I agree with you, but the reason for me has more to do with the style of the page posting the ad than it does anything else. Google's ads are presented well and are unobtrusive. They forgo all the blinking & 'moving around' crap that makes so many banners so damned awful, and they're attractive to view.
First impressions matter a lot in this world. More companies would do well to keep their interfaces as clean as Google.
I don't see anything in the article that addresses this, and it may be something that previous natural-language developers have already hammered out...
How well do such interpretive systems filter out background noise? Our grey matter performs this trick (usually) without our having to concentrate on it at all-- signal/noise ratio isn't something most people likely think about with oral communications, unless the noise volume at the signal frequency is overwhelming.
I can just see that hypothetical in the article, but taken to a pretty typical college-campus extreme:
There are two dozen 1st-year students wandering around in front of the big screen (it's not time to register for classes, so they're all just sort of forming temporary cliques as the trot back & forth). Which student does the ghost select to approach?
Let's say multiple students are in the same room at the same time, trying to use the same interface to check-- oh, I don't know, call it the inventory of that closet in the article. They're close enough together that they can hear each other, which isn't a problem for humans-- think about the busy cubical farm with dozens of employees simultaneously on the phone. We filter each other out pretty well... but how well does the software handle it?
Last thought: I can just see giving the system a request it doesn't know how to handle... I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...
Modify the idea by just a little tweak: still line the men up the same way, but let them know in advance that no indication will be given about which end of the line is which. (Ok, some smart-ass is going to look at 'package size', but you get the point.)
I've quit both smoking and drinking in the last four years (not at the same time-- I'm crazy, but not stupid). The secret to my success?
a) For alcohol, I first had to ruin my life. Once I had nothing left to lose, it was pointless to keep fighting, and I was shown another way through the problem. When faced with the choices of 'die or get sober', it's not that difficult.
b) for cigarettes, I developed asthma (fortunately about two years after I quit drinking-- both at once would have been far too much for lil' old me). When faced with the choices of 'breathe or smoke', it's not that difficult.
So, my advice? Wait until the problem is so bad that it's ruining your health, your relationships with people around you, your credit record, and your wardrobe:)
In all seriousness, I'm a moderate-to-heavy caffeine drinker myself, and have tried many times to drop the habit entirely-- I suffer from migraines and from GERD, both of which can be aggravated by caffeine. If anyone in this thread has a real suggestion as to how to quit-- recognizing that cold turkey works for some people but not others-- I'd love to hear it.
Personally, I would rather see an emphasis placed on deregulation of many things, lowered (or eliminated) taxes, and increased fiscal responsibility. This of course means reducing and/or cutting certain programs, but many of these should be removed from the gov't's hands in any case.
I mean no offense, but this is something I often hear from those with Libertarian leanings... but never with any concrete suggestions as to what should go. If you're going to argue that the Federal government should shrink, please at least let us know what parts of you think could go. Suggesting the Dept of Education doesn't count, that's a neocon argument.
Of course when it comes to criminals evaluating their risks, it doesn't matter how many people have guns locked in cabinets at home, it matters how many people MIGHT have them hidden under their jacket.
I have to disagree. What matters any one action that the criminals' victims take or don't take, it's the ability of the criminal to foresee the possible outcomes of his (or her) actions. If someone coming down from a high on various addictive illicit substances decides to rob a house, do you really think they've considered the possibility they'll be shot? Even if they have, do you really think they'll be deterred by the thought of death? Their only concern is finding a way to continue the high. Death is just one of the possible penalties they're willing to pay.
On the other hand, while guns are a lousy deterrant, when the owner maintains control over them and the situation (unfortunately not normally the case), they can be a hell of a crime-spree-stopper.
During the period that the Do Not Call list was on hold in court, I received a telemarketing call on my mobile. And it wasn't even one of the industries on the exempted list.
Have I mentioned yet how grateful I am for the Do Not Call list? It's the only place anywhere where my mobile number is listed publicly that I know of (there's the important caveat). That some telemarketer would call it and use a recorded message to advertise their credit repair services annoys me to no end.
Besides, a 100% energy conversion rate would mean it would have to be completely opaque at all frequencies, too. Somehow I doubt that claim.
Re:I have always wondered...
on
Blind Lake
·
· Score: 1
lol, "oops"
Let's try 1953
silly proofreaders.
Re:I have always wondered...
on
Blind Lake
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This is true, but remember, there's always that nasty square/cube law. Thus, for your example, Kennedy's assassination occurred in 2003. That's 50 years ago, so you'd have a bubble 50 lightyears in radius from which you could see the event. Remember, that's fifty lightyears and no less (barring such events such as light circling around a black hole, much like water around a sink's drain, before escaping to continue on)-- you can only see the assassination if you're 50 light years out. Or 51 next year, 52 the year beyond, etc.
Now, from any point on the surface of this 100-lightyear-diamater sphere, how many individual photons from the original event will be visible?
Without even bothering to do a back-of-the-napkin calculation, I think we can assume it's so few that the event itself is simply not witnessable at that distance.
Data about the event, however, if properly encoded and broadcast at the right frequencies with enough power (i.e., more photons), would still be decodable.
Sorry if this is really simplistic, perhaps someone who actually majored in physics can explain it better (it's just a hobby for me, and I read far too much Scientific American).
Here's what I'm considering:
In the OSS world, when we're breached we typically ask our compatriots for help in preventing the next breach. Since we have direct access to the source code we're able to immediately patch things ourselves (if we're that good... frankly, I'm not. I really on you experts out there). Calling for help, by definition, means letting people know I've been breached.
In Microsoft's proprietary world, the last thing I want to do if I've been breached is announce it to anyone else, since the only thing I can do for a fix is wait for MS to put out a patch (if they haven't already). Therefore most MS breaches are kept quiet.
Didn't Sun's boxes running Solaris used to ship with those? I vaguely remember working on a couple of them in 1994, and having those optical mice & the metal pads...
It's not just childish. It's possibly illegal (depending on the size of the organization). It took me a few minutes to find this article, as I couldn't remember the source, but it contains the thrust of my argument. In summary, organizations over a certain size in the US must keep resumes on file for a certain period.
It's possible the regulations have changes since that article was written (November 5th, last year), so that electronic submissions aren't considered applications anymore-- I couldn't find any follow-up articles to refute it.
So, when you discover that the exterior door of your house is vulnerable to attack by a 5" shell, do you spend a minor fortune to upgrade the door to your new never-before-needed standards? And even more so, if you're already in the whole for more than you make in a year, do you bother then? Or do you do the logical and feasible thing, and hope that nothing happens?
Post-9/11, of course airlines could install the doors; the monetary cost of the installations could be fairly passed on the flying public (and of course, the airlines were given billions for security upgrades by Congress, post-9/11). Pre-9/11, the price competition between airlines was so tight that they simply couldn't afford those upgrades. After all, what were they going to do? Advertise "Fly Delta Air, we have bullet-proof cockpit doors" in hopes of getting passengers to lay out $10 more per flight than they used to, when other airlines in the same market (geographic and price) weren't doing the same?
I'm just as disappointed (long-term) in Congress as the next guy, and just as cynical about truth and fairness getting lost in those hallowed halls... but let us try to be fair in our criticisms. Attacking the airlines for doing something they simply couldn't afford to do (pick your reason: we (the public) are too cheap, fuel is too expensive, whatever) is pointless.
Or at least according to the caption on the picture accompanying that article. It shows one of the capsules floating in an ocean, with the orange airbags around it, but says the photo is from 1974. Considering Apollo 12 landed on the moon on Nov. 14th, 1969, that's quite a feat!
I admit I'm a bit apprehensive myself (especially considering how much I disliked Outland), but I'm willing to grant a little credit:
The reason that individual Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, and Dilbert strips have stood the test of time is that they make little or no attempt to be current. Let's face it, single-panel jokes about dinosaurs going extinct because of smoking will still be amusing in another ten of twenty years. So will pointed barbs about the PHB and "Must... Control... Fist... of... Death". When taking the risk of being current, as Breathed did consistently in Bloom County, one is also taking the risk of becoming dated. So be it. His work when it's critical may point its aim at pop culture, but that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Apparently we slashdotted Linuxworld pretty heavily-- it took me two hours or so of attempts to finally get to the text. For those who are having similar problems, here it is.
The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
This debate about Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers. But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago. These were the second and third such attacks in four months and have prevented Web users from accessing our web site and doing business with SCO. There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing. We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community. Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software. The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model. To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contr
The Yahoo article doesn't link to it; without seeing the details I'm hesitant to fully swallow any synopsis.
I don't find it unbelievable that some tasks are less expensive to produce under MS products than under Linux, but unless the report indicates other reasons, I'm inclined to believe the difference is due to the trained user-base.
The article does say they interviewed twelve firms (hardly a statistically significant amount), seven of which use Windows & five of which use *nix. I'd be curious to know the sizes of the firms involved and the level of training of the personnel in each of them.
In other words, my question is: Is all else equal? I suspect not.
is available on the BBC's news site. Apparently the article on Ananova was edited a little too completely for space, and lost the explanation of the reason for the study.
The full article makes clear that Prof. Cox's work is used in the design of facilities like concert halls, train stations, etc. In other words, the duck was incidental. What he was concerned with was the qualities that reduced the echo.
Suggesting his work deserves an IgNoble (as someone earlier in the thread offered) begs comparisons to Sen. Proxmire. Try to be a little better informed before you criticize so broadly.
This doesn't (or shouldn't) apply to the internet because the government created most of the infrastructure of the internet.
How do you figure this? The government (via DARPA) certainly devised the protocols we use today, and obviously linked the first few batches of computers on DARPAnet together, but we've gone a long, long way from that. Most of the backbone today is in the hands of the same private companies that we on/. like to bash so much (AT&T, MCI, etc.)
There are some modern sci-fi authors who know how to have the characters live the story, instead of just throwing technobabble (or even worse, Treknobabble-- did I just coin a new term or has someone else already used that?) at us.
The best example I can think off the top of my head is Michael Flynn. Don't start with his novels though, start with the short stories and novellas. He's written for Analog, Asimov's, Weird Tales (and I think F&SF, but I'm not sure). Some of his stories take place in the modern era, some in the near-future, some in the past, and one or two take place timelessly.
My two personal favorites of his are both in the collection The Forest of Time and Other Stories (I'd use <U> tags, but/. doesn't like them). One is titled "On the Wings of a Butterfly"; the other is "Melodies of the Heart". Although neither of these stories is forward-looking, they're both very well-informed stories where the science-- although accurate and complete, minus a little literary license that Flynn admits to-- forms the background for the story, not the story itself.
If only Greg Bear & Gregory Benford could remember this regularly, they'd be the new masters of the field! (I'd say the same thing about their compadre, David Brin, but he actually does have a few stories that focus on the characters & their interplay).
To those who disagree with my opinions about the authors I've mentioned, I apologize in advance if I've offended you. This post isn't intended as flamebait or as a really-long troll (if I'd intended a troll, I wouldn't have said anything nice about anyone:-D)
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you, but the reason for me has more to do with the style of the page posting the ad than it does anything else. Google's ads are presented well and are unobtrusive. They forgo all the blinking & 'moving around' crap that makes so many banners so damned awful, and they're attractive to view.
First impressions matter a lot in this world. More companies would do well to keep their interfaces as clean as Google.
I don't see anything in the article that addresses this, and it may be something that previous natural-language developers have already hammered out...
How well do such interpretive systems filter out background noise? Our grey matter performs this trick (usually) without our having to concentrate on it at all-- signal/noise ratio isn't something most people likely think about with oral communications, unless the noise volume at the signal frequency is overwhelming.
I can just see that hypothetical in the article, but taken to a pretty typical college-campus extreme:
There are two dozen 1st-year students wandering around in front of the big screen (it's not time to register for classes, so they're all just sort of forming temporary cliques as the trot back & forth). Which student does the ghost select to approach?
Let's say multiple students are in the same room at the same time, trying to use the same interface to check-- oh, I don't know, call it the inventory of that closet in the article. They're close enough together that they can hear each other, which isn't a problem for humans-- think about the busy cubical farm with dozens of employees simultaneously on the phone. We filter each other out pretty well... but how well does the software handle it?
Last thought: I can just see giving the system a request it doesn't know how to handle...
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...
if ('puddle'=='shadow') {
do rant_and_rave();
}
Modify the idea by just a little tweak: still line the men up the same way, but let them know in advance that no indication will be given about which end of the line is which. (Ok, some smart-ass is going to look at 'package size', but you get the point.)
I've quit both smoking and drinking in the last four years (not at the same time-- I'm crazy, but not stupid). The secret to my success? a) For alcohol, I first had to ruin my life. Once I had nothing left to lose, it was pointless to keep fighting, and I was shown another way through the problem. When faced with the choices of 'die or get sober', it's not that difficult. b) for cigarettes, I developed asthma (fortunately about two years after I quit drinking-- both at once would have been far too much for lil' old me). When faced with the choices of 'breathe or smoke', it's not that difficult. So, my advice? Wait until the problem is so bad that it's ruining your health, your relationships with people around you, your credit record, and your wardrobe :)
In all seriousness, I'm a moderate-to-heavy caffeine drinker myself, and have tried many times to drop the habit entirely-- I suffer from migraines and from GERD, both of which can be aggravated by caffeine. If anyone in this thread has a real suggestion as to how to quit-- recognizing that cold turkey works for some people but not others-- I'd love to hear it.
Personally, I would rather see an emphasis placed on deregulation of many things, lowered (or eliminated) taxes, and increased fiscal responsibility. This of course means reducing and /or cutting certain programs, but many of these should be removed from the gov't's hands in any case.
I mean no offense, but this is something I often hear from those with Libertarian leanings... but never with any concrete suggestions as to what should go. If you're going to argue that the Federal government should shrink, please at least let us know what parts of you think could go. Suggesting the Dept of Education doesn't count, that's a neocon argument.
Illegal search and seizure, May 8, 2005: Homeland Defense.
This is already in place. It's called "sneak & peak", and is "allowed" under the (un)Patriot Act.
Of course when it comes to criminals evaluating their risks, it doesn't matter how many people have guns locked in cabinets at home, it matters how many people MIGHT have them hidden under their jacket.
I have to disagree. What matters any one action that the criminals' victims take or don't take, it's the ability of the criminal to foresee the possible outcomes of his (or her) actions. If someone coming down from a high on various addictive illicit substances decides to rob a house, do you really think they've considered the possibility they'll be shot? Even if they have, do you really think they'll be deterred by the thought of death? Their only concern is finding a way to continue the high. Death is just one of the possible penalties they're willing to pay.
On the other hand, while guns are a lousy deterrant, when the owner maintains control over them and the situation (unfortunately not normally the case), they can be a hell of a crime-spree-stopper.
During the period that the Do Not Call list was on hold in court, I received a telemarketing call on my mobile. And it wasn't even one of the industries on the exempted list.
Have I mentioned yet how grateful I am for the Do Not Call list? It's the only place anywhere where my mobile number is listed publicly that I know of (there's the important caveat). That some telemarketer would call it and use a recorded message to advertise their credit repair services annoys me to no end.
If you'll pardon the pun....
Oh suite!
Besides, a 100% energy conversion rate would mean it would have to be completely opaque at all frequencies, too. Somehow I doubt that claim.
lol, "oops"
Let's try 1953
silly proofreaders.
This is true, but remember, there's always that nasty square/cube law. Thus, for your example, Kennedy's assassination occurred in 2003. That's 50 years ago, so you'd have a bubble 50 lightyears in radius from which you could see the event. Remember, that's fifty lightyears and no less (barring such events such as light circling around a black hole, much like water around a sink's drain, before escaping to continue on)-- you can only see the assassination if you're 50 light years out. Or 51 next year, 52 the year beyond, etc.
Now, from any point on the surface of this 100-lightyear-diamater sphere, how many individual photons from the original event will be visible?
Without even bothering to do a back-of-the-napkin calculation, I think we can assume it's so few that the event itself is simply not witnessable at that distance.
Data about the event, however, if properly encoded and broadcast at the right frequencies with enough power (i.e., more photons), would still be decodable.
Sorry if this is really simplistic, perhaps someone who actually majored in physics can explain it better (it's just a hobby for me, and I read far too much Scientific American).
Here's what I'm considering:
In the OSS world, when we're breached we typically ask our compatriots for help in preventing the next breach. Since we have direct access to the source code we're able to immediately patch things ourselves (if we're that good... frankly, I'm not. I really on you experts out there). Calling for help, by definition, means letting people know I've been breached.
In Microsoft's proprietary world, the last thing I want to do if I've been breached is announce it to anyone else, since the only thing I can do for a fix is wait for MS to put out a patch (if they haven't already). Therefore most MS breaches are kept quiet.
Simple?
Didn't Sun's boxes running Solaris used to ship with those? I vaguely remember working on a couple of them in 1994, and having those optical mice & the metal pads...
The crosshairs were on a puck. Connected to a digitiser pad, not a mouse. mice have balls, digipads dont.
Only the male ones have balls. :-D
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist, as juvenile as it was...)
It's not just childish. It's possibly illegal (depending on the size of the organization). It took me a few minutes to find this article, as I couldn't remember the source, but it contains the thrust of my argument. In summary, organizations over a certain size in the US must keep resumes on file for a certain period.
It's possible the regulations have changes since that article was written (November 5th, last year), so that electronic submissions aren't considered applications anymore-- I couldn't find any follow-up articles to refute it.
So, when you discover that the exterior door of your house is vulnerable to attack by a 5" shell, do you spend a minor fortune to upgrade the door to your new never-before-needed standards? And even more so, if you're already in the whole for more than you make in a year, do you bother then? Or do you do the logical and feasible thing, and hope that nothing happens?
Post-9/11, of course airlines could install the doors; the monetary cost of the installations could be fairly passed on the flying public (and of course, the airlines were given billions for security upgrades by Congress, post-9/11). Pre-9/11, the price competition between airlines was so tight that they simply couldn't afford those upgrades. After all, what were they going to do? Advertise "Fly Delta Air, we have bullet-proof cockpit doors" in hopes of getting passengers to lay out $10 more per flight than they used to, when other airlines in the same market (geographic and price) weren't doing the same?
I'm just as disappointed (long-term) in Congress as the next guy, and just as cynical about truth and fairness getting lost in those hallowed halls... but let us try to be fair in our criticisms. Attacking the airlines for doing something they simply couldn't afford to do (pick your reason: we (the public) are too cheap, fuel is too expensive, whatever) is pointless.
Or at least according to the caption on the picture accompanying that article. It shows one of the capsules floating in an ocean, with the orange airbags around it, but says the photo is from 1974. Considering Apollo 12 landed on the moon on Nov. 14th, 1969, that's quite a feat!
Mod me funny or die, earthling scum.
I admit I'm a bit apprehensive myself (especially considering how much I disliked Outland), but I'm willing to grant a little credit:
The reason that individual Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, and Dilbert strips have stood the test of time is that they make little or no attempt to be current. Let's face it, single-panel jokes about dinosaurs going extinct because of smoking will still be amusing in another ten of twenty years. So will pointed barbs about the PHB and "Must... Control... Fist... of... Death". When taking the risk of being current, as Breathed did consistently in Bloom County, one is also taking the risk of becoming dated. So be it. His work when it's critical may point its aim at pop culture, but that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Apparently we slashdotted Linuxworld pretty heavily-- it took me two hours or so of attempts to finally get to the text. For those who are having similar problems, here it is.
The most controversial issue in the information technology industry today is the ongoing battle over software copyrights and intellectual property. This battle is being fought largely between vendors who create and sell proprietary software, and the Open Source community. My company, the SCO Group, became a focus of this controversy when we filed a lawsuit against IBM alleging that SCO's proprietary Unix code has been illegally copied into the free Linux operating system. In doing this we angered some in the Open Source community by pointing out obvious intellectual property problems that exist in the current Linux software development model.
This debate about Open Source software is healthy and beneficial. It offers long-term benefits to the industry by addressing a new business model in advance of wide-scale adoption by customers. But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago. These were the second and third such attacks in four months and have prevented Web users from accessing our web site and doing business with SCO. There is no question about the affiliation of the attacker - Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us." To Mr Raymond's partial credit, he asked the attacker to stop. However, he has yet to disclose the identity of the perpetrator so that justice can be done.
No one can tolerate DDoS attacks and other kinds of attacks in this Information Age economy that relies so heavily on the Internet. Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes. If they fail to do so it casts a shadow over the entire Open Source movement and raises questions about whether Open Source is ready to take a central role in business computing. We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community. Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
The second development was an admission by Open Source leader Bruce Perens that UNIX System V code (owned by SCO) is, in fact, in Linux, and it shouldn't be there. Mr Perens stated that there is "an error in the Linux developer's process" which allowed Unix System V code that "didn't belong in Linux" to end up in the Linux kernel (source: ComputerWire, August 25, 2003). Mr Perens continued with a string of arguments to justify the "error in the Linux developer's process." However, nothing can change the fact that a Linux developer on the payroll of Silicon Graphics stripped copyright attributions from copyrighted System V code that was licensed to Silicon Graphics under strict conditions of use, and then contributed that source code to Linux as though it was clean code owned and controlled by SGI. This is a clear violation of SGI's contract and copyright obligations to SCO. We are currently working to try and resolve these issues with SGI.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process. In fact, this issue goes to the very heart of whether Open Source can be trusted as a development model for enterprise computing software. The intellectual property roots of Linux are obviously flawed at a systemic level under the current model. To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contr
The Yahoo article doesn't link to it; without seeing the details I'm hesitant to fully swallow any synopsis.
I don't find it unbelievable that some tasks are less expensive to produce under MS products than under Linux, but unless the report indicates other reasons, I'm inclined to believe the difference is due to the trained user-base.
The article does say they interviewed twelve firms (hardly a statistically significant amount), seven of which use Windows & five of which use *nix. I'd be curious to know the sizes of the firms involved and the level of training of the personnel in each of them.
In other words, my question is: Is all else equal? I suspect not.
is available on the BBC's news site. Apparently the article on Ananova was edited a little too completely for space, and lost the explanation of the reason for the study.
The full article makes clear that Prof. Cox's work is used in the design of facilities like concert halls, train stations, etc. In other words, the duck was incidental. What he was concerned with was the qualities that reduced the echo.
Suggesting his work deserves an IgNoble (as someone earlier in the thread offered) begs comparisons to Sen. Proxmire. Try to be a little better informed before you criticize so broadly.
This doesn't (or shouldn't) apply to the internet because the government created most of the infrastructure of the internet.
/. like to bash so much (AT&T, MCI, etc.)
How do you figure this? The government (via DARPA) certainly devised the protocols we use today, and obviously linked the first few batches of computers on DARPAnet together, but we've gone a long, long way from that. Most of the backbone today is in the hands of the same private companies that we on
There are some modern sci-fi authors who know how to have the characters live the story, instead of just throwing technobabble (or even worse, Treknobabble-- did I just coin a new term or has someone else already used that?) at us.
/. doesn't like them). One is titled "On the Wings of a Butterfly"; the other is "Melodies of the Heart". Although neither of these stories is forward-looking, they're both very well-informed stories where the science-- although accurate and complete, minus a little literary license that Flynn admits to-- forms the background for the story, not the story itself.
:-D)
The best example I can think off the top of my head is Michael Flynn. Don't start with his novels though, start with the short stories and novellas. He's written for Analog, Asimov's, Weird Tales (and I think F&SF, but I'm not sure). Some of his stories take place in the modern era, some in the near-future, some in the past, and one or two take place timelessly.
My two personal favorites of his are both in the collection The Forest of Time and Other Stories (I'd use <U> tags, but
If only Greg Bear & Gregory Benford could remember this regularly, they'd be the new masters of the field! (I'd say the same thing about their compadre, David Brin, but he actually does have a few stories that focus on the characters & their interplay).
To those who disagree with my opinions about the authors I've mentioned, I apologize in advance if I've offended you. This post isn't intended as flamebait or as a really-long troll (if I'd intended a troll, I wouldn't have said anything nice about anyone