I think it's great that these guys are trying to improve an already existing standard.
What? They want to take elements away from us? Who the fuck do they think they are, I'm not going to change all the code on my webpage just because they say, "Oh, using <b> is so 1997, we're all using CSS now."
In short, they can pry my <s> tag out of my cold dead hands.
Why is it something that could be offensive (like sex and violence in movies) is generally regarded as bad, whereas something designed solely to be offensive (The Mosquito) is regarded as a good thing?
When the buyout happened, I remember reading the statement that the service wouldn't change much, that there wouldn't be ads on the site. I remember thinking to myself, "Bullshit. Why would sixapart buy it if they didn't want to wring as much money out of it as possible?" And sadly, "wringing money out of" usually involves "plastering ads all over."
I'm sure that most of you would agree, there's nothing worse than being forced to watch two nerds argue. They can yell at each other about the most trivial of details, and neither one will budge. It's kind of like elk.
Watching open source development is like watching 50,000 nerds argue.
Windows 1.01 didn't have to worry about Z order, since it didn't even allow you to overlap the windows! Window overlapping wasn't allowed until Windows 2.03, released in 1987. Here is an excellent reference.
That, and most of the things the creators praise this system for have been done (and better) before. No moving parts? No noise? Sounds to me a lot like liquid metal cooling. Hardly a first.
While it's true that all the information on a persons profile is "public" to their friends at least, it takes the mystery out of poking around facebook to see what has changed etc.
Thank you. While I'm on the other side of the debate and like this feature, this is the first reasonable argument I've seen against it. Most of the people are afraid that this will make things easier for stalkers. The thing that those people are forgetting is that stalkers are obsessive fanatics. Your personal stalker had his web-browser pointed at your profile and was clicking "refresh" every five minutes anyway.
I think this is great and all, but I've only heard about Michael Geist here and on BoingBoing. The real trick is getting Joe Sixpack to care.
How does one get the general public to care? From what I've seen, most computer users are short-sighted, datawise. "This DVD/Song/Program works right now, so it'll work forever, right?" How do we get everyone else to read this?
Even at the age of 25 I am starting to think that the world we be better off if children had a few less freedoms. I probably would have felt different 10 years ago however:).
Now that I am president I am starting to think that the world we be better off if citizens had a few less freedoms. I probably would have felt different 20 years ago however.
Here's an example for you:
I was once running an experiment for a prof. The computer controlling the experiment has a GPIB card, which is controlling several other devices in the room (PID temperature controller, Lock in amp, yada yada yada.) The software running the experiment was written in LabVIEW.
I'm in the middle of a nine-hour experiment when this dialog box pops up. "Your computer will restart in 5 minutes to apply updates."
Now, let's review. What have I done wrong?
This isn't a server
AFAIK there is no "LabVIEW" for Linux. I could have written all the GPIB software in C but then no one else would have the expertise to change it, plus getting the card to work in linux would probably be hell
I'm not using IE
Windows update is on? Oh, that's what I'm doing wrong.
Luckily my software is much better written, so I was able to discontinue and resume the experiment wihtout losing data. But still, is this the kind of OS that is intended for a production environment? "Who the hell do they think they are" indeed.
You're half right. I had forgotten about the quantum properties of transistors.
Though a transister does use Quantum Mechanics to function, it is a discrete unit (a "black box" if you will) with a preidctable outcome. A quantum computer, on the other hand, uses a property of QM known as "superposition of states". A qbit in a quantum computer isn't 0 or 1, but some combination of 0 and 1 at the same time. It's only when the qbit is "observed" (read) that it becomes a 0 or 1.
If we can get these qbits to interact with each other without reading them (or "collapsing the wavefunction", in quantum mechanics lingo) then we can have various superpositions of 0s and 1s interacting with each other within an algoritm. Essentially the algorithm run by the quantum computer is acting in parallel with itself. When we observe the qbits when the algoritm is finished, we see the desired result. I know that sounds like magic, but I've probably explained it poorly. I've explained it better in the past.
Incidentially, someone who is uneducated (not stupid, mind you, just uneducated) may have difficulty distinguishing between the BS in the original article and the more scientifically accepted BS I've spouted. See? That's how these con artists are allowed to succeed!
I used to be a undergrad lab assistant. I never worked in quantum computing, but our neighbours were some of these guys. I picked up a few things, one of those things being that quantum computing is hard.
Classical computers use the laws of classical physics to operate. Classical physics is deterministic, and that's how we want our classical computers to behave. As the chip and die sizes get smaller and smaller (what are we at now, 65nm?) CPUs are more likely to suffer from quantum effects, but AFAIK there's circutry in there to compensate for that. Error checking.
A quantum computer is just a machine that uses the laws of quantum mechanics rather than the laws of classical mechanics to operate. The advantage is that some algorithms, when implemented on a quantum computer, are 2n instead of n^2. I never really understood this, maybe a better physicist will come along and explain it. Anyway, to build a quantum computer one needs two things:
- (a) You need some Quantum bits (qbits) to store data
- (b) You need to get those bits to interact with each other in some fashion
There are many approaches to building a quantum computer. One guy (Raymond Laflamme) has a bunch of different atoms that are different elements all in the same molecule, those interact with each other but he has only developed the ability to read / write to about 5 different qbits. I read about another guy on Slashdot here who made a giant array of qbits using atoms in a laser trap. That gets you a lot of qbits, but they don't interact at all. There are many approaches.
Anyway, the reason I think Dwave Systems is full of bullshit is that any approach thus far is good at (a) or (b), but not both. Someone who got a powerful quantum computer up and running would most assuredly win a Nobel Prize. Also, why the hell would he need to woo venture capital? I know I'm up in Canada, but I'm sure most governments are throwing scads and scads of research money at Quantum computing. Answer? Venture capitalists are more naive.
If there's anything I learned from here, it's that a lot of Con artists use buzzwords to try and justify their woo-woo science. "Quantum" is one of them.
Because unlike Apple, they don't have a history of being overly litigious. Apple has sued or threatened to everyone from their own customers, to Google.
That, in my opinion, is what makes Apple far more evil than Microsoft. Microsoft, at least, loves its users and developers.
(Okay, so Microsoft products crash from time to time. Let's call it tough love.)
I wish there was a modern version of the "Turbo" button
So do I. I wonder how many FPS I'd get in Unreal Tournament 2K4 if I suddenly dropped my CPU* down to 8 MHz mid-game. My guess: 0.0037. Hey, we could start expressing Frames Per Second in scientific notation!
* Before some humourless nerd points this out, yes, I know a good chunk of the graphics in modern games is generated by a dedicated GPU. Lets pretend the turbo button affects the video card too, okay? It's a personal fantasy of mine.
So, for example, not only would the government know what books you were buying, but the bookstore would also know if you had an outstanding speeding ticket!"
"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.
(credit to JWZ for the link)
I'm guessing that images are digitally "enhanced" all the time, thereby rendering any such program useless. Whether the images are actually being manipulated to remove dust and grit, or if they're being altered to fit some agenda, we may never know.
"The first thing lost in war is truth." (I'd be much obliged if someone could tell me where that quote came from.)
Associated with the point above, foreshadowing happens years in advance
Ships appear to follow newtonian mechanics in regular space
Humans at "reasonable" technological level (none of this "aging / unaging people with the transporter" shit. I don't care how altruistic the Federation is supposed to be. If it's possible to reverse aging with the transporter, someone would exploit it.)
Not all major races magically at the same level of technological development
Actually, "save the children" is extremely popular with the left, too.
True. However, it seems to me as if the causes are different. The lefties seem more likely to jump on the "ban violent videogames" bandwagon, the righties seems more inclined to regulate sex.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's great that these guys are trying to improve an already existing standard.
What? They want to take elements away from us? Who the fuck do they think they are, I'm not going to change all the code on my webpage just because they say, "Oh, using <b> is so 1997, we're all using CSS now."
In short, they can pry my <s> tag out of my cold dead hands.
Why is it something that could be offensive (like sex and violence in movies) is generally regarded as bad, whereas something designed solely to be offensive (The Mosquito) is regarded as a good thing?
Mr Stapleton deserves the Ig Nobel.
When the buyout happened, I remember reading the statement that the service wouldn't change much, that there wouldn't be ads on the site. I remember thinking to myself, "Bullshit. Why would sixapart buy it if they didn't want to wring as much money out of it as possible?" And sadly, "wringing money out of" usually involves "plastering ads all over."
I'm sure that most of you would agree, there's nothing worse than being forced to watch two nerds argue. They can yell at each other about the most trivial of details, and neither one will budge. It's kind of like elk.
Watching open source development is like watching 50,000 nerds argue.
Windows 1.01 didn't have to worry about Z order, since it didn't even allow you to overlap the windows! Window overlapping wasn't allowed until Windows 2.03, released in 1987. Here is an excellent reference.
That, and most of the things the creators praise this system for have been done (and better) before. No moving parts? No noise? Sounds to me a lot like liquid metal cooling. Hardly a first.
I think this is great and all, but I've only heard about Michael Geist here and on BoingBoing. The real trick is getting Joe Sixpack to care.
How does one get the general public to care? From what I've seen, most computer users are short-sighted, datawise. "This DVD/Song/Program works right now, so it'll work forever, right?" How do we get everyone else to read this?
CAPTCHA: signify. How appropriate.
Why are all the draconian loonies getting modded to +5, insightful? Please mods, moderate on the side of reason.
(I can hear my karma burn)
I was once running an experiment for a prof. The computer controlling the experiment has a GPIB card, which is controlling several other devices in the room (PID temperature controller, Lock in amp, yada yada yada.) The software running the experiment was written in LabVIEW.
I'm in the middle of a nine-hour experiment when this dialog box pops up. "Your computer will restart in 5 minutes to apply updates."
Now, let's review. What have I done wrong?
- This isn't a server
- AFAIK there is no "LabVIEW" for Linux. I could have written all the GPIB software in C but then no one else would have the expertise to change it, plus getting the card to work in linux would probably be hell
- I'm not using IE
- Windows update is on? Oh, that's what I'm doing wrong.
Luckily my software is much better written, so I was able to discontinue and resume the experiment wihtout losing data. But still, is this the kind of OS that is intended for a production environment? "Who the hell do they think they are" indeed.Why does everyone assume he was stupid? Maybe he was bought off and "threw the game" so to speak for SCO?
How about every single one of the characters in the Ultimate Showdown Flash Animation?
Especially the guy who wins. That would be awesome.
You're half right. I had forgotten about the quantum properties of transistors.
Though a transister does use Quantum Mechanics to function, it is a discrete unit (a "black box" if you will) with a preidctable outcome. A quantum computer, on the other hand, uses a property of QM known as "superposition of states". A qbit in a quantum computer isn't 0 or 1, but some combination of 0 and 1 at the same time. It's only when the qbit is "observed" (read) that it becomes a 0 or 1.
If we can get these qbits to interact with each other without reading them (or "collapsing the wavefunction", in quantum mechanics lingo) then we can have various superpositions of 0s and 1s interacting with each other within an algoritm. Essentially the algorithm run by the quantum computer is acting in parallel with itself. When we observe the qbits when the algoritm is finished, we see the desired result. I know that sounds like magic, but I've probably explained it poorly. I've explained it better in the past.
Incidentially, someone who is uneducated (not stupid, mind you, just uneducated) may have difficulty distinguishing between the BS in the original article and the more scientifically accepted BS I've spouted. See? That's how these con artists are allowed to succeed!
A functional quantum computer? Really?
I used to be a undergrad lab assistant. I never worked in quantum computing, but our neighbours were some of these guys. I picked up a few things, one of those things being that quantum computing is hard.
Classical computers use the laws of classical physics to operate. Classical physics is deterministic, and that's how we want our classical computers to behave. As the chip and die sizes get smaller and smaller (what are we at now, 65nm?) CPUs are more likely to suffer from quantum effects, but AFAIK there's circutry in there to compensate for that. Error checking.
A quantum computer is just a machine that uses the laws of quantum mechanics rather than the laws of classical mechanics to operate. The advantage is that some algorithms, when implemented on a quantum computer, are 2n instead of n^2. I never really understood this, maybe a better physicist will come along and explain it. Anyway, to build a quantum computer one needs two things:
- (a) You need some Quantum bits (qbits) to store data
- (b) You need to get those bits to interact with each other in some fashion
There are many approaches to building a quantum computer. One guy (Raymond Laflamme) has a bunch of different atoms that are different elements all in the same molecule, those interact with each other but he has only developed the ability to read / write to about 5 different qbits. I read about another guy on Slashdot here who made a giant array of qbits using atoms in a laser trap. That gets you a lot of qbits, but they don't interact at all. There are many approaches.
Anyway, the reason I think Dwave Systems is full of bullshit is that any approach thus far is good at (a) or (b), but not both. Someone who got a powerful quantum computer up and running would most assuredly win a Nobel Prize. Also, why the hell would he need to woo venture capital? I know I'm up in Canada, but I'm sure most governments are throwing scads and scads of research money at Quantum computing. Answer? Venture capitalists are more naive.
If there's anything I learned from here, it's that a lot of Con artists use buzzwords to try and justify their woo-woo science. "Quantum" is one of them.
Smart money on this guy being a fraud.
(Okay, so Microsoft products crash from time to time. Let's call it tough love.)
* Before some humourless nerd points this out, yes, I know a good chunk of the graphics in modern games is generated by a dedicated GPU. Lets pretend the turbo button affects the video card too, okay? It's a personal fantasy of mine.
I'm guessing that images are digitally "enhanced" all the time, thereby rendering any such program useless. Whether the images are actually being manipulated to remove dust and grit, or if they're being altered to fit some agenda, we may never know.
"The first thing lost in war is truth."
(I'd be much obliged if someone could tell me where that quote came from.)
- 5 year story arc
- Associated with the point above, foreshadowing happens years in advance
- Ships appear to follow newtonian mechanics in regular space
- Humans at "reasonable" technological level (none of this "aging / unaging people with the transporter" shit. I don't care how altruistic the Federation is supposed to be. If it's possible to reverse aging with the transporter, someone would exploit it.)
- Not all major races magically at the same level of technological development
- Babylon 5 was never turned into Enterprise.
Babylon 5 gets my vote, hands down.I could be wrong about this, though.