Linux: Linus On The Extensible Firmware Interface KernelTrap: "And don't get me wrong - the problem
with EFI is that it actually superficially looks much better than the
BIOS, but in practice it ends up being one of those things where it has
few real advantages, and often just a lot of extra complexity because of
the 'new and improved' interfaces that were largely defined by a
committee.
I think a lot of the 'new standards' tend to be that way. Trying to solve
a lot of problems and allow everybody to add their own features, instead
of just saying that it's better to just standardize the hardware.
For example, instead of ACPI, we could just have had standardized hardware
(and a few tables to define things like numbers of CPU's etc). It would
have been simpler for everybody. But no, people seem to think that it's
somehow 'better' to have wild and crazy hardware, and then have a really
complicated way of describing it - and driving it - dynamically."
Friday, May 28, 2010
Intel Kills Larrabee GPU, Will Not Bring a Discrete Graphics Product to Market - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
Intel Kills Larrabee GPU, Will Not Bring a Discrete Graphics Product to Market - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News: "Intel wasn’t able to make Larrabee performance competitive in DirectX and OpenGL applications, so we won’t be getting a discrete GPU based on Larrabee anytime soon. Instead, Intel will be dedicating its resources to improving its integrated graphics. We should see a nearly 2x improvement in Intel integrated graphics performance with Sandy Bridge, and greater than 2x improvement once more with Ivy Bridge in 2012."
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Texas board approves social studies standards that perceived liberal bias
Texas board approves social studies standards that perceived liberal bias
The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny -- draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses, say that international institutions such as the United Nations imperil American sovereignty, and include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn.
The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny -- draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses, say that international institutions such as the United Nations imperil American sovereignty, and include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn.
Q&A: Illegal Immigrants and the U.S. Economy : NPR
Q&A: Illegal Immigrants and the U.S. Economy : NPR
There are places in the United States where illegal immigration has big effects (both positive and negative). But economists generally believe that when averaged over the whole economy, the effect is a small net positive. Harvard's George Borjas says the average American's wealth is increased by less than 1 percent because of illegal immigration.
The economic impact of illegal immigration is far smaller than other trends in the economy, such as the increasing use of automation in manufacturing or the growth in global trade. Those two factors have a much bigger impact on wages, prices and the health of the U.S. economy.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Book of Odds
Book of Odds
your odds of dating a supermodel would be somewhere around one in 178,100. That’s not so good.
your odds of dating a supermodel would be somewhere around one in 178,100. That’s not so good.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
RAMMap
RAMMap: "Have you ever wondered exactly how Windows is assigning physical memory, how much file data is cached in RAM, or how much RAM is used by the kernel and device drivers? RAMMap makes answering those questions easy. RAMMap is an advanced physical memory usage analysis utility for Windows Vista and higher."
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Trusted Computing for Mac OS X
Trusted Computing for Mac OS X
At the time of this writing (October 2006), the newest Apple computer models, such as the MacPro and possibly the revised MacBook Pro and the revised iMac, do not contain an onboard Infineon TPM. Apple could bring the TPM back, perhaps, if there were enough interest (after all, it is increasingly common to find TPMs in current notebook computers), but that's another story.
At the time of this writing (October 2006), the newest Apple computer models, such as the MacPro and possibly the revised MacBook Pro and the revised iMac, do not contain an onboard Infineon TPM. Apple could bring the TPM back, perhaps, if there were enough interest (after all, it is increasingly common to find TPMs in current notebook computers), but that's another story.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Creativity linked to mental health - Startpage - Karolinska Institutet
Creativity linked to mental health - Startpage - Karolinska Institutet
"Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box," says Dr Ullén about his new findings.
"Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box," says Dr Ullén about his new findings.
Friday, May 14, 2010
InfoQ: Microsoft’s Experiments with Software Transactional Memory Have Ended
InfoQ: Microsoft’s Experiments with Software Transactional Memory Have Ended
I eventually shifted focus to enforcing coarse-grained isolation through message-passing, and fine-grained isolation through type system support a la Haskell’s state monad.
...
I took this path not because I thought TM had no place in the concurrency ecosystem. But rather because I believed it did have a place, but that several steps would be needed before getting there.
I eventually shifted focus to enforcing coarse-grained isolation through message-passing, and fine-grained isolation through type system support a la Haskell’s state monad.
...
I took this path not because I thought TM had no place in the concurrency ecosystem. But rather because I believed it did have a place, but that several steps would be needed before getting there.
Analysis: Why SAP Is Buying Sybase for $5.8B
Analysis: Why SAP Is Buying Sybase for $5.8B: "“With Sybase Unwired, the mobile apps can be written once and deployed on multiple mobile platforms” and “gives SAP the opportunity to develop new types of business applications for mobile devices.”
Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone points out “the fusion of cloud computing, application mobility and social media to transform the enterprise mobility space. This deal now gives SAP 2 out 3 in a single purchase.”"
Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone points out “the fusion of cloud computing, application mobility and social media to transform the enterprise mobility space. This deal now gives SAP 2 out 3 in a single purchase.”"
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Special Report: Can that guy in Ironman 2 whip IBM in real life? | Reuters
Special Report: Can that guy in Ironman 2 whip IBM in real life? | Reuters
Ellison says he learned that Sun's pony-tailed chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, ignored problems as they escalated, made poor strategic decisions and spent too much time working on his blog, which Sun translated into 11 languages.
Ellison says he learned that Sun's pony-tailed chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, ignored problems as they escalated, made poor strategic decisions and spent too much time working on his blog, which Sun translated into 11 languages.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Ezra Klein - Galbraith: The danger posed by the deficit ‘is zero’
Ezra Klein - Galbraith: The danger posed by the deficit ‘is zero’
EK: You think the danger posed by the long-term deficit is overstated by most economists and economic commentators.
JG: No, I think the danger is zero. It's not overstated. It's completely misstated.
EK: Why?
JG: What is the nature of the danger? The only possible answer is that this larger deficit would cause a rise in the interest rate. Well, if the markets thought that was a serious risk, the rate on 20-year treasury bonds wouldn't be 4 percent and change now. If the markets thought that the interest rate would be forced up by funding difficulties 10 year from now, it would show up in the 20-year rate. That rate has actually been coming down in the wake of the European crisis.
So there are two possibilities here. One is the theory is wrong. The other is that the market isn't rational. And if the market isn't rational, there's no point in designing policy to accommodate the markets because you can't accommodate an irrational entity.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Why AMD's notebook prospects are looking up
Why AMD's notebook prospects are looking up
The first quarter of 2010 saw the dawn of a new acronym and the start of a major shift in the PC hardware market—the move from integrated graphics processors to integrated processor graphics. In the former, the GPU is integrated into the chipset's northbridge, while in the latter, the CPU is in the same package or on the same die as the processor (e.g., Intel's Clarksdale and Arrandale 32nm parts, with in-package GPUs).
AMD doesn't have an IPG offering yet, but it doesn't yet need one. The thing that's making AMD attractive, apart from price (and price is a major factor), is that Intel's IPG just isn't that great. It's a lot better than it once was, but it's still no match for IGPs from NVIDIA or AMD.
The problem with having a not-so-great GPU in the same package as the processor die is that if you want to buy Intel's latest and greatest mobile CPU, you have to buy its GPU along with it. So you have to pay for this GPU that isn't very good and that you may not want, and then if you want real graphics performance you have to then go out and pay for an NVIDIA GPU to go with it (via Optimus or Apple's proprietary solution).
NVIDIA's Optimus is definitely a win-win for Intel, NVIDIA, and Intel users, because it gives Intel's customers the option of a better GPU that and a platform that can dynamically optimize its graphics performance to fit the running workload. But if you stack it up against a traditional CPU + IGP combination, like that which AMD offers, it's hard to imagine that all that all the shuffling graphics data back and forth between the GPU's private pool of DDR3 and the framebuffer that sits in system memory doesn't burn extra power.
The first quarter of 2010 saw the dawn of a new acronym and the start of a major shift in the PC hardware market—the move from integrated graphics processors to integrated processor graphics. In the former, the GPU is integrated into the chipset's northbridge, while in the latter, the CPU is in the same package or on the same die as the processor (e.g., Intel's Clarksdale and Arrandale 32nm parts, with in-package GPUs).
AMD doesn't have an IPG offering yet, but it doesn't yet need one. The thing that's making AMD attractive, apart from price (and price is a major factor), is that Intel's IPG just isn't that great. It's a lot better than it once was, but it's still no match for IGPs from NVIDIA or AMD.
The problem with having a not-so-great GPU in the same package as the processor die is that if you want to buy Intel's latest and greatest mobile CPU, you have to buy its GPU along with it. So you have to pay for this GPU that isn't very good and that you may not want, and then if you want real graphics performance you have to then go out and pay for an NVIDIA GPU to go with it (via Optimus or Apple's proprietary solution).
NVIDIA's Optimus is definitely a win-win for Intel, NVIDIA, and Intel users, because it gives Intel's customers the option of a better GPU that and a platform that can dynamically optimize its graphics performance to fit the running workload. But if you stack it up against a traditional CPU + IGP combination, like that which AMD offers, it's hard to imagine that all that all the shuffling graphics data back and forth between the GPU's private pool of DDR3 and the framebuffer that sits in system memory doesn't burn extra power.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Too Much | A Historic Breakthrough for U.S. Billionaires
Too Much | A Historic Breakthrough for U.S. Billionaires
In 2010 America, schools, students, and teachers share the pain. The heirs to our mega rich, meanwhile, don’t have to share anything
Announcing 500 billion digits of e...
Announcing 500 billion digits of e...
On February 20, 2010, I have sucessfully computed and verified the constant e to 500,000,000,000 decimal places.
On February 20, 2010, I have sucessfully computed and verified the constant e to 500,000,000,000 decimal places.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
PLoS ONE: The Newcomb-Benford Law in Its Relation to Some Common Distributions
PLoS ONE: The Newcomb-Benford Law in Its Relation to Some Common Distributions
An often reported, but nevertheless persistently striking observation, formalized as the Newcomb-Benford law (NBL), is that the frequencies with which the leading digits of numbers occur in a large variety of data are far away from being uniform. Most spectacular seems to be the fact that in many data the leading digit 1 occurs in nearly one third of all cases. Explanations for this uneven distribution of the leading digits were, among others, scale- and base-invariance. Little attention, however, found the interrelation between the distribution of the significant digits and the distribution of the observed variable. It is shown here by simulation that long right-tailed distributions of a random variable are compatible with the NBL, and that for distributions of the ratio of two random variables the fit generally improves. Distributions not putting most mass on small values of the random variable (e.g. symmetric distributions) fail to fit.
An often reported, but nevertheless persistently striking observation, formalized as the Newcomb-Benford law (NBL), is that the frequencies with which the leading digits of numbers occur in a large variety of data are far away from being uniform. Most spectacular seems to be the fact that in many data the leading digit 1 occurs in nearly one third of all cases. Explanations for this uneven distribution of the leading digits were, among others, scale- and base-invariance. Little attention, however, found the interrelation between the distribution of the significant digits and the distribution of the observed variable. It is shown here by simulation that long right-tailed distributions of a random variable are compatible with the NBL, and that for distributions of the ratio of two random variables the fit generally improves. Distributions not putting most mass on small values of the random variable (e.g. symmetric distributions) fail to fit.
Locus Online Perspectives » Cory Doctorow: Persistence Pays Parasites
Locus Online Perspectives » Cory Doctorow: Persistence Pays Parasites
Katherine Myronuk once told me, “All complex ecosystems have parasites.
Katherine Myronuk once told me, “All complex ecosystems have parasites.
The Moral Life of Babies - NYTimes.com
The Moral Life of Babies - NYTimes.com
The mental life of young humans not only is an interesting topic in its own right; it also raises — and can help answer — fundamental questions of philosophy and psychology, including how biological evolution and cultural experience conspire to shape human nature.
The mental life of young humans not only is an interesting topic in its own right; it also raises — and can help answer — fundamental questions of philosophy and psychology, including how biological evolution and cultural experience conspire to shape human nature.
Friday, May 07, 2010
255 National Academy of Sciences members, including 11 Nobel laureates, defend climate science integrity « Climate Progress
255 National Academy of Sciences members, including 11 Nobel laureates, defend climate science integrity « Climate Progress
there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:
(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:
(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Meet the New Frontline Bloggers: Security Contractors | Danger Room | Wired.com
Meet the New Frontline Bloggers: Security Contractors | Danger Room | Wired.com
“Our fundamental problem in Afghanistan is that we are fighting on behalf of a central government which is not considered legitimate by a vast majority of the population,”
“Our fundamental problem in Afghanistan is that we are fighting on behalf of a central government which is not considered legitimate by a vast majority of the population,”
Performance problem in AMD's Phenom II X6 under Linux - The H Open Source: News and Features
Performance problem in AMD's Phenom II X6 under Linux - The H Open Source: News and Features
Turbo Core and Turbo Boost interact with a system's power saving features, which clock down individual cores or the whole processor and decrease the voltage to reduce power consumption when a system is idle. Herein lies the problem with AMD's new processors in current Linux kernels: when their "Cool'n'Quiet" feature is enabled, Turbo Core processors no longer step up to their nominal speed, but operate at a slightly slower frequency.
The simplest workaround is to disable the "Cool'n'Quiet" feature. This requires users to fully disable the function in the board's BIOS set-up, or to instruct the kernel not to adapt clock speeds via cpufreq – the Fedora Linux distribution allows users to do this by stopping the "cpuspeed" daemon, while other distributions require users to blacklist the powernow-k8 kernel module, which is responsible for cpufreq in modern AMD CPUs. However, disabling the power saving features can increase an idle system's power consumption by 10 to 20 watts.
Why Intel Will Be a Mobile Loser
Why Intel Will Be a Mobile Loser
The mobile ecosystem is pretty much the same — trying to go against the ARM ecosystem is trying to reinvent the wheel. ABI Research says that ARM-based ultra-mobile devices will surpass x86-based devices by 2013 because, as Stacey wrote, “ARM has always had an advantage in mobile because the chips based on the instruction set were designed to sip power rather than glug it. That translates into a longer battery life and presumably a smaller form factor for the battery and end device.”
The mobile ecosystem is pretty much the same — trying to go against the ARM ecosystem is trying to reinvent the wheel. ABI Research says that ARM-based ultra-mobile devices will surpass x86-based devices by 2013 because, as Stacey wrote, “ARM has always had an advantage in mobile because the chips based on the instruction set were designed to sip power rather than glug it. That translates into a longer battery life and presumably a smaller form factor for the battery and end device.”
How Dr. Seuss would prove the halting problem undecidable
How Dr. Seuss would prove the halting problem undecidable
Geoffrey K. Pullum, Scooping the loop snooper: An elementary proof of the undecidability of the halting problem. Mathematics Magazine 73.4 (October 2000), 319-320.
No program can say what another will do.
Now, I won’t just assert that, I’ll prove it to you:
I will prove that although you might work til you drop,
you can’t predict whether a program will stop.
Geoffrey K. Pullum, Scooping the loop snooper: An elementary proof of the undecidability of the halting problem. Mathematics Magazine 73.4 (October 2000), 319-320.
No program can say what another will do.
Now, I won’t just assert that, I’ll prove it to you:
I will prove that although you might work til you drop,
you can’t predict whether a program will stop.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
U.S. Mobile Culture Still in Stone Ages, Survey Says - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
U.S. Mobile Culture Still in Stone Ages, Survey Says - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
Overall, the survey highlighted a growing interest in next-generation mobile services. More than half of respondents said they want mobile-to-voice-over IP, 40 percent want emergency alerts, and 30 percent want mobile banking. Countries with a progressive mobile culture are already reaping the benefits. In Austria, for instance, people can pay parking meters via text messaging
Overall, the survey highlighted a growing interest in next-generation mobile services. More than half of respondents said they want mobile-to-voice-over IP, 40 percent want emergency alerts, and 30 percent want mobile banking. Countries with a progressive mobile culture are already reaping the benefits. In Austria, for instance, people can pay parking meters via text messaging
If you can take a VDI instance "offline," then why don't you just always run it offline? ("Madden's Offline Paradox?") - Brian Madden - BrianMadden.com
If you can take a VDI instance "offline," then why don't you just always run it offline? ("Madden's Offline Paradox?") - Brian Madden - BrianMadden.com
So my central question is "In what circumstance is the View client mode useful?" Can anyone provide an example of why I want a datacenter-hosted VDI infrastructure that is also available offline? Can anyone tell me why I should do that instead of just running everything on the client? (And don't tell me it's for users who want to occasionally go offline, because again I'll say those users should use the client-based VM solutions 100% of the time and only run a much smaller datacenter-based VDI for the specific apps or connection scenarios that need it.)
So my central question is "In what circumstance is the View client mode useful?" Can anyone provide an example of why I want a datacenter-hosted VDI infrastructure that is also available offline? Can anyone tell me why I should do that instead of just running everything on the client? (And don't tell me it's for users who want to occasionally go offline, because again I'll say those users should use the client-based VM solutions 100% of the time and only run a much smaller datacenter-based VDI for the specific apps or connection scenarios that need it.)
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
SANS: Malware FAQ: Microsoft Windows UPnP vulnerabilities
SANS: Malware FAQ: Microsoft Windows UPnP vulnerabilities
UPnP provides a specification called the Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) that allows devices to dynamically discover the services offered by each other. SSDP works on top of IP networks and is implemented using UDP. Walking through a typical scenario, the first step after powering on a device will be (per specification) to obtain an IP address. This is done either through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), where a central server in the network is assigning IP addresses from a pool, or via AutoIP, if no DHCP is available. Using AutoIP, there is good change that the device will end up in the same network as the other, unmanaged devices. [ UPNP 2] Once an IP address is obtained, the device can talk via IP to other devices in the same network.
The next step for the device is to advertise its presence to the network. This is accomplished through SSDP Advertisements. These are UDP packets multicast via the 239.255.255.250:1900 multicast address. In this case, the protocol is called HTTPMU (HTTP Multicast over UDP). The target can of course be a unicast address as well, in which case HTTPU (HTTP over UDP) is spoken. There is an Internet Draft available that explains these HTTP [HTTP] extensions in more detail [GOLAND]. The number 1900 specifies the port that other devices need to bind to in order to receive these multicasts. The multicast address is assigned to SSDP by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and therefore essentially hardcoded. The UDP packet contains a simple HTTP header with the NOTIFY HTTP method and the type of the SSDP message, which in this case is the header field nts: with the value ssdp:alive . The header has more interesting fields, but within the scope of the discussion, only the Location: header is of interest. It specifies a location from which any interested party can download more information on the device sending the announcement.
UPnP provides a specification called the Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) that allows devices to dynamically discover the services offered by each other. SSDP works on top of IP networks and is implemented using UDP. Walking through a typical scenario, the first step after powering on a device will be (per specification) to obtain an IP address. This is done either through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), where a central server in the network is assigning IP addresses from a pool, or via AutoIP, if no DHCP is available. Using AutoIP, there is good change that the device will end up in the same network as the other, unmanaged devices. [ UPNP 2] Once an IP address is obtained, the device can talk via IP to other devices in the same network.
The next step for the device is to advertise its presence to the network. This is accomplished through SSDP Advertisements. These are UDP packets multicast via the 239.255.255.250:1900 multicast address. In this case, the protocol is called HTTPMU (HTTP Multicast over UDP). The target can of course be a unicast address as well, in which case HTTPU (HTTP over UDP) is spoken. There is an Internet Draft available that explains these HTTP [HTTP] extensions in more detail [GOLAND]. The number 1900 specifies the port that other devices need to bind to in order to receive these multicasts. The multicast address is assigned to SSDP by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and therefore essentially hardcoded. The UDP packet contains a simple HTTP header with the NOTIFY HTTP method and the type of the SSDP message, which in this case is the header field nts: with the value ssdp:alive . The header has more interesting fields, but within the scope of the discussion, only the Location: header is of interest. It specifies a location from which any interested party can download more information on the device sending the announcement.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Microsoft Education Competencies: Humor
Microsoft Education Competencies: Humor
Has a positive and constructive sense of humor. Can laugh at him/herself and with others. Is appropriately funny and can use humor to ease tension.
Has a positive and constructive sense of humor. Can laugh at him/herself and with others. Is appropriately funny and can use humor to ease tension.
Immigration and Social Security — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Immigration and Social Security — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Although the magnitudes cannot be precisely determined, the actuary has estimated that unauthorized immigrants paid as much as $13 billion in Social Security payroll taxes in 2007. About $1 billion in benefit payments were made based on unauthorized work (for example, survivor benefits paid to U.S. citizens who were dependents of deceased individuals who had made payments into the Social Security system while performing unauthorized work). Thus, undocumented immigrants improved Social Security’s cash flow by an estimated $12 billion in 2007.
Although the magnitudes cannot be precisely determined, the actuary has estimated that unauthorized immigrants paid as much as $13 billion in Social Security payroll taxes in 2007. About $1 billion in benefit payments were made based on unauthorized work (for example, survivor benefits paid to U.S. citizens who were dependents of deceased individuals who had made payments into the Social Security system while performing unauthorized work). Thus, undocumented immigrants improved Social Security’s cash flow by an estimated $12 billion in 2007.
Rest in Peas: The Unrecognized Death of Speech Recognition - robertfortner's posterous
Rest in Peas: The Unrecognized Death of Speech Recognition - robertfortner's posterous
The accuracy of computer speech recognition flat-lined in 2001, before reaching human levels. The funding plug was pulled, but no funeral, no text-to-speech eulogy followed. Words never meant very much to computers—which made them ten times more error-prone than humans. Humans expected that computer understanding of language would lead to artificially intelligent machines, inevitably and quickly. But the mispredicted words of speech recognition have rewritten that narrative. We just haven’t recognized it yet.
The accuracy of computer speech recognition flat-lined in 2001, before reaching human levels. The funding plug was pulled, but no funeral, no text-to-speech eulogy followed. Words never meant very much to computers—which made them ten times more error-prone than humans. Humans expected that computer understanding of language would lead to artificially intelligent machines, inevitably and quickly. But the mispredicted words of speech recognition have rewritten that narrative. We just haven’t recognized it yet.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
My Way News - Apple shutting Lala; `Cloud' music on horizon?
My Way News - Apple shutting Lala; `Cloud' music on horizon?
Apple has been hiring staff for its North Carolina data center, and in early April advertised on its website for a chief operating engineer.
Only about a dozen data centers in the world are larger than the 500,000-square-foot facility Apple has under construction, said Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge, a website that tracks such centers.
Other companies that have built structures of the same size are "major cloud computing players" such as Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc., he said. Apple currently has one data center in Newark, Calif. That facility covers about 150,000 square feet and is believed to power its MobileMe service of pushing e-mail and calendar events to devices
Number of Illegal Immigrants Plunges by 1M - CBS News
Number of Illegal Immigrants Plunges by 1M - CBS News
The Department of Homeland Security reported that illegal immigrant population dropped to 10.8 million in 2009 compared to 11.6 million in 2008. It was the second consecutive annual decline and the largest in at least three decades.
The Department of Homeland Security reported that illegal immigrant population dropped to 10.8 million in 2009 compared to 11.6 million in 2008. It was the second consecutive annual decline and the largest in at least three decades.
Louis Brandeis - Wikiquote
Louis Brandeis - Wikiquote
Through size, corporations, once merely an efficient tool employed by individuals in the conduct of private business have become an institution-an institution which has brought such concentration of economic power that so-called private corporations are sometimes able to dominate the state. The typical business corporation of the last century, owned by a small group of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size by their private wealth, is being supplanted by huge concerns in which the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of employees and the property of tens of hundreds of thousands of investors are subjected, through the corporate mechanism, to the control of a few men. Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power. And, as ownership of the shares is becoming continually more dispersed, the power which formerly accompanied ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few... [and] coincident with the growth of these giant corporations, there has occurred a marked concentration of individual wealth; and that the resulting disparity in incomes is a major cause of the existing depression.
Through size, corporations, once merely an efficient tool employed by individuals in the conduct of private business have become an institution-an institution which has brought such concentration of economic power that so-called private corporations are sometimes able to dominate the state. The typical business corporation of the last century, owned by a small group of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size by their private wealth, is being supplanted by huge concerns in which the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of employees and the property of tens of hundreds of thousands of investors are subjected, through the corporate mechanism, to the control of a few men. Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power. And, as ownership of the shares is becoming continually more dispersed, the power which formerly accompanied ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few... [and] coincident with the growth of these giant corporations, there has occurred a marked concentration of individual wealth; and that the resulting disparity in incomes is a major cause of the existing depression.
- Dissent, Liggett Co. v. Lee, 288 U.S. 517 (1933), at 565-67
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)