Western Washington University is, surprisingly, to the west of the state. I know they were doing some fantastic work with rotary engines in ancient days, but I don't know what the clowns are doing now.
That's not so clear-cut. You obviously define "chicken-egg" as "egg from which a chicken grows" but "an egg laid by a chicken" is an equally valid definition. Indeed, one could even argue that it is a better definition, because for example from those chicken eggs you get in a supermarket in general there couldn't grow a chicken. Now applying that definition, the egg that your almost-chicken laid was clearly not a chicken egg, because it wasn't laid by a chicken. From this almost-chicken egg then grew a chicken, which subsequently laid chicken eggs. Therefore the chicken was first.
Of course all that ignores that there's no clear-cut line between chickens and non-chickens anyway.
But with proportional fonts you cannot properly align parts where the first line has text before the first item, such as
void foo(int bar,
int baz) { //... }
int something(int (*f)(some_t),
some_t& blah) { //... }
[the misalignment of baz in the first function is due to a Slashdot ecode tag bug, which apparently changes the number of spaces, so I can only get one space too many or one too little] vs.
void foo(int bar,
int baz) {//... }
int something(int (*f)(some_t),
some_t& blah) {//... }
Note that I made the alignment above that it's almost correctly aligned for my font settings. It isn't exactly correctly aligned because a space has a certain fixed width, and alignment may be completely broken for anyone using another proportional font. Indeed, the proportional font in the Slashdot editing box leads to another alignment than the proportional font in the preview (I just hope that the indentation in the final non-preview version isn't different again). For the fixed-width code I didn't have that problem: What aligns OK on one fixed-width font also aligned OK on any other (indeed, I got the alignment right by just counting spaces, despite having to input in a proportional font; I could have entered it in a fixed-width font editor window and copy/pasted it to the browser instead, of course).
As far as EMF, I knew a family that had their house FILLED with ridiculous amounts of electronic Christmas decorations. Everywhere you looked there was something. Your skin crawled just being in there because there was a magnetic field everywhere.
First, the older daughter died of cancer at 16. The mother had had it as well. Then, the younger daughter got cancer.
Could it be that some of those Christmas decorations not only contained electronics, but also cancer-producing substances in the plastic parts?
On my keyboard (a modern one with Windows keys) they are still labelled differently (the one on the alphanumeric block has an arrow with angle, pointing first down, then left, while the one on the numeric keypad is labelled "Enter").
The US has been playing along with China in the belief that given a long enough time they will succumb to a free market capitalism.
They have. Don't confuse a free market with free people. On a free market, you are free to sell whatever you want, at whatever price you want. You are not necessarily free to say whatever you want.
I can understand how "We can't enforce copyright on software and music when we're busy lifting hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty as a developing nation" works but I can't understand how "We need to arrest and persecute human rights activists because we're a developing nation" works.
Human rights might get in conflict with economic growth, for example because without child labour you don't get cheap enough, or because you'd reduce your profits if you'd have to care that people don't get ill because of your poisonous waste...
Whenever you have a singularity in your theory, your theory almost certainly will fail before getting to that singularity, because there's something happening that you don't know, because you've never experienced anything so close to the apparent singularity. Indeed, even if you have mere exponential growth, you already should expect that there's something which will stop it.
Maybe as our technology improves faster and faster, the probability of some technology getting out of control (either through lack of precaution, or through terrorists, religious end-of-world fanatics or whoever misusing the technology to harm us) approaches 1, and then we get back to the technical level of the stone age, because all the advanced technology got destroyed, most people died, and the few left don't have enough knowledge to recreate the technology from scratch.
Or maybe at some point development of the technology comes to a halt because we have used up the materials found on Earth before we started to get efficient mining in space, and then we can't mine in space because we lack the resources to get there.
Or maybe at some point, technology development will simply stop accelerating for economical reasons: If you don't have the time to market your invention before it is obsolete, a company will have little incentive to support its development. In that scenario, we will get continued progress, but no singularity.
I'm sure you can find quite a lot other scenarios of why the singularity doesn't arrive. But probably the true reason why the singularity doesn't arrive will be one no one of us could even have thought of, because we have no clue about the technology existing then, and the effects it has on us.
You didn't really think about the security issues, did you? How do you know if some unauthorized third person listens tro your telepathy stream? Don't tell me you're able to do real-time RSA encryption in your head!
Ground control to Major Tom, your laptop's dead, there's something wrong! Can you read me, Major Tom? Can you read me, Major Tom? Can you... Here, I'm sitting at my laptop far above the world. My laptop's screen turned blue, and there's nothing I can do...
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. Even those conducting the test didn't notice the space ship nearby.
Western Washington University is, surprisingly, to the west of the state. I know they were doing some fantastic work with rotary engines in ancient days, but I don't know what the clowns are doing now.
Unicycling, of course.
That's not so clear-cut. You obviously define "chicken-egg" as "egg from which a chicken grows" but "an egg laid by a chicken" is an equally valid definition. Indeed, one could even argue that it is a better definition, because for example from those chicken eggs you get in a supermarket in general there couldn't grow a chicken. Now applying that definition, the egg that your almost-chicken laid was clearly not a chicken egg, because it wasn't laid by a chicken. From this almost-chicken egg then grew a chicken, which subsequently laid chicken eggs. Therefore the chicken was first.
Of course all that ignores that there's no clear-cut line between chickens and non-chickens anyway.
They should use proportional punch cards.
But with proportional fonts you cannot properly align parts where the first line has text before the first item, such as
[the misalignment of baz in the first function is due to a Slashdot ecode tag bug, which apparently changes the number of spaces, so I can only get one space too many or one too little]
vs.
void foo(int bar, // ...
int baz)
{
}
int something(int (*f)(some_t), // ...
some_t& blah)
{
}
Note that I made the alignment above that it's almost correctly aligned for my font settings. It isn't exactly correctly aligned because a space has a certain fixed width, and alignment may be completely broken for anyone using another proportional font. Indeed, the proportional font in the Slashdot editing box leads to another alignment than the proportional font in the preview (I just hope that the indentation in the final non-preview version isn't different again). For the fixed-width code I didn't have that problem: What aligns OK on one fixed-width font also aligned OK on any other (indeed, I got the alignment right by just counting spaces, despite having to input in a proportional font; I could have entered it in a fixed-width font editor window and copy/pasted it to the browser instead, of course).
But compiling code written that way is awkward.
It's probably safer anyway to use different browsers for intranet and internet.
Could it be that some of those Christmas decorations not only contained electronics, but also cancer-producing substances in the plastic parts?
On my keyboard (a modern one with Windows keys) they are still labelled differently (the one on the alphanumeric block has an arrow with angle, pointing first down, then left, while the one on the numeric keypad is labelled "Enter").
Now I get it! All those 101 courses are actually LOL courses!
Bad idea. Better call it MY_CONSTANT. :-)
Many of those on Slashdot are younger than 9 years?
Which is exactly why sane browsers do not allow JS to access the clipboard by default.
It's not in my NoScript whitelist (just checked). But anyway, even if it were, RequestPolicy would reliably block it anyways.
I never use Ctrl+C when copying from web sites. I just mark the text on the web page, and then paste it whereever I want.
Does this come as a surprise to anyone? :-)
They have. Don't confuse a free market with free people. On a free market, you are free to sell whatever you want, at whatever price you want. You are not necessarily free to say whatever you want.
What did China do when they found all the bugs the US government put in the plane we sold them?
They debugged it?
I can understand how "We can't enforce copyright on software and music when we're busy lifting hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty as a developing nation" works but I can't understand how "We need to arrest and persecute human rights activists because we're a developing nation" works.
Human rights might get in conflict with economic growth, for example because without child labour you don't get cheap enough, or because you'd reduce your profits if you'd have to care that people don't get ill because of your poisonous waste ...
Whenever you have a singularity in your theory, your theory almost certainly will fail before getting to that singularity, because there's something happening that you don't know, because you've never experienced anything so close to the apparent singularity. Indeed, even if you have mere exponential growth, you already should expect that there's something which will stop it.
Maybe as our technology improves faster and faster, the probability of some technology getting out of control (either through lack of precaution, or through terrorists, religious end-of-world fanatics or whoever misusing the technology to harm us) approaches 1, and then we get back to the technical level of the stone age, because all the advanced technology got destroyed, most people died, and the few left don't have enough knowledge to recreate the technology from scratch.
Or maybe at some point development of the technology comes to a halt because we have used up the materials found on Earth before we started to get efficient mining in space, and then we can't mine in space because we lack the resources to get there.
Or maybe at some point, technology development will simply stop accelerating for economical reasons: If you don't have the time to market your invention before it is obsolete, a company will have little incentive to support its development. In that scenario, we will get continued progress, but no singularity.
I'm sure you can find quite a lot other scenarios of why the singularity doesn't arrive. But probably the true reason why the singularity doesn't arrive will be one no one of us could even have thought of, because we have no clue about the technology existing then, and the effects it has on us.
We need only two exceptions to cover all interesting cases:
You waster!
I only transmit messages via telepathy!
You didn't really think about the security issues, did you? How do you know if some unauthorized third person listens tro your telepathy stream?
Don't tell me you're able to do real-time RSA encryption in your head!
Ground control to Major Tom, ... ...
your laptop's dead, there's something wrong!
Can you read me, Major Tom?
Can you read me, Major Tom?
Can you
Here, I'm sitting at my laptop
far above the world.
My laptop's screen turned blue,
and there's nothing I can do
His fact-checking database was hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.
And in the case of EM, he could simply cover his walls with anti-EM wallpaper.