I remember back in the 80's all the excitement about building faster and faster super computers to solve all sorts of grand challenge problems and how a teraflop would just about be nirvana for science. Around 2000 teraflops came and went and then petaflops became the new nirvana for science where we would be able to solve grand challenge problems. Now exaflop is the new nirvana that will solve grand challenge science problems once again. Seems raw computing power hasn't given us the progress in science we predicted. Sure it's been used for stuff, but it hasn't helped us crack nuclear fusion for instance, one of its often hyped goals.

Where's the score card on how much progress has been made because of super computing? I know drug design is one very useful application, but what are other areas that have been transformed?

I literally get sick to my stomach every time I see these kinds of proposals. I know us turning into a police state is not the goal of radical Islam, but having us live in fear is and which this will promulgate as a constant reminder.

We use to want to defeat authoritarian regimes by being a beacon of freedom that their citizens aspired to – thus defeating them without having to have boots on the ground. It worked well against the Soviet Union and given enough time will work against radical Islam, that is if we don’t turn into something their people don’t admire and aspire to be.

Just quit playing their game, seriously, leave things alone to sort themselves out. I’m not completely isolationist, groups like ISIS certainly deserve a thumping. I’m not blind that some intervention is called for in extreme cases.

How about we get to UN to quit backsliding on basic freedoms, instead of worrying about the sensitivities of religions? How about to be full fledged member of the UN your people have to have freedom of speech and religion? Political systems and economic systems are up to whoever is in charge, but quit letting theocracies to get a pass on human rights. Do this and within a generation religious radicalism will be a thing of the past.

This looks promising for third world markets, but it seems we could/should have something much better here already. Why not some mini LIDAR or other depth ranging technology that sends info to an array of vibrators that encircle the chest, thus giving a crude 3D representation (even behind) instead of one fixed line that must be manually scanned?

Why not send a 40 khz signal out, then down convert it to 5-10khz on return and feed it directly to the blind persons ears (I suggest this in addition to the scheme outlined above) to echo locate instead of having the blind having to constantly click with their tongues to do a crude echo locate as some do?

My main point is there should be lots of ways more accurate and immersive than this, that while more expensive are still affordable, doable, and practical (especially considering what we already spend on other aids and help animals).

We seem to have been on the verge of artificial eyes for decades. How about we dump representing 2D images and present Depth in place of Brightness. Crude 3D might be much better for navigating in the world as a blind person instead of crude 2D vision. This could even be switchable between 2D and 3D, or 2D in one eye and depth in the other.

Surely a remote control device of some sort should suffice, be smaller, faster and good enough if not perfect.

I’m amazed the windows aren't pre-designed for some kind of semi-automatic, rc-controled cleaning device.

There may then be some difficult areas that occasionally need a human crew on the outside, but if you could get this down to 5% or even 20% it would be a big safety win.

I imagine a range of remote units. Some very dumb and cleaning the bulk of the windows, then bigger more expensive units that do the less frequent more intricate edge work.

I went to the University of Illinois in the 80’s, I’d heard of Plato, but didn’t get to experience it. That said I had gone to a community college my first two years (Blackhawk College in Moline) and remember a multimedia learning experience involved slides, audio, and text input that really seemed to accelerate my learning on some writing fundamentals that may not have been up to snuff after high school. I remember thinking this is the way education should be. That experience didn’t linger however and it was back to a slog of just regular book learning.

I have thought on this over an over the last few decades. I took the huge Stanford AI course by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. I did well, but it was a disappointment in presentation and did not feel to be the accelerated learning sensation I’d had all those years ago at Blackhawk.

Why are we re-writing Calculus books over and over? Why isn’t there some insanely great multimedia interactive national curriculum for this sort of stuff. Why when we are busing kids around aren’t they on tablets watching lectures and doing interactive lessons?

I have seen the argument over and over that kids need individualized attention by teachers to do well, but I fail to understand why all the drudge assignment work and pre-scripted presentations have to be created and done by those same teachers. Why aren’t the teachers more like facilitators helping the kids to navigate and understand the material as created and presented by the truly best presenters online?

We frequently find mistakes in the material our child brings home that the teachers have prepared. We send it back with corrections explained to the teachers, but why should I have to proof read the teacher’s material? And our local elementary school is supposedly among the best here in Maryland. I can only imagine how abysmal the homework assignments are at poorer schools. Again, why are the teachers creating the homework assignments? I understand tailoring the explanations to the students as they struggle to master something, I don’t understand why the bulk of of assignments have to be custom created by the teachers, especially when they are going to flub it so often.

My wife and I spend a great deal of time educating our daughter, I feel it is almost home schooling and she gets very little from school itself. While she is an straight A student and we are proud, I am also angry we have to invest so much time and energy to teach her what she should be getting in school. Yes our daughter absolutely wants harder assignments and material in school, but the teachers hold back students like our daughter to keep the material at a level the bulk of the class can keep up with.

I’m not really a gamer, but while game review embargoes may be bad, how-about you don’t rush out on launch day to get it.

One of the highest correlated factors to success as an adult is delayed gratification as a kid. How about we all slow down and not have to be first. The game will still be available in a week and you’ll know if it is teh luz or not.

And if a preschooler uses a calculator at home, we don't threaten them and tell them to turn themselves in.

You can't control how assignments are done outside of class, you have to adapt your testing regimen for the modern age.

Ahhh, the wonderful future were societal problems are solved with technology. Fast forward ten years and the system is being enhanced to immobilize the shooter or tranq them in some fashion – works so well it gets rolled out to every store and fast food joint. Pretty soon everyone everywhere is constantly monitored for signs of aberrant behavior and an automated response ready to be applied. The future will be wonderful.

Duke seems to be in the wrong here. It is to hard to decide exactly what is research and copying in these cases. This isn't just some answer key that was mailed to some inner circle of conspirators. If Duke worries about how the internet will be used in finding solutions, then they need tougher in class testing procedures to show people have mastered the skill set they say they have or the University wants them to have.

In a way, using the internet to get the answer is the way it works in IT these days. I routinely get my solutions for problems at work by going to the internet – I don't memorize every command and algorithm. These kids aren't cheating, they're doing it the current/modern way.

I don't think these kids expected to be involved in The Prisoner's Dilemma, then again, maybe this is some meta-programming test for an optimal solution.

Many/most posts on this subject are on how terrible a deal this is for America and China getting off Scott free.

Or on the other hand, China's emissions per citizen is much lower than America's. So basically America can only agree to cut emissions if our historic advantage is preserved when negotiating with other countries. We got to polluted at much higher levels for decades, but now that emerging economies are polluting as much or more, well all that s**t has to come to a stop.

If America wants the world to have a better environment then it needs to lead by example – not demand we get the best deal. China is developing renewables at a much faster clip than America, but it still has a lot of ground to catch up on a per-citizen basis in economics. It is a foregone conclusion that China will pollute more than America in the short run while it catches up economically. To expect them to stay behind because we don't like it, even though we basically did the same or worse when adjusted for population just won't fly. As China becomes more affluent you can expect pollution levels to decrease as an enriched middle-class demands a better environment. Yes there will be damage in the short run, but this is probably unavoidable given political realities. Better to do something than nothing.

I'm fine with being mad at China for human right's abuses or lack of free speech, but this whining is really about we-got-our-nut, screw everyone else if they try to catch up.

If you really want to save the world, push for Nuclear-Fusion research. We know this is a solvable problem if we just have the political will to tackle it. Others like Lockheed might get there before ITER, but in general this needs a Manhattan project level off commitment to be certain it is solved, not just wait and hope the free market takes care of it, because you know in the meantime we are still burning oil and coal.

The obvious solution is to automate this stuff! What could go wrang?

My wife often decides to hate things because everyone is “into” them. My daughter gets caught up in liking what others like for no reason other than that it’s the trend. Then there’s me who like many Slashdotters decide what to like based on what seems like good empirical evidence and an ability to just judge for myself.

I think it is the dynamic between the hippster and trenders that give the wild oscillations in popularity for things and why trends come and go. Ironically it is the trenders that undo the hippsters as when the hippster/hatters reach a certain critical mass, then boom the trenders hate it to.

Easy morals to have if you're not the one on the bottom. Your assumption is that if someone cheats at all to offset an unfair advantage then they will be incapable of doing anything afterward.

By my way of think the unprivledged that stay in the system my offset the priviledged that will never be expected to perform because all they needed was a peice of paper to cover the corruption that got them to where they are. The unpriviledged will actually have to produce when they get where they are going whether in India or America. Granted there will be a lot of chaff, but there will also be some wheat.

For years I’ve been hearing how India is posed to take off economically. No one talked about China being a powerhouse 30 years ago, then 20 years ago the litany became India was next and posed to pass China, you know, because of freedom and stuff. I still kept hearing this, but it just never seems to happen. Meanwhile lots of doom and gloom predictions about China that never seem to materialize.

Both are countries are corrupt, but in very different ways. China’s leaders are pushing their populous into the modern age to benefit both their people and themselves. The richer the people are the more they can skim off the top.

India seems to want to let half of its population wallow in ignorance, superstition, and class based prejudice, all the while setting the tone for corruption at all levels that keeps anything from getting done.

Religious fanaticism is unpleasant, but if we could conquer corruption there would be very little left to fix in the world.

BTW, if I were a poor student in India, I would cheat too, then work hard in the real world to make it not just a selfish waste.

One always hears about attempts to steal intellectual property, but (assuming this isn’t hype by Kaspersky) could these types of attacks be about insider trading? Could nation-states being playing the markets with this info?