I like the idea of developing systems that will allow better collaboration on complex projects - it may be that such systems are our only real option going forward, since 'real' AI is always 10-20 years in the future, and I doubt we'll be able to 'upgrade' ourselves in any significant way for a long time. And I really like the 'extinction of hierarchic organizations' concept - kind of like this idea taken one step farther to include upper management as well as middle management.
I really only threw in the 'machines thinking for us' thing because I watched The Matrix a couple of days ago.;)
Thanks for the mention of knowledge containers...I see a few hours being used up this weekend reading about them.:)
There has been too much effort put into the gathering of information in the recent history, and far to little effort put into interprenting what the gathered information signify.
That's a good point that usually doesn't come up when people talk about data. My current job involves building some tools to analyze data that has been sitting around unused for a few years now - the customer spent a lot of money collecting all this data for a wide variety of machinery, and yet has neglected to do anything really useful with it. Now that somebody came along and found some useful things in that data, they're interested in having tools so that the engineers can dig around for more useful stuff. What a concept.:)
I think you have a point, although some of the small number of geniuses available can probably design some visualization methods/tools/whatever that will allow the rest of us to make a little more sense of vast amounts of data without having to understand it in depth. After all, many business managers seem to get along just fine today without having the faintest clue about what's really going on in their business. Maybe the future of business technology is designing tools that will let managers think they have a big-picture dashboard system so they will leave the lower level folks alone to do things "the way they should be done.";)
I wonder when (if?) we will get to the point where no human, no matter how talented or experienced, will be able to figure these things out? <insert sci-fi AI doom-and-gloom end - of - the - human - race - because - we - start - letting - machines - think - for - us speculation here>
I like this part of his quote: "And products that have visualization as one of their top three features will earn $1 billion per year." Does that mean if I add a graphing feature to some application, call it "data visualization" and bill it as one of its top three features, I'll get my cut of that $1B? What a lame-ass generalized forecast; looks to me like he just submitted some gibberish in hopes he'd get his company's name mentioned somewhere.
I still haven't been able to figure out what a "CEU" is, though. Chief Executive Unicorn? Cheesy Estimates r-Us?
Better yet, they should just call it a 'special sale price' and charge me less to begin with. If I'll buy it with a rebate, then I'll buy it on sale. But then they wouldn't make as much money - they know a lot of people don't send them in, or won't fill out the form correctly, or will send them in late, or whatever. So they get the additional sales because it seems like 'a bargain' without having to actually cut the price. What a deal.
If I RTFA correctly, they are using ORDL instead of the MS XrML standard because they only have so much bandwith available. I can imagine that aggressively preventing ad inifinitum forwarding would be almost necessary in that situation. I'd hate to not be able to call or check my email because Bubba wanted to forward that cool 1k email (with 15k of headers) to all 50 of his friends so they can get their check from Microsoft.
"Organizational Leadership and Supervision" - that sounds like a degree program or job description created with a buzzword bingo machine. Is that what the PHB's major in?
From what I read, this incident was completely blown out of proportion. It wasn't because he wanted to cover up the statues, it was to provide a better backdrop for the cameras.
My memory must be severely faulty then, because I recall having the distinct impression that he wanted those statues covered specifically because he didn't like appearing in front of a statue with bare breasts. He wanted a backdrop that didn't offend his religious sensibilities. As someone else has already stated, if it bothered him that much he should have moved his ass to a studio to make his statements.
...unless of course you actually plan on making money in the coming years. Those deductions can be rolled forward (not sure how many years) and applied in years when you actually do have a net income. I have deductions from two years ago that will benefit me on last year's taxes; I finally managed to make a non-negligible amount of money last year, and it's nice to carry forward those startup expenses to offset it.
I look forward to the explanation of how VisiCalc led directly to the Clinton Years.
Perhaps that particular explanation won't be forthcoming, but if you want an explanation of how every problem in present-day America was caused by the Clinton administration, it's available on many AM radio stations from noon to 3pm EST.
Thanks for mentioning the shorter half-life of the radioactive elements produced by operating a fusion reactor; that hadn't crossed my mind.
Another nice aspect that I thought of is that the radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation of reactor structural materials are (I think) largely solids at everyday temperatures (like only a few hundred C), whereas a significant fraction of fission products are gases. This would make any kind of accident (containment failure, meltdown, terrorist attack, etc) at a fusion plant far less likely to cause dangerous exposure to people outside the facility.
While there may not be any way for a runaway fusion reaction to occur, I suppose that in some reactor designs there might be ways for the power to be pushed high enough to break something. Of course the reaction will stop as soon as the containment is broken, which is not necessarily the case in some fission reactor designs under certain conditions, like the Chernobyl plants; IIRC, the excessive production of steam and breach of the steam system removed water from the core, which caused a reactivity increase because the reactor had a positive void coefficient.
As far as the 'China syndrome' goes, I suppose it depends on the reactor design and the length of time it has been operated, but I have heard some researchers comment on the possibility of a meltdown of reactor structural components if the cooling system were to fail to remove the heat generated by their reactivity. But, again, this case isn't nearly as bad as a fission reactor meltdown, since there is a lot less total radioactivity involved, and most of it is not composed of gaseous elements.
Disclaimer: IANANDE (I am not a nuclear design engineer)
What the hell are you talking about? We do not have "vast amounts of energy near for free with fusion." Maybe I missed out on the news, but last time I checked we could not transmute radioactive concrete into gold and diamonds.
Maybe you're just pulling my chain, or maybe you've just been watching too much Star Trek. Hard to tell.:)
The article says the reaction yielded 10 billion neutrons; for simplicity's sake I'll assume that's one neutron produced per fusion reaction and 15MeV released per reaction (I think the 15MeV is from deuterium-tritium reactions, and the article just mentions deuterium as a fuel, but oh well). So that gives:
I don't mean to cast aspersions on the experiments or experimenters; it's just that we're still a long way (I suppose) from making a breakeven fusion reactor.
While the fuel and stable reaction byproducts might not be very radioactive, don't forget that fusion produces a lot of neutrons. Pretty high energy neutrons, IIRC; at least a few MeV, and more energetic than fission neutrons. So the structural material of the reactor will be made radioactive by the neutron flux, and you'll still have some of the radioactive material issues just like fission plants have.
Still, I imagine that a fusion plant will be a lot less risk and hassle than a fission plant of similar output. I'm glad we're still pursuing research in this area.
So much for my proofreading skills...the second sentence in quotes in my third paragraph should say "How could they not know these things could be useful?"
Maybe that's the cool thing about scientific curiosity - the things you discover don't have to have commercial value in order to be discovered.
Consider this: when it was determined that a current flowing in a wire produces a magnetic field, or when Faraday discovered that moving a magnet near a wire or coil of wire can produce a voltage, I'm sure a lot of people said, "but seriously, what would this be used for?" And they probably said the same thing about countless other things that were discovered in situations where the effect was so small that they had no apparent use.
Of course now we look back and say, "what a dumb question! How could they now know these things could be useful?" And maybe 200 years from now somebody will look at this archived announcement on Slashdot and say the same.
Then again, maybe this will turn out to be a misinterpretation of the experimental observation. Time will tell...
If anything, I think the fees would drive more people to develop their software on free platforms.
Damn straight. The only reason I haven't dropped Win2k on my main desktop in favor of Linux is that I still develop some software that only runs on Win32 (and I don't feel like being hassled with WINE). It looks to me like Microsoft is going to try and latch onto my wallet just for developing software for their platform, so the incentive to drop all my Windows-specific work is getting pretty significant.
I see you've already been tagged as flamebait, but let me give you some real advice: going around screwing with people who are there to offer you a shot at a job (whether they work for the government or not) is not wise. Professional people (public and private sector) have friends that work in other sectors, and jerks like you are good conversation topics.
You may miss out on some future $95k job opportunity (assuming you're worth that much) because someone already knows about your reputation. JMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
I like the idea of developing systems that will allow better collaboration on complex projects - it may be that such systems are our only real option going forward, since 'real' AI is always 10-20 years in the future, and I doubt we'll be able to 'upgrade' ourselves in any significant way for a long time. And I really like the 'extinction of hierarchic organizations' concept - kind of like this idea taken one step farther to include upper management as well as middle management.
I really only threw in the 'machines thinking for us' thing because I watched The Matrix a couple of days ago. ;)
Thanks for the mention of knowledge containers...I see a few hours being used up this weekend reading about them.I think you have a point, although some of the small number of geniuses available can probably design some visualization methods/tools/whatever that will allow the rest of us to make a little more sense of vast amounts of data without having to understand it in depth. After all, many business managers seem to get along just fine today without having the faintest clue about what's really going on in their business. Maybe the future of business technology is designing tools that will let managers think they have a big-picture dashboard system so they will leave the lower level folks alone to do things "the way they should be done." ;)
I wonder when (if?) we will get to the point where no human, no matter how talented or experienced, will be able to figure these things out? <insert sci-fi AI doom-and-gloom end - of - the - human - race - because - we - start - letting - machines - think - for - us speculation here>
I like this part of his quote: "And products that have visualization as one of their top three features will earn $1 billion per year." Does that mean if I add a graphing feature to some application, call it "data visualization" and bill it as one of its top three features, I'll get my cut of that $1B? What a lame-ass generalized forecast; looks to me like he just submitted some gibberish in hopes he'd get his company's name mentioned somewhere.
I still haven't been able to figure out what a "CEU" is, though. Chief Executive Unicorn? Cheesy Estimates r-Us?Better yet, they should just call it a 'special sale price' and charge me less to begin with. If I'll buy it with a rebate, then I'll buy it on sale. But then they wouldn't make as much money - they know a lot of people don't send them in, or won't fill out the form correctly, or will send them in late, or whatever. So they get the additional sales because it seems like 'a bargain' without having to actually cut the price. What a deal.
If I RTFA correctly, they are using ORDL instead of the MS XrML standard because they only have so much bandwith available. I can imagine that aggressively preventing ad inifinitum forwarding would be almost necessary in that situation. I'd hate to not be able to call or check my email because Bubba wanted to forward that cool 1k email (with 15k of headers) to all 50 of his friends so they can get their check from Microsoft.
Mod parent up "Funny" please.
...unless it's cold water and the reactor has a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity....
"Organizational Leadership and Supervision" - that sounds like a degree program or job description created with a buzzword bingo machine. Is that what the PHB's major in?
Wow, I wasn't aware of that, but it's pretty damn funny. :) Thanks!
...unless of course you actually plan on making money in the coming years. Those deductions can be rolled forward (not sure how many years) and applied in years when you actually do have a net income. I have deductions from two years ago that will benefit me on last year's taxes; I finally managed to make a non-negligible amount of money last year, and it's nice to carry forward those startup expenses to offset it.
Thanks for mentioning the shorter half-life of the radioactive elements produced by operating a fusion reactor; that hadn't crossed my mind.
Another nice aspect that I thought of is that the radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation of reactor structural materials are (I think) largely solids at everyday temperatures (like only a few hundred C), whereas a significant fraction of fission products are gases. This would make any kind of accident (containment failure, meltdown, terrorist attack, etc) at a fusion plant far less likely to cause dangerous exposure to people outside the facility.
While there may not be any way for a runaway fusion reaction to occur, I suppose that in some reactor designs there might be ways for the power to be pushed high enough to break something. Of course the reaction will stop as soon as the containment is broken, which is not necessarily the case in some fission reactor designs under certain conditions, like the Chernobyl plants; IIRC, the excessive production of steam and breach of the steam system removed water from the core, which caused a reactivity increase because the reactor had a positive void coefficient.
As far as the 'China syndrome' goes, I suppose it depends on the reactor design and the length of time it has been operated, but I have heard some researchers comment on the possibility of a meltdown of reactor structural components if the cooling system were to fail to remove the heat generated by their reactivity. But, again, this case isn't nearly as bad as a fission reactor meltdown, since there is a lot less total radioactivity involved, and most of it is not composed of gaseous elements.
Disclaimer: IANANDE (I am not a nuclear design engineer)
What the hell are you talking about? We do not have "vast amounts of energy near for free with fusion." Maybe I missed out on the news, but last time I checked we could not transmute radioactive concrete into gold and diamonds.
Maybe you're just pulling my chain, or maybe you've just been watching too much Star Trek. Hard to tell. :)
The article says the reaction yielded 10 billion neutrons; for simplicity's sake I'll assume that's one neutron produced per fusion reaction and 15MeV released per reaction (I think the 15MeV is from deuterium-tritium reactions, and the article just mentions deuterium as a fuel, but oh well). So that gives:
I don't mean to cast aspersions on the experiments or experimenters; it's just that we're still a long way (I suppose) from making a breakeven fusion reactor.
While the fuel and stable reaction byproducts might not be very radioactive, don't forget that fusion produces a lot of neutrons. Pretty high energy neutrons, IIRC; at least a few MeV, and more energetic than fission neutrons. So the structural material of the reactor will be made radioactive by the neutron flux, and you'll still have some of the radioactive material issues just like fission plants have.
Still, I imagine that a fusion plant will be a lot less risk and hassle than a fission plant of similar output. I'm glad we're still pursuing research in this area.
So much for my proofreading skills...the second sentence in quotes in my third paragraph should say "How could they not know these things could be useful?"
Maybe that's the cool thing about scientific curiosity - the things you discover don't have to have commercial value in order to be discovered.
Consider this: when it was determined that a current flowing in a wire produces a magnetic field, or when Faraday discovered that moving a magnet near a wire or coil of wire can produce a voltage, I'm sure a lot of people said, "but seriously, what would this be used for?" And they probably said the same thing about countless other things that were discovered in situations where the effect was so small that they had no apparent use.
Of course now we look back and say, "what a dumb question! How could they now know these things could be useful?" And maybe 200 years from now somebody will look at this archived announcement on Slashdot and say the same.
Then again, maybe this will turn out to be a misinterpretation of the experimental observation. Time will tell...
I suppose I'll use up some of my karma and say....
In Micro$oft, security software targets YOU!
Based on what I saw in the PDF I tend to agree about the EMP susceptibility. Mod parent up, please.
Wow....that page uses the words "dumb," "stupid" and "evil" more times than any document I've ever seen. Google seems to agree with me.
If anything, I think the fees would drive more people to develop their software on free platforms.
Damn straight. The only reason I haven't dropped Win2k on my main desktop in favor of Linux is that I still develop some software that only runs on Win32 (and I don't feel like being hassled with WINE). It looks to me like Microsoft is going to try and latch onto my wallet just for developing software for their platform, so the incentive to drop all my Windows-specific work is getting pretty significant.
I see you've already been tagged as flamebait, but let me give you some real advice: going around screwing with people who are there to offer you a shot at a job (whether they work for the government or not) is not wise. Professional people (public and private sector) have friends that work in other sectors, and jerks like you are good conversation topics.
You may miss out on some future $95k job opportunity (assuming you're worth that much) because someone already knows about your reputation. JMHO.