It does work, but it requires judgement. A lot of people seem to think that you just shove the data into a statistical test, out comes a p-value, and if it's small enough you win. Interpreting and validating the initial hit is where 90% of the real work is, and it requires the careful application of prior knowledge and subsequent experiments. I work with a guy who's probably one of the best statisticians in the world, and he often asks me, "well, does the result make sense?" His judgement was developed over decades of looking at real data. If you just shove your data into an algorithm and take the top-scoring hits, you'll probably spend most of your time chasing bogus predictions. Algorithms are good for automating specific tasks that are essentially repeatable. Data mining requires an in-depth understanding of the specific problem you're trying to solve; you usually need to tailor your statistics so that they make sense for the problem. That's why the idea of selling someone a suite of fancy data mining software is probably useless; you need to sell them the statistican too.
It just so happens that I have exactly the egghead bs that you're asking for...
Here is the essay that I submitted for the Freshman Essay Evaluation at MIT, (an assessment of basic competence in writing.) The question was to respond to an essay by science-novelist Alan Lightman that urged readers to consider the negative impact of new technologies before accepting them into society.
----------
To my great excitement, my parents surprised me with a portable music player called an iPod for my 18th birthday. As the novelty wore off, I realized that the iPod presented an unlikely ethical question: under what circumstances would I feel comfortable using it? Over the following weeks I embarked on a journey of experimentation and introspection through which I finally arrived at a set of personal guidelines for the use of my iPod.
The first dilemma I faced regarding the iPod was whether to bring it to school. Since it was so expensive, I had strong reservations about bringing it into an environment where fragile items are frequently damaged and theft from book bags is not uncommon. However, I decided that if I were to allow fear of damage or theft to shape my use of the device, I would not be able to enjoy it during the majority of my day-to-day life. Thus I decided that I must face the risk and take the device to school. In retrospect I realize that this decision represents a moral judgment that I hold close to my heart: I refuse to buy an item that I am unable to enjoy for fear of ruining it. This applies not only to electronics but also to other things such as expensive cars and clothing.
At school, I used my iPod to listen to music while walking between classes, only to encounter another, more subtle internal conflict: though continuously accompanied by my music, I found myself increasingly isolated from other people. I first noticed that when I was wearing my headphones, friends who would usually exchange greetings with me in the hall would now frequently walk past without a word. After some introspection, I realized that in the past I had regularly acted likewise towards my friends upon observing that they were wearing headphones. At that moment I was rocked by a frightening epiphany: through the use of my iPod at school, I was sending a strong message to the world that I was antisocial, apathetic, and wholly uninterested in interaction with others; rather I was indicating that I was engrossed in the private world of my music -- music that no one else could hear or enjoy. Furthermore, while talking with my friends, I would turn my music down but I would still find it difficult to concentrate on what they were saying or to come up with anything meaningful to say myself.
In light of these realizations, I decided to stop using my iPod at school immediately. However my decision quickly raised further internal conflict from my ethic regarding the use of expensive items. Granted, I did not purchase the iPod; it was given to me as a gift. Nonetheless, on principle I do not like to own expensive things that I do not plan to use. Accordingly, in my spare time I considered uses for my then useless iPod.
A few days later on a long drive, I discovered the perfect use for my iPod: playing music in my car. (This idea was particularly timely since I had become increasingly dissatisfied with music on the radio.) Therefore, I purchased a car adapter from Radio Shack and I now bring my iPod on all road trips for my enjoyment and for that of my passengers. Fortunately this new use lacks any of the negative social implications of wearing headphones at school.
I benefited in many ways from the gift of the iPod; not only can I enjoy my music in a situation that I find acceptable, but I also learned valuable lessons about interacting with people in a world of distracting technology. My observations about the social implications of my iPod hold true when generalized to most new distracting technologies. At first there is a period when people experiment to discover what situations are app
I actually had part of a sample on my desk at one point in the early 90s.
mod parent down; this is bogus for any number of reasons, the most important of which is that NO ROOM TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTORS HAVE EVER BEEN DOCUMENTED, regardless of T_c/H_c/J_c characteristics. I call shenanigans.
I think that you're mostly right, (good job noting the glowing cross superimposed on neo during his crucifiction scene,) but I think there is a better interpretation of the Agent Smith character: Smith is Sin, spreading among the people, so Neo (Christ) has to sacrifice himself to rid the world of Sin, so the Machine Ruler (God) will have mercy on the world and not destroy it all flood-style.
I just saw Terminator 3, and the (predictable?) plot-twist at the end unquestionably smacked of the ideological analog of "product placement" by none other than the MPAA -- and no, I am not a conspiracy theorist;)
[ Warning: extreme spoilage ahead! ]
The beginning of the film informs the viewer that a virus is rapidly spreading through the civilian and government Internet, disabling major infrastructure and causing general chaos. Furthermore, by evolving and adapting in ways never seen before by the military analysts, the virus is evading detection/disinfection, and as such is slated to infect the overwhelming majority of the internet in short order. The only seeming recourse available to the US military is to deploy an untested new artificial intelligence system called "SkyNet" that would take over control of nearly all computers in the world, and by some untold virtue of its (artificial) brilliance, expunge all of the world's infected computers of the virus.
However, the military big cheese (Robert Brewster) running the SkyNet project is very reluctant to deploy it, as he reveals in a prognosticative conversation with the Commander in Chief. The President suggests that launching SkyNet would wrest control of the US military's computers from the virus and give it back to the military. However, Brewster counters that launching SkyNet would give control of the military's computers to SkyNet -- instead of to humans. Nonetheless, when pressed he concedes that SkyNet will still be under human control.
Unsurprisingly, (consistent with the previously-released but chronologically-subsequent films,) when SkyNet is deployed it becomes sentient, decides that humans are its enemy, seizes control of itself from its operators, and begins the preparations for launching a massive nuclear missile attack against the major population-centers of the world. Our brave protagonists race to the supposed location of the mainframe that runs SkyNet, (deep within a desert bunker,) to destroy it before it can launch the missles. However...
[ EXTREME CRAPPY PLOT-TWIST SPOILAGE WARNING! ]
...upon penetrating the bunker, they discover that there is no SkyNet mainframe to blow up -- instead, SkyNet *IS* the virus, and is carrying out its computation in a decentralized manner on the millions of infected computers around the world. As such, there is no central "mainframe" to blow up, and our protagonists can do nothing but hide in the bunker to be protected from the impending nuclear apocalypse, knowing that they were tricked into coming there in the first place by several benevolent fate-like forces.
However, leaving the theater, I began to consider that perhaps the film's examination of the "Pandora's Box of defense technology" theme had a more specific message: if left unchecked, decentralized peer-to-peer networks would eventually cause the downfall of civilization as we know it. Their means of conveying this message seems to be a subtle strategy of suggestion, similar to the advertising practice of "product placement", (in which marketers attempt to improve the brand of a product by paying to have it appear in a positive light in a film.) As such, it seems reasonable that the metaphorical implication of the SkyNet plot-twist is an attempt by the MPAA and friends to cast a negative "branding" light onto decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing networks (like Kazaa) by associating them with the similarly-decentralized SkyNet network that in the film destroys the world -- and is the physical manifestation of the evils of hubris that the film thematically admonishes.
While the public debate on the efficacy of product placement is similar in nature to debates on the potency of all forms of advertising, (e.g. subliminal advertising,) marketing companies have no doubts that subtle branding has dramatic effects of the behavior of consumers; note the recent explosion of the "viral marketing" strategy in which agencies attempt to brand a product thro
There is some truth to this; the intel C compiler makes some optimizations of a type that currently are unavailable in gcc: intel's C compiler, if asked, will attempt to preprocess code so that it can *automatically* use SSE2 instructions in place of normal instructions, even if this involves unrolling loops and re-aligning data. For example, it would preprocess this loop:
for ( int i = 0; i < n; i++ ) array[ i ]++;
into new code that would load the array in blocks of 4 and use a single SSE2 instruction to increment all items in that block at a time, (adjusting its code appropriately for the case when n is not divisble by 4.) there is a preprocessor for PPC called VAST/AltiVec that will do this sort of thing for PPC, but I'm really doubt that Apple wasn't using it.
Yeah -- everybody at MIT pretty much has to use Mozilla because all the other browsers don't get certificates quite right, and you need certificates for a lot of MIT stuff.
also, this guy was my recitation teacher for 6.001 -- a few months back I checked out his research and thought to myself, "hmm, this seems cool..." and then it's on slashdot. maybe I should try insider trading. martha, give me a hand...?:/
Also, the higher temperatures will form more carbon monoxide vs dioxide ratios than normal
no, you're not burning any carbon so you won't get any carbon dioxide. this is powered by Hydrogen gas, not by a hydrocarbon. yes, at higher temperatures you will get more oxides of nitrogen, but hydrogen actually burns cooler than your average hydrocarbon fuel like gas, so this will produce less pollution.
(another correction: high temperatures cause more complete oxidation of carbon (CO2) rather than incomplete oxidation (CO)...)
Wouldn't it be amazing if hardware in the near-future included an "add-on" chip (something like Altivec that works in conjuction with the PPC processor) that emulated the x86 hardware? Maybe it would give Mac users the ability to run Windows and PC software, not via software emulation, but with hardware assistance. Imagine the interest Apple could draw if they presented the world with a machine that runs the Classic, OS X, Unix and Windows applications... all in one environment and almost seamlessly.
A nice idea, but there are huge implementation hurdles to acomplishing this:
you either have to
1) run a whole windows os as a process in mac os x a la virtual pc, but this would seem very inelegant to most mac users -- the fact that classic apps still have different looking widgets pisses a lot of UI snobs off; could you imagine how people would react if the entire classic environment had to run in a window??
2) emulate the (enormous) win32 api -- perhaps make a fork up wine project and beef it up, (like theyve done time and again with other open source software,) and then run windows apps through x11/wine. if they could pull this off itd be damn cool. however wine is pretty unreliable as is, and mac users just want their stuff to work out of the box. i really doubt they could pull this off in fewer than 5 years. by then, microsoft will have screwed with the api enough to shaft apple and the wine project.
as much as i wish that apple would take a crack at #2, i am a realist, so i have to face thet fact that its probably not going to happen. oh well.
well, it turns out that theres hope for life in an open universe after all -- from Steven Hawking's lecture "Life in the Universe
...Most stars will have burnt out in another 15 billion years or so, and the universe will be approaching a state of complete disorder, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But Freeman Dyson has shown that, despite this, life could adapt to the ever-decreasing supply of ordered energy, and therefore could, in principle, continue forever.
...The general conlusion of the analysis is that an open universe need not evolve into a state of permanent quiescence. Life and communication can continue for ever, utilizing a finite store of energy, if the assumed scaling laws are valid.
so lets hope that those scaling laws hold up:D
(and yes, the kind of life he's referring to would be quite different than the kind that you and I are familiar with...)
C'mon guys -- everybody knows that you have to type in the SECRET PASSWORD at the keypad at the door to get into the Athena clusters -- that way only honest people have physical access to the computers...:D
Slashdot Mirror
probably :/
Here is the essay that I submitted for the Freshman Essay Evaluation at MIT, (an assessment of basic competence in writing.) The question was to respond to an essay by science-novelist Alan Lightman that urged readers to consider the negative impact of new technologies before accepting them into society.
----------
To my great excitement, my parents surprised me with a portable music player called an iPod for my 18th birthday. As the novelty wore off, I realized that the iPod presented an unlikely ethical question: under what circumstances would I feel comfortable using it? Over the following weeks I embarked on a journey of experimentation and introspection through which I finally arrived at a set of personal guidelines for the use of my iPod.
The first dilemma I faced regarding the iPod was whether to bring it to school. Since it was so expensive, I had strong reservations about bringing it into an environment where fragile items are frequently damaged and theft from book bags is not uncommon. However, I decided that if I were to allow fear of damage or theft to shape my use of the device, I would not be able to enjoy it during the majority of my day-to-day life. Thus I decided that I must face the risk and take the device to school. In retrospect I realize that this decision represents a moral judgment that I hold close to my heart: I refuse to buy an item that I am unable to enjoy for fear of ruining it. This applies not only to electronics but also to other things such as expensive cars and clothing.
At school, I used my iPod to listen to music while walking between classes, only to encounter another, more subtle internal conflict: though continuously accompanied by my music, I found myself increasingly isolated from other people. I first noticed that when I was wearing my headphones, friends who would usually exchange greetings with me in the hall would now frequently walk past without a word. After some introspection, I realized that in the past I had regularly acted likewise towards my friends upon observing that they were wearing headphones. At that moment I was rocked by a frightening epiphany: through the use of my iPod at school, I was sending a strong message to the world that I was antisocial, apathetic, and wholly uninterested in interaction with others; rather I was indicating that I was engrossed in the private world of my music -- music that no one else could hear or enjoy. Furthermore, while talking with my friends, I would turn my music down but I would still find it difficult to concentrate on what they were saying or to come up with anything meaningful to say myself.
In light of these realizations, I decided to stop using my iPod at school immediately. However my decision quickly raised further internal conflict from my ethic regarding the use of expensive items. Granted, I did not purchase the iPod; it was given to me as a gift. Nonetheless, on principle I do not like to own expensive things that I do not plan to use. Accordingly, in my spare time I considered uses for my then useless iPod.
A few days later on a long drive, I discovered the perfect use for my iPod: playing music in my car. (This idea was particularly timely since I had become increasingly dissatisfied with music on the radio.) Therefore, I purchased a car adapter from Radio Shack and I now bring my iPod on all road trips for my enjoyment and for that of my passengers. Fortunately this new use lacks any of the negative social implications of wearing headphones at school.
I benefited in many ways from the gift of the iPod; not only can I enjoy my music in a situation that I find acceptable, but I also learned valuable lessons about interacting with people in a world of distracting technology. My observations about the social implications of my iPod hold true when generalized to most new distracting technologies. At first there is a period when people experiment to discover what situations are app
mod parent down; this is bogus for any number of reasons, the most important of which is that NO ROOM TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTORS HAVE EVER BEEN DOCUMENTED, regardless of T_c/H_c/J_c characteristics. I call shenanigans.
my 2c :D
so wait... does that mean that gatorade spies on my intestines...?
In related news, the screenshot of XP on apple.com has the windows update icon in the tray... methinks apple is poking fun at m$ :>
nice plots, but correlation is *not* causation, period. causation can only be established by a controlled experiment.
[ Warning: extreme spoilage ahead! ]
The beginning of the film informs the viewer that a virus is rapidly spreading through the civilian and government Internet, disabling major infrastructure and causing general chaos. Furthermore, by evolving and adapting in ways never seen before by the military analysts, the virus is evading detection/disinfection, and as such is slated to infect the overwhelming majority of the internet in short order. The only seeming recourse available to the US military is to deploy an untested new artificial intelligence system called "SkyNet" that would take over control of nearly all computers in the world, and by some untold virtue of its (artificial) brilliance, expunge all of the world's infected computers of the virus.
However, the military big cheese (Robert Brewster) running the SkyNet project is very reluctant to deploy it, as he reveals in a prognosticative conversation with the Commander in Chief. The President suggests that launching SkyNet would wrest control of the US military's computers from the virus and give it back to the military. However, Brewster counters that launching SkyNet would give control of the military's computers to SkyNet -- instead of to humans. Nonetheless, when pressed he concedes that SkyNet will still be under human control.
Unsurprisingly, (consistent with the previously-released but chronologically-subsequent films,) when SkyNet is deployed it becomes sentient, decides that humans are its enemy, seizes control of itself from its operators, and begins the preparations for launching a massive nuclear missile attack against the major population-centers of the world. Our brave protagonists race to the supposed location of the mainframe that runs SkyNet, (deep within a desert bunker,) to destroy it before it can launch the missles. However...
[ EXTREME CRAPPY PLOT-TWIST SPOILAGE WARNING! ]
However, leaving the theater, I began to consider that perhaps the film's examination of the "Pandora's Box of defense technology" theme had a more specific message: if left unchecked, decentralized peer-to-peer networks would eventually cause the downfall of civilization as we know it. Their means of conveying this message seems to be a subtle strategy of suggestion, similar to the advertising practice of "product placement", (in which marketers attempt to improve the brand of a product by paying to have it appear in a positive light in a film.) As such, it seems reasonable that the metaphorical implication of the SkyNet plot-twist is an attempt by the MPAA and friends to cast a negative "branding" light onto decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing networks (like Kazaa) by associating them with the similarly-decentralized SkyNet network that in the film destroys the world -- and is the physical manifestation of the evils of hubris that the film thematically admonishes.
While the public debate on the efficacy of product placement is similar in nature to debates on the potency of all forms of advertising, (e.g. subliminal advertising,) marketing companies have no doubts that subtle branding has dramatic effects of the behavior of consumers; note the recent explosion of the "viral marketing" strategy in which agencies attempt to brand a product thro
for ( int i = 0; i < n; i++ ) array[ i ]++;
into new code that would load the array in blocks of 4 and use a single SSE2 instruction to increment all items in that block at a time, (adjusting its code appropriately for the case when n is not divisble by 4.) there is a preprocessor for PPC called VAST/AltiVec that will do this sort of thing for PPC, but I'm really doubt that Apple wasn't using it.
I disagree; I saw the design and I shit my pants.
also, this guy was my recitation teacher for 6.001 -- a few months back I checked out his research and thought to myself, "hmm, this seems cool..." and then it's on slashdot. maybe I should try insider trading. martha, give me a hand...? :/
no, you're not burning any carbon so you won't get any carbon dioxide. this is powered by Hydrogen gas, not by a hydrocarbon. yes, at higher temperatures you will get more oxides of nitrogen, but hydrogen actually burns cooler than your average hydrocarbon fuel like gas, so this will produce less pollution.
(another correction: high temperatures cause more complete oxidation of carbon (CO2) rather than incomplete oxidation (CO)...)
yeah, their web servers probably have oodles of bandwidth, but us poor students in Next House (a dorm) have really shitty bandwidth :(
A nice idea, but there are huge implementation hurdles to acomplishing this:
you either have to
1) run a whole windows os as a process in mac os x a la virtual pc, but this would seem very inelegant to most mac users -- the fact that classic apps still have different looking widgets pisses a lot of UI snobs off; could you imagine how people would react if the entire classic environment had to run in a window??
2) emulate the (enormous) win32 api -- perhaps make a fork up wine project and beef it up, (like theyve done time and again with other open source software,) and then run windows apps through x11/wine. if they could pull this off itd be damn cool. however wine is pretty unreliable as is, and mac users just want their stuff to work out of the box. i really doubt they could pull this off in fewer than 5 years. by then, microsoft will have screwed with the api enough to shaft apple and the wine project.
as much as i wish that apple would take a crack at #2, i am a realist, so i have to face thet fact that its probably not going to happen. oh well.
which referrs to freeman dyson's paper "Time Without End: Physics and Biology in an Open Universe
so lets hope that those scaling laws hold up :D
(and yes, the kind of life he's referring to would be quite different than the kind that you and I are familiar with...)
C'mon guys -- everybody knows that you have to type in the SECRET PASSWORD at the keypad at the door to get into the Athena clusters -- that way only honest people have physical access to the computers... :D