remember, the important number isn't the number of neurons (or transistors), but of connections. A neuron typically has many more connections than a transistor does, and those connections have more possible states than a transistor (which has 2, of course). Add to this the fact that each neuron's internal function (what it's activation level is, how active its "ON" state is, etc.) can change at any time, and the result is that the amount of processing per neuron is much greater than per transistor.
So what if China has a standing army of 1 million soldiers? They have a population of 1.5 billion, if they had the same proportion of army as the United States did (and I'm not counting air force, navy, etc.), they'd have about 3 times that many soldiers. No need for the caps.
Also, about the economy, taiwan's economy was not hurt nearly as bad as anyone else's, mainly because taiwan has sensible banking policies, unlike most other asian countries. China's economy didn't crash because it has a protected currency, as well as the fact that its economy is rather closed.
There was an issue of the Economist back in November that talked about how Taiwan has been so paranoid (justifiably so) of problems with Mainland China that it has protected it's economy pretty strongly. Taiwan has spent it's entire existance preparing for an invasion by a country many times its size, so a little currency problems in thailand weren't going to faze it.
Actually, the NSA can classify any work that is submitted to the patent office. The way it works is that if the NSA sees something that is submitted for a patent and they think that it is interesting enough to them, they have the authority to classify that patent. So what happens is that a crypto researcher will attempt to patent their method for encryption/decryption, and it comes back that while they got the patent, it's been classifed, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it!
Actually, the end of neural networks in the 60s was due to Minsky proving that perceptrons (which everyone was using) could not even perform an XOR function. This bummed everyone out, and as there wasn't a lot of computer power available, and the fact that the mathematics for analyzing more complicated networks was not available, there wasn't a whole lot of incentive to do research in the field.
Nonsense, a jet engine is completely explainable. Unless the gas tank that is hooked up to the engine is just there for looks!
btw, this whole thread about not being able to prove things is completely ludicrous. I've seen the same logic used by creationists: "Aerodynamics can't explain how a bumblebee flies, so god must have created everything." Never mind that aerodynamics can explain the flight of a bumble bee, or that it is unexplained how a lack of understanding of aerodynamics translates to being a denial of evolution...
The idea here seems to be: "If a phenomenon cannot be explained by current theories, then the theories are all bogus and, as a result, any explanation is just as reasonable." This is logically and scientifically wrong, although this idea seems to be very popular with people who don't understand science.
"Thus the surefire, absolute, undeniable way to prove that fusion is actually there is to observe neutrons and/or gamma rays. But no one has ever observed neutrons or gamma rays from a cold fusion apparatus. "
That's because the evil corporations are hiding them!
Verant is a very new company, and Everquest is their first game that they released. Verant is essentially a spinoff from 989 studios, so while the people at verant did work on tanarus and everquest, they were working for 989 Studios (then called Sony Interactive) at the time. Everquest is the same way, it was originally a Sony Interactive game, then a 989 studios game, but then Verant was created, and it was released from that studio.
You want an example of fan violence? Try any big city after their team wins a major sports championship. Get enough drunk people in a big group and bad things usually start happening, no matter what country you're in.
Why did this happen at school? Why not? Until you graduate from high school, the majority of your day is spent at school, and after the school day, malls and other places where kids hang out are only open for a few hours, if at all. Given an average day of spending from 8am-3pm at school, and being home for dinner, on a sheer probabilistic basis, it'd be remarkable if these things didn't happen mainly at school. And remember, we are talking about "normal" kids, not the ones who ditch school early, don't go home, and so on, we're talking about the ones who "seem so normal".
The problem is that teaching is a profession that tends to attract people who are less likely to be technologically proficient. A lot of people from my high school are now teachers, and not one of them majored in any type of scientific or engineering field.
This is because, for a lot of people, teaching is a "backup" profession: after finding that a BS in Italian doesn't apply to many jobs, it's easy to go back to school and get a teaching credential. People who have an engineering degree can find jobs pretty easily, as can, for the most part, people with science degrees. So the teaching ranks end up being rather heavily weighted towards people with liberal arts degrees.
There are, of course, people who go into teaching as their first choice, but it's rare for these people to be into science and technology. This is unfortunate, as technology becomes even more important in the future.
I'm not sure what can be done about this, though. The US doesn't have a culture that values teachers very highly, and so it's hard to find people who are interested in going into teaching as a first choice. Teaching is a rather low paying job (although teachers usually get 3 months off a year), so it doesn't have much draw for those people who can find other jobs, especially tech ones.
The teachers who are into tech, though, can really make a difference. My jr. high computer teacher definitely changed my life by taking the time to encourange my interests in programming...
Nah, the judicial system is handling something else. What the original poster said was that the judicial system should handle broken contracts and such. What the judicial system is dealing with now is enforcing monopoly regulation.
if a publisher can't afford a few $20000 dev kits for it's developer, then how is it going to be able to afford marketing, manufacturing,and distributing the game as well?
I don't think that what clinton did (getting blow jobs from an intern) is the problem here. I think that the problem is instead how the American public is so easily manipulated into believing that privacy should be secondary to security.
If you want to change things, don't rail on against the government, instead help convince the public that privacy is important, that allowing the government more access to our lives is not beneficial, and that these issues do affect them!
//rant A government is not evil, any more so that a rock, a tree, or any other inanimate object can be evil. It is the people who make up the government that are good or bad, and, because the USA fortunately has a democratic system, these people can be voted in or out of office. Complaining about "the government" doesn't work, and only makes one look like a kook. However, if you complain about individual politicians, convince their constituency to follow your reasoning, and make an effort to support those politicians that share your beliefs, then you'll find that the government will become closer to what you want.
The original development kit for the PSX1 was about $14,000, plus the cost of the PC that you had to put it in, which was probably another few thousand, so $20000 doesn't sound too outrageous. Also, remember, that usually the publisher is the one to buy the dev kits, and then they give them to the developers, so the cost isn't really a huge issue.
Slashdot Mirror
actually, LSD doesn't cause genetic damage.
remember, the important number isn't the number of neurons (or transistors), but of connections. A neuron typically has many more connections than a transistor does, and those connections have more possible states than a transistor (which has 2, of course). Add to this the fact that each neuron's internal function (what it's activation level is, how active its "ON" state is, etc.) can change at any time, and the result is that the amount of processing per neuron is much greater than per transistor.
So what if China has a standing army of 1 million soldiers? They have a population of 1.5 billion, if they had the same proportion of army as the United States did (and I'm not counting air force, navy, etc.), they'd have about 3 times that many soldiers. No need for the caps.
Also, about the economy, taiwan's economy was not hurt nearly as bad as anyone else's, mainly because taiwan has sensible banking policies, unlike most other asian countries. China's economy didn't crash because it has a protected currency, as well as the fact that its economy is rather closed.
There was an issue of the Economist back in November that talked about how Taiwan has been so paranoid (justifiably so) of problems with Mainland China that it has protected it's economy pretty strongly. Taiwan has spent it's entire existance preparing for an invasion by a country many times its size, so a little currency problems in thailand weren't going to faze it.
Actually, the NSA can classify any work that is submitted to the patent office. The way it works is that if the NSA sees something that is submitted for a patent and they think that it is interesting enough to them, they have the authority to classify that patent. So what happens is that a crypto researcher will attempt to patent their method for encryption/decryption, and it comes back that while they got the patent, it's been classifed, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it!
Actually, the end of neural networks in the 60s was due to Minsky proving that perceptrons (which everyone was using) could not even perform an XOR function. This bummed everyone out, and as there wasn't a lot of computer power available, and the fact that the mathematics for analyzing more complicated networks was not available, there wasn't a whole lot of incentive to do research in the field.
Nonsense, a jet engine is completely explainable. Unless the gas tank that is hooked up to the engine is just there for looks!
btw, this whole thread about not being able to prove things is completely ludicrous. I've seen the same logic used by creationists: "Aerodynamics can't explain how a bumblebee flies, so god must have created everything." Never mind that aerodynamics can explain the flight of a bumble bee, or that it is unexplained how a lack of understanding of aerodynamics translates to being a denial of evolution...
The idea here seems to be: "If a phenomenon cannot be explained by current theories, then the theories are all bogus and, as a result, any explanation is just as reasonable." This is logically and scientifically wrong, although this idea seems to be very popular with people who don't understand science.
"Thus the surefire, absolute, undeniable way to prove that fusion is actually there is to observe neutrons and/or gamma rays. But no one has ever observed neutrons or gamma rays from a cold fusion apparatus. "
That's because the evil corporations are hiding them!
Verant is a very new company, and Everquest is their first game that they released. Verant is essentially a spinoff from 989 studios, so while the people at verant did work on tanarus and everquest, they were working for 989 Studios (then called Sony Interactive) at the time. Everquest is the same way, it was originally a Sony Interactive game, then a 989 studios game, but then Verant was created, and it was released from that studio.
South Korea.
You want an example of fan violence? Try any big city after their team wins a major sports championship. Get enough drunk people in a big group and bad things usually start happening, no matter what country you're in.
Why did this happen at school? Why not? Until you graduate from high school, the majority of your day is spent at school, and after the school day, malls and other places where kids hang out are only open for a few hours, if at all. Given an average day of spending from 8am-3pm at school, and being home for dinner, on a sheer probabilistic basis, it'd be remarkable if these things didn't happen mainly at school. And remember, we are talking about "normal" kids, not the ones who ditch school early, don't go home, and so on, we're talking about the ones who "seem so normal".
The problem is that teaching is a profession that tends to attract people who are less likely to be technologically proficient. A lot of people from my high school are now teachers, and not one of them majored in any type of scientific or engineering field.
This is because, for a lot of people, teaching is a "backup" profession: after finding that a BS in Italian doesn't apply to many jobs, it's easy to go back to school and get a teaching credential. People who have an engineering degree can find jobs pretty easily, as can, for the most part, people with science degrees. So the teaching ranks end up being rather heavily weighted towards people with liberal arts degrees.
There are, of course, people who go into teaching as their first choice, but it's rare for these people to be into science and technology. This is unfortunate, as technology becomes even more important in the future.
I'm not sure what can be done about this, though. The US doesn't have a culture that values teachers very highly, and so it's hard to find people who are interested in going into teaching as a first choice. Teaching is a rather low paying job (although teachers usually get 3 months off a year), so it doesn't have much draw for those people who can find other jobs, especially tech ones.
The teachers who are into tech, though, can really make a difference. My jr. high computer teacher definitely changed my life by taking the time to encourange my interests in programming...
Nah, the judicial system is handling something else. What the original poster said was that the judicial system should handle broken contracts and such. What the judicial system is dealing with now is enforcing monopoly regulation.
Pretty cool, although I wonder where they find the time, having to deal with the workload at America's 2nd best technical school... :)
foley
Caltech '96
"I find it difficult at times to decide what to believe... which is in part why I DON'T keep up with the news"
In other words: "Ignorance is Bliss."
Look, in an environment where the accuracy of information is questionable, you need more information, not less.
if a publisher can't afford a few $20000 dev kits for it's developer, then how is it going to be able to afford marketing, manufacturing,and distributing the game as well?
I don't think that what clinton did (getting blow jobs from an intern) is the problem here. I think that the problem is instead how the American public is so easily manipulated into believing that privacy should be secondary to security.
If you want to change things, don't rail on against the government, instead help convince the public that privacy is important, that allowing the government more access to our lives is not beneficial, and that these issues do affect them!
//rant
A government is not evil, any more so that a rock, a tree, or any other inanimate object can be evil. It is the people who make up the government that are good or bad, and, because the USA fortunately has a democratic system, these people can be voted in or out of office. Complaining about "the government" doesn't work, and only makes one look like a kook. However, if you complain about individual politicians, convince their constituency to follow your reasoning, and make an effort to support those politicians that share your beliefs, then you'll find that the government will become closer to what you want.
The original development kit for the PSX1 was about $14,000, plus the cost of the PC that you had to put it in, which was probably another few thousand, so $20000 doesn't sound too outrageous. Also, remember, that usually the publisher is the one to buy the dev kits, and then they give them to the developers, so the cost isn't really a huge issue.