Suppose things were easy and we lived in a classical world. Then to teleport a particle from location A to B then all we'd have to do is send a message from A to B saying "there is particle of type X at position Y with momentum Z" and the person at the other end could go into a box, get one of the particles of type X out, and place it at a new position Y' (which is a suitable translate of Y) with momentum Z. Call this process 'C'.
The above is relatively easy. Now think how far that is from actual teleportation. It's a scheme for transporting one particle. It's conceptually trivial, but in practice it gets us nowhere if we want to beam a person from A to B.
Now the world is more complicated than this because it's quantum, not classical. This sets us back because we can't even carry out process 'C'. (Heisenberg principle 'n' all that.) What 'quantum teleportation' does is implement a new process Q that accomplishes most of what C does. We can send information from A to B and use it to construct a particle at B. Unlike process C, we mess up the original particle at A, so we can't use it to duplicate. But it does give an effective, though tricky, procedure for transporting a single particle. Suppose someone had a machine for doing C with single particles, I doubt anyone would be making press releases saying "we've invented a transporter".
And now we can say what process Q gets us. It gets us to a point where with more work we can do most of what C did. So it makes as much sense to call this 'teleportation' as process C. Ie. it isn't teleportation at all.
Quantum teleportation is interesting for a different reason. Not because it makes teleportation possible, but because is demolishes one argument against teleportation. In particular, it demolishes the argument Laurence Krauss uses against teleportation in The Physics of Star Trek. But honestly, this objection is more of a philosophical issue than a practical one. (Ironically, quantum teleportation means that Star Trek wouldn't need 'Heisenberg compensators':-)
...when Jupiter has had a bright red storm for at least 400 years that could probably engulf the entire earth. But I guess Uranus is just doing its own thing, not really trying to impress anyone.
I reached the ejaculating hanged corpse. I thought that bit was mildly entertaining, at least compared to the rest of the tedious 200 pages I read.
Actually there was one bit that made me laugh. It perfectly encapsulated the sort of thing you might believe when stoned - the way certain things suddenly cohere together and make perfect sense in a eureka! moment. But I can't actually remember the line. (No, this isn't meant to be a joke, I really wish I could remember...)
...few weeks ago. After about 200 pages I gave up. I never give up on books. Well, almost never. But this was the worst written crap I have ever read in my life. I was so let down. This book is a modern icon that has had so many cultural influences. I've had the book on my shelf for many many years. But it was unreadable. It was so bad I could't bear to keep it around the house and sold it again. So here's my recommendation: the idea of the Illuminatus! Trilogy is wonderful. Whatever you do, don't ruin the idea by actually reading the book.
Besides being bad literature it does a terrible job of building up a believable conspiracy theory. This book may have helped create the conspiracy theory genre, but later authors have done so much better with the idea. Even Dan Brown's writing looks good by comparison.
I don't see how any comparison can be made to TV...last time I checked you don't pay per episode of any show.
Think of Firefly. Canceled mid-series because it wasn't earning enough revenue. Much of the time, TV series are paid for one season at a time. Think of a season as an 'episode'. One of the trickiest aspects for scriptwriters is to work with the constraint that they don't know how many 'episodes' there will be. For example, Babylon 5 was conceived as a 5 series story. But apparently, due to threats of cancelation, it was shortened to 4 seasons, and then, after the story was accelerated, extended back to 5 seasons. These are the same issues that would face episodic game writers.
How are you going to feel when you're half way through a "game"...and the company then decides not to finish it because not enough people bought the last episode?
The same problem is faced by TV studios, but that hasn't stopped them producing quality TV. (Better than movie writing anyway.)
is it really a good idea to teach potentially hostile aliens about how we work
Yeah, but these aliens are going to be deceived into thinking we go around naked. I can't wait to see the surprise on their faces when they turn up with skin-crisping UV energy weapons only to discover we almost always wear protective clothing.
Why not just shove a bunch of shots onto the disk and let the user play them in whatever order they like. Save money because you can fire the editors. And you can label it 'truly interactive' to sell it for more money. Guaranteed profit.
He believes we will see the first computers as smart as people by 2015.
It's interesting to try to think about what must happen to a person to make them so divorced from reality that they make such claims. I can understand someone who knows nothing about computers making such a claim. But this is by someone who is supposedly an expert in the field. Is this person deliberately lying to be provocative? (No, the guy responds by saying it's 'realistic'.) Do they have no idea what is going on in AI? (Surely not, this person's job is to track such things.) Does this person have no idea how complex humans are? (I doubt someone with 'business skills' is completely ignorant of human capabilities.) The only conclusion I can come to is that they have all the facts, but they are simply unable to reason reliably. I'm wondering if they believe other weird things, like that 2+2=5, or that the entire universe is only a little older than the oldest bristlecone pine.
there is still the gravity that holds the celestial bodies in orbit
If you're in orbit, you're in freefall, and gravity is, for all intents and purposes, zero.
He's right to complain. Good entertainment, or even art, isn't just about quantity. You want to work through the complete cycle of the story from beginning to end in a reasonable time, because some of the pleasure comes from experiencing that cycle, not just from the individual bits that make up the game. If the game is too long it becomes boring and you never get to experience that sense of closure. I'd gladly pay the same price for a shorter game that gives me more of a sense of satisfaction at the end.
Can we vote this up for weirdest post of the day? The guy's claiming that when he uses his 5MP camera in 1MP mode it produces images that look like images from a 1MP camera! To make matters worse, considers two images to be 'exactly' alike if one appears to have a 'snowstorm' of noise raging on it! That's the weirdest thing I've seen since this morning.
Slashdot Mirror
2: Your stuff about the balance of matter and energy is something you made up (unless you can cite me a reference) and has no bearing on reality.
Please don't confuse the contents of your head with either science or reality. It's stupid.
The 'life force' is a concept that was invented for Star Trek and other TV shows. Please don't confuse it with reality.
Suppose things were easy and we lived in a classical world. Then to teleport a particle from location A to B then all we'd have to do is send a message from A to B saying "there is particle of type X at position Y with momentum Z" and the person at the other end could go into a box, get one of the particles of type X out, and place it at a new position Y' (which is a suitable translate of Y) with momentum Z. Call this process 'C'.
The above is relatively easy. Now think how far that is from actual teleportation. It's a scheme for transporting one particle. It's conceptually trivial, but in practice it gets us nowhere if we want to beam a person from A to B.
Now the world is more complicated than this because it's quantum, not classical. This sets us back because we can't even carry out process 'C'. (Heisenberg principle 'n' all that.) What 'quantum teleportation' does is implement a new process Q that accomplishes most of what C does. We can send information from A to B and use it to construct a particle at B. Unlike process C, we mess up the original particle at A, so we can't use it to duplicate. But it does give an effective, though tricky, procedure for transporting a single particle. Suppose someone had a machine for doing C with single particles, I doubt anyone would be making press releases saying "we've invented a transporter".
And now we can say what process Q gets us. It gets us to a point where with more work we can do most of what C did. So it makes as much sense to call this 'teleportation' as process C. Ie. it isn't teleportation at all.
Quantum teleportation is interesting for a different reason. Not because it makes teleportation possible, but because is demolishes one argument against teleportation. In particular, it demolishes the argument Laurence Krauss uses against teleportation in The Physics of Star Trek. But honestly, this objection is more of a philosophical issue than a practical one. (Ironically, quantum teleportation means that Star Trek wouldn't need 'Heisenberg compensators' :-)
I'm just hoping that this is a general comment (to which I nod assent) rather than a specific comment about the Illuminatus! Trilogy.
...when Jupiter has had a bright red storm for at least 400 years that could probably engulf the entire earth. But I guess Uranus is just doing its own thing, not really trying to impress anyone.
Actually there was one bit that made me laugh. It perfectly encapsulated the sort of thing you might believe when stoned - the way certain things suddenly cohere together and make perfect sense in a eureka! moment. But I can't actually remember the line. (No, this isn't meant to be a joke, I really wish I could remember...)
Besides being bad literature it does a terrible job of building up a believable conspiracy theory. This book may have helped create the conspiracy theory genre, but later authors have done so much better with the idea. Even Dan Brown's writing looks good by comparison.
Can someone else tell me where exactly the 'a' went? Glitches in analog equipment don't just drop 'a's without an obvious gap.
Why not just shove a bunch of shots onto the disk and let the user play them in whatever order they like. Save money because you can fire the editors. And you can label it 'truly interactive' to sell it for more money. Guaranteed profit.
Nature still abhors a vacuum. It's just that 0.000...0001% matter is the best she can do with the available resources.
there is still the gravity that holds the celestial bodies in orbit If you're in orbit, you're in freefall, and gravity is, for all intents and purposes, zero.
...car sales did actually reduce the sales of wooden wagons, would that mean we should compensate the wagon makers for their loss of income?
So you're saying that it's the American people who are evil for choosing their government, not the government itself?
He's right to complain. Good entertainment, or even art, isn't just about quantity. You want to work through the complete cycle of the story from beginning to end in a reasonable time, because some of the pleasure comes from experiencing that cycle, not just from the individual bits that make up the game. If the game is too long it becomes boring and you never get to experience that sense of closure. I'd gladly pay the same price for a shorter game that gives me more of a sense of satisfaction at the end.
Can we vote this up for weirdest post of the day? The guy's claiming that when he uses his 5MP camera in 1MP mode it produces images that look like images from a 1MP camera! To make matters worse, considers two images to be 'exactly' alike if one appears to have a 'snowstorm' of noise raging on it! That's the weirdest thing I've seen since this morning.