Re:Takeshi's Castle
on
Is Math A Sport?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I don't doubt synchronized swimming requires a lot of strength, endurance, training and practise, and deserve international competitions of their own.
But they don't really seem to have the same goals as the other olympic sports; being first, the highest, furtherest, or the fastest (having been derived from ancient warfare from the Mediterranean).
If synchronised swimming can make it to the olymics, then "The Run Way" maths test game in Takeshi's castle should be in the olympics (contestants slide down a ramp while trying to work th answer to a simple arithmetic calculation. Get it right and the contestant remains in the game. Get it wrong and they get dumped into the powder).
I am not willing to move north to get a job that pays 40% less than what is available here. I'd rather work outside my field.
For me, it depends on the quality of life; Size of house (backyard/rooms/basement) that I can buy, combined with the cost of items such as computers and the proximity to good schools.
If I get half the salary while computers cost the same or even twice as much, then forget it.
That reminds me of an ultra-paranoid sys-admin we once had (the kind that makes Burt Gummer look like a Quaker).
The sys-admin set up our CompSci server to log every command every user had made (lastcomm services). So one night, one student is waiting for the others in the group project team to arrive. Rather than constantly running between labs, he simply writes a shell script:
while 1 do who sleep 10 done
Harmless enough? After about 2-3 hours of use, the entire/var partition has been completely filled, which now jams the/var/spool print queue. A postgrad student attempting to laser-print a section of his Ph.D project finds that he can't, and in order to gather evidence against this denial of service attack prints the entire contents of the 'acct' file.
Which burned up two large boxes of line printer paper. Needless to say, the sys-admin was furious and makes the student sign a form requiring him never to run an infinite-loop script without permission again.
or a long time Mozilla was more about what developers wanted to do rather than catering to end user requirements. Most for profit companies are very responsive to the needs of their customers. Pissed off customers = lost revenue.
But who does a web browser vender consider to be their most important customers? The home users surfing the web using a free browser, or the web page designers and corporations who will pay megabucks for the latest web page design and layout software training conferences, seminars and books?
These cards are programmed extensively using VLIW microcode, which contains the implementation of cross-licensed technologies. Since, NDA's/patents are only valid if the technology has not been released into the public domain, it's not possible to release this code. That's why you have third party extensions (SGI, HP, SUN, 3Dlabs etc..) in consumer OpenGL drivers. These extensions are protected by patents. As the device drivers install this code upon startup, releasing the source code to the device drivers would allow users access to the implementation of these patents.
Even if someone did write a pure inhouse architecture, the hardware register set can change so rapidly that it would immediately break anything hardcoded to the metal.
Sounds like trying to debug webcam software on Windows. If you run in Debug mode, Visual Studio can't find the web camera. Similarly RealPlayer won't start playing a new track until you quit debugging your application.
I've used Dells at work and at home for about 10 years. The first thing that gets upgraded is always the graphics card (after 6 -18 months; after 2 years, the graphics bus architecture changes, and then the whole system has to be replaced), then maybe a TV tuner card. I did have to add a second CD-RW drive on one system, but that was only because the original system came with a CD-ROM drive. If I had a more recent system, I would have probably replaced the CD-RW with a DVD-RW drive.
Shoe shops used to have X-ray equipment that would let you see the bones of your feet. The last time I saw such a machine was around the mid-1970's. It was a more modern version which had automatically sliding metal blocks to measure the dimensions of the foot as well (A google search for "fluoroscopes" only brings up the old-fashioned machines).
My parents would never let me use those machines. I remember other parents would let their kids use the machines for minutes on end, until the shop assistant was available - Ireally feel sorry for them now.
You can create a piece of open-source technology, write a book about it (keeping publishers in employment), allow people to gain a skill in that technology (keeping programmers/architects/technicans in employment) and allow yourself to gain income from providing training sessions and seminars (keeping course organiser in employment).
As an example, look at the Qt libraries for user interface. The source code is publicly available, free for use for open source projects, but requires a license fee for commercially based products. What's Bill complaining about again?
Maybe I'm biased because most of the PhDs I know are in computer science related fields. I have heard being a Bio of Chem postdoc sucks ass.
That's what I heard in the UK too. For a biochememistry, genomics, your Ph.D will be based on studying a single molecule, protein, gene, whatever, and testing it's reaction with other molecules/proteins/genes. Sure, that gets you a Ph.D, but then your out against the other 30,000 students all who have researched identical things. The biochemistry industry is recruiting but they are only looking for lab managers and technicians. At least most of the synthesis and testing technology has been automated. But I seen a trend not too different from the textile/shipbuilding/manufacturing industries.
The first phase is the "Craftsman era". Everything is done by hand by skilled experts.
The second phase is the "Automation era". R&D departments are used to find ways of automating processes. Eventually everything is reduced down to a single technician supervising whole rooms full of technology.
The third phase is the "Outsourcing era". Once all the technical knowledge has been encapsulated into third party software/hardware, the whole process can be outsourced to the cheapest country.
Then everyone desperately searches for a new career that takes them back to the "Craftsman era".
Just a guess, but given a household uses somewhere between 4 and 9 kilowatts (maybe a 3 kilowatt cooker plus several 100 watt bulbs, plus TV, microwave, washing machine, drying machine), and there are 4 million inhabitants, that would give you around 16 thousand megawatts. Not forgetting business which would probably double that.
According to Business Council of New York, they have 35,847 megawatts, but need another 9,000 megawatts. So make that 45,000 kilowatts in total.
I just tried downloading and installing Xine DVD player for Fedora Core 2. As an experiment, try to run "Run-DMC":
This is xine (X11 gui) - a free video player v0.99.2. (c) 2000-2004 The xine Team. libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 1-rc5 from http://xine.sf.net libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable. libdvdread: Can't stat/dev/dvd No such file or directory libdvdnav: vm: faild to open/read the DVD libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 1-rc5 from http://xine.sf.net libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable. libdvdread: Can't stat/dev/dvd No such file or directory libdvdnav: vm: faild to open/read the DVD
There's no/dev/dvd, so maybe the OS installation process didn't pick up the DVD Writer.
If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine.
That's why you should always design any complex algorithm in pseudocode first. The company owns the actual implementation/documentation/source code. You keep the algorithm in your head. That way every time you reuse that algorithm, it's a clean room implementation.
I've switched over from using IE to Mozilla in the past month. The features I like:
Tabbed windows
Pop-up control (not sure about pop-unders though).
Download manager.
No preinstalled ActiveX component downloading
It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to visit a web site, and see the covert attempt to download an ActiveX component being trapped by Mozilla and highlighted in a popup window, with the message "Mozilla has detected an attempt to download the file xxxxxx. What would you Mozilla to do with this file?".
When I see this message, the only other feature I think could be added to Mozilla involves the use of medical robotics, so I doubt it will ever be implemented.
Don't forget end-of-term college books sales, jumble sales, garage sales, and second hand bookstores. If you are interested in a particular subject, and want to buy books cheaply, that's the way to go.
When I was in high school, our Political Science/English teacher managed to turn it into a interesting discussion "Do you think information technology will turn society into a world like Brave New World, where information is valuable and jealously guarded, or a world like 1984, where information is worthless and is constantly being overproduced?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't doubt synchronized swimming requires a lot of strength, endurance, training and practise, and deserve international competitions of their own.
But they don't really seem to have the same goals as the other olympic sports; being first, the highest, furtherest, or the fastest (having been derived from ancient warfare from the Mediterranean).
If synchronised swimming can make it to the olymics, then "The Run Way" maths test game in Takeshi's castle should be in the olympics (contestants slide down a ramp while trying to work th answer to a simple arithmetic calculation. Get it right and the contestant remains in the game. Get it wrong and they get dumped into the powder).
Right on - I wondered why I was getting Error: 503 - Site not found every time I tried to visit slashdot.org
I am not willing to move north to get a job that pays 40% less than what is available here. I'd rather work outside my field.
For me, it depends on the quality of life; Size of house (backyard/rooms/basement) that I can buy, combined with the cost of items such as computers and the proximity to good schools.
If I get half the salary while computers cost the same or even twice as much, then forget it.
That reminds me of an ultra-paranoid sys-admin we once had (the kind that makes Burt Gummer look like a Quaker).
/var partition has been completely filled, which now jams the /var/spool print queue. A postgrad student attempting to laser-print a section of his Ph.D project finds that he can't, and in order to gather evidence against this denial of service attack prints the entire contents of the 'acct' file.
The sys-admin set up our CompSci server to log every command every user had made (lastcomm services). So one night, one student is waiting for the others in the group project team to arrive. Rather than constantly running between labs, he simply writes a shell script:
while 1
do
who
sleep 10
done
Harmless enough? After about 2-3 hours of use, the entire
Which burned up two large boxes of line printer paper. Needless to say, the sys-admin was furious and makes the student sign a form requiring him never to run an infinite-loop script without permission again.
... somebody cleaned the sensor array with "Windex" prior to mission launch.
or a long time Mozilla was more about what developers wanted to do rather than catering to end user requirements. Most for profit companies are very responsive to the needs of their customers. Pissed off customers = lost revenue.
But who does a web browser vender consider to be their most important customers? The home users surfing the web using a free browser, or the web page designers and corporations who will pay megabucks for the latest web page design and layout software training conferences, seminars and books?
These cards are programmed extensively using VLIW microcode, which contains the implementation of cross-licensed technologies. Since, NDA's/patents are only valid if the technology has not been released into the public domain, it's not possible to release this code. That's why you have third party extensions (SGI, HP, SUN, 3Dlabs etc..) in consumer OpenGL drivers. These extensions are protected by patents. As the device drivers install this code upon startup, releasing the source code to the device drivers would allow users access to the implementation of these patents.
Even if someone did write a pure inhouse architecture, the hardware register set can change so rapidly that it would immediately break anything hardcoded to the metal.
The Good news: The virus writer has released a patch that fixes these two bugs
The Bad news: You can't download these patches, you have to wait for them to self-install onto your system.
Sounds like trying to debug webcam software on Windows. If you run in Debug mode, Visual Studio can't find the web camera. Similarly RealPlayer won't start playing a new track until you quit debugging your application.
I've used Dells at work and at home for about 10 years. The first thing that gets upgraded is always the graphics card (after 6 -18 months; after 2 years, the graphics bus architecture changes, and then the whole system has to be replaced), then maybe a TV tuner card. I did have to add a second CD-RW drive on one system, but that was only because the original system came with a CD-ROM drive. If I had a more recent system, I would have probably replaced the CD-RW with a DVD-RW drive.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...
Shoe shops used to have X-ray equipment that would let you see the bones of your feet. The last time I saw such a machine was around the mid-1970's. It was a more modern version which had automatically sliding metal blocks to measure the dimensions of the foot as well (A google search for "fluoroscopes" only brings up the old-fashioned machines).
My parents would never let me use those machines. I remember other parents would let their kids use the machines for minutes on end, until the shop assistant was available - Ireally feel sorry for them now.
Combine this with the 3D technology that the latest LCD displays have, and video conferencing would be possible Neon Genesis Evangelion style.
You can create a piece of open-source technology, write a book about it (keeping publishers in employment), allow people to gain a skill in that technology (keeping programmers/architects/technicans in employment) and allow yourself to gain income from providing training sessions and seminars (keeping course organiser in employment).
As an example, look at the Qt libraries for user interface. The source code is publicly available, free for use for open source projects, but requires a license fee for commercially based products. What's Bill complaining about again?
+1 Insightful (virtual moderation points).
That should be 45,000 megawatts... or 45 gigawatts.
Maybe I'm biased because most of the PhDs I know are in computer science related fields. I have heard being a Bio of Chem postdoc sucks ass.
That's what I heard in the UK too. For a biochememistry, genomics, your Ph.D will be based on studying a single molecule, protein, gene, whatever, and testing it's reaction with other molecules/proteins/genes. Sure, that gets you a Ph.D, but then your out against the other 30,000 students all who have researched identical things. The biochemistry industry is recruiting but they are only looking for lab managers and technicians. At least most of the synthesis and testing technology has been automated. But I seen a trend not too different from the textile/shipbuilding/manufacturing industries.
The first phase is the "Craftsman era". Everything is done by hand by skilled experts.
The second phase is the "Automation era". R&D departments are used to find ways of automating processes. Eventually everything is reduced down to a single technician supervising whole rooms full of technology.
The third phase is the "Outsourcing era". Once all the technical knowledge has been encapsulated into third party software/hardware, the whole process can be outsourced to the cheapest country.
Then everyone desperately searches for a new career that takes them back to the "Craftsman era".
Just a guess, but given a household uses somewhere between 4 and 9 kilowatts (maybe a 3 kilowatt cooker plus several 100 watt bulbs, plus TV, microwave, washing machine, drying machine), and there are 4 million inhabitants, that would give you around 16 thousand megawatts. Not forgetting business which would probably double that.
According to Business Council of New York, they have 35,847 megawatts, but need another 9,000 megawatts. So make that 45,000 kilowatts in total.
I just tried downloading and installing Xine DVD player for Fedora Core 2. As an experiment, try to run "Run-DMC":
/dev/dvd /dev/dvd
/dev/dvd, so maybe the OS installation process didn't pick up the DVD Writer.
This is xine (X11 gui) - a free video player v0.99.2.
(c) 2000-2004 The xine Team.
libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 1-rc5 from http://xine.sf.net
libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable.
libdvdread: Can't stat
No such file or directory
libdvdnav: vm: faild to open/read the DVD
libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 1-rc5 from http://xine.sf.net
libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable.
libdvdread: Can't stat
No such file or directory
libdvdnav: vm: faild to open/read the DVD
There's no
If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine.
That's why you should always design any complex algorithm in pseudocode first. The company owns the actual implementation/documentation/source code. You keep the algorithm in your head. That way every time you reuse that algorithm, it's a clean room implementation.
I've switched over from using IE to Mozilla in the past month. The features I like:
Tabbed windows
Pop-up control (not sure about pop-unders though).
Download manager.
No preinstalled ActiveX component downloading
It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to visit a web site, and see the covert attempt to download an ActiveX component being trapped by Mozilla and highlighted in a popup window, with the message "Mozilla has detected an attempt to download the file xxxxxx. What would you Mozilla to do with this file?".
When I see this message, the only other feature I think could be added to Mozilla involves the use of medical robotics, so I doubt it will ever be implemented.
Don't forget end-of-term college books sales, jumble sales, garage sales, and second hand bookstores. If you are interested in a particular subject, and want to buy books cheaply, that's the way to go.
When I was in high school, our Political Science/English teacher managed to turn it into a interesting discussion "Do you think information technology will turn society into a world like Brave New World, where information is valuable and jealously guarded, or a world like 1984, where information is worthless and is constantly being overproduced?
I am sure IBM have better things to fight over than one of many image file formats, especially when JPG and PNG, and TIF are probably more useful now.