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AI

Was Turing Test Legitimately Beaten, Or Just Cleverly Tricked? 309

beaker_72 (1845996) writes "On Sunday we saw a story that the Turing Test had finally been passed. The same story was picked up by most of the mainstream media and reported all over the place over the weekend and yesterday. However, today we see an article in TechDirt telling us that in fact the original press release was just a load of hype. So who's right? Have researchers at a well established university managed to beat this test for the first time, or should we believe TechDirt who have pointed out some aspects of the story which, if true, are pretty damning?" Kevin Warwick gives the bot a thumbs up, but the TechDirt piece takes heavy issue with Warwick himself on this front.

Comment Re:~45yrs of buffer overflows... (Score 2) 127

It's a problem because it requires programmers to concern themselves with low-level tedious details that the compiler could handle for them

So basically your statement can be reduced to is "If you're lazy and stupid, don't use C". I'm fine with that. But I'd like to add that if you're lazy and stupid, don't program at all, become a manager.

Comment Re:~45yrs of buffer overflows... (Score 2) 127

C is especially bad because the language doesn't even have a way to talk about the size of an array. When you pass an array to a function, all size info is lost. This sucks.

How is that a problem? Pass the size in a separate variable. Put the array in a struct and add a member for the size. Or add a function to your struct that returns the size. Whatever. The possibilities are there. If you don't use them because programming in C is less cushy than in other languages, the fault is entirely yours. There is nothing in C preventing you from writing proper code. You just have to do it, with the understanding that it will be more work. But it's hardly impossible.

Comment Re:Basic programming principles what? (Score 1) 127

That's exactly the problem. If you think to add features first, security later you have already made a fundamental mistake. Writing secure code is not a matter of adding extra checking later. It means writing good, proper code right from the start. One of the most obvious consequences of that is not to use functions like sprintf at all, but use substitutes that allow and in fact demand proper length checking.

My $0.05: Of course managers never see a business case for adding security checking later. There is no obvious way it will make the company more money, so something "more important" will take precedent. But on the other hand, not writing secure code right from the start also means the programmer is not making a habit of writing good code. It shows a serious problem with their attitude toward their own work. That is not to say that there won't still be mistakes made, but a lot of them can be prevented right from the start.

Power

Fusion Power By 2020? Researchers Say Yes and Turn To Crowdfunding. 280

Luminary Crush (109477) writes "To date, the bulk of fusion research has been channelled towards a plasma containment and stabilization method. This is the approach used by ITER's tokamak reactor, the cost of which could exceed US$13.7 billion before it's online in the year 2027 (barring further delays). Researchers at LPP Fusion, in a project partially financed by NASA-JPL, are working in a different direction: focus fusion, which focuses the plasma in a very small area to produce fusion and an ion beam which could then be harnessed to produce electricity. It is small enough to fit in a shipping container, can double as a rocket engine, and would cost US$50 million to produce the working 5 MW prototype. To reach the next hurdle and demonstrate feasibility, LPP Fusion has started an Indiegogo campaign to raise $200K."
Power

Rising Sea Level Could Put East Coast Nuclear Plants At Risk 323

mdsolar (1045926) writes with news that global warming may make it more difficult to use modern power sources that rely upon being near large bodies of water for cooling. From the article: "During the 1970s and 1980s, when many nuclear reactors were first built, most operators estimated that seas would rise at a slow, constant rate. ... But the seas are now rising much faster than they did in the past ... Sea levels rose an average of 8 inches between 1880 and 2009, or about 0.06 inches per year. But in the last 20 years, sea levels have risen an average of 0.13 inches per year... NOAA) has laid out four different projections for estimated sea level rise by 2100. Even the agency's best-case scenario assumes that sea levels will rise at least 8.4 inches by the end of this century. NOAA's worst-case scenario, meanwhile, predicts that the oceans will rise nearly 7 feet in the next 86 years. But most nuclear power facilities were built well before scientists understood just how high sea levels might rise in the future. And for power plants, the most serious threat is likely to come from surges during storms. Higher sea levels mean that flooding will travel farther inland, creating potential hazards in areas that may have previously been considered safe." The article has charts comparing the current elevation of various plants with their estimated elevations under the various NOAA sea level rise estimates.

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