Many campus police departments are morphing into heavily armed garrisons, equipped with a wide array of weaponry, from Taser stun guns and pepper guns to shotguns and semiautomatic rifles.
Dear me, police armed with non lethal weapons? They have guns in a gun owning society? We're all doomed, I say, doomed.
I would like to point out that "campus security" and Police are two completely different animals in most locations.
Police go through extensive training, yearly physical and mental exams, weapons qualification, and oversight. (not saying there aren't bad cops, but most of them are, if nothing else, well trained.)
Campus security, on the other hand are usually either college age students with 4 weeks of very basic training, or rent-a-cops pulled from local private firms. The only time you see actual police officers on campus is during sports events, or when they're en route to a call on the opposite side of campus.
For the record, every male in my family is either retired, active, or volunteer police, and I myself spent 2 years as a rent-a-cop. I assure you there is a very large difference between the two. While I barely feel comfortable with the former being armed, I would rather hand a loaded pistol to a drunk gorilla than any of the low pay "private security officers" that I have met.
Note: I am not referring to the ex-military or ex-police members of the private security sector, as they are generally competent, intelligent, effective, and not working as campus security...
I do. Or rather a tiny battery that only gives me 3 minutes of backup. (In other words a built in ups) I use my laptop as a portable workstation, but am almost never in a location without electricity. If I needed more than three minutes of battery, I would be glad to bring a larger external battery pack along. The only time I don't plug my laptop in is when i'm in an environment where it's likely that the power plug will be yanked from the laptop for some reason. Which brings us to my next point.
Perhaps something that clicks into place but isn't a pain to remove
That is exactly what the Magsafe does.
Not quite.
I don't believe the OP was referring to the sound made by the power adapter when plugged in, instead he was referring to a solid, clipping (or screwing) connection similar to either rj45 or most gaming console controller plugs. A good, solid, well made plug that can handle being bumped, yanked, or tripped over.
I disagree with him. I owned a toshiba laptop some 10 years ago that had a good solid connector, It was constatly being knocked off of the table because the cord wouldn't disconnect.
I feel that a magsafe adapter, coupled with a 3 minute backup battery would be more than sufficient for a lot of people.
If you want a laptop without a battery so that you can have a compact desktop, buy a desktop.
Now this is just ridiculous.
Yes the pc's themselves have gotten wonderfully small. But you still need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I am definitely not going to carry 10lbs of gear to the local coffee shop, pull out 4 different parts, run cables, etc, just for 20 minutes of work while i'm waiting for a client to meet me.
Hp DV8000, Has 2 separate ports for hard drives. Unfortunately the default bios tries to run the 2 drives as a raid array (no way to disable it without an update).
GP wasn't talking about dams. What he is referring to is more along the lines of old water-driven mills, a large water wheel or small turbine, but no dam. Only thing needed is a somewhat fast-moving stream or a large slow body of water. While dams are more efficient, he seems to be thinking a lot of smaller, less efficient wheels and turbines making up the difference without the environmental impacts.
From your list it's pretty obvious that you replace hardware well before it breaks.
If you have a box of 15 pda's dating over a 10 year span, thats a new pda every year, even if you account for some of those having been given to you.
I can't afford to do that, and honestly don't see the point in it. I have some very old hardware which i still use, and i have newer devices of the same type that have died.
The manufacturers have stopped designing for ruggedness, and have started designing things to break.
Palm Pilots are an excellent example, i have a handspring visor and a palm 3 that both still work. Both came with a nice, hard plastic, screen cover And both cost me less than $100
Two months ago I purchased a New palm TX for $300. It came with a cheap leather cover which barely covers the screen. I mail ordered a hard cover for it the same day, because none of the local stores carried one.
Before the cover arrived the screen had already been shattered. I has set it on the sofa next to me, and my girlfriend sat on it. This is a very soft sofa, and a rather tiny girl.
Both my Palm and visor have spent years in my back pockets, being sat on, dropped, kicked (i do martial arts with my brothers) and at one point I was thrown into a swimming pool with the visor in my pocket.
I'm not asking for a bulletproof device, (though that would be nice), I'm asking for devices that match up to the products made by the same company 8 years ago.
All I want is something that i can use daily, carry with me, and not have to replace every year. Phones, Pdas, Laptops, ad nauseum. All of them, while having gotten faster, have gotten more fragile.
Please, show me a motorola phone made in the last 3 years that can fall out of a 3 story window without dying.
I have one made 6 years ago that did it twice.
Show me a pda made that can get tossed into the pool.
my visor did it.
Show me a new laptop that can survive being knocked off of the table.
My old hp can and has.
Not one of the older devices has cost as much as the newer devices that have attempted to replace them. Even accounting for inflation, the newer devices are more expensive, and are less well made.
I am currently shopping for a laptop, but have yet to find one that I feel will last more than a few years.
I like the design of the toughbooks, but the price is ridiculous. I should not be expected to pay 4 times as much for a laptop that is only marginally more rugged than my old laptop. I don't mind carrying around 5 pounds of gear, I do mind having to replace that gear constantly, and I do mind getting fleeced for it.
I disagree with most of your comments, so i'm going to discuss them one at a time.
I think one of the most common misconceptions is that it is expensive to go to Europe. Yes it is expensive if you want to travel during peak season, stay in American hotels, eat at high class restaurants, and stay for 2 weeks. However, if you plan it right, you can spend time in Europe without blowing your budget, you just have to be adventurous and a bit flexible.
Lets compare. I'll avoid luxuries like american hotels and high class restaurants, by just comparing travel costs.
Home is Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Flying from home to Paris, France. == $800/ea Flying from home to California. == $200/ea Flying from home to New York. == $300/ea
Now lets say I rent a 15 passenger van and bring 9 friends.
Driving from home to Las Vegas == $400/total == $40/ea Driving from home to New York == $600/total == $60/ea
So, flying, I can take 2 trips for the cost of one trip to france. While driving, I can either take 2 trips alone, or 10 if I bring along friends.
That's a big difference, wouldn't you say?
Yes, you can travel around Europe for very cheap if you want to be flexible, but the initial cost to get there is the problem.
it likely is not nearly as inexpensive to travel in the US as you assume. For many people the fact you are paying in US Dollars is a safety net and somehow reduces the cost.
The type of currency being used isn't a problem. It's the amount of it. As you and I both stated, it's not that expensive to travel inside another country. it's the cost of getting there that the GP poster was saying is too much.
but I can't see Paris in a weekend.
Sure you can! Can you see all of it? No, but you can see part of it and more importantly you can get an idea where else you might want to go in Paris and in France.
Lets count. (all times local timezone) I get off of work on friday at 5pm, drive straight to the airport, and get on a plane at 9pm. I spend 4 hours getting to Los Angeles International arriving at 1 am saturday, spend 2 hours in a layover (if i'm lucky) and 8 hours in the air. This puts me arriving at the Paris Airport at 11 am on saturday. Now if i'm stubborn, slept on the plane, and avoided jetlag by a miracle, this gives me 24 hours before i have to board my flight home to be at work at 7:30am monday.
So at $1600 i've spent $66 for every hour that I'm in Paris, not counting food, hotel, or hours that I may be sleeping. I also wouldn't have anytime to relax and enjoy myself as that 24hour timer would be ticking in my head.
So no, I would say that I cannot see Paris in a weekend.
I've travelled enough in the US to have crossed Europe twice over, and for a combined cost similar to what it would have been to go to Europe once.
I travel for a living and I find that very hard to believe.
I can rent a 15 passenger van for $30 a day, split gas with 5 friends, and go anywhere in the US for less than $200 round trip. I can rent a 4 room cabin in south carolina for $50/day. So for less than $300 I can take a week long vacation, bring friends, and afford to do it 2 more times on what on trip to Paris would cost. I find it very easy to believe...
It comes down to convenience. People in the US like convenience and spending 16 hours on a plane to spend 4 days in Europe just isn't convenient for most people.
No it's not convenient, but it's even less cost effective. I can see spending $800/ea for us to go backpacking in Europe, but for a 4 d
As I see it, the problem with your argument is your implication that big business and government are on opposite sides. Currently big business has the money, and government has the power, and both want what the other has to offer. The consumer/citizen however has neither money, nor power, and as such is unable to influence either directly.
Limiting the power of the government simply means that the businesses will fill the void, while attempts to limit the income of big business will simply cause them to throw more money at the government.
This isn't an either/or solution, it's all or nothing.
What is needed are checks and regulations preventing collusion between the two. The government needs to be forced to use it's power to limit business, and business need to be prevented from using money to influence government.
It seems to me that where your argument breaks is that you believe that the Mind has some immeasurable value that makes it different from software.
Our own intelligence and self aware state is commonly aggreed to be the result of lower level actions, which are the result of simple, basic chemical reactions. As stated by others in this thread, chemical reactions can be simulated, computed, calculated, and predicted. So it follows that our intelligence can also be simulated, computed, calculated, and predicted. Attempting to claim otherwise is implying some magical property exists in the mind that is not based on measurable reactions, and turns this discussion into a religious matter.
In computers, you can break down advanced operations to a level where you only use binary, the brain is the same.
The mind is the net result of the software, which is emulated by extremely specific hardware (the brain). If you ask me a question, I process it based on input. the input may be stored in my long term memory, but at one point it was still input. In other words, the neurons in my head do not understand english. They simply compare current input to past input, and if a match, perform an action.
The brain is similar to asic hardware in high end network routing gear, a hardware representation of software. If you break down brain function, what you have are neurons accepting various types of chemical and electrical input and then acting upon the electrical input using a finite set of hard wired reactions based on the chemical input. While we do not understand exactly what these rules are, we can observe the input/output pairs that result.
The chinese room argues that the man in the room is following an infinite set of pre determined rules, whereas the measured reactions in the brain demonstrate a reccuring loop of simple rules being use to create contexts.
instead of one chinese room with infinite rules, and only one input, imagine an infinite (or finite, but very large) series of rooms, each with multiple inputs and multiple outputs.
Now give the men in each room identical instructions, and a unique bit of data which represents one character of chinese.
Now send your chinese text through this system of rooms one character at a time. As the data is introduced to the system the rooms comunicate with each other to determin a context and a response based on the combined results of their tests. No one Room knows more than one word of chinese, but with a sufficient amount of data from each other the sentence can be replied to.
in this way a series of identical rooms can, using a set of simple rules, act upon any input in a way that, from the outside appears intelligent.
This is how the human brain funtions at the neuron level, and with the proper set of rules, can be simulated in software. The only problem is time. Just like the aformentioned hardware router, the brain uses extrememly fine-tuned and specific hardware implementation to perform, in hardware, actions that take many thousands of cycles in software. Each neuron has hundreds of states. The brain is running 100 million copies of this 1000 state Case statement concurrently.
The software itself is very simple, where our problem lies is in speed of execution.
Any modern computer can simulate a single neron in real time. However, we have not developed a computer powerful enough to run more than a few hundred copies of this simultation in real time. Thus making low level Artificial Intellegence impossible With Current Hardware
The --only-- difference between Intellegence and Strong (or true) Artifical Intelligence is the hardware that it is running on.
As Procyon101 has stated, an Infinite universal computer would have the ability to run an infinite number of neuron simulating loops in realtime, and as such, using a very simple algorithm, emulate an artificial intelligence. However, as we do not have access to an infinite Universal Computer at this time we are attempting to use higher level optimizations to create an accurate working simulation.
Next year, my monthly rent will be $296. In Baton Rouge, LA right now a one room apartment is $300 a month. This used to be a dorm room for a bible college, so that should give you an idea of how small we're talking. I don't even have a kitchen. The 2 bedroom we are moving into next month is $900, and the cheapest 1 bedroom with a kitchen is $550. so 100$ is easily a fifth of rent.
my biweekly paycheck after taxes is about $850 (working 60 hours/week). so for 120 hours, you make $850. That comes out to approx 425/wk at 60 hours. However, not all of us have a job that offers overtime, so lets calculate your pay at 40 hours, shall we?
60 hours = 40 at time and 20 at time and a half, so 70 hours at normal pay $850 bi weekly, so 425/wk after tax.
$425/70= $6.07
$6.07*40= $242.80
So according to my math, a $99 windows licence does, in fact, cost approx half of your weekly income before overtime.
The lameness filter is trying to eat my post, so im going to have to spread out my graph just a bit...
The way i understand it, the net is a tree, and the backbone providers already are getting thier cut right off of the top.
I pay for 2 connections, one at home through Cox communications, and one for work with Adelphia. Cox and adelphia, both pay thier respective bandwidth bills to a larger isp above them in the tree, who in turn pays one of the backbone providers for thier bandwidth. something like this rather simplified example)
.....Backbone providers # not having to pay for their right of ways, because the Government gave them 3 feet of my back yard... .............l .....intermediate isps # paying n thousand $ per month for OC3's ......l.......l......l .....Isp.....isp.....Content providers (google) # paying $500 a month/per t3 for multiple Ts ......l.......l millions of end users all over the world # all paying $40-$80 every month for 128k
Everyone involved pays the person above them for the bandwith they need, then charge the people below them for the percentages they need + whatever markup they choose. I pay for the bandwidth i need, and so do the content providers. If either myself or google decide to stop paying for the bandwidth we use, we can pay less for a slower link, or more for a faster one. Niether should have to pay extra for increased Qos priority.
The backbone providers already get paid for the connections the provide, but now they want to charge twice.
What college did you go to, and how long ago was this?
I'm a sysadmin, but want to improve my programming ability.
I've been sadly disappointed by our local and state colleges CS programs and this is exactly the type of class I would love to attend.
Why can't there be a stable ABI compatability module? Basically have the ABI remain fluid, but have an optional module that provides a stable layer for use by closed source drivers. Similar to ndiswrapper, but without all the dll dependancies that windows drivers tend to have. This way we have the best of both worlds, Closely linked drivers in the kernel, and a separate layer to prevent binary drivers from breaking things, while allowing companies like nvidia and ati to provide us with fully functioning drivers without having to release proprietary information.
One thing that most of us seem to be forgetting is that the ones who suffer aren't companies like ati or nvidia, It's the end users, and those of us who want to see linux become a major player in the desktop market. As long as Joe User can't install linux and play his games, we don't stand a chance. Most design firms are going to look at linux, see the major performance problems that we have with the major hardware vendors, and decide that there is no reason to bother with multiplatform releases. Even games that were written in opengl and were ported to both windows and Mac are not released on linux. (Diablo2 anyone) Why? because theres a really good argument against it. Programmer1 "Ok, lets see, What operating systems are we going to support? Programmer2 "Hey, why not make a linux port?" Programmer1 "No way, if we do that we can't use "SuperPixelTrickOfTheDay tm", cause the drivers suck. Programmer2 "Oh yeah"
One thing that a stable ABI would do is increase the likelyhood of vendors writing drivers for more uncommon hardware. The ABI being a moving target makes development harder, as the programmers can't just learn how to format the driver one time. They have to play catchup every time theres a change.
Doesn't change the fact that someone who is concerned with mac filtering and wep should at least know what ssh tunneling is. Whether he uses it or not, there are some things that a "IT professional" should be aware of. I've had several situations while working as an onsite repair tech (making less at the job than i did working fast food) where i was called in to repair stuff that a $50,000/ per year (US) Network admin had screwed up. Different companies, different people, same situation, some guy goes to a "computer school" and pays $5,000 for his MCSE, then gets hired over someone with more knowledge, and more experience, but less expendable income. Have even had a call where the company had just passed over me for the job, hired an MCSE, but here I was 2 weeks later being sent out by the company I worked for to recover the exchange server he toasted, and clean up the mess he'd made of the domain server.
Trust me, as an american who has driven large vehicles (work van) and small cars (honda civic) and motorcycles (totaled), there is a large intimidation factor involved. Some asshole in an SUV is much more likely to think twice about cutting you off if you're driving something that will obviosly kill them if it hits. I get cut off in my car at least once a day, because it isn't intimidating, And my Bike was totaled because some ass in a large truck decided to pass me on a one lane road. Honestly, with these electric cars, the only people who will still have any level of respect for the damage they can do is a college kid on a scooter. The "taking the other guy with you" factor is not a matter of vengful thinking. The fact that if a wreck happens someones going to die is what generates enough fear in most drivers to keep them driving somewhat safely. I don't like large suvs and trucks, but unless most people are driving them, anyone who has one of these small cars had best be exceptionally aware of other drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear me, police armed with non lethal weapons? They have guns in a gun owning society? We're all doomed, I say, doomed.
I would like to point out that "campus security" and Police are two completely different animals in most locations.
Police go through extensive training, yearly physical and mental exams, weapons qualification, and oversight. (not saying there aren't bad cops, but most of them are, if nothing else, well trained.)
Campus security, on the other hand are usually either college age students with 4 weeks of very basic training, or rent-a-cops pulled from local private firms. The only time you see actual police officers on campus is during sports events, or when they're en route to a call on the opposite side of campus.
For the record, every male in my family is either retired, active, or volunteer police, and I myself spent 2 years as a rent-a-cop. I assure you there is a very large difference between the two. While I barely feel comfortable with the former being armed, I would rather hand a loaded pistol to a drunk gorilla than any of the low pay "private security officers" that I have met.
Note: I am not referring to the ex-military or ex-police members of the private security sector, as they are generally competent, intelligent, effective, and not working as campus security...
I do.
Or rather a tiny battery that only gives me 3 minutes of backup. (In other words a built in ups) I use my laptop as a portable workstation, but am almost never in a location without electricity. If I needed more than three minutes of battery, I would be glad to bring a larger external battery pack along. The only time I don't plug my laptop in is when i'm in an environment where it's likely that the power plug will be yanked from the laptop for some reason. Which brings us to my next point.
Not quite.
I don't believe the OP was referring to the sound made by the power adapter when plugged in, instead he was referring to a solid, clipping (or screwing) connection similar to either rj45 or most gaming console controller plugs. A good, solid, well made plug that can handle being bumped, yanked, or tripped over.
I disagree with him. I owned a toshiba laptop some 10 years ago that had a good solid connector, It was constatly being knocked off of the table because the cord wouldn't disconnect.
I feel that a magsafe adapter, coupled with a 3 minute backup battery would be more than sufficient for a lot of people.
Now this is just ridiculous.
Yes the pc's themselves have gotten wonderfully small. But you still need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I am definitely not going to carry 10lbs of gear to the local coffee shop, pull out 4 different parts, run cables, etc, just for 20 minutes of work while i'm waiting for a client to meet me.
Hp DV8000, Has 2 separate ports for hard drives. Unfortunately the default bios tries to run the 2 drives as a raid array (no way to disable it without an update).
GP wasn't talking about dams. What he is referring to is more along the lines of old water-driven mills, a large water wheel or small turbine, but no dam. Only thing needed is a somewhat fast-moving stream or a large slow body of water. While dams are more efficient, he seems to be thinking a lot of smaller, less efficient wheels and turbines making up the difference without the environmental impacts.
From your list it's pretty obvious that you replace hardware well before it breaks.
If you have a box of 15 pda's dating over a 10 year span, thats a new pda every year, even if you account for some of those having been given to you.
I can't afford to do that, and honestly don't see the point in it. I have some very old hardware which i still use, and i have newer devices of the same type that have died.
The manufacturers have stopped designing for ruggedness, and have started designing things to break.
Palm Pilots are an excellent example, i have a handspring visor and a palm 3 that both still work. Both came with a nice, hard plastic, screen cover And both cost me less than $100
Two months ago I purchased a New palm TX for $300. It came with a cheap leather cover which barely covers the screen. I mail ordered a hard cover for it the same day, because none of the local stores carried one.
Before the cover arrived the screen had already been shattered. I has set it on the sofa next to me, and my girlfriend sat on it. This is a very soft sofa, and a rather tiny girl.
Both my Palm and visor have spent years in my back pockets, being sat on, dropped, kicked (i do martial arts with my brothers) and at one point I was thrown into a swimming pool with the visor in my pocket.
I'm not asking for a bulletproof device, (though that would be nice), I'm asking for devices that match up to the products made by the same company 8 years ago.
All I want is something that i can use daily, carry with me, and not have to replace every year.
Phones, Pdas, Laptops, ad nauseum. All of them, while having gotten faster, have gotten more fragile.
Please, show me a motorola phone made in the last 3 years that can fall out of a 3 story window without dying.
I have one made 6 years ago that did it twice.
Show me a pda made that can get tossed into the pool.
my visor did it.
Show me a new laptop that can survive being knocked off of the table.
My old hp can and has.
Not one of the older devices has cost as much as the newer devices that have attempted to replace them. Even accounting for inflation, the newer devices are more expensive, and are less well made.
I am currently shopping for a laptop, but have yet to find one that I feel will last more than a few years.
I like the design of the toughbooks, but the price is ridiculous.
I should not be expected to pay 4 times as much for a laptop that is only marginally more rugged than my old laptop. I don't mind carrying around 5 pounds of gear, I do mind having to replace that gear constantly, and I do mind getting fleeced for it.
Lets compare. I'll avoid luxuries like american hotels and high class restaurants, by just comparing travel costs.
Home is Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Flying from home to Paris, France. == $800/ea
Flying from home to California. == $200/ea
Flying from home to New York. == $300/ea
Now lets say I rent a 15 passenger van and bring 9 friends.
Driving from home to Las Vegas == $400/total == $40/ea
Driving from home to New York == $600/total == $60/ea
So, flying, I can take 2 trips for the cost of one trip to france.
While driving, I can either take 2 trips alone, or 10 if I bring along friends.
That's a big difference, wouldn't you say?
Yes, you can travel around Europe for very cheap if you want to be flexible, but the initial cost to get there is the problem.
The type of currency being used isn't a problem. It's the amount of it. As you and I both stated, it's not that expensive to travel inside another country. it's the cost of getting there that the GP poster was saying is too much.
Lets count. (all times local timezone) I get off of work on friday at 5pm, drive straight to the airport, and get on a plane at 9pm. I spend 4 hours getting to Los Angeles International arriving at 1 am saturday, spend 2 hours in a layover (if i'm lucky) and 8 hours in the air. This puts me arriving at the Paris Airport at 11 am on saturday. Now if i'm stubborn, slept on the plane, and avoided jetlag by a miracle, this gives me 24 hours before i have to board my flight home to be at work at 7:30am monday.
So at $1600 i've spent $66 for every hour that I'm in Paris, not counting food, hotel, or hours that I may be sleeping. I also wouldn't have anytime to relax and enjoy myself as that 24hour timer would be ticking in my head.
So no, I would say that I cannot see Paris in a weekend.
I can rent a 15 passenger van for $30 a day, split gas with 5 friends, and go anywhere in the US for less than $200 round trip. I can rent a 4 room cabin in south carolina for $50/day. So for less than $300 I can take a week long vacation, bring friends, and afford to do it 2 more times on what on trip to Paris would cost. I find it very easy to believe...
No it's not convenient, but it's even less cost effective. I can see spending $800/ea for us to go backpacking in Europe, but for a 4 d
As I see it, the problem with your argument is your implication that big business and government are on opposite sides. Currently big business has the money, and government has the power, and both want what the other has to offer. The consumer/citizen however has neither money, nor power, and as such is unable to influence either directly.
Limiting the power of the government simply means that the businesses will fill the void, while attempts to limit the income of big business will simply cause them to throw more money at the government.
This isn't an either/or solution, it's all or nothing.
What is needed are checks and regulations preventing collusion between the two. The government needs to be forced to use it's power to limit business, and business need to be prevented from using money to influence government.
it's usually spelled Subpoena, but I think subpeoned better fits our current legal system...
It seems to me that where your argument breaks is that you believe that the Mind has some immeasurable value that makes it different from software.
Our own intelligence and self aware state is commonly aggreed to be the result of lower level actions, which are the result of simple, basic chemical reactions. As stated by others in this thread, chemical reactions can be simulated, computed, calculated, and predicted. So it follows that our intelligence can also be simulated, computed, calculated, and predicted. Attempting to claim otherwise is implying some magical property exists in the mind that is not based on measurable reactions, and turns this discussion into a religious matter.
In computers, you can break down advanced operations to a level where you only use binary, the brain is the same.
The mind is the net result of the software, which is emulated by extremely specific hardware (the brain). If you ask me a question, I process it based on input. the input may be stored in my long term memory, but at one point it was still input. In other words, the neurons in my head do not understand english. They simply compare current input to past input, and if a match, perform an action.
The brain is similar to asic hardware in high end network routing gear, a hardware representation of software. If you break down brain function, what you have are neurons accepting various types of chemical and electrical input and then acting upon the electrical input using a finite set of hard wired reactions based on the chemical input. While we do not understand exactly what these rules are, we can observe the input/output pairs that result.
The chinese room argues that the man in the room is following an infinite set of pre determined rules, whereas the measured reactions in the brain demonstrate a reccuring loop of simple rules being use to create contexts. instead of one chinese room with infinite rules, and only one input, imagine an infinite (or finite, but very large) series of rooms, each with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Now give the men in each room identical instructions, and a unique bit of data which represents one character of chinese.
Now send your chinese text through this system of rooms one character at a time. As the data is introduced to the system the rooms comunicate with each other to determin a context and a response based on the combined results of their tests. No one Room knows more than one word of chinese, but with a sufficient amount of data from each other the sentence can be replied to.
in this way a series of identical rooms can, using a set of simple rules, act upon any input in a way that, from the outside appears intelligent.
This is how the human brain funtions at the neuron level, and with the proper set of rules, can be simulated in software. The only problem is time. Just like the aformentioned hardware router, the brain uses extrememly fine-tuned and specific hardware implementation to perform, in hardware, actions that take many thousands of cycles in software. Each neuron has hundreds of states. The brain is running 100 million copies of this 1000 state Case statement concurrently.
The software itself is very simple, where our problem lies is in speed of execution.
Any modern computer can simulate a single neron in real time. However, we have not developed a computer powerful enough to run more than a few hundred copies of this simultation in real time. Thus making low level Artificial Intellegence impossible With Current Hardware
The --only-- difference between Intellegence and Strong (or true) Artifical Intelligence is the hardware that it is running on.
As Procyon101 has stated, an Infinite universal computer would have the ability to run an infinite number of neuron simulating loops in realtime, and as such, using a very simple algorithm, emulate an artificial intelligence. However, as we do not have access to an infinite Universal Computer at this time we are attempting to use higher level optimizations to create an accurate working simulation.
Next year, my monthly rent will be $296.
In Baton Rouge, LA right now a one room apartment is $300 a month. This used to be a dorm room for a bible college, so that should give you an idea of how small we're talking. I don't even have a kitchen. The 2 bedroom we are moving into next month is $900, and the cheapest 1 bedroom with a kitchen is $550. so 100$ is easily a fifth of rent.
my biweekly paycheck after taxes is about $850 (working 60 hours/week).
so for 120 hours, you make $850. That comes out to approx 425/wk at 60 hours. However, not all of us have a job that offers overtime, so lets calculate your pay at 40 hours, shall we?
60 hours = 40 at time and 20 at time and a half, so 70 hours at normal pay
$850 bi weekly, so 425/wk after tax.
$425/70= $6.07
$6.07*40= $242.80
So according to my math, a $99 windows licence does, in fact, cost approx half of your weekly income before overtime.
The way i understand it, the net is a tree, and the backbone providers already are getting thier cut right off of the top.
I pay for 2 connections, one at home through Cox communications, and one for work with Adelphia. Cox and adelphia, both pay thier respective bandwidth bills to a larger isp above them in the tree, who in turn pays one of the backbone providers for thier bandwidth. something like this rather simplified example)Everyone involved pays the person above them for the bandwith they need, then charge the people below them for the percentages they need + whatever markup they choose. I pay for the bandwidth i need, and so do the content providers. If either myself or google decide to stop paying for the bandwidth we use, we can pay less for a slower link, or more for a faster one. Niether should have to pay extra for increased Qos priority. The backbone providers already get paid for the connections the provide, but now they want to charge twice.
What college did you go to, and how long ago was this?
I'm a sysadmin, but want to improve my programming ability.
I've been sadly disappointed by our local and state colleges CS programs and this is exactly the type of class I would love to attend.
Why can't there be a stable ABI compatability module? Basically have the ABI remain fluid, but have an optional module that provides a stable layer for use by closed source drivers. Similar to ndiswrapper, but without all the dll dependancies that windows drivers tend to have. This way we have the best of both worlds, Closely linked drivers in the kernel, and a separate layer to prevent binary drivers from breaking things, while allowing companies like nvidia and ati to provide us with fully functioning drivers without having to release proprietary information.
One thing that most of us seem to be forgetting is that the ones who suffer aren't companies like ati or nvidia, It's the end users, and those of us who want to see linux become a major player in the desktop market. As long as Joe User can't install linux and play his games, we don't stand a chance.
Most design firms are going to look at linux, see the major performance problems that we have with the major hardware vendors, and decide that there is no reason to bother with multiplatform releases. Even games that were written in opengl and were ported to both windows and Mac are not released on linux. (Diablo2 anyone) Why? because theres a really good argument against it.
Programmer1 "Ok, lets see, What operating systems are we going to support?
Programmer2 "Hey, why not make a linux port?"
Programmer1 "No way, if we do that we can't use "SuperPixelTrickOfTheDay tm", cause the drivers suck.
Programmer2 "Oh yeah"
One thing that a stable ABI would do is increase the likelyhood of vendors writing drivers for more uncommon hardware. The ABI being a moving target makes development harder, as the programmers can't just learn how to format the driver one time. They have to play catchup every time theres a change.
Doesn't change the fact that someone who is concerned with mac filtering and wep should at least know what ssh tunneling is. Whether he uses it or not, there are some things that a "IT professional" should be aware of. I've had several situations while working as an onsite repair tech (making less at the job than i did working fast food) where i was called in to repair stuff that a $50,000/ per year (US) Network admin had screwed up. Different companies, different people, same situation, some guy goes to a "computer school" and pays $5,000 for his MCSE, then gets hired over someone with more knowledge, and more experience, but less expendable income. Have even had a call where the company had just passed over me for the job, hired an MCSE, but here I was 2 weeks later being sent out by the company I worked for to recover the exchange server he toasted, and clean up the mess he'd made of the domain server.
Trust me, as an american who has driven large vehicles (work van) and small cars (honda civic) and motorcycles (totaled), there is a large intimidation factor involved. Some asshole in an SUV is much more likely to think twice about cutting you off if you're driving something that will obviosly kill them if it hits. I get cut off in my car at least once a day, because it isn't intimidating, And my Bike was totaled because some ass in a large truck decided to pass me on a one lane road. Honestly, with these electric cars, the only people who will still have any level of respect for the damage they can do is a college kid on a scooter. The "taking the other guy with you" factor is not a matter of vengful thinking. The fact that if a wreck happens someones going to die is what generates enough fear in most drivers to keep them driving somewhat safely. I don't like large suvs and trucks, but unless most people are driving them, anyone who has one of these small cars had best be exceptionally aware of other drivers.