Everything not binary-represented-information related used base-10.
Everything binary-represented-information related (computing related, bandwidth related etc) used base 2, because the most important thing is how much information is being passed around or stored, and base-2 is the natural unit for measuring information, which comes in bits, and whose complexity is related to powers of the number of bits.
I should clarify, "the suggestion to have a machine execute particular sequences/combinations of math/logic operations" in order to achieve a "real purpose in the world" and not just achieve the calculation of the mathematical result.
I believe it is the suggestion to execute particular sequences and combinations of mathematical/logical operations, to achieve a particular purpose, which is being patented, not the abstract existence of the mathematical principles themselves.
That being said, I tend to agree with your "information shall be free" idealist position on these things, but then I also think that clever / creative people should be given enough money to pursue their creative passions without starving or freezing to death.
But instead it's a dog eat dog world, so the clever but otherwise hapless dogs have invented patents to make sure they don't starve if they produce useful inventions.
I guess they could just produce inventions that are badly designed and need lots of paid tech. support. Oh wait. Where have I seen that business model before?
I think that the best overall defense is if someone can take a case all the way to the supreme court, and argue that the threshold for obviousness is way out of whack in the granting of software and business process patents.
The goal should be to get a test mandated by the supreme court along the lines of: If three out of four average 3rd year comp sci students could design and code it up in a month, having heard only the requirements and not the design, then it's f***ing obvious to a competent practitioner in the field, and should be dismissed.
Who knows. There may actually be algorithms clever enough to deserve patent protection for 5 years or so. But right now those would probably be 1 out of 100 of the patents granted, so the whole system is in total disrepute and it is the duty of a responsible practitioner in the field, as a protest, to ignore and not view and thus not heed any USPTO software or business process patents, until they entirely revamp the standards and throw out all patents granted under the existing broken standards.
On my smartphone I want -quality and security vetted apps -just works -apps with simple, quality-assessed human factors ui design -relatively few apps to choose from in each category -performance and battery-life vetted apps -a single simple way to pay for non-free apps or content
These properties are way more important to me than total freedom for developers on the platform.
If android can achieve my requirements, and also have a "scratch" area for unvetted apps to be browsed and tried out in secure sandboxes, well, cool, but the onus is on them to show that they have a way of making it easy to limit yourself to finding and running apps that have some standards. Yeah, I know. iFart, But at least its easy to use.
The Venezuelan president is elected by a vote with direct and universal suffrage, and is both head of state and head of government. The term of office is six years, and (as of 15 February 2009) a president may be re-elected an unlimited number of times. The president appoints the vice-president and decides the size and composition of the Cabinet and makes appointments to it with the involvement of the legislature. The president can ask the legislature to reconsider portions of laws he finds objectionable, but a simple parliamentary majority can override these objections.
Legislative The unicameral Venezuelan parliament is the Asamblea Nacional ("National Assembly"). Its 167 deputies, of which three are reserved for indigenous people, serve five-year terms and may be re-elected for a maximum of two additional terms. They are elected by popular vote through a combination of party lists and single member constituencies.
Have you normalized this against the demographics of the baby boom (and # drivers by age), then subjected the normalized result to a T-test for statistical significance?
Whether Toyota should be straightforward with customers about the level of uncertainty or adopt a blustering strategy, kind of depends on how comfortable people (the customers or potential customers) are with uncertainty existing in science and engineering.
Scientists and engineers are comfortable (some of us) with existing in a world where there is a.83 probability of this, and a.012 probability of that, and we expect as a matter of course that our theory might have to be revised as more observations come in.
But I had the experience of working for a non-techie executive, and when he asked how things were going, or I proactively informed him about some issue in the development project, he invariably had the same reaction, no matter whether I was reporting a minor problem (one in a sequence of hundreds of obstacles the engineer has to discover and work around as they go - i.e. a routine temporary unknown or a routine new problem at the forefront of the innovation), or a potential show-stopper.
Regardless of which of these it was, and I was always careful to put these problem reports/issue reports in perspective when reporting them, it was always:
"Oh MY GOD!!! We need to shut down this project / subproject/workpackage / feature development RIGHT NOW! There is a PROBLEM! We can't afford PROBLEMS!! They are too SCARY!! I don't know what's around the corner! We must backtrack and go another route altogether!!!!
So eventually I stopped reporting problems/issues to my management, and just went about with the other techies fixing/working around each one. And if asked how it was going, I would resort to impenetrable but vaguely positive generalities. Why?
So we could get some work done. So that management by irrational fear and lack of insight and perspective would not GUARANTEED ruin the project.
How dysfunctional is that.
I imagine Toyota, and its relationship with the general public, is kind of like that. They may be damned for blustering, but they damn sure would be crucified for telling the truth about the level of engineering uncertainties in any developed complex system.
To get the downlow, you have to be equipped to handle it rationally.
Most people who say that do not work out at the gym or the range often enough, and, let's just say, would get a new perspective thrust upon them in a world of anarchy.
The rest of the world (organized through ICANN, say) could impose sanctions on China for unreasonable restriction of trade.
Specifically, it could impose limits on routing from China to the rest of the Internet, perhaps replacing all outside content with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
Any government that is afraid of its people having information
(let's perhaps make an exception for specific information on how to make weapons of mass destruction out of common household ingredients)
is inherently not a government "of the people for the people".
It is not confident in its own popularity, or in the inherent stability through general agreement of its governmental system.
Does the Chinese government not realize that their insistence on censorship simply highlights the inherent weakness in their government and system of government?
Someone is modding everyone who supports going around this filtering using encryption and/or proxies as a troll.
That is very political use of modding. There is no: -1 Disagree so they are using -1 Troll for the same purpose.
Suspicious. I wonder if there are organized interests trying to keep slashdot discussions on the "right" track these days. And yes, I'm seriously wondering that, and not saying it in order to promote an angry reaction.
What percentage of the people who go into a grocery store would you say read the labels (i.e. the fine print) on the food packages before making their decision.
They have 15 minutes or 1/2 hour to make selections from, what, 10,000 different items in the store?
What we need is at-a-glance, visible-from-a-distance information so that a shopper with an intent to eat healthier can filter their shopping selections rapidly enough for that to be practical.
Also, the sea of different colored labels, viewed from afar, gives the shopper general notions of the stats of how many healthy food products are being sold in the store, compared to how many really bad ones, etc, and in what sections of the store / what general types of food, are the foods predominently very unhealthy, or predominently very healthy.
So it serves an educational purpose, without requiring undo, ornerous levels of cognitive load on the shopper.
Slashdot Mirror
Computer people can use
KB = 2^10 Bytes (1 Byte = 2^3 bits)
Kb = 2^10 bits
MB = 2^20 Bytes
Mb = 2^20 bits
GB = 2^30 Bytes
Gb = 2^30 bits
Never call them Giga, Mega etc. if that will p.o. the Si people
We like abbreviations anyway.
Before, the situation was simple.
Everything not binary-represented-information related used base-10.
Everything binary-represented-information related (computing related, bandwidth related etc) used base 2, because the
most important thing is how much information is being passed around or stored, and base-2 is the natural unit for
measuring information, which comes in bits, and whose complexity is related to powers of the number of bits.
Stop screwing around with information processing standards.
But more importantly, stop introducing capricious differences from other systems that just end up making the
whole computing ecosystem more complex.
So let's say there's two of us and we only need a 12 CU FT refrigerator, but I like beer a lot so I buy a 26 CU FT Energy Star fridge.
The standard tells me I did a good thing, but I know, deep inside, that I'm being an environmental bonehead.
I just bought the hybrid humvee of refrigerators, and I got a gold star for it.
I should clarify, "the suggestion to have a machine execute particular sequences/combinations of math/logic operations"
in order to achieve a "real purpose in the world" and not just achieve the calculation of the mathematical result.
I believe it is the suggestion to execute particular sequences and combinations of mathematical/logical operations,
to achieve a particular purpose, which is being patented, not the abstract existence of the mathematical principles themselves.
That being said, I tend to agree with your "information shall be free" idealist position on these things, but then I also think
that clever / creative people should be given enough money to pursue their creative passions without starving or freezing to death.
But instead it's a dog eat dog world, so the clever but otherwise hapless dogs have invented patents to make
sure they don't starve if they produce useful inventions.
I guess they could just produce inventions that are badly designed and need lots of paid tech. support. Oh wait.
Where have I seen that business model before?
I think that the best overall defense is if someone can take a case all the way to the supreme court, and argue that the threshold for obviousness
is way out of whack in the granting of software and business process patents.
The goal should be to get a test mandated by the supreme court along the lines of: If three out of four average 3rd year comp sci students
could design and code it up in a month, having heard only the requirements and not the design, then it's f***ing obvious to a competent practitioner
in the field, and should be dismissed.
Who knows. There may actually be algorithms clever enough to deserve patent protection for 5 years or so. But right now those would probably be
1 out of 100 of the patents granted, so the whole system is in total disrepute and it is the duty of a responsible practitioner in the field, as a protest,
to ignore and not view and thus not heed any USPTO software or business process patents, until they entirely revamp the standards and
throw out all patents granted under the existing broken standards.
On my smartphone I want
-quality and security vetted apps -just works
-apps with simple, quality-assessed human factors ui design
-relatively few apps to choose from in each category
-performance and battery-life vetted apps
-a single simple way to pay for non-free apps or content
These properties are way more important to me than
total freedom for developers on the platform.
If android can achieve my requirements, and also have
a "scratch" area for unvetted apps to be browsed and tried
out in secure sandboxes, well, cool, but the onus is on
them to show that they have a way of making it easy to
limit yourself to finding and running apps that have
some standards. Yeah, I know. iFart, But at least its easy
to use.
Scandalous!
It's almost like the people living there think they run
the place.
We'll soon sort them out.
Executive
The Venezuelan president is elected by a vote with direct and universal suffrage, and is both head of state and head of government. The term of office is six years, and (as of 15 February 2009) a president may be re-elected an unlimited number of times. The president appoints the vice-president and decides the size and composition of the Cabinet and makes appointments to it with the involvement of the legislature. The president can ask the legislature to reconsider portions of laws he finds objectionable, but a simple parliamentary majority can override these objections.
Legislative
The unicameral Venezuelan parliament is the Asamblea Nacional ("National Assembly"). Its 167 deputies, of which three are reserved for indigenous people, serve five-year terms and may be re-elected for a maximum of two additional terms. They are elected by popular vote through a combination of party lists and single member constituencies.
anyone who opposes the US acting like it owns the world in general and the hemisphere in particular is alright by me.
Have you normalized this against the demographics of the baby boom (and # drivers by age), then subjected the normalized result to a T-test for statistical significance?
In my country, it is completely illegal to search for the word "Capena" or the phrase "government corruption".
Are you ok with that?
Whether Toyota should be straightforward with customers about the level of uncertainty
or adopt a blustering strategy, kind of depends on how comfortable people (the customers
or potential customers) are with uncertainty existing in science and engineering.
Scientists and engineers are comfortable (some of us) with existing in a world where .83 probability of this, and a .012 probability of that, and we expect as a matter
there is a
of course that our theory might have to be revised as more observations come in.
But I had the experience of working for a non-techie executive, and when he asked how
things were going, or I proactively informed him about some issue in the development
project, he invariably had the same reaction, no matter whether I was reporting a minor
problem (one in a sequence of hundreds of obstacles the engineer has to discover and
work around as they go - i.e. a routine temporary unknown or a routine new problem at
the forefront of the innovation), or a potential show-stopper.
Regardless of which of these it was, and I was always careful to put these problem
reports/issue reports in perspective when reporting them, it was always:
"Oh MY GOD!!! We need to shut down this project / subproject /workpackage / feature
development RIGHT NOW! There is a PROBLEM! We can't afford PROBLEMS!! They
are too SCARY!! I don't know what's around the corner! We must backtrack and go another
route altogether!!!!
So eventually I stopped reporting problems/issues to my management, and just went
about with the other techies fixing/working around each one. And if asked how it was
going, I would resort to impenetrable but vaguely positive generalities. Why?
So we could get some work done. So that management by irrational fear and lack of
insight and perspective would not GUARANTEED ruin the project.
How dysfunctional is that.
I imagine Toyota, and its relationship with the general public, is kind of like that.
They may be damned for blustering, but they damn sure would be crucified
for telling the truth about the level of engineering uncertainties in any developed
complex system.
To get the downlow, you have to be equipped to handle it rationally.
or it'll be our goddamned god-given right to shoot you full of holes and pump the oil out of you, boy.
http://www.break.com/index/russian-tsar-hydrogen-bomb-explosion.html
Most people who say that do not work out at the gym or the range
often enough, and, let's just say, would get a new perspective thrust upon them in a world of anarchy.
Firewalls can work in both directions.
The rest of the world (organized through ICANN, say) could impose sanctions on China for unreasonable restriction of trade.
Specifically, it could impose limits on routing from China to the rest of the Internet, perhaps replacing all outside content with
this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
Any government that is afraid of its people having information
(let's perhaps make an exception for specific information on how to make weapons of mass destruction
out of common household ingredients)
is inherently not a government "of the people for the people".
It is not confident in its own popularity, or in the inherent stability through general agreement
of its governmental system.
Does the Chinese government not realize that their insistence on censorship simply
highlights the inherent weakness in their government and system of government?
Someone is modding everyone who supports going around this filtering using encryption and/or proxies as a troll.
That is very political use of modding. There is no: -1 Disagree so they are using -1 Troll for the same purpose.
Suspicious. I wonder if there are organized interests trying to keep slashdot discussions on the "right" track
these days. And yes, I'm seriously wondering that, and not saying it in order to promote an angry reaction.
Encryption
Proxies
crap. it should be "undue, onerous" levels. I think I'm eating too many red foods and its affecting my brain.
That should read "onerous" levels of cognitive load, ...though "ornerous" levels sounds pretty painful too.
The problem I'm trying to solve is this:
What percentage of the people who go into a grocery store would you say read the labels (i.e. the fine print) on the food packages
before making their decision.
They have 15 minutes or 1/2 hour to make selections from, what, 10,000 different items in the store?
What we need is at-a-glance, visible-from-a-distance information so that a shopper with an intent to eat healthier can
filter their shopping selections rapidly enough for that to be practical.
Also, the sea of different colored labels, viewed from afar, gives the shopper general notions of the stats of how many
healthy food products are being sold in the store, compared to how many really bad ones, etc, and in what sections of the
store / what general types of food, are the foods predominently very unhealthy, or predominently very healthy.
So it serves an educational purpose, without requiring undo, ornerous levels of cognitive load on the shopper.
Whoever modded this offtopic is a twit.
The general topic is ways of getting people to eat healthier.
-Banning certain foods is one way.
-Labelling foods in an easier to understand and notice way is another way
I'm saying the other way is more effective and sensible than the first way.
I'm comparing an alternative method to the proposed method which is the
topic of the article.
So back off, conversation-fascist!