I haven't seen revolutions yet, but I had a guess at how it would end and at least at some level I was right (appearntly neo and trinity die). I agree with much of MattW's post, but I have another dimension that seems to be supported.
I believe the architect scene from Reloaded is "the answer" to the questions that anyone has, even if it was an obnoxious scene that was probably shortened so they could fit in lots of action. The previous poster used eastern philosphy, but let's throw in some western and the concept of free will and "the soul".
I see instead the matrix as a simulation and sort of a recession test of machine intelligence where each human is plugged in to get a wide sample. It is perfecting itself, by modelling us. It passes only when it achieves long term stability. If there is a "one" and if a zion is created, then it fails. The architect is one such program designed to compensate for failure. Analysis of the failure is done by systematic reduction of possibilities to a single point of failure, in this case, someone who continuously fails to accept the system. If it can construct a system that properly accounts for human intelligence in all cases, the computer has finished learning from us.
How do you reverse engineer anything? There is only one method that does not rely on inside knowledge: you do a side by side comparison, feeding the same inputs and predicting the outputs. When the output of your created box, differs from the output of the original, you know you have a flaw and must investigate.
The problem is identified as choice, free will, thinking outside the box, creativity. The computer can beat us or fight to a standoff in all cases but loses when we do something not expected, something that can't be concluded from the facts at hand. The matrix is a specific test suite designed to quantify this behavior, understand it, and adapt to it.
Agent Smith is the embodiment of this effort, learning from Neo, trying to understand him. I believe he is the "mother" that the Architect referred to, not the oracle necessarily. The architect on the other hand is about order, organization and deduction, things that in general machine intelligence beats us silly on.
All the stuff about smith enterring bane, neo enterring smith etc. is just an elaboration of this. Neo figured it out first, Smith learned and adapted and use this on Bane. Around and around they go. One point I believe is that ALL humans, zion or not, are still jacked in, thus smith can pull his stunt quite easily with, as MattW suggested his very accurate and detailed knowledge of human biology. Not so easily can he do it to Neo, who invented the trick.
Eastern/western/etc. spiritualism are a core of the movies precisely because they are our current explanation or qualification of free will. They're not exact because we don't really know either, but they are somehow at the core of our intelligence. After all we're not particularly consistent and rational, things even lower life forms exhibit more reliably that we do, but our ability to come up with new ideas seemingly from thin air has no explanation and is quite valuable.
The problem is that this is one hypothesis you could have produced from the first, much more entertaining and consistent movie. These last two movies I think are failing us because they are simultaneously trying to demystify and answer questions, while at the same time trying to keep the mysteriousness that defined the original. It's fundamentally flawed, but this is an example of squeezing the franchise for all it's worth.
Re:since when is /. open-source only?
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Jess in Action
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· Score: 0
It's a valid enough point, one of the reasons I tend to stay away from Java is that it is not an open standard. Jess appears similarly crippled, not worth the time to parse 400+ pages of text.
I have a real hard time using any proprietary language or toolkits in the "general purpose" world, I'm sure many do. It doesn't have to be "open-source" (C and C++ aren't technically "open source"), but I would only use proprietary languages/toolkits if I absolutely had to because the boss made me or the situation demanded it. There are lots of reasons, not all are religious.
Don't get me wrong, those things HAVE application and are sometimes unavoidable, but I do general purpose design engineering, I personally would never even consider putting such a tool in my box until the day I need it. I have friends who do more IT or business tool writing who may find this of value because their needs are specific.
Another point is that there are LOTS of commercial toolkits, especially for GUI frameworks. It's surprising to see a review about one that doesn't even have a decent license. If I'm going to pay $$$ to use a software tool then the book drops in priority. I'd almost expect them to provide a tutorial as part of the sales literature...
The review is useful for those that HAVE to use it, or for the niche which Jess may fill. However knowing the license tells me I should not buy this book. Building stuff is expensive enough as it is, I need LESS licensing and royalties, not more.
Another reason might be that these guys are paranoid about WHO commits patches, not because it screws a build up, but because they may attempt to submit code that might cause a lawsuit and/or proprietary source to get in the tree. More "SCO like" antics.
Alternatively, we could read books on how to help create environments that are mutually advantageous, supportive positive experiences rather than focusing on heading off to another dreary color washed existence where we hate our bosses and hate our jobs.
The best response I heard to this statement, came when a manager was saying approximately that sentiment to a sub-ordinate who was pissed off for exactly the reasons described by the reviewer. The response is:
"Oh blow me!"
He can get away with that response because he is right, his boss knows it, and his boss needs him.
I am under the impression that AT&T and other regulated telephone and airline agencies are already regulated in terms of telemarketing calls they can make and are not affected by the Do Not Call list. At least that's what the rules of the do not call list indicate.
This reminds me of an artist for Ultima 8 (I think), who said he had 50 programmers wandering around showing him the correct way to kick (as in kung-fu style).
Anyone who remembers the game could state definitively that coders are perhaps the least capable killers on planet earth. I'd seriously rather be in the company of my trained attack rabbit (codename: BunBun) than any 10 geeks with AK-47's.
I don't like half life, or FPS's in general so I'm not going to buy it regardless, quake 2 pretty much was the pinnacle of that genre in my mind (up until everyone and his mom was cheating, so I understand the delay).
However, having and being able to examine this code is the best thing that has happened to me in what has been a pretty shitty year. This is about as close to working in the game industry as I'm going to get (wrt having the source to a professional game engine) without having to put up with the low salaries and slave driver esque atmosphere associated with working in the game industry. It's hard just by reading texts and trade magazines to understand how people REALLY work. This source seems badly organized to me, but it is still fascinating.
I'm not justifying the morality of the thief, what he did is clearly wrong/immoral and worthy of jail time. I should and will delete this (as soon as I'm done with it), but every cloud has a silver lining.
Agreed, as ambiguous as something being the size of 50,000,000 elephants. But let's try a simple poll. As statistically inaccurate as a/. poll, but what the hell, is the white collar crowd I'm with here likely to view this any different than urban gangsters? I mean after whipping out your gat and popping some caps, etc. who wants a call while gettin' jiggy wit it wit the bitches n' hoes?
I sampled the 17 people in my hallway at work, excluding my wife whom I registered for. Of those people, 9 were on the do not call list and couldn't wait. 7 had not heard about it but agreed it was a nuisance and expressed interest, 1 said "I don't need it, telemarketers don't call me anymore".
The last guy is known for being somewhat odd, but I digress, his vote counts as much as anyone elses.
Not a single person, not one, spoke out against the list and we have a pretty contradictory crowd. No one claimed that the list as implemented violated anyones first amendment, no one claimed that they felt for the millions Americans who were allegedy put out of jobs (and this is a sensitive issue to this crowd, who have endured biweekly layoffs for over 3 years), no one felt that this was a great way to do business.
So there you have it, unscientific results that significant interest in a do not call list exists. Will this issue likely tilt the scales for politicians come election time? I doubt it, but I think this one time they're actually in agreement with the will of the people.
Re:I've been waiting for this book.....
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Quicksilver
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· Score: 1
Plot? I remember the bicycle chain digression, but I don't recall much of a plot... Perhaps 3 separate stories, loosely related, but independent and reasonably free of conflict (WWII backdrop notwithstanding).
Still, I found the conceptual explanation of technical subjects to be both interesting and insightful. There is no mathematical rigor behind it, but that's easy to find.
This guy needs to be a college professor in Physics & Mathematics, I'd have gone to every one of his classes and probably have a much greater understanding of both.
Your perception of the government, other corporations and random criminals in your neighborhood, etc. are based largely on what you absorb from news sources. You can't be in all places at all times for first hand knowledge, you require someone to synthesize this material for you and present it to you in a consumable fashion.
Various people process this information in various ways, and even if accurate factually almost always has a bias towards the view of the author, his editor, and by extension corporate leanings. You can usually put together a more accurate picture of events (if necessary) by watching multiple sources and picking out different or inconsistent statements. Perhaps on 95% of stories we won't do this because they're boring or straightforward, but there are always a few where you want more information or a different view.
If you follow the one source, one story, one owner philosophy, the only story you can read is the story desired by the corporation producing it. While it may not seem like it's abused horribly now, that's only because there is at least token competition and as such a reasonable desire to be professional. The smaller the space gets, the more power that is available by abusing it, and the less risky it is.
News is the subject that perhaps causes me the most fear, but I'd hate to think that all TV shows have the same political/social bent as say...Disney or worse, MTV.
My favorite bug was on a high speed ATM chip designed a few years back. I have heard this story retold by many, and I have nothing but sympathy for the poor guy doing the testing.
Imagine you have your first silicon back from the fab, never tested, using a brand new process with brand new drivers. You have one development board, because some short sighted, penny pincher manager couldn't imagine why you might want to get a few boards for testing. You turn it on, and the chip goes up, and down...andup....and down... Further investigation via copious TCL/TK scripts pinpoints the problem to the high speed link that provides the chip with it's incoming data.
"Damn you say", knowing that your alpha customers are mfg'ing boards using this chip as you sit there. Without that high speed serdes the chip is just a very expensive toaster. You know your customers have a second design with a competing chip that will be released in a few weeks (this was 5 years ago, when money was available for this).
You start to go through your tests on the buffers, first boundary scan tests, then signal integrity tests. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You probe the device using your handy multimeter and pressing on a pad under the chip, then with the other lead on some exposded trace. "It's connected, gotta be something internal". You can't see any signal integrity problems, nor connectivity problems. No fluctuations in power, no excessive noise, blame the IC team!
You have a bunch of guys restart their spice simulations with some uber accurate model that will take forever to run, and it comes back with no problems. You have the digital team rerun their test vectors, but nothing.
Finally you throw your hands in the air after a week of soldering, measuring, calculating, testing, etc. You send the board back to have the ASIC lifted and replaced with a new one. They x-ray the board, just to be sure they didn't crack any traces, and see something funny. Not a crack, but...foreign matter, and it's big. They put it under a magnifying glass and take a picture, which you put on your wall and remember forever.
The "bug" was a small ant, pressed between the ball of the BGA and the pad, which must have wandered across the board and become stuck before pick and place. Completely invisible, and smashed such that the ball barely made contact with the pad. Heat, vibration, humiditiy, and pressure (of, say, someone holding the chip down while trying to do a conductivity test), all making the difference between working and not working.
I'm not sure what's wrong with "punching the card". There are 4 types of jobs in technology, all are needed equally.
1) The people with ideas 2) The people with money 3) The people that do the work ("punch the card") 4) The people that sell
I don't see any reason why it's "OK" that we're outsourcing #3. It's elitist to argue that we're outsourcing only the "lower caliber" jobs. Not everyone can be, wants to be, or is competent enough to be "the best".
I work in a company where everyone thinks they're the best, and very few do work. I've worked very hard to assemble a team of "punch the card" types who know their job and do it well, 5 days a week, 8-10 hours a day. We're the only group that has actually BUILT something. I like and respect my team, and I would hate to think they're losing their jobs because somewhere else in the world there is someone willing to work for cheaper.
I also take issue with the idea that offshore labor is somehow inferior and fit only for "manufacturing labor". They're smart, well educated people (depending on the job) and the only thing they do not have is that immaterial part of a design shops property that's a combination of experience, tools and process which makes things happen. Their intention is to learn this, and then take our business from us too (which is what I'd do in their shoes too).
I would like to see the US gov't protecting it's workforce, by the usual means (tax breaks for companies using american employees, trade negotiations, etc). Our governments priority is to take care of its citizens first, then the rest of the world. Right now we appear to be protecting shareholders and investors (who are the only ones who really benefit from offshore labor) at the expense of the average joe.
I don't keep up much with the progress of the Ethernet technologies at hand, so is it realistic to suppose that the practical implementation/creation of 100 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 Terabit Ethernet, and 10 Terabit Ethernet will be seperated by merely two years each?
I think not. 10 GbE hasn't exactly taken the world by storm and it's been around for over a year now. I know of products that have 10 GbE ports, but I have not witnessed an abundance of demand. To be nice the author of this article is just a little facetious in his claims.
In reality if you read the article it's hard to even take him seriously. To say that Nortel's DWDM system is ethernet is like calling your 56k modem ethernet. Yeah, so you can pass ethernet frames on it. It's not standard, it's not documented anywhere in IEEE 802.anything (esp with regards to conformance), so it's NOT ethernet. Just passing ethernet frames does not make you an ethernet device. I'm honestly not really sure what the author's point is except that he seems to think 1) ethernet is increasingly popular, 2) everyone should want to carry ethernet frames, and 3) people want bigger and bigger pipes. The first 2 are true, the third is less true now than it was 3 years ago.
So the answer is, it wouldn't surprise me if we see 10 Terabit links by 2010, I doubt very, very much that we'll see a 10 Terabit ethernet port on a single chassis ethernet switch with 100 Terabits of switching capacity. I could be wrong, I hope I am, but it doesn't seem reasonable.
It doesn't matter, I'd hire this person to the exclusion of his peers at MIT. Why? It's creative, I didn't think about it, and I can use someone whose brain works like that.
I can hire coders & designers easily. They're a dime a dozen. I can hire GOOD -> excellent coders or designers more difficultly by talking to friends of friends etc, but they exist and are plentiful enough. To hire someone that will build a rediculous thing that no one has really seen before, carry that design through to completion, and make headlines...that person I'd pay a lot of money to. He'll make me filthy rich if I'm nice to him.
I regrettably don't have my cable bill in front of me, but I think you have 2 items:
1) "Franchise Fee" (state & gov't, at least where I'm at) 2) I forget the name of the second.
Additionally, as the cable company buy's network connections (i.e. T1, T3 etc.) from regulated groups, they are not really required to itemize that on their bills, but it is wrapped up into your $39/month. What you are NOT paying in terms of regulatory fee's are certain sort of arbitrary "per call" fees that are not tied to a data network. These fee's relate to handing "local" vs "regional" vs "long distance" situations etc.
The point is that it really doesn't matter that VoIP subscribers don't pay regulatory fee's. Networks have been made now that allow open competition. No fee's should be required.
Why the hell do law makers seem to think that every new technology needs to regulated to hell, or treated like some form of existing technology??? The internet LIVES the way it does today because it happened so damn fast than lawmakers couldn't keep up...
Communications has traditionally been (in the US and elsewhere) quite regulated. The reasons are logical in general, he who has the wires, holds a monopoly. People who have monopolies are dangerous to consumers. I agree with that, in fact I think all monopolies are dangerous and inherently bad for a country and the gov't should sponsor competitors to monopolies wherever possible. But I digress.
There is a common misconception that ALL communications is thus monopoly like, and subject to regulation. They try to do this with VOIP, internet traffic etc. They have lost site of the INTENTION of regulation, which is to protect consumers against dangerous monopolies. This is exagerrated by regulated monopolies (telco's, cable co's etc) which would be forced to compete with cheaper alternatives. They fuel the fire and confuse the issues. VoIP for example is a major annoyance to telco's at the moment, as it might allow cable companies (for example) to deliver voice service without the normal federal regulation. This is ridiculous of course, and spoken by people who know better and wish to hide the fact that almost EVERY wired network connection in the world is regulated by at least one gov't agency, and the cost of regulation is passed on to the buyer. The internet (not that I'd necessary use this for business class VOIP mind you) is just as much subject to regulation as anything else. The issue here is that you're not paying $24/month on phone service in addition to your data. So these groups are constantly lobbying any politician who will listen about how unfair things are. A politicians education on many issues may consist ONLY of parties interested in changing something, and regrettebly money plays a lot into who he listens to most.
Politicians on the other hand are given the unenviable job of solving various government crises with the tools at their disposal. They can solve financial problems by cutting or taxing. If they choose to cut, they must select something to cut, and face public wrath. If they choose to tax they must face the wrath only of the public affected. So this relatively creative guy (ignorant perhaps) decided he's going to tax "LANs". How many people have LANs? Few individuals. Those individuals use them at work probably, but hey, that's someone elses pocket. So now he fixes a financial snafu AND pleases a local telco. The public won't argue, he probably gets some in pocket, this is a winner, right?
I love how impassioned politicians get during their campaigns about ideals and visions. Democrats and Republicans argue about the most inane things and come off sounding as if they are opposite poles of the universe. Whoever gets elected usually pulls one or two publicity stunts to show the world how he follows his ideal and spends most of his time with it. Simultaneously the ideal falls by the wayside on every other issue in the interests of time, image and greed. I'm not saying I believe they're all evil like satan, but most of their actions can be understood.
The solution is obvious but probably quite hard to implement. Let's look at some of the common misconceptions that the various existing MMORPGs have about what is needed in a game.
Was it ever the graphics? The elitist in me wants to say "No", but that's not really true. The better looking the game the more likely I was to give it a try. However if a friend says "It sux like Gigli" I wouldn't buy it. Similarly if a friend recommended a game with comparitively ugly graphics, I'd buy the game he recommended. Good graphics are neither necessary nor sufficient for a good game.
What about character advancement? That's a little fun, appealing to my over-acheiver instinct, but I'm not that obsessive about it. It's kinda fun starting out as a wuss that couldn't kill Mutant Wasps, into a walking tank that could destroy assault cyborgs without breaking a sweat. This is cool, but alone it's kinda boring right? Start off killing wasps (and getting hurt), then move up to killing panda bears (and getting hurt) etc. up to the big bad end boss. It's essentially the same just with different scenery. Fun for a little while, but it gets old. Necessary? For an RPG yes, almost by definition, but not for the general category of "Fun Game". Sufficient? Absolutely not.
Exploration? Huge, huge worlds? To some extent this is fun. But I don't want to explore a huge, huge world, and die a lot for nothing. Let's take Ultima VII, a game I consider to be quite good, in spite of many bugs. Part of the fun was roaming around finding cool stuff that the developers put in. Not quite easter eggs in that it wasn't cheating, but definitely not part of any main quest. I spent months wandering around finding new pirates to slaughter and stuff to steal and finding new sidequests. I had a magic carpet with crates and crates of cool stuff loaded onto it (ok so I cheated some, those cannons didn't just magically move themselves!). After a while I got bored, I had everything there was, and no in game obstacle was challenging enough for me to see value in further mayhem. Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? Nope.
Story? I can stay at home with nothing more than a couch, a lamp and a book and be hungry for more when I turn the last page. Seems like there is something to this one? But wait, Anarchy Online has a pretty elaborate story, and I stopped playing that game. Probably it's good, but I didn't want to read 100 pages of PDF's and download movies. In fact they made FMV's of the stories and I didn't even download them, and got bored with the game. Why? What's wrong?
I know that in a FF game, or an Ultima game, or even Space quest I am totally into the story. I read all the text, I watch all the videos, etc. But I feel like I'm part of the game in a very tangible way. I'm totally IMMERSED in the story, I'm part of it. Whether I read it, see it played out, or act it out is almost transparent to me. It happens as a consequence of playing, and when I see the text I read it without hesitation, I WANT to know what is there. When I play such a game I am disappointed when the game is finished, even if it's well concluded and there's obviously nothing more to do. I can't wait for a sequel etc. Necessary? Yes (see EQ, DAOC, EnB, SWG, etc. all losing people, all lacking a real story). Sufficient? Yes! I'll read a book forever, that has no graphics, gameplay, levelling, exploration, etc.
So the real task to a game designer, and I admit it's hard, is to figure out how to get everyone in a MMORPG so immersed in the story that they don't want to waste time levelling or camping the Grand Poobah for the Mace of Thumping. Those things will happen, and when they happen it will be fun, and people will be BEGGING to go kill another grand poohbah later, not for his Mace of Uber Thumping, but because it will be satisfying to slay such a ruthless bastard.
What will we do when the story runs it's course (hopefully only for a time)? Well if the story is written well, and it allows characters to choose sides and be immersed in whatever roles the
The words you're looking for are "cash register", and I think this is a good idea. Better, if before leaving the voting booth you can verify that what is on that piece of paper reflects what you voted for. Keep it behind a pane of glass so that one can't actually MARK it, but at least see it.
I'd feel more comfortable about electronic ballots if I knew there was a paper trail. No one will ever convince me that any electronic system is secure and unhackable, it's too easy to twiddle some bits. I'd feel better if both an electronic and a paper system where used together.
It was probably unwise for him to suggest that he would flee the US to avoid prosecution. If he is facing criminal charges they would be able to hold him without bail and remove his passport.
This is one of those cases where you don't make threats, you decide to flee or fight and do it immediately.
Doesn't SCO have to negotiate separate terms with SAMBA due to pending litigation?
1) SCO has declared that the GPL is invalid. At a minimum their claims are that the GPL does not permit free redistribution.
2) The SAMBA team (amonst many others I imagine) has licensed the code to SCO and all vendors under the GPL. SCO must agree to this license prior to using or redistributing the code.
1 + 2 => SCO has not agreed to the terms of the GPL, and thus cannot resell SAMBA code without making other arrangements with the SAMBA team, at their discretion.
It is true that there is a grey area with anti-competitive behavior, which is why it's very hard to prove. However, if you set a price for a product, and it's the same for everyone, then it's fair, correct? And if someone refuses to pay that price you don't have to sell to them, right?
Yes I personally know those people, all of us are graduates from the same school. It's not a name brand university, but it's not a community college either. I have an MS in EE, BS in EE/CompE, my highest offer was $73k/yr (shown in my post), I accepted $70k/yr at my present company since I was advised the economy was about to tank. The $73k/yr offer was from a small company that did not survive. All offers were comparable on benefits and all were for salaried positions. I had a contract offer for $100k/yr which I was not interested in and does not include any benefits.
After 3 years I make $87k/yr salary but have made over $100k/yr. I have 2 friends with identical degrees doing design work, one has underperformed that level (presently $85k/yr rare bonuses) but has infinite job security, one has overperformed ($90k/yr, not incl. bonus of over $35k one year) but has since lost her job in a merger. This is reasonably consistent with what you'd expect.
I have a friend at MIT and I have heard that graduates with an MS in EE from that school often start with $100k/yr salaries (I do not know these people). I found that hard to believe, and now that I work with graduates from those schools I find it *really* hard to believe, but perhaps it is true. I have seen enough bad managers here that it wouldn't surprise me. I have no reliable data on actual salaries for people graduating from these schools.
(Aside: I do believe people should be forthright on this subject, it's not a measure of your manhood it's a tool to push for what you deserve as an educated laborer. As one poster noted individuals from brand name schools like Stanford/MIT often get very high starting salaries. There is no doubt after having worked here 3 years that this phenomena is unwarranted in 90% of all cases, but it is a sign of what companies are willing to pay for what they view as talented engineers.)
Money isn't everything in a job, but most of the time it's the reason we pry ourselves out of bed on mornings we'd really rather sleep in.
Slashdot Mirror
Try to work "fuckity" in:
"What the fucking fuckity fuck fuck..."
Thanks!
Our legal system, particularly our CIVIL legal section is very heavily based upon the British legal system.
I believe this is also known as "Thunder and Blazes".
;)
I'm looking for a ring tone on my cell for this song
I haven't seen revolutions yet, but I had a guess at how it would end and at least at some level I was right (appearntly neo and trinity die). I agree with much of MattW's post, but I have another dimension that seems to be supported.
I believe the architect scene from Reloaded is "the answer" to the questions that anyone has, even if it was an obnoxious scene that was probably shortened so they could fit in lots of action. The previous poster used eastern philosphy, but let's throw in some western and the concept of free will and "the soul".
I see instead the matrix as a simulation and sort of a recession test of machine intelligence where each human is plugged in to get a wide sample. It is perfecting itself, by modelling us. It passes only when it achieves long term stability. If there is a "one" and if a zion is created, then it fails. The architect is one such program designed to compensate for failure. Analysis of the failure is done by systematic reduction of possibilities to a single point of failure, in this case, someone who continuously fails to accept the system. If it can construct a system that properly accounts for human intelligence in all cases, the computer has finished learning from us.
How do you reverse engineer anything? There is only one method that does not rely on inside knowledge: you do a side by side comparison, feeding the same inputs and predicting the outputs. When the output of your created box, differs from the output of the original, you know you have a flaw and must investigate.
The problem is identified as choice, free will, thinking outside the box, creativity. The computer can beat us or fight to a standoff in all cases but loses when we do something not expected, something that can't be concluded from the facts at hand. The matrix is a specific test suite designed to quantify this behavior, understand it, and adapt to it.
Agent Smith is the embodiment of this effort, learning from Neo, trying to understand him. I believe he is the "mother" that the Architect referred to, not the oracle necessarily. The architect on the other hand is about order, organization and deduction, things that in general machine intelligence beats us silly on.
All the stuff about smith enterring bane, neo enterring smith etc. is just an elaboration of this. Neo figured it out first, Smith learned and adapted and use this on Bane. Around and around they go. One point I believe is that ALL humans, zion or not, are still jacked in, thus smith can pull his stunt quite easily with, as MattW suggested his very accurate and detailed knowledge of human biology. Not so easily can he do it to Neo, who invented the trick.
Eastern/western/etc. spiritualism are a core of the movies precisely because they are our current explanation or qualification of free will. They're not exact because we don't really know either, but they are somehow at the core of our intelligence. After all we're not particularly consistent and rational, things even lower life forms exhibit more reliably that we do, but our ability to come up with new ideas seemingly from thin air has no explanation and is quite valuable.
The problem is that this is one hypothesis you could have produced from the first, much more entertaining and consistent movie. These last two movies I think are failing us because they are simultaneously trying to demystify and answer questions, while at the same time trying to keep the mysteriousness that defined the original. It's fundamentally flawed, but this is an example of squeezing the franchise for all it's worth.
It's a valid enough point, one of the reasons I tend to stay away from Java is that it is not an open standard. Jess appears similarly crippled, not worth the time to parse 400+ pages of text.
I have a real hard time using any proprietary language or toolkits in the "general purpose" world, I'm sure many do. It doesn't have to be "open-source" (C and C++ aren't technically "open source"), but I would only use proprietary languages/toolkits if I absolutely had to because the boss made me or the situation demanded it. There are lots of reasons, not all are religious.
Don't get me wrong, those things HAVE application and are sometimes unavoidable, but I do general purpose design engineering, I personally would never even consider putting such a tool in my box until the day I need it. I have friends who do more IT or business tool writing who may find this of value because their needs are specific.
Another point is that there are LOTS of commercial toolkits, especially for GUI frameworks. It's surprising to see a review about one that doesn't even have a decent license. If I'm going to pay $$$ to use a software tool then the book drops in priority. I'd almost expect them to provide a tutorial as part of the sales literature...
The review is useful for those that HAVE to use it, or for the niche which Jess may fill. However knowing the license tells me I should not buy this book. Building stuff is expensive enough as it is, I need LESS licensing and royalties, not more.
Another reason might be that these guys are paranoid about WHO commits patches, not because it screws a build up, but because they may attempt to submit code that might cause a lawsuit and/or proprietary source to get in the tree. More "SCO like" antics.
The best response I heard to this statement, came when a manager was saying approximately that sentiment to a sub-ordinate who was pissed off for exactly the reasons described by the reviewer. The response is:
"Oh blow me!"
He can get away with that response because he is right, his boss knows it, and his boss needs him.
I am under the impression that AT&T and other regulated telephone and airline agencies are already regulated in terms of telemarketing calls they can make and are not affected by the Do Not Call list. At least that's what the rules of the do not call list indicate.
Maybe we're just a little paranoid?
This reminds me of an artist for Ultima 8 (I think), who said he had 50 programmers wandering around showing him the correct way to kick (as in kung-fu style). Anyone who remembers the game could state definitively that coders are perhaps the least capable killers on planet earth. I'd seriously rather be in the company of my trained attack rabbit (codename: BunBun) than any 10 geeks with AK-47's.
I don't like half life, or FPS's in general so I'm not going to buy it regardless, quake 2 pretty much was the pinnacle of that genre in my mind (up until everyone and his mom was cheating, so I understand the delay).
However, having and being able to examine this code is the best thing that has happened to me in what has been a pretty shitty year. This is about as close to working in the game industry as I'm going to get (wrt having the source to a professional game engine) without having to put up with the low salaries and slave driver esque atmosphere associated with working in the game industry. It's hard just by reading texts and trade magazines to understand how people REALLY work. This source seems badly organized to me, but it is still fascinating.
I'm not justifying the morality of the thief, what he did is clearly wrong/immoral and worthy of jail time. I should and will delete this (as soon as I'm done with it), but every cloud has a silver lining.
Agreed, as ambiguous as something being the size of 50,000,000 elephants. But let's try a simple poll. As statistically inaccurate as a /. poll, but what the hell, is the white collar crowd I'm with here likely to view this any different than urban gangsters? I mean after whipping out your gat and popping some caps, etc. who wants a call while gettin' jiggy wit it wit the bitches n' hoes?
I sampled the 17 people in my hallway at work, excluding my wife whom I registered for. Of those people, 9 were on the do not call list and couldn't wait. 7 had not heard about it but agreed it was a nuisance and expressed interest, 1 said "I don't need it, telemarketers don't call me anymore".
The last guy is known for being somewhat odd, but I digress, his vote counts as much as anyone elses.
Not a single person, not one, spoke out against the list and we have a pretty contradictory crowd. No one claimed that the list as implemented violated anyones first amendment, no one claimed that they felt for the millions Americans who were allegedy put out of jobs (and this is a sensitive issue to this crowd, who have endured biweekly layoffs for over 3 years), no one felt that this was a great way to do business.
So there you have it, unscientific results that significant interest in a do not call list exists. Will this issue likely tilt the scales for politicians come election time? I doubt it, but I think this one time they're actually in agreement with the will of the people.
Plot? I remember the bicycle chain digression, but I don't recall much of a plot... Perhaps 3 separate stories, loosely related, but independent and reasonably free of conflict (WWII backdrop notwithstanding).
Still, I found the conceptual explanation of technical subjects to be both interesting and insightful. There is no mathematical rigor behind it, but that's easy to find.
This guy needs to be a college professor in Physics & Mathematics, I'd have gone to every one of his classes and probably have a much greater understanding of both.
Your perception of the government, other corporations and random criminals in your neighborhood, etc. are based largely on what you absorb from news sources. You can't be in all places at all times for first hand knowledge, you require someone to synthesize this material for you and present it to you in a consumable fashion.
Various people process this information in various ways, and even if accurate factually almost always has a bias towards the view of the author, his editor, and by extension corporate leanings. You can usually put together a more accurate picture of events (if necessary) by watching multiple sources and picking out different or inconsistent statements. Perhaps on 95% of stories we won't do this because they're boring or straightforward, but there are always a few where you want more information or a different view.
If you follow the one source, one story, one owner philosophy, the only story you can read is the story desired by the corporation producing it. While it may not seem like it's abused horribly now, that's only because there is at least token competition and as such a reasonable desire to be professional. The smaller the space gets, the more power that is available by abusing it, and the less risky it is.
News is the subject that perhaps causes me the most fear, but I'd hate to think that all TV shows have the same political/social bent as say...Disney or worse, MTV.
My favorite bug was on a high speed ATM chip designed a few years back. I have heard this story retold by many, and I have nothing but sympathy for the poor guy doing the testing.
Imagine you have your first silicon back from the fab, never tested, using a brand new process with brand new drivers. You have one development board, because some short sighted, penny pincher manager couldn't imagine why you might want to get a few boards for testing. You turn it on, and the chip goes up, and down...andup....and down... Further investigation via copious TCL/TK scripts pinpoints the problem to the high speed link that provides the chip with it's incoming data.
"Damn you say", knowing that your alpha customers are mfg'ing boards using this chip as you sit there. Without that high speed serdes the chip is just a very expensive toaster. You know your customers have a second design with a competing chip that will be released in a few weeks (this was 5 years ago, when money was available for this).
You start to go through your tests on the buffers, first boundary scan tests, then signal integrity tests. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You probe the device using your handy multimeter and pressing on a pad under the chip, then with the other lead on some exposded trace. "It's connected, gotta be something internal". You can't see any signal integrity problems, nor connectivity problems. No fluctuations in power, no excessive noise, blame the IC team!
You have a bunch of guys restart their spice simulations with some uber accurate model that will take forever to run, and it comes back with no problems. You have the digital team rerun their test vectors, but nothing.
Finally you throw your hands in the air after a week of soldering, measuring, calculating, testing, etc. You send the board back to have the ASIC lifted and replaced with a new one. They x-ray the board, just to be sure they didn't crack any traces, and see something funny. Not a crack, but...foreign matter, and it's big. They put it under a magnifying glass and take a picture, which you put on your wall and remember forever.
The "bug" was a small ant, pressed between the ball of the BGA and the pad, which must have wandered across the board and become stuck before pick and place. Completely invisible, and smashed such that the ball barely made contact with the pad. Heat, vibration, humiditiy, and pressure (of, say, someone holding the chip down while trying to do a conductivity test), all making the difference between working and not working.
Sometimes there really are bugs in the system!
I'm not sure what's wrong with "punching the card". There are 4 types of jobs in technology, all are needed equally.
1) The people with ideas
2) The people with money
3) The people that do the work ("punch the card")
4) The people that sell
I don't see any reason why it's "OK" that we're outsourcing #3. It's elitist to argue that we're outsourcing only the "lower caliber" jobs. Not everyone can be, wants to be, or is competent enough to be "the best".
I work in a company where everyone thinks they're the best, and very few do work. I've worked very hard to assemble a team of "punch the card" types who know their job and do it well, 5 days a week, 8-10 hours a day. We're the only group that has actually BUILT something. I like and respect my team, and I would hate to think they're losing their jobs because somewhere else in the world there is someone willing to work for cheaper.
I also take issue with the idea that offshore labor is somehow inferior and fit only for "manufacturing labor". They're smart, well educated people (depending on the job) and the only thing they do not have is that immaterial part of a design shops property that's a combination of experience, tools and process which makes things happen. Their intention is to learn this, and then take our business from us too (which is what I'd do in their shoes too).
I would like to see the US gov't protecting it's workforce, by the usual means (tax breaks for companies using american employees, trade negotiations, etc). Our governments priority is to take care of its citizens first, then the rest of the world. Right now we appear to be protecting shareholders and investors (who are the only ones who really benefit from offshore labor) at the expense of the average joe.
I think not. 10 GbE hasn't exactly taken the world by storm and it's been around for over a year now. I know of products that have 10 GbE ports, but I have not witnessed an abundance of demand. To be nice the author of this article is just a little facetious in his claims.
In reality if you read the article it's hard to even take him seriously. To say that Nortel's DWDM system is ethernet is like calling your 56k modem ethernet. Yeah, so you can pass ethernet frames on it. It's not standard, it's not documented anywhere in IEEE 802.anything (esp with regards to conformance), so it's NOT ethernet. Just passing ethernet frames does not make you an ethernet device. I'm honestly not really sure what the author's point is except that he seems to think 1) ethernet is increasingly popular, 2) everyone should want to carry ethernet frames, and 3) people want bigger and bigger pipes. The first 2 are true, the third is less true now than it was 3 years ago.
So the answer is, it wouldn't surprise me if we see 10 Terabit links by 2010, I doubt very, very much that we'll see a 10 Terabit ethernet port on a single chassis ethernet switch with 100 Terabits of switching capacity. I could be wrong, I hope I am, but it doesn't seem reasonable.
It doesn't matter, I'd hire this person to the exclusion of his peers at MIT. Why? It's creative, I didn't think about it, and I can use someone whose brain works like that.
I can hire coders & designers easily. They're a dime a dozen. I can hire GOOD -> excellent coders or designers more difficultly by talking to friends of friends etc, but they exist and are plentiful enough. To hire someone that will build a rediculous thing that no one has really seen before, carry that design through to completion, and make headlines...that person I'd pay a lot of money to. He'll make me filthy rich if I'm nice to him.
I regrettably don't have my cable bill in front of me, but I think you have 2 items:
1) "Franchise Fee" (state & gov't, at least where I'm at)
2) I forget the name of the second.
Additionally, as the cable company buy's network connections (i.e. T1, T3 etc.) from regulated groups, they are not really required to itemize that on their bills, but it is wrapped up into your $39/month. What you are NOT paying in terms of regulatory fee's are certain sort of arbitrary "per call" fees that are not tied to a data network. These fee's relate to handing "local" vs "regional" vs "long distance" situations etc.
The point is that it really doesn't matter that VoIP subscribers don't pay regulatory fee's. Networks have been made now that allow open competition. No fee's should be required.
Communications has traditionally been (in the US and elsewhere) quite regulated. The reasons are logical in general, he who has the wires, holds a monopoly. People who have monopolies are dangerous to consumers. I agree with that, in fact I think all monopolies are dangerous and inherently bad for a country and the gov't should sponsor competitors to monopolies wherever possible. But I digress.
There is a common misconception that ALL communications is thus monopoly like, and subject to regulation. They try to do this with VOIP, internet traffic etc. They have lost site of the INTENTION of regulation, which is to protect consumers against dangerous monopolies. This is exagerrated by regulated monopolies (telco's, cable co's etc) which would be forced to compete with cheaper alternatives. They fuel the fire and confuse the issues. VoIP for example is a major annoyance to telco's at the moment, as it might allow cable companies (for example) to deliver voice service without the normal federal regulation. This is ridiculous of course, and spoken by people who know better and wish to hide the fact that almost EVERY wired network connection in the world is regulated by at least one gov't agency, and the cost of regulation is passed on to the buyer. The internet (not that I'd necessary use this for business class VOIP mind you) is just as much subject to regulation as anything else. The issue here is that you're not paying $24/month on phone service in addition to your data. So these groups are constantly lobbying any politician who will listen about how unfair things are. A politicians education on many issues may consist ONLY of parties interested in changing something, and regrettebly money plays a lot into who he listens to most.
Politicians on the other hand are given the unenviable job of solving various government crises with the tools at their disposal. They can solve financial problems by cutting or taxing. If they choose to cut, they must select something to cut, and face public wrath. If they choose to tax they must face the wrath only of the public affected. So this relatively creative guy (ignorant perhaps) decided he's going to tax "LANs". How many people have LANs? Few individuals. Those individuals use them at work probably, but hey, that's someone elses pocket. So now he fixes a financial snafu AND pleases a local telco. The public won't argue, he probably gets some in pocket, this is a winner, right?
I love how impassioned politicians get during their campaigns about ideals and visions. Democrats and Republicans argue about the most inane things and come off sounding as if they are opposite poles of the universe. Whoever gets elected usually pulls one or two publicity stunts to show the world how he follows his ideal and spends most of his time with it. Simultaneously the ideal falls by the wayside on every other issue in the interests of time, image and greed. I'm not saying I believe they're all evil like satan, but most of their actions can be understood.
Somehow it's up to us to fix this, but how....
The solution is obvious but probably quite hard to implement. Let's look at some of the common misconceptions that the various existing MMORPGs have about what is needed in a game.
Was it ever the graphics? The elitist in me wants to say "No", but that's not really true. The better looking the game the more likely I was to give it a try. However if a friend says "It sux like Gigli" I wouldn't buy it. Similarly if a friend recommended a game with comparitively ugly graphics, I'd buy the game he recommended. Good graphics are neither necessary nor sufficient for a good game.
What about character advancement? That's a little fun, appealing to my over-acheiver instinct, but I'm not that obsessive about it. It's kinda fun starting out as a wuss that couldn't kill Mutant Wasps, into a walking tank that could destroy assault cyborgs without breaking a sweat. This is cool, but alone it's kinda boring right? Start off killing wasps (and getting hurt), then move up to killing panda bears (and getting hurt) etc. up to the big bad end boss. It's essentially the same just with different scenery. Fun for a little while, but it gets old. Necessary? For an RPG yes, almost by definition, but not for the general category of "Fun Game". Sufficient? Absolutely not.
Exploration? Huge, huge worlds? To some extent this is fun. But I don't want to explore a huge, huge world, and die a lot for nothing. Let's take Ultima VII, a game I consider to be quite good, in spite of many bugs. Part of the fun was roaming around finding cool stuff that the developers put in. Not quite easter eggs in that it wasn't cheating, but definitely not part of any main quest. I spent months wandering around finding new pirates to slaughter and stuff to steal and finding new sidequests. I had a magic carpet with crates and crates of cool stuff loaded onto it (ok so I cheated some, those cannons didn't just magically move themselves!). After a while I got bored, I had everything there was, and no in game obstacle was challenging enough for me to see value in further mayhem. Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? Nope.
Story? I can stay at home with nothing more than a couch, a lamp and a book and be hungry for more when I turn the last page. Seems like there is something to this one? But wait, Anarchy Online has a pretty elaborate story, and I stopped playing that game. Probably it's good, but I didn't want to read 100 pages of PDF's and download movies. In fact they made FMV's of the stories and I didn't even download them, and got bored with the game. Why? What's wrong?
I know that in a FF game, or an Ultima game, or even Space quest I am totally into the story. I read all the text, I watch all the videos, etc. But I feel like I'm part of the game in a very tangible way. I'm totally IMMERSED in the story, I'm part of it. Whether I read it, see it played out, or act it out is almost transparent to me. It happens as a consequence of playing, and when I see the text I read it without hesitation, I WANT to know what is there. When I play such a game I am disappointed when the game is finished, even if it's well concluded and there's obviously nothing more to do. I can't wait for a sequel etc. Necessary? Yes (see EQ, DAOC, EnB, SWG, etc. all losing people, all lacking a real story). Sufficient? Yes! I'll read a book forever, that has no graphics, gameplay, levelling, exploration, etc.
So the real task to a game designer, and I admit it's hard, is to figure out how to get everyone in a MMORPG so immersed in the story that they don't want to waste time levelling or camping the Grand Poobah for the Mace of Thumping. Those things will happen, and when they happen it will be fun, and people will be BEGGING to go kill another grand poohbah later, not for his Mace of Uber Thumping, but because it will be satisfying to slay such a ruthless bastard.
What will we do when the story runs it's course (hopefully only for a time)? Well if the story is written well, and it allows characters to choose sides and be immersed in whatever roles the
The words you're looking for are "cash register", and I think this is a good idea. Better, if before leaving the voting booth you can verify that what is on that piece of paper reflects what you voted for. Keep it behind a pane of glass so that one can't actually MARK it, but at least see it.
I'd feel more comfortable about electronic ballots if I knew there was a paper trail. No one will ever convince me that any electronic system is secure and unhackable, it's too easy to twiddle some bits. I'd feel better if both an electronic and a paper system where used together.
I remember reading about these mechanisms in computer architecture courses 8 years ago.
Give me a freakin break.
It was probably unwise for him to suggest that he would flee the US to avoid prosecution. If he is facing criminal charges they would be able to hold him without bail and remove his passport.
This is one of those cases where you don't make threats, you decide to flee or fight and do it immediately.
Doesn't SCO have to negotiate separate terms with SAMBA due to pending litigation?
1) SCO has declared that the GPL is invalid. At a minimum their claims are that the GPL does not permit free redistribution.
2) The SAMBA team (amonst many others I imagine) has licensed the code to SCO and all vendors under the GPL. SCO must agree to this license prior to using or redistributing the code.
1 + 2 => SCO has not agreed to the terms of the GPL, and thus cannot resell SAMBA code without making other arrangements with the SAMBA team, at their discretion.
It is true that there is a grey area with anti-competitive behavior, which is why it's very hard to prove. However, if you set a price for a product, and it's the same for everyone, then it's fair, correct? And if someone refuses to pay that price you don't have to sell to them, right?
Yes I personally know those people, all of us are graduates from the same school. It's not a name brand university, but it's not a community college either. I have an MS in EE, BS in EE/CompE, my highest offer was $73k/yr (shown in my post), I accepted $70k/yr at my present company since I was advised the economy was about to tank. The $73k/yr offer was from a small company that did not survive. All offers were comparable on benefits and all were for salaried positions. I had a contract offer for $100k/yr which I was not interested in and does not include any benefits.
After 3 years I make $87k/yr salary but have made over $100k/yr. I have 2 friends with identical degrees doing design work, one has underperformed that level (presently $85k/yr rare bonuses) but has infinite job security, one has overperformed ($90k/yr, not incl. bonus of over $35k one year) but has since lost her job in a merger. This is reasonably consistent with what you'd expect.
I have a friend at MIT and I have heard that graduates with an MS in EE from that school often start with $100k/yr salaries (I do not know these people). I found that hard to believe, and now that I work with graduates from those schools I find it *really* hard to believe, but perhaps it is true. I have seen enough bad managers here that it wouldn't surprise me. I have no reliable data on actual salaries for people graduating from these schools.
(Aside: I do believe people should be forthright on this subject, it's not a measure of your manhood it's a tool to push for what you deserve as an educated laborer. As one poster noted individuals from brand name schools like Stanford/MIT often get very high starting salaries. There is no doubt after having worked here 3 years that this phenomena is unwarranted in 90% of all cases, but it is a sign of what companies are willing to pay for what they view as talented engineers.)
Money isn't everything in a job, but most of the time it's the reason we pry ourselves out of bed on mornings we'd really rather sleep in.