The WoW thing could be bad... depends on whether she's chatting/enjoying herself, or whether she's actually addicted.
The Dad surfing for porn thing is normal though.
What he created was a subset of genes from a bacterium that was the remainder left after culling all "non needed" sequences from the genome.
That's a vast difference from designing an organism by selecting gene sequences to produce desired results on a macroscopic level, which is the biological analogue to what is attempting to be done with AI.
If you want to compare, mycobacterium laboratorium is an achievement on a par with taking a working operating system and removing systematically all those parts which don't appear to be associated with the command line and job scheduling, and ending up with a command line OS that boots.
What he's done is not an insignificant achievement, but there's no need to be impressed with the god-like scientific knowledge of humanity just yet:)
Straw man. The title of this thread is asking a similar question to "Whatever happened to the Internet? It was supposed to unify all Americans and bring about a new age of prosperity, online groceries, video telephones, and flying cars?"
sm62704:I don't recall enyone EVER saying the internet would ever do that. I have, however, heard that computers would become self-aware
Read Cliff Stoll's Book "Silicon Snake Oil" or any of a dozen other similar books in the "post modern" section of any bookstore.
No, but we've been to the point where someone could claim to have invented a self-aware articifial intelligence and use our fear of it for his own gain for quite some time now.
We reached that point as soon as someone though of the concept of AI... probably because the idea of creating an "other" intelligence with which we could deal/interact has been around for thousands of years as "otherworldly spirits" "gods and demons" or "alien intelligences". It's a staple of Sci-Fi. But most people aren't dumb enough to believe it's possible yet, so that limits the damage from someone threatening the world with an AI (like Dr. Evil!)
The title of this thread is asking a similar question to "Whatever happened to the Internet? It was supposed to unify all Americans and bring about a new age of prosperity, online groceries, video telephones, and flying cars?"
AI has always been surrounded by a lot of hype, as the idea of creating non-human life has always been an exciting one.
But we're probably as far from creating a true AI as we are from creating biological life from scratch (by synthesizing DNA sequences to build an organism from the molecular level).
AI research is providing useful gains in computer science, and some of those gains trickle down into the real world.
But contrary to what you may have been sold, we're not 10-15 years away from creating Skynet. We've got a long, long way to go, and scientists that aren't trying to get publicity have always known this.
AI hasn't "gone away"... it's just that the false marketing for it has.
You're not entitled to be given interesting work, worthwhile work, or any work to do. The company has no obligation to you other than to pay you once you tell them you're leaving.
They actually have no obligation to anything else while you work there, but I digress.
Get over yourself... you're actually complaining publicly because your ego is bruised. How dare they take away your access before your last minute! Don't they know how valuable you are? It's insulting.
First, there are new invasive species arriving at about 1 every 6 months in eg. the US Great lakes. So the damage is not done.
Second, the problem has been known for years and people have been trying to correct it since it's been known. It's been almost impossible to find a cheap, eco friendly system for sterilizing ballast water, although folks have been trying for several years now.
There have also been efforts to legally regulate the overboard discharge of water from any boat... in fact a law almost went into effect this year that would have required even small recreational boats to have expensive, heavy treatment systems on board.
This is an ongoing problem, and this microwave system offers some hope of control over new species arriving. If it works, it's just what we've been looking for....
I had a nice reply to this typed out, but Slashdot's beta on-screen editor ate it.
But basically what you're describing is a non-redundant commodity hardware version of a NAS or SAN array. It has lots of single points of failure and most importantly is missing the software that manages all that data.
EMC and Hitachi sell large versions of it, based on much the same hardware, and get probably a lot more cash for it than they should given their costs, but those old time data center folks aren't all that far off from what you're describing... they just realize there's significant value in making running all the disk storage someone else's problem.:)
>That doesn't necessarily mean you can pull your boat trailer with a 69 hp engine, of course.
Sure you can, if it's geared correctly. Check out the HP ratings on the US Army 2 1/2 ton trucks that were used in world war II... you'll be surprised:)
This article is about a nifty little NAS server that's turn-key, runs linux, and runs on an embedded MIPS chip.
It's neat, but it's not a replacement for a data center. Or most workgroup file servers. It's about on a par with the network attached hard drives that are pretty common in most computer stores now.
Kinda neat, but unless you're into "japanese-ness" of technology that's all it is.
This stuff doesn't matter....
In some engineered systems, it just isn't possible to have redundancy in the way you mean.
Extreme example: Try to design a fail-over for the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters:)
Interestingly, I've found that the skill needed (and the pay gathered) to deal with systems that can't be made redundant is much higher than that needed to work on "grid" or cluster systems where multiple cheap pieces of hardware are used.
A silver dollar, from which bits were commonly cut, weighs about.77 troy ounces.
Today's gold price as of posting is about $889.95 US per troy ounce.
A silver dollar was typically cut into 8 bits, which gives us a weight per bit of 0.096 ounces. That translates to about $85.66 per bit weight in gold. Remember, this is per system being patched.
Since the patches being applied ranged from 1 line to 285 lines per the paper, and a reasonable estimate of compiled average bytes per line is something like 20, we get a value of $13,700 per line of patch in gold. Even for the smaller patches, this is significant. The largest patch would be worth nearly $4,000,000 USD in gold.
Of course, for 64 bit systems vs. 32 bit, the value would be twice as much:)
For those that haven't read the paper, the technique used is straightforward in concept, but the devil is in the details.
He basically compiles a patched and unpatched kernel with the same compiler, compares the ELF output, and uses that to generate a binary file that corresponds to the change. That gets wrapped in a generic module for use, another module installs it along with JMPs to bypass the old code and use the new, and he performs the checks needed to make sure he can safely install the redirects.
He also has to differentiate real changes from incidental ones (the example given is changing the address of a function - all references to it will change, but they don't really need to be included in the binary diff).
The only human work required is to check whether a patch makes semantic changes to a data structure... whether eg. an unsigned integer variable that was being used as a number is now a packed set of flags - the data declaration is the same, but it's being used differently.
Interesting paper. Also a useful new set of capabilities for any Linux user who can't handle downtime for quarterly patching... worth its weight in gold in some businesses.
"The ball of dust and gas, which is in the process of turning into a Jupiter-like giant, was detected around the star HL Tau, by a UK team."
Well, then... it's obvious the planet is being formed for The Greater Good through advanced technology. We can disregard the data, it's not a natural planetary formation.
Because 7 is way, way too young to lock the parents out of the computer.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for personal privacy. Maybe if the computer wasn't internet connected, it'd be better, but at her age she needs supervision, and never to be on the internet alone.
Erik
oh no. fortunately, not every jackass with a patch has commit access to the linux kernel. your comparison is invalid.
No, it's perfectly valid because I explicitly mention that I'm comparing the size and complexity of the two, not the nature of the editing system, type of contributors, hardware platforms, or anything else, my comparison is limited to those two items.
It's larger in size by lines written. It's more complex in that more people contribute (as you say) to Wikipedia, on more subjects, and are more difficult to manage.
Erik
PS: Sometimes to me it does seem like every jackass with a patch commits to the kernel....
Wikipedia isn't a democracy, and I think the only people surprised by the way the admins operate are the ones with stars in their eyes.
Wikipedia is probably the most successful collaborative effort on the internet, surpassing the Linux kernel in size and complexity. Its editors and authors do a lot of great work, putting data out there and generally being fair and balanced.
But, it's not a church, it's not a publicly run trust, and there's no oversight committee. Jimbo Wales and Co. can do whatever they want.. it's their site. They can ban anyone they like for any reason, even if they publically claim to be even handed, fair, and open, and the worst they may be guilty of is lying. The real reason people are up in arms is that they are surprised about it.
We get lied to every day, by the government, church, our coworkers, neighbors, pretty much everyone. We sort of expect it, though. Very few people buy in to a religion wholesale and stop questioning anything related to it. Unless you're a fanatic and stupid to boot, you realize that some of it is crap. Even though churches claim that morality and truth are the highest law, and they don't lie, cheat, or steal.
People have let themselves believe (perhaps not consciously) that since wikipedia exists today, that we must have reached some kind of golden age of the Internet and mankind, that wikipedia will grow until it contains everything we know, and all will contribute to it, everyone will learn that being fair and true is the only way to live, and we'll all understand each other better.
But wikipedia lies like anyone else. It's not utopia. "Best" is a relative term.
Wikipedia is the biggest collaboration out there. But that doesn't mean it's made from pure angelic light trapped in circuits.... it's made of people, and people can be corrupt, biased, bigoted, jerks.
The main reason I've never contributed to Wikipedia is that I was burned in the past. Anyone remember CDDB? There are other examples. I've seen some recent positive press for Wikipedia in the recent announcement that the code will be GPL.... it's another step in the right direction.
I think what we're seeing here is the classic human behavior related to in-group vs. out-group. Like someone posted on the wikipedia thread a couple days ago.
Basically, these people have bought the kindle and like it, or at least don't hate it enough to throw it away. What they really DO like is the fact that buying it puts them in a group of people who have a cool device and therefore they get a feeling of belonging. They identify part of their own self-worth with the "coolness" and value of the device.
Therefore, if the device is perceived as "cooler" or more desireable by the general population, they emotionally can transfer that to themselves. They'll promote kindle without reason and defend it to the death because they're really defending themselves. The sad part is that many of them don't know it... they truly believe they're objectively promoting this product, and they truly believe that the people who haven't gotten it yet eventually will.
The same thing happens with many technology items, like many in the cult of Mac or those who are rabid about Linux... the technologies' true worth and faults are irrelevant to them, sometimes without them realizing it, because they identify themselves as "Mac Owner" or "Linux User", and all that matters is if someone attacks their technology, it's an attack on them and their in-group.
How many of them are developers, though? Artists? Game designers? It's not all just to handle the money coming in, and they don't do their own distribution and advertising. Some programmers for Steam, maybe....
It's not bad outside, though. Look at the scene at the end, after GlaDOS blows up. Sure, the trees and such could just be untouched or naturally regenerating, but I doubt the guard gate would still look so pristine after the 7 hour war took place.
I think GlaDOS's comments are just like the rest of her narrative.. encouraging the protagonist to be a good little girl and go back to her cage.
I agree with a lot of the commentary on portal, and at the end of the game I was wondering "did anyone actually stop when they got burned to death?".
But this author is too impressed with himself. Portal shows what kind of game can be produced when the production team isn't trying to make an "epic" game... have you ever compared the list of credits for half-life and hl:ep2? See how many more people are involved? Is the game that much better because of it? Valve is producing episodes instead of new games because people want more of the story, and it's not a bad thing, but the company seems to be adding more and more people to produce what is effectively a shorter version of HL2 each time... and they don't need to develop the engine or tools!
The new weapon added is nice, but it's not revolutionary. Other than the weapon, this game was just more of the same... story telling, driving a vehicle, shutting off force fields, crawling in tunnels. Can't valve do that more, and more quickly, than two years per episode?
However, portal made the orange box worth it.
One other thing about valve not making a lot of progress... Counter-Strike: Source has been unaltered for a long time. Not to say it's not still fun, but why haven't there been at least some new things added to keep it fresh? Maybe change out some weapons, or add a few new ones? Remove or balance the overpowered weapons? Last time I checked CS:S had over 20,000 active game servers on the net. That's got to be close to or THE most popular team based shooter around.
What are all those people doing?
As to the end of portal, I think it fits in the half-life continuity before the events at Black Mesa in HL1, and probably prior to the incident with Borealis. I base this on the outdoor view of the building at the end of the game. I would actually have been pleased to end up on board a ship instead of outside a building:)
GlaDOS is the best computer villain since Shodan.
I think if Valve is smart they'll release a Portal 2, as well as increase the crossover between Portal and Half-life. Maybe Gordon will discover a portal gun onboard the Borealis, or maybe he'll meet the female heroine of Portal. Wondering where Portal and Half-life 2 meet will add a lot of freshness to the HL2 story and game.
I can't wait to see what games people develop with the portal generation code in the half-life SDK.
Slashdot Mirror
The WoW thing could be bad... depends on whether she's chatting/enjoying herself, or whether she's actually addicted. The Dad surfing for porn thing is normal though.
I'll correct myself... it's "microplasma laboratorium" not "microbacterium".
What he created was a subset of genes from a bacterium that was the remainder left after culling all "non needed" sequences from the genome.
That's a vast difference from designing an organism by selecting gene sequences to produce desired results on a macroscopic level, which is the biological analogue to what is attempting to be done with AI.
If you want to compare, mycobacterium laboratorium is an achievement on a par with taking a working operating system and removing systematically all those parts which don't appear to be associated with the command line and job scheduling, and ending up with a command line OS that boots.
What he's done is not an insignificant achievement, but there's no need to be impressed with the god-like scientific knowledge of humanity just yet :)
Erik
sm62704:I don't recall enyone EVER saying the internet would ever do that. I have, however, heard that computers would become self-aware
Read Cliff Stoll's Book "Silicon Snake Oil" or any of a dozen other similar books in the "post modern" section of any bookstore.
No, but we've been to the point where someone could claim to have invented a self-aware articifial intelligence and use our fear of it for his own gain for quite some time now.
We reached that point as soon as someone though of the concept of AI... probably because the idea of creating an "other" intelligence with which we could deal/interact has been around for thousands of years as "otherworldly spirits" "gods and demons" or "alien intelligences". It's a staple of Sci-Fi. But most people aren't dumb enough to believe it's possible yet, so that limits the damage from someone threatening the world with an AI (like Dr. Evil!)
Erik
AI has always been surrounded by a lot of hype, as the idea of creating non-human life has always been an exciting one.
But we're probably as far from creating a true AI as we are from creating biological life from scratch (by synthesizing DNA sequences to build an organism from the molecular level).
AI research is providing useful gains in computer science, and some of those gains trickle down into the real world.
But contrary to what you may have been sold, we're not 10-15 years away from creating Skynet. We've got a long, long way to go, and scientists that aren't trying to get publicity have always known this.
AI hasn't "gone away"... it's just that the false marketing for it has.
Erik
You're not entitled to be given interesting work, worthwhile work, or any work to do. The company has no obligation to you other than to pay you once you tell them you're leaving.
They actually have no obligation to anything else while you work there, but I digress.
Get over yourself... you're actually complaining publicly because your ego is bruised. How dare they take away your access before your last minute! Don't they know how valuable you are? It's insulting.
Get over it.
First, there are new invasive species arriving at about 1 every 6 months in eg. the US Great lakes. So the damage is not done.
Second, the problem has been known for years and people have been trying to correct it since it's been known. It's been almost impossible to find a cheap, eco friendly system for sterilizing ballast water, although folks have been trying for several years now.
There have also been efforts to legally regulate the overboard discharge of water from any boat... in fact a law almost went into effect this year that would have required even small recreational boats to have expensive, heavy treatment systems on board.
This is an ongoing problem, and this microwave system offers some hope of control over new species arriving. If it works, it's just what we've been looking for....
But basically what you're describing is a non-redundant commodity hardware version of a NAS or SAN array. It has lots of single points of failure and most importantly is missing the software that manages all that data.
EMC and Hitachi sell large versions of it, based on much the same hardware, and get probably a lot more cash for it than they should given their costs, but those old time data center folks aren't all that far off from what you're describing... they just realize there's significant value in making running all the disk storage someone else's problem. :)
Erik
Sure you can, if it's geared correctly. Check out the HP ratings on the US Army 2 1/2 ton trucks that were used in world war II... you'll be surprised :)
This article is about a nifty little NAS server that's turn-key, runs linux, and runs on an embedded MIPS chip. It's neat, but it's not a replacement for a data center. Or most workgroup file servers. It's about on a par with the network attached hard drives that are pretty common in most computer stores now. Kinda neat, but unless you're into "japanese-ness" of technology that's all it is. This stuff doesn't matter....
I knew there was a good reason to like inflation! As well as SSE instructions :)
Extreme example: Try to design a fail-over for the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters :)
Interestingly, I've found that the skill needed (and the pay gathered) to deal with systems that can't be made redundant is much higher than that needed to work on "grid" or cluster systems where multiple cheap pieces of hardware are used.
And they tend to be more reliable too.
Move that "Remember, this is per system..." down a paragraph. Slashdot needs a post edit function.
A silver dollar, from which bits were commonly cut, weighs about .77 troy ounces.
Today's gold price as of posting is about $889.95 US per troy ounce.
A silver dollar was typically cut into 8 bits, which gives us a weight per bit of 0.096 ounces. That translates to about $85.66 per bit weight in gold. Remember, this is per system being patched.
Since the patches being applied ranged from 1 line to 285 lines per the paper, and a reasonable estimate of compiled average bytes per line is something like 20, we get a value of $13,700 per line of patch in gold. Even for the smaller patches, this is significant. The largest patch would be worth nearly $4,000,000 USD in gold.
Of course, for 64 bit systems vs. 32 bit, the value would be twice as much :)
Erik
He basically compiles a patched and unpatched kernel with the same compiler, compares the ELF output, and uses that to generate a binary file that corresponds to the change. That gets wrapped in a generic module for use, another module installs it along with JMPs to bypass the old code and use the new, and he performs the checks needed to make sure he can safely install the redirects.
He also has to differentiate real changes from incidental ones (the example given is changing the address of a function - all references to it will change, but they don't really need to be included in the binary diff).
The only human work required is to check whether a patch makes semantic changes to a data structure... whether eg. an unsigned integer variable that was being used as a number is now a packed set of flags - the data declaration is the same, but it's being used differently.
Interesting paper. Also a useful new set of capabilities for any Linux user who can't handle downtime for quarterly patching... worth its weight in gold in some businesses.
Erik
Get over it. I care so little about laptop screens switching form factor that I'm not even sure why I'm posting this.
"The ball of dust and gas, which is in the process of turning into a Jupiter-like giant, was detected around the star HL Tau, by a UK team." Well, then... it's obvious the planet is being formed for The Greater Good through advanced technology. We can disregard the data, it's not a natural planetary formation.
.... and it doesn't exist anyway. The "magneclay" material is total fiction, and may not be possible.
Because 7 is way, way too young to lock the parents out of the computer. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for personal privacy. Maybe if the computer wasn't internet connected, it'd be better, but at her age she needs supervision, and never to be on the internet alone. Erik
No, it's perfectly valid because I explicitly mention that I'm comparing the size and complexity of the two, not the nature of the editing system, type of contributors, hardware platforms, or anything else, my comparison is limited to those two items.
It's larger in size by lines written. It's more complex in that more people contribute (as you say) to Wikipedia, on more subjects, and are more difficult to manage.
Erik
PS: Sometimes to me it does seem like every jackass with a patch commits to the kernel....
Wikipedia is probably the most successful collaborative effort on the internet, surpassing the Linux kernel in size and complexity. Its editors and authors do a lot of great work, putting data out there and generally being fair and balanced.
But, it's not a church, it's not a publicly run trust, and there's no oversight committee. Jimbo Wales and Co. can do whatever they want.. it's their site. They can ban anyone they like for any reason, even if they publically claim to be even handed, fair, and open, and the worst they may be guilty of is lying. The real reason people are up in arms is that they are surprised about it.
We get lied to every day, by the government, church, our coworkers, neighbors, pretty much everyone. We sort of expect it, though. Very few people buy in to a religion wholesale and stop questioning anything related to it. Unless you're a fanatic and stupid to boot, you realize that some of it is crap. Even though churches claim that morality and truth are the highest law, and they don't lie, cheat, or steal.
People have let themselves believe (perhaps not consciously) that since wikipedia exists today, that we must have reached some kind of golden age of the Internet and mankind, that wikipedia will grow until it contains everything we know, and all will contribute to it, everyone will learn that being fair and true is the only way to live, and we'll all understand each other better.
But wikipedia lies like anyone else. It's not utopia. "Best" is a relative term.
Wikipedia is the biggest collaboration out there. But that doesn't mean it's made from pure angelic light trapped in circuits.... it's made of people, and people can be corrupt, biased, bigoted, jerks.
The main reason I've never contributed to Wikipedia is that I was burned in the past. Anyone remember CDDB? There are other examples. I've seen some recent positive press for Wikipedia in the recent announcement that the code will be GPL.... it's another step in the right direction.
Information wants to be free.
Erik
Basically, these people have bought the kindle and like it, or at least don't hate it enough to throw it away. What they really DO like is the fact that buying it puts them in a group of people who have a cool device and therefore they get a feeling of belonging. They identify part of their own self-worth with the "coolness" and value of the device.
Therefore, if the device is perceived as "cooler" or more desireable by the general population, they emotionally can transfer that to themselves. They'll promote kindle without reason and defend it to the death because they're really defending themselves. The sad part is that many of them don't know it... they truly believe they're objectively promoting this product, and they truly believe that the people who haven't gotten it yet eventually will.
The same thing happens with many technology items, like many in the cult of Mac or those who are rabid about Linux... the technologies' true worth and faults are irrelevant to them, sometimes without them realizing it, because they identify themselves as "Mac Owner" or "Linux User", and all that matters is if someone attacks their technology, it's an attack on them and their in-group.
Erik
How many of them are developers, though? Artists? Game designers? It's not all just to handle the money coming in, and they don't do their own distribution and advertising. Some programmers for Steam, maybe....
It's not bad outside, though. Look at the scene at the end, after GlaDOS blows up. Sure, the trees and such could just be untouched or naturally regenerating, but I doubt the guard gate would still look so pristine after the 7 hour war took place. I think GlaDOS's comments are just like the rest of her narrative.. encouraging the protagonist to be a good little girl and go back to her cage.
Warning: A few spoilers included.
:)
I agree with a lot of the commentary on portal, and at the end of the game I was wondering "did anyone actually stop when they got burned to death?".
But this author is too impressed with himself. Portal shows what kind of game can be produced when the production team isn't trying to make an "epic" game... have you ever compared the list of credits for half-life and hl:ep2? See how many more people are involved? Is the game that much better because of it? Valve is producing episodes instead of new games because people want more of the story, and it's not a bad thing, but the company seems to be adding more and more people to produce what is effectively a shorter version of HL2 each time... and they don't need to develop the engine or tools!
The new weapon added is nice, but it's not revolutionary. Other than the weapon, this game was just more of the same... story telling, driving a vehicle, shutting off force fields, crawling in tunnels. Can't valve do that more, and more quickly, than two years per episode?
However, portal made the orange box worth it.
One other thing about valve not making a lot of progress... Counter-Strike: Source has been unaltered for a long time. Not to say it's not still fun, but why haven't there been at least some new things added to keep it fresh? Maybe change out some weapons, or add a few new ones? Remove or balance the overpowered weapons?
Last time I checked CS:S had over 20,000 active game servers on the net. That's got to be close to or THE most popular team based shooter around.
What are all those people doing?
As to the end of portal, I think it fits in the half-life continuity before the events at Black Mesa in HL1, and probably prior to the incident with Borealis. I base this on the outdoor view of the building at the end of the game. I would actually have been pleased to end up on board a ship instead of outside a building
GlaDOS is the best computer villain since Shodan.
I think if Valve is smart they'll release a Portal 2, as well as increase the crossover between Portal and Half-life. Maybe Gordon will discover a portal gun onboard the Borealis, or maybe he'll meet the female heroine of Portal. Wondering where Portal and Half-life 2 meet will add a lot of freshness to the HL2 story and game.
I can't wait to see what games people develop with the portal generation code in the half-life SDK.
Erik