Most American grocery store lines are due to restricted "checkout bandwidth." The Soviet grocery store lines were due to limited availability of goods. In the US you place the goods in your cart and wait to check out. In the USSR (at the time) you waited in line to get the goods themselves.
Sometimes you see the other kind of line in the US as well: for example, people stand for hours in long lines in the wee hours of Black Friday to buy a discounted TV. This is caused by the scarcity of these TVs. In the USSR the problem was the scarcity ("deficit") of essential goods (food, soap, toilet paper), and people had to stand in long lines to get them.
All caps is an AMAZING way to get your point across!
It is NOT annoying!
When you truly EMPHASIZE what you type, sometimes the price to pay is a bit of negative talk from a loser mimicking everything you say; in this case, me.
I have seen this comment posted in every article related to patent abuse. In fact, I am thinking of patenting the idea of patenting the patent process, just so it never comes up on slashdot again. Of course, at some point someone would take it even further and patent patenting my idea, and the someone else... blah blah blah... I think you get the idea =)
I came up with this solution in the shower. It has no pretense of being the optimal solution. Don't just say it's wrong; please reply with disproofs (especially the poster of the problem).
This solution requires that each prisoner is guaranteed to be called to the room infinite number of times. Otherwise, if there's a maximum number of times t that a prisoner can be called to the room, then the king could select k = number of prisoners, call each one t times in a row, resetting the chalice to original position every t-th time (the last time he calls in any given prisoner). This would guarantee that every prisoner wouldn't be able to see any changes to the chalice made by any other prisoner. Thus they wouldn't be able to know if anybody has been to the room but then.
1. Chalice has two states: 0 and 1.
2. Without loss of generality, assume 0 as the initial state. (Suppose k = k'. Assume initial state = 0 and k = k' + 1. If originally the initial state is 1, that's equivalent to the king using the extra flip out of k' + 1).
3. There is one head prisoner and n other prisoners.
4. The head prisoner always sets the chalice to 1.
5. The simple prisoners set the chalice to 0 the first M times they visit the room and see the chalice set to 1; they don't touch it afterwards.
6. The head prisoner declares that all prisoners have visited the room after he sees the chalice in 0 state N times.
Let's find out what M, and N are depending on k and n.
7. When the head prisoner sees the chalice in 0 state for the N-th time, the chalice has been set to 0 by simple prisoners at least N - k times and at most N + k times.
8. We know that N - k > M*(n - 1), otherwise one simple prisoner might have never visited the room.
9. We also know that M*n > N + k, otherwise the simple prisoners may stop setting the chalice to 0 before the head prisoner ever gets to see 0 state for the N-th time.
10. Playing with the above inequalities:
N + k > M*(n - 1) + 2k(from 8) N + k >= M*(n - 1) + 2k - 1 M*n > M*(n - 1) + 2k - 1(from 9 and prev. inequality) M + M*(n - 1) > M*(n - 1) + 2k - 1 M > 2k - 1
Let's choose M = 2k
11. Then N - k > 2k*(n - 1) (from 8) N - k > 2k*n - 2k N > 2k*n - k N > k*(2n - 1)
Of the approximately 5 million terabytes of information out in the world, only about 170 terabytes have been indexed, he said earlier during his speech.
Storing 5 million terabytes has got to cost a lot of resources. It would be very inefficent if every competing search engine stored that much data. Makes me wonder if it would make more sense to nationalize Google's index and share it amongst competitors (just like it makes more sense for goverments to build airports and share them amongst airlines rather than every airline building its own airports).
If the government really wants to save energy by changing work habits, there are enormously better ways to do it. Tax credits for corporations that stagger their workers' start times by a significant margin would save way more energy than this DST nonsense, and it wouldn't have the unpleasant ancillary effects that changing the definition of time of day would have. Unimaginably large (you can look for the true numbers as well as I) amounts of gasoline are wasted in rush-hour traffic across the nation. Tax credits for starting 1/3 of employees 2hr earlier than normal and 1/3 2hr later would motivate employers to do it, and reducing the time people spend idling their cars on the freeways, or worse, driving in stop-and-go traffic, would save tons of fuel.
The main idea behind DST involves aligning the solar day with the average person's active hours to save energy consumed by residential electric lighting. Corporate incentives can't possibly affect as many homes as can appropriate legislation, which means they would save less electricity. That is not to say that your gasoline saving idea won't work =)
At first glance, it seems like Google is just trying to lure Chinese advertisers. However, opening an office in China and acquiring a license gives the Chinese government leverage over Google. For example, if Google refuses a request to block "Falun Gong" searches, the government could threaten to rescind the license - endangering not just Google's image but its ad revenue as well.
A real feat would be robots that could self replicate with their only material inputs being, say, raw minerals and energy. That would be closer to what bacteria do.
Well, at least they have reduced the complexity of the problem. Now all they need to do is build a robot out of these components that can build just a single component (as opposed to a whole another robot) out of raw materials.
I wonder if this new blog has anything to do with the long anticipated new version of Blogger rolling out on May 5th? After all, Blogger is owned by Google.
Slashdot Mirror
In that scenario, the university publishes the idea and it becomes prior art.
You are confusing two kinds of lines.
Most American grocery store lines are due to restricted "checkout bandwidth." The Soviet grocery store lines were due to limited availability of goods. In the US you place the goods in your cart and wait to check out. In the USSR (at the time) you waited in line to get the goods themselves.
Sometimes you see the other kind of line in the US as well: for example, people stand for hours in long lines in the wee hours of Black Friday to buy a discounted TV. This is caused by the scarcity of these TVs. In the USSR the problem was the scarcity ("deficit") of essential goods (food, soap, toilet paper), and people had to stand in long lines to get them.
Add Wii Pro Evolution Soccer to this list. Best soccer game ever.
All caps is an AMAZING way to get your point across!
It is NOT annoying!
When you truly EMPHASIZE what you type, sometimes the price to pay is a bit of negative talk from a loser mimicking everything you say; in this case, me.
I have seen this comment posted in every article related to patent abuse. In fact, I am thinking of patenting the idea of patenting the patent process, just so it never comes up on slashdot again. Of course, at some point someone would take it even further and patent patenting my idea, and the someone else ... blah blah blah ... I think you get the idea =)
The king can only flip the chalice k times. I account for that misinformation in line 7 of my solution.
I came up with this solution in the shower. It has no pretense of being the optimal solution. Don't just say it's wrong; please reply with disproofs (especially the poster of the problem).
This solution requires that each prisoner is guaranteed to be called to the room infinite number of times. Otherwise, if there's a maximum number of times t that a prisoner can be called to the room, then the king could select k = number of prisoners, call each one t times in a row, resetting the chalice to original position every t-th time (the last time he calls in any given prisoner). This would guarantee that every prisoner wouldn't be able to see any changes to the chalice made by any other prisoner. Thus they wouldn't be able to know if anybody has been to the room but then.
1. Chalice has two states: 0 and 1.
2. Without loss of generality, assume 0 as the initial state. (Suppose k = k'. Assume initial state = 0 and k = k' + 1. If originally the initial state is 1, that's equivalent to the king using the extra flip out of k' + 1).
3. There is one head prisoner and n other prisoners.
4. The head prisoner always sets the chalice to 1.
5. The simple prisoners set the chalice to 0 the first M times they visit the room and see the chalice set to 1; they don't touch it afterwards.
6. The head prisoner declares that all prisoners have visited the room after he sees the chalice in 0 state N times.
Let's find out what M, and N are depending on k and n.
7. When the head prisoner sees the chalice in 0 state for the N-th time, the chalice has been set to 0 by simple prisoners at least N - k times and at most N + k times.
8. We know that N - k > M*(n - 1), otherwise one simple prisoner might have never visited the room.
9. We also know that M*n > N + k, otherwise the simple prisoners may stop setting the chalice to 0 before the head prisoner ever gets to see 0 state for the N-th time.
10. Playing with the above inequalities:
N + k > M*(n - 1) + 2k (from 8)
N + k >= M*(n - 1) + 2k - 1
M*n > M*(n - 1) + 2k - 1 (from 9 and prev. inequality)
M + M*(n - 1) > M*(n - 1) + 2k - 1
M > 2k - 1
Let's choose M = 2k
11. Then N - k > 2k*(n - 1) (from 8)
N - k > 2k*n - 2k
N > 2k*n - k
N > k*(2n - 1)
Let's choose N = k*(2n - 1) + 1
That's it! What do you think? =)
At first glance, it seems like Google is just trying to lure Chinese advertisers. However, opening an office in China and acquiring a license gives the Chinese government leverage over Google. For example, if Google refuses a request to block "Falun Gong" searches, the government could threaten to rescind the license - endangering not just Google's image but its ad revenue as well.
I wonder if this new blog has anything to do with the long anticipated new version of Blogger rolling out on May 5th? After all, Blogger is owned by Google.
Nah, it's probably just a coincidence.
I believe the unusual architectural style of the building serves largely antiterrorist goals:
... I think somebody beat us to it.
1ST TERRORIST: Hey, let's explode a bomb in that weird building!
2ND TERRORIST: Umm