If it's not worse than any other browser, why complain specifically about Firefox? Why not just say all browsers suck, without specifically mentioning Firefox?
Memory usage is terrible, I find the UI sluggish, render times are far from ideal and the whole thing just feels... not what it was.
I keep seeing people make statements like this, but when I ask for steps to reproduce any problem, no one can seem to come up with any. Can you show me how I could see memory usage significantly worse than other browsers, user interface responsiveness significantly worse than other browsers, render times significantly worse than other browsers, or any other problem in Firefox?
It's about time that it dies. IE7, although not as standards compliant as... uhm... pretty much every other browser on earth, is orders of magnitude better than IE6.
When I look at Web Devout's Browser Support Summary, it looks like IE 7 is barely any better than IE 6 except at basic selectors. I know they fixed some high-visibility bugs such as lack of alpha transparency in PNGs and some CSS bugs that had well-known workarounds. It looks like Microsoft has been very successful at getting users to have very low expectations, then they are easily able to exceed them.;-)
I think it's very odd that these two smart people thoguht that input from volunteers could create a better database than what could be obtained if you just uploaded a good dictionary plus the Wikipedia.
The problem with having the data in the form of an ordinary dictionary and encyclopedia is that computers cannot comprehend it. To understand any sentence, you need to understand not only the rules of the language it is written in, but you also need a model of the world as detailed as a person's. That's why you need to start spoon feeding these AI databases very basic facts, so that once a model is built up, they can understand an encyclopedia. The Cyc project is perhaps the largest step towards an AI being able to make any sense of encyclopedia articles, and it's very far from being as good as a small child at comprehension.
The idea that a database of answers could in any way be intelligent is fundamentally flawed.
The database of Cyc and other AI systems does not contain just answers. It contains the basic "understanding" so that it can read and comprehend other materials, such as encyclopedias, that contain the answers. Cyc has had the ability to sit and ponder over what is in its knowledge base and ask questions to get clarification and further understanding. It still is a long way from strong AI, though.
If we ever achieve AI it will be with a core of code that can generate modules of code that attempt different strategies, in other words grows a brain as program code and database, not just a matrix recording true - false results from random permutation outputs.
I think you're referring to strong AI. Note that what you describe is not sufficient for strong AI. Doug Lenat used a technique like what you describe with Automated Mathematician in 1977, but didn't succeed at doing much even in the limited field of mathematics.
But that is indeed how the term has been used for decades. What you describe is taught in AI classes and is described in AI books. It's the only kind of AI we have. As such, the term isn't useless. If you want to refer to original thought by a computer, use the term "strong AI," which hasn't been invented yet.
this "AI" isn't really learning anything, it's just dealing with missing variables. It can't make any cognitive leaps from the human equivalent of "intuition", it can't re-apply what it's learned (though in this specific case that's probably more due to the restraints of the tiny and simplistic environment), and if I read the article correctly (nor did I read the research paper) it doesn't properly make informed decisions, and all of its actions are entirely predetermined
That's the only AI we've ever developed. As you point out, it's completely incapable of doing anything original. It's called weak AI, as opposed to strong AI, which exhibits general intelligence. Strong AI is strictly limited to science fiction at this point.
I think you're referring to general or strong AI, which hasn't been developed yet. All we have now is weak AI, which even when it seems to demonstrate "learning", all it's really doing is running mechanical search algorithms and heuristics really, really fast.
No, current AI does not exhibit general intelligence. That would be strong AI. We haven't developed it yet. The article is about weak AI, "the use of software to study or accomplish specific problem solving or reasoning tasks that do not encompass (or in some cases, are completely outside of) the full range of human cognitive abilities."
AI can be as simple as basic search algorithms such as breadth-first, A*, and minimax. When you play any board game against a machine, that's AI. When you get driving directions from a computer, that's AI. It seems to reason that AI is behind a computer playing Ms. Pacman. And in this case, the computer generate playing policies on its own, so it really is learning, improving its performance based on previous experience.
We learn language. We decide what to say. The robots' behaviors were determined by their genetic makeup, and therefore not learned. Their behavior was instinctual. It's like the way your knee jerks when the doctor tests your reflexes, or the way your stomach produces acid to digest your food when you eat. It's evolved, genetically determined, automatic behavior.
Yes, that's why they weren't really lying. They didn't misinform other robots intentionally. They simply instinctively blinked their lights in such a way that the other robots were led to believe that there was food where the robot had detected poison. Over the short term, this would benefit the "lying" robots and therefore the trait would become more common.
From Wiktionary, a lie is "1. An intentionally false statement; a falsehood. 2. A statement intended to deceive, even if literally true; a half-truth." Perhaps Wiktionary has learned to lie as well?
Because they did not choose to lie and were not even aware that they were lying. Their sensors detected poison, and their genes directed them to blink their lights in such a way that indicated to other robots that they had detected food instead. It was instinctual behavior, not learned behavior or behavior based on a decision. We usually reserve the word lie to mean someone has made a conscious decision to be dishonest.
You bring up a point that many do not understand. Evolution says nothing about how life or DNA started. It simply explains how once life started with DNA, the process by which it evolves. Similarly the "big bang" theory says nothing about how the universe started. It explains how it expanded and changed from a hot, dense, nearly uniform state to its cold, sparse, unevenly distributed state. There are hypotheses about life starting with an RNA world, or starting with undirected metabolism, but these are completely separate from the theory of evolution, for which we have ample evidence.
Your other point seems to do with the fact that some evidence is not completely explained by evolution. In science, there is always some observation left unexplained, which is why Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory superseded Newton's laws. It does not mean that there must be a supernatural explanation for the observations that are currently unexplained.
No, we cannot reproduce speciation, but based on the rate of mutation, the fossil record, and geologic history, we can determine when species diverged. When continents drift apart, taking their respective land species with them, we see their genetic information drift in a regular and predictable way over time and see the fossil evidence of the new species that form. Today, we can take the genetic material of diverged species and using the mutation rate determine when the two species diverged. That all matches the geologic and fossil evidence. That's science. It does not absolutely prove evolution occurred. But on the other hand, evolution is the best hypothesis we have today for explaining all the available evidence. If you think you have a better hypothesis, go ahead and write an article for a scientific journal and have other scientists scrutinize your evidence.
Just because you did not directly observe evolution has occurred does not mean faith is involved. We cannot really see elementary particles, but we can observe their effects and make predictions that can be tested. If the creationists want to be taken seriously by scientists, they can write articles for scientific journals presenting the evidence for creationism and providing testable hypotheses. They seem to not want to take that path, instead directly writing textbooks without putting their ideas through the normal scientific scrutiny. That's what science is really about.
Or you could just pay the patent royalties. I admit the current patent system may not be ideal, but imagine the disaster if we didn't have any patent system. What drug company would invest hundreds of millions of dollars developing a drug, only to have a rival company be able to produce a generic version and prevent the original company from recouping its development costs? Let's fight the bad patents, the ones that should never have been granted in the first place because the idea is too obvious. But let's not indict the entire patent system just because of the bad patents.
I don't think I've ever been able to understand a large body of code by simply looking at it. I've always found that attempting to make modifications (fixing bugs, adding features) to the code gets me to understand it fairly quickly. Often, I'll find myself adding comments or cleaning the code up as I go. There have been times when I've just thrown all the code away and reimplemented the same functionality form scratch. That may not be an option here, but perhaps writing an implementation of part of the code from scratch will help to gain an understanding how that particular feature is implemented.
The cost for a given capacity will depend on the capacity needed. The smaller the capacity, the more advantage flash will have over hard disks. For now, 250 GB of flash is much more expensive than a 250 GB hard disk. On the other hand, you can get 1 GB of flash for under $10. Are there any hard disks at all available for that price? Also given that flash is faster, smaller, and consumes less power than disks, flash will replace disks in devices that need smaller capacities first. That means the usage of drives will decrease gradually from now until the 2012-2014 time frame you mention.
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When I say "steps to reproduce" I mean a specific, detailed set of steps to reliably reproduce the problem. Read How to Report Bugs Effectively and Please file good memory leak bugs for more information.
If it's not worse than any other browser, why complain specifically about Firefox? Why not just say all browsers suck, without specifically mentioning Firefox?
I keep seeing people make statements like this, but when I ask for steps to reproduce any problem, no one can seem to come up with any. Can you show me how I could see memory usage significantly worse than other browsers, user interface responsiveness significantly worse than other browsers, render times significantly worse than other browsers, or any other problem in Firefox?
If you're having problems with Firefox, you may want to try creating a new profile or other suggestions from the MozillaZine Knowledge Base. I see the suggestions help users all the time in the MozillaZine forums.
But that is indeed how the term has been used for decades. What you describe is taught in AI classes and is described in AI books. It's the only kind of AI we have. As such, the term isn't useless. If you want to refer to original thought by a computer, use the term "strong AI," which hasn't been invented yet.
I think you're referring to general or strong AI, which hasn't been developed yet. All we have now is weak AI, which even when it seems to demonstrate "learning", all it's really doing is running mechanical search algorithms and heuristics really, really fast.
No, current AI does not exhibit general intelligence. That would be strong AI. We haven't developed it yet. The article is about weak AI, "the use of software to study or accomplish specific problem solving or reasoning tasks that do not encompass (or in some cases, are completely outside of) the full range of human cognitive abilities."
AI can be as simple as basic search algorithms such as breadth-first, A*, and minimax. When you play any board game against a machine, that's AI. When you get driving directions from a computer, that's AI. It seems to reason that AI is behind a computer playing Ms. Pacman. And in this case, the computer generate playing policies on its own, so it really is learning, improving its performance based on previous experience.
We learn language. We decide what to say. The robots' behaviors were determined by their genetic makeup, and therefore not learned. Their behavior was instinctual. It's like the way your knee jerks when the doctor tests your reflexes, or the way your stomach produces acid to digest your food when you eat. It's evolved, genetically determined, automatic behavior.
Yes, that's why they weren't really lying. They didn't misinform other robots intentionally. They simply instinctively blinked their lights in such a way that the other robots were led to believe that there was food where the robot had detected poison. Over the short term, this would benefit the "lying" robots and therefore the trait would become more common.
From Wiktionary, a lie is "1. An intentionally false statement; a falsehood. 2. A statement intended to deceive, even if literally true; a half-truth." Perhaps Wiktionary has learned to lie as well?
Indeed, there isn't even a Shroud of evidence they can beat the Turin test!
Because they did not choose to lie and were not even aware that they were lying. Their sensors detected poison, and their genes directed them to blink their lights in such a way that indicated to other robots that they had detected food instead. It was instinctual behavior, not learned behavior or behavior based on a decision. We usually reserve the word lie to mean someone has made a conscious decision to be dishonest.
They didn't learn and were preprogrammed. The behavior of lying evolved.
You bring up a point that many do not understand. Evolution says nothing about how life or DNA started. It simply explains how once life started with DNA, the process by which it evolves. Similarly the "big bang" theory says nothing about how the universe started. It explains how it expanded and changed from a hot, dense, nearly uniform state to its cold, sparse, unevenly distributed state. There are hypotheses about life starting with an RNA world, or starting with undirected metabolism, but these are completely separate from the theory of evolution, for which we have ample evidence.
Your other point seems to do with the fact that some evidence is not completely explained by evolution. In science, there is always some observation left unexplained, which is why Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory superseded Newton's laws. It does not mean that there must be a supernatural explanation for the observations that are currently unexplained.
No, we cannot reproduce speciation, but based on the rate of mutation, the fossil record, and geologic history, we can determine when species diverged. When continents drift apart, taking their respective land species with them, we see their genetic information drift in a regular and predictable way over time and see the fossil evidence of the new species that form. Today, we can take the genetic material of diverged species and using the mutation rate determine when the two species diverged. That all matches the geologic and fossil evidence. That's science. It does not absolutely prove evolution occurred. But on the other hand, evolution is the best hypothesis we have today for explaining all the available evidence. If you think you have a better hypothesis, go ahead and write an article for a scientific journal and have other scientists scrutinize your evidence.
Just because you did not directly observe evolution has occurred does not mean faith is involved. We cannot really see elementary particles, but we can observe their effects and make predictions that can be tested. If the creationists want to be taken seriously by scientists, they can write articles for scientific journals presenting the evidence for creationism and providing testable hypotheses. They seem to not want to take that path, instead directly writing textbooks without putting their ideas through the normal scientific scrutiny. That's what science is really about.
Or you could just pay the patent royalties. I admit the current patent system may not be ideal, but imagine the disaster if we didn't have any patent system. What drug company would invest hundreds of millions of dollars developing a drug, only to have a rival company be able to produce a generic version and prevent the original company from recouping its development costs? Let's fight the bad patents, the ones that should never have been granted in the first place because the idea is too obvious. But let's not indict the entire patent system just because of the bad patents.
I don't think I've ever been able to understand a large body of code by simply looking at it. I've always found that attempting to make modifications (fixing bugs, adding features) to the code gets me to understand it fairly quickly. Often, I'll find myself adding comments or cleaning the code up as I go. There have been times when I've just thrown all the code away and reimplemented the same functionality form scratch. That may not be an option here, but perhaps writing an implementation of part of the code from scratch will help to gain an understanding how that particular feature is implemented.
The cost for a given capacity will depend on the capacity needed. The smaller the capacity, the more advantage flash will have over hard disks. For now, 250 GB of flash is much more expensive than a 250 GB hard disk. On the other hand, you can get 1 GB of flash for under $10. Are there any hard disks at all available for that price? Also given that flash is faster, smaller, and consumes less power than disks, flash will replace disks in devices that need smaller capacities first. That means the usage of drives will decrease gradually from now until the 2012-2014 time frame you mention.
If Firefox crashes regularly on your computer, you should probably read the Firefox crashes article. It will probably help solve your problem.