Doesn't this Top500 contest boil down to a matter of who has more money than the other?
I mean, at this stage, there isn't any real innovation in interconnect or processor or memory technology. It is mostly a matter of who has the money to buy thousands of these chips, cobble them together and supply enough money to keep the whole thing running.
If University of Edinburgh had thrice the money, they could cobble three Hectors together and then they would have had a system at least twice as powerful or may be only 50% more powerful (Whatvever the power gain is). Then they would end up higher on the list.
May be there should be some kind of constraints built in within the Top500 to encourage actual innovation as opposed to measuring the financial resources of an institution or a country.
(a) Violano-virtuoso:Video link Considering it was made almost 100 years ago, isn't bad! This one used discs to rub against the strings to produce the sound. The Toyota robot uses the back and forth motion of a bow which is definitely more complex.
Fact: On the 1st day, God created MACGYVER. On the 2nd day, God created knives and paperclips. On the 3rd day.. MACGYVER created everything else.
Fact: MACGYVER can invent 1000 different things using a ball of yarn and a pair of sunglasses. 999 of these things can kill a man. The remaining thing can kill a planet.
Fact: MACGYVER invented genocide using only blankets and smallpox.
Fact: The only thing that MACGYVER cannot produce with a soda can and an extension cord... is mercy.
Fact:One time, MACGYVER built a time machine out of an old refrigerator and a pocketwatch, and used it to travel to the ancient paradise of Atlantis. However, while there, he went on a drunken bender with with a magnifying glass and a book of matches. This area is now known as the Sahara.
Fact: Chuck Norris is an android built by MACGYVER in an attempt to find a worthy opponent.
Fact: Some crazy people claim that MACGYVER was just a TV character, played by Richard Dean Anderson. In actuality, Richard Dean Anderson was played by MACGYVER, and the show was a documentary, the events of which REALLY HAPPENED.
And the final Fact: Necessity is the mother of invention but... MACGYVER is the father.
Meh. Have you actually ever taken a big loan like a house mortgage?
Most loan companies go through an underwriting process where they look at your income/debt ratios, assets etc. Credit score is just one part of the equation and most companies treat it as such. Heck, the whole sub-prime loan business is for people with no credit/bad-credit and is all done through manual underwriting.
I bet even these guys you talk about pull credit history and scores to start the process. Now, if they say they won't ever pull credit history, then you can talk about them. I don't think that is the case.
First there was the fiasco of laying off experienced sales staff.
Then they closed 62 stores in Canada and a bunch in the US.
Their stock has dropped 50% from a high of about $20 in Jan/Feb to about $10 now.
Then, there was the NYTimes article recently how retailers like CC are overstocked on Flat-Panel HDTVs that they can't get rid off - a problem that will only get worse as prices drop even more for Christmas-time sales.
Now, there's news like this about customers geting into trouble ouside their store.
Looks like the devil has 'em tagged and their days are numbered.
May be it is just me but I find Forbes to be like women's "Cosmo" magazine for dumb guys and wannabes.
All it has is 3 things: (1) Articles that state the obvious (2) Shit load of Rolex and Lexus ads (3) Those top 10 lists like 'top 10 affordable vacation getaways' where their definition of affordable vacation is something that costs between $30k and $100k.
Sometimes it is almost like they are taunting the reader, saying "look, drool and weep".
Even in this article, their 'discovery' is that serious hackers are curious about technology, script-kiddies are just a nuisance.
The fact that JJ Abrams is involved is good. I have enjoyed the 'Lost' tv show.
But, the fact that this ST is going to be prequel is bad.
Other than 'The Godfather', I can't think of one prequel that was good.
I hope this doesn't turn out to be a movie version of Animal House set in the future.
I am not a Google fanboi but this lawsuit is BS.
Google cannot police the content of the ads. It is just a medium - akin to a billboard or a newspaper.
How many times have we seen informercials on TV and the web promising extraordinary "male enhancement"? My wife keeps pointing me to them all the time (I guess she is telling me something).
Anyways, they never work. They are all bogus but I have never been able to bring lawsuits against the TV stations or the websites.
These countries can do everything cheaper as seen with off-shored outsourcing and all.
The only edge the US has is innovation.
If these countries can just copy everything and do it dirt cheap, it will harm entities in the US who spend money on innovation - be it pharmaceuticals, music or software.
I think a bit of personal not-for-profit p2p downloading and an exception for life-saving drugs in OK. But, the balatant disregard for copyrights and patents with businesses in these countries openly copying and selling pharmaceuticals, software and music should be stopped.
Like many slashdotters, I have an extremely low view of politcians but Spitzer is a good man.
When he was in New York District Attorney's office, he single-handedly ended the Gambino crime family. When he became New York's Attorney General, he showed a great zeal in going after biggest Wall Street firms like Goldman Scahs, JP Morgan that were inflating stock prices and giving biased investment advice to customers. He did it inspite of a great deal of pressure. Then, he went after music companies practising "payola" schemes to get their songs played on radio. He didnt even spare huge insurance companies like AIG and chip manufacturers practicing price-fixing and other fraud.
Even in the current case, he is NOT against violent video games.
He is just against the SALE of mature-rated video games to minors.
This is no different than preventing minors from purchasing tickets to R-rated movies
Judge: Are you the Sony BMG lawyer who defended the root kit?
Lawyer: No, that was the Warner lawyer.
Judge: The same Warner lawyer who indicated to the court that he was going to give the family '60 days to grieve' before he would start deposing?
Lawyer: No, that was the Motown lawyer
Judge: The same Motown lawyer who was accused by a 15 year old girl of telling her what to say at her deposition?
Lawyer: No, that was the Michigan lawyer
Judge: The same Michigan lawyer brought suits against disabled people who have never engaged in file sharing, and whose sole income is Social Security Disability - a lawyer whose story that has just been posted on slashdot?
Interestingly, the "toilet tricorder" was shown in the 2005 movie "The Island" starring Ewan McGregor. The toilet detected too much salt/nitrates in the urine and restricted him from eating bacon.
A dude in New York City, Josh Kinberg, used a similar internet-enabled, dot-matrix printer mounted on a bike.
He used it to spray paint anti-Bush grafitti on New York's streets during the last elections.
Very cool. The cops arrested him and took his stuff but he was let go and won a case against them.
Video of the printer in action.
His site.
May be I am missing something but isn't this just a fancy way of doing a One Time Pad.
The only difference being that (a) the key is a digitized random laser signal instead of, say, a random number generator (b) the message is encoded bit-by-bit and sent over a wire in real time instead of being sent to a file.
To extract the plain message, you need an identical "white-noise" at the receiving end to cancel the original disguising "white-noise" signal. Therefore, this method will suffer from the same disadvantage as an OTP, that is, if - as a security policy - you need to set a different disguising white-noise signal everyday before sending a message, how do you share it with the receiver so that he/she may decode the message.
Usually high brow means entertainment that requires a little higher intelligence level to enjoy it.
The term "high brow" comes from "high brow or high forehead" which used to be seen as a sign of intelligence.
To use an example from the comedy genre:
"High brow" comedy may involve dialog containing witty puns, word play and/or other clever situations. On the other hand, "Low brow" comedy involves hitting someone in the crotch with a bat.
After seeing someone hit in the crotch with a bat few times, some people tend to get bored and want something more. It is this group that needs the so-called "high brow" entertainment. Doesn't mean that people who can't get enough of bats-to-the-crotch are a lower form of life. As long as they enjoy it and are having fun, that is great. The problem is that the some people do not enjoy it anymore and want more. It does not make them better than anybody else. At the same time, they should not be called snobs either.
What the guy in the article is lamenting about is not that he would like to see high art or some pretentious art. Nor is he implying that he is better than others. It is just that he would like to see something that he can enjoy more. And for that, it has to be more intellectually stimulating for him. Nothing wroong with that.
Problem is what he wants, he labels as "high brow" which to some people means he is being snobbish although that is not what "high brow" means.
Why is it that so many corrupt enterprises are based in Florida? Everytime you hear about something like this some or all of the people involved are in Florida.
If you look at a map of the USA, it looks like a toilet-bowl as seen from the side.
Florida is where all the shit goes.
As a guy many years older than him, it is depressing to see my hardworked, carefully thought-out story submissions heartlessly rejected on a regular basis by a bunch of barely 30-year old millionaire kids.
What is it with Hollywood's fascination with prequels anyway?
First there was Star Wars with Eps I-III, then there was Star Trek with Enterprise and the new proposed movie on when Kirk/Spock were in the Academy. And, now this.
I feel doing prequels is a bad idea and will never produce great entertainment.
There are three main reasons:
(1) Future is Known: Since the audience already knows what will happen to the characters in the future based on earlier movies, there is never that subconscious element of suprise. For example, no matter how much the main characters are in jeopardy, we know they will survive to justify their existence later in history. Writers basically paint themselves in a corner since they are bounded by the events that are supposed to come later.
(2) Risk to Established Canon: Sometimes the writers try to inject novelty by doing things that meses up the canon. They introduce things that no longer justifies what was established in the earlier movies. This leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth because it invalidates everything they have come to believe. For example, the appearance of Borg on Star Trek Enterprise before the time of Kirk.
(3) Anachronistic Special Effects: Since prequels get made with special-effects technology that has evolved much beyond when the earlier movies were made, we end up seeing special effects and the general look of the movie not being in line with what we would expect how things would look in the past. For example, some of the consoles and user interface screens used by the cast in Star Trek Enterprise looked more advanced than the ones on Star Trek : DS9. This anachronistic anomaly again leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouths.
I feel Hollywood should abandon this fad of making prequels and just start making more novel sequels where what they can do is only limited by a good writer's imagination.
If you are going to do anything, do this one thing: Get an MBA degree
With your Economics and Tech/Math background, you are perfect for it.
IT/CS is getting commoditized and outsourced, business skils will reign supreme. Get an MBA. Trust me, you will not be sorry. You will thank yourself in the future for making this decision now.
Slashdot Mirror
Since it doesn't run on Linux it will never achieve widespread mainstream acceptance on the desktop.
Airlines/Hotels change prices all the time based on supply and demand.
With more and more highways going under private ownership, this day wasn't far off.
IBM just automated it.
Egalitarianism-shgalitariniam. This is your basic free market Capitalism at work.
Be proud and if you can't afford the toll, take the bus.
Doesn't this Top500 contest boil down to a matter of who has more money than the other?
I mean, at this stage, there isn't any real innovation in interconnect or processor or memory technology. It is mostly a matter of who has the money to buy thousands of these chips, cobble them together and supply enough money to keep the whole thing running.
If University of Edinburgh had thrice the money, they could cobble three Hectors together and then they would have had a system at least twice as powerful or may be only 50% more powerful (Whatvever the power gain is). Then they would end up higher on the list.
May be there should be some kind of constraints built in within the Top500 to encourage actual innovation as opposed to measuring the financial resources of an institution or a country.
(a) Violano-virtuoso: Video link Considering it was made almost 100 years ago, isn't bad! This one used discs to rub against the strings to produce the sound. The Toyota robot uses the back and forth motion of a bow which is definitely more complex.
(b) The violobot: Pic and Text link Video Link Sucks!
(c) An attempt at Penn State from 10 years ago in a research project Link. Made mostly noise. Probably abandoned.
I hear they are pretty fast too - and smaller still.
Fact: On the 1st day, God created MACGYVER. On the 2nd day, God created knives and paperclips. On the 3rd day.. MACGYVER created everything else.
Fact: MACGYVER can invent 1000 different things using a ball of yarn and a pair of sunglasses. 999 of these things can kill a man. The remaining thing can kill a planet.
Fact: MACGYVER invented genocide using only blankets and smallpox.
Fact: The only thing that MACGYVER cannot produce with a soda can and an extension cord... is mercy.
Fact:One time, MACGYVER built a time machine out of an old refrigerator and a pocketwatch, and used it to travel to the ancient paradise of Atlantis. However, while there, he went on a drunken bender with with a magnifying glass and a book of matches. This area is now known as the Sahara.
Fact: Chuck Norris is an android built by MACGYVER in an attempt to find a worthy opponent.
Fact: Some crazy people claim that MACGYVER was just a TV character, played by Richard Dean Anderson. In actuality, Richard Dean Anderson was played by MACGYVER, and the show was a documentary, the events of which REALLY HAPPENED.
And the final Fact: Necessity is the mother of invention but... MACGYVER is the father.
If you were/are a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, go and read Wil's own TNG episode reviews at TV Squad.
I guarantee you - you will almost die laughing.
Meh. Have you actually ever taken a big loan like a house mortgage? Most loan companies go through an underwriting process where they look at your income/debt ratios, assets etc. Credit score is just one part of the equation and most companies treat it as such. Heck, the whole sub-prime loan business is for people with no credit/bad-credit and is all done through manual underwriting. I bet even these guys you talk about pull credit history and scores to start the process. Now, if they say they won't ever pull credit history, then you can talk about them. I don't think that is the case.
First there was the fiasco of laying off experienced sales staff.
Then they closed 62 stores in Canada and a bunch in the US.
Their stock has dropped 50% from a high of about $20 in Jan/Feb to about $10 now.
Then, there was the NYTimes article recently how retailers like CC are overstocked on Flat-Panel HDTVs that they can't get rid off - a problem that will only get worse as prices drop even more for Christmas-time sales.
Now, there's news like this about customers geting into trouble ouside their store.
Looks like the devil has 'em tagged and their days are numbered.
All it has is 3 things: (1) Articles that state the obvious (2) Shit load of Rolex and Lexus ads (3) Those top 10 lists like 'top 10 affordable vacation getaways' where their definition of affordable vacation is something that costs between $30k and $100k.
Sometimes it is almost like they are taunting the reader, saying "look, drool and weep".
Even in this article, their 'discovery' is that serious hackers are curious about technology, script-kiddies are just a nuisance.
Color me surpised...
But, the fact that this ST is going to be prequel is bad.
Other than 'The Godfather', I can't think of one prequel that was good. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a movie version of Animal House set in the future.
I am not a Google fanboi but this lawsuit is BS. Google cannot police the content of the ads. It is just a medium - akin to a billboard or a newspaper.
How many times have we seen informercials on TV and the web promising extraordinary "male enhancement"? My wife keeps pointing me to them all the time (I guess she is telling me something).
Anyways, they never work. They are all bogus but I have never been able to bring lawsuits against the TV stations or the websites.
I can sue the advertiser not the medium.
These countries can do everything cheaper as seen with off-shored outsourcing and all.
The only edge the US has is innovation.
If these countries can just copy everything and do it dirt cheap, it will harm entities in the US who spend money on innovation - be it pharmaceuticals, music or software.
I think a bit of personal not-for-profit p2p downloading and an exception for life-saving drugs in OK. But, the balatant disregard for copyrights and patents with businesses in these countries openly copying and selling pharmaceuticals, software and music should be stopped.
Like many slashdotters, I have an extremely low view of politcians but Spitzer is a good man.
When he was in New York District Attorney's office, he single-handedly ended the Gambino crime family. When he became New York's Attorney General, he showed a great zeal in going after biggest Wall Street firms like Goldman Scahs, JP Morgan that were inflating stock prices and giving biased investment advice to customers. He did it inspite of a great deal of pressure. Then, he went after music companies practising "payola" schemes to get their songs played on radio. He didnt even spare huge insurance companies like AIG and chip manufacturers practicing price-fixing and other fraud.
Even in the current case, he is NOT against violent video games. He is just against the SALE of mature-rated video games to minors. This is no different than preventing minors from purchasing tickets to R-rated movies
Judge: Are you the Sony BMG lawyer who defended the root kit?
Lawyer: No, that was the Warner lawyer.
Judge: The same Warner lawyer who indicated to the court that he was going to give the family '60 days to grieve' before he would start deposing?
Lawyer: No, that was the Motown lawyer
Judge: The same Motown lawyer who was accused by a 15 year old girl of telling her what to say at her deposition?
Lawyer: No, that was the Michigan lawyer
Judge: The same Michigan lawyer brought suits against disabled people who have never engaged in file sharing, and whose sole income is Social Security Disability - a lawyer whose story that has just been posted on slashdot?
Lawyer:Dohhh!!
Interestingly, the "toilet tricorder" was shown in the 2005 movie "The Island" starring Ewan McGregor. The toilet detected too much salt/nitrates in the urine and restricted him from eating bacon.
A dude in New York City, Josh Kinberg, used a similar internet-enabled, dot-matrix printer mounted on a bike.
He used it to spray paint anti-Bush grafitti on New York's streets during the last elections.
Very cool. The cops arrested him and took his stuff but he was let go and won a case against them.
Video of the printer in action. His site.
The only difference being that (a) the key is a digitized random laser signal instead of, say, a random number generator (b) the message is encoded bit-by-bit and sent over a wire in real time instead of being sent to a file.
To extract the plain message, you need an identical "white-noise" at the receiving end to cancel the original disguising "white-noise" signal. Therefore, this method will suffer from the same disadvantage as an OTP, that is, if - as a security policy - you need to set a different disguising white-noise signal everyday before sending a message, how do you share it with the receiver so that he/she may decode the message.
Usually high brow means entertainment that requires a little higher intelligence level to enjoy it.
The term "high brow" comes from "high brow or high forehead" which used to be seen as a sign of intelligence.
To use an example from the comedy genre:
"High brow" comedy may involve dialog containing witty puns, word play and/or other clever situations. On the other hand, "Low brow" comedy involves hitting someone in the crotch with a bat.
After seeing someone hit in the crotch with a bat few times, some people tend to get bored and want something more. It is this group that needs the so-called "high brow" entertainment. Doesn't mean that people who can't get enough of bats-to-the-crotch are a lower form of life. As long as they enjoy it and are having fun, that is great. The problem is that the some people do not enjoy it anymore and want more. It does not make them better than anybody else. At the same time, they should not be called snobs either.
What the guy in the article is lamenting about is not that he would like to see high art or some pretentious art. Nor is he implying that he is better than others. It is just that he would like to see something that he can enjoy more. And for that, it has to be more intellectually stimulating for him. Nothing wroong with that.
Problem is what he wants, he labels as "high brow" which to some people means he is being snobbish although that is not what "high brow" means.
No Need to wait another six or seven years.
This tool works great !!
Why is it that so many corrupt enterprises are based in Florida? Everytime you hear about something like this some or all of the people involved are in Florida.
If you look at a map of the USA, it looks like a toilet-bowl as seen from the side.
Florida is where all the shit goes.
As a guy many years older than him, it is depressing to see my hardworked, carefully thought-out story submissions heartlessly rejected on a regular basis by a bunch of barely 30-year old millionaire kids.
But that is the way of things I guess.
Who sends 300-400 emails a day? Really?
Assuming he takes 2 minutes per email and an average of 350 emails, that's like 700 minutes per day sending emails. That's almost 12 hours!!
And you say Hollywood is not realistic.
What is it with Hollywood's fascination with prequels anyway?
First there was Star Wars with Eps I-III, then there was Star Trek with Enterprise and the new proposed movie on when Kirk/Spock were in the Academy. And, now this.
I feel doing prequels is a bad idea and will never produce great entertainment.
There are three main reasons:
(1) Future is Known: Since the audience already knows what will happen to the characters in the future based on earlier movies, there is never that subconscious element of suprise. For example, no matter how much the main characters are in jeopardy, we know they will survive to justify their existence later in history. Writers basically paint themselves in a corner since they are bounded by the events that are supposed to come later.
(2) Risk to Established Canon: Sometimes the writers try to inject novelty by doing things that meses up the canon. They introduce things that no longer justifies what was established in the earlier movies. This leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth because it invalidates everything they have come to believe. For example, the appearance of Borg on Star Trek Enterprise before the time of Kirk.
(3) Anachronistic Special Effects: Since prequels get made with special-effects technology that has evolved much beyond when the earlier movies were made, we end up seeing special effects and the general look of the movie not being in line with what we would expect how things would look in the past. For example, some of the consoles and user interface screens used by the cast in Star Trek Enterprise looked more advanced than the ones on Star Trek : DS9. This anachronistic anomaly again leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouths.
I feel Hollywood should abandon this fad of making prequels and just start making more novel sequels where what they can do is only limited by a good writer's imagination.
If you are going to do anything, do this one thing: Get an MBA degree
With your Economics and Tech/Math background, you are perfect for it.
IT/CS is getting commoditized and outsourced, business skils will reign supreme. Get an MBA.
Trust me, you will not be sorry. You will thank yourself in the future for making this decision now.