This is a minor plot point in the incredably good "new wierd" novel Kraken by China Miéville. There is a teleporting thief haunted by the thousnds of dead selves from every time he teleported. He is obsessed with Star Trek, natch. Brilliant.
What about a distributed / crowd sourced / peer-to-peer replacement? BOINC is a niche, product but could be as big as the Google cloud.
What if it ran in the browsers of the people who were accessing it? See this post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2269850&cid=36573466 Or if you are too lazy to click the link: If someone would build a browser-based distributed Hadoop + BigTable (with proper encryption and anonymization) we can have all the benefits of Google without the ads, scary corporate power, or privacy issues! I would leave my browser on their page and donate my CPU cycles and HD space. Where do I sign up?
If someone would build a browser-based distributed Hadoop + BigTable (with proper encryption and anonymization) we can have all the benefits of Google without the ads, scary corporate power, or privacy issues! I would leave my browser on their page and donate my CPU cycles and HD space. Where do I sign up?
There is NOT enough raw computing power, and there is certainly NOT enough that is available to those who could make use of it.
I am a scientist who is lucky enough to have unfettered access to one of the top 100 supercomputers on the planet (http://www.top500.org/), and I'm STILL limited computationally. Most researchers don't have access to a thousandth of this resource. I know that the modeling & simulation field is also computationally limited. Neither field is bumping up against NP problems, just very large ones. Luckily, they are often trivial to parallelize. If you like the fruits of science, there are a small army of researchers (hobbyist and professional) whom you could help with their significant problems.
As I see it, the problem is in the gatekeeper design of the volunteer systems (like BOINC). For many problems, it wouldn't be worth it to apply to BOINC, and try to motivate enough volunteers for a one-off run that would only take a few days on their system. Also, an entire infrastructure would need to be ported to run under BOINC.
There are solutions to this problem. A cloud (I apologize for using the buzzword), where a visualized environment would be downloaded by volunteers once, and join into a cluster where vetted researhers can run arbitrary code. Then researchers who have problems that could be run in hours to days on a system like BOINC, but not in years on their own systems could just log into the head node and launch their jobs. Several groups have most of the infrastructure built (CloVR / Science Clouds / Nimbus and Magellan / Eucalyptus), but the volunteer aspect is lacking.
To get back to the original post, would someone like to port Nimbus to run in the browser, and then load it on the non-mobile wikipedia?
I'm a fan of putting a sticker on the bottom of the laptop that has your contact information and an offer of a no-questions-asked reward for it's return. You can put it over the Microsoft sticker, if you are unfortunate enough to have paid the Microsoft tax (potentially with a piece of paper over the license preventing permanent damage to preserve resale value). You could even use one of the semi-permenent stickers carried by most office supply stores for tagging inventory. This same info could be placed in a grub splash screen protected by a password. This would seem to me to be more likely to get a laptop returned than the chances of it being successfully traced, even if it was booted in a place with net access. However, some ideas for scripts to act as a lo-jack system or a backdoor (which could be augmented with grabbing the camera pics from laptops so equipped) can be found in an old 2600 article:
The University of Georgia has developed a open source XML-rich framework for writing based on Open office and firefox called Emma that seems to fulfill most of your requirements, and a good deal more.
From the site:
(Electronic Markup and Management Application) enables
* writing, editing and posting compositions
* collaborating on and evaluating texts
* web-based collecting, modifying, distributing, rendering and archiving of student and professional writing
* creating and maintaining portfolios
I have just started to use the MusicBrainz Tagger to organize my mess of mp3 files. It does all of the normal re-tagging functions, but it will also make an AcousticFingerprint of the music file, and check your it with their database. This solves the problem of tags that are incorrect or missing altogether. It is a little slow, but otherwise a good program. It is available as Windows, MacOS X, and Python. Works with mp3 and Ogg. It's free & GPL'd.
I used to use a $20,000 FID Gas Chromatograph to determine the concentration of ethanol in my home distilled bathtub gin, until I figured out that a $3 proof and tralle hydrometer worked and was accurate to within 1%. Considering the hooch was always about 140 proof, this was acceptable, although not as exiting as using just one microliter and a huge instrument.
The google map is NOT centerd on the Geographical Center of the United States, but close to the intersection of 2200 and 4300 Rd. in Dearing, Kansas (just zoom in without a search).
try searching for google headquarters.
Apparently all this inovation comes from a small town in Oklahoma.
Seriously, are these results from some sort of web search for an address on the same page as the phrase? I can't imagine them coming from any type of white page.
This is part of a large body of research on DMS, its production, fate, and effect on climate. See pubmed for over a thousand citeations.
Allmost all the DMS produced in the oceans originally came from DMSP produced by algae (some corals have symbiotic algae). Some DMSP is broken down to DMS by the algae themselves, but bacteria seem to have a major role in breaking down DMSP to DMS, as well as to another compound, methanethiol, that is not released into the atmosphere in large amounts.
Interestingly, the genome of a bacterium that carries out both pathways of DMSP degradation is
sequenced. Hopefully this will soon allow us to find more about these two competing fates of DMSP. If you really want more information on this bacteria, you could read the discription paper.
The linked-to article and the original news release are lacking in an actual citation.
The actual paper is:
Toole, D. A., and D. A. Siegel (2004), Light-driven cycling of dimethylsulfide (DMS) in the Sargasso Sea: Closing the loop, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L09308, doi:10.1029/2004GL019581.
Unfortunately, you must subscribe to get more than just the abstract.
DMSP and DMS cycles are more complex than this brief article reports. DMSP is produced by algae, and some DMSP is broken down to DMS by algae as well. However, bacteria seem to have a major role in breaking down DMSP to DMS, as well as to another compound, methanethiol, that is not released into the atmosphere in large amounts.
Interestingly, the genome of a bacterium that carries out both pathways of DMSP degradation is being sequenced. Hopefully this will soon allow us to find more about these two competing fates of DMSP. If you really want more information on this bacteria, you could read a discription paper.
Regardless of the technical merits of this server-based approach, no one solution (particularly not a costly one) will lead to the widespread adoption of email encryption. Which is why I'm happy that IMP (part of HORDE) is integrating PGP into their latest release of their open source web-based email program. I've used IMP for years on a small server, but I have also seen it deployed by a large University, and can say that the only thing it lacked until now is integrated encryption. Hopefully, we will see this type of integration in many web-based email programs (encrypting a message to a Hotmail user, anyone?).
The relative amount of robots to water (in ppm) would have to be incredibly high to even cause concern for pollution levels. Besides, most of the robotic parts will be made of silicon or aluminum, not really a significant toxin, it would be equivalent to ingesting sand and a little rust. IMHO a system like this would be completely cost ineffective. More complicated larger multi-sensory instruments placed at strategic depths and distances from a pollution source would be fine coupled with a robust statistical analysis of the data. As a microbiologist I believe it would be easier to determine what harmful microorganisms are lurking in water sampled from these sites than to have unique specalized robots determining individual species. Hurrah for the technology, but maybe they should rethink the application.
Judge for yourself if the ABC news and/. submission are kind of overblown. Interesting for connections across different scales tho.
Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Electrically Functional Microwires from Nanoparticle Suspensions
Kevin D. Hermanson, Simon O. Lumsdon, Jacob P. Williams, Eric W. Kaler, and Orlin D. Velev
Abstract:
A new class of microwires can be assembled by dielectrophoresis from suspensions of metallic nanoparticles. The wires are
formed in the gaps between planar electrodes and can grow faster than 50 micrometers per second to lengths exceeding
5 millimeters. They have good ohmic conductance and automatically form electrical connections to conductive islands or particles.
The thickness and the fractal dimension of the wires can be controlled, and composite wires with a metallic core surrounded by a
latex shell can be assembled. The simple assembly process and their high surface-to-volume ratio make these structures promising
for wet electronic and bioelectronic circuits.
I know that this simple experiment will be safe, but it was kind of chilling, as it reminded me of the "Big Mistake" in Hyperion by Dan Simmons that destroyed the earth long before the story begins. Briefly, scientist and an AI created a black hole that destroyed earth (there is a lot more to it, but I won't put in spoilers, as the book is a great piece of SciFi).
Slashdot Mirror
This is a minor plot point in the incredably good "new wierd" novel Kraken by China Miéville. There is a teleporting thief haunted by the thousnds of dead selves from every time he teleported. He is obsessed with Star Trek, natch. Brilliant.
Yes. They are. Makes the whole series a bit darker, no?
This is a minor plot point in the incredable "new wierd" novel Kraken by China Miéville.
So you want to reform democracy?
Https://medium.com/civic-tech-thoughts-from-joshdata/so-you-want-to-reform-democracy-7f3b1ef10597
The benefit of a Wacom stylus is that you can rest your hand on the screen.
I've got most functions to work under linux on an X series, but do your homework: thinkwiki.org
What about a distributed / crowd sourced / peer-to-peer replacement? BOINC is a niche, product but could be as big as the Google cloud.
What if it ran in the browsers of the people who were accessing it? See this post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2269850&cid=36573466
Or if you are too lazy to click the link:
If someone would build a browser-based distributed Hadoop + BigTable (with proper encryption and anonymization) we can have all the benefits of Google without the ads, scary corporate power, or privacy issues! I would leave my browser on their page and donate my CPU cycles and HD space. Where do I sign up?
googlebox
I agree. For a fix, try using:
+"YourSearchTerm"
and the boolean (AND OR NOT) and NEAR qualifiers in your google searches.
Or use Web of $cience
We need:
No single point of failure.
No corporate control.
No Ads.
There is an initial Second Life / Kinect interface avaliable. It only triggers macros and implements crude gesture navigation, but it is a start:
http://ict.usc.edu/projects/gesture_emotion_transference_using_microsoft_kinect_and_second_life_avatars/
If someone would build a browser-based distributed Hadoop + BigTable (with proper encryption and anonymization) we can have all the benefits of Google without the ads, scary corporate power, or privacy issues! I would leave my browser on their page and donate my CPU cycles and HD space. Where do I sign up?
googlebox
There is NOT enough raw computing power, and there is certainly NOT enough that is available to those who could make use of it.
I am a scientist who is lucky enough to have unfettered access to one of the top 100 supercomputers on the planet (http://www.top500.org/), and I'm STILL limited computationally. Most researchers don't have access to a thousandth of this resource. I know that the modeling & simulation field is also computationally limited. Neither field is bumping up against NP problems, just very large ones. Luckily, they are often trivial to parallelize. If you like the fruits of science, there are a small army of researchers (hobbyist and professional) whom you could help with their significant problems.
As I see it, the problem is in the gatekeeper design of the volunteer systems (like BOINC). For many problems, it wouldn't be worth it to apply to BOINC, and try to motivate enough volunteers for a one-off run that would only take a few days on their system. Also, an entire infrastructure would need to be ported to run under BOINC.
There are solutions to this problem. A cloud (I apologize for using the buzzword), where a visualized environment would be downloaded by volunteers once, and join into a cluster where vetted researhers can run arbitrary code. Then researchers who have problems that could be run in hours to days on a system like BOINC, but not in years on their own systems could just log into the head node and launch their jobs. Several groups have most of the infrastructure built (CloVR / Science Clouds / Nimbus and Magellan / Eucalyptus), but the volunteer aspect is lacking.
To get back to the original post, would someone like to port Nimbus to run in the browser, and then load it on the non-mobile wikipedia?
cpubox
Yet another reason for the routine use of 95% frequentist statistics to be replaced with bayesian methods.
I'm a fan of putting a sticker on the bottom of the laptop that has your contact information and an offer of a no-questions-asked reward for it's return. You can put it over the Microsoft sticker, if you are unfortunate enough to have paid the Microsoft tax (potentially with a piece of paper over the license preventing permanent damage to preserve resale value). You could even use one of the semi-permenent stickers carried by most office supply stores for tagging inventory. This same info could be placed in a grub splash screen protected by a password. This would seem to me to be more likely to get a laptop returned than the chances of it being successfully traced, even if it was booted in a place with net access. However, some ideas for scripts to act as a lo-jack system or a backdoor (which could be augmented with grabbing the camera pics from laptops so equipped) can be found in an old 2600 article:
http://conigs.com.nyud.net:8090/static/misc/laptop.html
jackbox
The University of Georgia has developed a open source XML-rich framework for writing based on Open office and firefox called Emma that seems to fulfill most of your requirements, and a good deal more.
http://www.emma.uga.edu/
From the site:
(Electronic Markup and Management Application) enables
* writing, editing and posting compositions
* collaborating on and evaluating texts
* web-based collecting, modifying, distributing, rendering and archiving of student and professional writing
* creating and maintaining portfolios
puts people and texts together.
Use MusicBrainz!
I have just started to use the MusicBrainz Tagger to organize my mess of mp3 files. It does all of the normal re-tagging functions, but it will also make an AcousticFingerprint of the music file, and check your it with their database. This solves the problem of tags that are incorrect or missing altogether. It is a little slow, but otherwise a good program. It is available as Windows, MacOS X, and Python. Works with mp3 and Ogg. It's free & GPL'd.
tagboxI used to use a $20,000 FID Gas Chromatograph to determine the concentration of ethanol in my home distilled bathtub gin, until I figured out that a $3 proof and tralle hydrometer worked and was accurate to within 1%. Considering the hooch was always about 140 proof, this was acceptable, although not as exiting as using just one microliter and a huge instrument.
boozebox
middlebox
Seriously, are these results from some sort of web search for an address on the same page as the phrase? I can't imagine them coming from any type of white page.
mapbox
Allmost all the DMS produced in the oceans originally came from DMSP produced by algae (some corals have symbiotic algae). Some DMSP is broken down to DMS by the algae themselves, but bacteria seem to have a major role in breaking down DMSP to DMS, as well as to another compound, methanethiol, that is not released into the atmosphere in large amounts. Interestingly, the genome of a bacterium that carries out both pathways of DMSP degradation is sequenced. Hopefully this will soon allow us to find more about these two competing fates of DMSP. If you really want more information on this bacteria, you could read the discription paper.
bugbox
The actual paper is:
Toole, D. A., and D. A. Siegel (2004), Light-driven cycling of dimethylsulfide (DMS) in the Sargasso Sea: Closing the loop, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L09308, doi:10.1029/2004GL019581.
Unfortunately, you must subscribe to get more than just the abstract.
DMSP and DMS cycles are more complex than this brief article reports. DMSP is produced by algae, and some DMSP is broken down to DMS by algae as well. However, bacteria seem to have a major role in breaking down DMSP to DMS, as well as to another compound, methanethiol, that is not released into the atmosphere in large amounts.
Interestingly, the genome of a bacterium that carries out both pathways of DMSP degradation is being sequenced. Hopefully this will soon allow us to find more about these two competing fates of DMSP. If you really want more information on this bacteria, you could read a discription paper.
Regardless of the technical merits of this server-based approach, no one solution (particularly not a costly one) will lead to the widespread adoption of email encryption. Which is why I'm happy that IMP (part of HORDE) is integrating PGP into their latest release of their open source web-based email program. I've used IMP for years on a small server, but I have also seen it deployed by a large University, and can say that the only thing it lacked until now is integrated encryption. Hopefully, we will see this type of integration in many web-based email programs (encrypting a message to a Hotmail user, anyone?).
cryptbox
In my opinion, the book is vastly supirior to the movie of the same name.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
The relative amount of robots to water (in ppm) would have to be incredibly high to even cause concern for pollution levels. Besides, most of the robotic parts will be made of silicon or aluminum, not really a significant toxin, it would be equivalent to ingesting sand and a little rust. IMHO a system like this would be completely cost ineffective. More complicated larger multi-sensory instruments placed at strategic depths and distances from a pollution source would be fine coupled with a robust statistical analysis of the data. As a microbiologist I believe it would be easier to determine what harmful microorganisms are lurking in water sampled from these sites than to have unique specalized robots determining individual species. Hurrah for the technology, but maybe they should rethink the application.
Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Electrically Functional Microwires from Nanoparticle Suspensions
Kevin D. Hermanson, Simon O. Lumsdon, Jacob P. Williams, Eric W. Kaler, and Orlin D. Velev
Abstract:
A new class of microwires can be assembled by dielectrophoresis from suspensions of metallic nanoparticles. The wires are formed in the gaps between planar electrodes and can grow faster than 50 micrometers per second to lengths exceeding 5 millimeters. They have good ohmic conductance and automatically form electrical connections to conductive islands or particles. The thickness and the fractal dimension of the wires can be controlled, and composite wires with a metallic core surrounded by a latex shell can be assembled. The simple assembly process and their high surface-to-volume ratio make these structures promising for wet electronic and bioelectronic circuits.
Science Nov 2 2001: 1082-1086.
[Full Text] (only if you have a science account)
[Supplemental Data] - including QT movies!
I know that this simple experiment will be safe, but it was kind of chilling, as it reminded me of the "Big Mistake" in Hyperion by Dan Simmons that destroyed the earth long before the story begins. Briefly, scientist and an AI created a black hole that destroyed earth (there is a lot more to it, but I won't put in spoilers, as the book is a great piece of SciFi).
sfbox
And the deep, warm voice of Orson Wells:
"And now, we bring you live to Grover Mills, just outside of Trenton, New Jersey . . . "
radiobox