Don't forget that Oklahoma has already been a terrorist target. We can cut them a little slack for being a bit more jumpy than everyone else. Al Qaeda might not give a rat's about hitting anything in Oklahoma, but it might not be so lucky from the next nice Christian veteran boy.
The untraceable police abuse thing is a real problem, but it shouldn't be impossible to solve. Why not make Tasers have a built-in recording of their usage?
They do. I don't know what the GP is talking about.
Some do. Some people are of the opinion that there's a better model waiting to be found, or that they have found, that better reflects reality.
I disagree with them. I, like most, think copyright can be fixed. But it's not entirely correct to say that nobody wants to get rid of them completely (once a suitable replacement has been found).
Was one of the purposes of the project to prepare crypto-archeologists for the threats that they will be facing for when they travel to remote places to prevent ancient powerful artifacts from falling into the hands of evil geniuses?
No matter what the ideological slant you may take, I strongly suspect that the truth is going to be a lot more mundane - again, assuming this thing is not a fabrication in either one direction or the other.
This is almost certainly true, which is why it's perverse that the government would want to resist its disclosure. The document is unclassified (I checked), so there's no reason why you or I shouldn't be able to see it.
XML is a document representation format, and is completely orthogonal to the problem of querying databases.
What one really needs is a good full text querying standard (which doesn't exist).
Allow me to introduce you to Z39.50, though you may remember it as WAIS before it ISO-standardised. If all you want to do is query (and sort, rank, etc), it does the job.
What it doesn't support is database update, but that's coming in the next version.
Well, one might argue also that hierarchical data is also not a good fit with the relational model.
True enough.
If we already have XML data type in many DBs, what prevents us having Document data type like what's in CouchDB (yes, it's proprietary, but so are many of the features in current RDBMS).
It's the way you interact with it that's critical here. Think about how you work with your favourite SQL DBMS and with Google, and you'll see that they're quite different at a very basic leve.
The fundamental result data type in a relational DBMS is the stream of tuples, and tuples contain real data. In other words, querying (i.e. finding what matches some criteria) is essentially the same as presentation (i.e. getting real data out).
The fundamental result data type in a document-based DBMS is the sequence of document numbers. Document numbers do not contain real data. You perform a query, and get a sequence of document numbers. Then you let the user refine the sequence. Maybe you present some metadata, or KWIC information. Maybe you sort on a field. Maybe you add more constraints. Eventually, you get to the point where you present real data.
Yes, you can do this in principle with relational databases, but it costs. It's not uncommon for a relational model for a document database to use 5-10x the disk space of a native document database engine.
Damien Katz has for example said that he might consider supporting SQL syntax, but it's too early to say.
SQL is a poor fit for textual data, too. Partly because support for textual querying operators (e.g. phrase or adjacency queries, query-based ranking) is poor, and partly because SQL has poor support for managing result sets on the server.
Document databases (or textual databases, for that matter) simply aren't a good fit with the relational model, so you're unlikely to see them incorporated with MySQL any time soon.
CouchDB is interesting, but I'd steer clear of it for the simple reason that it doesn't have any support for any relevant standards (e.g. Z39.50, MARC, XQuery). Vendor lock-in is bad, even when it's open source.
Relational databases support SQL, which is somewhat fragmented with vendor peculiarities, but is nonethless a standard of sorts (as well as being a real standard).
Object databases have a standard interface, but to a first approximation, nobody implements it.
Sturgeon's Revelation applies here. Most people don't pay any damn attention to anything. Most people don't appreciate a good meal (I mean one that takes the whole evening). Most people don't appreciate, as you said "a nice drink" (more commonly, "drinking" involves getting tipsy or hammered as expediently as possible).
To get back to the point: CDs (or their descendants) will live as long as archival is important.
GPS units compute your speed by computing the difference between your current position and your previous position divided by the time between samples. There's no other way to do it. Doppler is not involved.
As a follow-up poster noted, the GPS time signal is wide-band CDMA. What they failed to notice is that you effectively have to match Doppler shift to lock onto the signal. And it's not trivial: The doppler shift can be up to 2.4kHz for a completely stationary observer.
It is correct that the measured doppler shift isn't much use in measuring velocity on its own. However, you can use it in the Kalman filter to improve your time-derivative-based estimate, because the filter will eliminate the noise. And, indeed, some units do this.
It's more use in differential GPS, or combined GPS/inertial navigation though. I don't know if you find this in a typical car GPS unit, but you do in millitary systems.
You jest, I know. But if it wasn't for Serious Scientists(tm) who were willing to keep a slightly open mind, we wouldn't know about all sorts of stuff, such as the effect of infrasound on the body, especially on the eye.
Most paranormal events are highly likely to be the result of a misinterpreted natural event. And sometimes, it's a natural event that we don't necessarily know that much about. That's why it's good to research this stuff.
Not having read TFA, of course (this is slashdot), I have no idea what types of paranormal investigators they're talking about.
I agree that that the absolute probability of you, personally, being hurt as the result of a driver "cannonballing" is miniscule, especially compared to the absolute probability of being hurt by a typical adult driving a suburban SUV.
However, the conditional probability of you being hurt as the result of a cannonballing driver, given that you are already in the vicinity of one or, even worse, actually are one is higher than the conditional probability of you being hurt by the suburban SUV given that you are in the vicinity of, or are, one.
Overwhelmingly more people are killed by smoking than by playing Russian Roulette. However, when you consider conditional probabilities, a typical smoker is overwhelmingly more likely to outlive a typical Russian Roulette player.
Got it now? There is a world of difference between playing the odds and tempting fate.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget that Oklahoma has already been a terrorist target. We can cut them a little slack for being a bit more jumpy than everyone else. Al Qaeda might not give a rat's about hitting anything in Oklahoma, but it might not be so lucky from the next nice Christian veteran boy.
They do. I don't know what the GP is talking about.
Some do. Some people are of the opinion that there's a better model waiting to be found, or that they have found, that better reflects reality.
I disagree with them. I, like most, think copyright can be fixed. But it's not entirely correct to say that nobody wants to get rid of them completely (once a suitable replacement has been found).
You should have offered her a zero-knowledge proof.
Was one of the purposes of the project to prepare crypto-archeologists for the threats that they will be facing for when they travel to remote places to prevent ancient powerful artifacts from falling into the hands of evil geniuses?
If so: Well done!
You jest, but counting dupes is actually what it does.
This is almost certainly true, which is why it's perverse that the government would want to resist its disclosure. The document is unclassified (I checked), so there's no reason why you or I shouldn't be able to see it.
XML is a document representation format, and is completely orthogonal to the problem of querying databases.
Allow me to introduce you to Z39.50, though you may remember it as WAIS before it ISO-standardised. If all you want to do is query (and sort, rank, etc), it does the job.
What it doesn't support is database update, but that's coming in the next version.
True enough.
It's the way you interact with it that's critical here. Think about how you work with your favourite SQL DBMS and with Google, and you'll see that they're quite different at a very basic leve.
The fundamental result data type in a relational DBMS is the stream of tuples, and tuples contain real data. In other words, querying (i.e. finding what matches some criteria) is essentially the same as presentation (i.e. getting real data out).
The fundamental result data type in a document-based DBMS is the sequence of document numbers. Document numbers do not contain real data. You perform a query, and get a sequence of document numbers. Then you let the user refine the sequence. Maybe you present some metadata, or KWIC information. Maybe you sort on a field. Maybe you add more constraints. Eventually, you get to the point where you present real data.
Yes, you can do this in principle with relational databases, but it costs. It's not uncommon for a relational model for a document database to use 5-10x the disk space of a native document database engine.
SQL is a poor fit for textual data, too. Partly because support for textual querying operators (e.g. phrase or adjacency queries, query-based ranking) is poor, and partly because SQL has poor support for managing result sets on the server.
Document databases (or textual databases, for that matter) simply aren't a good fit with the relational model, so you're unlikely to see them incorporated with MySQL any time soon.
CouchDB is interesting, but I'd steer clear of it for the simple reason that it doesn't have any support for any relevant standards (e.g. Z39.50, MARC, XQuery). Vendor lock-in is bad, even when it's open source.
Relational databases support SQL, which is somewhat fragmented with vendor peculiarities, but is nonethless a standard of sorts (as well as being a real standard).
Object databases have a standard interface, but to a first approximation, nobody implements it.
Essential? Bah! I work in a nanotech lab, and we don't have a STM!
We do have a brand new AFM, though, and it is kinda sluggish. I wonder if this technique would speed up that.
Essentially nothing for a few million years, since they can't get to us and we can't get to them.
In the mean time, we'd rid the world of xenophobia practically overnight. "Well, they may be darkies, but at least they're human..."
Really? Wow. I was just making a dumb joke.
Godwin's Law. You lose.
See, you are with the terrorists! You want to blow up the Houses of Parliament, to restore Catholicism to England!
Insert Al-Gore-inventing-the-Internet joke here.
Sturgeon's Revelation applies here. Most people don't pay any damn attention to anything. Most people don't appreciate a good meal (I mean one that takes the whole evening). Most people don't appreciate, as you said "a nice drink" (more commonly, "drinking" involves getting tipsy or hammered as expediently as possible).
To get back to the point: CDs (or their descendants) will live as long as archival is important.
As a follow-up poster noted, the GPS time signal is wide-band CDMA. What they failed to notice is that you effectively have to match Doppler shift to lock onto the signal. And it's not trivial: The doppler shift can be up to 2.4kHz for a completely stationary observer.
It is correct that the measured doppler shift isn't much use in measuring velocity on its own. However, you can use it in the Kalman filter to improve your time-derivative-based estimate, because the filter will eliminate the noise. And, indeed, some units do this.
It's more use in differential GPS, or combined GPS/inertial navigation though. I don't know if you find this in a typical car GPS unit, but you do in millitary systems.
You jest, I know. But if it wasn't for Serious Scientists(tm) who were willing to keep a slightly open mind, we wouldn't know about all sorts of stuff, such as the effect of infrasound on the body, especially on the eye.
Most paranormal events are highly likely to be the result of a misinterpreted natural event. And sometimes, it's a natural event that we don't necessarily know that much about. That's why it's good to research this stuff.
Not having read TFA, of course (this is slashdot), I have no idea what types of paranormal investigators they're talking about.
The number of people killed annually by playing Russian Roulette is vanishingly small. That doesn't mean it's a perfectly safe game to play.
First of all, I didn't rate myself "insightful".
I agree that that the absolute probability of you, personally, being hurt as the result of a driver "cannonballing" is miniscule, especially compared to the absolute probability of being hurt by a typical adult driving a suburban SUV.
However, the conditional probability of you being hurt as the result of a cannonballing driver, given that you are already in the vicinity of one or, even worse, actually are one is higher than the conditional probability of you being hurt by the suburban SUV given that you are in the vicinity of, or are, one.
Overwhelmingly more people are killed by smoking than by playing Russian Roulette. However, when you consider conditional probabilities, a typical smoker is overwhelmingly more likely to outlive a typical Russian Roulette player.
Got it now? There is a world of difference between playing the odds and tempting fate.
...and smoking kills more people annually than people pointing a gun at their own temples and pulling the trigger. Your point is?
But dude, didn't you read TFA? The CGI characters are going to have individual hairs and skin pores! You read that right: skin pores!
I had my reservations, too, but any movie with skin pores has got to be good, right?
These go to 11.