I've been boring my wife with this subject ever since "myth busters" said this couldn't be done.
As you say, we don't know how it was done, and lots of people have drawn conclusions about how it was done, then dismissed it as impossible.
I really doubt - as many have thought - that Archimedes would have used parabolic mirrors. That just wouldn't work in practice, and there are easiser ways to do it as MIT has shown. The important thing is that the formation of mirrors was parabolic, not the mirrors themselves.
The most sensible thing to do I believe is use people to aim the mirrors. The Greeks had plenty of well trained troops. As you say, you would need a mechanism for aiming - I was imagining sights on the pole attached to the mirror that they could use to line up with a specific spot on the ship, and another to line up with the sun - it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a simple mechanism that the troops could be trained to use. This is where for me the MIT experiment didn't cut it - they've got lots of students, why not use them? A weapon that can be aimed and re-aimed quickly is much more powerful that one that takes a long time to set up and relies on the enemy being at an exact location.
The "they weren't sophisticated enough to do this" argument is really annoying. The fact is that the Greeks were increadibly sophisticated people, and Archimedes was certainly more intelligent, and probably understood more about the mathematics of these things, than you or I or the "Myth Buster" team. Combine that with the fact that the Greeks had both the manpower, and the resources (and the bright sun!) to do this, and I think it is quite probable that they actually pulled it off.
This is so true. Everyone who creates software should have this tatooed on the back of their hands or something.
As someone who works with computers, uses them all day, is interested in them and has played around with them since a teenager, even I find some stuff on Linux difficult to set up and get patronised by idiots if I ask questions that they think are obvious.
That's all very nice, but what I'd really like to see is power cords and adapters for my tech gear just made neater.
To power my mac and accessories I have twelve separate powercords and seven different adapters making a mess under my desk. Shouldn't it be possible to make a single adapter to power all the smaller devices, and have some neat way to daisy chain little power cords for the stuff that doesn't need much power (which is most of the devices on my desk)?
One thing I've learnt (several times, stupid me) is that doing something cheaply for the goodwill is often not good business. They will expect you to be cheap the next time.
It's not a dumb statement if the enterprise space is genuinely one they don't want to be in. I imagine it could open up all kinds of potential legal issues that they may not want to have to deal with.
Having the president appoint supreme court judges is wrong anyway. There should be a better process of selecting them. How's it done in other countries?
Sorry, but you're just exhibiting the kind of mindframe that I used to have.
Your car's engine isn't doing a lot of sound processing, is it? Your cell phone isn't doing a lot of 3D graphics?
No, but parallel processing aren't needed for those tasks.
The carefully cherry-picked sample of tasks provided
So you think "faster graphics, 3D, video, image and sound processing, processing massive amounts of data on the web, all the processing that goes into keeping the internet and telephone networks going" is a cherry picked list?
The point is, the tasks that we have these days that require massive amounts of processing are nearly all very suitable for parallel processing. The examples you give don't require massive amounts of processing and as you say, parellel processing is not a good solution for.
I had an interesting discussion with a chip designer the other day. We were talking about parallel processing, and I spouted the usual perceived wisdom "But isn't the problem with parallel processing that many problems are very difficult or impossible to do in parallel? And isn't programming in parallel really difficult?"
I found his answer very interesting, something like "that line of thinking comes from when computers weren't fast enough to do the basic things we wanted to do with them to do then. It's true, an application like a word processor is not a good problem to tackle with parallel processing - but we don't need to these days. Nearly all the stuff we want to do today - faster graphics, 3D video image and sound processing, processing massive amounts of data on the web, all the processing that goes into keeping the internet and telephone networks going - all of these problems are idea for parallel processing. What Google does - that's essentially parallel processing, isn't it?"
That kind of changed my perception of things and made me realise my mindset was way out of date.
No, look at the USA. We have amazing technlogogy, and yet people in the USA work very long hours. Why isn't everybody having fun whilst computers and robots do the work?
The answer of course is that the capitalism system doesn't allow it. The Russians actually had the right idea, but just went very wrong in the implementation.
You post a link to someone who is developing their own web-based project management solution (which of course will be better than anything else available when it is finished), who criticises the 37 Signals product. You think that is a good reference?
So it didn't work for him. Fine. But I suggest you take a look at it, many people love it.
You joke, but it's that kind of simple thinking that's required, and a lot about the current design of "Word processors" actually relates back to typewriters!
Think about it - I bet you that these days it much more common for people to "print to PDF" and then email the document to a collegue (or even worse, emailing them the.doc file) than to print it. Why the fricking hell do I waste time making a table fit a "page" based on the size of a bit of paper when the document will be read of a screen? Why is the default orientation of a word document portrait when a computer monitor is landscape? (hint - it relates back to the typewriter...)
No, my only relationship with them is having registered on their web site to use some of their products.
Just try a few of their products, they are really neat. They are web based, simple, well designed and actually do really useful stuff. In my opinion, that makes them a perfect match to Google.
To make the next step in office development suites, we really must completely forget about how Microsoft Word works!
OpenOffice and the other open source office suites all hold themselves back terribly by trying to deal with the Microsoft formats and copying the interface. Guys, doing it that way you will always be playing a frustrating game of catch-up, and you'll never take off.
The next generation office suites I believe will (should) be 1) web based, 2) simple 3) have collaboration built in from the roots.
Come on guys, just stop copying Microsoft Office. It's boring, time consuming and doomed to fail. To compete with Microsoft, forget them.
By far the best on-line applications are made by 37 Signals. Google should just buy them - makes much more sense than some of the other stuff they've brought recently and would probably be much cheaper.
I do believe that war drives a lot of R&D as well.
Well, you should consider how much money the USA spends on defence. It's astronomical. Just because some R&D benefits come out of it doesn't mean that it's not an inefficient and wasteful use of resources.
Imagine if the Space ship One team had 250 billion...
They would probably become just as inefficient as NASA. Generally, the bigger the budget you have, the less efficient and more wasteful you become. You've only got to look at some of the excesses of the.com era to realise that.
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine if Archimedes had seen the MythBusters experiment he would have thought "what a bunch of idiots, that's never going to work..."
I've been boring my wife with this subject ever since "myth busters" said this couldn't be done.
As you say, we don't know how it was done, and lots of people have drawn conclusions about how it was done, then dismissed it as impossible.
I really doubt - as many have thought - that Archimedes would have used parabolic mirrors. That just wouldn't work in practice, and there are easiser ways to do it as MIT has shown. The important thing is that the formation of mirrors was parabolic, not the mirrors themselves.
The most sensible thing to do I believe is use people to aim the mirrors. The Greeks had plenty of well trained troops. As you say, you would need a mechanism for aiming - I was imagining sights on the pole attached to the mirror that they could use to line up with a specific spot on the ship, and another to line up with the sun - it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a simple mechanism that the troops could be trained to use. This is where for me the MIT experiment didn't cut it - they've got lots of students, why not use them? A weapon that can be aimed and re-aimed quickly is much more powerful that one that takes a long time to set up and relies on the enemy being at an exact location.
The "they weren't sophisticated enough to do this" argument is really annoying. The fact is that the Greeks were increadibly sophisticated people, and Archimedes was certainly more intelligent, and probably understood more about the mathematics of these things, than you or I or the "Myth Buster" team. Combine that with the fact that the Greeks had both the manpower, and the resources (and the bright sun!) to do this, and I think it is quite probable that they actually pulled it off.
The problems on show here are ours, not theirs.
This is so true. Everyone who creates software should have this tatooed on the back of their hands or something.
As someone who works with computers, uses them all day, is interested in them and has played around with them since a teenager, even I find some stuff on Linux difficult to set up and get patronised by idiots if I ask questions that they think are obvious.
I was referring to things that need constant mains power, not things with batteries. Sorry perhaps I should have made that clear.
That's all very nice, but what I'd really like to see is power cords and adapters for my tech gear just made neater.
To power my mac and accessories I have twelve separate powercords and seven different adapters making a mess under my desk. Shouldn't it be possible to make a single adapter to power all the smaller devices, and have some neat way to daisy chain little power cords for the stuff that doesn't need much power (which is most of the devices on my desk)?
That sounds like good advice.
One thing I've learnt (several times, stupid me) is that doing something cheaply for the goodwill is often not good business. They will expect you to be cheap the next time.
Wow, what a dumb, dumb statement.
It's not a dumb statement if the enterprise space is genuinely one they don't want to be in. I imagine it could open up all kinds of potential legal issues that they may not want to have to deal with.
I don't know what country you are from, but I don't think you can speak for "a lot of countries"...
Besides, we're talking internet here, not broadcast over the airwaves.
If the senate doesn't like what they see, the democrats (the opposing party at the moment) can filabuster
But the filibuster is a bit of a stupid process as well isn't it? It all needs changing as far as I can see.
Having the president appoint supreme court judges is wrong anyway. There should be a better process of selecting them. How's it done in other countries?
Sorry, you don't seem to understand my point. Forget it.
Sorry, but you're just exhibiting the kind of mindframe that I used to have.
Your car's engine isn't doing a lot of sound processing, is it? Your cell phone isn't doing a lot of 3D graphics?
No, but parallel processing aren't needed for those tasks.
The carefully cherry-picked sample of tasks provided
So you think "faster graphics, 3D, video, image and sound processing, processing massive amounts of data on the web, all the processing that goes into keeping the internet and telephone networks going" is a cherry picked list?
The point is, the tasks that we have these days that require massive amounts of processing are nearly all very suitable for parallel processing. The examples you give don't require massive amounts of processing and as you say, parellel processing is not a good solution for.
Slashdot editors - why haven't you posted the news that Sun and Google are going to make an announcement later today, perhaps "Google Office"?? That's a much bigger story than this.
I had an interesting discussion with a chip designer the other day. We were talking about parallel processing, and I spouted the usual perceived wisdom "But isn't the problem with parallel processing that many problems are very difficult or impossible to do in parallel? And isn't programming in parallel really difficult?"
I found his answer very interesting, something like "that line of thinking comes from when computers weren't fast enough to do the basic things we wanted to do with them to do then. It's true, an application like a word processor is not a good problem to tackle with parallel processing - but we don't need to these days. Nearly all the stuff we want to do today - faster graphics, 3D video image and sound processing, processing massive amounts of data on the web, all the processing that goes into keeping the internet and telephone networks going - all of these problems are idea for parallel processing. What Google does - that's essentially parallel processing, isn't it?"
That kind of changed my perception of things and made me realise my mindset was way out of date.
Delaying a product's release. That's obviously because they're using Linux. I mean, product delays never happen in the Windows world.
Look at Russia.
No, look at the USA. We have amazing technlogogy, and yet people in the USA work very long hours. Why isn't everybody having fun whilst computers and robots do the work?
The answer of course is that the capitalism system doesn't allow it. The Russians actually had the right idea, but just went very wrong in the implementation.
You post a link to someone who is developing their own web-based project management solution (which of course will be better than anything else available when it is finished), who criticises the 37 Signals product. You think that is a good reference?
So it didn't work for him. Fine. But I suggest you take a look at it, many people love it.
You joke, but it's that kind of simple thinking that's required, and a lot about the current design of "Word processors" actually relates back to typewriters!
.doc file) than to print it. Why the fricking hell do I waste time making a table fit a "page" based on the size of a bit of paper when the document will be read of a screen? Why is the default orientation of a word document portrait when a computer monitor is landscape? (hint - it relates back to the typewriter...)
Think about it - I bet you that these days it much more common for people to "print to PDF" and then email the document to a collegue (or even worse, emailing them the
No, my only relationship with them is having registered on their web site to use some of their products.
Just try a few of their products, they are really neat. They are web based, simple, well designed and actually do really useful stuff. In my opinion, that makes them a perfect match to Google.
To make the next step in office development suites, we really must completely forget about how Microsoft Word works!
OpenOffice and the other open source office suites all hold themselves back terribly by trying to deal with the Microsoft formats and copying the interface. Guys, doing it that way you will always be playing a frustrating game of catch-up, and you'll never take off.
The next generation office suites I believe will (should) be 1) web based, 2) simple 3) have collaboration built in from the roots.
Come on guys, just stop copying Microsoft Office. It's boring, time consuming and doomed to fail. To compete with Microsoft, forget them.
By far the best on-line applications are made by 37 Signals. Google should just buy them - makes much more sense than some of the other stuff they've brought recently and would probably be much cheaper.
The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs
Hello? Microsoft office costs over $300!! And that's just for the "standard" edition.
Idiots.
I do believe that war drives a lot of R&D as well.
Well, you should consider how much money the USA spends on defence. It's astronomical. Just because some R&D benefits come out of it doesn't mean that it's not an inefficient and wasteful use of resources.
Bringing people freedom while preserving national security...
Because of course, the Iraq war was all about being nice to those poor Iraqi's...
And we all know how Iraq had WMD that they could fire to the USA...
And those Sept 11 guys, they were all Iraqi's...
Looks like you've swallowed the official line.
Imagine if the Space ship One team had 250 billion...
.com era to realise that.
They would probably become just as inefficient as NASA. Generally, the bigger the budget you have, the less efficient and more wasteful you become. You've only got to look at some of the excesses of the