Linux was built from nothing, and has the obvious advantage of seeing what mistakes others have made and not repeating them.
Um... not really. I agree with your main point but I wouldn't parade Linux as an stellar example of new thinking. The internals may fit the bill but the externals are a mess of decades of dated interfaces and should-be-considered-obsolete utilities.
If Linux really was "built from nothing" I'd imagine it would be very different. Linux was built in the image of UNIX --- which is not new at all.
Well it only relies on the assumption that Quantum Mechanics as we know it is a valid theory. The "no-cloning theorem" proves mathematically (from first principles in QM) that you can't duplicate a quantum-bit without destroying the original.
So called "noisy-cloning" techniques exist, but they would be detectable in any decent quantum-crypto technique. I imagine the only way you could intercept the signal is to find a heretofore unknown theory that supersedes QM somehow (which the brightest minds have been working on for 70+ years).
All we need to do is find one law-enforcement dude to arrest every single congressman that would be likely to vote in favour of this.
Do we need a reason? Nope : cite the Patriot act. The unlimited detainment period need only last until after the bill gets crushed like the rights of the people under it.
People will say that's an abuse of the Act and we'll win by demonstration of the very thing we're protesting against. If they don't complain then the bill will vetoed anyways. It's a win-win situation.
But any human being would prove horrible at such a task... In fact, if you ask a human being for 3 random numbers, odds are very good that they will give you at least two sequential ones...such as 7 6 2...or 5 9 8...
Yes, but the odds that a truly random process would do the same thing is just as high. The chances you DON'T select two consecutive numbers are 10 (first digit) x 8 (second digit) x 8 (third digit) = 640. Thus you have a 36% chance of picking to sequential numbers.
If you want to get rid of dupes as well you have 10x7x7 = 490. Thus a 51% chance you would pick a "non-random" number! I think the problem with people's random numbers are that they go out of their way to avoid such sequences.
Anybody else notice that the publication date on this thing is April 1st? I was pretty sure that the Hubble Space telescope didn't have that kind of resolving power. Otherwise, I believe it could detect planets directly!
Speaking from the Canadian perspective, I think that skewed grades are more a problem in the high schools then in University. At the University of Toronto, where I am currently attending, I find that most classes are curved judiciously so that the most classes have about a 65% average. A straight-A student is highly respected here and should be (at least in the sciences).
My worries are rooted in the schools that feed my institution. Watching my sister apply for university this year reminds me of how unfair the whole system is and how skewed most high school's grades are. I would have less to complain about if the grades of different high schools were weighted somehow but the universities don't do it!
I remember friends of mine who would start at my high school where they were getting low 80s and transfer to another school and be pulling high 90s. The end result is that my brilliant friends who went to a good high school for the sake of a good secondary education got passed over in the admissions process for these wannabes in, too put it bluntly, shitty high schools.
I've seen several people in my university come in with high 90s and almost flunk out in first year and others come with less auspicious grades and do phenomenally. I find it hard to believe that this is the "luck of the draw;" my friends from my alma mater are generally doing better than most who had their admission averages. I know that grades can often be a lousy indicator of overall understanding, but surely they should indicate something, especially if they determine our futures!
Despite the fact that there is a consistent, government-mandated curriculum across all of Ontario, we still have gross discrepancies. Different high schools have too much leeway in deciding their students' achievement. I'm so thankful that my decent, but unremarkable Ontario grades were supplemented by the internationally standardized testing of the International Baccalaureate.
I agree that from a empirical perspective it makes sense to study large systems as they are to understand them on a basic level. I disagree that ignoring the individual constituents is a wise course of action.
In a thermodynamics course I am taking we don't use the conventional approach - starting from large empirical observations and generalizing empirically. Instead, we start with basic assumptions from quantum mechanics and build upwards to show that thermal physics has a mathematical foundation. This is an example of a well-understood system.
It is important to look at general principles to get preliminary clues of its behavior, but if you can't connect it to the individuals I don't think you can truly say you understand it.
While many systems exhibit complex 'emergent behavior'; I think the key to understanding large systems is building it up from smaller ones.
Yes... But isn't the point that you should mark such variables as volatile? Otherwise a smart compiler might (rightly) remove the code! Admittedly the surrounding comments in the paper imply a different interpretation; wouldn't their checking program ignore it if the variables were properly labeled 'volatile'?
I haven't actually bothered to check the surrounding code in 'cpia.c:'; but am I right in thinking that shouldn't matter?
I had a friend of mine saying that while looking through the university network she found a picture of ME on some random windows share. Evidently, I found this mildly disturbing as I have about two pictures of me on the web. The irritating thing is that she can't find the share anymore so I can't find out who this person is...
"the company may be overestimating users' willingness to change their habits".
Well, yes, this is the whole reason Microsoft has flourished. If they make the system too different then they'll negate their chief advantage: familiarity.
Although at this point I'm sure people will do it anyways.
Actually, I find that MP3 still has this weird tinkling in the upper registers that's really annoying. It doesn't matter what the bitrate/encoder is. I used to scoff at those who claimed they could tell the difference; but now that I can I can't stand certain songs as MP3s anymore.
Yes... The analogy is sound. Except you might want to add "rooted through a bunch of people's account records and perused the safe-deposit boxes" while you're at it.
Either way, if they found that the door is open they did not need to walk in. They've already proven their point just finding the door. The rest is blatantly criminal.
I fail to see why everyone always sees diamonds as such an evil investment. They are by no means the only thing that siphons consumer's money into sketchy domains. I'm sure almost every industry has its gray areas. To tell the truth, you can seldom tell where your money's going.
For instance, I imagine when you buy firearms you're indirectly funding the R&D and production of weapons that may be used by terrorists. Also, many tree-hugging "I wouldn't hurt a fly" hippies turn a blind eye to the cold blooded killings that brought them their mind-altering drugs.
On a less brutal stage, every time you see a movie you're helping the MPAA lobbyists. When you go to yor friendly neighborhood dry-cleaner you may actually be funding laundering of a different sort. Who knows? Maybe your paper boy is using your money to buy hamsters to torture.
Hell, even taxes go towards things I'm sure you'd find distasteful (although we don't really have a choice here). I'm not saying we should just ignore the suspicious money trail; it is a problem. But why the particular emphasis on diamonds?
Agreed. I think we're still a long way from making 'digital' actors and actresses that are indistinguishable from the real thing. The technology isn't there yet, and may never be.
This is like the people in the 50s who thought that within the decade they'd have robots that were indistinguishable from real people. I'm sorry, there's just something more to a real human being.
It's the same idea when it comes to actors; a half-decent professional actor can easily put to shame an animator and a vocalist.
Oh wait, we're talking about Hollywood actors . . . nevermind, the industry's toast.
I think you may have accidently hit the nail on the head. I'm a little skeptical of the connection with caffeine. I'd guess that people who have that much coffee tend to be the kind of people who need to be up for jobs that involve the brain (ie Doctors, Office Workers, Programmers).
I'd guess that these people tend to use their brain more and, hence, would be less at-risk. (Or maybe I just wish I liked coffee...)
Well, no... The reason it was premeditated was because John had already decided that he would kill the man who had stolen his son. He knew somebody took his son, he just didn't know the name until a few minutes before.
Well, that's the way I read it. I have a feeling that this movie will have a cult following. It touches on so many ideas and has lots of levels (as you just demonstrated). It's my new official "favourite movie."
Reproducing the same notes on another piano is interesting, but by no means the same thing as a truly "physically-present" performance. There's a lot more depth to a piano than you're allowing. Even two pianos from the same manufacturer have a slightly different tone/tuning.
As a(n amateur) pianist myself, nothing beats my grand at home; during a performance on another piano there's just something "wrong" about it. Maybe it's a little psychological; but other pianists agree with my comments ("the treble is dead" etc...) I find that my chords don't ring out in the same way that I'm used to and, consequently, I'm not as happy with the performance.
Glenn Gould used to go around piano shops and try each piano and then he'd pick not one, but several. He'd say "this one is perfect for that Polonaise" and another was good for his Prelude and Fugue. Different pianos, as with pretty much any natural instrument, are distinctive; most professionals know this.
Besides the technical coolness of this competition I'm surprised that the contestants and the judges would consider this a "live performance." I certainly wouldn't.
Agreed. While Quicktime is an awesome format in many ways, it's becoming less and less popular. DIVX seems to be dominating these days in terms of video and this is packaged inside AVIs. Unfortunately, there's a bug in QT5 for OSX and it often can't extract the audio track from AVIs. This means that even though a DIVX codec exists for OSX, it's a huge pain to get them working right with QuickTime.
Also, Apple seems to be very profit-driven when it comes to QuickTime. Case in point, the Star Wars trailers require QT5 Pro (the non-free version) to view the "Large" movies. I'm highly doubtful that there is any technical reason for this; it seems to be a flimsy marketing tactic. Apple's just using its clout to push people into upgrading to the Pro version.
I'm a big fan of Macs and Apple in general, but I'm becoming more and more disillusioned. I sure hope they clean up their act and focus on quality software instead of MS-like tactics.
For me, it was a succinct summary of many of the problems with intellectual property. It would have been more fitting in the counter-essay competition. Basically, the author lists from a personal perspective how harmful all the laws can be and then says "But it's the law so watcha gonna do?" (I'm paraphrasing)
Okay, so the vast majority of programmers are close-minded zealots who make ultimatums on the languages they like to use: "It must have operator overloading!", "Templates are the one and true way!", "It must have the power of assembly language." Granted, for what they're doing these statements make sense; but perhaps they're improperly implemented.
There are hundreds of languages out there which were introduced to replace the inconsistancies of C and C++. Some have failed because they never got off the drawing board; others were ignored by the industry; and still others just don't work in practice. But these issues can be resolved. The answer to the "Quest for the Ultimate Programming Language"? Empiricism!
You know "Human Interface Testing"? Why can't these ideas be applied to programming languages? Compare two languages with similar features except one difference, say "Templates." Have a team of programmers write a simple program, a medium program and a large project with the aid of templates. Have another team write the same programs without them. Compare and analyze.
I understand that this idealism can never be put into practice as is; the resources required would be incredible. But surely we can make some small steps. Let's add a list of papers in the spirit of "Goto Statement Considered Harmful." In the future we might see headlines on slashdot like "Multiple inheritance not worth the trouble."
Remember, back yourself up with statistics, peer-review and examples; not sophistry!
Slashdot Mirror
...and this is why scientific communities have ethics boards.
Um... not really. I agree with your main point but I wouldn't parade Linux as an stellar example of new thinking. The internals may fit the bill but the externals are a mess of decades of dated interfaces and should-be-considered-obsolete utilities.
If Linux really was "built from nothing" I'd imagine it would be very different. Linux was built in the image of UNIX --- which is not new at all.
Well it only relies on the assumption that Quantum Mechanics as we know it is a valid theory. The "no-cloning theorem" proves mathematically (from first principles in QM) that you can't duplicate a quantum-bit without destroying the original.
So called "noisy-cloning" techniques exist, but they would be detectable in any decent quantum-crypto technique. I imagine the only way you could intercept the signal is to find a heretofore unknown theory that supersedes QM somehow (which the brightest minds have been working on for 70+ years).
All we need to do is find one law-enforcement dude to arrest every single congressman that would be likely to vote in favour of this.
Do we need a reason? Nope : cite the Patriot act.
The unlimited detainment period need only last until after the bill gets crushed like the rights of the people under it.
People will say that's an abuse of the Act and we'll win by demonstration of the very thing we're protesting against. If they don't complain then the bill will vetoed anyways. It's a win-win situation.
But any human being would prove horrible at such a task... In fact, if you ask a human being for 3 random numbers, odds are very good that they will give you at least two sequential ones...such as 7 6 2...or 5 9 8...
Yes, but the odds that a truly random process would do the same thing is just as high. The chances you DON'T select two consecutive numbers are 10 (first digit) x 8 (second digit) x 8 (third digit) = 640. Thus you have a 36% chance of picking to sequential numbers.
If you want to get rid of dupes as well you have 10x7x7 = 490. Thus a 51% chance you would pick a "non-random" number! I think the problem with people's random numbers are that they go out of their way to avoid such sequences.
Anybody else notice that the publication date on this thing is April 1st? I was pretty sure that the Hubble Space telescope didn't have that kind of resolving power. Otherwise, I believe it could detect planets directly!
Speaking from the Canadian perspective, I think that skewed grades are more a problem in the high schools then in University. At the University of Toronto, where I am currently attending, I find that most classes are curved judiciously so that the most classes have about a 65% average. A straight-A student is highly respected here and should be (at least in the sciences).
My worries are rooted in the schools that feed my institution. Watching my sister apply for university this year reminds me of how unfair the whole system is and how skewed most high school's grades are. I would have less to complain about if the grades of different high schools were weighted somehow but the universities don't do it!
I remember friends of mine who would start at my high school where they were getting low 80s and transfer to another school and be pulling high 90s. The end result is that my brilliant friends who went to a good high school for the sake of a good secondary education got passed over in the admissions process for these wannabes in, too put it bluntly, shitty high schools.
I've seen several people in my university come in with high 90s and almost flunk out in first year and others come with less auspicious grades and do phenomenally. I find it hard to believe that this is the "luck of the draw;" my friends from my alma mater are generally doing better than most who had their admission averages. I know that grades can often be a lousy indicator of overall understanding, but surely they should indicate something, especially if they determine our futures!
Despite the fact that there is a consistent, government-mandated curriculum across all of Ontario, we still have gross discrepancies. Different high schools have too much leeway in deciding their students' achievement. I'm so thankful that my decent, but unremarkable Ontario grades were supplemented by the internationally standardized testing of the International Baccalaureate.
I agree that from a empirical perspective it makes sense to study large systems as they are to understand them on a basic level. I disagree that ignoring the individual constituents is a wise course of action.
In a thermodynamics course I am taking we don't use the conventional approach - starting from large empirical observations and generalizing empirically. Instead, we start with basic assumptions from quantum mechanics and build upwards to show that thermal physics has a mathematical foundation. This is an example of a well-understood system.
It is important to look at general principles to get preliminary clues of its behavior, but if you can't connect it to the individuals I don't think you can truly say you understand it.
While many systems exhibit complex 'emergent behavior'; I think the key to understanding large systems is building it up from smaller ones.
Yes... But isn't the point that you should mark such variables as volatile? Otherwise a smart compiler might (rightly) remove the code! Admittedly the surrounding comments in the paper imply a different interpretation; wouldn't their checking program ignore it if the variables were properly labeled 'volatile'?
I haven't actually bothered to check the surrounding code in 'cpia.c:'; but am I right in thinking that shouldn't matter?
I had a friend of mine saying that while looking through the university network she found a picture of ME on some random windows share. Evidently, I found this mildly disturbing as I have about two pictures of me on the web. The irritating thing is that she can't find the share anymore so I can't find out who this person is...
Well, yes, this is the whole reason Microsoft has flourished. If they make the system too different then they'll negate their chief advantage: familiarity.
Although at this point I'm sure people will do it anyways.
Actually, I find that MP3 still has this weird tinkling in the upper registers that's really annoying. It doesn't matter what the bitrate/encoder is. I used to scoff at those who claimed they could tell the difference; but now that I can I can't stand certain songs as MP3s anymore.
Hopefully OGG will clear my problem up.
Either way, if they found that the door is open they did not need to walk in. They've already proven their point just finding the door. The rest is blatantly criminal.
I fail to see why everyone always sees diamonds as such an evil investment. They are by no means the only thing that siphons consumer's money into sketchy domains. I'm sure almost every industry has its gray areas. To tell the truth, you can seldom tell where your money's going.
For instance, I imagine when you buy firearms you're indirectly funding the R&D and production of weapons that may be used by terrorists. Also, many tree-hugging "I wouldn't hurt a fly" hippies turn a blind eye to the cold blooded killings that brought them their mind-altering drugs.
On a less brutal stage, every time you see a movie you're helping the MPAA lobbyists. When you go to yor friendly neighborhood dry-cleaner you may actually be funding laundering of a different sort. Who knows? Maybe your paper boy is using your money to buy hamsters to torture.
Hell, even taxes go towards things I'm sure you'd find distasteful (although we don't really have a choice here). I'm not saying we should just ignore the suspicious money trail; it is a problem. But why the particular emphasis on diamonds?
Agreed. I think we're still a long way from making 'digital' actors and actresses that are indistinguishable from the real thing. The technology isn't there yet, and may never be.
This is like the people in the 50s who thought that within the decade they'd have robots that were indistinguishable from real people. I'm sorry, there's just something more to a real human being.
It's the same idea when it comes to actors; a half-decent professional actor can easily put to shame an animator and a vocalist.
Oh wait, we're talking about Hollywood actors . . . nevermind, the industry's toast.
I think you may have accidently hit the nail on the head. I'm a little skeptical of the connection with caffeine. I'd guess that people who have that much coffee tend to be the kind of people who need to be up for jobs that involve the brain (ie Doctors, Office Workers, Programmers).
I'd guess that these people tend to use their brain more and, hence, would be less at-risk. (Or maybe I just wish I liked coffee...)
Well, no... The reason it was premeditated was because John had already decided that he would kill the man who had stolen his son. He knew somebody took his son, he just didn't know the name until a few minutes before.
Well, that's the way I read it. I have a feeling that this movie will have a cult following. It touches on so many ideas and has lots of levels (as you just demonstrated). It's my new official "favourite movie."
Reproducing the same notes on another piano is interesting, but by no means the same thing as a truly "physically-present" performance. There's a lot more depth to a piano than you're allowing. Even two pianos from the same manufacturer have a slightly different tone/tuning.
As a(n amateur) pianist myself, nothing beats my grand at home; during a performance on another piano there's just something "wrong" about it. Maybe it's a little psychological; but other pianists agree with my comments ("the treble is dead" etc...) I find that my chords don't ring out in the same way that I'm used to and, consequently, I'm not as happy with the performance.
Glenn Gould used to go around piano shops and try each piano and then he'd pick not one, but several. He'd say "this one is perfect for that Polonaise" and another was good for his Prelude and Fugue. Different pianos, as with pretty much any natural instrument, are distinctive; most professionals know this.
Besides the technical coolness of this competition I'm surprised that the contestants and the judges would consider this a "live performance." I certainly wouldn't.
Agreed. While Quicktime is an awesome format in many ways, it's becoming less and less popular. DIVX seems to be dominating these days in terms of video and this is packaged inside AVIs. Unfortunately, there's a bug in QT5 for OSX and it often can't extract the audio track from AVIs. This means that even though a DIVX codec exists for OSX, it's a huge pain to get them working right with QuickTime.
Also, Apple seems to be very profit-driven when it comes to QuickTime. Case in point, the Star Wars trailers require QT5 Pro (the non-free version) to view the "Large" movies. I'm highly doubtful that there is any technical reason for this; it seems to be a flimsy marketing tactic. Apple's just using its clout to push people into upgrading to the Pro version.
I'm a big fan of Macs and Apple in general, but I'm becoming more and more disillusioned. I sure hope they clean up their act and focus on quality software instead of MS-like tactics.
Have you read the English winner of the WIPO contests?
For me, it was a succinct summary of many of the problems with intellectual property. It would have been more fitting in the counter-essay competition. Basically, the author lists from a personal perspective how harmful all the laws can be and then says "But it's the law so watcha gonna do?" (I'm paraphrasing)
How is that an endorsement of IP?
Am I missing something?
Okay, so the vast majority of programmers are close-minded zealots who make ultimatums on the languages they like to use: "It must have operator overloading!", "Templates are the one and true way!", "It must have the power of assembly language." Granted, for what they're doing these statements make sense; but perhaps they're improperly implemented. There are hundreds of languages out there which were introduced to replace the inconsistancies of C and C++. Some have failed because they never got off the drawing board; others were ignored by the industry; and still others just don't work in practice. But these issues can be resolved. The answer to the "Quest for the Ultimate Programming Language"? Empiricism! You know "Human Interface Testing"? Why can't these ideas be applied to programming languages? Compare two languages with similar features except one difference, say "Templates." Have a team of programmers write a simple program, a medium program and a large project with the aid of templates. Have another team write the same programs without them. Compare and analyze. I understand that this idealism can never be put into practice as is; the resources required would be incredible. But surely we can make some small steps. Let's add a list of papers in the spirit of "Goto Statement Considered Harmful." In the future we might see headlines on slashdot like "Multiple inheritance not worth the trouble." Remember, back yourself up with statistics, peer-review and examples; not sophistry!