And not because it's inconsequential that QT was bought by Nokia or that Miguel *hearts* MS. It's just not news, not shocking and at the moment not a problem.
Yeah, this is true. I don't know why it doesn't bother me as I'm someone that used to buy extra batteries by default with any new laptop. Probably a combination of more plugs on flights, a pretty good claimed battery life, and exposure to the Apple RDF.
I think it depends on the Mac. I've tried to open a grand total of two Apple laptops. One was surprisingly accessible and easy to crack open, one was a nightmare. Don't mean to be harsh, but more generally it's a bit lazy to think that getting the basic user experience right (thoughtful, consistent UI for example) is necessarily at odds with being able to pop open the hood.
Anyway, I don't see this going anywhere interesting. If you're claiming that the only interesting counterpoint is one that involves storing an array of infinite dimensions on a computer, I suppose I scratch my ass and agree. If your point is that, as the OP mentioned, there's something about computer programs (unlike the physical world) that limits one's ability to communicate the idea of infinity, I suppose I scratch my ass and disagree. Either was = ass scratched + me done.
Ok, forget it.
any game A (where A is a set of finite states that finishes in finite time) can be made into an infinite game A' by the transformation A' = A A'. You've either called A a game and a very large set of games, and suggested that some mystery operation on two finite games makes them an infinite game, or you're abusing notation in a way I find totally impenetrable. Either way, that's enough for me.
Yes, that's true. But we're discussing the difference between what can be experienced in a video game and outside of one (for example, in a nice discussion on Slashdot.) Not to put too fine a point on this with the blunt instrument of my mind, but there's no reason to apply your logic only to video games. We live for a finite period of time. If I try to write down a real number, there is a finite set I could actually finish writing in my lifetime. And yet I'm perfectly untroubled by saying I am capable of choosing an arbitrary Real number, which is certainly an infinite set. I think the distinction for the purpose of playing a video game is unimportant. (Or perhaps we've just disproved the axiom of choice.)
Exactly! I guess my counter-nitpick to the original content was that you don't have to store infinite states to allow the user an infinite set of states to choose from.
(Hmm. Maybe maybe as a caveat I'd add we could have an infinite number of infinitesimal divisions of something and still have a finite thing, but insofar as our understanding of the world is that it isn't infinitely divisible, this isn't much of a caveat.:) )
I was a little irked at the AC's insulting language.
As to your point; certainly the "spirit" of the discussion is about representing infinite choices in a computer game and its relation to user experience. If you don't think RPS is a good example, I disagree, but that's fine. My argument would be that the "outcome" of interest includes the game-play in a video game, not just the final result. If you don't like RPS, I offered a different coin-flipping example in the next reply in which a finite number of actions by two players in a repeated game leads to an infinite outcome space. If your point is simply that "infinity" can't be stored on a computer, I'd argue it's a pretty silly argument. A computer can just as we do, as a symbol, not by storing a finite number that somehow == +infty.
So, I think no strawman here. If you still feel to the contrary, well, hell, this is Slashdot, and this is about all the effort I'm going to put into it. (and re: calling me an ass, go choke on a bucket of cocks you slobbering piece of ass-fat.)
Ok - that's a reasonable statement, but I still don't understand the intent of the nitpick.
There's a finite amount of information that can be stored in the matter that makes up your brain and mine. Does this mean we can't discuss infinities reasonably? (Perhaps not, but I doubt this is the reason.) I'm not sure the difference between a brain and a computer is meaningful, when the point of contention is that a computer game can't convey the idea of the infinite.
Don't be an ass. If you want to claim a game of ten-thousand ties followed by paper-beats-scissors is identical to one with no ties, you can. To me, in the spirit of the example, this would be a different gameplay experience. Here's another example: flip a coin. Heads, win $1; tails lose $1. Play as often as you like. Outcome is a random variable with an infinite domain. Jackass.
It's a dumb article, but this is also a dumb nitpick.
Pretty much any game without a clock allows an "infinite number of variations in gameplay". "Rock-scissors-paper" allows an an infinite # of possible outcomes (since you could tie an unbounded # of times before someone wins).
The BSD portion of the kernel provides the POSIX API (BSD system calls), the Unix process model atop Mach tasks, basic security policies, user and group ids, permissions, the network stack, the virtual file system code (including a filesystem independent journalling layer), cryptographic framework, System V IPC, and some of the locking primitives.
Which to me looks like part userland part kernel, but I'm not sure I could put a very fine point on the distinction.
Within a wifi zone, a VoIP phone is a cellphone!
Within my apartment my cordless phone is a cellphone! (Why isn't that on the list?)
Within my dreams, that's where I'm an electric stove!
Of course none of us will use toll highways as our cars will be fitted with miniaturized paving machines built into the front bumper. Witness the end of the label-dinosaurs of the music industry as tiny devices algorithmically turn the sounds of our own farts into the sweetest music!
(Actually, the last idea sounds pretty good. Not sure why there's a 1. Troll, 2. Plug HP, 3. Profit ad on the front page of slashdot, tho.)
unfortunately in holland, so not sure how useful this is to you.
but they're basically an out of control, customer privacy respecting and defending, scientology-document-hosting, barrel of isp goodness. (more.) i wish i lived in holland so i could give them my connectivity money.
I was just browsing through Ken Brown's posts on the license-discuss archive. Along with the basically boring advocacy is a little jocular racist banter:
Here's a link. (Original from Ken is a post up in the thread.)
You know, in my old age I'm finding more and more that the bad guys really are the bad guys.
(I'm frankly dumbstruck that the president of a fake-scholarship firm would commit this type of thing to a mailing list.)
It's probably reasonable to assume that the Chinese government will simply act in the best interest of China (as interpreted by a paranoid, occasionally insane authoritarian government).
To take the example of DVD: if there is going to be an enormous domestic market for "DVD" players playing media that is not particularly intended for export, and given that ultra-low-cost is going to be a primary requirement, developing a patent-unencumbered DVD alternative sounds like a no-brainer.
But I suspect it's the intersection of frugality and government control that's really driving the China-specific standards.
Since the article actually talks about peer-to-peer networks of proxies, I think the point being made is that neat technological ideas can lead to orders of magnitude more proxies -- and it is unlikely that the PRC can follow with orders of magnitude more censors.
It's entirely desirable to fit the tool to the task at hand.
There's not the slightest reason some/.ers yapping away needs the same level of validation as a federal election.
Slashdot Mirror
And not because it's inconsequential that QT was bought by Nokia or that Miguel *hearts* MS. It's just not news, not shocking and at the moment not a problem.
Yeah, this is true. I don't know why it doesn't bother me as I'm someone that used to buy extra batteries by default with any new laptop. Probably a combination of more plugs on flights, a pretty good claimed battery life, and exposure to the Apple RDF.
I think it depends on the Mac. I've tried to open a grand total of two Apple laptops. One was surprisingly accessible and easy to crack open, one was a nightmare. Don't mean to be harsh, but more generally it's a bit lazy to think that getting the basic user experience right (thoughtful, consistent UI for example) is necessarily at odds with being able to pop open the hood.
Aha. I did read that hastily and uncharitably.
Anyway, I don't see this going anywhere interesting. If you're claiming that the only interesting counterpoint is one that involves storing an array of infinite dimensions on a computer, I suppose I scratch my ass and agree. If your point is that, as the OP mentioned, there's something about computer programs (unlike the physical world) that limits one's ability to communicate the idea of infinity, I suppose I scratch my ass and disagree. Either was = ass scratched + me done.
Yes, that's true. But we're discussing the difference between what can be experienced in a video game and outside of one (for example, in a nice discussion on Slashdot.) Not to put too fine a point on this with the blunt instrument of my mind, but there's no reason to apply your logic only to video games. We live for a finite period of time. If I try to write down a real number, there is a finite set I could actually finish writing in my lifetime. And yet I'm perfectly untroubled by saying I am capable of choosing an arbitrary Real number, which is certainly an infinite set. I think the distinction for the purpose of playing a video game is unimportant. (Or perhaps we've just disproved the axiom of choice.)
Exactly! I guess my counter-nitpick to the original content was that you don't have to store infinite states to allow the user an infinite set of states to choose from.
:) )
(Hmm. Maybe maybe as a caveat I'd add we could have an infinite number of infinitesimal divisions of something and still have a finite thing, but insofar as our understanding of the world is that it isn't infinitely divisible, this isn't much of a caveat.
I was a little irked at the AC's insulting language.
As to your point; certainly the "spirit" of the discussion is about representing infinite choices in a computer game and its relation to user experience. If you don't think RPS is a good example, I disagree, but that's fine. My argument would be that the "outcome" of interest includes the game-play in a video game, not just the final result. If you don't like RPS, I offered a different coin-flipping example in the next reply in which a finite number of actions by two players in a repeated game leads to an infinite outcome space. If your point is simply that "infinity" can't be stored on a computer, I'd argue it's a pretty silly argument. A computer can just as we do, as a symbol, not by storing a finite number that somehow == +infty.
So, I think no strawman here. If you still feel to the contrary, well, hell, this is Slashdot, and this is about all the effort I'm going to put into it. (and re: calling me an ass, go choke on a bucket of cocks you slobbering piece of ass-fat.)
Ok - that's a reasonable statement, but I still don't understand the intent of the nitpick.
There's a finite amount of information that can be stored in the matter that makes up your brain and mine. Does this mean we can't discuss infinities reasonably? (Perhaps not, but I doubt this is the reason.) I'm not sure the difference between a brain and a computer is meaningful, when the point of contention is that a computer game can't convey the idea of the infinite.
*cough*
s/domain/range/
Don't be an ass. If you want to claim a game of ten-thousand ties followed by paper-beats-scissors is identical to one with no ties, you can. To me, in the spirit of the example, this would be a different gameplay experience. Here's another example: flip a coin. Heads, win $1; tails lose $1. Play as often as you like. Outcome is a random variable with an infinite domain. Jackass.
It's a dumb article, but this is also a dumb nitpick.
Pretty much any game without a clock allows an "infinite number of variations in gameplay". "Rock-scissors-paper" allows an an infinite # of possible outcomes (since you could tie an unbounded # of times before someone wins).
Which to me looks like part userland part kernel, but I'm not sure I could put a very fine point on the distinction.
Oh good lord. The party using the library (Apple) is a "user".
Within a wifi zone, a VoIP phone is a cellphone!
Within my apartment my cordless phone is a cellphone! (Why isn't that on the list?)
Within my dreams, that's where I'm an electric stove!
Of course none of us will use toll highways as our cars will be fitted with miniaturized paving machines built into the front bumper. Witness the end of the label-dinosaurs of the music industry as tiny devices algorithmically turn the sounds of our own farts into the sweetest music! (Actually, the last idea sounds pretty good. Not sure why there's a 1. Troll, 2. Plug HP, 3. Profit ad on the front page of slashdot, tho.)
Not a debunking per se, but more discussion from some very reputable sources.
unfortunately in holland, so not sure how useful this is to you.
but they're basically an out of control, customer privacy respecting and defending, scientology-document-hosting, barrel of isp goodness. (more.) i wish i lived in holland so i could give them my connectivity money.
I was just browsing through Ken Brown's posts on the license-discuss archive. Along with the basically boring advocacy is a little jocular racist banter:
Here's a link. (Original from Ken is a post up in the thread.)
You know, in my old age I'm finding more and more that the bad guys really are the bad guys.
(I'm frankly dumbstruck that the president of a fake-scholarship firm would commit this type of thing to a mailing list.)
To take the example of DVD: if there is going to be an enormous domestic market for "DVD" players playing media that is not particularly intended for export, and given that ultra-low-cost is going to be a primary requirement, developing a patent-unencumbered DVD alternative sounds like a no-brainer. But I suspect it's the intersection of frugality and government control that's really driving the China-specific standards.
Um...
Since the article actually talks about peer-to-peer networks of proxies, I think the point being made is that neat technological ideas can lead to orders of magnitude more proxies -- and it is unlikely that the PRC can follow with orders of magnitude more censors.
It's entirely desirable to fit the tool to the task at hand. There's not the slightest reason some /.ers yapping away needs the same level of validation as a federal election.