"Professor Zhaoping" is Li Zhaoping, and being Chinese, her family name (last name) is Li, NOT Zhaoping (her given, first name). Silly editors, etc. its like going around and calling her Professor Bob or Professor Susie...
There is also the possibility of using it for long distance communication or ranging.
Long distances ? maybe, but not very good for Quake, etc...
C:\>ping home
Pinging home [192.168.1.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10000ms, Maximum = 10000ms, Average = 10000ms
Actually it is completely standard for non-exempt employees to be paid less by about 10-15% than exempt employees. In the various institutions I've worked, it was recognized and standardized that exempt employees get paid more, but then do not get overtime. Such employees are typically officiers of the company, etc, i.e. exempt employee are generally of a HIGHER class. Now these folks *wanted* to be non-exempt, i.e. a LOWER class...
I'm sure this action seems mean, particularly on an individual basis, but since the lawsuits were dealing with the issue as a "class", that is generalized to the job classification of a whole group, then it is in fact standard for that whole group to either: 1) have a higher base salary but not get overtime (exempt), or 2) a lower base salary, but then get overtime. So the group asked to be non-exempt, a lower class that gets overtime... so they got it, along with the reduction in base salary commensurate with the reduction in status...
It would seem that it would be easier to find a woman who would be entirely subservient to whatever you want, or however you want your child to be raised... Between all the various religions and cults that believe the woman should be subservient to the husband (fundamentalist Christians: "the man is the head of the house", Muslims, etc, etc), it should be easy to find one of those... easier than finding a woman who understands #!/bin/sh...
then wifey will do whatever you say... (ain't too much difference between those cults and the cult of/bin/sh is there ?)
Sounds like absolutely nothing prevents some "affliate" from gathering up the CPNI and using it for all sorts of damaging stuff... like tracking how many elected officials call 1-800-HOT-GIRL, or married men who call single women's numbers often, and at nights and on weekends. The data mining-for-no-good possibilities are endless.
Yes, Sprint never provided incoming call number info on its past bills, because its billing software was too stupid.
But Sprint is right now in the process of converting ALL customers over to Nextel's billing software (ENSEMBLE) and that software *will* provide you with incoming number info.
In the process of this conversion, it is also likely that many perks and discounts that you may have received from Sprint will be stripped off...
Target for total conversion is early 2008, about 30-40% of the conversion is complete now.
Well, that cute little ditty does leave out the part about Verizon, formerly Bell Atlantic (or Hell Atlantic). And of course Qwest... so yes, in place of one bad monopoly, we now have three... and in the process, destroying the one good part of Ma Bell that really did contribute a lot to the US of A, Bell Labs...
Of the four major cellular carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Tmobile and Sprint), Sprint's data prices are the CHEAPEST -- broadband EVDO at $15/mo (everyone else is $20/mo or more).
Sure, I'd love it to be free, but you really can't take Sprint to task for having expensive data service...
If the burning battery issues are going to continue to be a problem, who's going to be responsible for losses? Insurance companies, Laptop makers, Battery vendors, and consumer negligence could presumably be cited in all cases.
In these cases, it seems it would be an easy lawsuit. I would personally refuse to have my own insurance cover it as it is so clearly a product defect. And since both Dell and the battery manufacturers (Sony? Sanyo ? etc) all have deep pockets, it doesn't matter so much who to sue. Mind you, I'm not talking about a big suit, unless there were really serious damages (
I doubt it would ever go to trial, as long as the request for settlement was reasonable... In fact, I would ask (nicely but firmly) for a reasonable amount from Dell first, before taking real legal proceedings...
SCO's stock price has fallen 70 percent during trading today, reaching a 52-week low.
Isn't the implication of this statement that SCO's stock price has more than tripled in the past year?
Wow yourself... where's your reading comprehension ?
The statement is *not* that the stock prices now, after the 70% drop, are about the same as 1 year ago.
If the stock has been at $1 for the entire previous 51 weeks, and this week it dropped to 30 cents, that would fit the statement.
If the stock started at $51 one year ago, and each week it dropped $1, and this past week, it dropped from $1 to 30 cents, that would also meet the same claim...
Just look at the charts for SCOX to see what the real history was...
The Mozilla Foundation was established in July 2003 as a California not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the public benefit.
...
There are many different ways of advancing the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. We welcome a broad range of activities, and anticipate the same creativity that Mozilla participants have shown in other areas of the project.
It seems that in focussing on Firefox, Mozilla is forgeting the whole point of their existence. It is a dangerous path...
- They are becoming beholden to Google and a single project (Firefox). We don't need another Opera (nothing wrong with Opera per se), or another browser created by yet another software company. OSS is supposed to be a *different* business model, with a *broader* vision, benefitting the public, not just Google proxies or lackies.
-It would seem that they endanger their status as a 501c3 public charity/foundation, and thus their tax-exempt status. IIRC, a 501c3 cannot accept more than 10% of their funding from any one source. At the moment Mozilla is rapidly looking like they are doing coding for hire (Firefox for Google).
- Pushing Thunderbird forward *within* Mozilla would at least maintain some sense that 1) they are promulgating a broader mission, 2) they are doing more than what Google asks them to.
- If Google's funding is truly earmarked for Firefox (as suggested in this thread), Mozilla should end that right now, and stipulate to Google that at least some reasonable fraction of their "donation" (e.g. 30%) MUST be in the form of an "unrestricted grant", that could and will be use for other projects in the foundation, like Thunderbird.
Mozilla is nuts for focusing on Firefox at the expense of Thunderbird. They are losing sight of their entire unique contribution to the community, and their larger mission.
Email is an essential function of the Internet and modern computing. If Thunderbird isn't doing so well, Mozilla should be fixing the problem and addressing those issues head-on, rather than jettisoning and punting on it.
the day that any field is not funded (NOT EXACTLY)
on
Has Cosmology Been Solved?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
While in principle, I agree with most of what you are trying to say, though I don't understand why you say that a thoroughly known science becomes sci-fi...
But in practice there are many fields, that while questions remain, the field itself has become very stagnant because, quite frankly, there isn't a whole lot of new and exciting knowledge or conceptualization to be done. Consider, for example, that nearly all of the Human Anatomy departments of US medical schools have either folded, or, more usually, mutated into something else, like departments of Cell and/or Developmental Biology. Its not because there aren't new findings in anatomy, nor new unanswered questions, and certainly not because human anatomy isn't taught anymore (every med student still needs to know it), but rather there really isn't enough new knowledge in anatomy per se, to warrant a continuing academic dept, or new faculty, or new graduate students -- we/they/the field has MOVED ON to related, but different branches of science.
You can also ask the question another way: Do we, as a society, ever learn/understand enough about a field of inquiry that we no longer deem it wise to continue funding and using precious resources to further vigorous inquiry, instead of moving on to other, more promising, less well understood fields of inquiry ? Well the answer from the NIH, the NSF, the private foundations, the university, the scientists, the Congress, etc, etc is most certain YES.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, only 12% of Vista-aware respondents were intending to upgrade to Vista in the next 12 months.
Sure, but also ask the question, What proportion of PC's (hardware) out there would actually run Vista well, and I'll bet even MS would admit that it is also low numbers, maybe 20%. So for someone who is truly "Vista aware", they would know that their current PC would not support Vista well... so its not really a fair question.
Ask instead, What proportion of Vista-aware users intend to USE Vista in the next 12 months, and you'll get a higher number, simply because instead of UPGRADING, most people expect to get into Vista by buying a new PC with Vista already installed.
Fox has announced to today that Chris Carter has finally bowed to pressure from Tea Leoni to be cast in the role of Dana Scully in place of Gillian Anderson in the upcoming X-Files 2 flick. Insiders cite a long-standing jealousy between the two actresses, with Leoni refusing to allow David Duchovny to reprise his role as Fox Mulder unless Leoni could co-star. Carter admits that the script would have to be altered to play to Leoni's grester strengths in the romantic comedy genre. Leoni was quoted as saying, "I think I'm more than capable of filling that Anderson-slut's shoes. I believe I proved myself in Fun with Dick and Jane. At least I'm closer to David's height".
As several have mentioned, the obvious choice for an always-on PC is a laptop, as long as you don't require a lot of disk bandwidth. Remember that even an old 486-66 can saturate a T1 line, so almost any laptop will do (but get one with a good lithium battery, definitely not NiMH or NiCd).
The added advantage of these older laptops is that their CPUs do not require a fan -- the fan is the number one problem with most PCs. I've had PC's run for *years* continuously without reboots or crashes. Invariably what give out on these things are the fans, power supply or CPU. Higher powered CPUs (500Mhz or greater) generally have fans, although most are regulated, which is good. But many older Pentium laptops didn't need a fan at all... even better.
I've got a couple of websites running off old Toshiba P5-100 laptops -- work fine for what they need to do: webserving, FTP, TELNET, email, etc.
As you can easily buy a usable DVD player (that also does VCD, MP3, JPEGs, CD-Photo, etc), for less than $35, it seems a little silly to not buy a Wii because it doesn't do DVDs.
I think I wouldn't want the Wii to do DVDs anyways, to reduce the wear/tear on the $250 unit, and take advantage of the fact that they're two separate units (e.g. a separate DVD unit is much easier to use with a Slingbox for example).
What IMB has stated is that the 300-odd lines of code identified by SCO as infringing lack the originality required for copyright protection. Most are comments. Many of the remaining are #DEFINE statements in c language header files, the kind of stuff previously established in common law as unqualified for copyright protection.
Consider this:
I am a man. (copyright Gary Dunn, all rights reserved).
I could claim it, but no court would uphold my claim.
It's more like:
#define MAINE 1
#define VERMONT 2
#define NEWHAMPSHIRE 3
...
#define ALASKA 50
1) It is not code (it doesn't yield executable instructions),
2) It is completely obvious and there aren't really any other reasonable ways to write this,
3) It was required to keep the same integer values for #define's like EPERM in order to maintain compatibility across software and POSIX OS's, an effort and goal that SCO itself promoted,
4) SCO doesn't have to rights to these #define's anyways, having long been relegated to the public as part of ancient UNIX/AT&T history,
5) SCO doesn't own the rights to System V anyways, Novell still does...
Since one has to read the home page of her site to read this "contract notice", the site has already been entered. Thus the contract terms are already invalid. Its not like you are posting a notice on the outside of your house. In order to see the home page, the webserve has to serve up index.html or default.htm. There is no distinction between serving up the home page, which is already on the *inside* of the site, and serving up any other content file on the inside of the site, at least from the top level directory of the website. It would be more like posting a sign on the *inside* of your house saying "If you have entered this house, you are now in a contract." And further, having a mechanism in which, if a passerby knocked on the front door, the door automatically opens and the passerby is shoved into the inside, immediately forcing the passerby into a contract.
The only distinction between serving up index.html or default.htm and the rest of the website is the *convention* that index.html is the home page. Well, following the robots.txt rules for controlling spidering is another *convention* that is every bit as much a part of the innate SOP of building a website as posting index.html.
If she had really wanted to construct a contract making a distinction between "entering" and not entering, she needed to put a password (.htaccess) on the top level directory so that the webserver would not automatically serve up parts of the website without some form of mutual agreement.
I would never bring my premo laptop, too expensive and big. If I just need email, I bring a 2nd-rate PDA (even a Palm Vx is good enough). Otherwise I bring an old Toshiba Libretto, weighs 1.5lbs, with WiFi (WeeFee as the French say...), and allows email, surfing and digital pix transfers from my digital camera.
A GSM phone is handy, with a Riiing SIM (www.riiing.com), a SIM that works almost anywhere and has good rates.
And I bring a "suicide kit", which is basically an RJ-11 phone cord with alligator clips so I can tap into any non-standard analog phone line, and a few patch cords (alligator clips on both ends) so I can adapt to any power outlet that might be available. Note that at 220V, it is far more lethal than the US 115V, so be careful. But its been very helpful on many occasions.
It was a BINARY/EXECUTABLE, a little helper C program in Unix V6 and prior, that handled shell metacharacter/wildcard expansions ([]?*). That's right, the shell prior to V7/Bourne shell, did not know how to expand commandline wildcards (e.g. ls -l *.c) but instead handed the job to a little C program to do it (and then do the exec(), so something like cd a* didn't work in the V6 shell).
Anyways, the point is,/etc is most definitely et cetera -- it contained all sorts of miscellaneous stuff, both ASCII text files, like/etc/passwd,/etc/motd,/etc/ttys,/etc/rc,/etc/crontab, and BINARIES, like/etc/glob.
For what I consider a much better treatment of this topic, see: The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It? [gmu.edu]
Also related, albeit a little more tangentially, is "Are You Living In A Computer Simulation? [simulation-argument.com]". "We're in a simulation and there are no extraterrestrials in the simulation" must be considered one of the leading possible answers.
The Great Filter paper seems like a pretty worthwhile viewpoint. But I've never like the we-are-living-in-a-simulation arguments, or we-will-be-resurrected-in-a-simulation.
One problem I see is that that paper like most extrapolate how much computing resources we will likely have in the future, the "post-human" future, and it reasonably would be large. But then they estimate how much computing resources it should require to simulate human history, which, admitted up til now would be relatively small. What they seem to miss is the amount of human history that will take place between now and the "post human" period when the vast computing resources would be available that are needed to make such simulations. It seems self-evident that any given civilization would never have the resources to fully simulate itself, or any state in its prior history close to its present state. There must be a huge gap between what a given civilization is able to simulate and the present state of that civilization. It is not even apparent that the computational abilities of a civilization would ever grow faster than the detailed complexities of that civilization, nevermind having to simulate the entire cummulative histories of that civilization.
Therefore, it seems likely that any such "ancestoral" simulations would be *extremely* ancestoral and primitive relative to the present state of the simulators ("directors"). And the corrollary to this notion then would be that arguments posited that we must be now living in a simulation because most such self-aware beings would be living in simulations relative to the "original" species, are now much less plausible because this gap between what can be simulate and the current reality includes a huge gap in the numbers of beings (presuming a continued growth in populations) and serves to greatly dilute the probability-that-we-are-simulations argument.
Slashdot Mirror
"Professor Zhaoping" is Li Zhaoping, and being Chinese, her family name (last name) is Li, NOT Zhaoping (her given, first name). Silly editors, etc. its like going around and calling her Professor Bob or Professor Susie...
C:\>ping home
Pinging home [192.168.1.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10000ms, Maximum = 10000ms, Average = 10000ms
What's happened to the notion of "due process"...
Instant, mandatory disconnect ? sheesh... the ISPs will now be judge, jury and executioner ?
Does this guy realize how close his position wrt to downloaders is to Bush's position wrt to "terrorists" ?
Shall we send off "downloaders" to Gitmo for a few years on the say-so of the RIAA et al ?
Actually it is completely standard for non-exempt employees to be paid less by about 10-15% than exempt employees. In the various institutions I've worked, it was recognized and standardized that exempt employees get paid more, but then do not get overtime. Such employees are typically officiers of the company, etc, i.e. exempt employee are generally of a HIGHER class. Now these folks *wanted* to be non-exempt, i.e. a LOWER class...
I'm sure this action seems mean, particularly on an individual basis, but since the lawsuits were dealing with the issue as a "class", that is generalized to the job classification of a whole group, then it is in fact standard for that whole group to either: 1) have a higher base salary but not get overtime (exempt), or 2) a lower base salary, but then get overtime. So the group asked to be non-exempt, a lower class that gets overtime... so they got it, along with the reduction in base salary commensurate with the reduction in status...
It would seem that it would be easier to find a woman who would be entirely subservient to whatever you want, or however you want your child to be raised...
/bin/sh is there ?)
Between all the various religions and cults that believe the woman should be subservient to the husband (fundamentalist Christians: "the man is the head of the house", Muslims, etc, etc), it should be easy to find one of those... easier than finding a woman who understands #!/bin/sh...
then wifey will do whatever you say... (ain't too much difference between those cults and the cult of
Sounds like absolutely nothing prevents some "affliate" from gathering up the CPNI and using it for all sorts of damaging stuff... like tracking how many elected officials call 1-800-HOT-GIRL, or married men who call single women's numbers often, and at nights and on weekends. The data mining-for-no-good possibilities are endless.
Yes, Sprint never provided incoming call number info on its past bills, because its billing software was too stupid.
But Sprint is right now in the process of converting ALL customers over to Nextel's billing software (ENSEMBLE) and that software *will* provide you with incoming number info.
In the process of this conversion, it is also likely that many perks and discounts that you may have received from Sprint will be stripped off...
Target for total conversion is early 2008, about 30-40% of the conversion is complete now.
Well, that cute little ditty does leave out the part about Verizon, formerly Bell Atlantic (or Hell Atlantic). And of course Qwest... so yes, in place of one bad monopoly, we now have three... and in the process, destroying the one good part of Ma Bell that really did contribute a lot to the US of A, Bell Labs...
Of the four major cellular carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Tmobile and Sprint), Sprint's data prices are the CHEAPEST -- broadband EVDO at $15/mo (everyone else is $20/mo or more).
Sure, I'd love it to be free, but you really can't take Sprint to task for having expensive data service...
No problem having two ends of destructive power... just ask Darth Maul...
It just means that the US can hit China and Russia at the same time, or US bases in Iraq can hit Syria and Iran at the same time... sounds groovy...
The statement is *not* that the stock prices now, after the 70% drop, are about the same as 1 year ago.
If the stock has been at $1 for the entire previous 51 weeks, and this week it dropped to 30 cents, that would fit the statement.
If the stock started at $51 one year ago, and each week it dropped $1, and this past week, it dropped from $1 to 30 cents, that would also meet the same claim...
Just look at the charts for SCOX to see what the real history was...
its been a while, but I believe one advantage is that AC motors can be both brushless while not needing a permanent magnet.
- They are becoming beholden to Google and a single project (Firefox). We don't need another Opera (nothing wrong with Opera per se), or another browser created by yet another software company. OSS is supposed to be a *different* business model, with a *broader* vision, benefitting the public, not just Google proxies or lackies.
-It would seem that they endanger their status as a 501c3 public charity/foundation, and thus their tax-exempt status. IIRC, a 501c3 cannot accept more than 10% of their funding from any one source. At the moment Mozilla is rapidly looking like they are doing coding for hire (Firefox for Google).
- Pushing Thunderbird forward *within* Mozilla would at least maintain some sense that 1) they are promulgating a broader mission, 2) they are doing more than what Google asks them to.
- If Google's funding is truly earmarked for Firefox (as suggested in this thread), Mozilla should end that right now, and stipulate to Google that at least some reasonable fraction of their "donation" (e.g. 30%) MUST be in the form of an "unrestricted grant", that could and will be use for other projects in the foundation, like Thunderbird.
Mozilla is nuts for focusing on Firefox at the expense of Thunderbird. They are losing sight of their entire unique contribution to the community, and their larger mission.
Email is an essential function of the Internet and modern computing. If Thunderbird isn't doing so well, Mozilla should be fixing the problem and addressing those issues head-on, rather than jettisoning and punting on it.
While in principle, I agree with most of what you are trying to say, though I don't understand why you say that a thoroughly known science becomes sci-fi...
But in practice there are many fields, that while questions remain, the field itself has become very stagnant because, quite frankly, there isn't a whole lot of new and exciting knowledge or conceptualization to be done. Consider, for example, that nearly all of the Human Anatomy departments of US medical schools have either folded, or, more usually, mutated into something else, like departments of Cell and/or Developmental Biology. Its not because there aren't new findings in anatomy, nor new unanswered questions, and certainly not because human anatomy isn't taught anymore (every med student still needs to know it), but rather there really isn't enough new knowledge in anatomy per se, to warrant a continuing academic dept, or new faculty, or new graduate students -- we/they/the field has MOVED ON to related, but different branches of science.
You can also ask the question another way: Do we, as a society, ever learn/understand enough about a field of inquiry that we no longer deem it wise to continue funding and using precious resources to further vigorous inquiry, instead of moving on to other, more promising, less well understood fields of inquiry ? Well the answer from the NIH, the NSF, the private foundations, the university, the scientists, the Congress, etc, etc is most certain YES.
Ask instead, What proportion of Vista-aware users intend to USE Vista in the next 12 months, and you'll get a higher number, simply because instead of UPGRADING, most people expect to get into Vista by buying a new PC with Vista already installed.
No ? Ok, how about...
Fox has announced to today that Chris Carter has finally bowed to pressure from Tea Leoni to be cast in the role of Dana Scully in place of Gillian Anderson in the upcoming X-Files 2 flick. Insiders cite a long-standing jealousy between the two actresses, with Leoni refusing to allow David Duchovny to reprise his role as Fox Mulder unless Leoni could co-star. Carter admits that the script would have to be altered to play to Leoni's grester strengths in the romantic comedy genre. Leoni was quoted as saying, "I think I'm more than capable of filling that Anderson-slut's shoes. I believe I proved myself in Fun with Dick and Jane. At least I'm closer to David's height".
As several have mentioned, the obvious choice for an always-on PC is a laptop, as long as you don't require a lot of disk bandwidth. Remember that even an old 486-66 can saturate a T1 line, so almost any laptop will do (but get one with a good lithium battery, definitely not NiMH or NiCd).
The added advantage of these older laptops is that their CPUs do not require a fan -- the fan is the number one problem with most PCs. I've had PC's run for *years* continuously without reboots or crashes. Invariably what give out on these things are the fans, power supply or CPU. Higher powered CPUs (500Mhz or greater) generally have fans, although most are regulated, which is good. But many older Pentium laptops didn't need a fan at all... even better.
I've got a couple of websites running off old Toshiba P5-100 laptops -- work fine for what they need to do: webserving, FTP, TELNET, email, etc.
As you can easily buy a usable DVD player (that also does VCD, MP3, JPEGs, CD-Photo, etc), for less than $35, it seems a little silly to not buy a Wii because it doesn't do DVDs.
I think I wouldn't want the Wii to do DVDs anyways, to reduce the wear/tear on the $250 unit, and take advantage of the fact that they're two separate units (e.g. a separate DVD unit is much easier to use with a Slingbox for example).
#define MAINE 1
#define VERMONT 2
#define NEWHAMPSHIRE 3
#define ALASKA 50
1) It is not code (it doesn't yield executable instructions),
2) It is completely obvious and there aren't really any other reasonable ways to write this,
3) It was required to keep the same integer values for #define's like EPERM in order to maintain compatibility across software and POSIX OS's, an effort and goal that SCO itself promoted,
4) SCO doesn't have to rights to these #define's anyways, having long been relegated to the public as part of ancient UNIX/AT&T history,
5) SCO doesn't own the rights to System V anyways, Novell still does...
Since one has to read the home page of her site to read this "contract notice", the site has already been entered. Thus the contract terms are already invalid. Its not like you are posting a notice on the outside of your house. In order to see the home page, the webserve has to serve up index.html or default.htm. There is no distinction between serving up the home page, which is already on the *inside* of the site, and serving up any other content file on the inside of the site, at least from the top level directory of the website. It would be more like posting a sign on the *inside* of your house saying "If you have entered this house, you are now in a contract." And further, having a mechanism in which, if a passerby knocked on the front door, the door automatically opens and the passerby is shoved into the inside, immediately forcing the passerby into a contract.
The only distinction between serving up index.html or default.htm and the rest of the website is the *convention* that index.html is the home page. Well, following the robots.txt rules for controlling spidering is another *convention* that is every bit as much a part of the innate SOP of building a website as posting index.html.
If she had really wanted to construct a contract making a distinction between "entering" and not entering, she needed to put a password (.htaccess) on the top level directory so that the webserver would not automatically serve up parts of the website without some form of mutual agreement.
I would never bring my premo laptop, too expensive and big. If I just need email, I bring a 2nd-rate PDA (even a Palm Vx is good enough). Otherwise I bring an old Toshiba Libretto, weighs 1.5lbs, with WiFi (WeeFee as the French say...), and allows email, surfing and digital pix transfers from my digital camera. A GSM phone is handy, with a Riiing SIM (www.riiing.com), a SIM that works almost anywhere and has good rates. And I bring a "suicide kit", which is basically an RJ-11 phone cord with alligator clips so I can tap into any non-standard analog phone line, and a few patch cords (alligator clips on both ends) so I can adapt to any power outlet that might be available. Note that at 220V, it is far more lethal than the US 115V, so be careful. But its been very helpful on many occasions.
How many of you remember the file /etc/glob ?
/etc is most definitely et cetera -- it contained all sorts of miscellaneous stuff, both ASCII text files, like /etc/passwd, /etc/motd, /etc/ttys, /etc/rc, /etc/crontab, and BINARIES, like /etc/glob.
It was a BINARY/EXECUTABLE, a little helper C program in Unix V6 and prior, that handled shell metacharacter/wildcard expansions ([]?*). That's right, the shell prior to V7/Bourne shell, did not know how to expand commandline wildcards (e.g. ls -l *.c) but instead handed the job to a little C program to do it (and then do the exec(), so something like cd a* didn't work in the V6 shell).
Anyways, the point is,
One problem I see is that that paper like most extrapolate how much computing resources we will likely have in the future, the "post-human" future, and it reasonably would be large. But then they estimate how much computing resources it should require to simulate human history, which, admitted up til now would be relatively small. What they seem to miss is the amount of human history that will take place between now and the "post human" period when the vast computing resources would be available that are needed to make such simulations. It seems self-evident that any given civilization would never have the resources to fully simulate itself, or any state in its prior history close to its present state. There must be a huge gap between what a given civilization is able to simulate and the present state of that civilization. It is not even apparent that the computational abilities of a civilization would ever grow faster than the detailed complexities of that civilization, nevermind having to simulate the entire cummulative histories of that civilization.
Therefore, it seems likely that any such "ancestoral" simulations would be *extremely* ancestoral and primitive relative to the present state of the simulators ("directors"). And the corrollary to this notion then would be that arguments posited that we must be now living in a simulation because most such self-aware beings would be living in simulations relative to the "original" species, are now much less plausible because this gap between what can be simulate and the current reality includes a huge gap in the numbers of beings (presuming a continued growth in populations) and serves to greatly dilute the probability-that-we-are-simulations argument.
Speak for yourself... you probably *thought* you read live-hot-male ...