During Neil Gaiman's/. interview, he recommended very highly a book by M. John Harrison called "Light".
Wow -- amazing book. Fabulous ideas -- true science fiction that breaks through our conventional understandings of science without losing all credibility.
But Harrison killed it. It makes my worst list because of what it could have been. Instead of a rebirth of the sci-fi genre, it's a book full of gratuitous vulgarity. I'm not going to be shocked by a few bad words, but I am turned off by their mindless and endless repetition. Sure, sex can be a nasty business. And death is rarely pretty. And he did have an interesting take on the ugly sides of cloning and nanotechnology. But after a while, it gets tired to read scene after scene of sordidness. In detail. He captured the mood well, but then exploited the mood by describing each little bit of nastiness. Why did he feel the need to pad his story this way? I don't know. But it seems to be a common fallacy among "serious" young writers that they have to go out of their way to be crude and revolting or critics won't take them seriously.
Okay, so who's word are you going to take on this one? Neil Gaiman who praised the book highly? Or the word of a two-bit hack. Seriously, the book is worthy of being read for its ideas, but as a work of literature it stinks.
Actually, I disagree that this post is off-topic. It's exactly on topic.
Yes, people are dying in Iraq, both our boys and girls, as wells as Iraqis. We need to elect a president who (a) will never get us involved in something this poorly planned and thought out again, and (b) will get us the hell out of there as quickly as is possible, while not leaving the Iraqi people (not to mention what's left of our international credibility) blowing in the wind.
Regardless of what you think about President Bush and the war in Iraq, it's hard to argue that this has been a successful campaign. He and his administration have FUBAR'd this operation completely through their inept planning.
Any article talking about how we, as Americans, can stop the blood from flowing down the streets is exactly on topic. And to do that, we need to elect a new leader.
What a wonderful theory. If only it fit the facts. Howard Dean has taken the internet and done amazing things with it, but the concept that he is somehow hijacking the Democratic party simply isn't accurate.
* Dean was governor for 11 years. He got there through traditional Democratic party politics.
* I remember having a conversation with some Vermont relatives back shortly after the 1996 convention about whether Dean would run in 2000.
Basically, Dean has been an up-and-coming force in the Democratic party for a number of years. While his outsider rhetoric and outspoken opposition to the war has helped fuel his candidacy, he is still a product of the Democratic party, with its grassroots activists and door-to-door campaigning.
Lastly -- a quick anecdote. Ralph Reed (formerly of the Christian Coalition, all around brilliant evil-doer, and now chairing Bush's reelection campaign in the Southeast) recently gave a speech talking about how according to all their polls, on the Friday before the election, Bush would have won all of the key battleground states had the election been held then. But instead, the Democratic apparatus came out in force and turned the election into a statistical dead heat. His best line went something like this:
Republicans think the campaign ends the Friday before the election, after the last television ad is bought, the last billboard put up.
Democrats believe the election starts the Friday before the election. GOTV (get out the vote) efforts don't really begin in earnest until those last 72 hours. The Democratic machine was what turned a sure Bush victory into a fraudulent mockery of an election (I try to be even handed... really I do, but facts is facts).
Dean's improbable sprint to internet cash-and-glory will only get him so far. And then the incredibly labor intensive huge Democratic machine will have to take over. The article completely misses that fact. While the internet portion of the campaign may allow for a small control group, the actual work still has to be done by what is essentially a huge national corporation with a precense in every precint in America. That's a large group of people.
A pretty theory with some definite substance -- just not as clear-cut as the author would have us think.
Obviously, depending on Google's free side to support a business is risky -- but the alternatives just aren't all that pleasant.
I help run a small business on the side -- http://www.beadstore.com. We are one of the good stores on the web -- we sell a specialty high quality product that has a small but dedicated global following. We provide a fair amount of information about each product and excellent customer service.
We are also reliant upon Google for a huge percentage of our online business.
Realizing that free listings were completely hit or miss, we began advertising on Google through Ad Words. Since then we've been spending anywhere between $500 and $3000 a MONTH on advertising -- which for a small business like ours is a huge hit.
And yes, we've spent countless hours trying to optimize our page position in Google. But we've never resorted to the kind of sleazy tactics some use. So when Google "tweaks" its code and the whole Google Dance shifts, it can mean major rewards or huge costs. What is a small business supposed to do? We have basically two options -- forgo advertising and be forever subject to Google's whims, or pay what amounts to our single largest operating expense (besides inventory) to guarantee some sort of Google traffic. I guess the third alternative is to bypass Google directly, but that's a tough way to go, though we try whenever we can.
So I have a fair amount of sympathy for the good eggs out there trying to run a website business, not because they ever have a realistic hope of becoming dot-com millionaires, but because they love their product. Google is a fickle mistress -- and while we may not have many options, showing a little sympathy when one of us gets dumped isn't really such a bad thing.
Okay, I rarely find myself defending the movie industry... but...
Am I the only one troubled by the fact that there are no facts in this article? That the only attributed quotes don't even mention text messaging? The (one) executive quoted merely said that word of mouth now spreads faster than it used to. As near as I can tell, the emphasis on text messaging is all by the reporter.
It's not hard to imagine how a careless movie exec, talking about teens and their ever-faster methods of communication, may have cited text messaging as one avenue quick communication -- but there is no evidence in this article that any hollywood-type ever really blamed text messaging for its problems.
Just a quick critique -- and a quick google search didn't turn up anything more definitive than this little article. I don't believe even They Could Be That Stupid.
I love your campaign -- at least at first blush. Then I started thinking -- what happens if 5,000 young, liberal, Democratic voters actually vote for you? It doesn't seem at all outside the realm of possibility. Do you worry that you might be pulling support from a legitimate liberal candidate and throwing the election to someone like Arnold? Nader's candidacy seemed like fun and games until someone (namely 226 servicemen and women so far and counting) got hurt. Not trying to be heavy-handed, but is this something you considered? As election day comes closer, would you consider endorsing Davis or some other lefty candidate?
Let me start by saying that all I know about real AI I learned by watching various movies -- that is to say, not much. But the author of this article made some startling assertions and seemed almost to apologizing for the "stupid humans" who should have won each and every game.
Two main thoughts -- first, Deep Blue and the other chess computers should not be viewed as computer triumphing over man, rather they are a triumph of human-as-toolmaker over human-as-gameplayer. This is view espoused by the creator of Deep Blue in his excellent book "Behind Deep Blue".
This brings me to my second point -- since when has taking advantage of a blunder been cheating in chess? As a strong amateur, I can tell you every chess game I have ever played -- from the most lopsided slaughter to the most closer positional game -- was decided by a blunder on either my part or the part of my opponent. What changes is the sophistication of the blunder being made. A begining player will give away material with abandon, a GM will blunder away a tempo (tempo = the initiative for 1 turn). Blunders lose games. Period. The one who blunders last loses. Taken to an extreme, this author seems to argue that whenever a player makes a bad mistake, the computer should pat them on the head, and say "Dearie, are you suuurreee about that move? Why don't you go ahead and just try that one again."
A couple of last points -- in "Behind Deep Blue" Feng-Hsiung Hsu gives a meticulous description of the games between Gary K. and Deep B. -- including the "drawn" second game that Gary resigned. According to Hsu, the drawing variation wasn't discovered until much later that night, and was certainly by no means an obvious continuation. Hsu also discussed several of the glitches in the system in great detail -- including their multi-year battle with the draw repetion detector -- that led to some of Deep Blue's odd failings at various points. The book, by the way, was awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these issues.
Finally a few meta-chessical thoughts: the great beauty of chess is that you sit down -- one entity on either side -- and either win or lose. There can be no excuses. No fluke bounces, no I-lost-it-in-the-sun. I think for chess players the great thrill is the battle between two minds taking place in complete equality of opportunity. To take away from human-as-toolmaker simply because you don't like the outcome seems to me to diminish us all. In addition, as several other have pointed out, shear computing power will never win. Only after the Deep Blue team began paring away poor moves and focusing more deeply on moves that appear good, did the computer really achieve its full strength. I guarantee you that Kasparov knows every opening he plays at least as well as *any* opening theory (or endgame, for that matter) book in existence. Only when the computer developed the ability to "think" -- that is to evaluate which moves deserve more study -- that man-as-toolmaker could actually win.
Um, why do people assume that simply moving your documents to a server in another country renders you immune from (United States) state or federal jurisdiction?
Unless he's removed himself to the Netherlands (and even that's complicated), he should consult with an attorney specializing in these issues. Otherwise, prepare to be a test case!
Okay, contrary to many here, I am not a rocket scientist. I am a lawyer, which means the last time I had physics was... well, far too long ago. But watching the space shuttles was one of the great thrills of my life, so I try to read and understand and spread the gospel.
Why not take a plane and just fly it really high?
I'm not trying to be flip here -- take something like a cargo jet and use conventional technology to get off the ground. One in flight at 40k-60k feet, it seems like it would require far less thrust to acheive orbit. As I understand it, both gravity and friction would be dramatically reduced at that point.
Obviously, the details are where it's at -- but is this even a sound theory? I'm guessing that fuel weight would be the biggest problem?
The ironic thing of course, is that the shuttle still has to come down, no matter how we get it up there. And of course, the fundamental technology underlying Columbia's mission is well tested -- it seems to have been an accident in the true sense of the word and not a design flaw that brought her down. If the tiles really are to blame, then any future space vehicle is likely to have similar problems. So this brings me to my second question -- do we know what the Russians did to get around this?
Is it really so surprising? She has no job. She has no life. She sits and reads and buys useless items. She then writes about them.
On a more serious note -- is there anyone out these hawking some prodect or other that wouldn't hire this lady to write for them? She is a great advertising copy editor. Where better to hone her skills than by making postings praising products?
It's not the Computer playing the perfect game....
on
Behind Deep Blue
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· Score: 1
Understanding why computers may never dominate chess at the elite levels, you have to understand something about chess history and the nature of elite chess players, their study habits, and how they learn.
Great chess players spend weeks preparing for a tournament. They look over all the best games that have been played and look for improvements. To some extent, the matches are already won or lost before the games even start. Even if the game moves out of established "theory" early on, the player can still rely upon the principles he or she remembers from studying other games. At the truly elite levels, chess players can spend months and months working on a specific move in a specific variation designed to beat a specific opponent. They study the games previously played by their opponent and look for weakness, often employing computers and thousand of man-hours of effort, checking and double checking every reasonable combination of moves.
This is one of the reasons, I personally, do not believe computers will ever truly triumph. Someone earlier pointed out that the perfect game would always end in a draw, but what people have to realize is that most human games at the high levels of competition are virtually perfect. And if they make a mistake on a given day (even a minescule one, not noticeable to the vast majority of us patzers) they will correct it next time. You gotta remember that every game played by an elite computer against an elite human instantly becomes part of the canon of chess knowledge. In a sense, every game of chess played comes closer and closer to the perfect game.
We all know you started out as a Shakesperian actor, and I wonder what you learned from those rolls that you later applied in your science fiction career? What do you think of Shakespeare's place in the acting canon? Do you still stage act?
Actually, I think your statistics are off a little -- the highest rates of cell phone usage are often found in the poorest (and, coincidently or not, most minority) areas. More importantly, the growth rate of cell phone ownership among minorities tends to exceed that of white or middle/upper class people. To the extent you talk about broadband usage, I completely agree, but cell usage has a very different demographic. And when you factor in the greater concentration of people usually found in lower income areas, the reduced land costs, the reduced permitting hassles, there is simply no justification for the discriminatory cell phone coverage.
On the other hand, a past GF attended a small women's college in the heart of one of DC's most affluent areas, and the coverage there sucked too -- so maybe they are just incompetent -- never rule that out:)
You know the one -- the "Can you hear me now?" guy -- he's set for life! Talk about full employment! Do you think, that maybe, he's not being entirely truthful? He always seems to have coverage no matter what god forsaken place he travels to...
But to me, the most interesting thing about cell phone coverage is how it seems to vary by economic class and race. Take my area in Washington, DC. There are five or so close in suburbs (the Maryland and Virginia sides) that are all connected by a six lane death strip -- known as the Beltway, or 495 (so coined by G. Gordon Liddy). Cell phone coverage in the affluent white suburbs (Montgomery, Fairfax, Alexandria) on the beltway is just about 100% perfect -- heaven forbid anyone driving their Mercedes E class on their way to their McMansion should be out of touch with the illegal immigrant nanny for even a second! But once you cross over into the predominantly African American and less wealthy (it's still the richest majority-minority county in the country based on per capita income, but still "poor" compared to the other surrounding counties) the cell phone coverage on the beltway drops to almost nothing in wide stretches. And this is not some backwater! We're talking Interstate 95!
All humor aside, I hate suggesting that the cell companies are purposefully racist, but the fact remains that the more politically connected counties would never stand for a major national thoroughfair being without coverage. Perhaps there's a lack of infrastructure in the minority areas, perhaps there just aren't any AT&T executives who live in that area -- whatever the reason, it stinks from an ethical and moral standpoint and is indicative of the need for economic development in that part of town.
First of all, I've had my Prius for about 8 months now -- and I love it. The car is a technological marvel. Not only does it get amazing mileage, it also puts out less emissions that just about any other car out there. For those not familiar with how a hybrid works, all of the car's energy originates with the car's 11.5 gallon gas tank. There is no plug. I repeat: there is no plug:)
There is however a battery pack under the rear seat of the car and accessible from the trunk. Under the hood there is a conventional 4 cylinder engine as well as a electrical motor/generator. Here's where it gets fun: in order to slow down, the generator spins backwards (!) slowing the car down and generating energy. When the need for strong breaking occurs, or at low speeds, the friction brakes kick in. The system is very refined, with only a small barely noticeable transition between regenerative breaking and friction breaking. The energy generated is then stored in the batteries.
Internal combustion engines are least efficient when they first start up and also produce the most pollutants at start up. The Prius uses its electric battery power to drive the motor forward and get the car moving. This dramatically reduces wear on the engine and lowers emissions and increases mileage. (Note: At speeds under 38 mph, you can run totally on electric power -- or stealth mode -- the car is completely silent! Very cool.) That's a real basic run down. For real engineers & car people -- note the lack of a planetary gear, an ignition system, etc. There's a lot going on in this car!
I alluded to the biggest misconception earlier -- there is no plug. All the energy is generated internally. Some other folks have mentioned fuel cells, I sat in on a briefing a few days ago with some top EPA/DOE folks, and they made it quite clear the technology isn't quite there yet. But the biggest problem is the hydrogen infrastructure that would have to be built. I sensed that they would personally favor government intervention to encourage this, but that would be extremely unlikely under the current administration.
One last comment -- there are two categories of hybrid cars -- full and mild. Both are good, but if Toyota is talking about mild hybrids, this story is a bit more of a yawn. Mild hybrid just means that the engine kicks off when the vehicle is stopped. Basically, the only additional battery needed is to spark the engine back to life. This is a good thing (imagine all those idling engines turned off and not emitting pollutants), but it is hardly a revolutionary step. The technology to do this has existed for years.
But please -- everyone go out and buy a hybrid -- I've driven them all, and they are all amazing. Of course, the Prius is my favorite, but the hybrid civic is nice and so is the Insight. And keep your eyes open for the new hybrid Ford Escape due in late 2003. Encourage all your "I'm an environmentalist but I drive an SUV" friends to put their money where their mouths are!
The one thing the article failed to address was the nature of the businesses. The Maryland side of DC tends to specialize in Genomics and biotechnology, while the Virginia suburbs do the more traditional e-commerce things (odd how geographic differences spring up in virtual/tech businesses, but that's a different post). Given the massive start up costs of most biotech ventures, the fact that 6 are generating revenue may not be at all bad.
But to me, the most interesting thing about this (as a Maryland grad), is the idea that taking smart students, putting them in swank digs, is somehow going to generate a better mouse trap. Whether the end product is a genome sequencer, a great work of literature, or the next great super-virus, colleges and universities seem to love chucking money at rather small groups of students in the hope of producing something special. Does it work? I don't know that it doesn't, but I can think of other projects that I think might have a better chance of success.
Lastly, I think the article's description of the dorm rooms was a bit misleading. It made them sound like the students are given all the creature comforts as well as the necessary technical and business tools. But it actually doesn't sound all that different from any of the newer dorm rooms at U of M College Park -- they are all actually pretty nice -- with a few extra mechanical and technical gadgets.
Just a few thoughts.
Contrary to most who posted, I assumed after reading the intro that this was a voluntary service used by us, the information consuming public, to reward providers of information we consider valuable.
For instance, I find some some site that I enjoyed or found useful, flip a switch and presto -- that site gets $0.01 for each of their pages I viewed. A relatively pain-free way of rewarding good content providers.
The problem of course would be transaction costs, but I'm not smart enough to solve that problem.
Slashdot Mirror
During Neil Gaiman's /. interview, he recommended very highly a book by M. John Harrison called "Light".
Wow -- amazing book. Fabulous ideas -- true science fiction that breaks through our conventional understandings of science without losing all credibility.
But Harrison killed it. It makes my worst list because of what it could have been. Instead of a rebirth of the sci-fi genre, it's a book full of gratuitous vulgarity. I'm not going to be shocked by a few bad words, but I am turned off by their mindless and endless repetition. Sure, sex can be a nasty business. And death is rarely pretty. And he did have an interesting take on the ugly sides of cloning and nanotechnology. But after a while, it gets tired to read scene after scene of sordidness. In detail. He captured the mood well, but then exploited the mood by describing each little bit of nastiness. Why did he feel the need to pad his story this way? I don't know. But it seems to be a common fallacy among "serious" young writers that they have to go out of their way to be crude and revolting or critics won't take them seriously.
Okay, so who's word are you going to take on this one? Neil Gaiman who praised the book highly? Or the word of a two-bit hack. Seriously, the book is worthy of being read for its ideas, but as a work of literature it stinks.
Actually, I disagree that this post is off-topic. It's exactly on topic.
Yes, people are dying in Iraq, both our boys and girls, as wells as Iraqis. We need to elect a president who (a) will never get us involved in something this poorly planned and thought out again, and (b) will get us the hell out of there as quickly as is possible, while not leaving the Iraqi people (not to mention what's left of our international credibility) blowing in the wind.
Regardless of what you think about President Bush and the war in Iraq, it's hard to argue that this has been a successful campaign. He and his administration have FUBAR'd this operation completely through their inept planning.
Any article talking about how we, as Americans, can stop the blood from flowing down the streets is exactly on topic. And to do that, we need to elect a new leader.
What a wonderful theory. If only it fit the facts. Howard Dean has taken the internet and done amazing things with it, but the concept that he is somehow hijacking the Democratic party simply isn't accurate.
* Dean was governor for 11 years. He got there through traditional Democratic party politics.
* I remember having a conversation with some Vermont relatives back shortly after the 1996 convention about whether Dean would run in 2000.
Basically, Dean has been an up-and-coming force in the Democratic party for a number of years. While his outsider rhetoric and outspoken opposition to the war has helped fuel his candidacy, he is still a product of the Democratic party, with its grassroots activists and door-to-door campaigning.
Lastly -- a quick anecdote. Ralph Reed (formerly of the Christian Coalition, all around brilliant evil-doer, and now chairing Bush's reelection campaign in the Southeast) recently gave a speech talking about how according to all their polls, on the Friday before the election, Bush would have won all of the key battleground states had the election been held then. But instead, the Democratic apparatus came out in force and turned the election into a statistical dead heat. His best line went something like this:
Republicans think the campaign ends the Friday before the election, after the last television ad is bought, the last billboard put up.
Democrats believe the election starts the Friday before the election. GOTV (get out the vote) efforts don't really begin in earnest until those last 72 hours. The Democratic machine was what turned a sure Bush victory into a fraudulent mockery of an election (I try to be even handed... really I do, but facts is facts).
Dean's improbable sprint to internet cash-and-glory will only get him so far. And then the incredibly labor intensive huge Democratic machine will have to take over. The article completely misses that fact. While the internet portion of the campaign may allow for a small control group, the actual work still has to be done by what is essentially a huge national corporation with a precense in every precint in America. That's a large group of people.
A pretty theory with some definite substance -- just not as clear-cut as the author would have us think.
Obviously, depending on Google's free side to support a business is risky -- but the alternatives just aren't all that pleasant.
I help run a small business on the side -- http://www.beadstore.com. We are one of the good stores on the web -- we sell a specialty high quality product that has a small but dedicated global following. We provide a fair amount of information about each product and excellent customer service.
We are also reliant upon Google for a huge percentage of our online business.
Realizing that free listings were completely hit or miss, we began advertising on Google through Ad Words. Since then we've been spending anywhere between $500 and $3000 a MONTH on advertising -- which for a small business like ours is a huge hit.
And yes, we've spent countless hours trying to optimize our page position in Google. But we've never resorted to the kind of sleazy tactics some use. So when Google "tweaks" its code and the whole Google Dance shifts, it can mean major rewards or huge costs. What is a small business supposed to do? We have basically two options -- forgo advertising and be forever subject to Google's whims, or pay what amounts to our single largest operating expense (besides inventory) to guarantee some sort of Google traffic. I guess the third alternative is to bypass Google directly, but that's a tough way to go, though we try whenever we can.
So I have a fair amount of sympathy for the good eggs out there trying to run a website business, not because they ever have a realistic hope of becoming dot-com millionaires, but because they love their product. Google is a fickle mistress -- and while we may not have many options, showing a little sympathy when one of us gets dumped isn't really such a bad thing.
Okay, I rarely find myself defending the movie industry... but... Am I the only one troubled by the fact that there are no facts in this article? That the only attributed quotes don't even mention text messaging? The (one) executive quoted merely said that word of mouth now spreads faster than it used to. As near as I can tell, the emphasis on text messaging is all by the reporter. It's not hard to imagine how a careless movie exec, talking about teens and their ever-faster methods of communication, may have cited text messaging as one avenue quick communication -- but there is no evidence in this article that any hollywood-type ever really blamed text messaging for its problems. Just a quick critique -- and a quick google search didn't turn up anything more definitive than this little article. I don't believe even They Could Be That Stupid.
I love your campaign -- at least at first blush. Then I started thinking -- what happens if 5,000 young, liberal, Democratic voters actually vote for you? It doesn't seem at all outside the realm of possibility. Do you worry that you might be pulling support from a legitimate liberal candidate and throwing the election to someone like Arnold? Nader's candidacy seemed like fun and games until someone (namely 226 servicemen and women so far and counting) got hurt. Not trying to be heavy-handed, but is this something you considered? As election day comes closer, would you consider endorsing Davis or some other lefty candidate?
Let me start by saying that all I know about real AI I learned by watching various movies -- that is to say, not much. But the author of this article made some startling assertions and seemed almost to apologizing for the "stupid humans" who should have won each and every game.
Two main thoughts -- first, Deep Blue and the other chess computers should not be viewed as computer triumphing over man, rather they are a triumph of human-as-toolmaker over human-as-gameplayer. This is view espoused by the creator of Deep Blue in his excellent book "Behind Deep Blue".
This brings me to my second point -- since when has taking advantage of a blunder been cheating in chess? As a strong amateur, I can tell you every chess game I have ever played -- from the most lopsided slaughter to the most closer positional game -- was decided by a blunder on either my part or the part of my opponent. What changes is the sophistication of the blunder being made. A begining player will give away material with abandon, a GM will blunder away a tempo (tempo = the initiative for 1 turn). Blunders lose games. Period. The one who blunders last loses. Taken to an extreme, this author seems to argue that whenever a player makes a bad mistake, the computer should pat them on the head, and say "Dearie, are you suuurreee about that move? Why don't you go ahead and just try that one again."
A couple of last points -- in "Behind Deep Blue" Feng-Hsiung Hsu gives a meticulous description of the games between Gary K. and Deep B. -- including the "drawn" second game that Gary resigned. According to Hsu, the drawing variation wasn't discovered until much later that night, and was certainly by no means an obvious continuation. Hsu also discussed several of the glitches in the system in great detail -- including their multi-year battle with the draw repetion detector -- that led to some of Deep Blue's odd failings at various points. The book, by the way, was awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these issues.
Finally a few meta-chessical thoughts: the great beauty of chess is that you sit down -- one entity on either side -- and either win or lose. There can be no excuses. No fluke bounces, no I-lost-it-in-the-sun. I think for chess players the great thrill is the battle between two minds taking place in complete equality of opportunity. To take away from human-as-toolmaker simply because you don't like the outcome seems to me to diminish us all. In addition, as several other have pointed out, shear computing power will never win. Only after the Deep Blue team began paring away poor moves and focusing more deeply on moves that appear good, did the computer really achieve its full strength. I guarantee you that Kasparov knows every opening he plays at least as well as *any* opening theory (or endgame, for that matter) book in existence. Only when the computer developed the ability to "think" -- that is to evaluate which moves deserve more study -- that man-as-toolmaker could actually win.
Um, why do people assume that simply moving your documents to a server in another country renders you immune from (United States) state or federal jurisdiction?
Unless he's removed himself to the Netherlands (and even that's complicated), he should consult with an attorney specializing in these issues. Otherwise, prepare to be a test case!
Okay, contrary to many here, I am not a rocket scientist. I am a lawyer, which means the last time I had physics was ... well, far too long ago. But watching the space shuttles was one of the great thrills of my life, so I try to read and understand and spread the gospel.
Why not take a plane and just fly it really high?
I'm not trying to be flip here -- take something like a cargo jet and use conventional technology to get off the ground. One in flight at 40k-60k feet, it seems like it would require far less thrust to acheive orbit. As I understand it, both gravity and friction would be dramatically reduced at that point.
Obviously, the details are where it's at -- but is this even a sound theory? I'm guessing that fuel weight would be the biggest problem?
The ironic thing of course, is that the shuttle still has to come down, no matter how we get it up there. And of course, the fundamental technology underlying Columbia's mission is well tested -- it seems to have been an accident in the true sense of the word and not a design flaw that brought her down. If the tiles really are to blame, then any future space vehicle is likely to have similar problems. So this brings me to my second question -- do we know what the Russians did to get around this?
Is it really so surprising? She has no job. She has no life. She sits and reads and buys useless items. She then writes about them. On a more serious note -- is there anyone out these hawking some prodect or other that wouldn't hire this lady to write for them? She is a great advertising copy editor. Where better to hone her skills than by making postings praising products?
Understanding why computers may never dominate chess at the elite levels, you have to understand something about chess history and the nature of elite chess players, their study habits, and how they learn.
Great chess players spend weeks preparing for a tournament. They look over all the best games that have been played and look for improvements. To some extent, the matches are already won or lost before the games even start. Even if the game moves out of established "theory" early on, the player can still rely upon the principles he or she remembers from studying other games. At the truly elite levels, chess players can spend months and months working on a specific move in a specific variation designed to beat a specific opponent. They study the games previously played by their opponent and look for weakness, often employing computers and thousand of man-hours of effort, checking and double checking every reasonable combination of moves.
This is one of the reasons, I personally, do not believe computers will ever truly triumph. Someone earlier pointed out that the perfect game would always end in a draw, but what people have to realize is that most human games at the high levels of competition are virtually perfect. And if they make a mistake on a given day (even a minescule one, not noticeable to the vast majority of us patzers) they will correct it next time. You gotta remember that every game played by an elite computer against an elite human instantly becomes part of the canon of chess knowledge. In a sense, every game of chess played comes closer and closer to the perfect game.
We all know you started out as a Shakesperian actor, and I wonder what you learned from those rolls that you later applied in your science fiction career? What do you think of Shakespeare's place in the acting canon? Do you still stage act?
Actually, I think your statistics are off a little -- the highest rates of cell phone usage are often found in the poorest (and, coincidently or not, most minority) areas. More importantly, the growth rate of cell phone ownership among minorities tends to exceed that of white or middle/upper class people. To the extent you talk about broadband usage, I completely agree, but cell usage has a very different demographic. And when you factor in the greater concentration of people usually found in lower income areas, the reduced land costs, the reduced permitting hassles, there is simply no justification for the discriminatory cell phone coverage.
:)
On the other hand, a past GF attended a small women's college in the heart of one of DC's most affluent areas, and the coverage there sucked too -- so maybe they are just incompetent -- never rule that out
You know the one -- the "Can you hear me now?" guy -- he's set for life! Talk about full employment! Do you think, that maybe, he's not being entirely truthful? He always seems to have coverage no matter what god forsaken place he travels to...
But to me, the most interesting thing about cell phone coverage is how it seems to vary by economic class and race. Take my area in Washington, DC. There are five or so close in suburbs (the Maryland and Virginia sides) that are all connected by a six lane death strip -- known as the Beltway, or 495 (so coined by G. Gordon Liddy). Cell phone coverage in the affluent white suburbs (Montgomery, Fairfax, Alexandria) on the beltway is just about 100% perfect -- heaven forbid anyone driving their Mercedes E class on their way to their McMansion should be out of touch with the illegal immigrant nanny for even a second! But once you cross over into the predominantly African American and less wealthy (it's still the richest majority-minority county in the country based on per capita income, but still "poor" compared to the other surrounding counties) the cell phone coverage on the beltway drops to almost nothing in wide stretches. And this is not some backwater! We're talking Interstate 95!
All humor aside, I hate suggesting that the cell companies are purposefully racist, but the fact remains that the more politically connected counties would never stand for a major national thoroughfair being without coverage. Perhaps there's a lack of infrastructure in the minority areas, perhaps there just aren't any AT&T executives who live in that area -- whatever the reason, it stinks from an ethical and moral standpoint and is indicative of the need for economic development in that part of town.
to read "Junk Yard Wars" somewhere in the article.
Just F.Y.I. -- the Escape's power train was developed through a joint Ford/Toyota venture and is based on the Prius engine, souped up a bit.
First of all, I've had my Prius for about 8 months now -- and I love it. The car is a technological marvel. Not only does it get amazing mileage, it also puts out less emissions that just about any other car out there. For those not familiar with how a hybrid works, all of the car's energy originates with the car's 11.5 gallon gas tank. There is no plug. I repeat: there is no plug :)
There is however a battery pack under the rear seat of the car and accessible from the trunk. Under the hood there is a conventional 4 cylinder engine as well as a electrical motor/generator. Here's where it gets fun: in order to slow down, the generator spins backwards (!) slowing the car down and generating energy. When the need for strong breaking occurs, or at low speeds, the friction brakes kick in. The system is very refined, with only a small barely noticeable transition between regenerative breaking and friction breaking. The energy generated is then stored in the batteries.
Internal combustion engines are least efficient when they first start up and also produce the most pollutants at start up. The Prius uses its electric battery power to drive the motor forward and get the car moving. This dramatically reduces wear on the engine and lowers emissions and increases mileage. (Note: At speeds under 38 mph, you can run totally on electric power -- or stealth mode -- the car is completely silent! Very cool.) That's a real basic run down. For real engineers & car people -- note the lack of a planetary gear, an ignition system, etc. There's a lot going on in this car!
I alluded to the biggest misconception earlier -- there is no plug. All the energy is generated internally. Some other folks have mentioned fuel cells, I sat in on a briefing a few days ago with some top EPA/DOE folks, and they made it quite clear the technology isn't quite there yet. But the biggest problem is the hydrogen infrastructure that would have to be built. I sensed that they would personally favor government intervention to encourage this, but that would be extremely unlikely under the current administration.
One last comment -- there are two categories of hybrid cars -- full and mild. Both are good, but if Toyota is talking about mild hybrids, this story is a bit more of a yawn. Mild hybrid just means that the engine kicks off when the vehicle is stopped. Basically, the only additional battery needed is to spark the engine back to life. This is a good thing (imagine all those idling engines turned off and not emitting pollutants), but it is hardly a revolutionary step. The technology to do this has existed for years.
But please -- everyone go out and buy a hybrid -- I've driven them all, and they are all amazing. Of course, the Prius is my favorite, but the hybrid civic is nice and so is the Insight. And keep your eyes open for the new hybrid Ford Escape due in late 2003. Encourage all your "I'm an environmentalist but I drive an SUV" friends to put their money where their mouths are!
The one thing the article failed to address was the nature of the businesses. The Maryland side of DC tends to specialize in Genomics and biotechnology, while the Virginia suburbs do the more traditional e-commerce things (odd how geographic differences spring up in virtual/tech businesses, but that's a different post). Given the massive start up costs of most biotech ventures, the fact that 6 are generating revenue may not be at all bad. But to me, the most interesting thing about this (as a Maryland grad), is the idea that taking smart students, putting them in swank digs, is somehow going to generate a better mouse trap. Whether the end product is a genome sequencer, a great work of literature, or the next great super-virus, colleges and universities seem to love chucking money at rather small groups of students in the hope of producing something special. Does it work? I don't know that it doesn't, but I can think of other projects that I think might have a better chance of success. Lastly, I think the article's description of the dorm rooms was a bit misleading. It made them sound like the students are given all the creature comforts as well as the necessary technical and business tools. But it actually doesn't sound all that different from any of the newer dorm rooms at U of M College Park -- they are all actually pretty nice -- with a few extra mechanical and technical gadgets. Just a few thoughts.
Contrary to most who posted, I assumed after reading the intro that this was a voluntary service used by us, the information consuming public, to reward providers of information we consider valuable. For instance, I find some some site that I enjoyed or found useful, flip a switch and presto -- that site gets $0.01 for each of their pages I viewed. A relatively pain-free way of rewarding good content providers. The problem of course would be transaction costs, but I'm not smart enough to solve that problem.