I know that feeling, but this one is not so bad, and it does protect the value to some degree. I did not lose the gains made before the recent housing crisis... yet. So I'm happy for what I'm getting. I participate in the HOA aministration as well, so again, not so bad. I do know what you mean though. 4000 rules and not one person that knows what the fuck they mean is typical. This particular one is much better than that.
This company has several options, and there are others. This is as close to professional grade as you can get cheaply. There are cheaper options that utilize a mandraulic process, but that doesn't help if you are on the west coast for holidays when the power drops. Don't forget to figure maintenance costs as it's not a one time charge for such a system. Most people ignore maintenance costs for heaters and A/C units and just repair when it breaks, but this is something you want to make sure works regularly.
If you go with something that is not N/G powered, there is more maintenance to do. Cutting back to bare necessities under backup power can cause installation difficulties, but reduce overall costs long term by reducing the size of generator required etc.
I'm discussing with the HOA the possibility of solar charging for a battery backup system at my location. Heat is never a problem here, but fans would be nice if power failed, as would A/C. I've got plenty of sun and wind, so want to use that as a regular stipend to my household budgeting. Hopefully there will be tax breaks for this soon, and perhaps you can search around to see if some version of backup will qualify for tax breaks to drop the price for you.
I got a wii for xmas and I'm thinking wii sports is easier to learn than that fix! That's enough contortions to nab a 6 under par on the intermediate golf!
Don't forget kids, always wear the screwdriver wrist strap tightly, and stand back at least 6 feet from operational electronic equipment. We don't want this virus getting into your tivo or anything.
Actually, Ubuntu made it easier... do the install, reboot, soon as the OS figures out what is going on it displays an expansion card icon with a note saying advanced non-licensed drivers are available. Click the icon and it goes to the install window. Click, click, done. Currently with 8.10 it shows three drivers available, and 'recommends' the latest version. I think it's pretty awesome actually. I didn't have to look for anything, just pay attention to the icons. Even my parents could handle that.
Free is just one aspect, to be distributed with the OS under a GPL license, proprietary drivers can't be included per se. It's to do with the licensing rather than the religion. Ubunutu allows you to load proprietary drivers for Nvidia as non-licensed. They even make it easy. It just can't be part of the distribution because of the licensing, unless I've missed it as well. It means going an extra step when what is needed is 'works out of the box' functionality. This is what would make better F/OSS drivers from AMD special... they can be included with the distribution, not to mention that it widens the list of supported graphics cards.
say what? Dvorak keyboards are great if you want to type in what amounts to two different languages, and it's designed to accommodate speed and efficiency for ten fingers, not one finger and two thumbs.
If you are going to break away from the standard qwerty keyboard, why not try to do something that makes sense for two thumbs and a finger? Understanding that you would have two circular areas for common keys, and best to have them arranged so that you get best efficiency switching between thumbs on alternating letters.
T9 is meant for touch tone keypads, this swipe is designed for efficiency on soft keyboards. If you want to maximize efficiency for thumbs, start all over again please.
Awesome. This has been much more productive than I imagined. That should be an option for end users also: to be able to donate to dev teams with hardware or money for hardware.
I think that with some simple marketing and explanations it's possible to get end users to understand that their donation went to someone or a group who directly work on code that they use, rather than some faceless big corporation. Sort of the same feeling those commercials try to elicit by showing you starving kids with only one shoe who live next to a railroad track in some poor foreign country. "Your 75 cents per day will keep poor Marietta in clothes and food for months, and you'll get pictures of your child..." blah blah blah
Nothing like a starving developer commercial... right? Seriously, This all started for me because I find it difficult to donate to all the groups whose code I use because of it's inclusion in the distro ISO. I donate regularly but would like to know that even the guy who did nothing but a small app that is used by Gnome for handling floppies gets some reward for helping to make my experience awesome. I'm that impressed by Linux that I want to pay for it!
I think that other end users will be the same if there is an easy place and method to donate. Not many people will work hard to donate if it takes a lot of effort. All suggestions are welcome. No one person will be able to easily figure this out.
I'll have to check that out further. A 60 second look before the first coffee is done isn't helping me to understand it. Not the experience that end users should have. Thanks for the link.
By way of background. I've got 8 Linux systems using 2 distributions mainly. I also play with others, so when I donate, I think what is eight times what I want to donate etc. This project should be something that I can register eight systems with. That is to say that whatever donation option I choose, I should be able to annotate that it is for xyz number of systems, and the site/service would add that up for me so that I don't have to go through the process 8 times. Even two times would be tough going for just wanting to donate. Hell, I don't even want to fill in a questionnaire for a chance at a free iPod, never mind to give money away.
I agree with your thoughts on the problematic issues with a donation system. I definitely believe it would be something that needs more heads on it than one. Certainly more than just mine. One major problem is that each distribution should need to have some input as the packages in each can be and are different.
Since it is donation, I think it should be both automagical and subjective. It should be as simple as 1- 'divide it among all apps on distribution disk' or that are in use 2- 'base packages plus others I select' or 3- 'let me pick which packages'
The automagic part would be to note which packages are being used, present the list of them, and the options for splits as above.
Even with just three options, the site/service would then have to collect the money and mark accounts to distribute to. Technically, this is not an overwhelming problem for code, but it gets political on the UI and on the legal side of moving those donations to the right project funds. Collecting the money and disbursing once a week or month would make bigger values for easier transactions, but might also clash considerably with the preferred method of donation by many projects. So, even before opening the website there is much politicking to do. Do you seek out co-operation, or wait for package devs to apply? Tough questions that I would not want lone responsibility for.
Again, each distro can be different, so input from the packagers would be very useful. With large groups such as Canonical, I'd imagine it might be straight forward. With smaller ones it might not. I've seen some packages that I could not find donation methods for.
Lastly, should such a service offer a check box to collect a small tip for making it easier to donate? Should that service scrape a few pennies from donations? By pennies, I don't mean millions, I mean just enough to stay open. Should the service rely on donation recipients to play it back in support? All questions that should be handled by a group of people to think it through.
So, I'm willing to put in time/effort for such a service. Any other volunteers? Any package maintainers with input?
I'm listening. Should probably start a project page/website....
The parent has pegged a round hole with a square question. Hardware support in Linux works well if you build your own machines, or happen to get one with supported hardware. How do you find a system that is fully supported and for which distributions?
This is still a problem for F/OSS software. Some distributions are better at handling the problem than others. For many end users, finding a proprietary driver and installing it on Linux is a deal-breaker.
I'm glad to see that ATI is moving toward support for all OS software, but it still leaves the general community with a problem. That problem won't go away until hardware manufacturers support F/OSS out of the box. It means changing their model and prospective future business plans to some extent.
I'm willing to bet that if everyone who *REALLY* wants to see great F/OSS drivers for ATI were to plop down $5 USD it would make a difference to how they are thinking about releasing drivers. Yes, $50,000 might not be much but it also might make a difference to ATI. This falls into a category of donations that I've talked about before.
Finding who to donate to is not always easy since many apps are hidden from the user, such as Samba, drivers, etc. It would be good if there were some place people could just drop a donation for the distribution they are using and feel safe that some percentage of that went to all those apps that are part of the distribution. This always brings up some heart felt discussion, but I think something like this is an awesome thing that would help drive better development for F/OSS software. See, getting $1.75 per user is a lot of money to some F/OSS teams. Hell, even fifty cents would be a lot more than they are getting now. So a donation of 50 or 75 bucks could mean a lot to many people. I try to donate to the apps that I use the most and I KNOW how difficult it is to do that.
If anyone is interested in progressing such a thing, contact me. I can probably find some time to donate to this as a project.
You let it grow on the vine, until the rose bush is taking over the green house and killing any other plants. Then when you think you have the most beautiful flower every, cut it off, put it in a vase and let it slowly wilt until it becomes a faded memory that even Mr Science can't revive.
Vista is a view of the once venerable XP, in the same way that a wilting rose is a view of a once beautiful budding flower.
My prediction? Microsoft is a Rose will hit #1 on the billboard charts in 2009.
BTW, besides those rescuers you see on television after a storm, remember that there are ordinary heroes sitting in a truck babysitting a generator, or climbing poles, or renting a snowcat to get to the tower site so that your phone will work when you want it to. They are suffering the elements, usually alone, and bear the responsibilities of ensuring your comfort with little or no thanks. They are up all night watching the weather, planning and preparing to go babysit that tower(s) so your phone or pager will work. They work almost tirelessly for the simple comfort of knowing that when the shit hit the fan, the equipment they are responsible for did not fail. They are little appreciated on a normal day, and unseen during the emergency, but it is their dedication that you count on and not the system or the company.
They are trying to fix it, much the same way that Sarbanes-Oxley fixes accounting problems. Communications providers are required to keep an 8 hour power backup on all sites and 24+ backup on 'important' sites like switching centers or something along those lines. The idea is that storms like those that hit New Orleans would not cause the problems that they did. This storm is exactly the thing this measure by the FCC is supposed to fix... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Legislators (Goodbye FCC) do NOT know how to run businesses. Some perhaps, but on the whole they are terrible business advisers and this legislation only proves it in the aftermath of this storm. I hold a harsh opinion of this situation because AT&T should have had backups in place to handle this situation. All Communications providers deal with such things and AT&T has enough history to know what to do... shame on them.
Okay, I'll bite since a few here think you should be responded to. What exactly is "it" that you get when you elect niggers?
This article is about broadband access, more specifically the new president's thoughts on providing it to everyone, presumably even yourself unless you opt to not use it because the president is black or something. Judging from the kind of data you seem to want to share on the Internet I'm going to guess that many people will feel a small smile inside when they think of you sitting at home rubbing your cheeto stained fingers in your nose while watching reruns of Beevis and Butthead till the wee hours of the morning in your mom's basement.
Just so you might get some clue, Obama promised change and for better or worse this would be change, except the part about you picking your nose with cheetos stained fingers. One thing I'm not sure that anyone in the government really understands is that people who are not paying for broadband now are likely to not want to pay for it in the future either. Add to that the fact that the government will then be responsible for helping virus software to spread at an alarmingly faster pace in the US, and subsequently the world. I doubt that such careless thinking has any fucking thing to do with the skin color of the president, though if all the cable that gets installed is black, you might be on to something.
Now, that didn't even address the horrific possibilities of invasion of privacy, federal enforcement of copyright infringement laws, and big brother right in your house 24/7. I'm also reasonably certain that the government had a pretty good grip on those evils long before a black man ever stepped foot inside the Whitehouse never mind electing a black man.
It's certain that the US imprisons more people every year than the rest of the world put together so that can't be Obama's fault. If he changes that by decriminalizing a few things it would be good change. If he doesn't it's status quo and you can blame the fucking white man for that.
Others here on/. are probably as confused as I am... what exactly is it that you get when you elect niggers?
It's not so much the compliment when you consider that I am a computer scientist by your definition. I have no degree, am not working on such, and feel that such a degree means nothing. I believe that F/OSS is part and parcel of your ideals. Bill G would not approve.
A good philosophy, but not one held by educators, thus my point. Such a high minded philosophy is good, but not many will live up to it... ever.
Computer science is arguably not science. It's just using tools and/or inventing new tools. It's not dissimilar from information science, or construction science.
Don't get me wrong, I wish all educators held your opinion.
I'm sorry, but what you said is invalid. No math teacher can make a student a genius, only show that student what is known. Likewise, for CS, a teacher can only show a student what is known and curriculum usually lags behind reality by several years. No teacher will ever successfully create a CS genius. All they can ever do is show a student the philosophies and generalities. Do you know a philosophy of computer science? Didn't think so. So what should a teacher teach? While you and everyone else cannot define it, a teacher cannot teach it. Sure, they can teach java or C++ but they cannot teach computer science, or the gestalt of computing. It is not defined.
That's correct. My mind was fuzzy last night. Rereading it makes it very appropriate to this story though as it points out the minute variations in silicon/computers that is ignored by most software etc. as used today because of clocks etc. If the clock is not quite right, weird things can happen. Skynet was a clock failure?
Does anyone else wish we could call the Enterprise back Earthside to do geologic surveys of this planet?
Space travel is a good goal, but if you consider all the things that Star Trek presented as part of space travel, I'd be impressed if we started inventing them now to study THIS planet. Perhaps if we understood volcanoes better, we'd understand more about climate control for the planet and THAT would be a worthy goal. It's always good to hear there is money still for such research. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Actually, (sorry no link) there was a researcher that was using FPGAs and AI code to create simple circuits, but the goals was to have the AI design it. What he found is that due to minor manufacturing defects, the code that was built by AI was dependent on the FPGA it was tested on and would not work on just any FPGA of that specification. After 600 iterations, you'd think it would be good. One experiment went for a long time, and in the end when he analyzed the AI generated code, there were 5 paths/circuits inside that did nothing. If he disabled any or all of the 5 the overall design failed. Somehow, the AI found that creating these do nothing loops/circuits caused a favorable behavior in other parts of the FPGA that made for overall success. Naturally that code would not work on any other FPGA of the specified type. It was an interesting read, sorry that I don't have a link.
Now, I think that all we need to do is search through all the ST episodes and movies (especially time travel ones) and see if anyone can spot Bill G anywhere.... hmmmmm or perhaps Melinda G. If Bill has used his money to build a time machine, or probably just got an email from himself telling him what he has to do to live long enough to build a time machine... yes, I like this plot. Can we get a fan site to put the plot out there ?
Not just the building blocks, but the first of many iterations. The compute power going into cell phones lately is pretty high and it won't be long before you can do much more. Imagine a small suitcase lab powered by a cellphone and a few accessories. It will cost less than those $100 laptops and do much more for poor communities. Imagine your $100 donation every year keeping 1000 in better physical health? Imagine....
With a bit of tech and a sat link, very expensive western doctors can very cheaply be part of the suitcase experiment that allows them to add their knowledge to a database of medical knowledge that builds the code for the first robotic doctor, or online third world doctor.
Software can be written that uses video analysis to identify visible symptoms if there is a picture of the patient when not sick. All that ear/nose/throat simple visual analysis can be done by a computer or a tech with medical computers etc. If a cell phone can do this much already, just wait.
Now, if Bill G were really interested in changing the world's health... perhaps he'd get on-board with this obvious idea. Who knows. He's got a lot of money.
Everyone else seemed to get the humor... breathe, relax... or are you pissed off about the candles and wooden tops? It's Hanukkah, be happy! Seriously, take a joke already.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that feeling, but this one is not so bad, and it does protect the value to some degree. I did not lose the gains made before the recent housing crisis... yet. So I'm happy for what I'm getting. I participate in the HOA aministration as well, so again, not so bad. I do know what you mean though. 4000 rules and not one person that knows what the fuck they mean is typical. This particular one is much better than that.
This company has several options, and there are others. This is as close to professional grade as you can get cheaply. There are cheaper options that utilize a mandraulic process, but that doesn't help if you are on the west coast for holidays when the power drops. Don't forget to figure maintenance costs as it's not a one time charge for such a system. Most people ignore maintenance costs for heaters and A/C units and just repair when it breaks, but this is something you want to make sure works regularly.
If you go with something that is not N/G powered, there is more maintenance to do. Cutting back to bare necessities under backup power can cause installation difficulties, but reduce overall costs long term by reducing the size of generator required etc.
I'm discussing with the HOA the possibility of solar charging for a battery backup system at my location. Heat is never a problem here, but fans would be nice if power failed, as would A/C. I've got plenty of sun and wind, so want to use that as a regular stipend to my household budgeting. Hopefully there will be tax breaks for this soon, and perhaps you can search around to see if some version of backup will qualify for tax breaks to drop the price for you.
I got a wii for xmas and I'm thinking wii sports is easier to learn than that fix! That's enough contortions to nab a 6 under par on the intermediate golf!
Don't forget kids, always wear the screwdriver wrist strap tightly, and stand back at least 6 feet from operational electronic equipment. We don't want this virus getting into your tivo or anything.
Actually, Ubuntu made it easier... do the install, reboot, soon as the OS figures out what is going on it displays an expansion card icon with a note saying advanced non-licensed drivers are available. Click the icon and it goes to the install window. Click, click, done. Currently with 8.10 it shows three drivers available, and 'recommends' the latest version. I think it's pretty awesome actually. I didn't have to look for anything, just pay attention to the icons. Even my parents could handle that.
Free is just one aspect, to be distributed with the OS under a GPL license, proprietary drivers can't be included per se. It's to do with the licensing rather than the religion. Ubunutu allows you to load proprietary drivers for Nvidia as non-licensed. They even make it easy. It just can't be part of the distribution because of the licensing, unless I've missed it as well. It means going an extra step when what is needed is 'works out of the box' functionality. This is what would make better F/OSS drivers from AMD special... they can be included with the distribution, not to mention that it widens the list of supported graphics cards.
say what? Dvorak keyboards are great if you want to type in what amounts to two different languages, and it's designed to accommodate speed and efficiency for ten fingers, not one finger and two thumbs.
If you are going to break away from the standard qwerty keyboard, why not try to do something that makes sense for two thumbs and a finger? Understanding that you would have two circular areas for common keys, and best to have them arranged so that you get best efficiency switching between thumbs on alternating letters.
T9 is meant for touch tone keypads, this swipe is designed for efficiency on soft keyboards. If you want to maximize efficiency for thumbs, start all over again please.
Awesome. This has been much more productive than I imagined. That should be an option for end users also: to be able to donate to dev teams with hardware or money for hardware.
I think that with some simple marketing and explanations it's possible to get end users to understand that their donation went to someone or a group who directly work on code that they use, rather than some faceless big corporation. Sort of the same feeling those commercials try to elicit by showing you starving kids with only one shoe who live next to a railroad track in some poor foreign country. "Your 75 cents per day will keep poor Marietta in clothes and food for months, and you'll get pictures of your child..." blah blah blah
Nothing like a starving developer commercial... right? Seriously, This all started for me because I find it difficult to donate to all the groups whose code I use because of it's inclusion in the distro ISO. I donate regularly but would like to know that even the guy who did nothing but a small app that is used by Gnome for handling floppies gets some reward for helping to make my experience awesome. I'm that impressed by Linux that I want to pay for it!
I think that other end users will be the same if there is an easy place and method to donate. Not many people will work hard to donate if it takes a lot of effort. All suggestions are welcome. No one person will be able to easily figure this out.
I'll have to check that out further. A 60 second look before the first coffee is done isn't helping me to understand it. Not the experience that end users should have. Thanks for the link.
By way of background. I've got 8 Linux systems using 2 distributions mainly. I also play with others, so when I donate, I think what is eight times what I want to donate etc. This project should be something that I can register eight systems with. That is to say that whatever donation option I choose, I should be able to annotate that it is for xyz number of systems, and the site/service would add that up for me so that I don't have to go through the process 8 times. Even two times would be tough going for just wanting to donate. Hell, I don't even want to fill in a questionnaire for a chance at a free iPod, never mind to give money away.
I agree with your thoughts on the problematic issues with a donation system. I definitely believe it would be something that needs more heads on it than one. Certainly more than just mine. One major problem is that each distribution should need to have some input as the packages in each can be and are different.
Since it is donation, I think it should be both automagical and subjective. It should be as simple as
1- 'divide it among all apps on distribution disk' or that are in use
2- 'base packages plus others I select' or
3- 'let me pick which packages'
The automagic part would be to note which packages are being used, present the list of them, and the options for splits as above.
Even with just three options, the site/service would then have to collect the money and mark accounts to distribute to. Technically, this is not an overwhelming problem for code, but it gets political on the UI and on the legal side of moving those donations to the right project funds. Collecting the money and disbursing once a week or month would make bigger values for easier transactions, but might also clash considerably with the preferred method of donation by many projects. So, even before opening the website there is much politicking to do. Do you seek out co-operation, or wait for package devs to apply? Tough questions that I would not want lone responsibility for.
Again, each distro can be different, so input from the packagers would be very useful. With large groups such as Canonical, I'd imagine it might be straight forward. With smaller ones it might not. I've seen some packages that I could not find donation methods for.
Lastly, should such a service offer a check box to collect a small tip for making it easier to donate? Should that service scrape a few pennies from donations? By pennies, I don't mean millions, I mean just enough to stay open. Should the service rely on donation recipients to play it back in support? All questions that should be handled by a group of people to think it through.
So, I'm willing to put in time/effort for such a service. Any other volunteers? Any package maintainers with input?
I'm listening. Should probably start a project page/website....
Cheers
The parent has pegged a round hole with a square question. Hardware support in Linux works well if you build your own machines, or happen to get one with supported hardware. How do you find a system that is fully supported and for which distributions?
This is still a problem for F/OSS software. Some distributions are better at handling the problem than others. For many end users, finding a proprietary driver and installing it on Linux is a deal-breaker.
I'm glad to see that ATI is moving toward support for all OS software, but it still leaves the general community with a problem. That problem won't go away until hardware manufacturers support F/OSS out of the box. It means changing their model and prospective future business plans to some extent.
I'm willing to bet that if everyone who *REALLY* wants to see great F/OSS drivers for ATI were to plop down $5 USD it would make a difference to how they are thinking about releasing drivers. Yes, $50,000 might not be much but it also might make a difference to ATI. This falls into a category of donations that I've talked about before.
Finding who to donate to is not always easy since many apps are hidden from the user, such as Samba, drivers, etc. It would be good if there were some place people could just drop a donation for the distribution they are using and feel safe that some percentage of that went to all those apps that are part of the distribution. This always brings up some heart felt discussion, but I think something like this is an awesome thing that would help drive better development for F/OSS software. See, getting $1.75 per user is a lot of money to some F/OSS teams. Hell, even fifty cents would be a lot more than they are getting now. So a donation of 50 or 75 bucks could mean a lot to many people. I try to donate to the apps that I use the most and I KNOW how difficult it is to do that.
If anyone is interested in progressing such a thing, contact me. I can probably find some time to donate to this as a project.
You let it grow on the vine, until the rose bush is taking over the green house and killing any other plants. Then when you think you have the most beautiful flower every, cut it off, put it in a vase and let it slowly wilt until it becomes a faded memory that even Mr Science can't revive.
Vista is a view of the once venerable XP, in the same way that a wilting rose is a view of a once beautiful budding flower.
My prediction? Microsoft is a Rose will hit #1 on the billboard charts in 2009.
BTW, besides those rescuers you see on television after a storm, remember that there are ordinary heroes sitting in a truck babysitting a generator, or climbing poles, or renting a snowcat to get to the tower site so that your phone will work when you want it to. They are suffering the elements, usually alone, and bear the responsibilities of ensuring your comfort with little or no thanks. They are up all night watching the weather, planning and preparing to go babysit that tower(s) so your phone or pager will work. They work almost tirelessly for the simple comfort of knowing that when the shit hit the fan, the equipment they are responsible for did not fail. They are little appreciated on a normal day, and unseen during the emergency, but it is their dedication that you count on and not the system or the company.
They are trying to fix it, much the same way that Sarbanes-Oxley fixes accounting problems. Communications providers are required to keep an 8 hour power backup on all sites and 24+ backup on 'important' sites like switching centers or something along those lines. The idea is that storms like those that hit New Orleans would not cause the problems that they did. This storm is exactly the thing this measure by the FCC is supposed to fix... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Legislators (Goodbye FCC) do NOT know how to run businesses. Some perhaps, but on the whole they are terrible business advisers and this legislation only proves it in the aftermath of this storm. I hold a harsh opinion of this situation because AT&T should have had backups in place to handle this situation. All Communications providers deal with such things and AT&T has enough history to know what to do... shame on them.
Troll? Awesome, thanks for wasting your mod point... wow
Okay, I'll bite since a few here think you should be responded to. What exactly is "it" that you get when you elect niggers?
This article is about broadband access, more specifically the new president's thoughts on providing it to everyone, presumably even yourself unless you opt to not use it because the president is black or something. Judging from the kind of data you seem to want to share on the Internet I'm going to guess that many people will feel a small smile inside when they think of you sitting at home rubbing your cheeto stained fingers in your nose while watching reruns of Beevis and Butthead till the wee hours of the morning in your mom's basement.
Just so you might get some clue, Obama promised change and for better or worse this would be change, except the part about you picking your nose with cheetos stained fingers. One thing I'm not sure that anyone in the government really understands is that people who are not paying for broadband now are likely to not want to pay for it in the future either. Add to that the fact that the government will then be responsible for helping virus software to spread at an alarmingly faster pace in the US, and subsequently the world. I doubt that such careless thinking has any fucking thing to do with the skin color of the president, though if all the cable that gets installed is black, you might be on to something.
Now, that didn't even address the horrific possibilities of invasion of privacy, federal enforcement of copyright infringement laws, and big brother right in your house 24/7. I'm also reasonably certain that the government had a pretty good grip on those evils long before a black man ever stepped foot inside the Whitehouse never mind electing a black man.
It's certain that the US imprisons more people every year than the rest of the world put together so that can't be Obama's fault. If he changes that by decriminalizing a few things it would be good change. If he doesn't it's status quo and you can blame the fucking white man for that.
Others here on /. are probably as confused as I am... what exactly is it that you get when you elect niggers?
It's not so much the compliment when you consider that I am a computer scientist by your definition. I have no degree, am not working on such, and feel that such a degree means nothing. I believe that F/OSS is part and parcel of your ideals. Bill G would not approve.
A good philosophy, but not one held by educators, thus my point. Such a high minded philosophy is good, but not many will live up to it... ever.
Computer science is arguably not science. It's just using tools and/or inventing new tools. It's not dissimilar from information science, or construction science.
Don't get me wrong, I wish all educators held your opinion.
I'm sorry, but what you said is invalid. No math teacher can make a student a genius, only show that student what is known. Likewise, for CS, a teacher can only show a student what is known and curriculum usually lags behind reality by several years. No teacher will ever successfully create a CS genius. All they can ever do is show a student the philosophies and generalities. Do you know a philosophy of computer science? Didn't think so. So what should a teacher teach? While you and everyone else cannot define it, a teacher cannot teach it. Sure, they can teach java or C++ but they cannot teach computer science, or the gestalt of computing. It is not defined.
That's correct. My mind was fuzzy last night. Rereading it makes it very appropriate to this story though as it points out the minute variations in silicon/computers that is ignored by most software etc. as used today because of clocks etc. If the clock is not quite right, weird things can happen. Skynet was a clock failure?
This article mentions how it won't work on only the FPGA it was developed on.
Does anyone else wish we could call the Enterprise back Earthside to do geologic surveys of this planet?
Space travel is a good goal, but if you consider all the things that Star Trek presented as part of space travel, I'd be impressed if we started inventing them now to study THIS planet. Perhaps if we understood volcanoes better, we'd understand more about climate control for the planet and THAT would be a worthy goal. It's always good to hear there is money still for such research. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Actually, (sorry no link) there was a researcher that was using FPGAs and AI code to create simple circuits, but the goals was to have the AI design it. What he found is that due to minor manufacturing defects, the code that was built by AI was dependent on the FPGA it was tested on and would not work on just any FPGA of that specification. After 600 iterations, you'd think it would be good. One experiment went for a long time, and in the end when he analyzed the AI generated code, there were 5 paths/circuits inside that did nothing. If he disabled any or all of the 5 the overall design failed. Somehow, the AI found that creating these do nothing loops/circuits caused a favorable behavior in other parts of the FPGA that made for overall success. Naturally that code would not work on any other FPGA of the specified type. It was an interesting read, sorry that I don't have a link.
Oh damn, RTFA really is useful? ouch
Now, I think that all we need to do is search through all the ST episodes and movies (especially time travel ones) and see if anyone can spot Bill G anywhere.... hmmmmm or perhaps Melinda G. If Bill has used his money to build a time machine, or probably just got an email from himself telling him what he has to do to live long enough to build a time machine... yes, I like this plot. Can we get a fan site to put the plot out there ?
Not just the building blocks, but the first of many iterations. The compute power going into cell phones lately is pretty high and it won't be long before you can do much more. Imagine a small suitcase lab powered by a cellphone and a few accessories. It will cost less than those $100 laptops and do much more for poor communities. Imagine your $100 donation every year keeping 1000 in better physical health? Imagine....
With a bit of tech and a sat link, very expensive western doctors can very cheaply be part of the suitcase experiment that allows them to add their knowledge to a database of medical knowledge that builds the code for the first robotic doctor, or online third world doctor.
Software can be written that uses video analysis to identify visible symptoms if there is a picture of the patient when not sick. All that ear/nose/throat simple visual analysis can be done by a computer or a tech with medical computers etc. If a cell phone can do this much already, just wait.
Now, if Bill G were really interested in changing the world's health... perhaps he'd get on-board with this obvious idea. Who knows. He's got a lot of money.
Everyone else seemed to get the humor... breathe, relax... or are you pissed off about the candles and wooden tops? It's Hanukkah, be happy! Seriously, take a joke already.