I, too, am astonished by some of the results of extremely simple "algorithms". It's called "emergent behaviour" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence). My favorite is the shoal of fish.
Neural nets running on a cluster of computers is quite a lot more complex. I can only hope that they're looking to improve the ANN paradigm to take us that little bit closer to real AI, rather than just using existing techniques to prove a point.
Anyway, I'm going to hunt around for more data on this. It looks interesting - anyone got any links to the source?
I've just scanned the posts for this and I haven't seen a single one which says "What an incredibly simple and useful idea". We have the (very) tired and predictable jokes about pron and the equally predictable comments on the lines of "This won't work".
OK. It may have flaws, but isn't the concept interesting in itself?
Sheesh! Sometimes I worry about the/. community (yeah! That includes me)
Yup! This sort of thing happened, not with the processor itself, but with the core. For those of you who are too young to know (sigh! - ie most of you - I feel old) core memory was made up of tiny little rings of ferromagnetic material which was threaded with thin wires to energise the core element and another to sense its state. Err.. you might get a better explanation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_memory
Anyway, while I was at UMIST, we wrote a program to make the front panel lights flash in interesting ways on a Nova. Unfortunately, we had a hot loop and managed to damage the core. We were in serious trouble. Fortunately, the Dean was quite impressed with the programming - so we didn't have to pay for it.
So, it's hardly a new problem.
BTW. Did anyone else use a radio to listen to the uP to detect tight loops etc?
Right! The glib tone of this post annoys me; I can't let it go by without comment.
Before I start, both I and my wife suffer from chronic depression (and I'm bipolar). We both lead perfectly normal and happy lives - thanks to medication. So I know what I'm talking about.
> 2. Shock treatment (as in for the loonies)
Oh, thank you very much! I haven't had this, but my wife was so desparate that she did. I can't say whether it cured her (I suspect the medication has much more to do with it), but I *can* say that it is a brutal approach. I refused because I was afraid that it would damage my mind (which is a very good one - polymath). It tore her mind to bits! For months after the sessions she was confused, had massive memory loss (and those memories are gone for good) and suffered - possibly more than the depression itself. I think that one could compare it to resetting a computer by throwing a bucket of water over it. Quite possibly, its only effect is to press RESET on the brain and let it rebuild from there.
> but spend more time on the down side
Actually, the "up" side is even worse. You can do serious damage to yourself and those around you, mentally, spiritually, financially and even physically. At least when you're "down" you tend to stay put. Not that it's much fun.
> 3. Regardless of the treatment, many seriously believe "fixing" this, particularly the down or > depressed side will decrease or neutralize the creative side of those who are exceptionally > creative.
There is something in this, but it misses the point. People who want to mitigate the effects of the medication for any reason don't have *severe* depression. If you do, you will do ANYTHING to make it stop... and I mean *ANYTHING*. Why do you think sufferers kill themselves? In a way, I'm lucky because my disease started at an early age and built to a crescendo by the time I was 30. If I (or, I suspect, anyone) suffered the full effects in one go I would have looked for the very first way to kill myself - immediately.
I do suffer some performance hit from the medication, but it's worth it. I once tried to get a boost for an important problem by stopping my medication. Never again!
If you're a sufferer, don't worry about this. It really is fairly minimal and, as I said, very well worth it. Look at it this way; if you don't have to spend most of your mental energy fighting it, you're more productive anyway and much happier as well. In the course of my treatment, they concentrated on mitigating the symptoms, then hunting round for the correct drug and dosage for everyday life. It works very well.
Finally, don't be ashamed. I know that there's a lot of stigma attached to depression and OCD but were you ashamed when you had a cold? Of course not! And it's the same thing - a disease. And it can be treated. If you have it, get help NOW! There is no need to suffer. It will take time and patience, but it can work.
And, finally, finally: Remember you're not alone. Many others know how you feel (me, for example) and love and understanding can go a *long* way (soppy, but true). Where do you think my wife and I met? Yup - the loony bin (*I* am allowed to say it:) 15 years now (happy sigh).
It's beginning to look like the US government is *really* starting to lose it. And the UK gov doesn't seem too far behind (I'm English). I now live in Italy where we have our own fair share of stupid legislation (possibly more!) But there's one significant difference: If we think a law is really stupid - we ignore it - and so do the police (and, more importantly, their Mums and Dads).
My point is (OK, maybe a bit off topic); is it the law itself that's the problem, or the ability/willingness to enforce it? We're looking at motives, here.
WHY is this and other legislation being put forward? Obviously, it's nothing to do with the stemming of terrorism. Obviously the AG is getting involved for photo-ops and the like and probably hasn't a clue what it's all about. And, equally obviously, it hasn't a cat-in-hell's chance of making any significant difference to the problem it's supposed to address.
So the *ability* to enforce angle doesn't look so good. The very best they can expect is that they'll trawl up a few impoverished souls to throw to the wolves. The big operators will continue as before - and, anyway, there are plenty of existing laws to deal with their activities already.
That leaves *willingness* to enforce. Well, there is a cultural difference between here and the US. But it surely can't be that wide - and I thought the Yanks were a belligerent lot when it came to their rights. Sure, you're always going to get some jobsworth who will follow the rule book no matter how absurd it seems (suing grannies for grandkids' downloads springs to mind here)but the *entire* law enforcement community can't be stupid, can they? For the sake of argument (and peace of mind) let us assume "Nah!"
So, we come back to the actual law itself. If one accepts the previous points about ability/willingness to enforce, one has to ask what the hell is the law for?
We're a small biotech company with capabilities described (DNA sequencers, centrifuges et al). And, I suppose, if we *really* wanted to put the time and effort into it, we *could* produce something nasty - but not easily. And, unless you have the equivalent of a PhD in biochemistry and a lot of experience, you're onto a non-starter. So knocking up the Satan Bug in your garage just isn't on.
But, you're spot on about the delivery systems. For example, the Japanese tried to build a strong bioweapon capability during WWII. Even with the resources they deployed (including human experimentation) they couldn't get it to work. True, technology is much more advanced these days, but the difficulties remain (TG).
As an aside - quite a lot of our kit *did* come from LabX.
It is STRATUM 1! Small business networks should be working from stratum 2 or lower and they should set up their own server from a single contact point. Individuals, especially the great unwashed, don't even know about this (also, don't care and why should they?) and should be pointed towards something lower down and more innocuous.
Second. If his principal clients didn't know about the problem, surely they do now. Perhaps that would help him organise some sort of alternative until D-Link see reason.
I act as a consultant to quite a few small businesses here (Italy). DSL rollout is just beginning to get to the areas outside the major towns. I can promise D-Link that, effectively, their products are barred here as I can't recommend stuff that is harmful to the 'net as a whole. Shame really, 'cos their kit is otherwise pretty good value for money.
You were lucky!
We could't afford a programmer. Our interface was totally deaf and was illegitimate as well as illiterate; in fact it was a mongoose, no a snail, no...
And you try telling the young folks today that - they won't believe you, they won't!
> Plus, for anything other than rendering, a heterogeneous cluster is limited by its slowest node (for almost all applications)
Err... No.
A heterogeneous cluster treating all nodes the same way will have the same problem with rendering engines as well. But it doesn't have to be that way. Using techniques like stochastic petri net analysis (just Google it) can allow tuning the cluster on a node-by-node basis. It's not always worth it, but you can segment the cluster so that it's the slower processors that end up with wait states.
As they say YMMV.
You know. I'd really like to see how these people would interpret quantum theory with their own special spin. We know that parts of the standard model are a bit iffy - wouldn't it be a better target for them?
It's all very well to discuss which has the harshest environment - Mars or the Moon. What about the third planetary player in the game which has the harshest environment of all? That's right... Earth!
Ok, so we don't really notice for the most part because we evolved here, but think about it:
A heavy atmosphere which carries dust and that most corrosive material - water. Even large mountains are ground to nothing in a matter of a few million years. Add to that fact it's about 20% oxygen and you have a serious fire risk as well!
Compared to Mars and the Moon, there is crippling gravity here. In order to build structures to cope with that AND the atmosphere we have to use a huge amount of materials for strength.
70% of the surface of Earth is covered with corrosive water made even worse by the inclusion of salts. (And we can't breathe water)
Areas of Earth are so unstable that volcanoes can appear out of nowhere and earthquakes can cause havoc. The planet is still tectonically active for crissakes!
I could go on...
Ok, so we also "evolved" our machines with this environment in mind. But, after that, something as benign as the moon has got to be piss-easy provided we stop trying to crowbar Earth solutions into a Moon/Mars problem.
I was brought up in a Jesuit boarding school. In one of the philosophy/theology classes my teacher put it like this:
"Imagine God is a pool player. Instead of taking one shot at a time, He does it His way. One shot - period. The cue hits the pack, a red goes down, the cue ball bounces back and hits the next red, which also goes down etc etc. Finally the cue ball pots the black and comes to rest at it's starting point (God has Style). Game over - one shot."
If these creationist guys really believe in an all-powerful God, why do they think He has to do anything in a way their pitiful minds can comprehend? Are they saying that God *isn't* all powerful?
I'm a scientist and I subscribe to Newton's view that learning about the Universe is to "Better know the mind of God".
I'm an engineer (actually, worse - I'm a scientist). The big flaw in this argument is that people like me are *only* in it for the money. Not true. I *love* my work! There are even days when I wake up in the morning itching to get to grips with a problem.
My point is that, if you were to make engineering an automatically high paying job, you would end up with the same pitiful microcephalons who would go for the easy option going for engineering. No passion, no drive (and no brain). In that case we would have a *serious* problem. As the parent poster points out - many companies would go for the lowest common denominator for cost reasons.
I earn (more) than enough to make a living and, best of all, I work on things I'd do for free (apart from having to eat, pay the mortgage etc). I have *massive* job satisfaction. Do we (I mean real engineers) want to end up in a situation where the senior engineer can't understand a word we're saying because he's really management (with a crappy and meaningless engineering degree)?
Don't get me wrong - if a company is willing to pay a lot for my services I'll seriously consider it. But only if I think I'll get that buzz at the end of the day. And, yes - I know that sometimes that *buzz* will involve me banging my head on the dinner table shouting "I must be missing something!". Isn't that part of the fun? Especially when you get the answer.
Shouldn't that be "gruniad"?
Anyway, I think the point of "New Scientist" is that it targets its audience quite carefully. It's aimed at the intelligent, curious layman. That's the key word - LAYMAN. My view and experience is that other publications such as "Nature" and "Scientific American" are aimed slightly higher. They're all good at what they aim to do and I like the fact that they allow me to satisfy some of my curiosity without confusing me.
To illustrate the point: I'm a biochemist, so I read periodicals such as "Drug discovery and Design" which, I submit, would be almost impenetrable to even a/. reader but, to me, is rather simply put - but it keeps me informed. There's a scale of detail of presentation which has its uses for different people.
At the lower end of the scale there are the popular programs on the telly. Recently I watched an episode of CSI (Ok, but *I* like it) where they stated "Terminal velocity is 9.8 M/s squared". What did I say? I said "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Perhaps some effort should be put into helping/bullying/assassinating those scriptwriters who come up with things like that.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I think he was referring to the "WOW!" factor that makes science such fun. I know I was.
:)
No need to be superior about it
I, too, am astonished by some of the results of extremely simple "algorithms". It's called "emergent behaviour" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence). My favorite is the shoal of fish.
Neural nets running on a cluster of computers is quite a lot more complex. I can only hope that they're looking to improve the ANN paradigm to take us that little bit closer to real AI, rather than just using existing techniques to prove a point.
Anyway, I'm going to hunt around for more data on this. It looks interesting - anyone got any links to the source?
I've just scanned the posts for this and I haven't seen a single one which says "What an incredibly simple and useful idea". We have the (very) tired and predictable jokes about pron and the equally predictable comments on the lines of "This won't work".
/. community (yeah! That includes me)
OK. It may have flaws, but isn't the concept interesting in itself?
Sheesh! Sometimes I worry about the
Yup! This sort of thing happened, not with the processor itself, but with the core. For those of you who are too young to know (sigh! - ie most of you - I feel old) core memory was made up of tiny little rings of ferromagnetic material which was threaded with thin wires to energise the core element and another to sense its state. Err.. you might get a better explanation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_memory
Anyway, while I was at UMIST, we wrote a program to make the front panel lights flash in interesting ways on a Nova. Unfortunately, we had a hot loop and managed to damage the core. We were in serious trouble. Fortunately, the Dean was quite impressed with the programming - so we didn't have to pay for it.
So, it's hardly a new problem.
BTW. Did anyone else use a radio to listen to the uP to detect tight loops etc?
Right! The glib tone of this post annoys me; I can't let it go by without comment.
:) 15 years now (happy sigh).
Before I start, both I and my wife suffer from chronic depression (and I'm bipolar). We both lead perfectly normal and happy lives - thanks to medication. So I know what I'm talking about.
> 2. Shock treatment (as in for the loonies)
Oh, thank you very much! I haven't had this, but my wife was so desparate that she did. I can't say whether it cured her (I suspect the medication has much more to do with it), but I *can* say that it is a brutal approach. I refused because I was afraid that it would damage my mind (which is a very good one - polymath). It tore her mind to bits! For months after the sessions she was confused, had massive memory loss (and those memories are gone for good) and suffered - possibly more than the depression itself. I think that one could compare it to resetting a computer by throwing a bucket of water over it. Quite possibly, its only effect is to press RESET on the brain and let it rebuild from there.
> but spend more time on the down side
Actually, the "up" side is even worse. You can do serious damage to yourself and those around you, mentally, spiritually, financially and even physically. At least when you're "down" you tend to stay put. Not that it's much fun.
> 3. Regardless of the treatment, many seriously believe "fixing" this, particularly the down or
> depressed side will decrease or neutralize the creative side of those who are exceptionally
> creative.
There is something in this, but it misses the point. People who want to mitigate the effects of the medication for any reason don't have *severe* depression. If you do, you will do ANYTHING to make it stop... and I mean *ANYTHING*. Why do you think sufferers kill themselves? In a way, I'm lucky because my disease started at an early age and built to a crescendo by the time I was 30. If I (or, I suspect, anyone) suffered the full effects in one go I would have looked for the very first way to kill myself - immediately.
I do suffer some performance hit from the medication, but it's worth it. I once tried to get a boost for an important problem by stopping my medication. Never again!
If you're a sufferer, don't worry about this. It really is fairly minimal and, as I said, very well worth it. Look at it this way; if you don't have to spend most of your mental energy fighting it, you're more productive anyway and much happier as well. In the course of my treatment, they concentrated on mitigating the symptoms, then hunting round for the correct drug and dosage for everyday life. It works very well.
Finally, don't be ashamed. I know that there's a lot of stigma attached to depression and OCD but were you ashamed when you had a cold? Of course not! And it's the same thing - a disease. And it can be treated. If you have it, get help NOW! There is no need to suffer. It will take time and patience, but it can work.
And, finally, finally: Remember you're not alone. Many others know how you feel (me, for example) and love and understanding can go a *long* way (soppy, but true). Where do you think my wife and I met? Yup - the loony bin (*I* am allowed to say it
When I saw the headline I thought "360? But that's OLD technology - they can't still be around, can they?"
Then I twigged.
The *really* sad part is that 99% of you young whippersnappers out there won't have a clue what I'm talking about. (Hint IBM)
I'm now going to take my bathchair for a spin around the block.
It's beginning to look like the US government is *really* starting to lose it. And the UK gov doesn't seem too far behind (I'm English). I now live in Italy where we have our own fair share of stupid legislation (possibly more!) But there's one significant difference: If we think a law is really stupid - we ignore it - and so do the police (and, more importantly, their Mums and Dads).
My point is (OK, maybe a bit off topic); is it the law itself that's the problem, or the ability/willingness to enforce it? We're looking at motives, here.
WHY is this and other legislation being put forward? Obviously, it's nothing to do with the stemming of terrorism. Obviously the AG is getting involved for photo-ops and the like and probably hasn't a clue what it's all about. And, equally obviously, it hasn't a cat-in-hell's chance of making any significant difference to the problem it's supposed to address.
So the *ability* to enforce angle doesn't look so good. The very best they can expect is that they'll trawl up a few impoverished souls to throw to the wolves. The big operators will continue as before - and, anyway, there are plenty of existing laws to deal with their activities already.
That leaves *willingness* to enforce. Well, there is a cultural difference between here and the US. But it surely can't be that wide - and I thought the Yanks were a belligerent lot when it came to their rights. Sure, you're always going to get some jobsworth who will follow the rule book no matter how absurd it seems (suing grannies for grandkids' downloads springs to mind here)but the *entire* law enforcement community can't be stupid, can they? For the sake of argument (and peace of mind) let us assume "Nah!"
So, we come back to the actual law itself. If one accepts the previous points about ability/willingness to enforce, one has to ask what the hell is the law for?
I'd *really* like to know.
(Dons tin foil hat and hides under table).
Half right.
We're a small biotech company with capabilities described (DNA sequencers, centrifuges et al). And, I suppose, if we *really* wanted to put the time and effort into it, we *could* produce something nasty - but not easily. And, unless you have the equivalent of a PhD in biochemistry and a lot of experience, you're onto a non-starter. So knocking up the Satan Bug in your garage just isn't on.
But, you're spot on about the delivery systems. For example, the Japanese tried to build a strong bioweapon capability during WWII. Even with the resources they deployed (including human experimentation) they couldn't get it to work. True, technology is much more advanced these days, but the difficulties remain (TG).
As an aside - quite a lot of our kit *did* come from LabX.
DISCLAIMER: IAABC (I *am* a biochemist)
I think there are two points to be noted here.
It is STRATUM 1! Small business networks should be working from stratum 2 or lower and they should set up their own server from a single contact point. Individuals, especially the great unwashed, don't even know about this (also, don't care and why should they?) and should be pointed towards something lower down and more innocuous.
Second. If his principal clients didn't know about the problem, surely they do now. Perhaps that would help him organise some sort of alternative until D-Link see reason.
I act as a consultant to quite a few small businesses here (Italy). DSL rollout is just beginning to get to the areas outside the major towns. I can promise D-Link that, effectively, their products are barred here as I can't recommend stuff that is harmful to the 'net as a whole. Shame really, 'cos their kit is otherwise pretty good value for money.
OK, call me stupid (sigh! Thank you) but what's the big deal about a virus that can attack both EXE and ELF formats?
So it's an interesting exercise in writing portable code, but how is it more dangerous than, say, a two pronged attack which tries both formats?
Ah, well. I'd better start paying more attention to those MD5 checksums.
You were lucky! We could't afford a programmer. Our interface was totally deaf and was illegitimate as well as illiterate; in fact it was a mongoose, no a snail, no... And you try telling the young folks today that - they won't believe you, they won't!
> Plus, for anything other than rendering, a heterogeneous cluster is limited by its slowest node (for almost all applications) Err... No. A heterogeneous cluster treating all nodes the same way will have the same problem with rendering engines as well. But it doesn't have to be that way. Using techniques like stochastic petri net analysis (just Google it) can allow tuning the cluster on a node-by-node basis. It's not always worth it, but you can segment the cluster so that it's the slower processors that end up with wait states. As they say YMMV.
You know. I'd really like to see how these people would interpret quantum theory with their own special spin. We know that parts of the standard model are a bit iffy - wouldn't it be a better target for them?
It's all very well to discuss which has the harshest environment - Mars or the Moon. What about the third planetary player in the game which has the harshest environment of all? That's right... Earth!
Ok, so we don't really notice for the most part because we evolved here, but think about it:
A heavy atmosphere which carries dust and that most corrosive material - water. Even large mountains are ground to nothing in a matter of a few million years. Add to that fact it's about 20% oxygen and you have a serious fire risk as well!
Compared to Mars and the Moon, there is crippling gravity here. In order to build structures to cope with that AND the atmosphere we have to use a huge amount of materials for strength.
70% of the surface of Earth is covered with corrosive water made even worse by the inclusion of salts. (And we can't breathe water)
Areas of Earth are so unstable that volcanoes can appear out of nowhere and earthquakes can cause havoc. The planet is still tectonically active for crissakes!
I could go on...
Ok, so we also "evolved" our machines with this environment in mind. But, after that, something as benign as the moon has got to be piss-easy provided we stop trying to crowbar Earth solutions into a Moon/Mars problem.
Not bad for a bunch of smelly apes just down from the trees, eh?
I was brought up in a Jesuit boarding school. In one of the philosophy/theology classes my teacher put it like this:
"Imagine God is a pool player. Instead of taking one shot at a time, He does it His way. One shot - period. The cue hits the pack, a red goes down, the cue ball bounces back and hits the next red, which also goes down etc etc. Finally the cue ball pots the black and comes to rest at it's starting point (God has Style). Game over - one shot."
If these creationist guys really believe in an all-powerful God, why do they think He has to do anything in a way their pitiful minds can comprehend? Are they saying that God *isn't* all powerful?
I'm a scientist and I subscribe to Newton's view that learning about the Universe is to "Better know the mind of God".
Yes... and no.
I'm an engineer (actually, worse - I'm a scientist). The big flaw in this argument is that people like me are *only* in it for the money. Not true. I *love* my work! There are even days when I wake up in the morning itching to get to grips with a problem.
My point is that, if you were to make engineering an automatically high paying job, you would end up with the same pitiful microcephalons who would go for the easy option going for engineering. No passion, no drive (and no brain). In that case we would have a *serious* problem. As the parent poster points out - many companies would go for the lowest common denominator for cost reasons.
I earn (more) than enough to make a living and, best of all, I work on things I'd do for free (apart from having to eat, pay the mortgage etc). I have *massive* job satisfaction. Do we (I mean real engineers) want to end up in a situation where the senior engineer can't understand a word we're saying because he's really management (with a crappy and meaningless engineering degree)?
Don't get me wrong - if a company is willing to pay a lot for my services I'll seriously consider it. But only if I think I'll get that buzz at the end of the day. And, yes - I know that sometimes that *buzz* will involve me banging my head on the dinner table shouting "I must be missing something!". Isn't that part of the fun? Especially when you get the answer.
> Why not send the equipment to the ISS? We did put it up there for a reason, didn't we?
I thought it was to provide a target for other space junk.
You obviously haven't seen the size of more normal satellites (not even including the moon).
Compared to them, this is definitely micro!
And, of course, we still have the other prefixes to describe smaller things - nano, pico, femto, err...
Shouldn't that be "gruniad"? Anyway, I think the point of "New Scientist" is that it targets its audience quite carefully. It's aimed at the intelligent, curious layman. That's the key word - LAYMAN. My view and experience is that other publications such as "Nature" and "Scientific American" are aimed slightly higher. They're all good at what they aim to do and I like the fact that they allow me to satisfy some of my curiosity without confusing me. To illustrate the point: I'm a biochemist, so I read periodicals such as "Drug discovery and Design" which, I submit, would be almost impenetrable to even a /. reader but, to me, is rather simply put - but it keeps me informed. There's a scale of detail of presentation which has its uses for different people.
At the lower end of the scale there are the popular programs on the telly. Recently I watched an episode of CSI (Ok, but *I* like it) where they stated "Terminal velocity is 9.8 M/s squared". What did I say? I said "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Perhaps some effort should be put into helping/bullying/assassinating those scriptwriters who come up with things like that.