You try cycling 4 miles to university each day and four miles back through heavy traffic (and on a train) eah day. Alternatively it's a 14 mile round trip to the University of Liverpool Veterinary Station in the opposite direction. That's why I like being a computer student. You can do all the work from home.:) Webmail, proxy access, journal access - can all be done off campus. Even software programming (although they have better computers than I can afford.:P) - oh and something like a T1/ T3 connection.:)
It is fun - but not so much when you've had to do it every day for the past 9 years (almost typed 90 years then - lol). I'm just waiting for my free travel pass. So far my doctor took 1 1/2 weeks to write what I asked them to on it (about 1/4 page - takes about five minutes). Then the Merseytravel doctor will look at it and decide (takes about a fortnight). Eventually I may get a travel pass... we'll see.... probably by then I'll have moved or look different than the photo. *grins*
Yes it was meant to be mildly humourous & tongue in cheek. I think it was too subtle though and got marked down as off-topic (then marked up because that person posted in this topic) then back down again.. *grins* I don't care - my karma can take a bigger battering than that before I loose my +1 bonus.
Re:As I've said before...
on
LCD Price Fixing?
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Some of us ride pedal bikes because we care about the environment. Have you looked at the rising asthma statistics recently? Have you noticed the problem America has with acid rain? Have you noticed how you're dependent on foreign oil imports? *sighs*
ever heard of cameras? With two high resolution video cameras, some OCR software - it's possible. They have robots in Japan that can recognise people/ objects. Converting printed text to ASCII shouldn't be difficult. The parsing would be easy as they'd have a database of all previous exam questions and correct answers.;o) As well as a knowledge database on how to answer each type of question that could possibly come up.
Alternatively the exam pages could be fed into a scanner (far easier).
Re:Answer is obvious
on
AI in Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Yes, not everyone knows what an actuary does. An actuary is a statistician who computes insurance risks and premiums (usually they advise management on other issues too - for instance how an increasing life expectancy will affect how much the company pays out in pensions). It wouldn't be very difficult to write a computer program to answer an actuarial exam correctly as maths is the one thing computers are very good at. However you would end up with the computer getting 100% in a nanosecond - then twiddling its thumbs for the next two hours - waiting for the humans to catch up with it.;o)
"In fact, to be strictly scientific, an experiment should only have 1 variable changed at a time."
Yes, but this is not always possible. I do numerical data modelling in oceanography. The weather changes all the time. You can't do experiments with just changing one variable. The whole point of modelling though is to build an "approximation" of the real world which can lead to "predictions". However there are great similarities between what I do and this. In this model what is wanted is to win a conflict. (In mine it's to predict the weather). Surely AI could play both sides - and an algorithm written so that it learned better tactics. These tactics could then be printed or the AI routine used to predict the course of future conflicts. However real life would be slightly different from what the model predicts. That's why you work hard to make the model make itself better. Admittedly I don't have any experience of programming military applications - but the two applications - weather prediction and wargames seem pretty similar.
Yes, sorry if that out of context comment seemed to imply something that it didn't. He now works for Hicks and Associates Inc - see this biography. There are long reasons on both sides regarding his resignation - but you can look up the press cuttings and each side's arguments yourselves. What the above poster writes is AFAIK true (eg parts of it check out).
1) A lot of money has been put into researching ways to cut down on friendly fire casualties. Yes it is galling to get hit by a depleted uranium shell fired by your own side.
2) My pedal bike has already been removed and locked up as an "anti-terrorist measure". I through no choice of my own left it locked up at a station platform in York, England for a few hours last Saturday. When I returned at about 6p.m. their office was closed. What was strange was that on platform 1 - there was about a hundred or so pedal bikes for hire from Europcar that hadn't been removed by GNER staff (who first asked for authorisation from the British Transport Police). I hate to think what civil liberties they are encroaching on now conflict has already started!
Oh and P.S. they expect me to make a 400-mile round trip and hand over $2.25 to get it back! *sighs* Sorry - it's minor compared to your tale.
Regarding what you said about military schools - I take your point. However, at least on the UK military schools side - the discipline is better than in civilian schools. As to American bases in Germany - well... I think I'd better forget what I know about them.
I think my statement has been verified by current events... Do the maths yourselves (the ratio will probably be different by the time you read this anyway). However there are also deaths and long term health problems of veterans post-conflict. For instance the ones that suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, various health ailments as a result of their service. To just take one example - the controversial Persian Gulf War Illness (sometimes referred to as Gulf War Syndrome) - the existence of this was denied for years by both the US & UK governments.
There are various other health ailments of veterans too - for example those caused by carbamates, oil and smoke and being in various conditions not conducive to good health. Despite all the warnings on sunburn and heat exposure last time these still happened. You can order someone to put on suntan each day, even provide them with it - but it doesn't mean that in the heat of the moment they won't forget. That is just one minor example. I could go into detail but it's late at night here.
We could discuss the Millenium Challenge all night - however compared to 2002 - 2003 is "futuristic". I'm not disputing the fact that the challenge covered weapons that are still on the drawing board/ prototype stage - but wasn't it really to test out tactics and various scenarios? Also to find out what can go wrong and prevent it?
but what's more important is the endgame. If you read the simulation the US had with Van Riper (who since resigned) it's going to be messier & longer than they think it will. How many casualties will the US get before they get cold feet?
BTW in the last Gulf War more American soldiers died in training and motor vehicle accidents than actual combat. Have the lessons of GWI been learned and things changed (by all accounts they are very similar to the way they were in '91).
The way to cut down on e-fraud is to have the people in charge educating businesses etc in IT security. There is also an "embarassment factor" - which means that a lot of e-fraud goes unreported. Personally - my thoughts are of employing ex- e-fraudsters - but that wouldn't go down too well!
The banks have major IT security flaws they do nothing about anyway. *whistles innocently*
Personally I feel if the private individual can afford it then yes - they have access to powerful & secure computers. There is still a big digital divide between the rich and poor. People are still pretty ignorant when it comes to cryptography. RSA are still running that key competition though.
Criminals use the internet to commit e-fraud as they could be based in Russia (with lax computer laws) and yet be virtually in the US (or UK). Most attempts are script kiddies though. There is a grey line between what's illegal and a nuisance - and what's illegal and something you'd sue an individual over (civil or criminal). Criminals will always find a way to commit crime. What's more worrying is that with cryptography they can communicate with each other in ways that are very difficult to decode.
The whole escrow key thing & liasing with the "authorities" - well - it's been the source of at least one Tom Clancy novel! I live in the UK - we're well - quite a bit behind the US in regards to IT.
After many legal battles over Microsoft's monopoly - the court rules that to pay the fines to the US government Microsoft has to be sold to them. It then becomes part of the State. The end.:)
I'm going to point out at all the Quake and Doom mods that were sold commerically on CDs. You were just paying for custom characters, maps etc - and you could get them for free. However the commercial efforts were usually more professional.
Hosting files on any popular website is expensive in bandwidth. They're probably just trying to make ends meet. What would people have said if they'd put up banner ads instead - or even worse popups?
Your comment doesn't seem to make any sense when read in relation to the comment it's replying to. Are you referring to something in their signature block (which I have turned off by default)?
Well when I wrote that comment, I didn't think it would get moderated to +5. Although regarding slashdotting - I am very careful of similar things on my own site. Thankfully we use perhaps 8% of our total bandwidth a month. So say for instance our address was mentioned in press releases, on a national tv show, radio station etc - it wouldn't cause a problem...
Also there's the option to buy more bandwidth (at a very reasonable price) as and when required.
Anyway - you suspect that sites that are well known (and have a high Google pagerank) can survive a slashdotting. As these sites were mainly text based - I thought there wouldn't be a problem. I obviously understimated the power of a/.ing.
I know of ones in Opera - for instance you can see the history using opera:history. I don't know of any others. However as those features in Mozilla are based on the xml page - wouldn't it be up to the individual webmasters how they used them?
And a comment like that would go amiss without a link to the ASCII pr0n archive - and for the people still reading this interested in Star Trek ASCII art - try here.
Microchips are made from silicon. That silicon has to come from sand (AFAIK) which is also used to make glass. Wouldn't removing the tonnes and tonnes of sand that's needed by industry also cause ecological damage - or is it removed some other way? (starts to imagine all the ruined beaches just so we can enjoy computers). Oh - and a lot of silicon chips get rejected (ie through quality control - faulty chips) too - do those just get thrown out and added to landfill?
Talking of DDOS attacks - is anyone experiencing a slowdown very similar to that caused by a DDOS attack? Eg website requests time out, high packet loss etc.
Slashdot Mirror
You try cycling 4 miles to university each day and four miles back through heavy traffic (and on a train) eah day. Alternatively it's a 14 mile round trip to the University of Liverpool Veterinary Station in the opposite direction. That's why I like being a computer student. You can do all the work from home. :) Webmail, proxy access, journal access - can all be done off campus. Even software programming (although they have better computers than I can afford. :P) - oh and something like a T1/ T3 connection. :)
It is fun - but not so much when you've had to do it every day for the past 9 years (almost typed 90 years then - lol). I'm just waiting for my free travel pass. So far my doctor took 1 1/2 weeks to write what I asked them to on it (about 1/4 page - takes about five minutes). Then the Merseytravel doctor will look at it and decide (takes about a fortnight). Eventually I may get a travel pass... we'll see.... probably by then I'll have moved or look different than the photo. *grins*
Yes it was meant to be mildly humourous & tongue in cheek. I think it was too subtle though and got marked down as off-topic (then marked up because that person posted in this topic) then back down again.. *grins* I don't care - my karma can take a bigger battering than that before I loose my +1 bonus.
Some of us ride pedal bikes because we care about the environment. Have you looked at the rising asthma statistics recently? Have you noticed the problem America has with acid rain? Have you noticed how you're dependent on foreign oil imports? *sighs*
ever heard of cameras? With two high resolution video cameras, some OCR software - it's possible. They have robots in Japan that can recognise people/ objects. Converting printed text to ASCII shouldn't be difficult. The parsing would be easy as they'd have a database of all previous exam questions and correct answers. ;o) As well as a knowledge database on how to answer each type of question that could possibly come up.
Alternatively the exam pages could be fed into a scanner (far easier).
Yes, not everyone knows what an actuary does. An actuary is a statistician who computes insurance risks and premiums (usually they advise management on other issues too - for instance how an increasing life expectancy will affect how much the company pays out in pensions). It wouldn't be very difficult to write a computer program to answer an actuarial exam correctly as maths is the one thing computers are very good at. However you would end up with the computer getting 100% in a nanosecond - then twiddling its thumbs for the next two hours - waiting for the humans to catch up with it. ;o)
We have a new project similar to that - called SPIDER which lets students view their academic records.
"In fact, to be strictly scientific, an experiment should only have 1 variable changed at a time."
Yes, but this is not always possible. I do numerical data modelling in oceanography. The weather changes all the time. You can't do experiments with just changing one variable. The whole point of modelling though is to build an "approximation" of the real world which can lead to "predictions". However there are great similarities between what I do and this. In this model what is wanted is to win a conflict. (In mine it's to predict the weather). Surely AI could play both sides - and an algorithm written so that it learned better tactics. These tactics could then be printed or the AI routine used to predict the course of future conflicts. However real life would be slightly different from what the model predicts. That's why you work hard to make the model make itself better. Admittedly I don't have any experience of programming military applications - but the two applications - weather prediction and wargames seem pretty similar.
Yes, sorry if that out of context comment seemed to imply something that it didn't. He now works for Hicks and Associates Inc - see this biography. There are long reasons on both sides regarding his resignation - but you can look up the press cuttings and each side's arguments yourselves. What the above poster writes is AFAIK true (eg parts of it check out).
1) A lot of money has been put into researching ways to cut down on friendly fire casualties. Yes it is galling to get hit by a depleted uranium shell fired by your own side.
2) My pedal bike has already been removed and locked up as an "anti-terrorist measure". I through no choice of my own left it locked up at a station platform in York, England for a few hours last Saturday. When I returned at about 6p.m. their office was closed. What was strange was that on platform 1 - there was about a hundred or so pedal bikes for hire from Europcar that hadn't been removed by GNER staff (who first asked for authorisation from the British Transport Police). I hate to think what civil liberties they are encroaching on now conflict has already started!
Oh and P.S. they expect me to make a 400-mile round trip and hand over $2.25 to get it back! *sighs* Sorry - it's minor compared to your tale.
Regarding what you said about military schools - I take your point. However, at least on the UK military schools side - the discipline is better than in civilian schools. As to American bases in Germany - well... I think I'd better forget what I know about them.
I think my statement has been verified by current events... Do the maths yourselves (the ratio will probably be different by the time you read this anyway). However there are also deaths and long term health problems of veterans post-conflict. For instance the ones that suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, various health ailments as a result of their service. To just take one example - the controversial Persian Gulf War Illness (sometimes referred to as Gulf War Syndrome) - the existence of this was denied for years by both the US & UK governments.
There are various other health ailments of veterans too - for example those caused by carbamates, oil and smoke and being in various conditions not conducive to good health. Despite all the warnings on sunburn and heat exposure last time these still happened. You can order someone to put on suntan each day, even provide them with it - but it doesn't mean that in the heat of the moment they won't forget. That is just one minor example. I could go into detail but it's late at night here.
We could discuss the Millenium Challenge all night - however compared to 2002 - 2003 is "futuristic". I'm not disputing the fact that the challenge covered weapons that are still on the drawing board/ prototype stage - but wasn't it really to test out tactics and various scenarios? Also to find out what can go wrong and prevent it?
but what's more important is the endgame. If you read the simulation the US had with Van Riper (who since resigned) it's going to be messier & longer than they think it will. How many casualties will the US get before they get cold feet?
BTW in the last Gulf War more American soldiers died in training and motor vehicle accidents than actual combat. Have the lessons of GWI been learned and things changed (by all accounts they are very similar to the way they were in '91).
The way to cut down on e-fraud is to have the people in charge educating businesses etc in IT security. There is also an "embarassment factor" - which means that a lot of e-fraud goes unreported. Personally - my thoughts are of employing ex- e-fraudsters - but that wouldn't go down too well!
The banks have major IT security flaws they do nothing about anyway. *whistles innocently*
Personally I feel if the private individual can afford it then yes - they have access to powerful & secure computers. There is still a big digital divide between the rich and poor. People are still pretty ignorant when it comes to cryptography. RSA are still running that key competition though.
Criminals use the internet to commit e-fraud as they could be based in Russia (with lax computer laws) and yet be virtually in the US (or UK). Most attempts are script kiddies though. There is a grey line between what's illegal and a nuisance - and what's illegal and something you'd sue an individual over (civil or criminal). Criminals will always find a way to commit crime. What's more worrying is that with cryptography they can communicate with each other in ways that are very difficult to decode.
The whole escrow key thing & liasing with the "authorities" - well - it's been the source of at least one Tom Clancy novel! I live in the UK - we're well - quite a bit behind the US in regards to IT.
passengers are a threat.
Solution: decrease passenger numbers.
Solution: cancel all flights.
Threat avoided.
Financial error - company no longer making profit
Solution - replace employees with AI - become non-airline company.
After many legal battles over Microsoft's monopoly - the court rules that to pay the fines to the US government Microsoft has to be sold to them. It then becomes part of the State. The end. :)
I'm going to point out at all the Quake and Doom mods that were sold commerically on CDs. You were just paying for custom characters, maps etc - and you could get them for free. However the commercial efforts were usually more professional. Hosting files on any popular website is expensive in bandwidth. They're probably just trying to make ends meet. What would people have said if they'd put up banner ads instead - or even worse popups?
Your comment doesn't seem to make any sense when read in relation to the comment it's replying to. Are you referring to something in their signature block (which I have turned off by default)?
Well when I wrote that comment, I didn't think it would get moderated to +5. Although regarding slashdotting - I am very careful of similar things on my own site. Thankfully we use perhaps 8% of our total bandwidth a month. So say for instance our address was mentioned in press releases, on a national tv show, radio station etc - it wouldn't cause a problem... Also there's the option to buy more bandwidth (at a very reasonable price) as and when required. Anyway - you suspect that sites that are well known (and have a high Google pagerank) can survive a slashdotting. As these sites were mainly text based - I thought there wouldn't be a problem. I obviously understimated the power of a /.ing.
I've found some car related ASCII art on this page. Still no car washer - perhaps you could draw your own.
I know now why that was written by an Anonymous Coward.
I don't know of an ASCII art car washer - just this ASCII art animation of a cow & a car - which can be found here.
I know of ones in Opera - for instance you can see the history using opera:history. I don't know of any others. However as those features in Mozilla are based on the xml page - wouldn't it be up to the individual webmasters how they used them?
And a comment like that would go amiss without a link to the ASCII pr0n archive - and for the people still reading this interested in Star Trek ASCII art - try here.
Microchips are made from silicon. That silicon has to come from sand (AFAIK) which is also used to make glass. Wouldn't removing the tonnes and tonnes of sand that's needed by industry also cause ecological damage - or is it removed some other way? (starts to imagine all the ruined beaches just so we can enjoy computers). Oh - and a lot of silicon chips get rejected (ie through quality control - faulty chips) too - do those just get thrown out and added to landfill?
Talking of DDOS attacks - is anyone experiencing a slowdown very similar to that caused by a DDOS attack? Eg website requests time out, high packet loss etc.
Well it seems you're in need of one to prevent you making mistakes through hunger! It's /.ers not ./ers. The site's called slashdot - not dotslash!