"A) As AI improves, it reaches the point of self-obsolescence. A truly perfect AI is only a mirror of human thought and behavior, and we have that anyway. Why bother."
Has the possiblity of intelligence greater than human ever occured to you, and that we define intelligence as being as smart as a human only because we just happen to be the brightest species on the planet right now?
"Folks, I really don't think that time at work that you spend reading slashdot really counts as work." Why not? I am a programmer, and the IT news, programming languages and technologies discussed here relate directly to my job.
Wireless markup language (WML) defines a simple (and easily parsed, because it is XML and well formed) way of describing pages, which is suitable for a device with a very small screen, little memeory, no mouse and a numeric keypad (i.e. a phone). Sure, if you are using a device without these restrictions, HTML allows for richer content, but even if you have loads of bandwidth, you are not likely to want to view big pages on the screen of a cellular phone.
That is an excellent article. If you are into CPUs you should read the other articles he has done on Ars Technica (linked to at the bottom of the Transmeta article).
People have discussed the database connection. I came across this article at Javaworld (via the Javalobby site). It describes a different way of using XML with databases.
Instead of converting the entire database to an XML file, which consumes a lot of resources, and has synchronization issues, this approach places an XML API frontend on the JDBC system. This creates a "virtual" XML document that other XML tools can access via DOM or SAX.
For example, they create a SAX frontend for JDBC, and use it with a SAX-based XSL tool (XT) to transform the data to HTML. So, for example, where the database encounters a column for CustomerName, the template for a CustomerName entity in the XSL sheet is triggered. To the XSL tool and stylesheets it seems as if they are accessing an XML document.
I would just like to say that learning curve of XSL is due to grasping the concepts of how to use it, rather than the language being crypticly designed. You create templates to match the different kind of elements, and work your way down the tree of the document. This approach allows the stylesheet to work with documents which different numbers of elements, or slightly different structure. Some problems are solved with recursion. You can do a simple approach where you have a fixed structure document, and insert values from the XML at certain points. This works for a lot of problems. The main problem I had when learning XSL is study material. The specifications don't function as a tuturial. I recommend http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/b ooks/bible/updates/14.html. It is a version of the chapter on XSL from the XML Bible, updated for the W3C recommendation. I wish I had found it sooner (I have the book, by the way, very good).
XSL Transformations: Transforms any XML document type into another. This can include HTML if it is well formed e.g. XHTML. In reality, it really is not just for "Stylesheets" but can also be used for data to data transformation. The W3C have published a recommendation (their version of a standard) and there are many implementations.
XSL Formatting Objects. Formats XML for print or screen display. Powerful, complex typesetting-style system, you could use the analogy "PDF/Postscript for XML". Not a standard yet, and only one partial implementation of an old working draft (FOP).
A lot of the guys criticism in that article refers to the second part of XSL, which is not what people are using, or referring to when they discuss XSL here. I don't find the guys article that persuasive, it is full of assertions, without proving them. Most of the guys gripes are directed towards formatting objects, which is complex, but the momentum behing XSL relates to XSL Transformations.
IE5 XSLT is very different from the W3C recommendation. It is a partial implementation of a 1998 working draft. Do not assume this to be a case of embrace & extend. Microsoft just implemented XSL before the spec was finalised. They say they will bring out a compliant version soon.
That is the problem with a zero variable cost system like email or usenet. You can send as many messages as you like, and if you get just a small percentage response, that can make for a viable business. Look at phones. Here in Ireland, where there is a charge for local telephone calls, you don't get companies cold-calling you to sell you something. It may make Internet access more costly, but it has one advantage atleast.
Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure about it, but I thought I had heard the figure 60ns tossed around in an Amiga context. I actually owned a 1200 aswell later on... The point though is how little progress has been made in RAM latency. Density goes up, but not the response time. Obviously this is why caches dominate modern CPUs, but perhaps there is a great bottleneck there which will worsen in the future?
Maybe I am mistaken, but I think the expansion ram for my old Amiga 500 had 60ns RAM. If not 60, then 80. Has latency not improved at all? Or is it a result of these special burst/high bandwidth designs such as SDRAM and RDRAM, that latencies are high, which the L1/L2 making up for it?
How come nothing happened in poorer countries?
on
Apocalypse Not
·
· Score: 1
So the anticlimax is the result of the bug being fixed correctly by computer professional.Then how come nothing happened in 2nd and 3rd world countries, where they were not supposed to have made any preperations? They got through Y2K without a hitch, and without spending $$$.
I would also suggest the term "source viewable", as opposed to "open source" for software where you can get the source, but there are restrictions e.g. modified versions return to the owner ala APSL, SCSL, Mozilla etc.
>Hell, I'm just going to go out and patent Common Sense. Only because you are a fellow slashdotter, I'll give you the chance to avoid falling into my trap, rather than me keeping quite, then suing. If you go out and patent something obvious (like common sense), then sue people who use it, you are violating my patent (see my post). If you don't sue then you are failing to defend your patent and you lose it. The joy of IP law - MUAHAHAHAH!
Even though people are already doing it, and it is obvious to any parasite with a lawyer, I've patented the technique of applying for a patent for a direction that everybody in the industry is taking, even though such a patents such never be granted (isn't there a requirement for innovation?). Then saying nothing while everyone starts using "my idea", and hitting them for $$$ a few years later. All these guys like McDonnell-Douglas are gonna get a huge bill from my lawyers pretty soon. They should have checked the patent archives before embarking on such a scam^H^H^H legal course of action, but now it is going to cost them!
I remember on that history of the cold war that Ted Turner made, they said that for every dollar spent by the enemy on offensive missiles, you had to spend X times that, where X I think is 6. It is much easier to develop decoys etc. than means to shoot them all down, or identify the real warheads. And if it can be made to work, (unlikely) it is very dangerous to world stability, as it means a nuclear war is winnable. This basically breaks the mutually assured distruction which stopped the cold war from heating up.
Are you sure about this? I thought that the only ones with missiles during WWII were the Germans. The problem with the SCUD is they were designed to be short/midrange missiles, and Saddam got Westwern engineering companies to upgrade them to a longer range, but the accuracy was screwed.
You want immeadiate response from a game or it is very frustrating -> Low Latency (a.k.a ping time). You want high download rate for your porn or it is very frustrating -> High Bandwidth.
:-)
The two in general improve with the frequency but there are exceptions e.g. satellite connections have very high bandwidth but terrible latency.
I have used Navigtor for 3 years, version 2,3 and 4. Nobody can deny that Netscape set a new low benchmark for software quality. They should be criticised for this. The moderation should NOT be used to veto things you don't agree with, and support those that you do. It should be used to elevate the well written, funny or well reasoned, rather than moderating "Linux rulez, Windoze droolz" up.
I liked the dead stare that Gates gave when Paxman told the joke about him. Most people will atleast make a half smile, like "yeah, yeah, very funny", but Gates was stony faced. I think that was the only part where he came off badly.
Most of you Americans won't be familiar with the interviwer, but compared to most of his interviews, Paxman gave Gates a pretty easy ride. Also, he would have been more effective had he a little bit more technical info.
For example, he talked about upgrades, and people being compelled to buy them. Gates was able to handle the question. But if Paxman was able to make the point that when the new Office comes out, people start to get Word documents from others in the new format, and can't read them in their old version. This isn't too technical, but would have put Gates under pressure.
Unfortunately, you can't expect that kind of question on mainstream TV.
In addition to the points raised here about what coders and managers need to do, I would add one thing that the computer media need to do. (By computer media, I mean anyone who reviews products).
Talk about the bugs!
Rate the product for stability. Any and all bugs encountered during the review should be listed in an appendix. When office suites, browsers etc. are being compared, say which is the least buggy, and factor it into your decision about who should be the winner. I am tired of reviews that just compare feature lists. Reviews I've read over the last 10 years rarely mention bugs, and never give an overall assesment of stability. And software quality has gone down and down. The customer needs to be able to an informed choice based on quality before the industry will be forced to clean up its act.
Any knowledgable person out there able to venture an opinion as to how bad this is compared to the Chernobyl disaster? I presume it is smaller, but numerically how many times worse was Chernobyl, especially with regard to contamination of the atmosphere, which is measureable in other countries.
Does anyone know whether there are left-handed versions of the ergonomic MS mice. Their site says that these mice suit left or right-handed use, but that is crap.
Slashdot Mirror
"A) As AI improves, it reaches the point of self-obsolescence. A truly perfect AI is only a mirror of human thought and behavior, and we have that anyway. Why bother."
Has the possiblity of intelligence greater than human ever occured to you, and that we define intelligence as being as smart as a human only because we just happen to be the brightest species on the planet right now?
"Folks, I really don't think that time at work that you spend reading slashdot really counts as work." Why not? I am a programmer, and the IT news, programming languages and technologies discussed here relate directly to my job.
Wireless markup language (WML) defines a simple (and easily parsed, because it is XML and well formed) way of describing pages, which is suitable for a device with a very small screen, little memeory, no mouse and a numeric keypad (i.e. a phone).
Sure, if you are using a device without these restrictions, HTML allows for richer content, but even if you have loads of bandwidth, you are not likely to want to view big pages on the screen of a cellular phone.
That is an excellent article. If you are into CPUs you should read the other articles he has done on Ars Technica (linked to at the bottom of the Transmeta article).
People have discussed the database connection. I came across this article at Javaworld (via the Javalobby site). It describes a different way of using XML with databases.
.com/javaworld/jw-01-2000/jw-01-dbxml.html
Instead of converting the entire database to an XML file, which consumes a lot of resources, and has synchronization issues, this approach places an XML API frontend on the JDBC system. This creates a "virtual" XML document that other XML tools can access via DOM or SAX.
For example, they create a SAX frontend for JDBC, and use it with a SAX-based XSL tool (XT) to transform the data to HTML. So, for example, where the database encounters a column for CustomerName, the template for a CustomerName entity in the XSL sheet is triggered. To the XSL tool and stylesheets it seems as if they are accessing an XML document.
http://www.javaworld
I would just like to say that learning curve of XSL is due to grasping the concepts of how to use it, rather than the language being crypticly designed.
You create templates to match the different kind of elements, and work your way down the tree of the document. This approach allows the stylesheet to work with documents which different numbers of elements, or slightly different structure. Some problems are solved with recursion.
You can do a simple approach where you have a fixed structure document, and insert values from the XML at certain points. This works for a lot of problems.
The main problem I had when learning XSL is study material. The specifications don't function as a tuturial. I recommend http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/b ooks/bible/updates/14.html. It is a version of the chapter on XSL from the XML Bible, updated for the W3C recommendation. I wish I had found it sooner (I have the book, by the way, very good).
There are two parts to XSL.
XSL Transformations:
Transforms any XML document type into another. This can include HTML if it is well formed e.g. XHTML. In reality, it really is not just for "Stylesheets" but can also be used for data to data transformation. The W3C have published a recommendation (their version of a standard) and there are many implementations.
XSL Formatting Objects.
Formats XML for print or screen display. Powerful, complex typesetting-style system, you could use the analogy "PDF/Postscript for XML". Not a standard yet, and only one partial implementation of an old working draft (FOP).
A lot of the guys criticism in that article refers to the second part of XSL, which is not what people are using, or referring to when they discuss XSL here.
I don't find the guys article that persuasive, it is full of assertions, without proving them. Most of the guys gripes are directed towards formatting objects, which is complex, but the momentum behing XSL relates to XSL Transformations.
IE5 XSLT is very different from the W3C recommendation. It is a partial implementation of a 1998 working draft.
Do not assume this to be a case of embrace & extend. Microsoft just implemented XSL before the spec was finalised. They say they will bring out a compliant version soon.
That is the problem with a zero variable cost system like email or usenet. You can send as many messages as you like, and if you get just a small percentage response, that can make for a viable business.
Look at phones. Here in Ireland, where there is a charge for local telephone calls, you don't get companies cold-calling you to sell you something. It may make Internet access more costly, but it has one advantage atleast.
Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure about it, but I thought I had heard the figure 60ns tossed around in an Amiga context. I actually owned a 1200 aswell later on...
The point though is how little progress has been made in RAM latency. Density goes up, but not the response time. Obviously this is why caches dominate modern CPUs, but perhaps there is a great bottleneck there which will worsen in the future?
Maybe I am mistaken, but I think the expansion ram for my old Amiga 500 had 60ns RAM. If not 60, then 80. Has latency not improved at all? Or is it a result of these special burst/high bandwidth designs such as SDRAM and RDRAM, that latencies are high, which the L1/L2 making up for it?
So the anticlimax is the result of the bug being fixed correctly by computer professional.Then how come nothing happened in 2nd and 3rd world countries, where they were not supposed to have made any preperations?
They got through Y2K without a hitch, and without spending $$$.
I would also suggest the term "source viewable", as opposed to "open source" for software where you can get the source, but there are restrictions e.g. modified versions return to the owner ala APSL, SCSL, Mozilla etc.
"...but there's not much that can be done to obfuscate the bytecode, so decompiling is relatively easy."
Maybe the bytecode might be more readable than the Python sourcecode...
>Hell, I'm just going to go out and patent Common Sense.
Only because you are a fellow slashdotter, I'll give you the chance to avoid falling into my trap, rather than me keeping quite, then suing.
If you go out and patent something obvious (like common sense), then sue people who use it, you are violating my patent (see my post). If you don't sue then you are failing to defend your patent and you lose it.
The joy of IP law - MUAHAHAHAH!
Even though people are already doing it, and it is obvious to any parasite with a lawyer, I've patented the technique of applying for a patent for a direction that everybody in the industry is taking, even though such a patents such never be granted (isn't there a requirement for innovation?). Then saying nothing while everyone starts using "my idea", and hitting them for $$$ a few years later.
All these guys like McDonnell-Douglas are gonna get a huge bill from my lawyers pretty soon. They should have checked the patent archives before embarking on such a scam^H^H^H legal course of action, but now it is going to cost them!
I remember on that history of the cold war that Ted Turner made, they said that for every dollar spent by the enemy on offensive missiles, you had to spend X times that, where X I think is 6.
It is much easier to develop decoys etc. than means to shoot them all down, or identify the real warheads. And if it can be made to work, (unlikely) it is very dangerous to world stability, as it means a nuclear war is winnable . This basically breaks the mutually assured distruction which stopped the cold war from heating up.
Are you sure about this? I thought that the only ones with missiles during WWII were the Germans.
The problem with the SCUD is they were designed to be short/midrange missiles, and Saddam got Westwern engineering companies to upgrade them to a longer range, but the accuracy was screwed.
You want immeadiate response from a game or it is very frustrating -> Low Latency (a.k.a ping time).
:-)
You want high download rate for your porn or it is very frustrating -> High Bandwidth.
The two in general improve with the frequency but there are exceptions e.g. satellite connections have very high bandwidth but terrible latency.
I have used Navigtor for 3 years, version 2,3 and 4. Nobody can deny that Netscape set a new low benchmark for software quality. They should be criticised for this. The moderation should NOT be used to veto things you don't agree with, and support those that you do. It should be used to elevate the well written, funny or well reasoned, rather than moderating "Linux rulez, Windoze droolz" up.
[Where should the apostrophe go? :-) ]
I liked the dead stare that Gates gave when Paxman told the joke about him. Most people will atleast make a half smile, like "yeah, yeah, very funny", but Gates was stony faced. I think that was the only part where he came off badly.
Most of you Americans won't be familiar with the interviwer, but compared to most of his interviews, Paxman gave Gates a pretty easy ride. Also, he would have been more effective had he a little bit more technical info.
For example, he talked about upgrades, and people being compelled to buy them. Gates was able to handle the question. But if Paxman was able to make the point that when the new Office comes out, people start to get Word documents from others in the new format, and can't read them in their old version. This isn't too technical, but would have put Gates under pressure.
Unfortunately, you can't expect that kind of question on mainstream TV.
... is because unlike Navigator, it doesn't go down more often than an over-worked hooker. Netscape: Putting the 'K' in 'Kwality'
In addition to the points raised here about what coders and managers need to do, I would add one thing that the computer media need to do. (By computer media, I mean anyone who reviews products).
Talk about the bugs!
Rate the product for stability. Any and all bugs encountered during the review should be listed in an appendix. When office suites, browsers etc. are being compared, say which is the least buggy, and factor it into your decision about who should be the winner. I am tired of reviews that just compare feature lists. Reviews I've read over the last 10 years rarely mention bugs, and never give an overall assesment of stability. And software quality has gone down and down. The customer needs to be able to an informed choice based on quality before the industry will be forced to clean up its act.
Any knowledgable person out there able to venture an opinion as to how bad this is compared to the Chernobyl disaster?
I presume it is smaller, but numerically how many times worse was Chernobyl, especially with regard to contamination of the atmosphere, which is measureable in other countries.
Does anyone know whether there are left-handed versions of the ergonomic MS mice. Their site says that these mice suit left or right-handed use, but that is crap.