributed even 1% of those amounts ... very strange names here. Were the pressured into signing this ? There's another collection of names that clearly were pressured to get in there (National Electrical Manufacturers Association ... are these names just an attempt to point "broad support" or ? Weird weird weird.
, Electronic Components Industry Association)
Interesting though : all but one electronics manufacturers are in the opposing category ... /me suspects threats from customers. All think tanks, democrat or republican, are on the opposing side. So clearly both parties are aware of the publicity loss. Lots of the organisations supporting this bill are subsidiaries of other supporters (so the supporter list shoulds be a LOT shorter). WTF is visa doing supporting these guys ?
Some organisations could have contributed more by staying out of it, me thinks :
* 4chan
* Torrentfreak
* Tumblr
(let's just say people might think they know why these guys are opposed, and it's not for the right reasons)
And, surprisingly in the "opposing" category (although I must admit this legislation doesn't strike me as conservative, and it doesn't seem like it's supported by the software industry either, it's almost purely privilege grab by the entertainment industry) :
* Business Software Alliance (also known as Microsoft)
* Brookings Institute
* Competitive Enterprise Institute
Well, now we've got both problems of non-commercial production, although really they're both the same problem :
In commercial for-profit ("capitalist" although that's not a perfect match) products the customer is in charge. "In the limit", the product that's made is the one customers want, subject to the limitations the environment provides (ie. laws, like copyright, and technical and economical) limitations. The products made, due to competition are the best that are technically and economically possible, and they are available to all.
Products made by charity, dictatorships, communists ... are also all similar : they are what the producer likes to produce, not what the customer wants (historical extremes include: twigs instead of paper/gold money (not kidding), soviet nails (google it), pine needle tea). They are politically motivated and are thus only available to whomever is deemed "worthy" (and it just never happens to be you), or people who use other kinds of motivation to get them (in other words, they'll kill you if you don't produce them. Variations on killing are possible, like burn your house down, or send you to siberia, or kill/kidnap your children like the muslims did, ...). Fortunately, these products also suck. The intent, after all, is not the product. Not even indirectly. The intent is making American politicians, who don't use the product and never will, think as good as possible about the product, while making the product itself as worthless as possible. The purpose is PR, as pure as possible, not good products.
The intent of these products is political gain for their producer. The products are not the best possible ones, they're actually the worst possible ones. They must necessarily be as cheap as possible, entirely without considerations like usability. Especially if the people they're given to are not the people were political gain is coming from (e.g. this case : Negroponte gives them to hamas, obviously expects political gain from the democrat party and expects that gain to translate into sponsoring to his "research". It probably will do so. It will also probably damage the chances of Gazan kids, because the product is inferior. That's how it's designed)
Both of these are extremes. In a capitalist society companies might decide to lobby the government thereby changing the environment for both themselves and the competition. Additionally taxes dictate that products that aren't at least x% better than their raw materials don't get made (in practice today, that's somewhere around 2500% in America, more in Europe). In dictatorships/communist countries/... the products produced must still be good enough to prevent a mass-lynching of the dictatorship/party/mullahs/... So both extremes are tempered somewhat towards a middle ground that is the hated imperfection that plagues the human race.
You must understand the incentives here : what is good for Negroponte and what's bad for Negroponte : ... I doubt it. Giving demonstrations, probably with many, many "this feature is coming" statements ... that's extremely good business.
1) good : convincing American politicians his product is good (this gains him money/people/resources, these people decide his pay/whether to fire him/...)
2) bad : actually providing a valuable product to the people he claims to help (since this costs him money/people/resources)
It is a good thing that he does sell it to Americans, but it would be very bad indeed if he sold it to many Americans, who will then invariably point out how inferior it is, which damages him. Regardless of that, the fact that he sells it in America has a tiny chance of keeping him honest, but
That's the choice that's there. Either things like copyright (or some better compromise)/markets/trademarks/... exists and producers stand to gain financially from their customer (and producers is people investing in product/content production, which overlaps but is not identical to "authors"). In this
*ahem* f+g should be f+h obviously. Damn. I knew I'd make mistakes.
I think the idea of the question is that A* is not used in practice. Vastly more difficult and subtle algorithms would be used (say highways or advanced grouping). If you can't give the answer to the A* question, what are the chances that you'll be able to use algorithms in the same space that are not documented anywhere ?
If you can give the idea behind A*, give the f and h functions, and tell them your "next to expand" element is the element with lowest f+g, then you rebuild the best path by following the previous_step pointers starting at the destination, I'm sure you've just passed with flying colors.
I'm pretty sure the "double the speed" question is the A* in both start->end and end->start directions optimization, and then watching if any point is touched by both A*'s. This is optimal under the same conditions that the original search is optimal. Shouldn't be too hard.
I also doubt I could do it without making at least one mistake though.
Isn't it a crime to even ask for a pay stub ? Doubly so from a position of power (like during an interview). I know it is in Europe.