Does Lucas know how people feel? Does he listen to the criticism?
I know that there will be 100 posts saying this exact same thing by the time I click the submit button, but to answer your questions: Yes and No. He does know how people feel. He doesn't live in a little bubble in the Arizona desert. He may even read Slashdot while hiding under the identity of Paul Rothrock. But, in the end, Star Wars is not about the movies. It isn't about the story. The Start Wars books are far more interesting story-wise than the movies. It is about the marketing. If you go way back to A New Hope and read the behind-the-scenes stuff that went on to get the movie made, you can see that Lucas was keen on marketing. Everything else was just a hobby.
An alternative to Markov strings would be using a Pink (aka 1/f or Zipfian) distribution. There have been hundreds of studies that show nature follows such a distribution. I've read some that show bird calls follow the same distribution. If the assumption that nature is pleasing is correct, then pleasing music would have the same distribution. So, you can create your string the same way, say you have 122132 and you want the next one. A 2 will make it more balanced in the Pink sort of way. You can keep stretching the string out and adding whatever note keeps the distribution at the optimal level.
This depends a bit on the jurisdiction. Certainly in the U.S., the bar is set pretty high on what constitutes actionable defamation. Other jurisdictions are less forgiving. Compare, for example, with Canada.
You are absolutely correct. I assumed that the author of the article was in the United States. I am certain that Linus is not - did he suddenly move to recently?
I was trying to point out that the article did not necessarily defame Linus in any way because all of the comments were opinion and/or hearsay.
It's interesting how some people will go out of their way to make a comment about political systems something seemingly personal. You don't need to 'consider' China to be fascist and totalitarian, you can look up the definitions of those words in the dictionary and say "oh...China is a fascist totalitarian state...interesting".
Chairman Mao led a fascist and totalitarian state. That is true and I do not argue with it. However, contrary to most American beliefs, Chairman Mao is no longer in charge of China. It is now a republic. They have elections. The people have the power to vote on who runs their government.
Your first argument may be that they are technically a republic, but the people only have a choice between two evils in each election - not a true choice. I feel the same way about our electorial process, so am I to believe that the United States is a fascist totalitarian state?
Second, I equate the statement that China is fascist and totalitarian to hatred because both terms are highly negative and untrue. I stand by my opinion that the original post was hateful. It could have been: "Let's get to Mars before China so we will have more to be proud of in our great country." instead of "I, for one do not want to see this fascist, totalitarian state score a propoganda win by landing humans on Mars first."
I, for one do not want to see this fascist, totalitarian state score a propoganda win by landing humans on Mars first.
This really doesn't sit well with me. Why does patriotism always seem to require hatred for everyone else? Isn't it enough to be proud of your country without considering a different culture fascist and totalitarian? Or, is 'pride' just a nice way of saying 'hate', as in "I'm black and I'm proud of it" = "I hate whites"? I don't think so. I think that you can be proud without being hateful.
Have you considered this option: Become friends with the Chinese and work together to get to Mars using the best minds and resources of each country.
But surely they should be entitled to sue for libel or slander or whatever it is.
You are referring to libel. Slander is vocalized. Libel is written. However, this is not a clear libel case. It must meet two requirements. It must a proven false statement. It must have the intent of damaging the person's character or reputation. While I agree that the press release is intended to damage Linus' reputation, there are no proven false statements made. It is all "I heard so-and-so say..." and "I feel that...".
"everyone knows that Linus coded the original kernel way back in the day."
If that were true, the press release wouldn't have been written. I would assume that most people have never heard of Linus. Those who have may simply know he's some kind of Linux expert. Those that know he started Linux may not know how he did it.
When I was first told about him, I was told that he was a Unix expert who was teaching a class on multi-user environments in college. He wanted a cheap Unix clone for the students to work on, so he translated the Unix code for a 386 processor. In the end, he was rather surprised that it became so popular. I repeat: that is what I was told by someone other than Linus himself. So, with stories like that running around, it isn't hard for someone to believe that Linus just ripped of Unix.
A keyboard bug is not uncommon in the military. I didn't use one because it wasn't part of my job, but I did see one in use at communications/electronics school. It is more than 80% accurate. They also had one that listened to monitor frequencies to recreate what was on a monitor's screen. That was more flaky. The fuzziness was OK for trying to make out plain text, but when windows and such were involved it became an unreadable mess.
The only thing I remember as positive is when my 6th grade teacher got two TRS-80 Model I computers back in '79. We were invited to go after school every day and learn BASIC. That started me off.
I agree that computers in the classroom are a valuable benefit for those who will later require computer skills. I learned programming when the TRS-80 first came out. It wasn't any initiative. My teacher thought I was retarded and preferred that I spent all day in the 'special education room' (aka the supply closet) playing with the computer. I became a very skilled programmer. I admit that I haven't always enjoyed it. I went into the Marines to escape that whole computer/electronic thing. I became a computer/electronic engineer - go figure.
Anyway, I feel that computers for children is a good thing. Some are punks who will use it only for porn. Others will learn a good skill. So, I started this thing 8 years ago. I buy a new computer every year around this time (just ordered one last weekend). Then, I give my old one to a young student who may want to learn to be some kind of computer person in the future. Really, you can't sell a year-old comptuer for much and by giving it to a kid who couldn't afford one you get that warm fuzzy feeling.
I remember seeing something on the news a few years ago about Ford experimenting with that on an Explorer, trying to jazz up the acceleration of a bigger vehicle. I don't know what became of that testing, if anything.
I saw that too. It wasn't Ford doing the actual work. They were sponsoring a competition to find alternate acceleration aids. If I remember correctly, the winner was an inflatable balloon under the driver's seat. It inflated as you drove. When you stopped and then started up again, the inflation somehow helped the acceleration. It was very weird though because the engine didn't rev as you stepped on the gas. That would take a while to get used to - sort of like going from a bicycle to a motorcycle. You have to get used to the bike moving without pedaling.
They were followed around the entire time by a 'cultural advisor' that was wearing guns.
You can make your point without being inflamatory. First, were they "followed around" or protected? Was it a "cultural advisor" or government appointed protection? You forget to mention that not everyone wants their children adopted by Americans. In fact, it is stupid to assume that anyone in China is sitting around saying, "Hey honey, let's have a few kids and send them off to America - you know, that country where everyone runs around with guns and blows stuff up - just like in the movies." It is highly possible that the adoption could have been protested by locals, which is why the government was nice enough to provide armed protection. Did anyone thank them?
I always though Ada Lovelace was considered to be the first "programmer"
Ada added notes to Babbage's design of a calculation machine when she translated all his writing. In her notes, she wrote down mathematical steps for getting from point A to point B through the machine - basically describing the states that the machine would be in as it ran. Her writing is very similar to modern programming languages, but also very similar to algebra. While she was probably the first to write a series of algebraic expressions specifically for use on a mechanical calculation machine, she wasn't the first to write the expressions in specific order.
In the end, she couldn't actually program because Babbage never built his machine. Instead, he started taking Ada to the racetrack. She became addicted to gambling and alchohol and died rather young. That whole part is usually left out of the "Ada was the first programmer" stories.
Actually the turing machine served as the basis of the first hardware, not software.
I initially agree. Most of the programming roots come from Babbage-based ideas, which are commonly attributed to Ada's added notes when she translated his work. However, I have not seen anything about recursion in the work that Babbage and Ada did. That is primarily from Turing's area of work. So, after my initial feeling that Turing is hardware, not software, I'd have to change my mind and admit that the Turing machine did have a strong influence on software.
Here in Spain over a million people regularly turned out for protests again the war last year.
Wow. The Spanish must be more Borg-like than the rest of the world. Nowhere else can you get a million people to turn out for anything except sports, unless... Is "protests again the war" Spanish slang for "World Cup Championships"?
CD's originally included Tellurium in their composition when they first came out
Considering that the CD standard wasn't established until 1981, and they weren't launched until 1982 -- I think you may be mistaken.
CDs went into public release in Japan in 1982. They were available for demonstration by the 1977 Tokyo Audio Fair. Sony claims to have had a working CD as early as 1969, but what I've seen is merely a 'laser tape' - a 2" tape that can be read by a laser.
The point is that he isn't mistaken if he is referring to "first came out" as "first working model that everyone could look at and feel all giddy inside".
The article states that some of the PCs upgraded to Linux were running Windows 98. The decision to move to Linux sounds like a major no-brainer to me, even if you remove the Microsoft vs F/OSS debate.
Our library is still using Win98 because of the security software, not because they can't afford or have any problems with other Win versions. As with any public terminal, you must keep the users from messing up the computers. Win98 is rather simple to set up so that users cannot access what they shouldn't be touching. That type of software has been out there for a long time. With WinXP, that software is newer and still being updated. On top of that, it is a new expense. So, it isn't a question of what to upgrade Win98 to, but a question of why should they upgrade a perfectly fine working Win98 public terminal?
Math was not a problem when I got my BS in Computer Science. It was physics. Actually, it was politics.
I was required to take Calc I and II and two other math courses. I chose Discrete Structures - a great class for Computer Science majors, and Digital Logic (I think it was actually called something like Binary Mathematics). Calc II isn't easy, but it isn't impossible either.
The problem came in with our Science department. They have tons of physics professors but nobody wants to take high level physics courses. So, they talked the Computer Science department into a deal. All science majors (Physics, Biology, etc...) will be required to take an introduction to computers course. In exchange, all Computer Science majors will be required to take a full year of advanced physics courses as well as two 'authorized' science classes. Luckily, one of them was Digital Logic again (I don't remember the real name of that class).
Advanced physics is hard because there are no rules. For instance, I had one test with a guy on a bike coasting up a hill and you had to guess his speed at the top of the hill. I got that correct. A month later, the exact same question was on the test. I gave the exact same answer and got it wrong because now we were using different formulas that give different answers. Apparently, the 'correct' answer in physics depends on which chapter in the book you are in. Needless to say, the second semester of physics busted my 4.0 and I have had a strong distaste for it ever since. Don't get me wrong though - I would have lost that 4.0 anyway. I hadn't taken the required Liberal Arts classes yet. But at least I can comment my code with sonnets now.
I know it is going against the grain here, but I use Comcast for my Internet access. If you do, you know that over 50% of the bandwidth that you pay for is being used by punks (mostly trying to hack into your home pc). If they kick a few punks off the line, I am happy. I am not one to blindly support some hacker, music/vid pirate, or script-kiddie just because he uses some variant of Linux instead of Windows. Theft is theft. Get caught, get kicked off Comcast, give me more bandwidth.
So, would this not also fall under the problem of Man-in-the middle attacks?
The way to avoid the man-in-the-middle has to do with the filters for the photons. It is confusing in the code, but easier to understand from a completely fabricated example.
First, you need to understand that photons are becoming 1 and 0 based on spin. That spin is aligned so that 1 is 90 degrees off of 0. The filters have to be aligned as well (sure makes portable devices hard, but I'm sure we'll figure that out later). Assume we cycle through 8 filters. The first four look like + so that vertical is a 1 and horizontal is a 0. The next four look like x so that diagonal one way is a 1 and the other is a 0. If you shoot a photon aligned to + through a x filter, it will become either a 1 or 0, but not necessarily the correct value.
What does that mean? It means that you and I can decide to use the following filter sequence: x++xx+x++. Now, a man in the middle must use the same sequence or he will scramble the message. If he scrambles the message, he cannot retransmit it. Also, he cannot decode it because he doesn't know which bits are correct and which ones are incorrect.
Now, what if the man in the middle knows your filter sequence? Now you hit the key-sharing problem that cryptology has had since the start. There's no point in assuming that's a new problem.
Do you think we will ever be able to program robots to understand and possibly copy human nature?
In my opinion, we will never get a human-like AI until we teach computers to comprehend time. Right now, the best AI cannot intuitively figure out that you need to do one thing before another. It cannot plan ahead for something to be done later. It cannot see the cause and effect of things in the past.
AI may be programmed to see the world as a series of events with timestamps, but it still doesn't understand timing. I feel that language is merely a human invention required because humans realized that time exists. They started saying things like, "You scare the elephant BEFORE we attack it." and "I will plant the seeds THEN we will water them and THEN we will get the fruit."
Right now, there is a lot of work in pattern recognition. My hedgehog recognizes patterns, but she is in no way capable of mimicing human behaviour. I think it is because of her lack of time understanding. For instance, she eats all her food when she is hungry. She has no understanding that she can save some now in case she gets hungry later.
This is a topic that I can go on and on about, but the point is there. Robots (or AI for that matter) will not be able to mimic humans until they get a real understanding of time.
When I was in the Marines way back in 1989, I read about tests with little retina-mapped lasers for grunts. It never caught on, but the technology was there and it was being tested. What is new here? Are they casing the old technology in cool pastel colors now?
I really wish I could find the article that made me realize the problem with students learning to write without the aid of a computer in China. However, it was about a year old and it was in Chinese. So, I'd be assuming you could read it. However, I didn't mean to overstate the problem. I was just trying to use an example that wasn't centered only in the United States.
However, when I complain about these problems, I get called a technophobe.
Whatever name you are called, it is only by the ignorant. Computers of all kinds are making humans dumber in many areas. Most students cannot answer simple questions, like what is 7 times 8? They also cannot spell because Word will correct the spelling for them.
It is considered a minor problem in the United States. I have been studying reading and writing Chinese for many years and the 'computer assistance problem' is considered far worse over there. Without computer help, kids in the US can figure out some sequence of letters that makes them understood (I can't tell you how many times I've graded a Computer Science test with 'integer' spelled 'interger'). In China, missing a few strokes or adding one in the wrong place will completely change the meaning of the character. So, students there have trouble getting understood without having a computer help them pick out the correct characters.
While I don't like it, I think of it as the slide-rule example. Who is required to learn to use a slide-rule anymore? It isn't required because it isn't needed. With the same argument, why should Chinese kids learn to write all the Chinese characters from memory when a computer picks out the correct words for them? Then, why should any student learn 7*8 when they have a fancy calculator (really a mini-computer) that will do the thinking for them? When these little computers do enough of our thinking about the unimportant stuff, we can spend more time thinking about important stuff, like the Simpons.
They were looking for someone who could dedicate themselves full time to work and they believed that someone still going thru college wasn't going to be able to
You are absolutely correct. I edited my post repeatedly to ensure that it wouldn't be taken as a generic MS slam. I knew at the in-person interview that the job I was being considered for was full time. In the phone interviews, I thought it was an internship. I just found it strange that they would ask a college student to quit college. Of course, I shouldn't have. A friend of mine did an internship there and was asked to stay full time (and quit college).
You can always apply with them later on.
I did apply with them (twice) after I got my degree. I got no reply.
Anybody can tell what it's like working for Microsoft?
Second-hand story: My friend that I mentioned is a blind programmer for Microsoft. By 'blind', I mean that he cannot see. I don't mean some kind of black-box programming style. Anyway, the employees where he is at in NC get to work any schedule they like. The limits are that they work all the hours required, they get the job done, and they are available when needed for meetings with other workers or outside clients. In the wee hours of the morning, this working heard a weird clanking noise. He ventured into the hall to figure out what it was. Tracking down the source, he found himself by the coke machine. In this building, all drink machines are free. You just press a button and get a drink - no quarters. He asked if anyone was there and another guy said that he was having a party that weekend, so he was stocking up on drinks by unloading the drinks into his duffle bags.
He told me a lot of other things - mostly making me hate my old job as a programmer for the Navy. I was rather surprised when he told me that MS doesn't pay based on your location. He has a nice place to live in at the NC facility. If he did the same job at the San Fran facility, he'd be living with 2-3 roommates in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment.
Microsoft is well known for their great hiring practices.
I think you mean hiring choices. When I interviewed through their hiring practices, I went through two phone interviews and then an in-person interview on a golf course (I don't play golf, but the two interviewers do). I was told that I would be considered if I agreed to quit college and to never attempt to get a degree. I stuck it out, got a degree, and now I'm making about $30k less a year than if I had went with Microsoft.
I feel that I learned a lot in those last two years of college - a lot more than I learned in the first two. A hiring practice that asks college students to quit school just seems like a bad practice to me.
I have a similar setup: ancient domain name and catchall email account. I used to get over 90% spam. Then, I started using ferriera to block spam and now it is around 10%. I guess you could say that ferriera gets 90% spam and 10% email, but the point is that *I* only get 10% spam without the worry that a real email was misfiled as spam.
Slashdot Mirror
Does Lucas know how people feel? Does he listen to the criticism?
I know that there will be 100 posts saying this exact same thing by the time I click the submit button, but to answer your questions: Yes and No. He does know how people feel. He doesn't live in a little bubble in the Arizona desert. He may even read Slashdot while hiding under the identity of Paul Rothrock. But, in the end, Star Wars is not about the movies. It isn't about the story. The Start Wars books are far more interesting story-wise than the movies. It is about the marketing. If you go way back to A New Hope and read the behind-the-scenes stuff that went on to get the movie made, you can see that Lucas was keen on marketing. Everything else was just a hobby.
An alternative to Markov strings would be using a Pink (aka 1/f or Zipfian) distribution. There have been hundreds of studies that show nature follows such a distribution. I've read some that show bird calls follow the same distribution. If the assumption that nature is pleasing is correct, then pleasing music would have the same distribution. So, you can create your string the same way, say you have 122132 and you want the next one. A 2 will make it more balanced in the Pink sort of way. You can keep stretching the string out and adding whatever note keeps the distribution at the optimal level.
This depends a bit on the jurisdiction. Certainly in the U.S., the bar is set pretty high on what constitutes actionable defamation. Other jurisdictions are less forgiving. Compare, for example, with Canada.
You are absolutely correct. I assumed that the author of the article was in the United States. I am certain that Linus is not - did he suddenly move to recently?
I was trying to point out that the article did not necessarily defame Linus in any way because all of the comments were opinion and/or hearsay.
I'm not a lawyer. I just play on on Slashdot.
It's interesting how some people will go out of their way to make a comment about political systems something seemingly personal. You don't need to 'consider' China to be fascist and totalitarian, you can look up the definitions of those words in the dictionary and say "oh...China is a fascist totalitarian state...interesting". Chairman Mao led a fascist and totalitarian state. That is true and I do not argue with it. However, contrary to most American beliefs, Chairman Mao is no longer in charge of China. It is now a republic. They have elections. The people have the power to vote on who runs their government.
Your first argument may be that they are technically a republic, but the people only have a choice between two evils in each election - not a true choice. I feel the same way about our electorial process, so am I to believe that the United States is a fascist totalitarian state?
Second, I equate the statement that China is fascist and totalitarian to hatred because both terms are highly negative and untrue. I stand by my opinion that the original post was hateful. It could have been: "Let's get to Mars before China so we will have more to be proud of in our great country." instead of "I, for one do not want to see this fascist, totalitarian state score a propoganda win by landing humans on Mars first."
I, for one do not want to see this fascist, totalitarian state score a propoganda win by landing humans on Mars first.
This really doesn't sit well with me. Why does patriotism always seem to require hatred for everyone else? Isn't it enough to be proud of your country without considering a different culture fascist and totalitarian? Or, is 'pride' just a nice way of saying 'hate', as in "I'm black and I'm proud of it" = "I hate whites"? I don't think so. I think that you can be proud without being hateful.
Have you considered this option: Become friends with the Chinese and work together to get to Mars using the best minds and resources of each country.
But surely they should be entitled to sue for libel or slander or whatever it is.
You are referring to libel. Slander is vocalized. Libel is written. However, this is not a clear libel case. It must meet two requirements. It must a proven false statement. It must have the intent of damaging the person's character or reputation. While I agree that the press release is intended to damage Linus' reputation, there are no proven false statements made. It is all "I heard so-and-so say..." and "I feel that...".
"everyone knows that Linus coded the original kernel way back in the day."
If that were true, the press release wouldn't have been written. I would assume that most people have never heard of Linus. Those who have may simply know he's some kind of Linux expert. Those that know he started Linux may not know how he did it.
When I was first told about him, I was told that he was a Unix expert who was teaching a class on multi-user environments in college. He wanted a cheap Unix clone for the students to work on, so he translated the Unix code for a 386 processor. In the end, he was rather surprised that it became so popular. I repeat: that is what I was told by someone other than Linus himself. So, with stories like that running around, it isn't hard for someone to believe that Linus just ripped of Unix.
Of course, a whole lot of this is just theory.
A keyboard bug is not uncommon in the military. I didn't use one because it wasn't part of my job, but I did see one in use at communications/electronics school. It is more than 80% accurate. They also had one that listened to monitor frequencies to recreate what was on a monitor's screen. That was more flaky. The fuzziness was OK for trying to make out plain text, but when windows and such were involved it became an unreadable mess.
The only thing I remember as positive is when my 6th grade teacher got two TRS-80 Model I computers back in '79. We were invited to go after school every day and learn BASIC. That started me off.
I agree that computers in the classroom are a valuable benefit for those who will later require computer skills. I learned programming when the TRS-80 first came out. It wasn't any initiative. My teacher thought I was retarded and preferred that I spent all day in the 'special education room' (aka the supply closet) playing with the computer. I became a very skilled programmer. I admit that I haven't always enjoyed it. I went into the Marines to escape that whole computer/electronic thing. I became a computer/electronic engineer - go figure.
Anyway, I feel that computers for children is a good thing. Some are punks who will use it only for porn. Others will learn a good skill. So, I started this thing 8 years ago. I buy a new computer every year around this time (just ordered one last weekend). Then, I give my old one to a young student who may want to learn to be some kind of computer person in the future. Really, you can't sell a year-old comptuer for much and by giving it to a kid who couldn't afford one you get that warm fuzzy feeling.
I remember seeing something on the news a few years ago about Ford experimenting with that on an Explorer, trying to jazz up the acceleration of a bigger vehicle. I don't know what became of that testing, if anything.
I saw that too. It wasn't Ford doing the actual work. They were sponsoring a competition to find alternate acceleration aids. If I remember correctly, the winner was an inflatable balloon under the driver's seat. It inflated as you drove. When you stopped and then started up again, the inflation somehow helped the acceleration. It was very weird though because the engine didn't rev as you stepped on the gas. That would take a while to get used to - sort of like going from a bicycle to a motorcycle. You have to get used to the bike moving without pedaling.
They were followed around the entire time by a 'cultural advisor' that was wearing guns.
You can make your point without being inflamatory. First, were they "followed around" or protected? Was it a "cultural advisor" or government appointed protection? You forget to mention that not everyone wants their children adopted by Americans. In fact, it is stupid to assume that anyone in China is sitting around saying, "Hey honey, let's have a few kids and send them off to America - you know, that country where everyone runs around with guns and blows stuff up - just like in the movies." It is highly possible that the adoption could have been protested by locals, which is why the government was nice enough to provide armed protection. Did anyone thank them?
I always though Ada Lovelace was considered to be the first "programmer"
Ada added notes to Babbage's design of a calculation machine when she translated all his writing. In her notes, she wrote down mathematical steps for getting from point A to point B through the machine - basically describing the states that the machine would be in as it ran. Her writing is very similar to modern programming languages, but also very similar to algebra. While she was probably the first to write a series of algebraic expressions specifically for use on a mechanical calculation machine, she wasn't the first to write the expressions in specific order.
In the end, she couldn't actually program because Babbage never built his machine. Instead, he started taking Ada to the racetrack. She became addicted to gambling and alchohol and died rather young. That whole part is usually left out of the "Ada was the first programmer" stories.
Actually the turing machine served as the basis of the first hardware, not software.
I initially agree. Most of the programming roots come from Babbage-based ideas, which are commonly attributed to Ada's added notes when she translated his work. However, I have not seen anything about recursion in the work that Babbage and Ada did. That is primarily from Turing's area of work. So, after my initial feeling that Turing is hardware, not software, I'd have to change my mind and admit that the Turing machine did have a strong influence on software.
Here in Spain over a million people regularly turned out for protests again the war last year.
Wow. The Spanish must be more Borg-like than the rest of the world. Nowhere else can you get a million people to turn out for anything except sports, unless... Is "protests again the war" Spanish slang for "World Cup Championships"?
CD's originally included Tellurium in their composition when they first came out
Considering that the CD standard wasn't established until 1981, and they weren't launched until 1982 -- I think you may be mistaken.
CDs went into public release in Japan in 1982. They were available for demonstration by the 1977 Tokyo Audio Fair. Sony claims to have had a working CD as early as 1969, but what I've seen is merely a 'laser tape' - a 2" tape that can be read by a laser.
The point is that he isn't mistaken if he is referring to "first came out" as "first working model that everyone could look at and feel all giddy inside".
The article states that some of the PCs upgraded to Linux were running Windows 98. The decision to move to Linux sounds like a major no-brainer to me, even if you remove the Microsoft vs F/OSS debate.
Our library is still using Win98 because of the security software, not because they can't afford or have any problems with other Win versions. As with any public terminal, you must keep the users from messing up the computers. Win98 is rather simple to set up so that users cannot access what they shouldn't be touching. That type of software has been out there for a long time. With WinXP, that software is newer and still being updated. On top of that, it is a new expense. So, it isn't a question of what to upgrade Win98 to, but a question of why should they upgrade a perfectly fine working Win98 public terminal?
Math was not a problem when I got my BS in Computer Science. It was physics. Actually, it was politics.
I was required to take Calc I and II and two other math courses. I chose Discrete Structures - a great class for Computer Science majors, and Digital Logic (I think it was actually called something like Binary Mathematics). Calc II isn't easy, but it isn't impossible either.
The problem came in with our Science department. They have tons of physics professors but nobody wants to take high level physics courses. So, they talked the Computer Science department into a deal. All science majors (Physics, Biology, etc...) will be required to take an introduction to computers course. In exchange, all Computer Science majors will be required to take a full year of advanced physics courses as well as two 'authorized' science classes. Luckily, one of them was Digital Logic again (I don't remember the real name of that class).
Advanced physics is hard because there are no rules. For instance, I had one test with a guy on a bike coasting up a hill and you had to guess his speed at the top of the hill. I got that correct. A month later, the exact same question was on the test. I gave the exact same answer and got it wrong because now we were using different formulas that give different answers. Apparently, the 'correct' answer in physics depends on which chapter in the book you are in. Needless to say, the second semester of physics busted my 4.0 and I have had a strong distaste for it ever since. Don't get me wrong though - I would have lost that 4.0 anyway. I hadn't taken the required Liberal Arts classes yet. But at least I can comment my code with sonnets now.
I know it is going against the grain here, but I use Comcast for my Internet access. If you do, you know that over 50% of the bandwidth that you pay for is being used by punks (mostly trying to hack into your home pc). If they kick a few punks off the line, I am happy. I am not one to blindly support some hacker, music/vid pirate, or script-kiddie just because he uses some variant of Linux instead of Windows. Theft is theft. Get caught, get kicked off Comcast, give me more bandwidth.
So, would this not also fall under the problem of Man-in-the middle attacks?
The way to avoid the man-in-the-middle has to do with the filters for the photons. It is confusing in the code, but easier to understand from a completely fabricated example.
First, you need to understand that photons are becoming 1 and 0 based on spin. That spin is aligned so that 1 is 90 degrees off of 0. The filters have to be aligned as well (sure makes portable devices hard, but I'm sure we'll figure that out later). Assume we cycle through 8 filters. The first four look like + so that vertical is a 1 and horizontal is a 0. The next four look like x so that diagonal one way is a 1 and the other is a 0. If you shoot a photon aligned to + through a x filter, it will become either a 1 or 0, but not necessarily the correct value.
What does that mean? It means that you and I can decide to use the following filter sequence: x++xx+x++. Now, a man in the middle must use the same sequence or he will scramble the message. If he scrambles the message, he cannot retransmit it. Also, he cannot decode it because he doesn't know which bits are correct and which ones are incorrect.
Now, what if the man in the middle knows your filter sequence? Now you hit the key-sharing problem that cryptology has had since the start. There's no point in assuming that's a new problem.
Do you think we will ever be able to program robots to understand and possibly copy human nature?
In my opinion, we will never get a human-like AI until we teach computers to comprehend time. Right now, the best AI cannot intuitively figure out that you need to do one thing before another. It cannot plan ahead for something to be done later. It cannot see the cause and effect of things in the past.
AI may be programmed to see the world as a series of events with timestamps, but it still doesn't understand timing. I feel that language is merely a human invention required because humans realized that time exists. They started saying things like, "You scare the elephant BEFORE we attack it." and "I will plant the seeds THEN we will water them and THEN we will get the fruit."
Right now, there is a lot of work in pattern recognition. My hedgehog recognizes patterns, but she is in no way capable of mimicing human behaviour. I think it is because of her lack of time understanding. For instance, she eats all her food when she is hungry. She has no understanding that she can save some now in case she gets hungry later.
This is a topic that I can go on and on about, but the point is there. Robots (or AI for that matter) will not be able to mimic humans until they get a real understanding of time.
When I was in the Marines way back in 1989, I read about tests with little retina-mapped lasers for grunts. It never caught on, but the technology was there and it was being tested. What is new here? Are they casing the old technology in cool pastel colors now?
I really wish I could find the article that made me realize the problem with students learning to write without the aid of a computer in China. However, it was about a year old and it was in Chinese. So, I'd be assuming you could read it. However, I didn't mean to overstate the problem. I was just trying to use an example that wasn't centered only in the United States.
However, when I complain about these problems, I get called a technophobe.
Whatever name you are called, it is only by the ignorant. Computers of all kinds are making humans dumber in many areas. Most students cannot answer simple questions, like what is 7 times 8? They also cannot spell because Word will correct the spelling for them.
It is considered a minor problem in the United States. I have been studying reading and writing Chinese for many years and the 'computer assistance problem' is considered far worse over there. Without computer help, kids in the US can figure out some sequence of letters that makes them understood (I can't tell you how many times I've graded a Computer Science test with 'integer' spelled 'interger'). In China, missing a few strokes or adding one in the wrong place will completely change the meaning of the character. So, students there have trouble getting understood without having a computer help them pick out the correct characters.
While I don't like it, I think of it as the slide-rule example. Who is required to learn to use a slide-rule anymore? It isn't required because it isn't needed. With the same argument, why should Chinese kids learn to write all the Chinese characters from memory when a computer picks out the correct words for them? Then, why should any student learn 7*8 when they have a fancy calculator (really a mini-computer) that will do the thinking for them? When these little computers do enough of our thinking about the unimportant stuff, we can spend more time thinking about important stuff, like the Simpons.
They were looking for someone who could dedicate themselves full time to work and they believed that someone still going thru college wasn't going to be able to
You are absolutely correct. I edited my post repeatedly to ensure that it wouldn't be taken as a generic MS slam. I knew at the in-person interview that the job I was being considered for was full time. In the phone interviews, I thought it was an internship. I just found it strange that they would ask a college student to quit college. Of course, I shouldn't have. A friend of mine did an internship there and was asked to stay full time (and quit college).
You can always apply with them later on.
I did apply with them (twice) after I got my degree. I got no reply.
Anybody can tell what it's like working for Microsoft? Second-hand story: My friend that I mentioned is a blind programmer for Microsoft. By 'blind', I mean that he cannot see. I don't mean some kind of black-box programming style. Anyway, the employees where he is at in NC get to work any schedule they like. The limits are that they work all the hours required, they get the job done, and they are available when needed for meetings with other workers or outside clients. In the wee hours of the morning, this working heard a weird clanking noise. He ventured into the hall to figure out what it was. Tracking down the source, he found himself by the coke machine. In this building, all drink machines are free. You just press a button and get a drink - no quarters. He asked if anyone was there and another guy said that he was having a party that weekend, so he was stocking up on drinks by unloading the drinks into his duffle bags.
He told me a lot of other things - mostly making me hate my old job as a programmer for the Navy. I was rather surprised when he told me that MS doesn't pay based on your location. He has a nice place to live in at the NC facility. If he did the same job at the San Fran facility, he'd be living with 2-3 roommates in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment.
Microsoft is well known for their great hiring practices. I think you mean hiring choices. When I interviewed through their hiring practices, I went through two phone interviews and then an in-person interview on a golf course (I don't play golf, but the two interviewers do). I was told that I would be considered if I agreed to quit college and to never attempt to get a degree. I stuck it out, got a degree, and now I'm making about $30k less a year than if I had went with Microsoft. I feel that I learned a lot in those last two years of college - a lot more than I learned in the first two. A hiring practice that asks college students to quit school just seems like a bad practice to me.
I have a similar setup: ancient domain name and catchall email account. I used to get over 90% spam. Then, I started using ferriera to block spam and now it is around 10%. I guess you could say that ferriera gets 90% spam and 10% email, but the point is that *I* only get 10% spam without the worry that a real email was misfiled as spam.