FYI, "trolling" means that you take a stance you don't really support in order to elicit a heated response, possibly over multiple posts.
Poking fun at someone is not trolling. Sarcasm is not trolling. In fact, anything that doesn't appear serious is probably not a troll at all. Mods take note.
The least expensive DFs will use the existing home broadband connection
We have caps around here. And so will the rest of you, when the telecoms companies get their way.
The main advantage of the crossbow/musket over the longbow was that it didn't require a lifetime of practice to use. Not penetrating power. So N men with crossbows/muskets do not give you an advantage over N men with longbows, quite the opposite, but it impacts how many men you can field.
A relevant quote that often shows up (with some variation in wording and origin): Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.
Since this is Slashdot, I didn't RTFA but I'm answering anyway.
Neural networks are a computing model just like Lambda Calculus, Turing Machines, the Von Neumann model, etc. They are all equivalent by the Church-Turing Thesis.
Neural networks, also known as parallel distributed computing or a bunch of other names, is a biologically inspired parallel computing model with a very vague definition. Now there are some authors who use narrow definitions, but under most just about any form of processing with multiple processing nodes can be viewed and analysed as a neural network. Even reading/writing RAM has been used in this manner, to build hardware "RAM discriminator" NNs.
My personal guess would be that the researchers saw "Hey! This looks like a neural network!" and my answer is "Yeah, everything does."
We hope for a Star Trek type utopia where Tech will solve all our human problems... It doesn't and it won't.
I don't think Star Trek ever made any such claim. The technology was just there to support the stories, which were about humanity.
I don't think you've seen Voyager. (It put me off Star Trek for good.)
That's partly but not entirely correct. Goods shipped past the Horn of Africa must compete in the marketplace with goods produced elsewhere or shipped along alternate routes. While an increase in the shipping cost for that route would lead to an increase in prices in the relevant markets, the increase would not be sufficient to cover losses entirely due to this substitution effect. Shipping companies could collaborate to fund pirate-hunting.
Nevertheless, I think that hanging pirates is one of the fundamental responsibilities of every government and would prefer to be without mercenaries.
Given that the pirates are using any old junk to mount their attacks, I'm guessing that there would be no economic incentive to hunt them down under the historical mechanism of condemnation and sale.
Selling the pirate vessel is not the only financial incentive. Piracy costs a lot of money.
Can anybody tell me? I was so surprised to find out that Africans haven't actually done anything at all for humanity since they came into existence. Anybody care to prove me wrong, without shouting "Heretic"? (Sorry - "racist"...)
Fine. Invented the calendar and stone buildings: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/esp_sumer_annunaki35.htm
I'd find some more, but I think it'll do you good to do so yourself.
Assumption fail. Volume is not necessarily a limiting constraint. Hard drives are dense.
According to this http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_gravel_can_a_dump_truck_hold a dump truck can typically hold 13T. I've googled the weight of a 3.5" hard drive and I get values between 400g and over 1kg. So I weighed an old one, and got a bit over 400g. The 400g drives are those with fewer platters, but I'll go with it for simplicity.
13,000kg / 0.4kg gives you 32,500 hard drives. Continuing with your calculations, 3TB*32,500 = 97,500TB = 780,000Tb. (According to 'man units', hard drive manufacturers use SI units.) 780,000Tb/26h = 780,000Tb/93,600s = 8.333Tb/s or 8333Gb/s.
You'll get 23,200 cubic feet of storage out of a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy cargo plane which is about 32 dumptrucks.
23,200*(12^3)/14 * 0.4kg ~= 1,145,416kg The plane can hold a maximum of 81,600 kg. And fuel economy is horrible.
Not that I disagree with your general point.
After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. - Freeman Dyson