The notion that China is NOT doing the things they are accused of in this story is utter and complete bullshit.
Allow me to second this notion and also point out that the ambassador nor anyone from China will address the reports concern's item by item precisely because much of this is common knowledge. Why doesn't the ambassador deny the reports of a civilian based 'information war militia' being formed in Yongning County as the report alleges?
The phrase "Cold War Mentality" is thrown around too much these days. The problem with the original cold war mentality was several fold. One point being that the buildup of nuclear weapons was not only a threat to the countries who intended to use them against each other but a threat to the entire world. In addition the two countries did not exact harm directly upon each other but rather used countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Cuba as conflict points... putting those innocents in a very dire situation for years to come. While the buildup between China and the United States is a threat to the internet and networks internal to those countries, it is unlikely these wars will be fought in puppet theaters. This is not a cold war mentality nor is the United States anywhere close to creating another Cold War scenario.
This is an issue between China and the United States, it's not a 'Cold War mentality' when you're keeping tabs on threats to you. Every country does it. The fear here is that China is dipping into/forcing a civilian base to partake in information warfare. If we were writing this report about being afraid of China for it's pool of computer science resources, we would be much more afraid of India--the largest pool of information technology.
If country A developed a militia or civilian based attack (physical or cyber) on country B, country B will address the threat. If China is claiming this report is full of lies, let them address and disprove this report instead of using vague concepts to discredit the United States. Don't hold your breath.
What else grows from radiation? Cancer. Quod erat demonstratum, trees are cancer. Therefore we must cut them down and burn them. Perhaps form some sort of industry devoted to this.
What? The "logging" industry? Oh, well, very good then. Continue.
WHOA THERE COWBOY!!!
Anyone considering this would do well to note that the product number of the drive you linked and the drive needed for this hack are NOT THE SAME and you will fail if you use the model that ends in BEVT. The BEVS version is no longer produced, hard to find, and has an inflated price as a result of this known procedure.
That's really interesting considering the reviews (several) to the right of the Newegg BEVT product read:
xbox 360
white Reviewed By: Nick on 9/2/2009 Rating + 5 Tech Level Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg
Pros: Purchased this device to upgrade the capacity of my 360. I now have a 120GB 360 drive for a fraction the cost of a ms one. Cons: none Other Thoughts: You must be experienced with computers to use this drive for the 360. (Not just plug and play)
Although I have not done this myself (I don't own an XBox360) I know of people that have done it successfully with the BEVT and there are posts online of successes.
I would be really surprised if the firmware didn't work for the BEVT the same way it does for the BEVS. I think the inflated price of the BEVS is simply because they don't make them anymore. Not a hardware guy but I'd be surprised if Microsoft's latest XBoxes aren't shipping with later drives like the BEVT.
Isn't that exactly what they're doing here? Locking out unauthorized storage.
I understand what you're saying but I do not know how they would do this. I'm not a hardware guy but what I do know of firmware is that if you're making this drive look like the correct corresponding WD1200BEV drive firmware-wise... how will the XBox360 know the difference? I assume these firmware dumps are binary dumps from actual Microsoft licensed drives so while I'm not saying it's impossible, it would sure be impressive if they can pull that off. Because I imagine it would have to disable a lot of valid drives unless they took care to sign each unique drive and (on top of that) have a way to validate it against a server. I heavily doubt they would go to that lengths to prevent such a small portion of the population from saving money on an upgrade.
... or more likely, pick up the $99.99 60GB Live Starter Pack for Xbox 360.
Or (in an even more likely scenario if you're reading Slashdot) you will opt to do it yourself to get twice that storage for a little over half the cost. This is, of course, assuming that locking out "unauthorized storage" does not also target in some crazy way locking out hard drives.
The trailer looks pretty bad. But then again, the original show was pretty bad, too.
Having not experienced Astro Boy until the ripe old age of 25 on Adult Swim, I will defend certain aspects of the show. Namely, I found the various scientists to be interesting, inventive, original and true to science fiction in that -- at least in the handful of episodes I watched -- the often posed moral problems with their inventions. I found some of the topics almost prophetic about what we would be faced with as our technology advances. While this was nothing new to me now, these were animated from 1952 to 1968. To a lesser extent, the villains seemed to every now and then be more than one dimensional bad--a welcomed change. While I have not seen all of them, what I did see was very inventive in the mysteries and adventures of Astro Boy.
Now, that said, the worst aspect of the show was the main character. Tetsuwan Atomu ("Mighty Atom") or Astro Boy was pretty darn one dimensional. Maybe this is great for children, I got real tired of it. Never really seeming to change or evolve from episode to episode, he had a built in ability to tell what's right and wrong. Making him ridiculously infallible and lame. He also seemed to have the Batman's Utility Belt Effect enabled (I just happened to have the antidote to Iocane powder in my belt!) in the devices in his back. To me, the origin story of Astro Boy will probably be mighty boring and straightforward unless he was not created with these built in features and had to find his way. Unfortunately, the previews seem to indicate my fears.
I won't bash it until I see the movie. But that interview was short and soft-balled. It did nothing for my confidence in this movie. Simply put: his target audience is most likely kids. And that's great. And that might get him the most money. But it's not for me. The experience I strive for is not spoon fed black and white problems resolved by the tested, tried and true silver bullet. I feel sorry for movie goers interested in only replication of that plot and welcome movies like The Watchmen.
It's not really clear what you're asking but this matters on non-nerd levels aside from beloved nerd game's mired history of legal action becoming even more mired. In my opinion, something needs to be done about consumer awareness when purchasing digital editions of songs, movies, books, photographs and digital art in general. All too frequently we purchase things without really understanding what exactly it is we are purchasing. This court case may just be another case of piracy but what sparked it is -- again, in my opinion -- an omen of a landslide of similar digital rights revocation. Because customers don't understand what their rights are and almost always wording is put into the agreement, terms of service or license text that gives the company complete authority to terminate your right to enjoy that piece of work whenever they want, even iTunes Music Service has this.
Basically what we're looking at is a future where if any of those content providers starts to do badly in the market and they're offering digital works of their cash cows, they will terminate those licenses. They will blame piracy. While it may never be clear why they started losing money, it won't matter. They'll be sitting with their fingers on a reset switch that will only work once that will theoretically boost sales again. Now, that's laughable when you look at how they can enforce that unless they have a draconian DRM scheme in place. But the simple fact of the matter is that I want the same exact rights to digital content that I received with a good old fashion book or I'll pay the premium for the book. Those rights are simple: lifetime rights for myself to enjoy that work digitally in an open fashion on a number of third party devices. I have yet to see this in any of my perusals of online publishing. Digital publishing licenses are a very sorry state of affairs right now which is sad because it has such liberating potential for the consumer.
There are even links on Twitter to torrents like this. I am happy for you to pirate my book, but I’m NOT A LAWYER, and I can’t guarantee what Apress would do about it – so you’d be doing it off your own back! So, uhm, don’t pirate it?
So he's covered his own ass and recognized that Apress will most likely not see things his way. Now, to do what the summary suggests is confusing to me. I don't know his contract with Apress but I must question why, if he is so upset with Apress, he isn't just releasing an HTML version of his work online. Surely he must have the source documents he wrote to write the book, correct? Then why doesn't he simply make his own HTML plain text version and host it.
The answer is painfully simple. He's reached an agreement with Apress for digital distribution rights making them the only possible channel for distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a default contract for them. Regardless, downloading the Apress version on RapidShare is copyright violation with Apress, regardless of what the author says. There's no question of that.
If I've misjudged Peter Cooper's character, I truly am sorry but he is either willfully or through ignorance putting you at risk with these suggestions. Do not follow through.
obvious questions:
if it is browser based, can one read the book without being online?
Can one download the book temporarily or for good? Are records kept
from where and how long a reader reads a book and what kind of books
are read? Will this be tied to your online profile and get you
reader specific ads?
From the article:
The books bought from Google, and its partners, would be accessible on any gadget that has a Web browser, including smartphones, netbooks and personal computers and laptops. A book would be accessible offline after the first time it was accessed.
There's an awful lot of questions and assumptions being asked about this device that are answered quite clearly in the article. I don't think anything about 'reader ads' are ads while reading was included in this. You'd be paying money for these books (just like with Amazon's Kindle), no ad supported revenue.
As long as the books they sell are readable on any device they win in my book.
From the article:
The books bought from Google, and its partners, would be accessible on any gadget that has a Web browser, including smartphones, netbooks and personal computers and laptops. A book would be accessible offline after the first time it was accessed.
I believe the Kindle has an experimental web browser... although why pay the premium if Google can offer what Amazon offers? Being a netbook user (and enjoying 7 hours of battery life) I'm very interested in this. My netbook was maybe $75 more than the Kindle.
12.34. THIRD DEGREE FELONY PUNISHMENT. (a) An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years.
(b) In addition to imprisonment, an individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree may be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000.
Of course, she's a minor being 16 so the punishment will most likely be up to the judge and expunged at age 18 but for you adults who like to poke and prod people online... better think twice in states where these kind of laws are enforced lest you target the wrong person.
Doesn't that make the 48th Mersenne prime 2 to the power of 43,112,610 minus 1? Can I have my $100,000 now please?
No, because not all Mersenne numbers are prime numbers. Example: 2 ^ 4 - 1 = 15 And 15 is divisible by both 3 and 5. It's highly unlikely for two Mersenne primes to be adjacent to each other as Mersenne numbers but not impossible. If you could verify your assertion, you might just be eligible. I'm guessing it's already been checked by no by GIMPS though.
I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.
So Michael Dell, the CEO of the company that is the largest dealer of PCs to businesses and individuals, suggests you opt for the extra grand in order to 'love your PC again.' You don't say. I would be shocked if anyone was willing to fork over more than $900 for an entire computer these days. How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."
Doesn't the same logic hold for the person that decided it should be 'http' for hypertext transfer protocol and not just simply 'h'? Yes, http is more descriptive but unnecessary. Had another protocol came along starting with 'h' they could have opted for another letter or -- if they were all taken -- became a two letter protocol. I mean, if we're going to get into pedantic apologies for lack of brevity I would assume the three unnecessary letters in http are a greater crime than the double slashes, right? Of course, rarely do I find myself typing anything other than the domain and TLD (i.e. slashdot.org, mail.google.com, woot.com) so this has really become a non-issue.
In related news, Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson is still convinced that the internet will meet its end by 2010. Back in 2007 they claimed that the "exponential" growth in demand for bandwidth will butt up against the "linear" investment in networking technology causing brownouts and no internet by 2010. And as recently as May of 2009, they have been still saying this! Then in October 1st the same company claimed that Net Neutrality will end the internet (or at least as we know it). Which causes me to wonder... what kind of business model is Nemertes running? Do they stand to profit from this FUD or establish themselves as expert prophets if one of these things happens?
Really, the biggest question is... why would the WSJ throw their journalistic integrity on the line for this kind of news? What did they gain at the risk of look like Popular Mechanics who in 1951 speculated we would all have personal helicopters in our garage?
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted 40 years ago that manufacturers could double computing speed every two years or so by cramming ever-tinier transistors on a chip.
The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year... Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.
All he's concerned about is quoting how many components can fit on a single integrated circuit. One can see this propagated to processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras but his observation itself is about the size of transistors -- not speed.
The title should be "The Ultimate Limit of Computing Speed" not Moore's Law.
Furthermore, we've always had Planck Time as a lower bound on the time of one operation with our smallest measurement of time so far being 10^26 Planck Times. So essentially they've bumped that lower bound up and it's highly likely more discoveries will bump that even further up. I guess our kids and grandchildren have their work cut out for them.
...why exactly? How is ST any different from any other sci-fi series like BSG or Firefly? It's not as if those show have any less technobabble or are any less characters-first-technology-second.
The thing that annoyed me the most about Star Trek, and it was most common in the Next Generation, was the idiotic idea of solving a made-up scientific problem with made-up technology. It has no value to a plot; actually it's the opposite of plot, if there is such a thing.
Different people are satisfied with different levels of explanation. I'm not surprised a sci-fi author is dissatisfied with another sci-fi writer's work. Possibly could explain the great divide between Star Wars and Star Trek fans. Rarely was a hyperdrive or the force explained in great detail in Star Wars but Star Trek seemed to like to take it a couple steps further. And when they got into midichlorians just to measure the force it presented a possible science to the force or an explanation and the fans revolted. I liken it to cheerleaders at football games. From a distance and on TV they look great but if you've ever got up in one of their mugs during a game they are caked -- I mean caked -- with makeup. To a disgusting degree. It's so you can see it from a great distance in the stands but up close they're circus clowns. Similar to this a lot of sci-fi plot devices fall apart upon closer inspection. Those that hold up are allowed deep introspection before the readers/viewer/listener gets upset. Personally I cannot stand the way magic is explained in Harry Potter yet I eat up "The One Power" from the Wheel of Time like a fanboi ready to forgive Robert Jordan for purple prose, "light" oath taking and hair tugging. I guess it's just the way I am and how those authors deliver to me.
Oh, and my biggest beef with Star Trek is the stretched analogies (after I just made one about cheerleaders) in the original series. I feel this has caused a lot of nerds to stretch for analogies when explaining something complicated. That analogy allowed for little explanation to be made and since it was made to something real in real life we were more likely to swallow it. Now, let's say you're trying to explain something complicated in real life and you're a Star Trek fan. You're probably tempted to stretch to an analogy but, in the end, what have you really taught that person? Nothing but a (possibly) problematic association a la Ted Stevens' Tubes.
In the end it's fiction. It gets scrutinized because it's such massively popular fiction. A lot of this criticism is really stupid stuff and nitpicking. My advice is just relax and enjoy it or simply find something else to watch.
Love the idea but I'm a little cautious of Wikipedia's search engine. Not sure if they're rendering the php the same way and using MediaWiki's built in search engine but I have problems with that if they are. For instance if I search for hottest pepper the answer is the seventh result. On Google, it's the second result but also found in the first (being on the page for Scoville scale on Wikipedia).
The time this would be really useful to me is when I get into arguments at bars or restaurants with friends. I'm a bit concerned about how well the search part of this device will work for that, I'd probably need to rethink a lot of my searches to start at an obvious Wikipedia page and then lead me to my answer.
Probably wonderful for just reading through Wikipedia on a bus or plane though, too bad it doesn't seem to have the images, videos or audio.
Slashdot Mirror
So what your saying is we need to outsource our cyber-warfare to India?
Yes. And apparently our grammour to Great Britain.
The notion that China is NOT doing the things they are accused of in this story is utter and complete bullshit .
Allow me to second this notion and also point out that the ambassador nor anyone from China will address the reports concern's item by item precisely because much of this is common knowledge. Why doesn't the ambassador deny the reports of a civilian based 'information war militia' being formed in Yongning County as the report alleges?
... putting those innocents in a very dire situation for years to come. While the buildup between China and the United States is a threat to the internet and networks internal to those countries, it is unlikely these wars will be fought in puppet theaters. This is not a cold war mentality nor is the United States anywhere close to creating another Cold War scenario.
The phrase "Cold War Mentality" is thrown around too much these days. The problem with the original cold war mentality was several fold. One point being that the buildup of nuclear weapons was not only a threat to the countries who intended to use them against each other but a threat to the entire world. In addition the two countries did not exact harm directly upon each other but rather used countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Cuba as conflict points
This is an issue between China and the United States, it's not a 'Cold War mentality' when you're keeping tabs on threats to you. Every country does it. The fear here is that China is dipping into/forcing a civilian base to partake in information warfare. If we were writing this report about being afraid of China for it's pool of computer science resources, we would be much more afraid of India--the largest pool of information technology.
If country A developed a militia or civilian based attack (physical or cyber) on country B, country B will address the threat. If China is claiming this report is full of lies, let them address and disprove this report instead of using vague concepts to discredit the United States. Don't hold your breath.
This is getting blown way out of proportion and has a simple explanation:
You also have to BCC your immediate manager to remain employed.
What else grows from radiation? Cancer. Quod erat demonstratum, trees are cancer. Therefore we must cut them down and burn them. Perhaps form some sort of industry devoted to this.
What? The "logging" industry? Oh, well, very good then. Continue.
Looks like they got my message to Steve Ballmer.
WHOA THERE COWBOY!!! Anyone considering this would do well to note that the product number of the drive you linked and the drive needed for this hack are NOT THE SAME and you will fail if you use the model that ends in BEVT. The BEVS version is no longer produced, hard to find, and has an inflated price as a result of this known procedure.
That's really interesting considering the reviews (several) to the right of the Newegg BEVT product read:
Although I have not done this myself (I don't own an XBox360) I know of people that have done it successfully with the BEVT and there are posts online of successes.
I would be really surprised if the firmware didn't work for the BEVT the same way it does for the BEVS. I think the inflated price of the BEVS is simply because they don't make them anymore. Not a hardware guy but I'd be surprised if Microsoft's latest XBoxes aren't shipping with later drives like the BEVT.
Isn't that exactly what they're doing here? Locking out unauthorized storage.
I understand what you're saying but I do not know how they would do this. I'm not a hardware guy but what I do know of firmware is that if you're making this drive look like the correct corresponding WD1200BEV drive firmware-wise ... how will the XBox360 know the difference? I assume these firmware dumps are binary dumps from actual Microsoft licensed drives so while I'm not saying it's impossible, it would sure be impressive if they can pull that off. Because I imagine it would have to disable a lot of valid drives unless they took care to sign each unique drive and (on top of that) have a way to validate it against a server. I heavily doubt they would go to that lengths to prevent such a small portion of the population from saving money on an upgrade.
I would say this is a very safe alternative.
... or more likely, pick up the $99.99 60GB Live Starter Pack for Xbox 360.
Or (in an even more likely scenario if you're reading Slashdot) you will opt to do it yourself to get twice that storage for a little over half the cost. This is, of course, assuming that locking out "unauthorized storage" does not also target in some crazy way locking out hard drives.
The trailer looks pretty bad. But then again, the original show was pretty bad, too.
Having not experienced Astro Boy until the ripe old age of 25 on Adult Swim, I will defend certain aspects of the show. Namely, I found the various scientists to be interesting, inventive, original and true to science fiction in that -- at least in the handful of episodes I watched -- the often posed moral problems with their inventions. I found some of the topics almost prophetic about what we would be faced with as our technology advances. While this was nothing new to me now, these were animated from 1952 to 1968. To a lesser extent, the villains seemed to every now and then be more than one dimensional bad--a welcomed change. While I have not seen all of them, what I did see was very inventive in the mysteries and adventures of Astro Boy.
Now, that said, the worst aspect of the show was the main character. Tetsuwan Atomu ("Mighty Atom") or Astro Boy was pretty darn one dimensional. Maybe this is great for children, I got real tired of it. Never really seeming to change or evolve from episode to episode, he had a built in ability to tell what's right and wrong. Making him ridiculously infallible and lame. He also seemed to have the Batman's Utility Belt Effect enabled (I just happened to have the antidote to Iocane powder in my belt!) in the devices in his back. To me, the origin story of Astro Boy will probably be mighty boring and straightforward unless he was not created with these built in features and had to find his way. Unfortunately, the previews seem to indicate my fears.
I won't bash it until I see the movie. But that interview was short and soft-balled. It did nothing for my confidence in this movie. Simply put: his target audience is most likely kids. And that's great. And that might get him the most money. But it's not for me. The experience I strive for is not spoon fed black and white problems resolved by the tested, tried and true silver bullet. I feel sorry for movie goers interested in only replication of that plot and welcome movies like The Watchmen.
It's not really clear what you're asking but this matters on non-nerd levels aside from beloved nerd game's mired history of legal action becoming even more mired. In my opinion, something needs to be done about consumer awareness when purchasing digital editions of songs, movies, books, photographs and digital art in general. All too frequently we purchase things without really understanding what exactly it is we are purchasing. This court case may just be another case of piracy but what sparked it is -- again, in my opinion -- an omen of a landslide of similar digital rights revocation. Because customers don't understand what their rights are and almost always wording is put into the agreement, terms of service or license text that gives the company complete authority to terminate your right to enjoy that piece of work whenever they want, even iTunes Music Service has this.
Basically what we're looking at is a future where if any of those content providers starts to do badly in the market and they're offering digital works of their cash cows, they will terminate those licenses. They will blame piracy. While it may never be clear why they started losing money, it won't matter. They'll be sitting with their fingers on a reset switch that will only work once that will theoretically boost sales again. Now, that's laughable when you look at how they can enforce that unless they have a draconian DRM scheme in place. But the simple fact of the matter is that I want the same exact rights to digital content that I received with a good old fashion book or I'll pay the premium for the book. Those rights are simple: lifetime rights for myself to enjoy that work digitally in an open fashion on a number of third party devices. I have yet to see this in any of my perusals of online publishing. Digital publishing licenses are a very sorry state of affairs right now which is sad because it has such liberating potential for the consumer.
There are even links on Twitter to torrents like this. I am happy for you to pirate my book, but I’m NOT A LAWYER, and I can’t guarantee what Apress would do about it – so you’d be doing it off your own back! So, uhm, don’t pirate it?
So he's covered his own ass and recognized that Apress will most likely not see things his way. Now, to do what the summary suggests is confusing to me. I don't know his contract with Apress but I must question why, if he is so upset with Apress, he isn't just releasing an HTML version of his work online. Surely he must have the source documents he wrote to write the book, correct? Then why doesn't he simply make his own HTML plain text version and host it.
The answer is painfully simple. He's reached an agreement with Apress for digital distribution rights making them the only possible channel for distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a default contract for them. Regardless, downloading the Apress version on RapidShare is copyright violation with Apress, regardless of what the author says. There's no question of that.
If I've misjudged Peter Cooper's character, I truly am sorry but he is either willfully or through ignorance putting you at risk with these suggestions. Do not follow through.
obvious questions: if it is browser based, can one read the book without being online? Can one download the book temporarily or for good? Are records kept from where and how long a reader reads a book and what kind of books are read? Will this be tied to your online profile and get you reader specific ads?
From the article:
The books bought from Google, and its partners, would be accessible on any gadget that has a Web browser, including smartphones, netbooks and personal computers and laptops. A book would be accessible offline after the first time it was accessed.
There's an awful lot of questions and assumptions being asked about this device that are answered quite clearly in the article. I don't think anything about 'reader ads' are ads while reading was included in this. You'd be paying money for these books (just like with Amazon's Kindle), no ad supported revenue.
As long as the books they sell are readable on any device they win in my book.
From the article:
The books bought from Google, and its partners, would be accessible on any gadget that has a Web browser, including smartphones, netbooks and personal computers and laptops. A book would be accessible offline after the first time it was accessed.
I believe the Kindle has an experimental web browser ... although why pay the premium if Google can offer what Amazon offers? Being a netbook user (and enjoying 7 hours of battery life) I'm very interested in this. My netbook was maybe $75 more than the Kindle.
Sorry to reply to myself but I found a list of felonies in the third degree for the state of Texas if you want to compare this new law to older laws resulting in the same degree of punishment. Apparently a third degree felony punishment (as noted in my parent post) can be meted out for anything ranging from arson to assault to conducting a game of bingo without a license.
Of course, she's a minor being 16 so the punishment will most likely be up to the judge and expunged at age 18 but for you adults who like to poke and prod people online ... better think twice in states where these kind of laws are enforced lest you target the wrong person.
Doesn't that make the 48th Mersenne prime 2 to the power of 43,112,610 minus 1? Can I have my $100,000 now please?
No, because not all Mersenne numbers are prime numbers. Example: 2 ^ 4 - 1 = 15 And 15 is divisible by both 3 and 5. It's highly unlikely for two Mersenne primes to be adjacent to each other as Mersenne numbers but not impossible. If you could verify your assertion, you might just be eligible. I'm guessing it's already been checked by no by GIMPS though.
The number known as a Mersenne prime, is the 45th known Mersenne prime, written shorthand as 2 to the power of 43,112,609, minus 1
Wikipedia lists it as the 47th known prime.
The summary is word for word the first three paragraphs in the article. The titles are also the same. Dangerous ground to tread on, CmdrTaco.
I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $279.99
(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)
Latest Office 20xx: $399.95
Total: $979.93
So Michael Dell, the CEO of the company that is the largest dealer of PCs to businesses and individuals, suggests you opt for the extra grand in order to 'love your PC again.' You don't say. I would be shocked if anyone was willing to fork over more than $900 for an entire computer these days. How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."
Doesn't the same logic hold for the person that decided it should be 'http' for hypertext transfer protocol and not just simply 'h'? Yes, http is more descriptive but unnecessary. Had another protocol came along starting with 'h' they could have opted for another letter or -- if they were all taken -- became a two letter protocol. I mean, if we're going to get into pedantic apologies for lack of brevity I would assume the three unnecessary letters in http are a greater crime than the double slashes, right? Of course, rarely do I find myself typing anything other than the domain and TLD (i.e. slashdot.org, mail.google.com, woot.com) so this has really become a non-issue.
In related news, Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson is still convinced that the internet will meet its end by 2010. Back in 2007 they claimed that the "exponential" growth in demand for bandwidth will butt up against the "linear" investment in networking technology causing brownouts and no internet by 2010. And as recently as May of 2009, they have been still saying this! Then in October 1st the same company claimed that Net Neutrality will end the internet (or at least as we know it). Which causes me to wonder ... what kind of business model is Nemertes running? Do they stand to profit from this FUD or establish themselves as expert prophets if one of these things happens?
... why would the WSJ throw their journalistic integrity on the line for this kind of news? What did they gain at the risk of look like Popular Mechanics who in 1951 speculated we would all have personal helicopters in our garage?
Really, the biggest question is
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted 40 years ago that manufacturers could double computing speed every two years or so
by cramming ever-tinier transistors on a chip.
That's not exactly correct. Moore's Law (or observation more like) reads in the original article as:
The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year ... Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.
All he's concerned about is quoting how many components can fit on a single integrated circuit. One can see this propagated to processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras but his observation itself is about the size of transistors -- not speed.
The title should be "The Ultimate Limit of Computing Speed" not Moore's Law.
Furthermore, we've always had Planck Time as a lower bound on the time of one operation with our smallest measurement of time so far being 10^26 Planck Times. So essentially they've bumped that lower bound up and it's highly likely more discoveries will bump that even further up. I guess our kids and grandchildren have their work cut out for them.
...why exactly? How is ST any different from any other sci-fi series like BSG or Firefly? It's not as if those show have any less technobabble or are any less characters-first-technology-second.
It's simple, Stross is just annoyed that his talk at Mountain View about his book "Halting State" has received a mere 6,200 views while Leonard Nimoy's toe tapping dance number "Bilbo Baggins" has garnered more than a million views and taken the country by storm.
The thing that annoyed me the most about Star Trek, and it was most common in the Next Generation, was the idiotic idea of solving a made-up scientific problem with made-up technology. It has no value to a plot; actually it's the opposite of plot, if there is such a thing.
Different people are satisfied with different levels of explanation. I'm not surprised a sci-fi author is dissatisfied with another sci-fi writer's work. Possibly could explain the great divide between Star Wars and Star Trek fans. Rarely was a hyperdrive or the force explained in great detail in Star Wars but Star Trek seemed to like to take it a couple steps further. And when they got into midichlorians just to measure the force it presented a possible science to the force or an explanation and the fans revolted. I liken it to cheerleaders at football games. From a distance and on TV they look great but if you've ever got up in one of their mugs during a game they are caked -- I mean caked -- with makeup. To a disgusting degree. It's so you can see it from a great distance in the stands but up close they're circus clowns. Similar to this a lot of sci-fi plot devices fall apart upon closer inspection. Those that hold up are allowed deep introspection before the readers/viewer/listener gets upset. Personally I cannot stand the way magic is explained in Harry Potter yet I eat up "The One Power" from the Wheel of Time like a fanboi ready to forgive Robert Jordan for purple prose, "light" oath taking and hair tugging. I guess it's just the way I am and how those authors deliver to me.
Oh, and my biggest beef with Star Trek is the stretched analogies (after I just made one about cheerleaders) in the original series. I feel this has caused a lot of nerds to stretch for analogies when explaining something complicated. That analogy allowed for little explanation to be made and since it was made to something real in real life we were more likely to swallow it. Now, let's say you're trying to explain something complicated in real life and you're a Star Trek fan. You're probably tempted to stretch to an analogy but, in the end, what have you really taught that person? Nothing but a (possibly) problematic association a la Ted Stevens' Tubes.
In the end it's fiction. It gets scrutinized because it's such massively popular fiction. A lot of this criticism is really stupid stuff and nitpicking. My advice is just relax and enjoy it or simply find something else to watch.
Love the idea but I'm a little cautious of Wikipedia's search engine. Not sure if they're rendering the php the same way and using MediaWiki's built in search engine but I have problems with that if they are. For instance if I search for hottest pepper the answer is the seventh result. On Google, it's the second result but also found in the first (being on the page for Scoville scale on Wikipedia).
The time this would be really useful to me is when I get into arguments at bars or restaurants with friends. I'm a bit concerned about how well the search part of this device will work for that, I'd probably need to rethink a lot of my searches to start at an obvious Wikipedia page and then lead me to my answer.
Probably wonderful for just reading through Wikipedia on a bus or plane though, too bad it doesn't seem to have the images, videos or audio.