
It's Canada's turn!
Now we can poach their astro-talent, the same way the States poached all our design talent after the cancellation of the Avro Arrow!
327 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Oct 2009
"Sean verbally suggested the word 'googolplex' [a one followed by a googol zeros], and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, 'googol'..."
'Googol' is not a shortened form of 'googolplex'. A googol is 1 with 100 zeros after it while a googolplex is 1 with a googol zeros after it. (It's also a multiplex movie theatre in Springfield, on the Simpsons.)
While the code running an old application may not change, its environment does. New types of security threats emerge from sources and vectors unknown at the time the code was created, for example.
Your organic metaphor is quite apt, in fact. The ecosystem of the Internet is of greater complexity than any one person or group can predict; that is precisely why the Internet is such a fascinating thing to study... and so is biology, and the Universe itself.
When systems reach a certain level of complexity, subtle interactions between members of the set begin to make significant effects. For example, in a vat of chemicals with an energy source, a small proportion of species will interact in a catalytic fashion, creating new species. Some of these will react in a new way with other species; and in this way complexity grows exponentially. Ultimately you have seemingly transcendental phenomena like life appearing; but it's not magic, it's chaos with power input.
Software systems behave analogously to chemicals in the soup. The code is genetic material; the power input is our intellectual work in crafting software and systems; mutations are code bugs; and catalytic reactions are un-designed behaviour in software resulting from unforeseen conditions and a changing environment and infrastructure.
Software that is used in a changing environment without developer input is moribund. This is analogous to a species in an evolutionary dead-end. A changing environment will increase predation, while it is unable to change to compete. Decline and extinction, or, as you put it, "rot", are inevitable.
"Apple Computers didn't sell music. Did they promise that they never would?"
Yes, they did. But it didn't stop them for long; under OS 8 they had a beep sound called "Sosumi", as in "Well, yeah, we promised to stay away from music... Sosumi." Of course, a beep sound is nowhere nearly as egregious a violation as, say, ITMS, right?
Of course it is not *only* Apple's fault. Sony has sucked eggs here too. But Apple has orders of magnitude more systems in active use in many more sectors than Sony PS3s. And Apple lives on a high-horse of perceived invincibility, while Sony sells rootkits on their own CDs. So, in this case, Apple gets the kneecapping they have well and truly earned. Well done, Vulture Central.
Oh, before people go bonkers and call me a Wintard or something like that, I have been using Macs for over 25 years, and am writing this on my Mini. They're nice computers; Apple makes good products, mostly; but Apple can fail along with any other company and this is a beautiful example.
Tux, because Puffy The Buffer Slayer is not an available icon option.
...would be directing the flow. As the refrigerant approached the hottest parts of the chip (or should we call it a "block" for 3D?) it would boil off and fail to cool it, which would lead to a runaway heating problem. As for why water as opposed to Freon, probably for environmental reasons. Leakage would be inevitable, and I for one would rather have the odd water molecule leak out instead of the odd Freon molecule. The conductivity of the water wouldn't be a problem; you'd need absolutely pure distilled water to avoid gumming up the coolant paths, and pure water is nonconductive.
<pedant>I object to the use of "brain density computation" for this: you state there is one transisitor in the same volume as a neuron in a human brain. Neurons exhibit much more complex behaviour than FETs!</pedant>
Beer, because that's the liquid that keeps my brain running nice and cool.
You rather breathlessy charge off from mentioning that GSHP is a good means for regulating home temperatures (which is true) into running freezers and ovens (which is not true). The problem is the Second Law of Thermodynamics; while there is a fairly small temperature difference between dwelling space and the heat source/sink underground, there is a much bigger difference between an oven or freezer and that same heat pipe. That means the efficiency of the system will drop off dramatically for these applications since the quality of the thermal energy is low compared to the magnitude of the temperature difference at the 'business end'.
Flames because, well, you know.
If it was a bluescreen, you'd see traces of it in a halo around the edges of objects on all sides; and this blue light is entirely on the right-facing side of objects. Do you guys think the right-hand side of the guy's hand is transparent? The bluish light is from this amazing high-tech thing you apparently don't have in Britain, called A WINDOW. Not to be mistaken for the M$ type. The blue cast is skylight.
"with the exception of the throwdowns [devil bangers] and model rocket they all appeared to have other non-explosive uses."
(a) Model rocket black-powder engines, the type Estes makes, are not explosive. They are not even flammable; using a concentrated blowtorch flame at the side or even the nozzle will NOT set them off.
(b) The one he was arrested with did not even have an engine. Therefore, a list of the "explosive" devices contained therein: a paper body tube and engine mount; a plastic nose cone and maybe fin unit; alternately, a sheet of balsa wood to make fins; a rubber band (shock-cord) and a parachute. And an instruction sheet. I know this very well; I have built about 100 of them personally.
WHERE ARE THE EXPLOSIVES THERE? Do they mean the balsa, the polystyrene or the cardboard?!?!?
That is the most ridiculous device I have ever seen... including Doug Engelbart's five-key "chorded" keyboard replacement idea from ca. 1972, which worked by typing binary ASCII codes — and which was downright simple-looking compared to that monstrosity!
"Let's see... to do function X I need to upper-centre-right-double-click".... why do I already have a migraine?
No, the opening of the rift to the ocean will not affect global ocean levels at all; that's because the space opened within the Rift Valley will be compensated for by the expanding borders of the African continent. Otherwise, it would imply that the Earth’s getting larger due to continental drift, which would imply the centre of the Earth is hollow, which would, in turn, imply we have a VERY VERY bad earthquake on the way.
Lost bits of Africa can be found very, very, very far from The Dark Continent; in fact, the entire Eastern Seaboard of the USA, and the easternmost parts of Canada, are in fact chunks of the African continent. The ancient North American shore was crushed up into the Appalacian Mountains a few hundred million years ago. And what's even wackier, in Newfoundland you can actually see a piece of the BOTTOM of oceanic crust and some upper mantle rock, lying at the surface and split vertically in glorious cross-section.
...especially after my last brand-new car was T-boned at the ripe old age of three weeks old, by a woman who was too busy yelling at her kinds in the back seat to watch the road in front of her. I also calculated, based on simple physics, that she was traveling at least 10 km/h over the limit when she slammed on the brakes, moments prior to almost killing my pregnant wife.
Oh yeah, then she tried to sue ME for soft-tissue injuries. Beeyotch!