Depends on what kind of portability you're looking for in your laptop. If you don't care how big it is, than 15-16" is fine... but if you want a light, thin laptop that you can stick in your briefcase, then you'll want something smaller.
What I want to know is when will we be able to use our computer to do stuff like turn on the stereo? I can't wait to get my house wired... What'll you think of a remote control with a button labeled "House"?
All I can say about this is, Microsoft's going to get its ass short-sold when the market opens down 10% Monday. I pray that the tech market regains its stability soon. As for the impact on the way tech companies do business in the future, I think this will make start-ups a little more common, as the all-too-common buyout/squelching by a big company in the same field will be reduced by this ruling...
Now, I doubt this is the case for the student in question, but I was called a "disciplinary problem" in 4th grade because I had already learned everything my teacher was going to teach the rest of the class and she didn't feel like dealing with the fact that I needed something to learn. She decided that if we concentrated on making me more socially adept, she wouldn't have to teach me anything. When that didn't work, she referred me to the principal for a bunch of "incidents..." The point is, "disciplinary problem" can be just as often the school's failure to effectively teach the child as it would be something like the kid going out back and smoking a few. Did the article make any mention of what "problems" the kid actually had, or was "disciplinary problem" just a buzzword thrown in to add some credibility to a very shaky accusation?
But give it two years after the technology becomes widely available. This will make possible programs that take up a huge amount of memory, and therefore space may once again become relevant. Have you seen the size of an average computer decrease anytime in the past ten years? I keep my 300 mhz AMD K6 with 12 GB of space in a box that used to belong to a 386. If something takes up less space, all this means is that they'll be able to stick more of it in the same case.
Does anyone see potential in using nanobots to fix corrupted chips, boards, etc. once such an error is detected and diagnosed? Store a number of 'bots somewhere in the motherboard, in a little compartment, and send them out to fix stuff within the computer?
But then again, Spielberg is a director who runs the company. Eisner can't exactly be compared to an animator running Disney... Spielberg actually DOES direct some (most?) of the films Dreamworks makes, so while it is not a 100% certainty that Spielberg will be involved with it, there's a pretty good chance that he'll be doing something or other.
The other thing that made Feathers appear evil was the way his eyes would flash red when he was thinking... (blinking?) I have nothing against the penguin, btw...
I went to a private middle school, and one of the electives (sadly, they only let me take it once) was "Lego Logo". We'd build sets using a system similar to Mindstorms, and program with our computer. The only difference between our Dacta Lego systems and Mindstorms, besides possibly different types of motors and sensors and such, was that we actually had to have a wire going to each component. Anyway, we used a language faintly similar to Logo to control our machines... I remember one person, who had had some experience with the program, trying to make a scanner from a light sensor and some motors. The idea was that the dark areas reflected less than the light areas. It worked in theory, but figuring out how to use the output was a different matter entirely, and one I don't think she ever solved. My school had the foresight to see that such a class would be invaluable to some of us. That and the StarLogo class they offered propelled me headlong into my love for programming.
If there's one thing I've learned from the ridiculous number of Legos I own, it's that the universes one creates with them can be infinitely more interesting than reality. You control all the variables... except, if you're a little kid, you don't have much control over the number of bricks you have, barring any exceptional parent-manipulation skills. I remember, one of my favorite uses of Legos was anachronisms. I'd take a pirate ship and integrate it with my tech sets... and give the Knights command over a couple of lightsaber-wielding spacemen. (There were no actual lightsabers when I did this, I had to use a 1x1 round brick and a translucent red rod...) But I think Legos served a purpose similar to that of sci-fi and fantasy books, and movies, and such. They let us step into a different reality, and even control it with the hand of God.
Like an easter egg? My favorite was in MS Word 97... in the spell checker. If you typed in "zzzz," it would mark it as a wrong spelling, and suggest "sex" as a replacement.
That's the kind of input I need... and I will take that all into account if I ever get this off the ground. I know the computer doesn't have certain human characteristics... but using things like genetic algorithms can certainly come close. Granted, I'm not the world's best theorist, but we can at least try it.
I've actually considered developing a program to, given a set of chords, devise an improvisation over the chords. I lack the technical experience (and the jazz theory) to implement my idea, but here it is for anyone interested: For each chord, a note and a type is given. (Say, A Minor...) The note itself is unimportant in terms of the theory, except for its relation to other chords. After reading the chord, as well as the two to three chords preceding and following it, it will choose randomly from among several choices, each weighted for its appropriateness to the situation. For example: Chords read are: || A- | D7 | GMaj | GMaj || Given that progression, the computer would choose a starting note in A Minor from the notes in that scale. Chord tones have higher probability of being chosen... and each next note is chosen based on the previous one and the chords. In this example, the random notes would be weighted towards a basis in the bebop scales. This probably makes a lot more sense if you have some background in jazz theory... The trick to a program like this would be weighting the notes properly and including the proper options in the first place. Now, I know there are probably some jazz purists stating that the process of choosing notes for improvisation is anything but random. But we can't have it sounding the same every time, and this is the closest I could come to mimicking the human feeling of "this sounds right." Like I said, the important part is programming in the right options for each situation. I'd love to hear other ideas to do this, though...
I see the problem simply as this: The average Joe has no clue what the gibberish on a monitor means without accompanying graphics, sound effects, or dialogue. If he sees a bunch of Unix commands on the screen, he's got the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell of understanding it. Those select few who DO understand it comprise too small of an audience that the filmmakers have no motive to actually make it accurate. A solution: Foster the art of hacker movies. Find a couple independent filmmakers with a penchant for hacking and make sure they get it right. Maybe set up a hacker's film festival. Producers catering to a large audience won't pay attention to detail, but those making films especially for hackers will make sure they get it right, or their reputation will suffer. I know what I suggest sounds implausible to implement... It just needs to happen, I suppose. But if any hacker moviemakers are reading this, keep it in mind...
Because you need a new perspective to do stuff like that. I'm sure that if the hackers wrote the code, the coders could improve it too (assuming equal skills, but I'm not sure about that). Maybe the hackers are just better at what they do.
Chaos is just another name for "we can't keep track of all the variables needed to compute this accurately." But with extra cycles, we have the actual computing power to do this. Of course, this is assuming they KNOW all the variables in the first place.
Why not keep track of how many times we could destroy the earth with our nuclear stockpiles? Or Bill Gates' net worth? (We'd need similar software as that used to calculate the federal debt...)
Precisely. And how do we define intent? Well. If anyone's familiar with the US legal system, an essential part, or element, of most crimes committed is intent on the part of the perpetrator. We leave it up to the jury and judge to define/decide intent, and that's worked just fine. It shouldn't be too hard to define bad faith, either. If someone's only/main reason for using a company's/famous person's name is to slander (libel?) them, then obviously it's bad faith. If someone intends to use the name as a free use of a trademark (i.e. Trousersnake's McDonald's example), then it's bad faith. The trick is the borderline cases. But we have those cases for other laws, too, and the law, like any other, will undergo interpretation and examples for future judges to use. But as an alternative way to deal with this, why not reserve the.com suffix for established companies, (and those individuals, such as musicians and actors, who make a living off of their name) and create a.ind suffix for individuals? This would most likely stop individuals from setting up hate sites, as well as keeping squatters from using the name (a company isn't going to be named McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Arby's all at once, so they can't take all of those domains).
This should give the people working on the Universal Metalanguage some food for thought... I predicted something like this for the Metalang's attempts at translating.
One thing that really jumped out at me in the interview was his mellow attitude. If I recall correctly, he's been described as a controlling megalomaniac... I don't know if anybody's heard the "Employee Number One" anecdote, so here goes: Apple decided to issue all the employees name badges and ID numbers, since the company had grown beyond the point where everybody knew everybody. Wozniak was assigned number 1, Jobs number 2, etc. Jobs couldn't stand being number 2, despite the fact that Woz really was Apple at that point... So Jobs went ahead and assigned himself Employee Number Zero, since it hadn't been taken yet, and it placed him above everyone else.
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Depends on what kind of portability you're looking for in your laptop. If you don't care how big it is, than 15-16" is fine... but if you want a light, thin laptop that you can stick in your briefcase, then you'll want something smaller.
What I want to know is when will we be able to use our computer to do stuff like turn on the stereo? I can't wait to get my house wired... What'll you think of a remote control with a button labeled "House"?
All I can say about this is, Microsoft's going to get its ass short-sold when the market opens down 10% Monday. I pray that the tech market regains its stability soon.
As for the impact on the way tech companies do business in the future, I think this will make start-ups a little more common, as the all-too-common buyout/squelching by a big company in the same field will be reduced by this ruling...
Now, I doubt this is the case for the student in question, but I was called a "disciplinary problem" in 4th grade because I had already learned everything my teacher was going to teach the rest of the class and she didn't feel like dealing with the fact that I needed something to learn. She decided that if we concentrated on making me more socially adept, she wouldn't have to teach me anything. When that didn't work, she referred me to the principal for a bunch of "incidents..."
The point is, "disciplinary problem" can be just as often the school's failure to effectively teach the child as it would be something like the kid going out back and smoking a few. Did the article make any mention of what "problems" the kid actually had, or was "disciplinary problem" just a buzzword thrown in to add some credibility to a very shaky accusation?
This should make programming little tiny robots a lot easier...
But give it two years after the technology becomes widely available. This will make possible programs that take up a huge amount of memory, and therefore space may once again become relevant.
Have you seen the size of an average computer decrease anytime in the past ten years? I keep my 300 mhz AMD K6 with 12 GB of space in a box that used to belong to a 386. If something takes up less space, all this means is that they'll be able to stick more of it in the same case.
Microsoft could sell boxed shit, if they wanted to. They'd still find a way to make money....
Wait a minute...
They do want to. Never mind.
Does anyone see potential in using nanobots to fix corrupted chips, boards, etc. once such an error is detected and diagnosed? Store a number of 'bots somewhere in the motherboard, in a little compartment, and send them out to fix stuff within the computer?
And of course, once you have a nano robot, you can use it to assemble a smaller nano robot... until we start manipulating individual molecules.
But then again, Spielberg is a director who runs the company. Eisner can't exactly be compared to an animator running Disney... Spielberg actually DOES direct some (most?) of the films Dreamworks makes, so while it is not a 100% certainty that Spielberg will be involved with it, there's a pretty good chance that he'll be doing something or other.
The other thing that made Feathers appear evil was the way his eyes would flash red when he was thinking... (blinking?)
I have nothing against the penguin, btw...
I went to a private middle school, and one of the electives (sadly, they only let me take it once) was "Lego Logo". We'd build sets using a system similar to Mindstorms, and program with our computer. The only difference between our Dacta Lego systems and Mindstorms, besides possibly different types of motors and sensors and such, was that we actually had to have a wire going to each component.
Anyway, we used a language faintly similar to Logo to control our machines... I remember one person, who had had some experience with the program, trying to make a scanner from a light sensor and some motors. The idea was that the dark areas reflected less than the light areas. It worked in theory, but figuring out how to use the output was a different matter entirely, and one I don't think she ever solved.
My school had the foresight to see that such a class would be invaluable to some of us. That and the StarLogo class they offered propelled me headlong into my love for programming.
If there's one thing I've learned from the ridiculous number of Legos I own, it's that the universes one creates with them can be infinitely more interesting than reality. You control all the variables... except, if you're a little kid, you don't have much control over the number of bricks you have, barring any exceptional parent-manipulation skills.
I remember, one of my favorite uses of Legos was anachronisms. I'd take a pirate ship and integrate it with my tech sets... and give the Knights command over a couple of lightsaber-wielding spacemen. (There were no actual lightsabers when I did this, I had to use a 1x1 round brick and a translucent red rod...) But I think Legos served a purpose similar to that of sci-fi and fantasy books, and movies, and such. They let us step into a different reality, and even control it with the hand of God.
Like an easter egg?
My favorite was in MS Word 97... in the spell checker. If you typed in "zzzz," it would mark it as a wrong spelling, and suggest "sex" as a replacement.
Find a geek girl. Worked for me...
That's the kind of input I need... and I will take that all into account if I ever get this off the ground.
I know the computer doesn't have certain human characteristics... but using things like genetic algorithms can certainly come close. Granted, I'm not the world's best theorist, but we can at least try it.
I've actually considered developing a program to, given a set of chords, devise an improvisation over the chords. I lack the technical experience (and the jazz theory) to implement my idea, but here it is for anyone interested:
For each chord, a note and a type is given. (Say, A Minor...) The note itself is unimportant in terms of the theory, except for its relation to other chords. After reading the chord, as well as the two to three chords preceding and following it, it will choose randomly from among several choices, each weighted for its appropriateness to the situation. For example:
Chords read are: || A- | D7 | GMaj | GMaj ||
Given that progression, the computer would choose a starting note in A Minor from the notes in that scale. Chord tones have higher probability of being chosen... and each next note is chosen based on the previous one and the chords. In this example, the random notes would be weighted towards a basis in the bebop scales.
This probably makes a lot more sense if you have some background in jazz theory... The trick to a program like this would be weighting the notes properly and including the proper options in the first place.
Now, I know there are probably some jazz purists stating that the process of choosing notes for improvisation is anything but random. But we can't have it sounding the same every time, and this is the closest I could come to mimicking the human feeling of "this sounds right." Like I said, the important part is programming in the right options for each situation.
I'd love to hear other ideas to do this, though...
I see the problem simply as this:
The average Joe has no clue what the gibberish on a monitor means without accompanying graphics, sound effects, or dialogue. If he sees a bunch of Unix commands on the screen, he's got the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell of understanding it. Those select few who DO understand it comprise too small of an audience that the filmmakers have no motive to actually make it accurate.
A solution: Foster the art of hacker movies. Find a couple independent filmmakers with a penchant for hacking and make sure they get it right. Maybe set up a hacker's film festival. Producers catering to a large audience won't pay attention to detail, but those making films especially for hackers will make sure they get it right, or their reputation will suffer.
I know what I suggest sounds implausible to implement... It just needs to happen, I suppose. But if any hacker moviemakers are reading this, keep it in mind...
Because you need a new perspective to do stuff like that. I'm sure that if the hackers wrote the code, the coders could improve it too (assuming equal skills, but I'm not sure about that). Maybe the hackers are just better at what they do.
Chaos is just another name for "we can't keep track of all the variables needed to compute this accurately." But with extra cycles, we have the actual computing power to do this.
Of course, this is assuming they KNOW all the variables in the first place.
Why not keep track of how many times we could destroy the earth with our nuclear stockpiles? Or Bill Gates' net worth? (We'd need similar software as that used to calculate the federal debt...)
Precisely. And how do we define intent? Well. If anyone's familiar with the US legal system, an essential part, or element, of most crimes committed is intent on the part of the perpetrator. We leave it up to the jury and judge to define/decide intent, and that's worked just fine. .com suffix for established companies, (and those individuals, such as musicians and actors, who make a living off of their name) and create a .ind suffix for individuals? This would most likely stop individuals from setting up hate sites, as well as keeping squatters from using the name (a company isn't going to be named McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Arby's all at once, so they can't take all of those domains).
It shouldn't be too hard to define bad faith, either. If someone's only/main reason for using a company's/famous person's name is to slander (libel?) them, then obviously it's bad faith. If someone intends to use the name as a free use of a trademark (i.e. Trousersnake's McDonald's example), then it's bad faith. The trick is the borderline cases. But we have those cases for other laws, too, and the law, like any other, will undergo interpretation and examples for future judges to use.
But as an alternative way to deal with this, why not reserve the
This should give the people working on the Universal Metalanguage some food for thought... I predicted something like this for the Metalang's attempts at translating.
One thing that really jumped out at me in the interview was his mellow attitude. If I recall correctly, he's been described as a controlling megalomaniac... I don't know if anybody's heard the "Employee Number One" anecdote, so here goes:
Apple decided to issue all the employees name badges and ID numbers, since the company had grown beyond the point where everybody knew everybody. Wozniak was assigned number 1, Jobs number 2, etc. Jobs couldn't stand being number 2, despite the fact that Woz really was Apple at that point... So Jobs went ahead and assigned himself Employee Number Zero, since it hadn't been taken yet, and it placed him above everyone else.
...but I'm willing to give up a little testicle here and there for increased brainpower. Hell, I'll probably never use 'em anyway...