Well anyway, I personally don't screw up my writing all too often. I just don't consider it a priority unless it's going to be seen by more than one person (of course depending on who the person is.) You have to pick your battles. Sometimes time is more important than grammar, and you can't argue with that. As long as people understand what I'm saying, that's all that's necessary. If it's a publication, a mass email, or something of the like, then I do take the time to check it out. If it's a quick memo, I don't.
I was exaggerating. I meant waste time going back through to check for it. I ususally don't do too badly with it, I just don't think it's a priority. If I type "i didnt' get to it yet" in a hurry, when "I didn't get to it yet." is what I meant, then I don't think there is a big loss in quality. That's all.
point taken, but if a lot of my job involves handling large amounts of email, and I can get more done because I don't waste my time on punctuation, then I have other qualities that would mark me as superior.
I program to automate repetative tasks. The work I do reduces the amount of other people they have to hire. If you don't hire people like me, then you can simply take the alternative and pay more people to do it. If I'm lazy in my typing, so be it. As long as I'm not a lazy programmer. We have managers and secretaries to do the heavy lifting when it comes to making pretty text documents. I make things work, and fix things when they're broken. I can also train other people to do this. Clearly my value added is not in my writing skills. If I can answer 45 emails with accurate information, and only 20 if I have to make sure that I punctuate correctly, then I'm losing money for the company.
camelCase.embarrasing() =~ camelToe.embarassing();
I can understand to a point people getting upset about publications, or announcements that hit a lot of people representing an official viewpoint, and especially communications to external customers being sloppy. On the other hand I know, writing as many emails as I do in a day, grammar checking is absolutely not as important as the message.
ME: "We need to buy more licenses"
THEM: "how many?"
ME: "ten or so"
THEM: "ok"
or, ME: "hey frank did you get that config info I asked you about"
FRANK: nope, I'll get to it after lunch
I'm not going to get out the grammar checker and make sure I capitalize all of my letters for stuff like that. If the boss happens to get one of my emails like that, and can't figure it out, then he's the illiterate one. If they want me to get more work done in a day, then they can't expect more of my day to go into proofreading.
yeah, you're right about this. I had an internship for the last two years of college, and be damned if I don't still work for the same company. Now after being in the field so long, I'd only be comfortable working with someone fresh out of college if I'd seen their skills personally. Open source projects are definately a plus for someone's record, but they don't make the difference between hiring or firing them. Working on an open source project will familiarize people with the general process, and often times, standards, necessary to be a programmer, and that makes great interns, but from my experience, great interns are only good after years of molding. I'd be scared to hire someone right out of school. I know some of my classmates who graduated with higher grades than I did who can't code for shit. They all liked to copy and paste, or they learned stuff just for the tests and then proceeded to forget it all when it came time to program in class projects, leaving me, the one who didn't go to class, to pick up the slack for them. Schools may look good to certain companies, but from my experience, hands on trial by fire is the only way to prove who's worth the labor bucks.
inch by inch, year by year, we're going to lose more and more privacy in exchange for... yeah security at first, automatic debit cards based on your eyeballs second, and then, prosecution for crimes you didnt know you had committed, and finally, the thought police. It's inevitable. Unless we all stop using computers altogether, something I'm not ready to do, we have two choices... develop the evil technology and pay the bills with it, or be run over by the freight train that it's on. There isn't a way to get from point A to point B without EVENTUALLY, even if we postpone it a few decades, losing all privacy in any sense of the word as it's used today. It's the law of averages... this technology that threatens to invade every facet of our lives will eventually seep into every black orifice of it, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Theft proof credit cards with facial geometry as a PIN anyone?
people will get used to it (for example: radar detectors cops use to catch speeders, phone wire taps the FBI has the power to setup), and not all at once... it'll just be the norm, even convenient at each little interval. But, take a snapshot of today, and compare it to 30 years from now, and you'll probably feel like you've stepped into a utopia novel without ever realizing that you were doing it.
I think you're right. This actually may be a conspiracy to do just that. DRM is easy enough to get around anyway -- plug an mp3 recorder into the lineout of your sound card, record, and distribute. This could only stand to make MORE files available illegally. It may not affect the numbers though, it's probably a pretty good bet that most cd's that are ever released are ripped and illegally traded anyway.
My sites have crashed under a 1200 user load, and sometimes act a little fruity due to databse concurrency issues even if they don't crash... I'd like to know the answer to your question too
Poverty tends to breed poverty, but not always. If poor people feel that a class jump is unattainable, then they will doom themselves to stay poor. If somehow they feel that they can actually get ahead based on their own actions and efforts, then they will. Being surrounded by failure tends to discourage this sort of thing, but in some, it's inspiring. Look at how well so many immigrants do who come to the US looking for the american dream. It sounds corny, but thinking positive actually seems to produce financial results (although I'm not sure about thinking positively in every respect -- sometimes it's not your mental attitude that affects the outcome of your situation -- but sometimes it can mean the differnece between trying something else, or giving up.)
I've been putting off the hdtv thing for a while now, and this will bring it to me affordably for the cost of the card, and a workhorse pc to sit -set side. At $189 is surprisingly affordable! My 21" plasma monitor should get me through until my bank account permits me to buy a larger theatre sized monitor. This is great!
when you agree to the license agreement when you install certain kinds of Microsoft software, if you work for a company, then you may or may not have the rights to enter into such an agreement on behalf of the company you work for. I always wondered why that never came up... You'd think that someone may have run across it at some point in some public legal fight.
Whether or not society would tolerate it, the fact that it can be done -- machines will design machines -- means that someone, even if it's a terrorist, will do it eventually. Just like the fact that since we have the nuclear bombs means that someone someday will use them. Maybe not the best idea, but.. I think goop may be in our future. Maybe this is the substrate in which our disembodied minds will exist. You have to question every single thing that we currently believe and take for granted. There is no rulee that cannot be broken here. The fact that our brains exist means that we can indeed build them.
I still don't see it as impossible, just not something that we can do tomorrow or the next day. Nano-tech may well be able to do all of that -- for example a nanobot could stimulate neurons, or shape itself so that it fits neural transmitter receptors (electronic drugs!) or something. I just know that we don't have these capabilities today. Remember, in 1899, the head of the patent office said 'everything that can be invented already has'
you can build a neural network in which each neuron is indeed it's own processor. That would not be 'simulating' but 'duplicating' the behavior. If they work the same way, they may not be the same thing per se, but they are analogous, and thus they are equally significant examples of the same priciples. One is simply organic, and the other not. Who knows, one day we may actually build organic ones, but that would be counter productive since electronics can respond so much faster.
Either way, sometime the smartest people can lose. Evolution TENDS to pick the best of the bunch and over time it gets results, but any one smarter species at any point in time can fall victim to circumstance. Perhaps the neandrathals all died out by coincidince. (Perhaps not) but to speculate only from the geological record is just that -- speculation.
I'm afraid it's you who has made the mistake. Neural networks that feed into themselves at various layers can infact work exactly like the human brain.
A model that helped me (but may only confuse you) It's not really computation in an algorithmic way, it's actually more like a bunch of interconnected abacuses that that the position of their beads as inputs, and after a certain number of them are in particular positions, they trigger the motion of beads in other abacuses, which in turn trigger others, each row of beads just one of many inputs of other connected abacuses. Certain abacuses are designated to be Inputs and Outputs, all the others function the same way, but the 'calculation' is arrived at by reading the 'output' bead positions at any point in time. Thus, changing the position of one bead in one abacus could theoretically change the position of other beads in the same abacus if it is appropriately wired to other ones. In effect you get 'solutions' (desired output bead configurations) from 'problems' (specific input bead configurations) without ever knowing the method by which the output was produced. This is why evolutionary and genetic algorithms are so great for producing working ANNs. This was the explanation that finally made the model click for me. Maybe it'll help you, maybe not.
The parallelism of a neural network is the hardest part to simulate digitally because when you take a 'snapshot' of the neurons at any one point in time to calculate the activation, then you lose the fact that the activation of one neuron could be changed by another one that was firing during the time you take to make the calculation. This is why the brain appears to be doing more processing than a digital simulation (in most models of artificial neurons) even if they could simulate the same number of neurons and synapse wiring. Each neuron needs to be in effect it's own processor running in it's own timescale -- not on a stateful fetch and execute cycle treating the whole network as one huge processor.
If you're going for adding things to your field of vision, why not overwrite the Japanese version of the sign with the text written in plain english? Surely they can project an image onto your retina to take care of that. Then there is no need for subtitles. Top this off with the audio translation playing the sound back of the translated words of someone speaking to you -- and in their own voice not some quirky computer voice. Both of these things are doable with technology that already exists -- OCR, retinal projection, speech to Text, translators like babel fish, and well speakers. The trouble is words have meaning -- not just syntax, and often have different meanings (even vernacularized meanings) in different contexts and converting them to text doesn't exactly allow for accurate translation -- like in babel fish. How would a translator program handle something like, "That's a lot of liquor mate, you'll tumble down the apples on the way out and bruise up your eggs." There needs to be a little progress in the natural language recognition process for this to be totally cool, but babel fish style should be enough to let us survive on the concept.
yes you are. DirectX and OpenGL are both abstractions from the hardware layer, at which the GPU itself performs. The DRI, for example, in linux does not emulate direct X, but rather performs hardware level commands. via it's own api -- which openGL and other implementations of GL have actually tied into. Comparing Direct X to OpenGL is like comparing C++ to Pascal. They are different languages that are both translated into a common instruction set in the end.
that's not done by translating stuff, that's actually emulating another processor... Vitrual PC is not the same thing here. Same goes for vmware.
This product claims to translate the code block by block into native code, thusly not emulating another processor per se. Metaphysically we could say that the two are equivelent, but it's not built around the fake processor as a unit like the other popular emulators are.
Slashdot Mirror
takes one to know one
Well anyway, I personally don't screw up my writing all too often. I just don't consider it a priority unless it's going to be seen by more than one person (of course depending on who the person is.) You have to pick your battles. Sometimes time is more important than grammar, and you can't argue with that. As long as people understand what I'm saying, that's all that's necessary. If it's a publication, a mass email, or something of the like, then I do take the time to check it out. If it's a quick memo, I don't.
I was exaggerating. I meant waste time going back through to check for it. I ususally don't do too badly with it, I just don't think it's a priority. If I type "i didnt' get to it yet" in a hurry, when "I didn't get to it yet." is what I meant, then I don't think there is a big loss in quality. That's all.
point taken, but if a lot of my job involves handling large amounts of email, and I can get more done because I don't waste my time on punctuation, then I have other qualities that would mark me as superior.
I program to automate repetative tasks. The work I do reduces the amount of other people they have to hire. If you don't hire people like me, then you can simply take the alternative and pay more people to do it. If I'm lazy in my typing, so be it. As long as I'm not a lazy programmer. We have managers and secretaries to do the heavy lifting when it comes to making pretty text documents. I make things work, and fix things when they're broken. I can also train other people to do this. Clearly my value added is not in my writing skills. If I can answer 45 emails with accurate information, and only 20 if I have to make sure that I punctuate correctly, then I'm losing money for the company.
camelCase.embarrasing() =~ camelToe.embarassing(); I can understand to a point people getting upset about publications, or announcements that hit a lot of people representing an official viewpoint, and especially communications to external customers being sloppy. On the other hand I know, writing as many emails as I do in a day, grammar checking is absolutely not as important as the message. ME: "We need to buy more licenses" THEM: "how many?" ME: "ten or so" THEM: "ok" or, ME: "hey frank did you get that config info I asked you about" FRANK: nope, I'll get to it after lunch I'm not going to get out the grammar checker and make sure I capitalize all of my letters for stuff like that. If the boss happens to get one of my emails like that, and can't figure it out, then he's the illiterate one. If they want me to get more work done in a day, then they can't expect more of my day to go into proofreading.
yeah, you're right about this. I had an internship for the last two years of college, and be damned if I don't still work for the same company. Now after being in the field so long, I'd only be comfortable working with someone fresh out of college if I'd seen their skills personally. Open source projects are definately a plus for someone's record, but they don't make the difference between hiring or firing them. Working on an open source project will familiarize people with the general process, and often times, standards, necessary to be a programmer, and that makes great interns, but from my experience, great interns are only good after years of molding. I'd be scared to hire someone right out of school. I know some of my classmates who graduated with higher grades than I did who can't code for shit. They all liked to copy and paste, or they learned stuff just for the tests and then proceeded to forget it all when it came time to program in class projects, leaving me, the one who didn't go to class, to pick up the slack for them. Schools may look good to certain companies, but from my experience, hands on trial by fire is the only way to prove who's worth the labor bucks.
people will get used to it (for example: radar detectors cops use to catch speeders, phone wire taps the FBI has the power to setup), and not all at once... it'll just be the norm, even convenient at each little interval. But, take a snapshot of today, and compare it to 30 years from now, and you'll probably feel like you've stepped into a utopia novel without ever realizing that you were doing it.
I think you're right. This actually may be a conspiracy to do just that. DRM is easy enough to get around anyway -- plug an mp3 recorder into the lineout of your sound card, record, and distribute. This could only stand to make MORE files available illegally. It may not affect the numbers though, it's probably a pretty good bet that most cd's that are ever released are ripped and illegally traded anyway.
there are a million webmasters with ad-sponsored sites who'd love to get slashdotted. Many are called, but few are chosen
My sites have crashed under a 1200 user load, and sometimes act a little fruity due to databse concurrency issues even if they don't crash... I'd like to know the answer to your question too
Poverty tends to breed poverty, but not always. If poor people feel that a class jump is unattainable, then they will doom themselves to stay poor. If somehow they feel that they can actually get ahead based on their own actions and efforts, then they will. Being surrounded by failure tends to discourage this sort of thing, but in some, it's inspiring. Look at how well so many immigrants do who come to the US looking for the american dream. It sounds corny, but thinking positive actually seems to produce financial results (although I'm not sure about thinking positively in every respect -- sometimes it's not your mental attitude that affects the outcome of your situation -- but sometimes it can mean the differnece between trying something else, or giving up.)
I've been putting off the hdtv thing for a while now, and this will bring it to me affordably for the cost of the card, and a workhorse pc to sit -set side. At $189 is surprisingly affordable! My 21" plasma monitor should get me through until my bank account permits me to buy a larger theatre sized monitor. This is great!
when you agree to the license agreement when you install certain kinds of Microsoft software, if you work for a company, then you may or may not have the rights to enter into such an agreement on behalf of the company you work for. I always wondered why that never came up... You'd think that someone may have run across it at some point in some public legal fight.
Whether or not society would tolerate it, the fact that it can be done -- machines will design machines -- means that someone, even if it's a terrorist, will do it eventually. Just like the fact that since we have the nuclear bombs means that someone someday will use them. Maybe not the best idea, but.. I think goop may be in our future. Maybe this is the substrate in which our disembodied minds will exist. You have to question every single thing that we currently believe and take for granted. There is no rulee that cannot be broken here. The fact that our brains exist means that we can indeed build them.
I still don't see it as impossible, just not something that we can do tomorrow or the next day. Nano-tech may well be able to do all of that -- for example a nanobot could stimulate neurons, or shape itself so that it fits neural transmitter receptors (electronic drugs!) or something. I just know that we don't have these capabilities today. Remember, in 1899, the head of the patent office said 'everything that can be invented already has'
With current technology, I concede your point. Pending a revolution in technology, who knows.
you can build a neural network in which each neuron is indeed it's own processor. That would not be 'simulating' but 'duplicating' the behavior. If they work the same way, they may not be the same thing per se, but they are analogous, and thus they are equally significant examples of the same priciples. One is simply organic, and the other not. Who knows, one day we may actually build organic ones, but that would be counter productive since electronics can respond so much faster.
Either way, sometime the smartest people can lose. Evolution TENDS to pick the best of the bunch and over time it gets results, but any one smarter species at any point in time can fall victim to circumstance. Perhaps the neandrathals all died out by coincidince. (Perhaps not) but to speculate only from the geological record is just that -- speculation.
A model that helped me (but may only confuse you) It's not really computation in an algorithmic way, it's actually more like a bunch of interconnected abacuses that that the position of their beads as inputs, and after a certain number of them are in particular positions, they trigger the motion of beads in other abacuses, which in turn trigger others, each row of beads just one of many inputs of other connected abacuses. Certain abacuses are designated to be Inputs and Outputs, all the others function the same way, but the 'calculation' is arrived at by reading the 'output' bead positions at any point in time. Thus, changing the position of one bead in one abacus could theoretically change the position of other beads in the same abacus if it is appropriately wired to other ones. In effect you get 'solutions' (desired output bead configurations) from 'problems' (specific input bead configurations) without ever knowing the method by which the output was produced. This is why evolutionary and genetic algorithms are so great for producing working ANNs. This was the explanation that finally made the model click for me. Maybe it'll help you, maybe not.
The parallelism of a neural network is the hardest part to simulate digitally because when you take a 'snapshot' of the neurons at any one point in time to calculate the activation, then you lose the fact that the activation of one neuron could be changed by another one that was firing during the time you take to make the calculation. This is why the brain appears to be doing more processing than a digital simulation (in most models of artificial neurons) even if they could simulate the same number of neurons and synapse wiring. Each neuron needs to be in effect it's own processor running in it's own timescale -- not on a stateful fetch and execute cycle treating the whole network as one huge processor.
touche
retinal projection (PDF). So there..
Figures that the military gets this firstIf you're going for adding things to your field of vision, why not overwrite the Japanese version of the sign with the text written in plain english? Surely they can project an image onto your retina to take care of that. Then there is no need for subtitles. Top this off with the audio translation playing the sound back of the translated words of someone speaking to you -- and in their own voice not some quirky computer voice. Both of these things are doable with technology that already exists -- OCR, retinal projection, speech to Text, translators like babel fish, and well speakers. The trouble is words have meaning -- not just syntax, and often have different meanings (even vernacularized meanings) in different contexts and converting them to text doesn't exactly allow for accurate translation -- like in babel fish. How would a translator program handle something like, "That's a lot of liquor mate, you'll tumble down the apples on the way out and bruise up your eggs." There needs to be a little progress in the natural language recognition process for this to be totally cool, but babel fish style should be enough to let us survive on the concept.
yes you are. DirectX and OpenGL are both abstractions from the hardware layer, at which the GPU itself performs. The DRI, for example, in linux does not emulate direct X, but rather performs hardware level commands. via it's own api -- which openGL and other implementations of GL have actually tied into. Comparing Direct X to OpenGL is like comparing C++ to Pascal. They are different languages that are both translated into a common instruction set in the end.
This product claims to translate the code block by block into native code, thusly not emulating another processor per se. Metaphysically we could say that the two are equivelent, but it's not built around the fake processor as a unit like the other popular emulators are.