Welcome to the world of research! The gap between physical possibilities and economical viability is large, but without sufficient breakthroughs on physical possibilities we will never find one that is economically viable.So, regardless of the chances being slim that we will reap the benefits of all these breakthroughs anytime soon, I am still happy to see such breakthroughs happen.
Not only that, but reading that they used asphalt for this makes me think I'm driving on the biggest darn battery everyday (I know, it's not true... still...;)
Since your assumption is that you're forgetting things you must assume you'll forget everything, including the fact that you have something to access with a password or the means with which to recover the password. Therefore someone has to come to you with the information without any action from your side, judge that you're enough "yourself" to give you access to your own passwords, and then give the information. If you do not trust a single person with this information the question becomes:
How can you give multiple people parts of the information such that the chance that they can reconstruct it is minimal?
You have a very good point and I'm sorry for you that you will not be able to join, but I think you misunderstand their goal. Their goal is to actually send a small group of people that can work in harmony and succeed in getting and living there. In that view I think their selection criteria would not be based on possibilities of romance, how people look, and ethnicities. Unlike other reality shows they will strive to reduce disharmony and conflict among the group, that will only lead to failure. I think the only limitations that would hold them back from selecting you are practical. You can probably not be too picky on your diet overthere, and also any special equipment you might need (eg wheel chair) will be a big problem.
It's hard to imagine some saying this without trying to be funny: “Not in a million years. Not in two million years. Six months, nine months or a year from now, that may happen, but it will not happen in the current circumstances.”
Could you please explain which particular set of freedoms are required to make a country "free"? Every country needs restrictions on freedom, otherwise everybody could do anything, there'd be no crime. Whether you can live with those restrictions mostly depends on you and your values. But don't forget that a lot of restrictions are desirable. Would you care to live in country where you are allowed to steal?
You can't throw "freedom" around without explaining what you actually mean. Freedom means different things in different cultures.
One way to prevent cheating is to make sure there is nothing to cheat, or to add a risk of cheating the wrong answers. Make several versions of your exam, or different exams altogether (you probably have those already). You don't need an ultimate answer to prevent cheating, you just need to increase the risk of failure sufficiently that the majority will not cheat.
It's actually a pretty scary idea that google thinks it has enough power to change the governing policy of one of the biggest countries in the world.
This has not been shown to be the case. I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Does Google put their foot down, or don't they? Do they give into the local laws and help oppress, or don't they? I don't see Google invading China with corporate armies, or hacking Chinese government systems, or subverting Chinese government employees here.
Well, I'm sorry, but if a company wants to operate in a country, it should abide by its laws, otherwise it's a criminal organization. It's not up to that company to change the government, it's up to the people that live in the country. There are more ways than those you mention for a company to force its wishes on a government (MS has used some). I'm not saying I agree with what China is doing. But I also don't think it a good idea to force my ideas of freedom on them, if there's anything that causes chaos in a country it's sudden changes like that. I'd say China has been doing a pretty good job of slowly creating a more free country.
A country cannot work if they have to change their laws according to the wishes of a company.
No, but a company is made up of people, and in a democracy, those people have a say in how the country is run, along with every other citizen. Perhaps you don't live in a country with a democratic form of government, or you don't value the freedom of each voice being heard. However, in the United States, we do value these things.
I do value these things (and I do live in a democratic country) but I do not have the wisdom to say that it is better than all other forms of government, and neither do you unless you've lived in them. Basically what I'm saying is that it should be the people that change a country, not an outside company. Where's the democracy in an outside company forcing a change.
But in the end it still comes down to one question: should Google support China's repressive government, or not? If you condemn them either way, you are a hypocrite. And you'll have to make a really, really good case for "should support repression" as being "not evil".
Stop thinking so binary. Just because one is "evil" doesn't mean the other is "good". There are a lot more options than the ones you mention.
That really depends on your point of view. It's actually a pretty scary idea that google thinks it has enough power to change the governing policy of one of the biggest countries in the world. Sure, to our (western) point of view it makes a lot of sense to try to give citizens the freedom to express their opinion, but they ARE trying to infringe upon the sovereignty of a country. A country cannot work if they have to change their laws according to the wishes of a company. I cannot vote for Google, so they do not rule.
Programming is about algorithms. Proving them, or better yet, deriving them (you may find deriving is a lot easier than proving, I did). Graphs may come into play, but that depends on your particular interest, they do give a great insight into complexity though. Knowledge of sets is extremely useful. To me the first looks absolutely essential for a computer scientist. The second is nice if your interest lies in that direction, but it doesn't have anything to do with programming in general (it does seem essential for a mathematician though).
My advice: Learn Logic rather than math. It is far more useful.
If someone writes nasty things about you on their blog you write nasty things about them on your blog... or is this just an American concept?
Well, if President Bush says some nasty things about you in his blog, what good does it do if you say some nasty things about him in your personal blog
Slashdot Mirror
Welcome to the world of research! The gap between physical possibilities and economical viability is large, but without sufficient breakthroughs on physical possibilities we will never find one that is economically viable.So, regardless of the chances being slim that we will reap the benefits of all these breakthroughs anytime soon, I am still happy to see such breakthroughs happen.
Not only that, but reading that they used asphalt for this makes me think I'm driving on the biggest darn battery everyday (I know, it's not true... still...;)
Since your assumption is that you're forgetting things you must assume you'll forget everything, including the fact that you have something to access with a password or the means with which to recover the password. Therefore someone has to come to you with the information without any action from your side, judge that you're enough "yourself" to give you access to your own passwords, and then give the information.
If you do not trust a single person with this information the question becomes:
How can you give multiple people parts of the information such that the chance that they can reconstruct it is minimal?
You have a very good point and I'm sorry for you that you will not be able to join, but I think you misunderstand their goal. Their goal is to actually send a small group of people that can work in harmony and succeed in getting and living there. In that view I think their selection criteria would not be based on possibilities of romance, how people look, and ethnicities. Unlike other reality shows they will strive to reduce disharmony and conflict among the group, that will only lead to failure.
I think the only limitations that would hold them back from selecting you are practical. You can probably not be too picky on your diet overthere, and also any special equipment you might need (eg wheel chair) will be a big problem.
That one was old the first time I read it.
It's hard to imagine some saying this without trying to be funny:
“Not in a million years. Not in two million years. Six months, nine months or a year from now, that may happen, but it will not happen in the current circumstances.”
Don't worry, they have good karma: they came from India.
Does this mean that we need more than 64 bit to address every atom in the universe?
Could you please explain which particular set of freedoms are required to make a country "free"?
Every country needs restrictions on freedom, otherwise everybody could do anything, there'd be no crime.
Whether you can live with those restrictions mostly depends on you and your values.
But don't forget that a lot of restrictions are desirable. Would you care to live in country where you are allowed to steal?
You can't throw "freedom" around without explaining what you actually mean. Freedom means different things in different cultures.
One way to prevent cheating is to make sure there is nothing to cheat, or to add a risk of cheating the wrong answers. Make several versions of your exam, or different exams altogether (you probably have those already). You don't need an ultimate answer to prevent cheating, you just need to increase the risk of failure sufficiently that the majority will not cheat.
This has not been shown to be the case. I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Does Google put their foot down, or don't they? Do they give into the local laws and help oppress, or don't they? I don't see Google invading China with corporate armies, or hacking Chinese government systems, or subverting Chinese government employees here.
Well, I'm sorry, but if a company wants to operate in a country, it should abide by its laws, otherwise it's a criminal organization. It's not up to that company to change the government, it's up to the people that live in the country. There are more ways than those you mention for a company to force its wishes on a government (MS has used some).
I'm not saying I agree with what China is doing. But I also don't think it a good idea to force my ideas of freedom on them, if there's anything that causes chaos in a country it's sudden changes like that. I'd say China has been doing a pretty good job of slowly creating a more free country.
No, but a company is made up of people, and in a democracy, those people have a say in how the country is run, along with every other citizen. Perhaps you don't live in a country with a democratic form of government, or you don't value the freedom of each voice being heard. However, in the United States, we do value these things.
I do value these things (and I do live in a democratic country) but I do not have the wisdom to say that it is better than all other forms of government, and neither do you unless you've lived in them. Basically what I'm saying is that it should be the people that change a country, not an outside company. Where's the democracy in an outside company forcing a change.
But in the end it still comes down to one question: should Google support China's repressive government, or not? If you condemn them either way, you are a hypocrite. And you'll have to make a really, really good case for "should support repression" as being "not evil".
Stop thinking so binary. Just because one is "evil" doesn't mean the other is "good". There are a lot more options than the ones you mention.
That really depends on your point of view. It's actually a pretty scary idea that google thinks it has enough power to change the governing policy of one of the biggest countries in the world. Sure, to our (western) point of view it makes a lot of sense to try to give citizens the freedom to express their opinion, but they ARE trying to infringe upon the sovereignty of a country. A country cannot work if they have to change their laws according to the wishes of a company.
I cannot vote for Google, so they do not rule.
Programming is about algorithms. Proving them, or better yet, deriving them (you may find deriving is a lot easier than proving, I did). Graphs may come into play, but that depends on your particular interest, they do give a great insight into complexity though. Knowledge of sets is extremely useful.
To me the first looks absolutely essential for a computer scientist. The second is nice if your interest lies in that direction, but it doesn't have anything to do with programming in general (it does seem essential for a mathematician though).
My advice: Learn Logic rather than math. It is far more useful.
> I've read that the Dutch refer to them humorously as staathuiswoorden, literally "city hall words."
We do? Sheesh, somebody could have told us...
This must be the best chosen subject for a slashdot comment I've ever seen ;)
I've used your advice, but now my system is very unresponsive, do you have any idea what's going on?
I think it would be more accurate to say it would write on *nothing*. Or are you strong enough to put that much pressure on one pencil?
Finally, I never seem to be able to concentrate with all this gravity around!
he, you missed one.
Are you actually suggesting that women can read maps?
I mean... do you really expect me to read your entire comment?
And designing things to be thrown away is good practice?
Yes, it is, because then people at least make the effort of making it recyclable.
If someone writes nasty things about you on their blog you write nasty things about them on your blog ... or is this just an American concept?
Well, if President Bush says some nasty things about you in his blog, what good does it do if you say some nasty things about him in your personal blog
We're not exactly dealing with children here. You can correct a child, but how do you "correct" a movement (and what is correct anyway).
why not tell him to "debug windows.exe", he can't possibly make it worse, right?
how can you patent 1s and 0s
On the other hand, how can you pattent a bunch of atoms?
Don't take me wrong, I agree with you, but not on the basis of 1s and 0s.