And just how are you supposed to write "tests for correctness" when the very concept of what is "correct" is embedded in the code?
Simple: If the original code is the specification, then the tests have to be written such that they pass with the original code. That is, the original code is the test suite for the test suite.
FTFA: "They've recently learned some hard lessons about the consequences of non-existant configuration management. Their maintenance efforts are also greatly hampered by the vast accumulation of undocumented "sludge" in the code itself."
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
So what the hell kind of chance have you got?
Let's see. Is Anonymous Coward a distinguished scientist? Possible, but highly improbable. Is Anonymous Coward elderly? Not impossible, but the style of his writing at least speaks against the combination of the latter two characteristics. Did Anonymous Coward state that it is impossible? Definitively not. He said it won't happen because it is too hard.
Note that too hard = too expensive. If a means of communication costs more than your financial advantage of using it, nobody will be willing to pay for it. Remember, we are speaking about business people here. The only thing they are interested is how much money it makes them in the end.
How to go to the moon was a purely engineering problem. All the necessary fundamental physics was already known since the time of Newton. The low detection probability is a problem of fundamental physics. Unless there's a breakthrough in fundamental physics, there's nothing you can do about it.
Either I don't understand the consequences of a neutrino:nucleon reaction cross-section on the order of 10^-43 m^2, or a technology writer is bafflegabbing.
Well, given the recent discovery of the Higgs particle, maybe they hope to locally shield the Higgs field in order to decrease the mass of the W boson and thus increase the cross section of weak interactions in that region.:-)
Actually, the true reason for the current financial market disaster are experiments for even faster communication: As is well known, nothing travels faster than bad news. Currently there's an experiment in using bad news for quickly communicating transaction information.
It is not possible to use entanglement for instantaneous communication (unless you already independently have such a communication channel). This impossibility is not a technical limitation but a fundamental property of quantum mechanics. So unless quantum mechanics (the very theory that predicted entanglement!) is wrong (very unlikely given the experimental support), there is absolutely no way this can be overcome.
Note that if there were a way to use it for instantaneous communication, there would also be a way to use it to communicate into the past, even without invoking relativistic effects: Just follow the same protocol. Since this protocol cannot depend on a direct interaction between sender and receiver, it will also work if the receiver part is done first.
So you really think after a nuclear war mankind will not go through dark ages? Hell, it probably would need a few thousand years to at least reach stone-age level again.
Well, if there's a nearby Supernova, they really won't have much time to sell. Also, it will not matter how much money they'll lose because they'll very soon have no longer any use for it.
Well if you tell a potential new Linux user they have to flash the BIOS (find the right one for each motherboard) they are going to be a lot less likely to do that than when you tell them: here pop in the LiveCD.
Indeed, this would scare away not only potential new Linux users. BIOS updates have the well-known property that if something goes wrong, you cannot correct it later. It is one thing to install an operating system where you know well that if you've got problems, no matter how serious, as last resort you can always restore the old state. It is something different to do something where the worst thing that can happen is to brick your computer. Even if the probability is low, it's an additional psychological barrier.
My Uncle, and cousins run a very successful business with revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Correction: Your uncle any cousins run a business which currently is very successful. You don't know if it will still be very successful in ten years. And it may be that the reason of a future failure is not recognizing a problem which he would have recognized if he had a solid basic understanding of mathematics (for example, underestimating the importance of an exponentially growing trend). Of course it may also well be that he'll still be successful, or that he will fail for a completely different reason. But the point is that his chances to continued success would be higher with a solid basic understanding of mathematics.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple: If the original code is the specification, then the tests have to be written such that they pass with the original code. That is, the original code is the test suite for the test suite.
FTFA: "They've recently learned some hard lessons about the consequences of non-existant configuration management. Their maintenance efforts are also greatly hampered by the vast accumulation of undocumented "sludge" in the code itself."
While this may be the best solution, it will probably be very hard to sell it.
Of course. The point of being rich is having more than others. If everyone were rich, actually nobody would be.
Tachyons still are not fast enough. What we need is a reliable oracle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
So what the hell kind of chance have you got?
Let's see.
Is Anonymous Coward a distinguished scientist? Possible, but highly improbable.
Is Anonymous Coward elderly? Not impossible, but the style of his writing at least speaks against the combination of the latter two characteristics.
Did Anonymous Coward state that it is impossible? Definitively not. He said it won't happen because it is too hard.
Note that too hard = too expensive. If a means of communication costs more than your financial advantage of using it, nobody will be willing to pay for it. Remember, we are speaking about business people here. The only thing they are interested is how much money it makes them in the end.
Actually, I'd not forbid holding stock that short. I'd just make the taxes for it approach 100%. That is, make it unprofitable.
How to go to the moon was a purely engineering problem. All the necessary fundamental physics was already known since the time of Newton.
The low detection probability is a problem of fundamental physics. Unless there's a breakthrough in fundamental physics, there's nothing you can do about it.
Either I don't understand the consequences of a neutrino:nucleon reaction cross-section on the order of 10^-43 m^2, or a technology writer is bafflegabbing.
Well, given the recent discovery of the Higgs particle, maybe they hope to locally shield the Higgs field in order to decrease the mass of the W boson and thus increase the cross section of weak interactions in that region. :-)
Actually, the true reason for the current financial market disaster are experiments for even faster communication: As is well known, nothing travels faster than bad news. Currently there's an experiment in using bad news for quickly communicating transaction information.
It is not possible to use entanglement for instantaneous communication (unless you already independently have such a communication channel). This impossibility is not a technical limitation but a fundamental property of quantum mechanics. So unless quantum mechanics (the very theory that predicted entanglement!) is wrong (very unlikely given the experimental support), there is absolutely no way this can be overcome.
Note that if there were a way to use it for instantaneous communication, there would also be a way to use it to communicate into the past, even without invoking relativistic effects: Just follow the same protocol. Since this protocol cannot depend on a direct interaction between sender and receiver, it will also work if the receiver part is done first.
So you really think after a nuclear war mankind will not go through dark ages? Hell, it probably would need a few thousand years to at least reach stone-age level again.
Well, if there's a nearby Supernova, they really won't have much time to sell. Also, it will not matter how much money they'll lose because they'll very soon have no longer any use for it.
From the article:
Exchange "Apple II" by any current Apple product, and that line might be found as well on Slashdot today.
Actually I think Intelligence Agencies would be the first to get it. If they don't already have it, of course.
Well, just wait for the FUCK act (Facebook Update Complete Knowledge act). That will make it illegal to not put everything about yourself on Facebook.
Well, you can just claim that you just want to shield from the evil phone radiation.
Indeed, this would scare away not only potential new Linux users. BIOS updates have the well-known property that if something goes wrong, you cannot correct it later. It is one thing to install an operating system where you know well that if you've got problems, no matter how serious, as last resort you can always restore the old state. It is something different to do something where the worst thing that can happen is to brick your computer. Even if the probability is low, it's an additional psychological barrier.
But at the same time they forbid it on ARM.
I assume you haven't heard the adage that goes "A fool learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the fool's mistake"
In other words, when there are no fools around the wise man doesn't learn anything at all. :-)
Because every self-respecting reader would avoid any author doing such a thing like the plague?
So you don't think ebooks on iOS devices are a market?
Or you don't think Apple controls it?
In the current context, I'd specifically insert "political science".
I think you are confusing algebra with arithmetic.
Correction: Your uncle any cousins run a business which currently is very successful. You don't know if it will still be very successful in ten years. And it may be that the reason of a future failure is not recognizing a problem which he would have recognized if he had a solid basic understanding of mathematics (for example, underestimating the importance of an exponentially growing trend). Of course it may also well be that he'll still be successful, or that he will fail for a completely different reason. But the point is that his chances to continued success would be higher with a solid basic understanding of mathematics.