"It is also unclear why people want to build a `quantum computer' when it seems that simply putting it on a peripheral board and using it as a separate calculation machine seems to be a much more straightforward application of the device than trying to cram a whole computer with these chips."
How much experimental technology have you worked with? Have you ever seen the inside of a physics lab?
Sure, eventually a peripheral board would be ideal, but I'm not sure how we'd cram a 10 millikelvin dilution fridge or a laser trap onto one of those. There are no chips yet, and there won't be for a long time. The technology has to be invented before it's minitureized.
Is there any way for a firm to make money off this, other than selling products through said spyware?
If not, why don't we just convince people not to click on those "3nh4|\|ce j00 p3_n15" ads that pop up onto their screen?
Oh yeah, if the unwashed masses were that smart telemarketing would have been killed the same way. Nevermind. Every medium of commuinication will continue to be exploited for advertising as long as the ads work.
"Well sir, advertising is a funny thing. If people stop paying attention to it, pretty soon, it goes away."
- The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror VI
RIM Founder Mike Lazaridis has also donated $33 Million CDN to University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing.
And I think the perimeter building is cool.
On the same note, I find it terribly ironic that the intrusive measures adults wouldn't ever allow to be imposed on themselves they will happily impose on their children. I'm not talking about something like a curfew. I'm talking about exactly this: the Authority knowing what you ate for lunch.
Sure, obesity is a problem. Wouldn't it be a bigger problem if the state mandated your diet?
Seriously, if things keep on going on the way they are, I can see a lot of personals like this popping up:
"Single, white 22-year old Canadian male willing to `marry' American female fleeing fascist regime. Must be intelligent and conversational. Preferably aged 19-25, ethnicity unimportant."
"If you obtain a copy of a song without providing compensation to the copyright holder, your are breaking law and stealing from the copyright holder."
Fine. Next time I download a song and like it (i.e. don't delete it), rather than buy a $30 CD I'll send the artists a dollar. It's more than the pennies they would have gotten from the RIAA anyway.
"Rajit Gadh, professor in UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of WINMEC, says that the research going into the project is targeted at determining whether the concept is technologically feasible. `We're in the very early stages of this project--the first research stage'"
Someone care to explain to me how putting a RFID chip in a DVD could prevent a computer from reading the raw content of the disc and cracking that? I think it's been shown time and time again that DRM will be cracked, especially when the new technology can be attacked with conventional hardware.
Basically, reading the article this both seems technically impossible and a far way off.
On another note, if the MPAA really wanted the DVD to be available when the movie was in theatres, they'd just make it so now. But they're smarter than that; they know people won't pay twice for the same movie if both options are available at the same time.
"Now none of us buy Diet Coke, and they go bankrupt.... You end up with a market with all marketeers and no customers."
Maybe there'd be no market for Diet Coke, but the market for Star Trek Replication Devices would be phenomenal. The Capitalist economy, like nature, favours those that can adapt. Why should any company be protected if they can no longer produce a useful product?
"Honestly folks, XP, and even 2000, BSOD very rarely."
That's exactly why I think this is strange. My Win2K installation has BSOD'd maybe three times in two years. So doesn't that mean any Screen of Death indicates a serious/exceptional error? Or are they planning on introducing more errors into Longhorn?
"I just hope the developers there get to keep their RIM-jobs."
It's not just a cheesy joke. RIM actually employs a lot of Waterloo students from many different fields. I've personally known several people who've had co-op jobs there.
If RIM went under, it would adversly affect the university in many ways. I'm rooting for them too.
Actually, I flinch any time I see computers becoming more like cars.
I'm not going to claim that the automobile used to be an "open standard", but look at what's happened to them over the last century. They've gotten more complicated, but that complexity is hidden from the end user. It's created this culture that one shouldn't understand how their car works, and the knee-jerk reaction when something goes wrong is to take it to the dealership. As a result, dealerships get to charge hundreds of dollars for a bit of labour and $20 worth of metal in replacement parts. Want to fix it yourself? You still need their parts. Should have gotten an "open-source" car. Oh wait...
Whenever I see something like this, I worry that the same thing will eventually happen to the computing world. I don't think it's likely, I don't think it's impossible either.
"You think geeks are the only `insiders' cringing when they see something on screen?"
I don't believe anyone said anything of the sort.
"Bus drivers cringed through SPEED." Didn't anyone who knew...anything cringe through Speed?
"Say it with me know (sic), `Window dressing' and for the advanced students, `Plot device'."
I haven't seen anyone here claim that geeks / mathies / physicists are the only people who can poke holes in scripts. And you're right, "medicine" in TV / movies can be especially bad. (Ever see a biologist engineer a vaccine for a virus in a matter of days? I thought not.)
The thing is, the difference between a crappy movie and a good movie is the crappy movie will completely distort reality for the sake of its own plot devices / special effects. ("Well, when two cars crash there usually isn't a giant explosion, but lets put one in anyway because we're making a Hollywood movie and we're catering to slack-jawed morons.") A good writer is able to create a compelling story without doing something like say, screwing up the laws of physics. (I don't care what anyone says, James Bond cannot fall faster than an airplane.)
Of course, anything I just said only loosely applies if it's fantasy, science-fiction, or a comic book movie. Yeah, there really aren't mutants like Wolverine and there really aren't Hobbits, but that's a different thread altogether...
The mathies where I am stick out like sore thumbs --- at least there's a definite "culture" to the math building. Often there's some board game being played in the lounge like Titan or Settlers. If not that, then at least someone's playing Magic: The Gathering. They like not sleeping (and gaming instead), and bemoan the lack of women in their faculty. (Though my department, Physics, is worse off.)
Then there's the jokes.
Q: What do you get when you cross a banana with a goat?
A: |goat| * |banana| * sin(theta)
Slashdot Mirror
The first successful Quantum computer will likely fill a room. There are a few people with labs down the hall from the one I'm sitting in right now.
Sure, eventually a peripheral board would be ideal, but I'm not sure how we'd cram a 10 millikelvin dilution fridge or a laser trap onto one of those. There are no chips yet, and there won't be for a long time. The technology has to be invented before it's minitureized.
Is there any way for a firm to make money off this, other than selling products through said spyware?
If not, why don't we just convince people not to click on those "3nh4|\|ce j00 p3_n15" ads that pop up onto their screen?
Oh yeah, if the unwashed masses were that smart telemarketing would have been killed the same way. Nevermind. Every medium of commuinication will continue to be exploited for advertising as long as the ads work.
"Well sir, advertising is a funny thing. If people stop paying attention to it, pretty soon, it goes away."
- The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror VI
RIM Founder Mike Lazaridis has also donated $33 Million CDN to University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing. And I think the perimeter building is cool.
On the same note, I find it terribly ironic that the intrusive measures adults wouldn't ever allow to be imposed on themselves they will happily impose on their children. I'm not talking about something like a curfew. I'm talking about exactly this: the Authority knowing what you ate for lunch.
Sure, obesity is a problem. Wouldn't it be a bigger problem if the state mandated your diet?
Seriously, if things keep on going on the way they are, I can see a lot of personals like this popping up:
"Single, white 22-year old Canadian male willing to `marry' American female fleeing fascist regime. Must be intelligent and conversational. Preferably aged 19-25, ethnicity unimportant."
"If you obtain a copy of a song without providing compensation to the copyright holder, your are breaking law and stealing from the copyright holder."
Fine. Next time I download a song and like it (i.e. don't delete it), rather than buy a $30 CD I'll send the artists a dollar. It's more than the pennies they would have gotten from the RIAA anyway.
"Rajit Gadh, professor in UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of WINMEC, says that the research going into the project is targeted at determining whether the concept is technologically feasible. `We're in the very early stages of this project--the first research stage'"
Someone care to explain to me how putting a RFID chip in a DVD could prevent a computer from reading the raw content of the disc and cracking that? I think it's been shown time and time again that DRM will be cracked, especially when the new technology can be attacked with conventional hardware.
Basically, reading the article this both seems technically impossible and a far way off.
On another note, if the MPAA really wanted the DVD to be available when the movie was in theatres, they'd just make it so now. But they're smarter than that; they know people won't pay twice for the same movie if both options are available at the same time.
"Now none of us buy Diet Coke, and they go bankrupt. ... You end up with a market with all marketeers and no customers."
Maybe there'd be no market for Diet Coke, but the market for Star Trek Replication Devices would be phenomenal. The Capitalist economy, like nature, favours those that can adapt. Why should any company be protected if they can no longer produce a useful product?
"Honestly folks, XP, and even 2000, BSOD very rarely."
That's exactly why I think this is strange. My Win2K installation has BSOD'd maybe three times in two years. So doesn't that mean any Screen of Death indicates a serious/exceptional error? Or are they planning on introducing more errors into Longhorn?
"I just hope the developers there get to keep their RIM-jobs."
It's not just a cheesy joke. RIM actually employs a lot of Waterloo students from many different fields. I've personally known several people who've had co-op jobs there.
If RIM went under, it would adversly affect the university in many ways. I'm rooting for them too.
Actually, I flinch any time I see computers becoming more like cars.
I'm not going to claim that the automobile used to be an "open standard", but look at what's happened to them over the last century. They've gotten more complicated, but that complexity is hidden from the end user. It's created this culture that one shouldn't understand how their car works, and the knee-jerk reaction when something goes wrong is to take it to the dealership. As a result, dealerships get to charge hundreds of dollars for a bit of labour and $20 worth of metal in replacement parts. Want to fix it yourself? You still need their parts. Should have gotten an "open-source" car. Oh wait...
Whenever I see something like this, I worry that the same thing will eventually happen to the computing world. I don't think it's likely, I don't think it's impossible either.
"You think geeks are the only `insiders' cringing when they see something on screen?"
I don't believe anyone said anything of the sort.
"Bus drivers cringed through SPEED."
Didn't anyone who knew...anything cringe through Speed?
"Say it with me know (sic), `Window dressing' and for the advanced students, `Plot device'." I haven't seen anyone here claim that geeks / mathies / physicists are the only people who can poke holes in scripts. And you're right, "medicine" in TV / movies can be especially bad. (Ever see a biologist engineer a vaccine for a virus in a matter of days? I thought not.)
The thing is, the difference between a crappy movie and a good movie is the crappy movie will completely distort reality for the sake of its own plot devices / special effects. ("Well, when two cars crash there usually isn't a giant explosion, but lets put one in anyway because we're making a Hollywood movie and we're catering to slack-jawed morons.") A good writer is able to create a compelling story without doing something like say, screwing up the laws of physics. (I don't care what anyone says, James Bond cannot fall faster than an airplane.)
Of course, anything I just said only loosely applies if it's fantasy, science-fiction, or a comic book movie. Yeah, there really aren't mutants like Wolverine and there really aren't Hobbits, but that's a different thread altogether...
The mathies where I am stick out like sore thumbs --- at least there's a definite "culture" to the math building. Often there's some board game being played in the lounge like Titan or Settlers. If not that, then at least someone's playing Magic: The Gathering. They like not sleeping (and gaming instead), and bemoan the lack of women in their faculty. (Though my department, Physics, is worse off.)
Then there's the jokes.
Q: What do you get when you cross a banana with a goat?
A: |goat| * |banana| * sin(theta)
"Hey Steve, I need to make room in the warehouses for Longhorn. What should I do with all these old copies of Windows XP?" - Random Microsoft Peon
"...the term 'rocket science' being used to mean 'highly difficult problems' is quite apt."
Personally, I think Quantum Mechanics is harder. We can't even build a quantum computer yet!