Indeed. This has been a particular fascination of mine. In essence, we're not the ones calling the shots, but are along for the ride.
It's remarkable how often we experience or witness others doing things they didn't want to do, yet fail to appreciate what exactly that portends.
For anyone else interested, this is a good book to start with.
Really? I recall when I first got Crackdown that the game was supposed to alert me when the beta was available. It never said anything about registering. Damn you, Realtime Worlds!
Third. Of all the companies that I've used over the years to host various services, PowerVPS is the only one that has been both cheap and reliable. I'm currently running several ASP.NET sites from one of their VPS servers. My only complaint is that (at least when I looked) you can't order more RAM. You have to change plans to get a given amount.
For what I pay, however, having my own server is nice.
It depends primarily on your TV. I did a lot of research before I got mine to ensure that I could do 1080p over component (Samsung LN-S4095D). The only true 1080p thing I've viewed so far has been the Virtua Tennis demo, which is noticeably sharper than all of my other games. It's a breathtaking, 21st century Pong.
Apparently some TVs also have various issues with oversampling, which doesn't give you a per-pixel display. I have no complaints, though. I am curious to see if HDMI would look any different. The resolution should be the same, but the colors may vary a bit.
I'm easily the messiest person in my office, and as others have elaborated, I know generally where everything I need is located. There seem to be two aspects to clutter or messes: the items themselves, and the physical location of the items. Without any items, there is no mess, and therein lies my key to being messy, yet productive... I throw away absolutely everything that isn't important or replaceable. This still leaves some items strewn across my desk, but not a ton of stuff, so it doesn't look like I'm a disordered hoarder. Instead of grooming my items by physical location, I spend that time culling detritis, so that there are fewer false positives to rummage though when looking for an item.
The tricky difference between securing a good programmer and a good graphic artist is that you can judge the skills of the artist fairly directly. Does their stuff look good? Great.
With programmers, though, unless you have fairly extensive technical skills, or someone else with said skills doing the hiring, you can't be sure what you're getting. If the person you interview knows just enough more about programming than you do, it's hard to say that he's incapable. People pad their resumes and embellish their abilities. There are also sub-skills within programming, such as the ability to structure large systems, understand databases, write readable code, and manage time.
I don't think that people necessarily exercise to feel good, but because they already do feel good. There is certainly a correlation between the two, but not causation. Depression is a perfect model for this. Depressed individuals experience psychomotor retardation and early fatigue (exercise makes them feel bad), so they're disinclined to exercise. After treatment, when their energy returns, they become more active. Physical activity is a lagging indicator, as it requires a certain level of preexisting health.
I have a vague feeling that if the world hasn't warmed appreciably in the next five years, you'll see more and more people questioning what will by then be total orthodoxy. People seem to like stabbing at dinosaurs, and while global warming is just now garnering the peak of its acceptance, it will eventually lose vocal advocates if it doesn't produce an identifiable calamity. Much like "political correctness" was both embraced and eventually derided within the course of a decade, anthropogenic warming will lose its edge.
This isn't to say that it's bad science, or will be replaced by a better theory, just that, like a celebrity, overexposure will tire people of it.
To say that they're using this to "stop trying" is like saying that a gay guy isn't trying hard enough to be heterosexual. Sure, both groups of people can learn and emulate the "proper" behavior, but perhaps that isn't what they want to do.
I'm sick of depressed people using their diagnosis to defend their apathy and misery, as well. I'm not happy either, but you don't see me killing myself. Get over yourselves, people.
It reads like some cybernetic breakthrough, but the device is nothing special. The breakthrough will be when surgical skills have advanced enough to actually attach thousands of individual sensor outputs to specific retinal nerves, along with refining the electrical exchange between the two in a manner that more closely approximates nature. The eye is more complex than its connection to the brain, also. There are 100 times as many photoreceptors as there are axons to the visual cortex, so there's a lot going on in the eye itself beyond acting as a receptor.
At present, this is more of a proof of concept than a cure for blindness.
I purchased a 1080p LCD because I wanted to use it as a computer monitor as well as a TV and Xbox 360 display. 1920x1080 is just big enough to be usable as a desktop, and I can now program and web surf from my couch.
Who can forget those maddening mini-levels where you had to literally walk a thin red line, along with making precise jumps, all while some diseased baby was wailing in the background. I barely managed the patience to see that through.
Interesting stuff. I've seen some of those animations on diferent websites, and various papers I've collected over the years.
With the increasing emphasis placed on multi-core architecture, it stands to reason that the future of physical simulation belongs to cellular automata. Wolfram will be pleased.
I've never understood why more attention isn't given to Lattice-Boltzmann methods of CFD. The algorithm is less costly, and as accurate as NS along with being highly parallelizable. PowerFLOW uses an integer based LBM, and has had great success. The conceptual problem seems to lie in centuries of continuous domain equations, which computers simply aren't designed to implement natively. People are too married to calculus.
I'm come to appreciate that one's overall level of anxiety has a great deal to do with assessment of danger. Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders, and often are not severe enough to interfere with daily functioning, thus not qualifying as a pathology. Millions of people, therefore, are unaware of this subtle coloring of their perceptions.
I've had a couple of mild episodes of OCD, during which I become irrationally fearful of things such as a nuclear attack. At the time, the fears seem fully grounded, usually by such things as 9/11 or new stories about nuclear proliferation and loose nukes. The fear, however, is truly out of proportion, and I fully expect an imminent attack, avoiding places I identify as likely targets. Months later, after treatment, I still recognize that there is a potential for such an event, but that it isn't as realized as I had feared. I have an appreciation of the danger, but not excessive worry about it.
Again, it's a very subtle process. Extreme anxiety is obvious to those around you, and likely yourself, but mild cases aren't so identifiable. They simply steer your thoughts into somewhat more fearful, pessimistic speculation. Most importantly, the anxiety operates at a level below your conscious processes, and thus contaminates your conscious thoughts without your awareness. You can't reason around it, as it is the origin.
As a phone and media player, this is a cpable device. It also scores big regarding interface and controls. As a web browser, however, it's still a bit stunted. There's only so much you can do with a 320x480 screen, especially at such high dpi. What would have been cool is a tiny projector on the top, which could display an SVGA output at a dozen lumens. Apparently, such a feature is already in the works, so maybe V2. With such a feature, an iPhone could truly replace just about everything. I can only wonder what the phone of 2020 will do.
I would've thought otherwise. I see your point regarding throughput, but part of the problem with a traditional hard drive is the need to move the head to access those tracks. A hard drive can read sequential tracks nicely, but what about reading 50 such tracks concurrently? The heads are going to have to move, negating the sequential read advantage.
Actually, using something like iRAM would be even better for streaming. Though I wouldn't entrust it with a live database, serving video from it would be ideal.
Exactly like that. The obvious point is that this has actually happened on Venus (and Mars), but has not on Earth. There is a theory that at one point the Earth froze solid ("snowball Earth"), but it didn't remain that way for long. What's different about Earth? Life? Its distance from the Sun? Its moon? Its magnetosphere? Emergent behaviors are fabulously difficult to prescribe.
This would make an ideal drive for streaming media servers and small databases, which is exactly what I currently need. Streaming media requires a lot of sustained reads from different locations, which taxes the ability of a drive head to cover. With 1ms access time, a single drive could replace a RAID configuration, saving power and space in our 1U boxes. Woot!
The melting ``very definitely is caused in the climate model by increased greenhouse gas levels.''
So it's established that the current rate of greenhouse gas buildup will wreak havok in the computer model.
One of the things that confuses me about tidy feedback loops is that there is no mechanism for their reversal. If the factors that cause increased heat amplify themselves, why hasn't the planet died out from such a runaway loop? Because there are important variables and inputs outside the simplified scope of consideration.
I freely admit I have no idea how well validated their model is. It may be the shit, but it's tackling a formidible set of dynamics. There's nothing wrong with this (that's just science), but it is a bit less than quiet objectivity telling the mass media that X is going to happen. Epidemiologists seem more valid to argue that the H5N1 virus will wipe out a third of the globe (which some have done). Both are suggested by the evidence, but neither are as well documented outcomes as smoking or eating salmonella.
The media loves to seize on scare stories, however, because the public respond to it, so anyone who wants to have their study reported has to punch it up. As other posters have mentioned, each subsequent "boo!" headline desensitizes them to the message.
Part of the message, as I understand it, is that things are already bad, and getting worse. This state of affairs should lead people to activism without reminder. If people were suffering, they would react. Absent current intensity of the problem, one is left convincing people that things will get worse, and relatively soon, because most people aren't motivated by hazy, future problems. Much like it took rising gas prices for people to reconsider their fuel usage, it will take some tangible pain before people do anything about CO2 emissions.
I'll be curious to see what the world is really like in 30 years. I imagine that there will be some warming, with minimal, local effects on overall populations. People will adapt. There will continue to be wars and starvation in various places, and fingers will point in varied directions about it.
Well put. It reminds me of people who castigate sufferers of depression. Both disorders are heritable, chronic conditions, which can be managed to a degree through nonpharmacological interventions (exercise, therapy), but respond best to medication. To say that someone got diabetes because they are lazy, or became depressed because they're morbid is to point out a single apsect of a deeper syndrome. Why are some people lazy or morbid to begin with? Behavior is simply a symptom of a more fundamental condition. We don't criticize someone with arthritis for being slow or someone with autism for being antisocial, but until we have a better understanding of diabetes, we'll fault people who develop it for the perceived element of volition.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. This has been a particular fascination of mine. In essence, we're not the ones calling the shots, but are along for the ride. It's remarkable how often we experience or witness others doing things they didn't want to do, yet fail to appreciate what exactly that portends. For anyone else interested, this is a good book to start with.
Really? I recall when I first got Crackdown that the game was supposed to alert me when the beta was available. It never said anything about registering. Damn you, Realtime Worlds!
Third. Of all the companies that I've used over the years to host various services, PowerVPS is the only one that has been both cheap and reliable. I'm currently running several ASP.NET sites from one of their VPS servers. My only complaint is that (at least when I looked) you can't order more RAM. You have to change plans to get a given amount.
For what I pay, however, having my own server is nice.
It depends primarily on your TV. I did a lot of research before I got mine to ensure that I could do 1080p over component (Samsung LN-S4095D). The only true 1080p thing I've viewed so far has been the Virtua Tennis demo, which is noticeably sharper than all of my other games. It's a breathtaking, 21st century Pong.
Apparently some TVs also have various issues with oversampling, which doesn't give you a per-pixel display. I have no complaints, though. I am curious to see if HDMI would look any different. The resolution should be the same, but the colors may vary a bit.
I'm easily the messiest person in my office, and as others have elaborated, I know generally where everything I need is located. There seem to be two aspects to clutter or messes: the items themselves, and the physical location of the items. Without any items, there is no mess, and therein lies my key to being messy, yet productive... I throw away absolutely everything that isn't important or replaceable. This still leaves some items strewn across my desk, but not a ton of stuff, so it doesn't look like I'm a disordered hoarder. Instead of grooming my items by physical location, I spend that time culling detritis, so that there are fewer false positives to rummage though when looking for an item.
The tricky difference between securing a good programmer and a good graphic artist is that you can judge the skills of the artist fairly directly. Does their stuff look good? Great.
With programmers, though, unless you have fairly extensive technical skills, or someone else with said skills doing the hiring, you can't be sure what you're getting. If the person you interview knows just enough more about programming than you do, it's hard to say that he's incapable. People pad their resumes and embellish their abilities. There are also sub-skills within programming, such as the ability to structure large systems, understand databases, write readable code, and manage time.
Brilliantly put, sir.
I don't think that people necessarily exercise to feel good, but because they already do feel good. There is certainly a correlation between the two, but not causation. Depression is a perfect model for this. Depressed individuals experience psychomotor retardation and early fatigue (exercise makes them feel bad), so they're disinclined to exercise. After treatment, when their energy returns, they become more active. Physical activity is a lagging indicator, as it requires a certain level of preexisting health.
I have a vague feeling that if the world hasn't warmed appreciably in the next five years, you'll see more and more people questioning what will by then be total orthodoxy. People seem to like stabbing at dinosaurs, and while global warming is just now garnering the peak of its acceptance, it will eventually lose vocal advocates if it doesn't produce an identifiable calamity. Much like "political correctness" was both embraced and eventually derided within the course of a decade, anthropogenic warming will lose its edge.
This isn't to say that it's bad science, or will be replaced by a better theory, just that, like a celebrity, overexposure will tire people of it.
To say that they're using this to "stop trying" is like saying that a gay guy isn't trying hard enough to be heterosexual. Sure, both groups of people can learn and emulate the "proper" behavior, but perhaps that isn't what they want to do.
I'm sick of depressed people using their diagnosis to defend their apathy and misery, as well. I'm not happy either, but you don't see me killing myself. Get over yourselves, people.
And schizophrenics... don't get me started.
You know not of the elaborate criteria by which you are to be judged.
Ignore me!
It reads like some cybernetic breakthrough, but the device is nothing special. The breakthrough will be when surgical skills have advanced enough to actually attach thousands of individual sensor outputs to specific retinal nerves, along with refining the electrical exchange between the two in a manner that more closely approximates nature. The eye is more complex than its connection to the brain, also. There are 100 times as many photoreceptors as there are axons to the visual cortex, so there's a lot going on in the eye itself beyond acting as a receptor.
At present, this is more of a proof of concept than a cure for blindness.
I purchased a 1080p LCD because I wanted to use it as a computer monitor as well as a TV and Xbox 360 display. 1920x1080 is just big enough to be usable as a desktop, and I can now program and web surf from my couch.
The 360 looks gorgeous on it, as well.
Who can forget those maddening mini-levels where you had to literally walk a thin red line, along with making precise jumps, all while some diseased baby was wailing in the background. I barely managed the patience to see that through.
Interesting stuff. I've seen some of those animations on diferent websites, and various papers I've collected over the years.
With the increasing emphasis placed on multi-core architecture, it stands to reason that the future of physical simulation belongs to cellular automata. Wolfram will be pleased.
I've never understood why more attention isn't given to Lattice-Boltzmann methods of CFD. The algorithm is less costly, and as accurate as NS along with being highly parallelizable. PowerFLOW uses an integer based LBM, and has had great success. The conceptual problem seems to lie in centuries of continuous domain equations, which computers simply aren't designed to implement natively. People are too married to calculus.
I'm come to appreciate that one's overall level of anxiety has a great deal to do with assessment of danger. Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders, and often are not severe enough to interfere with daily functioning, thus not qualifying as a pathology. Millions of people, therefore, are unaware of this subtle coloring of their perceptions.
I've had a couple of mild episodes of OCD, during which I become irrationally fearful of things such as a nuclear attack. At the time, the fears seem fully grounded, usually by such things as 9/11 or new stories about nuclear proliferation and loose nukes. The fear, however, is truly out of proportion, and I fully expect an imminent attack, avoiding places I identify as likely targets. Months later, after treatment, I still recognize that there is a potential for such an event, but that it isn't as realized as I had feared. I have an appreciation of the danger, but not excessive worry about it.
Again, it's a very subtle process. Extreme anxiety is obvious to those around you, and likely yourself, but mild cases aren't so identifiable. They simply steer your thoughts into somewhat more fearful, pessimistic speculation. Most importantly, the anxiety operates at a level below your conscious processes, and thus contaminates your conscious thoughts without your awareness. You can't reason around it, as it is the origin.
As a phone and media player, this is a cpable device. It also scores big regarding interface and controls. As a web browser, however, it's still a bit stunted. There's only so much you can do with a 320x480 screen, especially at such high dpi. What would have been cool is a tiny projector on the top, which could display an SVGA output at a dozen lumens. Apparently, such a feature is already in the works, so maybe V2. With such a feature, an iPhone could truly replace just about everything.
I can only wonder what the phone of 2020 will do.
I would've thought otherwise. I see your point regarding throughput, but part of the problem with a traditional hard drive is the need to move the head to access those tracks. A hard drive can read sequential tracks nicely, but what about reading 50 such tracks concurrently? The heads are going to have to move, negating the sequential read advantage.
Actually, using something like iRAM would be even better for streaming. Though I wouldn't entrust it with a live database, serving video from it would be ideal.
Exactly like that. The obvious point is that this has actually happened on Venus (and Mars), but has not on Earth. There is a theory that at one point the Earth froze solid ("snowball Earth"), but it didn't remain that way for long. What's different about Earth? Life? Its distance from the Sun? Its moon? Its magnetosphere? Emergent behaviors are fabulously difficult to prescribe.
This would make an ideal drive for streaming media servers and small databases, which is exactly what I currently need. Streaming media requires a lot of sustained reads from different locations, which taxes the ability of a drive head to cover. With 1ms access time, a single drive could replace a RAID configuration, saving power and space in our 1U boxes. Woot!
One of the things that confuses me about tidy feedback loops is that there is no mechanism for their reversal. If the factors that cause increased heat amplify themselves, why hasn't the planet died out from such a runaway loop? Because there are important variables and inputs outside the simplified scope of consideration.
I freely admit I have no idea how well validated their model is. It may be the shit, but it's tackling a formidible set of dynamics. There's nothing wrong with this (that's just science), but it is a bit less than quiet objectivity telling the mass media that X is going to happen. Epidemiologists seem more valid to argue that the H5N1 virus will wipe out a third of the globe (which some have done). Both are suggested by the evidence, but neither are as well documented outcomes as smoking or eating salmonella.
The media loves to seize on scare stories, however, because the public respond to it, so anyone who wants to have their study reported has to punch it up. As other posters have mentioned, each subsequent "boo!" headline desensitizes them to the message.
Part of the message, as I understand it, is that things are already bad, and getting worse. This state of affairs should lead people to activism without reminder. If people were suffering, they would react. Absent current intensity of the problem, one is left convincing people that things will get worse, and relatively soon, because most people aren't motivated by hazy, future problems. Much like it took rising gas prices for people to reconsider their fuel usage, it will take some tangible pain before people do anything about CO2 emissions.
I'll be curious to see what the world is really like in 30 years. I imagine that there will be some warming, with minimal, local effects on overall populations. People will adapt. There will continue to be wars and starvation in various places, and fingers will point in varied directions about it.
Now, if the avian flu people are right, egh...Sure, but when "House" does it, everyone thinks it's cool.
Well put. It reminds me of people who castigate sufferers of depression. Both disorders are heritable, chronic conditions, which can be managed to a degree through nonpharmacological interventions (exercise, therapy), but respond best to medication. To say that someone got diabetes because they are lazy, or became depressed because they're morbid is to point out a single apsect of a deeper syndrome. Why are some people lazy or morbid to begin with? Behavior is simply a symptom of a more fundamental condition. We don't criticize someone with arthritis for being slow or someone with autism for being antisocial, but until we have a better understanding of diabetes, we'll fault people who develop it for the perceived element of volition.