Pretty sure Snowden's not the only clever person in this world. Plenty of paranoid people (including your's truly) are constantly monitoring all of their systems to make sure the authorities (amongst others) aren't snooping in. If the government was caught in the act, there are plenty of lawyers who'd take the case and make a killing. Unless of course the British government decided to call in 007 to take care of the client.
Yes, calculus formulae uses symbols, but they also use weights and measures for the constants, which are in base-10 for convenience. After all, if we wanted to find the rate of change of a stock ticker, we'd feed in numbers in base-10 rather than binary. As for the symbols themselves, we use latin alphabets and Greek letters, never symbols of animals or morse code. Hence, we have preferences when it comes to the 'language' we use for calculus.
Likewise, it's really up to us to decide which language to use for our coding purposes (that is, if you're capable of developing your own programming language). We could substitute the '=' in a classic assignment statement with the image of a butt. Instead of the usual console output functions like 'print', 'echo', etc, we could have a picture of a person vomiting.
However, no matter what kind of language you develop for your coding needs, the underlying principles will stay the same, depending on the architecture of the computer and the paradigm of the underlying host software on which your code will run. The vast majority (I'm willing to say over 90%) of all programming languages have assignments, iterations, selections, logic operators, arithmetic operators and basic I/O. I'm saying that coding should be taught in the context of these basic constructs of a system; as these are the constructs used to actually process data.
This happening on the 30th anniversary of the Mac, and the legendary '1984' advertisement, is interesting (Jobs is definitely turning in his grave). This, and other freedom-neutralizers (and I would personally put Foursquare and Flappy Birds, amongst others, in the category), are certainly proving Blair/Orwell's great foresight.
Also, let me point out that learning how to code for information processing should not require you to learn how to code in a particular language. When you learn calculus the principles you learn can be applied to any number system. It just so happens that we use base-10 for the sake of convenience, since we are most familiar with it. That does not mean that we cannot apply the same principles to binary, hexadecimal or any other base. If we similarly learn the essence of coding we should likewise be able to apply the basic principles to develop programs in any language (we might use a familiar, more English-like one, to learn in the first place).
Learning calculus (or algebra or geometry) may actually be more analogous to coding than one might think. Likewise, the relevance of coding to life in our Information Age might be as underestimated as calculus is. The problem is that definitions of coding (in the context of information processing) has not been as standardized as calculus. You might say I'm talking nonsense here, BUT coding for information processing can actually be defined independently of the machine (in terms of flow control, selections, logic, arithmetics, regular expressions, etc) on which the code runs, if we devise a universal model. I personally think the von Neumann (and other) models need to be further expanded to cover contemporary nuances, and that soon we will see the birth of a universal model similar to Principia Mathematica (one might say that it already exists in Donald E. Knuth's Art of Programming).
Assuming all this is actually what happens. That America is actually the leach and that countries like China were the real inventors of bleeding edge technology. I mean, what did America come up with anyway, aside from a few things like capacitive touch-screens, the Internet (even if a couple of British gentlemen helped), flying contraptions, and a few other insignificant gadgets.
If we could have figured out what George Lucas was up to, Star Wars just wouldn't have been as much fun - or wouldn't continue to drive us mad with anticipation after Disney took over.
Once again, what does this have to do with ordinary citizens? Yes, agreed that Snowden's disclosure of PRISM was relevant, but he's just grasping at straws with this one.
Hasn't corporate America been doing this for ages? Ask Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Better still, ask Bob Metcalfe (where Bill Gates got NTLM from). And if you want global examples look at Huawei. However, I doubt this is the scope of espionage that Snowden's referring to, which would be laughable if it was.
Could one assume that this information is dismissed by the advertising rhetoric? I'm thinking the unbelievable amounts of money that firms make not only serve as justification for their frugality but also as incentive for research firms to be economical with their publications...
Has anyone considered the long-term effects of having a radio so close to the brain? One reason why I myself haven't gotten into the Google Glass craze is because I'd like to be able to play a few rounds of pig with my child when he/she grows up.
Shouldn't be impossible to graphically estimate the onset of life from its expansion from the earliest recorded fossils. Given that Earth's been around 4.5 billion years and now is projected to be around for another billion, an error of a million or so years wouldn't be an issue. BUT, the remainder of a billion years in it's existence, only a fourth of how long it has already been around, does beg the question as to what the life-sustaining window is.
And out people are so obsessed with making money just to spend it on personal pleasure that we're not preparing for a future of mining for resources on distant planets and moons. How many big business people at Davos will be discussing this?
The real question is how long conditions within human tolerance limits would last. The Mayans were wrong about 2012 (provided people who interpreted their writings weren't duped by a bunch of Mayan 'pot'-heads), but we can't deny the climate changes that have been unfolding the past few centuries, even if we factor in the effects of human industry. Has anyone done a study on just what period of Earth's existence sustained biological life? Is that important in understanding the possibilities of colonizing other worlds?
I am a believer in one of the religions renowned for its hardliners/fundamentalists, and trust me when I tell you that if your governments didn't do what they're doing you'll be sorry. I say so because even the moderates in my community have a smile of satisfaction when the slightest mishap happens to the "infidels" (and you can imagine the wide grins at Snowden's exposes).
Still, whilst doing what they do, it is important to ensure responsibility and keep citizens assured of it.
And don't you hate it when you're berated for not having read the crud that everyone's talking about in the office cafeteria? I've succumbed to this peer pressure a number of times and read these so-called masterpieces and wondered at the end just what insights the authors had that I didn't.
I was about to say that this speaks poorly of the breadth of the current generation's literary interests, and then I recalled books like Little Women and Lord of the Files, or even Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (although the Rama series might be more about descriptions than emotional exposes). Still, it's a little disheartening that technical manuals don't hit the bestseller lists.
On the upside, Noam Chomsky will be overjoyed by this development; soon software systems will be developed to 'generate' hit books. Someone get Angelina (Mike Cook's, not Pitt's).
Creativity does seem like a 'mesh of existing ideas', eh? It's even evident in the movies that we watch; the ones with budgets surmounting hundreds of millions. Yet, creativity is also being able to amalgamating existing ideas and building a relatively new one, in which regard it's not very different from Turing-completeness. Or is it?
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty sure Snowden's not the only clever person in this world. Plenty of paranoid people (including your's truly) are constantly monitoring all of their systems to make sure the authorities (amongst others) aren't snooping in. If the government was caught in the act, there are plenty of lawyers who'd take the case and make a killing. Unless of course the British government decided to call in 007 to take care of the client.
Yes, calculus formulae uses symbols, but they also use weights and measures for the constants, which are in base-10 for convenience. After all, if we wanted to find the rate of change of a stock ticker, we'd feed in numbers in base-10 rather than binary. As for the symbols themselves, we use latin alphabets and Greek letters, never symbols of animals or morse code. Hence, we have preferences when it comes to the 'language' we use for calculus.
Likewise, it's really up to us to decide which language to use for our coding purposes (that is, if you're capable of developing your own programming language). We could substitute the '=' in a classic assignment statement with the image of a butt. Instead of the usual console output functions like 'print', 'echo', etc, we could have a picture of a person vomiting.
However, no matter what kind of language you develop for your coding needs, the underlying principles will stay the same, depending on the architecture of the computer and the paradigm of the underlying host software on which your code will run. The vast majority (I'm willing to say over 90%) of all programming languages have assignments, iterations, selections, logic operators, arithmetic operators and basic I/O. I'm saying that coding should be taught in the context of these basic constructs of a system; as these are the constructs used to actually process data.
This happening on the 30th anniversary of the Mac, and the legendary '1984' advertisement, is interesting (Jobs is definitely turning in his grave). This, and other freedom-neutralizers (and I would personally put Foursquare and Flappy Birds, amongst others, in the category), are certainly proving Blair/Orwell's great foresight.
Also, let me point out that learning how to code for information processing should not require you to learn how to code in a particular language. When you learn calculus the principles you learn can be applied to any number system. It just so happens that we use base-10 for the sake of convenience, since we are most familiar with it. That does not mean that we cannot apply the same principles to binary, hexadecimal or any other base. If we similarly learn the essence of coding we should likewise be able to apply the basic principles to develop programs in any language (we might use a familiar, more English-like one, to learn in the first place).
Learning calculus (or algebra or geometry) may actually be more analogous to coding than one might think. Likewise, the relevance of coding to life in our Information Age might be as underestimated as calculus is. The problem is that definitions of coding (in the context of information processing) has not been as standardized as calculus. You might say I'm talking nonsense here, BUT coding for information processing can actually be defined independently of the machine (in terms of flow control, selections, logic, arithmetics, regular expressions, etc) on which the code runs, if we devise a universal model. I personally think the von Neumann (and other) models need to be further expanded to cover contemporary nuances, and that soon we will see the birth of a universal model similar to Principia Mathematica (one might say that it already exists in Donald E. Knuth's Art of Programming).
Assuming all this is actually what happens. That America is actually the leach and that countries like China were the real inventors of bleeding edge technology. I mean, what did America come up with anyway, aside from a few things like capacitive touch-screens, the Internet (even if a couple of British gentlemen helped), flying contraptions, and a few other insignificant gadgets.
Why is something newsworthy when it's sensationalized? Why was this not: http://www.lightreading.com/et...
Tell me which organization lets full-time employees own IPs of projects they work on for their employers?
One word: Huawei
If we could have figured out what George Lucas was up to, Star Wars just wouldn't have been as much fun - or wouldn't continue to drive us mad with anticipation after Disney took over.
Once again, what does this have to do with ordinary citizens? Yes, agreed that Snowden's disclosure of PRISM was relevant, but he's just grasping at straws with this one.
Shouldn't have said Steve Jobs, God rest his soul. Sincere apologies to whomever is offended.
Hasn't corporate America been doing this for ages? Ask Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Better still, ask Bob Metcalfe (where Bill Gates got NTLM from). And if you want global examples look at Huawei. However, I doubt this is the scope of espionage that Snowden's referring to, which would be laughable if it was.
What does this exposition have to do with helping preserve the privacy of citizens?
Could one assume that this information is dismissed by the advertising rhetoric? I'm thinking the unbelievable amounts of money that firms make not only serve as justification for their frugality but also as incentive for research firms to be economical with their publications...
Has anyone considered the long-term effects of having a radio so close to the brain? One reason why I myself haven't gotten into the Google Glass craze is because I'd like to be able to play a few rounds of pig with my child when he/she grows up.
Shouldn't be impossible to graphically estimate the onset of life from its expansion from the earliest recorded fossils. Given that Earth's been around 4.5 billion years and now is projected to be around for another billion, an error of a million or so years wouldn't be an issue. BUT, the remainder of a billion years in it's existence, only a fourth of how long it has already been around, does beg the question as to what the life-sustaining window is.
And out people are so obsessed with making money just to spend it on personal pleasure that we're not preparing for a future of mining for resources on distant planets and moons. How many big business people at Davos will be discussing this?
The real question is how long conditions within human tolerance limits would last. The Mayans were wrong about 2012 (provided people who interpreted their writings weren't duped by a bunch of Mayan 'pot'-heads), but we can't deny the climate changes that have been unfolding the past few centuries, even if we factor in the effects of human industry. Has anyone done a study on just what period of Earth's existence sustained biological life? Is that important in understanding the possibilities of colonizing other worlds?
I am a believer in one of the religions renowned for its hardliners/fundamentalists, and trust me when I tell you that if your governments didn't do what they're doing you'll be sorry. I say so because even the moderates in my community have a smile of satisfaction when the slightest mishap happens to the "infidels" (and you can imagine the wide grins at Snowden's exposes). Still, whilst doing what they do, it is important to ensure responsibility and keep citizens assured of it.
And don't you hate it when you're berated for not having read the crud that everyone's talking about in the office cafeteria? I've succumbed to this peer pressure a number of times and read these so-called masterpieces and wondered at the end just what insights the authors had that I didn't.
Had Mike Cook named the program 'Pitt' I'd have said "Jolie's"
I was about to say that this speaks poorly of the breadth of the current generation's literary interests, and then I recalled books like Little Women and Lord of the Files, or even Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (although the Rama series might be more about descriptions than emotional exposes). Still, it's a little disheartening that technical manuals don't hit the bestseller lists. On the upside, Noam Chomsky will be overjoyed by this development; soon software systems will be developed to 'generate' hit books. Someone get Angelina (Mike Cook's, not Pitt's).
Hmmm... seems like a statement generated by a waywardly genetic 'program'
Creativity does seem like a 'mesh of existing ideas', eh? It's even evident in the movies that we watch; the ones with budgets surmounting hundreds of millions. Yet, creativity is also being able to amalgamating existing ideas and building a relatively new one, in which regard it's not very different from Turing-completeness. Or is it?