Actually a good point about MP3 (and similar) compression schemes. They have a fixed bitrate. So when you compress a song, you say "compress this audio down to 128K bits per second" and then the algorithm throws away all of the frequency data that won't fit into that many bits. So, even if it's dead silence, the algorithm is still going to fill up 128Kb for each second of silence (even though it's effectively filling that 128Kb with zeroes). Even if you use VBR (variable bit rate) compression, the algorithm still tries to average a certain overall bitrate, so the result is the same. It would be nice if you could just say "compress this song using as many bits as you need to make it sound good," but unfortunately the phrase "to make it sound good" is very subjective. The algorithm doesn't know what sounds good.
This is truly an interesting case, and it marks a significant point in American history. The broadcast flag is obviously, blatantly, hideously un-American, but whether or not it stands will be decided based solely on how much of our legal system is owned by Hollywood. If I were a gambler, I would put my money on Hollywood. It's pessimistic, I know, but I think we've already crossed the bridge and there's no turning back. I say that based on the fact that ridiculous things like DMCA and INDUCE have/will become law.
Yeah, so maybe map software was a bad example. But if we're talking about word processors and spreadsheets that are being sold to businesses, then mobility is a much smaller issue. It's still true that people want to use word processors on their laptops, in the car, on the plane, whatever... but Google could pretty easily work out a way to have an "offline" version. Basically they could allow you to just run the most recent version stored in your browser cache. So as long as you're offline, you run your local copy, which may be slightly out of date, but who cares. In fact, they would almost have to do something along those lines; otherwise, entire companies would be unable to use any software whenever the network went down.
I (still) say that Microsoft is being forced into changing their application delivery model by Google. What choice do they have? What happens when Google rolls out a word processor, spreadsheet, and a dozen other "Office-like" apps all of which run right in your web browser, and they offer it all at a really, really competitive price per user (especially to businesses), and Microsoft is still selling clunky old CDs?
Look at it this way... Which would you rather have: this or this? One of them comes on a CD, and becomes outdated very quickly unless you continously patch and upgrade it. The other is just a URL that you type into a browser, and you can let them (Google) worry about keeping it up to date.
The reactor's supporters also argue that the technology is secure from proliferation. The low-enriched uranium fuel consists of half-millimetre-sized particles of uranium dioxide encased in graphite and silicon carbide, which in turn is encased in a graphite ball. Experts say it is expensive and difficult to process such spent fuel.
So, sounds like it's possible, but expensive and difficult.
I don't know... I'm not sure that the "number of people in prison" or even the percentage is a meaningful statistic. I'm more worried about why those people are in prison. I do not want to be in a place where those reasons include exercising freedom of speech or religion.
Awesome! Thank you. Finally, someone actually states what's good about the country. Everyone else is either saying how horrible and scary it is, or that it's "not that bad." But not one comment on why anyone would want to risk giving up all of their freedoms and human rights just to go there, whether the threat is actually real or not.
I've lived in china, and though it is not quite a utopia, I'll be living there for a few years more.
Why? A lot of comments here (and on some past articles) seem to say something similar. "China's not so bad... They really only shoot Chinese people in the head." or "As long as you don't do anything crazy out in public, like talking about religion, or looking at Google News, you probably won't be thrown in jail." Fantastic! So, if I'm lucky, I'll survive the place. But what the hell is so great about it that it's worth the risk, no matter how remote you think it may be?
The free software debate is a whole different topic. Who knows whether free software will ever work or not... It may or may not catch on. I haven't seen many big corporations making the switch, honestly. I know for a fact that some have tried and failed. I don't claim to know why it just doesn't work, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's because there's no accountability. Who do you call when there's a bug in free software? If MS Word or Google-Word is broken, they lose money, because they have paying customers.
But anyway, whether or not the software should be "free" or open-source, or closed-source, or whatever, is a completely orthogonal discussion to the distribution mechanism, which is what I was talking about. I'm just saying it's better to "subscribe" to software than it is to buy it, install it, upgrade it, and maintain it. Google or Microsoft or anyone else could distribute their software in an automated way, exactly like you suggest, regardless of whether it's open-source, closed-source, "free," freeware, shareware, spyware, poopware, or underware.
Call me a heretic, but... I actually like the idea of "subscribing" to software. I think it's pretty common knowledge that Google wants to move in this direction. Microsoft may be making this move to simply test the waters, and to gear up for the potential competition from Google.
Here's why I like the idea. - No more upgrading. You run it through your web browser (or whatever), so it resides on their servers, and you always have the latest version. - It's probably cheaper in the long run for the end user. Compare paying $60 a year for GWord (or whatever they call it) to installing MS Word 2000, then MS Word XP, then MS Word 2003. - It's definitely cheaper in the long run for businesses. Compare the costs of the IT department constantly installing, maintaining, and upgrading software to the cost of just creating a shortcut on each users desktop that points to the URL where the software lives. - It doesn't take up 4000 terabytes on my hard disk when I install Office.
But keep in mind, this is not a return to the old days of the central computing mainframe surrounded by hundreds of users with dumb terminals, for several reasons. First of all, the software is still running on the end user's machine. It's just running in the form of javascript or.NET or whatever, instead of a local EXE file. So, if it's done right, you will not be slowed down (noticeably) when 10000 users are all running the spreadsheet program at the same time, for example. Secondly, this only applies to apps that aren't CPU intensive, anyway. Don't expect to see fancy CAD applications or Photoshop, etc, moving in this direction in the near future. It only makes sense for Office-like apps.
Others have probably said the same thing, but I think it's short-sighted to compare overhauling a car to extending human lifespan. For starters, the human body is already capable of healing itself remarkably, which differentiates it from inanimate objects like cars and houses in a big way.
The first trick is just to stop the process of aging, which is a process that we are making real progress toward understanding. Organ replacement (as you mentioned) may not be as necessary as you predict. Once those organs stop aging, they should maintain their ability to heal themselves. In other words, a liver or a kidney shouldn't just go bad for no reason. But organ replacement may serve as an option in cases where this does happen, and with enough progress in stem cell research, it won't be all too difficult to just grow new ones.
I think it will be cheaper to make new people and let the old ones die than it will be to maintain everyone.
Well, obviously. Of course it's cheaper to just let old people die. But that's nonsense... It's cheaper not to build hospitals and develop medicines and to just let everyone die at 35 like they did a few hundred years ago. But that's not our nature. We want to live.
... as in Two Hundred and Fourteen Thousand Dollars? Seriously? Who invests $214000 in a project without even knowing what it is (besides the fact that it's called "Tron 2.0")?
Can I borrow some money? I'm working on a project called "The Titanic 2.0." I can't tell you anything more about it, but that should be enough for a couple hundred thousand, right?
I harnessed the synergy of a cross-platform initiative, then went outside the box and developed an immersive image-compression experience which was enabled by ubiquitous networking infrastructure.
Amen, brother. My photos are all "archival" as long as they're digital. Aside from some catastrophic event that wipes out both my web server (several miles away) and my home PC at the same time, I don't foresee much "fading" or other degradation. The idea of transferring digital data to analog (paper) and hoping that it lasts for hundreds of years seems backwards to me. But what do I know...
Did you know that if you can truly "solve" the 15-square puzzle, you can win a million bucks? No joke. The 15-square puzzle is actually NP-complete. I'll spare the details, but basically, it's not known whether or not the puzzle (or any other NP-complete problem) can be solved in polynomial time. If you can write an algorithm that solves the puzzle in polynomial time (or prove that it can't be done) then you win the million bucks offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute. They call it a "Mellinium Prize." It's one of seven unanswered questions in mathematics, and each of them is worth a million bucks. Good luck...
Your government has told you that you are not allowed to read a news site, and you don't mind? And you think that everyone else has their "head in the sand?" That's astounding... I'm not trying to be insulting, but do you honestly not see the problem? What if your government told you that you could no longer use the Internet at all? Would you just say "I can always pick up a newspaper. I don't think I'm missing anything."
Slashdot Mirror
Actually a good point about MP3 (and similar) compression schemes. They have a fixed bitrate. So when you compress a song, you say "compress this audio down to 128K bits per second" and then the algorithm throws away all of the frequency data that won't fit into that many bits. So, even if it's dead silence, the algorithm is still going to fill up 128Kb for each second of silence (even though it's effectively filling that 128Kb with zeroes). Even if you use VBR (variable bit rate) compression, the algorithm still tries to average a certain overall bitrate, so the result is the same. It would be nice if you could just say "compress this song using as many bits as you need to make it sound good," but unfortunately the phrase "to make it sound good" is very subjective. The algorithm doesn't know what sounds good.
This is truly an interesting case, and it marks a significant point in American history. The broadcast flag is obviously, blatantly, hideously un-American, but whether or not it stands will be decided based solely on how much of our legal system is owned by Hollywood. If I were a gambler, I would put my money on Hollywood. It's pessimistic, I know, but I think we've already crossed the bridge and there's no turning back. I say that based on the fact that ridiculous things like DMCA and INDUCE have/will become law.
He is more machine than monkey now, twisted and evil.
Wow, I was with you until I came to this:
I've been hit by cars three times in four years.
I was seriously considering giving it a try, as I live only about 5 miles from my work. But suddenly I don't like the odds...
Yeah, so maybe map software was a bad example. But if we're talking about word processors and spreadsheets that are being sold to businesses, then mobility is a much smaller issue. It's still true that people want to use word processors on their laptops, in the car, on the plane, whatever... but Google could pretty easily work out a way to have an "offline" version. Basically they could allow you to just run the most recent version stored in your browser cache. So as long as you're offline, you run your local copy, which may be slightly out of date, but who cares. In fact, they would almost have to do something along those lines; otherwise, entire companies would be unable to use any software whenever the network went down.
I (still) say that Microsoft is being forced into changing their application delivery model by Google. What choice do they have? What happens when Google rolls out a word processor, spreadsheet, and a dozen other "Office-like" apps all of which run right in your web browser, and they offer it all at a really, really competitive price per user (especially to businesses), and Microsoft is still selling clunky old CDs?
Look at it this way... Which would you rather have: this or this? One of them comes on a CD, and becomes outdated very quickly unless you continously patch and upgrade it. The other is just a URL that you type into a browser, and you can let them (Google) worry about keeping it up to date.
In general, questions of the form
"I think that... yadda yadda yadda... Do you agree?"
don't make for very good interview questions. Why not just ask
"Do you think that the choice of operating system really makes a significant difference in an system administrator's ability to maintain a server?"
or something along those lines?
But, who cares if "things get done" if you have to give up your freedom?
"Congratulations! We're building a nuclear facility next to your rice paddy."
"Awesome! My government rocks! So... what glorious new things can I expect to see as a result?"
"You'll have unlimited electricity! But if you use it to read Google News, we'll shoot you. Move along."
From the article:
The reactor's supporters also argue that the technology is secure from proliferation. The low-enriched uranium fuel consists of half-millimetre-sized particles of uranium dioxide encased in graphite and silicon carbide, which in turn is encased in a graphite ball. Experts say it is expensive and difficult to process such spent fuel.
So, sounds like it's possible, but expensive and difficult.
I don't know... I'm not sure that the "number of people in prison" or even the percentage is a meaningful statistic. I'm more worried about why those people are in prison. I do not want to be in a place where those reasons include exercising freedom of speech or religion.
Awesome! Thank you. Finally, someone actually states what's good about the country. Everyone else is either saying how horrible and scary it is, or that it's "not that bad." But not one comment on why anyone would want to risk giving up all of their freedoms and human rights just to go there, whether the threat is actually real or not.
I've lived in china, and though it is not quite a utopia, I'll be living there for a few years more.
Why? A lot of comments here (and on some past articles) seem to say something similar. "China's not so bad... They really only shoot Chinese people in the head." or "As long as you don't do anything crazy out in public, like talking about religion, or looking at Google News, you probably won't be thrown in jail." Fantastic! So, if I'm lucky, I'll survive the place. But what the hell is so great about it that it's worth the risk, no matter how remote you think it may be?
The free software debate is a whole different topic. Who knows whether free software will ever work or not... It may or may not catch on. I haven't seen many big corporations making the switch, honestly. I know for a fact that some have tried and failed. I don't claim to know why it just doesn't work, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's because there's no accountability. Who do you call when there's a bug in free software? If MS Word or Google-Word is broken, they lose money, because they have paying customers.
But anyway, whether or not the software should be "free" or open-source, or closed-source, or whatever, is a completely orthogonal discussion to the distribution mechanism, which is what I was talking about. I'm just saying it's better to "subscribe" to software than it is to buy it, install it, upgrade it, and maintain it. Google or Microsoft or anyone else could distribute their software in an automated way, exactly like you suggest, regardless of whether it's open-source, closed-source, "free," freeware, shareware, spyware, poopware, or underware.
Call me a heretic, but... I actually like the idea of "subscribing" to software. I think it's pretty common knowledge that Google wants to move in this direction. Microsoft may be making this move to simply test the waters, and to gear up for the potential competition from Google.
.NET or whatever, instead of a local EXE file. So, if it's done right, you will not be slowed down (noticeably) when 10000 users are all running the spreadsheet program at the same time, for example. Secondly, this only applies to apps that aren't CPU intensive, anyway. Don't expect to see fancy CAD applications or Photoshop, etc, moving in this direction in the near future. It only makes sense for Office-like apps.
Here's why I like the idea.
- No more upgrading. You run it through your web browser (or whatever), so it resides on their servers, and you always have the latest version.
- It's probably cheaper in the long run for the end user. Compare paying $60 a year for GWord (or whatever they call it) to installing MS Word 2000, then MS Word XP, then MS Word 2003.
- It's definitely cheaper in the long run for businesses. Compare the costs of the IT department constantly installing, maintaining, and upgrading software to the cost of just creating a shortcut on each users desktop that points to the URL where the software lives.
- It doesn't take up 4000 terabytes on my hard disk when I install Office.
But keep in mind, this is not a return to the old days of the central computing mainframe surrounded by hundreds of users with dumb terminals, for several reasons. First of all, the software is still running on the end user's machine. It's just running in the form of javascript or
Others have probably said the same thing, but I think it's short-sighted to compare overhauling a car to extending human lifespan. For starters, the human body is already capable of healing itself remarkably, which differentiates it from inanimate objects like cars and houses in a big way.
The first trick is just to stop the process of aging, which is a process that we are making real progress toward understanding. Organ replacement (as you mentioned) may not be as necessary as you predict. Once those organs stop aging, they should maintain their ability to heal themselves. In other words, a liver or a kidney shouldn't just go bad for no reason. But organ replacement may serve as an option in cases where this does happen, and with enough progress in stem cell research, it won't be all too difficult to just grow new ones.
I think it will be cheaper to make new people and let the old ones die than it will be to maintain everyone.
Well, obviously. Of course it's cheaper to just let old people die. But that's nonsense... It's cheaper not to build hospitals and develop medicines and to just let everyone die at 35 like they did a few hundred years ago. But that's not our nature. We want to live.
Yeah, but she's totally hot, dude.
Are you joking? Something called "Tron 2.0 the MOVIE" is a game? That's weird. Thanks for clearing that up.
Especially since I bought 50,000 shares @ $4.29.
... as in Two Hundred and Fourteen Thousand Dollars? Seriously? Who invests $214000 in a project without even knowing what it is (besides the fact that it's called "Tron 2.0")?
Can I borrow some money? I'm working on a project called "The Titanic 2.0." I can't tell you anything more about it, but that should be enough for a couple hundred thousand, right?
Oh, that is sooooo 2004.
I harnessed the synergy of a cross-platform initiative, then went outside the box and developed an immersive image-compression experience which was enabled by ubiquitous networking infrastructure.
Except that most guns aren't used to commit crimes.
Most sigs aren't used to commit crimes against nature. Weirdo.
Amen, brother. My photos are all "archival" as long as they're digital. Aside from some catastrophic event that wipes out both my web server (several miles away) and my home PC at the same time, I don't foresee much "fading" or other degradation. The idea of transferring digital data to analog (paper) and hoping that it lasts for hundreds of years seems backwards to me. But what do I know...
Did you know that if you can truly "solve" the 15-square puzzle, you can win a million bucks? No joke. The 15-square puzzle is actually NP-complete. I'll spare the details, but basically, it's not known whether or not the puzzle (or any other NP-complete problem) can be solved in polynomial time. If you can write an algorithm that solves the puzzle in polynomial time (or prove that it can't be done) then you win the million bucks offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute. They call it a "Mellinium Prize." It's one of seven unanswered questions in mathematics, and each of them is worth a million bucks. Good luck...
Your government has told you that you are not allowed to read a news site, and you don't mind? And you think that everyone else has their "head in the sand?" That's astounding... I'm not trying to be insulting, but do you honestly not see the problem? What if your government told you that you could no longer use the Internet at all? Would you just say "I can always pick up a newspaper. I don't think I'm missing anything."
Valve has done a pretty incredible thing.
This had to be a troll. If so, then good work -- the anti-Steam posters came out in droves. If not, then it's just... dumb, at best.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
:)
It has two i's and two u's. Come on, we deserved better. What about:
Waltz, nymph, for quick jugs vex Bud?
Then only one letter is repeated (u) but it's repeated twice. Plus, a nymph with "jugs" is sexier than a nymph doing "jigs."