Yes. But this was the time when light was considered only an electromagnetic wave. This was before Einstein's explanation of the photo effect. This explanation uses particles, 'photon's.
The article describes what happens if you only send single photons (technically possible, but normally not in your basement!). They also interfere! That's a basic phenomenon (the old 'particle-wave-duality') mathematically well described (and already exploited) but IMHO not yet really 'understood' in quantum mechanics.
Good to see people describing the quantum phenomenons as 'spooky'. Really. People tend to believe that everything's solved in physics. One has to keep in mind that physics only build *models of reality*. Of course, in daily physics speak, one talks about 'the electrons that hit the surface' etc. because there is a underlying theory which describes most of the experiments with sufficient precision. Daily physics is simply more like engineering than thinking about the world itself. But electron's are only human-invented concepts. Very successfull concepts, indeed. But only concepts. Maybe they're 'really resonances of some weird field' yet to be discovered. But what are resonances and 'this weird field'? They're also invented concepts. Concepts to aid 'understanding'. Many of my fellows (I'm studying physics) just believe they're electrons which properties and formulas to describe them. I don't. I take them as always incomplete, yet successful and helpful models of reality. Maybe this is just an arrogant statement and my 'open-mindedness' now brands me a crackpot to be modded down. But I am no crackpot. I don't believe in UFOs and stuff.
Regarding the 'multiverses': IMHO, one very important question remains: How you as yourself evolve in this multiverse. What decides which part you take in the multiverse? Why is it that you only see one universe, that you only exist in one universe? What decices where you/your conscience goes? Maybe this is the free will? I don't know but this bothers me.
ACK. It seems like that many/.ers are defining themselves by being pro-apple, pro-google, pro-ibm and anti-microsoft. Apparently, google and apple managed to get a positive image in the slashdot crowd. Microsoft is the big enemy because they're big and we're all the robin hoods of the software world, aren't we??
But they're all JUST COMPANIES. Without any 'personality'.
> Once the traffic leaves the gateway and starts heading down their cable lines, fine.
And that traffic *should* be protected by privacy laws. It's sad that most people nowadays consider traffic going over the provider's lines as 'public'.
Or do you want you phone (VoIP) company spying on you?
And another, IMHO very important question, regarding privacy: #5 Is digital data transfer (i.e. over the internet) considered less 'private' than a phone conversation? Somehow the internet is percepted as a 'public place' in most western countries. File sharing is handled (legally) like offering pirated DVD on the street corner (where one would do it for profit!). RIAA/MPAA takes the place of the police. Mails are mass scanned for no good reason.
All technical details aside, I think the most interesting of this "ad-war" is that it leads to development of technologies blocking ads, new circumventions for this technologies by the ad-makers and so forth. But who benefits?
The browser companies (admitted, mozilla doesn't get much money by selling software, but opera etc. do) and the ad-technology-"inventors".
Where are the real products? Were is the benefit for the population as a whole? I have to see it yet. One of those cases where the free market went mad.
Slashdot mirrors the current simplistic materialistic world view really well. I have expected a little bit more here than "Yes we are just a buch of molecules etc.".
Think about it. These ideas are not new. Yet they do not explain everything. There is more stuff to learn.
Maybe you're right, but who knows? As a more 'about slashdotters' side note: I think at least the moderation of "pro-penrose" vs. "pro-turing" articles shows that is more (or gets more) a place for computer geeks than physics geeks.
Yes, I thought very much about the (semi-) deterministic world. IMHO, It's easy for computer people to even believe in such a world. All these simulation games only enforce this belief;)
But... one year of studying quantum mechanics changed at least my view completely. It feeds your brain with interesting thoughts and brings you back from the deterministic viewpoint.
Reflection is part of the java class library, not the language.
This is why I was calling for an equivalent C++ class library (or a link C++->Java Class Library). C++ with JVM backend should of course have access to all the capabilities provided by the JVM.
The problem is that many people (you included) prefer apple as the lesser evil out of pragmatic reasons. I.e. apple does only 'light' DRM therefore it's ok.
For some people, DRM is ok because it's apple and apple is good, isn't it?
But this is a fundamental issue. If it is ok to:
Control what you can do or cannot do with media IN YOUR OWN FOUR WALLS.
I think the answer is no and this should not be subject to a contract, because it violates fundamental principles. Not everything can be subject to a contract.
How old is your C++ standard you're refering to? This is one of the 'PR' problems of C++, early implementations had many deficiencies and people are refering to old information.
Fact is: C++ has RTTI - run time type information. Try it out, it's nice:)
The walmart advertisement are a bit like the PC advertisements some time ago (before the linux era), which stated something like: "With PC-DOS7, the alternative OS..."... which was more or less only an invitation to replace it with a MS windows installation, i.e. "here's something to play with, you can always replace it with Win XP if you want to start your real work" alternative.
IMHO, if the end user feels that Linux is only a toy OS to replaced by "something more professional", this may also hurt the image of Linux.
You're talking about C. I was talking about C++. The only thing C++ has in common with C is that the C++ language contains the C language as a subset.
In C++, you have pointers, but you can live well without pointers, for example by using the STL (standard template library). You can wrap pointers in 'safe-pointers'. You have the power to use pointers, but you can hide them and program in a very Java-like way.
If you compare C with Java, I agree completely. But I suggest that you take a deeper look at C++, you'll find that you can easily move to C++ without being restricted by anything - and you can take advantage of the low-level possibilities (pointers and such) of C/C++, if you ever need to do.
Here in germany it's the same, there are no billboards out of cities, but I don't know if it is required by law.
I always ask myself if so much advertising, if unrestricted advertising is really productive. If it does something good to the economy as a whole. If it would not be better to restrict advertisements to a certain level(?)
It seems to me that today's advertisements do not inform about new products but instead are just there because if a company does not advertise, all other companies will advertise and therefore cut away the market share. I am no economist but that looks counter-productive to me. The money could be used to offer better products instead.
> Plus it is possible to provide advanced functionality & configurability , but make it so hidden that the vast majority of users will never see it.
Look at gnome. They've *removed* the undo code from their dialogs in the step from 1.x to 2.x. Yes, it would be ok for me if they have this functionality somewhere, if it could be enabled. But it has been simply removed! The same thing goes with the WM. You have to patch "always-on-top" into metacity to make it work!
One thing I never understood about java is how it got known to most people as more powerful, expressive and 'modern' than C++.
This is simply not true. Java is still more or less a subset of C++. Good for the people who are ok with that, but I really do not need a language which forces it's views onto me.
So I'd like to have a bytecode backend (e.g. JVM) and a class library for C++. I think most of the dispute over Java/C++ would end because everyone can write in his/her preferred language and run the code on the same meta-platorm.
Although RMS argues against it (with fears I do not understand), it would be nice to have a JVM backend for GCC. One would have C,C++,Java, Scheme (via bigloo!), Obj.-C, even Fortran as a compile-once-run-everywhere language, hopefully in a way compatible with java.class files.
Yes, I know that there is mips2java, but excuse me if I call it a temporary kludge:) (It's still nice work, but is not the straight-forward way to do it)
There is a difference between undershot and overshot waterwheels.
Undershot waterwheels use primarily the kinetic energy of the water (the situation you depicted above).
Overshot waterwheels use mainly the difference in potential energy. This is (in essence) the technology which is used in all the big dams and you can draw a lot more energy from that. But you have all the consequences - you have to create a pond, build the dam etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. But this was the time when light was considered only an electromagnetic wave. This was before Einstein's explanation of the photo effect. This explanation uses particles, 'photon's.
The article describes what happens if you only send single photons (technically possible, but normally not in your basement!). They also interfere!
That's a basic phenomenon (the old 'particle-wave-duality') mathematically well described (and already exploited) but IMHO not yet really 'understood' in quantum mechanics.
Good to see people describing the quantum phenomenons as 'spooky'. Really. People tend to believe that everything's solved in physics. One has to keep in mind that physics only build *models of reality*.
Of course, in daily physics speak, one talks about 'the electrons that hit the surface' etc. because there is a underlying theory which describes most of the experiments with sufficient precision. Daily physics is simply more like engineering than thinking about the world itself.
But electron's are only human-invented concepts. Very successfull concepts, indeed. But only concepts. Maybe they're 'really resonances of some weird field' yet to be discovered. But what are resonances and 'this weird field'? They're also invented concepts. Concepts to aid 'understanding'.
Many of my fellows (I'm studying physics) just believe they're electrons which properties and formulas to describe them. I don't. I take them as always incomplete, yet successful and helpful models of reality. Maybe this is just an arrogant statement and my 'open-mindedness' now brands me a crackpot to be modded down.
But I am no crackpot. I don't believe in UFOs and stuff.
Regarding the 'multiverses': IMHO, one very important question remains: How you as yourself evolve in this multiverse. What decides which part you take in the multiverse? Why is it that you only see one universe, that you only exist in one universe? What decices where you/your conscience goes? Maybe this is the free will? I don't know but this bothers me.
ACK. It seems like that many /.ers are defining themselves by being pro-apple, pro-google, pro-ibm and anti-microsoft. Apparently, google and apple managed to get a positive image in the slashdot crowd. Microsoft is the big enemy because they're big and we're all the robin hoods of the software world, aren't we??
But they're all JUST COMPANIES. Without any 'personality'.
Ahh, the C64 times..
It was even better, the ratio was 1:2 (the 1541 hat a 2MHz processor!)
> Once the traffic leaves the gateway and starts heading down their cable lines, fine.
And that traffic *should* be protected by privacy laws. It's sad that most people nowadays consider traffic going over the provider's lines as 'public'.
Or do you want you phone (VoIP) company spying on you?
And another, IMHO very important question, regarding privacy:
#5 Is digital data transfer (i.e. over the internet) considered less 'private' than a phone conversation?
Somehow the internet is percepted as a 'public place' in most western countries. File sharing is handled (legally) like offering pirated DVD on the street corner (where one would do it for profit!). RIAA/MPAA takes the place of the police. Mails are mass scanned for no good reason.
But phone surveillance requires a court order.
All technical details aside, I think the most interesting of this "ad-war" is that it leads to development of technologies blocking ads, new circumventions for this technologies by the ad-makers and so forth. But who benefits?
The browser companies (admitted, mozilla doesn't get much money by selling software, but opera etc. do) and the ad-technology-"inventors".
Where are the real products? Were is the benefit for the population as a whole? I have to see it yet. One of those cases where the free market went mad.
Yes, and another very interesting point is, if it
Is possible for finite machines (if we humans are such things) to discover they they're themselves finite?
Isn't that a contradiction?
Slashdot mirrors the current simplistic materialistic world view really well.
I have expected a little bit more here than "Yes we are just a buch of molecules etc.".
Think about it. These ideas are not new. Yet they do not explain everything. There is more stuff to learn.
Maybe you're right, but who knows?
;)
As a more 'about slashdotters' side note: I think at least the moderation of "pro-penrose" vs. "pro-turing" articles shows that is more (or gets more) a place for computer geeks than physics geeks.
Yes, I thought very much about the (semi-) deterministic world. IMHO, It's easy for computer people to even believe in such a world. All these simulation games only enforce this belief
But... one year of studying quantum mechanics changed at least my view completely. It feeds your brain with interesting thoughts and brings you back from the deterministic viewpoint.
Reflection is part of the java class library, not the language.
This is why I was calling for an equivalent C++ class library (or a link C++->Java Class Library). C++ with JVM backend should of course have access to all the capabilities provided by the JVM.
The problem is that many people (you included) prefer apple as the lesser evil out of pragmatic reasons. I.e. apple does only 'light' DRM therefore it's ok.
For some people, DRM is ok because it's apple and apple is good, isn't it?
But this is a fundamental issue. If it is ok to:
Control what you can do or cannot do with media IN YOUR OWN FOUR WALLS.
I think the answer is no and this should not be subject to a contract, because it violates fundamental principles. Not everything can be subject to a contract.
How old is your C++ standard you're refering to?
:)
This is one of the 'PR' problems of C++, early implementations had many deficiencies and people are refering to old information.
Fact is: C++ has RTTI - run time type information. Try it out, it's nice
The walmart advertisement are a bit like the PC advertisements some time ago (before the linux era), which stated something like: "With PC-DOS7, the alternative OS..."... which was more or less only an invitation to replace it with a MS windows installation, i.e. "here's something to play with, you can always replace it with Win XP if you want to start your real work" alternative.
IMHO, if the end user feels that Linux is only a toy OS to replaced by "something more professional", this may also hurt the image of Linux.
You're talking about C. I was talking about C++.
The only thing C++ has in common with C is that the C++ language contains the C language as a subset.
In C++, you have pointers, but you can live well without pointers, for example by using the STL (standard template library). You can wrap pointers in 'safe-pointers'. You have the power to use pointers, but you can hide them and program in a very Java-like way.
If you compare C with Java, I agree completely. But I suggest that you take a deeper look at C++, you'll find that you can easily move to C++ without being restricted by anything - and you can take advantage of the low-level possibilities (pointers and such) of C/C++, if you ever need to do.
Here in germany it's the same, there are no billboards out of cities, but I don't know if it is required by law.
I always ask myself if so much advertising, if unrestricted advertising is really productive. If it does something good to the economy as a whole. If it would not be better to restrict advertisements to a certain level(?)
It seems to me that today's advertisements do not inform about new products but instead are just there because if a company does not advertise, all other companies will advertise and therefore cut away the market share. I am no economist but that looks counter-productive to me. The money could be used to offer better products instead.
No, I'm not.
I am talking about the language Java and the language C++. C++ as a language is a superset of Java as a language.
The java class library is indeed more comprehensive than the C++ 'counterpart', the STL, but there are of course lots of additional libraries for C++.
I was talking of linking this hypothetical C++ bytecode to the java class library or a similar C++ library.
> Plus it is possible to provide advanced functionality & configurability , but make it so hidden that the vast majority of users will never see it.
Look at gnome. They've *removed* the undo code from their dialogs in the step from 1.x to 2.x. Yes, it would be ok for me if they have this functionality somewhere, if it could be enabled. But it has been simply removed!
The same thing goes with the WM. You have to patch "always-on-top" into metacity to make it work!
One thing I never understood about java is how it got known to most people as more powerful, expressive and 'modern' than C++.
.class files.
:) (It's still nice work, but is not the straight-forward way to do it)
This is simply not true. Java is still more or less a subset of C++. Good for the people who are ok with that, but I really do not need a language which forces it's views onto me.
So I'd like to have a bytecode backend (e.g. JVM) and a class library for C++. I think most of the dispute over Java/C++ would end because everyone can write in his/her preferred language and run the code on the same meta-platorm.
Although RMS argues against it (with fears I do not understand), it would be nice to have a JVM backend for GCC. One would have C,C++,Java, Scheme (via bigloo!), Obj.-C, even Fortran as a compile-once-run-everywhere language, hopefully in a way compatible with java
Yes, I know that there is mips2java, but excuse me if I call it a temporary kludge
This is why RMS envisioned a software tax.
You could mount the wheel on empty canisters swimming in the river. And prevent the whole construction with ropes from swimming away :)
There is a difference between undershot and overshot waterwheels.
Undershot waterwheels use primarily the kinetic energy of the water (the situation you depicted above).
Overshot waterwheels use mainly the difference in potential energy. This is (in essence) the technology which is used in all the big dams and you can draw a lot more energy from that. But you have all the consequences - you have to create a pond, build the dam etc.
Potential energy extraction is not the only possibility.
You can also extract *kinetic* energy of the water in undershot water mills.
Here is the math:
:)
Wavelength: Minimum @ 400nm (violet). =: lambda1.
Maximum: 800nm (red) =: lambda2.
Energy E=h*f, with f=c/lambda => E=h*c/lambda, voltage difference per electron: U=h*c/(e* lambda).
=> pocket calculator => U_red approx 1.6V, U_blue approx 3.1V.
Resistor for blue LED @ 5V supply voltage, 20mA current: (5-3.1)volts/(20mA) approx 100 ohm.
Current through red led: (5-1.6)volts/(100ohm)=34mA.
34mA through the LED. Most of my LEDs would out of spec. here, but very often, it works! No warranty!
(Repost because of formatting errors)
Here is the math (long winded, but should be >| E=h*c/lambda, voltage difference per electron: U=h*c/(e* lambda).
:)
=> pocket calculator => U_red approx 1.6V, U_blue approx 3.1V.
Resistor for blue LED @ 5V supply voltage, 20mA current: (5-3.1)volts/(20mA) approx 100 ohm.
Current through red led: (5-1.6)volts/(100ohm)=34mA.
34mA through the LED. Most of my LEDs would out of spec. here, but very often, it works! No warranty!