Can anyone supply some experience about the lifetime of different backup media alternaives? Afaik tapes are still the most reliable format, but they are slow and rather expensive for home use.
The DVD on the other hand, apparently prime backup medium for home users suffers quite short life times (physical and chemical degradation) sometimes lasting just months before first signs of data corruption. DVD-RAM was supposed to solve this (I'm quite a fan of those, doublesided ones look pretty cool too when taken out of their box, so if everything fails you still have decoration for the xmas tree) with supposedly 30 years+ life time, but few burners support them and so they are far more expensive than their DVD-Rs counterparts. The ones I have work flawlessly, but capacity is limited and handling requires extra care (my burner doesn't accept cardriged ones).
I've shifted to harddisks though, because imho they give me the most bang for the buck. Considering all the HDs I bought lasted several years running more or less continuously a HDD that's plugged in only once in a while should keep even longer. And when the time comes to upgrade the capacity of the backup medium one can simply buy a bigger new HD, no further hazzle with DVD-/Tape-drives, media or drivers.
An interesting option (for some people) would be flash drives or SD cards and the like. Though I have no idea about durability and lifetime of these guys, but from my experience they seem viable too - the 128MB CF card I bought for my cam ages ago still works without a hitch even though I tossed it around quite a bit. Capacity and price may be a drawback.
We explore... and you call us criminals.
We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without
religious bias... and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Actually, parts of it does. I could tell you more but then I'd have to kill you.
If you had said the other parts of it run Windows I'm sure you wouldn't have to kill most slashdotters since they would have done the honors themselves.
That's a good question. A company that produces faulty machineswithallsortsofblunders and glitchesinthepastandpresent - since this is a free market surely market pressure should eradicate this company. Yet it seems the government that should look into such irregularities (especially since free market is (supposed to be) one of the pillars of the GOP) apparently has no interest in doing so.. Could it be because Diebold not only supported the Bush campaign financially, but not only had the ability, but also the intention to to deliver the victory to their crony buddies? - Noo, that would be too outlandish and could never happen; the vigilant public would easily find out about it.
The Romans had a saying: Bis peccare in bello non licet. To blunder twice is not allowed in war. Thank god big business isn't warfare or after all these blunders heads would be a'rollin (and piling up).
An uncaring politicians is worse than useless, they are dangerous. Unfortunately there are to many of those running around wreaking havoc. - I wonder how some of them can even sleep at night, maybe they do use anti-depressants..
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?"
"Narf!"
"Exactly! - Narf!"
"Narf!"
"Narf!"
"Zonk!"
"Dude I'm so high right now, and I don't even konw why!"
"Narf!"
(...)
You don't go to Mars to have children, you go there to have fun! Imagine a world with half the gravity you're used to - finally a place to get that standing triple backflip nailed. Or for the extreme survivors out there: you think the arctic is tough? You ain't seen nothin yet!
Actually Mars is the real New World. No need to kill innocent natives or other dirty business - just put hard work into it and create a new society and ecosystem from scratch - the ultimate challenge, humanities new frontier!
I don't quite get it - people don't usually wave their iPods around like in the ads (or do they in the UK?). In any case 'hiding' one in a Coke can would be just as effective as putting them into your pocket (only less convenient). A would-be robber would either see the white cable and the earbuds or simply realize by the appearance and behaviour the other guy that he's dealing with an oh-too-rich yuppie.
In case this article was supposed to be a joke or something (considering the gaffer tape and C. Walken method) - sorry, I don't get that either...
..and most of them are not even remotely funny (I'm not French btw).
Most people seem to forget that France is the country that epitomized the humanistic zeitgeist in the overthrough of their authoritarian government (which wasn't a cakewalk) and pushed forth the ideal of equality. Voltaire's thoughts had a great influence on the rest of Europe, America ("I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.") and beyond. People like Jules Verne are sons of that country, especially "techies" and scifi freaks should value his inspiring stories. The same country whose government surrendered in WWII developed one of the finest cuisines and wines that exist. Music by Bizet and Debussy are part of our world's culture (and beautiful examples at that).
I know this is a wee bit OT, but so are those surrender 'jokes'. I guess my point is, if you have to make fun of another country, make sure it's really funny!
You mean "Noahs Aircraft Carrier" (which was itself merely the CV-1 "Gilgamesh" dug out of mothballs with a new set of flags:)
I don't think so. The boat used in the Gilgamesh epos was 'as wide as it was long' and it only needed enough space for the 'essential' seeds so Utnapishtim could start anew after the flood. Noah's boat was version 2.0 based on a rectangular shape so steering it somewhere was definitely easier. It also was built to withstand a greater flood and according to creationists it was big enough to house all creatures including dinosaurs (which died out later) and enough rations of food for more than 7 months(!). Basically the bible's version is an exaggerated and updated version.
The people allowed on the arch were the ancestors of the eastern Europeans et al (Japhet), Egyptians/Canaanites et al (Ham) and Arabs/Hebrews et al (Shem). Thus all the other humans nowadays native Americans, Chinese, Aboriginees etc. are either from another 'humanoid' flock or they could swim very very well;)
Interestingly the term 'caucasian' traces its origin to this biblical story: Japhet's children are said to have lived in the Caucasus region.
I'd define 'standing there doing nothing' as not an action on behalf of the robot. Since we cannot trust a bot in making ethical choices when there is a conflict it has to wait until a human decides what to do. This will shift the ethical analysis to the humans, so at least the bots won't be the ones causing the problems. (Mind you, our suicidal maniac can still run into the bot's blade, but it won't be the fault of the bot)
There certainly is the idea that bots could act as vigilantes and protect the humans by having an ethical system installed, but who is to write such a software when not even humans among themselves can decide on basic ethical issues. What it basically boils down to is: how to protect humans from themselves? And I believe this cannot be answered through robots with algorithms.
If the goal is to keep the bots from controlling the humans we shouldn't give them the means to becoming 'really smart' - at least not when it comes to deciding whatever action would or would not be harmful to another human, they will have to wait until a human makes the ethical decision.
Hmm, good point. This illustrates that even with one simple rule there will be conflicts which require a list (or algorithm) that determines the harmfulness of the bot's actions.
Maybe even add a mechanism (emergency break) that defaults to action 1 (i.e. cease doing anything) as long as there is this conflict and sound an alarm to call its owner to resolve the conflict.
I should have stated the rule differently, "Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being." should actually read "Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being through its own actions."
In the example the bot would actually default to doing nothing even without this emergency break, because it may cause harm by inaction, but it cannot cause harm by its own action.
My point is the predictability of bots actions needs to be guarantied. This is only possibly if the ruleset of their actions itself is as simple as possible. They should be able to think too far ahead, only the next few steps - 'future planning' is our job.
What harm is and how it can be caused by the robot's actions needs to be 'hardcoded' - the robot has to be designed in a way to make it impossible for it to simply 'forget' this (not even through the infamous 'lighning strike'). If this were to happen (bots 'conveniently' forgetting things) all the rulesets and systems in the world couldn't avoid catastrophe.
I was pondering about Asimov's laws a while ago. Seeing as these 'simple' rules might still lead robots to react in contradictory or undesirable ways (hence the addition of the zeroth law which makes everything even more complicated) why not simply make a single rule: Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being.
So if a wood-chopper bot chopped wood and a human jumped between the axe and the tree two things could happen: 1. the robot's reflexes are fast enough to avoid the accident 2. they are not and the robot has to reset its "var intDaysPastSinceLastHumanKilled" to zero, but it is not to blame.
I also wouldn't add the "or through inaction cause others to come to harm" because this complicates things significantly and may lead to unpredictable results - bots' actions should always be predictable by humans; additionally bots are created for a certain purpose, even if they are servants supplying me with beer I would never want to vest the responsibility of protecting my life on them or want them to even "think" about what may be harmful for me and what may not (unless of course its own action might cause this harm).
[Superman's] humanoid frame is doubtless the result of parallel evolution, as the marsupials of Australia resemble their mammalian counterparts.
So instead of sixpack abs Superman has a pouch which he could use to store a sixpack of beer? Frankly trying to explain Superman with Science tends to get a bit absurd. Marsupials and other mammals are still even within the same animal class (i.e. they share most of their genes). A species on another planet (quite possibly not even having chromosomes as we know them) evolving x-ray vision, flight etc. yet at the same time turns out to appear indistinguishable from humans - convergent evolution? - The boundaries between fantasy and science fiction are blurred, yet Superman can pretty safely be categorized on the fantasy side.
The increased amount of hemoglobin (that's what the oxigen docks on) is measurable. There may be all those positive psychological effects, but the pure physical improvement (increased oxigen level) due to acclimatization is undeniable. Just have a look at the Sherpas in the Himalayans - whereas the tourist have problems even walking in that high an altitude, the Sherpas ascend the montains packed like mules.
Care to list any sources or examples of technologies? Or are you just seeing the world through rose-coloured leftist spectacles? I see you've been modded up pandering to/. left-leaning thought without any facts.
I was under the impression anyone with a bit of education could think about one or another example and my statement could stand by itself. I'll throw you a rope here. Let's go through some significant inventions of human kind.
Script was created to convey thoughts and stories to other people. Sure it was used for military purposes as well (as almost any invention), but the main goal was communication, which by itself is rather 'peaceful'. Lets see, the wheel - used in war to enable armies to use chariots before they could employ horseback riding. But a long time before that it helped humans with agriculture. What else.. paper in the form of papyrus was invented at least 5000 years ago in Egypt, the paper we know today was invented by the Chinese around 100 AD. As for the motivations for inventing it: in both cases just have a look at its earliest uses; there is not much evidence suggesting people killed each other with paper... Not even black powder was used for military purposes until 100-200 years after its invention and even then it was primarily used for firecrackers etc. It was only later when Arabs managed to refine it that it was used more broadly for warfare. Archimedes invented a screw to pump water, the Romans invented extensive aqueducts for peaceful means. How about nuclear power? It was Einstein ("I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan."), that made it possible at all to harness its power in order to create a destructive weapon such as the A-bomb. Fortunately, after seeing the horrors these bombs could do, we nowadays use nuclear energy mainly in the constructive way Einstein would have liked to see. What about the research and inventions in the fields of Medicine or Gene technology today? Afaik it is funded by companies that want to have more resilient tomatoes or faster growing crops. I can see people throwing huge tomatoes at each other, but I would hardly call it effective warfare.
We could also take all sorts of everyday (maybe less significant) items to illustrate that war is not the only motivation for innovation and inventions, such as musical instruments, the microscope, solar panels, vacuum cleaners, soap, cigars, DVDs, the jump-to-conclusions mat and Soylent Green. (Ok ok, I know what you're thinking - DVDs aren't technically a real innovation..)
Whom could travel from Europe to China?
Well maybe a guy like Marco Polo, or how about all the merchants that traveled on the silk street to Karakorum evidenced by the technologies that were exchanged between Europe and Asia at that time.
Btw, 200 years seem pretty long to me, that's several generations of humans who lived in peace. Which is more than most nations nowadays could claim. As for the Romans - the way they achieved peace doesn't interfere with the fact that they did achieve peace.
When the war is over, then there will be in all countries a pursuit of secret war preparations with technological means which will lead inevitably to preventative wars and to destruction even more terrible than the present destruction of life. (Einstein, before the bombs were dropped)
It's true that the (uneducated) populace will be more willing to pay for something they fear, like an imminent threat. Survival is a good motivator to get off your butt and use your brain. Yet many inventions and innovation were made for peaceful purposes in times of peace. During the Pax Romana there was a lively exchange of culture and technologies within the borders. Same thing happened for some time in the Mongolian empire - a person could travel from Europe to China by horse with no worries of being mugged.
What ultimately brings down systems like these is not their lack of military strength or technology, but their failure to control corruption and ignorant leadership.
Slashdot Mirror
Can anyone supply some experience about the lifetime of different backup media alternaives? Afaik tapes are still the most reliable format, but they are slow and rather expensive for home use.
The DVD on the other hand, apparently prime backup medium for home users suffers quite short life times (physical and chemical degradation) sometimes lasting just months before first signs of data corruption. DVD-RAM was supposed to solve this (I'm quite a fan of those, doublesided ones look pretty cool too when taken out of their box, so if everything fails you still have decoration for the xmas tree) with supposedly 30 years+ life time, but few burners support them and so they are far more expensive than their DVD-Rs counterparts. The ones I have work flawlessly, but capacity is limited and handling requires extra care (my burner doesn't accept cardriged ones).
I've shifted to harddisks though, because imho they give me the most bang for the buck. Considering all the HDs I bought lasted several years running more or less continuously a HDD that's plugged in only once in a while should keep even longer. And when the time comes to upgrade the capacity of the backup medium one can simply buy a bigger new HD, no further hazzle with DVD-/Tape-drives, media or drivers.
An interesting option (for some people) would be flash drives or SD cards and the like. Though I have no idea about durability and lifetime of these guys, but from my experience they seem viable too - the 128MB CF card I bought for my cam ages ago still works without a hitch even though I tossed it around quite a bit. Capacity and price may be a drawback.
We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Actually, parts of it does. I could tell you more but then I'd have to kill you.
If you had said the other parts of it run Windows I'm sure you wouldn't have to kill most slashdotters since they would have done the honors themselves.
That's a good question. A company that produces faulty machines with all sorts of blunders and glitches in the past and present - since this is a free market surely market pressure should eradicate this company. Yet it seems the government that should look into such irregularities (especially since free market is (supposed to be) one of the pillars of the GOP) apparently has no interest in doing so.. Could it be because Diebold not only supported the Bush campaign financially, but not only had the ability, but also the intention to to deliver the victory to their crony buddies? - Noo, that would be too outlandish and could never happen; the vigilant public would easily find out about it.
The Romans had a saying: Bis peccare in bello non licet. To blunder twice is not allowed in war. Thank god big business isn't warfare or after all these blunders heads would be a'rollin (and piling up).
An uncaring politicians is worse than useless, they are dangerous. Unfortunately there are to many of those running around wreaking havoc. - I wonder how some of them can even sleep at night, maybe they do use anti-depressants..
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?"
"Narf!"
"Exactly! - Narf!"
"Narf!"
"Narf!"
"Zonk!"
"Dude I'm so high right now, and I don't even konw why!"
"Narf!"
(...)
The same thing we do every night, Pinky: Throw a muthaf*ckin party in this muthaf*ckin cage - yoyoyo man, give up!
You don't go to Mars to have children, you go there to have fun! Imagine a world with half the gravity you're used to - finally a place to get that standing triple backflip nailed. Or for the extreme survivors out there: you think the arctic is tough? You ain't seen nothin yet!
Actually Mars is the real New World. No need to kill innocent natives or other dirty business - just put hard work into it and create a new society and ecosystem from scratch - the ultimate challenge, humanities new frontier!
Argh dammit, didn't see your post and posted the exact same thing (incl. link).. :/
Over at the physics lab we're measuring around 300 degrees room temperature!
I don't quite get it - people don't usually wave their iPods around like in the ads (or do they in the UK?). In any case 'hiding' one in a Coke can would be just as effective as putting them into your pocket (only less convenient). A would-be robber would either see the white cable and the earbuds or simply realize by the appearance and behaviour the other guy that he's dealing with an oh-too-rich yuppie.
In case this article was supposed to be a joke or something (considering the gaffer tape and C. Walken method) - sorry, I don't get that either...
..and most of them are not even remotely funny (I'm not French btw).
Most people seem to forget that France is the country that epitomized the humanistic zeitgeist in the overthrough of their authoritarian government (which wasn't a cakewalk) and pushed forth the ideal of equality. Voltaire's thoughts had a great influence on the rest of Europe, America ("I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.") and beyond. People like Jules Verne are sons of that country, especially "techies" and scifi freaks should value his inspiring stories. The same country whose government surrendered in WWII developed one of the finest cuisines and wines that exist. Music by Bizet and Debussy are part of our world's culture (and beautiful examples at that).
I know this is a wee bit OT, but so are those surrender 'jokes'. I guess my point is, if you have to make fun of another country, make sure it's really funny!
If only all countries could have such a lack of inter-relatedness with their neighbors, imagine what a beautiful world it would be...
Yea, but then the poor politicians would have nothing to distract from domestic issues...
You mean "Noahs Aircraft Carrier" (which was itself merely the CV-1 "Gilgamesh" dug out of mothballs with a new set of flags :)
;)
I don't think so. The boat used in the Gilgamesh epos was 'as wide as it was long' and it only needed enough space for the 'essential' seeds so Utnapishtim could start anew after the flood. Noah's boat was version 2.0 based on a rectangular shape so steering it somewhere was definitely easier. It also was built to withstand a greater flood and according to creationists it was big enough to house all creatures including dinosaurs (which died out later) and enough rations of food for more than 7 months(!). Basically the bible's version is an exaggerated and updated version.
The people allowed on the arch were the ancestors of the eastern Europeans et al (Japhet), Egyptians/Canaanites et al (Ham) and Arabs/Hebrews et al (Shem). Thus all the other humans nowadays native Americans, Chinese, Aboriginees etc. are either from another 'humanoid' flock or they could swim very very well
Interestingly the term 'caucasian' traces its origin to this biblical story: Japhet's children are said to have lived in the Caucasus region.
I'd define 'standing there doing nothing' as not an action on behalf of the robot. Since we cannot trust a bot in making ethical choices when there is a conflict it has to wait until a human decides what to do. This will shift the ethical analysis to the humans, so at least the bots won't be the ones causing the problems. (Mind you, our suicidal maniac can still run into the bot's blade, but it won't be the fault of the bot)
There certainly is the idea that bots could act as vigilantes and protect the humans by having an ethical system installed, but who is to write such a software when not even humans among themselves can decide on basic ethical issues. What it basically boils down to is: how to protect humans from themselves? And I believe this cannot be answered through robots with algorithms.
If the goal is to keep the bots from controlling the humans we shouldn't give them the means to becoming 'really smart' - at least not when it comes to deciding whatever action would or would not be harmful to another human, they will have to wait until a human makes the ethical decision.
Hmm, good point. This illustrates that even with one simple rule there will be conflicts which require a list (or algorithm) that determines the harmfulness of the bot's actions.
Maybe even add a mechanism (emergency break) that defaults to action 1 (i.e. cease doing anything) as long as there is this conflict and sound an alarm to call its owner to resolve the conflict.
I should have stated the rule differently, "Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being." should actually read "Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being through its own actions." In the example the bot would actually default to doing nothing even without this emergency break, because it may cause harm by inaction, but it cannot cause harm by its own action.
My point is the predictability of bots actions needs to be guarantied. This is only possibly if the ruleset of their actions itself is as simple as possible. They should be able to think too far ahead, only the next few steps - 'future planning' is our job.
What harm is and how it can be caused by the robot's actions needs to be 'hardcoded' - the robot has to be designed in a way to make it impossible for it to simply 'forget' this (not even through the infamous 'lighning strike'). If this were to happen (bots 'conveniently' forgetting things) all the rulesets and systems in the world couldn't avoid catastrophe.
I was pondering about Asimov's laws a while ago. Seeing as these 'simple' rules might still lead robots to react in contradictory or undesirable ways (hence the addition of the zeroth law which makes everything even more complicated) why not simply make a single rule: Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being.
So if a wood-chopper bot chopped wood and a human jumped between the axe and the tree two things could happen: 1. the robot's reflexes are fast enough to avoid the accident 2. they are not and the robot has to reset its "var intDaysPastSinceLastHumanKilled" to zero, but it is not to blame.
I also wouldn't add the "or through inaction cause others to come to harm" because this complicates things significantly and may lead to unpredictable results - bots' actions should always be predictable by humans; additionally bots are created for a certain purpose, even if they are servants supplying me with beer I would never want to vest the responsibility of protecting my life on them or want them to even "think" about what may be harmful for me and what may not (unless of course its own action might cause this harm).
Basically, yes. Imho the pope resembles the emperor more closely, though. But hey, it's hollywood.. Angelina Jolie looks nothing like a hacker either.
EPISODE II - A New Term
Powell: Lord Bush, we've spotted some Iranian missiles and we are preparing to *ugh*..
Bush: You have failed me for the last time, general. - Condie!
Condie: Yes, my lord?
Bush: Make ready to attend a press conference, and deploy this speech, so that nothing gets out off our hands. You are in command now, Condie Rice.
Condie: Thank you, Lord Bush.
So instead of sixpack abs Superman has a pouch which he could use to store a sixpack of beer? Frankly trying to explain Superman with Science tends to get a bit absurd. Marsupials and other mammals are still even within the same animal class (i.e. they share most of their genes). A species on another planet (quite possibly not even having chromosomes as we know them) evolving x-ray vision, flight etc. yet at the same time turns out to appear indistinguishable from humans - convergent evolution? - The boundaries between fantasy and science fiction are blurred, yet Superman can pretty safely be categorized on the fantasy side.
The increased amount of hemoglobin (that's what the oxigen docks on) is measurable. There may be all those positive psychological effects, but the pure physical improvement (increased oxigen level) due to acclimatization is undeniable. Just have a look at the Sherpas in the Himalayans - whereas the tourist have problems even walking in that high an altitude, the Sherpas ascend the montains packed like mules.
Oh come on - how was this a troll? I'm just friggin worried.
I was under the impression anyone with a bit of education could think about one or another example and my statement could stand by itself. I'll throw you a rope here. Let's go through some significant inventions of human kind.
Script was created to convey thoughts and stories to other people. Sure it was used for military purposes as well (as almost any invention), but the main goal was communication, which by itself is rather 'peaceful'. Lets see, the wheel - used in war to enable armies to use chariots before they could employ horseback riding. But a long time before that it helped humans with agriculture. What else.. paper in the form of papyrus was invented at least 5000 years ago in Egypt, the paper we know today was invented by the Chinese around 100 AD. As for the motivations for inventing it: in both cases just have a look at its earliest uses; there is not much evidence suggesting people killed each other with paper... Not even black powder was used for military purposes until 100-200 years after its invention and even then it was primarily used for firecrackers etc. It was only later when Arabs managed to refine it that it was used more broadly for warfare. Archimedes invented a screw to pump water, the Romans invented extensive aqueducts for peaceful means. How about nuclear power? It was Einstein ("I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan."), that made it possible at all to harness its power in order to create a destructive weapon such as the A-bomb. Fortunately, after seeing the horrors these bombs could do, we nowadays use nuclear energy mainly in the constructive way Einstein would have liked to see. What about the research and inventions in the fields of Medicine or Gene technology today? Afaik it is funded by companies that want to have more resilient tomatoes or faster growing crops. I can see people throwing huge tomatoes at each other, but I would hardly call it effective warfare.
We could also take all sorts of everyday (maybe less significant) items to illustrate that war is not the only motivation for innovation and inventions, such as musical instruments, the microscope, solar panels, vacuum cleaners, soap, cigars, DVDs, the jump-to-conclusions mat and Soylent Green. (Ok ok, I know what you're thinking - DVDs aren't technically a real innovation..)
Whom could travel from Europe to China?
Well maybe a guy like Marco Polo, or how about all the merchants that traveled on the silk street to Karakorum evidenced by the technologies that were exchanged between Europe and Asia at that time.
Btw, 200 years seem pretty long to me, that's several generations of humans who lived in peace. Which is more than most nations nowadays could claim. As for the Romans - the way they achieved peace doesn't interfere with the fact that they did achieve peace.
It's true that the (uneducated) populace will be more willing to pay for something they fear, like an imminent threat. Survival is a good motivator to get off your butt and use your brain. Yet many inventions and innovation were made for peaceful purposes in times of peace. During the Pax Romana there was a lively exchange of culture and technologies within the borders. Same thing happened for some time in the Mongolian empire - a person could travel from Europe to China by horse with no worries of being mugged.
What ultimately brings down systems like these is not their lack of military strength or technology, but their failure to control corruption and ignorant leadership.