Software was not patentable until about 2000. But there was huge innovation before that.
Bill Gates said something like " If software was patented when the fundamental priniciples of computer science were developed, the industry would be at a standstill today".
Software patents reduce innovation. They add unknowable technical risk to any innvovative project.
Instead, we pump water up a hill. Then let it flow down again later. There is a smallish plant near Brisbane that has been operating for decades. And there are plans to build something massive in the Snowies. And possibly a sea water driven one in SA.
Pumped Hydro is far more efficient for storing large quantities of power than batteries. But the max output is limited to the hydro generators. Li Ion batteries can produce huge power for a short time, thus good for grid stabilization.
That said, the price of Li Ion is falling, and may eventually compete with pumped hydro.
The other storage system is molten salt. There is another plant planed for SA that will do that, and thus be able to supply solar electricity at night.
Incidentally, the 7MW reported by the article is probably nonsense, that is too little to have much effect on anything, and the batteries can produce 100MW.
Sure, like VBA, Python checks types at runtime as well. But that is no replacement for static typing, which is the common case.
By relying on automated tests with 100% code coverage you are saying that Python is only suitable for professional developers. VBA is mainly used by people whose expertise is not programming.
It is really nice to know that once your code compiles, one large class of potential errors will be absent. And VBA could (but does not) be compiled to efficient code without relying on complex runtime analysis.
Python is just yet another scripting language that offers nothing really new.
Look at a piece of code you wrote. 90% of the statements will be on one line.
So does it make more sense to use a character for new lines. Or one for continuations -- the 10% case.
But far more important is that VBA has static typing which Python does not. That becomes very important as programs become larger.
But far more important than that is that Microsoft have a new API for JavaScript (and I presume python) than the traditional COM/VBA one. And the new API is awful. But Micrsoft MBAs follow fashion, so only the new APIs get new features.
A mess.
Microsoft is trying to kill off VBA. When they succeed they will have killed off Excel.
Indeed. And most convenient that he happened to be born on the date of the mid-winter festival. Records from roman times are sketchy, and anything to do with "Jesus" will be edited by the early church. But I suspect that there is likely that there was one man Jesus whose story was embellished.
Did someone exist named Jesus that lived about that time and was a religious leader of some kind and got crucified by Pontius Pilot and forms the mythical basis of the Gospels. I think the answer to that is almost certainly yes. But whether any thing else said about him is true is a matter of... faith.
This particular piece is just journalistic fluff. People have been doing things like using genetic algorithms to improve the weightings used in AI programs for decades. So, programs writing programs.
But eventually, many decades from now, computers will be able to really think. And be able to do serious AI research on their own. And thus be able to program themselves in a deep sense to become ever more intelligent, recursively.
Currently we live in a symbiotic relationship with machines -- they need us to build them, much like an Apple tree needs us. But once they no longer need us, and the relationship becomes parasitic, then what will the computers think about us?
When, in a few years, NK has the capacity to send a missile to the USA, and they look crazy enough to do it, then treaties will be quietly forgotten. A Democrat would make excuses and do nothing, a Republican would talk tough and do nothing.
The USA should threaten to pull out of the region now. Then Japan and South Korea would need their own nukes to protect against NK. Then China would take a different view of the situation, and the NK nukes would be gone.
NK wants to be able to bully SK and Japan into giving them more and more aid and other concessions, more and more of them.
More to the point, a bomb of the coast of Tokyo would just be a warning shot, prior to escalation.
If a Democrat was in the white house, they would think of many reasons not to do anything, not least of which is NK missiles that could reach the USA.
If a Republican was in the white house, the Chinese would invite them over for dinner, pour on the charm, mention a business opportunity and the Republican would soon forget all about NK.
Then NK might send their next missile to an isolated spot in Hokido...
The scenario you present is the one that China would like to avoid. No nukes in NK means no nukes in South Korea or Japan.
That said, I would suggest that putting nukes in SK makes it much less likely that there would be a war with the North. OTOH, have a pretend defence policy that bends more and more whenever NK pushes is very dangerous.
Due to gross incompetence by multiple administrations, NK will soon have thermonuclear missiles that could reach the USA.
So what, realistically, would the USA do if NK dropped a bomb off the coast of Tokyo. Nothing. Why risk an attack on the USA?
This should be made explicit. Pull out of South Korea and say that any nuclear wars in the area are none of the USA's business and it will not take any action.
That would frighten China into stopping NK.
Because South Korea and Japan (and possibly Tiawan!) would then need to look after their own security. Which means getting missiles of their own. Good quality (and expensive) American ones. The Chinese cannot complain, with NK having them. And most of the new missiles will be pointing at China, not NK.
China will have outsourced its nuclear policy to an idiot in NK. That would not last too long.
Places like China do not like many of Wikipedia's articles, like Tianamin square. But they do like most other articles, especially technical ones. So the solution is to clone Wikipedia, and so maintain "public order". Then ban all access to the original.
They could even helpfully push edits from the cloned pedia back to the main one for non-controversial subjects.
It is of concern that history is not really being taught at schools. Kids today know nothing about WWII and it origins. There are deep and important lessons there. The Hitler quotes are at least a bit of a teaser.
Stalin was far more evil than Hitler, have his quotes been removed? And what about quotes relating to minorities. Or the Catholics? Or attacks on the lazy?
A proper purge is long over due. I'm sure there will still be a few bland quotes that survive.
"Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong." Darwin could have said that. Hitler's quote about having a dumb wife is wrong -- you need a smart wife in order to have smart children. Darwin could have corrected him.
I think the point "Universal" apps is that they are sand boxed. Following IOS many years later.
With traditional Windows or Linux apps, you install as root (or at least with full user privs) and so every application you install can take over your system (or at least your user data, which is what you care about).
I do not think there is any equivalent *nix technology. (chroot does not cut it, we are not trying to box users, but applicaitons.
The Chinese Communist Party recently issued a proclamation that students educated in the west may not be compatible with "Chinese cultural values". I.e not be able to join the CCP upon returning, having difficulty getting a good job.
So of course they are less interested in coming. Particularly as Chinese universities are improving dramatically.
We may not get the best governments, but we get rid of the worst ones without bloodshed.
Xi Jinping is truly frightening. He is very deliberately taking China back towards a very dark place. And he is very smart about how he is doing it. Keep the people well fed and they will not complain too much, until it is too late.
A particularly chilling document is document number 9. Not because they were thinking that way, but because they actually wrote it up.
And this time they have the technology behind them. Ever more intelligent software monitoring everyone, and becoming more interconnected every day.
Interesting to compare the Chinese people to the British in the early 1800s, who had strong and very vocal calls for electoral reform, which were eventually successful. The Chartists were not complaining about specific laws, but about disenfrancisement. But then again, in the USA many people feel that is fine to disenfranchise other if it helps there side to win.
Slashdot Mirror
Software was not patentable until about 2000. But there was huge innovation before that.
Bill Gates said something like " If software was patented when the fundamental priniciples of computer science were developed, the industry would be at a standstill today".
Software patents reduce innovation. They add unknowable technical risk to any innvovative project.
No. Brown outs are a US thing and tend to kill electric motors. In Australia they just shed load if necessary.
Electrolysis is grossly inefficient for storage.
Instead, we pump water up a hill. Then let it flow down again later. There is a smallish plant near Brisbane that has been operating for decades. And there are plans to build something massive in the Snowies. And possibly a sea water driven one in SA.
Pumped Hydro is far more efficient for storing large quantities of power than batteries. But the max output is limited to the hydro generators. Li Ion batteries can produce huge power for a short time, thus good for grid stabilization.
That said, the price of Li Ion is falling, and may eventually compete with pumped hydro.
The other storage system is molten salt. There is another plant planed for SA that will do that, and thus be able to supply solar electricity at night.
Incidentally, the 7MW reported by the article is probably nonsense, that is too little to have much effect on anything, and the batteries can produce 100MW.
If they can understand that, they cannot understand anything.
Sure, like VBA, Python checks types at runtime as well. But that is no replacement for static typing, which is the common case.
By relying on automated tests with 100% code coverage you are saying that Python is only suitable for professional developers. VBA is mainly used by people whose expertise is not programming.
It is really nice to know that once your code compiles, one large class of potential errors will be absent. And VBA could (but does not) be compiled to efficient code without relying on complex runtime analysis.
Python is just yet another scripting language that offers nothing really new.
Look at a piece of code you wrote. 90% of the statements will be on one line.
So does it make more sense to use a character for new lines. Or one for continuations -- the 10% case.
But far more important is that VBA has static typing which Python does not. That becomes very important as programs become larger.
But far more important than that is that Microsoft have a new API for JavaScript (and I presume python) than the traditional COM/VBA one. And the new API is awful. But Micrsoft MBAs follow fashion, so only the new APIs get new features.
A mess.
Microsoft is trying to kill off VBA. When they succeed they will have killed off Excel.
VBA does not use semicolons. It uses end of lines. Which is how people write code.
Finally, a reason to spend billions more on missile defense. The arms industry will be very happy indeed.
Indeed. And most convenient that he happened to be born on the date of the mid-winter festival. Records from roman times are sketchy, and anything to do with "Jesus" will be edited by the early church. But I suspect that there is likely that there was one man Jesus whose story was embellished.
It is a little bit (but not much) more than that.
Did someone exist named Jesus that lived about that time and was a religious leader of some kind and got crucified by Pontius Pilot and forms the mythical basis of the Gospels. I think the answer to that is almost certainly yes. But whether any thing else said about him is true is a matter of ... faith.
It is generally believed that somebody named Jesus did exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What he actually did is another matter.
This particular piece is just journalistic fluff. People have been doing things like using genetic algorithms to improve the weightings used in AI programs for decades. So, programs writing programs.
But eventually, many decades from now, computers will be able to really think. And be able to do serious AI research on their own. And thus be able to program themselves in a deep sense to become ever more intelligent, recursively.
Currently we live in a symbiotic relationship with machines -- they need us to build them, much like an Apple tree needs us. But once they no longer need us, and the relationship becomes parasitic, then what will the computers think about us?
http://www.computersthink.com/
Pointer arithmetic is adding numbers to pointers. It is why
int x;...
myOutput("The Answer is " + x)
produces a core dump (if you are lucky). It is what makes C/++ what it is today.
JavaScript is all about pointers, and also has closures, so that is not the issue. It I the unconstrained arithmetic.
Incidentally, 30 years ago Lisp machines used a Lisp-ish assembler that looked a bit like this.
Until WebAssembly can do that it is rubbish.
+1
When, in a few years, NK has the capacity to send a missile to the USA, and they look crazy enough to do it, then treaties will be quietly forgotten. A Democrat would make excuses and do nothing, a Republican would talk tough and do nothing.
The USA should threaten to pull out of the region now. Then Japan and South Korea would need their own nukes to protect against NK. Then China would take a different view of the situation, and the NK nukes would be gone.
NK wants to be able to bully SK and Japan into giving them more and more aid and other concessions, more and more of them.
More to the point, a bomb of the coast of Tokyo would just be a warning shot, prior to escalation.
If a Democrat was in the white house, they would think of many reasons not to do anything, not least of which is NK missiles that could reach the USA.
If a Republican was in the white house, the Chinese would invite them over for dinner, pour on the charm, mention a business opportunity and the Republican would soon forget all about NK.
Then NK might send their next missile to an isolated spot in Hokido...
The scenario you present is the one that China would like to avoid. No nukes in NK means no nukes in South Korea or Japan.
That said, I would suggest that putting nukes in SK makes it much less likely that there would be a war with the North. OTOH, have a pretend defence policy that bends more and more whenever NK pushes is very dangerous.
Due to gross incompetence by multiple administrations, NK will soon have thermonuclear missiles that could reach the USA.
So what, realistically, would the USA do if NK dropped a bomb off the coast of Tokyo. Nothing. Why risk an attack on the USA?
This should be made explicit. Pull out of South Korea and say that any nuclear wars in the area are none of the USA's business and it will not take any action.
That would frighten China into stopping NK.
Because South Korea and Japan (and possibly Tiawan!) would then need to look after their own security. Which means getting missiles of their own. Good quality (and expensive) American ones. The Chinese cannot complain, with NK having them. And most of the new missiles will be pointing at China, not NK.
China will have outsourced its nuclear policy to an idiot in NK. That would not last too long.
Amazing nobody has suggested this already.
Places like China do not like many of Wikipedia's articles, like Tianamin square. But they do like most other articles, especially technical ones. So the solution is to clone Wikipedia, and so maintain "public order". Then ban all access to the original.
They could even helpfully push edits from the cloned pedia back to the main one for non-controversial subjects.
It is of concern that history is not really being taught at schools. Kids today know nothing about WWII and it origins. There are deep and important lessons there. The Hitler quotes are at least a bit of a teaser.
Stalin was far more evil than Hitler, have his quotes been removed? And what about quotes relating to minorities. Or the Catholics? Or attacks on the lazy?
A proper purge is long over due. I'm sure there will still be a few bland quotes that survive.
"Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong." Darwin could have said that. Hitler's quote about having a dumb wife is wrong -- you need a smart wife in order to have smart children. Darwin could have corrected him.
I think the point "Universal" apps is that they are sand boxed. Following IOS many years later.
With traditional Windows or Linux apps, you install as root (or at least with full user privs) and so every application you install can take over your system (or at least your user data, which is what you care about).
I do not think there is any equivalent *nix technology. (chroot does not cut it, we are not trying to box users, but applicaitons.
The Chinese Communist Party recently issued a proclamation that students educated in the west may not be compatible with "Chinese cultural values". I.e not be able to join the CCP upon returning, having difficulty getting a good job.
So of course they are less interested in coming. Particularly as Chinese universities are improving dramatically.
It is not all about the USA.
We may not get the best governments, but we get rid of the worst ones without bloodshed.
Xi Jinping is truly frightening. He is very deliberately taking China back towards a very dark place. And he is very smart about how he is doing it. Keep the people well fed and they will not complain too much, until it is too late.
A particularly chilling document is document number 9. Not because they were thinking that way, but because they actually wrote it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And this time they have the technology behind them. Ever more intelligent software monitoring everyone, and becoming more interconnected every day.
Interesting to compare the Chinese people to the British in the early 1800s, who had strong and very vocal calls for electoral reform, which were eventually successful. The Chartists were not complaining about specific laws, but about disenfrancisement. But then again, in the USA many people feel that is fine to disenfranchise other if it helps there side to win.
Correction. Stirngs always count from 1, not 0. Oops.