Cryptonomicon? They crack the code and get the gold. The good guys of the modern time line win; the good guys of the WWII timeline are redeemed and or die heroically and/or tragically.
I won't spoil the end of The Diamond Age for you except to say that the story of Nell growing up ends as she becomes an adult. It is quite clear she is destined to have an interesting adulthood, but that is not covered by this book.
Perhaps that's the difference in my opinion of Stephenson's writing, and endings in particular: If characters are interesting enough, they will continue to have interesting lives beyond the confines of whatever events a single novel relates.
So, I hear criticsm of Stephensons endings all the time, and it genuinely mystifies me. What book are you referring to? Between The Big U, Zodiac, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and The Baroque Cycle I can't come up with any major unresolved plot elements at all. I'm genuinely curious if anyone can enlighten me... What did you want to know about a Stephenson plot that didn't get wrapped up?
"My point is simple. Focusing on your last mile link is seriously inadequate."
Yes, I understand all that. My point is also simple: Looking not just at the last mile, but also at the next several links up the chain; looking at it in any way that is not inadequate, but that actually measures the real useful speed of the connection: Most anyone in Korea will have a much better connection than most anyone in the US.
Yes, if she's trying to download something only being uploaded by a couple people with slow American connections, it will be slow. This doesn't strike me as particularly relevant in comparing Korean and American broadband. Their so much better, because in certain circumstances, we're so lame we drag them down a bit with us?
If "Grambo in Korea" is pulling down a torrent of something somewhat popular whose seeds are spread about, then only the limitations of network links fairly near her will be relevant, as after a few hops the load will be spread out over different parts of the lame, non-Korean network.
You don't get the advantages of a fast network and a protocol that can pull from multiple sources when you're pulling from a single source on a slow network. This is a fine tautology, but it's not much of an argument.
Obviously if centers have been switched it's impossible; but that's not the point.
A cube cannot be solved if a single edge piece (with two colors on it) has been removed and reversed; but can be solved if two such pieces have been reversed. Determining if that has happened requires counting up some sort of parity equation on the relative positions & orientations of all 12 two-color pieces.
I'm also a 2-3 minute solver, and I can't tell if a cube is unsolvable in this way in less than, well, 2-3 minutes. My friend was a ~30 second solver, and I assume this determination that a cube is unsolvable is just a side effect of whatever pre-solving scan her brain does.
So support for torture and extra-judicial detention is a significant test of Conservatism? That seems weird. What's conservative about eliminating long-standing checks on government power?
John McCain is certainly not a NeoCon; he's about as classically conservative as they come.
Well said. My wife and I celebrate our anniversary on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because, well, because that's when we got married. If I mention this, some people think it's very strange. They immediately ask "Well, but what was the date?" and are horrified I don't know off the top of my head. Heck, we picked the day because it was a Saturday, why commemorate it mid-week?
I don't see any difference in protection; the law makes it an offense to connect to an open access point without prior authorization. The fact that I won't press charges and my neighbor will is irrelevant; either of us *could* ansd the person connecting to me or them have the same "protection", i.e. none. You seem to be looking for a way to argue the law is unconstitutional. I don't think you'll find one, but luckily that is not my claim.
My claim is not that the law is unconstitutional, but that it is stupid. This does not require any technical, legally grounded argument. The law has a clear negative consequence, and no apparent positive one. Q.E.D.
"If you want internet access, pay for it or use services that are set up specifically as public access points where the people establishing it KNOW anyone can use it."
How am I to know the difference? I have an access point anyone can use, because I intentionally set it up that way. Several of my neighbors have access points anyone can use, but I assume it is not intentional in all cases. This law eliminates the usefulness of my and others altruism to remedy a "problem" that is much more surely remedied by very simple technical means. Nor is it clear that this "problem" has any real negative impact on anyone.
Speaking for myself, I DO bring it everywhere, which is why it has to be 2 pounds, rugged enough that it probably won't get broken, and cheap enough that it's not a disaster if it does. If you want to carry around a lot of processor power and a big hard drive, the EEE is not for you. I'm content to leave those on the other side of the network. Note, it does have really, really good batteries and efficient hardware. They've just prioritized "light weight" more than you apparently desire. It's an innovation (for me) because it's much lighter and cheaper than anything previous that was capable of running my must-have app: a remote desktop client.
Locking down what carrier you use and locking down what software you can run are two separate things. Apple does both, but we're talking about the latter.
I've got a stupid little iphone app that I'd love to write and hand out to clients. I can't, that sucks, and it's not the fault of AT&T. I expect the reasong they want to lock down apps is in fact tech support and/or possible revenue from selling the apps themselves. I'd have thought a more robust development ecosystem from opening it up would do more good for Apple in the long run, and that their experience in the PC market might have made that point. On the other hand, I'll admit Jobs history in the industry has been slightly more notable than mine, so maybe he knows what he's doing. I still wish I could write iphone shareware though.
If I go to a bar in my (US) town and am overheard actively plotting murder by people who think I'm serious, maybe there would be trouble, but that seems appropriate.
If I'm overheard saying "Hu JinTao sucks, I'd like to kill him", people would say, well, they'll say "Who's that?" If I say I want to kill George Bush, I'll get equal mweasures of "Hey, that's a bit overboard" and "Damn straight!". But nothing would "happen"; we'd just have a rowdy conversation about how much our government sucks. From what I hear from Chinese acquaintances, rowdy bar room conversations about how much Hu Jintao sucks are not something that happens in China.
Actually, if they pass immunity, any illegal things that occurred will still have been illegal. It will just be illegal to prosecute anyone for them.
Not that I disagree with the general premise that this particular immunity is a bad idea and should not be granted. But it's well within the powers of Congress.
It had to be someone 2000 years ago who associated the various signs of the zodiac with the times of the year when the sun was in that part of the sky, because that's the last time the associations were correct. Roman fortune tellers are known to have used these associations, and it's their identities for the constellations we use today, so that's who I credit. Maybe someone else associated the stars obscured by the sun with times of year too; it's not a difficult observation to make; it's a wonder astrologers don't manage to.
Why do you keep mentioning science, when Astrologers make no independently verifiable observations and propose no falsifiable hypotheses? Do not make ancient hucksters spouting BS into the pinnacle of rational thought; Stupid claptrap, you know?
- I have in the past worked out various mathematics related to juggling. - Science is not "inventing a language". Science is finding verifiable facts through repeatable observations. - I can work out orbital mechanics given the appropriate data; I can not figure out by what criteria for "major heavenly bodies" you get 7. - I am not at all clear what point you are trying to make.
The point I was making was that astrologers follow rules devised by ancient Roman fortune tellers; these rules have not been updated for the changes in heavenly-body positions relative to the seasons over the intervening couple millenia, and weren't based on scientific observations in the first place. To imply any connection between what astrologers do and science is to reveal a profound lack of understanding of either.
So you used to hack together boxes back in the day, but now you run modern boxes bought off-the-shelf, and you're impressed how much better they "just work".
And you attribute the difference to Apple.
Why criticize people who follow by rote the formulas of ancient Roman street performers and call it science? Gee, that's a stumper, let me get back to you on that...
So you can build a spaceship without using Newtonian mechanics? Good luck with that. I mean, if Newtonian mechanics is "wrong" you wouldn't want to use it in your space ship design.
My argument is that "proven wrong" is poor word choice. It implies we thought something was perfectly true and complete, but figured out it was entirely false and threw the whole thing out like the garbage it was. Our understanding has been refined. Newtonian mechanics is an enormously useful, if incomplete, model of the world. The entirety of our understanding of physics is an enormously useful, if incomplete, model of the world. All science ever aspires to produce is progressively more useful, if incomplete, models of the world.
I honestly only singled out Chiropractics to point out that it wasn't in the same boat as astrology or homeopathy; it's got some real scientific basis. I think that as a profession, it needs a good housecleaning.
"Unscrupulous" dosctors who give radiation treatment to healthy people can and should be charged with criminal malpractice, lose their licenses, and be jailed. Unscupulous quacks who let sick people get sicker believing magnets will make them better mostly cannot be; they're not doctors, and you're expected to not trust them for medical advice; a fact they don't always bring up much.
I'll assume your Chiropractor is a good guy. If I were him, I'd want very badly to distance my profession from the dangerous quacks. Based on the actions of chiropractic professional orgs, this is not a priority for the majority of chiropractors. Until it is, my view of them will default to suspicion.
"If they're not right, then they're certainly wrong"
Whereas if they have never been nor claimed to be "right", then they are not now "wrong". They only ever claimed to be accurate, and they continue to be accurate at all scales they ever addressed. Science is indeed not about declaring things "right" and then never questioning them again; I think this point is better made by noting that science never did declare Newton "right" and stop questioning. Science noted that Newtons laws were accurate in a vast array of cases, and continued searching for ones where they were not.
Certainly there are senses in which you could say Newtons laws are "wrong". But in those very same senses, you can say the very same thing about Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and every other scientific theory ever. Every one is an incomplete model that approximates the truth more or less well over some domain.
As far as designing an airplane, it's not that Newtons laws are good enough; they are vastly superior. Newtonian mechanics can answer the questions you will have in trying to design a plane. Relativity and/or quantum mechanics cannot answer those questions.
"I see a chiropractor for acute back problems and it helps a lot."
Your verb tense indicates a continuing problem, i.e. chronic, not acute. Anyway, the point is if you are coming back to him repeatedly, even if it's because you want to, if he is a responsible medical professional, he should be telling you there is something wrong with your back that he can't fix. Anyway, "Almost always" was entirely my own impression, unsupported by any hard data; your guy may well be a prince of ethics.
Belief in astrology goes in the same pile as belief in homeopathy and belief in creationism. Those who are only entertained by it don't believe it, so I'm not criticizing their belief. I do find their sense of amusement odd; I don't understand what's entertaining about astrology without believing it at least a little, but hey, people are amused by all sorts of dumb stuff.
"Replace the word Astrology with Religion and somehow your words become extremely controversial while still maintaining the same degree of technical 'correctness'."
Replace "Astrology" with "Religion" and my words become more controversial while remaining entirely, wholly, and utterly correct in every sense.
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Cryptonomicon? They crack the code and get the gold. The good guys of the modern time line win; the good guys of the WWII timeline are redeemed and or die heroically and/or tragically.
I won't spoil the end of The Diamond Age for you except to say that the story of Nell growing up ends as she becomes an adult. It is quite clear she is destined to have an interesting adulthood, but that is not covered by this book.
Perhaps that's the difference in my opinion of Stephenson's writing, and endings in particular: If characters are interesting enough, they will continue to have interesting lives beyond the confines of whatever events a single novel relates.
So, I hear criticsm of Stephensons endings all the time, and it genuinely mystifies me.
What book are you referring to? Between The Big U, Zodiac, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and The Baroque Cycle I can't come up with any major unresolved plot elements at all. I'm genuinely curious if anyone can enlighten me... What did you want to know about a Stephenson plot that didn't get wrapped up?
"C++ has memory leaks, and on top of it, C++ has GPF's or core dumps"
Isn't it wonderful how you can't code bugs in GC languages?
"My point is simple. Focusing on your last mile link is seriously inadequate."
Yes, I understand all that. My point is also simple: Looking not just at the last mile, but also at the next several links up the chain; looking at it in any way that is not inadequate, but that actually measures the real useful speed of the connection: Most anyone in Korea will have a much better connection than most anyone in the US.
Yes, if she's trying to download something only being uploaded by a couple people with slow American connections, it will be slow. This doesn't strike me as particularly relevant in comparing Korean and American broadband. Their so much better, because in certain circumstances, we're so lame we drag them down a bit with us?
If "Grambo in Korea" is pulling down a torrent of something somewhat popular whose seeds are spread about, then only the limitations of network links fairly near her will be relevant, as after a few hops the load will be spread out over different parts of the lame, non-Korean network.
You don't get the advantages of a fast network and a protocol that can pull from multiple sources when you're pulling from a single source on a slow network. This is a fine tautology, but it's not much of an argument.
Obviously if centers have been switched it's impossible; but that's not the point.
A cube cannot be solved if a single edge piece (with two colors on it) has been removed and reversed; but can be solved if two such pieces have been reversed. Determining if that has happened requires counting up some sort of parity equation on the relative positions & orientations of all 12 two-color pieces.
I'm also a 2-3 minute solver, and I can't tell if a cube is unsolvable in this way in less than, well, 2-3 minutes. My friend was a ~30 second solver, and I assume this determination that a cube is unsolvable is just a side effect of whatever pre-solving scan her brain does.
"So, does that nice Korean grandmother with the GB Ethernet connection get GB BitTorrent downloads? "
Almost certainly. Korean network build-out is famously fantabulous, top to bottom.
The woman who taught me to solve it could look at a cube and tell you if that had been done in a couple seconds.
So support for torture and extra-judicial detention is a significant test of Conservatism? That seems weird. What's conservative about eliminating long-standing checks on government power?
John McCain is certainly not a NeoCon; he's about as classically conservative as they come.
Well said. My wife and I celebrate our anniversary on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because, well, because that's when we got married. If I mention this, some people think it's very strange. They immediately ask "Well, but what was the date?" and are horrified I don't know off the top of my head. Heck, we picked the day because it was a Saturday, why commemorate it mid-week?
I don't see any difference in protection; the law makes it an offense to connect to an open access point without prior authorization. The fact that I won't press charges and my neighbor will is irrelevant; either of us *could* ansd the person connecting to me or them have the same "protection", i.e. none. You seem to be looking for a way to argue the law is unconstitutional. I don't think you'll find one, but luckily that is not my claim.
My claim is not that the law is unconstitutional, but that it is stupid. This does not require any technical, legally grounded argument. The law has a clear negative consequence, and no apparent positive one. Q.E.D.
"If you want internet access, pay for it or use services that are set up specifically as public access points where the people establishing it KNOW anyone can use it."
How am I to know the difference? I have an access point anyone can use, because I intentionally set it up that way. Several of my neighbors have access points anyone can use, but I assume it is not intentional in all cases. This law eliminates the usefulness of my and others altruism to remedy a "problem" that is much more surely remedied by very simple technical means. Nor is it clear that this "problem" has any real negative impact on anyone.
Speaking for myself, I DO bring it everywhere, which is why it has to be 2 pounds, rugged enough that it probably won't get broken, and cheap enough that it's not a disaster if it does. If you want to carry around a lot of processor power and a big hard drive, the EEE is not for you. I'm content to leave those on the other side of the network. Note, it does have really, really good batteries and efficient hardware. They've just prioritized "light weight" more than you apparently desire. It's an innovation (for me) because it's much lighter and cheaper than anything previous that was capable of running my must-have app: a remote desktop client.
Locking down what carrier you use and locking down what software you can run are two separate things. Apple does both, but we're talking about the latter.
I've got a stupid little iphone app that I'd love to write and hand out to clients. I can't, that sucks, and it's not the fault of AT&T. I expect the reasong they want to lock down apps is in fact tech support and/or possible revenue from selling the apps themselves. I'd have thought a more robust development ecosystem from opening it up would do more good for Apple in the long run, and that their experience in the PC market might have made that point. On the other hand, I'll admit Jobs history in the industry has been slightly more notable than mine, so maybe he knows what he's doing. I still wish I could write iphone shareware though.
I'm not clear what you imagine will happen.
If I go to a bar in my (US) town and am overheard actively plotting murder by people who think I'm serious, maybe there would be trouble, but that seems appropriate.
If I'm overheard saying "Hu JinTao sucks, I'd like to kill him", people would say, well, they'll say "Who's that?" If I say I want to kill George Bush, I'll get equal mweasures of "Hey, that's a bit overboard" and "Damn straight!". But nothing would "happen"; we'd just have a rowdy conversation about how much our government sucks. From what I hear from Chinese acquaintances, rowdy bar room conversations about how much Hu Jintao sucks are not something that happens in China.
Actually, if they pass immunity, any illegal things that occurred will still have been illegal. It will just be illegal to prosecute anyone for them.
Not that I disagree with the general premise that this particular immunity is a bad idea and should not be granted. But it's well within the powers of Congress.
It had to be someone 2000 years ago who associated the various signs of the zodiac with the times of the year when the sun was in that part of the sky, because that's the last time the associations were correct. Roman fortune tellers are known to have used these associations, and it's their identities for the constellations we use today, so that's who I credit. Maybe someone else associated the stars obscured by the sun with times of year too; it's not a difficult observation to make; it's a wonder astrologers don't manage to.
Why do you keep mentioning science, when Astrologers make no independently verifiable observations and propose no falsifiable hypotheses? Do not make ancient hucksters spouting BS into the pinnacle of rational thought; Stupid claptrap, you know?
- I have in the past worked out various mathematics related to juggling.
- Science is not "inventing a language". Science is finding verifiable facts through repeatable observations.
- I can work out orbital mechanics given the appropriate data; I can not figure out by what criteria for "major heavenly bodies" you get 7.
- I am not at all clear what point you are trying to make.
The point I was making was that astrologers follow rules devised by ancient Roman fortune tellers; these rules have not been updated for the changes in heavenly-body positions relative to the seasons over the intervening couple millenia, and weren't based on scientific observations in the first place. To imply any connection between what astrologers do and science is to reveal a profound lack of understanding of either.
So you used to hack together boxes back in the day, but now you run modern boxes bought off-the-shelf, and you're impressed how much better they "just work".
And you attribute the difference to Apple.
Why criticize people who follow by rote the formulas of ancient Roman street performers and call it science? Gee, that's a stumper, let me get back to you on that...
So you can build a spaceship without using Newtonian mechanics? Good luck with that. I mean, if Newtonian mechanics is "wrong" you wouldn't want to use it in your space ship design.
My argument is that "proven wrong" is poor word choice. It implies we thought something was perfectly true and complete, but figured out it was entirely false and threw the whole thing out like the garbage it was. Our understanding has been refined. Newtonian mechanics is an enormously useful, if incomplete, model of the world. The entirety of our understanding of physics is an enormously useful, if incomplete, model of the world. All science ever aspires to produce is progressively more useful, if incomplete, models of the world.
I honestly only singled out Chiropractics to point out that it wasn't in the same boat as astrology or homeopathy; it's got some real scientific basis. I think that as a profession, it needs a good housecleaning.
"Unscrupulous" dosctors who give radiation treatment to healthy people can and should be charged with criminal malpractice, lose their licenses, and be jailed. Unscupulous quacks who let sick people get sicker believing magnets will make them better mostly cannot be; they're not doctors, and you're expected to not trust them for medical advice; a fact they don't always bring up much.
I'll assume your Chiropractor is a good guy. If I were him, I'd want very badly to distance my profession from the dangerous quacks. Based on the actions of chiropractic professional orgs, this is not a priority for the majority of chiropractors. Until it is, my view of them will default to suspicion.
"If they're not right, then they're certainly wrong"
Whereas if they have never been nor claimed to be "right", then they are not now "wrong". They only ever claimed to be accurate, and they continue to be accurate at all scales they ever addressed. Science is indeed not about declaring things "right" and then never questioning them again; I think this point is better made by noting that science never did declare Newton "right" and stop questioning. Science noted that Newtons laws were accurate in a vast array of cases, and continued searching for ones where they were not.
Certainly there are senses in which you could say Newtons laws are "wrong". But in those very same senses, you can say the very same thing about Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and every other scientific theory ever. Every one is an incomplete model that approximates the truth more or less well over some domain.
As far as designing an airplane, it's not that Newtons laws are good enough; they are vastly superior. Newtonian mechanics can answer the questions you will have in trying to design a plane. Relativity and/or quantum mechanics cannot answer those questions.
"I see a chiropractor for acute back problems and it helps a lot."
Your verb tense indicates a continuing problem, i.e. chronic, not acute. Anyway, the point is if you are coming back to him repeatedly, even if it's because you want to, if he is a responsible medical professional, he should be telling you there is something wrong with your back that he can't fix. Anyway, "Almost always" was entirely my own impression, unsupported by any hard data; your guy may well be a prince of ethics.
Belief in astrology goes in the same pile as belief in homeopathy and belief in creationism. Those who are only entertained by it don't believe it, so I'm not criticizing their belief. I do find their sense of amusement odd; I don't understand what's entertaining about astrology without believing it at least a little, but hey, people are amused by all sorts of dumb stuff.
"Replace the word Astrology with Religion and somehow your words become extremely controversial while still maintaining the same degree of technical 'correctness'."
Replace "Astrology" with "Religion" and my words become more controversial while remaining entirely, wholly, and utterly correct in every sense.