An interesting observation on the current crop of top PC chess programs. Rybka, the program that tops all the ranking lists, does so with a node count that is much lower. That is, Rybka looks at around a tenth of the number of positions per second compared to other programs. The reason is does so well, is that it has a very sophisticated evaluation algorithm for each position it examines. In some sense, it has better chess knowledge than other programs.
And this is the difference between Kasparov and Deep Blue (and other chess computers). The computer can analyse millions of positions per second. Kasparov might examine only a couple of positions per second, but he does so with far greater knowledge and insight - he recognizes when pieces are coordinated and mobile, when pawn structures are strong, when his king is safe.
Linux must exploit the low cost angle to get reasonable traction in the PC market. People are starting to realize that they don't actually need the latest and greatest hardware specifications to do 95% of what they want to do with a computer.
The new $200 Asus EEE PC could provide a big boost for Linux if it takes off. The price point makes it extremely attractive as a transportible second computer, and it could find some big markets in schools and universities.
Dell and Ubuntu (or other hardware manufacturers) could start a similar revolution in the desktop market with a very low cost and low specification machine. Especially if it is also compact and stylish.
You joke, but I could think of a good law that do almost that. How about a law that states that the number of words that can be used to create laws is now fixed at its current levels. So, pretend that you want to pass a law with 10,000 words in it. That would mean that you would need to either remove a law, or reword a current law such that you free up 10,000 words.
Abreviating statutory prose is a commendable postulate. A diminished abundance of words will surely result in more lucid legislation.
Come on slashdot, this isn't a story. He hasn't built a helicopter, he hasn't thought about how he is going to carry such a heavy payload, he hasn't got a gyro, he hasn't put more than superficial thought into how to build an autopilot. How is this the "World's first Lego autopilot"??
In fact, with a decent digital decoder you may get a much better signal out of your old rabbit ears than you would with analogue. The move to digital may in fact prolong the life span of indoor antennae, as people won't need to upgrade to roof mounted to get a decent signal..
I watch digital TV on a $30 tuner card I bought on ebay. It's in a $200 second hand computer. And I saw digital set-top boxes in the supermarket last month for less than $50. So what, exactly, is your definition of affordable?
You need to keep in mind that teachers do not work 40+ hours/week and they get the summers off. Pay rate would be better expressed in dollars per hour. My wife is an English teacher (a damn good one too!) and I'm a sofware engineer. My yearly salary is more than twice hers, but if you count the hours (counting 50hrs/week for me) she gets better pay per hour.
I don't know about your wife, but most of the teachers I know work much more> than 40 hours per week. Did you count all the hours of lesson planning, marking, moderation, course design? Much of the supposed vacation time is spent in training, learning new syllabus, planning work for the coming term/year, getting up to speed with the latest trendy pedagogical techniques that are now a compulsory part of the curriculum.
If you chose to go with MythTV or Freevo instead of TiVo, your hardware cost will probably be much higher than an off-the-shelf TiVo unit. So yes, TiVo customers have "forked over cash" but they probably forked over less cash than they would have for an alternative system.
A Myth box doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. Mine is a $200 second hand computer with a $40 DVB-T card off ebay. I get listings for free. Works a treat, and is also my main computer for just about everything else.
I think some people are under the false impression that you need dual core processors and the latest nVidia card to run MythTV. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need a tuner, a video card with TV out, a modest processor and some hard drive space.
The main point is that now that most of the web is running on some CMS or other, you don't need a webmaster to update the content.
Yes, you probably need a consultant or contractor to set up the site and make any major structural changes, but what you *don't* need is a permanent member of staff answering queries about the site and updating every single little content page.
That's the fundamental problem when you measure success by market share. You just don't get the whole picture.
They might not all be 'market share' leaders, but Gmail, Maps, Docs and Spreadsheets, Calendar, Picasa and Sketchup are all arguably best in category products.
And the main point which failed to even score a mention is that what Google does very well (and is improving all the time) is to integrate these diverse offerings in a coherent way. You can't even really talk about market share there, because there is no other company that offers the same breadth of integrated services from a single account.
They used a four-legged walking robot, a humanoid torso and a simulated wheeled robot. All three robots had a computer vision system trained to focus on red objects. The walking and wheeled robots automatically move towards red blocks in their proximity, while the humanoid bot grasps red objects, moving them closer to its eyes and tilting its head for a better view.
Ok, second year mechatronics project there.
To measure the relationship between movement and vision the researchers recorded information from the robots' joints and field of vision. They then used a mathematical technique to see how much of a causal relationship existed between sensory input and motor activity.
What, you mean if you program your robots to go find red things that there will be a statistical correlation between seeing red things and the robot moving? Who'd have thought it??
'We saw causation of both kinds,' Sporns says. 'Information flows from sensory events to motor events and also from motor events to sensory events.'
Impressive! This could be very useful in a lot of situations.. Keeping in mind that this is the very generation, there could very well be later generations that could map rooms in mere minutes, and then other ones to map rubble in minutes.. then when disaster strikes, in goes the robots to map stuff out, and people to follow.
Actually, the current technology is quite capable of mapping a room in a few seconds - essentially as fast as you can drive a robot through the room with line of sight to all the corners. The application described in TFA is nothing more than a commercialised version of technology that has been around for years.
It is also currently possible to generate a 3D map of a complex environment (such as a pile of rubble). Have a look at
Kurt3D, which maps using a laser scanner on a tilting or rotating mount. You can also use an infrared time-of-flight sensor such as the SwissRanger to generate the same sort of datasets.
It's interesting that you should mention the Search and Rescue application. There are numerous robotics groups around the world working on this problem, and testing solutions in the RoboCup Rescue competition, which has been running since 2000. Almost every team in this competition has some sort of automatic mapping technology akin to that desrcibed in TFA. Several also have 3D mapping, and there is also a lot of interesting work going on in user interfaces and remote control, as well as autonomous navigation, exploration, victim identification and decision making.
StarConII from 1994 is right up there on my all time favourite list. Excellent strategy game with a huge universe to explore, very good ship to ship battle mode, witty interaction scripts, and some of the best graphics and sound for it's time.
The authors (Toys For Bob) get extra marks for releasing the source under GPL, enabling the free version Ur Quan Masters. It still plays as good as ever.
If only more game makers were community minded enough to release code for obsolete games.
Well if you're going for a sort of academic career, then the next "level" I would think would be this sort of apprenticeship. Which would be pretty cool considering there are many people capable of getting a doctorate, but only one such opportunity to work for Stephen Hawking. I imagine that if you could land that job then your resume would only need one sentence. "Stephen Hawking picked ME to work for him".
Not really. It's not an academic job - it doesn't even mention a science degree. It's practical assistance he needs, not intellectual assistance. Maybe someone would be swayed by the fact that you worked for Hawking - more likely they will be interested in your PhD subject and what papers you have written.
If you want *that* kind of kudos, you have to apply for a PhD with DAMPT in Cambridge and try to persuade him to take you as a PhD student (good luck with that, he doesn't take many). Best if you get a distinction in Part III of the Mathematics Tripos first.
If you read the advertisement, it seeks a "recent graduate", not a "graduate student". This is definitely a job, not a studentship. Do not expect to come out of it with a graduate degree. That aside, there are plenty of other reasons to see it as an appealing opportunity.
Steve Irwin was the real deal. He really cared about the environment he worked in. It was revealed earlier this year that he successfully lobbied the Federal Government to oppose plans for the creation of a crocodile 'game hunting' tourist industry in the Northern Territory. He did it privately and quietly - it was only reported after it came to light through freedom of information requests.
As far as I can tell, most of academia is like this. Paper reviews (and conference reviews in particular) are really a bit of a lottery. Since academics don't get paid to review, they will often palm the reviews off to grad students who may or may not have the first clue about the field. And there is generally no rejoinder process for conferences, so you just have to wear it, improve the paper and resubmit it somewhere else. Journals and grant applications generally allow you a right of response, but you are still subject to the lottery of whether the reviewers: a) know anything about the field, b) actually read the paper c) are open minded enough to consider new ideas or d) have brains at all.
A colleague of mine recently had a brief paper (restricted to a maximum of two pages) rejected because it was too short - at exactly two pages. I kid you not.
Australia is way behind the broadband eightball, largely thanks to the dominant telco Telstra. Telstra owns the exchanges and the local loop, so has been the principal wholesaler of DSL to other service providers. They do so at a MAXIMUM connection speed of 1.5Mbps down, and 256kbps up. Many plans are even still at slower speeds than that. This is an artificial restriction of potential ADSL speeds (which are up to 8Mbps even with ADSL1, and would be up to 24Mbps if they got off their arse and rolled out ADSL2+).
Fortunately, some other ISPs including tpg and iinet are beginning to roll out their own ADSL2+ DSLAMs in the captial cities. But most people are still firmly stuck in fraudband territory.
On top of all that, Telstra has just scrapped plans to roll out a national fibre-to-the-node network, so the status quo isn't likely to change anytime soon.
I'd say that if your prior inventions are so transparent that they could be stolen from a list, then they are probably not the sort of thing that ought to be patentable. Say for example, a method for organising tracks on an MP3 player by category and sub-category menus.
Sadly however, what ought to be patentable, and what is patentable are two very different beasts.
Slashdot Mirror
An interesting observation on the current crop of top PC chess programs. Rybka, the program that tops all the ranking lists, does so with a node count that is much lower. That is, Rybka looks at around a tenth of the number of positions per second compared to other programs. The reason is does so well, is that it has a very sophisticated evaluation algorithm for each position it examines. In some sense, it has better chess knowledge than other programs.
And this is the difference between Kasparov and Deep Blue (and other chess computers). The computer can analyse millions of positions per second. Kasparov might examine only a couple of positions per second, but he does so with far greater knowledge and insight - he recognizes when pieces are coordinated and mobile, when pawn structures are strong, when his king is safe.
Linux must exploit the low cost angle to get reasonable traction in the PC market. People are starting to realize that they don't actually need the latest and greatest hardware specifications to do 95% of what they want to do with a computer.
The new $200 Asus EEE PC could provide a big boost for Linux if it takes off. The price point makes it extremely attractive as a transportible second computer, and it could find some big markets in schools and universities.
Dell and Ubuntu (or other hardware manufacturers) could start a similar revolution in the desktop market with a very low cost and low specification machine. Especially if it is also compact and stylish.
You joke, but I could think of a good law that do almost that. How about a law that states that the number of words that can be used to create laws is now fixed at its current levels. So, pretend that you want to pass a law with 10,000 words in it. That would mean that you would need to either remove a law, or reword a current law such that you free up 10,000 words.
Abreviating statutory prose is a commendable postulate. A diminished abundance of words will surely result in more lucid legislation.
Come on slashdot, this isn't a story. He hasn't built a helicopter, he hasn't thought about how he is going to carry such a heavy payload, he hasn't got a gyro, he hasn't put more than superficial thought into how to build an autopilot. How is this the "World's first Lego autopilot"??
In fact, with a decent digital decoder you may get a much better signal out of your old rabbit ears than you would with analogue. The move to digital may in fact prolong the life span of indoor antennae, as people won't need to upgrade to roof mounted to get a decent signal..
I watch digital TV on a $30 tuner card I bought on ebay. It's in a $200 second hand computer. And I saw digital set-top boxes in the supermarket last month for less than $50. So what, exactly, is your definition of affordable?
You need to keep in mind that teachers do not work 40+ hours/week and they get the summers off. Pay rate would be better expressed in dollars per hour. My wife is an English teacher (a damn good one too!) and I'm a sofware engineer. My yearly salary is more than twice hers, but if you count the hours (counting 50hrs/week for me) she gets better pay per hour. I don't know about your wife, but most of the teachers I know work much more> than 40 hours per week. Did you count all the hours of lesson planning, marking, moderation, course design? Much of the supposed vacation time is spent in training, learning new syllabus, planning work for the coming term/year, getting up to speed with the latest trendy pedagogical techniques that are now a compulsory part of the curriculum.
At least, not unless you think an elevator is a robot.
If you chose to go with MythTV or Freevo instead of TiVo, your hardware cost will probably be much higher than an off-the-shelf TiVo unit. So yes, TiVo customers have "forked over cash" but they probably forked over less cash than they would have for an alternative system.
A Myth box doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. Mine is a $200 second hand computer with a $40 DVB-T card off ebay. I get listings for free. Works a treat, and is also my main computer for just about everything else.
I think some people are under the false impression that you need dual core processors and the latest nVidia card to run MythTV. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need a tuner, a video card with TV out, a modest processor and some hard drive space.
The main point is that now that most of the web is running on some CMS or other, you don't need a webmaster to update the content.
Yes, you probably need a consultant or contractor to set up the site and make any major structural changes, but what you *don't* need is a permanent member of staff answering queries about the site and updating every single little content page.
That's the fundamental problem when you measure success by market share. You just don't get the whole picture.
They might not all be 'market share' leaders, but Gmail, Maps, Docs and Spreadsheets, Calendar, Picasa and Sketchup are all arguably best in category products.
And the main point which failed to even score a mention is that what Google does very well (and is improving all the time) is to integrate these diverse offerings in a coherent way. You can't even really talk about market share there, because there is no other company that offers the same breadth of integrated services from a single account.
They used a four-legged walking robot, a humanoid torso and a simulated wheeled robot. All three robots had a computer vision system trained to focus on red objects. The walking and wheeled robots automatically move towards red blocks in their proximity, while the humanoid bot grasps red objects, moving them closer to its eyes and tilting its head for a better view.
Ok, second year mechatronics project there.
To measure the relationship between movement and vision the researchers recorded information from the robots' joints and field of vision. They then used a mathematical technique to see how much of a causal relationship existed between sensory input and motor activity.
What, you mean if you program your robots to go find red things that there will be a statistical correlation between seeing red things and the robot moving? Who'd have thought it??
'We saw causation of both kinds,' Sporns says. 'Information flows from sensory events to motor events and also from motor events to sensory events.'
And this surprised who exactly?
Really they publish some rubbish in NS sometimes.
Girls sleep around, and that's really no good for anybody.
That single sentence says a whole lot about your attitude. The guys are just having a good time, right?
Unfortunately "Bloody Microsoft" is dwarfed by "Bloody Linux" by a whole order of magnitude. I like the third hit, personally.
Impressive! This could be very useful in a lot of situations.. Keeping in mind that this is the very generation, there could very well be later generations that could map rooms in mere minutes, and then other ones to map rubble in minutes.. then when disaster strikes, in goes the robots to map stuff out, and people to follow.
Actually, the current technology is quite capable of mapping a room in a few seconds - essentially as fast as you can drive a robot through the room with line of sight to all the corners. The application described in TFA is nothing more than a commercialised version of technology that has been around for years.
It is also currently possible to generate a 3D map of a complex environment (such as a pile of rubble). Have a look at Kurt3D, which maps using a laser scanner on a tilting or rotating mount. You can also use an infrared time-of-flight sensor such as the SwissRanger to generate the same sort of datasets.
It's interesting that you should mention the Search and Rescue application. There are numerous robotics groups around the world working on this problem, and testing solutions in the RoboCup Rescue competition, which has been running since 2000. Almost every team in this competition has some sort of automatic mapping technology akin to that desrcibed in TFA. Several also have 3D mapping, and there is also a lot of interesting work going on in user interfaces and remote control, as well as autonomous navigation, exploration, victim identification and decision making.
Slashdot his webserver. That'll teach him to stop stealing your marbles.
If you still want to install Vista, see rule #1.
There's a bit more information in the Register article.
Good work lads.
StarConII from 1994 is right up there on my all time favourite list. Excellent strategy game with a huge universe to explore, very good ship to ship battle mode, witty interaction scripts, and some of the best graphics and sound for it's time.
The authors (Toys For Bob) get extra marks for releasing the source under GPL, enabling the free version Ur Quan Masters. It still plays as good as ever.
If only more game makers were community minded enough to release code for obsolete games.
Well if you're going for a sort of academic career, then the next "level" I would think would be this sort of apprenticeship. Which would be pretty cool considering there are many people capable of getting a doctorate, but only one such opportunity to work for Stephen Hawking. I imagine that if you could land that job then your resume would only need one sentence. "Stephen Hawking picked ME to work for him".
Not really. It's not an academic job - it doesn't even mention a science degree. It's practical assistance he needs, not intellectual assistance. Maybe someone would be swayed by the fact that you worked for Hawking - more likely they will be interested in your PhD subject and what papers you have written.
If you want *that* kind of kudos, you have to apply for a PhD with DAMPT in Cambridge and try to persuade him to take you as a PhD student (good luck with that, he doesn't take many). Best if you get a distinction in Part III of the Mathematics Tripos first.
The headline is a bit inaccurate.
If you read the advertisement, it seeks a "recent graduate", not a "graduate student". This is definitely a job, not a studentship. Do not expect to come out of it with a graduate degree. That aside, there are plenty of other reasons to see it as an appealing opportunity.
Steve Irwin was the real deal. He really cared about the environment he worked in. It was revealed earlier this year that he successfully lobbied the Federal Government to oppose plans for the creation of a crocodile 'game hunting' tourist industry in the Northern Territory. He did it privately and quietly - it was only reported after it came to light through freedom of information requests.
link
My hat goes off to you Steve, and my condolences to your family.
As far as I can tell, most of academia is like this. Paper reviews (and conference reviews in particular) are really a bit of a lottery. Since academics don't get paid to review, they will often palm the reviews off to grad students who may or may not have the first clue about the field. And there is generally no rejoinder process for conferences, so you just have to wear it, improve the paper and resubmit it somewhere else. Journals and grant applications generally allow you a right of response, but you are still subject to the lottery of whether the reviewers:
a) know anything about the field,
b) actually read the paper
c) are open minded enough to consider new ideas or
d) have brains at all.
A colleague of mine recently had a brief paper (restricted to a maximum of two pages) rejected because it was too short - at exactly two pages. I kid you not.
Australia is way behind the broadband eightball, largely thanks to the dominant telco Telstra. Telstra owns the exchanges and the local loop, so has been the principal wholesaler of DSL to other service providers. They do so at a MAXIMUM connection speed of 1.5Mbps down, and 256kbps up. Many plans are even still at slower speeds than that. This is an artificial restriction of potential ADSL speeds (which are up to 8Mbps even with ADSL1, and would be up to 24Mbps if they got off their arse and rolled out ADSL2+).
Fortunately, some other ISPs including tpg and iinet are beginning to roll out their own ADSL2+ DSLAMs in the captial cities. But most people are still firmly stuck in fraudband territory.
On top of all that, Telstra has just scrapped plans to roll out a national fibre-to-the-node network, so the status quo isn't likely to change anytime soon.
I'd say that if your prior inventions are so transparent that they could be stolen from a list, then they are probably not the sort of thing that ought to be patentable. Say for example, a method for organising tracks on an MP3 player by category and sub-category menus.
:-(
Sadly however, what ought to be patentable, and what is patentable are two very different beasts.