The more IE windows you have open, the longer this pause tends to be.
I looked into this a while back and came to the same conclusion. Running stopwatch tests and curve fitting to A*N^2+B*N+C, it looked like the time went up with the square of the number of windows (B was ~ 0, and C was...a constant).
So I told the user who brought it up to 1) not open so many windows or 2) switch to something other than IE.
Whereas a simple bar magnet produces magnetic fields that go from the north pole to the south pole, the fields of the new hybrid plastic sprout like branches of a cactus lined with secondary fields that resemble needles
Shouldn't the headline have been "Maxwell's equations disproven!" or something else more fitting for such a revolutionary discovery?
Unless of course Maxwell's equations still stand, in which case the headline should have been something like "Hype replaces progress in science; film at 11:00"
Ages ago I worked with someone who (with malace aforethought) got everyone to refer to the small room where we delt with all the network/phone interconnects as "the Wiring Closet", and then started shortening it to "the W. C." in memos, and finally (once everyone was numbed to it) put a sign on the door with just the letters "WC".
Who in the heck moderated this guy as "flamebait"? What were you thinking, that he was trying to goad the rabid fans of hotxxxlickdrip.com into starting a flame war? Did you even follow/look at the link?
If they have them in your area, CrackerBarrel has all sorts of things like that; gyroscopes, lots of wood toys, etc.
(In case you don't know, they're restraunts often found at the edge of town and always near an interstate).
-- MarkusQ
3 yr olds can't close one eye
on
Low Tech Toys?
·
· Score: 2
The real question is, why would you want to give one to a 3 year old? They can't close just one eye at a time, making it hard to use.
That's nuts. If your three year old can't close just one eye, it's probably because no one has shown them how. If you make a game of it I'll bet they'll have it down in a week.
You, an uncredentialed/.er who goes by the name Pap Legba, have just dismissed the peer review process of scientific journals, comparing "science mags" to "game review mags."
Uh, just to clarify: we aren't talking about a scientific journal here. The original article explicitly stated that it was the "Journal of Applied Physics."
What sort of nonsense are you going off about here?
Companies have the right to run their companies the way management sees fit.
And (by the same logic). he has the right to respond to the way they run their companies the way he sees fit. You're correct that management has the right to make choices. But that doesn't mean that customers, stockholders, employees, competitors, ad all the rest of us have lost the right to hold, voice, and even act on our oppinions of the choices the managers make. I have called companies to tell them I supported them for making a hard but sound choice; why should I not chastise them for making easy but stupid ones?
The plots are given high levels of water, heat, carbon dioxide and nitrogen in different combinations to simulate predicted global climate change in the next hundred years.
Unless there is something more solid that they aren't reporting, this looks more like politics than science. At least, the way they report the findings sounds very skewed:
"The three-factor combination of increased temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposition produced the largest stimulation [an 84 percent increase], but adding carbon dioxide reduced this to 40 percent," Shaw and her colleagues wrote.
In other words, they are saying that high Co2 levels increased plant growth 40%, but because of their agenda they are reporting this effect as a reduction because it is less than they would have seen if they'd done something else.
A more likely/solid conclusion might be: if the climate changes plants in a given area might not be as well adapted to the new conditions as they were to the old.
The plots are given high levels of water, heat, carbon dioxide and nitrogen in different combinations to simulate predicted global climate change in the next hundred years.
Unless there is something more solid that they aren't reporting, this looks more like politics than science. At least, the way they report the findings sounds very skewed:
"The three-factor combination of increased temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposition produced the largest stimulation [an 84 percent increase], but adding carbon dioxide reduced this to 40 percent," Shaw and her colleagues wrote.
In other words, they are saying that high Co2 levels increased plant growth 40%, but because of their agenda they are reporting this effect as a reduction because it is less than they would have seen if they'd done something else.
A more likely/solid conclusion might be: if the climate changes plants in a given area might not be as well adapted to the new conditions as they were to the old.
Every six months or so I turn on a TV (or get stuck someplace where one is on & too loud to ignore. Given what I've seen the past few years, I'd be in favour of some sort of flag bit that not only prevented recording the programs, but also prevented broadcasting them in the first place.
MarkusQ: Mathematics at least grew out of that particular my-me-mine stage hundreds of years ago
the eric conspiracy: You don't really believe that, do you? If this were really true, mathematics journals would publish their articles without author's names attached to them, and their would be no Fields Medal. The fact is that the method of keeping score is different, that's all.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I wasn't talking about squables over giving/taking credit for discoveries, I was talking about the practice of trying to control the use of the discoveries as if the were the property of the discoverer. This was common in Europe at least from the time of the Pythagoreans through 1600 or so.
To my mind, the present climate of "intelectual property" in software is about as petty and counter productive as that of pre-Renaissance mathematics. Petty, for obvious reasons and counter-productive because trying to control what people can think (or what thoughts they can use), no matter what your motives, is never good for science.
This sounds to me like the traditional lament of the academic when he finds his pursuit has a practical use.
No, the lament only comes out when the practical people jumping on the band waggon that the academics built start trying to boss the academics around and impose goals and limits based on their lust for gold instead of the academics lust for knowledge.
--MarkusQ
The engineer who takes joy from building something people can use has a different view.
We need both.
*smile* That's the basis of my relationship with my wife (She's EE+MBA).
Ultimately I think that this is what the software industry will come to. Programmers will need to understand the patent literature in their area of expertise, just like technical practioners in other fields do now. I think it's very much a sign of the immaturity of the software field that we have this great hue and cry over software patents. The fact of the matter is that finding a new way to calculate an FFT is IMPORTANT and the inventor should be well rewarded.
It may be a sign of immaturity in "the software industry" but I am more fond of "computer science" and in that context it is the patents that are a sign of immaturity. Mathematics at least grew out of that particular my-me-mine stage hundreds of years ago, and I still harbour a hope (faint, at this point, but still flickering) that computer science will make a comeback and reclaim the ground that has been lost to the computer industry.
Why, you might ask? There are obvious advantages to the present state of affairs, including funding and mainstream acceptability. But there are a number of serious disadvantages, not the least of which is the noise it injects into the conceptual space:
A tendency to rename extent concepts and play up difference in closely related concepts, rather than seeking underlying patterns hidden connections.
A warping of priorities away from deeper, long term questions towards faddish, buzzword driven crud.
The erection of lots of fences intended to limit the scope of enquiring minds.
A guess I lump the computer industry in with the music industry, the fast food industry, the sex industry, etc. in that they are all (reasonably successful) attempts to turn something that is rewarding in its own right into a "product" that can be mass marketed, and in the process trample much of the charm of the original. I agree inventing a better algorithm should be rewarding, just as good sex or getting a tricky syncopation just right should be rewarding. But I differ by thinking they are intrinsically rewarding.
I tend to use open source software and oppose software patents for the same reasons that I prefer sex with amatures instead of professionals, would rather play a piano than a CD, and find math books more entertaining than "reality television". As I believe I mentioned earlier in the thread, I suspect I am out of step with my times.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Thanks for keeping up this thread; conversation between people whose views differ is also on my list of the best things in life.
The 'means' means a physical implementation, i.e. a computer that performs the algorithm.
I would also object to them patenting the use of a computer do to what a computer is intended to do (perform any algorithm that can be coded for it).
That is not really the case; many algorithms can be derived from the same mathematical law.
But the fact that they can be derived is itself a mathematical law. I think this is the crux of my objection. Mathematics isn't just the axioms, it's the whole set of true statements that can be derived from them (including statements of the form "Given the set of inputs I and the set of steps S, the result R of performing S on I will have property P").
And in fact a process need not have a mathematical basis at all.
Fine, they can patent those. The patent in question, however, isn't one of them.
For example, I wonder if a clever mathematician, given the process here could not work out an alternative algorithm that results in the same ending.
*laugh* Sure thing. You wouldn't even have to be clever. I still object to this way of looking at things, but if you take it as a given, there is a simple "algorithm" for coming up with a different "process" that yields the same result:
Compile process-1 to a non-deterministic finite state autmomaton (if you can write a program for process-1) you can do this.
Enforce an ordering on the state transitions that leads to a different series of steps than were found in process-1.
Now notice that nowhere is there an attempt to claim ownership of the actual algorithm, only means of implementing that algorithm.
You are, of course, quite correct. I'm out of step with my times, and just enough of a fuddy-duddy to think that the means of implementing an algorithm (in the sense of "implementing" they are using here) is itself an algorithm. If you can't patent an algorithm (say, counting base 10) and you can't patent the fact that a particular real-world-domain (say, sheep) falls within the algorithm's domain of aplicabilty (e.g., the fact that sheep are enumerable), then there shouldn't be anything left to patent in these cases.
Lawyers who would grant the points just mentioned but still justify a patent on counting sheep on the grounds that counting is somehow a novel means to enumerate something are (IMHO) either weak on math or weak in ethics. The same goes for the patent at issue. You shouldn't have to look for prior art. If the process doesn't work, it isn't an "invention" and the patent should not stand. If it does work, the fact that it does is part of natural law (which has been discovered, not invented) and the patent still shouldn't stand.
Claiming "means" to apply math to a problem is pure smoke.
This is absurd. The whole point of mathematical techniques is that they work no matter what you apply them to--which is why you didn't used to be able to patent mathematics.
If this keeps up we'll start seeing patents on "counting small ovoids" and "counting imaginary woolly creatures" and people will be posting here asking if anyone can prove prior art on counting sheep.
General purpose mathematical tools should be wide open, patent free for any purpose because they are general purpose tools!
And what should they call it instead ? Arizona City ?
The two leading canidates are "West Scottsdale" and "Ahwatukee North." I expect there will be a couple of dozen propositions the next few general elections till it all gets sorted out.
A group of researchers have identified three postings that they think provide the first evidence of a previously undetected form of morning fog passing through slashdot. Slashdot has the full story. The so-called strange quark fog can only be detected indirectly, when it causes duplicate duplicate postings on popular web sites. I kind of like the idea that slashdot can be used as a sort of 'particle detector' - I just hope that I'm not in the way when another one passes through!
Slashdot Mirror
The more IE windows you have open, the longer this pause tends to be.
I looked into this a while back and came to the same conclusion. Running stopwatch tests and curve fitting to A*N^2+B*N+C, it looked like the time went up with the square of the number of windows (B was ~ 0, and C was...a constant).
So I told the user who brought it up to 1) not open so many windows or 2) switch to something other than IE.
IIRC, she switched to Opera.
-- MarkusQ
Whereas a simple bar magnet produces magnetic fields that go from the north pole to the south pole, the fields of the new hybrid plastic sprout like branches of a cactus lined with secondary fields that resemble needles
Shouldn't the headline have been "Maxwell's equations disproven!" or something else more fitting for such a revolutionary discovery?
Unless of course Maxwell's equations still stand, in which case the headline should have been something like "Hype replaces progress in science; film at 11:00"
-- MarkusQ
Ages ago I worked with someone who (with malace aforethought) got everyone to refer to the small room where we delt with all the network/phone interconnects as "the Wiring Closet", and then started shortening it to "the W. C." in memos, and finally (once everyone was numbed to it) put a sign on the door with just the letters "WC".
And then he waited waited...
--MarkusQ
Who in the heck moderated this guy as "flamebait"? What were you thinking, that he was trying to goad the rabid fans of hotxxxlickdrip.com into starting a flame war? Did you even follow/look at the link?
He was jokeing!
-- MarkusQ
If they have them in your area, CrackerBarrel has all sorts of things like that; gyroscopes, lots of wood toys, etc.
(In case you don't know, they're restraunts often found at the edge of town and always near an interstate).
-- MarkusQ
The real question is, why would you want to give one to a 3 year old? They can't close just one eye at a time, making it hard to use.
That's nuts. If your three year old can't close just one eye, it's probably because no one has shown them how. If you make a game of it I'll bet they'll have it down in a week.
-- MarkusQ
Sorry. Sometimes my attempts at humour work. Sometimes they don't. It was meant as a dig/tease/jibe, not a slam/dis.
-- MarkusQ
You, an uncredentialed
Uh, just to clarify: we aren't talking about a scientific journal here. The original article explicitly stated that it was the "Journal of Applied Physics."
-- MarkusQ
So that's what happens when we come out of an Ice Age...
It's amazing how often this point is convieniently ignored.
-- MarkusQ
This post was supposed to go here.
-- MarkusQ
This post was supposed to go here.
-- MarkusQ
What sort of nonsense are you going off about here?
Companies have the right to run their companies the way management sees fit.
And (by the same logic). he has the right to respond to the way they run their companies the way he sees fit. You're correct that management has the right to make choices. But that doesn't mean that customers, stockholders, employees, competitors, ad all the rest of us have lost the right to hold, voice, and even act on our oppinions of the choices the managers make. I have called companies to tell them I supported them for making a hard but sound choice; why should I not chastise them for making easy but stupid ones?
-- MarkusQ
The plots are given high levels of water, heat, carbon dioxide and nitrogen in different combinations to simulate predicted global climate change in the next hundred years.
Unless there is something more solid that they aren't reporting, this looks more like politics than science. At least, the way they report the findings sounds very skewed:
"The three-factor combination of increased temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposition produced the largest stimulation [an 84 percent increase], but adding carbon dioxide reduced this to 40 percent," Shaw and her colleagues wrote.
In other words, they are saying that high Co2 levels increased plant growth 40%, but because of their agenda they are reporting this effect as a reduction because it is less than they would have seen if they'd done something else.
A more likely/solid conclusion might be: if the climate changes plants in a given area might not be as well adapted to the new conditions as they were to the old.
And this is news...how?
-- MarkusQ
The plots are given high levels of water, heat, carbon dioxide and nitrogen in different combinations to simulate predicted global climate change in the next hundred years.
Unless there is something more solid that they aren't reporting, this looks more like politics than science. At least, the way they report the findings sounds very skewed:
"The three-factor combination of increased temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposition produced the largest stimulation [an 84 percent increase], but adding carbon dioxide reduced this to 40 percent," Shaw and her colleagues wrote.
In other words, they are saying that high Co2 levels increased plant growth 40%, but because of their agenda they are reporting this effect as a reduction because it is less than they would have seen if they'd done something else.
A more likely/solid conclusion might be: if the climate changes plants in a given area might not be as well adapted to the new conditions as they were to the old.
And this is news...how?
-- MarkusQ
trying to identify critical materials used in the electronics industry,
What is critical changes over time. Yesterday's abundant resource can become tomorow's rate-limiting commodity.
For example, at the moment the industry seems to be stalled fighting over access to the limited world supply of something called "customers".
-- MarkusQ
Every six months or so I turn on a TV (or get stuck someplace where one is on & too loud to ignore. Given what I've seen the past few years, I'd be in favour of some sort of flag bit that not only prevented recording the programs, but also prevented broadcasting them in the first place.
-- MarkusQ
MarkusQ: Mathematics at least grew out of that particular my-me-mine stage hundreds of years ago
the eric conspiracy: You don't really believe that, do you? If this were really true, mathematics journals would publish their articles without author's names attached to them, and their would be no Fields Medal. The fact is that the method of keeping score is different, that's all.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I wasn't talking about squables over giving/taking credit for discoveries, I was talking about the practice of trying to control the use of the discoveries as if the were the property of the discoverer. This was common in Europe at least from the time of the Pythagoreans through 1600 or so.
To my mind, the present climate of "intelectual property" in software is about as petty and counter productive as that of pre-Renaissance mathematics. Petty, for obvious reasons and counter-productive because trying to control what people can think (or what thoughts they can use), no matter what your motives, is never good for science.
This sounds to me like the traditional lament of the academic when he finds his pursuit has a practical use.
No, the lament only comes out when the practical people jumping on the band waggon that the academics built start trying to boss the academics around and impose goals and limits based on their lust for gold instead of the academics lust for knowledge.
--MarkusQ
The engineer who takes joy from building something people can use has a different view.
We need both.
*smile* That's the basis of my relationship with my wife (She's EE+MBA).
Ultimately I think that this is what the software industry will come to. Programmers will need to understand the patent literature in their area of expertise, just like technical practioners in other fields do now. I think it's very much a sign of the immaturity of the software field that we have this great hue and cry over software patents. The fact of the matter is that finding a new way to calculate an FFT is IMPORTANT and the inventor should be well rewarded.
It may be a sign of immaturity in "the software industry" but I am more fond of "computer science" and in that context it is the patents that are a sign of immaturity. Mathematics at least grew out of that particular my-me-mine stage hundreds of years ago, and I still harbour a hope (faint, at this point, but still flickering) that computer science will make a comeback and reclaim the ground that has been lost to the computer industry.
Why, you might ask? There are obvious advantages to the present state of affairs, including funding and mainstream acceptability. But there are a number of serious disadvantages, not the least of which is the noise it injects into the conceptual space:
- A tendency to rename extent concepts and play up difference in closely related concepts, rather than seeking underlying patterns hidden connections.
- A warping of priorities away from deeper, long term questions towards faddish, buzzword driven crud.
- The erection of lots of fences intended to limit the scope of enquiring minds.
A guess I lump the computer industry in with the music industry, the fast food industry, the sex industry, etc. in that they are all (reasonably successful) attempts to turn something that is rewarding in its own right into a "product" that can be mass marketed, and in the process trample much of the charm of the original. I agree inventing a better algorithm should be rewarding, just as good sex or getting a tricky syncopation just right should be rewarding. But I differ by thinking they are intrinsically rewarding.I tend to use open source software and oppose software patents for the same reasons that I prefer sex with amatures instead of professionals, would rather play a piano than a CD, and find math books more entertaining than "reality television". As I believe I mentioned earlier in the thread, I suspect I am out of step with my times.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Thanks for keeping up this thread; conversation between people whose views differ is also on my list of the best things in life.
The 'means' means a physical implementation, i.e. a computer that performs the algorithm.
I would also object to them patenting the use of a computer do to what a computer is intended to do (perform any algorithm that can be coded for it).
That is not really the case; many algorithms can be derived from the same mathematical law.
But the fact that they can be derived is itself a mathematical law. I think this is the crux of my objection. Mathematics isn't just the axioms, it's the whole set of true statements that can be derived from them (including statements of the form "Given the set of inputs I and the set of steps S, the result R of performing S on I will have property P").
And in fact a process need not have a mathematical basis at all.
Fine, they can patent those. The patent in question, however, isn't one of them.
For example, I wonder if a clever mathematician, given the process here could not work out an alternative algorithm that results in the same ending.
*laugh* Sure thing. You wouldn't even have to be clever. I still object to this way of looking at things, but if you take it as a given, there is a simple "algorithm" for coming up with a different "process" that yields the same result:
- Compile process-1 to a non-deterministic finite state autmomaton (if you can write a program for process-1) you can do this.
- Enforce an ordering on the state transitions that leads to a different series of steps than were found in process-1.
- Call this process-2.
- If needed, lather, rinse, and repeat.
-- MarkusQTungsten.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. If you don't get it, don't waste a lot of time trying to figure it out.
Now notice that nowhere is there an attempt to claim ownership of the actual algorithm, only means of implementing that algorithm.
You are, of course, quite correct. I'm out of step with my times, and just enough of a fuddy-duddy to think that the means of implementing an algorithm (in the sense of "implementing" they are using here) is itself an algorithm. If you can't patent an algorithm (say, counting base 10) and you can't patent the fact that a particular real-world-domain (say, sheep) falls within the algorithm's domain of aplicabilty (e.g., the fact that sheep are enumerable), then there shouldn't be anything left to patent in these cases.
Lawyers who would grant the points just mentioned but still justify a patent on counting sheep on the grounds that counting is somehow a novel means to enumerate something are (IMHO) either weak on math or weak in ethics. The same goes for the patent at issue. You shouldn't have to look for prior art. If the process doesn't work, it isn't an "invention" and the patent should not stand. If it does work, the fact that it does is part of natural law (which has been discovered, not invented) and the patent still shouldn't stand.
Claiming "means" to apply math to a problem is pure smoke.
-- MarkusQ
This is absurd. The whole point of mathematical techniques is that they work no matter what you apply them to--which is why you didn't used to be able to patent mathematics.
If this keeps up we'll start seeing patents on "counting small ovoids" and "counting imaginary woolly creatures" and people will be posting here asking if anyone can prove prior art on counting sheep.
General purpose mathematical tools should be wide open, patent free for any purpose because they are general purpose tools!
-- MarkusQ
And what should they call it instead ? Arizona City ?
The two leading canidates are "West Scottsdale" and "Ahwatukee North." I expect there will be a couple of dozen propositions the next few general elections till it all gets sorted out.
-- MarkusQ
I wasn't sure until I read some of your other posts. You seem to be rather good at the "I might not be pulling your chain..." trolls.
I suppose everyone has to have a hobby.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Have you considered stamp collecting as a less anoying alternative?
A group of researchers have identified three postings that they think provide the first evidence of a previously undetected form of morning fog passing through slashdot. Slashdot has the full story. The so-called strange quark fog can only be detected indirectly, when it causes duplicate duplicate postings on popular web sites. I kind of like the idea that slashdot can be used as a sort of 'particle detector' - I just hope that I'm not in the way when another one passes through!
-- MarkusQ