Producing an optimal result isn't a requirement of being an algorithm.
If you are feeling overly pedantic (like the OP) it can be; ie an algorithm must provide a solution to a problem, and an approximation is not the same as a solution (in the CS sense).
But the whole thing is just the kind of nitpicking that only someone who is really proud of having taken Intro to Complexity and Computability Theory recently would engage in.
Algorithms must have the same correct results by definition.
Since we are obviously talking about the "goodness" of the results produced by the algorithm, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the broader definition of "algorithm" is being used.
But why should I lose features in Vista because Creative decided that the card I already bought shouldn't work in a new OS?
Because you're Creative's bitch.
Remember how we used to buy and "own" things? Well, now apparently companies are claiming the right to tell us how we may, or may not, use their products after "buying" them, even with physical hardware. Since the number of people who care about things like this enough to stop buying shiny gadgets is minuscule, I see no reason why this tactic shouldn't work.
After all, it's their product, why shouldn't they have complete control over how you "consume" it - there's money to be made, after all.
For the guys who hate anything since Snow Crash, well this will probably not be for you.
I actually liked Snow Crash the least out of all his books I've read. I really liked the style, but the story was more than a little preposterous; had this annoying tendency to snatch a few random, out of context tiny bits of science and history here and there, and then weave them together into this Grand Unifying Theory of Everything. Well, OK, but that leaves out the other 99.9999999999% of everything, ever. Fun read overall, though.
Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, was pure genius.
why is that they set up the hero as having cohorts, armies, minions all the time ? its growing rather old.
I think they just meant "the other people at the monastery" by "cohorts"; could've as easily said "buddies" or "pals". Must the hero always be some kind of brooding solitary recluse?
Both have monasteries, but lots of books have monasteries... If anything, Canticle was far more nuanced with the whole "propagation of knowledge through dark ages" thing than just a bunch of effete intellectuals cloistering themselves from the unwashed masses.
Would you be so kind as to elaborate for me on why it is not?
Certainly.
As far as American slang goes, the use of the word "cool" is about as widespread as it gets. I had a reasonable expectation that just about every American, as well as most English speakers in general, would understand what I mean.
On the other hand, "RTFA" is just an acronym for a commonly used expression here on Slashdot. But you are absolutely right, were I posting anywhere else I would not have used it.
Mumorpuger is just my guess at how or pronounce MMORPG, are you saying that's not correct?
I don't want to "disallow" anyone anything, nor do I have any problems with the concept of subcultures. What I find annoying is when people use expressions from their tiny cliques when talking to a general audience, knowing perfectly well that most people will not understand what they mean. Particularly, as in this case, when they use them to replace perfectly appropriate, commonly used words. Needlessly exporting your needlessly distinct vocabulary just seems like a really weak attempt to legitimize your little group as a subculture.
On second though, maybe you are right, maybe I just dislike really, really lame subcultures.
In a nutshell, it's someone that does a deliberately obnoxious or destructive thing to another person, simply for their own personal entertainment.
That's almost, but not quite, correct. It's actually a made up word that a few mumorpuger players use in lieu of perfectly appropriate, already existing words to describe such a person. Why? I don't really know, I think it has something to do with pretending to be some kind of "subculture"; I guess the more words you make up, that only you and your friends know, the cooler you feel.
If it was done by Anonymous in response to a supposed threat, that was a premptive strike, not a griefing.
A threat from whom? Photosensitive epileptics? I didn't RTFA, but that seems highly unlikely.
Doesn't even support pressure sensitivity with tablets.
Oh and the Flash-based thing does? Impressive!
I've been happily using Paint.NET for the sort of trivial, software development-related image editing needs that I used to use, uh, "extended evaluation" copies of Photoshop for. It covers the basics quite well.
Yes they can. If Alice and Bob each independently create the exact same thing, then each one of them can get a copyright on it, and each can do whatever they like without infringing on the other.
Which is what I was saying, except I would say that they created two distinct copyrightable works, which happen to be identical. My point was that one of the main problems with the patent system - granting of obvious, broad patents that prevent others from doing common things they arrive at independently of the patent-holder's work - does not exit for copyright; and that may be the main reason why automatic copyright makes a lot more sense than automatic patenting the OP was suggesting.
but you seem to be saying they should be the prime suspects until proven otherwise. That makes no sense to me.
I never said that. I said they are a large contributing factor that is too often given a free pass (mostly because people are afraid that any criticism of any religion will instantly label them as xenophobic fascists).
Well I'm sorry, but it just doesn't look to me like the problem in the Islamic world is Islam, it's poverty and rotten political systems.
Right except, at lest to me, Islam is a huge part of that "rotten political system", I'm not sure where you can draw the line between the two. Are you really saying that the system which dictates every aspect of political, public, and private life in those countries has no influence on their societies?
Owning ideas is no different from owning land or cars in that respect.
Again, why? Why do you want to pretend that ideas are physical objects? Ideas have no limited lifespan, thousands of people will routinely come up with the same idea, why would the first person to do so have any sort of absolute claim to it?
Copyright is currently granted without governmental approval, and it works better than the patent system does.
There most certainly is government approval, it's just automatic. From what I can see, the main problem with the USPTO is that too many trivial and overly broad patents are granted, why would making patenting automatic, like copyright, improve the situation (OK, so you don't want to call them "patents", but you want a law that establishes a limited monopoly to commercially exploit an invention, which we currently call "patents").
I would also argue that the copyright system is just as broken as the patent system, and for the same reasons.
They exist because people believe it is unjust when someone else profits from your work without your permission. For example, if you spent two years inventing a new type of internal combustion engine, and then released it onto the marked only to find that GM copied all your work and sold the engine at a lower price, you would likely think that was unfair.
Right, that is exactly the situation that patents were designed to prevent (way back when), except the only stated goal was to provide you a means for profiting from your invention, and thus motivation to invent things. The concepts of "fairness" or "justice" have nothing to do with this - lots of things are unfair, we don't pass laws to correct them all. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, but the original purpose of patents seems to go to the heart of how they are being misused today.
you should be able to sue them for fair compensation regardless of whether or not a patent reviewer gave you a piece of paper
If I'm remembering this correctly, the US is one of the few countries that actually uses a "first to invent" (rather than "first to file") patent system; ie you are very much entitled to sue GM in such a case, you just need to show that you, in fact, came up with the invention first. If you actually applied for a patent and even a USPTO reviewer rejected it, well then, it must be an invention of truly stupendous obviousness.
The main difference between patents and copyright is that, by definition, two different people cannot independently create the same copyrightable work; whereas that's entirely not true of patents.
Huh? The solution to patent and copyright problems is infinitely broad and permanent patents and copyright?
I don't see why they can't just write a law establishing that you own your ideas
How on earth can someone "own" an idea? Better yet, why would you think it's a good idea to try to pretend that someone owns an idea?
Patents and copyrights are intended to prevent people from free-loading off of the work of others
That fundamental misunderstanding is part of many of the problems we are seeing with the patent system today: patents exist to give you the first stab at exploiting your ideas. The notion that once someone has an idea it's theirs and no one can ever use it again is just plain ridiculous.
> With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million
Close, only 270 million
It's actually over 300 million - there's been a lot of humping going on lately.
Some of those are spot on, but I think you give him way too much credit for some really tenuous ones, where we basically have an inkling that it's possible, but don't even know if it's a good idea, never mind have it in wide adoption: GPS is a far cry from the fully automatic system he describes; there's some movement in the whole "remote learning" thing, but nowhere near that scale (a good thing, as far as I'm concerned); and he may give a vague description of how ADD/ADHD drugs work, but what he is talking about has no relation to how they are actually used.
Pretty impressive overall, though, especially considering how much of a deal some "futurists" make of having predicted some of these things in the mid-90s!
Doesn't seem all that complicated: they are currently selling and supporting two products, it's cheaper for them to only sell and support one product. They of course also want those who use XP to purchase Vista, and ending support is a pretty strong nudge in that direction (especially for corporate clients).
The proportion of people who choose to switch to a different OS will be minuscule compared to those who "upgrade" to Vista. Why wouldn't they do it?
Hmm, I think your argument misses the point a little.
You are saying that since Islam is no worse than any other monotheistic, dogmatic religion (true; though lets limit it to those, rather than "major religions" in general), and since we, as a people, are not somehow inherently better than Arabs or Persians (perfectly true), then any differences in our societies cannot be attributed to religion or culture? That's kind of a leap.
How about the fact that we live in a secular country, and many of them in theocratic ones? That while our predominant religion is as morally abhorrent as theirs, it has far, far less influence on our daily lives (especially those of us who don't subscribe to it)? For some reason it's extremely tempting for us, the oh so multicultural liberals, to just give religion a free pass on all this: "Why, it's all because of economics and standard of living, and theosophy is just the window dressing!"; but, when you have countries, founded and run on the precepts of a religion, that continuously flaunt the most abominable violations of human rights in the name of that religion, it becomes a little hard to say that with a straight face.
We sit around all rich and advanced and western, but beneath it all we just need someone to hate. Another tribe to vilify.
Because we think that a theocratic regime that, for starters, does not recognize a universal right to life is not a just society? I don't get how that reasoning goes.
Huh, I guess all that boils down to: "I'll see your Richard Dawkins, and raise you a Sam Harris."
Also, the West is to blame for the majority of social problems in the Middle East? Give me a break.
Slashdot Mirror
Producing an optimal result isn't a requirement of being an algorithm.
If you are feeling overly pedantic (like the OP) it can be; ie an algorithm must provide a solution to a problem, and an approximation is not the same as a solution (in the CS sense).
But the whole thing is just the kind of nitpicking that only someone who is really proud of having taken Intro to Complexity and Computability Theory recently would engage in.
Algorithms must have the same correct results by definition.
Since we are obviously talking about the "goodness" of the results produced by the algorithm, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the broader definition of "algorithm" is being used.
But why should I lose features in Vista because Creative decided that the card I already bought shouldn't work in a new OS?
Because you're Creative's bitch.
Remember how we used to buy and "own" things? Well, now apparently companies are claiming the right to tell us how we may, or may not, use their products after "buying" them, even with physical hardware. Since the number of people who care about things like this enough to stop buying shiny gadgets is minuscule, I see no reason why this tactic shouldn't work.
After all, it's their product, why shouldn't they have complete control over how you "consume" it - there's money to be made, after all.
Aren't these heuristics and not algorithms?
Lets not be overly pedantic: a heuristic is a type of algorithm, in casual speech.
No, it's in there:
right-loony, left-loony, libertarian-loony, or just an Ayn Rand fetishist
For the guys who hate anything since Snow Crash, well this will probably not be for you.
I actually liked Snow Crash the least out of all his books I've read. I really liked the style, but the story was more than a little preposterous; had this annoying tendency to snatch a few random, out of context tiny bits of science and history here and there, and then weave them together into this Grand Unifying Theory of Everything. Well, OK, but that leaves out the other 99.9999999999% of everything, ever. Fun read overall, though.
Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, was pure genius.
why is that they set up the hero as having cohorts, armies, minions all the time ? its growing rather old.
I think they just meant "the other people at the monastery" by "cohorts"; could've as easily said "buddies" or "pals". Must the hero always be some kind of brooding solitary recluse?
I'm not sure I see that much similarity.
Both have monasteries, but lots of books have monasteries... If anything, Canticle was far more nuanced with the whole "propagation of knowledge through dark ages" thing than just a bunch of effete intellectuals cloistering themselves from the unwashed masses.
Great book, though.
Ah, crap, I almost forgot it's going to be a solid day of "ZOMG Microsoft bought Linux!!1!" tomorrow.
Why do they do it? Seriously, it's just so painfully unfunny.
Would you be so kind as to elaborate for me on why it is not?
Certainly.
As far as American slang goes, the use of the word "cool" is about as widespread as it gets. I had a reasonable expectation that just about every American, as well as most English speakers in general, would understand what I mean.
On the other hand, "RTFA" is just an acronym for a commonly used expression here on Slashdot. But you are absolutely right, were I posting anywhere else I would not have used it.
Mumorpuger is just my guess at how or pronounce MMORPG, are you saying that's not correct?
I don't want to "disallow" anyone anything, nor do I have any problems with the concept of subcultures. What I find annoying is when people use expressions from their tiny cliques when talking to a general audience, knowing perfectly well that most people will not understand what they mean. Particularly, as in this case, when they use them to replace perfectly appropriate, commonly used words. Needlessly exporting your needlessly distinct vocabulary just seems like a really weak attempt to legitimize your little group as a subculture.
On second though, maybe you are right, maybe I just dislike really, really lame subcultures.
In a nutshell, it's someone that does a deliberately obnoxious or destructive thing to another person, simply for their own personal entertainment.
That's almost, but not quite, correct. It's actually a made up word that a few mumorpuger players use in lieu of perfectly appropriate, already existing words to describe such a person. Why? I don't really know, I think it has something to do with pretending to be some kind of "subculture"; I guess the more words you make up, that only you and your friends know, the cooler you feel.
If it was done by Anonymous in response to a supposed threat, that was a premptive strike, not a griefing.
A threat from whom? Photosensitive epileptics? I didn't RTFA, but that seems highly unlikely.
Actually the laity is much more likely to type "myspace.com"
But, yeah, in the age of usable search engines, very few people are likely to try to guess the domain name to find something.
Doesn't even support pressure sensitivity with tablets.
Oh and the Flash-based thing does? Impressive!
I've been happily using Paint.NET for the sort of trivial, software development-related image editing needs that I used to use, uh, "extended evaluation" copies of Photoshop for. It covers the basics quite well.
Yes they can. If Alice and Bob each independently create the exact same thing, then each one of them can get a copyright on it, and each can do whatever they like without infringing on the other.
Which is what I was saying, except I would say that they created two distinct copyrightable works, which happen to be identical. My point was that one of the main problems with the patent system - granting of obvious, broad patents that prevent others from doing common things they arrive at independently of the patent-holder's work - does not exit for copyright; and that may be the main reason why automatic copyright makes a lot more sense than automatic patenting the OP was suggesting.
but you seem to be saying they should be the prime suspects until proven otherwise. That makes no sense to me.
I never said that. I said they are a large contributing factor that is too often given a free pass (mostly because people are afraid that any criticism of any religion will instantly label them as xenophobic fascists).
Well I'm sorry, but it just doesn't look to me like the problem in the Islamic world is Islam, it's poverty and rotten political systems.
Right except, at lest to me, Islam is a huge part of that "rotten political system", I'm not sure where you can draw the line between the two. Are you really saying that the system which dictates every aspect of political, public, and private life in those countries has no influence on their societies?
Owning ideas is no different from owning land or cars in that respect.
Again, why? Why do you want to pretend that ideas are physical objects? Ideas have no limited lifespan, thousands of people will routinely come up with the same idea, why would the first person to do so have any sort of absolute claim to it?
Copyright is currently granted without governmental approval, and it works better than the patent system does.
There most certainly is government approval, it's just automatic. From what I can see, the main problem with the USPTO is that too many trivial and overly broad patents are granted, why would making patenting automatic, like copyright, improve the situation (OK, so you don't want to call them "patents", but you want a law that establishes a limited monopoly to commercially exploit an invention, which we currently call "patents").
I would also argue that the copyright system is just as broken as the patent system, and for the same reasons.
They exist because people believe it is unjust when someone else profits from your work without your permission. For example, if you spent two years inventing a new type of internal combustion engine, and then released it onto the marked only to find that GM copied all your work and sold the engine at a lower price, you would likely think that was unfair.
Right, that is exactly the situation that patents were designed to prevent (way back when), except the only stated goal was to provide you a means for profiting from your invention, and thus motivation to invent things. The concepts of "fairness" or "justice" have nothing to do with this - lots of things are unfair, we don't pass laws to correct them all. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, but the original purpose of patents seems to go to the heart of how they are being misused today.
you should be able to sue them for fair compensation regardless of whether or not a patent reviewer gave you a piece of paper
If I'm remembering this correctly, the US is one of the few countries that actually uses a "first to invent" (rather than "first to file") patent system; ie you are very much entitled to sue GM in such a case, you just need to show that you, in fact, came up with the invention first. If you actually applied for a patent and even a USPTO reviewer rejected it, well then, it must be an invention of truly stupendous obviousness.
The main difference between patents and copyright is that, by definition, two different people cannot independently create the same copyrightable work; whereas that's entirely not true of patents.
wow... ideal role for the XO
Yeah, Tigh gets shit done (when he isn't hitting the bottle, that is).
That's easy: I have an idea, but I don't tell you. I still have it, you don't.
Unless, of course, I arrive at the same idea independently.
Huh? The solution to patent and copyright problems is infinitely broad and permanent patents and copyright?
I don't see why they can't just write a law establishing that you own your ideas
How on earth can someone "own" an idea? Better yet, why would you think it's a good idea to try to pretend that someone owns an idea?
Patents and copyrights are intended to prevent people from free-loading off of the work of others
That fundamental misunderstanding is part of many of the problems we are seeing with the patent system today: patents exist to give you the first stab at exploiting your ideas. The notion that once someone has an idea it's theirs and no one can ever use it again is just plain ridiculous.
> With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million
Close, only 270 million
It's actually over 300 million - there's been a lot of humping going on lately.
Some of those are spot on, but I think you give him way too much credit for some really tenuous ones, where we basically have an inkling that it's possible, but don't even know if it's a good idea, never mind have it in wide adoption: GPS is a far cry from the fully automatic system he describes; there's some movement in the whole "remote learning" thing, but nowhere near that scale (a good thing, as far as I'm concerned); and he may give a vague description of how ADD/ADHD drugs work, but what he is talking about has no relation to how they are actually used.
Pretty impressive overall, though, especially considering how much of a deal some "futurists" make of having predicted some of these things in the mid-90s!
So why are they doing this?
Doesn't seem all that complicated: they are currently selling and supporting two products, it's cheaper for them to only sell and support one product. They of course also want those who use XP to purchase Vista, and ending support is a pretty strong nudge in that direction (especially for corporate clients).
The proportion of people who choose to switch to a different OS will be minuscule compared to those who "upgrade" to Vista. Why wouldn't they do it?
All I'm getting from you is a lot of Freedom hating. Why do you want the terrorists to win?
Wait a minute, this "study" was done on 34 people? And the method for choosing them was "that guy's buddies"?
And we are actually spending time talking about it?
Would this ever lead to drug testing researchers that announce amazing new scientific breakthroughs?
To what end, exactly? If it's positive, everyone just agrees to forget the results of their research?
No, Islam itself is not the problem.
Hmm, I think your argument misses the point a little.
You are saying that since Islam is no worse than any other monotheistic, dogmatic religion (true; though lets limit it to those, rather than "major religions" in general), and since we, as a people, are not somehow inherently better than Arabs or Persians (perfectly true), then any differences in our societies cannot be attributed to religion or culture? That's kind of a leap.
How about the fact that we live in a secular country, and many of them in theocratic ones? That while our predominant religion is as morally abhorrent as theirs, it has far, far less influence on our daily lives (especially those of us who don't subscribe to it)? For some reason it's extremely tempting for us, the oh so multicultural liberals, to just give religion a free pass on all this: "Why, it's all because of economics and standard of living, and theosophy is just the window dressing!"; but, when you have countries, founded and run on the precepts of a religion, that continuously flaunt the most abominable violations of human rights in the name of that religion, it becomes a little hard to say that with a straight face.
We sit around all rich and advanced and western, but beneath it all we just need someone to hate. Another tribe to vilify.
Because we think that a theocratic regime that, for starters, does not recognize a universal right to life is not a just society? I don't get how that reasoning goes.
Huh, I guess all that boils down to: "I'll see your Richard Dawkins, and raise you a Sam Harris."
Also, the West is to blame for the majority of social problems in the Middle East? Give me a break.