It seems to me that even the smartest robots are still only about as intellectually capable as me and my roommates after a heavy night of drinking.
So naturally, the next step for them is to be made citizens. That way, they can't dodge the draft.
While they've already began using them for educational and military purposes, I somehow doubt that they will become useful anytime soon. They will be something used only by the government or by the rich until enough money is thrown in and research is done to turn them into anything worth considering.
One thing this article doesn't mention is the age of the patients. I know the amblyopia can be treated more easily when caught at an early age, when the eye is still maturing. So I think this would be an important factor to note in their statistics. A friend of mine had lazy eye when he was younger and was successfully treated with a week of wearing an eye patch and some atropine drops. But I'm thinking it would take a little more than that to help out Thom Yorke and Dr. Evil.
I'm also curious as to what type of amblyopia this treats. Is the treatment equally effective for lazy eye caused by nearsight, farsight, astygmatism, and strabismus? If so, couldn't this also become a treatment for any of those on their own? I'm slightly nearsighted, and my optomotrist explained it to me as my eyes being too lazy to focus correctly. I wonder if I could just give them a little VR workout every now and then to beef them up...
But this doesn't seem to do anything to address the core Windows problem; Windows is too big and too complex
Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Professional
PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space
Mac OS X Version 10.4 requires a Macintosh with:
PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
At least 256MB of physical RAM
At least 3.0 GB of available space on your hard drive; 4GB of disk space if you install XCode 2 developer tools
Nice try, but Apple and Linux have far more complex operating systems that don't slow to a crawl every time you click a mouse.
And a crucial reason Microsoft holds more than 90 percent of the PC operating system market is that the company strains to make sure software and hardware that ran on previous versions of Windows will also work on the new one
They fail to mention that their use of the word "software" only applies to M$ products. Legacy support for other applications is still as flawed as it is on any OS. Either way, Apple does come out with universal binaries and Rosetta support to solve these issues. Also, Apple lets you run OS X in "Classic Mode" as long as you have OS 9 installed in order to support legacy apps.
I personally think Windows' biggest flaw is its file paging. Its done so poorly that it'll eat up your memory in a flash. Then you're sitting there for 2 minutes listening to your hard drive going crazy trying to copy it all.
And that is an excellent graphic in the article of a very confused Gates.
Funny, I could've sworn GeoCities and Angelfire had something like this many many years ago. Complete with page building tools and wizards...
The only true advantage I see to this is that Google gives you a LOT more disk space for free, wheras you have to pay for more with G&A... but perhaps that's why we're seeing "Sorry, we are unable to offer new accounts today. We appreciate your interest and invite you to add your Gmail address to our wait list. We'll let you know when we've enabled your account."
I'm not trying to advertise for G&A, I just don't see how this is something to jump up and down about. Search engine, Email, webpages, online stores/auctions... they're just becoming the next Yahoo.
Well of course, its only a couple hundred dollars more... I could've easily afforded that when I was a kid and spent three years saving up for an $80 used nintendo console.
And in other news, victims of Hurricane Katrina have finally returned to New Orleans to find that places of business have shut down and their homes have been destroyed.
When asked how he felt about people that are homeless, Bill Gates commented, "Their house got destroyed? So why don't they just buy another one? Boy, some people are just stupid!"
Gates then proceded to laugh at a little boy who's family was on welfare. "He was so skinny! Why didn't he just eat something? Boy, some people are just stupid".
He then wiped his ass with a 100 dollar bill and lit it on fire in front of a blue-collar laborer.
In any case, the Republican Party says the Democrats' real agenda involves the censure and possible impeachment of President George W. Bush.
What an accusation! I thought the Democrats loved George W. Bush?!/sarcasm
I don't want to start any political debates over this, but I admire the fact that Pelosi is trying to move away from that "John Kerry Democrat" (Republican) view and take a stand for what her party
believes in.
While I think most (if not all) of this is just idealistic rant, I do respect the political distinction it is attempting to draw. Nancy Pelosi is doing
for the Democrats what Gee Dubya did for the Republicans: unifying and separating themselves from their opponents. This country has two parties for a reason, and they need to keep each other in
check. People have different views so they should be given choices as to what party they will support to represent those views. I'm not gonna go in to how the bi-partisan system fails here (nothing is black and white, dammit!), but at least a line is being drawn.
The downside is that making promises that seem idealistic and impossible just to drum up support will usually come around and bite you in the ass... hence our president's 36% approval rating.
While these results are pretty neat, are they taking into account the fact that search AIs have developed differently? The AI refines the results based on what links people commonly follow when results are returned.
A search on Tiananmen Square, for example, results in many text references and images of the Chinese government crackdown on protesters in 1989 on the U.S. search site, but mainly hotel and tourist information on the Chinese version
Case in point. People in China are more likely to want to visit Tiananmen, and therefore would likely click on more links for hotels and tourist attractions. People in the U.s. are less likely to be interested in travelling there, and more likely to look up the history associated with it.
I looked up "Wyoming" in both Chinese and U.S. googles (not using this site, but actually using google with the Chinese translation of Wyoming). The Chinese site brought up a Wiki entry, a site showing history and demographics, and another page showing its famous landmarks... stuff that people in China might be more interested in. The U.S. site brought up the official Wyoming state government website, the official local travel website, and the University of Wyoming website... stuff that people in the U.S. would be more interested in.
Looking further down, the chinese site brings up more about history and international travel, while the U.S. site brings up more about hunting, skiing, local state departments, etc.
I also looked up Tiananmen Square in an image search, and yes, the first couple pages do indeed show nothing of protests. But its not like its completely blocked, the tanks show up a few pages down.
One thing I noticed in doing my own comparisons is that Censearchip is only showing you the first unique differnces. On some simple searches, those differences don't even show up for a couple pages... the results are more or less the same.
Now before everyone goes jumping down my back... I'm not arguing that there's no censorship, because I know its a proven point that there is. And I do think that this site is indeed indicative of that. I just think that there is a possibility that some of these measures aren't completely accurate and that there are other factors involved.
The G-Drive may look cooler with its "Rugged Aluminum Enclosure" and leather carrying case, but the OWC has FW800+USB2.0 and the G-Tech only has FW400+USB2.0. I wasn't able to find cache sizes, but I'm willing to bet G-Tech only has 8MB available. Here are some prices comparisons I put together (correct me if I made a mistake):
What the companies fail to realize is that you can't use free or "illegal" file sharing/downloading as a marketing statistic to calculate your losses or even market potential.
There are people who download TONS of free and/or illegal movies, games, music, etc... but its not like all those people would be paying for them if they weren't available for free.
I think all that these stats do is give fuel for Microsoft, Metallica, and Disney to convince ignorant judges and lawyers to sue the pants off some 15 year old kid.
After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned
This is pretty advanced. So why did Jordy have to wear that stupid visor?
In order to try to restore quality of life to those individuals you can try to reconnect some disconnected parts to try to give some functionality
I guess John Bobbit could've used this as well
On a serious note though, this seems really amazing. It's basically neuro-knitting a damaged brain back in place.
I wonder if this can somehow treat brain defects due to developmental problems. Disorders such as Schitzophrenia can be treated with a frontol lobotomy (although this is only done in extreme circumstances) where they disconnect nerves the front part of the brain. I wonder if they can use this technology to reconnect it in a way that will act as a treatment (sort of "rewiring").
They will no doubt look to see if it can heal the lesions from myelin deteriation caused by diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. I think the fact that brain tissue regenerated in adult hamsters that weren't supposed to grow new brain tissue gives some promise to that. I know that Parkinson's disease also affects the nervous system, but I believe its caused by some kind of cellular failure. Nevertheless, this looks like some very promising research!
This all makes sense because by age 30, most of us nerds are broken shells of mangled human flesh: Thick glasses, crooked spines, carpal tunnel syndrome, high blood pressure... long term effects of working in the high speed world of information technology.
And lets not forget about the stress-related impotence! How do you expect anyone to be innovative when they're out of libidious mojo?
We hit our mid-life crisis at age-15 when we spend all our allowance on the newest AMD chips, graphics cards, and video games.
I'm half way through my 20s and I'm not looking forward to being a grizzled and worthless dinosaur in the next 5 years... but such is the price we pay.
The truth, of course, is that the vast majority of all historical accomplishments were achieved by straight, white, Christian males.
You can't overlook the reasons behind this. Being straight, white, Christian, and male has nothing to do with inventions. The reason for this is that "straight" (I'd question the validity of this), white, Christians were the financial/military leaders over the past 200 years. Do you expect a black man to have been able to invent the ligthbulb from his slave quarters? Do you think a Pagan could have gotten funding from a catholic society to do medical research without being burned at stake? Do you think women had the educational opportunities to go forth in a male dominated society and been accepted as credible scientists? Do you think Leonardo DaVinci could have really come out of the closet?
The truth is that African-Americans were enslaved and oppressed, Africans themselves were plagued with civil wars and apartheid, the jews were being eradicated in a hollocaust, the Japanese were getting a-bombed, the middle-east was still being bombarded with countless "cruisaides", women were raped, beaten and sent to the kitchen, and the straight, white, aryan, Christian males were sitting on top of their pile of money with guns drawn reaping all the benefits of being the "master race".
Now I know you're not a bigot, I just think you're disreguarding the fact that you are indeed a majority in every way. You might ask why there's black history classes, but no white history classes... because the "history" that you had in school is white history.
If you wanna be proud of anything, be proud of the fact that you are part of a race, sexuality, gender, and religion that has not been publicly ridiculed, tortured, eradicated, and had their ass kicked six ways from sunday for the past x-hundred years.
And not that I think its relevant, but I'm also a straight, white, Christian male.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Google might offer similar services but shift the primary location of user data from the Windows desktop to Google's own computers.
I guess no Linux support? =P
we can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere
Personally, I already sorta do use my 1GB GMail account as an online storage. I keep my resume, some db scripts I use, some code fragments I like to reference... So this sounds like a good idea to me. It's pretty nice to be able to access that stuff from anywhere you have internet.
There was some very informative discussion on an article about real-time network backup systems yesterday. I wonder how long before something like this becomes a common online service.
I remember also reading something (it might've been a comment) about the possibility of having an online operating system that people log into (like a vpn) that would be maintained by a service somewhere. The service provider would be the one to take care of virus scanning,
upgrading to the latest software, hard disk failures, etc. You'd be able to browse the internet, send email, use word processors, and everything without having to worry about paying a ton of money for hardware upgrades, virus scanners, or something like M$ Vespa (not that there aren't open source alternatives). While I doubt a lot of/.ers would be signing up for that, I'd love to have to stop fixing my sister/mother/father's computer every time they do something dumb =P.
Looks like maybe Google is taking a step toward that direction.
First of all, I'd like to say that I don't even own a laptop. I'm the last of a dying breed.
Having that said, I'd like to say that I agree with this article. I think a lot of laptop use does not offer any benefits. I also think a lot of laptops are overkills.
Examples:
Back in college, I took a software engineering class where I was the only student without a laptop. I also go the highest grade in the class. The laptops were distractions. I saw people using instant messenger,
playing video games, reading slashdot... (cricket, cricket). I thought it was a complete waste. They didn't offer any "educational benefit" whatsoever.
My dad works as a plumbing and mechanics inspector in one of the richest counties in America. This is funded by the county government. They have provided him with a Sony 4 megapixel digital camera, a Samsung Blackberry PDA, and a Panasonic Toughbook laptop. Now his job is to make inspections to ensure there are no code violations (this is the complex part). He then takes pictures with the camera, puts them on the laptop, and emails them to the office. He then uses his PDA to update the status of the request. While I'm sure this is a very effective system, he doesn't need a $40,000 twelve pound laptop that can survive a two-story drop, works underwater, and can render 3D graphics in 2400x2000 resolution.
Now before anyone goes jumping down my throat, I'm only saying that most people don't seem to understand that buying the biggest, most expensive laptop isn't always the right choice. I don't expect a lot of those people to be reading this article right now, and I do think that laptops can be used effictively and efficiently by people who know what they are doing. I just think that 90% of the time, this is not the case.
So we could have backup servers all over the world keeping track of disk write commands...
This is indeed very neat, but isn't it sorta how transactional databases have been working?
I also don't see how this solution is effectively any better than RAID... If anything, a backup server is more expensive than a second hard drive for a RAID system (though it may pay off eventually). I'd think the backup server would need to be maintained as well... and if your backup ever fails, it seems like it would require a lot to set up another.
There also seem to be a lot of limitations as far as network security, filesystems, encrypted files, etc go. Furthermore, I don't see how the bandwidth hit is worth it (though I guess that depends on where your priorities are).
Admittedly, I'm no expert on this topic... so am I totally missing something?
The problem isn't the budget, its the lack of creativity. 'King Kong' is not a new movie, it is a remake of the 1933 RKO classic. Other big budget films: The Fog, The Nutty Professor, The Exorcist, Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Spiderman, Day of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, The Shaggy Dog, The Pink Panther, etc, etc, etc... And lets not even get started on sequels that should've never been made! (Anything that makes over 200m these days is just about guaranteed a sequel, whether is should have one or not)
I took a History of Film class in college, and I remember learning about how "lulls" are often preceded by an abundance of recycled plot lines. The mainstream has run out of creative writers. Just about everything is a remake of something that's already been made. That's why independent, low budget films have become more popular. They are more likely to substitute a lack of special effects and big-name, no-talent casts with well developed plot-lines, creative stories, and some damn good acting.
This isn't even that big of an issue in all honesty. The big budget industries are complaining because they're only making an average of $250 million instead of $350 per crappy-remake-of-an-old-tv-show movies. They will go on spoon-feeding shit to the masses and having them eat it with a big grin on their face.
It's always the ones that come out a little later that get the advantage. Nintendo has been doing this for years...
Atari: 7800! Nintendo: NES! Sega: Genesis! Nintendo: SNES! Sony: Playstation! Nintendo: N64! Sony: Playstation 2! Nintendo: Game Cube!
I think a little bit of delay will let them make some technology upgrades, develop more games, spur up some hype, and give them the upper hand over X-Box 360. Not to mention whetting people's appetites
Its a well known phrase: "anticipating something is almost as good as having it".
As soon as I read the headline I thought of the payola scandals of radio in the 50's. Its the same idea with this only instead of the radio, we're talking internet.
I really like Wyden's beliefs on fair competition in the internet. Back in 2004, he put a ban on unfair internet taxes. IMO This legislation looks like it will help out a lot of smaller companies compete with the big corporations who would gladly try to team up with ISPs monopolize e-commerce.
I wonder how this legislation would apply to AOL's proposed email tax (I gotta watch out what I say, my comments on that were met harshly).
I personally hope this makes it through congress. The internet is a free service, as is the radio, and I believe it should have some sense of neutrality. I'm very interested to hear how this bill will hold up. I'm sure if we keep a close eye on it, we'll be finding out a lot about where some of our senators are getting their "funding" from.
This pattern appears in the photograph along with the image of the object under investigation, enabling the viewer to measure the size of the object
This will take pornography to a new level!
Seriously though, this seems like a very neat idea. It's like embedding a topographical map within a photo to give it a more 3 dimensional perspective.
I really think this technology would apply very well to image recognition applications. I'm thinking of the recent article on China's facial recognition surveillance program. Right now, it relies on using multiple camera angles to determine shapes and sizes of facial features. According to this article, it sounds like zapping a few lasers at someone's face would provide even more accurate measurements.
As far as other image recognition research goes, I know there are many techniques and complex sensors used to obtain accurate depth perception for autonomous AI agents. I think something like this would help a lot. Sort of like a bat navigating with sound, except it would be a robot navigating with lasers =).
As stupid as this whole idea is, it would probably be a lot healthier if people actually had to get up off their duffs to check their email. (StepUI also could end up appealing to another group: Couch potatoes looking for a way to lose some weight while still surfing the Internet) But in all honesty, even though there will be a whole following of DDR nerds who would swear by this, I think it will end up about as popular as a Dvorak keyboard.
Now if they ever find a way to hook up a Nintendo gun to shoot down spam, I'm all about that!
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that even the smartest robots are still only about as intellectually capable as me and my roommates after a heavy night of drinking.
So naturally, the next step for them is to be made citizens. That way, they can't dodge the draft.
While they've already began using them for educational and military purposes, I somehow doubt that they will become useful anytime soon. They will be something used only by the government or by the rich until enough money is thrown in and research is done to turn them into anything worth considering.
One thing this article doesn't mention is the age of the patients. I know the amblyopia can be treated more easily when caught at an early age, when the eye is still maturing. So I think this would be an important factor to note in their statistics. A friend of mine had lazy eye when he was younger and was successfully treated with a week of wearing an eye patch and some atropine drops. But I'm thinking it would take a little more than that to help out Thom Yorke and Dr. Evil.
I'm also curious as to what type of amblyopia this treats. Is the treatment equally effective for lazy eye caused by nearsight, farsight, astygmatism, and strabismus? If so, couldn't this also become a treatment for any of those on their own? I'm slightly nearsighted, and my optomotrist explained it to me as my eyes being too lazy to focus correctly. I wonder if I could just give them a little VR workout every now and then to beef them up...
Is there an eye doctor in the house?
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Lobbying efforts center on legislation being drafted by Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who chairs a key House subcommittee.
Ironically, Lamar Smith is available on ebay with "Buy It Now" options. I'm surprised Abramoff hasn't bought out the whole lot.--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
But this doesn't seem to do anything to address the core Windows problem; Windows is too big and too complex
Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP ProfessionalPC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space
Mac OS X Version 10.4 requires a Macintosh with:
PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
At least 256MB of physical RAM
At least 3.0 GB of available space on your hard drive; 4GB of disk space if you install XCode 2 developer tools
Nice try, but Apple and Linux have far more complex operating systems that don't slow to a crawl every time you click a mouse.
And a crucial reason Microsoft holds more than 90 percent of the PC operating system market is that the company strains to make sure software and hardware that ran on previous versions of Windows will also work on the new one
They fail to mention that their use of the word "software" only applies to M$ products. Legacy support for other applications is still as flawed as it is on any OS. Either way, Apple does come out with universal binaries and Rosetta support to solve these issues. Also, Apple lets you run OS X in "Classic Mode" as long as you have OS 9 installed in order to support legacy apps.I personally think Windows' biggest flaw is its file paging. Its done so poorly that it'll eat up your memory in a flash. Then you're sitting there for 2 minutes listening to your hard drive going crazy trying to copy it all.
And that is an excellent graphic in the article of a very confused Gates.
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Funny, I could've sworn GeoCities and Angelfire had something like this many many years ago. Complete with page building tools and wizards...
The only true advantage I see to this is that Google gives you a LOT more disk space for free, wheras you have to pay for more with G&A... but perhaps that's why we're seeing "Sorry, we are unable to offer new accounts today. We appreciate your interest and invite you to add your Gmail address to our wait list. We'll let you know when we've enabled your account."
I'm not trying to advertise for G&A, I just don't see how this is something to jump up and down about. Search engine, Email, webpages, online stores/auctions... they're just becoming the next Yahoo.
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Well of course, its only a couple hundred dollars more... I could've easily afforded that when I was a kid and spent three years saving up for an $80 used nintendo console.
And in other news, victims of Hurricane Katrina have finally returned to New Orleans to find that places of business have shut down and their homes have been destroyed.
When asked how he felt about people that are homeless, Bill Gates commented, "Their house got destroyed? So why don't they just buy another one? Boy, some people are just stupid!"
Gates then proceded to laugh at a little boy who's family was on welfare. "He was so skinny! Why didn't he just eat something? Boy, some people are just stupid".
He then wiped his ass with a 100 dollar bill and lit it on fire in front of a blue-collar laborer.
In any case, the Republican Party says the Democrats' real agenda involves the censure and possible impeachment of President George W. Bush.
What an accusation! I thought the Democrats loved George W. Bush?!I don't want to start any political debates over this, but I admire the fact that Pelosi is trying to move away from that "John Kerry Democrat" (Republican) view and take a stand for what her party believes in.
While I think most (if not all) of this is just idealistic rant, I do respect the political distinction it is attempting to draw. Nancy Pelosi is doing for the Democrats what Gee Dubya did for the Republicans: unifying and separating themselves from their opponents. This country has two parties for a reason, and they need to keep each other in check. People have different views so they should be given choices as to what party they will support to represent those views. I'm not gonna go in to how the bi-partisan system fails here (nothing is black and white, dammit!), but at least a line is being drawn.
The downside is that making promises that seem idealistic and impossible just to drum up support will usually come around and bite you in the ass... hence our president's 36% approval rating.
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
A search on Tiananmen Square, for example, results in many text references and images of the Chinese government crackdown on protesters in 1989 on the U.S. search site, but mainly hotel and tourist information on the Chinese version
Case in point. People in China are more likely to want to visit Tiananmen, and therefore would likely click on more links for hotels and tourist attractions. People in the U.s. are less likely to be interested in travelling there, and more likely to look up the history associated with it.I looked up "Wyoming" in both Chinese and U.S. googles (not using this site, but actually using google with the Chinese translation of Wyoming). The Chinese site brought up a Wiki entry, a site showing history and demographics, and another page showing its famous landmarks... stuff that people in China might be more interested in. The U.S. site brought up the official Wyoming state government website, the official local travel website, and the University of Wyoming website... stuff that people in the U.S. would be more interested in.
Looking further down, the chinese site brings up more about history and international travel, while the U.S. site brings up more about hunting, skiing, local state departments, etc.
I also looked up Tiananmen Square in an image search, and yes, the first couple pages do indeed show nothing of protests. But its not like its completely blocked, the tanks show up a few pages down.
One thing I noticed in doing my own comparisons is that Censearchip is only showing you the first unique differnces. On some simple searches, those differences don't even show up for a couple pages... the results are more or less the same.
Now before everyone goes jumping down my back... I'm not arguing that there's no censorship, because I know its a proven point that there is. And I do think that this site is indeed indicative of that. I just think that there is a possibility that some of these measures aren't completely accurate and that there are other factors involved.
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
The G-Drive may look cooler with its "Rugged Aluminum Enclosure" and leather carrying case, but the OWC has FW800+USB2.0 and the G-Tech only has FW400+USB2.0. I wasn't able to find cache sizes, but I'm willing to bet G-Tech only has 8MB available. Here are some prices comparisons I put together (correct me if I made a mistake):
40GB(5400)
- OWC (16MB Cache)- $149.99
- GTech - $149.00
60GB(7200)- OWC - $219.99
- GTech - $249.00
80GB(5400)- OWC (16MB Cache)- $219.99
- GTech - $219.00
80GB(7200)- OWC - $249.99
- GTech - $299.00
100GB(5400)- OWC - $249.99
- OWC (16MB Cache) - $259.99
- GTech - $269.00
100GB(7200)- OWC - $299.99
- GTech - $359.00
160GB(5400)Pretty damn good if you ask me!
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
What the companies fail to realize is that you can't use free or "illegal" file sharing/downloading as a marketing statistic to calculate your losses or even market potential.
There are people who download TONS of free and/or illegal movies, games, music, etc... but its not like all those people would be paying for them if they weren't available for free.
I think all that these stats do is give fuel for Microsoft, Metallica, and Disney to convince ignorant judges and lawyers to sue the pants off some 15 year old kid.
Am I alone in thinking so?
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned
This is pretty advanced. So why did Jordy have to wear that stupid visor?In order to try to restore quality of life to those individuals you can try to reconnect some disconnected parts to try to give some functionality
I guess John Bobbit could've used this as wellOn a serious note though, this seems really amazing. It's basically neuro-knitting a damaged brain back in place.
I wonder if this can somehow treat brain defects due to developmental problems. Disorders such as Schitzophrenia can be treated with a frontol lobotomy (although this is only done in extreme circumstances) where they disconnect nerves the front part of the brain. I wonder if they can use this technology to reconnect it in a way that will act as a treatment (sort of "rewiring").
They will no doubt look to see if it can heal the lesions from myelin deteriation caused by diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. I think the fact that brain tissue regenerated in adult hamsters that weren't supposed to grow new brain tissue gives some promise to that. I know that Parkinson's disease also affects the nervous system, but I believe its caused by some kind of cellular failure. Nevertheless, this looks like some very promising research!
--
"Man Bits Dog
Then Bites Self"
This all makes sense because by age 30, most of us nerds are broken shells of mangled human flesh: Thick glasses, crooked spines, carpal tunnel syndrome, high blood pressure... long term effects of working in the high speed world of information technology.
And lets not forget about the stress-related impotence! How do you expect anyone to be innovative when they're out of libidious mojo?
We hit our mid-life crisis at age-15 when we spend all our allowance on the newest AMD chips, graphics cards, and video games.
I'm half way through my 20s and I'm not looking forward to being a grizzled and worthless dinosaur in the next 5 years... but such is the price we pay.
=P
(sorry to anyone over 30)
The truth, of course, is that the vast majority of all historical accomplishments were achieved by straight, white, Christian males.
You can't overlook the reasons behind this. Being straight, white, Christian, and male has nothing to do with inventions. The reason for this is that "straight" (I'd question the validity of this), white, Christians were the financial/military leaders over the past 200 years. Do you expect a black man to have been able to invent the ligthbulb from his slave quarters? Do you think a Pagan could have gotten funding from a catholic society to do medical research without being burned at stake? Do you think women had the educational opportunities to go forth in a male dominated society and been accepted as credible scientists? Do you think Leonardo DaVinci could have really come out of the closet?The truth is that African-Americans were enslaved and oppressed, Africans themselves were plagued with civil wars and apartheid, the jews were being eradicated in a hollocaust, the Japanese were getting a-bombed, the middle-east was still being bombarded with countless "cruisaides", women were raped, beaten and sent to the kitchen, and the straight, white, aryan, Christian males were sitting on top of their pile of money with guns drawn reaping all the benefits of being the "master race".
Now I know you're not a bigot, I just think you're disreguarding the fact that you are indeed a majority in every way. You might ask why there's black history classes, but no white history classes... because the "history" that you had in school is white history.
If you wanna be proud of anything, be proud of the fact that you are part of a race, sexuality, gender, and religion that has not been publicly ridiculed, tortured, eradicated, and had their ass kicked six ways from sunday for the past x-hundred years.
And not that I think its relevant, but I'm also a straight, white, Christian male.
I'm sure the real problem is that they're trying to integrate it with windows so that windows won't work if you delete it...
*cough* *explorer* *cough*
I bet in the end, its just gonna be a fancy version of paintbrush
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.
These scientists obviously don't know squat!Google might offer similar services but shift the primary location of user data from the Windows desktop to Google's own computers.
I guess no Linux support? =Pwe can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere
Personally, I already sorta do use my 1GB GMail account as an online storage. I keep my resume, some db scripts I use, some code fragments I like to reference... So this sounds like a good idea to me. It's pretty nice to be able to access that stuff from anywhere you have internet.There was some very informative discussion on an article about real-time network backup systems yesterday. I wonder how long before something like this becomes a common online service.
I remember also reading something (it might've been a comment) about the possibility of having an online operating system that people log into (like a vpn) that would be maintained by a service somewhere. The service provider would be the one to take care of virus scanning, upgrading to the latest software, hard disk failures, etc. You'd be able to browse the internet, send email, use word processors, and everything without having to worry about paying a ton of money for hardware upgrades, virus scanners, or something like M$ Vespa (not that there aren't open source alternatives). While I doubt a lot of
Looks like maybe Google is taking a step toward that direction.
Having that said, I'd like to say that I agree with this article. I think a lot of laptop use does not offer any benefits. I also think a lot of laptops are overkills.
Examples:
Now before anyone goes jumping down my throat, I'm only saying that most people don't seem to understand that buying the biggest, most expensive laptop isn't always the right choice. I don't expect a lot of those people to be reading this article right now, and I do think that laptops can be used effictively and efficiently by people who know what they are doing. I just think that 90% of the time, this is not the case.
So we could have backup servers all over the world keeping track of disk write commands...
This is indeed very neat, but isn't it sorta how transactional databases have been working?
I also don't see how this solution is effectively any better than RAID... If anything, a backup server is more expensive than a second hard drive for a RAID system (though it may pay off eventually). I'd think the backup server would need to be maintained as well... and if your backup ever fails, it seems like it would require a lot to set up another.
There also seem to be a lot of limitations as far as network security, filesystems, encrypted files, etc go. Furthermore, I don't see how the bandwidth hit is worth it (though I guess that depends on where your priorities are).
Admittedly, I'm no expert on this topic... so am I totally missing something?
Linux has caused an error and will be terminated
Look at what happened with 'King Kong.'
The problem isn't the budget, its the lack of creativity. 'King Kong' is not a new movie, it is a remake of the 1933 RKO classic. Other big budget films: The Fog, The Nutty Professor, The Exorcist, Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Spiderman, Day of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, The Shaggy Dog, The Pink Panther, etc, etc, etc... And lets not even get started on sequels that should've never been made! (Anything that makes over 200m these days is just about guaranteed a sequel, whether is should have one or not)I took a History of Film class in college, and I remember learning about how "lulls" are often preceded by an abundance of recycled plot lines. The mainstream has run out of creative writers. Just about everything is a remake of something that's already been made. That's why independent, low budget films have become more popular. They are more likely to substitute a lack of special effects and big-name, no-talent casts with well developed plot-lines, creative stories, and some damn good acting.
This isn't even that big of an issue in all honesty. The big budget industries are complaining because they're only making an average of $250 million instead of $350 per crappy-remake-of-an-old-tv-show movies. They will go on spoon-feeding shit to the masses and having them eat it with a big grin on their face.
It's always the ones that come out a little later that get the advantage. Nintendo has been doing this for years...
Atari: 7800!
Nintendo: NES!
Sega: Genesis!
Nintendo: SNES!
Sony: Playstation!
Nintendo: N64!
Sony: Playstation 2!
Nintendo: Game Cube!
I think a little bit of delay will let them make some technology upgrades, develop more games, spur up some hype, and give them the upper hand over X-Box 360. Not to mention whetting people's appetites
Its a well known phrase: "anticipating something is almost as good as having it".
As soon as I read the headline I thought of the payola scandals of radio in the 50's. Its the same idea with this only instead of the radio, we're talking internet.
I really like Wyden's beliefs on fair competition in the internet. Back in 2004, he put a ban on unfair internet taxes. IMO This legislation looks like it will help out a lot of smaller companies compete with the big corporations who would gladly try to team up with ISPs monopolize e-commerce.
I wonder how this legislation would apply to AOL's proposed email tax (I gotta watch out what I say, my comments on that were met harshly).
I personally hope this makes it through congress. The internet is a free service, as is the radio, and I believe it should have some sense of neutrality. I'm very interested to hear how this bill will hold up. I'm sure if we keep a close eye on it, we'll be finding out a lot about where some of our senators are getting their "funding" from.
This pattern appears in the photograph along with the image of the object under investigation, enabling the viewer to measure the size of the object
This will take pornography to a new level!Seriously though, this seems like a very neat idea. It's like embedding a topographical map within a photo to give it a more 3 dimensional perspective.
I really think this technology would apply very well to image recognition applications. I'm thinking of the recent article on China's facial recognition surveillance program. Right now, it relies on using multiple camera angles to determine shapes and sizes of facial features. According to this article, it sounds like zapping a few lasers at someone's face would provide even more accurate measurements.
As far as other image recognition research goes, I know there are many techniques and complex sensors used to obtain accurate depth perception for autonomous AI agents. I think something like this would help a lot. Sort of like a bat navigating with sound, except it would be a robot navigating with lasers =).
I wanna hire this guy to clean out my inbox!
As stupid as this whole idea is, it would probably be a lot healthier if people actually had to get up off their duffs to check their email. (StepUI also could end up appealing to another group: Couch potatoes looking for a way to lose some weight while still surfing the Internet) But in all honesty, even though there will be a whole following of DDR nerds who would swear by this, I think it will end up about as popular as a Dvorak keyboard.
Now if they ever find a way to hook up a Nintendo gun to shoot down spam, I'm all about that!