Obviously they must either have hardware problems or a serious financial rethink going on (maybe Nokia helped them with that;), otherwise I find it hard to believe that a working, about to roll out the door product is going to be ditched so quickly.
I took one look at the site (click on the phone picture). Sheesh! They only are about 20 generations behind phones in Japan and the cutting edge. Or are they specializing in low-end phones and can't afford what M$ is asking? You don't make a decision like this after you build the product. Sounds like they really had nothing but vapor and have just begun to think about "let's build a cell phone".
2 weeks ago I tried the latest Mac. Don't know the name, but it's a gorgeous platinum colored g4 tower. I was using the latest humongous flat HD screen from Apple (this and 5 other systems lent to us from Apple for Sweden design related events).
Let me say that I absolutely love Macs and I want one of the new Mac OSX machines. Maybe a little faster than the current version might be nice but that is just because I like blinding speed. Not that my other machines are as fast, but if I was going to drop the cash for that dream system with the screen you can edit a real film on, I'd like something insane.
The latest Mac with Jaguar etc. is plenty fast to drive that huge screen and other apps. However I can tell the machine itself could be driving the finder much faster. Also sometimes I see multitasking delays which BeOS would never show. But otherwise, I like it! Apple continues to build great technology into their consistently fast machines, but as other people have said that pipeline will have to be fatter and add a few more CPUs to make it an SGI killer.
you might want to check out smartcert on google. Pricey but they hold your files and handle transactions. They do not use watermarks to make unique copies.
I have been working on a simple shop system to tie into Payment One and other credit card clearing systems, written in Perl. A lot of the design depends on your own business policy and how much risk you are willing to take (i.e. is it okay if people can post copies of your software on bbs systems?). If you only have a few items it is easy but with higher throughput you will want to manage clients and handle cooling off (giving money back) quickly. Check out Red Hat's system for some ideas.
P.S. I am also biased because in addition to shooting that commercial for Electrolux, they also paid for time on four giant outdoor television screens in Tokyo these past two weeks. I provided free time (3 minutes per hour) for the Swedish government and Electrolux and Volvo decided to add some paid ads of their own.
On the other hand, I also have worked with MIT and robot designers, and have nothing against them, and the gecko stuff and iRobot is also quite neat. More power to them. But they are not the first, and it is not evident that they know anything about vacuum cleaners or robots in the home, or what the quality is since the price is about ten times less than the trilobite.
My own hope is for a telescoping legged robot that can do things for me remotely, preferably bigger than an aibo and closer in price to an irobot. If it can clean the toilet or do the dishes that is also a plus.
In the end who cares who is first, these things take a long time to develop and I hope those iRobot guys do well.
But no more misleading stories please, slashdot. You can do you research too.
This looks like a total ripoff of the TRILOBITE by Electrolux. I coordinated an event called Swedish Style in Tokyo 2002 (Oct 1 to 15, just ended) where it was announced with Toshiba, who helped them get it ready for Japan and distribute it.
We had the robot running for real for two weeks so even if there is no relation (extremely hard to believe) Electrolux is definitely first and we announced it first. Check out the homepage which is also better done, at http://www.electrolux.se/ (it was released in Sweden earlier).
The Trilobite automatically maps out the room, has tons of sensors and automatically docks, can be hemmed in by magnetic tape so it doesn't go down the stairs, and when you watch it it seems pretty smart.
For anyone who does not know it, Electrolux probably makes the best vaccuum cleaners in the world, in addition to fridges, and also has th majority of riding lawnmower sales as well apparently. I am biased because 1) my family has used their vacuums for 30 years and never breaks and 2) I just made a commercial for two other products of Electrolux, a steam gun (very cool, clean, stylish, well done..) and oxygen, another vacuum cleaner. As it happens Oxygen gives off exhaust air out the back which is as clean as what you get from dedicated air cleaners; a baby can crawl behind it. Just shows to go ya, these guys must have hurried to make a press release and flashy homepage to not miss out on timing and presumably their investors.
Of course there is a very small chance that this is Electrolux. And iRobot may have great people and this is convergent evolution etc. BUT it is hard to believe that they are unaware of what Electrolux has been doing for so long and this is very misleading. If Electrolux is inside they should get the CREDIT.
I found WAST to be of extremely limited value. I was forced to use it because the manufacturer client of mine saw it was free and didn't feel like having me make perl test programs even though that is exactly what we should have used.
We also could have used PureLoad which I recommended, Java based and not too expensive (wind river's load runner (sorry if I am off on names here) was extremely, extremely expensive.
The uselessness of WAST came because I was testing a tomcat-based web proxy and (for one example) error message pages would simply contribute to the average bytes transferred without telling me there was an error.. so it is very hard to tell what is going on unless everything is working perfectly. I used sar (linux) to get data from the (linux) server. Would have been much better off making scientific tests than trying to outguess such a squishy app as WAST. Get PureLoad!
So easy to add some flick called "The Two Towers" to my blacklist of movies I don't need to see.
And if it has anything to do with LOTR I definitely won't see it, since the first flick sucked so badly. (Talk about saving money on the most important scenes, and cutting out Tom's valley!!)
It doesn't matter one bit whether downloading is legal or not (and that question matters where you are in the world). It matters who did it, since there was either a conspiracy against the audience, or a conspiracy against the producer.
And I have no interest in paying to see a film by someone who might be pushing for laws of seizure before proven guilt. What ever happened to "please see my film"? I saw one recently (Shaolin Soccer) that was totally hilarious, and the director, actors and lead actress came to the theater and thanked the booming crowd! They came from Hong Kong to Tokyo to do this! They served up something wonderful on a shoestring and everyone was delighted. Not like these newfangled people who shoot a film by paying for special effects, but then don't even pay enough to do it right that way. No thanks. I'll wait for Darwin to take care of inferior wannabees like that by voting with my wallet.
Too many memes to absorb already, hey they make it easy for us to choose what patterns join the kill list. Anything with Two Towers or LOTR is right up there for me.
For some years a similar service has been available for keeping track of elderly family members. You could get a fax of where they are on a map. Phone was shaped like a popular comic character, Doraemon (the 24th century blue robotic cat).
This report is very timely. I was one of 6 foreigners out of 2500 attendees at a conference in Kyoto recently on the fusion of these fields. AI was not discussed, but Energy and Environment were major topics.
It is not 30 years away, or trying to make some "wonder pill". The primary points are:
1. Biotech is currently major driving force in economy. 2. IT as a tool, not an end in and of itself. 3. Nanotech (which currently DOES have business applications) is the next competitive landscape. There is a grey area between biotech and nanotech, for example dna motors. 4. Major need for interdisciplinary efforts to make the most of contemporary science, and the fusion of Government, Industry and Education (which was the title of the conference). 5. These, and education to create the most creative, science-minded researchers, as key to national competitivity.
One leadup meeting on nanotech and biotech at Tokyo University Medical School earlier this year was held to coincide with the nanotech conference of the year in the U.S. The recent meeting in Kyoto featured the most famous biotech entrepreneur in the U.S. and the head of MIT's tech ventures program (because Japan's schools are not conducive to spinoffs).
This is real stuff, even if it seems futuristic. The bottom line is research that is happening today and I expect multidisciplinary, creative thinking is something slashdotters usually respect. The interesting thing is it's not just Japan, there are new nanotech labs being built all over the place (Oxford just built one, and Cornell U. has a new building going up now, just for two examples). This is a historical opportunity, in other words we are stomping on the bottom of the S curve (see page 36 of the PDF). Anyone with similar thoughts, looking forward to your email.
A. Idiot. I didn't execute it, as I said. And the post I saw was signed "matts" who is on Perlmonks, not "Mr_Perl". Conceivably I could have seen his name on a post above or below yours, and not yours by accident. But thanks for owning up to it, "Mr. Perl". I do Perl programming for a living and am not half bad at it, what's your excuse? Silly kiddie.
B. It didn't require too much sweat to discover your lame-ass justification for your stupid (and criminal FWIW) sig. As it is there is little danger of anyone executing your sig, and all I have to do is wait a couple years or more until you get older and some similar stupidity blows up magnificently in your pinched egotistical face. Have a nice life (unlikely).
Check out www.anitech.com which is the Canadian leader in livestock computing. I met them when they came to Japan. There is a PDF on the site which will give you the idea of a spec, basically IIRC you have hoseable enclosed LCD touch screens on a network (not sure if wireless or not) with main computer somewhere not being hosed down. Meat packers push the screen or use software keyboard as needed. The way they connect the lcd to the network might be useful.
Yar, we've had umpteen generations of camera in phone in Japan, what else is new. Don't suppose anybody cares about specs or anything. The phone's probably nice though I heard there was a big problem with the quality of all the phones the merged companies have made together up until the last one that was sold.
Maybe this one will be the charm (or maybe not, in which case there's always battleship, right?) Not. Oh, nice popup ad for some sleek mobile phone slashdot. As long as we're in an irony mood you just take the cake as usual. (Spoken as someone who recently did a big event for *free* for the two then unmerged but in bed sponsors.
Just make a good goddam cheap phone and it will sell in the U.S. too fer chrissakes! No frikkin magnesium shit but no piece of crap neither! --Yer local redneck.
If the producers don't cop out on the expensive scenes (like LoTR), and do stay true to the book. Spending money isn't as important as following the book. This could be another multi-decade (everlasting?) Star Wars.
Maybe the 21st Century's own "next-generation" defense/killer app/nanotech reality will match Narnia more than Lucas' film. I think of the turkish delight in the coach, and the painting of the dawn treader, and the world awakened by the Lion, and the world of trees and ponds between them. Sure there's religious imagery (I realized much later after reading them, and which dimmed it slightly for me temporarily) but Star Wars isn't spiritually dry either. I'd rather they take their time and get it right.
Also wouldn't mind seeing the A Wrinkle in Time series on the screen.. like Narnia, compelling even without the grahics though. Was disappointed by both Harry Potter and LoTR adaptations though.
This really pisses me off since your username is close to mine. Your sig works out obviously to the string "cat/etc/passwd|mail Guest" which is then executed as a shell command, sending an insecure password file to some supposedly insecure mail account. (No I didn't execute it, and I run shadowed. Duh.)
I wonder if you are the same matts as on perlmonks.org. I am the same mattr. How annoying.
I'll thank you to remove that sig. Now, please. It's not funny to lay a pipe bomb and a box of matches on the curb; some people have a death wish and you are just helping them along.
The bipolar disorder in an AI scientist is interesting insofar as Ted Nelson's own psychiatric problem (can't remember a thing) led him to devise a system of carrying index cards on a belt loop which led to Xanadu(.org) which in addition to providing impetus to the Web, also made it impossible for a long time for anyone to work with him, without going insane or broke themselves. Anyway.
I learned a ton about his legal problems (from his one-sided though seemingly truthful description, I feel sympathetic) and about 20% about AIML which is interesting in itself. But only about 2% about Artificial Intelligence or anything beyond fooling a simplistic intelligence test with a program that tries to fool it.
Stimulus-Response my ass! Who gives a shit about massaging his ego? Slashdot must have braindead dweebs for editors, or is it cool these days to confuse computer science with a chatbot?
I'd be far more interested in seeing the legal shit cut out, and have an article on this guy's work that objectively notes the limitations of what he's done, but that at least he's assembled a body of knowledge and built some simple tools. Not that they are at all useful to linux, programming, or anything but fooling an intelligence test, and people who haven't the slightest idea about the field. How about interviewing a few real AI researchers and give us some meat to chew on? This pisses me off, and what pisses me off the most is I discounted the guy's research, even after going through his whole website, and read the article to give him the benefit of the doubt, and didn't come out of it with much else beyond how great a chatbot he's got. Wasted time! Multiply by the number of readers. Yeah maybe he should write a book, and he can (almost but no cigar!) beat a discounted intelligence test by brute force and a microgram of logic. Don't see anything here that sounds like high powered science, sorry.
NASA may soon learn how to deflect
on
A Rock Moves In Space
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If you have been following the recent articles about the "Interplanetary Superhighway" discovered by NASA researcher Martin Lo (I have been scouring the net for papers recently) you will realize that there may be a good case for early deflection. In fact NASA re-released the story about this with a little more data just this morning (jpl mailing list). This is hot stuff!
Lo is trying to map the low energy trajectories through the Solar System which result from calculating n-body gravitational problems for all the objects in the System. Apparently there are tube-like trails between the Sun and the Oort Belt along which objects can travel theoretically without thrust, and the dinosaur killer is thought to have come down an "offramp" to the Earth much like Shoemaker-Levy apparently did with Jupiter.
This technology was used in the Genesis Mission and chaos theory applies to the low-energy halo orbit around a Sun-Earth libration point. After orbitting around this point a few times the robot will (without thrust) return to a sample capture point in Earth orbit.
While I do not yet understand the math itself, it seems likely that this Rock is in a somewhat chaotic orbit and that small nudges can have very large effects on its trajectory down the way. A decade or two may not be long enough, or we might even set up a pattern which will smash us on a later orbit, but the technology is being developed right now.
Do you think AIML and parts of ALICE could be appropriate for use in an application for reasoning, not for chatting?
I don't need a chatbot that responds to a proper question with a reference to my mother. I do need open source code which can conduct even a limited amount of reasoning based on data and semantics I feed it.
Some people like the MIT group have been working on describing web pages with a limited grammar to build a semantic web that some AI algorithm can digest. As you can see from the below transcript, Alice doesn't seem to be it, or is it?
> Slashdot is a web bbs about linux and open source software. Your creator is going to be asked questions about AI by a bunch of techies.
When is Slashdot not a web bbs about linux and open source software? I knew he was smart, but I never knew he was going to be asked questions about AI by a bunch of techies.
A.L.I.C.E. Artificial Intelligence Bot
> Yup. Anyway, what do you think about the idea of a big public interview?
"I knew he was smart, but I never knew he was going to be asked questions about AI by a bunch of techies."? Yes? Anyhow. it is a good question. I have to process that one for a while.
> Do you have any questions for the slashdotters?
No I don't think I have any questions for the slashdotters. But I do have a lot of friends on the web.
A.L.I.C.E. Artificial Intelligence Bot
> Thank you. What about open source though?
you are quite welcome. Oh. open source ? I haven't heard enough about it to have an opinion.
> Well, can I use your code in my Perl programs?
Interesting. Interesting. I want to find out more about you.
> When are you going to wake up?
I could be if you programmed me for it.
> Right. I'll work on it. See you Alice!
I am glad we agree. How do you plan to do this? See you later.
> I think I'll tweak your source code and build a semantic web. A little reasoning code might also be a good thing to add.
You believe that? Congratulations. Little as in not too much, or not too big?
> Not too much reasoning. Wouldn't want to damage your scintillating personality.
Yes, that's what I meant, but thank you very much!
I had not thought to look for Celestial Mechanics and so started by searching for terms like chaos and attractors. I skimmed twenty or thirty pages of links including "dynamical systems" but did not hit the area you mentioned. Much appreciated.
Absolutely fascinating work by Martin Lo. If highway coordinates are publicized this might be the best place for spaceguard and amateur asteroid searchers to look. Currently amateurs are discovering asteroids very frequently.
I also wonder if this implies a similar superhighway among the stars which could determine where a stream of matter might be coming over the millenia from outside the solar system. (i.e. where are the off-ramps to our solar system?)
The interview with Lo is much more interesting; he believes we are on a cusp of where advanced theoretical mathematics is going to inform a new generation of engineering.
I would like to understand the math better, specifically to see if it might have applications to software. I'd also like to plot the superhighway, or understand how they are doing it. But only have a year of college math. Where is a good and free place to learn about it online? Been to Mathematica.
1. maybe they could make some money off selling you additional processing resources in the aftermarket, so you don't have to keep getting incompatible hardware and developers can build satisfying worlds. Supercomputers for business are expandable.
2. Sounds like they're trying to build a second world wide web on a proprietary protocol which would suck in a Burning Chrome / JM kind of way, and your game playing would slow down maybe when people come to visit. More like people asking your machine to render rooms for them or send graphics commands to be shaded on their own PS3. Though if it was totally opened (protocol and code) it would be very cool. Totally open except to M$ is also okay.
3. Someone is going to have to add some secret code to the PS3 like they did for the PS2 which lets you ignore regionality on DVDs or otherwise kill the DRM features.
Unfortunately, the rest of the article is vapor ^ 3.
This sounds like a blatant case of dumping, which is you know, selling below production cost.
Would there not be a clear case against Microsoft which could be made by Apple Peru, which presumably sells OS X? I'd much rather see Peru install OS X supercomputing racks and get every kid to open the hood and see unix. Then they can play with linux and there will be less resistance to linux integration.
Maybe it's fast enough to serve a few channels of TV simultaneously, but it takes what, an hour and a half just to make a copy? Doesn't sound like something you are going to be able to stamp out for 10 cents each.
Also annoyed and hating XML. Okay, XPATH searching is admittedly extremely cool. But how many apps really need this and use it? More marketspeak, less speed, yecch.
The main two things I've seen about XML are: 1. It makes medium-speed platforms like tomcat very, very slow performers. 2. It is hard to explain to users, who need to understand arcane concepts in order to exploit it. 3. The simple uses of it are indistinguishable from what can be done with config files. 4. When it really starts getting used you start seeing network competition effects like browser wars, differences in embedded languages, and rendering artificats. 5. It is relatively easy to bullshit vaporware, bloatware, and rapacious software houses if it has an XML in it (or an "e-commerce", a "secure key", or a "content management"). 6. That said, it can be a great tool. But I don't want to eat, sleep, and breathe the stuff!
Why not have a user who needs interoperability run a small server on their PC for their discussion. It could replicate messages across different services so that people on different networks would be able to talk to each other.
A P2P client for this might be able to change the landscape if it worked as well as Trillian. Personally I use Trillian but since other people were on MSN I knuckled under and tried to get a hotmail/passport account What a mess! After juping through various hoops, passport is down etc. I can't even sign up. Decided IM wasn't as important as I thought it was. Maybe next month.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously they must either have hardware problems or a serious financial rethink going on (maybe Nokia helped them with that
I took one look at the site (click on the phone picture). Sheesh! They only are about 20 generations behind phones in Japan and the cutting edge. Or are they specializing in low-end phones and can't afford what M$ is asking?
You don't make a decision like this after you build the product. Sounds like they really had nothing but vapor and have just begun to think about "let's build a cell phone".
Let me say that I absolutely love Macs and I want one of the new Mac OSX machines. Maybe a little faster than the current version might be nice but that is just because I like blinding speed. Not that my other machines are as fast, but if I was going to drop the cash for that dream system with the screen you can edit a real film on, I'd like something insane.
The latest Mac with Jaguar etc. is plenty fast to drive that huge screen and other apps. However I can tell the machine itself could be driving the finder much faster. Also sometimes I see multitasking delays which BeOS would never show. But otherwise, I like it! Apple continues to build great technology into their consistently fast machines, but as other people have said that pipeline will have to be fatter and add a few more CPUs to make it an SGI killer.
Silly Rabbit, Trix are for KIDS!
you might want to check out smartcert on google. Pricey but they hold your files and handle transactions. They do not use watermarks to make unique copies.
I have been working on a simple shop system to tie into Payment One and other credit card clearing systems, written in Perl. A lot of the design depends on your own business policy and how much risk you are willing to take (i.e. is it okay if people can post copies of your software on bbs systems?). If you only have a few items it is easy but with higher throughput you will want to manage clients and handle cooling off (giving money back) quickly. Check out Red Hat's system for some ideas.
P.S. I am also biased because in addition to shooting that commercial for Electrolux, they also paid for time on four giant outdoor television screens in Tokyo these past two weeks. I provided free time (3 minutes per hour) for the Swedish government and Electrolux and Volvo decided to add some paid ads of their own.
On the other hand, I also have worked with MIT and robot designers, and have nothing against them, and the gecko stuff and iRobot is also quite neat. More power to them. But they are not the first, and it is not evident that they know anything about vacuum cleaners or robots in the home, or what the quality is since the price is about ten times less than the trilobite.
My own hope is for a telescoping legged robot that can do things for me remotely, preferably bigger than an aibo and closer in price to an irobot. If it can clean the toilet or do the dishes that is also a plus.
In the end who cares who is first, these things take a long time to develop and I hope those iRobot guys do well.
But no more misleading stories please, slashdot. You can do you research too.
This looks like a total ripoff of the TRILOBITE by Electrolux. I coordinated an event called Swedish Style in Tokyo 2002 (Oct 1 to 15, just ended) where it was announced with Toshiba, who helped them get it ready for Japan and distribute it.
We had the robot running for real for two weeks so even if there is no relation (extremely hard to believe) Electrolux is definitely first and we announced it first.
Check out the homepage which is also better done, at http://www.electrolux.se/ (it was released in Sweden earlier).
The Trilobite automatically maps out the room, has tons of sensors and automatically docks, can be hemmed in by magnetic tape so it doesn't go down the stairs, and when you watch it it seems pretty smart.
For anyone who does not know it, Electrolux probably makes the best vaccuum cleaners in the world, in addition to fridges, and also has th majority of riding lawnmower sales as well apparently. I am biased because 1) my family has used their vacuums for 30 years and never breaks and 2) I just made a commercial for two other products of Electrolux, a steam gun (very cool, clean, stylish, well done..) and oxygen, another vacuum cleaner. As it happens Oxygen gives off exhaust air out the back which is as clean as what you get from dedicated air cleaners; a baby can crawl behind it. Just shows to go ya, these guys must have hurried to make a press release and flashy homepage to not miss out on timing and presumably their investors.
Of course there is a very small chance that this is Electrolux. And iRobot may have great people and this is convergent evolution etc. BUT it is hard to believe that they are unaware of what Electrolux has been doing for so long and this is very misleading. If Electrolux is inside they should get the CREDIT.
Matt Rosin
Telebody Inc.
Tokyo Japan
I found WAST to be of extremely limited value. I was forced to use it because the manufacturer client of mine saw it was free and didn't feel like having me make perl test programs even though that is exactly what we should have used.
We also could have used PureLoad which I recommended, Java based and not too expensive (wind river's load runner (sorry if I am off on names here) was extremely, extremely expensive.
The uselessness of WAST came because I was testing a tomcat-based web proxy and (for one example) error message pages would simply contribute to the average bytes transferred without telling me there was an error.. so it is very hard to tell what is going on unless everything is working perfectly. I used sar (linux) to get data from the (linux) server. Would have been much better off making scientific tests than trying to outguess such a squishy app as WAST. Get PureLoad!
So easy to add some flick called "The Two Towers" to my blacklist of movies I don't need to see.
And if it has anything to do with LOTR I definitely won't see it, since the first flick sucked so badly. (Talk about saving money on the most important scenes, and cutting out Tom's valley!!)
It doesn't matter one bit whether downloading is legal or not (and that question matters where you are in the world). It matters who did it, since there was either a conspiracy against the audience, or a conspiracy against the producer.
And I have no interest in paying to see a film by someone who might be pushing for laws of seizure before proven guilt. What ever happened to "please see my film"? I saw one recently (Shaolin Soccer) that was totally hilarious, and the director, actors and lead actress came to the theater and thanked the booming crowd! They came from Hong Kong to Tokyo to do this! They served up something wonderful on a shoestring and everyone was delighted. Not like these newfangled people who shoot a film by paying for special effects, but then don't even pay enough to do it right that way. No thanks. I'll wait for Darwin to take care of inferior wannabees like that by voting with my wallet.
Too many memes to absorb already, hey they make it easy for us to choose what patterns join the kill list. Anything with Two Towers or LOTR is right up there for me.
For some years a similar service has been available for keeping track of elderly family members. You could get a fax of where they are on a map. Phone was shaped like a popular comic character, Doraemon (the 24th century blue robotic cat).
This report is very timely. I was one of 6 foreigners out of 2500 attendees at a conference in Kyoto recently on the fusion of these fields. AI was not discussed, but Energy and Environment were major topics.
It is not 30 years away, or trying to make some "wonder pill". The primary points are:
1. Biotech is currently major driving force in economy.
2. IT as a tool, not an end in and of itself.
3. Nanotech (which currently DOES have business applications) is the next competitive landscape. There is a grey area between biotech and nanotech, for example dna motors.
4. Major need for interdisciplinary efforts to make the most of contemporary science, and the fusion of Government, Industry and Education (which was the title of the conference).
5. These, and education to create the most creative, science-minded researchers, as key to national competitivity.
One leadup meeting on nanotech and biotech at Tokyo University Medical School earlier this year was held to coincide with the nanotech conference of the year in the U.S. The recent meeting in Kyoto featured the most famous biotech entrepreneur in the U.S. and the head of MIT's tech ventures program (because Japan's schools are not conducive to spinoffs).
This is real stuff, even if it seems futuristic. The bottom line is research that is happening today and I expect multidisciplinary, creative thinking is something slashdotters usually respect. The interesting thing is it's not just Japan, there are new nanotech labs being built all over the place (Oxford just built one, and Cornell U. has a new building going up now, just for two examples). This is a historical opportunity, in other words we are stomping on the bottom of the S curve (see page 36 of the PDF). Anyone with similar thoughts, looking forward to your email.
The future will start in a moment
B. It didn't require too much sweat to discover your lame-ass justification for your stupid (and criminal FWIW) sig. As it is there is little danger of anyone executing your sig, and all I have to do is wait a couple years or more until you get older and some similar stupidity blows up magnificently in your pinched egotistical face. Have a nice life (unlikely).
Check out www.anitech.com which is the Canadian leader in livestock computing. I met them when they came to Japan. There is a PDF on the site which will give you the idea of a spec, basically IIRC you have hoseable enclosed LCD touch screens on a network (not sure if wireless or not) with main computer somewhere not being hosed down. Meat packers push the screen or use software keyboard as needed. The way they connect the lcd to the network might be useful.
Yar, we've had umpteen generations of camera in phone in Japan, what else is new. Don't suppose anybody cares about specs or anything. The phone's probably nice though I heard there was a big problem with the quality of all the phones the merged companies have made together up until the last one that was sold.
Maybe this one will be the charm (or maybe not, in which case there's always battleship, right?) Not. Oh, nice popup ad for some sleek mobile phone slashdot. As long as we're in an irony mood you just take the cake as usual. (Spoken as someone who recently did a big event for *free* for the two then unmerged but in bed sponsors.
Just make a good goddam cheap phone and it will sell in the U.S. too fer chrissakes! No frikkin magnesium shit but no piece of crap neither! --Yer local redneck.
If the producers don't cop out on the expensive scenes (like LoTR), and do stay true to the book. Spending money isn't as important as following the book. This could be another multi-decade (everlasting?) Star Wars.
Maybe the 21st Century's own "next-generation" defense/killer app/nanotech reality will match Narnia more than Lucas' film. I think of the turkish delight in the coach, and the painting of the dawn treader, and the world awakened by the Lion, and the world of trees and ponds between them. Sure there's religious imagery (I realized much later after reading them, and which dimmed it slightly for me temporarily) but Star Wars isn't spiritually dry either. I'd rather they take their time and get it right.
Also wouldn't mind seeing the A Wrinkle in Time series on the screen.. like Narnia, compelling even without the grahics though. Was disappointed by both Harry Potter and LoTR adaptations though.
This really pisses me off since your username is close to mine. Your sig works out obviously to the string "cat /etc/passwd|mail Guest" which is then executed as a shell command, sending an insecure password file to some supposedly insecure mail account. (No I didn't execute it, and I run shadowed. Duh.)
I wonder if you are the same matts as on perlmonks.org. I am the same mattr. How annoying.
I'll thank you to remove that sig. Now, please. It's not funny to lay a pipe bomb and a box of matches on the curb; some people have a death wish and you are just helping them along.
Who the fuck cares about his legal problems?
The bipolar disorder in an AI scientist is interesting insofar as Ted Nelson's own psychiatric problem (can't remember a thing) led him to devise a system of carrying index cards on a belt loop which led to Xanadu(.org) which in addition to providing impetus to the Web, also made it impossible for a long time for anyone to work with him, without going insane or broke themselves. Anyway.
I learned a ton about his legal problems (from his one-sided though seemingly truthful description, I feel sympathetic) and about 20% about AIML which is interesting in itself. But only about 2% about Artificial Intelligence or anything beyond fooling a simplistic intelligence test with a program that tries to fool it.
Stimulus-Response my ass! Who gives a shit about massaging his ego? Slashdot must have braindead dweebs for editors, or is it cool these days to confuse computer science with a chatbot?
I'd be far more interested in seeing the legal shit cut out, and have an article on this guy's work that objectively notes the limitations of what he's done, but that at least he's assembled a body of knowledge and built some simple tools. Not that they are at all useful to linux, programming, or anything but fooling an intelligence test, and people who haven't the slightest idea about the field. How about interviewing a few real AI researchers and give us some meat to chew on? This pisses me off, and what pisses me off the most is I discounted the guy's research, even after going through his whole website, and read the article to give him the benefit of the doubt, and didn't come out of it with much else beyond how great a chatbot he's got. Wasted time! Multiply by the number of readers. Yeah maybe he should write a book, and he can (almost but no cigar!) beat a discounted intelligence test by brute force and a microgram of logic. Don't see anything here that sounds like high powered science, sorry.
If you have been following the recent articles about the "Interplanetary Superhighway" discovered by NASA researcher Martin Lo (I have been scouring the net for papers recently) you will realize that there may be a good case for early deflection. In fact NASA re-released the story about this with a little more data just this morning (jpl mailing list). This is hot stuff!
Lo is trying to map the low energy trajectories through the Solar System which result from calculating n-body gravitational problems for all the objects in the System. Apparently there are tube-like trails between the Sun and the Oort Belt along which objects can travel theoretically without thrust, and the dinosaur killer is thought to have come down an "offramp" to the Earth much like Shoemaker-Levy apparently did with Jupiter.
This technology was used in the Genesis Mission and chaos theory applies to the low-energy halo orbit around a Sun-Earth libration point. After orbitting around this point a few times the robot will (without thrust) return to a sample capture point in Earth orbit.
While I do not yet understand the math itself, it seems likely that this Rock is in a somewhat chaotic orbit and that small nudges can have very large effects on its trajectory down the way. A decade or two may not be long enough, or we might even set up a pattern which will smash us on a later orbit, but the technology is being developed right now.
I don't need a chatbot that responds to a proper question with a reference to my mother. I do need open source code which can conduct even a limited amount of reasoning based on data and semantics I feed it.
Some people like the MIT group have been working on describing web pages with a limited grammar to build a semantic web that some AI algorithm can digest. As you can see from the below transcript, Alice doesn't seem to be it, or is it?
> Slashdot is a web bbs about linux and open source software. Your creator is going to be asked questions about AI by a bunch of techies.
When is Slashdot not a web bbs about linux and open source software? I knew he was smart, but I never knew he was going to be asked questions about AI by a bunch of techies.
A.L.I.C.E.
Artificial Intelligence Bot
> Yup. Anyway, what do you think about the idea of a big public interview?
"I knew he was smart, but I never knew he was going to be asked questions about AI by a bunch of techies."? Yes? Anyhow. it is a good question. I have to process that one for a while.
> Do you have any questions for the slashdotters?
No I don't think I have any questions for the slashdotters. But I do have a lot of friends on the web.
A.L.I.C.E.
Artificial Intelligence Bot
> Thank you. What about open source though?
you are quite welcome. Oh. open source ? I haven't heard enough about it to have an opinion.
> Well, can I use your code in my Perl programs?
Interesting. Interesting. I want to find out more about you.
> When are you going to wake up?
I could be if you programmed me for it.
> Right. I'll work on it. See you Alice!
I am glad we agree. How do you plan to do this? See you later.
> I think I'll tweak your source code and build a semantic web. A little reasoning code might also be a good thing to add.
You believe that? Congratulations. Little as in not too much, or not too big?
> Not too much reasoning. Wouldn't want to damage your scintillating personality.
Me either. Yes.
A.L.I.C.E.
Artificial Intelligence Bot
> See you later, alligator.
See you later.
Yes, that's what I meant, but thank you very much!
I had not thought to look for Celestial Mechanics and so started by searching for terms like chaos and attractors. I skimmed twenty or thirty pages of links including "dynamical systems" but did not hit the area you mentioned. Much appreciated.
Matt
Absolutely fascinating work by Martin Lo. If highway coordinates are publicized this might be the best place for spaceguard and amateur asteroid searchers to look. Currently amateurs are discovering asteroids very frequently.
I also wonder if this implies a similar superhighway among the stars which could determine where a stream of matter might be coming over the millenia from outside the solar system. (i.e. where are the off-ramps to our solar system?)
The interview with Lo is much more interesting; he believes we are on a cusp of where advanced theoretical mathematics is going to inform a new generation of engineering.
I would like to understand the math better, specifically to see if it might have applications to software. I'd also like to plot the superhighway, or understand how they are doing it. But only have a year of college math. Where is a good and free place to learn about it online? Been to Mathematica.
3 interesting things I see about this.
1. maybe they could make some money off selling you additional processing resources in the aftermarket, so you don't have to keep getting incompatible hardware and developers can build satisfying worlds. Supercomputers for business are expandable.
2. Sounds like they're trying to build a second world wide web on a proprietary protocol which would suck in a Burning Chrome / JM kind of way, and your game playing would slow down maybe when people come to visit. More like people asking your machine to render rooms for them or send graphics commands to be shaded on their own PS3. Though if it was totally opened (protocol and code) it would be very cool. Totally open except to M$ is also okay.
3. Someone is going to have to add some secret code to the PS3 like they did for the PS2 which lets you ignore regionality on DVDs or otherwise kill the DRM features.
Unfortunately, the rest of the article is vapor ^ 3.
Would there not be a clear case against Microsoft which could be made by Apple Peru, which presumably sells OS X? I'd much rather see Peru install OS X supercomputing racks and get every kid to open the hood and see unix. Then they can play with linux and there will be less resistance to linux integration.
Okay. A terabyte disk, right on schedule.
Maybe it's fast enough to serve a few channels of TV simultaneously, but it takes what, an hour and a half just to make a copy? Doesn't sound like something you are going to be able to stamp out for 10 cents each.
The main two things I've seen about XML are:
1. It makes medium-speed platforms like tomcat very, very slow performers.
2. It is hard to explain to users, who need to understand arcane concepts in order to exploit it.
3. The simple uses of it are indistinguishable from what can be done with config files.
4. When it really starts getting used you start seeing network competition effects like browser wars, differences in embedded languages, and rendering artificats.
5. It is relatively easy to bullshit vaporware, bloatware, and rapacious software houses if it has an XML in it (or an "e-commerce", a "secure key", or a "content management").
6. That said, it can be a great tool. But I don't want to eat, sleep, and breathe the stuff!
A P2P client for this might be able to change the landscape if it worked as well as Trillian. Personally I use Trillian but since other people were on MSN I knuckled under and tried to get a hotmail/passport account What a mess! After juping through various hoops, passport is down etc. I can't even sign up. Decided IM wasn't as important as I thought it was. Maybe next month.