...hotkey systems for the PC since the very first PCs shipped. In fact, I remember writing TSRs to do this for DOS myself many years ago. There are countless such products now in existence. Why has this one been singled out for a story on Slashdot?
No it isn't. Complex webs of contracts have been set up. You might imagine the studio has complete control over its tracks but it doesn't. A simple example: They may have signed various types of contract with a variety of distributors all over the world. If studio X has given distributor Y exclusive rights to song Z in country W for a certain time then X might not be able to sell the song on iTunes because Apple then becomes a competing distributor to Y breaking the exclusivity contract. Sure, X might want to sell the song, but it's not in Y's interest to let them do so.
These are very different kinds of assumptions. Lorentz invariance isn't just a desirable characteristic for a theory. It's an empirically observable phenomenon so for a theory to be physical it needs to satisfy Lorentz invariance.
Unitarity, on the other hand, is another kettle of fish entirely. It's a bit like insisting that probabilities add up to one. Imagine devising an experiment to determine whether or not the probability of all possible outcomes of a die roll add up to one. There's no such thing. It's a prerequisite for a theory to make sense.
But the question is: how much effort should be put into pursuing it when we have competing ideas like loop quantum gravity and others that are also cool in their own way? Sure, if we only had String Theory, then it would have to be pursued to the bitter end. But that's not how it is. And despite the fact that I think String Theory is amazing stuff, I'm tempted to say that it's now time to put more effort (or more specifically, more PhD candidates) into other approaches.
I think much of the debate over string theory is, at heart, irrational.
Totally. It's hard to talk about String Theory without people sizing you up to see if you're pro or con and then launching an attack. Whatever anyone says, String Theory includes some incredibly beautiful mathematics and and has some applications to other branches of physics, so I found it worthy of study. I've never felt any need to decide whether or not I think it's 'true' and don't understand the need for other people to take sides. People lose out by not being able to borrow from the ideas that they have prematurely labeled as 'false', even if they turn out to actually be false.
String theory describes very neatly and elegantly, using complex multidimensional mathematics, an imaginary universe.
Just for the record I thought I'd add that the classical mechanics of Newton (as well as Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, Special Relativity, General Relativity, and just about every other physical theory) also "describes very neatly and elegantly, using complex multidimensional mathematics, an imaginary universe", so your statement has a fairly low information content.
Inventing ideas using a pencil, paper and supercomputer are no match for measuring first and then performing a detailed analysis
This is like telling a golfer that it helps to put the ball somewhere near the little hole. Why not say something that has content rather than recycle truisms?
String theory always seemed to be the most complicated mathematical way you could "force" a unified field theory into existence...
On the contrary, it is the simplest. The standard model has an arbitrary set if particles with few principles guiding how they should be chosen, and an arbitrary set of interactions that can take place between particles. It doesn't even single out 4 dimensions as special in any way - the choice of 4D is completely arbitrary. The choice of 30 or so constants defining the interaction strengths is also arbitrary.
String theory has one particle - the string. It has one force which emerges from the very simple dynamics put into it at the outset. A wide spectrum of particles and interactions emerges from it in a natural way. There is little choice for the dimension of spacetime - the theory locks it down from the beginning. Gravity emerges from it naturally - something that doesn't even get mentioned in the standard model. There are close to zero arbitrary constants. And at bottom, the initial assumptions of String Theory are really simple. Simpler than other quantum field theories.
The problem with String Theory is that taken at surface value it doesn't match the universe we see. We don't see a 10-dimensional universe, we don't see the predicted spectrum of particles and so on. The publicised problems we see with String theory are from all the attempts to make our 4D universe emerge from it - and the incredible freedom we have in doing so (eg. by folding up dimensions in various ways). At core, String theory is simple, beautiful and as far from arbitrary as you can imagine. There are all kinds of things wrong with String theory. But they have nothing to do with "adding as many dimensions and undefinable, physically meaningless constants as possible", which sounds more like the ramblings of someone who doesn't have a clue what String Theory is about.
Note that I am neither for nor against String Theory, which makes me part of a tiny minority in the physics world. I certainly doubt it's the ultimate theory of anything, but I also think that there is a lot of uninformed criticism of it. I'm just telling it like it is without my own ax to grind.
There is one thing that is innate within all living things as we understand it and that our being has a need to multiply.
I'm married but have no kids. We have no intention of having kids. We employ various forms of technology to prevent us having kids. What are you talking about?
The point is, this poster has found that the iTunes sales model fits the way they buy music. There is no single way to buy music. There is no unique type of customer. And I agree - I don't mind paying $0.99/track even though I can't play it on a Zen. $0.99/track, with restrictions, is worth it to me. It's great. I intend to continue buying music like this. It's not because I'm stupid. It's not because I'm unaware of the consequences of my actions. It's because a track that I want, with restrictions, is worth more to me than $0.99. It's that simple. The only people who don't understand this are people who have a religious anti-DRM ax to grind. That's their problem.
Not to mention that I can use the excuse "but the old one is broken" every time I want to get the price of a new gadget past my wife's scrutinizing of the bank account...
You can program a machine to be aware of it's power (Voltage) and you can have a program set to monitor that power with cameras and laser beams and whatever else with commands to shoot laser beams at any device that comes near that power but the machine still isn't aware of what power is.
Few people know what power is. They get hungry, and then they eat.
What does conscious thought have to do with mistakes? Mistakes are when you have some kind of expectation and those expectations fail to be met. If I buy some accounting software, and the figures don't add up correctly, then the software has made a mistake (which in turn is probably caused by a mistake made by a developer). If you make the definition of 'mistake' hinge on concepts like 'conscious mind' and other tricky philosophical ideas then it's a wonder you can get anything done in your day.
My computer science teacher once said to me that a computer is basically on the same level of intelligence as a cockroach. It evaluates in positive and negatives, 1s and 0s.
You have digital cockroaches in your part of the world?
Computers shouldn't be programmed to know they can make mistakes. They should observe themselves making mistakes and learn that they can. Sheesh. Next you'll be suggesting that children should be programmed from birth to believe whatever it's convenient for their parents to have them believe...
Firstly, 45 is not enough for a statistical analysis involving brain scans
Clearly you are unfamiliar with statistics or you'd never make such a ridiculous claim. Firstly, statistical analysis is agnostic about its subject matter. Whether or not its about "brain scans" or predicting the weather has no bearing on what's a good sample size. Secondly, you measure whether or not a sample size is good enough by looking at the statistical significance, not the absolute size of the sample. In an extreme case, if 50% of people were altruistic (by some measure), and you could predict this perfectly form a "brain scan" then this would be so statistically significant that it would be off the scale. In fact, it'd be pretty significant with only a sample size of 10.
Being self-concious would have an obvious affect (sic) on altruistic tendencies.
You really don't get it do you. If you find a statistically significant correlation, you find a statistically significant correlation. If it's significant enough, you can be confident that there's some kind of causal mechnanism at work (though what is cause and what is effect may be hard to determine). These people now have some information that gives them predictive power.
While it is true that we are born selfish, Freud...
...opinion pieces about technology. The ones who write things like: "The iPod will fail" "Nobody will buy an Xbox" "Nobody will buy a PS3" "The iPhone is a disaster" "Why would anyone buy a GBA Micro when it does no more than a GBA?" "The problem with X is they released their product before anyone else so nobody understood what it was" "The problem with X is they released their product at the same time as competitors" "The problem with X is they released their product too late" and so on. And then I'd like to do something really mean to them. Oh...I don't know exactly what...maybe tickle them with an ostrich feather while they're tied up and can do nothing about it. Really nasty anyway.
Quantum teleportation allows you to piggy-back qubits on bits. But you're conflating two different senses of speed. Quantum teleportation might, in some sense, be used to increase information rate, but that is entirely different from the speed of a message. (Think of trucks full of hard drives. High data rate, low signal speed.) So there's no sense in which anything is being sent at twice lightspeed.
I think many people really don't appreciate how difficult quantum simulations are. I was pretty surprised when I worked in pharmaceuticals for a bit and saw how much CPU time was being expended on fundamentally simple ball-and-stick simulations. (Ball-and-stick seemed to be standard terminology, even though it looks like a derogatory term.) I was also pretty shocked by how many tunable parameters there were - mainly because things like bonds were added ad hoc rather than emerging naturally from the simulation. Bonding is fundamentally a quantum phenomenon so it can never emerge from a classical simulation without being explicitly added as a kind of spring. And because bonding doesn't really make sense in a classical context, it actually behaves very differently from any kind of spring, and that's why you have to keep tuning the spring parameters to make things look reasonable.
But when I realised how hard quantum simulations could be it started seeming reasonable again. Quantum simulations aren't just an order of magnitude more difficult. The order of magnitude of difficulty can itself be an order of magnitude bigger!
The theory that predicts the existence of "spooky action at a distance" is the same theory that predicts you can't use it to communicate - in the sense that there is no instantaneous transmission of usable information.
But suppose there were some fancy physics that could form the basis for direct brain-to-brain communication. What would have happened during natural selection? If such a mechanism were available, surely it would have been selected for over speech. Speech requires years before users master it and is limited by the transmission of sound. If you could short circuit that then you'd have a considerable advantage. Telepaths would have wiped the floor with us normals millions of years ago.
The difference is this. Suppose X is easier to prove in court than Y, and X->Y and Y->X. Then the optimal strategy is to prove X first and use that as a precedent for your next lawsuit. Suppose you try to prove Y first. Because it's harder you're more likely to fail, and as a result X will also be a losing lawsuit if Y is seen as a precedent.
In logic, it may be optimal to prove X first because its easier, but it doesn't become more likely that Y is true is a result. Reordering merely changes the difficulty of proof, not the outcome.
...depends on the order in which your pursue them. It's lucky that law isn't based on anything like logic where the order of facts makes no difference to whether or not they are true.
The latter article is about phase velocity. Phase velocity is the speed at which the individual peaks and valleys of the signal appear to travel. But peaks and valleys aren't actual 'things' and you can't transmit information using them. (See here.) This latest story is about the rate at which you can transmit information, so it's about group velocity.
Despite the fact that the theory was worked out more well over a century ago, almost every modern pop science story about manipulating the speed of light leaves out these crucial points.
Slashdot Mirror
...hotkey systems for the PC since the very first PCs shipped. In fact, I remember writing TSRs to do this for DOS myself many years ago. There are countless such products now in existence. Why has this one been singled out for a story on Slashdot?
Unitarity, on the other hand, is another kettle of fish entirely. It's a bit like insisting that probabilities add up to one. Imagine devising an experiment to determine whether or not the probability of all possible outcomes of a die roll add up to one. There's no such thing. It's a prerequisite for a theory to make sense.
String theory has one particle - the string. It has one force which emerges from the very simple dynamics put into it at the outset. A wide spectrum of particles and interactions emerges from it in a natural way. There is little choice for the dimension of spacetime - the theory locks it down from the beginning. Gravity emerges from it naturally - something that doesn't even get mentioned in the standard model. There are close to zero arbitrary constants. And at bottom, the initial assumptions of String Theory are really simple. Simpler than other quantum field theories.
The problem with String Theory is that taken at surface value it doesn't match the universe we see. We don't see a 10-dimensional universe, we don't see the predicted spectrum of particles and so on. The publicised problems we see with String theory are from all the attempts to make our 4D universe emerge from it - and the incredible freedom we have in doing so (eg. by folding up dimensions in various ways). At core, String theory is simple, beautiful and as far from arbitrary as you can imagine. There are all kinds of things wrong with String theory. But they have nothing to do with "adding as many dimensions and undefinable, physically meaningless constants as possible", which sounds more like the ramblings of someone who doesn't have a clue what String Theory is about.
Note that I am neither for nor against String Theory, which makes me part of a tiny minority in the physics world. I certainly doubt it's the ultimate theory of anything, but I also think that there is a lot of uninformed criticism of it. I'm just telling it like it is without my own ax to grind.
The point is, this poster has found that the iTunes sales model fits the way they buy music. There is no single way to buy music. There is no unique type of customer. And I agree - I don't mind paying $0.99/track even though I can't play it on a Zen. $0.99/track, with restrictions, is worth it to me. It's great. I intend to continue buying music like this. It's not because I'm stupid. It's not because I'm unaware of the consequences of my actions. It's because a track that I want, with restrictions, is worth more to me than $0.99. It's that simple. The only people who don't understand this are people who have a religious anti-DRM ax to grind. That's their problem.
I bet Barzan Ibrahim wished he had one.
Not to mention that I can use the excuse "but the old one is broken" every time I want to get the price of a new gadget past my wife's scrutinizing of the bank account...
Computers shouldn't be programmed to know they can make mistakes. They should observe themselves making mistakes and learn that they can. Sheesh. Next you'll be suggesting that children should be programmed from birth to believe whatever it's convenient for their parents to have them believe...
I love my GB Micro!
...opinion pieces about technology. The ones who write things like: "The iPod will fail" "Nobody will buy an Xbox" "Nobody will buy a PS3" "The iPhone is a disaster" "Why would anyone buy a GBA Micro when it does no more than a GBA?" "The problem with X is they released their product before anyone else so nobody understood what it was" "The problem with X is they released their product at the same time as competitors" "The problem with X is they released their product too late" and so on. And then I'd like to do something really mean to them. Oh...I don't know exactly what...maybe tickle them with an ostrich feather while they're tied up and can do nothing about it. Really nasty anyway.
Quantum teleportation allows you to piggy-back qubits on bits. But you're conflating two different senses of speed. Quantum teleportation might, in some sense, be used to increase information rate, but that is entirely different from the speed of a message. (Think of trucks full of hard drives. High data rate, low signal speed.) So there's no sense in which anything is being sent at twice lightspeed.
But when I realised how hard quantum simulations could be it started seeming reasonable again. Quantum simulations aren't just an order of magnitude more difficult. The order of magnitude of difficulty can itself be an order of magnitude bigger!
But suppose there were some fancy physics that could form the basis for direct brain-to-brain communication. What would have happened during natural selection? If such a mechanism were available, surely it would have been selected for over speech. Speech requires years before users master it and is limited by the transmission of sound. If you could short circuit that then you'd have a considerable advantage. Telepaths would have wiped the floor with us normals millions of years ago.
In logic, it may be optimal to prove X first because its easier, but it doesn't become more likely that Y is true is a result. Reordering merely changes the difficulty of proof, not the outcome.
...depends on the order in which your pursue them. It's lucky that law isn't based on anything like logic where the order of facts makes no difference to whether or not they are true.
Most of those models have used classical mechanics with really primitive ball and spring models and a bunch of ad hoc rules for bonding.
Despite the fact that the theory was worked out more well over a century ago, almost every modern pop science story about manipulating the speed of light leaves out these crucial points.