How is Microsoft allowed to impose a fine on someone, or is the wording of this article simply incorrect? Last I looked, Microsoft was a business: and only government entities held any jurisdiction in the realm of legally imposable fines.
It seems highly illogical to imply that any species would process visual information by using our human-created system of vector analysis to process mental images. The whole concept is ludicrous.
"Vector images are made up of many individual, scalable objects. These objects are defined by mathematical equations rather than pixels.", if I may quote a website that speaks about Vector graphics. The important part here to note is that vector images on a computer are feasable because the computer has, readily available, direct access to those equations and objects.
So is the author implying that aliens are performing complex mathematics to generate the equations to produce these images on the fly? If they have access to the information that they need to begin turning what they see into vector images, they already have the information that they need to generate visual data directly. I highly doubt that this concept of some kind of naturally evolved vector graphics computation in the minds of some species is (A) feasable or (B) practical. Practicality rules it out on a Darwinian level, and feasability rules it out because it just doesn't make sense.
The truth is that the visual images we see are not "calculated" in any of the ways that the author describes. We don't work like a computer, because we have a system that processes it much more effectively. Our neural network is reading the impulses of light that reflect off of object directly (through use of our eyes). It doesn't make sense to describe that information in terms of "bitmaps" or "vectors", and it would be bizzare and unnatural for any species to perform additional computation on that light data just so that it can fit into our strange and human-made notion of computer graphics.
Let me correct a very important and overlooked fact for you:
Guantanamo does not fall under US jurisdiction.
You, my friend, have been utterly lied to if you believe that. I don't blame you: there's a lot of people out there who would want you to believe that, but it's just not the truth. Allow me to provide you with some information about the terms of our lease of Guantanamo Bay (from the U.S. Navy's own website: http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/gazette/History_98-64/h ischp3.htm)
Over the leased areas of land and water, comprising the Naval reservation, Cuba consented that during the period of occupation, the United States would exercise "complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas", including the right to acquire for the public purposes of the United States any land or property therein by purchase or by right of eminent domain with full compensation to the owners thereof. On the other hand, the United States recognized "the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of Cuba over and above the leased areas". "Ultimate", meaning final or eventual, is a key word here. It is interpreted that Cuban sovereignty is interrupted during the period of our occupancy, since we exercise complete jurisdiction and control, but in case occupation were terminated, the area would revert to the ultimate sovereignty of Cuba.
There you have it, from the Horse's mouth: We have complete and total Jurisdiction and Soverignty over Guantanamo Bay until the expiration of our lease.
Perhaps you want to re-phrase or retract your previous statement.
The Patriot Act is not "Virtually Harmless," by any stretch of the imagination. Even on the two points you mention, both of them are violations of our most basic Ideologies: the ideas of freedom from senseless prosecution and rights of the accused who have not been proven guilty. How can you call that harmless?
This IS a real issue, and the only clouding of real issues going on right now is
A) the fact that the Guantanamo issue is seperate but being spoken of in here (which is true, it is a seperate issue and doesn't have a relevant place here)
B) the dismissal of the Patriot Act as being some kind of harmless bill. The revision of our core beliefs as a country is not harmless, and the only Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt that exists in my mind is the (quite valid) Fear that this shows a disdain for our basic rights, the very real uncertainty about the possibility of it being expanded (also valid, do a quick Google on the Patriot Act II and the pending vote to extend the original Patriot Act), and the honest and real doubt about the motives behind creating such a blatent violation of our founding principles.
You use FUD as if it's some kind of accusatory finger, as if you can throw a quick label on those who oppose it and they are suddenly wrong. Unfortunately for that appeal to ridicule, the fear, uncertainty, and doubt are not without justification. There are certain beliefs that this country was founded upon: to be a member of this country is to, implicitly (by birth) or explicitly (by immigration and citizenship) value those core beliefs.
When those beliefs are challenged or thrown into upheaval (even in theory only: even if they had never been put into actual practice and were only there for some theoretical future use), we have every right to doubt it, to challenge it, and to fight against it.
Why? Because the Government has broken its moral contract. Our continued stay in the United States implies a moral contract with our Government, one that is partly defined by our explicit contract known as the Constitution and its subsequent Amendments. When those are challenged, without our approval and against the basic beliefs that we hold in our implicit agreement, it gives us every right to question it. To say that we don't have that right is to imply that we do not have the freedom to dictate the terms of our contract: which is to imply that we are living in an Authoritarian society. I didn't sign up for that contract, and no American that believes in our core ideal of freedom would either (simply because they are Diametrically opposed).
So no, the Patriot Act is indeed a real problem, and to me those who raise questions about the Patriot Act are the real Patriots, and should not be dismissed so carelessly by you or anyone else.
It seems that this "Conspiracy" site missed the point entirely...
One of the main things wrong with the Patriot act is the ability to unreasonably search without probable cause. Do you want evidence?
Work at a bookstore, or a library. If you do, you will eventually see it. My brother is a manager at Barnes and Noble, and before that at a B.Dalton's. When he was working at B.Dalton, agents came in to the office and, under the Patriot Act, were given access to all of the purchasing information that the company had on record for all of their customers.
Let's state it plainly, now. The essence of the Bill of Rights, as it pertains to unreasonable Search and Seizure, strictly forbids so-called "blanket searches": searching the records of innocent and guilty alike to find evidence of guilt. These protections were put in place to secure our freedom: implicitly our freedom of privacy, and explicitly our freedom to not be harassed by the government on the grounds that we may have possibly committed a crime (they only have yet to figure out what crime that was).
Why, do you ask? Because dictators behave that way. Monarchists behave that way. Every form of Government that restricts the freedom of their people behaves that way. We fought the Revolutionary War to escape the binding power of Monarchists, and the foul practices such as the ones now allowed by the Patriot Act.
And the fact of the matter is, even if no one was arrested because of the search they conducted that day (how could they be arrested? Purchasing a book isn't a crime... and that's another closely related issue), the fact that they performed that search on honest Americans is a crime. It is a crime against the trusting people of America: the people who, more than 200 years ago, constructed this Government for the PROTECTION of our FREEDOM, not merely for our protection: and certainly not for our protection at the expense of our freedom.
Call me a Libertarian if you wish (indeed, I would be honored), but I would rather die a free man than live in Tyranny.
Even the fact that they now have the legal grounds to perform such searches is a travesty and a slap in the face to the motives and purposes of our forefathers. Need I remind any of you about the document that founded the seeds of our Revolution all those years ago?
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain and unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights Governments are instituted, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.
The fact of the matter is that, even if searches like these weren't going on, the fact that they could is reason enough to banish this law from existence forever. People talk a great deal about Patriotism these days. Perhaps they should wake up and realize that part of Patriotism is standing up for the essence of our beliefs, no matter the cost. A core essence of our beliefs is in the Bill of Rights, and it is not a belief that we should give up on even if to hold true to it is to stand a greater risk of death. Perhaps those who waive the flag around the Patriot Act should consider what the true meaning of Patriotism is.
Hmm... well, in an isolated context you have a point... but then again, if you're stepping through the program anyways, you'd have known what the value for A was beforehand, and could have backtracked manually on your own.
Sorry to be the nay sayer this time, but I really don't see how this is so utterly impressive. For starters, all it takes is a little logical thinking to backtrack when you're debugging: every (or, nearly every) operation you can do on a computer can be thought of as having an input state, an operation on that input, and an output state. Backtracking, therefore, is as simple as coming up with the reverse of whatever the operation was, giving you the input state once more.
And on top of that, most IDEs have a "set next statement" function, that combined with some quick on-the-fly restoration of variables that changed between then and now gives you the same effect. In fact, in that document it admits that all its really doing is having that second part (the restoration of variables) occur automatically instead of having the programmer do it manually.
I'm glad that they did it, but not glad that they decided it was so groundbreaking (give me a break, we've been doing the same thing [admittedly manually, but still] for years) that they would charge such outlandish costs for it.
I would be willing to contribute money to some sort of legal defense fund for the makers of PearPC so that they could sue the ever-loving daylights out of these bastards... those of us who admire the concept of Open Source may have to be willing to stand up at times like this and defend it.
Well, I was just posing possibilities... the suggestion that only one or two people actually actively review changes suggests insufficient access to me at the high levels, but I could be mistaken.
Have they produced any Documents that new programmers to Firefox could use to quickly begin becoming useful to the cause? It sounds to me like their problem is that the overall architecture of the system is under-documented (either that, or they're just not allowing sufficient access).
If it is a problem of documentation, then those two remaining programmers had better work on documenting it... and quickly. If they want the architecture to be preserved when new programmers who don't understand it come along.
I highly doubt it. Sounds like a Conspiracy theory on the level of the "Global Pangea theory"...
(which, for those who've never heard of it, is the theory that the World is *still* in a one-continent state. Any images we have ever been shown of the Earth as seperate continents are fabrications, including maps and images from space. What about when you look out of your plane and you see ocean? That's just the plane making slow loops over the vast ocean surrounding Pangea to simulate moving to another continent. What about if you physically walked from one side of the continent to the other?... have *you* ever done such a walk? And are you sure that you didn't simply drive from one side of Pangea to the other?)
Anyways, back to my main point. The purpose of creating such a complex and unlikely rouse as convincing the world that there are seperate continents is as mysterious as the purpose would be for Google to make an Operating system that would be (A) In competition with other, very popular OSes that are well established (B) Either in a Unix-like file storage format or in a totally new format, because FAT is patented by M$, and (C) totally devoid of any base of supporting software.
Unless Google's making a Linux distro, I don't see it as being likely. I could almost see them making a Linux distro, but what would be the point? There's a billion of them out there.
The problem with that would be cost I'd imagine, and of course the question of if many of these would work in tandem or if they would cancel out each other's beneficial effects.
but the only one I'm fairly certain of is cost. These things are microscopic: I can't imagine putting enough of them together to cover anything of significant size as being practical... maybe when Nanotechnology improves. We'd be talking that you'd need something like protein bonds to link them together. These things would be working on visible light in incredibly small levels.
Those who read the article until the end will note that they save the kicker for the very end:
This technology would only work for microscopic objects (as they must be the same size as the wavelength of light hitting it), and only a single wavelength. So in other words, for you to get a nice, new cloak of invisibility you'll need to be microscopic in size and constantly in environments with only one wavelength of visible light hitting you. =)
I find the concept of the Savant to be fascinating. It's like someone's showing us, in small fragments, what we're really capable of. All of those amazing things are possible in the human mind, yet our limitations hold us back from it. It's incredible.
Finally some common sense being used here. It's proposterous to say that we have some kind of sixth sense because Aboriginal people escaped the Tsunami. What a joke. The fact of the matter is that the above poster has hit it right on the head: a smart tribesman will see every other freakin' creature than humans making a run for higher ground, and unlike us so-called 'civilized' folk, they get the clue.
Jar-Jar's the hero in the third one. He's actually an undercover Jedi, and has 1337 lightsaber skillz. Probably with two "z"s he's that good.
Anyways, he ends up decapitating Skywalker, forces Emporer Palpatine to wet his pants, and gets satisfied by Lady Amadala in an hour long scene that cannot be described in a thread that might be viewed by youngsters.
... on the intent of this product. If the (VERY brief) article is correct, it sounds like it's not the kind of screen you'd use to (ahem, posts above =) ) watch pr0n. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like they're trying to do some kind of electronic book thing or something?
If that's the case, give me a break. There's more important things to do with our time. Pardon me for jumping the gun... but if this is the best that Nanotechnology has to offer us, I'm dissapointed. Half of us here at Slashdot don't even know how to read, for God's sake! What good is this going to do?;)
You have to put Michael Chrichton's "Scientific Background" (cough) into some kind of perspective before you start quoting him.
Michal Chrichton is the equivalent of a conspiracy theorist. He uses pseudo-science in his novels to create compelling plotlines, but the problem is that he talks about this Pseudo-science (which he derives by partially quoting genuine scientific studies, or leaving out important details that contradict his "theories") as if it has some kind of basis in fact.
So please, don't quote Michael Crichton to me. Quote real scientific sources all that you want: but Chrichton has shown himself time and time again as being an unreliable source of biased information. What was that most recent book he wrong about, anyways? Oh, it was about how Environmentalists are using doomsday methods to create the Global Warming effects seen today, and murdering those who oppose them...riiiiight...
In conclusion: Michael Crichton is a joke, and not a terribly funny one... and definately not someone worthy of quoting as a source. You might as well quote the National Inquirer.
Come on guys, let's not post things that are total and obvious fluff. The Inquirer, for those who may have forgotten, is the same "Newspaper" (cough cough) that runs stories on 300 pound babies, alien abductions, and violent furry sexual encounters.
The question if its truth or not will depend, for me at least, on if a real newspaper takes it on... which I highly doubt.
A Universal Turing Machine is currently theorized to be an unsolvable problem... that is not to say that it is impossible... but someone would have to disprove the current dogma of Computing Theory in order to create one.
Well, I know that I've gotten away with charging 15-20$ per hour with acquaintences or people referred to me by friends... but I've never tried to push the envelope. Usually they'll suggest a number in that range and I'll be happy to accept it. =)
As far as official numbers go, I've heard of companies charging 40-65$ per hour for tech labor... so if you undercut that, you're at least beating Corporate competition. =)
but I can't see any *negative* consequences of this. I mean, how much worse can things get out there? Worse come to worse, it becomes completely inhospitable to human life... no big change from where it's at right now.
I say that, as with all things, they do some research on it, and if it seems like a good chance that it'll work, they should go for it!
Not that there's anything bad with speculating about negative consequences... but come on now. It's not like it'll be the end of the world, even in the worst case scenario. Well, our world at least.;)
Slashdot Mirror
How is Microsoft allowed to impose a fine on someone, or is the wording of this article simply incorrect? Last I looked, Microsoft was a business: and only government entities held any jurisdiction in the realm of legally imposable fines.
"Vector images are made up of many individual, scalable objects. These objects are defined by mathematical equations rather than pixels.", if I may quote a website that speaks about Vector graphics. The important part here to note is that vector images on a computer are feasable because the computer has, readily available, direct access to those equations and objects.
So is the author implying that aliens are performing complex mathematics to generate the equations to produce these images on the fly? If they have access to the information that they need to begin turning what they see into vector images, they already have the information that they need to generate visual data directly. I highly doubt that this concept of some kind of naturally evolved vector graphics computation in the minds of some species is (A) feasable or (B) practical. Practicality rules it out on a Darwinian level, and feasability rules it out because it just doesn't make sense.
The truth is that the visual images we see are not "calculated" in any of the ways that the author describes. We don't work like a computer, because we have a system that processes it much more effectively. Our neural network is reading the impulses of light that reflect off of object directly (through use of our eyes). It doesn't make sense to describe that information in terms of "bitmaps" or "vectors", and it would be bizzare and unnatural for any species to perform additional computation on that light data just so that it can fit into our strange and human-made notion of computer graphics.
Guantanamo does not fall under US jurisdiction.
You, my friend, have been utterly lied to if you believe that. I don't blame you: there's a lot of people out there who would want you to believe that, but it's just not the truth. Allow me to provide you with some information about the terms of our lease of Guantanamo Bay (from the U.S. Navy's own website: http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/gazette/History_98-64/h ischp3.htm)
Over the leased areas of land and water, comprising the Naval reservation, Cuba consented that during the period of occupation, the United States would exercise "complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas", including the right to acquire for the public purposes of the United States any land or property therein by purchase or by right of eminent domain with full compensation to the owners thereof. On the other hand, the United States recognized "the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of Cuba over and above the leased areas". "Ultimate", meaning final or eventual, is a key word here. It is interpreted that Cuban sovereignty is interrupted during the period of our occupancy, since we exercise complete jurisdiction and control, but in case occupation were terminated, the area would revert to the ultimate sovereignty of Cuba.
There you have it, from the Horse's mouth: We have complete and total Jurisdiction and Soverignty over Guantanamo Bay until the expiration of our lease.
Perhaps you want to re-phrase or retract your previous statement.
This IS a real issue, and the only clouding of real issues going on right now is
A) the fact that the Guantanamo issue is seperate but being spoken of in here (which is true, it is a seperate issue and doesn't have a relevant place here) B) the dismissal of the Patriot Act as being some kind of harmless bill. The revision of our core beliefs as a country is not harmless, and the only Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt that exists in my mind is the (quite valid) Fear that this shows a disdain for our basic rights, the very real uncertainty about the possibility of it being expanded (also valid, do a quick Google on the Patriot Act II and the pending vote to extend the original Patriot Act), and the honest and real doubt about the motives behind creating such a blatent violation of our founding principles.
You use FUD as if it's some kind of accusatory finger, as if you can throw a quick label on those who oppose it and they are suddenly wrong. Unfortunately for that appeal to ridicule, the fear, uncertainty, and doubt are not without justification. There are certain beliefs that this country was founded upon: to be a member of this country is to, implicitly (by birth) or explicitly (by immigration and citizenship) value those core beliefs.
When those beliefs are challenged or thrown into upheaval (even in theory only: even if they had never been put into actual practice and were only there for some theoretical future use), we have every right to doubt it, to challenge it, and to fight against it.
Why? Because the Government has broken its moral contract. Our continued stay in the United States implies a moral contract with our Government, one that is partly defined by our explicit contract known as the Constitution and its subsequent Amendments. When those are challenged, without our approval and against the basic beliefs that we hold in our implicit agreement, it gives us every right to question it. To say that we don't have that right is to imply that we do not have the freedom to dictate the terms of our contract: which is to imply that we are living in an Authoritarian society. I didn't sign up for that contract, and no American that believes in our core ideal of freedom would either (simply because they are Diametrically opposed).
So no, the Patriot Act is indeed a real problem, and to me those who raise questions about the Patriot Act are the real Patriots, and should not be dismissed so carelessly by you or anyone else.
One of the main things wrong with the Patriot act is the ability to unreasonably search without probable cause. Do you want evidence?
Work at a bookstore, or a library. If you do, you will eventually see it. My brother is a manager at Barnes and Noble, and before that at a B.Dalton's. When he was working at B.Dalton, agents came in to the office and, under the Patriot Act, were given access to all of the purchasing information that the company had on record for all of their customers.
Let's state it plainly, now. The essence of the Bill of Rights, as it pertains to unreasonable Search and Seizure, strictly forbids so-called "blanket searches": searching the records of innocent and guilty alike to find evidence of guilt. These protections were put in place to secure our freedom: implicitly our freedom of privacy, and explicitly our freedom to not be harassed by the government on the grounds that we may have possibly committed a crime (they only have yet to figure out what crime that was).
Why, do you ask? Because dictators behave that way. Monarchists behave that way. Every form of Government that restricts the freedom of their people behaves that way. We fought the Revolutionary War to escape the binding power of Monarchists, and the foul practices such as the ones now allowed by the Patriot Act.
And the fact of the matter is, even if no one was arrested because of the search they conducted that day (how could they be arrested? Purchasing a book isn't a crime... and that's another closely related issue), the fact that they performed that search on honest Americans is a crime. It is a crime against the trusting people of America: the people who, more than 200 years ago, constructed this Government for the PROTECTION of our FREEDOM, not merely for our protection: and certainly not for our protection at the expense of our freedom.
Call me a Libertarian if you wish (indeed, I would be honored), but I would rather die a free man than live in Tyranny.
Even the fact that they now have the legal grounds to perform such searches is a travesty and a slap in the face to the motives and purposes of our forefathers. Need I remind any of you about the document that founded the seeds of our Revolution all those years ago?
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain and unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights Governments are instituted, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.
The fact of the matter is that, even if searches like these weren't going on, the fact that they could is reason enough to banish this law from existence forever. People talk a great deal about Patriotism these days. Perhaps they should wake up and realize that part of Patriotism is standing up for the essence of our beliefs, no matter the cost. A core essence of our beliefs is in the Bill of Rights, and it is not a belief that we should give up on even if to hold true to it is to stand a greater risk of death. Perhaps those who waive the flag around the Patriot Act should consider what the true meaning of Patriotism is.
Hmm... well, in an isolated context you have a point... but then again, if you're stepping through the program anyways, you'd have known what the value for A was beforehand, and could have backtracked manually on your own.
And on top of that, most IDEs have a "set next statement" function, that combined with some quick on-the-fly restoration of variables that changed between then and now gives you the same effect. In fact, in that document it admits that all its really doing is having that second part (the restoration of variables) occur automatically instead of having the programmer do it manually.
I'm glad that they did it, but not glad that they decided it was so groundbreaking (give me a break, we've been doing the same thing [admittedly manually, but still] for years) that they would charge such outlandish costs for it.
I would be willing to contribute money to some sort of legal defense fund for the makers of PearPC so that they could sue the ever-loving daylights out of these bastards... those of us who admire the concept of Open Source may have to be willing to stand up at times like this and defend it.
Well, I was just posing possibilities... the suggestion that only one or two people actually actively review changes suggests insufficient access to me at the high levels, but I could be mistaken.
If it is a problem of documentation, then those two remaining programmers had better work on documenting it... and quickly. If they want the architecture to be preserved when new programmers who don't understand it come along.
(which, for those who've never heard of it, is the theory that the World is *still* in a one-continent state. Any images we have ever been shown of the Earth as seperate continents are fabrications, including maps and images from space. What about when you look out of your plane and you see ocean? That's just the plane making slow loops over the vast ocean surrounding Pangea to simulate moving to another continent. What about if you physically walked from one side of the continent to the other? ... have *you* ever done such a walk? And are you sure that you didn't simply drive from one side of Pangea to the other?)
Anyways, back to my main point. The purpose of creating such a complex and unlikely rouse as convincing the world that there are seperate continents is as mysterious as the purpose would be for Google to make an Operating system that would be (A) In competition with other, very popular OSes that are well established (B) Either in a Unix-like file storage format or in a totally new format, because FAT is patented by M$, and (C) totally devoid of any base of supporting software.
Unless Google's making a Linux distro, I don't see it as being likely. I could almost see them making a Linux distro, but what would be the point? There's a billion of them out there.
but the only one I'm fairly certain of is cost. These things are microscopic: I can't imagine putting enough of them together to cover anything of significant size as being practical... maybe when Nanotechnology improves. We'd be talking that you'd need something like protein bonds to link them together. These things would be working on visible light in incredibly small levels.
This technology would only work for microscopic objects (as they must be the same size as the wavelength of light hitting it), and only a single wavelength. So in other words, for you to get a nice, new cloak of invisibility you'll need to be microscopic in size and constantly in environments with only one wavelength of visible light hitting you. =)
Well, back to the drawing board.
I find the concept of the Savant to be fascinating. It's like someone's showing us, in small fragments, what we're really capable of. All of those amazing things are possible in the human mind, yet our limitations hold us back from it. It's incredible.
Finally some common sense being used here. It's proposterous to say that we have some kind of sixth sense because Aboriginal people escaped the Tsunami. What a joke. The fact of the matter is that the above poster has hit it right on the head: a smart tribesman will see every other freakin' creature than humans making a run for higher ground, and unlike us so-called 'civilized' folk, they get the clue.
Anyways, he ends up decapitating Skywalker, forces Emporer Palpatine to wet his pants, and gets satisfied by Lady Amadala in an hour long scene that cannot be described in a thread that might be viewed by youngsters.
Who *didn't* know about that? Gosh... ;)
If that's the case, give me a break. There's more important things to do with our time. Pardon me for jumping the gun... but if this is the best that Nanotechnology has to offer us, I'm dissapointed. Half of us here at Slashdot don't even know how to read, for God's sake! What good is this going to do? ;)
Michal Chrichton is the equivalent of a conspiracy theorist. He uses pseudo-science in his novels to create compelling plotlines, but the problem is that he talks about this Pseudo-science (which he derives by partially quoting genuine scientific studies, or leaving out important details that contradict his "theories") as if it has some kind of basis in fact.
So please, don't quote Michael Crichton to me. Quote real scientific sources all that you want: but Chrichton has shown himself time and time again as being an unreliable source of biased information. What was that most recent book he wrong about, anyways? Oh, it was about how Environmentalists are using doomsday methods to create the Global Warming effects seen today, and murdering those who oppose them...riiiiight...
In conclusion: Michael Crichton is a joke, and not a terribly funny one... and definately not someone worthy of quoting as a source. You might as well quote the National Inquirer.
But what about the towel? I didn't see him using a towel to flag down the ship... towels, as everyone knows, are a very important thing. =)
It's not? Oh, you're right... it was slashdotted earlier, and I assumed there was only one Inquirer. My bad. =)
The question if its truth or not will depend, for me at least, on if a real newspaper takes it on... which I highly doubt.
A Universal Turing Machine is currently theorized to be an unsolvable problem... that is not to say that it is impossible... but someone would have to disprove the current dogma of Computing Theory in order to create one.
As far as official numbers go, I've heard of companies charging 40-65$ per hour for tech labor... so if you undercut that, you're at least beating Corporate competition. =)
I say that, as with all things, they do some research on it, and if it seems like a good chance that it'll work, they should go for it!
Not that there's anything bad with speculating about negative consequences... but come on now. It's not like it'll be the end of the world, even in the worst case scenario. Well, our world at least. ;)