It wouldn't be too difficult to pack a few hard drives or SSDs with a few thousand movies and episodes of TV shows. Ironically, while it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy all those DVDs and rip them, it would cost a lot more money to send the media holding the video files to mars. There would be a lengthy time-lag for emails, but that's little different than email is already.
Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a spaceship full of tapes!
I have a shock for you. It's called the "Second Foundation Trilogy":
After his death, the Asimov estate, at the request of Janet Asimov, approached Gregory Benford, and asked him to write another Foundation story. He agreed, and at that same time suggested that it should form part of a trilogy with Greg Bear and David Brin writing the other two books, which they agreed to do.
So that would make it a trilogy in six parts, right?
About a year ago, the US Post Office changed the zip code in the area that I just moved into, and it has been a hassle left and right. Maybe they should've divided the city in two - the "new" and the "classic" version.
Sorry, could not resist.
I am assuming that they used another method to make the very first one or else philosophers are going to rake it in for years over where the first one came from. You're very clever, young man, very clever, but it's self-replicating machines all the way down!
And both of those countries have McDonalds and other fast food chains. What is your point? I think the point is that diet is more important than games in this respect.
I visit Japan often, and the food there is amazing - loads of vegetables, little meat, plenty of fish, rice, and most of it is steamed or boiled, as opposed to smothered in cheese and fried.
Plus, it's hard to find candy bar machines on the streets.
Everytime I visit (on business) I do very little physical activity and yet I manage to lose some weight by just eating the food everyone else is eating...
Think of it this way. If you walk up to an ATM and withdraw $100, and it says on your receipt that your account has been reduced by $100, but the machine actually spit out $1,000, what do you do?
If what you want is challenging engineering problem, go into Electronic Design Automation (EDA). Plenty of interesting engineering problems to solve, and the maths is not too hard.
You don't need a mouse, especially if you are in a movie. Please let me remind you of COFKeyType (Computer Operation by Frenetic Keyboard Typing):
In almost all movies involving the operation of computers, the user operates the machine by incongruent and frenetic banging on the keyboard, ignoring the mouse and system graphic interface elements. This results in instantaneous, nanosecond access and downloading of data. (See "Jurassic Park," "Disclosure.") CARLOS GREENE, Mexico City
I beg to differ. All popular PC OS kernels might be, but I bet that the microcontroller running the ABS in your car runs on QNX, and the phone of someone around you runs Symbian.
What you suggest, in the original spirit of patent law at large, would stifle innovation. Assume you, an individual, could invent and patent a new, say, powerful-yet-expensive internal combustion engine. The obligation to implement/licence would force you to ally with someone else (unless you had the means to build it yourself), and therefore reduce the motivations to invent things in the first place, given that you pretty much have to share the wealth.
Add the year to the posting date! It's kind of frustrating to get back to a Slashdot article long after it was posted (say through Google) and see that the story was posted on "January 18", but with no indication of which year...
Let me put it this way: most of the work of a chip designer, today, is analysis of GB and GB of information that is generated by complex tools such as 3D field solvers, simulators, etc - all of that is done in Perl. I can't think of a comparably ductile programming language for people with a non-CS degree. You could surely teach an EE to write those programs in C++ using Boost's regexp package to achieve the same goal, but show them a 70-line-long g++ error message and their head would explode.
Perl allows non-CS users to write moderately complex programs such as those needed for chip design whilst shielding them from some of the intricacies of other languages. I think that using it for that purpose is a wise thing, as it enables non-specialist to make progress without becoming experts in decrypting the behaviour of templates, reflection or multiple inheritance.
Perl is definitely a prototyping language. Rolling out anything serious in Perl is, let me put it that way, unwise.
I assume you are writing this statement on a computer that contains a CPU. You'd be amazed if you saw the tooling used to build said CPU and all the other extremely complex, expensive and risky chips that make up your computer. A few very expensive CAD tools bought from one of the three/four established vendors for top $$$/year, and masses and masses and masses of Perl (or *hack spew* TCL). I call that anything serious.
Slashdot Mirror
As Del Boy would say: Chateauneuf du Pape! (with apologies to John Sullivan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/lingo/euro.shtml)
It wouldn't be too difficult to pack a few hard drives or SSDs with a few thousand movies and episodes of TV shows. Ironically, while it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy all those DVDs and rip them, it would cost a lot more money to send the media holding the video files to mars. There would be a lengthy time-lag for emails, but that's little different than email is already.
Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a spaceship full of tapes!
In Imperialist Russia, Czar needs YOU!
You keep using that "patent" word. I don't think that it means what you think it means.
It's trademarkly obvious they don't.
I have a shock for you. It's called the "Second Foundation Trilogy":
After his death, the Asimov estate, at the request of Janet Asimov, approached Gregory Benford, and asked him to write another Foundation story. He agreed, and at that same time suggested that it should form part of a trilogy with Greg Bear and David Brin writing the other two books, which they agreed to do.
So that would make it a trilogy in six parts, right?
I know, I know....
...does it run Linux? And if it does, do you have to redistribute the 3-d model under the GPL? *ducks*
...and a perfectly rigid lead actor.
Keanu Reeves, the lead actor, being made of lead, should then add a non-trivial amount of mass to the equation. Man, I love English.Think of it this way. If you walk up to an ATM and withdraw $100, and it says on your receipt that your account has been reduced by $100, but the machine actually spit out $1,000, what do you do?
Go and confess your sins - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/50190If what you want is challenging engineering problem, go into Electronic Design Automation (EDA). Plenty of interesting engineering problems to solve, and the maths is not too hard.
In almost all movies involving the operation of computers, the user operates the machine by incongruent and frenetic banging on the keyboard, ignoring the mouse and system graphic interface elements. This results in instantaneous, nanosecond access and downloading of data. (See "Jurassic Park," "Disclosure.") CARLOS GREENE, Mexico City
From http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic le?AID=/19941211/GLOSSARY/405210364/1023
All popular OS kernels are monolithic.
I beg to differ. All popular PC OS kernels might be, but I bet that the microcontroller running the ABS in your car runs on QNX, and the phone of someone around you runs Symbian.
He also has a chair ready for when Steve Ballmer comes to visit....
What you suggest, in the original spirit of patent law at large, would stifle innovation. Assume you, an individual, could invent and patent a new, say, powerful-yet-expensive internal combustion engine. The obligation to implement/licence would force you to ally with someone else (unless you had the means to build it yourself), and therefore reduce the motivations to invent things in the first place, given that you pretty much have to share the wealth.
Add the year to the posting date! It's kind of frustrating to get back to a Slashdot article long after it was posted (say through Google) and see that the story was posted on "January 18", but with no indication of which year...
Perl allows non-CS users to write moderately complex programs such as those needed for chip design whilst shielding them from some of the intricacies of other languages. I think that using it for that purpose is a wise thing, as it enables non-specialist to make progress without becoming experts in decrypting the behaviour of templates, reflection or multiple inheritance.
Perl is definitely a prototyping language. Rolling out anything serious in Perl is, let me put it that way, unwise.
I assume you are writing this statement on a computer that contains a CPU. You'd be amazed if you saw the tooling used to build said CPU and all the other extremely complex, expensive and risky chips that make up your computer. A few very expensive CAD tools bought from one of the three/four established vendors for top $$$/year, and masses and masses and masses of Perl (or *hack spew* TCL). I call that anything serious.