If that's the case, might as well connect all unused heatsinks to a griddle and I'll fry my by bacon and eggs in the morning on them. If some of them burn up or get too hot it's "ok" I got 60 others waiting...
Or... you could just have two and order a CPU to be delivered when one burns up. In fact that's what happens on some mainframes. If a part fries, the machine calls "home" and the company will send a replacement immediately. Sometimes the administrator will find out something went bad only when the replacement part already arrived at the door.
Add 2 cores, you get 2x TFlops, add 4 -- get 16x, add 8 you get 256x TFlops. Why stop there, add 80 you get 2^80 = 1208925819614629174706176x more TFlops. Heck, add 1000 cores and you can simulate the universe! Well, I am putting my life's savings into Intel stock!
This is a nice move by Intel. I wonder what AMD's plans are...81 cores?
Besides, with most software being single-threaded I don't know if a consumer will immediately need more than 4 cores for a while. I can still see software companies trying to come up with ways to keep all 80 cores busy..."Well, they need at least 20 anti-virus processes, 10 genuine advantage monitors, and we'll install 100 shareware application with cute little icons in the task bar by default. There, that should keep all the cores nice and warm and busy -- our job is done!".
But in all seriousness, I would expect some extremely realistic environmental physical simulations (realtime large n-body interactions and perhaps realtime computational fluid dynamics)...now that's something to look forward to!
Actually I think the society's/media's thinking goes something like this:
1. the shooters are monsters
2. shooters are evil
3. we are not monsters
4. we are not evil
5. from 1,2,3,4 => shooters have to be completely different from us
This is the first step -- to identify the shooters as completely abnormal and totally unlike everyone else. This promotes a distancing from the shooters and makes society/media look good in comparison.
Then comes the part of explaining as to how come these individuals are so different than. Here is where the "experts" come in. It's funny how after the shootings / disasters (natural or man-made) experts start coming out of the woodwork and popping up on every news station. In such situations everyone is an expert! The "expert's" reasoning goes something like this:
6. whatever shooters do that we don't, made them evil
7. whatever shooters do that we don't, made them into monsters
8. we find that shooters did [X],[Y] and [Z] that must have made them evil and turned them into monsters
Then it's simple, just plug-in anything that fits into X,Y and Z. It could be video games, skateboarding, eating granola bars, wearing trench coats, drawing/reading comic books, playing D&D. If the shooters would have been cheerleaders it would have probably been cheer leading, if they would have played chess and the experts/media anchors didn't play chess, then playing chess would have been one of those things that made shooters into evil monsters.
BUT
As it turns out the shooters in reality were NOT as different, were not as socially outcast as the media and the "experts" made them to be. In fact, they were quite similar to thousands and thousands of teenagers from high schools all around US (in other words we/our children/our neighbors) are not that different than they were! Now that's shocking isn't it. There might not be an explanation or a good cause as to why they did it. It might just be some random irrational thing. Why do teenagers in middle-class American homes kill themselves? It doesn't make any sense, they are fed and clothed but one day they jump from a building. Why? Well, bring in the "experts" they'll make up something...
Minor correction, the Orthodox do no believe in Limbo or Purgatory. It was strictly a Roman Catholic construct that did not exist there initially. Just because the Greeks had the Elysium Fields doesn't mean the church immediately adopted it. Besides, Orthodox do not claim that they know who goes where. It is blasphemous to say who goes to Hell because it is up to God to decide. Someone might have a death bed conversion and so on. This means that the Orthodox do not believe that non-Orthodox end up in Hell or are somehow non-Christian (as many Protestants claim). This is shocking as many would assume that since the "liberal" Protestants claim that, then surely the "very traditional" Orthodox are even more strict and crazy -- it is simply not the case. After studying early Church history and reading the early Church fathers I arrived at the conclusion that the Orthodox Church is closest to the original Christian Church as far as doctrine and tradition is concerned. They are the ones who interpret the Bible in the most sane way because they are the ones who wrote it. The Roman Catholics introduced various elements in their doctrine (the Purgatory, the Limbo, the fact that Latin should be the official church language, infallibility of the Pope and so on) that eventually led to the split and now there are thousands of different little branches or Protestantism that all claim that they are the one and only church of god and if you don't belong to that particular church on that particular street corner you go to Hell.
I also do not believe in 'dis-organized' religion. I will take the 'organized' religion, with it potential pitfalls like over-institutionalization and the potential for ritualism over a churchless 'fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants'/'make-up-as-you-go -along' Christianity
Because I had proven to my parents they could trust me. If I did something to violate that trust, it would have to be rebuilt.
Makes sense
I hope your young marriage works out
Thanks!
You will find people fundamentally change more between the ages of 18-24 than they do at ANY other time in their life. I hope for your sake you know who you married and not who you THINK you married.
My wife is 5 years older then me and I am older than 25 so I think we are both alright. She was my very good friend for many years (and still is!) so I'll hope for the best. We will have children soon as I am finishing my grad degree and just got a job offer.
And those kids probably won't magically know better the instant they turn 18
Oh, so we should let them have sex with adults since they are 10 and let them drink since they are 5 because, hey who is Uncle Sam to say when they are mature enough.
There are many stupid adults who don't know better now who don't have the wits to protect themselves
Very much agree. That is a real problem with the American society at this moment. Many people are irresponsible and stupid because their parents were and their teachers (to a small extent) did a bad job.
Why not get rid of the TV?
Except for very few public access channels that sounds like a very good idea to me. I already threw away my TV, and I encourage you to do the same. You'd be surprised how enjoyable reading is...
Why not remove every single thing from our lives that is predominantly a waste of time?
Sounds good to me. Life is short, it's shorter than you think it is. Perceptually as you grow older the time will seem to fly by faster because you are comparing the rate of passage of time to how much time you already lived. That is why when you were a kid the summers seemed so long and now years just fly by. The point is, sitting in front of a TV, listening to the latest news item about Paris Hilton is just not how I choose to spend my time. Now you are an adult and I assume you are responsible so I think you'll be able to choose what to do with your free time. But the point was that some individuals are not responsible and some individuals are inherently vulnerable (children). Up to a certain degree it makes sense for the government to step up and protect those who cannot protect themselves. There is a middle ground between total laissez faire and total govt. control; the trick is strike the balance just right.
I got even better news for you -- I don't have kids because I am still in school and I am responsible enough not to have them (even though I am married) because we will not be able to provide for them yet adequately until we get higher paying jobs.
If your kids are so stupid as to go out and meet some random person that they met on the internet
If you have obviously never heard of social engineering my friend. We don't even have to talk about kids, look at the people who are sending their retirement money to Nigeria...
So if _you_ had kids, would you drop a broadband line in their room and let them have a permanent connection to the Internet? I mean, they are a pretty smart 12 year old, right? It seems you are the parent that I wouldn't mind Uncle Sam coming and helping you raise your (hypothetical) child (and we all know how good Uncle Sam is at it). -- "10 year old Billy will by fine playing with my new gun, he is smart and knows how to use it, my kids are not stupid!"
I used to be about that too. Let people use drugs if they want, let them kill themselves eating trans-fats if they so choose and so on. But the problem is that the person who is on heroin day and night is somebody's father, somebody's brother somebody's son. There are others who will look up to that person for help and support. At that point I wouldn't mind Uncle Sam slapping their wrist once in a while. There is no perfect solution here and usually the extremes don't work (total laissez faire i.e. "Uncle Sam, don't fuck with my shit" and total socialism i.e. "govt. is my babysitter") there is probably some viable half decent middle ground it's just very hard to find it.
The article was about Uncle Sam doing something about it. Uncle Sam cannot do much against Uncle Clive, unless he is already a sex offender. So yes, the danger from the acquaintances is higher but that doesn't mean the kids should have computers connected to broadband in their room with the rationale that there is a higher danger to be molested by Uncle Clive so might as well not worry about Steve-The-Stranger posing as a 12 year old on MySpace.
People love to cling to the illusion that the bad people of the world are all faceless evil people lurking
You are very right about that. Those public service announcements that showed the predator as a creepy guy with shades, a black trench-coat and hiding the bushes probably did quite a bit of harm because they led children and parents believe that all the predators will look like that. While in reality it could be Uncle Clive, the nice charismatic uncle who likes to hang around the girls a little too much and take them out for ice-cream without having the parents come along...
Predators also look for kids OUTSIDE! Let's make all visits to the park require parental supervision!
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Or maybe people could educate their kids not to put their addresses online, although their addresses could also be found in the phone book! And predators can see kids with their EYES!!...Odds are, if these kids are stupid enough to meet predators over the internet, they'd run into them without internet access too.
Completely disagree. The issue is that the parents / children will drop their guard when it comes to the cyberworld. In real life, everyone by now, knows to stay away from the man looking for the puppy or giving away candy. On the net the man is actually a 12 year old girl who wants to exchange pics, and talk and hang out later. People have just not adapted to deal with online predators it's as simple as that. Parents think that a computer is very harmless, it's at best a fun toy and at worst a buggy tool that has to be restarted once in a while. They don't realize that once they plug in the broadband cable, their computer "is visible" to millions of other across the globe. It is like standing in front of a CNN news camera and telling everyone that you like so and so, or you partied hard last week, or that you like a certain band. That's all an predator would need. "Hai! my name is Suzey and I like Britney Spears just like you. Let's hang out some time. Here is my pic, send me yours".
Obviously, kids should not be allowed to use phones because they could CALL PREDATORS WITH THEM!!!!
My wife when she was young was contacted by a predator that started to call her parents house and leaving sexually explicit messages for her. So, yeah, a good parent will notice who their child talks to over the phone, over the internet or in real life. But at the same time, a phone is just a phone, it doesn't have a your son's or daughter's picture on it, it doesn't have the fact that she like Britney Spears or that she rides her bike to soccer practice every Thursday. It seems you are also one of the individuals who completely underestimate the power (and therefore the potential threat) of the Internet... Hope you wise up before you have children.
Children should only be allowed to use the internet to do research for homework, and to play flash games! Why should we let them communicate through it?
Oh, I don't know perhaps because a predator could start talking to them, make them believe that they are the same age and ask the kid to sneak outside "to play...?" You think that sounds like a pretty good reason to not put a computer with a broadband connection in a 10 year old's room ? Or maybe not to you...
Here is where Uncle Sam will be needed to protect the kids that the parents are too ignorant/stupid/irresponsible to protect. I am against the govt. interfering with everyone's business but not when it comes to protecting those who cannot protect themselves.
The larger problem is that there are a lot of people who are not responsible, they have babies and it turns out that there are a lot of irresponsible parents out there. I don't want the government to interfere with anyone's stuff, but at some point it has to step up to protect those who cannot do it themselves (such as the children, the disabled or the elderly for example). Some parents simply do not know how vulnerable their children become when they post all of their info on myspace or facebook. The net is like a power tool, it is very good and very useful but one has to know how to use safely. (Sane) Parents wouldn't let their kids play with a chainsaw or a gun yet they have no problem putting a computer with broadband access in their child's room. 'Oh but he needs it for research!' -- sure...
Not the didn't, but the last time I checked the predators didn't come looking for minors on Slashdot, or through the TV, or Usenet but they do take advantage of the kids on facebook and myspace.
Most parents and children are clueless as to how public their information is and how vulnerable they become. At no point in time before was it possible for the kids to expose their personal stuff to so many people. Internet is great, I don't doubt, but it is a tool that one has to know how to use. Why not give your kid some pot to smoke as well, heck in college they'll probably try it anyway, might as well get them used to it.
And I am normally against the government interfering but in certain cases it is appropriate. In an ideal world parents would be smart enough to know enough and protect their offspring but as it happens there are a lot of stupid people who make babies and therefore there are a lot of stupid parents who do not know how to protect their children from harm, so at least Uncle Sam can try and do something.
Facebook can be a useful site for organizing events, like parties or trips
And before Facebook everyone was stuck at home without the ability to organize anything, nobody had parties and nobody went on trips. Thank God for Facebook!
Why do children need to be on social networking sites? Why can't they just invite their friends over and talk to them face to face. I didn't have facebook and myspace growing and I turned out alright (and I am not that old). Billions of people in the world manage to live happy lives without myspace or facebook, if they can do it, so can the kids. Buy them some books, a puzzle kit or install a basketball hoop outside and let them play. This whole thing about facebook and all these sites is just ridiculous. If the kids just have to have a computer, don't connect it to the net, and then let them do "research" when the parents are home on the living-room computer.
That said, i do not yet have the necessary mental process required to write a "real-world" application
Don't worry it's not you, it's the "real world".
One of the reasons is that real-world is often full of state and the state is easier to represent when it's explicit and not hidden in the function parameters/the stack. Of course there are different problems and my "real-world" is not your "real-world" but I think in general not everything is a function/a list/ a predicate/ and yes, an object. There is no holy grail. Some problems can be expressed easier if you think in terms of functions, some if you think in terms of predicates (i.e. logic programming a la Prolog), and of course the all too popular objects.
The trick is to recognize the most efficient and clear representation and if there isn't one, it's time to roll your own language. Google did it , Microsoft did it for the Office. That's sort of the next level of development -- making your own language to fit your problem/solution domain best
That makes total sense. People forget that some tasks are not inherently concurrent while some a embarrassingly concurrent. Knowing which is which will save enormous amounts of resources (time and money). Also the worst one can do is to go back and make some old code that was never meant to have threads in it execute in parallel.
Multiple cores are still good because of application parallelism -- run multiple applications at the same time (given that CPU is the bottleneck and not I/O). At least 2 cores are very nice, one takes care of OS stuff, monitoring, security, maintenance, the other can be monopolized by an application...
I think that bigger houses = more isolation among its inhabitants. Back in the day when people would built a bigger house it was quite often to accommodate extended family (parents, in-laws, brothers, cousins, aunts etc...). Today I see 2 or 3 member families that have houses with 4+ bedrooms. They can go all day without seeing each other and would probably have to IM each other when the dinner is ready.
I grew up in a small two room apartment (that's just two rooms, they are both bedrooms and living rooms and study rooms and offices) in the Soviet Union and sometimes I had my cousins stay over as well. Looking back I would consider my childhood one of the happiest times in my life. We'd all gather in our small kitchen, family members (aunts, uncles and even neighbors!) would drop by unexpectedly for dinner and it was great -- I never though "gosh I need another 4 rooms to live comfortably".
There is a level of intimacy and closeness that is lost as families move into huge mansions and never see each other for days.
The ZP Experiment cannot and should not be used as an excuse for torture, ever.
These were just random students.
No they were just random _Standford_ students of a particular age group from a particular graduating year. And just because there were Stanford students doesn't mean that they couldn't be crazy and cruel and that does not mean that they represent everyone. Also not all of them exhibited the same amount of cruelty.Some enjoyed it a little too much and I think would have participated anyway just to be allowed to behave like that.
Yes some humans can and will easily behave like animals or worse, BUT normal people should have a sense of right and wrong, normal people should have compassion (the sociopaths don't and there are a lot of sociopaths out there -- look at most CEO's, for example). And by "normal" I mean morally "normal" not simply average.
I don't care how "OK" it looks, I'm not going to eat a 3-day old McDonald's hamburger!
The point I think was that "normal" hamburgers shouldn't last for months in a jar. The maggots and bacteria should eat them with a great appetite that only they can have. Put a piece of meat out and you'll see how fast it goes bad, then put a piece of plastic outside and see how fast that decomposes. The idea was that a Mc.-burger is closer to the piece of plastic than to a natural piece of meat. If maggots won't eat it, you know it's crap.
Now I know that anyway, but it doesn't mean I won't eat at McGoldenArches once a year or so. It's not about the hunger or the food, all fast food is just as filling (and just as bad for you) -- it is all about the brand and the experience. That has been demonstrated many many times. I am nostalgic for the past when I used to go there with my friends back in the day. I will eat the horrible "chemical burger" once in a great while if I can experience that nostalgic feeling. I am quite conscious of it but I am sure most people aren't and the "brands" and "labels" influence them on e a more subliminal level.
The same thing happens with Coke. It has been shown that most people will enjoy Coke better if they know it is Coke. In a blind study some will prefer Pepsi or other such drinks but once they see the label they choose the bright red -- all American carbonated sugar water.
Slashdot Mirror
Or... you could just have two and order a CPU to be delivered when one burns up. In fact that's what happens on some mainframes. If a part fries, the machine calls "home" and the company will send a replacement immediately. Sometimes the administrator will find out something went bad only when the replacement part already arrived at the door.
Add 2 cores, you get 2x TFlops, add 4 -- get 16x, add 8 you get 256x TFlops. Why stop there, add 80 you get 2^80 = 1208925819614629174706176x more TFlops. Heck, add 1000 cores and you can simulate the universe! Well, I am putting my life's savings into Intel stock!
Itanium
Itanic, anyone?
Besides, with most software being single-threaded I don't know if a consumer will immediately need more than 4 cores for a while. I can still see software companies trying to come up with ways to keep all 80 cores busy..."Well, they need at least 20 anti-virus processes, 10 genuine advantage monitors, and we'll install 100 shareware application with cute little icons in the task bar by default. There, that should keep all the cores nice and warm and busy -- our job is done!".
But in all seriousness, I would expect some extremely realistic environmental physical simulations (realtime large n-body interactions and perhaps realtime computational fluid dynamics)...now that's something to look forward to!
Actually I think the society's/media's thinking goes something like this:
1. the shooters are monsters
2. shooters are evil
3. we are not monsters
4. we are not evil
5. from 1,2,3,4 => shooters have to be completely different from us
This is the first step -- to identify the shooters as completely abnormal and totally unlike everyone else. This promotes a distancing from the shooters and makes society/media look good in comparison.
Then comes the part of explaining as to how come these individuals are so different than. Here is where the "experts" come in. It's funny how after the shootings / disasters (natural or man-made) experts start coming out of the woodwork and popping up on every news station. In such situations everyone is an expert! The "expert's" reasoning goes something like this:
6. whatever shooters do that we don't, made them evil
7. whatever shooters do that we don't, made them into monsters
8. we find that shooters did [X],[Y] and [Z] that must have made them evil and turned them into monsters
Then it's simple, just plug-in anything that fits into X,Y and Z. It could be video games, skateboarding, eating granola bars, wearing trench coats, drawing/reading comic books, playing D&D. If the shooters would have been cheerleaders it would have probably been cheer leading, if they would have played chess and the experts/media anchors didn't play chess, then playing chess would have been one of those things that made shooters into evil monsters.
BUT
As it turns out the shooters in reality were NOT as different, were not as socially outcast as the media and the "experts" made them to be. In fact, they were quite similar to thousands and thousands of teenagers from high schools all around US (in other words we/our children/our neighbors) are not that different than they were! Now that's shocking isn't it. There might not be an explanation or a good cause as to why they did it. It might just be some random irrational thing. Why do teenagers in middle-class American homes kill themselves? It doesn't make any sense, they are fed and clothed but one day they jump from a building. Why? Well, bring in the "experts" they'll make up something...
I also do not believe in 'dis-organized' religion. I will take the 'organized' religion, with it potential pitfalls like over-institutionalization and the potential for ritualism over a churchless 'fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants'/'make-up-as-you-g
Makes sense
I hope your young marriage works out
Thanks!
You will find people fundamentally change more between the ages of 18-24 than they do at ANY other time in their life. I hope for your sake you know who you married and not who you THINK you married.
My wife is 5 years older then me and I am older than 25 so I think we are both alright. She was my very good friend for many years (and still is!) so I'll hope for the best. We will have children soon as I am finishing my grad degree and just got a job offer.
Oh, so we should let them have sex with adults since they are 10 and let them drink since they are 5 because, hey who is Uncle Sam to say when they are mature enough.
There are many stupid adults who don't know better now who don't have the wits to protect themselves Very much agree. That is a real problem with the American society at this moment. Many people are irresponsible and stupid because their parents were and their teachers (to a small extent) did a bad job.
Why not get rid of the TV?
Except for very few public access channels that sounds like a very good idea to me. I already threw away my TV, and I encourage you to do the same. You'd be surprised how enjoyable reading is...
Why not remove every single thing from our lives that is predominantly a waste of time?
Sounds good to me. Life is short, it's shorter than you think it is. Perceptually as you grow older the time will seem to fly by faster because you are comparing the rate of passage of time to how much time you already lived. That is why when you were a kid the summers seemed so long and now years just fly by. The point is, sitting in front of a TV, listening to the latest news item about Paris Hilton is just not how I choose to spend my time. Now you are an adult and I assume you are responsible so I think you'll be able to choose what to do with your free time. But the point was that some individuals are not responsible and some individuals are inherently vulnerable (children). Up to a certain degree it makes sense for the government to step up and protect those who cannot protect themselves. There is a middle ground between total laissez faire and total govt. control; the trick is strike the balance just right.
I got even better news for you -- I don't have kids because I am still in school and I am responsible enough not to have them (even though I am married) because we will not be able to provide for them yet adequately until we get higher paying jobs.
If your kids are so stupid as to go out and meet some random person that they met on the internet
If you have obviously never heard of social engineering my friend. We don't even have to talk about kids, look at the people who are sending their retirement money to Nigeria...
So if _you_ had kids, would you drop a broadband line in their room and let them have a permanent connection to the Internet? I mean, they are a pretty smart 12 year old, right? It seems you are the parent that I wouldn't mind Uncle Sam coming and helping you raise your (hypothetical) child (and we all know how good Uncle Sam is at it). -- "10 year old Billy will by fine playing with my new gun, he is smart and knows how to use it, my kids are not stupid!"
Not if the TV will let predators talk to you directly and you thinking they are someone your age who wants to hang out in the park later.
I used to be about that too. Let people use drugs if they want, let them kill themselves eating trans-fats if they so choose and so on. But the problem is that the person who is on heroin day and night is somebody's father, somebody's brother somebody's son. There are others who will look up to that person for help and support. At that point I wouldn't mind Uncle Sam slapping their wrist once in a while. There is no perfect solution here and usually the extremes don't work (total laissez faire i.e. "Uncle Sam, don't fuck with my shit" and total socialism i.e. "govt. is my babysitter") there is probably some viable half decent middle ground it's just very hard to find it.
People love to cling to the illusion that the bad people of the world are all faceless evil people lurking
You are very right about that. Those public service announcements that showed the predator as a creepy guy with shades, a black trench-coat and hiding the bushes probably did quite a bit of harm because they led children and parents believe that all the predators will look like that. While in reality it could be Uncle Clive, the nice charismatic uncle who likes to hang around the girls a little too much and take them out for ice-cream without having the parents come along...
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Or maybe people could educate their kids not to put their addresses online, although their addresses could also be found in the phone book! And predators can see kids with their EYES!!...Odds are, if these kids are stupid enough to meet predators over the internet, they'd run into them without internet access too.
Completely disagree. The issue is that the parents / children will drop their guard when it comes to the cyberworld. In real life, everyone by now, knows to stay away from the man looking for the puppy or giving away candy. On the net the man is actually a 12 year old girl who wants to exchange pics, and talk and hang out later. People have just not adapted to deal with online predators it's as simple as that. Parents think that a computer is very harmless, it's at best a fun toy and at worst a buggy tool that has to be restarted once in a while. They don't realize that once they plug in the broadband cable, their computer "is visible" to millions of other across the globe. It is like standing in front of a CNN news camera and telling everyone that you like so and so, or you partied hard last week, or that you like a certain band. That's all an predator would need. "Hai! my name is Suzey and I like Britney Spears just like you. Let's hang out some time. Here is my pic, send me yours".
Obviously, kids should not be allowed to use phones because they could CALL PREDATORS WITH THEM!!!!
My wife when she was young was contacted by a predator that started to call her parents house and leaving sexually explicit messages for her. So, yeah, a good parent will notice who their child talks to over the phone, over the internet or in real life. But at the same time, a phone is just a phone, it doesn't have a your son's or daughter's picture on it, it doesn't have the fact that she like Britney Spears or that she rides her bike to soccer practice every Thursday. It seems you are also one of the individuals who completely underestimate the power (and therefore the potential threat) of the Internet... Hope you wise up before you have children.
Oh, I don't know perhaps because a predator could start talking to them, make them believe that they are the same age and ask the kid to sneak outside "to play...?" You think that sounds like a pretty good reason to not put a computer with a broadband connection in a 10 year old's room ? Or maybe not to you...
Here is where Uncle Sam will be needed to protect the kids that the parents are too ignorant/stupid/irresponsible to protect. I am against the govt. interfering with everyone's business but not when it comes to protecting those who cannot protect themselves.
The larger problem is that there are a lot of people who are not responsible, they have babies and it turns out that there are a lot of irresponsible parents out there. I don't want the government to interfere with anyone's stuff, but at some point it has to step up to protect those who cannot do it themselves (such as the children, the disabled or the elderly for example). Some parents simply do not know how vulnerable their children become when they post all of their info on myspace or facebook. The net is like a power tool, it is very good and very useful but one has to know how to use safely. (Sane) Parents wouldn't let their kids play with a chainsaw or a gun yet they have no problem putting a computer with broadband access in their child's room. 'Oh but he needs it for research!' -- sure...
Not the didn't, but the last time I checked the predators didn't come looking for minors on Slashdot, or through the TV, or Usenet but they do take advantage of the kids on facebook and myspace.
Most parents and children are clueless as to how public their information is and how vulnerable they become. At no point in time before was it possible for the kids to expose their personal stuff to so many people. Internet is great, I don't doubt, but it is a tool that one has to know how to use. Why not give your kid some pot to smoke as well, heck in college they'll probably try it anyway, might as well get them used to it.
And I am normally against the government interfering but in certain cases it is appropriate. In an ideal world parents would be smart enough to know enough and protect their offspring but as it happens there are a lot of stupid people who make babies and therefore there are a lot of stupid parents who do not know how to protect their children from harm, so at least Uncle Sam can try and do something.
Facebook can be a useful site for organizing events, like parties or trips
And before Facebook everyone was stuck at home without the ability to organize anything, nobody had parties and nobody went on trips. Thank God for Facebook!
Don't worry it's not you, it's the "real world".
One of the reasons is that real-world is often full of state and the state is easier to represent when it's explicit and not hidden in the function parameters/the stack. Of course there are different problems and my "real-world" is not your "real-world" but I think in general not everything is a function/a list/ a predicate/ and yes, an object. There is no holy grail. Some problems can be expressed easier if you think in terms of functions, some if you think in terms of predicates (i.e. logic programming a la Prolog), and of course the all too popular objects.
The trick is to recognize the most efficient and clear representation and if there isn't one, it's time to roll your own language. Google did it , Microsoft did it for the Office. That's sort of the next level of development -- making your own language to fit your problem/solution domain best
Multiple cores are still good because of application parallelism -- run multiple applications at the same time (given that CPU is the bottleneck and not I/O). At least 2 cores are very nice, one takes care of OS stuff, monitoring, security, maintenance, the other can be monopolized by an application...
I grew up in a small two room apartment (that's just two rooms, they are both bedrooms and living rooms and study rooms and offices) in the Soviet Union and sometimes I had my cousins stay over as well. Looking back I would consider my childhood one of the happiest times in my life. We'd all gather in our small kitchen, family members (aunts, uncles and even neighbors!) would drop by unexpectedly for dinner and it was great -- I never though "gosh I need another 4 rooms to live comfortably".
There is a level of intimacy and closeness that is lost as families move into huge mansions and never see each other for days.
People ride Bart Simpson in San Fran and buy tickets for it. I knew the place was screwed up...
Or perhaps my house will see me opening the refrigerator one too many times and will decide to lock me out of the kitchen.
Didn't shower for 2 days? -- Sprinklers 'on'. There is nothing like living inside a robot that does whatever it wants.
Wait until these houses start talking to each other and decide that we humans are the enemy.
[oblig. cliche] I for one welcome our new intelligent infrastructure overlords [/oblig. cliche]
These were just random students.
No they were just random _Standford_ students of a particular age group from a particular graduating year. And just because there were Stanford students doesn't mean that they couldn't be crazy and cruel and that does not mean that they represent everyone. Also not all of them exhibited the same amount of cruelty.Some enjoyed it a little too much and I think would have participated anyway just to be allowed to behave like that.
Yes some humans can and will easily behave like animals or worse, BUT normal people should have a sense of right and wrong, normal people should have compassion (the sociopaths don't and there are a lot of sociopaths out there -- look at most CEO's, for example). And by "normal" I mean morally "normal" not simply average.
The point I think was that "normal" hamburgers shouldn't last for months in a jar. The maggots and bacteria should eat them with a great appetite that only they can have. Put a piece of meat out and you'll see how fast it goes bad, then put a piece of plastic outside and see how fast that decomposes. The idea was that a Mc.-burger is closer to the piece of plastic than to a natural piece of meat. If maggots won't eat it, you know it's crap.
Now I know that anyway, but it doesn't mean I won't eat at McGoldenArches once a year or so. It's not about the hunger or the food, all fast food is just as filling (and just as bad for you) -- it is all about the brand and the experience. That has been demonstrated many many times. I am nostalgic for the past when I used to go there with my friends back in the day. I will eat the horrible "chemical burger" once in a great while if I can experience that nostalgic feeling. I am quite conscious of it but I am sure most people aren't and the "brands" and "labels" influence them on e a more subliminal level.
The same thing happens with Coke. It has been shown that most people will enjoy Coke better if they know it is Coke. In a blind study some will prefer Pepsi or other such drinks but once they see the label they choose the bright red -- all American carbonated sugar water.