That suggests that simple life is *easy*.

Or that it's only possible on a new planet, or that it must come early for inteligent life to have a chance of developping, or that it happened by chance.

And what does Skynet do after it kills all humans?

Because they aren't possible?

Or, in other words, there is a wall.

becasue they have populated the other half of the galaxy?

And by a surprising coincidence, they are the only other life form on the galaxy, and they appeared excatly in sync with us? (Ok, half a million years earlier.) Yes, that's possible, but hard to accept.

becasue they don't need to grow that fast?

And spite in the face of Dawinian evolution. Why don't they have to follow the laws of Nature that we know to be valid all around the galaxy?

becasue they have all been wiped out be a variety of event. Specifically wiped out faster then they can be built?

That's the wall explanation again.

It would be everywhere, as a consequence of exponential growth.

Now, because they announced it beforehand, pundits will spend the next weeks complaining, loudly vociferously, obnoxiously, all the way until MS actually release it. Users will be as pissed of as in the other scenario, because despite the previous communication, they won't bother listening, and won't know about it anyway.

It's more like: If your neighbour's house is on fire, and you don't lend him this equipment. It's not really standing in the way.

It's not also the right thing to do, but the fire seemed much smaller by the time, and you were paranoid that people would steal your equipment.

it has to be done with real humans or we can't know if it will succeed

Maybe I can help with some rules of thumb:

1 - If there is no breathable athmosphere, it will not succeed.
2 - If you don't produce anything to eat, it will not succeed.
3 - If there is no local manufacturing, it will not succeed.
4 - If you can not keep a rabbit, dog, rat, or whatever alive, it will not succeed.

After you do all that, yes, maybe you'll have a reason to test it with people.

One thing you can't say about him - that he's slow to act on bugs...

2014-04-02 08:57 UTC - reported
2014-04-02 10:19 UTC - bug closed with a not a bug resolution

On the real world, all computers operate on a finite set of possible inputs.

A way to solve a problem is an algorithm for some kind of computer (to use the example of a previous post, a hurricane does compute the Navier-Stokes equations for a set of parameters).

The article gets crazy only when it requires that the algorithm be quick and efficient.

A solution to a NP-hard problem can be used to solve any NP problem, but a NP-hard may, or may not be an NP problem. What means that no, not all NP-hard problems are equivalent (and that's for sure).

The set where all are equivalent is named "NP-complete". Those are the NP-hard problem that are also NP.

Cache memory never seems to get cheaper though, not the real fast Level 1 stuff anyway...

The most important "price" for L1 cache is paid in latency. It won't become much cheaper unless transistors become arranged in 3D, and after that the game is mostly over.

Somehow they state that people spend 5 times more on insurance than it costs to deal with the problem... Why should I belive the numbers weren't manipulated (upwards, obviously)?

In the exact sciencies, you get consensus to nearly all questions that you craft well enough to exclude any kind oppinion, but you'll get plenty of "nobody knows". You won't get any kind of consesus on the likehood of a non-mainstream theory being right, and very little on how right (or wrong) are the mainstream theories, except if you use some completely objective measurement.

In human sciences you won't have any "nobody knows" answer to those first questions. You'll have consensus on the known ones, and plenty of hand waving on the not known. You'll also get hand waving in the exact sciences, the difference is that they come after the "we don't know" part, while in the human sciences that part is missing (or maybe implicit, I don't know).

You do realise that this is an article about physics, right?

Also, I don't think researchers in any area would reach a consensus if you get they all toguether.