I worked once for a company where the engineering culture expected that you'd do all-nighters around product release time. I never did and I expect I was way more productive.
I did **once** go in at 4 am with a batch of freshly baked muffins. People were walking about like zombies or lying around on their desks waiting for a build or test to complete. Hollow shells. Come approx 9 am they all went home completely stuffed and slept until about 3pm when they came back to work still half-zonked to work another overnighter of almost zero productivity. In the mean time, I did a normal 9-5 and achieved quite a bit. I then biked home at a civilised hour and played with the kids etc. Came back the next morning fresh and ready to engage!
It is well understood and documented that you often solve problems while doing something other than sitting in front of a computer. Take a dump, have a shower, go fishing.... You need the balance to be a productive worker.
Does a boss really expect you to answer a blackberry any more than the phone if the boss has your home/personal cell number? I don't see how the blackberry changes anything really.
Perhaps this is not so much the blackberry per se, but rather a demographics thing. ie. People who get blackberries on corporate accounts are more likely to be the type doing 24/7 comms. Before they had a blackberry they'd have been doing 24/7 phonecalls.
FTFA: D-Wave Chief Executive Herb Martin emphasized that the machine is not a true quantum computer and is instead a kind of special-purpose machine that uses some quantum mechanics to solve problems.
"Users don't care about quantum computing -- users care about application acceleration. That's our thrust," he said. "A general purpose quantum computer is a waste of time. You could spend hundreds of billions of dollars on it" and not create a working computer.
This means that the astronaut will have to work harder (consuming more fuel/oxygen, generating more waste heat that needs to be processed). A human working flat out is only good for a few hundred watts. In space that would be hard to achieve. Anyone who has tried doing hard physical work in weightlessness will tell you how difficult that is. I have not worked in space, but I have worked underwater which was pretty difficult.
Sure this would give them a much needed work-out, but that is far better to do inside where there is better oxygen supply, waste heat/water processing etc.. Rather use an exercise bike driving a generator which is likely to be far more efficient.
Basically this sounds far more like a solution looking for a problem that anything really useful.
You oust an existing technology, you need more than a high coolness factor. NAND flash costs less than 2c per MByte and falling. There are plenty factories set up to produce it, it is fast enough and low power enough for most mobile applications.
In 2-3 years there might be a nanotube demo, but that's a long way from being something that you can mass produce for significantly lower cost than NAND.
The problem with many parallel disigns is that they are limited by Amdahl's Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_Law such that a few CPUs make sense, but large numbers don't (except to the salesman's commission).
The term "massively parallel" indicates a system operating without those constraint.
So if your relationship goes tits up, you can always convert the tree into firewood.
This satellite think is even worse than getting a tattoo! At least you can erase a tattoo or if you're lucky you can change "Bob loves Ann" into "Bob loves Angela", but it's going to be pretty difficult to go to space and make the modifications.
I agree fully that the above is broken for everyone, and does nothing but give MS a sort of indemnity ("Got a virus? Well we did warn you..."), but what really good options are there for Joe Sixpack?
The *nix model also has a far way to go for Joe Sixpack users too. Want to install software? Need root? How many people can remember root passwords etc?
Still, the hardest part of using *nix for Joe Sixpack is managing permissions of devices etc. Want to use a serial port? Got to set up permissions. If it is a USB serial port, then you have to do this every time you boot/plug in (unless you're hairy chested enough to write a script).
The capabilities of the technology have far outstripped the capabilities of the average user.
Perhaps MS are "pushing towards DX10", but by ignoring DX9 issues they leave you in no man's land. MS: that is a very stupid place to dump people when you're trying to get them to switch to Vista to boost your revenue stream.
It is not a matter of whether or not you listened to a song, but whether you want to keep it. You read the title etc and think this is going to be the best song ever. Buy it and it is crap. So then you want to return it and get your money back. After all, nobody is selling bits here, they are selling enjoyment. If the poroduct does not deliver enjoyment, then it is "broken" - much like clothing that is returned because it does not fit or is the wrong color etc.
The same will likely also apply to software if this goes ahead. Don't like it or it does not do what you expect? Sell it, or return it. Sure MS etc might make that very hard, but some companies do allow it. Many countries do have comsumer guarantees that support the customer and in that will make it harder for companies not to take back merchandise.
Sure, people could use this to rip off music companies, but the same deal applies to just about any sale or service. Why should music get a special deal because it is digital?
Let's say that some super ( greater than human) intelligence emerged? How would we recognise it?
If this intelligence was self-promoting (as we are), then it would do whatever it takes to protect itself from us (like we do from other animals/diseases etc). The first we'd probably realise that something is going on is when we wake up one morning to find ourselves enslaved.
If, however, the super intelligence is peaceful and benign we'd probably just stomp it into the ground and never realise its full potential.
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Buy a Lego Mindstorms system and explore robotics. Contribute to an OSS project. Learn to flyfish, knit, frisbee,...
I did **once** go in at 4 am with a batch of freshly baked muffins. People were walking about like zombies or lying around on their desks waiting for a build or test to complete. Hollow shells. Come approx 9 am they all went home completely stuffed and slept until about 3pm when they came back to work still half-zonked to work another overnighter of almost zero productivity. In the mean time, I did a normal 9-5 and achieved quite a bit. I then biked home at a civilised hour and played with the kids etc. Came back the next morning fresh and ready to engage!
It is well understood and documented that you often solve problems while doing something other than sitting in front of a computer. Take a dump, have a shower, go fishing.... You need the balance to be a productive worker.
Perhaps this is not so much the blackberry per se, but rather a demographics thing. ie. People who get blackberries on corporate accounts are more likely to be the type doing 24/7 comms. Before they had a blackberry they'd have been doing 24/7 phonecalls.
Read http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/02/15/quantum.c omputer.ap/
FTFA: D-Wave Chief Executive Herb Martin emphasized that the machine is not a true quantum computer and is instead a kind of special-purpose machine that uses some quantum mechanics to solve problems. "Users don't care about quantum computing -- users care about application acceleration. That's our thrust," he said. "A general purpose quantum computer is a waste of time. You could spend hundreds of billions of dollars on it" and not create a working computer.
Sure this would give them a much needed work-out, but that is far better to do inside where there is better oxygen supply, waste heat/water processing etc.. Rather use an exercise bike driving a generator which is likely to be far more efficient.
Basically this sounds far more like a solution looking for a problem that anything really useful.
You are a lucky winner in our "Win a Tommahawk Cruise Missile" competition.
In 2-3 years there might be a nanotube demo, but that's a long way from being something that you can mass produce for significantly lower cost than NAND.
Companies could very easily request/encourage/force employees to do a merit update every morning.
Any system is open to abuse. At least the Google model is pretty easy to understand.
The term "massively parallel" indicates a system operating without those constraint.
This satellite think is even worse than getting a tattoo! At least you can erase a tattoo or if you're lucky you can change "Bob loves Ann" into "Bob loves Angela", but it's going to be pretty difficult to go to space and make the modifications.
Many a /.er treats /. as a social nw site where you might try to build karma, bitch about MS etc etc.
Linux is Finnish
You just watch safely from another dimesion.
The *nix model also has a far way to go for Joe Sixpack users too. Want to install software? Need root? How many people can remember root passwords etc?
Still, the hardest part of using *nix for Joe Sixpack is managing permissions of devices etc. Want to use a serial port? Got to set up permissions. If it is a USB serial port, then you have to do this every time you boot/plug in (unless you're hairy chested enough to write a script).
The capabilities of the technology have far outstripped the capabilities of the average user.
Are prisoners in USA allowed phones in their cells? I thought smuggling phones into jails was a big problem.
Perhaps MS are "pushing towards DX10", but by ignoring DX9 issues they leave you in no man's land. MS: that is a very stupid place to dump people when you're trying to get them to switch to Vista to boost your revenue stream.
The same will likely also apply to software if this goes ahead. Don't like it or it does not do what you expect? Sell it, or return it. Sure MS etc might make that very hard, but some companies do allow it. Many countries do have comsumer guarantees that support the customer and in that will make it harder for companies not to take back merchandise.
Sure, people could use this to rip off music companies, but the same deal applies to just about any sale or service. Why should music get a special deal because it is digital?
The mob use phones to set up deals and pay AT&T!
That $100 HD will now cost $150. Nice.
If this intelligence was self-promoting (as we are), then it would do whatever it takes to protect itself from us (like we do from other animals/diseases etc). The first we'd probably realise that something is going on is when we wake up one morning to find ourselves enslaved.
If, however, the super intelligence is peaceful and benign we'd probably just stomp it into the ground and never realise its full potential.
Patents require a lot of money and thus are exclusive to those that can afford them.
Can I cancel my order?
I got pissed off with what someone said so I deleted that blue 'e' on my computer. Now the whole internet has been destroyed.