... and anyone who designs is The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. Software design is just the latest "engineering" to miss the target on the delivered goods.
... or less then OSS is dead (unless it really starts embracing the making of Win apps). It's a lesson the music industry may learn as well if they want to truly end the Napster Clone Wars.
... they died proud, courageous, doing what they loved. Something they loved _so_ much that they chose to take the risks they knew were there. Feel for their families who experience the loss of loved ones. But please don't consider depriving others of the pursuit of that same dream. For some, that would be worse than death.
... flights by humans. Remember: the Hubble repairs and upgrades. Just as we can't perfectly send humans into space, we also can't perfectly send robots or equipment. And as probes get more sophisticated, their size will mandate their construction in orbit. Humans will be needed for that.
1) Maintenacnce of Boiler - boilers are not trivial creatures. They run hot and need regular maintenance. And I want to see the boiler that runs on _salt_ water and doesn't have a _big_ maintenance budget (look up salt water evaporators);
2) Efficiency - boilers aren't great at converting the heat energy to steam unless they get quite fancy... as in the Navy's big ships. And how does the efficiency of transferring steam's energy into liquid motion compare to that of a propellor?; and
3) No moving parts - is a red herring. The question is how fragile are your parts? Little holes get clogged up pretty quickly, not necessarily when running, but when the thing is stopped. And cardboard doesn't compare to what is really out there. What happens when a piece of plywood jams into the throat of the nozzle and blocks, or just restricts, water flow?
It's a neat idea but I think it's a solution looking for a problem.
... can be universal. The principles used actually have their roots in the theories put forward by R. Solomonoff and Kolmogorov (links below). Any given string of bits can be assigned a "complexity" which is proportional to the length of the shortest program that can generate that string. It isn't usually computable BUT the size of the output file of a compression algorithm can be shown to be a reasonable if crude approximation. The beauty is that this approach (minimum description length or MDL) is clustering email in a very fundamental way without the bias' that can be introduced with assumptions required by Bayesian techniques and arguably making use of all the information (vice a subset chosen by the Bayesian user) contained in the email. Yes, the answers can be the same but the MDL approach is universal and the same classifier without modification could be used for broader clustering tasks i.e beyond binary classification of junk/not_junk to multi-class classification junk/best friend/mom/dad/wife/work/etc.
As an aside, since it could be fully automated it would be interesting to run the such an algorithm with a graphical display, say a 2D plot of compression size vs time of day just to see what shakes out.
By the way, the problematic portion for bioinformatics apps is the compression. DNA sequences often exhibit _expansion_ when put through the common compression schemes. Li has come up with a compression scheme that is more optimal called GenCompress.
Kolmogorov Complexity - http://www.idsia.ch/~marcus/kolmo.htm Minimum Description Length - http://www3.oup.co.uk/computer_journal/hdb/Volume_ 42/Issue_04/ Bioinformatics app - http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~mli/sam.ps GeneCompressio n Program - http://www.cs.cityu.edu.hk/~cssamk/gencomp/GenComp ress1.htm
... Wolfram's, "New Kind of Science" and Fritjof Capra's, "The Web of Life" to get a tremendous sense of convergence of many fields and principles. The incredible interconnectedness of things makes you wonder how anyone can claim to have "... found the gene for..." or dare to think that their actions only have local repurcussions. You listening, George?
a) From "Experts say environment is as important as genes in determining a cat's personality." we can conclude that the world ISN'T BLACK and WHITE; and
b) There probably isn't such a thing as "...the gene for...". The genes are part of a larger system and it is that _system_ that has to be altered and understood for cloning or disease prevention or whatever.
... of an accident. I've been in the Navy for 20 years. Ship's hit hard sometimes, even with tugs, when the current, wind, etc. go against you. Right now it's a bit of wood that gets crunched. What's the cost on those magnets again? And as if water, salt, air and metal weren't bad enough, toss in some high current lines and huge magnetic fields. Seems very complicated, high maintenance, and for no obvious benefit.
Whims of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
on
GPS Jamming for $50
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Who cares about the military? Worry about the effects on beneficial stuff eg. the GPS trackers for those with Alzheimers and children. In our paranoia about the government, military, and our privacy we overlook the benefits we receive, or can receive, from our technology.
... I think the latter. Microsoft (Gates) can be said to have an unshakeable vision of what they want. That quality is what defines a leader either in a person or in a corporation. The "control" is only when they can impart that vision to employees and corporate allies.
Au Contraire ...
on
DOD vs. 802.11b
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
... _we_ should worry about interference. As a naval elec officer I recall we had to shut down our radars before coming into the harbour because they wrought havoc with the digital phone switching systems in the area. Wireless users arise and get the military to shut down their PRON interference systems!
... since I did the equivalent of call display. My filters (Mozilla) only allow trusted addresses into my Inbox. My trusted addresses are those on my personal address book. Everything else goes to Trash. I've added addresses _temporarily_ when consulting and that's it. For a while I was looking at the Trash , just in case, but in six months I never missed a thing that was important. So now no worries, no spam.
... not software. There are a ton of systems/methodologies out there. All of them are valid IMHO. But you don't see the benefits because programmers simply don't rigourously adhere to any one of them. And why should they? Software engineering rarely has the impact that the older engineering disciplines have. Poor aeronautical engineering kills people. A buggy word-processor or game is irrelevant by comparison.
But the tools are out there to make a difference if you can motivate people, and yourself, to be more disciplined in the use of those tools; to give a damn about the end product. Learn to understand human nature and you'll see better code as you motivate yourself and your peers. And if you really understand human nature, I've found you can even influence managers and other suits to give a damn too.
... besides Octave you might try the Euro-centric Scilab (http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/). It is very close to Matlab in abilities, already has provision for parallel processing (via PVM), and has a _very_ supportive user group.
Honestly though, I've tried just about everything that's out there in OSS. You can cobble together things with C++ libraries, Python/NumPy, etc. But you pay big bucks because the commercial software brings it together seamlessly and, generally, mindlessly.
Case in point: I got some biochem students running FFT's and principal component analysis w/graphic output in less than half an hour (using Matlab). Didn't have to explain about syntax, wrappers, bindings, etc. Just fft(...) and plot(...). That's worth $1000 because it got them interested. When their problems get more complex than Matlab can handle simply, they'll _want_ to learn the other stuff.
Malicious code is out there for the taking from any number of sources. It's not a case of finding and identifying malicious code anymore. It's about letting the most people know about it. If they erred it was by not spreading the word broadly enough.
... but call me when you get it down to a reasonable size so's it's mobile. Also, my brain can still function on literally, just peanuts beer... OK, the processing drops a few mips but it can still get me home... well, mostly...
Mind exercise: you want to file a patent on something you created. It would be wise to reach back and find all existing and dropped applications that relate to and preceded yours, and to cite them. At the least you might think of all the possible minor alterations to your work that could be done by the hordes trying to hone in on your brainchild. The patent procedure would insist that you document all this in the application. Would the end result look different from theirs?
I read the first patent and caught this:
"These and other objects are achieved by the preferred embodiment of the invention which is directed to a means for automatically creating and displaying customized travel and tour sales presentations from various textual and graphical data sources managed by a multiplicity of operating programs. "
In the spirit of the patent i.e. primarily for travel sales, I haven't come across any sites that tailor their info to _me_ automatically. So yes, I think it's close to original work. And if someone has done the work before but didn't bother to patent it, well that's lack of dilligence. Got a good idea? Protect it they way the law allows you to.
Slashdot Mirror
... and anyone who designs is The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. Software design is just the latest "engineering" to miss the target on the delivered goods.
... Fight for your right to bear a floppy. Join the NFA (National Floppy Association).
... this guy, Al Kayda, asked me the same thing. And some very nice gentlemen from the FBI want to chat.
... or less then OSS is dead (unless it really starts embracing the making of Win apps). It's a lesson the music industry may learn as well if they want to truly end the Napster Clone Wars.
... flights by humans. Remember: the Hubble repairs and upgrades. Just as we can't perfectly send humans into space, we also can't perfectly send robots or equipment. And as probes get more sophisticated, their size will mandate their construction in orbit. Humans will be needed for that.
... fuel, efficiency, fragility. Consider this:
... as in the Navy's big ships. And how does the efficiency of transferring steam's energy into liquid motion compare to that of a propellor?; and
1) Maintenacnce of Boiler - boilers are not trivial creatures. They run hot and need regular maintenance. And I want to see the boiler that runs on _salt_ water and doesn't have a _big_ maintenance budget (look up salt water evaporators);
2) Efficiency - boilers aren't great at converting the heat energy to steam unless they get quite fancy
3) No moving parts - is a red herring. The question is how fragile are your parts? Little holes get clogged up pretty quickly, not necessarily when running, but when the thing is stopped. And cardboard doesn't compare to what is really out there. What happens when a piece of plywood jams into the throat of the nozzle and blocks, or just restricts, water flow?
It's a neat idea but I think it's a solution looking for a problem.
... where he shoots back at the /. criticisms of Windows on Linux. But I guess this is off topic, right?
... can be universal. The principles used actually have their roots in the theories put forward by R. Solomonoff and Kolmogorov (links below). Any given string of bits can be assigned a "complexity" which is proportional to the length of the shortest program that can generate that string. It isn't usually computable BUT the size of the output file of a compression algorithm can be shown to be a reasonable if crude approximation. The beauty is that this approach (minimum description length or MDL) is clustering email in a very fundamental way without the bias' that can be introduced with assumptions required by Bayesian techniques and arguably making use of all the information (vice a subset chosen by the Bayesian user) contained in the email. Yes, the answers can be the same but the MDL approach is universal and the same classifier without modification could be used for broader clustering tasks i.e beyond binary classification of junk/not_junk to multi-class classification junk/best friend/mom/dad/wife/work/etc.
_ 42/Issue_04/o n Program - http://www.cs.cityu.edu.hk/~cssamk/gencomp/GenComp ress1.htm
As an aside, since it could be fully automated it would be interesting to run the such an algorithm with a graphical display, say a 2D plot of compression size vs time of day just to see what shakes out.
By the way, the problematic portion for bioinformatics apps is the compression. DNA sequences often exhibit _expansion_ when put through the common compression schemes. Li has come up with a compression scheme that is more optimal called GenCompress.
Kolmogorov Complexity - http://www.idsia.ch/~marcus/kolmo.htm
Minimum Description Length - http://www3.oup.co.uk/computer_journal/hdb/Volume
Bioinformatics app - http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~mli/sam.ps
GeneCompressi
... Wolfram's, "New Kind of Science" and Fritjof Capra's, "The Web of Life" to get a tremendous sense of convergence of many fields and principles. The incredible interconnectedness of things makes you wonder how anyone can claim to have " ... found the gene for ..." or dare to think that their actions only have local repurcussions. You listening, George?
... from this are:
...". The genes are part of a larger system and it is that _system_ that has to be altered and understood for cloning or disease prevention or whatever.
a) From "Experts say environment is as important as genes in determining a cat's personality." we can conclude that the world ISN'T BLACK and WHITE; and
b) There probably isn't such a thing as "...the gene for
... of an accident. I've been in the Navy for 20 years. Ship's hit hard sometimes, even with tugs, when the current, wind, etc. go against you. Right now it's a bit of wood that gets crunched. What's the cost on those magnets again? And as if water, salt, air and metal weren't bad enough, toss in some high current lines and huge magnetic fields. Seems very complicated, high maintenance, and for no obvious benefit.
Who cares about the military? Worry about the effects on beneficial stuff eg. the GPS trackers for those with Alzheimers and children. In our paranoia about the government, military, and our privacy we overlook the benefits we receive, or can receive, from our technology.
"I could imagine it being a real pain for a new programmer to learn a language like that."
D isn't for beginners. It's for intermediate to advanced programmers of medium to large programs. Read about it here:
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/overview.html
... so I guess it isn't much of an issue is it?
... I think the latter. Microsoft (Gates) can be said to have an unshakeable vision of what they want. That quality is what defines a leader either in a person or in a corporation. The "control" is only when they can impart that vision to employees and corporate allies.
... _we_ should worry about interference. As a naval elec officer I recall we had to shut down our radars before coming into the harbour because they wrought havoc with the digital phone switching systems in the area. Wireless users arise and get the military to shut down their PRON interference systems!
... of "HOAX". This is the homepage:
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/
Back to your lives citizens.
... since I did the equivalent of call display. My filters (Mozilla) only allow trusted addresses into my Inbox. My trusted addresses are those on my personal address book. Everything else goes to Trash. I've added addresses _temporarily_ when consulting and that's it. For a while I was looking at the Trash , just in case, but in six months I never missed a thing that was important. So now no worries, no spam.
... not software. There are a ton of systems/methodologies out there. All of them are valid IMHO. But you don't see the benefits because programmers simply don't rigourously adhere to any one of them. And why should they? Software engineering rarely has the impact that the older engineering disciplines have. Poor aeronautical engineering kills people. A buggy word-processor or game is irrelevant by comparison.
But the tools are out there to make a difference if you can motivate people, and yourself, to be more disciplined in the use of those tools; to give a damn about the end product. Learn to understand human nature and you'll see better code as you motivate yourself and your peers. And if you really understand human nature, I've found you can even influence managers and other suits to give a damn too.
... besides Octave you might try the Euro-centric Scilab (http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/). It is very close to Matlab in abilities, already has provision for parallel processing (via PVM), and has a _very_ supportive user group.
Honestly though, I've tried just about everything that's out there in OSS. You can cobble together things with C++ libraries, Python/NumPy, etc. But you pay big bucks because the commercial software brings it together seamlessly and, generally, mindlessly.
Case in point: I got some biochem students running FFT's and principal component analysis w/graphic output in less than half an hour (using Matlab). Didn't have to explain about syntax, wrappers, bindings, etc. Just fft(...) and plot(...). That's worth $1000 because it got them interested. When their problems get more complex than Matlab can handle simply, they'll _want_ to learn the other stuff.
Malicious code is out there for the taking from any number of sources. It's not a case of finding and identifying malicious code anymore. It's about letting the most people know about it. If they erred it was by not spreading the word broadly enough.
... but call me when you get it down to a reasonable size so's it's mobile. Also, my brain can still function on literally, just peanuts beer ... OK, the processing drops a few mips but it can still get me home ... well, mostly ...
... applied to Windows.
Mind exercise: you want to file a patent on something you created. It would be wise to reach back and find all existing and dropped applications that relate to and preceded yours, and to cite them. At the least you might think of all the possible minor alterations to your work that could be done by the hordes trying to hone in on your brainchild. The patent procedure would insist that you document all this in the application. Would the end result look different from theirs?
I read the first patent and caught this:
"These and other objects are achieved by the preferred embodiment of the invention which is directed to a means for automatically creating and displaying customized travel and tour sales presentations from various textual and graphical data sources managed by a multiplicity of operating programs. "
In the spirit of the patent i.e. primarily for travel sales, I haven't come across any sites that tailor their info to _me_ automatically. So yes, I think it's close to original work. And if someone has done the work before but didn't bother to patent it, well that's lack of dilligence. Got a good idea? Protect it they way the law allows you to.